Mental Toughness W

It seems like we've yet to complete a long run that hasn't been on snowy icy roads. Oh wait, that's because we haven't. The roads/sidewalks/trails have been in varying conditions of #winter for all of February and we've just made the best of it.

During our 12 mile long run, I had the chips stacked against me. First of all, Toni was out of town, so I had to recruit a new running buddy. Secondly, I was teaching yoga in the morning, so I had to make sure that I hydrated and fueled properly so that I could run after it. And third we woke up to surprise snow. What's surprise snow? You might ask. Well that's 2-3 inches of sparkly powdery goodness that was on not a SINGLE G.D. WEATHER FORECAST. Surprise! It snowed.

I remained optimistic as I knew the sun would be out and it would be warm for the run. In fact prior to the surprise snow I had been counting down the hours to my long run because of how perfect the weather looked for the run. Finally I could have a strong long run! Surprise! g.d. it.

We decided to try the bike trail, hoping that it had a chance to melt off by 1pm. We jumped on and it was beautiful. Clear, melted, a little windier than I expected but it felt great. And that lasted for one half mile. And then we encountered the unplowed portion of the bike trail ie: the entire rest of the bike trail save for that singular half mile stretch. We stuck with it for about 3.5 miles, feeling like we were running on the beach in a Baywatch episode, except a lot more clothes and supportive chest gear.

We made a game time decision to deviate from the trail and head to some residential areas. My running buddy energizer bunnied ahead of me, taking us through some insane hills on the east side of town. And after we had hit our 4th one that also was snow covered, I was moments from a temper tantrum. We had a quick powwow and then opted to run toward the center of town to a residential area we were both familiar running in, hoping that at the very least we could run loops around the road.

Now let me remind you of a run a couple of months back when Toni and I were supposed to do speedwork at the track, and it was such a mess that I ran one mile and called it a night. Remember? It was one of my more proud running moments. Well since that point, I have had a bit of a come to Jesus moment with myself, vowing to become a bit of a stronger runner mentally. Taking a breath, a pause, and figuring out a solution before immediately jumping to a reaction. Sometimes my anxiety flares up in this way that it's just easier to quit and be done with it. I HATE that.


We had to run a giant hill to get to the area of town we were going to. And on many many unplowed sidewalks, and through giant frozen melted puddles of water through intersections. But when we got to where we were going, we could finally settle in, figure out some loops and get the run done. It took until mile SEVEN of this long run to actually enjoy running. That's a long damn time to be struggling and suffering. But when I realized this, while still running, I also realized that I had stuck with it and kept going. Which is not something Jeri from a few months ago would've done. And that's some progress to be proud of.

Hair Today...Gone Tomorrow....

Whoa!  The feedback I had on my hair post was intense!  I was partially posting as a joke, but you guys took your jobs very seriously.  Some of my favorite comments:

Seriously you guys had me snort-laughing in an insane way.  I think I'll bookmark the comments from this page for a rainy day when I hate life.  TOO FUNNY!

I should clarify, I regularly refer to my hair as crazy hippie hair, because it is, in fact, crazy hippie hair.  I love that it's long, I love that it's unruly, but don't expect me to bathe in patchouli any time soon.  I've had long hair forever.  I cut it off my junior year of high school, wanting it to look like this.  It didn't.  And it made me look even younger (if at all possible).

Oh hai! Told you I'm an ageless wonder... Real cool to still look like you're 16 at 27...

(Source)

I mean, who didn't want to look like britney!??!?

Then when I was 22 I decided I wanted to cut my hair again.  Because history has taught me nothing, clearly.  I had wanted to donate my hair, and figured that even if the hair looked terrible it'd be ok because at least somone benefitted from the hack job.  Well the stylist talked me out of donating it, don't ask me why.  And shocker, she did a terrible job and I hated it.  Plus I was a bit on the chubby side, so the haircut only accentuated that fact.  :/

Since this terrible haircut I've found a stylist that I love.  Every time I come in to see her she tells me my hair is too long, but that it's still healthy enough to keep it this long.  Really I think she's just afraid I'll cry a thousand tears if I ever let her cut it off.  But after your guys' comments, I'm contemplating the whole donation thing again.  I'm not sure if I can because I've put blonde highlights in my hair, so I'm not sure if she had bleached it to do so, but we may have a short haired jerbear this spring.  :/  My inspiration (and what I had originally wanted with the terrible cut of age 22:

(Source)

I think May would be the perfect time of year to take off the horse mane.  I'd probably drop a few pounds in the process and snag that marathon PR.  Thoughts??  :)

_________________

Thursday night I had my 24509384059834095 sucktastic run through the snow and ice.  Excuse me for a moment while I turn all "Angry Runner" on you.  This winter... has sucked.  I ran outside way more than I have in the past, trying to be less of a sissy lala throwing down miles on the treadmill.  However, in the past two weeks, I have twisted a knee, rolled an ankle twice (same one, previously broken in basketball back in the day), tweaked both knees, and have intense shin splints.  Running outside... is NOT making me a better runner.  If anything it's effing up my joints and potentially my muscles from modifying my stride so much to keep from FACE-PLANTING THE ENTIRE RUN.  

