favorite running weather

I set out to do a 40 minute tempo run after work and knew I needed to hustle because my boyfriend's softball team was having their first games of the season and I wanted to be there to cheer him on.  Holy run on sentence.  Oh well.  The weather all day was glooooomy.  Raining on and off and just grey and dull.  When I got home from work, I realized it was my favoritest weather to run in.  It was 57-60 degrees and heavy "spitting" or very light misting if that makes more meteorological sense to you.  It's perfection.  Warm, so that the rain is welcomed, but not drenching which with inevitably leave you freezing.  What weather is your fave fave fave to run in?

Unfortunately I was having some severe side-aches (non related to the ab strain previously mentioned, thankfully) immediately starting the run.  Taylor was a sweetheart (seriously I think he gets 7 1/2 awesome boyfriend points for this week already) and brought me my favorite food for lunch:  bagels.  AND he got me a caramel latte on top of that.  Seriously.  sweet.  Extra funny because the receptionist lady at my work place thought he was a delivery boy and looked at him REALLY strangely when he took a drink of my latte while waiting for me to come rescue him.  ANYWAYS.  Back to the point:  I'm lactose intolerant.  So the cream cheese + melted muenster cheese + steamed latte milk = very upset/pissed off stomach for the rest of the day.  I know.  I'm dumb.  I take lactaid pills occasionally, but sometimes I forget, and sometimes I just don't, and sometimes my body is more "tolerant" of dairy and it doesn't matter.  Apparently yesterday was a not so tolerant day.

About .1 miles into my run, I changed it from a tempo run to an easy 3 which was what was slated for today.  I really didn't want to since it's supposed to be insanely windy today, but it was probably best, as I would've been hurting the whole time.  3 miles in 26:07 for a 8:43 pace.  Which is insanely consistent with yesterday's easy 3 mile in 26:02 on a different route.  Yay consistency.  

My splits (not so consistent but eh?):

Mile 1:  9:11

Mile 2:  8:55

Mile 3:  7:59 (holy speedster me)

During the third mile I may have pretended I was doing the final mile of the 1/2 in September and wanted to finish strong.  Oh.  I don't think I've mentioned this.  The bike trail I've been running on is actually the final 3-4 miles of the 1/2 I run every September.  The last .2-.3 actually goes right in front of my place.  I'm thinking of making myself a sign and putting it in my yard for motivation.  Ha.

Last night and this morning I watched Synecdoche New York.  I have been so excited for this movie as it's written and directed by Charlie Kaufman who is one of my favorite:  Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, Adaptation, Being John Malkovich.  It was...weird.  I tend to have to watch his movies a couple of times to really get it, so I'll probably give it another go.  Has anyone else seen it/enjoy really effed up movies?

phone call with a 2 year old

I got a surprise phone call from this cutie last night.  My adorable nephew Harrison.  Yes he is rocking a faux hawk in this picture, and looking darn good doing it.  The little tyke lives down in TX with my bro and sis-in-law so I don't get to see him very often, so he "called me" last night. He gave me an educational lesson about noises different animals make, as well as a loud "touch down!!" Can you tell my bro is a little on the athletic side also?  This kid is going to be a stud.  My brother played football in college and was an amazing basketball player in high school, leading our high school to state championships in football and basketball.  His wife is a stud at volleyball and played a mean game of basketball back in the day too.  Secretly I'm hoping he'll be a runner.  ;)  Speaking of, my sister in law has gotten the running bug a bit over the last year and is contemplating running the Dallas White Rock 1/2 marathon with me in December when I come down to visit.  Well, not with me, per say, but with-with me.  Whatever.  Point:  the phone call made my night and I want to go visit the lil tyke NOW.  The terrible twos are my favorite age.  I'm sure that'll change once I have kids and have to be around a 2 year old non-stop, but they're just super fun when they have actual parents to go home to when I'm exhausted/annoyed by them.

My run was fairly tame, just an easy 3 miler.  I ran a regular 3 mile route to see how the Garmin would ping out the mile times compared to where I had "estimated" them at.  They were actually pretty close which is nice.  I also had an insanely strong finish at the end of the run which felt great.  26:02 for a pace of 8:41.

Mile 1:  8:55

Mile 2:  8:48

Mile 3:  8:17

My new running clothes came in the mail and I am SO EXCITED.  The purple shorts that I was somewhat iffy on ended up being royal blue.  Score one for Jeri.  Well.  They're actually that color that half of the population deems purple and the other half blue.  I tend to fall into that blue half of the world, but as long as I think they're blue, it's great.  The shirt is very on the uh..fitted side, but is still super cute.  I'll just have to make sure everything is toned and tight so there's no ab flab flopping around.  Ha.

