What Sweet Blogs Am I Missing Out On???

First, congratulations, all you KP kids! I hope you kicked the shit out of the Great Highway. (GOD I hate that part of that race. Hate hate hate.) And to all you 49ers fans, I hope you're doing okay.

Generally I am not one for resolutions but I do have a few non-running ones I'm trying to focus on this year. Again, I was wary of getting too ambitious & complicated, so I tried to keep it simple & narrow it down to some specific but easy things that I really, really, REALLY wanted to work on.

• Read more - Spend most free time reading, & read at least 12 books this year. (3 down so far!)
• Sleep more - I'm trying to get ready for bed as soon as I'm done eating & in for the night no matter what time it is (brush the teeth, take the contacts out, etc.). The idea is to avoid this stupid thing I do sometimes where I'll get stuck on the couch exhausted going, "Ughhhhh, I'm too tired to get ready for bed." Which tends to result in staying up for another hour doing literally nothing. And speaking of doing nothing...
• Avoid mindless web surfing - You know how this works. You're like, "I just need to unwind for a few minutes..." You start by checking the email, then the Facebook, then the Twitter, you read your blogs, then you hop over to Pinterest for a minute, then you click on something you saw there, which leads you to something else interesting, which reminds you of something you were thinking about the other day which you ABSOLUTELY MUST LOOK UP ON WIKIPEDIA RIGHT NOW...and then it's 1 a.m. & you're five links deep into some Bermuda Triangle conspiracy linking September 11 to the disappearance of the Lindbergh baby and you're too tired to get ready for bed.

Getting a smart phone has actually helped with this, because checking my email & social networks on my phone is really quick, & I don't get sucked into surfing. The downside of this is that I haven't been reading blogs as much, which is something I really enjoy but often ended up doing mid-mindless surfing. So if you wrote a really awesome blog post lately & I didn't comment about how awesome it was, that's probably why. (Orrrrr I don't know about your awesome blog, & you should totally link it in the comments!)

So I have been trying to get on my Google Reader at least a couple of times a week & hit all my favorites in at least some kind of rotating fashion. I swear I'm not ignoring you.

Which, speaking of awesome blogs I don't know about, what are they?? Every now and then someone whose blog I read will link to other people they read that I don't know about, and it's always fun to click over & check it out. So please -- if there is an awesome blog you read that is not in my little side bar list (yes, if you're in Reader you'll have to click through to check), send me a link! I always love reading about what awesome & interesting people are up to.

A pretty respectable week, training wise. Which makes two in a row. #progress?

Grand Total: 38 miles

* 25.3 easy
* 1.7 speed / intervals
* 11 long

Monday 1/28:

Lunch time - Yoga. This was a different class than last Thursday, & this teacher was definitely not into going into as much detail about the different poses & exactly what angle each particular body part should be at, etc. Sometimes she would just say the name & I kind of just had to hope that the people around me knew what they were doing.

Evening - Karate + mild strength work. I think I did some push ups & crunches & stuff & that was about it.

Tuesday 1/29:

Lunch time - Strength session. I did not get to do leg presses because of a dude who was sucking at the gym. How does one suck at the gym, you might ask? By putting a billion pounds on a piece of equipment, doing like three shaky reps (in jeans no less, wtf), then "saving" it with a giant towel over the seat (with the weights still on of course) while he went to do, like, I don't know, something else for 10 minutes. Then he'd come back, do three more shaky reps, wash / rinse / repeat. He sucks.

Evening - 3.7 speed workout (1 mile warm up; 2 x 1200m @ 6:45 w/ 1:00 jog; 1 mile cool down). This ended up a little abbreviated because I had to squeeze it in between work & a promised movie date; realistically I probably would've done a 1.5 mile warm up / cool down & maybe one additional 1200, but I'm just happy I managed to get something in.

In related news, you really do not need to go see The Hobbit, mainly because of this:

So completely unnecessary. Also, there's a movie desperately in need of some editing. Geez Louise.

Wednesday 1/30:

Lunch time - Pilates. Gaaawwwwd, soooo miserable. But in that this-is-only-showing-me-how-badly-I-need-to-do-this kind of way. My hip flexors hated me for at least two days after. It is a good thing I can only make this class once a week because I'm not sure I could take more than that.

Afternoon - 4 miles easy on the treadmill. Running before karate is always dicey & sometimes results in shitty karate, so I don't do it that often, but since my evenings are busy this week I figured I should try to get a few in. I hoped that if I ran as soon as possible (ie, immediately after leaving work) and in the most efficient manner possible (ie, treadmill), my legs would have the most time to recover and I might stand a chance of them not being trashed by karate time.

Evening - Karate + strength work. Legs were okay; they've definitely been worse.

Thursday 1/31: I worked from home on Thursday, so my schedule got changed around a little.

Mid-day - 6 easy. Always a treat to get a nice, outdoor, DAYLIGHT run in on a clear, sunny day. 62°, no wind, & just lovely. A bit of shin splints pain, but I know that more often than not that tends to happen when I'm tired, and my core muscles were still pretty shredded from le Pilates the day before.

Evening - Half-assed strength work. This is the down side of working from home, and half the point of making myself physically go to the gym at lunch time. Yes, technically I can do at home most of what I do at the gym, but I was kind of squeezing this in between running & finishing some work stuff & getting ready for dinner plans -- a couple sets of lunges, a few one-legged squats, etc. -- which eventually turned into "Eh, I'll finish the rest when we get home." One guess how that went.

Friday 2/1:

Lunch time - The other half of Thursday night's half-assed strength work. Between Thursday evening & Friday afternoon, a full-ass's worth of strength work was accomplished.

Evening - 7 easy. This run had me really worried for about 3.5 miles. My lower calf / Achilles areas were so, so tight & painful (one of the reasons I've re-committed to yoga / stretching), & sometimes that sets off my shin splints issues. But, once I turned around & started heading back downhill (I kind of live in a basin), everything loosened up & felt great.

Saturday 2/2: 6.3 easy. A bit chilly and dark, but otherwise just lovely. I felt great -- not an ache or pain in sight. And to think I almost took a rest day because of how tired I felt on Friday. More of these, please. :)

Sunday 2/3: 11 long. With significant mileage increases, there seems to be this hard / easy / hard pattern with my so-called "easy" runs (witness Friday-Saturday-Sunday). Boy, this was a tough one. Back to 20-30 second breaks every half mile or so, though it did get just a little easier on the way back.

So it looks like I finally get to start doing threshold runs again next week. On paper I tend to dread these runs, but a lot of times they actually end up being some of my favorites.

Also, I'm getting the race itch. I know I'm not ready yet & there are plenty on the calendar a few weeks / months from now, but mentally I am SOOOO ready to throw down. Maybe I'll pin an old bib to my shirt & fake-race someone on the treadmill without their knowledge next week...