Slow & Steady Wins the Race :-)

10 minute yoga trainer X.  Not nearly as much yoga as I wanted to do today, oh well. 

5 miles on the TM, slow, 5.5 for half and 5.7 for the other half.  I have a cold and feel horrible, running made me feel better but now I feel bad again.  So I kept it slow and easy, though since its the TM it still felt hard, of course.  I hope this goes away soon...

An hour or more tennis with J.  I'm still really bad, which is starting to get frustrating.  I better get better before next weekend or its going to be really embarrassing!  

Bought a bike trainer today... :-)  I can't wait for it to get here!

Officially 2 weeks candy- and ice cream- free.  Kind of cheated one day so far and had a cookie, but no cheating yet on the candy/ice cream.  

Ran Green River trail with Lisa and Anya tonight.  Was actually light out when we finished, what a great surprise!  Can't wait until daylight savings next weekend.  Lovely to run with them.  Slight twinge in my left inside shin, but it doesn't feel like shin splints.  I don't know what the deal is.  

Splits: 10:04, 10:08, 10:04, 10:07, 10:06, 10:10 (.27) VERY consistent!

TT: 53:12    AP: 10:06

Total Ascent: 769 feet

Decided to head out for a bike ride this afternoon since the weather was so nice.  Haven't ridden the bike since September, so my muscles were in for a rude awakening.  A bunch of laps around the neighborhood loop (7?).

9.32 miles

Avg Pace: 11.1 mph   TT: 50:36

Total Ascent: 751 feet

Absolutely GORGEOUS day, about 65+ degrees out, wonderful sun, just the best Saturday.  Went golfing this morning, then to a family lunch at Justin's sister's house, and then headed out for my run.  Ran down to the dog park and 5 laps around the dog park trail and back.  The way back is very uphill, and I had to totally talk myself in to not walking the Hillside hill, but I did it!  Very glad this run is in the bank.  Had water 5 times at the ends of each of the loops, and afterwards had a Powerade Zero, a banana, and a Medifast protein shake, we'll see how that is as post-run fuel tomorrow.  Legs were very dead at the end, but I think the bike ride and the golf didn't help either.  

Splits: 10:06, 9:23, 9:27, 9:31, 9:30, 9:29, 9:07, 9:13, 9:34, 9:25

TT: 1:39:15   AP: 9:27

Total Ascent: 1,215 feet

10.33 miles biking around the neighborhood when we got back home.  A little drizzly.  I did one small flat loop a bunch of times to avoid the hills because my legs were so tired.  But this felt good.  

TT: 54:56   AP: 11.3 mph

Total Ascent: 607 feet

Only got in 3 days of running this week, missed my 2-3 mile recovery run.  But its awkward picking which 2 days to run back to back. 

Weekly Summary: Mon-off, Tues-5, Wed-off, Thurs-5.27, Fri-bike, Sat-10.5, Sun-bike

Total Weekly Miles: 20.77

Took Cooper and Frankie on runs (half with one, half with the other, I'm not brave enough to take both at once!) around the neighborhood.  

Tiny twinge in my left shin still, but not when running, just after.  It doesn't hurt or feel like anything when rub my leg though, so I have no clue what it is and feel (and hope) it hypochondria.  

Hard to believe I was running on Saturday in the high 60's and today it was 38 F, tiny snow flurries, SNOW FLURRIES!  What?! 

Splits:  9:49, 9:38, 9:43, 9:43, 9:42, 9:14 (tried to pick it up the last half mile)

TT: 57:53   AP: 9:39

Ran at Game Farm park with Lisa and Anya.  Got there a little early so did 2 miles before they got there, that might be too much mileage for the week, I don't know, but I felt good so oh well!  

Splits: 9:35, 9:21, 9:22, 9:07, 9:05, 9:03, 9:08, 9:08 (.17)

TT: 1:06:18   AP: 9:14

Wow, faster than I thought!  I like that.

In other news, yesterday I semi-cheated and had a bunch of fake oreo cookies.  :-(  I have trouble bringing enough food on late night class nights and I was starving and succumbed to a billion pistachios, chips, and unfortunately, cookies.  But today my teacher brought donuts and brownies for the last day and I didn't have any of those!  So bad news and good news. :-)  Still no "official" cheating. 

