Days 5 & 6, Week 11: The last two workouts in 6 pictures and 6 sentences

Thursday morning I did an easy 3-miler in these freaking awesome tights that were not anywhere near freaking thermal enough for how cold it was.

3-mile post-run large dog status: ADHD temporarily paused.

Speaking of large dog, he seems pretty darn pleased with our 8 mile tempo this morning; specifically, he seems pleased that he kept trying to drag me into the ditch to run at every opportunity.

Mom.  I have no regrets.  Ever.

Since that tempo was supposed to be at marathon pace, you can clearly see below that I again committed the running sin again of running my tempos way too fast.

It's these splits that are causing great soreness in my calves right now.

And those splits in conjunction with the picture below clearly reveal, yet again, that I am an idiot-but an idiot with a husband who loves me.

And here's the learnings:

• It's been a busy and long last two days, and I barely had time to post these pictures today.
• I'm super tired.  Therefore this post isn't that funny.
• It's clear I have a husband that has been exposed to my idiocy for way, way too long.

Tomorrow's workout:  A little hotel cardio and strength work.

Day 1, Week 11: 15 miles of confidence. And awesome running tights.

So, you know, woke up to some white stuff today.

NOOOOOOO

This was not exactly motivating me to get out there and do my 15 miler that was up on the training schedule today.  This 15 miler was specified to take place at a pace 15 seconds slower than my marathon pace (9:20), so that made this run at about a 9:35.

Now, mentally, I'm kind of screwed up when it comes to long run training paces.  Even though I have to run 26.2 miles at a faster pace, my brain is all like "Holy cow I CANNOT run 15 miles at that training pace that's slower than my actual marathon pace ARE YOU CRAZY, training plan?!?" But today, for some reason, my thinking was different.  I reasoned that I had just run 10 miles on Friday at a faster pace...why couldn't I bust our 5 more miles at a slower pace than the one I had busted out on Friday?

Sometimes I make sense to myself like that.  And when sense-making starts happening, I get all determined.  So I got on my running duds, which included a pretty awesome set of Saucony Bullet tights.  Their main source of awesomeness is the mesh pockets on each side, to which I am pointing.  (I have no explanation for the face I'm making.  Make your own.)

Even the dog is in awe of those awe-inducing tights.

I then asked the large dog if he would like to go running with me.

He said yes, so I strapped the large dog to my mid-section and got out there in the foggy snowy suck of the day.

Zomg he actually looked somewhat at the camera.

He ran the first 9 miles with me.  He would have gone 10 miles but I was really tired of getting yanked into the ditch for no reason except he got distracted, so I threw him in the house and headed out for the last six on my own, making it back to the house just after dark.  I also made it to the house in time to sample some BBQ pulled chicken I had thrown in the crock pot before I left, because it's really the only kind of cooking I do.

You know what else I came back to?  Mission accomplished.

I know, I know...I ran this too fast.  As usual.  I'm probably going to pay for that, especially since next weekend's long run is a 20 miler at the same target pace (9:35).  But the confidence I gained from this run can't be measured on an app.  And neither can the soreness in my calves and glutes.  I hope they unlock in time for my quality time with my treadmill on Tuesday.

Post is done; here comes the learning fun:

• Snow.  I just....I can't even.
• In case you've noticed a pattern (pun intended), I have some pretty loud, obnoxious, and awesome running tights.
• Asking the large dog to go running with you is like asking me if I am going to buy anything at the race expo.
• is it too much to ask for some freaking sun and nice weather on a long run day these days?  I think it is.

Tomorrow's workout: Upper body weight goodness. As per usual.

Day 5, Week 10: Just get started.

Got that easy 3 mile but kind of cold run in this morning with the large dog. 

Apparently I forgot you need to stay still for
pictures to turn out correctly.

As we were running this morning in the coldness and the darkness of 4:30 AMness, a car slowed down and drove next to us for a few seconds.  As I watched the driver's side window roll down, all I heard was, "WHAT THE *badword* THINK YOU'RE DOING IT'S *samebadword* COLD OUT HERE." 

To which I replied, "If you were out here running you'd be warm.  Bye." 

