Back to Micro-Blogging...

Hello friends!

Lately I've been starting blog posts and never finding time to finish them. Hopefully I *will* at some point, but in the mean time, just a quick update so that you don't think I've died.

• Running! A thing I am doing! After eight weeks completely off after Boston 2 Big Sur, I'm now wrapping up my 4th week of getting back to running. It's all easy miles right now, with 12.5 miles the first week, 22 miles in week 2, 34 in week 3, and now 40 miles this past week.

  I'm doing my best to stick to my tried-&-true base training protocol, ie, all easy miles & keeping my heart rate between 140 & 150 bpm (which sometimes means walking!). I had sort of assumed that when I ran the numbers (because, data nerd) that two months off would probably result in being in worse shape than at the beginning of previous cycles when I haven't had so much (or any) time off, but this first month of runs has looked pretty similar to previous cycles, so perhaps this is just where I bottom out.

SJRNRHM Week 7 of 14: Cut-Back Week / Cookin' in the Bathroom

A couple of solid workouts still this week, but cutting back on the total mileage a bit. Going into it I found myself thinking, "Do I really need a cut-back week? I feel fine!" Come Tuesday evening, though, the answer was a clear, "Uhhhh, yes. Yes I would very much like a cutback week, please and thank you."

To be honest, I am definitely feeling more beat up so far this training cycle than I ever did training for CIM last fall, and running WAY less mileage on average (and less than I'd planned, at least thus far). I'm not really sure what to chock that up to, except maybe that whole thing about your body doesn't distinguish physical stress from mental/emotional stress, and last fall we definitely, DEFINITELY were not living in a construction zone and, oh yeah, without an actual kitchen. (Until you've scrambled eggs in the microwave and washed your dishes in the bathroom sink, you have not lived.)

Current state of the kitchen

Also we just learned that they want to demo the bathroom in a week or two, so while I'm proud of us for sticking it out for nearly six months, it may actually be time to move out & let them finish the rest of the work without us in the way.

* * * Rock 'N Roll San Jose Half: Week 7 of 14 * * *

SJRNRHM Week 5 of 14: Getting in Miles, but Losing the Kitchen

Things at our house have been getting interesting.

Did I mention that we're five months into a massive remodel? We're five months into a massive remodel. Now that there's a real floor, stairs, proto-walls, and windows, the (previously unpermitted and very very not-up-to-code) downstairs area is starting to feel like a real house!

The next step is to demo our crappy upstairs kitchen & start building a fancy MORE BETTER kitchen and powder room, and then finally demo our crappy upstairs bathroom & turn it into a smaller but much nicer en suite. Demo on the kitchen starts Wednesday, so we spent a lot of our Sunday cleaning out the various cabinets & drawers.

Meanwhile, the "kitchen" is now in the living room.

There are a lot of unanswered questions currently, like how are we feeding ourselves without resorting to takeout every night, where is the large refrigerator going, and what happens when they finally come to demolish our bathroom. Fingers crossed the vast majority of the work will be done within the next three months, but honestly I'll just be happy if things go back to normal by the end of this year.

In the meantime, training for stuff!

* * * Rock 'N Roll San Jose Half: Week 5 of 14 * * *

Time to Step Back (and some pictures, because, pictures)

You may (or may not) have noticed that I haven't had much to say here lately, and that's kind of a combination of a bunch of factors. 1) I've been stretched super thin with precious free time for rambling on the internet (ie, it's taken me like two weeks working in fits and starts to scrape this post together), 2) the same thin-stretching has, sadly, resulted in less actual/interesting running to write *about*, and, well, 3) running has kind of just sucked lately.

Things I've been doing instead of running: I was supposed to race a 10K this weekend but said ehhhhh screw it & we went skiing instead.

View from our hotel room.

This place is pretty hard to beat.

There were poke cones for dinner, and good wine.

I mentioned this in my Victory 10K race report a bit, how from the start of the year even just lacing up my shoes has been a struggle, how everything hurts, how sometimes I get home from work and running is just about the absolute last thing I feel like doing, which is just really weird after six months of "WEEEEE RUN ALLLLL THE MILES & FEEL (mostly) GREAT!!!11!1" I had this goal of taking my post-CIM marathon fitness, which was no question the best it's ever been in my life, and stacking 10 weeks of half marathon-specific training on top of that with the hopes of running if not a PR at Shamrock'n Half at least my first sub-1:40 in 4.5 years.

OTHER NON-RUNNING STUFF: That time I put on non-running clothes for Valentine's Day.

