5 miles, 5 things

For my penultimate run of 2018, I took large dog for a spin around my new neighborhood for 5 miles.  Here's a thing for each mile:

Thing #1: It is MUCH HILLIER around my new house. 

Hill be stalking me.

I know that hill doesn't look like much from the picture, but imagine tons of rolling hills just slamming into my feet.  On the bright side, Twin Cities (known for its hills on the back half) should be way easier in 2019.

Thing #2: Large dog was more than happy to yank me down the downhills at breakneck speed.

Running rookie.

Every time we hit a downhill large dog decided to pull me at warp speed, causing me to feel as if I was going to fall forward and slam my head into the pavement.  I'm pretty sure this is payback for running on the treadmill earlier in the week.  Just like you should always remember that I am a moron, you should always remember that large dog runs like a rookie and is kind of a jerk like that.

Thing #3: Even though I manged it in the previous pic, it is actually quite hard to get a mid-run picture of large dog and it not be blurry.

Case in point:

Must be one of them blurry snout hounds, I reckon.

Thing #4: Oh, and I actually ran this easy run right on the pace that little MyRunPlan app said I should.  Merry Xmas to me and all that jazz, I guess, for doing it without even trying.

Thing #5:  Male cat thought 5 miles wasn't enough to stop large dog from eating his head later.

Hyooman. 5 miles is NEVER ENOUGH

Enough things; time for learnings:

• I'm not kidding about all those hills around my new house.  It's going to be a whole new training experience kids.
• I'm also not kidding about how fast large dog yanked me down the hills.  Going to get a lot of downhill training too, it looks like.
• Blurry photos are large dog's thing, apparently.
• Male cat's thing is not getting his head eaten.  And, obviously, overeating.

Tomorrow's workout: Some strength and maybe some spinning because why the heck not, people.

Four quick things about my new spin obsession

Today's workout was some spin, baby.  Specifically, it was Cathe's Cycle Sweat.

Spin (or indoor cycling....toeMAYto, toeMAHto) is quickly becoming my new obsession, especially since it's low impact but super duper cardio-intensive.  I am currently rotating between Cycle Sweat and three other Cathe spin DVDs: Pedal Power, Ride, and CycleMax.  Here's four quick things about spin that I have discovered in the past few weeks:

Thing #1: This is WAY better than just getting on the bike and pedaling in front of the depressing news we have these days.

I used to pull the bike in front of the TV and just pedal for however many minutes I had decided to pedal that day, grinding through the workout and the news.  No wonder I wasn't ever super excited about getting on the bike.  With these workouts, I have some sort of challenge to look forward to every time I pop in one of these workouts.


Thing #2: Speaking of challenge, holy dripping buckets of sweat, batman.

If you're using the proper resistance and not taking it easy sitting down when they're standing up, then you're going open up the sweat floodgates during these workouts.  I was completely taken by surprise at how many calories my watch said I burned when I did Cycle Sweat for the first time (400+).  I was also taken by surprise by how challenging the workout was, especially since I hadn't ever really ridden on a bike out of the saddle that much.


Thing #3: I'm pretty sure these workouts are going to keep me in riding shape for when the weather allows me to bust out the tri bike this spring.

The one thing I hate in the spring when I start dusting off the tri bike is that feeling like I'm starting over with my bike training.  I'm pretty sure with these workouts I will keep some of my riding legs over the winter so I can dominate my first duathlon in June.


Thing #4: Tiny dog is currently unimpressed by my spin workouts.

Seriously.  She just sleeps through them, mocking me with her slumber.

You can't please everyone, I guess.  But I'm pleased to present the learnings below:

• When the going gets tough during one of these workouts, I just think of how I will dominate my first duathlon because of it.  
• In other words, I lie to myself to push through.
• Tiny dog is new to the house, so she doesn't quite understand my workout obsessions yet.
• Tiny dog doesn't know what she's gotten herself into.
• And sometimes with my races, neither do I.

Upcoming workouts: 5 miler tomorrow with a "rest" day following....and by "rest" I mean "anything but running"

2018 Race Learnings

2018: It's been a year.  If I had to pic one race picture that sums up the year for me, this would be it:

Seriously, 2018?  WTF.

Between work craziness and training through my left butt injury and lots of travel for races and family things, 2018 has been a bit of a stressful whirlwind.  But as with any year like this, sometimes you have to have these years so you can learn from them and make the next year even better. Each race this year taught me something, whether that something is about my training, my life, or about myself.  Let's take a look at these learnings, shall we?