If you think that's bad, know that this exchange was way better than one I had a few winters ago, where one of my neighbors screamed "YOU'RE *badderword* NUTS LADY!" from his porch as he watched me run on a thick layer of ice on the road in my YaxTrax. 

Anyway, I don't want to talk about the rude things that have been yelled at me while I'm trying to get my run on.  I want to talk about what I was pondering this morning as I tried not to focus on my freezing fingers--how I even got started with this whole "fitness" thing in the first place and how it led me to being dragged around by a dog at 4:30 AM.  Let's rewind a bit

I've mentioned before how I used to contain much more bodily volume but started working out and eating better to shed some of that volume.  I have also mentioned I started working out to one of the original Tae Bo workout DVDs--this one, in fact.

I don't even remember where I got this DVD.  All I know is that I did it every single day for the better part of a few years.  But I didn't start out just rocking out this entire workout from start to finish.  I knew that after an entire life of pretty much not exercising, I would have to ease into fitness slowly.  More importantly, I also knew I would have to make time in my day to do this.

I was teaching high school at the time, so my day was filled with getting up early, getting to school to work before the students arrived, and staying late to set up for the next day of learning goodness.  What I had to do was figure out where in that day I could fit in 15 minutes of exercise, because I had to decided that no matter what my day looked like, I could find a way to fit in 15 minutes of that Tae Bo tape.  I decided to start working out in the mornings before work, getting up 15 minutes earlier than I normally did.  "I can handle 15 minutes," I thought.  "Just 15 less minutes of sleep to help my health.  It's worth it."

I did my first 15 minutes of Tae Bo on a Saturday morning, and Sunday morning I woke up feeling as if I had been beaten with a stick on every inch of my body (that's how out of shape I was).  But I dragged my body right out of bed and did 15 more minutes.  And so on for the next week or so, until I felt ready to add on 5 more minutes of the workout.  I kept on adding 5 minutes more every one or two weeks until I was finally doing the whole workout and putting noticeable cracks in his sanity by making him listen to it while he slept every morning for a few years. (He was overjoyed the day I switched to P90X, let me tell you.)

So here's my advice for those of you who know they should be working out but don't know how/when/where to start:  Just get started.  Pick something, anything, and just start, even if it's 5 minutes a day.  Good habits develop just like bad habits--good habits grow and expand and take over your life and pretty soon you're ditching your husband to go run 20 milers in the rain and sneakily signing up for marathons all over the country and hoping he doesn't notice all that new gear you've bought because your body has been completely redefined and you NEED that new gear to fit your new awesome body.  These good habits also benefit those around you by giving them the needed "me time" they have always wanted since you're always running off and running somwhere...for example, a husband you may be married to.  So it's obvious that developing the positive habit of working out is a win/win for all involved.

In all seriousness, just get started.  Start small and your workout habit will snowball as you get addicted to the goodness of it all.  And then, inevitably, that goodness will ooze over into goofy pictures of yourself that you share with everyone on the internets.

Working out!  Yay!

It also leads to dark cold 4:30 AM runs attached to a dog.  You've been warned.

Workout learnings:

• It all starts with the decision to make room for fitness in your life.  After that, it's a matter of fitting it in using the time you have.
• If I thought it was cold this morning (30s), it's going to be 18 degrees when I do my run tomorrow morning.  There will be much mental whining in the morning.
• I pretty much only do Cathe workouts these days...and the hubbs has them all memorized.
• Working out doesn't always lead you to wear plaid pants with black riding boots...but it's possible.

Tomorrow's workout:  A cold and sullen 10 mile tempo run.  And it will be too cold for large dog to go with.  Total BUH.

Day 2, Week 10: Too long of a post for such a short run.

I'd like to let everyone know that it is winter now no matter what the calendar says.  This is because I had to run in this outfit this morning for my 3 miler. 

Bright orange gloves: not pictured.

Now, I know what you're thinking-I have a very creative and playful running fashion sense.  Well, I'll have you know that my running outfits are supervised closely by my closet supervisor, pictured below.

He sits in that chair any damn way he wants every morning and diligently supervises me putting together my running/weight lifting outfits.  He advises using a "pull the first thing out of the dresser you find that's warm enough" strategy, and I think this is good advice for the "playful and creative" look I'm going for.  The hubbs, however, feels as if my running fashion vibe is more of a "my God woman do you need your eyes checked we have insurance use it" feel.

