I'm Kind Of A Big Deal

So, it's been over a week since I ran the Camp Pendleton 10k.  I took a solid week off from running.  I spent the weekend at Legoland and a Bacon Festival.

Anyway, considering the timing, this works out pretty well:



RunMudRun published a list of my mud running tips, making me kind of a big deal in the mud run world.

I should have re-read my tips last weekend, since I forgot to bring a towel, and ended up drying off with a sandy beach blanket from the trunk of my car.  Awesome.

Anyway, check it out.  Every time I do one of these mud/obstacle runs I see people with duct tape around their shoes.  Whoever is spreading THAT particular bit of advice needs to shut it down.  I feel bad for all the people who have to clean up after these events, since the first few mud pits are always littered with the useless and discarded clumps of tape.

I'm doing an obstacle run with a friend next month, which I'm super stoked for because I love climbing on shit.

In other news, I sketched out a training plan for the next few months, and tried to jump back on the horse last night.  Let's just say doing half of the planned workout at a slower pace was all I could muster.  Then again, things were overly ambitious and my legs were stupidly tired.  But, after taking a week off, it's nice to be running again.

Camp Pendleton Mud Run 2013

Age Group:  29/272
Overall:  500/3,0XX

The world seemed to be against me.  My bib didn't get mailed to me.  They changed up parking at the event and were unorganized about it, so it took over an hour to get from my car to the race (it took 10 minutes last year).  Getting re-bibbed onsite involved bouncing from booth to booth.  By the time everything was straightened out, the competitive wave was long gone.  My wave was 4th, 27 minutes after the start.

"That's fine," I thought.  "I'll do a bit of weaving, but I'll still be able to compare my times to other people."

And then I hit the first of the new obstacles:  rope wall.

And waited.  And waited.  Because there were two rope walls and thousands of people in a giant bottleneck.  All hopes of comparing myself to the wave one ladies in my age group went out the window.

All that was left was doing my best, pushing hard, and having fun.

And I did.  I pushed.  I passed so many people.  I powered up every hill and rocked the shit out of every obstacle.  Wall that came up to my eyeballs with no footholds?  Pulled myself up and over, no problem.  I am amazing.  My time was shit, thanks to bottlenecks and having to just stop and wait for minutes on end at obstacle after obstacle (which wouldn't have been an issue in the first wave, which means I would have been in the running in my age group if I didn't have to wait.  Oh well.).  But when I was running, I was RUNNING.

I've done mile sprints that felt like they lasted forever, but this race just flew by.  Miles fell by so quickly.  It all felt awesome.  And then I was crossing the finish line, covered in mud.

And alone.

Shit.  That didn't feel good.  [my trainer was supposed to run with me but he got called away to a bachelor party]  That really didn't feel good.  I saw a woman holding a smartphone, so I asked her to take a picture of me and email it to me.  It felt weird, but, I don't know.  I like having pictures of my achievements, even if this one barely merits it.  Then I washed off, grabbed my bag (which was misplaced, so that took forever), and drove 100 miles/2 hours home.

The drive home reminded me that I pushed myself.  Deep, deep ache in all my limbs.  Even my shoulders felt it.  Once I got home I crawled onto the couch and fell into a half awake, painful stupor.

Self Tips For Next Year:
-If you don't get your bib in the mail, show up hours early
-Hey, do that anyway.  Put your pathological punctuality to use, because sometimes it's still not enough
-Don't quit running for five months, then pack all your training into three stupid months
-Bring a friend, even if you have to pay one

Otherwise, I feel pretty good about everything.

fgthfghhfjghkjgkkgccbvc

Friday:  Sweet, sweet rest
Saturday:  40 min tempo, 1.5 hours football
Sunday:  7 easy miles

Friday night I curled up with home made kettle corn (so easy!) and raw cookie dough.  Got to hit my macros.  #healthyliving

Split	Time	Distance	Avg Pace
Summary	40:01.4	4.64	8:37
1	8:53.7	1.00	8:54
2	7:48.6	1.00	7:49
3	7:51.0	1.00	7:51
4	5:27.9	0.70	7:49
5	10:00.2	0.94	10:37

It's been really muggy here, so the cool down lap was...awful.  Difficult.  Slow.  Really, the whole run kind of sucked.  So hot so early.