Race #1: The Cowtown Marathon 

Race Overview: The hills and the crabbiness just kept on coming.  But running through the stockyards and downtown Ft. Worth was totally cool until they shunted us marathoners out to the hilly subdivisions to get in our mileage.

Race Learning: This was the marathon that made me start thinking that I was perhaps overtraining..my legs felt heavy by mile 14.  And made me think I needed a LOT more hill training since those hills pretty much beat me up and then pinned me to the ground the entire race.


Race #2: Glass City Marathon

Race Overview:  This is the race I was supposed to race - that I trained for.  I was utterly disappointed that I was toast by the halfway mark and knew I wouldn't be anywhere near hitting my goal time.  This was still a nice race and mentally I didn't start to enter whining mode until around mile 23 or so.  How could I not have fun running on those awesome tie-dye shoes?

Race Learning: More thoughts of overtraining rippled through my brain, along with the fact that my training itself wasn't up to snuff during that last cycle - adding thoughts of marathon burnout to the mix.  But I also learned that running in purple capris and tie-dye shoes is pretty amazing.


Race #3: Flying Pig Marathon

Race Overview: The usual - hilly hilly hilly uphill to the top of the river valley and then down down down the valley and flat to the finish while running through some quaint sections of Cincinnati.

Race Learning: I knew I wasn't going to race this one (did I mention how hilly this race is and that I did not do any hill training?), so no race learnings this time around.  Instead, I learned how much fun it was to have the hubbs and the pups along with us, as he came down to do the 2-mile Flying Fur run/walk they have for people and their furry companions.  I usually fly solo when on racing trips, so it was nice to have a buddy along for once when trotting (or being dragged by a dog, in our cases) down the race course.

Race #4: Muncie Olympic Distance Duathlon

Race Overview: 5K run, 26 mile bike, 10K run on a course full of rolling hills.  Man, I have to start racing in flatter areas.  Why do I keep punishing myself with hills? (Answer: Because I am a moron.)

Race Learning: Mainly I learned I had a LOT more training to do on the bike to get to 56 miles so I could actually survive the half duathlon I signed up for in June.  And that I enjoyed wearing a tri suit for a duathlon.


Race #5: Ragnar Northwest Passage

Race Overview: My 20th Ragnar.  Gorgeous views, nice runs (except for those two hills that were really mountains on my last run), I got to ride a ferry after the race was over, and I got to meet a ton of great new people.  Too bad I couldn't escape to Canada when I had the chance.

Race Learning:  Even after 20 Ragnars, they never get old to me.  It's my number one way to de-stress (I told you, I'm a moron), and they help make an individual sport a team one.  I've made a lot of great new friends because of these crazy overnight relays.  I'll stop now before these things called "feelings" come out.


Race #6: Tough Mudder Chicago

Race Overview: Two friends and I decided to get dirty and do the Tough Mudder that was happening pretty near my house.  It was a great muddy time (especially since it had thunderstormed the night before), with some pretty tough but doable obstacles (except for the swing rings...my shoulder was having none of those). 

Race Learning: When one has eczema, one should not jump around in filthy mud and water for 10 miles unless one would like a nasty eczema outbreak that lasts for MONTHS.


Race #7: Muncie Half Duathlon

Race Overview: Two 10K runs sandwiched on either side of a 56 mile bike ride.  Delayed by fog, left butt injury + eczema flaring up, wanting to quit after the 2nd loop of the bike course....good times, kids.  And by "good times" I mean "don't let that smile in the pic fool you I was GLAD THE PAIN WAS OVER"

Race Learnings: It's time for a serious learning, kids, that should be followed by a "the more you know" rainbow--this is the race that taught me not to give up no matter how badly I wanted to quit.  The hills on the bike course were wearing me down, and if my husband had been at the start of that third loop (he came with me for this race too - yay!) I would have gotten off the bike and melted into a crying mentally broken mess.  But he wasn't (he's always not there when I need him to be), so I pushed through and finished that damn race.  I got to experience what it was like to have the course torn down before you were even finished, too, making my finish all that much sweeter to me.  When I got off the bike I already felt like I had won, so it didn't matter to me how fast I ran that last 10K (which ended up being not very fast at all since my left foot decided to join my left butt in vocalizing misgivings about my racing habit).  Never have I felt more accomplished at a race where I was so slow.