Large dog could have cared less what I was wearing.  He got to go for three miles of cartoon-springy goodness going off in his head and big-tongue lolling everywhere.  Here he is trying to reign that tongue back in afterwards.

Almost got that tongue under control.  Almost.

He also didn't care how fast we were going, and I constantly had to slow him down because my tight and screaming calves were having none of my usual running too fast nonsense.

Small dog just shot me evil looks afterwards, mainly because he doesn't get to go running.  He wants to go, yet he won't leave the front yard and every time we get close to the road he scampers back to the front door all scared and stuff.  So no running for him.

You will pay.  Yes you will.

Learnings in 3...2...1:

• Small dog needs some exercise.  He's getting all chubsters.
• If you're running in the dark, your running outfit doesn't matter.  How much reflective gear you have on does, and it doesn't have to match.
• Another way to think of my running fashion style is "she's wearing whatever she found that was cheap at TJ Maxx or on sale at Dick's Sporting Goods."
• Those screaming calves are going to be screeching during speed work tomorrow.

Tomorrow's workout: MILE FREAKING REPEATS.  Argh.

Day 6, Week 8: Taking the large dog running > holes in my drywall later.

The training plan this morning said "10 miles at MP (marathon pace)." And then, after reading that, I died.

Just kidding.  I'm alive, I promise.  But I always freak out at workouts like this during the week, like I completely forgot that I was training for a marathon or something.  It's because I'm a moron, as I'm sure I've stated before.

I always think that I can't do workouts like this.  I was all "GAWD I don't know if I can do ten WHOLE miles at MARATHON pace for crying out loud these training plan people are INSANE" even though I will have to run 26.2 miles at that VERY SAME PACE in December.  After noting this incongruence, I then rolled my own eyes at myself and proceeded to petulantly stomp upstairs to get dressed.  Large dog followed me just in case I might be putting on running clothes and did his best pathetic if-you-go-running-I-want-to-go-too pose.

Patheticness Factor: 1000

As I was wondering what to wear, I looked outside and saw the wind.  It was hard not to see, because the trees were bending right in front of it and it looked very cold and very hard to run 10 miles at marathon pace in.  It's at that moment that I considered my options:

1. Scrap the run and go have more coffee in the recliner because...hey! More coffee!
2. Do the run later when the wind dies down this afternoon...*checks weather app*...and it's not going to die down this afternoon. *insertbadwordshere*
3. Suck it up, buttercup, and get out there and do as many miles as you can.  And take the large dog with you because misery loves company.

Seeing that option #3 was pretty much my only option because doing the run later is always a lie for me and the small dog had already claimed the recliner as his for the rest of the morning, I got dressed for a freaking cold and windy run using my usual running fashion sense.

I got the large dog in his running gear and off we went, running the same one mile loop eight times.  We have to do the same loop because that loop is a dog-free zone (except for the large dog, of course). You see, I live in the country and everyone has dogs that run off-leash, sometimes causing me to have to decide which leg I'm going to let them have if they catch up to me while I'm being chased.  This mile through town isn't one where I have to worry about having to force the large dog to make that same decision.

To make the run more bearable, I decided on a wind-coping strategy: slow down.  If you look at the mile route up above, you'll notice that I end up running in all directions (NSEW) at some point.  Since the wind was coming from the west, I decided I would slow down when I was running into the wind, and speed up when it was at my back or coming from the side.  It worked, because check out these sexy splits:

Now, I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking, "ZOMG your marathon pace is around a 9 minute mile???  Are you a crazy woman?"  While the crazy is obvious, my marathon pace is not, alas, a 9 minute mile.  It's a 9:20 min/mile pace.  So way to go me for running too fast.  As usual.  Only this time it was too fast in 18 mph winds, because I am a moron.  But the cat sure seemed impressed when she was watching us run.

Hyooman faster than I thought.  Will note that in plan to
kill her when her usefulness ends.

And I even know something else you're thinking.  You're thinking, "How many pictures of her damn animals does she need?"  

He asks me that same question all the time.

You're also wondering why I only ran 8 miles instead of 10.  Well, that's because I took too long farting around trying to decide if I was actually going to do the run that I got into a bit of time crunch. But the run got did, even if it was 2 miles short.  Remember, some workout is better than no workout.

