July in Review

Total Miles:  152.76 miles up from 68.34 miles last month. 112 miles last July. I'm pretty excited as this month is my 4th highest mileage month EVER. 

Total Time: 26:39:38 up from 11:21:40. 

Total Runs: 21 runs for an average of 7.27 miles/run.

Highest weekly mileage: 

7/23/2018 – 7/29/2018:	42.1 mi	7:08:26	10:11 / m

Most hardcore run: 10 miles in the afternoon with tempo miles. Melissa joined me for the tempo miles and I discovered that I can't talk and hit tempo paces at the same time, nor can I just not talk when I'm running hard. Lesson learned. :P

Favorite run: The 18 mile long run I got to do with Toni, even though her leg started hurting her, we had to walk a half mile, and then I had to leave her behind for the last two. Because I still got to run with her and catch up for 16 whole miles. :)

Favorite Race: None. Whoa. No races this month. I had hoped to do a 4th of July one but I started the month with my knee bothering me. I'll take a monster mileage month instead!

Favorite Jam: Weezer's cover of Africa. It's so great.

July in Review + Goals

Total Miles:   112 miles up from 52.6  miles last month. 100.6 miles last July.

Total Time:  20:09:56 up from 9:11:57 last month. Uff da!

Total Runs: 21 for an average of 5.33 miles a run.

Highest weekly mileage: 7/17-7/23 33 miles 5:53:23

Favorite run: Toni and my first long run of this training cycle. I was nervous about a double digit long run after taking a bit of a break from long runs after the Brookings half. It flew by.

Most hardcore run: 8 miles with tempo and uphill portions in all the humidity. barf.

Favorite Race: Lennox Firecracker 5k

Bike Miles: 0. Oops.

Favorite Jam: I went to the AAR concert so the only time I've listened to music has been a playlist of all their music.

July Goals

This month I have two goals I'm going to try to work on:

• Daily meditation: I've totally fallen off of my meditation practice and I desperately want to get it back.--Womp womp. I'm going to re-attempt this goal for August!
• Water: I've been drinking so much coffee and enjoying all the beers on beautiful summer nights, and I have not been drinking nearly enough water. I re-downloaded an app to help me stay accountable. Fingers crossed!--SUCCESS! Operation: Drink all the Water is going well! 

June + July in Review

June in Review

Total Miles: 23.1 up from 17.2 last month. Down from from 61.5 last June.

Total Time:  2:45:57 up from 33 minutes last month. Ha. Last May I ran 9:57:55.

Total Runs: 5 runs, for an average of 3.44 miles per run. 

Highest weekly mileage: 11.3 miles

Favorite run: My run with Kyle on National Running Day!

Most hardcore run: 7 mile long run.

Favorite race: 
Harrisburg 5k

Bike Miles: None.

Yoga: 12 hours. Almost half as much time as I spent on my mat last month. :/ BUT I got a lot of teacher training observations out of the way, so it was worth it. I think.

Barre: 4 hours.

Favorite Jam: My iPod keeps dying so I've gotten used to listening to my haggard breathing on runs. I do have some amazing yoga playlists if you ever join me for a class!

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July in Review

Total Miles: 18.7 down from 23.1 last month. Down from 119.6 last July.

Total Time:  3:06:26 up from 2:45:57 last month.

Total Runs: 6

Highest weekly mileage: 7.9 miles :/

Favorite run: Group run at the yoga studio. First tempo run in a long time.

Most hardcore run: Same as above.

Favorite race: 
None.

Bike Miles: 26.8!

Yoga: 14 hours.

Yoga Classes Taught: 2!

Barre: 6 classes.

July in Review + Goals

July in Review

Total Miles:  121.6 up from 73.8  last month.  Up from 77.7 last July. 

Total Time:  20:49:54 up from 12:28:22  last month. 

Total Runs:  15 for an average of 8.11 miles each run.

Highest weekly mileage: 7/21-7/27 41 miles 7:04:22

Favorite run: My first twenty miler of this marathon training cycle. 

Most hardcore run: My sixteen miler in the heat and humidity. It was a death march. But I finished.

Favorite race: Lennox Firecracker 10k.

