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August, 2009:

Training Goals: 8/31 – 9/5

Aug 31st, 2009
by gazelle.
7 comments

Can you believe that it’s the last day of August? CRAZY!

First, as always, the recap from last week. Honestly, people, it’s not that great. I feel like I’ve been really inconsistent this month. I definitely racked up the hours (new monthly workout hour record), but haven’t been hitting a lot of my planned stuff. Some of that is school. Some of that is sheer laziness.

Recap: 8/17 – 8/23

Monday: swimming lessons, PT exercises (squats, lunges, band pull thingies, hopscotch), foam roll & ice – I did my swim lessons + an ab workout, and I iced. I totally forgot about the PT exercises when I got home. Partial success.

Tuesday: five easy miles in the morning, easy bike in the evening, foam roll & ice – I overslept, did five hilly miles in the afternoon. And I did ice. Partial success.

Wednesday: bike to work, possible post-work swim, PT exercises (wall squats, hamstring bridges, reverse lunges, hopping drill), foam roll & ice – I did bike to work. And I did my PT exercises AND iced. Very nearly a great success.

Thursday: rest/yoga day, foam roll & ice – I totally rested! And iced! Did not go to yoga, nor did I foam roll.

Friday: trail run – 6-8 miles, depending on leg; swim, foam roll & ice – I did run – but only 2 miles. I did not swim (this is a school related skip, my final project for my class was due Friday). I did ice! Partial success.

Saturday: long bike (which, at this point, will likely be about 20 miles), PT exercises (one-legged squats, lunges, clock exercises, the stupid jumpy thing), foam roll & ice -  The only thing I did on the list today was ice. (But yay for me, right? I iced EVERY DAY last week. Some credit, right?). I have no real excuse. I was really tired Saturday morning, and just didn’t feel like doing anything. So I didn’t. (I mean, I gardened. And made 4 quarts of marinara, but no exercise).

Sunday: long run (15-17 miles), foam roll & ice – COMPLETE SUCCESS! I ran 15 miles. I iced! I foam rolled! I am a rock star!

This week: 8/31 – 9/5

Monday: swimming lessons, abs, PT exercises, ice

Tuesday: track workout (maybe – thoughts? I feel MOST better in the knee/groin, should I do an easy 5-6 instead? or 400 repeats, which is what I have on the schedule. I love track workouts. Would love some advice), foam roll, ice.

Wednesday: bike to work. (20ish miles round trip); PT, ice.

Thursday: bike to work; swim, probably after work. Not sure yet. Ice.

Friday: 18 miles in the AM. foam roll. ice.

Saturday: rest day, or whatever day.Also – PT! and ice!

Sunday: 5-6 mile run, depending on motivation. foam roll. ice.

Continue with my icing every night; PT exercises 3x (or at least more than once); foam rolling after every run, vitamins, moderate drinking goals….

Confidence Restored

Aug 30th, 2009
by gazelle.
2 comments

Today was my 2nd 15 miler of my marathon training – although in the original schedule, it was supposed to be my first 20. Funny how you’re forced to be flexible.

I did a 15 on July 26. Total time was 2:59:25 (avg pace 11:58). You know, a bit slow, but it was 1 million degrees.

Then, three weeks ago on August 8, I did a 16 miler. Total time was 3:06:24 (avg page 11:39). Better – it was cooler – but still not really where I wanted to be pace-wise for my long runs (I’d like to be around 10:45 for those – or 30 seconds slower than my planned marathon pace).

Two days after my 16 miler, I did my last track workout, and just today downloaded the stats for that:

5 miles total, 52 minutes, 10:32 pace.

Warmup, 1 mile, 11:23

3×10 pushups; 1/4 mile (2:34, 10:23 pace)
30 crunches; 1/4 mile (2:41, 10:45 pace)
3×10 tricep dips; 1/4 mile (2:39, 10:41 pace)
3×10 incline pushups; 1/4 mile (2:50, 11:17 pace)

800#1 – 4:11 (8:23)
recovery 1/4 mile – 3:08 (12:35)
800#2 – 4:12 (8:23)
recovery #2 – 3:01 (11:48)
800#3 – 3:57 (8:

Cooldown, 1 mile – 11:37

Technically, I was going for five 800s, but felt NOT RIGHT after the 3rd one, so I went home. And then, of course, it turned out that I’d tweaked my knee & pulled a muscle.

