Every Wish That We Put Into Motion.... (comments welcome!)

[Herding_Cats]

@avondale I’m looking at trails probably 2x a week, and the rest of the training is going to be on the roads near home. I also feel like I have really “settled” with my paces and a MM is more of a way to periodically check in with myself since, as you said, I probably won’t see much when it comes to the trail runs themselves.

Definitely going to be focused on the endurance side of things though. Going to be spending bonus time on the tread or on the big hill near my house.

 

[Herding_Cats]

I went for my run today. I really wanted to take a nap (and I totally could have) but instead I charged my watch and my shokz, put on all of the layers, and slogged through my 3 miles plus "down and up the hill." I did 20/30 intervals because I'm trying to just ease back into things, and tried to focus on really pulling my feet UP under me during the run portion. Like...up under my butt, not behind my butt, but straight up to help my form out for when I'm on trails. It feels really weird. But apparently I ran 13:30 pace with a 'reasonable for coming off a month break' HR. And then I ran down the hill and walked back up. Did I pause and hands-on-knees gasp for air partway back up? Sure did! I was 5:04 for that segment, which was 30sec slower than my fastest ascent last year. I'll never hold the record for it for time (DS2 has that firmly held), but gosh darn it I'll have the most reps on it by August!

On the shoe side of things i'm really baffled by new balance. I originally ordered the Hierro v8 in a men's 9 (for the width) and wasn't in love with the out-of-the-box feel. Using my previous experiences with the 1080s, I went ahead and ordered them in a womens 10.5 wide (these have always run wider than a men's 9 IME), and a mens 9 extra wide. All.Of.Them.Fit.The.Same. Even the men's 2E width shoe. Holding them up to each other, they are exactly the same width. So I guess I'm going to keep the ones that cost the least and hoping for the best. The only other option is to try ordering a womens extra wide as well, but honestly I'm not holding my breath on those fitting any differently either.

We cleaned up the garden and greenhouse this morning, and I was (again) tempted to start seeds in the greenhouse raised beds, but we are forecast to get 2-4in of snow tonight, and temps will be below freezing until next weekend so I'm going to hold off. I also ordered thornless raspberry plants (bareroot) that I have big hopes for. I loooove raspberries and they're always so darn expensive! We are also up to 5 blueberry bushes now, and if I can make the time to cage them off in the winter so the rabbits don't eat them down to the ground we will have plenty of those as well! Eventually.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Maybe I'm getting my mojo back? Too soon to tell, but I've been incredibly unmotivated lately (the weather since coming home from spring break hasn't helped) and of course this is another super busy month and a half with 3 sports schedules going on.

I've done a couple of runs, taking things very easy because I do not need to re-tweak anything. I went for a hike today on a trail that I may end up using quite a bit this summer, depending on how buggy it is as the trail winds around between a few tiny inland lakes and water=mosquitos. One of the other female referees lives nearby and mostly works from home and she drover over and walked with me (and the dog) which was nice! I think we might try to schedule that as a weekly thing until school gets out for DD and then try to see if we can figure out something else. The trail is basically all single-track and had a decent amount of hills that I think will make it pretty suitable for training. I forgot to start my watch, but we walked about 3.25mi at just under 19min/mi which also accounts for the dog trying to pee on approximately 487 trees. My watch says we had 371ft of ascent, so that's right on track for the average I'll need for the trail run. There were a few internal loops that I can easily work in to get somewhere around 7mi in without much repeating. Also? Super fun! It was nice to be somewhere new, no cars to worry about, and chat with someone for an hour.

Things that were new: injinji toe socks (from sierra for about $10?) and my new hierro v8 hiking shoes. As expected, the shoe felt "hard" on the side of my big toe, but I had no other major issues. T

In weird sleep land, why is is that on a night that I got somewhere north of 10 hours of sleep did my "body battery" only go up 3 points? I swear that the nights I get the most sleep are followed by the days that I'm just absolutely exhausted (and I usually get 8-9 hours!) And then last night i got caught up in a new book before I knew it my phone said it was 3am! And here I am today feeling better than I did yesterday!

In emotion land, I take DD to kindergarten round-up (registration) today. Not sure how she's suddenly old enough for that, but here we are getting the last kiddo geared up for school!

 

[The Expert]

Yay for mojo!!

 

[jmasgat]

Re: Sleep. Can't recall what watch you have, but I have a Garmin that baffles me on some days. I think it values even short periods of deep (restorative) sleep higher than total hours (from a sleep score standpoint) I think body battery likes that as well--along with the "right" HRV numbers.

