Running in the Moment

Yesterday was busy.   Super busy.  Well, first I woke up at 5a and realized that it was going to be one of the worst decisions of the day if I went for a run.  Really, for some reason when I woke up, my face and body hurt.  So I went back to bed, went to work and had a Starbucks  espresso and felt a tad better.  Although…reflecting on my walk into the office, it really didn’t help when me when one of my male coworkers caught up with me and made a comment saying “Wow, you look really… tired..you’re face looks awufl’.  Awesome.  Didn’t your mom teach you anything???

I’ve been following my training schedule, and even then, I know what my body is capable of and what I’ve been doing and I just don’t think I’ve been overtraining.  Undersleeping is the culprit.  So this weekend and the rest of my training I’m going to make a point to NOT make plans during the week that will result in a late night and will make sure to get plenty of sleep or a nap or two on the weekends.  It sounds lame after typing that, but really it’s only six more weeks until the race (yikes!) and then I can be a party animal every weeknight and during the weekend (yeah right, by party animal I mean staying up late watching ‘Teen Mom’ and ‘The Real Housewives of New York’…don’t judge).

Anyways, I made it through the day and for a Friday, it was a pretty darn busy day at work!  When I got home I let Patrick out and then put my suit on and headed to the Y.  When I got there, there was one lane completely open so I had a lane all to myself, hooray!  During the end of my 1700 meter swim someone joined my lane, but I can’t complain because overall it was great swim which makes me feel much better about the race on Sunday since I’ve been slacking in the pool.

When I got home I switched into my running gear and tried to mentally get myself in the groove to run 9 miles.  I was kicking myself the first two miles for not getting up and running in the morning to have already gotten this run over with, but by mile three I was kind of glad I didn’t because that morning it was grey and dreary out and during my run it was nice and sunny and warm (not hot!!).  In fact, the weather was amazing.  Simply awesome.  It almost felt like fall which got me more amped up because that’s my favorite season 🙂  Anyways, due to the fall-like-inspiring weather I ran way too fast, but it felt so good so it was hard to slow down.  When I hit the stop button at mile 9 I realized I had run at a 9 minute pace.  Which is fine, but not the game plan two days before my olympic triathlon on Sunday.

Next up was to take my bike to REI because my cadence meter wasn’t working and it would be nice to have it work on Sunday or my ride on Saturday.  After being there almost an hour the poor guy couldn’t get it to work (me throwing the directions away didn’t help either..grr), we had determined the battery in the rear sensor was dead and he replaced that, but after that, he couldn’t get the computer to read more than a foot away from the sensor.  This is why I love REI: customer service.  He said that they were going to replace the cadence meter for free and they could do it tomorrow! (it was ten minutes until closing)  He didn’t even check to verify that I had bought it from them (which I had), he just took my word for it.  They super duper rock.  Plus, he gave me more bike tips/advice which is always appreciated.  I seriously learn something new about one of the disciplines of triathlon every day.  No joke.

When I finally got home at 9p, my legs were grumpy, I stretched them and had a protein shake but I realized the 45 mile ride planned the next day was probably not the greatest idea, especially with the race the following day and not having a day off since two tuesdays ago.  So I called my dad and took a rain check for the ride on Saturday, poured a glass of wine and stayed up a teeny tiny later than planned to watch some good old Lifetime.  (Yeah, I know what I just said several paragraphs ago about sleep, but that’s assuming I can’t sleep in.  I can sleep in this Saturday so staying up a little late is ok).

So it was a busy day but a good day!  And a little Lifetime watching doesn’t hurt every now and then 😉

Thursdays I typically do a shorter run and ride in the evenings, so I didn’t even worry about what time I went to bed after the game.  That was a good plan because I woke up at 7a exhausted, I can’t imagine even an hour earlier!

I packed my usual breakfast – Chobani Peach Greek Yogurt with 1/2 cup of Fiber One, and snacks – a Banana and a Plum (and usually trail mix but I’m out), but no lunch, again.  I need to get back to bringing my lunch and not running out to grab something.  Lately Panera has been my go to place for a Tuna sandwich.  Not totally unhealthy, but also not a lot of green there either.