And also remember that making the large dog happy and wearing him out is better than having him chew holes in the drywall later.

Post learnings comin' at ya:

• When I tell myself I can't do a run at a certain distance or pace, it's pretty much a lie.  Just like my "I'll do that run after work" lie.
• If you ever run with large dog into the wind, he stops pulling you like a sled dog and makes you, like, actually run without assistance.  The jerk.
• Running a one-mile loop 8 times by the same houses in the neighborhood sure makes the neighbors start questioning your sanity.
• The dogs tell me that drywall is an acquired taste.

Tomorrow's workout: More weight-lifting goodness.  Maybe I'll get crazy and do a different workout than I usually do on a Saturday.  Stay tuned!

Day 4, Week 8: Runner Hassles & Bad Morning Run Outfits

Surprise!  I did a run this morning instead of weights!

Since I had to work super late last night I got up a tad late this morning, so a shorter workout was in order.  Hence, a 3-miler out in the 30 degree (!) weather at 5:35 AM darkness was had by all.  Well, not all.  Just me and the large dog.  Who was obviously quite pleased about this.

When I came inside I got hassled by the hubbs for the state of my running outfit.

The dog is so excited by my outfit he's gone all blurry.

The cat hassled me with his face.

Hyooman. This my "your clothes hurt me" face.

As a runner, I often get hassled a lot about a variety of things.  Let us count the ways, shall we?

1) Running in the cold.  Yes, I run in the cold even though I have a treadmill.  Why?  Because runs over about 8 miles on the treadmill start fragmenting what's left of my sanity.  I'd rather risk losing fingers than lose what's left of my grip on reality.

2) Running in the cold AND snow.  If you're running out in the country like I do and the snow starts falling, it's all quiet and beautiful and one-with-the-universey.  But after that snow has sat for a few days being dirtied up by passing traffic and getting packed into snow speed-bumps on the road, it then becomes a huge pain in the patootie.  But I'd still rather strap on the Yak Trax and get the run done outside than get on the treadmill to nowheresville.

3) Running in the rain.  Yes, if it's raining I go out and run.  I haven't melted yet.  I fact, I've hit some damn fine PRs in the rain.  My first marathon was run completely in the rain.

That shirt came to my waist at the start.  This is mile 25.

4) I'm ruining my knees.  No I'm not.  My knees are stronger than ever, especially since I strengthen the muscles around them.  My curse is shin splints, not bad knees.

5) You run alone??? You're going to get abducted!  Hasn't happened yet, and there's been plenty of opportunity for the cows and horses I see all the time to hatch a plan.  Maybe they're waiting for opposable thumbs or something before they grab me.  I do try to mix up my times and routes, though, to foil any nefarious plans those farm animals may have.

6) Oh-running is why your thighs are so huge.  Seriously?!?  Don't make me come over there.

7) You run?  But you don't have the body of a runner.  Alright.  That's it.  I'm coming over there. 

Learning is fun--here it comes:

• My mother once asked me if I got dressed for running in the dark after seeing me come home from an early morning run.  For reals.
• Speaking of mothers, she's the only one that can say #s 6 & 7 and not walk away injured.
• Really, never utter #6 & 7 to a female runner.  Unless you want to find out how those kickboxing classes she's taking are going.
• Basically, for me running outside > running inside > not running at all.  So quit hassling me about weather already.
• By the way, that running vest rocks (Brooks), even if my tights were all Saggy McSaggerson.

Tomorrow's workout: Weights for reals, I promise.

More awesome race photos. And by awesome I mean horrible.

I collect my own bad race photos, of which I have quite the collection. I have some beauties from my half marathon this weekend for your perusal:

I can run half-marathons with my eyes closed!

Heh.

Nice face.

After running this half, a 5 mile slow run the next day, and some speed work this morning, now both of my Achilles tendons are twanging when I walk up a flight of stairs.  Great.  The only time they don't do that weird twang is if I am walking up the stairs in heels.  I can't figure out this weirdness.  Again, there's no pain....just weirdness.