 

[nancipants]

In emotion land, I take DD to kindergarten round-up (registration) today. Not sure how she's suddenly old enough for that, but here we are getting the last kiddo geared up for school!

Ours is starting kindergarten next year, too. Waaaaah.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Re: Sleep. Can't recall what watch you have, but I have a Garmin that baffles me on some days. I think it values even short periods of deep (restorative) sleep higher than total hours (from a sleep score standpoint) I think body battery likes that as well--along with the "right" HRV numbers.

It’s a vivoactive 4s. And funny enough, a few nights before the weird “you didn’t recharge at all with your 10 hours of sleep” I managed to get all the way back up to 100. Electronics are ridiculous.

 

[Herding_Cats]

You guys. It was 60 yesterday.

 

[michigandergirl]

I feel you on the weather, it's so maddening!!! Spring is my least favorite season - winter just wants to hang on and smother it.

My son plays baseball for Grand Rapids Community College and I am so tired of freezing my butt off at games. He actually has games scheduled in Escanaba later this week, but we are hearing their fields aren't playable, so fingers crossed they move the games to GR!!

 

[Herding_Cats]

I feel you on the weather, it's so maddening!!! Spring is my least favorite season - winter just wants to hang on and smother it.

My son plays baseball for Grand Rapids Community College and I am so tired of freezing my butt off at games. He actually has games scheduled in Escanaba later this week, but we are hearing their fields aren't playable, so fingers crossed they move the games to GR!!

Yes!!! I froze through track meets on Friday and Monday, and we have another on Wednesday and Friday and it’s just so dang cold and the WIND is the worst.

 

[avondale]

depending on how buggy it is as the trail winds around between a few tiny inland lakes and water=mosquitos.

A little late on this...mosquitos are good motivation to not stop moving.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Wrapping up the week. We are......getting there. I guess. I have been exhausted this entire week. Like, don't sit down in the afternoon or I'll fall asleep on the couch tired. And I'm getting like 9-10hrs of sleep every night, which is normal for me. It's definitely not a "too much sleep" situation, and it's also not during the part of my cycle where I have a day or 2 days that my energy levels are sapped. It's weird and frustrating.

Anyhow, in shoe news I wore the Hierros with and without the injinjis (my usual balega blister-resist socks and the fit felt better on my toes.) I'm not noticing anything particular about my feet post-run which is great. Now to see if there are any more super-sale ones online. Sierra had a few online ($70!) but not in my size, so I'll keep looking on Amazon, etc.

Sunday: the weather was great so we worked on some chicken chores, got the (unheated) greenhouse cleaned up and a few of the raised beds/containers in there planted. DH had picked up a yard of compost that we spread on our main garden rows, and we planned out most of where things are going to be planted this year, what we have space to grow (this is super important because I tend to massively over buy/seed-start), and what we used/didn't use last year to adjust quantities.

Monday: hiked with a friend and the doggo on a nearby trail loop. The "outer loop" is 3.36mi and has about 350ft of ascent/descent. The pup did pretty well, and we walked pretty much the entire thing. We are hoping to make it a sort of regular thing (a trail run or hike) depending on our schedules. And then I went and froze my buns off at a middle school track meet for 4 hours.

Tuesday: it snowed. And I was massively sore in my glute med. So sore. Standing up hurt, walking hurt, sitting down hurt, changing position hurt. Was it the hike? The dog/jorring harness pulling on my pelvis? The gardening from Sunday? I don't know. All I know is that this was no fun.

Wednesday: I was still sore, but decided that doing some exercise might help work it out. I left the dog home this time, and attempted to run/walk the loop at the trail from Monday. The plan was to run the downhills, walk the (serious) uphills, and stick to 30/30 on the flats and slight inclines/declines. After about a mile my legs and glutes loosened up and this actually went pretty well. My legs were really tired and I totally did the 'push your hands on your thighs while you suffer up this steep hill' thing a few times. Once I finished the loop, I decided it might be a good idea to walk and really get cooled down, so I walked the loop around the state campground that the trail system backs up to. So that was about another 0.7mi and is more flat and had another section that could easily get me over a mile, so another things to combine in with the inner and outer loops to get more mileage with out just straight up repeating. And then I went and froze my buns off at a high school track meet for 4 hours.

