Motivated to Succeed

8:00 PM - Overcast and cool. Temp in the high 50s. Emma surprised me by showing up at the house today after work! We went to the track so I could get a few striders in before the race tomorrow night. Did like 20 minutes on the trails and then 4 x 100 m striders. Stretched and then walked to the car hand in hand. She's such a cutie :-D. I love surprises! I hope that I do well at the race tomorrow! I want to place better than last time! (Total Time: 32:00)

Today is my mom's 48th bday (Though the card I made her affirmed that it was only her 29th! lol). Emma and I went and got her a cake and picked a bouquet of flowers for her this morning of black eyed susans, and some various white and purple flowers. Though on the way home I noticed they were covered in bugs so I told Emmy to drive as fast as possible lest they should gang up and attack us! Later Emma, my mom, my brother Jonn, me, and Aggie (the St. Bernard) all went up to Providence to the Miller's and went out in the canoe. It was a decent workout! I paddled across the lake twice! Feel those arm muscles! woot!

6:15 PM - Wasn't sure how the race was going to go today as I woke up and my left ankle was sore. I hurt it jumping off the porch a few months ago and it occassionally gives me problems. I iced a couple times today and tried to stay off of it as much as possible. Jonathan bailed on us today for the race, so it was just Jonny and me. Emmy came with us to act as our vanguard cheerleader. She's the best!

I decided to go for a warm up and test out the ankle. Jonn bet me that if I didn't beat my time from last time (25:25) then I would have to jump into the pond at the end of the race course which has multiple signs stating that fishing and swimming are prohibited.

WARM UP: Felt good. I pushed the pace a bit to simulate race pace and motion to gauge how I felt. The pain seemed to actually go away as I eased into race pace. I did .58 miles in 4:45 (8:10/mile pace). Came back to the pond and stretched before heading over to the starting line.

THE RACE: There were a lot more runners than the previous race. Temperature was cool and only in the high 60s today, though wind was steady between 12-15 mph. Saw my ninth grade English teacher. Her husband and niece were running. Jonn got ready and took off hard with a lot of the the other runners. I let about 30-40 (half the field) go in front of me as I started down the trail.

MILE 1: (7:22) Ran with the flow, passing a lot of runners on the first two hills. Didn't think to look at my watch and eventually settled in behind two master's age division runners who were chatting about their recent races. I felt good, comfortable, but pushing the pace nicely. Saw the leaders as they took the 90 degree turn to the left to head to another section of the woods.

MILE 2: (7:44) Fighting the pace. Settled in behind a group of four men that were following the group that Jonn was wedged in. I was really breathing hard now, and finding that I was pushing harder than I had planned. However I felt great! The only pain I had came from a pine needle that had wedged itself in my left shoe and was poking my big toe ever few strides!

MILE 3: (7:43) After I crossed the road, I found that either i was slowing up or the pack I was following was speeding up. Turned out to be the latter. I got some encouragement from my former English teacher at the two mile mark and pushed hard towards the finish. I love the last half mile because theres some really fun downhills and windy trails! As I neared the finish I was coming up on a group of 3, the pack I had been following the whole race. I started my kick, but they ended up edging me out by about 5 or 6 seconds. Bummer. Next time they are toast!

FINISH:  I kicked hard and was really pleased! I got 23:00 flat, a full 2:25 faster than just two weeks ago! I am really proud of this, especially as the course is extremely hilly. They say to add 15-20% to your road 5k time to get an accurate predictor of where you're at. I got 13th overall, an improvement of a full 8 places from the first race!  Jonn ran a 21:56 and was surprised I was as close as I was to him! Feels great!

COOL DOWN: .52 miles with Jonn in 5:00 (9:42/ mile) on the roads out and back. Stretched a lot and then got ready to go to dinner with the family. My cousin Amanda is living with us this summer so she, Emma, Jonn, and my parents all went with me to the Parting Glass in Saratoga Springs for dinner. It was fun to go out to an Irish Bar with my parents! We all had a great time. Then we had carrot cake when we got home. Yumm! I am a bit sore and am anxiously looking forward towards tomorrow's rest day. Hopefully going to shoot for at 6 mile run sometime this week to. I want to start increasing my fitness level!

Played an hour of tennis at the school with my mom, Jonn, Emmy and Aggie! Aggie was funny because she kept following everyone around and the best highlight was when she chased Emma while she retrieved a wayward ball outside the court. Then had to go to work until 10:30pm tonight. Yuck! I'm exhausted. I always hate when Emmy leaves because it makes me feel down in the dumps. But we have a hiking date on Thursday together. It's my only other day off this week and we are going to climb Mount Greylock near Pittsfield, MA. She's done it before but I haven't. So hopefully it's a lot of fun. I'm hoping to get a bit of jogging on the trail done too! And then we'll have a picnic lunch up there and hike down and go to Third Thursdays, a free concert party thing the city holds every third Thursday of the month! Also, exciting we think we have the place for the wedding. Copake Country Club. There's an open house on August 22nd so I'm requesting it off work so we can go check it out. :-D.

