San Antonio Trip Part 2 AKA Austin St. Patrick's Day

Friday we made our way to Austin to celebrate St. Patrick's Day.

I've heard that Austin is pretty crazy, but add St. Patrick's day and SXSW into the mix and whoa. In small town news, the first person I talked to while I was there, his mother lived in Sioux Falls. Small world, immediately.

While we were in Austin we spent some time at a bar just people watching.

And then we realized we needed to get some food if we were going to sustain our pace. We found a great Mexican place, and I'm fairly certain that I ate my weight in chips, queso and guacamole. If I were to eat one meal for the rest of my life it would be chips + queso + guac. <3

After dinner, Kyle's boss was ready to leave, so we made our way back to SA. We spent more time getting to and from Austin that we did there! But I think we made it out of town before it got even weirder!

We spent some time dancing and sweating profusely at some bars in San Antonio before heading to bed. I think it's safe to say, that will be the wildest St. Patty's day we'll have for a few years.

St. Patty's Day = No 20 Miler

After Wednesday night's super-fantastic-most-awesome-run-ever, I kind of fell off the planet.  Let's blame my favorite holiday*, please?  Righty-o, glad we got that figured out.  I had planned a rest day for Thursday because I knew I would be celebrating my Irishness.  I had taken a vacation day from work on Friday and had big plans to complete 20 miler #1 of MARATHON TRAINING in the afternoon.  Um... this.... was a terrible idea.  I was borderline d.e.a.d.  The only way 20 miles was going to happen is if some super buff braaaaaahs picked up my couch and hoofed it the distance.  Apparently that wasn't going to happen... lame sauce.

Then I had big plans Saturday morning to do the 20 miles.  But I still didn't feel very dapper, plus my bfff was in town, so clearly pedicures were more important than long runs (*cough* No spend March fail *cough*.  Natch.  Then a softball fundraiser was in the cards.  By the time that was done the winds were so strong that I probably could've jumped straight in the air and landed 20 miles away.  Which would be awesome, and run would be complete!  Except I'd be stuck 20 miles from home.  No bueno.

Sunday it was on.  Except it wasn't.  I went from 20 miles to 10.  When I started the run my legs felt like junk (I'm still blaming you, multiple Guinness'.....I would like to think the plural is Guinnessi much like Nimbusi, even though I know it's not ) so I decided I would go on the trail until it was flooded and then I could turn around.  Somehow this led to...welp... I'm at 1/2 of a mile, time to go home.  Yes, I ran one mile.  I spend approximately 4x as long getting ready for a run as I did actually running.

But on the bright side, KK and I started watching (or in my case, rewatching) LOST, so I'm happy to have that obession back in to my life.

After 4 days of no running (plus, the after effects of the full SUPERmoon, I swear I'm a werewolf, or at the very least tres moody when there's a full moon), I was ready to kill someone after work on Monday.  All I wanted to do was run.  Somehow it became cold here again, and the wind chill was a B, but I had a nice little 6 mile jaunt.  And for the record, the bike trails are flooded.... just east of minnesota, for those peeps who care.  Sad day.

And now for fun St. Patty's Day pics!

bag pipes. natch.

ignore all the light peering in through the windows.... it's night time, I swear.

*Someone remind me next spring to create my training program with St. Patrick's Day in mind.  This year = major fail.

A Week's Worth...Again

I was on such a roll with my excessive posts last week, one might have thought I was b-a-c-k.  And then I fell off the wagon, this week.  Almost quite literally, as I'm blaming my lack of posts on my Irishness and needing to celebrate it in full force um... most of the week.

Monday I was loving the fact that it was still light out at 6pm when I hit the trails for my run.  However, I was not loving the extreme flooding of my bike trail.  Talk about rerouting my run.  Looking at my route on Garmin Connect looks somewhat like a Family Circus cartoon.
I did my 6 miles in 56:48 for a pace of 9:28.

Tuesday I had myself sliiiiightly freaked out about my run.  Given that my 1600 m intervals were so horribly hard for my first cycle of HM training, that I omitted them from my second cycle of HM training.  Uh.  Yikes.  I had 7 miles total, one mile warm up and cool down, 2 x 1600 @ 7:57 with 800 meter jogs after each mile.  Instead I did a 2 mile warm up, intervals, and 1 mile cool down.  The last thing I want to do after running hard and fast is run slooooooooow for a long time.  No thanks.

I hit up the gym in shorts and a barely there running top, again to minimize sweatage, and was ready to go.  The run went awesome.  It was definitely just as tough as I expected, but I think I was a little mentally tougher than the last time I attempted.  I know what my body is capable of, so I'm not as willing to let myself "quit."  I did give myself .1 of each 1/2 mile to walk after each 1600 which I think helped tremendously.  I think next time I would only do .05.  I was pretty recovered by the end of each 1/2 mile jog/recovery.

I did 7 miles in 1:05:44 for a pace of 9:24.  My interval pace was 7:51.

You'd best believe I left that treadmill a soaking sweaty mess.  So sorry gym. :(

Wednesday was conveniently my rest day and my favorite holiday ever ST. PATRICK'S DAY!!  Not to be confused with MARATHON TRAINING!!!!  I somehow convinced myself to get up out of bed early to do some yoga for runners podcast which focused a lot on loosening up my oh so tight hippies.  Let me tell you how not flexible I am first thing in the morning, the day after speed work.  Answer:  Not flexible.  It did feel good to start the day somewhat loosened up.

As soon as I was off work it was out on the town with some friends.  I've really become a bit of a homebody since I started training.  I'm either hanging out with the boy, visiting the boy, running, or eating.  Doesn't leave much time for boozin' it up with the compadres.  I think we made up for it on ST. PATRICK'S DAY!! Don't you worry. :)

By the Luck 'o the Irish, I felt 100% fine Thursday morning (not working til 11am didn't hurt) a fact I bragged about throughout most of the day.  Until I got to the gym.  Holy crap, my body did not want to run.  That's what you get for celebrating your little heart out I guess.  After the first mile my legs and lungs did loosen up, but you can tell my lungs were NOT pleased with the 2nd hand smoke they had to inhale.  I felt like it was the first mile I had ever run in my life.  [P.S.  Please remind me to never quit running so I don't have to feel that horrible chest pain EVER.]

I managed to eek out 5.75 of my 6 miles before the gym closed in 54:18 for a pace of 9:27.

Tonight is going to be spent attempting my culinary hand at homemade margherita pizza to inhale as fuel for 20 miles tomorrow.  EEEEEEEEEEK!  20 #1, you're about to be my B!

Best of luck to Heather and Glenn as they take on their own marathons this weekend.  Make Jerbear proud kiddos. :p