Week 4 of Half Marathon Training
Monday, July 28, 2014 - Sunday, August 3, 2014
16.75 miles completed
69.06 miles completed in half marathon training so far
428.76 miles completed in 2014 so far
71.31 miles completed in July 2014
Monday, July 28: Strength Training (ChaLEAN Extreme Burn 2) + Ab Burner
Back to reality...booooo. I was expecting insanity in my inbox this morning, but I actually only had 41 emails...4 of them needed my attention and of those 4 I was able to take care of 2 pretty quickly. Not bad!
Really, coming back to work hasn't been terrible. I was in bed at a decent time last night and slept well, and I've gotten back into my schedule pretty easily. I did forget my hairbrush for the gym this morning though...oops. The hardest part of being back at work for me has been leaving the dog at home. I spent all day Saturday and Sunday, and part of Friday, just hanging out and snuggling with him. It was lovely.
Wouldn't you be sad to leave this little face?
**Story of my stupidity ahead!!**
Yesterday was weird. Whenever Will is out of town and I am home alone, I start to get paranoid and double- and triple-check to make sure all of the doors and windows are locked. I think I watched way too many episodes of "Rescue 911" as a child.
Anyway, when the guys were over doing our floors, they locked the door that goes into the garage, which is something we never do. Since the garage opens into our family room - where our mattress currently is as the floors continue to fully cure, so that's where I've been sleeping for the past few days - in my newly paranoid state I thought it was a good idea to keep the door locked.
So yesterday I woke up, took the dog out and gave him breakfast. I'd started watching all of the Disney movies we own in alphabetical order (I didn't come up with this plan until Saturday so I'd only gotten through Beauty and the Beast and Finding Nemo by now), and I was really looking forward to popping in Frozen, The Incredibles, Lilo & Stitch, etc. after breakfast.
Before making breakfast I decided to drop off some recycling in the garage. I went outside...shut the door...and went to go back in. When the door is locked, you can't tell from the inside - the knob turns as normal. And like I said, we normally don't lock that door, but in my paranoia the night before, I had...
...and I LOCKED MYSELF OUT.
It took me a bit to grasp the gravity of this situation. "No big deal, I'll just open the garage door." So I opened it...and realized that I was just outside now. I mean, duh...this is not going to help me get into the house. "Okay, maybe I forgot to lock the front door when I took Archie out." Nope, front door was locked. I tried all of the windows - which I knew were locked as I'd just double- and triple-checked them the night before - the other doors to the outside...nothing. I'd left my phone inside. Will was in New York. I was officially screwed. Meanwhile the dog is staring out the front window at me like, "WTH are you doing mom?! Get back in here!"
So then I started having crazy thoughts - do I break a window? Can I break down the door? (Hahaha obviously not!) Maybe I can take a hammer and a crowbar to the knob? (I actually did get a few pounds in before deciding this was a dumb idea.) We're not super friendly with our neighbors (not that they aren't friendly, or we aren't friendly...we just live in a neighborhood with a lot of older people who aren't the most social) and while I was pretty sure we'd given Will's co-worker (who lives one town over) a spare key, my cell phone was in the house and I had no idea what co-worker's phone number was off the top of my head.
I was starting to worry about the dog (who was still looking at me like I'd lost it)...he's pretty anxious and we don't normally leave him alone in the house when he's not in his crate, so I wasn't sure how he would handle this. Eventually I headed across the street to a neighbor's house and asked to use her phone. She actually didn't recognize me at first (weird since I see her a few times per week) and then went on to lecture me about how I should leave a key with someone in the neighborhood.
Clearly not with you, lady, since you apparently don't know who I am!
I was pretty sure we'd given my mom a spare key recently and I have her phone number memorized...I was also pretty sure she was in church, and who knew if she'd pick up a call from a strange phone number. THANKFULLY she did pick up pretty quickly - not only did she have the key, but she was available to come and save me!
I'm SO glad - because I think I would have had to call a locksmith or something, and do they even work on Sundays?!
