Blogger land leads me to believe that this is the part where I say "Ohhhh, it was so WEIRD to have a cut-back week after all these 45+ WEEKS, I felt like I BARELY RAN, I was going STIR CRAZY doing normal-people things instead of running a BAJILLION miles" but eff that noise, you guys. Other than the race (which, yeah, was awesome), this week sucked balls and I am not too proud to tell you about it.
We were at karate the night of Game 7, but listened to part of the game on the drive over & then checked the score at 8:30 (by then it was over).
It also turns out it's hard to ignore sportsball championships when they tend to result in your neighborhood turning into a rough approximation of a war zone.
Don and I came home from karate around 10pm & ate leftovers rather than trying to get food in the Mission (which is what we usually do after class). At that point our house was already vibrating with the sounds of perhaps three helicopters more or less directly above it.
As always when the Giants win the World Series (lol), we girded our loins, grabbed our phones & cameras, & walked the two blocks from our noisy but relatively tame block to the bonfires-in-the-streets, swinging-from-lamp-posts, no-holds-barred insanity of Mission Street.
The thing about sports championships in SF (I assume it's similar in a few other cities) is that there's a sweet spot for going out & high-fiving strangers & dancing on top of your car with a team flag while your buddy lays on the horn (if that's your bag). Past World Series victories have not been on karate nights so we've been able to get out early & enjoy some of that. But inevitably, there comes a point in the evening where the crowd gets just a little too drunk, a little too raucous, things start to turn, and suddenly it's riot gear & setting fires & throwing broken bottles & knocking over Muni busses. Sadly, by the time we got to Mission Street around 10:30, it seemed that that time of night was growing nigh.
I have to say this was amongst the least safe I've felt living in San Francisco, and yet I kind of felt mesmerized by the insanity of it all & couldn't stop snapping pictures and possibly maybe getting a closer than I really should have to some situations. (I found out later there were at least two shootings within a four-block radius of my house.)
When we found ourselves gasping for air in the wake of a smoke cloud of police fire retardant & trapped in a mass of drunk people in Giants gear running frantically from the riot police / street sweeper (maybe both), the possibility of getting shivved by a broken bottle (or, more likely, getting knocked over on top of one) seemed a little too real and we made our way back home as quickly as we could.
To me, anyone who even shows up & finishes in sub-thirty temps is a trooper. But 7 minute PR? 12 minute PR? 15 minute PR? 26 MINUTE PR???
Seriously. Beasts.
Which only topped off an already amazing weekend sport-and-athletics-wise, since the night before we'd watched Stanford kick some Sun Devil booty at the PAC 12 Championship & secure a spot in the 100th Rose Bowl.
Needless to say, we're making travel plans.
At the 2013 Rose Bowl. There's something kind of cool
about starting & ending the year at the same event.
I'm pretty psyched.
~*~Running~*~
Running lately has been rather touch-and-go. I was doing fairly well, & then we went to Hawaii for a week. I did pretty well once we came back & even had a fairly not-too-terrible "race" race, & then we went to Texas for a week for Thanksgiving, where my choices were basically a) get some running in, or b) sleep adequately & don't alienate any of the 50 or so relatives that I only ever see once a year. Given that many of those relatives are over 80 or under 10, I went with option b), and came back sleep-deprived as it is.
I don't regret that choice--family trumps running now, always, & forever--but the timing of our vacation & the holidays has certainly made things harder for me as I start burning through NVM training time at kind of a terrifying rate. (12 weeks left, if anyone is counting.) This past week was not the training jump-start I would have chosen, but I did manage to salvage something from it, both mentally & physically.
Wednesday: 3 easy a.m. / karate + light strength p.m. This was my first day back from Texas, and after waaaaay too many near-sedentary days & five full Thanksgiving dinners (ah, the joys of large blended families), I was feeling desperate for some exercise. I got up early to hit the gym for a few treadmill miles, & while I'd vaguely planned on maybe four, the sharp painful place in my right tibia that's been bothering me ever since Berkeley started acting up around 2.5, which was just as well since one I hit three, I was not sure I could've gone another step. (See: sleep deprivation / general travel fatigue.) I was feeling a little better by the time karate rolled around, & it felt good to work hard & sweat for 90 minutes or so.