My run last weekend was a slow 10. And my great 5 on Tuesday was followed by a crappy (but fast) 2 on Friday.

I wasn’t sure what to expect today.

I certainly wasn’t expecting the fantastic run that happened!

JM & I started out ahead of E & the Ambitious One, and right away I could tell it was going to be awesome. I could also tell every time we started going faster than 10 minute miles – that’s when I could feel my knee.

We hit the turnaround at mile 7.5 (love trails that have the mileage marked) sooner than seemed possible, and although we did end up with a couple of pitstops along the way, our overall pace was pretty good. I didn’t have Leo programmed to do auto-splits at the mile markers, but the fancy graph my Garmin software makes shows us super consistant at the 10 minute mile mark.

When we hit 13 miles at about 2:13, we both had 1/2 marathon PRs!

The overall run was 2:36:27 – in other words, almost 25 full minutes faster than our last 15 miler (which also had many untimed walk breaks, and some hallucinations). I feel great, too. No knee pain. No groin pain. I mean, I’m tired, but I feel SO GOOD!

Final pace: 10:25, and if I’d had to, I could’ve gone further – which is exactly how I like to feel after a run. I only have two more long runs before my marathon taper starts – 18 miles on Friday and 20 the weekend after. Then I’m down to 13 & 10 & then I think there’s a 26.2 scheduled.

For the first time in three weeks, I’m feeling pretty good about my ability to not only cross the finish line, but cross it & feel good about it, too!

And, to top off that great, great run, we headed to brunch at Cricket Cafe, where the four of us met up with Jen (who’d run to the cafe) for the best bloody marys in town (so far) and a great brunch. You know it’s a lot of food when a bunch of runners needed to go boxes after (well, not me – although I did leave some of the eggs).

One Long Week

Aug 27th, 2009
by gazelle.
7 comments

*Existential crisis. Feel free to ‘mark as read.’*

This is the last week of my 2nd class in my graduate school program – and the last week of my first quarter as a graduate student. I will have a two-week vacation before quarter 2 starts. I feel like I should go somewhere for summer vacation, like back in the old days, except that I have this pesky JOB and a huge project (and three smaller ones) due before I leave for my mini-vacation to Milwaukee to run a marathon.

The marathon & related travel fall, incidentally, smack-dab in the middle of my next class – a four-week writing intensive that all published reviews agree is super-intense, better suited to a 7-week course, a lot of good information, and oh, yeah, did we mention intense?

I knew grad school was not going to be easy. I am not stupid. I did not, however, correctly gauge the sheer intensity of a long series of short courses – courses which are taken one at a time because otherwise the students’ heads would implode. Courses that are short, but still cram in the same amount of information you’d expect from a 3-credit course that actually lasts an entire quarter.

And did I mention that mid-way through my first class, they completely jettisoned the classroom part of my program, so now it’s 100% online. Which is not what I wanted. If that’s what I’d wanted, I would’ve gone with a different program that I was very interested in, and decided not to pursue, due to the 80% online-ness of it all.

So now I am kind of kicking myself. I mean, this is a good program, from a good university, but it isn’t exactly what I’d wanted. And the one reason I chose it over the other program was the classroom experience. But now I’m 1 quarter in, with resulting student loans & $$ output, and I find out that the only thing that made it superior to the rejected program has now left the building (ha!). (In all honesty, the other reason it was selected was because I felt a lot more certain of getting in to this program than the other.)

At this point, I could still drop out, with 1 quarter under my belt, cancel my registration for the upcoming quarter, and submit application materials to the other program in the next couple months & maybe start over in the other program (if I’m accepted) next fall.

I’m probably not going to do that. I’m probably going to continue on in this program, get my Master’s, and then after a couple months of no school, start looking at PhD programs that will take me a little closer to my eventual career goals. Or maybe not. I will finish this program February 10, 2012 – 14 days shy of my 35th birthday. I hope to, by that time, be completely debt free (minus school loans, duh, and probably the mortgage). The architect will be wildly successful by then, probably running his own firm & hanging out with famous architectophile Brad Pitt.