11.03 miles on the bike around the neighborhood, exactly 1 hour, so exactly 11mph.  I am slow!  I felt maybe the teeniest tiniest bit better today than before, I didn't stand on any of the hills so maybe I'm actually getting the gear shifting down better.  I need to strengthen my quads, and get some running/biking gloves.  After pouring all day long (POURING) there was a break for the hour I was out, which was nice.

As a reward, happy hour with Jord. :-)

3.53 miles around the neighborhood with Cooper and Frankie.  Got lucky again with it being dry after pouring all day.  Felt very very very sluggish today.

Splits: 10:03, 10:03, 9:54, 9:57... yep, sluggish!

TT: 35:13  AP: 10:00 even

7:30am, 35 degrees.  Had to get up early this morning to get in the run before golf, and man it felt early with the spring forward.  Woke up at 6:45 and it was still pitch black outside, so fell back asleep and cut it close.  Ran down the the dog park, 6 laps down there, then back.  Was the only person there when I got there, which was a little scary, but had my pepper spray. :-)  It was cold, though I dressed right, I needed some gloves.  Icy on the bridges.  Started getting just exhausted at 9, it was rough going after that, especially the Hillside hill at 11.5, I wanted to die.  Hope I don't die next weekend!

Garmin took 12 minutes to get the satellites which was obnoxious, so splits are weird, and its possible it was a little less than 12, but over 12 with the warm-up.  Took a Gu after 9, it seemed to help a little, and had water after each of the 6 laps. 

Splits: 9:25, 9:21, 9:13, 9:14, 9:23, 9:13, 9:22, 9:04, 8:49, 9:16, 9:35 (Hillside hill!)

TT: 1:51:05  AP: 9:15

9 holes of golfing afterwards on tired legs, but seemed to be a good cool-down. 

Weekly Summary: Mon-6, Tues-off, Wed-7.18, Thurs-bike, Fri-3.53, Sat-off, Sun-12

Total Weekly Miles: 28.71  Whoops, this got a little high

Played tennis with J for an hour or so (it was so nice today!).  Loving the daylight savings.  Then came home and J set up my bike trainer (yay!) so I rode it for 40 minutes.  It was a definite workout, or maybe its just because its so much hotter in the house than when you're riding.  

Today's run was one of those runs that makes you think: "Wait, I CHOOSE to do this?  I say I love runnning? I hate running!".  It was horrible, miserable, blah.  First of all, I didn't even want to get off the couch, and then I wanted to be done at 3 so bad, but forced myself to do one more lap, then forced myself to do .4 more to get to 5.  The last 2 miles were so incredibly slow and sluggish, I felt liked I'd been running 20, not 5.  It was windy (my hat blew off, and it felt like I was on a treadmill at times, not even moving), raining, and I felt naked without running with my beloved Cooper.  Last week I had 2 dogs and this week I had no dogs!  There was a rainbow, the one nice thing about this run.  Finally (before this entry becomes a novel), I started having major anxiety and hypochondria about this weekend.  Every little ache became a stress fracture, and thoughts of getting injured again flood through my head.  I can't help think that it is so similar to last year, last year ran 13.1 the week before the half and felt fine, this week I ran 12 and felt fine, and I kept feeling possibly imaginary twinges in my shin and leg.  UGH.  This annoys me to even write it, I don't want to be this hypochondriac person.  It is just like riding a horse, its time to get back on the horse.  I know what the stress fracture felt like, it HURT, shooting pain every time my foot landed on the ground.  That's what to look for, not these weird imaginary things.  Whine whine whine whine WHINE, this is disgusting, I'm done.  

Splits: 9:50, 9:27, 9:11, 9:43, 9:49 - yep, you can see those horrible miles 4 & 5

TT: 48:01   AP: 9:36

An hour and 15 minutes of tennis with J.  Feeling better today, thanks for the support!  Was thinking today that yesterday's feelings could easily be soft tissue from playing tennis, plus I was thinking that my tennis shoes are from my senior year at the latest, so 2004, maybe even 2003.  So its probably definitely time for a new pair.  Putting the inserts in them would help too.  We'll see how the run goes tomorrow.

