Believe to Achieve

super busy shift sunday....then crashed after eating a nicely cooked dinner by my husband at 8pm!!!  woke up twice and decided to get up for good at 4am. too early to run so held off until 530am.  ran my planned 12 miler.  my right arm all the way to my pink and ring finger is really bugging me (has been the last 2 weeks, I just haven't mentioned it).  i go to the neurologist today to figure out why my fingers are going numb  (pinky and ring finger) and i have a lot of nerve pain down my arm.  probably my cervical spine--- all the jarring down AF canyon on this ol' body.  i am so done with pain though.  how the crud will i be when i am 70??????  I will be a miserable sight!!!   Geez!!!   anyway-- what do I do when the pain is getting to me??  well I do what any normal insane runner does-- I pick up the pace to get the endorphins rolling so after 3 miles 8:19, 8:12, 7:54----  7:11 to 7:32 for miles 4-10 (mostly 7:19 splits) and it felt easy then of course I have to ruin it with two fast miles at the end-- the last mile I was already, in my mind, telling myself I could go back to easy pace because I didn't want to run fast uphill.   First mile 6:25 (flat and rolling hills) and 6:45 just SOOOOO hungry. I forgot I hadn't eaten since 7pm and went out for a run without any fuel in me.  Freaked out my neighbors sprinting by at that 6:25 pace.  Yup just some old lady trying to find that fountain of youth through running.  : D.   AP for 12 miles = 7:21. No stops.  Just running.    I sure hope this doesn't foul up my 3 mile time trial Wednesday.    No excuses.  A new TT PR is on its way!!

bed at 915pm up at 415am.  Ran at 535am in the humid air with my tight torso and legs-- old lady like.  First mile 9:44 !! : D  gotta love it!!  AP 8:35.   September 29th I am running Julie's 5K here in Ol' Pleasant Grove/American Fork. It will start at   7:15am.  The starting line is 1800 North and 1300 West by the white picket fence.  I will head south and turn left on the road that the AF hospital is on then turn left (this is the 1 mile mark) at  1100 North and run to 600 west and turn left (2 miles) then turn left again on to 1800 north until 1300 west (starting line and third mile just before here) and turn left down 1300 west briefly until 3.1 miles :D.  Then nice cool down to my house for 0.4 miles.  Anyone interested??  probably will get Jane and Kim to join me :D  at least I will see them from a distance!!!    total elev gain 48 feet and loss the same since it is a circle route.  First mile down hill, second mile flat, last mile uphill.  Fun times!!  Obviously it is not much up or down-- pretty honest course!!  It is the AF 5 k course but starting near my house instead.  AF now puts on the half marathon and 5k in June so they no longer put on the 5k in September.  Reply if you want to run this 5k. 

saucony 5s.  nervous.  time trial day.  not particularly excited at all.   i tried to think positively to wipe out the negative thoughts i get when i get on a track and it's just me and my watch (and two walkers and one runner).  Good ol' stopwatch method.  on your mark julie get so go!!  seriously am i really running the tt now goes thru my mind-- wait i want  a redo...nope no can do.  it is now or never and get it over with already-- 2.6 mile warmup -- 2 to the track in AF, same track of course, two laps around the track.  Brief stretching moment then off i went listening to Journey's Separate Ways song four times-- yup the song lasts about 3.5 laps!!  cool.  although next time i am picking a little more of an adrenaline push song.  this was more of a steady beat.  i love the song.  anyway-- so i am running along and decide  I WAS NOT going to LOOK at my watch until the last two laps.  I couldn't see the watch the first four laps anyway since it was dark.  I was running the trial at 6:45am.  I decided this because honestly I am trying to figure out of "knowing" my splits helps or hinders.  I think if I saw that my first mile was 4 seconds faster than last week I would have freaked out and slowed then I would have also freaked out at mile two to see that I was only 3 seconds ahead of last week and so I think running without looking was better for me since I came in a whopping (sarcasm) 6.5 seconds faster this week.  FOR THAT I AM THANKFUL.  What I need to improve on--- well this week I went out too fast-- if I ran even splits to get 19 minutes I would run every lap at 1:35.   I got to find that tempo and stay with it.  I ran my first lap in 1:30:96!!!  that is my fastest lap since I started the trials in August.  Number two I got to find my gears laps 9-11 and get those numbers at 1:35!!!  AT LEAST I got rid of any 1:38s!!!  Now it is time to get rid of 1:37s!!! Thirdly-- I honestly feel I can break 19 minutes or right on if I ran on a flat road.  But I would need a tool to measure it accurately.  The garmin is not accurate.  If I had worn my garmin it would have told me the distance was 3:03 to 3:06 miles like my previous times I ran the trial with it and TODAY I had to swerve around a guy on the curve of the track-- surely I lost at least a second worrying about making the guy feel bad by passing him.   He looked about five years older than I.   Forth--- how in the heck do olympians do that many laps without tripping?  It is not easy to run lap after lap. VERY boring!!!  Feeling really sorry for any hampsters I have had in my years.  Caged up and only a wheel that goes no where!!!  Fifth-- so I pick it up the last straight away but slow as I near the line....what is UP with that??  I think I lost a second here putting the breaks on too early.  None of that next time.    Here are my splits:  1:30:96, 1:33:91, 1:34:91, 1:36:87 (6:16:65 first mile :D, I am quite sure I would have freaked if I saw my faster first mile), 1:36:52, 1:36:92, 1:37:00, 1:37:33 (6:27:77 for the second mile, see I went out too fast, still no peeking at my watch :D) 1:36:79 (yay faster rather than slower at my weakest spot!!), 1:37:28, 1:37:66, 1:33:15 (as usual I pick it up the last 100 meters-- I need to work on picking it up the last 200 meters!!!!)  for the last mile at 6:24:88 and time trial time of 19:09:30!!!!  6.54 seconds faster.  No fuel, just a couple swigs of gatorade and water before leaving my house.  2.6 mile cooldown- two laps around the track and 2.1 miles home.  Feeling glad I improved even if it was miniscule!!!  Goal next week--- 19:03 or better--- six seconds is all I ask. 

