Olded.

or “How I turned 30.”

My last run as a 29 year old involved waking up at 4:35am on Monday to run 6 miles with some running group people.

 

When I got home I realized what my note to Dan (written in the dark, on paper that had apparently already been used) looked like.

While my dream birthday would involve running-- and preferably trail running-- my actual birthday, last Tuesday, involved working, and starting early.  I treated myself to a lunch time birthday cupcake.  No coffee buttercream frosting, but this one was some kind of mocha/caramel combo.

I worked some more. I took a break for a 35-minute late afternoon bike ride in the sweltering heat and high winds, showered, then worked for a couple more hours.

This arrived on my doorstep

We ordered Thai take-out and thanks to Dan’s handy-work, the contents of that big box later became this:

Looking forward to riding a bike that weighs less than half my current hybrid bike and will allow me to keep up with Dan on his road bike!

Then I called it a night and set my alarm to meet different running friends to run 5ish miles at 5ish the next morning.

Weekend Recap and a Beef.

Fri April 6: 8.5 mi BIKE ride. Yep, I said bike. The last time I rode my bike was January 7th.  I was so happy to be reunited with my bike, I didn’t even care that I got grease from my chain all over my arm while loading my bike into my car.

Sat April 7: Unplanned 2.5 mi hike at Griffith Park.  Griffith Park is the one with the Hollywood sign, except we didn’t go on that side of the mountain.  We did see our first coyote though.  No picture because I was somewhat surprised to see it peeing, and by the time I got my phone out it had moved on.  But we did see this view of the LA skyline:

Sun April 8: 10.15 mi run in the morning, avg pace: 9:43 + 3 mi hike at Haskell Canyon in the afternoon. Awkward self-portrait to serve as proof I was actually there.

  

Now for My Beef.

Since there are vegetarian readers, I opted not to go with a fleshy depiction of beef.

I know on Friday I posted about liking my new TOMS, and while I like the shoes themselves, I have a beef with their customer service.  I placed my original TOMS order at the end of February. I got them both in my usual size and both styles were big, so I exchanged them for a half size smaller. Some companies will cover return shipping, especially if you are exchanging (not just returning), but with TOMS, you are fully responsible for getting your package back to them*. 

They advertise needing 10 business days to process returns, and they weren’t kidding.

• On March 5th they received my return (I had a tracking number).
• On March 7th they emailed me to confirm receipt of my return. 
• On the 19th, they emailed me again to confirm which items I was exchanging for (same styles, 1/2 size smaller).
• New shoes shipped on the 20th (11 business days after receiving my return).

While TOMS does good things, they are still a for-profit company. I’d cut them some slack if they were non-profit and had more limited resources. I think the timeline of this really bugged me, too, because the returns/exchange warehouse is 14 miles from my house. I can drive there. I feel like I could have shown up, knocked on the door and picked out my own shoes.

*still responsible for return shipping even when there is some serious inconsistency in their sizing.  The old grey pair is a size 6; the tan pair is the new size 5.5.  I never bothered to take a picture of the tan size 6s because they were so ridiculously large I just packed them back up to return them.

    

To completely contrast the Slow-As-Molasses TOMS exchange, enter a very recent experience with Running Warehouse.

• Tuesday afternoon (4/3), I dropped off a pair of shorts I was returning to my local UPS store, using the prepaid return label RW gives you (return shipping at their expense).
• Thursday morning (4/5), I receive an email notifying me my return was received, confirming the new pair of shorts and the price difference. I responded, questioning whether I had store credit still (thought I did).
• 7 minutes later they responded, apologizing for the oversight with a new invoice reflecting the applied store credit .
• Thursday afternoon (4/5), I receive notification the package has been shipped; scheduled to arrive Friday.
• Late Friday (4/6) the package arrives (Note: RW has free 2 day shipping, but since I’m only 3 hours away it seems to arrive next day).

PS: RW did not pay me to say this.  But having ordered from many companies online, I can say RW has amazing customer service.  And being peeved with my slow TOMS exchange, I felt compelled to share that there are companies that handle exchange/return processing much better.