I also did my ab workout and reinstated the one hundred push up challenge.  I did week 1 (the middle column) 2 weeks ago.  The third day of the challenge was a struuuuggle, and the website said to do the week again if you were struggling.  So instead I took a week off, and then started back up again.  I was nice enough to repay the favor to the boyfriend and do the push ups while he was doing a course online, but I don't think he enjoyed it nearly as much as I enjoyed watching his.  Maybe it's because I don't have bulging arms and fabulous back muscles (thank God, bulging?  Eew).  Or maybe it was because I was doing them in an oversized shirt and sweats so he couldn't see my sinewy (much better descriptive word for my dream muscles) arms and back flexed into perfection.  Next time.

amazing weekend + intro run with Garmin

I think I may have experienced the most fun weekend.  Ok, that's an overstatement, but it was a darn good time.  Friday night I somehow managed to convince the bf to stay home with me instead of going out to the bars.  We ate subs, went to the park to "play," and then to the cheap theaters to see Push.  Which was super good.  Afterward we came home and made attempt 12 at watching Oceans 13.  I really, REALLY struggle at sitting through movies, so we seriously had stopped and started this movie almost everyday for a week and a half, sloooowly creeping through it.

Most of Saturday post race and Sunday was spent laying in bed watching more movies.  Specifically:  Marley & Me (bawl fest), The Italian Job, Journey to the Center of the Earth, as well as unsuccessful attempts at In Her Shoes & The Number 23.  

Sunday I broke out the new toy for my 6 mile run.  It was 45-ish degrees, but super windy and spitty out.  I think that's an official meteorological term anyway.  I waaay over dressed, managed to sweat through a hoodie (???) but had freezing cold fingers.  Go figure.  Plus I think I spent every other second staring at the screen to see what it would tell me.  Finally I just covered it with my sweatshirt sleeve, because the miles tend to draaaaaag on when you're monitoring them obsessively.  Weird.  I've determined that 6 miles is my least favorite distance.  The last 6 miler I did was awful.  5 miles=awesome.  7 miles=awesome.  6 miles=suckfest.  Remind me never to do a 10k.  

1--9:33

2--9:23

3--9:25

4--9:55

5--9:30

6--9:07

 

After my run I treated myself, and the loverboy to AMAZING french toast with fresh strawberries on top.  I've been dreaming about them all day today.  While I was cooking the boyfriend decided (or maybe I threw down the utensils and gawked completely uninvited) to treat me to a push-up session sans shirt.  Yowza.  Great weekend indeed.

Race Report: Washington Pavilion 5k

Attention South Dakota weather:  Please pick a temperature and stick to it.  Seriously.  This week was beautiful/glorious weather.  Wednesday we had a high of 91 degrees.  That's insanity.  This morning at 9am at the start of the race:  38 degrees (probably 30 with wind chill).  LAME.  There is no reason that the temp should be less than HALF of what it was 3 days ago.  With that off of my chest, I would like to continue on.

This is a race that I've never participated in before.  It's one of the smallest races I've done so far, and officially the first one I've done that didn't have a gun at the start.  They really didn't even give people a chance to shuffle up to the starting line (there was a 10 minute stretching session prior to the event) before yelling out "

On your marks, get set, GO!"  Whoa.  Wait.  What?  I don't even have my headphones in yet!!  Luckily I slipped by some people to work my way towards the front and remembered to start my watch at the mat.  The race started downtown and actually ran through downtown for the first few blocks until we got on to the trail.  After the first block there wasn't much congestion, which was awesome.  I felt like I was flying, but in a good way.  

I had meant to ask a volunteer if the miles were marked, but forgot to do that prior to the race.  Something about knowing or not knowing whether to expect the markers helps me out for some reason.  Fortunately there was a 1/2 mile marker, which was technically the 1 mile turn around point:  3:50.  Holy buckets, you need to slooooow down or you won't make it through the race.  I slowed down just a bit, but really wanted to run right around 8 minute miles.  

Mile 1 marker (aka Mile 2 walk turn around point):  9:07.  WHAT?!?!?  Time to pick up the pace a little I guess.  The middle two miles were on the bike trails, which I love.  We got to run over this adorably quaint bridge, which was probably the highlight of the run.  Unfortunately a little over halfway done I started to feel the onset of the ab pain from the St. Patty's Day 5k.  :(  It started off as a dull ache until we started to have some small rolling hills.  Every decline in the trail caused more and more pain.  I tried to run while stretching my side with my right arm in the air, which helped for a few seconds.  Finally I decided to stop and really stretch it to see if that would help.  I stopped for maybe 5-7 seconds and when I started up again I couldn't tell a difference.  I thought about quitting.  Is it worth it to continue to this race where I will undoubtably do bad and further injure this stupid muscle?