Bike Miles: 30 miles, 1 ride. There were two major car/bike wrecks, one fatality, in recent weeks, and I've been terrified to get on my bike. :/

Favorite Jam: 

July Goals

• Run enough miles to crack my top 5 highest mileage months. (140-150) This week is my recovery week, and I've been feeling on the verge of a cold, so I've been resting a LOT. I shifted my runs to later in this week so I'll still have my mileage this week but it'll be tacked on to August's mileage!
• Run three long runs as scheduled.
• Run all four speed sessions as scheduled. 
• Run my 2nd fastest 10k in Lennox. Sub 52?? Sub 51?? Sub 52 wahoo!!
• Watch 2 Oscar Best Picture Nominees. I thought Blue Jasmine was, but I was wrong. Derp. Still a good flick!
• Every other day core work, hip stretches, and drills.
• 1 buddy run or ride a week. Jenn and I were only able to connect twice this month!
• Make 2 new meals using my veggie box ingredients. I've made a couple of juice recipes! And a lot of quinoa veggie bowls with my veggies.
• Get 3-5 pounds closer to my racing weight. I think I'm down two. Meh.
• 2 20+ mile long rides. Only one.

Best Week Ever + July in Review

Did anyone watch that show on VH1, Best Week Ever?  Is that still on?  I think I would be an adequate candidate for that show this week.

Exhibit A:  I graduated from grad school on Saturday.  Roll tide.  Mom and Pops surprised me with roses and took me out for dinner on Monday.

Exhibit B:  My library opened a brand new branch on Tuesday.  It was announced this spring that I was one of the lucky five who was getting to transfer to the brand new branch!  It was a ton of work getting it ready to go, but Tuesday was one of the best days of work I've ever had in my life.

Exhibit C:  I woke up BEFORE my alarm today and set out for my 10 miler.  The sun came up after the first two miles and I realized that my HR was waaaay below my recovery zone.  So I decided to pick up the pace until I was hitting the correct HR zone.  1 minute/mile faster later and boom!  10 miler done.  I'm not quite back to where I was pre-slacker, but I'm getting pretty damn close.  Keep up the good work legs!


Exhibit D:  Another great day of work.  I was chatting with a girl who told me about the books she checked out yesterday at the grand opening.  One of the author's she was reading wrote one of my favorite young adult books of all time, When You Reach Me, and when I showed it to her, she had to check it out and promised to tell me what she thought of it.  I die.  And then later, a little girl needed help with something and she was carrying around my favorite pug book.  And we got to talking about our pugs.  And THEN, later in the day, a teen boy came up to me with his "impossible quest" to find a book that he was reading back in May that he didn't know the title or author of, and when I figured it out, and showed the book cover to him, he freaked out and gave me a high five.  And then my little librarian heart swelled up to 32x its original size.




July In Review

Total Miles: 77.7 up from 48.3  last month.  Damn you laziness in Vegas for squelching my hundy club!  (33.8 miles from July 2012.)  

Total Time: 14:35:30 up from 8:26:44 last month. 

Total Runs: 10 for an average of 7.77/run.

Highest weekly mileage:  7/15-7/21  41.7 miles 7:43:32

Favorite run: I knocked out a ten miler before work the Friday before I went to work, and it was one of those runs where you're in such a zone of awesomeness that you forget you're running until you're an hour in to the run.  Plus running in to the sunset is always killer.
Most hardcore run:  The 8 mile GA run in 90 degrees with high humidity that almost killed me dead.  Keeping your HR at the appropriate zone when it's THAT HOT is hard.  (Guess when I made the switch to morning running?  If you guessed "the very next day" you are a big WINNER!)

Favorite race: NA

Bike Miles: Oh yeah, I have a bike.  Hmm....Favorite Jams: Miley Cyrus' We Can't Stop played on repeat for a solid three miles today.

July in Review + Squishy Long Run

July in Review

Total Miles: 131.1 up from 80.6 last month. (102.3 miles from July 2010.)  Highest July mileage EVER!  I think I only missed 8.5 planned miles this month, so I'm pretty impressed with myself.  5 from the flu and 3.5 from laziness.

Total Time: 20:54:08 from 13:11:09 last month. (15:55:59 last July.)

Total Runs: 21 for an average of 6.24/run.

