glidergirl

• 5 miles on the treadmill, 1% incline
  • 1 mile 6.0mph
  • alternating 0.5 mile 7.0mph then 0.5 mile 6.0mph for 4 miles
  • TT 47:38, 9:31 AP
• abs with 2x1 min planks

Today has been such a great running day for me!  It started off with me not wanting to run on the TM, but I did it anyway and I felt really strong!  The 7.0mph seemed a lot easier than it did a few weeks ago.  I just felt stronger period today doing the run and the ab workout. Yay! :) THEN I was checking Facebook and I'm a fan of the Big Cottonwood Half Marathon page when I saw MY name in their status post...I won a free entry to do the half!!  I am beyond excited!  And then I thought "crap, when is it, I gotta get ready" haha. :)  It's Sept 22, which gives me 6 Saturdays, so I think I'll be fine. I can't wait to start "training" for it!  Such a great day! :)

• 3 easy TM miles, 9:35 AP

Bear Lake today, family reunion at a cabin this weekend.  We runners should get a medal for our great time management skills in order to get all our miles in. :)  Hoping to do 27 miles this week, so I went easy today in order to do a longer run tomorrow or Saturday depending on baby's schedule.  Hailey is sleeping through the night longer and longer each morning, which is great (yay!), but I miss my little 5am alarm clock (aka hungry baby) which gave me enough time to get her back to bed and run outside before James needs to go to work.  Now we both wake up too late so the treadmill it is! 

• 7 miles, 4th north loop
• abs, foam rolling

Decided to set my alarm so I could run 7 miles here at home and outside instead of by myself in the woods tomorrow when we go to the reunion.  (Turns out my baby slept till AFTER I got home...12 hours straight! Woot woot! And I was out running and missed the exciting extra sleep I hear other moms talk about hahaha. :) )  I fell back asleep after the alarm went off and woke in a panic and had to rush out the door so I could be back for James to go to work (makes for a great motivation to keep up the pace during a run!).  I was still in rush mode the first few miles so I worked on relaxing everything so I could run more efficiently and enjoy it.  The last few miles were great because I pushed myself to get my AP below 10:00 and I wanted to have that "I ran hard this morning" sort of tired/satisfaction today. Each day I'm feeling less and less like I ran earlier in the day, so that tells me I can keep pushing it harder, which is really great.  I keep expecting to bonk again, but I just feel stronger each day instead.  My garmin died at 6.10 miles, but I have learned my lesson and kept checking it.  It said 10:05 AP and at the rate I was running I'm pretty sure I got it down below 10:00 by the time I got home.  It was hard for me to get even 10:30 AP and eek out a 5.5 mile run just a couple weeks ago. I'm hoping to have most of my runs under 10:00 from now on, unless there are lots of hills or I'm really tired.  Not sure what to do about the Garmin situation.  I could beg my husband for a loan...he saves all of his personal money and has who knows how much racked up in his personal account.  Me?  Running is my pimp, I am its "b" and I spend every DIME on it. :)

First night back at work last night and another one tonight with no babysitter inbetween to get solid sleep.  I'm sure it will take me a week or two to get used to this whole back to working nights dynamic.  So far it's going better than I thought. Thank goodness I have a treadmill so I can run in the middle of the day!

• 5 TM miles, 10:06 AP

Got home from the night shift at 8am, slept 3 hours thanks to Grandma. :)  Wanted to get my run in so I hurried down to the TM.  It started out a little rough, but I ALWAYS feel better if I run after a night shift. Then about 2.3 miles into it, baby girl woke up early from her nap.  So I went and got her and her play mat with a piano at her feet and hanging toys and that enabled me to finish the run...whoever designed that thing is my hero! :) Things were much better for the last 3.7 miles.

• 5.5 miles, 5th south loop, AP 9:54 - 11:06, 10:25, 8:34, 8:49, 10:22, 10:18
• abs, foam rolling

My first thought was that I would give myself a break from any hard running this week while I get used to working nights again, but then when my watched beeped 2 miles I decided to just try running some tempo miles.  It's funny how it's easy to run fast once you just start running fast. =0)  I did 2 tempo miles and I feel pretty darn good about that. 