Moral of the Story?
I think this means I should only buy running clothes and shoes.  All the time. 

Welcome to the Exercising Club

I don't understand the illustration, but I found this hanging in my school's cafeteria.

 Now that it's Wednesday (well, Thursday) let's go back and talk about last weekend!

Saturday we got bagel sandwiches from the nearby awesome bagel shop, then Dan put them in a backpack, got on his bike, and didn't let me have my sandwich until I caught him 4 miles later and we biked to a nearby park for a mini picnic before biking back home.  I can't believe I didn't even take a picture of the lake we ate next to!

We encountered obstacles like this from our freak October snow storm:

 I carried my bike over the tree toward the left of the picture.

Dan demonstrating proper post-bike, pre-bagel stretching

Because we biked, I did not run on Saturday.  I considering doing my 12 mile long run, but wanted to keep my legs fresh for a 5k Sunday morning.  So I opted to postpone the long run.

Sunday morning we were to meet up with greyhound friends for breakfast before going to a greyhound fun walk/5k.  While our friends would be walking, I planned to do the run.  It would give me an updated estimate of my fitness after 6ish weeks on a FIRST training plan, before my half marathon in 2 weeks.  Also, looking at least year's results, there was only one person in the female 25-29 category, with the average age of 5k participant easily being in the 40s.  I thought this might be my one shot in life at an age group award!

Saturday night I made these pumpkin muffins for our breakfast gathering (I'll post about that another time).

Sunday we had our breakfast, and were running late leaving our friends' house, so we did not get to the greyhound event until 3 minutes after the 5k started.  I could have run it, but as there were about 60 runners, it was just gun time, not chip time.  I may still have been able to place in my age group if I was the only one, but I would have freaked out about starting late.  I decided to just walk with Dan + friends.

At least it was a nice day for a walk.

We also saw horses:

After our walk, Molly (the retired racer) was spent, and helped herself to our bed.

  

I did some speedwork from my training plan to satisfy my unfulfilled 5k urges.  Goal time was 5:20 per 1k.  Since my Garmin is on miles-mode, not kilometers, .62 miles was how I entered my 1k intervals.

The 5  x 1k was my scheduled speed work for Wednesday.  So I flip-flopped the two, and did my long run mid-week.

I was shocked by my ability to pull my butt out of bed at 5:30(ish).  5:30 is the old 6:30, and since I got myself up at the old 6:30 last week, I told myself I could do it.  It was great practice for the 7am Philly half marathon start.  Complete with me not sleeping well.  Somehow I woke up at 3:30, concerned that I had overslept my alarm.  This happens the nights before races too.

This is what I looked like last week before the crack of dawn.  Look how happy Molly is to see my camera's flash.  She does not appreciate her sleep being interrupted, even if she sleeps for 22 hours a day.

This picture feels kind of Blair Witch to me.  Maybe it's just my paleness.

Aside from my first gu being cold, this morning's run went really well! (Have you ever tried that?  Hard to get down!)  I feel much better having gotten my last real long run in before the 20th.  My only remaining "long run" is an 8 miler this Sunday.

Goal pace was HMP + :20 (based on September 18th half, that means 10:24.  If you use some funny math to look at how I've been doing on my speed work (on average, faster than recommended times) and what times the speed work paces correlate with, it might mean more like 10:16 pace.  Regardless of which I use, I think I ran well!

Despite finishing the last mile at a 9:37 pace (which included me stopping to pick up the newspaper before lapping around the apartment again so I could at least hit the 12.0 mark), I still felt like I was holding back at the end.

I'm still figuring out how hard to push during a long run like this.  If I can run 12 miles in 2:01 for a harder training run, I think I can easily shave off :10-:15 per mile on race day compared with my 10:04 HM pace 2 months ago.  

Predictions on what kind of pace I might average over 13.1 miles in 2+ weeks?
 

Who else is running Philadelphia, and part two: the half or full?