Luckily while I was having all this inner dialogue, the time and distance kept passing by, and I decided I would just run as hard as I could without too much pain.  I ran hard up the inclines because my side didn't hurt and just winced down the downhill parts.  I kept thinking that I had to make it to the final 6 blocks or so because I knew by the race map that the end was all uphill.  I pushed it as hard as I could for the last mile and thought that maybe, just maybe I could PR by a second or two.  At this point I would take it.  On the final stretch I could make out the clock 2x:30 (or some odd seconds) with some yahoo standing in the way of the minutes column.  The loverboy was cheering with a block to go and I just sprinted as hard as I could after I saw him.  I crossed the line, stopped my watch, and immediately bent over to ease the pain.

One of my friends had come to watch and cheer for me and brought her two little boys who came running up and hugged me.  With all the excitement, I forgot to look at my watch!  25:29.  ????!!!!!  YAAAAAAY!  Official time:  25:27.  21 seconds off my best.  :)  =  GARMIN.

Now scroll back up to that picture up there and see who's nestled into the picture in between my shoes.  Hello lova.  Taylor got me a post-race latte and took me to the local running store to get my new love.  Unfortunately they didn't carry the green one that I had my heart set on.  The guy said he would special order it for me and even give me a discount, but it wouldn't be here until Wednesday at the earliest.  :(  I settled for the black, because I've waited for too long as it is for this puppy.  PLUS the dude still gave me a discount.

As far as the ab issue goes....here are my thoughts:  I have another 5k in two weeks and the only time I've had this pain is during the last 5k (6 weeks ago) and during two of my interval workouts over the last 6 weeks.  I think I'm going to swap out my remaining interval workout with a tempo run, and then take the six weeks between my next race and the start of my 1/2 marathon training program off from intervals (just inserting tempo runs for my weekly speed workouts).  But this sucks.  That's the single training run I look forward too because I just wanna go FAST.  Hopefully it'll do the trick though.  If anyone else has any suggestions let me know. 

Let's ignore the horrible facial expression here and instead 

choose to focus on my rippling calve muscle.  Um.  Ya.  

Totally makes up for the I-am-moments-from-death-face.

You can never have too many.....

Running shorts. Seriously. I have a sick, sick obsession. Like many/most/all(?) of you, I am obsessed with Nike Tempo running shorts. Every time I read someone's newest race report, it's almost always accompanied by a photo--outfit complete with nike tempo shorts. And each time I see said photos, I think "ooooooooh. I don't have 'em in that color yet!" Key word: yet. Who do I think I am? Who needs that many pairs of the exact same running shorts? Me. Me. Me. Some people buy designer jeans or shoes, I buy shorts.

Those tricky folks at nike.com sent me an email the other day. You know, those emails that you usually delete before even reading and enticing you to spend your hard earned money. Jerks. But it said "take an additional 20% off already clearanced items." Ooooh. I wonder if they have any shorts! Seriously, first thought. And of course they did.

I don't even like purple. It just fell into the category of "A Color I don't currently Have."

And then I thought to myself, that I only have fall-type racing tops and I should just "look" and see if they "happened" to have any for "cheap." Of course they did. Stupid Nike. So I bought this too. :)

I even justified the shirt purchase by saying to Taylor, "Wow. Look how fast I'll look in this shirt." I'm a fool. But a fool with some sweet new running stuff. :)

Last night I had a 40 minute tempo run. I decided to do it outside, which was a bit of a switch up, as I usually do them on the treadmill so I can monitor/adjust the speed so I know where I'm at. I ran the first mile-ish at about 9:40 and kept that pace, or just slightly faster until 15 minutes in. The next 20 minutes I ran anywhere from 8:10-8:30-a pace that is incalculable (but I imagine to be right around there), the last 10 minutes was probably around 9:30. I had meant to do 15 minutes warm-up, then 10 at a faster pace, and then another 15 slowed down, but once I got in the groove, I didn't want to stop. Plus there was a "serious runner looking guy" that I was on the heels of for about 3/4 of the quicker pace, and I just did not want to give up on passing him. He finished before I passed him, FYI. Which means he quit in my book, which means I won (also in my book).

The weather was ridiculously hot. 85-ish? The warmest I've ran in is 66 thus far, so that was quite a shock to the ol' system. I think I may have panted like a dog when I was done for about 15 minutes. However, apparently my body is not equipped in the same manner as a dog's is, because the panting did nothing to lower my body temp. This morning I woke up and did some yoga before work, and now I have nothing planned except some ab work and push ups until Saturday=race day.



Everyone, please send your speediness my way. It should be a good day!! :) And go on, spill it: How many pairs do you own (or just running shorts in general if you don't worship at the House of Nike Tempo Shorts)? Maybe I'll reveal my answer if it's not as bad in comparison. Ha.

