New shoes...new shoes.... Jerbear's got some new shoes...

Did you guys ever sing the new shoes song in grade school?  Apparently my classmates did in kindergarten (I didn't move to the town I graduated from until 4th grade) but we still would jokingly sing the song every.single.time someone was sporting some new kicks to school/gym/games/etc.

While I was out sick with the ninja death star flu, I had a package delivered to work.  Because I live in an apartment, I tend to have everything shipped there.  The receptionist who received the package is from a different part of my agency, so I don't work very close with her so she doesn't know me very well, yet when I walked in the office after being sick, she handed me the package and said, "I didn't bother calling you because I figured it was just more running shoes."  Hahah.  Awesome.  And she was right.

Not only that but they are the exact same running shoes I'm currently sporting.  After Vegas, I had a minor running shoe snafu.  I had a pair of Mizuno Wave Rider 14s (I'm currently wearing the 13s) sent to me with a pretty swell discount (Thanks LC!) except that the shoes felt like bricks on my feet and were huge!  Of course we didn't have the shoes yet in our town, so I couldn't try another pair on to see if I just had a wonky pair or what.  Finally weeks later we got the shoes in and I realized that the shoe I had was normal and it just ran big.  And the next half size down was too small.  And both shoes felt like bricks.

No biggie, thinks my brain, I'll just find some of the 13s to tide me over.  Except..... THERE WEREN'T ANY!!!!  SWEET MOTHER OF JESUS!!!!!!!  Panic attack grand freak out would be an understatement.  First I was being picky about the color selection.  Purple and gold?  Eew.  I'd rather run on glass shards barefoot (sorry Vikings fans.... wait.... no I'm not! :p)  Blue?  Already had those.  Red... meh.  But then I quickly realized that there were zero size 8s left on the entire planet.

Luckily since I'm a super internet sleuth, I did manage to track some down from a company I had never heard of.  They were super cheap, and I got free shipping on them.  Score!  They still feel a bit rock like compared to my nice broken in pair, but they'll get the (long run) job done.  I feel a little sad retiring the blood soaked pair because they make me feel like a super b.a. so I'm still wearing them for muddy runs. :)

I was really trying to show off how much of the tread I had worn down over the last 400+ miles, but my photography skills leave something to be desired.  Ho hum.

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Saturday I had a 16 mile LR on deck for training for Fargooooooooo.  Based on the current weather 1 degree, wind chill 10-15 below, I opted for the treadmill.  Not to mention that our city has been a solid sheet of ice all week long and it's snowed Friday and Saturday to hide the slippery ice.  Sooooo not cool, weather.  ::shaking my fist in disgust and outrage::

Let's just say I had zero motivation to head out for my long run.  Someone woke me up by tearing my sleepmask off my face (someone else = Jerbear was furious about this FYI).  Then someone was kicked out and told to come back after I had garnered the rest of my beauty sleep.  So procrastination #1 of the day:  naptime immediately following wake up time.  From there I ate 1/3 of a bag of soft batch cookies, watched Real Housewives of Miami, Top Chef, gave myself a manicure, and created a new long run playlist.  Finally I had nothing left to procrastinate with other than cleaning (and you know that isn't happening) so I got crack-a-lackin' for my run.  "Oooh!  I want to measure how long my hair is!!"  Guess I wasn't out of things to procrastinate with.... (16 inches in case you were curious.)

Don't act like you're not impressed.  That's WITH my haircut from last week.  P.S.  Check out my manicure.  :)

Upon arriving to the gym, I was stoked to see that Tom was knocking down some mileage on the treadmill.  Yayzies!  Tom is one of my running buddies (we've only really ran together once on accident, but he runs, and he's my buddy soooooo running buddy... yup).  I plopped down on the treadmill with him and chatted away 3 miles.  As soon as he was done (after knocking out a monster 14 miles on the treadmill, heck ya!) I realized my stomach was feeling.... wonky.  I preceded to stop the run about every mile from there.  I drank some water, thinking that might help (I was sweating buckets).  I ate some sharkies thinking that might help.  I decreased the incline on the treadmill.  Finally after 6 miles I called it good.

I got in my car and I was pretty defeated.  There's a sense of pride in finishing a super long long run, and I was bummed that I had given up on it (although not without multiple attempts).  When I glanced down at my dashboard at a stop sign I perked up a bit.  This is super cheesy, but it reminded me that a botched long run is not the end of the world and to focus on the big picture:  26.2.  [cue cheesy inspirational music a la Full House]

Check out the Studly Runner Marcia's Zensah bra giveaway here!

Long Run Fail + T Swift Makes me Swift

Saturday morning I had my first 20 mile long run on the schedule.  I procrastinated as long as humanly possible (which was fine because I was content to wait for it to "warm up" outside) and finally set out.  I was going to do a ~4ish mile route on some hills before hitting the bike trail for an out and back 8.  I started running and immediately my stomach was mad.  My stomach is almost always mad, so I didn't think much of it.  I assumed that it would chill out within a mile or so.  Nope.  Two miles in and I was trying to focus on my breathing to keep from accidentally puking on the side of the road.  Well this is neat.  I was looking at my garmin approximately every .25 miles and thinking that at least 5 miles should've passed in that time. My pace was slow but felt like I was working my butt off.  Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Run.  Just call me Alexander.  ;)  By the time I got back to my place at 4.15 miles I called in quits.  I decided that I'd rather do a hungover run after Halloween than deal with the "I'm on the verge of puking train" for another 16 miles.