Belated Weekend Post

Friday  after work I squeezed in a mid-tempo run before happy hour with Dan and his classmates? colleagues?  I was pleased with my ability to swing by the grocery store on my way home, squeeze in a 4.5 mile run, and freshen up (The run should have been 5 miles, but I was urgent to get home to shower, walk the dog, and get out the door in a matter of 10 minutes).

Goal pace was 9:33.  Keeping my eye on the clock and the downhill at the end of my run contributed to the too-fast last half mile.

Saturday we went for a ~16 mile bike ride. 

The first 6 miles was on muddy canal towpath, which I did not photograph because I was occupied with not falling into the canal or mud. In addition to muddy spots there are still spots where the towpath was flooded from the hurricane.  All the smaller gravel was washed away leaving bigger gravel.  It doesn't appear to have been fixed yet.

We stopped mid-way along the towpath to take some pictures.

Here's a not so muddy part of the towpath:

After 6 miles we got off the towpath and decided to stick to the roads and we biked another 10 miles.

My legs felt tired on our bike ride, especially on some of the hills toward the end.  Perhaps spinning on Thursday night and a Saturday bike ride are too close together.

This can count as dinner, right?

Sunday the bananas I picked up at the store Friday afternoon already looked like this:

So I turned them into this: 

Then we went to a greyhound adoption group (the one we got Molly from) fundraiser at a local winery.

Molly made some friends:

 

And we picked up some wine and random locally made salsa & pickles being sold at the event.

 

Then we came home and made apple crisp.

There are seven apples in the apple crisp.  And there are still 10 apples leftover.

We're debating trying to make apple sauce...or just making another apple crisp.

Because my legs were tired on our bike ride Saturday I decided to postpone Sunday's long run until Monday.  I think it was a good idea to give my legs a rest instead of having a crummy long run...My legs hadn't had a day off since Tuesday.

What was the highlight of your weekend?
Anything fun planned for next weekend?

Weekend Miles

Thanks for the shoe feedback in my last post.

Saturday, Dan and I rode our bikes 15 miles, got lunch, then rode 15 miles home.

there

back

We ate at a place with outdoor seating.  The weather was perfect for being outside - mid 70s and sunny.  We got sandwiches then split a piece of pumpkin cheesecake.  As good as a cold beer sounded, we stuck with water.  One of the last times we did this, we got beer at lunch and I think we/our legs got tired on the way home as a result.

Check out how low the water in the canal is, I don't get it.

Half of the distance was on hilly roads; half was along a towpath.  The hilly part is probably laughable for those of you reading that live in more mountainous areas.

Proof that I was there too.

Part of our adventure included navigating past this sign/fence, about 3 miles from our destination.  They are still rebuilding parts of the towpath and the spillways after the flooding from over a month ago.
 

Another guy on a bike came along a couple minutes later while we were contemplating our course of action and he said that last week the path was fine past this sign.  That was good enough for us.  We squeezed ourselves and our bikes between the fence and the trees/scratchy bushes and kept on going.  We only had one beeping bulldozer to pedal past (surprised they were actively working on a Saturday). 

 Only got a little muddy going through the work zone on the way home.  Molly made sure we were ok.

We got home RIGHT before sunset...good timing.  Total bike ride was ~30.4 miles.  Some Victory Festbier was enjoyed upon returning home.

Sunday

I went for a 10 mile run.  This was my longest run since the trail half marathon.  And aside from races, this was my longest run since September 4th.  Less than half of my miles were on a trail through a park, the rest was roads.

I ran 10 miles in 1 hour 46 minutes (10:33 pace).  Looking at my current plan, that's about Half Marathon Pace + 30 seconds.  My plan has HMP + 20 for that run...but considering it was 85 degrees out (yikes!) and I biked 30 miles the day before, I think I did ok. 

It was warm enough that I went through my entire 20 oz handheld water bottle and I refilled it from a park drinking fountain about 2/3 of the way through my run.  I snacked on some Peach Tea Gu chomps that I picked up at the expo last month.  I really like that flavor!

Monday

Thanks to Mr. Columbus, it might have been a long weekend for some, but not for me.  I worked today then went to boot camp at night. 