Football wasn't any better, but at least I had company in my misery.

Sunday's long run was fine.  I had lots of time to stress the fuck out over Saturday's race, then calm myself, then stress myself out all over again.  Racing makes me so fucking nervous.  I hate it.

Now that May is over, Dress-A-Day is over.  THANK GOD.  I still have 11 dresses I didn't wear.  Jesus fuck.  Most of them are super fancy dresses that had no business being worn day-to-day.  I can't wait to lounge around in jeans and a tank top for the next rest of my life.  Okay, so a few of the dresses were way more comfortable than I remember, and I'm looking forward to some rewears.  Other dresses are getting donated ASAP because they were annoying to wear, so there's no point in owning them.




The End

Lemon Party. Google It.

Monday:  Rest and gluttony
Tuesday:  4.5 miles
Wednesday:  Snatches and rope slams in the morning, 4.2 miles at night
Thursday:  Deadlifts and benching

My husband's car has been in the shop all week, so Tuesday and Wednesday he dropped me off at work in the morning and I jogged home after work.  Both runs had a solid average pace just over 9min/mile, which still felt easy.  I remember getting to this point before.  It's a good feeling.

My deads got rebooted a few weeks ago to work on form and stop pulling a muscle in my back.  We're up to solid sets of 145lb at 5 kiss and go reps without batting an eyelash, and my form is staying pretty solid, so that's good.  Constant progress.  I'll get up to 185 again, especially if I keep working on the stretching and keep my mobility all fucking awesome and stuff.



My friends didn't appreciate my addition to their grocery list.

At the end of tonight's session my trainer told me my legs look like they'd gotten bigger.  My first thought that he was just trying to be nice.  Ha!

Five.

Sunday:  9 miles

I threw in the towel on my Arrested Development allnighter 6 episodes in, and made it home just before 5am.  I was lucky to sleep in until 10am (normally I wake up before 8am no matter what, which sucks balls).  5 hours of sleep isn't great, but hey, I didn't have much to do all day, so it wasn't a bit deal.  I puttered around the garden a bit, pulling weeds and mowing and trying to kill the grass around my garden bed with sheets of plywood.  Thrilling stuff.

Around 5pm (5 was the theme of the day I guess) it was cool enough to get my 9 miles in.  My legs were as tired as the rest of me, but hey, it didn't need to be a fast run or a good run.  And it wasn't.  But it wasn't a bad run, so there's that.

Two more weeks until the race.  It's taper time, which is really relaxing.

Dresses of the week!





Today's dress was double duty.  I own a tennis dress that works well for running.

We just call it a sausage.

Friday: not 4 miles.  Shit.  I was babysitting my nieces, and just wasn't in a position to knock out any miles.  Ug.

Saturday:  1.5 hours football, 11 400m @ 90s

=====================



Just a little bit sweaty.

The sprints were done on my garage treadmill.  It was the only way I could convince myself to do them.  After each one I tried to convince myself to cut things short or slow things done.  But I did every single one.  I negotiated.  "If you do this one at 10mph you can do the next one at 9mph."  "You just have to make it to 8.  8 is enough.  You can quit at 8."  And then I'd do that sprint and renegotiate  until I was done, and all of them had been done at the proper speed.

It's good to know my legs have these sprints in them.

Now I just need to be able to stay awake until midnight so I can binge watch the whole new season of Arrested Development.  Fuck.