In other news, though its supposed to be 68 and gorgeous Friday and Saturday, Sunday is predicted to be a high of 50, sun-up isn't until 7:40 (the race starts at 7 and the low is 33!) and here's the worst... 70% chance of rain and THUNDERSTORMS.  They're already sending us info about this "flag system" where some of the flags mean to STOP RUNNING IMMEDIATELY!

Ran 5.53 miles at Roegner Park with Anya.  Sorry I couldn't do the full 8 with you Anya!  Was feeling better today and less like the terrible monster that emerged on Tuesday.  Let's keep my alter ego, Ricole, away for the rest of the weekend!  

Splits: 9:44, 9:22, 9:19, 9:13, 9:31 (headwind), 8:58 (.53)

TT: 51:54     AP: 9:23

Off to Atlanta on the red-eye tonight!  Be thinking good thoughts of me on Sunday - I just want to finish it injury-free!

Did the Atlanta Half Marathon today with Leandrea, and met our goals of both finishing and finishing without a broken ankle!  Yippee!  It was almost exactly a year ago (April 5) when I broke my ankle in the Portland Half and I've been having major anxiety about this all week so I'm glad its done and all is well.  Though I think I may have killed Leandrea.  Second person I have dragged along and killed their knee!  I'M SORRY LEANDREA!  But you did AWESOME!  Her first half and she killed it.  If not for the bathroom break I think we definitely would have been under 2 hours.

The bad: This course was hilly.  Only one hill that was bad, but "rolling hills" the whole entire way.  We were either going up hill or down hill it seemed almost the whole time, which is probably why L's knee hurt so bad.  The weather was fine, rained lightly about half the time, about 80% humidity and 58 degrees or so. Luckily the horrible pouring rain, thunder, and lightning waited until the afternoon, or that would have been terrible and brought on the "black flags" they told us about.  I didn't have music, just Harry Potter, and even though I charged my Garmin right before I left on the trip somehow it must have been on this whole time or something because it was dead.  Luckily L had hers and this was the first race I've done where they had running digital clocks at all the mile markers.  I wore brand new shoes for the first time, which was stupid and I knew it, and my right achilles was super tight and hurting for a few miles probably because of that.  Bathroom break around mile 10 that took at least a minute or 2.  I drank a little too much champagne at a wedding the night before but it didn't seem to hurt me! :-)  Not so much bad, all in all!

The good: We finished!  And I felt good.  I had no idea we were going that fast in the beginning, it just felt good and we were cruising along so we stuck with it.  But I have not been running 8's in any of my training runs so this was fast!  I felt good though and though my legs were getting tired I think I could have finished at this pace.  I pretty much killed L after mile 10, I felt so bad!  Took at Gu at mile 6 and 10, and gatorade and water at every aid station.  The spectators were great and lots of dogs and kids along the route, which I liked.  Not exactly scenic but we ran through some pretty old neighborhoods, by some cool churches, through some parks, and through Georgia Tech. 

We did a poor job of running the tangents I guess, and there were 18,000 people in this race so LOTS of weaving.  It was never not congested the whole entire time.  Garmin says we did 13.26 so our average is 9:09 according to that.  So the splits are a little off because of this.

Total Ascent: 2,102 (yep, hilly!)

TT: 2:01:12 (chip time, was about 5 minutes behind the gun)  

Splits:  8:55, 8:50, 8:39, 9:10, 8:44, 8:50, 9:00, 8:50, 8:43, 10:06 (bathroom), 9:50, 9:59, 9:16, 8:48 (.26) 

Ran home from Alyssa's gymnastics place, then an extra lap around the neighborhood. No Garmin since it failed me but mapquest said 4.02 plus the neighborhood loop, so it might be a little less than 4.5. TT: 45:00.  Haven't felt sore at all but my shins protested during the run, and that same tight achilles feeling came back.

Headed to the airport to head back to Seattle.... I wish Leandrea and family would move there already!

