TexasLindsey

Baby sick all night.  Had to cancel my run this morning.

Again up all night with baby.  Missed my narrow window of opportunity to run this morning.  The rest of the day it was 108 degrees outside. 

12 miles at 6 am.  Weather=80F, 70% humidity, sunny.

 This run was one of the worst runs ever.  My feet felt like I was running on a bed of nails the whole time.  Also I didn't know how to work my new watch so I fiddled with that and was frustrated all day.  I wore the new HR monitor.  Hadn't worn one of those in 4 years.  It was awful.  I couldn't breath.  At mile 6 I took the thing off and then I had to carry it all the way home and it was annoying.

Seriously, my feet felt numb and in pain more than any run I've ever had.  At first I thought it was my new shoes... but then I realized that I wore super high heels at work yesterday and I had to walk all over the planet.  I didn't even get to go home right after work so I ended up wearing them for 12 hours straight.  I guess running on the balls of my feet after that experience just caused it more pain.  It think the balls of my feet are bruised.  They hurt to the touch.  

When I got back to the store, I stood around talking to people but I could hear myself complaining and I decided I should leave because I didn't want my bad mood to spoil anyone's else's day.   

I think I was going about a 9 pace.  I got passed 4 times.  I was so pissed but the pain was so acute if I went any faster I couldn't stand it.  I was pleasantly surprised that my HR was around 130 BPM for the first 6 miles. 

7.3 miles at 5am.  Weather=80ish, 65% humidity, dark.

Did something different today.  Ashley, Tim and I met Jodi to run some hills around the TCU area.  It was about a 15 minute drive for all of us.  It was fun to do something a little different.  The hills were a good workout. 

I am still trying to understand my new Timex watch.  I am so confused by it.  I only recorded 4.5 miles with average pace 8:15/m, but everyone else had 7.3 miles... so apparently I did something wrong with starting and stopping it.  The information is now useless because I don't know what it was recording and when.  Not even sure if that 8:15 number is accurate.  During the run the watch was showing me weird things like 39.19 MI. What the heck does that mean?  I only saw the 8:15 average pace after I go home because it certainly didn't display that while I was running.  I know, I'm technologically challenged.  It also doesn't display START and STOP when I hit the buttons so I can't verify that I'm doing it correctly.  I can't figure out how to get it to do auto-splits for each mile.  I am beyond frustrated and really regretting that I didn't buy another Garmin 305 off the internet. 

So we ran about a mile to the end (guess cuz I am basically watchless), then we did a hilly 2.2 mile loop two times, then we did 5 hill repeats and then back to the cars.   I kept up on the first 2.2 loop but fell WAY behind on the second.  I think Tim and Jodi got about 1/2 mile ahead of me.  Ashley was at least 1/4 mile ahead.  I have no idea the pace they were going or I was going... Did I mention how frustrated I was by this watch.  My legs were burning.  I am just not in as good of shape as everyone else.  It made me really motivated to ramp up my milage. 

6 miles at 5am.  Weather= 80F, humid, dark.

Starting to figure out my new watch a little bit better.  It does altitude too. 

mile 1- 11:00 (Altitude 880 ft)

mile 2- 9:03 (Altitude -27 ft) 

mile 3- 8:33 (altitude -2 ft)

mile 4- 8:31 (altitude -37 ft)

mile 5- 8:14 (altitude 104 ft)

mile 6- 9:36 (altitude -32 ft)

I'm tired.  It's hard waking up at 4:30.  Tomorrow a group of people are meeting at the store at 4:40 am.  I said I'd go too but that would mean I'd have to wake up at 4:00 am.  I hope I get to bed early tonight!

Ran in the new Nimbus shoes again.  Numb feet again.  When I got home, I realized that the shoes are Narrow.  I don't need Narrow shoes!  I've stuffed them with socks to try to stretch them out. 

9 miles at 4:40am.  Weather=80F, 70% humidity, dark.  (mile 1-8:55, mile 2- 8:24, mile 3- 8:22, mile 4- 8:28, mile 5- 8:37, mile 6- 8:38, mile 7- 8:10, mile 8- 7:57, mile 9- 7:40)

I agreed to meet Ashley, Tim, Wendy and Tom at 4:40am by TCU.  It's a 15 minute drive so I had my alarm at 4am.  When it went off, I laid there for about 10 minutes trying to figure out if I wanted to send a text saying that I wasn't coming.  I finally decided that I would feel guilty if I didn't run and I told myself that if I had a good run today, I would let myself sleep in on Friday.  Up and at 'em.