• 5 TM miles 1% incline, AP 9:50

Started at 5.5mph and worked up to 7.5

• 8.6 miles, Pages Lane loop, 9:45 AP

• 5.1 miles total:
  • 3.1 miles outside 10:10 AP (1/2 mile of 8:30 AP thrown in there)
  • 2.0 miles on the TM, 9:28 AP (6.0mph with 1/2 mile @ 7.5mph)
• abs

I ran outside for as long as I had time for and then came back and finished on the TM, the perfect combination. It took over 1.5 miles to warm up, but then I was able to do 1 miles worth of faster running.  Happy Monday!

***Just registered for the Utah Half Marathon for $10.84 using the code "FAMILYHALF".  http://www.utahmarathon.com/  Thanks RAD!  Anyone else doing it?

3 TM miles right after eating lunch (technically breakfast) so it was a rather slow pace!  More of an easy day today, hoping for a tempo run tomorrow.

Tempo run - 5.5 miles, 5th south loop

1.5 mile warmup

5K: TT 26:33, AP 8:34, 8:36, 8:35, 8:36, 7:51 (for .1)

1 mile cooldown

abs with 2x1 min planks

I'm making progress!  The two 5K's I did in June and July were 30:08 and 27:42.  Today wasn't full out and it was still faster.  I think I used to do too many miles at too fast of a pace back when I did tempo runs before because I would dread them more than I do now.   Starting out at a manageable distance and a doable speed works out much better for sure!  I really like these 5K tempo runs.  I want to eventually work up to a weekly 10K.  I also think I can start pushing the pace a little.  I get nervous to go faster than I did today, but by the time I'm home I feel totally fine which tells me I could have tried harder.  Just gotta get up the courage. =0)

• 10.5 miles, Parrish Lane loop, 9:27 AP
• abs w/ 2x1 min planks, foam rolling, stretching

11:08, 9:35, 9:05, 8:56, 9:15, 9:19, 9:36, 9:44, 9:16, 9:09, 8:39 (.54)

I meant to just do 9.5 today, but it turned out the loop was longer than I thought, oops!  But it felt great to run long and I feel really good about my AP!  Last week I did 8.6 miles at 9:45 AP.  Today didn't seem harder, I just paid attention to my pace more often and picked it up if I needed to.  I am also happy with my efforts...I tend to slow down on the way back home because there is a slight incline and my mentality wanes a little.  So today I did some strides to counteract that and it really worked.  Well, I think I did what all of you call strides. :)  Is it just where you pick up the pace (to about marathon or tempo pace) for a little bit?  How long do you guys do your strides for?  I did 3 and they were .1 to .2 miles long.  It helped get my legs moving faster again.  Made a yummy recovery green smoothie afterwards (tons of spinach, a banana, some frozen strawberries, a small apple, a yogurt, 5 ice cubes and a little water).  We love those things here.  Which is good because we wouldn't get enough greens otherwise.

So I'm taking it easy this week.  For the past few weeks I've had a really sore spot on my left tibial tuberosity.  It doesn't ever hurt when I run, but it hurts really bad when I touch it or kneel down and my knee gives out easily when I bend it and it hurts when that happens...I'm not sure if that is caused by the sore spot on my tibia because I'm not sure they are exactly connected that way (Teena? :) ), but they started at the same time.  I've never had problems there or with my knee so I'm going to be proactive and stop running for a bit so it can heal.  I would MUCH rather sit it out because I choose to than be forced to rest because something bad happens.

I haven't ran since Friday and I'm already super bored and antsy to get back to it.

3 miles on the TM at 5:30am because I couldn't sleep. ;)  Might as well get the run done for the day!

Abs with 3x1 min planks

My knee doesn't give out quite as much and it's not quite as tender to the touch on my tibial tuberosity.  So hopefully it just eventually goes away! 

• 5 miles on the TM @ 1% incline in 47:45 (9:33 AP)
• 6.0mph to 7.5mph alternating every half mile
• abs with 3x1 min planks

Knee still just gives out a few times a day like when I'm going upstairs or standing up with Hailey on just that leg, almost as if it just needs to warm up and then it doesn't do it.  Tender spot not as tender.  Who knows what these are from!  So unless things get worse, I'm just going to resume my regular running.  My half marathon just over a month away. :)

• 5 miles on the TM 1% incline in 46:22 mins (9:16 AP)  (17 seconds faster than yesterday!)
• 1 mile warm up @ 6.0mph then did 7.0-7.5mph every half mile
• abs with 3x1 min planks

• 5.5 miles, 5th south loop, 9:54 AP
• abs with 2x1 min planks