In search of a little mojo

I'm not going to lie folks, this week has been a tough one. I'm getting the workouts in but I feel like they just are not going well. Life outside of training has been...interesting...this week and I'm pretty sure that it is affecting me mentally and might be contributing to me not feeling the workouts. Sometimes that can be fuel to fire me up and I'll really push through a workout, but right now it is leaving me feeling totally...meh.

Last night was a busy one. I got out of work a bit later than I planned and I had a few errands I still needed to run. I hit the grocery store, then dropped my bike off at Bow for a spring tune up. I'm coming up on the one year anniversary of owning my bike and the first tune up within the year is covered under warranty. So I needed to make sure I got it in on time. They were selling off last year's gloves for a good price so I picked up a pair, then headed off to the Y. I had a 30 minute run to get done and I didn't want to dodge snow and ice (or run in the cold) so I opted for the treadmill. I was running at a comfortable 6.0 (or 10:00/mi) but I bumped it up just a bit to see how it felt. I couldn't stop staring at the display and watching the clock tick down. Finally Welcome to the World came on and it fired me up. I changed my mind and figured I'd just run 3 mi and see if I could run a little faster. By the time I was into the last mile I was ready to keep pushing it and wound up finishing up at an 8:40ish pace. Plus I figured I might as well stretch it out to a 3.1 miler. I felt pretty good when I was done. Hopefully this can carry forward into my hill repeat run today!

I got home and finished up making dinner. I wanted to try N Her Shoes' black bean burgers. I modified things a bit by sauteing up my onions, peppers and garlic ahead of time, plus I threw in some mushrooms for good measure. I also copied the Granny Bee's Roughage salad that the Grizzly Paw in Canmore serves. Salad mix, shredded carrot, a small amount of shredded cheese, finely diced cucumber and beet and some chopped up hard boiled egg on top. I've never boiled an egg before last night. Seriously. Have you ever tried to google "how long do you boil a hard egg for"? There are a gazillion different directions and opinions out there. Who knew boiling an egg could be so tough?! Anyhow, dinner was delish, so hopefully DGB will enjoy it for lunch today. Speaking of which...I'd better head off to work!

Going the Extra Mile

Today's run was - in a word - fantastic. Here's why:

• I started the run off nice and slow as I didn't want to burn out too quickly.
• I got to see two Remax hot air balloons lift off early in to my run.
• I downed a rather scrumptious tropical flavour Hammer Gel at mile 5. Mmm, caffeine...
  
• There were some IMC folks running behind me for a bit. Apparently somewhere there is a 130m pool that you can swim?
• I saw lots of wildlife - deer, gophers, geese, ducks...
• When I hit the big hill at the end of my first loop of Glenmore Reservoir, right around mile 10, it didn't feel like I had to work to get up that hill at all.
• I started to run faster.
• I downed a yummy chocolate Hammer Gel at mile 11.
• At mile 13 I saw a sign taped to a water fountain that said "You look amazingly beautiful today." No idea who it was for, but it definitely made me smile.
• I was the really chipper one on the pathway, smiling and saying hello to everyone.
• Mmmm, delicious espresso Hammer Gel at mile 16. Yay for caffeine!
• I passed a bike at mile 16.
  
• I passed a guy I recognized from the Footstock race as we had trundled up the big hill together for awhile. We stopped to chat, talk about races, then each went back on our merry way in opposite directions around the reservoir.
• My legs continued to feel fantastic the entire way.
• Note to self, Body Glide wears away after about 18 miles. Remember to bring a small stick with me on the marathon.
  
• I hit mile 20 before the big hill again. I decided to keep running to at least my car. I powered through the hill again and kept going. I wanted to finish 21 miles.
• My pace didn't slow during the final miles, in fact they were some of my fastest miles.
• I thought of Claire during my run, racing the full IM distance Vineman today. Since she hates running I was willing her some of my good running mojo.
• I felt like I could have run the extra 5.2 miles today.

I hope this bodes well for my marathon in a few weeks. I was a bit nervous about running on my own since I had Giovanna's company on my last few long runs but this goes down as one of my best runs ever. The only bad thing to happen on the run? The bottle of Gatorade that I bought halfway through to refill my Camelbak was supposed to be orange, but yuck...it was gross... I went for a massage a few hours after the run and it was probably one of the best decisions ever. I actually feel pretty good. In fact, I nearly fell asleep and that never happens for me during a massage.
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By the way, if you are wondering whether I rushed to sign up for the brand new IM 70.3 in Calgary today, I didn't. But I have my reasons for that...

