Tuesday Newsday – 4/2 – The Last Two Weeks

April 2, 2013April 2, 2013 / racingthestates / 1 Comment

So, I was on spring break this last week, and I decided to take a spring break from well, everything, except for extra-curricular activities! SO this update is the last two weeks together.

Training has been going well. Now that the midweek runs are getting longer, I’m having to split them up almost daily. Except over spring break, I got to wait ’til after work and run my runs altogether. It was lovely.

Week 9:

Monday: Rest Day. I didn’t even do my kick boxing class at work because I was studying for my final.

Tuesday: 4 miles. 1 accomplish at the gym. I did not feel well AND I had forgotten my I-pod. The dreadmill is torture enough; without an I-pod, it’s brutal. I did, however, get to do a 45 min kettlebell workout in school. One of our instructors led it, and I do have to say, the women did way better than the men! 😉

Wednesday: Pushed my 4 miles to today. I did 1 mile at the gym, which was not going well again. I’m thinking I’m just getting god awfully tired of running on the treadmill. When I got home, I finished the 3 remaining miles around my house, nice and easy. I did discover that my slow pace is my old fast pace, and that, my friends, is a wonderful feeling.

Thursday: 7 miles. I did 6 total. 3 at work and 3 at home. After school… I was officially on SPRING BREAK!!!!!!!!!!! I started off my break by enjoying wine and cheese with my wonderful friends.

Friday: Usually a rest day, but I did the 4 miles I needed to do at home, after work. It’s nice not having to go to a second job!

Saturday: SNOWBOARDING!

Bitter cold day! But it’s snowboarding, so, the bitter cold is negligible.

Sunday: Half. I’m not sure if most of you realize how crazy the weather is in CO, but that previous Friday, we got a random, horrible snow storm, which was why snowboarding was bitter cold. However, I still needed to get in a half marathon distance run. I decided to brave the cold. I chose to run the lake loop around my house, just in case I did get too cold and needed to escape. I brought my water bottle and tucked it in a snow bank along the lake. Every time I passed, I was able to get some water (the sidewalk path loop is about 2.5 miles). This was the first time I was doing a run on ice/below freezing conditions. And actually, it wasn’t that bad…at least when the sun was out. I was dressed warmly, and I was doing great. The only issue was that snow and ice kept building up and sticking in the groves in my shoes. Then the evil clouds rolled it. THEN it got bitter cold. I only made it 3 loops and I decided I needed to run home. With the to and from, my total run was a little over 9 miles. Not too much below the intended run, but not 13. Oh well.

Total Miles for Week 9 of Marathon Training: 24 miles

Week 10: Officially halfway done with training!

Monday: Rest. Finally, I got to do kickboxing again! Love it! My co-worker, the kick boxing instructor, is excellent! I also, FINALLY, got to go climbing with Shay from /skin/ /ˈpōətrē/. I hadn’t been climbing in a long time and really enjoyed it, although I got tired pretty fast. I also came pretty close to peeing my pants when using the auto-belay device for the first time! Not sure what I’m talking about? Check it out here. The gym we went to is the Boulder Rock Club gym. That facility is very nice! I’m considering applying there when I’m a trainer. In addition to the massive amount of climbing space, there is an actual lifting/cardio gym in addition to class rooms for yoga and other group fitness. Sounds like a fantastic place to me!

Tuesday: 4 miles. I’m telling you, I’m getter super tired of running on the treadmill. I only lasted for a mile at work. I had to complete the remaining 3 at home when I got off. For this day of spring break, I enjoyed dinner and a movie with my friend Amanda.

Wednesday: 8 miles. I completed about 7.2 miles on the trail system near my house.

Thursday: 4 miles. I only completed 2 miles as I only had time for this on my lunch. BUT, I didn’t do it on the treadmill, I stepped out my gym’s doors and found a trail. Now I know how to get to it!

Friday: Rest day…but since I only did two the previous day, I took a 3 mile run between a facility gym visit and date night. : )

Saturday: Rest day….it involved beer. Lots and lots of beer. Carb loading, right? It was actually quite fun. It involved a pub crawl with bands at each bar. Music + beer + a gentlemen = good time.

Sunday: 17 miles. Complete. Done and done. I felt fantastic on this run! I just made sure to take it easy to avoid injuries (this is about the time during last training program that I became injured). Other than a tiny bit of stiffness, I felt great afterwards, and even the following day. I’ve really been trying to be proactive when it comes to stretching/foam rolling, so I took a few minutes before my run to foam roll my hamstrings because those are my most over-active muscles. Once I returned from my run, I replenished my electrolytes with gatorade and my glucogen stores with a protein-meal bar, foamed rolled and static stretched.