Highest weekly mileage:

7/18/2011 — 7/24/2011:

35.0 Mi

5:32:55

Favorite run: The tempo run that reminded me I still have some speed in my legs.  I had started to get concerned.... :P

Most hardcore run: My 3/1 long run of 11 miles on the treadmill.  Yes, I got to watch the sexay US women's soccer team while running, but any run on the TM is considered hardcore, especially a speedy long run!
Favorite race: None.  I ran the Lennox 10k and wanted to saw my own legs off halfway through.
Bike Miles: Zero.  Oops!
Favorite Jams: I listened to Demi Lovato's Skyscraper a bunch during my long run, because I was feeling all emo.  Other than that I haven't really listened to any sweet music lately.  Got any suggestions to add to my playlist?
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Saturday I was supposed to do my long run of 13 miles.  5am rolled around and I wanted to start crying I was so tired.  I reset my alarm for 6am.  Still wanted to kick a puppy, so I crawled back under the covers.  ELEVEN HOURS OF SLEEP LATER, I was finally ready to take on the day.  WTF body???  Lucky for me I was able to post-pone the run to Sunday morning instead.

Sunday morning I actually woke up 15 minutes before my alarm and was ready to go.  Thanks 11 hours of catch up sleep!  The temps were actually going to be cooler on Sunday, but the humidity (97%) and dew point (74) were out of control!  No shirt for me, sorry folks!

My heart rate monitor wouldn't even pick up a heart rate on me while I was getting everything together for my run, so I opted to leave it behind rather than fuss with it (OH NOS I DON'T HAVE A HEARTBEAT!!  I'M DEAD!!).  I was out the door and ready to tackle a half marathon. 

Oh, does anyone else **have** to run 13.1 when their schedule calls for 13?  Just seems silly not to, right?  It's like stopping a foot before the finish line in a mile race.

I did a 5 mile loop circling back at my apartment so I could quick refill my handheld water bottle, and lucky that I did because I needed a quick pitstop.  My legs felt like trash.  Luckily, every time I'd do a 3 minute pick up (every 20 minutes or so) my legs would loosen up a bit.  Naturally they tightened up during my pitstop. 

Then I took to the bike path for the remaining 8 miles.  The run was fairly uneventful until my body started to rain.  I stopped to refill my water bottle at the turn around point and realized that my shorts were spilling sweat droplets all over the concrete, and my hat was dripping sweat. 

Sidenote:  I am obsessed with Andy Roddick.  He's a hottie and a great tennis player.  AND he sweats more than me.  Win.  I used to always think, "Yay!  Someone who sweats worse than me, even his HAT is sweating!"  Damn.  Apparently that's me now too.

This is also the first run where it hasn't been raining that my shoes were squishing with each step.  Oh hai humidity!  Almost forgot about you.  The interesting thing is that I was able to breathe fairly well in the humidity for once.  Usually on these runs my legs want to go go go but my lungs are gasping for air not filled with water droplets.  This long run was the opposite, heavy cinder block legs and my lungs were a-ok.

I attempted to pick up the pace the final few miles.  Thanks random guy who was a catchable distance in front of me!  I appreciate the chase!  The last mile I sputtered out a bit.  I've been toying with my fuel for the half distance and took one GU at mile 5. Definitely needed another to finish strong.

I did 13.1 miles in 2:07:55 for a pace of 9:45.

Interesting fun fact:  my very first half marathon was about 16 seconds faster than that.  Always fun to see how far you've come, huh?  :)

When I walked in the door, I shed my shoes and got in the shower.  With my running clothes on. I had no where to set a pile of sopping clothes so I rinsed them out in the shower and then took the coldest shower ever.  Stupid me forgot to stretch after the shower though, so my creaky old lady legs are a bit sore today.  Oh well, better than leaving puddles of my sweat around my apartment to step in later. 

Man I'm gross. :)

July in Review

Total Miles: 102.3 up from 90.5 last month. (Wow apparently last month I knocked it out of the park with 130...go Jeri of 2009!)

Total Time: 15:55:59 up from 14:18:41.
Total Runs: 17 for an average of 6.02 miles/run.
Highest weekly mileage: 7/19/2010 — 7/25/2010: 30.1 Mi 4:44:05
Favorite run: My mock half marathon where the temps were cool and I was reminded of why I love running. Also, killer 800 m. repeats at the track. (To be honest, this also could've fallen under hardcore run as well. I'm a bit of a masochist apparently.)

Most hardcore run: Mile repeats.  Always will be the worst workouts EVER!

Favorite Race: Lennox Firecracker 5k.  I raced my smartest 5k to date, place 2nd for women, and won my AG.  Whoo!
Bike Miles:  88.7.  I outbiked my running mileage 3/4 weeks this month.  Uh oh running...you've got some competition!!
Current Jams: Weezer--(If You're Wondering if I Want You To) I Want You To & Can't Stop Partying.  Also really digging Eminem & Rihanna's Love The Way you Lie.
__________________________________________
Monday I had planned to join the area biking club for their 30 mile recovery ride.  We figured this would be my best introductory ride since they go pretty slow for it.  I broke down and bought some uggggggggly cycling shorts (camel toe illusion included FO FREE!) to accompany for the ride.  And then the storm came in.  Aaron and I rode around a bit to check out the flooding and then called it a night. 

