My First Boston-niversary

Ah! Boston! I have been reading the interwebs & it seems that on Boston Marathon day, all running bloggers and/or social media runners are REQUIRED BY CUSTOM to post Boston Marathon related photos if they have them. #tbm #orsomething

This is the first Marathon Monday that I've had anything to contribute so please enjoy some of the insanity if you missed it the first time around (or even if you didn't):

Race Report: Hellyer 5K

If you caught this post, you know I've been feeling overwhelmed at work and also a bit burned out on running and especially hard training lately, so I've been giving myself a little break from the pressure of sticking to a training plan. I decided not to run Stowe Lake since I am now in terrible (or at least far from great) shape and had not actually registered for it yet. However, since I'd paid for this race and it was just a low-key community 5K, I decided to go ahead and do it.

Originally this was supposed to be an all-out race pace effort, sort of a dress rehearsal for Stowe Lake in two weeks. But given the burnout situation I told myself that the point was now just to have fun and enjoy running (remember how you LIKE running and it's actually FUN when you don't put tons of pressure on yourself???). All I had to do was show up, run whatever pace felt good, and if it was slow and bad, oh well, at least I got out of the house & got a workout in and an Alice in Wonderland medal & had fun.

(Now, here is some honest talk that I don't know how I feel about. I think I've always placed in my age group at Brazen 10Ks and sometimes been top three overall, but I took a peek at last year's Hellyer 5K results and, based on the times, saw that if I ran it with any amount of speed, even way off my recent 5K times, I actually had a shot at winning overall. And I would be lying a little bit if I didn't think to myself, "You know, San Jose is a long way to go for a 5K, but if you have a chance at actually winning..."

Life Lately + The New Agreement

So, fleshing out a bit more of something I mentioned in my recent race report.

First is just the simple fact that work (and work travel) has been taking over my life lately. A couple of my work projects are legitimately high stakes right now (like, people's jobs on the line if I can't make some things work out) so I've been under a lot of pressure. Those things really do have to be my A-#1 priority right now. Unfortunately, the rest of my work hasn't conveniently shrunk to allow me to spend a greater portion of my day on the high stakes stuff, so I've had a lot of very long days. Working a 6-8 hour day in the office and then coming home to work *another* 4-6 hour day in the late afternoon/evening has, sadly, become a thing, as has working on the weekend (sometimes in airports and on planes).

I suspect it's probably not unrelated, but I've also started to feel really burnt out on running. No one is super excited about every run and workout all the time (I don't think??), but usually my bad days are limited to feeling super tired and unmotivated when I get home, forcing myself to put on my shoes and get out the door, and almost always feeling better. Lately it's been so much worse--lots of days when I'll think about the fact that I have a run on my schedule and want to burst into tears. Or I feel tired and sour about going on a run and then it never gets any better. Sometimes getting ready for a track workout and feeling like I'm about to have a panic attack, except it doesn't go away once I've gotten started.

Race Report: San Jose Shamrock Run 10K

Long time, no post!

To be honest I've been a bit down about running lately & didn't even bother running the March 3 5K I was signed up for a couple of weeks back because it was stressing me out so much. I have more to say about that, but the tl;dr of it is that (thanks in part to bt), I WAS able to psyche myself up for a local 10K over St. Patrick's Day weekend and it went relatively well, so for now, let's all just enjoy a relatively positive race report!

I found this race when I was just going through lists of races that could work with my schedule. There were a few different Bay Area options for a St. Patrick's Day race, but this one was the closest & looked to have the best course and was also put on by Represent Running, a reputable Bay Area race company, so it made it to the long list and then the short list of spring options.

It was the first one I was really supposed to RACE-race, but given how spotty my training has been lately, it was hard to get too excited about that. I did not feel like I was in great shape and it's hard to get psyched for an all-out effort when you're pretty sure you're only going to end up with a mediocre result. Sure, I could just go and do it as a workout (or even just an easy run), but I never find that very satisfying, and if I'm just going to do a workout or easy run, let's be real, I'd rather not get up at ass-o-clock in the morning and drive for an hour.

Racking Up Small Victories

Slow working my way back up towards what feels like "real" mileage. I think in my schedule this was supposed to be a cut-back week, but because of all the little physical niggles I've had in the last couple of weeks that resulted in missed runs, this actually ended up being the highest mileage week I've run so far this year. Which is fine. Progress is progress.

Also, hey! Not only attempted but COMPLETED all my runs this week!

Cocktails: How to make a reeeaaaalllllly good gin & tonic (even if you don't like them)

(If you are only interested in running stuff, or actively NOT interested in alcohol stuff, feel free to skip this one & come back next time.)

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Friends. A word about gin & tonics. It seems they've been gaining popularity amongst the non-cocktail crowd as of late, so I feel the need to share, & this is my platform.

What is a gin & tonic? This seems obvious, but I keep seeing internet recipes that get it really really objectively wrong, so.

A gin & tonic has at least two ingredients: 1) gin & 2) tonic water. The biggest mistake I keep seeing on the internet is using gin & soda water (ie, ordinary carbonated water), which is not right. If you want to have a gin & soda, cool! But that's different from a gin & tonic.

For the history buffs in the room, we got gin & tonics from British India. A substance called quinine was found to prevent & treat malaria, & the easiest way to deliver the stuff was by dissolving it in soda water. Thus tonic water was born!

Alas, tonic water on its own was quite bitter, so British officers took to mixing it with their military gin ration, sometimes with a bit of sugar & lime. The molecular structure of gin & quinine, happily enough, bond to each other in a way that greatly reduces the bitterness, though today tonic water also contains less quinine & usually a little sugar as well (meaning you don't have to add sugar anymore).

So on the one hand, G&Ts are quite simple: Get some gin, get some real tonic water, mix em up over ice, add a little lime or something else flavorful if you want, & you're good.

Tell Me It's Just Stress

This week wasn't perfect, but, hey! It makes one more where I've had the time & bandwidth to at least ATTEMPT every run on the schedule, and it also included two double-digit workouts. Honestly I'm kind of amazed at how beat up my legs feel after this 33+ mile week (they feel like it was at least 50), but I think that's at least partly still working back up to higher mileage & longer/harder workouts after a bit of a holiday break.

(I've also had a lot of work stress recently, and I think we all know that mental/emotional stress slows healing/recovery, so that could also be part of it.)

~*~*~ STOW LAKE STAMPEDE: Week 6 of 14 ~*~*~

Grand Total: 33.15 miles

* 7.5 easy
* 6.65 speed
* 6 threshold
* 13 long