The Key

I have had some pretty good workouts so far this week. Here's the rundown:

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Sunday: A few of use met up for a bike ride through the city. It was Calgary Marathon day, and when we were riding the bike path along Memorial the last few marathon stragglers were still on the road at 12:30. I felt so bad for those guys because you know that most of them are in a real mental low at this point in time. The ride itself was pretty good and I really powered up a couple of hills which felt terrific.

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Monday: I woke up bright and early to run 3.2 mi around my neighborhood before heading to work. I think that an early morning is definitely the key to my mojo. It feels crisp and fresh outside and my legs are happy to be running. If I wait till the end of the day my legs have pooped out and things start hurting. Why they poop out I'm not sure...I sit at a computer all day... I made it into work and kicked the week off right with a delicious Stampede Breakfast. Gotta love those pancakes!

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Tuesday: No early morning workout today, but it was the first class of my summer session boot camp! I have a new instructor this time round, Elaine. I'm really looking forward to working out with her and the group of women in the class. Everyone seems really motivated an we have a good mix of people. One girl is training for the Toronto Waterfront Marathon in September, another girl used to be a competitive swimmer. Elaine had us moving the whole time, alternating cardio with strength exercises. The only downside is that this class is a bit earlier. It ends at 7:15 and lane swim doesn't start until 9:00. That is a lot of waiting around between boot camp and swimming, so I'm going to start looking at going to swim early in the morning before work on my boot camp days.

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Wednesday: I was up and running before 6 am today, cranking out 3.25 mi around my neighborhood. My pace was faster than on Monday and I've finished these hilly runs off on both days without taking any walk breaks. After a quick shower I was on the bike to ride in to work. I absolutely love my bike. I can't believe I hadn't ridden for so many years. I'm glad I bit the bullet and bought my new set of wheels because it is definitely worth it. I've been wanting to get shoes and pedals for awhile now, so hopefully that will happen sometime soon. I'm debating whether I should do it before my tri in August or wait till later. Will these things go on sale in the fall?

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Plans for the rest of the week: I'm hoping to hit the pool early tomorrow. One pool between home and work opens for lane swim at 5:30 am. Then boot camp in the evening. I'd like to get another run in at some point, but I haven't exactly worked out when... I have 12 miles scheduled for Saturday, then some hot yoga in the afternoon. Sunday, hopefully a hike out in the mountains!

Have you seen this girl?

LOST

REWARD IF FOUND

What exactly is lost? My mojo. My will to run. Okay, I'm being overly dramatic...but I'm starting to feel like my heart isn't as into running as it was before. Getting out the door on Friday was hard... Granted, it was a Friday and I would have rather have still been at my hockey pool party. I went for a run on Monday over lunch and I couldn't get my stride into a groove until 3 miles in to my 4+ mile run. Stuff hurt. Running and I just were not jiving. Maybe I'm getting tired of running in the same areas all the time. Maybe it is because this week marks a big turning point in marathon training. 15 miles this weekend. 16 miles the next. I'm starting to stare those big mileage weeks in the face and spending 3+ hours pounding the pavement has me quaking in my boots a bit. Hopefully I have a solution to the problem. I'm off to Kelowna, British Columbia this weekend to spend some quality time with the folks. I'll be driving out on Saturday and saving my long run for Sunday. I'll be able to run somewhere completely new, so hopefully the change in scenery will do me good.

I did what?

Okay, so first off....what a week...what a weekend! I am pretty happy with how much I did this week as, for me, I feel like I accomplished quite a bit. Here's the summary for the weekend:

Saturday:
I had a 9 mi LR on the schedule so I zoomed down to Glenmore Reservoir to run a loop before it got too hot out. (I know, you've heard me complain about the snow...now the heat... It got up to 30 deg C (86 deg F) yesterday.) I got into such a great rhythm that I didn't want to lose that by running 9:1 intervals so I wound up going for 19:1 instead. I felt really strong the whole way, which I am sure is due to some of the cross training I've been doing. I wound up running into a friend as she was finishing up her run so we had a chance to run together and chat for about a 0.5 mile or so. It was a terrific run!
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I had signed up for a 4 pm hot yoga class, but at the end of the day the nice weather called my name and I wound up spending the afternoon on the patio at the Rose and Crown, enjoying some Velvet Fog. Yum...