But my speed work session went fantastic this morning (6 x 800m).  I was forced to treadmill it due to high winds and thunderstorms, but thankfully the Science channel had some awesome engineering disaster shows on this AM, so I was pretty engrossed in the ol' boob tube. I was also pretty comfortable at my 10K pace for all the repeats except for the last two, where I started to feel them, but I wasn't sucking air or wishing the little dot thing would move faster around the treadmill screen before I collapsed and died or anything.  I was pretty impressed with myself, actually, for keeping it together mentally.  This may have been because of my new running mantra:

"Suffering is optional.  It's all in your mind."

It's working for me for now.  One of these days I will have to do a post about all the mantras I've come up with over my running years.  I go through them like sports bras.  But not tonight; it's late and I have an easy 6 miler in the morning, which I shall be running in my new Brooks Glycerin 10s.  Maybe new shoes will stop my Achilles tendons from twanging away.

A post full of numbered random stuff.

I can't think of a theme for today's post, so I'm just going to pour out some random stuff on the page for you all to soak in and enjoy.  I have numbered them for your convenience.  You're welcome.


Random stuff #1: I'm sore.

I'll be honest--I've been slacking on the weight work for the past few weeks.  It's not like I meant to or anything.  Like dog hair on my floor and in my food, it just...happens.  It especially happens after the dogs get groomed:

Please notice that she refuses to sit on the towel I placed on the seat to catch any extraneous hair.  It's her little spiteful Sheltie way.  That, and she's almost 12 years old and pretty much does whatever she wants.

Anyway, I've not been doing my weight workouts as often as I usually do because I have been--are you ready for this--actually taking a full rest day.  Because I keep bumping my Thursday morning tempo run to Fridays, I have been taking Thursdays off completely.  While this is probably a good thing for my legs, it has allowed some of the gains I've made upper-body-wise to falter a bit.  That's why I chose to do Cathe's Upper Body Pyramid workout yesterday (that and because it is one of my fave all-time weight workouts ever.  Ever ever.)

And that's also why I can't lift my arms above my head today and have a band of soreness that starts at my pectorals and extends in a ring from them around to my back.  But it's a good sore, until you have to lift a dog into the back seat of your car.


Random stuff #2: Oooo colors.

Because the time it takes for my dogs to get groomed can be more easily measured in eons and epochs rather than hours or minutes, I had plenty of time to be-bop around the shops today killing time.  I was looking for an outfit for an important meeting I have tomorrow at my new job (I'm not technically employed there yet, but I'm already getting invited to meetings and want to show them I can dress professionally and not like a sweaty runner all the time), but I came across this little number at Kohl's that I had to have:

This is a Fila runnng jacket (looks like a rain jacket as well).  It has two pockets and thumbholes, but those are only small bonuses compared to the color cornucopia that is this running jacket.  Now I wish it would rain so I can scamper around in it being all colorful.  Scamper scamper scamper.


Random stuff #3:  My tempo runs are driving me bonkers with boredom.

I'm bored with them.  Boooooooooooooored.  It's not because I can't do them; I think it's because I have the same mileage for each tempo every Thursday for 16 weeks...that gets a little (a lot) repetitive.  In my old half marathon training plan, every Thursday was something different.  It was all tempo work, but it was all DIFFERENT tempo work.  It was like a different small challenge every Thursday, and mixed up the week quite nicely.  I know, I know--tempos are good for training you to run long distances at higher speeds, but I'm sure that that's not the only workout that will do that for you.  Maybe.

So, I think for the few weeks I have left until my marathon, I'm going to mix it up myself every Thursday.  This week I'm probably going to fartlek (heh) because of my half-marathon on Saturday, but after that I will have to do some Googling to see how others have made tempos less boring gotten creative with their tempo runs.

All I know is that I can't do 4 more weeks of the same old tempo.  Nope.


Random stuff #4:  I really like wheat banana cinnamon pancakes.

Yes.  Yes I do.  I've had them for dinner for the past week.  Yummo.



So that's all my random stuff for today.  Maybe tomorrow I'll get my blogging act together to write coherently about one topic.

This post is brought to you by the letter P, the color Brown, and the number 20.

I finally got a chance to do a 20 mile long run in a dog-free zone today.  I drove up to Capron, IL, to the Long Prairie Trail head so I could get my long run on.

14 miles of trail goodness.