But it's like the universe is just completely dead set against it. First I was sick. Then running sucked. Then I was super busy with work and renovations and traveling all the time. Then I started having asthma problems from all the dust. Then I pulled a hamstring last week. (It was getting better, then this week I tripped & re-pulled it.) Then I got food poisoning this past weekend. So instead revving up for a super sick half, I've spent most of 2017 with my Shamrock training feeling like the BBQ piglet from season 7 of The Simpsons.

"It's just a little malaise! It's still good! It's still good!" "It's just a little undertraining! It's still good! It's still good!" "It's just a little hypoxia! It's still good! It's still good!"

Then this weekend happened and when I was finally not feeling like I was going to puke every half hour or so, I looked down the barrel of the work that's left to be done for our renovations, much of which must be done very soon and can be done only on weekends, and finally had to admit, "Nope; nope, it's gone."

What our downstairs looked like a month ago:

What it looks like now:

If the race was here in town and I didn't have to drive 2 hours there and back and pay for a hotel and give up half my Saturday as well as half my Sunday, I'd probably still run it since I've paid for, but even then I don't think I'd try to race. My workouts have been few and far between, I haven't run double digits since January, and I've only run the full race distance or more once this year. I don't know, maybe I could still coast my way on all that marathon training to a pretty decent half, but the truth is I just AM.NOT.FEELING IT. (And I'm definitely not feeling like giving up so much of one of my only free weekends between now and May and paying for a hotel room.)

Before the food poisoning, hanging out with my mom & sisters in Ft. Worth. (I randomly happened to be there for a conference this past weekend.)

Me & my tall sisters.

So, Wednesday morning I finally emailed my RunCoach coaches and ask them to suspend my account for a couple of months. They both agreed that there was nothing wrong with taking a bit of a break after CIM, especially during a busy time and especially when my motivation for real "training" is completely MIA. I can't tell you what a relief it was to finally, officially make that decision (which I think is how you know it's the right one).

There is decent running in Ft. Worth! Trinity Park (30+ miles of paved & dirt trails) is just two miles outsie of downtown.

Running across the Trinity River towards the park, then along the river for 4 miles out & back. (I don't know the area well enough to do loops, but one could, in theory.)

As for the new plan, here's what I've got:

• Keep running as much as I'm able and feel up to. So, I dunno, maybe ~30 mpw or so, but I'm not planning to set any real number goals. I just don't want to be dreading it all day.
• Forget about workouts for the next two months. Getting to the track adds a solid 30-40 minutes to my run, plus it's that much harder to muster the mental focus for fast running when you feel crappy and also guilty about all the other stuff you should be doing instead. (Besides, a good chunk of easy base training never hurts!)
• Finish building my damn house. Or, y'know, making final decisions about tile and engineered wood and appliances so the wonderful wonderful guys we're paying can finish building our damn house. I didn't realize how much I'd been stressed out by thoughts like "How am I going to visit the tile store AND get in my run?" and "How am I going to go look at fridges all morning plus all the usual weekend chores AND get in my run?" until I said, "Fuck it, the house has to be the top priority right now" and it was such a weight off my chest.
• Go to Hawaii in May. Because I need a damn vacation. (I have completely forgotten what it feels like to get on a plane out of something other than a sense of obligation.)
• Train for PrideRun 5K on June 24. In the best of worlds, I will get in lots and lots of good base training, six weeks of solid speed work, and crush it; in more mediocre ones, I will do almost nothing and pay $30 to jog three comfortable miles for charity 20 minutes from my house, which will also be fine. Most likely it will be something in between, and that's fine too. :)

Ft. Worth also has cool water gardens. (Yes, the water recirculates.)

So, there you go. That's what I've been up to. What's new with you?

Eugene Week 2 of 17: The new strength plan...

Lots of miles on the RunShields this week!

Love these things! They really do work amazingly well.

OH HAI EL NIÑO!
(It's a little hard to tell but this is rain absolutely pouring outside our door last night.)

Back in the day I used to hate running in the rain. And the dark, and the heat, and you get the idea. Basically if it didn't look like a Disney movie outside I'd park myself on the treadmill and that was that. These days, though, I'd much rather be outside no matter what it's doing, and I've even gotten to where I kind of enjoy a nice, damp run from time to time.

Drenched but happy :)

The Wide Wide World of Strength Work

I had this plan to get back to working with the strength trainer I was seeing last year once the holidays were over, but then I found out I had to go back to physical therapy for my foot, which pretty much put the kebash on that financially.

Something I have learned about myself over the years is that I can get myself to a place/do a thing consistently as long as I have a plan, which is what I liked best about the time during which I was working with the trainer. We would meet once a month, and she would spell out for me what exercises to, how many, how often, how much weight, etc. I didn't have to think at all and it was BRILLIANT.

