Speedy Two a Day + Weekly Wishlist

This week has been a struggle for me.  I just staretd my taper, but my mileage isn't really cut all that much, which I'm ok with since training has lasted approximately 6 seconds.  Unfortunately, almost all of my miles come this weekend, so I FEEL like I'm tapering like crazy.  Three miles on Monday, tempo run turned 4 mile pause to dry heave on the side of the bike trail.  And when I don't run I don't sleep.  GAH.

Finally Thursday night I set out to make up some of my missed miles from being sicky.  Since 6 of the missed miles were supposed to be at tempo, I decided to do a fast 3 for run #1.  Ok, technically I was going to do a one mile warm up and then 2 miles fast.  But I failed at a warm up mile.
8:19
7:41
7:43

Someone remind me of this workout when I'm whining about mile repeats at a slighter faster speed but with JOG BREAKS IN BETWEEN THEM.  Geez Louise, I'm a wussy sometimes.

I sat through class, letting my muscles get all sorts of cold and tight, and then when we were dismissed I hit the streets for another 3 miles.  It got me thinking.  What if you could go run every time you had a few minutes to spare.  How many miles could you get in during the day?  (assuming you could sit in your own sweat/stench throughout the day, obvs.)  I bet a lot.  I'm not going to try, that's for sure.

I did another 3 miles in 27:39 for a pace of 9:12.  A bit faster than my normal easy pace, but my legs were lovin' it.

This weekend I have a poop ton of miles to run, and then the taper really gets going next week.  Rumor has it, Jenn, Megan, and my Philly marathon race day shirts are in, and spoiler alert:  you won't be able to miss us on the course.  YAYZIES!

Buy it here.
I think beanies are just a little bit useless around these parts.  I mean, if I'm wearing something on my head, it will be covering my ears, my ginormo forehead, and 3/4 of my face, because sweet Jesus it's cold.  But if I lived somewhere it was "pretend" cold, I'd totally rock this.

Buy it here.
I sure hope someone was able to take advantage of the Kate Spade sale yesterday.  Because I sure didn't.  Love this yellow bag.  Pretty safe to assume that if I can stash away enough $$$ that a yellow Kate handbag will be mine this spring.

Buy it here.

If this delightly little 'arry Pottah mug showed up in my Christmas stocking (yes I have a Christmas stocking, quit judging my Holiday CHEER AND WONDERMENT!) I wouldn't be upset.

Insomnia + Weekly Wishlist

When I was in college, I randomly incurred bouts of insomnia.  I say random because that's what I referred to them as at that time.  However, I now realize that I have some "issues" with anxiety and when I'm extremely anxious/nervous/etc. I can't sleep at all.  It's impossible to shut off my brain.  In college these bouts would coincide with the start of the semester (fear of the unknown), midterms (holy anxiety), and finals stress (double anxiety). 

After graduation, I still had issues with insomnia likely because I was so stressed and concerned about my current lack of employment, and student loan payments looming on the horizon.  Luckily, I also learned around this time that running is really great medicine for insomnia (for me).  I'm sure the endorphins calm down my crazy worrying brain and help me relax, but really running just knocks me out so I can turn my brain off and just sleep.

Well.....

It's back.

I started classes last week, and even leading up to classes starting I couldn't sleep.  There have been several times in the last week that I've laid down for the night, and then apologized to Kyle 30-45 minutes later when I'm flipping on the light to do some reading for class.  [thank God that kid can sleep through anything.... :/  ZOMG HE NEEDS A SLEEPMASK!!!]

Currently I haven't slept soundly since..... Saturday, and I'm a bit of a crabapple when I don't get my sleep.  I'm hoping the insomnia will peace out once I get more "in the groove" with school.  If not.... yikes. 

Any suggestions?

(lol cat image from icanhascheezburger.com)

And on to more lighthearted things.... weekly wishlist!

Buy it here.

I dont' think I could wear this jacket and not sing Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band all.day.long.

It's amazing.

Buy it here.

As a kid I was obsessed with old skeleton keys.  I loooove this ring because of that.

Buy it here.

A golden snitch... for a necklace... are you for real???

Sign this 'arry Pottah nerd UP.

P.S.  I've yet to see the final movie.  Someone come to SoDak and be my date, puhlease?

Buy it here.

I feel like this is a must have for any future librarians out there.  Oh wait... that's me. :):)

'arry Pottah + Vegas Marathon

Heyo, remember me?  Apparently I fell off the face of the earth last week.  Ooopsies.  I ended up getting sick last week and was out of commission from work and running.  I attempted a 4 mile run on Friday night in a windy 17 degrees that can only be described as "It felt like someone was cracking me across the face for 40 minutes."  Seriously, it was horrendous.  So week 1 of taper was a mega taper:  4 miles.  Whoo!