I finally am starting to get the hang of my new watch, which really made the run more enjoyable.  We started out rather slow.  Tim led us down a trail that went off the road and into this woodsy area.  The moonlight was the only light.  It was kinda neat looking, but I was worried I would fall.  Ashley did fall.  She got road burn on her leg.  We stopped in mile 2 to let Ashley recover and to change the plans from running on the path to instead run on the streets. 

We ran all streets from that point on.  The road was slanted so we were trying to stay in the center and move to the sides when cars came.  I do not know what it was about this morning but I started feeling awesome.  I haven't had such a good run in a long time.  I guess this is my reward for getting up at 4am.  I felt like I could have run 8-8:30 pace all day long!  Miles 5-6 had some hills but the rest of the miles were relatively flat.  The last couple miles back to the cars I just opened it up because I felt so good.  It was great! 

16 miles at 5:30am.  Weather= 73F, 40% humidity, dark then sunny.  

Met Ashley, Jody, Wendy and Britt at the store.  I was feeling great today.  I don't know what happened, but it's like this week I just "woke up" and suddenly now I am back to my old self fitness speaking.  I felt so strong.   

We were going to do this 8 mile loop twice to make 16 for the day, but it turned out that the loop was only 7.  At the end of mile 11, the store had ice cold water and nuun out.   From this point we could go two different ways.   The running store had water out today on the loop that we had been running but it was shorter than what we wanted.  The girls wanted to go out further on the trail in the opposite direction to get more milage.  They have been running 18-20 every Saturday.  I was iffy about this plan because there wasn't cold water in that direction.  I didn't carry water with me, it was getting hotter and I was starting to feel tired.  I ran with them another mile further up the trail and then I said I was heading back to the store. So miles 12-16 were by myself.  I slowed down after I left them.  

 This was the longest run I've had in several months.  I need to continue to improve my endurance by adding milage every week.  When it starts getting cooler I want to start doing some tempos in the evening.   

mile 1- 8:40

mile 2- 8:10

mile 3- 8:00

mile 4- 7:52

mile 5- 7:50

mile 6- 7:48

mile 7- 7:54

mile 8- 7:47

mile 9- 7:36

mile 10- 7:39

mile 11- 7:34

mile 12- 8:15

mile 13- 8:48

mile 14- 8:23

mile 15- 8:31

mile 16- 7:55

7 miles at 5am with Jody, Wendy and Robert.  Hot and humid and dark.

 Met everyone at TCU area.  Ashley couldn't come because she's injured her foot and is now in a boot instructed not to run for 4-6 weeks.  1 mile warm-up then we did this 2.2 mile loop twice that has a long gradual hill and lots of mini ones.  We call this the hill workout. 

I was so pathetic compared to Jody and Wendy.  First loop I lost sight of them and I averaged 8:06/m.  It was a tough leg workout out running that pace on the hills, but those girls were hauling.  Second loop was even tougher.  I ran about 8:35/m on that loop because my calf muscles were feeling really tight and I didn't want to risk injury so I slowed down.  

The girls did another few repeats on a hill and I ran 1 mile back to the car.  Robert was already there.  I ran another 1/2 mile around the parking lot just to make it an even 7.  Average pace for the run was 8:15. 

was gunna run 10 with Tim but it was storming, which is always a nice thing in summer in Texas so I didn't mind canceling.

10 miles by myself around my neighborhood.   Started at 7:30.  It was REALLY HOT AND HUMID... but at least the sun was patchy.   I was a sweating beast.  Average pace = 9:15/m.  Nice to go slow for a change.  I think I need to do more runs by myself... but I can't hardly motivate myself without the prospect of meeting someone else. 

14 miles at 5:50am.  Weather=hot and very humid, dark then sunny.

 Ran with Tim and Britt today.   As we were starting out on the run I realized I might be in trouble because my best half is 1:35 / best marathon is 3:35 and none of the people in my finish time showed up today.  Britt is 1:29 half/ 3:19 marathon and Tim is like 1:22 half/ 3:04 marathon.  

 The first four miles were slow and in the dark.  Couple funny things happened.  We had been laughing at Tim because last week he ran by himself ahead of us and saw a totally nude woman walking on the trail in the dark.  He thought he was hallucinating.   So then today we were running with him and he goes "What the heck is that?!"  Up ahead there are all these swarming lights on the trail.  It was completely dark except for my headlamp and those lights.  Britt said, "Those are cyclists!  Good thing we were here to tell you or otherwise the story this week was that you saw a UFO on the trail and you thought you were hallucinating!"   

So then a ways later -still complete darkness- we're running through this portion that borders an old cemetery.  We're making fun of Tim again saying maybe that nude woman he saw last week was a ghost from the cemetery... when suddenly from behind me there's this wooshing noise and leaves moving... and it's coming up fast on my left side... this white object passing within one foot from my head... making all this noise...  the adrenaline starts rushing and I start freaking, scream LOUD.  Britt screams too.  Tim made some kind of "awww" noise.  And it turns out to be a startled bird of some kind that was sitting on the side of the trail and flew past us flapping right in front of our faces.  In the dark, we just had no idea at first.   Ha, ah! 