Thursday: legs felt good, but as stated in the beginning, I was so so so exhausted. And DD doesn't have school on Thursdays, and I never made it down to the basement to get on the treadmill.

Friday: Our HS hosted a decent-sized track meet (not huge, not tiny) and so I ended up working a few tasks there for most of the day. The weather was supposed to be horrible, but the rain ended up staying south of us for the first system, and the 2nd storm system didn't arrive until after dinner. I worked the admission gate with DD for 4 hours, then helped with getting hurdles on/off the track, and then was able to just spectate for about the last 90min. It was a long day that ended up chilly, but not cold.

Saturday: exhausted again. Hey, at least I'm getting my streak on with my kindle unlimited subscription? DH went downstate to help DS1 get stuff out of his dorm (he comes home Wednesday and my grocery bill is whimpering at the thought of another teen to feed), and then they went and watched a Tigers' game.

Sunday (today): After DH went turkey hunting in the morning we got a lot more stuff done in the greenhouse and the garden. We planted potatoes, beets and carrots, and also started cups for roma tomatoes, a few varieties of cherry and slicing tomatoes, zucchini, cantaloupe, pumpkins (DD requested specifically), and cucumbers. We also made a turkey dinner for lunch, and between all of the garden stuff and the lunch stuff there wasn't time for me to go for a run before DH was headed back out for his evening hunt.

The upcoming week has 3 track meets again which basically take up the entire afternoon and evening, but the weather looks better and I'm hoping to get 1 or 2 trail runs in and some treadmill milage.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Having flashbacks to last year when I was trying to do a speed-focused plan to possibly try for a POT in July. Remembering how impossible it was to get runs in and still have a functional household. Yeah. We're back there again.

Monday: 45min on the treadmill. Did a 10min warmup at 3.7, and then set the incline up to 12% and dropped the speed to 2.7 for 2min. Then 10% at 2.8 for 2min, 9% and 2.9 for 2min, 8% at 3.0 for 2min and so on where I would decrease the incline by 1% and increase the speed by 0.1 until I got back down to 0% and then walked until I got to 40min, then dropped the speed to 2.5 and cooled down for 5 more minutes. When I finish my treadmill stuff it'll always offer a distance (and it's usually not very far off because I feel like it's "learned" what my HR means and what I usually do for pacing on the treadmill. It's super easy to calibrate the distance since my watch is touchscreen, but after THIS workout I told me the longest distance I could put in was just over 0.1mi less than what I had done. Annoying. I don't want to have to go back into the app and manually do things. Also, my HR never got over 146 during this?? That smells like cadence lock, except if I look at the HR chart, it did vary with the incline/speed changes in a way that wouldn't correlate with cadence lock. So I don't know what to make of that. I also don't see anywhere on my tread display that tells me the ascent I walked which is.....interesting.

Tuesday: Ummm. I think the weather was crap? And I didn't make it on the treadmill.

Wednesday: This was a track meet day, but since DD was in school I was able to squeeze in a run before picking her up and heading to spectate. I was running later than I was hoping to, and just threw on a pair of shoes from the mudroom that I knew had my insoles in them. This was a mistake. These are very, very dead running shoes but I didn't realize just how dead they are until I was almost a mile in. DS1 drove past and I asked him to grab a different pair of shoes and put them up by our mailbox so I could change into them. This made a huge difference when I got back there and changed shoes before heading to do my 2 hills. I did 3mi of r/w intervals, and then ran down the big hill on my road and then power walked up it, ran back down again, took a 3min rest (DH stopped on his way to baseball to let me know there was a small thunderstorm system moving in that would arrive in about 10min) and power walked back up it again. On the 2nd time up I decided I would run more of the beginning (easier) part of the hill and it took me from feeling great about myself yeah! I'm doing HILLS and this is going great! after the first one to feeling like my heart was going to explode out of my chest during the 2nd one. So yeah. No more running up the hill at the very end of things. At least not that hill. I got a total of 323ft of ascent during this, in just over 4mi. Hello, hamstrings.

Thursday: DH got out of work a little early, and I convinced him to take DD with him to set up for his baseball game so I could drive over to the trail and get a quick trail run in. I had been hoping to make it a longer one, but my legs were tired and I was late getting ready, so it ended up only being about an hour. And it completely kicked my butt. There was a lot of walking. I went counter-clockwise for a change and hated it. My HR was in zone 4 for pretty much the entire thing. Bottom line, suffer-fest for me. But I did it. Another 335ft of ascent, which I think got me to about 900-1000 for the week I feel like if I can get to an average of 3500-4000/wk by the time race day shows up I'll be in good shape. Hill strides are built into the plan that I'm going to loosely follow, and it'll be easy to add a few hundred feet on to runs I do at home by using that hill.

