April 20-26 Runs

[Urlea]

Meshing the busy work schedule with a busy training schedule is difficult. Getting up at 5am to run actually worked out well this morning, feels like I have a lot more hours in my day.

Decent run, warm weather & nice company. I only went 5miles as I am starting to taper for the marathon. Trying to still maintain some HIM training while tapering is a trick. So far so good. My left hamstring has been tight most of this week, not sure why, but it has happened before. Thinking I just need to baby my muscles a little bit & make sure I am stretching.

Great job getting out there & running so far this week ladies! Keep it up!

[yellow]

My running has been a little "off" this week, but this made me feel better. And then I started to watch a bunch of the other ones from Running Superfans.

Looking like rain for tomorrow. I'm not running the trail mary (portion) if it's raining!

[Urlea]

LOL! I love those! Somebody on twitter tipped me off to them last week, I laughed so hard.

[Susan Otcenas]

Meshing the busy work schedule with a busy training schedule is difficult. Getting up at 5am to run actually worked out well this morning, feels like I have a lot more hours in my day.

Yup! That's why I get up so dang early and do my workouts. It's the only way I can get more hours in the day!

4.4 miles this morning. After a few weeks of a warming trend, it was back to 33 degrees again this morning. Had to whip out the warmer tights and run tuke.

The last couple of weeks I've been dragging Jeff out of bed so he can go do some early morning run/walk workouts on his own. (That man is NOT a morning person ) He has some knee issues so he generally tries to take it easy. He ran 40 minutes without a break this morning. I was so proud of him! But also a little jealous. It took me nearly 3 months of effort, 3 days a week, to work up to running that long. And his legs are sooooo long that he covers much more distance in that time period that I can. *sigh*

I watched the final of the women's Boston marathon. I was struck by the height (and leg length) difference between the two gals who finisihed first & second. What this tells me is that I need to suck it up and not use my stubby little legs as an excuse, eh?

Susan

[michelem]

Another whacky-weather day here in N. CA! So, early last week it was in the 50's and low 60's, then bang! it was 80. Then, it got up to 96 on Wednesday this week! Yesterday it was 75. Today, woke up to rain. It cleared, got up to about 70, but quite windy. Well, I had my heart set on a run after work, so I went anyway! I headed over to the river trail and started out at about 70 with wind gusts at around 25mph. The wind was in my face THE WHOLE WAY, out and back! I kept telling myself that when I turned around at the dam to head back I’d have the wind at my back! HAH! It didn’t work that way. Maybe it was a cross-wind. Whatever. It felt like I was running in slo-mo. But, I made it the whole approx. 6.5 miles, hills included (and there were plenty) in under an hour. Not great, but not horrible considering I’ve been concentrating on P90X and not running. Saw a coyote, lots of wild turkeys, and a few geese as well. The dark clouds were rolling back in as I got back, so I’m thinking perhaps more rain tonight. We’ll see. I think we are safely out of the heat wave for now!

Wishing you all a Happy Weekend!

[OakLeaf]

Hills. Wind. Heat. Three days with no cardio. 6.25 miles, easy, just to let my legs start to remember what hills feel like. Think I'll slack off the speedwork for a couple of weeks while I get reacquainted with elevation change. Ack.

[Urlea]

Kudos to those of you running in the wind & warmer temps this week. That is tough!!! It has been windy here as well, but it was a warm wind so I really shouldn't complain.

This morning however, was a different story. No wind thankfully, but no warmth. I was back to wearing tights, beanie, gloves & fleece jacket. I along with many running the Fargo Marathon still have no idea what gear we are going to be able to wear, but Lord knows we've gotten the opportunity to try every possible outfit at least once since the temps have been fluctuating between 30-80 degrees.

Unfortunately my marathon training program ended a week short, it somehow had me running my next Sunday, but it isn't for another 13 days so I called up Maggy my running buddy (it's awesome to have a running buddy now) and found out what time the marathon training group was leaving from the LRS & how far they were going.

Ran a very pleasant 13miles with them @ at 10:45 pace today. Felt great. I had to take my first unallocated rest day in three months yesterday to give my legs a break. Did me a world of good, I got home from running wishing I could have gone farther. But I'll be doing that soon enough, for now I'm trying to obey the taper. Argh.

I don't know about all of you, but I'm getting excited to read some more race reports! It's getting to be that season.

Happy running this weekend ladies!

[yellow]

Urlea, when is your marathon? For some reason I was thinking it's at the end of May, but if you're tapering, it must be sooner. Tapering...good times.

I didn't do the trail race yesterday because I exercised poor judgment and actually believed the weather forecast. It didn't rain much (although the trail was muddy), so it would have been a good day to go out and run with others. Instead I sulked and grumbled but went to Crossfit, which made me feel better. And I decided to try to get in the 22-miler today, and woke up to rain/snow. Nice. So off to the dreadmill I went. But while I was at the gym it cleared enough to entice me to finish my run on the trail, so I'm happy to report that I did not run 22 miles on the dreadmill (only 14 ). The other 8 were on a muddy trail. I saw 2 Lewis' woodpeckers, which are a sure sign of spring. The mule's ears are starting to bloom, too.

Took my first ice bath of the season. I love ice baths.

Mileage was lower than it should have been this week. And the coming week will be challenging as well since we're going on a mountain bike adventure in Fruita, CO next weekend. There won't be any running there!

[Urlea]

Yellow- The Fargo Marathon is May 9th! Which is coming pretty quick & I'm getting very excited! Been excited for a while actually.

I don't know how you can stand ice baths. I tried one yesterday and it was no fun. Then again maybe I would enjoy it more if I hadn't spent the last 2hrs running in 30 degree temps, but still. Yikes.

Have fun biking in Fruita! Lots of ppl looking forward to that from what I've heard.

[SadieKate]

I saw 2 Lewis' woodpeckers, which are a sure sign of spring.

Hey, us too! They hung out in the yard a long time (looked like a little flirting was going on), even used the groundfeeder and checked out the woodpecker house. That would be way cool if they moved in.

[Susan Otcenas]

Morning everyone! Hope you all had a great weekend of running.

Once again, I pushed my long run from Sunday to Monday. I'm thinking that I need to re-organize my run schedule so that the long run happens mid-week. The reality is that I always have a long, hard bike ride on the weekend, usually on Saturday. I think moving my long run to mid-week would give me time to recover, and balance my efforts a little better.

Instead of running yesterday, I went to swim class, then spent the afternoon shoveling dirt in my front yard.

This morning's run was 7.25 miles. I really struggled with it - felt very tired from the get-go. At mile 3, I walked for 3 minutes, sucked down a 2nd Gu, and drank some water. That sustained me for the rest of the run, though I was very tired by the end.

What went wrong? Well, I went to bed a little hungry, so it's not surprising that I was low on energy when I woke up. I also think the yardwork took more out of me than I'd like to admit (I moved a huge pile of dirt!). And I also think I'm feeling the accumulated effects of not enough sleep. I'm an 8 hour a night kind of gal, and I've not gotten that much in the past week or so.

My first tri of the season is May 9th - a week from Saturday! (and the same day as Urlea's marathon.) I'm going to take it easy for the next 10 days, especially the run training, which I think wears me down more than anything else I do. I'm hoping to start the tri feeling very fresh.

Susan