Day 5, Week 2: 4 AM Cause & Effect

Cause #1: I am employed.

Cause #2: I am employed at a place that requires me to be at work at 7:10 AM on Thursdays

Cause #3: I have an hour commute to said employment.

Effect #1: 4 AM running in mismatched running clothes for 5 miles.

Tomorrow's workouts: Lifting heavy things.

Day 3, Week 2: Some random pics just to say I blogged

My life.  It's passing like a whirlwind lately.  In fact, this post will be a whirlwind as well, as I only have time to post some pics about what I've been up to these pas few days.  Actual posts will be coming in the future, I swears. 

Well, as long as I don't fall asleep before I crack open the laptop.  Anyway, here are the pics!


I have been trying to lift heavy things around a cat...

I have been not wearing a shirt on the treadmill during speed work and kind of really not hating it even though my fat rolls have also been loosed...

And I did a Tough Mudder Saturday in which there was way more water than mud...

...spent a great 10 miles on course with some awesome fellow masochists...

...and totally had the same face on my face that I have at work most of the time.  I'm pretty sure that's not a good thing. (Hint:  I'm the one NOT smiling.)

Tomorrow's workout:  Indoor cycling because of some pesky thunderstorms a'comin.

Day 3, Week 1: Welcome to my day...again.

My morning started with a little treadmilling because it was raining outside at 5 AM.  During this treadmill adventure, I made a very important decision: to never wear a shirt whilst running on the treadmill ever again.  I give this decision a hearty thumbs up.

Nevermind that it's 5 AM; I GOTS NO SHIRT

Look Ma NO SHIRT

This decision came out of the fact that the shirt I had on was sticking to me like a second skin as the sweat poured out of me.  It was making me rather angry until I came to the stunning revelation that I could take my shirt off because the only people that could see me shirtless were the cats who were wandering dangerously close to the treadmill, and they weren't even really people (cats are demons, you know.  Well, my cats are, anyway).  So off went the shirt and I went on with the run. 

Speaking of that run, it was supposed to be 10-11 miles.  But it was all "1.75 miles warm up" and 1.5 miles cool down" and "3 x 2 Miles" and then I was all "GEEZ RUN PLAN APP WHY SO MUCH WARM UP AND COOL DOWN" and finally I went "BUH I need to get to work some time today" and ended up doing a 1.5 mile warm-up and then 2 of those 2 x 2 miles.  Which was fine with my left butt, which really didn't care for 2 mile repeats at all by the end.  But it held itself together for this last treadmill picture:

And then I went off to work, where it was my school district's first day with students.  So I reasoned that it was technically my first day of school, too...or my 4,181st day of work, depending on how you look at it and how good at math you are.  In my eyes, both are worth celebrating with an incredibly stupid pic.

You know what else is worth celebrating?  The end of this post.  I promise something more coherent tomorrow when I'm not trying to keep my eyelids open as I type.

Tomorrow's workout: Some bike riding in the dark! (If it's not raining)

Day 2, Week 1: Welcome to my day.

Welcome to my day, which contained:

1) A barbell-intensive upper body weight workout that included my very own spotter

Bicep curls aren't the same without him

2) Navigating the rest of the workout around animal obstacles while I try to get swole in my living room.

Laundry basket not included in the workout.  Or the cat tree.

3) Sitting in my office for the rest of the day working with way too many spreadsheets that had way too many little lines that eventually resulted in me wearing a headset in front of a Chromebook because I couldn't take it anymore.

Seriously--who *wouldn't* want my life?

Answer: I don't even want it some days. 



Tomorrow's workout: Some speed...for 10-11 miles.  MyRunPlan App WTF

Day 1, Week Who Knows?

Well.  I only managed 11 miles of an 18 mile run.  Again.  As you can imagine, I'm a little disgruntled about this.

Disgruntled Level: MAX

 This extreme shortening of the run was for two reasons:

1) The exhaustion from yesterday carried over into today and I didn't get going until 8:30 AM. Which meant it was getting a little toasty outside.
2) My left butt reared its ugly glute pain in mile 8 and it was all I could do to get back to the house.

