Day 4: Morning Runner Crabtastic Edition

When the alarm went off this morning, I wanted to quit being a morning runner.  I wanted to quit running altogether, perhaps I even wanted to quit life.  THAT'S HOW TIRED I WAS.  Luckily, I did none of the above, but I did manage to get in (or get out I should say) some annoyance/crabbiness to the boy before he went to work.  I think his super fast getting ready skills may have been aided by me and wanting to get the heck away from me.  Who would have thought I'd be so dang irritable at 4:30 am?  Oh ya, me.  :)  Moral of the story is:  don't pee on my toilet see.  Especially if it's 4:30 am.  I think the point was thoroughly drilled home.

Moving on to the run.  It was dark out.  Like almost scary dark out.  It's been overcast/stormy the last couple of days, so on the PERFECT morning to sleep in because it's super dark up until the time your alarm goes off, I was out running.  Again, crabbiness.  I had an easy 3 miles to do, so I set out with legs of lead.  Wow.  I felt like I was putting in 8 mm pace but instead was pulling off 10 mm.  :s  Of course Ms. Temperamental iPod (perhaps she's getting her moodiness by osmosis) quit at 1.5 miles.  The run was pretty uneventful other than the fact that I ran insanely slow.  3 miles in 29:38 for a pace of 9:53.

1. 10:07 
2. 9:37 

3. 9:38 

I think that my dinner the night before of Chevy's strawberry margarita (1/2 off!!), chips, salsa & queso did not help my cause.  Oh well, it was freaking delicious.  And that just means I'll have PLENTY of energy to kill my tempo run tomorrow morning.

After my run I actually had some time to kill post abs, post push ups, post shower, and post breakfast, so I read my new book Pretty in Plaid.  I love me some Jen Lancaster, but I was seriously nodding off reading the book.  At 7:30 am.  I contemplated taking a quick power nap before work.  Yes there is something wrong with that sentence.  I survived work, but wow the first few hours felt like hell.  Half asleep hell anyway.  :)

Also just got done watching the Season premier of Weeds and am SO excited to see what this season holds.  Stupid show always makes me crave iced coffee since Nancy Botwin is obsessed with them.  Curses.

Today Bobbi reviewed her progress for her new year's resolutions and I thought I would steal, I mean borrow, her idea.  :)

1.  Write more.  Success.  Thanks to this blog.  While this might not be too "creative" of writing, it's still putting my thoughts on paper.  Since most of my thoughts revolve around running as of late...it works.

2.  Play music more.  Um... I think I've gotten my guitar out once since Jan. 1.  So fail.  With a capital F.

3.  Continue to read.  This will never be a difficult goal for me, however, I am going through less books since I usually spend my lunch hour catching up on your fab blogs.  It works pretty well though since there hasn't been too many new books that I've been excited about.

4.  Practicing yoga.  Eh, we'll give this one a 50/50 right now.  I need to remember how great I feel so that I do it more consistently.

5.  Run Jeri Run.  I think this one is officially knocked out of the park.

6.  Live more of a vegetarian-esque lifestyle.  Nope.  Try again.

7.  Cook more.  Doing SO WELL with this one.  Helps to save money and save calories since you know exactly what's going in your food.

Listening to Nature's Music AKA iPod Fail

Saturday we had wedding #2 in 8 days to attend. What is with everyone getting married lately? Geeeeeeeez. jk. :) After my run I got all gussied up to attend the wedding. The wedding was good, the reception was good, the red wine was cheap, thus giving me dirty teeth for the last couple hours of the reception, but oh well. All in all it was a good night. Of course I had to take an adorable picture with Mr. Handsome. :)

I drank very little, or technically just a little compared to everyone else, as I had planned on running a 6 miler the next day. Of course the weather was less than favorable at 6pm when my 2pm lunch had finally settled. Just as I was grabbing my running shoes, I hear the start of thunder. It's like the weather can sense me getting excited for my run! Grr. So in 50 degrees, steady 15 mph wind with 25 mph wind gusts, and 90% humidity (really? how is it that windy, yet still dripping wet humid?) I set off for my run. As soon as I got outside, I realized my iPod wasn't working. Now I should mention that I was Crabby McCrabberson yesterday. All day. For no apparent reason. The iPod malfunction set me off into a tizzy. Usually when this happens I can plug the stupid thing into my computer and it corrects itself. Nope, my cord was at my apartment, and I was at Taylor's. After spending a good 15 minutes trying to search the web for troubleshooting advice, and having none of it be successful, I set out for attempt #2 at my 6 mile run. I should note that Tay did offer to let me use his old school iPod, but listening to country for 50-ish minutes would cause me to drown myself in the river I was running next to. (No offense to you country fans, just not my cup of tea.)

