The past week or two has been chaos. I interviewed for, then got a new job so my life has been turned upside down. Of course, I have to admit to a few happy hours to celebrate the change, which lead to less sleep and not wanting to get up in the morning to work out. It's an ugly cycle. The nights I didn't go out, I stewed about what the change would bring and all the worrying. Suffice to say, I have a week under my belt now at the new job and it's time to get back on the road. The half is coming up really soon!
So it's been a while since I've posted. Or run.
I'm sort of wierd about the time to run. I do best first thing in the morning before I've had a diet Coke and much to eat. If I get a shower, likely I won't run either. I will occasionally run in the afternoon after I get off work, but that's only if lunch wasn't too big. You've gotta get through the hangups, right? LOL!
Saturday I didn't run. We had a trail cleanup for our trail running club I organized, then I had a ton of homework to get done. So I did what I had to do. Procrastinated it until Sunday afternoon.
Long story short, I ended up prying myself away from my Accounting studying to go for a run. Damn, it felt great! The last run I'd done was 2 weeks before (but I rode 145 miles on my bike in between), but it wasn't bad. I needed to up the mileage and did by a mile.
The weather was a perfect 73-ish degrees and I planned the route to mostly be a crosswind and the headwind at only the beginning. I'm no dummy. I went to mapmyrun.com and plotted out a 6-ish miler, extending one of my regular 5-mile runs to include a new area.
I purposely left and headed toward the newer part of the route first, so that I would be forced to finish the whole route. I couldn't get to a crossroads and opt out. I had to do the whole thing. I was a little worried that I wouldn't be able to make it.
This time of year is just gorgeous. The leaves are starting to change here and lawns are sprinkled with fun Halloween decorations. Some even play music. Most decorations make me laugh at the creativity or ostentatiousness of it all. It passes the time, and I like that.
It was tough to get in the groove at first; side stitches take over at about a mile or so. But they sort themselves out by the time I hit a major intersection at nearly 3 miles in. I turned the corner and walked for the time it took to get to the next sign, maybe 30-ish seconds. The legs started finally feeling stronger as I pushed up a small incline (I can't even call it a hill). The next thing I knew, I saw the power lines that go down the middle of the final turnoff street and I was thrilled. I hung on with exactly a 10mph pace, which for as little as I've trained, I'll take.
By Monday evening, everything was tightening up and I'm sore. It will get better. Now if I could only catch those Lufkins!
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
10/6 speedwork
Good workout this morning. The plan told me I needed to do 3.5 and that's what I did.
1 m warmup at about 9.5 - 10.0mph.
Alternating 1 min at 7.5 with 1 min recovery. I'd planned to get in 10 reps of this, but only made it to 7. I actually took a 2 min recovery when I finished 5. At least I know where to improve.
Finished the last half-ish mile just recovering at about 6.1mph.
The heart rate definitely got up there. I was probably at about an 8.5-9(in the last few reps) on a 10 point exertion scale. The last two reps, I could feel the breath getting more labored and was more tired.
The next run is Thursday; another 3.5. I might try going back on the trails if it hasn't rained too much. Happy day all.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Five Things Sunday
To heck with alliteration. I hereby deem Five Things Friday, changed to Sunday. Sundays are my play days. The relaxing ones. So for now, we're switching days, m'kay?
It was a great week!
1. Interview. Despite sweating all the way down to my hips (and thankfully not wearing something that showed it), the interview felt pretty darn good. I was receiving good visual feedback from nearly everyone. My former director, Jeffery, was in there too. She has a serious poker face and I had trouble reading her.
2. Success. So it turns out, I didn't need to read her after all. I found out on Tuesday afternoon that I got the job AND a 7% raise to boot! I was happy taking a lateral and would've even taken a small cut, but a freakin' raise?! Yeah baby! I start at the beginning of the next pay period and it can't come soon enough.
3. Happy hour. So it turned into several happy hours. A friend is going through a pretty rough time so a small group of my favorite work chicks went out for a few beers. We laughed all night and even survived a huge thunderstorm that poured overhead. The best part of the night though, was a spontaneous toilet papering event! We hit one of our other co-workers house with three rolls. Turns out, he saw us thorugh his front door and walked away. Yes, alcohol might have been involved. LOL!
4. Another finished class. With finishing a class and passing an opt-out test, I'm now 33.3% through. Still on target to finish next summer.
5. Wonderful friends. I got to spend some quality time with my friend Christi. She's so sweet and smart! My old TWA friends were at a BBQ on Saturday and it was great catching up with them. My closest friend posted a fantastic blog about her inspirations and it made me cry. Good tears though. She's beautiful.