Then was time for Easter dinner up in Longmont at my mom’s house. Oh AND SEASON FINALE OF WALKING DEAD!! Now, I have to wait until fall for it.

Total Miles for Week 10 of Marathon Training: 30 Miles

Tuesday Newsday 10/30

October 30, 2012 / racingthestates / 12 Comments

So, I don’t know how to explain this….I feel like a complete idiot. And frankly, I don’t even want to put this in my blog, but I have to.

Here it goes: I’ve been behind in marathon training by about 3 weeks. I have no idea how it happened, it just did. I must’ve counted wrong way back in the beginning when I picked my starting day and never checked it. I just assumed I counted right, and went on my merry way. I think I must’ve been counting only 16 weeks back instead of for the 18 week training program I selected.

Don’t make fun of me TOO much.

SO, here, I thought I was on week 10, but as I was looking at the calendar I noticed that November starts this week, which at first I was like, WOW only a month away from my marathon…..

…But then I started realizing…if I was only a month away, I should be doing my 20 miler soon….and that’s not right, I just did a 15 miler a couple weeks ago…..

Sure enough, I counted, re-counted, and triple counted about 500 times and I started out horribly wrong.

In actualality, I am SUPPOSED to be on week 13 of my training. UGH.

Am I allowed to blame this oversight on my level of stress from work, the GRE and life???

So, needless to say, I was feeling pretty down…and I was contemplating giving up. Here’s where I need all of YOUR help! Has anyone else done this, or am I the only silly one? What would you guys do? Give up? Aim for another marathon?? I really want to do this one…but I’m scared I physically wont be able to.

This is where I’m at running wise last week, based on where I thought I was:

Monday: Rest day. I did rest; this day was leftover-feeling-sick day anyway.

Tuesday: 4 miles. Complete.

Wednesday: 7 miles – not compete..12 hour shift at work

Thursday: 4 miles – not complete…12 hour shift at work..AGAIN. And I don’t run at night, by myself. My neighbor isn’t the best for alone running at night…. Hint, hint: I need a running buddy.

Friday: Rest day, but I did 4 miles. Yes, I ran actually.

Saturday: rest day.

Sunday: Was SUPPOSED to be a 17-miler…but when I got home, and put on all my running stuff, I was checking my calendar and that’s when the realization hit me that I was completely behind. So, It crossed my mind that maybe I should just do the 19 miler that I was due for if I had counted right. But by the time I figured out what was going on, I ran out of daylight, and frankly, I don’t want to right in the dark, by myself. I’m scared to. So, I ran 4 miles instead.

Feeling pretty defeated and down about it all, I ended up getting Monday off from work as well (mostly to study) but I decided to challenge myself and see how far I could run.

That brings us to yesterday: Monday, I ran 16.5 miles (I walked the remaining half mile back home, so technically I did 17 miles, if you want to count that) but I hurt my foot pretty bad. AHHH! I literally was crying part of the way home. The top of my right foot was killing me! I’m so worried that it might be a stress fracture….so I took some anti-inflammatories, and iced it, hoping for the best. So, now, on top of being behind on my training schedule, my foot was hurting.

I woke up today, not as sore as I thought I would be from the actual run, and my foot doesn’t hurt to walk on at all…but then again, yesterday it didn’t either…only when I was physically running.

Here’s my idea about training, assuming my foot is un-injured: Pick up from where I’m supposed to be..if I started correctly. That means this weekend I would attempt a 19 miler, then the 20 miler the following week, and then taper….

So…HELP! Give me some motivation…or advise…what would you guys do??? Should I just continue training from where I’m supposed to be??

Lastly, the GRE is tomorrow…and I’m extremely nervous for it…but afterwards….I’ll be dressing up like this again:

Sexy Zombie??

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!! Stay safe, and eat lots of candy….Oh, come on, you’re all runners! You can afford to eat a piece or two…or 10!

Tuesday Newsday – 10/2 and 10/9

October 9, 2012October 10, 2012 / racingthestates / 5 Comments

OOOoooooooooo…… Just in case you hadn’t noticed…it’s October. Which means I’m definitely in scary movie mode; I queued up my Netflix to send me a bunch of creepy movies this whole month…and you know what that means….Full on ZOMBIE MODE! I’m still working on costume ideas; Zombie Cinderella topping the list. Anyway, here’s how training’s been going.

Monday (rest): I do believe I did rest this day, minus the long day on my feet at work.

Tuesday (3 miles): I did do three miles exactly. It was a nice, refreshing run in the rain. I hadn’t had a good rain run in forever! It was very relaxing!

