Double Digits!

After a much needed morning appointment to make my hair look 10 years younger (I *really* got tired of Jeff mentioning how much gray I have :-), T and were to head out for an afternoon run. The perks of the afternoon run....sleeping in, and run in the nice warm afternoon. Temp was probably somewhere around 65 (sorry Rob) when we finally made our way to the trail.

I was scheduled for a 10-miler today. My first double digit run in....I gotta' say...probably months. I was a wee bit apprehensive. Well, more just wondering how my body would hold up....IF it would hold up.

This was a long, easy run with some tempo work thrown in for *fun*. Amazing how slow I have to go to keep my heart rate in Zone 1.....and my Zone 1 goes pretty high. Yeah, I have a genetically high heart rate. No, really. It's true. Ask T.

So, the run was 30 minutes in Zone 1, 30 minutes in zone 2, 30 minutes in Zone 3 and then back to Zone 1/2 for the rest of the 10 miles. Zone 1 was fairly agonizingly slow. Slow, as in, I could power walk faster than I was 'running.' Zone 2 was pretty comfortable. By the time I hit my Zone 3 interval I really had to get my legs moving. And I never really got past my midpoint of Zone 3. My legs just didn't want to go any faster. I was certainly ready to drop back to zone 2 at the end of that 30 minutes.

By mile 9 of the run, I was pretty much done. I didn't want to run anymore. My knees were achy, my heel was achy, my right hip was giving me grief, I was just tired in general and so ready to stop. But T was an awesome sherpa (having needed to 'only' run 90 minutes today) keeping me moving until I hit my 10 miles. I can't even imagine how I'll be able to run 26.2 miles. Can.not.imagine. Sigh. One step at at time. I guess that's how I have to do it. One step at a time.....all the way to 12 miles on Saturday. *gulp*

Run and run some more

Tina and I hit the road on Sunday with pups in tow. Okay, okay, they weren't technically in 'tow' as they were off leash. And I guess technically if they were on leash, WE would have been in tow. Whatever...we were running along with our dogs. Tina was to do 1:00 and I had to add an extra 15 minutes. We were schedule for a nice slow run, which you *have* to love. Slow=me to a tee. I was going to leave Bam with Tina while I did my extra 15 minutes, as I didn't want to push her too much, even tho she *has* been friskier lately. (Either the acupuncture is working, or my imagination is making her extra frisky :-)

Nothing spectacular to report from the run. We did our one hour, Bam was more than happy to wait with Tina, while Teva thought it would be fun to keep running with me. So we swapped dogs. Tina said some folks gave her *quite* the disgusted?/shocked? look when she yelled after me "Oh, just take her." I guess maybe they didn't know we were together and thought Tina was chucking away her dog.

Finished up the extra 15 minutes and that was one more run down. One item of note...I was stupid enough to forget my salt tablets and ended up with a raging headache. Sigh. I have to get myself in gear and get a routine down so I stop forgetting this stuff.

Today was a hill repeat day. Hill repeats while keeping the HR from skyrocketing. Quite a challenge actually. This weekend I finally bump my mileage up into double digits. I definitely won't be taking Bam, no matter how frisky she might be, as that would be just too much. I hope it's not too much for me. Wish me luck.

I *knew* it!

Any Grey's Anatomy fans out there?!?!

(SPOILER ALERT....do not read if you are a Grey's fan and haven't seen this weeks episode!!!!)





Well, I just have to say that I KNEW Izzy had to be sick, and why did it take *her* so freakin' long to figure it out. Sheesh, you don't just see dead people ya' know. Well, not unless you're in an M. Night Shyamalan movie anyway.

Oh, and McSteamy's injury was also hilarious....and so, so fitting. :-)

A day of hope

I hope that this will usher in a new beginning. I hope that we'll have a fresh start. I believe that this shows just how far our country has come....and in some ways how far we have yet to go. But still...I hope.

So what's up?

Let's see...what's been going on in the last week.

• I had an epiphany when I went to see my PT and my shoulder was in a bad place again. I realized that I sleep on that shoulder and have been instructed to change my sleeping habits. Any idea how hard that is? So my sleep has been less stellar than usual this week. Sigh.
• Work, although (and I don't want to say this *too* loudly) there is a slight lull in the volume lately. Whew, about time.
• I took my Bamber dog for.....acupuncture. I know, I know. But it can't hurt right? I really don't want to have to keep her on Rimadyl indefinitely and every time I've tried to wean her off, her neck issues come back. Even tho the ortho couldn't find anything structurally wrong. So I took her to see the vet that the ortho recommended. She does chiro and acupuncture and I really like her. We're going to try a few treatments and see how Ms. Bam does with it. I'm optimistic. I'm tempted to try some acupuncture myself.
  
