[S]he Conquers Who Endures

Easy peasy trail run in Glenview. My legs felt great after my 10 mile race the day before. Tired, but great. :) Ahhh, ditched the iPod on this run and enjoyed the scenery. It's a pretty hot weekend in Chicago, so I strapped on my water belt full of gatorade. In short, this was a recovery run, weight bearing run (3 lbs extra water weight), heat acclimation run, and leg stability run all wrapped into one. :)

Ah, another hot day! I cut my sleep time short to try to beat some of the heat. My legs still feel a little tired from Saturday. Plus, I'm trying to add extra mileage so I didn't want to push the pace on this run. I decided to kick the last mile into MP to see what that pace would feel like on tired legs. It felt pretty good even if it only was one mile. I still got a ton of months to go to get used to this pace! :) Oh, and it was 89 F when I finished my run. Now I'm wiped. :)

I really need to work on my sleep! I've been skimping an hour almost every day for a week and it's catching up with me!!

This morning's workout was brutal. 1 mile round trip to Crossfit and back. It's hero week in honor of Memorial Day and fallen soldiers. It's an awesome concept, and it will be one tough week of workouts!!

Today was "Morrison" for time:

50-40-30-20-10 reps of:

wall ball squats (10#)

box jumps (20 in)

kettlebell swings (26#)

My time: 28:40

Pre-WOD was 400 m run and 2x max pull-ups (I got 10 with a blue band!)

Post-WOD: 50 GHD situps

I'm pushing my run to the evening and skipping spin today, my legs are already fried!! Love that feeling... :) 

PM run: Easy 6+ mile run along the lakefront. Ahh...Gorgeous evening! My back and legs were getting pretty tight from my AM workout. I thought I was going to have to turn around after a mile. After a short walk, I was back in action, loosened up and feeling good on my run!! :)  

Oh my gosh, my lower back is hurting so much again!! I decided to skip crossfit for the rest of the week. I was feeling better Monday then Crossfitting yesterday must have been too soon even though I did mostly legs. Oh well, at least I got a hardcore leg workout in! This morning I did 25 mins of weights at home. Nothing involving my back...

PM run: This was going to be 5x0.5 mile repeats. My back is sore and my partner was wiped from last week so we turned it into a 5 mile tempo run (8:02/7:37/7:45/7:56/7:45) then 5x0.1 mile strides (5:23/6:01/5:47/5:41/5:54 min/mi). Coming back was into a 20 mph head wind. Gotta love Chicago springtime aka wind-resistance training. Does that count as a hill workout?? :) 

Holy back muscles!! I hardly slept a lick last night. I'm calling off all workouts today and maybe even tomorrow! I went to the Dr. and I have back spasms. :( I've been fighting through them for a week now, but now they're getting to a point where I can't sit-up when I'm lying down and I can't bend over. Ugh, get better soon, back, I have over 35 miles in the Ragnar next weekend!! 

Oh my. My back locked up after my speed run Wednesday. I took Thursday completely off all working out. I went to a general med dr. and luckily it seems like I'm just having severe spasms and no damage. He said I could do anything that didn't cause pain (including running). Usually my back loosens up after a mile or so of running. I could only put in 2.7 miles with walks (4 miles total) on this one. My back is completely locked and extremely painful. After my "run" I went to Athletico for a screening. The therapist jabbed her elbow into my lower back muscles, which was excruitatingly painful. I jumped off the bench a few times, tears were welling in my eyes, she had to remind me to breath. When she told me to get up and walk around, I could move much more fluidly!!! So I let her do the other side. :) She said no running this weekend. :( such a BUMMER!!! The silver lining is that this is forcing me to taper for Ragnar this weekend. I was probably going to log way too many miles this week and cause a RUNNING INJURY. Phew! I may have just dodged a bullet! Now how to keep sane with an entire weekend of not running!! I hope I don't loose my speed!! Definitely scheduling a massage!