Auntie Em Goes Running

Girls on the Run coaching:  1.62 miles at an AP of 10.06!  Those girls are getting more consistent anyway.

seven mile run with some friends on the trails.  I added some strides in the last mile.  9:47, 9:37, 8:58, 9:29, 9:17, 9:08, 7:53. 

"Easy" run of 3.48 miles, following an incredibly rainy and stormy night.  Beautiful bright morning, with playful clouds, a stiff breeze, and puddles everywhere!  The miles are all a bit too fast (8:48, 8:32, 8:42, 8:16).  Went immediately to yoga and  then a 1.5 hour bike ride, definitely at "easy".

Life is good!!

Early am track workout, wu, 4X1000 at tempo pace, cd.  Target pace on the tempo bits is 7:38 (Actual:  7:09, 7:29, 7:41, and 7:35).  Tempo pace is just so weird to me, not fast, not slow, just weird.

Went straight to yoga, now I'm very tired.  Tomorrow is a day off except for yoga, and I think I'm really going to need it for a change!

Another beautiful morning here after a very rainy night.  Its been raining so hard here the past few days, absolute waterfalls of rain.  I'm going to walk into the park this morning and look at the waterfalls; they will be raging. 

Coached my third graders this afternoon; they were very unmotivated, so we played some running (sprinting) games, then ran laps barefoot around and around the playground.  Running barefoot is healthy, but running barefoot with a bunch of real kids is absolutely the bomb.

Marathon miles were in 10 minute segments with 5 minute easy running in between.   So, five miles at easy, the 10 at M (8:02), 5 at E, 10 at M (8:17), 5 at E, 10 at M(8:17), 2 miles at easy.  The marathon paces felt good, except for the first one, which I just couldn't get slowed down enough.  I think I was just a little bit too excited to run fast!  I'm happy with the second two  M pace sessions.  I felt sluggish on the whole run, though; sometimes I don't think a day off does me any favors.

 PM Update:  An unexpected bonus run!  4 easy miles in the Vroom shoes, AP 8:44, just the lower end of easy pace.  Excellent run.

The light of late day

flickers and winks through the trees

making me giddy. 

Way, way too much fun last night.  Dancing fun.  I LOVE to dance, and am unable to stop until the band stops playing.  So, on top of a few running miles yesterday, there were a lot of dancin' miles added on there, and I was grateful that the schedule called for a recovery 90 minute bike ride.  My feet were hurting ):

I was not very grateful that it was pouring rain (again!).  It is JUNE, for heavens sake!  Anyway, I used the trainer in the basement for the "recovery", but I don't feel at all recovered.  Lack of sleep maybe?   

Tempo run.   Light rain, 62 degrees, extremely humid.  Humidity like this just saps my strength, and I was not feeling particularly motivated this morning.  I started out slow in my warm up, just cruising away from town on the interurban trail.  Tempo intervals were 5 minutes, and I did four, with a target  of 7:38/mile.  Actual paces on the intervals were:  7:37, 7:42, 7:22, and 7:56.  Felt really tired on the last one, and actually cut it 30 seconds short because sometimes I can't read my watch so well.  I did 1:15 in between each interval at a jog.  Cd and then straight to yoga.  

Muddy run in the mountains on very steep technical trails.  Sunshine today!  Here are my splits:  13:06, 14:21, 12:52, 11:47, 11:26, 10:01, 11:04, 13:09 (.42).  You can see that it was very steep and technical by the slowness.  Really beautiful and muddy; I had a fall and got a bit bloody.  We have a scoring system for falls up here, and I received the highest score, a 5.

Just as we were descending the final switchbacks back to the road, a large group of robins started making a whole lot of noise, and we saw that they were attacking (or trying to attack) an owl.  The owl just sat in a tree near the trail and stared at us, with robins flying all around him and swarming him.  I think the owl was more concerned about us and the dog. 

Thirty minutes at easy in the lightly raining morning, followed by yoga.  Then a meeting and a 90 minute bike ride.  Ate lunch on the bike.  I have a lot of work to do today, and I've used up practically the whole day working out.  Got to take my daughter to the Community College for a test, then the day will be over!  So stressful!

Track at 5am.  wu, then 4X200m on hills - target pace .48 (actual:  .59, .55, .51, .51).  4X200 flats - target pace .48 (actual:  .44, .47, .45, .43).  cd.

I am sad; I think this is the only time ever I have not reached the target pace!   

Eight full hours of sleep last night!  I feel absolutely like Tigger this morning!  A day off from running, yoga is allowed.  But I think I will learn to swim instead - in my driveway if this rain doesn't let up.

Yesterday was my last meeting with my third grade running group before their big 5K on Saturday!  Yippee!  This will be so much fun.  We played some fun sprinting games yesterday, and discussed the run on Saturday.  We talked about what to wear!

 When I have a day off, I begin to question whether I have run enough miles.  I KNOW this is completely stupid, and I WILL STOP! 

Medium run with MP miles segments.  10 minutes MP segments averaged 8:06, 8:09, and 8:10.  Easy portions averaged 9:18.  Straight to Girls on the Run 5K now!