Thursday: Strength work a.m. / 6 easy p.m. Feeling energized (and rather delinquent in the strength department), I got up early to get in some push-ups / clamshells / squats / weird (and deceptively challenging) ball-sitting exercise that my PT has put me onto for the one rogue left glute muscle that doesn't seem to be firing quite right with all the rest. The run was not particularly fast but felt surprisingly good. (See: fresh legs)
Friday: Friday was when the wheels came off. I'm guessing I just tried to do a little too much too quickly after doing almost nothing since Berkeley, because WOW, were my adductors sore. Clearly no running was going to happen, since frankly walking from my office to the kitchen at work was barely happening. Which was just as well anyway, since later that evening I started feeling like I was trying to catch a cold.
Saturday: Still sore + still borderline sick = more rest, lots of tea, & a mildly amusing, alcohol-free (for me) company holiday party, in which I encountered this for the first time:
My 65-year-old boss requested this song special & was shocked & appalled to learn that most of the 20- & 30-somethings in the crowd didn't know it (though Don did, apparently). Afterward I had many questions, like, is my boss cooler than me? Is this what counts as 'cool' now? Have I avoided pop music for so long that I've lost the ability to understand it? And what the hell is going on in Norway?
Sunday: 10 easy. After spending the evening stalking Facebook & Twitter for CIM results, I decided I was feeling good enough to try to get in some double-digits (bringing my post-injury double-digit run total to three). It was only once I was done that I realized the plan had actually only called for 8-9 , which means I am a winner (as long as you ignore then two eight-milers I skipped on Friday & Saturday).
Things I pondered on this run:
So I finished this week with 19 miles, which is pretty piss-poor in general but not totally abysmal for being out of town for two days & under the weather / too sore to walk for two more. Next week's goal is 30-33ish, which I think should be very do-able with a little advance planning.
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(They have these at Starbucks now, right?) |
This week was one of high highs, low lows (okay, moderately low lows), & at long last, a little bit of moderation. Over the last few weeks, it's become *eminently* clear that I made the right decision in not signing up for CIM & killing myself to try to be ready for a marathon by Dec. 8.
Actually, let's be real; calling it 'the right decision' is kind of the understatement of the century. Between issues I knew about ahead of time (lots of travel, work, & social commitments) & other, less foreseen obstacles (illness & pseudo-injury angst), my highest mileage week lately has amounted to 22 miles, with my longest run topping out at a whopping 8.7. And that's not lazing around or procrastinating; that's just all the time & confidence in my right leg (up until very recently) that I've been able to scrape together.
As I mentioned last week, we flew back from Hawaii on Halloween, & instead of a relaxing weekend of unpacking, some running, & preparing for the upcoming week, I was laid low with food poisoning for the better part of four days. This was bad enough because I literally could do nothing but lay on the couch & drink tea & try not to die. I felt a little better starting Monday, but still had some wicked food aversion happening; this translated into 3 days in a row of netting maybe 600 calories & forcing myself to choke down whatever food I could stand. The fallout was a) going into the work/training week sleep-deprived & generally feeling crappy, & b) having done nothing to prepare for the week in terms of food.
Hopefully this won't get too overly privileged-white-girl-talking-about-her-food-issues-on-the-internet (because OMG ENOUGH), but by way of explanation, let me just quickly state that while in general I'm not usually a type A, I am bit obsessive & neurotic about my food in the sense that I like to have it planned out & prepared ahead of time as much as humanly possible, & when I can't or don't it's a *huge* source of stress & anxiety for me. End food talk.
So yeah. I felt terrible, wasn't sleeping, & was scrambling for meals most of the time. (Did I mention I was also moving into a new office at work, and also in the middle of finishing a big project with a Wednesday deadline? So there's that too.) But if there's one thing I know, it's that if I feel horrible AND then I don't get my running in, I feel even worse. So while a lot of things got sacrificed this week due to time & sleep deprivation, I decided to prioritize the running as much as possible. Even so, I didn't quite reach my goal of topping 22 miles. Sigh.