I hope you have a wonderful upcoming week. Look for the good things.
It was a great week!
1. Interview. Despite sweating all the way down to my hips (and thankfully not wearing something that showed it), the interview felt pretty darn good. I was receiving good visual feedback from nearly everyone. My former director, Jeffery, was in there too. She has a serious poker face and I had trouble reading her.
2. Success. So it turns out, I didn't need to read her after all. I found out on Tuesday afternoon that I got the job AND a 7% raise to boot! I was happy taking a lateral and would've even taken a small cut, but a freakin' raise?! Yeah baby! I start at the beginning of the next pay period and it can't come soon enough.
3. Happy hour. So it turned into several happy hours. A friend is going through a pretty rough time so a small group of my favorite work chicks went out for a few beers. We laughed all night and even survived a huge thunderstorm that poured overhead. The best part of the night though, was a spontaneous toilet papering event! We hit one of our other co-workers house with three rolls. Turns out, he saw us thorugh his front door and walked away. Yes, alcohol might have been involved. LOL!
4. Another finished class. With finishing a class and passing an opt-out test, I'm now 33.3% through. Still on target to finish next summer.
5. Wonderful friends. I got to spend some quality time with my friend Christi. She's so sweet and smart! My old TWA friends were at a BBQ on Saturday and it was great catching up with them. My closest friend posted a fantastic blog about her inspirations and it made me cry. Good tears though. She's beautiful.
I hope you have a wonderful upcoming week. Look for the good things.
We Will, We Will Rock You!
What a great run today!
I'm in the 3rd week of training for the Rock-n-Roll Half in Las Vegas in December. Today was my first five miler in a long, long time. I remember when five was an easy run; now it was my "long" run for the week.
I was a tad worried this week wouldn't be as good. I hadn't gotten in any of my regular training runs for this week since I was a little distracted finding out I got a new job (starting soon). My long run from last week was delayed until Monday, so I figured I was way behind.
I plotted out a course on www.mapmyrun.com to make sure what I was planning to do was about 5 miles. Thankfully, it turns out it's 5.25! I'll take it! I grabbed my new iPod stacked with a running playlist and headed out the door.
I've done this route several times before, but always counterclockwise and usually in the dark, early morning hours. I decided to run it the other way to shake things up. About 1/4 mile into it, I got a sharp side stitch and walked for a minute or so before going again. I decided that I'd make it to Morris Blvd before taking a walk break, roughly 2 miles or so away.
Mist and drizzle mixed with sweat as I warmed up. I made it to Morris for the turn and still felt great so I spotted a traffic light and aimed for it, thinking I'd take a quick break then. And after passing that mark without walking, I aimed for the Valley Ridge turn. I swear this route is uphill the whole way. I was going at a nice even pace; the temps were good; and stil felt like I could run forever.
I continued without stopping, then looked up to see the final turn to the house just up ahead. Holy cow, where did the miles go and how the heck did it feel so good still? As I rounded the corner and neared the house, Queen came on with We Are the Champions and I rocked it to the house! What an awesome run.
I'm in the 3rd week of training for the Rock-n-Roll Half in Las Vegas in December. Today was my first five miler in a long, long time. I remember when five was an easy run; now it was my "long" run for the week.
I was a tad worried this week wouldn't be as good. I hadn't gotten in any of my regular training runs for this week since I was a little distracted finding out I got a new job (starting soon). My long run from last week was delayed until Monday, so I figured I was way behind.
I plotted out a course on www.mapmyrun.com to make sure what I was planning to do was about 5 miles. Thankfully, it turns out it's 5.25! I'll take it! I grabbed my new iPod stacked with a running playlist and headed out the door.
I've done this route several times before, but always counterclockwise and usually in the dark, early morning hours. I decided to run it the other way to shake things up. About 1/4 mile into it, I got a sharp side stitch and walked for a minute or so before going again. I decided that I'd make it to Morris Blvd before taking a walk break, roughly 2 miles or so away.
Mist and drizzle mixed with sweat as I warmed up. I made it to Morris for the turn and still felt great so I spotted a traffic light and aimed for it, thinking I'd take a quick break then. And after passing that mark without walking, I aimed for the Valley Ridge turn. I swear this route is uphill the whole way. I was going at a nice even pace; the temps were good; and stil felt like I could run forever.
I continued without stopping, then looked up to see the final turn to the house just up ahead. Holy cow, where did the miles go and how the heck did it feel so good still? As I rounded the corner and neared the house, Queen came on with We Are the Champions and I rocked it to the house! What an awesome run.
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