And I’ll be…..done with school.

Probably running.

Likely training for a triathlon.

And beyond that? Who knows.

Do any of you know, like really really know where you’ll be in 2.5 years? In 5? In 10?

Do you really know what you want to be when you grow up?

Conceivably, is there a job out there that I will LOVE? I mean, I like my current job okay, and I don’t dread coming to work, but are there people who really, really look forward to going to work? Even the architect, while I’m sure he really, really looks forward to going to work again as soon as possible (please, someone, hire him – he’s brilliant), once the job gets back into it, I bet he’ll reminisce about the days of yore when he would get up at 7:15 to make me coffee & then go back to bed for an hour or two before getting up to work on the yard, or play video games, or go for a long bike ride.

ACK!

*End crisis.*

In other news, yesterday I rode my bike to (9.6 miles) and from (10.75 miles) work with my fancy bike shoes, and I did not fall down even once! Go me! In other news, if you ever ding one of your stupid little bike bells at me again, chances are high that I will chase you down, run a stick into your spokes, rip that damn bell off your bike & shove it vewy wuffly up your ass. Consider yourself warned, bell-ringing cyclists!

Ahem.

Not that the bells bother me.

The Good, the Bad & the Fun!

Aug 26th, 2009
by gazelle.
11 comments

The good – I ran a great 5 miles last night. It was super fantastic. I felt strong, had no leg/knee pain (just some initial stiffness). I did my 5 mile Terwilliger loop (i.e. hills) and finished in 57 minutes (I feel okay with an 11:26 pace on those hills – I know I was much faster on the flats/downs of course).

The bad – in addition to my bike getting stolen yesterday, when I got back to work after my run, I found out that my hallway gets locked at 6:30 PM. I got back at 6:32 PM. I had a key to my office but not my passcard to the hallway (I used to run with it, but it got sweaty). I finally found a friendly janitor who let me in, so I finally got my stuff & got to go home.

The fun – BREW REVIEW!  WOO!  So – This Friday, August 28, we will be having QUITE the crew showing up at the Lucky Lab Beer Hall (1945 NW Quimby). The architect & I will plan to show up shortly after four to try to snag some spots for the giant group!

Tonight is going to be a super intense homework night. This is the last week of my 2nd class, and I have my final project due Friday. Tomorrow night is not going to be a good homework night, so I have today & Friday pre-beer to hammer it out. So – wish me luck! (I will also be doing my PT exercises tonight during breaks from the writing.)

VIOLATED!

Aug 25th, 2009
by gazelle.
18 comments

I was going to do a heart-warming post today about how I learned a new swimming stroke and have been good about icing, then invite your castigation for skipping my PT exercises last night & having a beer instead, and then skipped my morning run because it was DARK, but I have more important news.

My bike, my beloved Trixie, has been kidnapped.

We think it happened sometime this morning while the architect was driving me to work. Which means they were WATCHING us.

The bike was (unfortunately) living on my front porch, although she was chained to the porch itself. She had spent some time in the castle, and had spiders and ick in her. Although I was willing to ride her, I was not yet willing to bring her inside where she could spread her cooties to the other bikes. She was quarantined, due to my mild aversion to spiders.

Her lock was cut through & abandoned, and Trixie and the super expensive saddle have disappeared.

On the advice of my kick-ass neighbors, I am watching Craigslist like a hawk. And angry, angry hawk.

The worst part of all of this? Besides the anger-eating that led to TWO cookies? Neither the architect nor I can find any pictures of Trixie. I have pics of my road bike, but none of my beloved Trixie. How did that happen? Maybe she felt unloved and ran away! I never bought her special pedals, or took her to races, and I did leave her in the castle for almost two years.

So sad.

Here is a picture of a close personal relative of Trixie’s – the 2005 Trek 3700. (found the pic on a stolen bike site – awesome, right?)

Again, at the suggestion of my kick-ass neighbors, I may need this shirt.

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