*However*, the week did still involve a pretty Bay Shore Trail run, a killer football game, & a lovely weekend of wine tasting / buying in Paso Robles / San Luis Obispo, so if nothing else, you'll be treated to more pretty / entertaining pictures than usual as you scroll through. :)
Grand Total: 21.5 miles
Monday:
4 miles easy. My stomach was still unhappy enough by the time I got home from work that I didn't think two hours of karate was the greatest idea ever, but feeling better enough that I thought *maybe* I could handle half an hour or so of running, as long as I just ran around the block over and over and over again & didn't get too cocky. Weirdly, after three laps it was feeling a lot better, so I ventured out a bit farther, making loops here & there through my neighborhood, & amazingly got to 4 without feeling like complete & utter crap. #winning
Tuesday:
6.5 track. 1.5 warm up, 4 x (1200m @ 5K pace / 3:00 jog), 1 mile cool down. My first successful track workout since like basically the last ice age, so YAY! The most notable things about this workout were 1) no sharp pains or tweaks, and 2) calves that felt like hamburger meat by the time I got home. Fun times! :P
Wednesday:
Just a bit of easy strength work. Both Don & I were running on *maybe* 3 hours of sleep each, so we decided to ditch karate & get to bed a little earlier than normal, especially since we knew we'd probably be up late at the Stanford-Oregon game on Thursday. I'd kind of been toying with getting in a short run on Wednesday since I knew I wouldn't be running all weekend, but a little experimentation that morning & later that evening confirmed that my calves were still too destroyed to handle more than a few strides at a time.
Thursday:
5 easy. This day was go, go, go -- All-day meeting at work, run desperately out the door at 4:00 for as many easy miles on beautiful Bay Shore Trail as I had time for, dash back to the office, grab a 3-minute shower, gun it for the Caltrain station, then run-walk from the Palo Alto Station to our tailgating area just in time to scarf down a burger & some bean dip & make it to the game for kick-off.
I am so lucky to work *right* by this trail, *and* have access to a shower at my office. I try to remind myself of that any time I start feeling even remotely down about something.
I could tell during the run that although my track workout hadn't felt utterly horrific at the time, it was still way harder on my body than the easy runs I've been doing. My calves were feeling better but definitely still sore, & my adductors & hamstrings (some of the main muscles I've been working on strengthening in PT) were working harder than usual to maintain good form at my "easy" pace. But I got it done & made it to the game.
And ***holy bejeesus***, what a game it was! I think I nearly had a stroke. Vegas odds were 10-10.5 points in favor of #3 Oregon, which makes sense given that they'd won 18 of their last 19 games. And although that one loss was indeed to Stanford last year on Oregon's home turf, I was not feeling all that confident that our chances against them this year were as good.
Did I start to get just a *little* excited when, after 3.5 quarters, Stanford was shutting the Ducks out 26-0? Okay; maybe just a bit. But to beat Oregon you have to be near perfect, & there was still plenty of time for us to make a mistake & for them to exploit it. Sure enough, in the last 10 minutes of the game, the Ducks managed two touchdowns & two field goals, but Stanford took the ball back & ran out the last few minutes to seal it 26-20.
Rushing the field.
Don & I freak out a little bit.
I freak out some more.
#nerdnation represents at the post-game presser.
So yeah. Up to #4 we go. That was a pretty epic night, & did a lot for my energy levels going into the weekend.
Friday:
6 easy. I'd hoped to get home from work early enough to get in 9-10 miles with a few at HM pace before we were leaving for Paso Robles around 7pm. Alas I didn't get home until 4:30, & once I was packed it had become one of those "I need to be back in x minutes, so I can run away from the house for x minutes divided by two, then head back" sort of deals. I had more energy than on Thurday's run, but my legs were clearly still recovering from Tuesday & my pace reflected it.
Saturday / Sunday:
Twice a year we usually head down to Paso Robles (about halfway between the Bay Area & LA) to pick up a bunch of a wine, & also taste more wine, & also usually buy a bunch more wine. (Sensing a theme, here?) We've already been down several times this year, though, & since Don's co-worker had connections at a winery in San Luis Obispo, we decided to drive the extra half hour south on our first day & check out some spots down there where neither of us had ever been.
Baileyana is absolutely worth a stop! Try their non-Chard whites, & also the Rhone blends.
You'll know it because it looks like a one-room school house (since it was.)
Kynsi was our other top pick. Tasty pinots & red blends.
Our time in SLO was limited, so we didn't get to that many places. I would love to go back sometime & hit a bunch more!
On Sunday we did most of our picking up back in Paso, which included spending some time down in the guts at Denner.
You know you're drinking ten-year-old port when the residue in the glass is brick-red. :)
Paso was (as usual) spectacularly gorgeous.
Of course, now that we're back home, we get to deal with this:
The carboys are not from Paso. Nor is the stack with the green box, nor the one with the visible bottles. But pretty much everything else. Do this a few times a year & suddenly you can see why you end up needing three wine fridges.