Imagine my surprise when I got there and saw that the parking area gate was closed, and the sign below was on the gate:

That's when I got pissed off (hence the letter P that is sponsoring this post).  Capron isn't exactly right near my house, and it was already pretty late in the afternoon (1:30 thereabouts).  This meant I had to drive to nearby Caledonia, where I knew there was a parking lot along the trail that had no gate.  Screw you, budget cuts.

I got out and put on my super-sexy running/hydration backpack:

OK, so the sweat gives it away that I took this after my run, not before.  We'll have to cope with the fact that this picture is technically out of sequence.

Here's a quick review of my Camelbak hydration backpack:

It's very good.  I like it.

Here's a longer review:

It's very good; it doesn't bounce around when running, holds 2 liters of water in a bladder that is easy to empty and dry out, and has two deep front pockets that can hold all of my stuff.  On this run my stuff was as follows: 9 gel packets, sunglasses, my phone, a big can of pepper spray (more about that later), and a pair of gloves.  These filled pockets never felt bulky or in the way.  It's almost as if they designed it for maximum storage with minimum getting-in-your-way-age.  I like it.

Anyway, back to what I was wearing, which is MUCH more important:

I was very excited to be trying out one of my new Nike running shirts and the Nike running capris that I got at the outlet mall on my way back from Alabama.  I also had on my nifty blue compression sleeves because they're fun.  And compressive.

Please to excuse my thunder thighs.

After making sure my attire was appropriate and positioned correctly, I took off down the trail.  Well, I took off a few feet and then stopped to use a small restroom that looked like it had last been cleaned right before the end of the Cretaceous period and still contained all of the debris from the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs but not this little restroom.

I did not sit down, I swears.

NOW I took off down the trail, and noticed two things:

1) There were still patches (and sometimes long patches) of hardened slush/snow on the trail.  Dammit.
2) Everything was brown.  Brown brown brown brown BROWN.  April showers, let's hurry up with those May flowers, alright?

Brown brown brown.  And more brown.  And some snow.

Fortunately the snow patches cleared out after about a mile on the trail.  Then, I got to really take in the sights of the Long Prairie Trail:

Snack shop?  Freaking awesome.  Unless this is some sort of weird "Hansel & Gretel" thing. 

Boy will this be better when it's green and not brown.

Near the trail head at Capron.  That is an old tricycle around which that tree is growing.  And it's brown.

This was at the bottom of the same tree as the previous picture.  Looks like a bike with no tires.  That is brown.

The view from a rest area (there are some nice ones).  You get a lovely view of all the brown from here.

I did read the sign, but I only took this picture because the word "beaver" is on the sign.  I didn't know I lived near Beaver Creek! Yes, I am a large woman-child.

Proof that I made it to Capron.  Even the freaking buildings are brown.

But right before I made it to Capron, this greeted me on the trail:

It's a good thing I have done a few obstacle courses; I shimmied on under those branches like a pro.  The cyclists on the path were a bit stumped, though, circling endlessly in front of it and trying to figure out how to get themselves, perched atop a bike, underneath that mess.  (Hint: Get off the bike.)


On my way back towards Caledonia, I encountered a gaggle of geese on the path.  They weren't moving, not for me or for anyone.  It was THEIR trail, dammit, and I was NOT WELCOME.  Well, I had to pull out the pepper spray and start a rumble with the geese by spraying it directly in front of them (no, I DID NOT pepper spray any geese.  Stop calling the ASPCA already).  This got them off the middle of the trail, and I scooted on though the parted sea of geese.  One of them started chasing me, so I picked up the pace a bit a pepper sprayed in front of him (her?) to stop the chase.

I continued on down the trail snot-rocketing as I went (it was windy; my nose gets all mucus crazy in the wind), wiping my nose with my hand afterwards.  With my hand.  The same hand I had just used to launch puke-colored pepper spray in front of geese.

Before I knew it, my right nostril was on fire.  And the wind going up my nose felt like it was just fanning the flames.

I sucked some water from my backpack and then spat it in my hand.  I then tried to throw as much water as I could up my nose, which is hard to do when you're running with your nose on fire.  This also tends to interfere with this thing called "breathing" as you run.  But I'm glad I did it; the fire simmered down to a smolder for the next 10 minutes of the run.  And I wisely used my sleeve to wipe my nose rather than my fingers from that point forward.