In Which I Lament What Might Have Been If I Weren't A Piece Of Lazy S**t

Monday:  Sweet, sweet rest

Tuesday: 30 minute tempo

Split	Time	Distance	Avg Pace
Summary	31:42.1	3.72	8:31
1	5:01.4	0.51	9:51
2	7:49.0	1.00	7:49
3	7:54.4	1.00	7:54
4	4:17.1	0.54	7:55
5	6:38.9	0.67	9:56

Wednesday:  6 m w/ 3 m @ pace

Split	Time	Distance	Avg Pace
Summary	52:06.0	6.00	8:41
1	9:51.4	1.00	9:51
2	9:45.4	1.00	9:45
3	7:52.0	1.00	7:52
4	7:53.5	1.00	7:53
5	7:32.2	1.00	7:32
6	9:09.6	1.00	9:10

Thursday:  All Deadlifts, All The Time

=============

At this point in my training, pace and tempo runs have become the same thing.  And, it's faster than it should be.  I guess?  Again, I don't know.  Trail race with giant hill and obstacles.  Maybe I should be going in the high 7s instead of the low 8s.  I guess we'll find out in two weeks.

I remember once upon a time, before I quit running the, what, second, third time (fuck I suck), I was training to run a half marathon with a 7:51 pace.  I wonder where I'd be with my speed if I'd stuck with it.  Faster than I am now, certainly.  Likely much faster.  But instead I folded like a cheap fan, again and again.  It's so frustrating to think about where I could have been if I didn't get so...emotional?  Stubborn?  Stupid?  About my running.  It's just fucking running.  Why didn't I dial back and keep a solid base, instead of forging a lasting relationship with my couch and reruns of Seinfeld after work?  What the fuck is wrong with me?

When I'm sucking down wind trying to keep things under an 8, this is what I think about, this is what haunts me.  

Maybe if I pour over the past enough, I won't let it happen again.  Shit, maybe it I train properly for events, and keep pushing myself just enough, but not too much, maybe I won't fuck it up this time.  I LOVE that I can go run 6 miles, and sure it's rough to pull hard miles in the middle, but that's the rough part.  I can knock back miles better and faster than I can beers.  Which says more about my running than it does my drinking, but kind of says a little about both.  Anyway, what I love most about running is being able to go out and do it, easily, to tick mile after mile off on my fingers like it's no big deal.  Oh, just running 9 miles on Sunday, whatever.  Oh, just doing track repeats and playing football afterward, no big.  Dismiss the feat with a wave of my hand.  I love that.  Love love love.

But, I also enjoy being good at things.  And while I'm no...um....[insert name of super fast lady runner here because I don't know any because I like running but don't give a flying fuck about "famous" runners]...I'm not terrible.  And I've demonstrated a few times that I have some untapped reserves in my fuel tank, just waiting to see what happens when they're...tapped, I guess?  So, I enjoy that, being good, getting better.  And I'd like to win something.  Well, place.  I want to be a contender.  I think that would be neat to brag about.  When I first started running, and I'd mention a race, one of the main questions I'd get in response was "did you win?"  And I would laugh and laugh, because, really, especially here, in L.A., where each race has thousands of runners, and so many of them are very good, winning is...most unattainable.  Maybe if running were my full time job, and I stabbed a few 17 year olds in the thighs before the starting gun went off, but probably not even then.  But, placing...in my age group...well, I've come close to that (I won my age group once...once upon a time, a few months into running, before I knew what training was, but it was a small race.  Oh, and again, I won my age group for a mud run, but only because it was the first year, and I was one of the few females doing the longer version.  Not real victories.).

I've lost my train of thought.  But my train of run (that's bad, that's really bad) is going well.  It feels good.  The right amount of pushing.  It's a plan cobbled together from other plans, with dashes of things I wanted to add, and the outside eye of a friend to keep it realistic.  It's MY plan, and that's probably why it's working.

Let's hope I don't fuck it up this time.

Tell me about how you've fucked your training up during your running career.  Let's wallow in the past.  I'd rather learn from my mistakes than pretend they're okay to make.