Slow & Steady Wins the Race :-)

Day #50!  I made it!

Another beautiful blue-skyed, yet freezing, morning!  Lovely run around the neighborhood, 8:20am, frost everywhere, so I ran on the side of the road with the sun as much as possible.  Walk breaks at 4, 7, 8, 9.  Felt the knee at 7 so started doing walk/stretch breaks every mile and stopped doing the hills.  Sprinted for the last .6 or so. 

Entire thing including the walking (total 10.85) was 1:47:22. 

Splits:  10:16, 9:51, 9:53, 9:34, 9:51, 9:42, 9:16, 9:46, 9:19, 8:59, 8:50, 7:54 (.4)

Sadly I skipped Centergy, I need to do my long runs on Saturday!  Then we were off to the dog beach (Cooper had a wonderful time), the famous Red Mill (was in Man vs. Food and #1 burger in Seattle but it was totally overrated, except for the thin mint milkshake which was the best thing I have ever had!) and some bingo (no I did NOT win). 

Great day!  Until now, when my knee is bothering me and making me sad. 

Even though I had the whole day off somehow I only packed in 2.5 miles walking on the TM at the very last minute (aka 9:30pm).  In my defense, I did an hour's worth of yard work earlier in the day (our yard looks awful!), so that should count too!

Tuesdays are SO long.  Early morning class, meeting, conference call, afternoon class, evening class, gym.  Somewhere in there it was snowing outside.  Ridiculous, can it be spring already?  They're saying something about 6 inches later this week, we'll see about that!  

6 miles at the gym track, I guess that means Sunday's run wasn't too damaging to my knee!  :-)  2nd mile was tempo, 4th mile was 1 lap on 1 lap off, both were around 7:53.   Walk lap after each of the fast miles.

45 minutes on the elliptical.  Of the 5 precious TVs at the gym, 3 of them (that's right, THREE) were on that New Adventures of Old Christine show.  REALLY?!?!  Unacceptable.  So I listened to the whole soundtrack of Wicked and pretended I was watching it again.  Love Wicked!  A lot of hype around here about not much snow. 

This was just a torture workout, I don't know why.  Just was not feeling it today, sat in my car in the gym parking lot for like 10 minutes just content to listen to my audio book - I did not want to go inside!  Then I did not want to run, and every lap was so torturous to keep going, I was so bored, so hungry, and just in general not feeling it.  Just one of those days.  I'm somehow shocked I pumped out 5 whole miles.  Did lunges, squats, plank, push-ups after 1 and 3.  Later walked 2 miles on the TM while watching some terrible TV I'm nice enough not to subject my husband to!  

In other news I made a delicious new crockpot dish: chicken breasts, black beans, carrots, and a few red potatoes - cover in salsa and cook all day. Serve over spinach with a little new salsa.  Delish.  

10 minutes on the stairclimber (that thing is dangerous! I almost fell a few times!), weights (the bane of my existence), 5 minutes on the elliptical.  Quick and to the point workout. 

The good first: 11 miles around the neighborhood.  BRRRR.  25 degrees probably, I don't know how people who live in actual cold climates do it.  I did some work this morning to try and wait out a warm-up but it didn't come.  I was wearing 2 pairs of pants, 2 long-sleeve shirts and a fleece, ear wrap, and gloves.  Pretty ridiculous.  Took the fleece pants and fleece top off at 4 (water too).  My knee needs to freaking suck it up and get over itself so today I only allowed walk breaks when I absolutely needed it which was at 6 and 9.  

TT: 1:45:07   AP: 9:33

Splits: 10:14, 9:53, 9:50, 9:18, 9:29, 9:19, 9:27, 9:19, 9:12, 9:43 (the almost hit by a car mile), 9:21

The bad:  At mile 10 I was literally about 6 inches from being taken out from a car, which really shook me up.  I am very proud of myself for practicing my deep breathing and not just totally bursting into tears.  This lady had plenty of time to see me, she had a stop sign, I kept looking at her waiting for her to make eye contact with me that she saw me but she was just looking to the left for oncoming cars and never once looked straight ahead or to the right.  When I finally realized that she wasn't going to see me EVER I screamed my head off and tried to bolt across the street.  I think the screaming got her attention and somehow her front left bumper missed my left knee by about 6 inches (as if my left knee doesn't have enough problems going on as it is).  She stopped and had that horrified expression on her face and rolled down her window and said she was sorry, but what can you say to that?  Oh its okay you almost killed me, maybe you should stop at stop signs and look where you're going next time?!?!  I walked for a bit and almost just went home but I knew if I went home I would start bawling telling the story to Justin and I really wanted to get in 11 so I finished up.  Yesterday a car backed into my car in the neighborhood and cracked the whole bumper (luckily he was nice and left a note, and this is a much much MUCH more forgivable offense than almost killing me) so overall I'm a little annoyed with the drivers in my neighborhood.  I stay in our neighborhood so it will be low-traffic and quiet!  Green minivan lady, you are on my list.

(Lisa if you are reading this ignore EVERYTHING I wrote, our neighborhood is fantastic and you should buy that house and move here!!!!!)

Update - two hour marathon tennis match later (which I sadly lost 7-6, 7-5, SO CLOSE!).  I am going to be hurting big time tomorrow.