Too Much Yumminess & Not enough Running!

Help!  I've indulged the last few days which normally isn't a problem if it wasn't also accompanied with a rest day that I didn't need!  So Saturday was awesome I started with a 7:30am Endurance Spin Class, 15 miles, followed by a 8:45 am Yoga class, which really helped my foot and hips and made me break a sweat.  Then I went for 3 miles with the puppy.  I was also very productive on the home front doing some major spring cleaning!!  I followed all that by a girls night out. 

Then come Sunday I decided I wouldn't get as early of a start I watched a chick flick then read an entire book, ok it was an easy read Jenny McCarthy's Love, Lust and Faking it isn't exactly like reading a college text book.  But I needed to just let my mind and body rest.  The problem is I never got around to my run that day and replaced it with making Vegan Coconut lime cupcakes.  Delicious, I ate two, and was in a sugar coma after that!  The only thing keeping me from eating the rest of the dozen is the fact that I've been told when the bf gets back from his current military school he will apparently be 20 lbs lighter and needing lots of food!

Monday I was able to get a great swim in 2400 meters of alternating breast and free style and a sensible dinner.  Tuesday I had every intention of doing my usual weight lifting session followed by a 3-4 mile run.  When a friend of mine sent me an e-mail saying I know this is a long shot because of your triathlon coming up and last minute but would you be willing to go to Ladies Night Out at Melting Pot with me tonight?  The thing is I had wanted to go there for my birthday in January and due to some extenuating circumstances that I won't mention here it was cancelled.  So I had been dying to go for months and couldn't say no!!!!  But in order to make my reservation I only had enough time to go home play with the doggy and leave.  So did you know that my serving of the four course meal was about 1,400 calories and 60 grams of fat!!!!  Again with no workout!!!  It was so yummy but all this is going to start adding up.  I need to come back to reality and get back on track!  How do you make sure you don't get distracted by yummy treats and dinners?

Woman's best friend....

When I first brought her home at 2 months old

When I am alone on the home front and left to fend for myself and look after the house my days seem to run even shorter than normal.  I get the inclination to try and take shortcuts.  For example, instead of doing my training run then coming home to walk the dog 3 miles (this is required on a daily basis to try and keep her semi-calm) I try to do a training run with my dog.  Seems logical right and usually before I even get through the first mile I’m reminded why I can’t do this as she jumps up at the leash trying to bite at it because it is what’s keeping her from running free!  She will also sit randomly while looking back at me as her way of begging me to let her go on her own.  The funny thing is that if I let the leash go she will grab ahold of it in her mouth and walk herself, but this only works until a car, cyclist, runners, or other dog comes along.

It’s a good thing she’s so cute……

She is:                                  Translation:

Full of energy                                     Will never leave you alone if you try to relax she will stop at nothing to get your attention (eating socks, barking at nothing, gnawing on you or any furniture you might have, even standing at the door and when you let her out she “fake” pees just to get you out of your seat!!!!)

Best training partner ever           Will push you beyond your limits making you run faster than you ever have (unless you would prefer to have your arm pulled out of its socket), creates an obstacle course for you to ensure you are always on your toes (by running in front of you or wrapping the leash around your legs or playing frogger with traffic)

Loving                                                   If left to her own devices would lick you to death (her favorite seems to be stinky toes fresh out of a sweaty running sock), will jump on unassuming strangers to greet them and thinks jumping on a dogs face is the quickest way to make friends, bonus is she never growls

Very Smart                                         Knows how to open doors to escape, will jump up against drawers to close them, can shake, high five, roll over and balance on her back legs to get a treat but the minute you run out of treats she will resort to eating whatever is in her sight ( we have found metal, plastic, tarp, cloth and string when cleaning up her poo – poo in the back yard)

Oh so cute                                          Can trick people into thinking she’s sugar and spice and everything nice which will lead them to do things like pet her even if she’s jumping on them ruining their clothes and yes, she’s been taught not too, give her food off the counter even though that is a big NO- No in our house

Path of destruction

Just a few of my favorite stories:  As I sat there one night trying to watch TV, first I heard an odd sound then I noticed the TV start to shake, then the modem fell off the cabinet.  I realized my dog was outside frantically pulling and chewing on the cable line.  Now it all made sense why my internet had stopped working the night before.

As I tried to sleep-in one day (that hardly ever happens) she figured out how to open the bedroom door and jumped on the bed and tried to lick my face and when I covered my face with the comforter she tried to dig me out from under it with her front paws!

If you are cooking and kick her out of the kitchen so she won’t eat scraps off the counter she runs over to the couch and stands on the very top of it so she can see what you are doing  and if she sees anything fall to the ground she will sprint back into the kitchen to try and get to it before me.

