Half Marathon Week 13 - What a week

My accountability record is that if I didn't do what I should have done, I don't blog about it. So it's a good thing I'm blogging today!!

I missed my 12 mile long run last week (actually only completed Tuesday's run); it was a bungle of timing which left me disappointed as I could have completed the run, but didn't realize that until it was too late.

I got in Tuesday's run, slightly amended. It was supposed to be 4 miles, I gave it 3 and hit a pretty great pace for me. So I was satisfied. It was hot that day and running in the afternoon was just too much from that perspective. I guess I'm going to need to be better about running in the morning when it's cool. It's been a chaotic week since Monday and my Tuesday run was a great opportunity to run and think some things through. Part of what I was focused on is the repetition of the Four Agreements. I understand there is a book based on these ideas, but a friend shared just the agreements with me and I've been reminding myself of them all week.

No other runs this week until today though. The chaos just dragged me down in a lot of ways. On Saturday though I did a 2 mile walk/hike around Temescal park in Oakland. A beautiful morning activity that surprised me, I've not spent much time in the Oakland hills area and it was just so pretty. 
 

A view of Lake Temescal

I actually got out of bed before 7 this Sunday morning to get my run in. Geared up with my new camelpack and hit the road. Once again, after the first mile I was determined. By mile 5 I was hating it. I started thinking about where I was, wondering if J would come and pick me up. I chalk this up to the lack of miles during the week. Having my camelpack made a huge difference for me as well as the overcast morning to keep me cool. Mile 7 proved a little of a second wind for me. My commitment to finish the run was solid. The good news is that through the run I never got a stitch in my side. By mile 10 however my legs were feeling the run, from hip to toe. I was stopping every half mile for a brief stretch. I finished it though! As a bonus I finished it at an 11:40 pace. Not the fastest on the planet, but respectable for me for this many miles. The Capitola Half Marathon is maintained at a 13:45 pace, and I've been afraid that I would slip below this pace and be last, to complete the full thirteen miles at the pace I did is a huge boost of confidence. I hope that come race day I will be able to be at a better pace than today, presuming I prepare for the run correctly in the next few weeks, unlike what I did this past week.

Today's turn around point. 6.5 miles from home, almost to Metcalf Rd.

Home from the run and straight to a cold soak in the tub. Post run I seem to have a sore tendon on the top of my foot, in line with my big toe. A common issue I'm sure and some quick reading indicates it's from my calves being too tight during/pre run. So another mantra as I prep these final weeks is to keep myself stretched and loose. Hopefully some yoga will help with that.

This is my last 'big' run before race day. I have 8 miles next Sunday and 5 the Sunday after, then it's time for the big run. I guess this is what we call the taper. Hopefully I will stick with my plan and be the most prepared as possible for race day.

Half Marathon Week 11

I am back on the wagon of running. After two weeks of absolutely no running (with no good excuse, when considering my goal of a half marathon), this week I ran, and I ran a lot!

The plan looked like:
Tuesday - 4 miles
Thursday - 5 miles
Saturday - 5 miles
Sunday - 11 miles

I go a jump start for the week on Monday. My friend asked me to go and run our Rancho run, I figured it would be a fun way to reinvigorate my running spirit. The result was a great workout of running/hiking intervals for a total of 5.5 miles.

On Tuesday I was thankful that I had run on Monday. I was not feeling well, had actually stayed home from work, and somehow needed to run 4 miles. Well that wasn't going to happen, but in the afternoon I managed to get myself out of the house and cover 3 miles, half running and half walking. Definitely better than nothing.

I managed to get Thursday's run completed before work. 5 miles as prescribed, done early so I wouldn't have to worry about it after a late afternoon meeting at work.

Yesterday I should have just gotten out of bed and done my 5 miles again. But I did not. We had plans to meet a friend at 8:45 in San Francisco and a few other things. By the time I was home and ready to run it was almost 5. I could have ran, but decided not to in an effort to preserve myself for 11 miles today. A good decision I think. My legs would have still been tired this morning if I had run late yesterday.

Long run turn around view.