A little more than an hour of tennis with J.  I played horrible, I better somehow shape up before my match on Friday.  I did 30 lunges yesterday after my run and I could feel them today!  Big mistake!  

Was supposed to go bike riding with Jordanne but the weather didn't cooperate.  It drizzled to light rained on me the whole time, which didn't feel that bad but I was soaked by the end.  I really hope there's not something wrong with my Garmin, it was dead again when I turned it on even though I just charged it yesterday.  I also forgot to change it back to automatic lap every mile so the splits are weird.

6.25 miles around the neighborhood - 4 laps.  Still felt so sad without Cooper.  Luckily we'll be reunited this weekend!

Splits: 9:41 (3.26), 9:27, 9:38, 9:28

TT:  1:00:04    AP:  9:36

Played an hour and 45 minutes of tennis in my first match since 2007! I won, but I am out of tennis sprinting shape! Plus huge blisters on the bottom of my big toes, a blister on top of a blister! I was exhausted after.

Reunited with Cooper, so took him on a run around the dog park! 4 laps around trail, and a few laps on the barkdust inside the dog park so Cooper could rest or play, which he didn't rest! Don't tell J I took him so far, he made me promise I wouldn't make him do more than 6! :-)

Splits: 10:31, 9:46, 9:43, 9:32, 9:26, 9:21, 9:09, 9:14, 9:18, 9:39 (hillside hill)

TT: 1:35:50    AP: 9:34

Now off to play 9 holes of golf!  Happy Saturday!!

Another hour and 45 minute tennis match, never-ending by tennis standards!  I won, but sure dragged it out, was up 6-1, 5-2 match point and let it drag out to 6-1, 7-5.  I was worried!  I got new tennis shoes yesterday but my toes still felt on fire, and sure enough, the entire skin on my big toe is a blister that is trying to tear off, ughhh.  Guess they are just missing the callouses that need to build back up again? 

I've decided to wait on the marathon training, postponing it from Seattle RnR in June to Portland in October.  Although I'm sure I could keep going and it would be fine, after all the anxiety before the half I don't think it can hurt to give my ankle more recovery time.  Plus I'll have more time for training in the summer and the tennis season will be over by then.  So I'm going to do the Seattle RnR half instead with Chris, the CDA half with Rachael, Hood to Coast, hopefully a sprint triathlon, and then Portland full marathon October 10th.  Still quite a full year of racing!  Guess I have to make up for missing all of 2009. :-)

Weekly Summary: Mon-off, Tues-4.5, Wed-tennis, Thurs-6.25, Fri-tennis, Sat-10, Sun-tennis

Weekly Total Miles: 20.75

This week's plan is run Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and since I'm not going to be upping mileage for awhile, I really want to focus on adding in a tempo or speed workout each week. I also want to make sure to get a bike workout in at least once a week.  Too much tennis this week, not enough bike!

6 miles on the TM.  Even I, the ultimate loather of the TM, could not force myself out into that pouring rain and crazy wind today.  Last night the winds were CRAZY, the power went out and of course Cooper kept us up all night with his weird anxiety and fear of wind.  

1st mile 5.5 (10:54), Miles 2-4 6.0 (10:00), then alternated .1 at 7.0 (8:34) with .1 at 6.0 (10:00), did this 10 times.  It is really amazing how fast 8:34 feels on the TM, I was sweating buckets by the end.  Took pretty much an hour even.  

Ran 6.22 miles at BPA trail with Anya, strong headwind and the hills felt rough today, my right hamstring was still feeling tight today, must be from sprinting around playing tennis on Sunday.  Did 2 extra laps around Celebration park at the end, and kicked it up a notch in the 6th mile when a bum talked to me (talked to himself?!) and I tried to maintain it afterwards. :-)  Don't worry, have my trusty mace!  Rain held off until the very end.  

Splits: 9:38, 9:36, 9:53, 9:38, 9:20, 8:36

TT: 58:46   AP: 9:27

Was starving and ate way too much dinner and now I want to throw up!  Whoops.  :-)  Now time for a little more work and then LOST!

One hour on the bike trainer.  Lots and lots of class schedule issues today (first week of the quarter), ugh, I hope they get worked out.