I did 8 miles tonight, and at the 4 mile turn around, I almost let myself walk the 4 remaining miles home. Because, to be honest, my walking pace isn't that much slower than what I am capable of running in these crap.  And the risk of seriously injurying myself while walking has gotta be dramatically lower, right?

And the worst part of it all, is I was talking about next weeks weather with Kyle today, and it's supposed to be in the 50s next week.  Dudes... the 50s!!  AKA the best running weather EVER (=shorts and long sleeve.... love.)  He made the comment that everything will melt away by then so my pretty trails will be clear.  And I was excited, for all of 2 seconds.  Until I realized that with EVERYTHING melting, that just meant that the river that is... oh.... right next to the trails, is going to flood my g.d. running path!!!!!!  Which means that I'll be incapable of running on it YET AGAIN.  

BRB off mapping out long run routes around town, since my beloved trail will be out of commish until at least mid-June.  Oh, and they'll probably start up with the construction then.  GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

OH!  And I'm 98% certain that the part of the trail that the 5 mile and 5k of this weekend's race is on will be ice and frozen snow packed down.  Should make for a delightful racing conditions.  Ever wore yaktrax in a race?  I'm thinking I might have to.  Or do that whole face plant thing again.  YAYZIES.

I took pics of the crap I've been stuck running on, but I'm so ranty now that I don't even want to get my camera to upload them.  Perhaps another day. 

End rant. 

:)

Attracting the Sharks

All week long I've been checking the forecast to see when I could get outside and enjoy a run.  I clearly failed once, but I saw towards the end of the week the forecast was good.  I finally set out for a run in the high 20s.  Heck yes!  Unfortunately the wind was still out and about so it was still pretty chilly.

I started out the run, and before too long something caught my eye in the snow.  I realized it was a little kid chilling in a make shift snow fort.  And to be honest it was a pretty legit snow fort.....dug down deep in the snow, with snow packed up and around the top to fend him from the wind.  And the only reason I thought it was a legit snow fort is I think I made a trillion of them as a little squirt.  And the kid was just sitting there.  Staring up at a tree at a bird.  Nerds of the world unite!  I almost wanted to tell him how cool he was and give him a fist pump, but didn't want to frighten him so I carried on.

While doing my tempo run, I noticed that one of my toenails was digging in to another toe and had mentally reminded myself to chop the talons before my next run.  Sadly I remembered this information a half mile in to my run.  No time to turn back now.  It managed to feel like the toenail was stabbing in to my other poor toe's sensitive skin while also pulling back the nail from the nail bed.  All sorts of fun.  Once I got 2.5 miles in to my run, I turned around and realized I had been running with the wind at my back the whole time.  Let's just say the last 2.5 miles home was not so very awesome.

When I got home I realized that my toe pain was not unfounded.  Uh.... gross.

Bled through my shoe.  Impressive.  No diving near sharks in these shoes.

Back side of the sock.  Icky.

Lost your lunch yet?  Is it weird that I like blood?  :/  Don't answer that.

Bloody toes.  Still no clue where the blood actually came from.

I guess I should put snow shoes on my list to Santa

I should be very VERY thankful that the winter weather held off considerably this year.  Usually we have snow and very cold weather mid-October until late March, hence why I always falls off the running bandwagon mid-October.  Brrrr.  Luckily for us, and probably unluckily for the planet (hey-o Global warming!), winter has just recently appeared.  I had expected I would have to do 60% of my Dallas Half Marathon training in buckets of snow and below zero temps.  It hasn't even been below zero yet and it's December.  That gets an A+ in my books.  So with all that THANKS out of the way, it's time to start complaining.....