She is just a puppy and we have taken her to training school and we will get it right one of these days.  But I can’t help but think if a puppy is this challenging I can’t even imagine a child!  J  Now I get to go home to a wagging tail!

P.S. She must have known I was writing this post because yesterday I had my 1st successful run with her 2.8 miles!!

World's Toughest 10k Race Report

Most people, including myself, a lot of times consider the success of a race dependent on the finish time & place.  There are some cases however, where I will still consider a race a success for other reasons.  For example, the 10k race I ran on Sunday although it took me longer than I had anticipated and I didn’t place very well, I learned a lot of lessons from so I am still happy I did it and consider it a success!  Here is my race report:

It was a warm day with an 8 am start and perfect day for running.  I was happy to receive a visor and a mug versus the usual race t-shirt!  The mug’s had gold, silver and gold writing on them, depending on the time you finished, was what determined the color mug you received.  To receive a gold mug you needed to finish the race in 63 minutes which may sound like a lot but this race was all uphill with 1,400 ft vertical climb.  Based on a past time of 1:11 in this race and the fact that I had been training a lot more for it this time and had a successful practice run on the  course a few weeks before I thought for sure I’d hit this time.  The first couple of miles I was right on target with 10 minute miles or a little less.  Then at the third mile I slowed down by 30 seconds and noticed I was starting to feel a little funny.  At about mile four is when it all hit me and I completely fell apart and from there to the end it was a struggle not to want to just call it 10k walk instead of run.  I had horrible allergies (which I never have) and it was hard to breath with snot everywhere!  Then my stomach started to rumble and I felt nauseous, and my legs were shot they were like jell-o and were refusing to come back to me!  My tendonitis in my foot started yelling at me and the pain started to move up my leg.   The last mile which is the steepest I ran into an old friend and as he passed me he mentioned “IFM” to me.  I asked “what’s that?”  he said “Inssessant Forward Motion” which became my mantra for the last mile and I finally crossed the finish line way into my anaerobic zone at 1:12:54.  I was finisher 151/240 with an age group finish of 21/38.  Turns out I qualified for the silver mug but I thought my time was so dismal I didn’t bother to check and just grabbed a bronze mug.  P.S. this race is very well organized and tought out and is super fun I would recommend it to everyone who's up for a challenge!

Lessons learned:

You don’t need to “carb load” for a 10k!!  I used my race as an excuse to eat an extra serving of spaghetti for dinner that night.  It was homemade sauce and healthy but I ate so much that I was still full when I woke up the next morning, didn’t eat breakfast, and was burping spaghetti sauce during the race!!  I know, I know duh! 

Don’t do a heavy weightlifting session even if It’s 3 days before the race.  At the gym on the Thursday before the race I was feeling so good that I did way more leg work than I normally do with forward and back lunges, side lunges, jumps, calf raises, leg presses and I was so sore that no matter what I did it wouldn’t go away and I had dead legs!

I might actually have to go see a doctor about my foot now that the pain is starting to radiate and stretching only helps for very short amounts of time.

Believe it or not I still had fun during this race and feel it at least counted as a good training run for my upcoming triathlon in May.  My friend did awesome on her run with a 55 min. time and 3^rd in our age group!  I saw friends I hadn’t seen in a long time!  I have a flat 10k race coming up in 2 weekends and hope to be better prepared!  Loving getting back into shape and reconnecting with the running/triathlon community! 

Why I'm not a professional swimmer!

I have enrolled in an advanced swim class through my university’s continuing education program for two reasons, 1.  It’s free as part of an employee benefit when you work for the university, 2.  I needed some motivation to get myself to the pool!  Last night’s drills made me inhale so much water through my nose that it made my tummy hurt!!  I had never done so much backstroke in my life!!!  It gave me a whole new appreciation for freestyle.  It is obviously a weak stroke for me.   Here was our swim: 

400 free warm-up

2x100 backstroke

2x100 Right only backstroke

2x100 Breast

2x100 Left only back

2x100 breast kick

2x100 back kick

2x100 catch up backstroke

150 free cool down   = 1950 total

This workout took me almost the full hour!  The hardest one was the catch up back stroke!  Here’s the thing with the lag time between one arm “catching” up to the other arm you are supposed to kick harder to stay afloat well my arms have always been stronger than my legs in the pool so that meant I sucked in a lot of water through my nose and it BURNED!!!  All I could keep thinking was there are a lot of kids in the pool today and that only means one thing, and I don’t want to be inhaling that!  ;-)

 I loved this workout because it pushed me beyond my comfort zone and made me work muscles that I don’t normally work!  This is why I like to take classes you always can learn something new.  I had never in all my years of swimming done a back-stroke  catch up drill, funny huh!