I tried to do the last 7 or so on the treadmill, which is where I can unselfconsciously run without a shirt and take selfies at an angle that doesn't reveal all my copious fat rolls, but my left butt was having none of that treadmilling either.

WARNING: Snazzy visor and extremely white belly alert

So I had to seriously revise my race goals, people.  Here's the deal:

1) My new goal race is the Dallas Marathon in December.
2) Until my duathlon, I'm only running 11-15 miles on Sundays.
3) I changed the number of run days per week in the training app from 4 to 3.
4) I'm going to have to start my day and week numbering for these posts all over again.  Sorry about that for all you Type As out there.
5) It's a stupid idea to train for a long-distance duathlon and a marathon at the same time.  Really stupid.

I feel good about this decision, as I can now solely focus on my duathlon (less than 30 days away!) and then just putz my way through the Twin Cities Marathon like I normally do.  Now if I could only decide how to end this post...I think a random pic of one of my animals will do the trick.

And there you go.

Tomorrow's workout:  Upper body weights!  Abs!  Nothing involving my legs for sure!

Day 7, Week 9: I've been a little busy.

As anyone who works in public schools can tell you, this time of year gets a little hectic because, you know, school starts back up again after that weird 3 month break we take.  And since I'm in charge of some of the activities for all of this starting up, my life this week has consisted of a lot of not sleeping, talking, running around setting things up, and trying not to fall asleep when someone is talking to me.

Oh, and I did manage a few workouts this week.  Some lifting, some running in the dark, and some cycling in the living room.

I did have to abbreviate a lot of the workouts in order to make it to work on time (hour commute yo), but my left butt has thanked me for that by not screaming at me anymore while I run.  So it all worked out in the end.  Well, I hope it's the end of my left butt screaming at me, anyway.  It was pretty quiet during this morning's brick workout:

A few things about this brick workout:

1) I didn't want to do it.  I was exhausted from the week's activities.  I just wanted to sleep until late in the afternoon and then eat until I fell asleep again.  But then "56 miles" kept running through my head and the fear of dying during my race won out.

2) I actually had another 50-mile ride on the schedule for today, but I just wasn't motivated to do it in the heat (I didn't head out until around 9 AM).  Instead, my brain decided that brick workout would be a nice compromise.

3) I decided to head out on a road I hadn't biked on for a while just to mix it up a bit.

4) I am a complete moron because a) WTF kind of compromise is a brick workout in the heat of the day especially when you do the running on a road that has NO shade and you're running at 11 AM in August for crying out loud, and b) that freaking road mentioned in #3 was one huge uphill climb full of rolling hills for around 8 miles and I was a gibbering mess by the end of it.

Well.  At least I did a workout today, even if it did almost kill me.

And now I shall end this post to put it out of its misery.

Tomorrow's workout: 18 mile run because, as we all know by now, I'm an idiot.

Day 7, Week 8: A stupid FAQ about a stupid 50 mile bike ride.

I mentioned yesterday that I had one heck of a bike ride planned for today.  50 miles of cycling goodness, to be exact.  And I'm as surprised as anyone that those 50 miles actually happened.

Five OHHHHH my quads hurt

Why was I surprised?  Well, that sounds like a good start to one of my world-famous stupid FAQs.

So, why were you surprised you could do a 50-mile bike ride? Didn't you do 45 miles last weekend?

Yes, but the number "50" is nice and round and large enough to make my brain start this crazy mantra even in the middle of actually doing it.

"I can't do this I can't do this I can't do this WHAT ARE YOU DOING I can't do this" 

Also, it didn't help that my quads were really tired and I put the part of the ride with all the hills up front, making my quads scream from the get go and further feeding that false mantra.

What kept you going during the ride, then, if you wanted to quit early on?

The fact that I blogged about doing 50 miles yesterday and so...shame if I didn't actually do it.  Yeah.  Shame. That's healthy, right?

Hmm...maybe no so healthy.