So today is the day it was really all about. I can prep for a half marathon and miss some of the shorter miles and be okay, but to not hit the longer runs would not be beneficial to me at all. Today's 11 miles felt totally badass, or rather they made me feel like a badass! The first mile was easy and immediately after it I started telling myself, 'you're so close, just a few more like this and you'll have it in the bag' HAH!! just a few more, right. I've realized a little benefit to running the same trail like I do, especially the way that I always run out half of my goal distance and turn around; I am very familiar with my course, so when I add mileage (like the 3 I added today), the 'new' ground I cover is in the middle of my run, and by the time I am actually running the additional miles I am back in my homestretch where I would be hard pressed to give up, where I am also so comfortable that I can tick off the quarter mile increments by a particular tree or bush. Today's turn around spot was another interesting view, crossing under the convergence of Highways 101 & 85, an interesting change from my last turn around spot. Well my legs got wobbly by mile 7, this run has led me to resolve to get a camelpack, and most of all I survived!!

Tired, but alive... post 11 miles. Stretched out at a park table, and then had a brief rest on the table.

The rest of today is dedicated to eating yummy food, Left Bank for lunch and homemade Eggplant Parmesan for dinner. Oh and laundry, of course laundry.

My stats immediately after the run... think I'm going to be okay.

Rabbits, Roosters, Running

The formal bunny introduction... They are half lop eared and half lion head. The lion head is what makes the two so extra fluffy around the face. We wanted to name the three of them with a common denominator, so we went with cafe: Mocha, Latte, & Machiatto. They are now about 10 weeks old, don't yet know if we have all boys, all girls, or a combo. They live on a ledge outside the kitchen window for now, J is working on a proper hutch. The window spot is fun, cause we can watch them all the time; I'll miss seeing them when we move them out to the hutch.

Mocha in front, Latte in the back, Machiatto on the right.

We really practiced our homesteading skills this weekend. We dispatched the two young roosters that we had hatched in the fall. These two were getting more and more aggressive to the hens and with their crowing. We've been talking about doing this for a while, and finally took the time to do it. I won't get gory, but it was an interesting experience to say the least, but not as I had expected.

Rooster #1

Not to waste the bird, today we had some rooster noodle soup. Cooked in the crock pot and came out yummy. People talk about rooster meat being tough or chewy, but it was good for us. That said I might not barbecue a rooster in the future, I think the soup process was good for it.

Yum!!

Side note... no running updates recently, more to come soon. Fell off the wagon, back on now... Only 5 weeks to go for the half marathon!

Thirty-One... and counting

A little self promotion here today. Today is my birthday!!

A little bit of celebrating last night, dinner tonight with Jacob and my sister. I can't even remember the last time she and I were able to actually celebrate a birthday together in person. So grateful that fate has allowed her to be in my neck of the woods for a bit.

Also as it's Thursday, how about some #ThrowBackThursday to 31 years ago...

My hospital name plate, though I appear nameless. And our bracelets keeping us linked together.

 

The trusty 'new baby' hospital shot.

I'm thankful for a baby book that was fairly complete, at least for the birthday details!

It's been a great day so far and I can only imagine it getting better from here! Looking forward to a fantastic year!

Half Marathon - Week 8 & some Jelly Beans

So here we go, the second running recap... Well mileage-wise, not as good as last week. This week's plan was a bit of a step back from last week in terms of total mileage. I was supposed to run:

Tuesday: 4 Miles
Thursday: 4 Miles
Saturday: 4 Miles
Sunday: 6 Miles (I amended this mileage to be 6.2 for a 10k for Run With Jess' virtual Jelly Bean race)

Tuesday was a success, 4 miles done in laps around the lake/park. It was looking to rain and I wasn't feeling up to getting stuck 2 miles from home in the rain, so laps I did, never too far away from home. Of course it didn't rain. The run felt good though! No soreness and right on my 10:30 or so pace that I expect of myself when I'm not trying too hard.