 But one thing I don’t think I’ll ever learn is how to dive or do a flip turn, which is exactly why it’s a good thing I’m a triathlete you don’t have to know how to do either one of those.  I remember joining the swim team as a teen and the coach spent entire weeks working with me on the flip turn.  As the first swim meet approached and I became more desperate I foolishly ran my forehead into the wall while trying to flip.  See I have horrible equilibrium and I get disoriented easily I thought I was already fully around but I wasn’t so when I went to swim forward I was stopped by the wall.  So not only could I not do the swim meet I had to stand there cheering my team on with a massive swollen red bump on my head!  With all the “traumatizing” stories about sports I seem to have from my past it’s amazing I’m still an athlete.  It has taught me persistence, patience, determination and above all humiliation (I mean humility)!  I don’t embarrass easily thanks to sports and my mom and love them both dearly! 

In my head before I get in the pool this is what I picture myself looking like!



Once I'm in the pool this is what it feels like!  ;-)



Tendonitis of the Extensor Hallucis Longus

For the past month or more I have had this annoying little pain that runs along the top of my foot from my big toe up my shin.  By making sure I did a nice warm up before a run and lots of stretching after the run plus taking advil I was able to ignore it.  Well, this morning the short 5 minute walk from my car to work caused severe pain.  I don't think I'm going to be able to ignore it much longer.  The tricky part is that there isn't really treatment for it other than what I've already been doing.  I found this article that explained it:  http://www.podiatrynetwork.com/r_tendonitis.cfm   So I guess I keep trudging along hoping that eventually I stretch it enough that it eases up on me.  How many of you have tried to self diagnose on the Internet?  How many of you have been successful?  I'm sure doctors are not very fond of the "wonders" of the Internet but I hate going to a doctor unless absolutely necessary.  Call me stubborn but usually what I have researched on my own has been correct.  Even when I had a mild concussion from a ski accident I finally went to the doctor after everyone kept telling me to go because I would turn pale white and get nauseous.  It turns out I had a mild concussion and major whiplash and the deformity the 1st doctor saw in the x-ray of my neck was what the specialists called a "congenital defect".  Basically I couldn't do anything for any of that other than rest and pain meds!  So my stubbornness continues, not that I condone it...

Is there such a thing as to much fun!?!

As my fabulous weekend unfolded I was thinking this is To Much Fun!!!  Then I thought no there is no such thing as too much fun!  Well, let me tell you I was singing a different tune a couple of days later as I was going on my 3^rd day in a row with  out getting a workout in while going through my second box of Kleenex!!!  I will describe my weekend o’ fun with words, pics, and video.  Then I will describe the week that changed my mind and you can decide for yourself!  I started the weekend off right with a 4.5 mile run that had a nice hill in it, I’m trying to be ready for the World’s Toughest 10k in 2 weeks that is all uphill with over 1,000 feet in elevation gain, I felt great the weather is warming up and the music was speaking to me.  Then I took the pup for a two mile walk and she actually behaved!  I thought wow patience has paid off and she finally has realized who is master. (yeah I found out the next day she still thinks she the boss of me) 

Saturday I got to sleep in a little which was glorious!  I had the time to eat a full breakfast for once, which might make most people cringe because it was a weird combination of left over broccoli rice casserole with an egg on top but hey I do what I can with what I have.  Then my new running buddy (yes I finally have a running buddy woohooo that is willing to put up with my slow running) came to pick me up for our Will Run for Beer 5k.  She convinced me to do a 1.5 mile warm up with her before the race which was the best idea ever because the tendon on the top of my foot was really tight and sore from the uphill run the day before.  Then she kicked butt with her 21 min. 5k and I came in at my pace at a 26.30 5k which I am pleased with and I still have 2 months before my A race so I hope to get it down to 24 or 25 by then.  We had two post-race “carb replacement drinks”  see picture.    That night I hung out with the coolest brother in the world and we played my new Donkey Kong Returns game for Wii, yes I am an adult and yes I still play video games. 

Sunday I spent most of the morning working out between spin class, treadmill, ab work, weights, walking the pup, stretching.  I proceeded to prep next week’s meals (which is a major accomplishment for me) that afternoon while I enjoyed two pre-concert beers.  Sunday I went to a concert which most of you probably won’t know, Juanes, but when imagining what I tell you next and if you watch the video I post from the concert just picture your favorite band crush and imagine how excited I was when as I stared dreamily up at him he looked down at me with a smile and yes, I got a fist bump from my favorite famous crush.  Oh and bonus my friend caught the drumstick and gave it to me for a keepsake!  

Then Monday night I felt it coming on the DREADED Cold.  I thought I can power through this!  But no I have been without a workout since Monday and even had to take a day off from work.  Today will be my first day back with a light weightlifting session then a 1hour swim session.  Wish me luck I need this weekend to get back on track!  So what do you think is there such a thing as too much fun?  I’ve decided even if there is it was totally worth it!!!