A Pain In My Ass Returns

Last night I convinced Sky to hit up the track with me again.  I had with me print outs of goals and paces based on the McMillian calculator, but I decided to ignore them and play it by ear.  Mostly, I just wanted to get some speed work in, stretch my legs, and create a base line for a few distances.

I plugged my dream 5k time and my goal half marathon time into McMillian, and came up with a range for my speed work.

100m:  17.8 - 21.3
300m:  55.6 - 1:10.3
400m:  1:18 - 1:34.8

(there were other speeds, obviously, they're just not relevant today)



Last week I was hitting 100m between 17 and 18 seconds.

This week I nailed all five 100s in 16 seconds.  Score!

Next I hit 300s.  Both were botched attempts at a longer distance.  I'm not super good at pacing myself, clearly, so I went out too hard both times, and ended up cutting things short.  Hurting myself by pushing too hard right now is a terrible idea.

That said, I hurt myself.

300m -- 1:04
300m -- 1:04
400m -- 1:29
100m -- 16.5
100m -- 16.8
100m -- 16.6
100m -- 16.4
100m -- 16.6
100m -- 16.8

I'm killing the 100m.  The 300ms, both times I was going for longer distances, so my time may not be indicative of my abilities.  My 400m is better than it was before I took time off.  So that's good.  Progress.

The penultimate 100m I felt a tug in my left butt/hip area. I had felt it twinge during my half, and again during my training session on Tuesday.  I took a break, stretched it out, jogged a slow lap, and tried again.  Pain.  In my ass.  Har har har.

My trainer had joined us for the second half of the speed work, so he took a break to stretch me out.  Hopefully it's a minor issue that just vanishes.  It's a good reminder that I need to foam roll more often to keep my muscles from being so tight, since I've had issues with that in the past.



Tonight I'm working out with my trainer, so if it's still bothering me I'll just have him stretch me out again.  We'll see what this changes about my weekend plans.

Apartment Gyms

I don't know if this is a confession or what, but I have never lived in an apartment.  I lived in college dorms, sure.  And straight out of college I lived in a duplex in Santa Barbara.  For a few months I lived on my brother's couch every weekend.  That's the extent of my apartment experience.  My life has been pretty cake, I know.

My trainer, though, lives in an apartment complex.

With a giant mirror in the entry.



And an apartment gym.

And that's where we'll be training for a while.  Personal issues that aren't my place to broadcast on the internet. 

Workout:

x8
30s rope slams
30s medicine ball snatches
30s jumping pull ups
30s push ups

10s rest between each exercise, no additional rest per set.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

And then he grabbed a resistance band and made me run sprints in the parking lot while dragging him behind me.  I don't know how many we did. All I know is, I was kicking my own ass each time, and he was yelling at me to "dig deeper," then admitting he had no real way of telling how hard I was working.  Great.

We spent most of the session talking.  Well, HE spent most of the session talking.  I spent most of the session trying to breathe. 

He told me my muscles are getting better again, both in definition and size.  I yelled "are you calling me fat!"  And then we laughed and laughed. 



I am going to enjoy these mirrors.

Saturday I met up with Heather ass early to keep her company on a training run.



We saw a bunch of horses, and ran through a pretty swank neighborhood, clocking a solid 6 miles.

Sunday my two nieces had a joint birthday party. I hid in a corner and ate myself sick on strawberries and fresh tacos, and forced Sky to prove he was a douchebag.



I hate the Siri commercials.  They make me want to punch people in the face.  Except the Samuel L. Jackson one.  He could be in an add for raping kittens and I'd enjoy it.

Today I have track sprints.  I don't know what distance I'm going to do.  I don't have any plans short of "go to track.  run on track.  occasionally do it fast."  Can't go wrong with that.  This time I'll bring better hydration than warm vitamin water, though.  That's all I had to drink last time, and it was wrong.  Wrong.

For those of you who regularly do track workouts, how do you decide what you're going to be doing, how much of it, and at what pace?  Do you pay someone to tell you?  Have you mapped out a concrete plan?  Do you play it by ear?