A sad thing did happen on Tuesday morning, we lost a hen. She had started drooping her wings on Friday and we knew something was up with her over the weekend. WE watched her, tried to keep her fed and watered, but by Tuesday morning she had died. This was one of the 'baby' hens that we had incubated. Fortunately, whatever it is that was wrong with her doesn't seem to have been contagious. We have cleaned the coop and are keeping close watch on the rest of the flock, but they all seem dandy so fingers crossed it was just a fluke thing.

Thursday was a no go. Between continued busy-ness at work - we have a production on stage this weekend and there is always a lot of excitement leading up to it - and the last minute project of redoing our living/dining room at home, I just didn't get the run in. Wednesday night J said, "Let's do the front rooms and finish this work." Really he wanted the previously purchased pile of baseboards out of the garage so we needed to get them installed. I of course jumped up, got my paint books (I took every free booklet off the Home Depot shelf the week we got approved for the house), and picked colors. We rushed to the store before they closed, got paint, a new ceiling fan for the room, and a slew of other project needs. Got home and worked until the wee hours moving books and furniture out of the way and ripping out the 1969 original baseboards. Thursday became the day for painting the baseboards and door trim, so that is what I was doing rather than running.

The beginning of the book pile, as we moved everything to paint.

Friday the real painting began. Two coats on the accent wall and cleaning up. Saturday the mission was the paint the remaining walls and to transplant our vegetable garden seedlings who were rapidly outgrowing their little peat containers. I had success with both of those tasks, but the run was not so much. Once again I just totally let it get skipped over. I mean I thought about it. At 7:30 when Zeus first woke me up, I thought about getting up and getting that checked off the list. But I didn't do it. On a personal level to make the progress on the garden and room projects felt good, but I do wish I had made the run.

The front rooms in progress, Saturday night - painting done. Need baseboards and reassembly.

Today though I made it happen! And I had a bit of a milestone. So my plan for today was to run a 10k for the Jelly Bean virtual race. I had paid for and received my finisher's medal, so I kinda had to make the run happen so I wasn't pretending to have accomplished something that I had a medal for. I set off just before 9 and had a great run the whole time - no fatigue, no soreness, worked some things out in my head as I went, and I ended up with a new fastest 10k time: 1:05:25.

The medal I now earned.

So there was a tangential milestone today. Not something I was thinking about or looking for, but I am thrilled with it nonetheless. I hit 100 miles for 2013 so far. I had a modest goal of 200 for the year, so I think that will be no problem! 100 in a quarter, and the first month was only 12, and the last two weeks have been kinda light. Heck, I might be able to pull out something more like 150 for this next quarter, what with the mileage only increasing for the training plan.

Look at that!! Just crossed the threshold.

Well as I type this, J is installing the baseboards. I've left the typing periodically to through a coat of paint on some shelving that is getting an update too. I guess I better get back at it!

Oh and check out some reviews of whats going on at work this weekend.

http://www.mercurynews.com/entertainment/ci_22856830/review-ballet-san-jose-traditional-meets-contemporary

http://www.sfcv.org/reviews/ballet-san-jose/keep-calm-and-dance-on

Half Marathon - Week 7

Ok. So I'm committed to running the Capitola Half Marathon on May 19. So committed in fact that I am following a training plan to help get me there. Before starting the training plan the longest I had run was a 5k, so I needed something to help me baby step my way to 13 miles. Today is the end of week 7 of the 16 week training plan that I am following (the plan came from Runkeeper, though I track my activity with Nike+ now).

I already have a planner (hard copy & google) dedicated to scheduling the runs and other activities that I should be doing for my plan. But I decided to add one more step to the accountability system and share it here. So be on the lookout for weekly running progress updates.

So now here we go with Week 7! The plan looked like this:

Ignore the sad faces... Runkeeper is sad that I didn't complete the runs, but I just didn't track them in Runkeeper. So this week should have totaled out at 21 miles. What I did though was 14.

Tuesday didn't start out well, I woke up with a bunch of sore back muscles,capped off with an extremely 'stuck' feeling on my right hip. The stuck situation is something I've had periodically for a few years now. I don't have a lot of mobility/flexibility in my right hip, so you mix in a lower back muscle knot and what I get is 'stuck'. I've got a routine of things that I do to release the stiffness and the knots. Nonetheless, come Tuesday afternoon when I headed out for 4 miles, I just couldn't get there. Every step was reverberating through the hip/low back area so I called it good at 2 miles of running. I came home and stretched it all out, then went for another mile of walking around the lake with my cousins.

