First Workout of the Week

I wanted to run after work, but I had a few errands I had to run first. I needed to stop by the vet as Maggie was out of food. Ever since Maggie got really ill back in July 2007 she's had to be on special food or else it can really disrupt her stomach. It it somewhat ironic that she can munch on bark mulch or chew on toothbrushes and be just fine though! Yesterday I had to feed her Finlay's food and she wound up getting ill at 2 am this morning...

I figured since I was out and about that I'd head somewhere out of my neighborhood for my run. First I thought about going to Edgemont since I hadn't been there in awhile, but the pathway was completely covered in snow and ice. I guess they don't clear the snow there in the winter? I went with the backup plan and headed over to run the river from Edworthy instead. I actually had a trainer workout on the schedule but I figured I'd take advantage of the nice temperature instead. With no real gameplan I thought I would aim for about three miles.

When I got started I felt about as coordinated as Phoebe from Friends when she runs.

And it sucked. How is it that I had a great run last Thursday? And set a PR at a race on Sunday? I looked down at my Garmin at one point and my average pace was 10:44/mi. WTF?

After I hit one mile I stepped off the pathway and stretched a few things out and thought about what was going on. I was probably being a bit hard on myself... I continued on and I managed to pick up the pace at some points but it still felt like a pretty tough run overall. 3.4 miles done. It wasn't pretty, but at least I got out there!

Mission Aborted

Yesterday the plan was for a 2:00 run with 3 x 15:00 intervals at marathon race pace. I didn't run first thing in the morning because it was still pretty cold out, and I wanted to knock some work out at the office first. I got so into the groove of things at the office that all of a sudden it was noon and I hadn't eaten lunch yet and I still needed to run. I'd purposely brought a light lunch - some soup and toast - so I figured that if I ate then digested for a bit I should be good to go. Well, I was wrong...

I headed off to the river and from the word go I felt like I was going to toss my cookies with every step. To top it off I wasn't just nauseous, I felt a whole world of GI distress happening. I just was not ready to fight this for two hours because I knew I wasn't going to be able to put in a quality run and really give those intervals a good go. So I crossed back over the river at the next foot bridge and headed back to the office. Mission aborted at 17:40.

I had a few errands I needed to run at the mall and at Ikea and I intended to do my spin workout instead when I came home. When I got back at 7:45 I was so amazingly tired that it just didn't happen. Back up mission aborted. So...it will be a busy day today as I now have lots of stuff to get done before Grey Cup kick off at 4 today. Guess I'd better get on with it! Good luck to all my friends racing in Philly today!

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?

A stonker in Fremantle

Greetings from sweltering Perth, AU. I probably shouldn't mention this, but it was 44 deg C (111 deg F) when we arrived on the 26th. It was the hottest Boxing Day on record in Perth. Since then it has cooled down to 32 deg C (90 deg F), but for a girl who is used to hovering around the freezing mark at this point in time this is quite the change.

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We spent the 27th on a wine cruise along the Swan River which was a pretty nice relaxing way to spend the day. It probably doesn't make for the best hydration plan....but oh well. I got up around 6 am today (the 28th) so that I could head out for a run near where we are staying in Fremantle (a town about 30 minutes outside of downtown Perth). As soon as I started I had a feeling it wasn't going to be a great run...things were hurting, specifically my knees all the way down to my ankles. It almost felt like it was time to retire my shoes except these runners only have about 100 miles on them so that is way too early. Well, while the run didn't feel great it certainly was pretty (and luckily it wasn't too hot yet either). 3.1 miles done.

I saw this kookaburra just at the end of the run, making his signature noise. Very cool!

Mind Games

Wow...today was one crazy busy day at work, and tomorrow looks to be much of the same. I was once again running late today and I opted to take the $17 penalty and drive into town and park. I was pretty late leaving the office and sitting in traffic on my way home had me questioning my decision to vehemently drive standards over automatics and any energy I had left was draining the closer I got to home. But I had at least 5 miles to knock out tonight and I didn't want to bail, but I could feel a total stonker coming on. I needed some mental motivation outside of the usual encouraging phrases I say to myself on my run. Things like - "slowing down is for sissies...suck it up...you show that hill who is boss." Right.

"OK Leana, let's make a deal. Go home, feed the dogs, change and get your butt out the door and whatever you do, do not sit down. And you can wear your iPod...""What? Really? Are you sure you want to go there?" Desperate times call for desperate measures.

I really don't talk a lot about the whole running with music thing on here at all, but there was a day when I didn't think running without music was possible. After all, if I paid too much attention to how far I was running, then I might not make it, and music always proved a useful diversion. At times it was a pain though - like at the Pacific Spirit Run in 2001 when I was running with my trusty Walkman but I forgot the tape. Who wants to lug a silent Walkman around? (I pr'ed that race though...) Or at the Sun Run in 2006 when my trusty mp3 player froze up at the 3 km marker and I had to lug a silent mp3 player around. It wasn't until my first run in Calgary when I hit the pathways and I found out that you had better pay attention to the bikes whizzing around you or else... I then decided I was going to try this running thing au naturel and until this evening I hadn't looked back.
Tonight I needed that diversion, so I grabbed the shuffle and headed out the door to Edgemont - the ridiculously hilly neighborhood nearby. It is a pretty quiet pathway, so no worries about dodging cyclists tonight. For the first half a mile I wasn't convinced that the iPod was going to do the trick though. But then all of a sudden I found myself in a race with a roller blader....and I was winning. From there on out it started to get better and I was having a blast. The reason why I like running Edgemont is it is a great bargaining run - another mind game. I always tell myself on Mondays that I'll run 5 mi, but if things feel good I'll stretch it out to 6 mi. With the first half of Edgemont being mostly downhill I always seem to stretch it out to 6, which makes for an uphill slog all the way back to the car which I figure is probably a good character builder for San Francisco. I was grooving to the tunes and the hills were blowing by. And then I hit mile 5.37 and all that uphill running caught up with me. I thought I might get an encore of the sushi I had for lunch. Yikes. Thank goodness that was the second to last hill and it was another downhill cruise to the end. So there we go, 6 miles in the bag.
Oh, and as for the iPod thing - I loved the diversion and I think it really did help to avert a stonker, but otherwise I don't miss running with music too much. Once I hit the really long back to back runs I may need to pull that trick out of the bag though, because that will be a lot of one on one time with just myself.