3 Week Recap

Begin Boring Running Stats. I’m including elevation gain because my runs are not flat unless I’m at the track so I think that deserves some extra credit.  I’ve decided there is NO SUCH THING as an easy run here. I threw in some hiking pictures to make it pretty.

Let’s Rewind to the week of 5/20.

Monday: 3.34 easy (slow) miles on hills.  I attempted to keep my HR low and that required walking. Avg pace 11:33, +537’.
Tuesday: 5 miles at the track incl: 300m in 1:16, 600m in 2:49, 2x800m in 3:39. 2x100m in 4:52, 4:45.
Wednesday: 7.15 mi bike ride @14mph.
Thursday: Easy 5.09 mi on trails. Avg pace 10:56, + 615’.
Friday: Rest
Saturday: 10.43 mi. Avg pace 9:13, flattish.
Sunday: Hike in Placerita Canyon with my husband’s brother & his wife visiting from the Ohio! 7.5 mi, +1901’. 

Week of 5/27

Monday: Rest (a.k.a. Memorial Day Grilling and Sangria)
Tuesday: Went to track but there was a HS graduation!  Went to the bike path instead and braved 45 mph winds and a face full of dust to run 4.2 miles with 4 mi @ avg pace of 8:18.
Wednesday: 9.25 mi bike ride @13.5 mph
Thursday: Rest
Friday: 7.5 mi hike, +1686.’ Ventured into the desert to hike to Devil’s Chair with the Ohioans.  We’ve done this one before.

  

     

  
^Little cloud-looking thing peeking from behind the rocky ridge in the left half of the photo is the smoke plume from the “Powerhouse fire” 40 mi NW of here.

Saturday + Sunday: No running. The nearby fire grew quickly since it started Thursday afternoon and resulted in visible smoke in the air and ash on…everything outside.   Saturday we headed further south to be able to spend time outside in cleaner air.  Here are pictures of the smoke plume visible from around town on Saturday morning.

  

I decided to heed the air quality warnings and did not exert myself outdoors.  Followed by whining and complaining to my husband that it had been too long and I was forgetting how to run. Instead of running, I spent the time following the fire online, and worrying about how much damage it was doing.  Constructive, I know. Interesting pictures here and  here and here.

Week of 6/3

Monday: Only had time for 2.4 easy miles on hills before work. 10:57 avg pace, +533’.
Tuesday: 5.3 mi trail run in the morning. 11:23 avg pace, +1125’.
Night: 4.27 mi of speed work involving some 5ish 800s.
Wednesday: 3.09 mi in my hilly neighborhood. 10:12 avg pace; +502’.  I swear it felt easier at night than it does in the morning.
Thursday: Rest
Friday: 9.26 mi bike ride @14mph
Saturday: 10.73 mi at 9:21 pace, flattish (+232’).
Sunday: Rest

And to end with pictures…Molly made up a new game that involves bringing all her stuffed animals outside, one by one, to lie in the grass with her.

  

Have you met my pet kangaroo?

Kari pointed out in my last post that Molly Waffles the greyhound sits like a kangaroo:

Apparently it is more difficult to train greyhounds to sit than other dog breeds (Google greyhound + sitting and you'll see plenty of results).  Something about their body structure, it's not natural, blah blah blah.  When we got Molly at nearly-4 years old and were told greyhounds could be trained to sit but that it was difficult, I think my husband took that as a challenge. 

With some physical assistance at first and plenty of treats, she was sitting in no time.  And ever since she learned to sit, she sits all the time. It just looks a little goofy because her butt hovers an inch off the floor.

Anyway, I have not heard of this comparison before, but after looking up kangaroo pictures, I can see the resemblance.  You decide:

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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?

For my friends with four-legged friends

I haven't figured out my training plan for the next 7 weeks yet, so in the meantime here is a post for my friends with four-legged friends.

Meet Molly Waffles:

Unfortunately we are lowly renters and do not have a yard.  When we go for walks, Molly Waffles has the luxury of either my husband or myself following her around and picking up her droppings with fun pastel-colored plastic baggies.  She's got quite the life.

These baggies used to be just under $5.00/36 at Target but as of Thursday they are now $6.24 (or $0.17/bag)

But wait, here's a fun discovery!