Laguna Hills Half Marathon

"This is a terrible idea."

It's 6am.  I'm staring at a full body American flag costume.  I'm tired, I'm poorly trained, and this costume covers everything, including the whole head.

Wes look equally thrilled.  We spent the previous day shooting texts back and forth, telling each other we don't have to do this.  "Did you bring regular running clothes?" he asks me.

Of course I did.  Just in case.  Because this was a terrible idea indeed.

But we were stubborn.  Even if our driving force, Todd, got called to New Mexico to fight fires.  But Wes, Javi and I were there, so we suited up.



What the fucking fuck, right?

Why Someone Would Run A Race In A Morph/Zentia Suit:
1.  It's hilarious.  To us.  Every ten minutes or so one of us would shout out "you looking RIDICULOUS!"
2.  I have no other reasons.

A week ago I got a message from Todd, asking if I wanted to run a half marathon on Memorial Day.  He promised he was out of shape, and it would be slow going.  I knew I wasn't ready to give another college try, but I was certain I could half ass the shit out of it.  So I told him I was in.  Friday he calls me up.  "What are we doing about costumes?"  Costumes?  Oh, yes, these are the guys who ran a 5k last year in my pink spandex suits.  Uh oh.

A few hours later he called me from Party City.  "Would you pay $60 for a flag spandex suit?"

Clearly I said yes.  Because I'm an idiot.



But at least I'm not a lonely idiot.



(Note: Like I said, Todd got called out to fight fires in New Mexico, so Javi subbed in. Todd was missed, but there will be other stupid flag suit races I'm sure.)

Tips For Running In A Spandex Suit
-Wear underwear, but try to match it to your skin color.  Dark underwear might make it look like you sharted.  No underwear might become too revealing when you're all sweaty.
-Be careful zipping it up, or you might have to rip out chunks of your hair to pull the stupid suit off so you can go to the bathroom.
-Kids will pay a lot more attention to you, so keep the cursing and disturbing conversation topics to a minimum.  
-It's hard to breathe in these things.  We might have fared better if we had cut mouth holes.  It probably would have been creepier, though.
-The suit may claim you can drink from it.  You can try, but the sentence "none of the water made it into my mouth!" was pretty accurate the whole race.
-The suit may claim you can see through it.  It will be worth it to cut out eye holes anyway, so you don't run in to people the whole time.



So.  13.1 miles on ill-prepared legs in creepy suits.  How did it go.

Chip time:  2:08.  If you factor out the bathroom break, 2:02.



I felt pretty awful coming across that finish line.  My bruised toe nails had hurt most of the race, and my legs and feet just hurt in general.  It was tough.  And not just because of the awesome, creepy, stupid suit.  It's good to know I have the distance in me, but I have more work to do before I'm killing it.



I have two weeks until the duathlon I'm doing, and three weeks until the Camp Pendleton Mud Run, so it's time to knuckle down and focus on biking and 10k runs.  In theory.  The duathlon is the first of three identical ones, so I'm not under any pressure to perform.  The mud run, well, all I can do is my best.  Okay, that's all anyone can ever do.  But it's the only goal I have for this.  That and watching my trainer rock it.

Intervals and a Mom Weekend

Yesterday my legs were sore as fuck.  My toe nails were both blue.  I was hobbling around.  My trainer did not care.  He had prepared an ass kicking interval (he calls it "tabata" but it's way to long to be true tabatas.  It's just using the time format.) workout, and he was going to be damned if he dumbed it down for me.  Okay, that's not totally true.  If I'd had some real limitations he would have modified everything for me.  But "boo hoo I'm sore" doesn't count as a valid excuse.