Recovery run on Galbraith mountain.  This climb up to the top didn't seem like recovery, but I kept the whole run short and easy pace.  A little less mud now since the rain has let up a tiny bit.  We are on the second day in a row of mild temperatures with no rain!  Could it be summer?

No track work until this evening, so I wrote this during yoga class:

Into the silence

birdsong bursts, bright and happy

my mind has wandered. 

There has not been enough haiku in my blog lately. 

Track workout 6:00pm.  I dislike working out this time of day; it always seems so much harder.  Windy at the track,  about 60 degrees.  1.5 miles wu, then 5X5 minute tempo intervals, with one lap at easy in between.  Target pace is 7:38, actuals were:  7:17, 7:20, 7:15, 7:39, and 7:49.  Then I joined my group (they were doing a different workout), and did some leg tiring exercises with them, then jogged about 2 miles with them to cd.   Came home and had Spanokopita and greek salad - delicious!

No sleep last night; I hate when that happens!  Nice bike ride this morning to get myself warmed up.  Then some easy running miles in the rain.

 Busy day, helping my son get all his gear assembled for his summer internship in Alaska.  This is the coolest thing ever.  He is majoring in Biology, and his internship this summer (for which he actually gets credit!) involves backpacking around the Wrangle Range in Alaska, studying Dahl sheep and climate change.  Life is sweet.  It means I won't really get to see much of him all summer, but it is exciting for him nevertheless.  He is one of those people who really marches to his own drummer, and it really works for him!  Things really do just seem to fall into place.

Didn't have to get to the track this morning until 8:00, so I got to hang around and visit with my parents before they headed home.  Had a very nice visit with them.  

This seemed like it was going to be a relatively "easy" track workout, and it was!  Just two 800s at "I" pace, which I had to look up.  I hope I got it right.  It is somewhat slower than 5K, in my case 7:00 per mile.  So each 800 should have been 3:30.  They were 3:26 and 3:30.  Close enough for me.  Then there were four 200s and the same old familiar .48 seconds.  Usually, though, I do some of these on a hill near the track and then do four more at the track.  Today, it was just the track ones.  Usually I go much to fast, but today I did better; they were .47, .42, .44, and .45.  I jogged only 1 mile for cd, including a bathroom break, because I had to get to yoga.

Yoga is different this week; it is the last week of the session, so we are doing "restorative" poses, which means lots of blankets, bolsters, blocks, and straps, lots of headstands and arm balances, and somewhat more relaxed class in general.  I think I prefer the regular yoga, because it is more strengthening, but I am sure "restorative" yoga is very good for me.  

Did I mention that I have a 5K on Saturday?  So exciting to race again.  I'll drive down to Seattle with my son, do my race, then a bit of shopping and eating with Peter in Seattle.  I will then leave him somewhere to spend the night (he flies to Anchorage early in the am), and head back North.  I am thinking I'd like to stop on the way home at this incredible Korean Spa and have a body scrub treatment or something.  I have a gift certificate to use! 

Short, slow run.  9:15 AP.  Temperature in the low 50s, overcast.  No excitement whatsoever.  

Yoga class later, 1.5 hours.

Coffee.

Nice and easy 1 hour, 40 minutes on the bike.  Its sunny for a change, so it was lovely to just be outside and not be wet!  I did some sprints at the end (kind of like doing strides, in theory).  It was great to pull out the summer bike club kit - really bright yellow and black shorts and jersey.  I like our club outfits, but some people are complaining that it makes your butt look fat to have all that yellow.  I don't care; I like looking like a bumblebee, and a butt that is visible to cars is less likely to get hit, right?

Legs are nice and rested for tomorrow's race.  Out to get some gardening done!  Yoga class is not until 5:30 today. 

5K down in Fall City today.  Had to leave pretty early, but I got there in time for a leisurely warm up on the flat roads of Fall City.  I warmed up for 2.5 miles, and included 4XStrides near the end.  I started out a bit too fast, my first mile at 6:43.  I was thinking that 6:50 should have been my first mile.  Anyway, I don't have my Garmin splits yet, so that might not even be accurate.  When we passed the first mile marker, a guy yelled out 6:55, which is more like what I thought it should have been.  Anyway, I think I slowed in the second mile, and picked it up again in the last mile.  Overall, my time is not very exciting; I think when the official time is out, I'll be right about at 22:30, just where I was in February.

I really should feel good about this, given all the healing and leg issues I've been through in the past few months.  Its great that I haven't LOST any fitness through it all.  But, still, I was hoping to be just a bit faster.  I am REALLY happy that I was able to run this pain free!  There have certainly been times in the past few months when I thought I'd never get back to faster running again, and I am so grateful to my body for being able to fix things up for me.  I did not even think about my leg or knee, not even once.  And, this race was hard running on pavement, which I rarely do!

So, all in all, a good race, not a great race, but good.  And confidence building and a step back into running again! 