So I headed back across the street (I could see that Archie was asleep by now...so clearly he wasn't as anxious or worried as I'd expected
) and grabbed some gloves from the garage. My mom lives about 40 minutes away and I knew if I just sat there waiting, time would crawl. May as well do some yardwork. And as dumb as it sounds, I was so, so sad that this was cutting into my Disney movie-watching time.
Wahhh!
Mom made it over quicker than I expected and I was back in the house! Woohoo! So lesson learned - never leave the house without a key.
And that is the story of my Sunday morning stupidity.
And I also worked out this morning. So there's that.
Tuesday, July 29: Run #1 (4.5 miles on the treadmill)
This run wasn't bad. A little mentally challenging toward the end, but physically I felt fine. I'm trying to pay close attention to how I feel in my shoes because they have 406 miles on them, and my running store said I should get 350-500 miles out of each pair...so these are going to be retired soon. I think I should definitely be able to make it through this week, possibly next week with them, but I'm not sure they will make it to 500. Total time for this run was 47:58, 10:40ish/mile pace or something.
The good thing about this run was that I had a chance to think through some things that have been bothering me. Will came home from his weekend trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame last night, and this coming weekend he's going to another autograph show. I found myself getting irritable toward him even after I hadn't seen him all weekend. I wasn't sure why, but when I was running I thought about it and realized that - I'm ashamed to say - I'm a little jealous of him right now.
Vacation is over for me and it's my second day back at work, but he went on another trip and then has the autograph show, plus going to a couple of baseball games, and he doesn't go back to work for a few weeks. I should keep in mind that not only do I love him and want good things for him, but I have fun stuff coming up too (Wine & Dine in November, Marathon Weekend in January, plus other fun Disney things next year - a few of which I'll be away for while he'll be at work). So basically I was being a giant baby about it last night. We talked things out today and we're good now.
Speaking of Wine & Dine...check out these beauties. That kids medal is adorable!!
Wednesday, July 30: Run #2 (8x400 @ 5K pace planned...4.25 miles completed)
Today is my brother's birthday! The big 2-8. I gave him his gift back in June when he was up for my cousin'’s wedding, so if feels weird not to be sending him anything beyond a "Happy birthday!" text message now. I love giving gifts.
Speedwork today! I feel like the last few times I have done speedwork I have had intervals that were tough and intervals that were great, but today they were neither...all were sort of in the middle. I think my body is still working off the cruise sluggishness, so that doesn't help. Also, we started moving some of our stuff back upstairs last time. Rugs are the last thing that can go down (the floors take a week to fully cure) and we are putting one under our bed, so our bedroom is still empty. But we were able to get the bed back up into the guest room, along with the nightstands, so that room looks normal again. Man was that mattress heavy though! A lot harder moving it up than down. I was definitely feeling it today, so I'm sure that affected my run a bit.
Total time for the run was a little over 49 minutes. I did a 5-minute warm-up walk/job, then after each 0.25-mile speed interval I walked/jogged for 0.25 miles. That brought me to 4.13 miles, and then I walked a bit as a cooldown until I got to an even 4.25 miles. These speedwork workouts really add up in distance and time!
In other news, at the suggestion of Ann/annmarieda I created a Facebook account and (thanks to Ann's help) managed to join a SparkleSkirts group. I have a skirt I have barely worn (less than 5 times...really I think 2-3 times) and apparently the resale market for SparkleSkirts is HOT HOT HOT...especially since my skirt, the DoloTech, is a retired pattern. Who knew?!
Me in my DoloTech during the 2013 WDW Half Marathon...one of the few times I wore it:
Anyway, I joined the group (again, thanks to Ann for messaging the moderator to let me in!) and then didn't do anything. I skimmed over how to sell a skirt, got overwhelmed, then we went on our cruise.
So, the skirt was still sitting in my closet when we returned. While texting with one of my buddies, she mentioned a second SparkleSkirts Facebook group she is in that does the sales like the first one...but this one also has an "In Search Of" file. This is a list of different types of skirts where people can post their names along with the size they are looking for. Sure enough, someone wanted a medium DoloTech!