Luckily, my soreness melted away as soon as I started moving. Of course, it returned as soon as I was done, but that's less important.



x8 (no rest between sets)
20s rope slams
10s rest
20s right arm snatchs(switch to medicine ball lifts after round 4)
10s rest
20s left arm snatchs(switch to medicine ball lifts after round 4)
10s rest
20s push ups
10s rest
20s bike sprint
10s rest

x8 (no rest between sets)
20s sledge hammer tire slam, right arm
10s rest
20s sledge hammer tire slam, left arm
10s rest
20s box jumps (on the tire)
10s rest

x3
60s plank
15 (per leg) raised leg crunches



The two main sets.  Holy shit.  I'd turn my head and sweat would rain down.  10 seconds is not enough rest, man.  On the first set it took me ten seconds to get from push up position to be on the bike.  Lame.

The second set was majorly hard, but in a super satisfying why.  I love slamming the shit out of that tire with a sledge hammer.  Few exercises I've done match that feeling.

My trainer is doing an excellent job of choosing workouts that really work my lungs, while still building my strength up, to get me back to the norm, so I can start lifting heavy again.  He mentioned yesterday, as I was planking, how thin I am again.  Yes, I understand, most women out there are striving for this.  But I started here, and have invested so much time and energy into getting bigger, muscle-wise.  Into getting stronger.  So, it sucks to lose that.  I appreciate that my trainer understands that.



Today is a rest day.  This works well, since my mom arrives in town after work.  Mom weekends are the best weekends.  Plus, she does the dishes when she visits, which is awesome.

My copy of The 4-Hour Body arrived today..  Tim Feriss is a douche bag.  I have no doubt about this.  He's crazy, and very lucky.  He has the luxury of time and resources to fuck around and test out weird shit on his body.  But, I like the crazy, the outliers, the extreme, the weird.  So, it will be an interesting read.  I did his slow carb diet last winter, and it was awesome.  But, I like weird, extreme ways of eating.  It keeps me entertained.

Humble Pie, and a Winner

The winner of the $50 Subway Gift card:  Sheri!

I used Random.org, but it picked an awesome person.  Sheri has been battling rectal cancer, which SUCKS BALLS.  But, her tumors are stable.  And she has adorable kids.  Yay Sheri!

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

On to the sweating.



I decided yesterday that it was time to hit the trails.  I got speed out of the way Monday, so I could focus on hills and distance.

So, I have a friend who had an accident while biking.  I was really disappointed to find out he wasn't wearing his heart rate monitor during the accident, because that would be interesting data.

This is relevant, really.

So, yesterday I forgot to pack my HR monitor strap thing.  I was annoyed, because I knew my HR was going to be interesting on the hills, and I enjoy the data in general.

But I ran anyway, because it's about laying down the track, you know?  And, BOOM, I see a rattlesnake on the trail.  And I'm a little peeved I was sans HR monitor, because that's data I'd like to see.  I'm sure it bumped a little.



Oh well.  First rattler of the season.  It was a big one, too.



Speaking of big ones, oh the death hill.  Fuck.  400 feet of gain in 0.62 miles. By the time I hit it I was already exhausted and gasping for air.  As I started up it my heart was thudding against my ribs, and my breathing got worse.  I repeated in my head "smart, not hard."  And I walked up that fucking hill.  Smart not hard. At least the view was nice.



With a mile left to go I fucked up and didn't lift my left foot high enough.  I almost tripped, which would have been better.  Instead I stubbed the SHIT out of my left big toe.  I screamed "SON OF A BITCH!" and kind of limped the rest of the way back to the car.  I'd show you a picture, but no one wants to see that shit.  I don't think I'll be wearing closed shoes for a few days, though.

Overall, it was a hard, long, hot, sweaty, tough run.  And it was exactly what I needed.  7.75 miles.  It's good to know I can.

My legs haven't been this sore in a while. Feels good, man.

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

More short thoughts:
-Foot fetishists probably don't date runners.
-I have three pairs of running shoes in my car right now.
-Eyes were bigger than my stomach. Only for legs.

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

Who else is watching The Bachelorette? Can you tell the guys apart? Do you think newly single Chris Harrison should be the next Bachelor?