Thursday just didn't happen. It was a board meeting at work, and even with Daylight Savings time, I didn't get home with enough time to run and do the household things I needed to get accomplished; I made the plan adjustment to move it to Friday. But then Friday came, a crazy day at work (my BFF's last) so again by the time I got home I just couldn't get the run in.

Saturday though was wonderful!! Up and at 'em to run first thing in the morning. Got all 4 miles in and I felt good the whole way. The hip/back problems were nowhere in sight. Came home and spent the afternoon pulling out our blackberry bramble and our guava tree - my total calorie burn was over 3000 for the day (which is over 500 beyond the target).

Today was another fantastic run!! There's a feeling of 8 miles being some kind of 'marker' for the progress to date. A sort of 'well if you can do 8; 13 is a no brainer'. So today running 8 miles for the first time was a great feeling of accomplishment. I missed last week's 7 miles, so I jumped from a 6 mile longest distance to 8 miles.

This is the meadow that served as today's 4 mile turn around point. Loved seeing the abundance of yellow. My favorite thing about running on Coyote Creek Trail for all of my workouts is that you can easily forget that you are running within the 10th largest city of the country, instead it's like being in the beautiful wild of Northern CA. Nevermind that 101 is a few hundred yards to the right of this view.

By the very end of my 8 miles I had a little bit of soreness developing in my calves and knees. The worst thing though was that I was running in a ribbed tank (which I have worn for shorter runs plenty of times), but for the 8 mile distance it was the wrong shirt. I am now chaffed on the inside of both of my arms from rubbing against the ribbing. Lesson learned.

So I made 14 of 21 miles for the week, and that is still 14 more than I was running a year ago so I'm pleased. I've post run stretched, had a cool shower, awesome brunch, and now to relax with laundry and a visit to some bunnies who will be coming home to us soon. (Pictures of them to come sometime soon).

Q&A Time

Well, I came in to work very early today to open the building for someone. I may as well use the quiet time to share the questionnaire from SusanBeth. Grab a coffee and enjoy some 'interesting' tidbits about me, though you probably already know them if you're reading the blog.

1. Where were you born:  Los Gatos, CA - Home was in San Jose, but the hospital was a town over in Los Gatos.

2. Were you named after someone? I share Elizabeth with my great grandmother on my mom's side and my dad's sister (even though she uses a shortened version). My middle name comes from a young woman in our church family. My parents were youth counselors when my brother and I were born and we both picked up a name from one of the youth who my parents felt extra special about. I think that Karen was also friends with my older sisters, just good family friends as a whole, even though I have no recollection of knowing her.

3.  If you have children, how many.  None today and most likely none ever, a reality that has slowly sunk in as the best choice for us. However I love kids, so should one day we have one on the way we'll jump for joy.

4. How many pets do I have?  We have a bit a menagerie. 2 dogs, Molly & Zeus; 3 roosters; 4 hens; a bearded dragon Elliot (aka Mr. Dragon); a cockroach colony (I count them as pets, but really they are dragon food); and this coming weekend we will most likely be adding a couple of bunnies!

5. What was my worst injury?  I've never broken a bone or had stitches, but when I was 5 I had a fairly dramatic bike accident. I had just mastered the art of riding my brother's bmx bike, which was too big for me, and as I was crossing the street (without a helmet - we didn't wear them back then) I turned back to pridefully look at my friend, unfortunately I missed the driveway I was aiming for and instead ran right into the curb. I was thrown over the handlebars where I hit my head on a tree and smashed my face back down onto the curb. Miraculously no broken bones, though my nose did kind of shift on my face for a while. I did wind up with a nasty black eye and a concussion. Though I've always been a bit of a hypochondriac I've never had too much really go wrong, though I have countless scares on my knees from a myriad of other childhood bike and scooter accidents, my memory is that my knees always had a giant scab on them from the ages of 5-10 or something like that.