I've been looking forward to last weekend for months!  'Arry Pottah!!!!!!  If you may recall from previous posts, I'm a bit of an HP fanatic (HP6 anyone?)  :)  I rounded up my HP6 date and off we went.  Sadly we both thought we were too old to hit up the midnight showing, which after reading my post about the midnight movie of the last one, I'm glad we picked that option.  And Friday was just fine anyway.  I've been hearing that the movie was "the darkest one yet" which I think has been said about every movie, and was concerned that it wouldn't be as good because of it.  OMG it was amazing!  There were just enough light-hearted/humorous/awkward teen love moments to break up the seriousness.  And can I just say that Dobby is quickly becoming my favorite character ever?  He's so precious.... ha.  And could Emma Watson be any more gorgous??  Holy guacamole.

It was back to running this week, since you know... I'm about 12 days out from the MARATHON!!!  I knew it was probably silly to jump back in to a tempo run after taking it easy/partially comatosed (comatic?) last week, but when your body and brain want to do a tempo run, you kind of have to go with it (this is probably time #6 in my life).  Part of the reason may have been that I got my MARATHON!!! outfit in the mail and needed to give it a try.  Yes, ideally this should've been worn on my 22 miler (or at the very least a long run) but it's difficult to do that when my LRs are ran in the tundra and you're racing in a desert (p.s. I just typed dessert, and now I want some....for breakfast) it doesn't really work.

I figured the shirt would be a-ok but the shorts were a bit questionable.  Alyssa loves racing in hers that are similar, and my favorite pair of running shorts are a super old school shorty-short adidas pair that feels like I'm running naked, so I thought I'd give them a try.  I would've much preferred to do this test run outside, but alas, it was in the teens temp wise and I may actually lose my butt cheeks somewhere along town.  The verdict:  Uh yeah.... sorry to all the gym members.  Shorts are a no-go*.  I think they'd be pretty perfect for a 5k where I'm only running for a little bit, but I think I'd get annoyed pulling them back over my butt cheeks for slightly under 4 hours.  :/  One highlight, is that the sweatier I got the more they stayed in place, and we all know it doesn't take too long for me to work up a good sweat.  The good news is that the shirt was fab.u.lous.  It seriously feels like it's made out of baby skin; it's ridiculous soft and light.  And I was drenched in sweat-post run and you couldn't even tell!  Win-WIN-win.  (Ignore the crookedness of the pic.... I used to use my old tv as my self-timer photo tripod, but have since got a new one.  TV is much better, but a far worse tripod.)


At the gym I had 7 miles with 5 at tempo pace of 8:09.  I was ridiculously surprised at how good the 8 minute pace felt when I first started out.  My body has been super achy lately, and I didn't know what was going on.  I think someone told it that I'm turning 27 soon and need to begin old lady aches and pains asap.  Not cool.  A few miles in my right knee started to feel like there was a lot of pressure under the knee cap, so I spent some time figuring out that when hitting the treadmill with your heel while you're going forward and the treadmill going backwards has to cause even more force and pressure on your IT band and knee, so it's probably doubly important for me to FIX IT since I'll be doing a bit of treadmill running through the winter blizzard season.  I was pretty tired during mile 4 of the tempo miles, but got my second wind during mile 5 (probably just because I was almost done).  When I got done my quads/IT band area cramped up majorly, it was so strange.  I did some stretching quick and then jogged a super slow 1/2 mile cool down.


I did 6.5 miles in 55:44.  Tempo mile average:  8:05.


1.  9:40
2.  8:04
3.  8:06
4.  8:06
5.  8:06
6.  8:02
.5 4:50


Heck ya!  Considering my mile repeats were about 25 seconds faster with considerable breaks in between I was pretty happy in my effort.


And now the quest is back on to find the perfect marathon outfit.  But the bigger question is:  black or glow in the dark?

*They may in fact be perfect for the Post-Marathon Post-Rage Race or the PMPRR. :D

Harry Potter Review + Easy Run

Holy crap!  I forgot to even mention HP-HBP (as the kids are calling it these days ;))  I went to the 12:03am showing on Tuesday night, and at the age of 25, was probably one of the oldest people in the theater.  Not surprising.  I forgot how much I can't stand high school/junior high kids.  WOW.  They are annoying and obnoxious, and catty.  I would've gladly paid more money to have an adults only theater.  