I had my last long run of 12 miles on the schedule for this weekend, and had looked at the weather report on Thursday to determine whether it would be nicer on Saturday or Sunday.  Saturday Hi of 28, Sunday Hi of 22 w/snow flurries.  Well, Saturday, you win resoundingly, congrats.  I waited until 1:30 as it was the "warmest" part of the day.  I think it got up to a whopping 27* with a windchill of 18*.  HEAT WAVE, look out.  To be honest, it wasn't actually that bad, except for the portions where the wind was whipping at my face.  Apparently I'm a big ol' wussy when it comes to wind.  It's painful.

I fueled up with a bowl of coffee ice cream with caramel syrup for breakfast (I wish I was kidding, but when you want something, sometimes you just have to have it. :p).  Shortly before the run, I had a banana with some PB.  Of course, THAT would upset my stomach not the ice cream.  Go figure.  :p

The run started off great, and the first 2 miles came in much faster than I had planned.  After last week's long run , I knew I had the confidence mentally to rock Dallas, so I had just planned on taking these 12 easy.  Shortly after the first 2 miles, I realized the rest of the run wasn't going to be nearly as speedy.  The trail was covered in 1-2" of snow.  Well if that won't slow you down, I don't know what will.  Luckily it wasn't slippery under the snow, that would've been unbearable, it was just hard to get good traction.  One highlight of the run, was that I set a new Jeri record for snot rockets blown in a run.  If you follow me on twitter you might have caught me complaining about a new cold setting in.  My nose has been completely plugged up since the end of work yesterday.  Well she was floooooooowing today.  Yikes.  I feel like Hansel and Gretel, except instead of bread crumbs to mark my way, I used boogers.  Sexy.

The last few miles of the run were really nice because the wind was at my back, and the sun finally sneaked out from behind the clouds to warm up my frozey face.  Plus, I knew that once I got 2 miles away from home, I could enjoy snow-free trails again.

I ended the 12 miles in 1:50:08 for a pace of 9:10.  Not as leisurely of a pace as I had planned, but apparently my legs were ready for some speed the last 2 miles.  [Sidenote:  I may or may not try for roughly the same time on my NEXT long run....to give you a glimpse of my race day goals :D]

1. 9:03 
2. 9:05 
3. 9:18 
4. 9:16 
5. 9:26 
6. 9:36 
7. 9:20 
8. 9:21 
9. 9:08 
10: 9:06 
11. 8:53 
12. 8:30


No ice baths for this girl, thankfully.  But when I got done, my ankles were sore from the sliding around on the snow.  So I stopped on my stoop, took off my shoes and socks, and grabbed some handfuls of snow to "ice" my ankles with.  Some may say that's a big "unconventional"I say it's genius and resourceful. :)

My knees were pretty sore throughout the night and on Sunday.  I'm guessing the sliding around probably caused some extra stress to them.  I was having a terrible-rotten-no good-very-bad-day, so I forced myself to head to the gym to sweat off the crabbies.  Since my legs were tired, I opted for an hour bike ride on the stationary bike.  I did some rolling hills at a decent resistance and went 13.65 miles.  My best mph yet.  WHOO!  Plus I got through some health and fitness mags, as well as some trashy celeb gossip mags that were lying around my gym.  I loooove to read them, but refuse to buy them.  And I only let myself read them while working my booty off.  :)

Sweating helped and so did a visit from one of my favorite people in the world.  Of course, his arrival meant I had to watch the end of the Vikings slaughter game, which I giggled and giggled about.  I do still love me some Brett Favre, so I wasn't too upset about it.  Watching some Christmas Vacation was the cherry on top of my SUNDAY (sundae, get it?!?!  muhaha).  Crabby mood, buh bye, see you late in 2010.  :p

Tonight my best guy friend from college is coming to stay with me before his job interview for a job much much closer to meeeeeeeeeee.  Ok, that's not the reason he's applying for the job, obvi, but it's what I'm most excited about.  We were pretty much connected at the hip for 2 years in college.  We're going to hit up the gym and leave our mark in sweat,

Funny story:  His nickname in college was Sweat King, because of his ability to sweat.  I had heard about him and his sweaty ways, and introduced myself to him at a party.
Jeri:  So uh... I hear you're the Sweat King (as he's standing in front of a boxed fan in a 98* basement at a party in early September).
SK:  Uh..yup.
Jeri:  I think I could be your Sweat Queen.  Share the fan please.  :)

And the rest is history.

Anyway, after sweating all over the gym, we're going to head out for some drinks and some foods and cheer on our Packers.  Yes, he's also a GB Packers fan.  A match made in sweaty heaven, I tell you.  Hopefully tomorrow's post will be riddled with fabulous pictures of the Royal Reunion.  Yes.  I went there. :)

I'm sorry, did I lose fall somewhere????