I prepared myself to have the crappy run of all runs, yet I didn't. I haven't had an iPod-less run since I started running (longer than a mile or two) 3 years ago. It was pretty cool. I used to be a bird watcher as a kid (nerd alert, I know.... I lived in the country with no kids nearby so I learned to entertain myself.) so I started to see if I could match the birds with their calls. It was pretty entertaining and helped pass the time. Plus I realized that I had a soundtrack playing in my head anyway.

After my speedy (for me) 4 miler yesterday, I wanted to see if I could do a quick-ish 6 miler today. As some of you may have heard me complain about 6 milers in the past, I wanted this one to go down in the books with a :). And it did. I think. :) 6 miles in 53:45 for 8:58 pace.

1. 9:30

2. 9:03

3. 9:09 (um hello wind, you really suck)

4. 8:46 (but you're so delightful when you're at my back!)

5. 8:54

6. 8:23

I think I've learned that 9:30-9:45 is my very comfortable dare I say, jogging, pace. I can ran that pace for quite a long time without too much physical exertion. 8:30-9 mm definitely takes more concentration, but not too terribly much effort. If I focus on stretching out my stride just a little bit (instead of short, baby comfortable strides at my "comfortable" pace) I can usually hit those paces. Awesome.

When I was entering into mile 4-ish of the run, I had a random thought, that made me smile. When I was in junior high, I ran on the Varsity track team. Before you get too excited, I'm from a super small town, so it really wasn't that big of a deal, but it was cool to get to do sooooo many meets each spring. During junior high I competed in the 1600 m. run, 3200 m. relay, the 800 m relay or 400 m relay, and occasionally the 800 m run (or dash as they sometimes like to name it, HA!). There was one other girl in my class who was good at the mid-long distances who would compete against me (or with me in the 3200 m. relay). She was better than me. Oh sad, I know. Unfortunately for me, no one (including me) was aware that I was a sprinter, whoops! So I was stuck with the mid-long distances.

Even with the competitiveness (ok, it was probably just me being competitive with her) we were still best friends, and I think we pushed each other in practice, and also meets to perform our best.  Ok, enough with the background. The summer after our 7th grade year, we were both WAY excited about track and running, but I used to always make fun of her for "running for fun."  I specifically said, "Only crazy people run for fun."  As I was running in rotten weather, with no iPod and sweet tunes to enjoy I thought to myself, I'm officially insane.  And had to smile.  :)

Fancy Seeing You Here

Friday night, we headed over to my old roomie's new house.  Small world, they actually bought the house from my old boss, and one of my favorite people EVER.  The house is super nice, and we had a ton of fun.  Luckily (for me anyway) Taylor had to go to a CPR class at 8am, so he wanted to go home around midnight.  Here's a super cute pic of us....and yes, my hair is now blonde.  Love or hate?  Indifferent?  That's cool too.  :)

Saturday I had planned on doing 8-9 miles as a long run, because I'm getting bored with my 6-7 mile long runs.  Unfortunately it looked like it was going to storm, so I decided to just follow my training program and do a "fast" 4 miles.  I was so happy that I exnayed the long run, because my legs wanted to go fast!

I did 4 miles in 33:30 for a pace of 8:23.

1.  8:57

2.  8:39

At this point I stretched for a couple of seconds and then headed back for home.  Shortly after starting I heard someone coming up behind me on the bike trail, so I scootched over to the side to let him pass.  It was one of my good guy friends from college!  I'm actually surprised we haven't ran into each other more often running.  He's such a stud it's ridiculous.  Mr. Athletic for sure.  In college he played tennis, and was on almost all of my intramural teams (which we typically took home the c'ship for, duh).  His senior year of college he started running and kicked some serious booty in the local 1/2 marathon, leaving me in his DUST.  Since then he's gotten really into tri's, and has completed some other 1/2s and fulls.

In short, he's awesome, so it was really cool to run into him (although not literally, because ouch.)  In our short chat while running he said he was running 8 miles, so after we parted ways, I decided that my 4 mile "fast" pace should equal his 8 mile pace.  Um.  It doesn't.  But it was nice to have someone to push me.

3.  8:19

4.  7:34!!

I may have done one single dry heave after finishing up the run.  But luckily for me, no pukage.  Hah.  The run felt great, and it was nice to get a speedy run in.