*cue rainbow*


Race #8: Twin Cities Marathon

Race photos this year: BUH

Race Overview: Didn't race this one this year because my left butt injury was really nagging me, but the weather was on the cool-ish side so it was nice weather to run a race I didn't really race.  26.2 miles of great crowds and random strangers giving me food, as per usual.

Race Learnings:  I ran the first half of this race with the 5 hour pacers, who were doing a run/walk which was fine with me.  But I lost them when I had to stop and go to the bathroom at mile 13 or so, so I decided to run fast to catch up with them...which made me realize how good I felt, so I just ran the back half at a nice clip to the finish.  This made me realize how good you feel if you don't start too fast, which is what I often do (again, please see the "I am a moron" part of this post).  I also learned this is what NOT to do if you want your left butt injury to heal.


Race #9: Marine Corps Marathon

Race Overview: Me the whole time: WHERE ARE ALL THE MONUMENTS AND STUFF I NEED TO TAKE SELFIES WITH THEM

Race Learning: Review the course map ahead of time so you know exactly what miles the cool monuments and stuff start (mile 17-ish) so you're not ready to see them by mile 10 and keep getting more and more bummed each mile.  Also, do not run in new slippery socks, thereby wearing yourself out by the halfway point and have your calves screaming obscenities at you by mile 20.


Race #10: BMW Dallas Marathon

Race Overview: Hills (WHY) and more hills, but you do get a great route through downtown Dallas and out to White Rock Lake and back.  Not as much crowd support as Twin Cities, but hey-donuts at mile 23, my friends.  I wasn't racing this one because of left butt injury, so I sat back and enjoyed the scenery.  And the donuts.

Race Learning: Two learnings on this one: 1) I am definitely overtrained, as my legs were dead from mile 4 and kept getting deader and deader.  This made me re-think the marathons I am doing in 2019, dropping to the half marathon in every one except for my goal race, obviously.  2) Always eat a donut offered to you during a race.  Always.


10 races this year with little recovery in-between?  No wonder my legs are in all-out mutiny.  I'll save my plan for righting that running wrong in my next post.  Until then, feel free to share any race learnings you've had over the years and enjoy what's left of 2018 - see everyone on the flip side.

Just some indoor cycling this morning that I didn't want to do.

This morning was Cathe's Pedal Power workout.   My face in the picture below shows exactly how much I wanted to get up and sweat in a little room in my basement all by myself on my indoor bike.

Here's what I wanted to do instead:

Rubbing it in.  The jerk.

But apparently I love pain because I shambled out of bed and made my way downstairs.  As I shambled, I realized my abs and lats were still sobbing quietly in the background from yesterday's workout, making specific things very hard to do such as "sitting up" and "lifting my arms" and "existing."  But I sucked it up, buttercup, and hopped into the saddle.  I programmed a 35 minute time-saver premix and felt like this afterwards:

That's not joy.  Or happiness.  or any happy emotion.  That's my surprise at finding out exactly how hard it is to cycle indoors with sore abs and lats. 

But it's no surprise that bite-size dog couldn't give one crap about my pain and suffering.

She's trained well at not caring.

What else isn't a surprise is these learnings rightcheer:

• This indoor cycling thing...I'm wondering at how much it's going to pay off when I actually get to ride a real bike again in the spring.  Guess we'll find out.
• All my dogs are well-trained at not caring.  It's a gift.
• The cats are even better trained at not caring because they're trained by Mother Nature.
• Joke's on the dogs and cats--currently they can't infest my workout area like they used to at our old house.  But I know they're trying to find a way...

Tomorrow's workout: Some other blast from the past DVD workout that will make other body parts of mine weep and sob.

Supercuts this morning, super tired now.

This morning's workout can be summed up in two words: mucho cardio.

Cardio Supersets.  The name says it all.

Again, I'm currently digging up DVD workouts I haven't done in a long time so I can do a few things:

• Shake things up with my muscles, confusing the heck out of them
• Leave me sore in places I forgot I had, and
• Remind me of how in shape I used to be when I used to do these videos on the regular.

Actually, this one wasn't that bad while I was doing it; I only felt like I was gurgling my heart in my throat two or three times.  The workout was also only actually 30 minutes, so that was a huge plus for those of us that get up at really-early-dark-o'clock to work out.  It was also a huge plus because then the pain and suffering ended way sooner than normal.

Taken slightly before the suffering was over.