After blogging about my sweet gift from Lacey on Friday, I came home from work to find this:  A dozen WHOOPIE PIES!!!!  Look at them in all there delicious glory.  :)  There are banana, peanut butter, red velvet, maple pie, pumpkin, and oatmeal.  Luckily they are able to be frozen for a year before going bad, otherwise I would be one gorda chica asap.  I looked at the calorie content on them, as I tend to do (although, calories don't ever make me NOT EAT something I want to eat, I like to be conscience of the serving size, etc.)  OMG, these puppies have almost 400 calories per serving.  And guess what?  Each pie has 2 servings.  AHHHHH!!!  If I was anywhere close to Miss Lacey's speed, I would start to think that she's sabotaging my running, but since her marathon pace is my 5k pace, I don't think that's the case.  :)  Thanks for the goodies Lacey.  I will enjoy every delicious calorie-dense bite.  

Look how beautiful this one is.  Mmmmmm.  I threw all of them in my freezer except for the oatmeal one.  I had a good chunk of it for dessert tonight.  Oooooh nom nom nom.  

Saturday morning I woke up to snow on the ground 2-3 inches to be exactly inexact.  I double checked the hourly forecast to see if there was any change for the 2pm race I was supposed to participate in.  There was a change, but not for the better.  The new wind chill was 22 (I only look at the wind chill in the winter, as I think that's a better indicator of the intense cold) with 17 mph winds.  :(  Sniffle.  I was actually really bummed to not be racing, and contemplated at the last minute just doing it.  Then I weighed the possibility of getting injured while trying to push in the cold when my body isn't used to running hard in the cold, so I again decided to opt out.

Instead I headed to the gym for an easy run.  I had planned on doing 2-4 easy miles depending on how long I'd be able to handle the stupid whirring machine known as the treadmill.  I flipped through a magazine while running and listened to a new awesome playlist thanks to some suggestions by Chic Runner and the run completely flew by.  The first time I looked down at my distance I was already at 2 miles and decided just to keep going to 4.  I did 4 miles in 39:07 for a pace of 9:47.

Saturday night I headed out for a night on the town with some pals.  I honestly haven't gone out in town for almost a month.  Uff.  One of the waitresses came by and randomly put a shark hat on my head.  Here's Barry modeling the hat.  Barry is marrying my old roomie Mel this weekend.  Oh man, it'll be a ridiculous weekend folks.

He should probably be a model.  Once the bar closed, we decided to head back to Bryce's (pictured on the left) house to play some Rock Band.  Oh man, and rock we did.  I'm kind of in love with the game (yes I know I'm look 2 years behind, whatever, I've been a faithful Guitar Hero fan).

Sunday I had a long run to take care of.  I was shooting for somewhere between 8-10 miles.  I had told myself that I would start running NO LATER than 5:30pm to ensure that I would be home before 7pm aka dark.  You know when your parents would give you the curfew of "be home before the street lights turn on"?  I was abiding by that.  Except that I didn't.  I walked out of the apartment at 5:50pm and it was SNOWING.  Like ginormo, romantic, magical, give me your hand and let's fall in love snowflakes (my favorite, in case you couldn't tell!).  Turns out big thick wet snowflakes are not the most fun to run in, GO FIGURE!

It was about 30 degrees with 10 mph winds and I swear to God the snow was blowing into my face the entire 9 miles.  Blech.  The first half of the run was pretty swell and I was posting negative splits.  After the halfway point my legs started to feel like lead.  I had decided to fore go wearing running tights under my pants, and definitely regretted that decision the last 4.5 miles.  Then because my stride was so short and choppy, I started to have pains in my knees.  It was probably the worst long run I've ever done.  And of course, the last 2 miles were done in the dark, dark, along the river where it would be super easy to dispose of my body post murder/mutilation.  HAPPY THOUGHTS!  The highlight was seeing a a figure ahead on the trail that appeared to be skipping along the trail.  As the figure got closer, I could tell that they were indeed skipping, and then they stopped and just started walking.  When I got up to them, I realized it was a grown man skipping along the trail.  Hah.  Guess he really loved the snow.  :)

I did 9 miles in 1:25:19 for a pace of 9:29.

1. 9:45 
2. 9:29 
3. 9:25 
4. 9:24 
5. 9:26 
6. 9:35 
7. 9:30 
8. 9:29 
9. 9:12

For the last few miles, I noticed that I was collecting a small snow drift on my chest and hoodie pocket.  I really wanted to document it when I got home, but the picture doesn't really show it off very well.  Oh well, this is how fab I look after a snowy/cold/windy 9 miler.  (Yes, I like green.  Not pictured, a green t-shirt under my hoodie, and green sports bra.  Ha.)