Unfortunately, I had eaten like I was going to bike 30 miles (caramel roll as big as my face and 1/2 a Qdoba burrito).  Since our trails are still flooded and super muddy, I decided to hit the gym for some indoor biking.  Armed with some fitness magazines that I have neglected for months, I decided to bike for 60 minutes.  Well that 60 minutes led to another 25 when I realized I could get a solid 20 miles in total.  I did the first 60 on the recumbent bike (boring!) and the last 25 on the upright (much more fun and a better work out IMO).  I've never actually used the upright bike, so I was surprised at how much harder it seemed to be.  Plus I wasn't experiencing the weird butt/hammy pain that I was on the recumbent.

Whatever you do, please don't tell Princess Leia or Polly Sunshine about last night.  I fear revolt!  There's two of them and one of me.  Things could get ugly. :(

Also, thoughts on the Brett Favre retirement "rumors"?  He will always have my heart even if he has broken it on more than one occasion. ;)

Check out Julie's great giveaway!

June in Review + Half Marathon Training STARTS

Total Miles:   90.5 down from
96.7 last month. There was injury (hips) and sickness (dehydration). I'm guessing it was my body's way of saying it needed a break.

Total Time: 14:18:41 down from
15:04:50.  

Total Runs: 16 for an average of 
14 for an average of 5.66 miles/run.

Highest weekly mileage: 6/21/2010-6/27/2010:  25.4 miles 4:13:27

Favorite run: 14 mile long run with Jenn post-hip-pain-that-freaked-the-bejesus-out-of-me.  Gotta love a 2+ hour run where you can gab with your friends and slog through the intense mud and giant river/puddles.

Most hardcore run:  My date with the track.  

Favorite Race: Beresford 125th Celebration 5k.  New PR, decent placing.  Remembering the pain of a 5k. :p

Current Jams:  B.O.B. - Airplanes.  Obsessed.


____________________________
This week I turned dumb.  More specifically, on Tuesday I turned dumb.  I've been craving Olive Garden's fettucini alfredo for.ev.er. and finally convinced someone to go with me.  I knew I had a 5 mile run on the schedule, but it's only 5 miles right??  Since I've been feeling particularly starved lately (seriously, I do not feel full ever.  It's reminiscent of marathon training....not cool) I ate.  And ate.  And ate.  And when my belly was saying, "oh hey there!  We're finally at our maximum capacity down here!" I ate some more.  Then an hour later I realized I needed to hit the road to get my run done before the sun went down.  Uff.  So much pain.  I managed to run 1.65 miles before I felt like I was going to enjoy my carbolicious meal for the second time.  I walked about .1 and jogged another quarter of a mile.  Ugh ugh ugh.  Another .1 walk break and then the remaining .9 miles home.  No barfage/spewage/yakfest for JerBear.  But probably the closest I've been since 2001.

The scene:  Junior year of high school, field trip.  One of my guy friends purchased a Dairy Queen ice cream cake (I loooove me some DQ ice cream cake!).  Our friends bet that we couldn't finish the whole thing on the way home from the field trip.  Well of course, we don't back down from a challenge.  Plus you wouldn't even have to bet me to get me to go to work on this delicious dairy monstrosity (notice this was pre-lactose intolerant diagnosis.....oy!).  We made it back to school with some serious ice cream food babies.  And then I had to go to basketball practice.  Where we had to run.  A lot.  For a loss that we had.  Sweet Jesus Mary and Joseph.  I've never barfed from a workout, but that was the closest I've ever come.  Lesson learned.  Until Tuesday apparently.

Wednesday I had some slight redemption by rockin' out a glorious 6 mile jaunt around the bike trails.  I kept the pace slow because I had a long run scheduled for Thursday morning.  I also wore my electric green shirt, which always makes me smile.  I did 6 miles in 57:41 for a pace of 9:37. 

Wednesday marked day 3 of half marathon training and thus far I am 0/3 on scheduled runs. 
Monday:  speedwork 5k race
Tuesday:  5 miles easy 3 miles verge of death
Wednesday:  5 miles easy 6 miles easy (to make up the lost mileage)
Good thing I'm ok with being flexible!