I'm not crazy...I'm just bored!!

Man oh man, my quads and the TOP of my feet are sore. I've never had the tops of my feet/front of my ankles sore before, so I don't know what I did to do that, but I'm feeling it! So, I decided to deviate a little from my normal routine and take things easy to help recovery and not push and injure myself. 

Did the elliptical for 50 min on L12 4.5 miles (nice and easy...)

Then I decided to do the TM instead of going to FIT class. I love the bosu work, but decided some easy miles would be better than a beat down. 5 miles in 45 min - 9mm AP. Started at a 10mm and just worked my way down as the first mile wore on and did the majority of the run at 8:57 with a little faster finish to get the 5 in within the 45 min time.

Stretched and came home. Now off for a good week's worth of housecleaning - blech!

I did NOT want to get up this morning, I did NOT want to do anything this morning, I just wanted to sleep, sleep and sleep. I'm still tired and have sore muscles from the race and I'm just tired. BUT I knew Sandra would be coming and I was too lazy (and I have my pride too) to go downstairs to get my phone to text her and say I didn't want to run. I think it only took me 15 minutes to put my shoes on. Didn't leave enough time to brush my teeth before running either, which I regretted when I was done! Cottonmouth from running on top of morning mouth is a double disaster! (I hope I'm not the only one who occasionally has to skip teeth brushing before runs to get out the door on time)

Sandra really is getting stronger each run and I'm impressed with how well she is doing! Our AP for the 4.1 miles was 9:40 and the 2 uphill miles were just seconds over 10 which is a wonderful improvement and I think some of it was me sometimes dragging.

I wasn't sure I wanted to do anymore, but figured I need to stop being a pansy and learn how to do active recovery if I'm going to do the slam this year. So, I headed out for 3 more (Lucy's leash was at the neighbor's who watched her for us over the weekend, so she got left at home). When I was at about mile 2 I kept thinking about adding a bit on, but went back and forth. Well, I was still deciding as I ran past the last street to go home so I then figured I'd made my choice. I ended up adding on an extra 1.15 to round out the miles for the morning at 8.25.

AP: 8:57 splits: 9:12, 8:30, 8:52, 9:13, 8:43 (last .15) - I was happy to see that my hill of despair mile (4) was a low 9 pace. I still struggle with hills, but it's nice to see them getting easier and faster.

Came home, changed clothes and brushed my teeth :) then crawled in bed with my warming pillow (AKA my 3 year old son who had crawled into bed just before I left to run). I was SO flippin' cold this morning after my run - I just couldn't get warm! I finally heated up some rice bags and started moving again and finally felt tepid again (I refuse to say warm until it is 80+ outside!).

Got the little warming pillow off to pre-school and went to the church for boot camp. It was another good class, but definitely not as hard as the first one. She had us do a ton of running back and forth in the gym, so I tacked on an extra 1/4 mile for all of that. Plank walking around the perimeter of the gym was definitely my favorite activity today! BLECH!

Now we get to spend the afternoon at the doctors office. My sweet baby boy is 9 months old today...9 months! I can hardly believe it, time goes SO fast...and I'm still SO fat!

Still feeling a little blah, so I decided to start with the elliptical to warm up a bit today (plus I have a new book I wanted to start "The Elegance of the Hedgehog" - good read so far). 30 min @ L12 - 2.7 miles. I then hit the TM for a few easy miles.

Put the incline to my normal ol' 1% and did 8:57 pace. The first three miles seemed SO long and hard (*cha-ching*), but then finally by mile 4 I was feeling better and the muscles were warmed up and feeling good. I can't remember when I started increasing the pace, but I did just a little bit to 8:49 then 8:41. During mile 5 I remembered that Riverton Paul had talked about some of the machines going a negative incline and I figured out I was on one of them. Hmmm, time to play :) So for the last mile I did a negative 1% incline and went to 8:00mm. Then the last .2 I flattened out the TM and finished at a 7:30 pace. It was nice to have a little downhill speed in the workout, and gave some variety when I needed a good brain distraction.

Now back to the house...the endless monotony that is housecleaning.

After my run yesterday was the first time all week I felt decent, so I was excited to get out this morning and run. Sandra is out of town so I went at it by myself - no one to blame but me for a slow pace! I still have issues getting up in the morning and was trying really hard to talk myself out of a run, every excuse in the book. But, I knew I'd feel better when it was done and regret it if I didn't. Only an extra hour of sleep wasn't worth it.

I did my 8 mile loop up and around Herriman with my nice recovery down the monster hill. The best part about this run was feeling decent on the hills (although some of the paces were slow) and then on the way home with about a 1/2 mile to finish uphill I really just got a second wind and the hill felt effortless. I don't know what it was, but it sure was welcome!

AP: 8:59 splits: 9:19, 9:09, 9:31, 8:09, 8:17, 9:14, 9:32, 8:40

Now I'm off to yoga. I think I'm going to run Riverton half on Saturday, but just as a training run. If anyone else is doing a 16ish miler that I could tag along with for free, I'd be open to that too. It's just that most of my 'regulars' have other plans this week. Today is the last day to sign up though, so let me know! I'd much rather save the $40.