• I've been a bit depressed about my lack of progress in my swimming. Even with some lessons under my belt, I don't feel like I'm going anywhere any faster than I used to. Altho, I must say my backstroke is about 100% better. Right, T? :-)
• With the return of more regular training, my appetite has come roaring back. I don't think I'm going to be losing any weight any time soon. Mmmm, cupcakes. (BTW ~ Sprinkles is *WAY* better than Kara's IMHO. The red velvet is delicious....and the coconut is pretty good too....and the pumpkin......yeah, I got a pretty good sampling. They have different flavors on different days and now I feel a need to get back and try the lemon. Mmmmmm)
• No long run this week as I was doing some shorter 'speed' test type stuff. Back to long runs in the near future...lest that brother of mine get way out front in the training sphere. ;-)

Yep, that's about it in my little neck of the woods. Keepin' busy as usual I guess. Less than 3 months to the Illinois Marathon! Yikes!

So this is what it feels like to feel old

Yep, I feel old today.

"Was it the long run?" you ask. Nope.
"Was it having lunch with a friend of the family who has known your mom since 2nd grade?" you ask. Nope
"Was it trekking all over the hills of SF looking for a cupcake shop?" you ask. Nope.

I'll tell you what it was. After trekking to Ghirardelli square to track down Kara's Cupcakes (sadly they were just ok, not great like I expected), we decided to take the cable car back to the BART station. We waited in line, finally got on the cable car and Jeff scored a seat while I stood in front of him. Better he should sit with his bad back. There was a young couple sitting next to him, and....you can probably see what's coming.....the young man says to me, as he stands up, "Would you like to sit down, ma'am?" I almost turned around to see who he was talking to when it sunk in that he was talking to me. MA'AM?!?!?! Kid, you just stabbed me in the heart. I could see Jeff snickering out of the corner of my eye as I said "No, really, I'm fine, but thanks very much." Yeah, I know....the young man was just being very polite, but really, seriously, "ma'am"?!?! Ouch. Way to make me feel ancient.

Training update: 1.5 hour run today. With some speedwork thrown in for good measure. All in all I covered 8.5 miles at an average of 10:44/mile. It might just be me (or the fact that Rob had a 10 miler this weekend on his training schedule) but it seems like I should be covering more than 8.5 miles at this point. But, I'll give the schedule the benefit of the doubt and keep at it. Come April 11th though, it better pay off or I'm gonna' be one sad puppy.

Doh! I'm an idiot!

I completely forgot to shout out to my brother! He turned the big 4-0 over the holidays. As he reminded me....my time is coming soon......so I didn't give him *too* hard of a time (I hope).

Here's the commemorative birthday photo...yeah, it was Star Wars themed and Spencer thought we should have masks. Cuz really....what's a party without masks?!?!

Love ya' big brother! Happy Belated B'Day!

First long run of the year

I did my first long run of the year today. "Long" and "run", it should be. Ah well, it's running for me at this point. 80 minute run ~ at least 20 min warm up easy pace, 2x10 min comfortably hard with 5 min recovery, then the rest at easy pace. Stats:

7.71 miles ~ 10:23 average

30 min at 10:40
10 min at 9:39
5 min at 10:37
10 min at 9:35
25 min at 10:42

Sustained injuries.....so far heel pain. I'm trying to do more calf stretching and more stretching in general. Definitely have to get this taken care of. 97 days and counting.....

Ranting

*soap box warning*

On my way home from spending the holiday with family in Illinois, I watched a documentary entitled "Sharkwater" on the plane. It's about the practice of shark finning and the devastation that it's causing in the underwater environment. And sadly, it reaffirms my belief that people in general are greedy and self-absorbed. Don't get me wrong, I don't *love* sharks by any means. And I certainly don't want to have an up close and personal interaction with a great white. However, I have been diving and been very close to several species of shark and wasn't scared at all. They had very little interest in me and basically skittered away whenever I got too close. What I find appalling is that people see no problem in driving a species to the brink of extinction. It's not just sharks, but it's happened with whales, gorillas, elephants, etc. What an arrogant species we are to believe that we have the right to destroy with impunity. It just saddens and disgusts me.

Ok, I feel a bit better now. One of these days I'll get off my soap box and jump in and try to make a difference about some of these things I feel strongly about. Until then, I just simmer and stew. Sigh.

*** off soap box ***

Brief training update: I'm working on marathon training. Still in the early stages, but I already feel like my body is falling apart. A bit scary. I have aches and pains that I don't remember ever having. Pain in my heels, pain in my back. I'm trying to do more stretching, which I hope helps. I also see a physical therapist every few weeks and he has me doing exercises and stretches too. Keep your fingers crossed that I get back into some sort of shape and my body pulls itself together.