so badly wanted to fall asleep instead of get up at 415am and run by 425am!!  got pulled to Utah Valley hospital so less sleep time.  just three more weeks and i don't have to wake up before work if i don't want to!!  i figure i will feel this tired at the end of sg so better get used to it!!  8 miles @ 8:17 AP.  5 x 0.1 pickups to comfortably fast pace 6-6:14 pace.  0.1 miles easy in between.    very busy day at work and then of course i had to go watch the byu women's soccer play and since i was in provo i couldn't NOT go.  We won 5-1 :D.  The other team (Cal-Poly) scored first.    I guess that woke us  up in the first four minutes of the game!! 

at 440am this morning i was put on call....hmmmmm....maybe i will go to the rec center for the first time since i can't remember (i believe i have only been once in summer and then it was not since Boston marathon training, slacker!!).  So of course I could NOT leisurely run on the TM....I decided to try one of April's famous preSG workouts on the mill minus increasing the mile splits as her treadmill could go downhill (lucky :  D) and this ol' lady needs more of a warmup then 0.5 miles--- so 1 mile warmup AP 8:30 then 2.5 miles up at 4% incline 7:30 pace--- so hard to focus but it definitely felt doable but I was mentally tired-- overstimulated from waking early yesterday, 12.5 hours NONstop shift-- sat down twice!! yesterday then the game right after work-- my brain is still going.  I need a nap.  I went to bed at 1015pm worried about getting up at 430am to run but then placed on call so I laid in bed not able to fall back to sleep.  Oooops off on a tangent here-- RIGHT after the 2.5 miles of nice uphill I put the treadmill flat and ran 5 miles at 6:40 pace even the whole time except the last 1/4 mile where I kept upping the pace.  I thought about upping it earlier but I was just too sleepy and didn't want to make this feel like an extremely hard workout.  It was comfortably hard.  Increased the pace to 6mm for the last 0.1 miles.  8.5 miles in 60 minutes and 4 seconds including slow warmup mile.  I believe that is 7:04 AP.  Time to get the kids up for school then shower and wait for the call to go to work.  It is very possible, lots of babies being born in September!!!

got to bed past 11pm after two soccer games after a full days work without sitting down.  babies were being dropped by flocks of storks in the nursery!!    i didn't want to bail on Carina because i just don't do that but my tired run down body was so wanting 8 hours sleep....but my mind could not fall asleep longer than 4.5 hours so up i was at 4am....laid in bed unable to fall asleep so the long run was on at Lehi's smith marketplace.  We went off course and by mile 6 we were over two miles longer than we should have been so we cut off the busier AF/pg state st. and ran up 1100 north in PG  and still we were half mile over-- I wanted 18 miles but ran 19.4 because there was no way to run this circle run and not have to walk a mile or more back to my car so of course I ran it. The first 16 miles were easy pace which was so nice because my body did not want any kind of speed at all.  I was not the best of company because my brain was so fatigued as well.  Sorry Carina!!   After we climbed Canyon road to the mouth of AF canyon (down the hill) Rob and I cut off the trail and ran on the road back to Smith's marketplace.  He helped me by running the last three miles sub 7 minute miles--  6:52, 6:48, 6:38.  We ended just before the steep but brief uphill so we jogged the remainder back to our car at 8:04 AP (0.4 miles).   I iced myself in the AF river.  It wasn't as enjoyable as the last few weeks-- the outside air was cooler and the water temps were colder-- I could only take it 10 minutes but honestly should have gotten out at 7 minutes.  I took a while to thaw out.    This run was a "just get it done run".  I really wish I wasn't so fatigued today but that is how it goes in my life right now.   Look forward to sleeping tonight!!!     Eager to learn of Rachelle's TOU marathon.  : D.    AP today 8:03 for 19.4 miles.