When I got home after work, I rallied for my 3 mile run and 17 mile ride.  Not a large amount of mileage, but it’s getting darker earlier and it makes me nervous being on the bike at dusk.  I filled up my water bottles and pumped my tires and ran a quick 3 miles a little under a 9 min pace.  Once I got home I put on my bike shoes, helmet and sunglasses and was off for the ride.  Oh yeah, and I slathered my arms, back and face with sunblock before heading out for the run, I don’t want a repeat of Sunday 🙂  As soon as I started riding I realized my cadence meter wasn’t working…grr.  Last Sunday during the first part of the ride all it was displaying was mph but during the second half, after fidgiting with it, all it displayed was cadence.  I was hoping it would reset for my next ride, but I thought wrong.  I still was wearing my Garmin, so I could track mileage and mph, but I really missed being able to see cadence and mph.

I can’t find the instructions it came with, they were so confusing and hard to understand, I think for once I threw them away (I usually am pretty good about saving everything), so if I can’t figure it out by tomorrow I’ll have to head to REI for their help.  No way am I riding again this Saturday or my upcoming race on Sunday without it working!!

Off to bed – I have to be up early to get my long run in before work because I won’t be able to get it done on Sunday since I’ll be doing my first Olympic tri!

(written this morning)

It finally rained again last night and it cooled down the already cooler (under 100 degrees that is, ha!) temperatures!  But I’ll start at the beginning of the day first……

Yesterday morning I finally dragged myself out of bed at 5:45 and ran 6 sloooow miles before work.  Usually my non-speedwork weekly runs are around an 8:45 pace and this was more of a 9:25 pace, ouch.  That’s the only thing about morning runs (other than it being early) that’s tough, my legs don’t seem to want to wake up until about five miles into the run, which leads to a much slower run than it I did it in the evening.  I guess it’s worth the slower pace to beating the heat in the evening.

At work we had a luau party for the director of our department who is leaving the university to take a position at another hospital.  I (as pretty much always) signed up to bring a veggie tray, so that way I’m guaranteed to having something healthy to eat!  I loaded up on the veggies – cauliflower, broccoli and carrots with some dill veggie dip, had a little pineapple chicken and lots of chips with salsa, sour cream and guacamole.  I’m not sure what it was, too many chips?  The broccoli?  But whatever it was, my stomach was angry the rest of the day.  It felt somewhat better by the time I headed home, but my nachos with jalapenos were probably not going to happen at the game 😦  (yes, it’s sad, but I was looking forward to them).

I took little Patrick out when I got home, quickly changed and then met up with my boyfriend, his coworker and his girlfriend to head down to the game.  After getting stuck in lots of traffic and probably taking the wrong exit which led to even more traffic, we finally made it to the game and headed right to the concessions to get food and a beer.  I opted for the big pretzel with fake-and-probably-horrible-for-you cheese, my heart hurt a little placing that order over my usual nachos.  Anyways, the Cardinals definitely did not bring their A game, so the game was pretty painful to watch, but the saving grace was that the seats were awesome, four rows back from the green seats behind home plate.  The green seats are fancy schmancy all-inclusive seats that have a buffet inside and outside, they bring any food you want to your seat.  Yes, to your seat!  One day I *will* sit in the green seats.  We finally left at the bottom of the 8th when the score was 0-11.  (The final score was 0-15, double ouch) Painful to watch.

The view from our seats, I did zoom in a little, but not too much. I need to practice taking more action shots. I couldn’t for the life of me take a good picture!

When we got to our car the skies opened up and it began to pour.  Kind of tough driving at night in the rain, but we drove slowly and I was grateful for the much needed rain.  We made it home around 11 and I stayed up a bit later to do laundry because I didn’t have any clean pants for work and went to bed around 12.  Thank goodness I didn’t have to work out the next morning!

… which is nice every now and then 🙂  I did attempt to get up and run to beat the heat but (as usual) that didn’t work out.  Someday I will become a routine morning exerciser, I can usually get up early a couple of times a week, but Mondays and Tuesdays are the toughest!