Sunday:
It was time to make up for that missed hot yoga class! I went for a 10:00 am class, with the same really intense instructor as on Wednesday night. Boy, what a difference fresh legs make! It was still a great challenging class. We really stretched out our legs and worked on lower back strength as well.
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In the afternoon Neil and I rode out from my house to check out my commute to downtown. I think I managed to find a route that met my three criteria fairly closely. It was mostly downhill, on pathways or quiet residential streets for the most part, and it avoided roads that would chew up my tires. The ride downtown is about 12 miles or so and took just under an hour. I can probably knock a few minutes off because at times the pathways were really busy and it was difficult to pass people and keep a good speed up. We met up with a friend part of the way there, and continued on to Eau Claire to take a well deserved break at the Barley Mill's patio. Afterwards we all split off in different directions and I was back on my way home. The way back has some pretty good uphills, and it was really windy to boot. I was pretty impressed that I was only about 10 - 12 minutes slower on the way home with all of that.
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So the verdict on the biking from home to work? Definitely doable, but with all the major uphills to contend with, it is probably better to not try this on days when I have boot camp or high mileage planned.
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And well, just because I'm happy with all of my hard work this week, here are my final numbers for workouts:

Running: 21 mi
Biking: 49.23 mi
Hot Yoga: 3 sessions - 4:30:00
Bikini Boot Camp: 2 sessions - 3:00:00

That's pretty good volume for me!

Well that sucked...

Only one word can possibly describe today's run over lunch - terrible. Well, maybe you could throw awful, stupendous or miserable out there as well. Things looked promising at the beginning - the weather was reasonably warm and sunny and I was raring to go. I was raring for about the first 0.1 miles though. After that my shins started to ache. I've been having some shin splints for the last couple of weeks and I know it isn't my shoes because I've swapped around a few pairs with varying amounts of mileage on them and it hasn't made a difference. The kicker was about 0.25 miles in when I developed some sort of weird cramp or stitch in my abdomen that only hurt when I ran, not when I walked. So I wound up running 2-4 minutes, walking for 1....it was such a disaster until the final 0.2 miles and then it felt almost half decent. I guess that is what I get for taking a couple days off...from mojo to pure suckage in the space of a few days. Can I tell you guys that I'm a bit nervous about my 10K next weekend?

Getting my mojo back

Saturday morning I had an invitation to a BBC session at Edworthy Park on the NW side of town and the group run was going to be at the Glenmore Reservoir on the SW side of town. The locations were a bit too far away to make both so I opted to run 6 miles on my own at Edworthy in order to finish in time before BBC. I started running east towards the city and about half a mile in I realized I was a bit too overdressed, plus all of a sudden I really had to hit the bathroom so I turned around. All of a sudden I was running into some crazy wicked wind. After dropping by jacket at the car and what not I decided I wanted the first half of my run to be into the wind rather than having to deal with it on the back half when I would be a bit more tired so I headed west. After I had been running for awhile I realized that this run was feeling effortless...no more huffing and puffing and looking at my watch. I was feeling so good I even inadvertently missed a walk break. Hurrah, my running mojo is coming back! I wasn't being particularly speedy, but this is the best I've felt running since the marathon. I turned around and headed back towards the car. With a mile left to go I wanted to test myself to see if I could pick up the pace to finish. I kicked it into another gear and kept running without looking at the watch and I ran a minute and a half faster than my average pace up till this point in time. I had a quick walk to cool down, changed out of my sweaty tops and headed over to meet Instructor S and some of the other BBC gals. All of a sudden I was FREEZING....I had a short sleeve tech shirt on, a long sleeve mid-layer and a windbreaker on and it wasn't enough. I had to run back to the car to grab my fleece jacket as the temperature was plummeting. Just as everyone showed up for BBC there was an odd type of hail/snow that started to fall... Once we got moving by running a lap around some picnic tables we started to warm up and the snow let up a bit. BBC was tough...step ups, tricep dips, knee ups, grade 7 dance, jump rope and abs....it was quite the workout. My abs were so sore yesterday that it hurt to cough. Luckily I think they have recovered enough for what will likely be an intense Fit Ball session tonight though. The abs in the park were my favorite part. We were doing various sit ups on a mat lying in the park and you could still see the odd snow flake coming down. It was kind of a neat, surreal experience.

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On another note, run on over to Iron Bob's page (a.k.a. Bob Almighty) to congratulate him on a fabulous finish at his first ever Iron Man in New Zealand this past weekend. Good job Bob!