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince was my second favorite book in the series, behind The Goblet of Fire, so I was super stoked to see this movie.  I loved it.  I re-read all the books around Xmas, so I'm sure they left out some details and such, but because it's been awhile, I don't remember the details, so I can't complain.  I actually can't wait to see it again when I'm not deathly tired.  Also, I'm slightly in love with Miss Luna Lovegood.  (Pictured left).  She cracks me up.  :)

To keep on with my Wild West Relay training (which is really just my 1/2 marathon training with some modifications), I planned to do my easy run the morning following my evening tempo run.  By my calculations, for the relay my legs will be 9-12 hours apart.  I had planned on getting up at 4:30am with Taylor, but my eye was still bothering me, so I went back to sleep.  I called in sick to work for the morning, since I knew my eyes wouldn't be able to handle 8 hours of staring at the computer (I was right, they were killing after being at work for 3 hours this afternoon!)  I went out for my run at 8:30am this morning.  While it wasn't my second run for the day as I had originally planned :( it was less than 12 hours apart, so it worked for me.

The easy 5 didn't feel too much different than they normally do after a day of speed work.  The legs were a little heavy, but that's to be expected after running so hard the day before.  All in all, it wasn't bad, and I think 2 easy runs (one in the morning, one in the evening) would kind of be a fun way to "spice up" easy runs that I sometimes get bored with.  Also the miles were really consistent which was cool.

1.  9:25

2.  9:24

3.  9:26

4.  9:27

5.  9:09 (I always just want to be DONE during that last mile and can rarely slow down my pace, oh well.)

I finished the 5 miles in 46:53 for a pace of 9:23.

Post-work I got to enjoy my leftover shrimp fajitas, YUM and am now catching up on SYTYCD while the lover boy is at class (he's not a huge fan, weird).  :)  I could really go for the other half of my watermelon though!  

I'm cheating on morning running with HARRY POTTER!

Oh 'arry Potta, I heart you. I may or may not have had the movie premier date written on my calendar back in December (or whenever they re-announced the premier date). Since then I had planned on attending the midnight showing, because I am a NERD. (Sidenote: I ALSO may or may not have re-read all the books this winter in preparation for the movie release.) I even did some rearranging of my work schedule so I wouldn't have to come in to work 4 hours after going to bed. Call me Hardcore for Harry. With this sort of planning, obviously my running schedule had to be tweaked a bit also.

There was no way I was going to wake up at 4:30am to run if I had no shot at taking a nap at some point during the day. I don't care how fabulous the movie is (oh, and it's gonna be) I would be falling asleep after being awake almost a full 24 hours. That doesn't fly with this sleeping beauty. ALSO, it was storming this morning. And I only had my new pretty CLEAN shoes with me at Taylor's, and I refused to get them dirty on their christening run.

To accommodate the random schedule I did a easy 4 after work today.  Except that it was anything but easy.  :(  We had a storm the last hour of work today, so of course there was a blanket of humidity left in its wake.  Ugh.  That and I couldn't get my legs to slow down.  Which caused my ab pain to start, which IMMEDIATELY made my legs slow down.  Tricky job body, tricky tricky....  I was hot, I was sweaty, I was HUNGRY.  Blah.  I was actually supposed to do 5 but decided to flop my easy 4 from later in the week with this one since it was being so craptastic.  Luckily, the last mile felt pretty good, so it was only the middle too that suuuuucked.  I left my Garmin at home, so I don't have my splits here is what I can recall.  4 miles in 37:11 for a pace of 9:18.  

1.  9:01 (whoops)

2.  9:25

3.  9:38

4.  9:07?  I remember the first three, but didn't look at the 4th.  If my math is correct, that would be the difference. If not, who cares.  :)

After the run I had a green-ish monster to cool off (and to hold me over for a late dinner).  I was out of 'naners, so I used 5 strawberries instead of the 3 I usually use, what teeny tiny amount of spinach I had left, and a kiwi along with some protein powder, vanilla soy milk and ice ice baby.  It was actually really really good.  I was kind of getting sick of the banana's overwhelming taste in them, so it was a nice change of pace.  Plus the kiwi gave it a ZING.  :)

Tomorrow I will do my easy 5 after work at about 8pm (or potentially my tempo run depending on the weather). And then I'll hook back up with morning running on Thursday morning (which will be a true biatch I'm sure) with a tempo run. To help my legs get ready for the Wild West Relay in 24 days (!!!!!!!!!) I'll be doing an easy 4 miles Thursday evening. My first double day. WHOO!

Now I'm off to eat some delicious shrimp fajitas at Chevy's with my old roomie and HP fan. Then we'll be spending a couple of hours waiting in line at the theater to ensure we get a good seat. EEEEEEEE! So excited.

5 day post hiatus and 3 day run hiatus, cured.

Apparently I've been lazy.  Eh.  Oh well.  Wednesday and Thursday were both easy 3 mile runs, with nothing to write home about.  Except the AMAZING weather on Thursday, 59 degrees, no wind, no humidity.  Per.  Fec.  Tion.  I could've ran forever if I wasn't starving and wanting to rush home to hang out with Tay.  :)  Tuesday's run was done in 26:18 for an avg. pace of 8:46 and Wednesday's was actually 3.06 in 27:50 for an avg. pace of 9:06.