Wednesday (6 miles): I got to sleep in, enjoyed a nice pumpkin spice latte at Starbucks and then I had a very enjoyable 6 mile trail run on my normal Green Mountain Trails.

Thursday (3 miles): Worst. Day. Ever. Well, maybe not ever, but it was a pretty bad day. I believe I did get my run in to try to de-stress from the bad day.

Friday (rest): I actually ran 4 miles with my dog. We needed some quality time together, so we went for sunset run.

Pretty, huh?

Saturday (rest): Drove to South Dakota!

Sunday (12 miles): Crazy Horse Half Marathon! BOOM!

The next week was not as good, running wise, at least, I don’t feel like it was:

Monday (rest): yep, yep

Tuesday (4 miles): I ran so strong this day! I wasn’t that sore and I just got all energetic, still “high” from my PR over the weekend, and bolted out the door!

Wednesday (7 miles): Oh damn. Well, I ran 5 miles straight through, then ran/walked the rest of the way home. I was not feeling it. At all. I also discovered that there is a trail through Denver that is biking/boarding/roller skating on one side of the creek, and running/walking on the other. Let’s just say, I learned the hard way. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll probably run it again, it was very pretty but I will make sure to get on the “right” side of the river.

Thursday (4 miles): I honestly can’t remember if I ran this day. Well, there’s no workout in my Map My Run app, so I’m guessing: None.

Friday (rest): Oh that’s right! I said I would run the next day. I ran 3 miles this cold morning. It snowed. Snow this early in the season means were going to have a good boarding season, right???!!!!

Saturday (rest): Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work we go.

Sunday (14 miles): EEEEEKKK. I only did 7 miles, and not consecutively. I did, however, run a race. I did Race for the Cure for my 13th year. The course goes right by my house. It’s only a 5k, so I ran to the start (in below freezing weather and BEFORE the sun came up), registered for the race, ran the 3.2 miles of the race, and ran/walked back to my house. This week, I WILL get back on track. That is a promise to you and myself!

Running for the Shirt

March 13, 2012February 6, 2016 / racingthestates / 10 Comments

Have you have heard the phrase, “running for the shirt”? A lot of people say it. It makes me wonder why a lot of people run races. I think about it the most when I run Race for The Cure in Denver. I’ve been running that race for years, and now it seems to be everyone is just to say they did……Of course, that’s great that their raising money to fight breast cancer (minus all that Komen foundation controversy…that’s a whole different subject that I’ll probably write about some other day). But, if you run one race a year, can you call yourself a “runner?” Or is doing “the Race for the Cure” just a social event and a ploy to make yourself seem more “cool?”

So, I asked myself: Why do I even run races? I could be a “runner” without ever running in a organized race. I could run everyday…half marathon distances or even the full 26.2…and never run in a race. So why do I run these races? Why did I decide to run a race in every state?

Homer Doesn't Look like he likes running

Here’s what I came up with:

1. Most of the ones I do, the money usually goes to a good cause. I really do try to find races that go to a good cause because I’m not that fast of a runner, and I’m not necessarily trying to win; so why not spend money that is going to help something or someone one out?!

2. Something fun to do with friends or family. I’ve been running the Race for the Cure with my mom since I was probably in middle school. We originally started to run it in memory of a family friend that was diagnosed with breast cancer. As the years went on, we also started to run in celebration of my Grandma and other family friends.

3. The shirt! Well, seriously, it is fun to have all my race shirts. My favorite is my Tough Mudder shirt because not many girls have done that one; I like to wear that shirt to the gym…It makes me feel badass. ; ) Plus, in the future, I might cut them up and make a quilt of my race shirts.

4. Bragging rights! ‘Nough said.

5. Cool metals. I’ve only ran in one race so far that had medals. The Horsetooth half had a medal that featured the outline of the extremely hilly altitude changes.

6. Accomplishments. I guess like bragging rights, but more on a personal level. I don’t have to share with the world to feel accomplished.

7. Easy to see goals. Its nice to be able to set a date, The Horsetooth half is on April 22nd, and it gives you something to look forward to and motivation to keep running.

8. Along with setting goals, training for the races helps me stay fit in general – And I like the way I look! lol

9. And lastly, I run/race so that when the Zombie Apocalypse does happen, I’ll be able to out run everyone and the zombies to survive!!

These are some of the reason I, personally, run. What are some reasons you guys run/race??

***Side note: I signed up for my race in New Mexico. I will be doing the Run for the Zoo on May 5th. If you live in the Albuquerque area, let me know! Maybe we can run together or meet up. I also Registered for another Colorado Race: The Color Run on May 26th. This one looks really fun!***