In the last few months I've tried to mimic the workouts I was doing on her instructions, which was sort of 60/40 okay, but I'd get stuck on things like, "Is it time to switch things up? Should I add more weight? More reps? Eh?" Which too many times led straight to Screw It town, wherein I would skip workouts and not try that hard when I did go because I was obviously just making shit up and why even bother.

So, since I can't go to PT *and* pay $90 a pop for a real-life trainer, I got The New Rules of Weight Lifting for Women. Several people I know have raved about the plans and flipping through the online version it seemed pretty legit, so I decided to give it a shot while I train for Eugene.

I am not particularly concerned with looking like a goddess & have more than
enough nutritional advice to be getting on with, but sign me up for the rest!

It's not running-specific, but a lot of the exercises are the same or similar to what I was doing with AT (deadlifts, squats, weighted lunges & push-ups, plenty of ab stuff), so there's only a few other things I know I need to throw in occasionally (clam shells & some eccentric one-legged stuff mostly). It's not periodized for distance running, obviously, so I'll probably need to do some adjusting during the weeks when I'm racing, but whatever.

The main things I like about it are 1) written by a dude that knows what he's talking about, and 2) there are actual plans, both short- and long-term, that are pretty detailed so I'm not left guessing about things & making them up. I'm only two weeks in at this point, and WOW, I'd forgotten how hard real, actual strength workouts are when you're not just making them up as you go. But I've gone from 107 lbs lean tissue to 110 in that time, so I'm not complaining.

What Else Is Going On

• WE PICKED A KITCHEN COUNTER! Oh my god. Holy Jesus. I can't tell you what a relief this is.
  
  This is our current kitchen floor which is going away, but the cabinets
  will be a similar color. (If you hate it maybe just don't tell me.)
  
• WE CHOSE A DOUBLE OVEN! I am not joking when I say I'd become 90% certain that there was not a decent, reliable double oven anywhere on planet Earth and in place of the ovens we were just going to have a giant gaping hole with a scribbled note that said "Sorry, ovens were too hard, use the microwave."
• Still no holes in our house but I am told the engineering should be done any day now, after which we should be able to start getting bids from contractors. I am hoping the fact that it is pouring rain lately will somehow guarantee the holes will start appearing soon. (Phhhbbbbtt an El Niño winter is a GREAT time to start construction, I don't know what you are talking about.)

~*~*~EUGENE MARATHON WEEK 2 OF 17~*~*~

Some Numbers:

* 20 miles running (woohoo!)
* 1:24:45 elliptical (fine)
* 2:45:00 strength work (woohoo!)
* 0:30:00 stretch & roll (boo, I suck)

Monday: a.m. 45:00 strength / p.m. karate. I can tell I'm doing real, actual strength work again because I left the gym feeling pretty much like jello in every muscle. I was BARTing to Oakland this week for work, & going down the steps into the station was...an adventure.

Tuesday: a.m. 30:00 stretch & roll / p.m. elliptical speed work. This is when the soreness really hit. Given that I could barely walk, any type of running-like motion was *completely* out of the question. Even rolling was pretty miserable.

Wednesday: afternoon 1.5 easy to the gym + 1:00 strength + 1.5 easy home / p.m. karate. I wanted to do strength in the morning again, but my Oakland gig had a hard 8:00 start, which would have meant getting up at 5am and that was just NOT happening. Luckily we finished early that day, so I had time to get it done in SF before karate.

Thursday: 5 easy. I worked late Thursday so didn't actually start this run until about 7pm. Still kind of sore in the quads, but once I started, running actually felt really good, so I went with it. I'd kind of toyed with swinging by the gym for 20-30 additional minutes on the elliptical, but it was so late and I was so not feeling it. I was really enjoying running what felt like an *actual* real distance for the first time in forever, and I really didn't want to ruin it with the stench of sweaty bro & cleaning fluid. (The official plan only called for 5-6, though, so I don't feel that bad about it.) I did not stretch or roll, though.

Friday: 1.5 easy to the gym, 17:00 marathon effort + 7:45 HM effort on the elliptical, 1:00 strength work, 1.5 easy home. I have a feeling this is maybe not how you should do these things, but it's just how the day worked out. A little light stretching but not nearly enough.

Saturday: 3 easy. Just an easy recovery jaunt because I felt like it.

Sunday: 6 easy + 1:00 easy elliptical = more or less equivalent to a 13-14 mile long run. This was my longest run post-sfx, and it felt just amazing. Even the part where I was running home in hammering rain was kind of fun in its own way! But mainly, just being able to complete what feels like a real distance on my usual route & feel completely 100% pain-free (even if my muscles & connective tissues are still adjusting).

Friends, I am putting this one solidly in the win column. Only 15 more to go. :)