Dear Spring, I Heart You.

Today was the most beautiful day ever.  Well....  It ended up being beautiful after a co-worker and I spent 25 minutes bitching about how the weather report was calling for sun shiny amazingness all week, and we had yet to see it.  It's amazing how much of a difference great weather makes for your runs.  I had an easy 3 miles on the schedule and felt like I was effortless flying.  It was great.  I ran 3.02 miles in 25:45 for an average pace of 8:32/mile.  Definitely not an "easy" pace, but I swear it felt easy.  

Speaking of easy paces, that's something I really struggle with and would appreciate any and all suggestions on:  I struggle with what paces to run my training runs at.  Right now I'm training for a 5K.  My best time was about a month ago of 25:48 (8:19 avg. pace).  I would like to get down to sub 8 minute mile pace.  I will be starting my half marathon training in mid-June.  My best time is 2:07, and am shooting for somewhere in the range of 1:55-2 hours for the one I'm doing in September.  When I try to use the Runners World website for training plans with paces calculated they seem really off.  Anyway, any suggestions on this would be greatly appreciated.  :)

In other exciting news,  I was talking to one of the boyfriend's friend's fiance (follow that all right??) about my training and she offered to help me out with some tweaks to my next training plan and joining me for some of my speed work runs.  I went to college with this chica, and she is amazing.  Nationally ranked in cross country for division 2 and the steeplechase, 3000 m & 5000 m for track.  Seriously I wish I knew some better and more exact stats on her, because this small blurb is not even close to doing her justice, but that would be kind of creepy of me to do that without her knowledge, so I won't.  :)  Obviously she has benefited from some great coaching, and is just naturally a gifted athlete, so I'm super excited to use her expertise.  Plus it'll be nice to have someone else to blab about running too.

A Great Long Run + Snapping Turtle

Well I guess that title kind of gives away the content of this post, eh? Saturday I was a wuss. I didn't run. I had a fast 4 miles planned and just did not want to do it. It was raining and cold and windy. And a friend wanted to get Mexican food. All sources were pointing to no, so I skipped it. I feel bad because it's the first run I've intentionally skipped (meaning I wasn't too deathly ill to complete) since I started up training again in early January. Oh well, the amazing fajitas I ate made me forget my remorse immediately.

Saturday night we went to our indoor football team's game, which was awesome. I don't know why, but I love going to the Storm's games. It doesn't hurt that they're ridiculously good (4 peat nat'l champs I believe) and that we have no real pro representation for local sports. Because we got to the game insanely late, the game was sold out. Luckily for us, there was an Army recruiter there who had a bunch of kids not show up, so we got their tickets fo FREE!. Unfortunately these seats were in the nosebleeds. Meaning row 30 of a 30 row stadium. Hah. You could still see the game really well, but jeri+beer=many trips to the bathroom up and down those stairs. My calves were soooooooooore.

Sunday I had a 6 mile long run scheduled. Well technically it was supposed to be a 7 mile, but because I was sick 2 weeks ago, I didn't run, and last week's sixer was horrendous, so I was giving myself a do over. :) I didn't have any internet access to map out a run, and there was no way in hell I was going to do the horrible, horrible 6 mile route from last week, so I decided I would just jump on the trail and run to a street that would be easy to map out after the run, and go with it.

I'm a super super competitive person, especially with myself, so it was really strange to not have any mile markers to check my splits to see how I was doing, but it was strangely liberating. The first time I looked at my watch was 24 minutes into the run. Usually I'm checking it obsessively. I ended up running 35 minutes in one direction before turning around to come back home, so I knew I was running a lil over 7 miles, and was surprised at how great my legs/lungs/everything felt.

PLUS I saw a snapping turtle next to the river. I was pretty excited, because I've never seen a live snapping turtle before. My dad has caught a couple fishing, but unfortunately, they had "expired" by the time I got to see them. I felt all nature/woodsy girl running by the river. It was great, and an awesome change from running on the sidewalks and having to be overly cautious of getting hit by a car not paying attention. I'm super excited to get my garmin so I can just go on the trails for all (or most) of my runs.

Speaking of the garmin, the countdown is on. As I've said before, if I PR in my next (or next-next) 5k, I'm breaking down and buying one. My race is Saturday. Whoo! Granted this is just a "tune up" race for the one in 2 weeks, I'm still thinking I can PR. So fingers crossed everyone. Also, I just checked the weather for this weekend, and there's a big sunshiny orb on each day EXCEPT Saturday which shows rain, clouds, and lightning. Waaah. Oh well, that'd just make a PR that much sweeter.

I ended up running 7.2 miles in 1:07:06 for a pace of 9:20. Tonight I have a yoga session and some ab work in the works, followed by watching Milk. I'm super excited for it, so I hope it's good.