All I had to do was send her a message, give her my PayPal info, and BAM! $60 into my PayPal account (I originally paid $65 + shipping)!
The skirt is being mailed out today to someone that I'm sure will love and appreciate it way more than I did. For whatever reason I loved the skirt when I first got it, but then just stopped wearing it. Whatever! I’m sure I could have sold it for more, but by now I was just to the point where I wanted to get rid of it...and really, getting $60 for it is still pretty darn good!
Thursday, July 31: Strength Training (ChaLEAN Extreme Burn 3) + Ab Burner
There's no way around it...I just do not like the Burn 3 workout. A lot of the exercises are difficult for me, but not in that "I enjoy the challenge!"-type way...more like, "When will this end?!" As a result I don’t think I give my all during the workout...not Chalene's fault, obviously. I need to stop being a baby. But it doesn't matter now because I'm done with the Burn phase after today and it's on to Round 2 of the Push phase! That means heavier weights (reaching "failure" at 6-8 reps, as opposed to reaching "failure" at 10-12 reps in the Burn phase).
In other training news, I have a "goal race pace" run on my schedule for this week...earlier I said I wanted to try NOT running the day before my long runs, but I think it's important to do these goal race pace runs on the concrete rather than the treadmill...so that I learn to pace myself rather than having the treadmill do it for me. So I would have normally done my 3rd run of the week today, but I'm moving it to tomorrow. Hopefully Saturday's long run won’t suffer for it!
Yesterday when I got home from work (after stopping at the post office to mail out the DoloTech!), Will and I made the impulse decision to move our bed back up to our room. I'm so glad to be done moving mattresses, and even more glad to be sleeping in our bedroom again! Tonight I think we're going to tackle the dressers, and everything will finally be back where it should be. That will be nice.
**WW Update**
After skipping my "official" weigh-in last Thursday, I did take a peek at the scale on Saturday or Sunday (forget when) and saw that I was up 2.-something pounds after the cruise. 2.4 maybe? Not entirely unexpected, but still not great. So I was pleased to get on the scale this morning and see that I am now 1.6 pounds up from where I was pre-cruise..meaning I lost almost a pound from this weekend. Since I didn't enter the 2ish pound gain in the app last week, the app treated it like a gain, but I am glad I did weigh myself over the weekend, because now I know I am headed back in the right direction!
Dopey Challenge Trip Non-Update: In other news, I started looking at flights for Marathon Weekend this week. I'm not booking anything because I know some airlines (i.e. Southwest) still need to release schedules for that time, but I did find a couple of contenders. I was
THISCLOSE to booking at $92 direct flight down to Orlando on Frontier that would land at MCO at just about the perfect time (between 9 and 10AM)...but got cold feet just because I don't know much about that airline (it's relatively new to our area). Well, after doing some reading, I don’t think I'll book for two reasons:
1. The fare is so low because the airline charges passengers for EVERYTHING - checking bags, picking seats, even for a carry-on! So the fair really isn't $92 at all, probably more like $140 at the very least. That's still not a bad fare at all, but...
2. The bigger issue - there are only 2 other Frontier flights that day, and both of them connect through DENVER - as in, Colorado! So let's say my flight gets canceled (because it'll be January in Ohio...so it's totally possible), the only other flight they could possibly put me on that day would have a layover in Denver, meaning 8-9 hours of travel! And what if they can’t get me on one of those, and I can't fly out that day at all?! Basically that would ruin the entire weekend because I almost surely wouldn't make it to Orlando for the 5K...
I just cannot take that risk
Right now United has a round-trip schedule that I like (direct flights that arrive in MCO and leave MCO at good times)...but it’s $377 round-trip, which is a little pricey. Plus, I'd have to pay baggage fees. And normally with these Marathon Weekend trips I'll fly down a day or two before Will does, and then I'll book us on the same flight back. If I look at just the return flight alone, suddenly a single ticket costs $523!!