10 easy miles with AP of 8:56.  This is the faster end of my easy pace.  Last mile, mile 11, at MP, 8:16.  

Glad to be done with this now, as it looks like more rain coming!

Happy Sunday and Father's Day!

Track workout at 5:30pm.  I hate going this late.  but once I am there and running, I feel really good.  Warmed up, did strides, then did tons of exercises to tire out our legs (squats, lunges, calf raises, and many other weird and torturous things).  Then we ran 4 easy miles on tired legs.  

Had a bit of fun with my friend Pat on the second stride.  We had a mini race, and both of us had to work to keep the other from getting ahead.  Very exciting.  We finished at exactly the same time.  I have to admit, it was super fun trying not to let him pass me.  

A short bike ride this morning, out along the lake, 1 hour out and back.

Enjoy the rest of solstice, everyone! 

Tiny easy run this morning to wake up; I didn't sleep well, and needed some help!  AP was 9:27.  There is about 1/2 mile on roads from my house before I am into my trails, and I pass by a pond area.  There are deer all over my neighborhood, like rats some places, I guess.  Anyway, there is a pair of brand new twin babies that I see every morning near the pond, and they are so adorable!  They are also stupidly tame; I am going to bring them something to eat tomorrow - maybe a carrot?  What would be a treat if you were a deer?  A stupid cute baby deer.

Really fun track workout tonight!  Tempo intervals.  Gotta love that!!! 

Evening update:  Yes!! Track workout was fun.  Target pace for tempo is 7:38.  My five minute intervals were 7:24, 7:38, 7:36, 7:44, and 7:39.  Whoo Hoo!

More gorgeous summer weather!  I decided to do the bike ride and the run back to back, since I was unable to get out to exercise until late today.  I had a bit less than an hour and a half to ride, and I had to ride alone, so I tried to push the pace a bit.  I finished at the group run meeting spot for the day, and switched quickly to running shorts and shoes.

We ran 6 easy miles.  My AP was 9:45!! This is really slow for me, but it was great!  We were running with a new person, and I thought it seemed rude to just bolt off, so I kept it slow the whole way.  I should do this more often.  The first mile or so was tough, because I had just got off the bike, and I am not yet used to this transition.  After that, I felt like I could have run a half marathon or something.  It was about 78 degrees when we finished at 6:20!  That is warmer than it has been here yet.  

NO sleep!  I hate when that happens.  I was too tired to get up at 4 for the 5am workout with track group.  I felt like I hadn't even gone to sleep yet.  I was up anyway at 5:30, and made it to the track by 7.  

The workout was 5X200m hills at .51 and 4X200m flats also at .51.  Hills were .52, .55, .52, .53, .52, and flats were .46, .48, .50, .48.  Good to be done, but I'm still tired.  The schedule calls for a bike ride this afternoon/evening, but I am feeling like maybe that won't happen today.  If it does, I'll post later.  

Group run. Warm up with strides, then some easy miles, with 3 marathon miles, then some more easy miles.  AP for the whole run was 8:23, so I think I went too fast for some of the easy bits.  But Garmin was set for 200m laps and my splits are in 200m, so its hard to tell what was going on.  Good run.

I went after the run to the lake, where our bike club was working at a triathalon event.  We fixed bikes for the racers for awhile.  

Off to Seattle now for a friend's graduation party. 

Just easy miles.  Pleasant morning, kind of overcast and cool.  I saw noone and noone saw me.

I didn't start this afternoon until 4:15.  I HATE this time.  Did my tempo intervals on the trail first:  15 minutes wu at AP of 9:27.  5 intervals of 6 minutes each at target pace of 7:38.  They were 7:41, 7:41, 7:12, 7:31, 7:58, and 7:49.  This is pretty good, considering I was not running them on a flat track, but on gently rolling terrain.  I am particularly happy about the first two; they were on the exact same portion of trail, except that on the first one, I was running slightly down the whole time, and the second one I was running slightly up the whole time.  

Then off to the track to meet my group, where we did some running to warm up (or in my case, to cool down!), then the leg tiring series of exercises, then a four mile jog on tired legs (in my case, very tired legs!).  

OK, I'm officially doing a duathlon!  Its all really short, 2.8 mile run, 14 mile bike, 2.8 mile run.  Should be quick!  I have never "raced" on a bike before.

So my workout today is in two parts.  This morning's easy and short run, sort of a recovery run from last night's butt kicking workout.  This afternoon, I'm doing a bike warm up of 30 minutes, then 5 minute intervals at "time trial" effort.  I had to ask what "time trial" effort was.  Its supposed to be 85% effort, so sort of like a stride I guess, except that the intervals are 5 minutes long!  It sounds hard, and I hope I can find some flat road to do it on.  

Fun stuff! 

PM Update:  Bike intervals were fun, kind of.  Its really hard to tell what the right effort is.  Maybe I need to use the heart rate monitor.  Anyway, nice ride and a relatively sunny afternoon, and I didn't get knocked off the road by any cars.  Success.   Total mileage was 25.25 miles, but I can't really tell how fast the interval bits were relative to the rest of it.