While shopping for one of my 397 friends who had babies this year, I came across these dog bags...in the baby section of Target.

 Baby bags on the left; Dog bags on the right

Oh look at that, they are IDENTICAL.  The difference?  The "Munchkin" bags are $4.09/36 bags (that's $0.11/bag).  That's right.  The bags are the exact same, yet when marketed to dog owners they cost $2.15 more per package compared with when marketed to baby owners.

So if you buy these fun little bags for your furry friend, get them in the baby section and save yourself some money.  Pretty awesome, I know.

Also, on a related note, while at Petco I learned that you can buy nail polish for your dog.  That's not really Molly's style, but if you have a fashionable dog - take note.

I bet this post blew your mind.

Time for me to go sulk about the weekend being over.  Mine consisted of a 3 mile run, a 6 mile hike, some serious apartment-cleaning, and baking banana bread.


How was your weekend?

House-Sitting...and a Hurricane

Long, long ago we agreed to dog-sit and house-sit for friends for a week.  So Monday evening we packed up ourselves and Molly Waffles and headed over to our friends' house (only a couple miles from our place).

Molly got to spend some quality time with her greyhound friends, Carl and Maggie.

 L: Molly, R: Maggie

 Molly enjoying more grass time

L: Carl, R: Molly

The dogs also played musical beds:

Hanging with 3 big dogs for a week plus?  

I know Alyssa would be super jealous.  Dogs are her favorite.

We had fun using their fire pit and making s'mores!

We also got to use their CSA pass this week for lots of fresh produce!

3lbs of tomatoes, 3lbs of heirloom tomatoes, 1 seedless watermelon, 1/2 lb Swiss chard, some okra, 1 bulb of garlic, 1/2 lb cherry tomatoes, 2 eggplants, 2 hot peppers, 3 green peppers.

I got to use their treadmill with:

1. a sweet speaker set up so I could plug in my laptop and listen to Bossypants audio book and 

2. remote control air conditioning that I lowered into the 60s 

so I could enjoy my 7 mile hill workout yesterday.

(No picture for this... I was a hot sweaty mess despite the a/c)

Fun Fact: Friday was my first run on a treadmill since April.

Now we will sit and wait for the hurricane!

 The swirly to the right of the * is where they expect Irene to be at 8am Sunday morning.

Luckily Dan was able to craft us a hurricane survival kit, so I think we'll be ok!

Hope everyone on the East Coast is staying dry...

and if you're not on the East Coast, enjoy your weekend!

Weekend Highlights

Friday night we drove up to NY to see my parents this weekend.

 Enjoying some fresh air in the rain while stopped in traffic.

Saturday morning we went to the city's Public Market, and ran into 3 people we went to school with!  Had coffee, ate an empanada.

Looked at produce:

Went to a yarn store and touched lots of yarn.  I want to pick up knitting again, but need to find the right project.

Molly ran around, chased some tennis balls, then enjoyed some lawn-time in my parents' backyard.

After dinner, we went and got some frozen custard.  Mmmm, vanilla with rainbow sprinkles. (Amazed I couldn't find a picture online of vanilla with rainbow sprinkles in a dish).

(source)

Then played Euchre.  I have not met anyone in NJ who knows how to play euchre!

 Bonus points if you can tell me what's weird about this picture.

Sunday we went out for breakfast at a favorite place where I had eggs benedict with tomato and avocado.  Of course it was awesome since it had avocado.

Then I sampled tons of olive oil and vinegar.

 (Picture from a store email)

After trying so many interesting kinds of balsamic vinegar (coconut, dark chocolate, strawberry, raspberry, honeyed ginger) and oils (squash seed oil, basil, lime, herbes de Provence, Tuscan garden).

I bought a bottle of the Tuscan Garden which is made with oregano, rosemary, sage, and garlic.  While there were so many crazy kinds, this seemed like a more versatile ones to have at home.  The chocolate was pretty good but I don't know how often I'd use it and it only came in big bottles.

Molly checked the forecast to see if the rain would let up for us to pack up the car:

 No signs of letting up.  

So we drove 6.5 hours home in the rain.  But not before swinging through the Dunkin Donuts drive-thru. 

 Molly requested a kibble latte, but they were all out.