Wait...haven't you done a 50 mile ride before?

I sure have - when I was training for a half Ironman that ended in DNF shame and excruciating IT band pain.  

Well, how'd that first 50-miler go?

You can check out the details for yourself below.

How does that ride compare to the one you did today?

Well, I have to say that I did just a tad bit better.  Like a half-and-hour freaking better.  But it has been four years since that first 50 miler and I am juuuuuust a tad bit more trained for distance than I was back then.

Well, it certainly seems like you've improv-- hey, wait a minute...why was your last 5 miles today so much slower than the rest?  Slacking much?

Two reasons, really: 1) My legs were really, really tired.  Like, really.  Really, really REALLY tired.  And 2) those last 5 miles were up a huge hill and then a turn right into what was a light wind but felt like a wind tunnel by that point in the ride.  It was pretty much all I could do just to keep going at that point and not pull over, go sit in a corn field, and cry myself into oblivion. 


Sounds like bad planning of a route to me.  Can't you do a better of picking a route?

Well, I could pick flatter routes, but, you know that duathlon bike course pretty much consists of 56 miles of nothing but hills.  So, if I went with flatter training routes, I'm pretty much increasing the odds of actually sitting in that cornfield and crying during the race.


Understood.  Can I ask what time goal you're looking at for the bike portion of your duathlon?

You may ask. 



Oh...you want me to answer the question too.  I don't really have a time goal.  Unless "survival" is a unit of time now.


Overall, how do you feel about your ride today?

My face in the pic below pretty much sums it up.

BUH it's over. 

Tomorrow's workout: As if 50 miles on the bike wasn't enough today, a 17-mile run is on tap for tomorrow.   *quietsobbing*

Days 5 & 6, Week 8: A tempo, some weights, and holy crap how long is my bike ride tomorrow?!?

Guess who ran a tempo Thursday morning and only had her left butt muscle hurt a little bit?

OK, I won't make you guess - it was me.

woot woot

Of course, after I landed from that jump I re-injured myself.  Just kidding--I had to race inside and get ready for work because they crazily expect me there in the mornings, not just the afternoons.

Anyhoo, two things about that tempo:

1) I ran it too fast, as you can see below:

2) And I ran it with my new Nathan 20 ounce hand-held, and I'm pretty much in love with the thing.  I could give many smooches to the person who finally figured out how we could carry water with us in a bottle and not actually grip it, causing me to feel like my arm will fall off mid-run from the effort.

A tender bonding moment.  Totally running BFFs.

Today's workout was just some weights (Cathe's PHA workout), and I was surprised I actually did it because I farted around most of the day.  Evidence of aforementioned surprise is for you below and is maybe totally not faked at all (those sweat stains are extremely not faked):

ZOMG how did this dumbbell get here?!?

But the biggest surprise of all will be when I get done with this bad boy of a ride tomorrow.

Fifty point freaking one seven miles, people.  That's what's on deck for tomorrow, along with a 3 mile run afterwards.  If I can stay awake after I'm finished, I'll tell you all about it righcheer on this blog.  Stay tuned kids.

Tomorrow's workout: Weren't you paying attention?  I already told you.

Day 4, Week 8: Stupid axial tilt of the Earth as it revolves around the Sun.

This morning's workout?  A sweet little 17-ish mile bike ride on a cool-ish morning with no wind (yay!).  Just a few quick things about this ride because I am about to pass out asleep on my keyboard:


1) The first time I ever wore a tri suit to go biking I was convinced the cows and horses were telling me how fat I was in it with their eyes as I rolled by their pastures.  Now I throw one on anytime I bike and I'm all like "DEAL WITH MY FAT ROLLS SUCKERS I GOTTA TRAIN HOW I RACE"

Tr-suit SEXY.

2) I am secretly (and now not-so-secretly) impressed with the fact I can bust out two splits at and 18 mph average after doing 8-ish miles of speed work yesterday.

3) Did you notice the time the ride started in the picture above?  Did you also notice that there's more and more dark around in the mornings this time of year?  And that dark made the start of the ride look a lot like this:

I did bike on the road, not the grass, btw.