After the run I was staaaarving and wanted to make some 'za.  One of the meals I really enjoyed pre-pescetarianism was taco pizza.  Tonight I wanted to attempt a meatless version.  I basically just used the exact same ingredients minus the taco meat.  Yummyness.  I used a premade pizza crust with refried beans, some crushed up tortilla chips, colby jack cheese, red peppers, tomatoes, and avocados.  On the other side I used marinara sauce, mozzarella cheese, sliced tomatoes, red peppers, mushrooms, and avocados.  SOOOO FREAKIN' GOOD!!!

TIaRT + 57 degrees + Snow

I find the TiarT topic interesting [This week's theme is ... Running Technology Tips.  Calling all Garmin, Nike plus,iPod, iPhone and all other running gadget junkies.   Share your tips for selecting, buying, and using your favorite running toys that also make your running more enjoyable.]

Personally I'm not too "gadgety" when it comes to running.  The reason I feel this way is simply because I do not fall into the Garmin owner category, but when I really thought about it, that's not a true statement.  I love my iPod shuffle.  The battery died on my 3 miler yesterday and it drove me crazy.  Second is my old school $6 green wal-mart watch.  How that battery has lasted almost 5 years is beyond me.  I use gmap-pedometer.com to map out my runs, and runnersworld.com to keep track of my training log.  I used to have it on coolrunning.com like alot of the rest of you have mentioned, but also ditched out when it switched over.  And then there's the treadmill.  I hate it, I love it.  It's nice to have an alternative to freezing cold/icy streets/30+mph winds/etc.  I also enjoy doing my sprint workouts on the treadmill to accurately track my time and distance.  Many of these items will be replaced once I buy my Garmin (hopefully in 2 weeks, if I can PR in my race).  Runners truly are a different breed.  I won't spend more than $20 on a shirt, but will spend $300+ on a watch.  Too funny.

Yesterday after work, I got my booty outside for a run.  It's been a good week and a half because I really struggle with the cold.  When I left work, it was 57 degrees out, so I decided to swap my tempo run with an easy 3 miles.  While I was driving home, I noticed a runner guy in shorts and long sleeves, and decided that should be sufficient for my run.  No sooner than 5 minutes into my run, I see a chick decked out in sweatpants, hoodie, and stocking hat.  Really?  Lady.  It's 57 degrees.  So I had to chuckle for feeling very B.A.

The other interesting part of my run was also during the first mile.  There was a 2 block stretch that still had snow on it.  Like 4-6 inches of snow.  Hello?  Snow, you do realize it's 57 degrees out right, shouldn't you be melting???  But then I realized that I looked like even more of a B.A. running through snow covering my shoes in shorts.  Haha.  At which point I decided to stop being so cocky because I envisioned myself tumbling down the snow filled sidewalk in shorts and no longer looked quite so B.A.  :)  The run itself was good 3.02 miles in 25:59 for 8:37 pace.  Apparently I really struggle at doing "easy" runs outdoors.  I just always want to go fast (for me that is).

Also, is anyone else a Real World/Road Rules Challenge fan?  It made my evening to see a new drama/hookup filled episode.  Oh when will I ever grow up???

It's Beginning to Look A lot Like....Spring??

There have been blizzard warnings across South Dakota for the past week. Fortunately they've all missed my area, except for this weekend. I thought I would snap some pictures as the snow was falling. Since I'm a horrible photographer, you're unable to see the ginormous snowflakes, but that's what I was trying to capture.

Here are some post-snow fall, pre-meltiness. It's the perfect snow to make snowpeople in, so maybe I'll have to convince Taylor to make some with me when he gets bank from the gym.

Because I'm a huge wuss, I went to the gym to get my run in. I did 4 somewhat speedy miles at 34:47. It was an amazing run, and I felt like I could run forever at that pace, which was nice. Afterwards, I biked for 6 miles to keep my legs loose.

Today I was supposed to get in 6, but I've been hacking up a lung since I got out of bed, so I'll be moving my run to tomorrow.

When I moved into my new apartment, my mom gave me my old fish bowl from back home. Yesterday I decided I needed a pet. After deciding between 3 different fish for at least 20 minutes, I decided on this lil guy. I named him Iliza Fishinger, after my favorite comedian. I'm super clever, I know. You don't have to tell me that.

Here he is posing for a picture.