LOOK I'M TRYING OK?

OK, so. Attempting to revive the blog is definitely reminding me of some of the reasons why I gave up a couple years ago! I've probably started five or six posts since the last one, but I have so little time for it that by the time I next sit down to write, my most recent draft feels woefully outdated. Then there is the fact that we went on A FOR-REAL, ACTUAL VACATION for these last three weeks, so obviously there wasn't much happening in the way of running or blogging. We actually booked this vacation two years ago, before it was rescheduled twice. Things were not looking good in Portugal in the spring, but then by late summer the Portuguese government managed to work some kind of miracle, and by the time we left for our trip the country was ~90% vaccinated.

[Related: AMA regarding international travel in These Unprecedented Times^TM.]

Sunset in Sintra, Portugal

In Which SF Road Warrior Lives Up to Her Name

So, hey! It's 2019 & the holidays are over & there's some kind of 10K on February 3??? Time to start doing some running, I guess!

Happy Mexican New Year from me & my hunky boyfriend!

Happy New Year from Don & his massive biceps!

Although, I'm not gonna lie, I'd planned to start last week when we got back from Mexico, but that plan sort of fell through. How so? Let me count the ways.

Race Report: THE BOSTON FRICKIN' MARATHON

See also:

What It Was Like to Run the Boston Marathon in a Freezing Deluge (NY Times)

Harsh weather turns Boston Marathon into a punishing slog (Boston Globe)

Is today the worst weather in Boston Marathon history? (Boston.com)

In any case it's been *quite* the experience and I certainly have plenty to say about it! In fact, I have so much to say about different aspects of this race and the entire trip that it makes the most sense to break it up into a few different posts. Otherwise, I'm going to end up with a 40-page treatise that no one's ever going to read.

First things first, though: Race Report! I'll do logistics, etc. later; this one is going to be mostly just about my actual race experience & how it went, other than the lead-up you need to set the stage.

Boston Marathon Week 13 of 18: Some running was involved.

Man, you guys, I couldn't even call week 13 a mixed bag. It started out with a glimmer of hope but went downhill very very quickly for all kinds of reasons both physical and general life-related until on Sunday night I lay in a hotel bed in Texas, fuming over what a waste most of the week and weekend had been and over the fact that I could barely walk comfortably and also had to get on a plane back to SF in like five hours.

Boston Marathon Week 11 of 18: How Not to Plan Your Training Week

So, at least for now, it seems like I've gotten back to a normal training load, just in time to turn 37 last Friday. I decided against the Saturday 10K, for a lot of reasons, including 1) running 6+ miles at 10K race pace is REALLY DIFFERENT than a run-of-the-mill speed or tempo workout, and I don't want to risk my hip relapsing so soon after it's started to feel normal again; 2) I reallllly need to prioritize long runs right now given my distinct lack of them as of late, and racing on Saturday makes a Sunday long run potentially miserable or a bad idea or both (if not impossible); 3) $60 is pretty pricey for a 10K I haven't even really been training for; but mostly 4) I wanted to go out for a fun dinner on my birthday Friday night without having to worry about what I'm eating or drinking and going to bed early and getting up at the butt crack of dawn or feeling like crap at the starting line.

So. I'll race something else later. Right now we are seven weeks out from Boston and it seems prudent to keep one's eye on the prize so to speak.

As for week 11? Well, on the face of things, it looks like, "Hey, wow, a normal-looking marathon training load! Woohoo!" And there's some truth there. My hip has felt 100% completely fine (because you can bet your booty I wouldn't be running this mileage otherwise), and it DOES feel super good to complete all the workouts and finish the full long run and even hit all the paces. (I've even been doing the strength work!) So, in a lot of ways, #winning.

But there was also a little comedy of errors going on this week in terms of how I ended up running all those miles & workouts. So let us talk about how, in an ideal world, one would perhaps NOT structure their training week!

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?

CIM WEEK 11 of 18: Texas Half Marathon #1 (+ my sister's wedding!)

Cool western fonts are the best.

This big news this week, of course, was OMG MY LITTLE SISTER GETTING MARRIED!!!! Of course there were a ton of professional pictures taken, but I managed to snap a few decent ones with my phone.