Stupid dark and the stupid axial tilt of the Earth as it revolves around the Sun that causes the more dark to happen.

Cycling in the dark.  Buh.  Double-buh, in fact.  Earth science ruins everything.

Tomorrow's workout: A tempo run has finally appeared in the My Run Plan app...

Day 3, Week 8: Seriously reconsidering my race priorities.

This morning was some speed work.

The My Run Plan app made me do some 200s really fast, then run 3 miles, and then do more 200s really fast.

Why are some not green?  Who knows.  Only the app knows.

I have to say this about recording my workouts in the app - it is nice to be told when to run and when to walk.  Probably because it's nice for once not to be the one doing the telling-what-to-doing, and probably because that means I'm not obsessively looking at the distance on my watch and frantically doing yucky math in my head.

Anyway, the morning was foggy, which translates to humid, which then translates to one sweaty runner.

But while the run was nice, that injury I mentioned in a previous post (how my left butt and back are kind of sore all the time) was really rearing its ugly head--and not only this morning, but also whilst I was on the treadmill Sunday evening.  The pain kept twanging away at odd intervals during the run this morning so much so that I ran the middle three miles way slower than the app wanted me to and I cut the cool down short by a mile.  The only thing that gave me any relief was blasting the aforementioned left butt and back with ice-cold water for a full 5 minutes at the end of my shower.

Yeah.  I don't know what's going on, but I'm thinking about rearranging my race priorities.  How much rearranging I'm going to do depends on how the rest of the week goes.  Here are some options for rearrangement:

1) Stop running for one week, but still lift weights and cycle like crazy.  This whole butt and back thing just bothers me when I'm running-not walking or cycling, so I'm thinking this is a good first option.

2) Still train for my marathon and duathlon, but prioritize the duathlon and give up any time goal for the marathon.  So, in other words, just run really slowly and distances to survive a marathon but really train for the shorter running distances in my duathlon.

3) Give up training for the marathon and just focus on the duathlon.

4) Just stop blogging right now and start sobbing at the thought of giving up training for either of these races.

5) Make up new swear words to direct at my nagging, painful left butt and back while I sit on the couch every day not working out.

Again, I'm going to see how this week goes, and if my left butt and back can't behave, option #1 is going to be seriously considered.  Along with a lot more showers that end with a whole lot of cold water blasted on body parts.

Tomorrow's workout: Cycling.  In the dark.  Fun.

Day 2, Week 8: Once-sentence workout summaries

Life once again has gotten in the way of my blogging habit.  And by "life" I mean "work and sleep and the hubbs committing me to go to events in the evening."  So, to catch everyone up and keep this blog active, here's some one-sentence summaries of my workouts since last we met.

Day 6, Week 7: Strength Training

Dumbbells, barbells, and stupid post-workout pics...oh my.

Day 7, Week 7: Forty-five (!) miles on the bike + 2 mile run.

Forty-five miles of swearing at the wind using words that made the corn threaten to wash my mouth out with soap.

Day 1, Week 8: 15 treadmill miles.

15 grueling miles so bad the only thing good about it was my freaking awesome visor that did not shield me from the sun because, you know, treadmill. 

Day 2, Week 8: Wait a minnit...where's the workout?

OK, I confess - that's a pic of my dog sleeping and NOT me working out.  I didn't get off the treadmill until 9:30 last night, and after showering, eating dinner, and giving all the animals their goodnight kisses, it was time to get into bed.  And when the alarm went off at 3:30 AM my body was all NOPE WE ARE SLEEPING IN and hit the snooze repeatedly without me even knowing until it was around 5 AM.  And we all know what that means - it was too late to fit a workout in between breakfast and coffee and sleeping for another 15 minutes in the chair in the living room.

But rest assured that tomorrow's scheduled speed session will take place..and so will the whining about it on this blog afterwards.  Stay tuned!

Tomorrow's workout: 10 freaking miles of speed work.  Have I mentioned how I think my training plan app is trying to kill me?