Spin class. It was a really good class (a substitute, Debbie) and honestly it was my favorite spin class so far at Lifetime. Then spent time stretching and rolling out some little niggles that are whining at me a little. I was going to run a few, but I figured a day off will help the little aches heal so they don't become big nasty monsters.

Snow, snow go away!!!

Sorry I've been such a slacker with posting this. I've been on the blog, but checking race reports from you crazy ultra runners, speedy 5Kers and out-of-town marathoners. The good thing about the weekend is we FINALLY cleaned out our basement and I think I no longer have any boxes to unpack (yes, I've lived in my house for 5 years- what's it to you?!?) The bad part is we had to rent a dumpster to do it!  Three families went in on the 18 cubic foot dumpster and I think we filled the lion's share, but we certainly did the dumpster proud! So, needless to say I was busy sorting, reminiscing and chucking ALL weekend. 

I didn't really race this. I was feeling dejected because I had no one to run with (that wasn't more than a 30 min drive away, thanks for the offers from many of you!), so I signed up Friday evening and paid for a tempo run. I figured I've never done a tempo run and I could certainly use one for training and a 'race' environment is perfect for me to remember to keep up my pace (the 'racers' around me are good pacers!). 

I was going to try to start with a mile warm-up, but I was lazy and slept in and didn't get there early enough to get it in. It was COLD (I am SO SO sick and tired of COLD AND WIND!) and I just found a few people and chatted a bit before the race. I think it took me about 4 miles to warm up once we were off. My body was just cold and my quads were pretty stiff for the first couple miles. Despite that, I was able to keep up my pace.

About 1.5 miles into the race a group of guys (it was fun, because they were taller so I didn't feel like a giant in the group!) caught up to me and then I heard the 'leader' say "all right guys, we're going a little fast, we can back off now." I jokingly turned and said "Now that we caught the tall blonde, just stick with her for a while." They all laughed and we got to talking and chatting. They wanted to hit a 1:50 straight up, so I became their unofficial pacer - which didn't go so well later down the line. It was fun and they really made the race a good memorable one for me! Good times for sure.

The big hill comes about mile 3-4 and I was ready for it. I think I've run it about 5 million times with the BBK's, and I knew I could push through it. I surged ahead of my pace group and caught Shelly at this point. I couldn't talk to her, due to the hill, and then at the top she had disappeared. I later found out that I again got 'pacing' duties for her and helped her realize she was putting too much into the race and she needed to back off. So helpful, I know :)

I kept in front of my group to the aide station at mile 5 then down the big hill back to the JRP, but heading into the wind I lost it. My legs just fell out from under me and BLAH! This was about mile 7-8ish and my pace group gapped me by about 30ish seconds. I could still see them and kept in mind to catch them, but just didn't have the legs at the time.

I coasted through the turn in Bluffdale and actually started feeling good again just before the S-curve. I could take it and I knew it! Bring it on!!! I ran the tangents on the S curve and I think that really ticked some people off, but isn't that a good thing to do and NOT go the long way around the outside? Anyway, oh well - I got it done and in good fashion. Although I felt like my pace was dropping I was constantly being able to pick off people as they slowed. Only one 'woman in black' stayed a consistent 3-5 seconds in front of me (I passed her once after the s-curve, but she passed me back at the last aide station when I stopped to actually make sure liquid got IN my mouth).

At mile 12 aide station I finally caught my pace group (yeah, the one I was 'leading') as one of them came out of the pop. The group had split and half of them were ahead, but I finally caught the leader who was waiting for the pop guy. They then stayed maybe 10 seconds in front of me helping pull me into the finish. I didn't think I'd picked it up at all at the end, but according to splits I certainly did.

I was pleased to see the clock under 1:50 (this was my MP goal for the tempo run). I knew I was well out of any range of AG prizes, but on my card I was happy to see 24th overall female and 9th in my AG. Not to shabby for a good tempo run!

I had a chocolate milk and grabbed some fruit to take for later then set out with Chad R for a few cool down miles to hit my goal of 16 for the day. We just did a big loop around the park and back on the course. It was a wonderful chat and then we got back just in time for prizes and awards. A HUGE congrats to SO many people who won awards! I didn't get any prizes, but it was fun to watch the awards - plus I knew only my basement was waiting for me :(

Overall, I think it was a successful run. Not that I want to pay to run every weekend, but having people to help keep me going on a tempo run to finish off a 45 mile week isn't too shabby!!

AP: 8:19 (Garmin says 8:21, because I measured the course short at 13.04) splits: 8:25, 8:06, 8:13, 8:41 (the hill!), 8;22, 7:56 (back down), 8:38, 8:32 (I can feel myself losing it!), 8:43, 8:26, 8:25 (wouldn't know this was the S-curve!), 8:19, 7:48, 6:56 (last .04)

I really think my progressive TM runs help me get back into a race and finish strong. At least, this is my reasoning - whether it's true or not is yet to be determined. I'm really proud of the last mile being Half-marathon race pace and having another mile under 8 as well! I know this helped my overall AP be what I wanted it too, but I really just ran the whole thing how I felt and tried to keep a consistent 'comfortably hard' pace. Definitely worth the money (not to mention cute shirt!).