Check in

Checking in on me, on my friends, my mom, aunt and best running buddies. I've been doing a lot of it these last few weeks. A friend told the hubby that she was jealous of my social life. It only took me 32 years to get one so I'm going to live it up.

I have been indulging in too much fun this Summer! Oh my goodness! Last weekend my friend Good Neighbor and I were scheduled to crew at the AWBC SF. This is my 7th walk participation and her 3rd. You could call us veterans! My friend V had told me at softball a few weeks before that Paul McCartney was going to be at AT&T Park the weekend that we were going. I not only jumped at it, adding her too but asked Mom and Aunt Sandy to join us. They saw the Beatles in '65! Then we added going to see Wicked to already exhausting weekend too! It was definitely a whirl wind weekend, literally no sleep and no running but I made up for it with all the heavy lifting (cross training right?) of boxes of food and moving tables and such. We ate the most amazing food including rabbit! That was an amazing weekend!

I jumped right back on the horse though and headed to speed training on Tuesday. Thankfully it was only in the 90's and not in the triple digits like originally forcasted. We jogged over to the HS track and did another 1/2 mile warm up (about 1.1miles total). We always do plyometrics with group training. I moan and grown but I see how it works and I do them. Staying healthy and injury free means a lot more to me now. We did intervals of 3 min hard 2 easy x5 for a good 25 minute workout. I made it through 1 and 2 too fast and bailed 2 minutes into the 3rd set. Grrr... I looked at my times during the 2 easy and realized that although they looked slow on the screen my body was not ready for that type of speed so I adjusted for the last two sets. Cooled down back to the shop for a total of 4.25 miles

I did 2 easy on the dreadmill Wednesday
I did 3.6 miles walking briskly Thursday with a 1/2 mile jog warm up (my hips felt especially tight so I walked and stretched well instead of running)
I did 3 easy on Friday on the dreadmill again


Saturday is group run day again and we were scheduled for 5.5miles. I took off and did warm up and plyos with the group. When I headed out on our trail run my watch wouldn't start. I let everyone go by then headed out after them with a working watch. My plan was to go out easy and say hello or hang out and talk with each runner or group until I hit my comfortable pace (found Sarah V), chill there for a while then push the last mile back. It was so nice to say hello or talk to everyone. I got to meet some new people and reconnected with others. It was the farthest I had been since I started running again. I felt good the entire way. Looking back at my ridiculously slow (for me) paces I can understand why but I had such an amazing time. This is what running in a group is supposed to be like, this is why it makes me happy.

Do you pull energy from friends and fellow runners when you feel uninspired? Or do you prefer to find it out alone on the trail or the road?

Motivationally Deprived

I have not have the drive to get out there and run. I thought maybe it was the weather, Nor Cal has been the target of storm after storm for since last Sunday, so I ran on the "dreadmill" all week. I thought maybe it was not running with my friends but I had little drive out there yesterday even though I ran with TTD but apparently she was short on motivation too. I don't have any races that I'm really excited about and I think I'm going to keep running and doing local races (maybe a half in May) but take some of the pressure off. I've been running consistently for two years and I think I need a break from the hard training before I start training for a fall marathon. So TTD and I decided to keep running with the half program to keep the social aspect and mileage up then just run the Bidwell Classic as a relay. Last year we did and came in 2nd place for the FF group.

Goals for the Non Training months:
strength training. I really really really need to find the $ to go back to KOR but I don't think it will come to be until March unless I can get on the ball and sell my car. I love my car. I just hate having 3 of them and mine is the easiest to cut.
Writing: Id like to work on this blog and my kids blogs a little more. I'd like to work on writing here about the changes I'm trying to make in our family eating habits and about enjoying running just to run again.
Eating: I know many of my blog friends out there are Vegans or Vegetarians but we're omnivores around here. Most of our meat consumption actually comes from wild game though. Very rarely (mostly if we go out for a nice dinner or something or an occasional rotisserie chicken from Costco) will we eat food not from what the FFP brings home from the hunt. That being said, we are getting low on Wild Pig and Elk. Guess its time to think about going to Colorado this Fall again. Duck and Goose season is almost over and that's been nice this year with a couple easy recipes in the dutch oven and Turkey season starts up again soon.

I am going to purchase the cookbook "The Conscious Cook" and try to make one Vegan main dish a week. I think it will help bring more veggies in different ways into the household. I could write a book about the things Blondy WONT eat... like the yummy Chicken and dumplings I made tonight. I also think I'm going to join the Natural Foods Co-op and use our wonderful local Farmers Markets more often.

So I hope these things get me Jazzed about running again. Right now I think that the only thing that keeps me going is my friends out there running. For so long it was about training and I missed them as I grew more confidant in my speed for the marathon and moved ahead. Now all I want is to run and chat with them.