 Ok.  Fun and games are over.  Sun is up.  Miles 4-8.  We decide to go a route off the trail that Britt knows.  It goes through some neighborhoods and we can get water on the golf course.  She sped up to 7:30's.  I barely am keeping up.  There are also really long steady hills throughout this route.  It's worse for me because I don't know how long these hills are or where the water is.  I start getting discouraged at the end of mile 8 and the two of them are speeding up even faster.  I fall behind... and suddenly they stop.  They were speeding up because the water was right there.  Heck, if I had known that I would have been speeding up too!  It sucks to not know the route!  I couldn't focus like I normally can when I know where I'm going.  If you know the route, you know exactly how much energy you can expend at each phase.   Not knowing reminds me of track workouts in HS.  The coach says run 1 mile as fast as you can but you're trying to figure out what they are going to make you do next because that determines how fast you really should go on this first mile. 

So then we decide to go back down to the trail via the infamous "Hidden Road".  This is .7 mile long road that is 8% grade.  I don't know how the two of them could go that fast down this thing.  I fell about 100 yards behind by the time we reached the trail.   You know you've been watching alot of olympics when you see this gap and you think "Runner Lindsey has alot of "work" to do to catch up to the leaders"....  So I did the work and caught up.  Now we're in my stomping ground here on the trail.  We ran miles 10, 11 and 12 at about 7:45ish.  I actually got ahead of the two of them for a portion because I knew there was cold water and I couldn't wait... like a horse to stables, man.  

Then we started going back into the neighborhoods up this long hill that's about 4-5% grade and 1 mile long.  I had my music in.  I knew the route.  I'm hanging on by a thread but I'm in a zone working it.  Suddenly, Tim, who is running next to me, screams really loud at this car that he thinks is driving too fast past us.  It was shocking and kinda scared me.  I lost my focus.  It was a delicate thing to begin with so it wasn't his fault.  My focus was a house of cards!  So anyways, I made it up the hill at 7:45 pace but at the end of mile 12 I bonked.  I fell behind again.  I got to this water stop and started walking.  A car was speeding and I couldn't even muster up the momentum to speed walk to get out of the way.  The car had to slow down.  It was at that point I said to Tim and Britt, "You guys go right on without me.  I'm going to chug it in straight to the store and call the final two miles a cool down".   They asked if I was going to do another 4 around the park to make it 18 like we had planned.  Um, no.  I'm not.  

 I proceeded on mile 13 by myself to do an incredibly difficult 9:18 pace.  Tim and Britt disappeared in the distance ahead of me.  Then I see this other group ahead.  It's the 9:00/m pace group lead by my friend, Matt.  They started at 6:30 today and were doing 11.   Only 1 mile to go to the store.  I think I'll run it with them... I hope I can keep up!  

Yeah, right!  I get up there and they say hello.  Matt asks, "what's wrong, Linds?"  I say, as I fiddle with my iPod, "I'm trying to DJ myself so I have enough energy to make it back to the store."  Matt says, "Hey I'll take you to the store."  "Thank you, Matt!  I'll follow."  I actually got a little bit encouraged because I thought he'll go maybe 8:00 pace and I'll finish on a much better note than bonking all the way home.  It'll be tough, but I can do 8:00."  I'm really pep talking myself about 8:00.   HA!   The dude gets down to 7:00 pace and he's yelling at me to keep up.  1 mile home.  Seriously, Matt?  I couldn't even find a good enough song for this crap.  7:00 pace when I'm bonking and all I've gone on my ipod is Kelly Clarkson singing, "What doesn't kill makes you stronger... "  I wanted to slap her and tell her to shut the hell up!  Final mile = 7:20.  

What a day!  I actually feel great now though.  My legs are sore like I was lifting 300 pound weights but no injuries to speak of.  Oh, and my big toenail is gone.  Another story...  but GONE!

----

Corrected the milage to 15 miles after talking to Tim.  I forgot to push start on my watch at one point and I was off on the milage.

8 miles at 5am. Weather=70F, 40% humidity, dark.  Average pace = 10:38/m.

Met Tim this morning at the corner.  He ended up running 22 on Saturday and 20 on Sunday.  He's been doing back to back 20 milers for several weekends now.  He said he was tired and he thought he was getting some shin splints so he wanted to run slow.  We started out at a 12:00 pace!!!  We did that for the first two miles!   It felt sooooo slow.  We eventually speed up to 10:00 for the last 6.   I started liking the 10 pace.  It was a nice change.  I didn't even feel like I was running.  I bet my HR was super low.  I told Tim maybe we should mix it up more often and do some really slow, medium long runs during the week. 