Overall, it was an interesting run, and the miles kind of flew by--all 20 of them.  That's surprising, considering how straight and brown the path is, but I guess it was the newness of it all.  I felt stronger at the end of the run, having negative split it without meaning to do so.  Hate it when that happens, huh?  The foot was quiet the entire time so I could solely focus on how tired my quads were.

But, alas, that was my last 20 mile run of my training plan.  Now I have two days of cross-training, and a modified week due to the half marathon I'm running a week from today.  Any suggestions for how to modify a tempo run 2 days before a half-marathon?

Tempo shmempo-let's talk about running clothes.

I didn't want to go for my tempo run today.  Nope nope nope.  It wasn't my best run.  It wasn't my fastest run.  I considered quitting...oh...about 3 bajillion times in the first 2 miles.  I was going to stop early and head back to the house because a voice (not the crazy one) in my head told me I was still kind of tired from my speed work on Tuesday.

That voice, by the way, is a big fat liar.  My legs were fine.  And so was my foot--not a whimper out of it during the entire run.

Good thing I listened to a smaller voice, a voice that said, "Just keep going.  Don't worry about the pace on your watch.  Listen to your body and find your own comfortably hard pace.  And then finish all 6 miles of this tempo, you complete and total wimp."  (I said it was a small voice, not a nice voice.)

Finish all 6 miles I did.  It was slower than last week's tempo, but I don't care. I didn't want to do this run, but do it I did.  And I did all of it.  Today's hurdle was mental, not physical, and that's the lesson from today's run.  Oh, and also that if you eat complete and total crap for 5 days while you're in Alabama (I'm talking to YOU, Cracker Barrel in Columbia, Tennessee and Denny's Classic Diner in Tuscola, Illinois), you run like crap as well.

But you know what was the best about this run?  That I did it in a t-shirt and shorts!  Spring is finally here, dammit!

On my way back from Alabama up I-57, I stopped at a ginormous outlet mall in Tuscola, IL.  In this outlet mall there is a Nike store and an Under Armour store.

I was in female running nerd heaven.

The shorts you see in the picture are from the Nike store.  They were having a crazy good sale, and I got those shorts, a hoodie, plus what you see pictured below all for 100 smackers:

The jacket was what I was most excited about--it is a $100 jacket normally, and I snagged it for 40 bucks.  I don't care if I won't get a ton of use out of it right now, because when I need it in the fall, it will have enough freaking pockets in it to carry all my running stuff. (It has two inside pockets plus the two outside ones.)  That's one of my biggest complaints about women's running jackets.  I have news for you, jacket-makers: women need just as many pockets as the men.  We go on long runs, too, and must carry fuel.  We're not concerned with watching our girlish figures in the middle of a 20 mile run; we just want to SURVIVE and to do that we need to CARRY LOTS OF FOOD.  Or I do, anyway.

The t-shirts they had on sale 2 for $20, and the running capris were a steal at $18.00.  I had to get some new t-shirts and capris because the ones I have now I've had for a few years, and they're getting pretty rank-smelling in the first mile of a run.  I love how that stinky smell just insinuates itself into all of your running clothes after a while.  Not really.  

You just know it's time for new running clothes when your husband, who normally would not be able to smell smoke if the house were burning down around him, starts telling you how much you smell when you come back from a run.

After scoring those finds at the Nike store, I traipsed over to the UA store, where I picked up these little treasures:

That's my work bag in the upper left.  Sorry.

The sweatshirt was on sale for $25-you can't beat that for a UA sweatshirt.  The t-shirts were 2 for $25, and I had to have the blue one as soon as I saw it--I'm thinking it is going to be the one I wear for my first marathon.  Well, I'll have to have a mirror rigged up to see what it says, though, because that's the back of the t-shirt.

As you can see, this runner chick likes to shop.  I may not be fast, but I like to look good doing it.  Well, at least be comfortable doing it, anyway.  And that will be the goal for tomorrow's long run.  The training schedule calls for 18 miles, but I am going for 20 because the next weekend I have a race...and then my taper begins!  That marathon is so close I can smell it.  Well, if I'm not wearing my old running clothes, that is.  Then all I smell is my own stink.