Friday: Pizza restaurant field trip with pre-school and then 10 hours at a track meet. It was cold and windy, and then it started raining. I'm soooo tired of cold and windy track meets, and it doesn't look like we're getting a respite from those any time soon.

Saturday: Grocery shopping and a whole lot of yard work, including planting 2 fruit trees, transplanting a flowering crab apple tree, and a nap.

Sunday (today): DH is golfing this morning, but I'm planning on getting out for at least a 90min trail run this afternoon. I may see if someone wants to come join me for a walk for the last part of it, but I'm really not counting on it.




I've started looking really closely at the race-provided course elevation map, trying to figure out how to "chunk" the race, and so if/when I manage to get down and run part(s) of it this summer I can focus on certain sections.

The section that is under the bubble starts at about mile 3 (start/finish area), and goes to about mile 8 for those sharper climbs. And then the middle third or so of the race looks pretty flat. From mile 22 to the end is where the wheels have the biggest chance of falling off. There's an out-and-back from mile 20 to 22 that's going to be my version of Western Way/Blizzard Beach. If I can find someone to pace for me (pacers are free and allowed to use the aid stations) I think I would have them hop in at mile 22 and nag distract me to the finish.

If I can only get down to the course twice, I think I'll run the part from the start/finish straight to 4 and then out to 8 or 9 and then back for one trip, and for the other trip I'll run from the start/finish up to 22 and then follow the course to the end so I know what to expect for the finish. Those will be longer days because we're talking about almost an hour drive to and from the trail, plus 2-3hr runs. And I'll more than likely try really hard to have someone go with me in case I faceplant in the woods.

 

[avondale]

And it completely kicked my butt. There was a lot of walking. I went counter-clockwise for a change and hated it. My HR was in zone 4 for pretty much the entire thing. Bottom line, suffer-fest for me. But I did it. Another 335ft of ascent, which I think got me to about 900-1000 for the week I feel like if I can get to an average of 3500-4000/wk by the time race day shows up I'll be in good shape.

Yeah, trail running in hills is hard. Walk the uphills. Don't worry about it. It's hard because it feels like you're wimping out, but it's better to stay in your effort level. You will get better, but improvement is slow on hills.

From mile 22 to the end is where the wheels have the biggest chance of falling off.

And not just because of the hills...the end is always the hardest.

If I can find someone to pace for me (pacers are free and allowed to use the aid stations) I think I would have them hop in at mile 22 and nag distract me to the finish.

Do you have pacers? If I was around, I'd do it, but I don't necessarily think I'll be in Michigan this summer, and I don't remember when your race is. (My father-in-law lives near Detroit, so it's not unusual for me to visit, but I don't think we have plans for it this summer.)

It's unusual for pacers to be allowed to use the aid stations - bonus! If you do find someone to pace you, ideally they should have some experience with that section of the course.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Yeah, trail running in hills is hard. Walk the uphills. Don't worry about it. It's hard because it feels like you're wimping out, but it's better to stay in your effort level. You will get better, but improvement is slow on hills.

I have 0 chance of running the uphills (unless they've verrrrry gentle) with my fitness level right now, so I have absolutely no problems with walking them for now. I'm really trying to embrace the "walk the uphills and run the downhills" philosophy in that they balance eachother out.

And not just because of the hills...the end is always the hardest.

bingo

Do you have pacers? If I was around, I'd do it, but I don't necessarily think I'll be in Michigan this summer, and I don't remember when your race is. (My father-in-law lives near Detroit, so it's not unusual for me to visit, but I don't think we have plans for it this summer.)

It's unusual for pacers to be allowed to use the aid stations - bonus! If you do find someone to pace you, ideally they should have some experience with that section of the course.

I don't have one at this point. It's kind of a "bring one if you want one" situation, and there are no pacers-for-time. I'll probably ask around a bit once June gets here and things aren't so crazy. I could probably get DS2 to do it if I absolutely needed him to, and our Track/XC coaches have a *lot* of connections in the running community and may know someone who would do it as well. It's just kind of like "who wants to go on a 2.5-3 hour walk with me in the woods" kind of request. Because I'm pretty sure I'll be trudging at that point.