Over the course of an hour we did lots of: planks, crunches, Russian twists, pushups, weights for triceps & chest, lunges, squats, some laps around the indoor track, bosu ball lunges and squats.

Once again, I'm sure I'll be sore in the morning.  Hopefully not as bad as last week. Tomorrow will be a rest day though!

What's your favorite class at the gym?

What's the best thing you did this past weekend?

Speed work & Strength

After much waffling on Monday and Tuesday (thanks to all who responded), I decided to not squeeze in an 11 mile run.  It has been hard enough for me to get in an 8-9 mile run after a full day of work; I think 11 miles would have been more stressful than helpful, and I probably would have tried to run it faster than I'm supposed to for an easy run.  I'm confident I can run that distance, as I've run it before... and I will be doing 12 this weekend (for real).  So I stuck with my speed work Tuesday night.

6 x 800@10k pace (approx. 9:45 for a 2:15 half).
800m = 1/2 mile

I ended up with all my splits FASTER than 9:45. I highlighted them in Garmin Connect. I was pretty pleased!  As usual, when I'm warming up I feel slow and like there's no way I'll be able to hit the time I want for the first interval.  Then I surprise myself and I get out of my funk.

Rest intervals were 400m or .25 mile.  I walked for about .05 mi. or until my HR dropped into the 140s,

then I returned to a slow run for the remainder of the rest interval until it was time to run faster again.

After my run I did 3 sets of 10 of these for my lower back:

[source]

Wednesday morning before work, I got in my "strength" work, sort of.  This is what I did:
25 crunches
30 second plank on forearms
10 reps, 5lbs Janae's first shoulder move
25 crunches
10 reps, 5lbs Janae's 2nd shoulder move
25 bicycle crunches
10 reps, 5lbs Janae's 3rd shoulder move
40 second plank on forearms
10 reps, 5lbs shoulder press
25 bicycle crunches
60 second plank on forearms
chest pushups - 10 on toes, 10 on knees

I am missing spinning since my gym membership ended...so Wednesday night I hopped on my bike (really quickly) after going grocery shopping and before making dinner.  I biked 3.33 miles in 14:32.  Better than sitting on my butt for those 14.5 minutes, right?

Long Fall Bike Ride

Went for a nice long bike ride with the Mr. today.  It was 66 and sunny when we set off on our adventure at about 2pm.

I wore my Lululemon Run: Zoom Crops, Target Champion SS Singlet, Lululemon Run: Energy Pullover:

picture from Lululemon.com

picture from Target.com (circa September 2009)

picture from Lululemon.com (circa December 2009)

I filled up my 1.5L Camelbak Hydrobak Hydration Pack to bring along with me:

Bought the 2008 model in Spring 2009 for $24

I also strapped on my ifitness pouch, in which I stored my license, credit card, some cash, and my compact digital camera, enabling me to take some of the pictures to follow.

And we were off!

The first half included some hills:

Not sure if that's a big deal or not, but the elevation increased by about 80 feet over 2 minutes or .3 miles.  It sure felt like a big deal.  The last 6.5 miles of the first half of our trip was mostly flat tow path, which was nice.

We rode 15.14 miles to a nearby favorite town of ours.  About an hour and a half later, we arrived.  We were torn between a really good Middle Eastern restaurant and a place with a good beer selection, burgers, and outdoor seating.

We went with the bar/burger place.  The patio is around back, I should have taken a picture.  It was decorated with tons of carved pumpkins for Halloween.

picture from nj.com

I got a Smithwick's (sadly they were out of the Saranac Octoberfest on their menu) hubby got the Troegs Hop Back Ale.   I got their current special burger which included tomatoes, guacamole, jalapenos, and 'queso fresco.'  Hubby got a rueben made with some kind of brat I have not heard of before.  Both came with their home made chips which you can see they sliced from real potatoes - they were fantastic.

Then we hopped back on our bikes at about 5pm and pedaled the just-over-15 miles back home, making it home with just enough sunlight.  I had just enough water in my Camel to last me the trip.

Round Trip: ~30.2 miles!
My quads were feeling a little fatigued on our way home, we'll see how my legs feel tomorrow!