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

[Herding_Cats]

Things are.......going?

On Monday I did manage to get my 6mi trail run in (it felt better than I expected it to?) and tried out a new trail for it. While it was nice to change things up, it has significantly less hills (as in nearly none) so it won't really be super useful for my current needs. This trail has a ~2mi loop on one side of the road and ~4-8mi of trails on a loop on the other side of the road (with a few spots where you can cut off some mileage.) The shorter side runs down to a river, so that's where the downhill and then uphill are. The longer loop is basically all flat. This is a local fat tire bike trail so it's very easy to follow, and there are plenty of signs to keep you on the path when you get into one of the fields where there are also old logging-access roads crossing things. I was tired at the end, but felt better than expected on my first successfully-completed B2B trail long runs.

Tuesday: rest day. And shopping with DD for the last-minute food items for our fathers day group camping trip.

Wednesday: was supposed to be 4mi but ended up being only 2 because those Novablasts just are not going to work for me. I gave them to DS2 to try out because he needs a pair of long-run/recovery-run shoes for this summer. If he doesn't like them they're getting exchanged for something else. Seriously, my legs hurt so much from these.

Thursday: 4hrs 45min refereeing girls basketball. The basketball was bad. And then I had to zip home to shower and change and head to the campground for the weekend.

Friday: 4mi running. We camp at this campground nearly every fathers day weekend, and I've figured out the routes I like for it. It's pretty easy to get down the highway to a much less trafficked road to get some miles in. Unfortunately for me, I figured out shortly after turning off the (very busy) highway that this side road was semi-recently "chip and sealed" which means there is a lot of small, loose rocks on the road. And the speed limit is still 55mph. This also makes the shoulder a little more unreliable for footing. The good thing was that drivers slowed down to pass me (less rocks flying from their tires this way) and it looks like it was completed about a month ago, so a good portion of the loose stuff has cleared. I tried to run the hillier direction, but only ended up with about 220ft of ascent for the run. The hills were less steep, but longer, so I did try to stick to my intervals even on the uphills. This was pretty successful, and while I felt like I was going really slow, my pace was a solid mid-13 using 20/30 intervals.

Saturday: I basically didn't sleep Friday night because of dogs, snoring, wind, thermometer alerts (the dads smoked a brisket overnight), and finally fell asleep at around 4am. We also had 5 graduation parties to attend, so that took up most of the day and I pretty much crashed out at 10pm.

Sunday: packing up from camping, all of the laundry from camping, grocery shopping, feeding and watering all of the plants and animals when we got home. Plus it's fathers day and I don't have a high need to dip out for an hour. I have approximately 13 hours of refereeing to do on Monday and Tuesday (long run substitute!), so I'll be doing that and then trying to get somewhat back on track.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Friday flowers from my camping run, and one of the long rolling hills I got to "enjoy."



Trails from Monday. And I found a "Chicken of the Woods" mushroom?



One of the things I always find magical is the way we have seemingly random dirt roads in our area that often have this really nice row of 80+ year old maple trees running down both sides.


13 more days until this little girl comes home! I am both excited (because puppy!) and nervous (because puppy) about it.

 

[avondale]

Good running! The trails look nice. That is quite a hill!

 

[garneska]

Omg puppy! And the trail pics look great, but OMG PUPPY!

 

[Herding_Cats]

Mid-week notes:

-I *finally* found shorts for refereeing at TJ Max of all places! And they didn't ride up at all even when it was so humid and I was so sweaty I felt like I had just gone for a swim. They are men's shorts (Legend is the brand) with a 5in inseam, and "regular" pockets except they zip shut. Not really "running" shorts but definitely athletic shorts and they totally did the job. And they were only $10. WOOHOO! (But now I have 3 other pairs of shorts to return *sigh* )

-I see that Bodi has a new lifting program that's 25min. Joel (the guy who did Liift4/LiiftMore) is the "trainer" and a quick glance tells me that only 1 day per week of cardio and the rest is lifting. This seems doable to try to incorporate? And it's NOT behind an "early access" paywall beyond the regular subscription.

-I'm supposed to do 2 long runs this weekend and it's going to be in the low 90s. That's HOT for our area. Especially this early in the summer. We're talking T+D of 130+ at 7am, which I understand for southerners is "normal" but that's bananas up here!

 

[jmasgat]

Congrats on finding shorts. I abhor clothes shopping of all kinds. Just yesterday I vented to my DH “ Men’s clothes are not nearly as size-random/difficult to fit as women’s”— which explains why I have yet to make it out the door to try and find a swimsuit for my trip to Disney in a week.

 

[Herding_Cats]

@jmasgat these are literally the first shorts I've owned (aside from my under-tutu shorts that have a big silicone band on the thigh) in probably over a decade that don't ride up. Are they super flattering? Ehhhhh. I do not care.

 

[avondale]

-I'm supposed to do 2 long runs this weekend and it's going to be in the low 90s. That's HOT for our area. Especially this early in the summer. We're talking T+D of 130+ at 7am, which I understand for southerners is "normal" but that's bananas up here!

Don't avoid training in it. The way the summer is shaping up for the northeastern US, you may be smacked with similar conditions on race day.

But do take lots of fluids, be sure to have electolytes, and be ready to do way more walking than usual. (This is one reason to go for time-based runs instead of distance-based...when the T+D is so high, you have to slow down a lot. But at least if you're doing a time-based run, you still know how much time you're committing to.)

 

[avondale]

Don't avoid training in it. The way the summer is shaping up for the northeastern US, you may be smacked with similar conditions on race day.

But do take lots of fluids, be sure to have electolytes, and be ready to do way more walking than usual. (This is one reason to go for time-based runs instead of distance-based...when the T+D is so high, you have to slow down a lot. But at least if you're doing a time-based run, you still know how much time you're committing to.)

I meant to add that this exact reason is why I don't train for long races in the summer! Even with slowing way down and walking a lot, my HR/effort still ends up being way too high for appropriate training when it gets to be more than 90 min or so. Then I'm just so exhausted (and usually dehydrated even with fluids) that I can't train properly in the following week, so it becomes a vicious cycle. Please be cautious for sure! But if you get it done, you will definitely feel a sense of accomplishment - and you should!

 

[Herding_Cats]

I meant to add that this exact reason is why I don't train for long races in the summer! Even with slowing way down and walking a lot, my HR/effort still ends up being way too high for appropriate training when it gets to be more than 90 min or so. Then I'm just so exhausted (and usually dehydrated even with fluids) that I can't train properly in the following week, so it becomes a vicious cycle. Please be cautious for sure! But if you get it done, you will definitely feel a sense of accomplishment - and you should!

is this an instance were it might make sense to avoid the hilly trail I've been using and sticking to a more flat trail (we have a crushed gravel rail trail that I can get all of the miles in on) and supplement with hills/stairs on my route? There's a boat launch that's about 1/3 of a mile hill from the parking lot down to the lake that the XC team runs for repeats I could use. This trail also follows a lakeshore, which will help keep the temperature a few degrees lower, but also add in the delight of peak may fly hatch and nearly no shade.

I agree that heat acclimation is going to be really important for me this summer, but I don't know that I want to throw myself into the deep end this early. (I'm totally not avoiding. For sure. )