Sweat and Cake

The (Modified) Manion
x7
400m sprint (between 8 and 8.5mph)
29 kettlebell goblet squats (I can't do back squats because it flares up an old back injury every time we try)

Time:  26:27

Tabata!
x4
20s tight rope slams
10s rest
20s squats
10s rest

In between the two exercises I paced around trying to get my heart rate low enough so I could lie down.  The Manion was a killer.  I was dead.  And then the tabatas wrecked my arms.  And then we looked at sleds my trainer wants to buy, even though he wouldn't be able to transport the one he wants.  He suggested I could drive it everywhere. 

My trainer is clearly crafting each workout to bring my lungs back up to speed, so I can bring my run times back up to speed.  For that, I love him.  This workout was an ass kicker.  There were a few times when I thought I was not going to be able to continue.  And that's good.  That's what I need right now.  And it's working.  Go team me!

Last night after working out I trekked over to my brother's house to celebrate my niece's birthday.



More thoughts I'm keeping off of Twitter:
-I keep getting.g a blister in the same place, no matter which shoes I wear. If I run too frequently I get a blister inside the blister, which is weird. And kind of awesome.
-I really, really enjoy watching men who work out for a living work out in front of me.  In my next life I'll come back as a creepy lady gym owner.
-While watching my husband carry around my nieces I found myself saying "that's a good workout."  Shit, I've become one of THOSE people.
 

I saw this on the way to work this morning. Doesn't Pizza Pus sound appetizing?

Track This

Inspired by/jealous of RoseRunner's recent affair with speed work, and in celebration of being ready to really RUN again, I took to the track yesterday.

Thanks to a combination of feeling queasy most of the day, not having done speed work in six weeks, and it being exceptionally warm, I only managed to get four 100s in before I was wheezing like Wheezy from Toy Story and feeling light headed. It's difficult to hit the start and stop buttons on my Garmin while doing 100s.

Since I'm trying to play smart, not hard, I decided to cut it short.

Total Distance:  2.14 miles

100s:

16.9
17.0
17.1
17.8

Now, I have never done 100s before.  I have no idea what a good time is, let alone a good time for me.  The upside is, since I wasn't feeling awesome, I'm setting the bar pretty low.  I can only do better from here.

The upside is, I gave my lungs a ridiculous workout, since they burned the whole fucking time, and I got my heart rate up to a hilarious 203 during every sprint.

I felt fucking exhausted the whole half mile walk back to my car.  When I got home and walked the dog, my legs were still burning.

First, I could feel it a fair amount in my hips.



Then my shins kicked it.



FUN!

(They felt fine after a few hours, as legs are apt to do)

I guess at some point I should look up what my 100s should be, based off my current race times.  The internet is tell me that 17 seconds is slow as shit.  Huh. I don't want to feel bad about my time. But I know I don't speed up as fast as I could. My husband beats me in short sprints every time we race, and he doesn't run. I'm not even sure why I'm looking up 100m times and feeling bad about myself, since this is the first fucking time I did them. I mean, that's just stupid. But, it does drive me to want to do better next time. And see if I'm smart enough to program my Garmin so it will stop and start for me, so I don't have to rely on hitting a button.

I'm going to dwell on this, I can tell. I have this underlying desire to be instantly exceptional at everything I do. Which doesn't really work. And never has worked for me, so I'm not sure why I continue to think it will happen. Was I really expecting to half ass myself to the track and bust out better than average times for something I've never done, when my body isn't in tip top shape? Is that really what I thought would happen? Yes. I don't know why. It's neither logical, nor remotely follows from my history with running. Nothing in my life has remotely led me to this conclusion, and yet I drew it anyway.

Listen, I understand, it's not a big deal. Everyone kind of hopes for this stuff. Who doesn't want to be magically good at things without putting in the work, right?