Day 3: Morning Runner

Luckily for me, I don't work until 11am on Thursdays, so I got to sleep in (but I'm still counting the run towards my morning runs, because, duh it's in the morning). I got to sleep in until 7:30am. Heck ya. I just had a piddly 3 easy miles on the ol' training schedule, but my legs were significantly tired and still mad at me for running them so hard yesterday. (Ahem, suck it up legs! We have got PRs to crush! Thank God my legs can't read, they would for sure rebel after that comment.) I also had some soreness/pain in my right hamstring, so I took the run pretty dang easy. 3 miles in 28:35 avg. pace of 9:32.

1. 9:55

2. 9:34

3. 9:06

After the run I watched a full two hours of SYTYCD while doing a kick butt ab work out.

I find it SUPER ironic, that the reason I implemented the morning runs were to avoid the extreme post-work/evening heat/humidity. Just thought I would note that all three days of morning runs, the temp at 5pm was 58-65 degrees, no humidity, and a slight breeze. Yes, perfect running weather. Funny guy (or gal) Mr. (or Mrs./Miss/Ms.) Weather...funny guy (or gal).

Just re-read this post, and it might be the most boring thing ever written, so please don't unfollow me. I'm just boring today. Tomorrow will be full of excitement, even if I have to make up lies to keep you entertained.

Actually this evening we're heading to my old roomies new house for a house warming party, so I'll probably have some good stories to share. I know I highlighted her in last week's Foto Friday, but here she is again.

Here we are at Lake Okoboji last summer for the 4th of July. Look how cute we are. And we're that cute AFTER swimming/lounging/drinking in a dirty lake and showering under a small trickle of water in a gross campsite shower. Now that's cute. :)

Also, I would like to include a photo of mi madre, as it's her birthday today!! Happy Birthday Ma. :) I think she turns 25 today. ;) Wait... I'm 25...hmm..

Here we are post-half marathon 08. I look like death, and thoroughly soaked/sweated out. My fam won super awesome awards for this race. They were at 7, count em SEVEN, locations throughout the race, and kept me from quitting. (worst race to date, yikes!)

Have a great weekend!

Day 2: Morning Runner (A day delayed)

In honor of National Running Day, I was motivated to get out of my comfy, warm bed to take on Day 2 of my morning running challenge.  It was much more difficult to get out of bed Day 2 than it was Day 1, because I could not fall asleep Tuesday night.  It did help that I had a speed/interval workout to look forward to.  :)

I had decided to save gas and jog to my gym as my warm up, and then jog home for my cool down.  Somehow I had it set in my head that my gym was 1/2 a mile away.  Ha.  I was wrong.  More like a mile and a half.  Oh well, it was a great warm up, despite the fact that it was 40 degrees out.  SERIOUSLY!?!  I had to wear sweats and a long sleeve over my shorts and t-shirt so I didn't freeze my tas off.  

1.  9:00

.36  3:19 (9:50 pace)  This is the point of the run where I had to run through grass/weeds that were knee deep because there wasn't a shoulder or sidewalk to run on.  Awesome.

At the gym I got a good stretch in, and then had 7 x 400 to rock.  And rock I did.  :)

2 @ 1:42 (6:48 pace)

2 @ 1:41 (6:44 pace)

2 @ 1:40 (6:40 pace)

1 @ 1:38 (6:31 pace)

I walked .1 in between each interval and felt super strong during each of the quarters.  I did realize that I need to scout out a track nearby because it's so much easier to pace yourself when you're not actually pacing yourself.  Shocking, I'm sure.  Plus it'd be nice to relive my fast track days.  Ha.

After the sprints I stretched again and headed for home.  I felt like SUCH a B.A. running home from the gym.  I had to take a different route because traffic had finally picked up, and it was kind of fun taking a new trail route home.  

1.  10:04

.39 3:56 (10:07 pace)

It was pretty slow going, since my legs were tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiired.  I really wished that the cool down was hmmm.... half mile instead.  :)

Morning running finally caught up with me yesterday afternoon when I was half-zombie the last 2 hours of work.  Yikes.  I may or may not have accidentally fallen asleep for 30 minutes before heading to Tay's softball game after work.  Ha.

The other thing that I've noticed about running in the morning is my eating habits.  Usually I would eat a smaller breakfast and lunch, with a decent sized snack around 2 or 3, and then a very large meal post run at night.  Now I'm needing to get the eating switched around to have a decent sized breakfast and maybe a morning snack so I'm not dying of hunger at 10am.  Learning curve, right?  

All in all, I think I'm getting a hang of this early morning junk.  

