Twin Cities 10 Mile Recovery Week

Week of October 2-8

Monday Planned: Rest
Monday Actual: Rest

Tuesday Planned: Rest
Tuesday Actual: Rest

Wednesday Planned: 3-4 Miles Recovery
Wednesday Actual: 3 Mile recovery run at the group run + some yoga.

Thursday Planned: General Aerobic 5-6 Miles
Thursday Actual: 6 Miles General Aerobic. Legs felt REALLY good. 



Friday Planned: 3-4 Miles recovery 
Friday Actual: 4 Mile recovery run for coffee!! Followed by an epsom salt bath before work.

Saturday Planned: 7 miles with 8x100 strides.
Saturday Actual: Unplanned rest day. I was exhausted and had to teach yoga, so I took another rest day. It's recovery week, after all! I did a 60 minute float at Escape Float Spa. Heaven.

Sunday Planned: 9 mile long run
Sunday Actual: I was starting to feel a cold or crud coming on, so I opted to not fully run long and take it easy for just another day. I forget that I'm usually broken after a race, and then I get sick. So with not getting injured, my body is just feeling run down.

Total Mileage Planned: 30 miles (ish, I wasn't fully committed to running any miles this week, just a  rough guide)
Total Mileage Actual: 13.1 miles

Weekly Reads (Listens): Sourdough

Sourdough is the newest book by Robin Sloan, author of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore (my review here). I had the physical book and audiobook on hold at the library and the audio came in first. I thought I'd ditch it if I didn't love the narrator, but I immediately felt like I was listening to a movie playing out in my car. Yesssssss. It was quirky and awesome, and splashed with little bits of oddities and technology, and I just devoured it. Mmmm...... like a nice slice of sourdough bread..... <--see what I did there.

My rating: 4.5 stars

Summary from Goodreads:

Lois Clary is a software engineer at General Dexterity, a San Francisco robotics company with world-changing ambitions. She codes all day and collapses at night, her human contact limited to the two brothers who run the neighborhood hole-in-the-wall from which she orders dinner every evening. Then, disaster! Visa issues. The brothers close up shop, and fast. But they have one last delivery for Lois: their culture, the sourdough starter used to bake their bread. She must keep it alive, they tell her—feed it daily, play it music, and learn to bake with it.

Lois is no baker, but she could use a roommate, even if it is a needy colony of microorganisms. Soon, not only is she eating her own homemade bread, she’s providing loaves daily to the General Dexterity cafeteria. The company chef urges her to take her product to the farmer’s market, and a whole new world opens up.

When Lois comes before the jury that decides who sells what at Bay Area markets, she encounters a close-knit club with no appetite for new members. But then, an alternative emerges: a secret market that aims to fuse food and technology. But who are these people, exactly? 

Twin Cities Race Weekend

Friday around lunch time, Toni was off work so I went to pick her up and head to the cities! A pre-road trip car wash and selfie felt necessary at the time.

The drive there felt like it flew by. I think we had two bathroom stops, and we were there. Whoa. We arrived at our hotel and received this visual reminder of just how close we were to the finish line. yessssssss!!

Our hotel has a shuttle to take you within a few miles of the hotel for food/shopping/whatever, but we opted to walk to dinner since we'd spent a few hours in the car. On the way to our dinner destination, I found FALL!.

St. Paul is so adorable, I can't even handle it. I was starving, so I only let myself stop every once in awhile for photos.

We tried to eat at the Red Cow, but they were at an hour wait. Kyle and I ate there after the Monster Dash Half and it was GOOD. We wondered up the road, and The Happy Gnome had immediate seating, but only outdoors, on their super adorable patio, on a gorgeous fall night. Uh.... yes.

Toni and I couldn't decide on our meals, so like good travel partners, we split two: a burger and a veggie/cheesy melty sandwich. So freaking good.

Also, a beer, obviously. 

Saturday morning, we woke up fairly early to head out on our shake out run. The plan was to run 3 miles, ending at a coffee/breakfast place near our hotel and walk back after eating and retrieving breakfast. Except I somehow picked a breakfast place in a hotel, and we had to walk quite a ways to find a caribou. Just what you want the day before your race: unplanned time on your feet. Oops!

We headed back to our hotel and headed out to the expo. We were about a third of a mile from the expo so we walked there as well. Despite bringing all the monies to spend at the race expo, I walked out having only purchased GUs (several toasted marshmallow), and a TCM pint glass. There were some really cute things at Mill City Running but nothing in my size. Bummer.

We stayed close to the expo for lunch and had a decent meal.

Then we headed back to the hotel for some r&r, including a nap. Traveling with Toni is my favorite. Mid-day nap? Yes please. 

When we woke up, it was time to head to dinner. I love that this race weekend was all about food and running, because those are two of my favorite things! We took a ride this time, to Pizza Luce and again split a couple of pizzas. I still have dreams about this mashed potato pizza. It tastes like happiness.

After the race, I grabbed a beer, we showered up and headed back outside into the rain to cheer on all of our running friends!! Such a great race weekend, and I can't wait for next year when it's our turn to tackle 26.2! eeps!