On a less serious note, I have a Twitter account. It's a personal account. I don't do the twitter/facebook for the blog thing because I'm lazy, and I don't like to have two accounts for things. It means using different browsers or logging out of having weird tab extensions. Fuck that. So it's my twitter. And, sometimes I have random thoughts that would be great for a blog twitter account. But, my normal friends don't give a shit about this kind of stuff. Which is why I started a blog in the first place: so I'd have a place to talk about running without annoying the people in my life.

Anyway, here are some of the things I did not tweet:

-I know I'm back to exercising when 75% of my laundry is workout clothes again.
-My feet get really sweaty.
-Ummmm...I had more when I was in the shower, but now I can't think of them. Fuck. You'd think I'd put more effort into this shit before throwing it up online. Oh well.

Basketball Sandwich Party & $50 Subway Giftcard Giveaway

Saturday we invited a bunch of people over to break in our new basketball hoop and help us eat 6 feet of sandwich.



I originally bought the basketball hoop as a present for my husband for Christmas.  But, the weather was sketchy, and we were lazy.  Once spring hit we planned to put the hoop together every weekend, it seemed.  But, it never really happened.

Finally, last weekend we put the damn thing together.  And by "we" I mean my husband and my brother.  I was not involved.  I had better things to do.  Like not be involved.

Anyway, with the hoop together, we invited people over for an afternoon of breaking it in.



Holy shit you guys, basketball is fun.  Well, let me rephrase.  Bouncing a basketball and shooting hoops is fun.  I don't know how fun playing the game of basketball is, since we never played.  We did play other games, though.  Most of which I won.  Games like 3-2-1-Loser, where you play three rounds of free throw shots.  Round 1, you have three chances to make a basket, round 2, two chances, round 1, one shot.  You fail, you're out.  Won that.  We moved the game from the free throw line to the NCAA 3 pointer line.  Won that.  The we played Minute To Win It, aka "how many free throws can you make in a minute."  Won it by three full baskets. Mostly, I was faster at getting my own rebounds than anyone else.  We added a "5 Point Line" that's 33.5 feet away from the hoop, and I have yet to sink that, but you can bet I'm going to be practicing.



Overall, between chasing the ball, and, okay, just chasing the ball (As good as I seemed, we were all terrible enough that chasing the ball happened more often than shooting the ball), I ended up pretty exhausted.  But I had a shit load of fun.



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

To help with the exhaustion, I had six feet of sandwich to eat.



So, remember in January, when I had lunch with Jared?  Well, that landed me a contact at Subway, which is pretty swell, since I eat there about once a week (laziness and proximity factor in, but mostly because I know I can order something I will enjoy without feeling like a guzzled a bunch of oil).  Anyway, Subway is trying to pimp out their catering stuff, so they offered me a gift card to test it out.  And they have a second gift card to give to one of you assholes.  Score! Blah blah blah gave me a gift card, blah blah blah my opinions are my own. Does that cover it legally? Cool beans.



When I think of Subway catering, I think of giant sandwiches.  As a kid, party subs always fascinated me.  Mostly, the idea of food larger than I was.  So, when I was presented with this opportunity, I still wanted a sandwich taller than I am.  And, hey, they offer a 6' sandwich.  Well, 6' sandwich isn't entirely accurate.  While I was envisioning one giant loaf of bread, this is not what they deliver.  The 6 feet of sandwich ended up being four 18"-20" subs.  Now, these subs are still fucking impressive.  It helps that they're 6" wide.  Still monster sandwiches.  But, not the one ginormous sandwich I was envisioning.







This didn't stop up from posing ridiculously with them.



Oh, this is a review, so I should note that ordering was SUPER easy.  They limit the meat you can put on it (tuna, ham, turkey, and...something else.  I opted for half turkey half ham.).  They let you add veggies and condiments on the side, for picky people, and to keep the sub from going soggy.  It took fewer than 10 minutes to order on the phone  Super, super easy.

6 feet of sandwich ended up being $72.  This makes sense because you're not technically buying in volume, but instead buying a novelty item.  And you do get a shitton of food for your money.  9 people playing basketball ate 3 feet of sandwich.  But Sky probably ate 18" all by himself.  He's a food dumpster.  I'm possibly kidding, but probably just slightly exaggerating.