There's no place like home

Today is a day when I wish I had stolen my moms treadmill and set up shop in the living room. The run outside was horrendous. I just could not get and stay focused. I yearned for those easy miles to find me but they never did. OK so I stuck it out and came in at just under 3o minutes even though I was supposed to go out for 30-40 minutes today. Today it wasn't just in my head but my whole body was having a revolution against this new life change of mine. That's fine, I came in my the skin of my teeth but tomorrow I'm going to kick its butt in Kettle bells and take the doggie for a walk. I'm going to make it wish I was running so Tuesday night will kick ass and Wednesday and Thursday's 5 mile runs will be a dream. Friday will be my core/xt day maybe another kettle bell class and Saturday is another LONG run. I'm putting it out there... This will be a great training week.

=)

I met the Princess last night

Thursday: Too hot to run 6 miles at 6 o'clock with girls so I headed to the
gym. I picked a treadmill that no one was on and no one was signed up for 7pm.
Since it was 15 til I signed in and jumped on. First my fan didn't work should
have been a sign that this run was not meant to be. I did sweat it out for 2
miles. I pushed the cool down button as I got the feeling someone was staring at
me. It was In Motion treadmill princess and her entourage. I didn't recognize
them right away. It took me a moment to put two and two together. Then this
transpired....

Princess: Ummm... my friends and I, (waving her hand to
acknowledge her
equally annoying friends), we reserved these treadmills for
7pm.


Me: I'm sorry, its 7:10 now and I need to cool down. I'll just
be a few
minutes.

Princess: YOU don't understand. We RESERVED (said
very slowly like I'm some
kind of freakin' idiot) these treadmills down there on the
sign in sheet for
7pm.


Me: Your initials were not there for 7pm.
Mine are. I'm almost
done. (I did not ever say this in a snotty or rude
voice. Just to the fact
voice. I didn't talk slow either although THEY are
obviously the
idiots).

Princess: (hands on her WIDE ASS hips, my
judgments are moving the surface
quickly and in abundance now) Maybe you
erased it and put yours down.


Me: (Stopping the treadmill) Its a freakin' treadmill. I
wouldn't do that.
(First I bit my tongue for the insults on the tip of it
threatened to fall out
of my mouth. I took the towel and my water and walked
away WITHOUT wiping down my machine from the horrific amounts of sweat I lost in
those 20 minutes I was running. I'm a rebel I know).

Girl behind me who
was kicked off her treadmill from the princess group:
You go girl!

Packing

I should be packing. I should be packing, I should be packing. What am I doing? I'm here typing away at the computer with ice on my knee. Actually its on my shin just below my left knee. Tonight was our 10K run night but the heat index was 145. yea too hot. WAY TOO HOT. So we had a guest speaker during our meeting and our local Doc, John the chiropractor came on in to talk about Injury Prevention. It was a nice talk and I didn't even think to ask him about my sourness. You know denial is more than just a river in Egypt. I must be well before this weekend. I cannot be injured. I guess I should go to bed then.

I did run 6 miles today on the dreadmill... I mean treadmill at the gym. I did 13 minute warm up mile, half mile increments starting at 9 min pace with a minute rest between. I worked my way down to 8 min/mile pace. I then did a mile cool down at 11 min pace.

I felt good. now I hurt though. I think I'll de-ice, go to bed and see how I feel in the morning.

Hot with a Side of Snow

Today in Northern California we will be breaking records with heat. It is supposed to be 112*F with winds out of the North. Bad news... Bad, Bad, Bad news. I look outside and it appears to be overcast. Look closer and it looks like its snowing... sweet little snowflakes falling softly from the sky. But thats not snow being pushed in by the BLOWDRYER hitting our part of the country, its ASH. The air quality in nearby Paradise and Oroville is officially at DANGEROUS. We are so close to the Danergous level that we might as well be classifying it as that anyway.

These fires will have started in our neck of the woods for an increadable 4 weeks tomorrow. 4 weeks of people fearing that they will loose their homes (or actually losing them like our friends). We have been dealing with the smoke and bad air quality for 4 weeks. We have been living inside, not running, not swimming, playing outside for 4 weeks. That is half the summer. It does not look like its going to let up either. Not good, not good at all. I will be thankful for the reprieve this weekend while at the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer but I wish the hubby would take the kids to the lake or something since the air might be better up there... oh yea, the roads are ALL CLOSED due to fires.

This is so depressing, so I'll go to the gym today and not do yoga, I'll do my speedwork for the day and hope I can make the meeting tonight on injury prevention. I'll take the kids to the gym so they will at least be doing something different than looking at our same walls all day. We'll make dinner for Chris's Gma and enjoy some time with her and maybe go to the library to get some new reading material.