8:05 AM - Sunny, blue skies and temperature was 57 degrees at the start. I headed to the school and hit up the nature trails. I like running on trails because you don't have to deal with cars, there's always things to jump over, dodge, and stare at, and it seems like time just goes by faster! After running on the trails, I popped out on the track and jogged there until I hit 5.15 miles, after which I stopped and grabbed a drink and some stretching. After that I decided to try a VO2 workout I read yesterday in TrailRunning Magazine. It is a 4 minute workout in which you do :20 hard as if someone is chasing you, followed by :10 of recovery, and you repeat it 8 times. The theory is that the more you do it the more your fitness improves, and as it improves, the farther and faster you'll go. For the 8x :20 I did about 100-110 meters on the track each time, with about a 20m recovery. After 4 minutes, I eased into a recovery and cool down jog. Felt really great. Going to grab a shower and ice though before work today. Splits were:

• Mile 1: 11:30
• Mile 2: 10:35
• Mile 3: 9:09
• Mile 4: 8:24
• Mile 5: 8:14
• Mile 6: 7:17
• Mile 7: 8:29

Total Time: 1:04:06 Total Distance: 7.05 miles Average Pace: 9:05/mi

Mt. Greylock - 3,491'

Adams, Massachusetts

9:30 AM - Sunny and warm, in the 70s at start, and low 80s at the end. Woke up at 5:30 this morning and headed to Pittsfield. It's my only day off this week so I wanted to get a day in with Emmy. Got to her house around 8 and we headed to Adams to hike up Mt. Greylock! I was stoked because it didn't rain on us, even though it was forecasted to rain today! It was 3.5 miles up and the same down, and towards the top the trail intersected and followed the Appalachian Trail. I told Emmy I want to run this trail to the top of the mountain sometime and she called me crazy. I like hiking with Emma. She's about the best sidekick you could ask for! Though with her performance on the mountain today she is the headliner! She was flying up the mountain and especially on the way down. I felt so bad because I was lagging behind. She probably would have made it to the bottom about 20 mins sooner had I not been so slow! I was sweating a lot in the heat. Probably my own fault since I was wearing a zippered fleece and corduroy shorts. But Howling Commandos are stubborn so I didn't want to take it off. Thankfully at the top of the mountain there was a nice breeze and we found a spicket behind a building up there to refill my Nalgene. I drank close to 3 x 32oz Nalgene bottles total!

The Ascent (MILES 0-3.5) Felt good. Pushed the pace. Steady with most miles between 20 and 25 minutes. Total time to the top was 1:21. Stopped at a pond for a nice look and we had a lot of fun on the way up talking and singing. Didn't see anyone else until we got to the top. Met a lady up there after we went up in the tower and she was so cute. She'd broken her foot the first day with her grandkids at another hiking spot. I guess she fell like 300' down a cliff and had to get air lifted out! That's one tough granny! In fact, the funny quote of the day from me was : "I can't wait to be a grandma!" Obviously I didn't think before I said it outloud. Oops!

The Descent (MILES 3.5-7.0) Tough. Humbling. I learned I have something to work at. Still a lot of fun coming down, but I am a more consistent and faster climber than descender. Emma zips on down the trails, but I have to constantly check my strides and what not. Twisted each ankle a couple times and rolled them. My knees felt like they were going to explode through my skin! I swore that I would end up being crippled and eaten by chipmunks, but I was thankful that Emmy waited for me so we could walk together. She's so awesome! Coming down took 1:11, then minutes faster than going up the same trail. I know Emmy could have made it in about :50. Saw a father/son couple I believe, the son on a mountain bike, the father was running/walking down the trail. Man could he move! I am anxiously anticipating a trail 1/2 in the near future! Maybe in October for the fall foliage!

Afterwards Went to Adams, MA and ate lunch at a cafe. I feel bad because my blood sugar was seriously low. I was really tired and agitated and downright grumpy. I've never done a 2.5+ hour hike or run without food before, and I think my body was screaming for something. I got a cheese and tomato sandwich and a chocolate chip cookie, Snapple, and a coffee. The A/C was so nice in there! Emma got a humungo salad! I will have to remember food so that I am not such a rude partner! Hopefully Emma will still go hike with me ;p.

Ran errands with Emmy to a bunch of places to get stuff for her. She made a turkey/cheese calzone for us at night. Then we watched a huge thunderstorm roll in and we watched Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire as I haven't seen it before and we are planning on seeing the new movie next week. To bed early because have to wake up and drive back to New York for work on Friday morning.

From Emmy: Remember the lady with the golden lab near the top of the mountain? I didn't know she was there and I burped soo loud! Hahahah priceless.

And yeah, you are completely wretched when you are hungry.

;)

6:20 PM - Sunny and temperature is in the mid-70s. Very long day at work. When I got out I came home and got changed into running shorts. Went down to the school and hit the nature trails. Ran for 55:55 on the trails for a total of 5.11 miles. Felt good. The soreness from the hike is basically gone. Really felt good to hit the trails. Slowly regaining my running fitness. You don't realize how much you miss it until you are back at it again! On a side note, people were really rude at the bookstore today. Kind of drove me nuts. Everyone was full of complaints and very few people had any positive things to say. I guess I resemble a dumpster because that's all people use me for there: to dump their woes, frustrations, and anger on. Oh well. I aim to please :)! Also, as I ran I came to a wonderful conclusion -- Runners are truly amazing people. As a whole they are some of the kindest, most considerate, caring people in the world. I think that the world would be a better place if more people ran. Splits today were consistent, though I was faster than the times reflect:

• Mile 1: 10:36
• Mile 2: 11:32
• Mile 3: 11:01
• Mile 4: 10:41
• Mile 5: 10:57

Total Time: 55:55 Total Distance: 5.11 miles Average Pace: 10:56/mi

26+ miles this week. That's the highest mileage for a week post-injury! I am anxiously anticipating my comeback :)