Now looking back this was a seriously delusional idea.  I rarely go out anymore, so my poor body cannot handle crazy nights out on the town, thus causing my body to take ions to recover.  The bar we ended up at on Saturday was extra smokey, and I think that caused my body to revolt.  I was seriously soooooo sick on Sunday.  I had to nap during halftime of the Packers game, and spent a majority of the day in the horizontal position.  Needless to say that 20 miles was not happening.

But the good news is that Halloween was super duper fun.  I exclaimed, "oh my god!  I looooooove HALLOWEEN!!!!!!" no less than 72 times on Saturday.  Seriously what a great holiday.  I love people watching and checking out some seriously clever costumes.  The best pick up line of the night (if I was keeping track, which I guess I was apparently):  Now I know why Amelia Earhart crashed her plane...... I think it was those booty shorts.  I almost died laughing.  Well played sir....well played.  And while no one gets to see a Jerbear booty this year,a tame version is just as well.  And yes I had to cut my friends out of this photo because there costumes were slightly on the offensive side.  :/

Monday after having two days off from running I was itching to get in a run.  This week is supposed to be my cut back week, but I decided that last week would be since my week ended up a solid 16 miles short.  (BTW, my mileage for last week was 26.2 miles in 4:00:24.... so random, and if I'm that close to breaking 4 hours in Vegas and don't, I'm going to quit running and become a showgirl.... you heard it here).

So this week I have only easy paced runs with a 20 miler thrown in on Saturday.  I love when your legs are super refreshed and the easy pace is much quicker than normal.  It was the most beautiful day for a run.  It was in the mid 50s (perfect shorts and long sleeves weather Aron!).  My legs felt super springy and everyone out on the trails was in the happiest mood.  Everyone was smiling and waving.  I was grinning like a baffoon and dealing out smiles and waves all over the place.

I spent the first 2.5 miles of the run listening to Taylor Swift's Haunted on repeat.  It was getting a little ridiculous.  I tend to have major obsessive tendencies when it comes to songs.  The last couple of weeks whenever Foo Fighter's Everlong came on I would listen to it at least 3-4 times in a row before I'd move on to something new.  Anyway, T Swift was putting me in the mood and keeping my legs quick, so I went with it.  When I got to the 5.5 mile mark, I decided to put it back on the song, to end with 5/8 miles jammin' out to her.  No more than one time through the song my iPod just shorted out.  I had to start laughing.  Apparently it's had enough.  Noted.  :)

I ended up with 8 miles in 1:13:22 for a pace of 9:11.

Editted to add:  I plugged my iPod in Tuesday morning to give it a quick charge to hold me over for my morning run.  And nada.  No lighting up.  No syncing to my Mac.  Taylor Swift killed my iPod.  Rest in Peace little green. :'(

Long Run Fail

Since I'm heading home this weekend for a wedding and other shenanigans that means long run shuffle-a-roo.  I had originally planned on running it this morning at 4:45am but then I realized that the sun doesn't show it's face until 6:30 and running on the trails for 9 miles in the dark is a bit frightening.  Then I decided I could just handle them after work.  No problem, right?  Tuesday night was beautiful, surely Thursday would be as well, right?  Wrong.

It was in the high 80's with high humidity, causing the heat index to be ~92.  Aaron agreed to run the first 3 with me and then be bike/pit crew for my last 10.  Yay for running buddies!  I slowed my pace down to accommodate for the heat, but didn't take any fluid until 4.5 miles in when I stopped to Gu and drink.  When I got going, I immediately felt light headed/pukey/ready to faint.  I decided just to walk the 1.5 miles home.  Long run fail.  :(

I ended up with 4.7 miles in 46:01.

I still have a 7 mile tempo run scheduled for Sunday night (hopefully post-hangover....yes it'll be one of *those* weekends.  Your good friends only get married once...hopefully.) and debated about doing the 13 instead of that.  I think at this point in my training, I'm confident in my endurance and would benefit more from the tempo work.  Plus I still have a 14 miler and 12 miler left before the Sioux Falls half.

Once we got back to the apartment, I wasn't ready to call it quits completely, so we grabbed Princess Leia and hit the trail for almost 14 miles.  I was out of g-a-s for the last 3-4 miles.  Holy cow.  But biking in the heat is not nearly as brutal as running in it is.  Ick.

And in other obsessive Dear-God-I-Love-my-car-news, I've been marking off "firsts" like most new mothers do with their newborns.  On Tuesday I had my "first" sweaty car ride after my speed work session at the track.  Incidentally, this was also the "first" time I sufficiently stunk up my car (won't be the last.... I'm a stinky/sweaty runner...).  Wednesday marked my "first" time getting and enjoying a starbucks.  This weekend will mark my "first" road trip in my baby.  If I purchase a baby book and try to convert it to a car book, someone please step in.......