Edited to include this addition:  So one funny/interesting/noteworthy thing happened my easy run day 2.  On glorious cool weather day, there was a person in a lawn chair, on a street corner with their hood up over their head using their laptop.  If he/she really tracked down the wi-fi signal to the street corner, color me impressed.

Friday night we had planned to have a date night to the drive in, but the rain put the kabosh on that idea.  Instead we went out to Chevy's for drinks and dinner and then to the indoor theatre to see Angels and Demons.  It was...meh.  I've read all of Dan Brown's books, and Angels & Demons was by far my favorite.  And I really enjoyed the Da Vinci Code movie.  But I didn't think this movie was that great.  Good and glad I went, just not meeting my expectations.  I did, however, get extremely giddy over the New Moon and Harry Potter 7 movie posters.  :)

Saturday I skipped my 4 mile run.  Lame.  But I had a good reason, kind of.  I lost my contacts.  Ya.  We've tore apart my apartment, on the bf's apartment and they're nowhere.  I am blind without my spectacles/contacts but can't run with glasses b/c I'm SO SWEATY.  So I didn't run.  Sunday I skipped my long 6 mile run, but that was only due to laziness and wanting to sleep in.  And wanting to enjoy some Sunday Funday long weekend festivities.  I had it in  my head that maybe I would run Sunday night, but 5 beers later I thought otherwise.

As punishment, and so my monthly mileage wouldn't completely suffer, I decided to do an 8 mile long run today.  I haven't ran 8 miles since September (my current 5k training plans not going over 7 for a long run) so I thought it would be fun.  Um.  It wasn't, really.  I went out at 11:30am because that's the earliest I could drag myself out of bed, and it was already too warm, and I didn't eat anything before, because I'm dumb.  I'm starting to be concerned about this early morning running business since I typically opt to not eat instead of getting an upset stomach, and then just run out of steam.

There were strong winds from the south, so I had planned to run the first two miles with the wind, the middle 4 against, and last 2 with.  The wind blew.  HA.  But seriously.  It sucked.  And I was melting.  And I got sunburned.  I haven't even THOUGHT of wearing sunscreen on a run this year.  I guess it is summer now, crazy.  Some miles were good, some were sucktastic.  

1. 9:25 
2.1 ? My garmin was not restarted after an ab stretch break, so I estimated my overall time based on the pace it did record for .88 of the mile.
3. 9:35 
4. 9:47 
5. 9:52 
6. 10:04 
7. 9:32 
8. 9:02 

Total time of 1:17:42 for 9:36/mile.

One annoyance that I've noticed for my Garmin, is that it's mile splits aren't actually right.  There's been a couple of times that I'll look down at the 1.0 or 2.0 mile mark, noted the time, and one the mile timer pops up on the screen it's 2-3 seconds slower than what it actually was.  If this is consistent, it obviously evens itself out through the rest of the miles, but it's annoying.  End rant.

Blah....

I'm in the weirdest mood, so I decided to jot a quick note. I've been listening to the most depressing music for the last hour and it's gotten me super bummed out. I recently realized that the music that I love is really somber. Think: I've just had my heart ripped out of my chest and now I'll sing a song about it. Weird since I haven't had my heart ripped out of my chest. But alas, that is the music that I enjoy. I've just discovered a bunch of new artists, so I think it's probably time that I actually set up my computer and call the cable/internet guy to "hook me up." My poor iPod is so outdated, I feel bad for it.

I also spent the last hour perusing books on amazon to come up with some new reads. If I could live at the library, I think I would. I'm reading the Twilight books currently, and am really enjoying them. I thought they'd be lame, but I was proven wrong. I've literally been checking the library website 300 times a day to check where I'm at on the list for the 2nd book. Of course at about 4:55pm today they showed that it was in and waiting for me. Whooo! Too bad the library closes at 5. Curses. I'm also re-reading all of the Harry Potter books. I'm pretty much a 14 year old girl, don't even worry about it. I'm also watching all of the movies after I read the books and complaining about the inaccuracies or parts that have been left out. Taylor is loving the commentary. Hah.

I'm looking for a new hobby if anyone has any suggestions. It gets kind of lonely without a roomie and poor Taylor is probably sick of me being his shadow. But seriously. I started running again which is awesome. I'm vowing to PR in at least one of my race distances this year, so we'll see how that goes.

I also need to take a vacation asap. I'm beyond bored with Sioux Falls. I was supposed to head to the Cities this weekend with my BFFF and meet up with some college pals, but unfortunate circumstances have put the kabosh on that. I don't remember the last time I left this town to do something fun. Boo hiss. So I guess this is also a plea to take me on vacation with you. Please? :)