In my attempt to get up and run this morning before work, I let my little dog, Patrick, sleep in my bed because once my alarm clock goes off, he’s up.  As in, full tail-wagging, let’s play, let’s go outside to potty, let’s lick your ears, there-is-no-way-you-are-going-back to-bed-type of up.  This has worked successfully in the past, however I woke up around 3a to him eating his feet and making gross dog mouth noises.  So I sent him back to his own bed so I could fall back asleep and, of course, not wake up in time to run.

Here’s a picture of Patrick sleeping, not on my bed, but on the couch after a busy day of blogging.

After work I ran a quick errand to the UPS store to return my FINAL book I will ever rent for graduate school (I finished in June).   It felt so good to get that last reminder of school finalized and completed.  Once I made it home, I went for a quick 5 miler, and even though my phone said it was 99 outside, it felt a lot less awful than the typical 99 degree weather we usually have.  I’m thinking it was due to the lack of humidity…. whatever it was, I’ll take it.

When I finished my run, I headed to my parents house to pick up tickets to the baseball game tomorrow night.  I’ve only gone twice this summer so I’m excited to go again!  Also, the weather should be nice and not too hot, hooray!  Bring on the nachos with extra jalapenos and perhaps a beer too! 🙂

So all in all,  a pretty uneventful day, and now I’m finishing cheese quesadillas for dinner (I am addicted to cheese, it’s a pretty big problem) and heading to bed!

So the master plan of a run in the am and swim in the pm didn’t exactly happen today.  Because of my horrible sunburn from my ride yesterday, I slept terribly last night and when the alarm clock went off at 5:30a, I promptly turned it off and rolled over for another hour or so of sleep.

After a usual Monday of work, I headed home to choose between the run or swim because if I did both, I would be done at 8p which means that I’d eat dinner late and inevitably stay up later than I wanted to and have a repeat of this morning when my alarm clock goes off tomorrow.  So I decided that the swim wins as I can squeeze in a run another day this week and swimming is the area I need to focus on because I’m really good at making excuses for not making it to the pool 🙂

The first 1600 meters were pretty uneventful other than goggle issues.  How after all of the years of swimming as a child and even swimming last year that I still have trouble either making the straps so tight that I get a headache or too loose that water leaks is beyond me.  Perhaps I’m buying the wrong brand/style?  I thought the pair I got at REI looked decent and were on the pricier side of the ones they had in stock, but maybe not.  Grr.

Anyways, after the 1600 meters things got dicey in the pool.  At the magic hour of 6:30 everyone and their mother decided they wanted to swim laps too.  But we aren’t talking general casual lap swimmers I’m used to, this was quite the hodgepodge of people.  I usually don’t swim at this time of day on Mondays for this reason, but I thought I had arrived at the pool early enough to avoid this busy swim time.

Back to the group of swimmers…. so there were two lanes available, one regular sized lane and one larger one that could fit three people swimming in their one section comfortably.  The lane that I started in, the larger one, soon became the target for all of the stragglers to join as the other lane had two super hardcore men swimming laps 3 million times faster than me (I define hardcore as the difference between swimming laps in swim trunks or swimming them in jammers.  And extra points for bringing a water bottle and a laminated copy of your planned swim workout.), in fact I think they lapped me three times in one of my single laps during my swim.  So I will introduce you to the both-arms-back-at-the-same-time-backstroker, the one-legged-kick-breaststroker and furry man.  Furry man was just slow but he was also furry so it stuck out in my mind, I’m sure he’s the culprit for the hair clumps in the pool that I’m so deathly afraid of (more on that in another post).   Aside from the new characters I’ve never encountered in the pool before, I’ve never done a circle swim before either.  It was so so so very awkward considering that everyone swimming, except one other guy and I, had completely different paces.  I survived the remainder of my swim avoiding fur, swimming around the backstroker and dodging the one-legged kicks (it was the worst breast stroke kick I’ve ever seen).  Note to self, do NOT attempt long swims at the Y on Monday evenings.

Time for bed!