What the what?! So I'm not sure what's going on there. It also seems like a glitch in their system - a round-trip ticket costs significantly less than the one-way fare?!
I'm crossing my fingers the United prices drop or some of the airlines release better schedules...I'm hoping for good Southwest flights because I have some credits with them, but I know Southwest doesn't fly direct to/from Orlando from our airport. Arrrg! Right now I am not too thrilled with our options!
Friday, August 1: Run #3 (4 miles at half marathon goal race pace...9:45 - 9:55/mile)
Weather: 75 degrees and sunny, 65% humidity
In my little entry for yesterday I said that I need to do these goal race pace runs not on the treadmill so that I learn to pace myself...today's run just proved it!
I'm hoping to break 2:10 in my half marathon (which is just a little over a month away...where is this summer going?!
). If I ran a 2:09:59 that would be a 9:55/mile pace, so I'm going to shoot for between 9:45 and 9:55 to give myself a bit of a cushion. So today I was hoping for something in that range, and was aiming to negative split the run (get progressively faster with each mile.
Splits:
Mile 1: 9:16
Mile 2: 9:23
Mile 3: 9:40
Mile 4: 10:10
NAILED IT!
I mean seriously.
The good thing I can take away from this is that I think the speedwork I've been doing is paying off. But clearly I did not stick to my little plan at all here. The first two miles felt good, and then I realized I was going to hit the wall if I kept going at that pace...so I tried reeeeeally hard to slow down for the third mile. By the time the last mile started I was running out of gas and had to take two walk breaks (up until that point I hadn’t taken any). My overall average pace was 9:37...so actually not too far off of what I was going for...but if I had to run 9.1 more miles there’s no way I would have been able to keep it under 10:00/mile. Clearly I have some more practicing to do!
Saturday, August 2: Run #4 (9-mile run planned, 4-mile out-and-back completed)
Weather: I forget...thunderstorms eventually
Arrrrg...this just wasn't happening today.
I woke up at a decent time, but putzed around for way too long. By the time I got outside the conditions were really nice...because dark clouds were rolling in, the wine was picking up...storm's a-coming!
Originally I thought I would be okay because there was only a 30% chance of storms, so I planned out a 9-mile loop. I was about 1.5 miles away from home when I heard the first rumble of thunder. I'll run in most weather conditions, but thunderstorms is not one of them. So I quickly turned down a side street and began to head home. I could still hear more thunder and managed to make it home just before I saw the first bolt of lightning...but then I was at 4 miles done.
No problem, we have a treadmill...I'll just finish my run there. I re-filled my water bottle, tried to get my shoes dried off a bit so I would slip on the treadmill, and grabbed a movie to pop in to the DVD player (Toy Story!). This took maybe 5 minutes, but it was just long enough for me to start to really think about how much finishing the run on the treadmill would suck.
Eventually I got on the treadmill, took two steps and stopped. My shoes still felt slippery, but worse, they felt totally shot. I had shin pain, which almost never happens. So I called it a day and the shoes went in the trash.
The shoe issues were real but I think more than anything I just mentally was not into it. Booooooo!
Sunday, August 3: Rest Day
Went to the Tribe game today!
We got free tickets from a friend in the Club Seats - great view and unlimited food. The food was delicious but very greasy and unhealthy. It was the Indians' mascot's "birthday" yesterday, so he had some buddies over to celebrate, and the Tribe won in extra innings. Woohoo!
Also...my legs felt SORE today. Even though I cut my run short! I could feel it walking up the stairs. I've also noticed some hip soreness over the past couple of weeks. I'm hoping switching to new shoes next week will help, and I'm signed up for yoga on Friday too. Here's hoping I actually GO to the class.
Continued in Next Post
Yeah, I can imagine that you have beens super busy!!
But it was interesting. We also did the Midship Detective Agency (loved this!) and had Palo dinner reservations. Great day today!
Sounds like you had a great time.
I think I read that for the CC Challenge they'll have characters out so maybe they will change the course too.
We did!!!
I wish I had just ignored them!!