September in Review

Total Miles:   124.4 miles down from 140.7 miles last month. 53.8 miles last September.

Total Time:  21:20:46 down from 24:45:18. Average pace dropped from 10:34 to 10:18! Whoop!

Total Runs: 24 runs, an average of 5.18 miles/run.

Highest weekly mileage: 

9/4/2017 – 9/10/2017:	43.1 mi	7:21:29	10:15 / mi

Favorite run: 8 miles with 2x1200, 2x1000, 1x800 @ 3k-5k pace at the track with Toni. Fastest paces I've ever ran for this workout. Hard but doable--our current endurance speedwork motto!

Most hardcore run: 8 miles with 5x1200. Uff da.

Favorite Race: Sioux Falls Half Marathon, even though it was less a race and more a long run with a medal.

Bike Miles: 0 miles.

Favorite Jam: After the coffee run before we took of for the Twin Cities weekend, I fired up an old school jam for us to enjoy while we took our free 'spresso shots. LOL.

Twin Cities 10 Training Week 12

Week of September 25-October 1

Monday Planned: Race pace + speed 7 miles 4x100, 2 miles @ 10k pace
Monday Actual: Unplanned rest day. We were celebrating our anniversary in the evening, and I could not make myself get out of bed to do the run. My stomach was super upset all night. Oops. oh well. 

Tuesday Planned: Recovery 3 miles 
Tuesday Actual: Another rest day. I had every intention of doing Monday's run Tuesday morning, and it just didn't happen. Oh well.

Wednesday Planned: General Aerobic 4 miles  
Wednesday Actual: General Aerobic 3.5 miles with the group run aka with Toni. Chris joined us toward the end. I didn't look at the pace at all but it ended up SPEEDY.

Thursday Planned: POWER + Recovery 5 miles  
Thursday Actual: POWER + General Aerobic 5 miles. For some reason my legs were super tired after POWER, so my glutes (lol my MacBook autocorrected to gluten) weren't firing at all, causing some over striding and IT band discomfort. Barf, not ideal for race week. I finally stopped around mile 4 and did some glute activation leg lifts which helped a lot. Followed by some foam rolling when I got home.


Friday Planned: Rest
Friday Actual: Recovery 3 miles with the coffee run. We kept it super easy and it was awesome to run on a nice chilly morning. The coffee after is always a plus.

Saturday Planned: Recovery 3 Miles 4x100
Saturday Actual: Recovery 3 Miles along the 10k/5k course. All the hills.

Sunday Planned: Twin Cities 10 Mile Race
Sunday Actual: Twin Cities 10 Mile Race, except I suck at tangents so I hit 10.11 miles. Race report to come soon!!

Total Mileage Planned: 32 miles
Total Mileage Actual: 26.4 miles,  which is suspiciously close to a marathon. But like... over 5 days instead of 4-5 hours.

Weekly Reads: Genuine Fraud

Genuine Fraud is the newest book by e. Lockhart. I was counting down the days for this book to come out. I love her books! There are always twists and turns and a big reveal that makes you want to immediately restart the book and read it from start to finish. I finally had the chance to read it non-stop on Thursday and despite knowing I was going to wake up in the 4s for the coffee run, I committed to finishing it! And... I was let down. I still love her, and love her writing, but maybe my expectations were too high?

My rating: 3.5 stars

Summary from Goodreads:

The story of a young woman whose diabolical smarts are her ticket into a charmed life. But how many times can someone reinvent themselves? You be the judge.

Imogen is a runaway heiress, an orphan, a cook, and a cheat.
Jule is a fighter, a social chameleon, and an athlete. 
An intense friendship. A disappearance. A murder, or maybe two. 
A bad romance, or maybe three.
Blunt objects, disguises, blood, and chocolate. The American dream, superheroes, spies, and villains. 
A girl who refuses to give people what they want from her.
A girl who refuses to be the person she once was.

Escape Spa Float

A few weeks ago, I booked an appointment at the Escape Float Spa in town. I've been taking epsom baths pretty religiously for the past year, but I was really excited to try out the pods. I had heard that they were great for sensory deprivation, and working in a public library, sometimes I just need a break from sensory overload (I'm also someone who's incredibly sensitive to sounds/noises, so I thought this would be great!).

I came in a few minutes early to fill out paperwork while setting up at the air bar, which comes with the float experience. Then I got a tour of the facility and a run down of how things would work. 

I had a 60-minute float, and I absolutely loved it. At points I felt like I was floating in space, and it was a pretty trippy experience. I failed to notice the earplugs that were set aside until after I completed my float, so I ended up with water in my ear. I figured it would eventually come out, but after dealing with crackling and an awkward feeling all weekend, Kyle finally poured some water into my ears so I could rinse the salt out. Noted: wear earplugs.

Despite the ear issue, I had a really lovely experience and can't wait to integrate the floats into my training and recovery more regularly! At the library, we end up working a 7 day stretch the week after our weekend to work, and I always notice that my sensory issues flair up with that week without a break. I hope to fit a float in during that week to calm my brain and sanity down a little bit. TBD how that works out!