Anyway, I love Subway.  I thought the sandwich was delicious.  Which is good, since I'll be eating it for the next week.  Too much food.

Sky, inspired by ridiculous food, decided he wanted to make Jumbacos.  Sadly, trying to order Jumbacos in the drive through netted us a "huh?" so we had to order ala carte and assemble them ourselves.  Verdict?  Jumbacos are delicious, according to the four people who ate them.  They had cheese, so I did not partake.  But I pretended to.



Subway Verdict:  The novelty of the huge sandwich was totally worth it.  I wouldn't order 6 feet next time, only because we have SO MUCH SANDWICH left over.  But, 3 feet of sandwich is only $36, and is still impressive, hilarious, and huge.  So, if you win the gift card, I totally recommend the giant sub.  Because bigger is better.  [insert dick joke here]

So, on to the contest.

$50 subway gift card.  Which is pretty sweet, right?

How to enter?

Comment on this post = 1 entry
Comment on my previous post = 1 entry

I like comments, okay?

You don't have to like me on FB (since I don't have a thing on FB).  You don't have to tweet this, because I find that shit annoying.  You don't have to tell me your favorite sub because mine is better than yours.  If you want a suggestion on what to say you could tell me nice things about myself.  Or tell me why you're better than I am.  Bang your head against the keyboard.  I don't care.  Well, I do care, but whatever. Oh, oh, you could tell me how adorable I looked! Blogging is all about narcissism, right?



I'll stop accepting entries Wednesday at 8pm California time.  I'll announce the winner Thursday morning.

The End.

Run and Ride

Run:

30 minutes on the treadmill.  I started at 6mph and bumped it up 0.1mph every minute, so the final minute was 8.9mph. 

As each minute ticked by I waited for it to get too hard.  My lungs definitely got a workout, but it never got hard enough that I felt like I needed to quit.  My legs felt fucking great the whole time.  It was interesting to watch the pace increase each minute and think "this is the pace I held for my last half."  "This is the pace I held for a 5k".  When thinking in those terms, it was definitely HARD. Part of me wanted to keep going past the 30 minutes. I wanted to run some minutes in the nines. But, I'm coming back slowly, so I don't want to risk injury to myself just because I'm having a good time. 



Obviously I'm not back where I was a month ago.  But everything felt great, and as long as I keep pushing my lungs, I'll get there.

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



Bike:

The Amgen Tour of California finished up in Los Angeles today.  Oh, shit, that's where I live.  My brother keeps abreast of events in the area, so he found out there were opening up a 5 miles section of the course to non-professionals before the big wigs rode into own.  And, it was free.  I've been meaning to take my bike out on the streets again, so this was a good, no pressure opportunity.  Plus, it's not often that one gets to ride in the middle of the street in Downtown Los Angeles (though, this is probably for the best, since Downtown smells like urine).



The crowd was a good mixture of fancy looking folks in sponsored spandex on $3,000 bikes, and young ladies wearing leggings for pants so you could better see the colors of their thongs.  Sky and I fit somewhere in the middle.  I had on a hideous bike jersey, but was lacking bike shoes.  Sky was wear basketball shorts.  Ouch. Also, apparently my back tire was half flat, even after I tried filling it up.  Regardless, we were awesome.  We did the loop three times, tackling some hills that left my legs burning almost as much as my lungs.  It was just what my lungs needed to get themselves back into fighting shape.

Even though my camera claims it's shockproof, trying to take a picture while riding was terrifying.



Sky had the best helmet hair afterward.



It was awkward to swerve around wayward children and jarring pot holes, but it wasn't a race.  It was an experience.  We did get a solid 15 mile ride in.  It was neat.

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

I cannot express how good it feels to be back to exercising where my only limitation is building myself back up. Amazing. I cannot wait to get some track sprints in. I can't wait to do a lot of things. Yay fitness!

I Try Not To Think About What Might Have Been