For those of you wondering what the workout is like, let me break down the stuff and sequence in the workout for you:

1) Five-minute warm-up with no equipment but a lot of moving around
2) Lots of low-impact moving around that involves lots of squats or squat-type movements to give you that heart-gurgling feeling we all know and love.  Or I do, anyway.
3) Lots of low-impact moving around that involves sliding discs and still some squats but not so much
4) An ending combo that involves planks on the sliding discs where you are moving your legs perpendicular to your torso and then pulling your feet in and out in a plank and OMG WILL IT EVER END
5) Cool down with less moving around and some decent stretching

So how do I feel right now?  As good as a woman can feel whose lats AND abs are quietly sobbing in the background from that workout.

Anyhoo, on to the non-learning learnings:

• A bulleted AND a numbered list in one post.  Lucky you.
• This is actually a very decent total body workout that is disguised as a cardio workout.  It's all the squatting and planking.  Slow-motion mountain climbers, anyone?
• I like short but powerful workouts.
• I also like being done with short and powerful workouts.
• Sleep.  I like that, too.  Think I'll get some now.

Tomorrow's workout: Spin, baby, spin.

Getting back in the blogging saddle: BMW Dallas Marathon and other stuff

I last blogged in September.  Buh.  It's been busy and stressful since that time, with work craziness increasing exponentially and with my recent move to a much larger house and all.  So of course to relieve all that stress I decided to give myself another job: writing blathering facetious nonsense about my workouts and races again.  I want to get back in the blogging saddle so I can have something to look forward to doing that's not work-related...and where I can have fun with words instead of writing words dressed up in administrator-ese all the time.

Anyway, let's get started with the facetious nonsense of my most recent marathon: the BMW Dallas Marathon that I ran last weekend.

I tried to race this hilly little race last year, if you recall, and crashed and burned by mile 15.  This year I had no aspirations of racing it, as my training hadn't been all that consistent.  I barely did any 20 milers due to my left butt injury rearing (pun intended) its ugly head again, so I went into the race just aiming to finish and have a good time.

Only one of those goals was accomplished, however--my legs were dead from the start of the race, so there was very little enjoyment. (Unless you count the time one cheer station had donuts and I gladly downed one like it was the last food I would ever get on this earth.)  It was around mile 6 of this race that I realized I needed to take a break from all the high-volume running, backing off from so much running until training would begin for Glass City in late January.  Any full marathon I had scheduled between now and late April was downgraded to a half marathon to give my legs a break. After Dallas, that was the one lesson I learned--it's time to back off a little.

But that doesn't mean I haven't been working out--far from it.  I'm still using the My Run Plan app, and it seems to have the recovery plan I need right now.  Last week it scheduled me for nothing but cross-training, which allowed me to re-discover some old workouts:

Cathe's HiiT Circuit: Upper Body is a nice little workout, with some light weight work sandwiched in-between some high-impact HiiT intervals.  I haven't done Cathe's Supercuts in a few years, so I had honestly forgotten what it was all about.  Here's what I was thinking during the workout: "Meh.  Too easy."  Here's what my back and lats were saying the next day: "MY GAWD WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO US"

Seriously.  That workout is light on weight poundage but heavy on DOMS.  Go into this workout with open eyes and thoroughly warmed-up quads.

I also got to hop on the indoor cycle a few times, doing my now-old-fave Cycle Sweat workout and trying a new-to-me-but-I've-had-this-DVD-for-years-and-never-done-it Cathe cycle workout CycleMax.  It's a pretty solid workout, but I was left wondering why we even needed a seat after spending so much time during the workout out of the saddle.

Even though I've been working out, my legs feel a ton better from the break from running.  The app has me running a whopping one mile today, so I'm going to try to fit that mega-run in some time after I finish cleaning my new house and frantically working on things for work that needed to be done a week ago.  I don't know how often I'll blog with my crazy work schedule lately, but know this - I'm going to blog when my brain needs it the most, that's for sure.

Did you miss the stupid learnings at the ends of my posts?  I know you did:

• I promise posts in the future that include way more bullet points.  Because the world needs more bullet points.
• I was seriously bummed about how tired my legs were during the marathon.  Sometimes you gotta suck it up and back it off.
• That donut in mile 22 was UHMAYZING
• I'm becoming very very fond of indoor cycling.  Very.
• I don't think my lats will ever fully forgive me for inflicting SuperCuts on them.  

Tomorrow's workout: The app says "rest day" which I'm interpreting as "let's get back to heavy weights already"