I fully understand that there are worse problems one can have in life.
You guys, I am totally running thirty miles this week or giving up on running forever. BRING IT.
The obligatory logo pic
Winning the Rose Bowl!!
WOO-HOO!!
While making the trip was TOTALLY worth it and tons of fun, it was still one grueling, logistics-heavy, sleep-deprived trip stacked on top of another grueling, logistics-heavy, sleep-deprived trip, and by the time we got home in the wee hours of Jan 2, we were both sore, stuffy, coughing, and only functioning as human beings by the slimmest of margins. Back when I was requesting vacation days, I'd kind of suspected that would happen & planned ahead to work from home that day. By which I mean keep my work email open in the background while lying on the couch sipping tea & desperately trying not to get sick.
Training / physical health-wise, I'm at a bit of a nadir currently. After taking all of December 2011 off post-CIM & then feeling like I was going to die on my Jan 2 2012 four mile run, I vowed this year that I would make no such mistake. Which was all fine & good until the whole tendinitis-foot doctor-running-verboten thing.
In addition to some lost fitness, I'm still having foot problems various & sundry, and my right hip flexor / piriformis / IT band / whatever decided to take this month of alleged rest to act up again. Just sitting in the passenger seat on the way to Pasadena had me in eye-watering amounts of pain, & standing up after sitting for more than half an hour or so kind of feels like the muscles in my hip are ripping apart. I've been having allergy & asthma problems basically since we got to Texas (the air there never seems to agree with my respiratory system), and lastly there's the five extra pounds I brought back with me. Y'know. For good measure.
In my mid-twenties I would've almost certainly slid into a depressive funk over all this, but I've been through the cycle enough times at this point to remember that it is just a cycle, and I've never dug such a deep hole for myself health/fitness-wise that I haven't been able to get out of it again with a little commit.plan.execute. So yes, there is work to be done, which is tedious & daunting & unglamorous & something we can totally put off discussing for a little while longer.
Instead, let's talk about the fun part.
One of my favorite New Year's rituals is formally sitting down with all the races I've been eyeing & putting things (at least tentatively) on the calendar. Undoubtedly some of it will get chopped, but here are some races I'm thinking about for the next few months:
2/2 and/or 2/16 - Berkeley All-Comers Track & Field Meet (Berkeley, CA). I had no idea until recently that these even existing. I am hoping to hook up with SF Track & Field sometime soon since they often go to these & see whether there may be an opportunity to run a track 5K because the track & field kid in me is having an absolute fit inside over the mere possibility.
3/2 - Hellyer 10K (San Jose, CA). I threw this one in there because I'd really like to run at least one solid 10K before the Oakland Half, and although it's a Brazen event, the course is on pavement & I think close enough to flat to serve as a reasonable fitness gauge. (They're also doing Bay Breeze in February, which I ran last year, but the usual course is under construction so they've moved to another temporarily which looks a little too gravel-ey for my tastes.)
3/24 - Oakland Half Marathon (Oakland, CA) (**confirmed**). This is the next race I'm actually registered for. There was a super-cheap early registration code back in July or some such, and I enjoyed it last year, so why not. I doubt I'll be in shape to PR by then, but I'd love to at least beat my time from last year.
4/7 - Santa Cruz 10K (Santa Cruz, CA). I have unfinished business in Santa Cruz. In 2011, this race marked my return to 10Ks & I took 5th at a pace that is now only slightly faster than my half marathon PR pace. I want another crack at this one. It's just two weeks after Oakland, though, so I'll have to think about how practical it will be. If I go, it will be to race hard and AG place.
6/29 - SF Pride Run 5K (San Francisco, CA). Because it's cheap, fun, close to home, & for a good cause. I ran the 10K in 2011 & the 5K in 2012.
7/?? Pride Meet (San Francisco, CA). I haven't seen a date for this yet, but last year it was 7/22. Hopefully another chance to race on the track.
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| I am not even kidding you that this is their logo. You know I go for the classy races. |
That seems like enough to be getting on with for now. I have a good handle on Oakland, SF, & PrideRun; anyone else out there familiar with any of the others? What do you think about them?
Also, M2O will be the first race I've ever flown to. Any marathon travel tips? Am I totally going to get a deep vein thrombosis from marathoning & flying in the same day? If so it would be good to know ahead of time for planning purposes.
Hope your 2013 is off to a fantastic start!!