The only problem is that it of course takes a longer time to run this slow.  I was 15 minutes later than normal and I got to work late today. 

8 miles at 6am.  Weather=72F, 50% humidity, dark then sunny.  Average pace= guessing around 8:30-9:00/m ... my watch wasn't charged.

9 miles at 5am.  Weather=73F, humid, dark.  Average pace=10:03/m.

Ran with Tim.  He is peaking this week in his training for Saint George.  He's on track to do 130 miles!  Been doing doubles every day.  This morning he wanted to run really slow.  He's trying to break 3:00 marathon.  He's been trying for this goal every year I've known him and each year he's been barely missed it.  He's had some unlucky weather for many of the attempts though.  Like last year's Galveston Marathon, he did 3:04 competing with a 20-30 mph wind!  Ugh! 

So he's been trying something different with training this year. He's trying to run lots of miles 80-130 a week, but most of them be slow.  Then he does MP miles at the end of 20-24 milers and he does track workouts. I hope it works for him!  He's really working hard.

My training plan is less structured.  Every day is a new day and a new challenge.  I am just trying the best I can.  Sometimes running works out and sometimes life gets in the way.  I'm not putting too much pressure on myself because I've got alot going on with having young kids and working full time.  It's still fun though.  I'm actually surprised I'm running relatively fast on the weekends and I'm still not injured in at all. Knock on wood!  I am hoping to do 3:30 marathon at NYC, but if I don't do it, I'm not going to be heartbroken.   When my life is less chaos, I might try to step it up and see how low I can get my PR. 

Hoo ya!  I did it!  I really actually ran more than 17 miles without getting injured!

Weather was crummy.  It was 82F, almost 20mph wind at first before the rain hit, humid at first and raining at the end.  Average pace was 8:22/m.  ‎

I felt great the first 12 mile loop that we did.  First mile was 8:45.  The next 11 were 8:00/m average with only miles 8 and 9 being faster (7:50 and 7:43).   I was the one driving the pace mostly.  I can't seem to help myself.  Britt (who has much faster PR's than me) was reminding me to slow down if I'm going to make it 20 miles today.  Tim also told me that on marathon training I have to be patient.  Maybe that is my problem here.  I do not have patience (or time) to train for a full marathon at this point in my life. 

Then we stopped at the running store before embarking on the next loop of 8 miles.  The next four miles were getting harder and slower (about 8:20's), but I was still holding on although I fell behind Britt and Tim.  They were holding steady at the 8:00/m pace.  There were still some other people behind me from our group though.

By the 15-mile water stop, the rest of the group decided to go further up the trail before turning around so their total would be an even 20.   I just wanted this experience to be over as quickly as possible... I resisted peer pressure from Tim to tough it out and I turned around early to head straight to my car. 

 "THE WALL": Last 4 miles were of the 9:00/m variety by myself in the rain and were excruciating to the point that I found it impossible to run without making a really scrunched up mean face. I was laughing (on the inside while still making scrunched up mean face) about what passing cars might have been thinking.  Yeah, you know, I guess I might have gone too fast in the beginning when I was feeling "great"! Ha, ha! Marathon training is tricky! I'm not sure I have the patience for it. I much prefer half-marathons, for which there are no 20 mile training runs!

Reality check: I'm going to need to run 8:00/m for 26.2 if I'm going to reach my goal at NYC. I couldn't imagine doing that today. Hopefully, the next two months of training and cooler, less humid weather will get me there.

One great thing is that my legs were great the whole way.  No injuries.  Not even a blister.  Of course it was hard to move them in the final miles, but that's different than injury, plus they are fine now after I have stopped running.  I am very happy about that.   This is the farthest I've run in a long, long time.    Because of this fact, I am considering this run a success.

 I'm just trying to figure out when my next training run should be.  The running store owner, James, suggested that I try to force myself to run 9:00 pace in the first miles of the next 20 miler just as an experiment...  I know what he is saying is right.  It's so hard for me to hold myself back when I'm running with faster people because I guess I have this mental thing where I want to be in the lead pack.  However, if I run by myself, it's hard for me to force myself to speed up if I started out at a 9:00 pace.  Tricky, tricky.  What to do, what to do.

Was in Toronto for business.  Thought I'd get opportunity to run in the perfect 70 degree weather.  Only had time for eliptical.  It said I went 3 miles. 

7  miles around the neighborhood at 9:00/m.  Felt difficult.  DIdn't run all week because of business trip.  Strange how hard this felt.