Three Things Whatever Day It Is

THING #1: According to random.org, the winner of The Fro Yo Run entry is ROSE RUNNER!! Check your email, lady; there's a code coming your way.

ALSO, Jen at RunningTangents also has an entry to give away, and I think hers is open until Wednesday night, so if anyone wants another shot, get over to her blog today or tomorrow!

If you're so inclined, you can still get a four-pack for $150, and there's a $5 coupon available here.

THING #2: Injury Update:

Since I stopped running three weeks ago, I've been trying to keep up my fitness by doing workouts on the elliptical. The down side is that I can only do that on week days since my gym is by my office 30 miles away, so my "runs" have pretty much been capped at about an hour. (Also, elliptical is never super comfortable for me so I doubt I'd do much more than that anyway.) Since I can't really do tons of volume right now, I've been trying to balance things out with mostly interval "speed work" instead, which has the added benefit of making the time go by faster.

My leg has felt pretty good in the last week, so this past Monday I decided to take a shot at the first step in my sensible-return-to-running plan (more or less the same program my PT had me follow with my stress fracture last year): 1:00 jog followed by 2:00 walking. The goal is to do 30 minutes (so 10 intervals), but I was definitely not above stopping if it started to hurt at all. Thankfully, though, there was no pain and I completed the entire thing. Winning! (Or, y'know, breaking even, which I will totally take.)

The idea is to do a 30:00 walk-run session every other day (as long as there is no pain), gradually increasing the time spent running & decreasing the walking. So tomorrow it's another 10 intervals, this time 90 seconds on/90 seconds off.

Even though there is no pain, I can still tell that my body is super hesitant about bearing weight on my left arch through each stride & tries all sorts of tricks to avoid it. And it's kind of funny & amazing, how every time that starts to happen, I can feel some old injury start to complain. The more I think about it and pay attention to my body, the more I honestly feel like I can trace nearly every running injury I've ever had back to this one issue, which is both awesome (there might actually be *one* root cause!) and terrifying (if I can't fix it, I'm basically screwed).

THING 3: YOU GUYS I AM TRAVELING FOR FUN!!

I haven't traveled anywhere for fun since January, so next week we're taking off for Portland/Willamette Valley. Current plans include tooling around the city drinking beer & eating ridiculous food for a couple of days, then drinking All The Wine in the northern valley/eating more ridiculous food, then hiking the Columbia Gorge for a few days/drinking more beer. I mean yes, I'm supposed to be celebrating a marathon PR, but far be it from me to complain. The way I see it, this just means I get another cool trip come January.

Portland

Willamette Valley

Columbia Gorge

And yes, if my pictures don't look *exactly* like this, I am going to be disappointed.

[That one women's activewear brand] is Planning My Yoga Getaway to Rio

Man, it is just like me to write a post about how great I feel and how easy my training has been, up to & including 21 warm-ish miles, & then basically crash for a week. Part of this is due to work, which is really stressful right now & taking up a lot of my time & causing me to not get enough sleep. Basically this week I've done nothing but work, sleep, & run, & not really in a super-structured way; more just juggling them all around & fitting them in when & where I can.

In the mean time I wanted to tell you about this one fairly well-known women's active wear brand, whom I will not call out by name because I'm not a completely horrible person. Although I have to say that I do like a lot of their clothes & have bought several things from them. Their catalogs tend to be a little ridiculous, though, and I feel like the most recent one was more ridiculous than most. From what I gather, they are planning me a yoga/fitness retreat in Rio (but not paying for it, mind you. TYPICAL).

This is, I feel, the only logical conclusion I can draw based on pages like this one:

Thank GOD, this has been keeping me up at night.

But it isn't all cute outfits & boutique yoga in Rio. Sometimes, apparently, it is cute outfits and making the world your gym.

Because doing push-ups on a tire is *totally* on my Rio to-do list.

Once you get tired of doing push-ups on a tire, you can relax with some weighted lunges:

Good thing I get this catalog. How else would I know how to UP THE ANTE
on my resistance training????? #ante #uppingit #sandbags

I hope I have rescued you from a BORING Rio getaway where you end up doing nothing but sitting on a bunch of BORING beaches or hiking BORING scenery or exploring BORING STUPID historical landmarks. Now you know to go straight for the tires!

You are welcome.