The post bike accident shiner - I also lost a tooth soon after, adding to my really winning look.

6. Do I have any special talents?  Nothing that is ever going to win me a prize. I always wanted to be super talented, but I am tone-deaf, and never seem to have success with art projects coming out the way I envision them. I guess I would want to be talented in one of those areas. I am really good at a lot of everyday things and a hard worker, so it's not like I have nothing to be proud of - I'm just not full of super special talents.

7. What is your favorite thing to bake?  Cookies!! My sweet tooth loves them. They are the thing that I baked with mom regularly. Gingersnaps are a tradition, but I'm also known around work for bringing in batches of Oatmeal Scotchies.

8. What is my favorite fast food?  I'm trying to be good about it, but the reality is that I have a weakness for fast food, just as I do cookies. I love Chicken McNuggets, Jack in the Box Tacos, and a good old Burrito Supreme from Taco Bell. Thankfully I've been able to curb these hankerings recently, but I still love them!

9. Would I bungee jump?  Heck yes! I'd probably scream the whole way and be convinced that my harness is about to break, but I'd absolutely do it. My husband helps me be a bit of a dare devil. We went para-sailing in Hawaii and if I survived not falling out of my harness some 700 feet above the Pacific, I figure I can handle bungee jumping off a bridge or something.

Jacob and I way up high!

10. What is the first thing you notice about people?  This is a very judgy answer (and I probably wouldn't want someone else to be thinking this way about me) but I think kind of a general assessment of whether or not people seem to 'have it together'. Are they clean, presentable, smiling, friendly looking? 

11. When was the last time I cried?  I cried at my desk last week looking a photo collection from a very large funeral for two Santa Cruz police officers who were murdered in the line of duty. Here is the Mercury News gallery that brought the tears.

12. Any current worries? Always. I recently heard that only something like 8% of our worries actually come to impact our life. Time to let them go and move on. Here's a summary of worries... stop worrying!

13. Name 3 drinks you drink regularly.  Coke Zero, my protein/espresso drink, and water. Trying to work on the water consumption coming in at #1.

14. What is your favorite book?  As an English major I feel obligated to pick a truly literary title, Steinbeck's East of Eden is that title. But a book that really spoke to me would be Baby by Patricia MacLachlan. The book I am most likely to read over and over again is Twilight.

15. Would you like to be a pirate? No. I'm pretty sure I don't have it in me. But I wouldn't mind sailing around the Caribbean.

16. What are your favorite smells?  Molly's toes. Sounds gross I know, but somehow they smell like popcorn. I also love the smell of baking things and the wet foggy air of an early morning at the beach.

17. Why do you blog?  Mostly as a vehicle to share things with family, particularly my non facebook using family.

18. What song do you want played at your funeral?  I have never given this a thought. I suppose I would want what are hymns that have an additional nostalgic meaning for me. Like Abide With Me, A Mighty Fortress is Our God. And the Benediction, as I was raised on it.

19. What is your least favorite thing about yourself?  I lack consistency in following through on my goals.

20. What is your favorite hobby?  Reading, if you call that a hobby. I've been brokenhearted about it though, as recently I can't seem to ever keep my eyes open to read more than 5 pages at a time. I used to be a marathon reader and would finish multiple books a week, right now I am working on the same book for the third month. It's not that I don't like the book, because I do, it's just that it seems the only time I ever get to open up the pages is at 11:30pm and I just can't keep going.

21. What do you look for in a friend?  Realness, similar interests, sharing a sense of humor.

22. Name something you have done that you never thought you would do.  Running. I never actually thought I would be able to call myself a runner. I always sold myself short on physical ability, so it's a surprise to actually be sticking with running for this long.

23. What are your favorite things to do?  Kayak, run, just be home surrounded by the things that make me happy.

24. Any pet peeves?  People who don't take responsibility for themselves. Rather than try to better their situation they get angry at others for not being in the same situation. It's not fair to anyone to view the world this way.

25. What is the last thing that made you laugh?  Jacob talking back to the TV. He always surprises me with his wit!