P.S.  Who else wishes they could dance and were rockin' So You Think You Can Dance this season?  Oh man, I just love this show, and since I have two left feet, I'm in awe of their skillz.  :)

Day 1: Morning Runner

Today marks day 1 of my two week trial at becoming a morning runner. I was formulating a pro's and con's list as I was running, so that's what I'm going to share with you (what I can remember anyway.)

• It was beautiful out. Cool, breezy and sun just starting to rise. +1
• I didn't feel tired when I woke up. Usually I'm up from 4:30-5:20am when Taylor is not-so-quietly getting ready for work, so it was nice not to have to try to fall back asleep after that. +1
• My legs, were dead. 900 lbs. a piece at least. This is probably 15% from running in the morning and 85% from running a long run on hills just slightly more than 24 hours ago. -2
• I got to hog the whole bike trail. No running on the right shoulder (which slants downward slightly hurting my ankles, hips, and pretty much everything on my right side), constantly staying out of the way of speedy bikers. I only saw 2 out on my run, and just hogged away otherwise. +2
• Less bugs. Bugs eaten: 0. Bugs snorted: 0. Bug bites: 1. SUCCESS! +1

The rest of these relate more to getting up early and not so much the actual run part, but should be taken into consideration none the less:

• I had time to eat a nice healthy breakfast post run. +1
• Saved by the Bell was on during my after run stretching. +1
• I now have more time to hang out with the Boy after work, since I don't have to run, stretch, shower, etc. +2

+7 points. Not bad.

Today was good, but we'll see how sucky mcsuckerson I feel as the day goes on and I'm running on 5 hours of sleep. Ya I didn't exactly get to bed at the time I was envisioning, whoops! Tomorrow I'm thinking about running to my gym to do my speed/interval workout, and then running home. It's a good distance for a warm-up/cool-down.

The best part of this morning running business is that I only have to do it Tuesday-Thursday since Mondays & Fridays are my days off from running. Whoo!!

Edited to include run details:

Apparently in my half asleep post run state I forgot to include details of my run, so here they are. 3 miles in 28:05 for an avg. pace of 9:23.

1. 9:36

2. 9:28

3. 9:01

May Wrap-Up and a Hilly Long(ish) Run

I really wanted to skip my long run this week.  I had waaaaaay too much fun at an awesome wedding Saturday night, and I was paying for it most of Sunday.  At about 6pm, I decided that we should make dinner asap so it would be settled in my tummy and allow me to go run before it was too late.  We were going to make chicken on the grill, and Taylor yelled for me to come outside--there was a bird's nest on shelf next to the grill outside.  We joked that it was probably the annoying ass bird that wakes me up every morning at 4:30am reproducing.  I transported the nest and eggs to a more secure location.  Then, I noticed a piece of straw coming out of the grill.  I open it to find it FULL OF A ROBIN'S NEST.  Like full, full.

(The other nest was located just to the right of the grill on the attachment.)

An hour and a half later (and a lot of work later), we finally had it clean, of course that meant I didn't eat until 7:30pm.  It usually takes me a good 3 hours or so to digest food, so I was annoyed.  Of course it was storming, so it was much darker at 9:30pm than it should be, and I decided it would not be smart or safe to run on the bike trails, so I set out to run a very hilly route towards my old college.  It was lightning off in the distance when I started (I'm ridiculously frightened of lightning) so I spent the first 2 miles counting the time between the lightning and the thunder, ready to turn around if it got remotely close.  It didn't so I ran on.

Because of the insane hills, it was a pretty tough run, even though it was only a sixer.  The first two and last two (since I ran an out and back route) were craziness, and the middle two were somewhat hilly, but seemed pancake flat in comparison.  I haven't ran a lot of straight hill workouts, so it was good to incorporate a long(ish) run with some hills.  And my legs feels it today.  Wowsers.  I finished in 58:07 for a pace of 9:42.  Whoops.  

1. 9:46 
2. 9:56 
3. 9:47 
4. 9:41 
5. 9:55 

6. 9:00

I'm sooooo glad I made myself go run.  It's so true that even if you don't feel like running, 9 times out of 10, once you get out there, you're glad you did.  I have to remember that next time I feel like ditching out.

Another reason I'm glad I made myself go, is that I was sooooo close to beating my mileage for April, and have a goal to increase my mileage every month until the Green Bay Marathon next May.  Which brings me to my May In Review :)

Total Miles: 74.3 miles (over 71 from last month, ha)

Highest Weekly: 24.1 miles
Average Weekly: 16.51 miles
Average Run Distance:  3.91 miles

Favorite Run:  Either my kick ass interval workout or my run with Tay.  <3>

Best (again only) Race:  Avera Breast Cancer 5k PR 24:18 a 1:09 PR from April's best race.