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?  

Running & Cycling: Some comparisons.

Am I a runner who cycles?  Or a cyclist who runs?

Or am I just an idiot who cycles and runs and likes to take stupid pictures about all of my running and cycling nonsense?

Answer:  Yes.  A thousand times yes.

While I obviously like both sports because I do both sports on the regular, I can't help but always compare them in my mind.  This is probably because I run out of things to think about after a while during a long ride or a run.  Anyway, let's run through some cycling and running comparisons:


What you think when you want to quit the workout early:

Running:  Suck it up, buttercup, and get it done.
Cycling: Suck it up, buttercup, because if you quit now you have to walk this damn bike back to the house looking like a fool in front of all these cows.


When you you're getting ready for a workout in the summer:

Running: Bra shirt shorts socks shoes hat DONE
Cycling: Bra jersey tri-shorts socks bike shoes helmet water bottle grease the chain air the tires get bike grease on your leg go inside and wash it off sunglasses DONE


When you realize you're going too fast during a race:

Running: I better slow down; I didn't train for this pace.
Cycling: I better slow down; I could, like, die.


When you want to take a mid-workout selfie:

Running: Get out phone and take that sucker while large dog takes a break in the tall grass.

Cycling: If I get out my phone while in motion on the bike I will crash and die so it's better to stop first and take an artsy-farsty pic instead.

When you're taking preparations to be safe during the workout:

Running: Pepper spray and a bad attitude - check.  I should be safe from any cow, horse, or goat that wants to mess with me out in the countryside.
Cycling: All anyone who wants to abduct me has to do is make me crash on my bike, so whatever.


When you're buying gear you don't really need:

Running: New pairs of running shoes just seem to follow me home.  There's nothing I can do.
Cycling: I need new tires?  Well, I'll just buy a whole new bike then.


So, in sum, cycling has a greater chance of resulting in my death than running, but is just as expensive as running.  But I'm never slowed down by a resting and selfie-resistant dog while cycling, that's for sure.


And for sure I have some stupid learnings for you to end this post:

• I take way more stupid pictures than I ever post--like this one:

Some Star Trek sass for you.

• 
  I think we all know how painful it can be to walk a bike back home in front of some judgy cows.
• Bike grease on my leg.  Every single ride, I tell you.
• I have a soft spot for all of those shoes that follow me home; I take them in and give them a good home every single time.

Tomorrow's workout: 20+ mile bike ride and some weights goodness.

This morning's workout review: BUH

There's only one word to describe this morning's so-called "speed" workout:

BUH.

Didn't stop me from taking stupid pics whilst I was on the treadmill, though.

So much stupid in one picture - AMAZING

I got up 45 minutes late today to the hubbs asking me, "Hey-are you getting up or what?!?"  While I would have loved to say "or what" and slammed my head back into the pillow and allowed the male cat to continue to sleep on the back of my knees, I like having money to pay the bills so I got up.  And, for some reason, I was utterly exhausted and it was all I could do to get dressed and drag my tired legs over to the treadmill.

But I decided to see how many of those four 1200 m repeats I could do, so I started slogging away at those repeats.  And here's what happened:

• Approximately 3,000 stops to blow my nose
• One husband sneaking up on me so that all of a sudden a giant husband head appeared to the right of my head while I was deep into my 1200m repeat "can't hear anything with my headphones on" groove 
• Two loud screams at being startled by the giant husband head
• 1 male cat that kept trying to get on the treadmill with me and...
• 2.5 trips to the bathroom

Like I said...the run was total BUH.  But better to have run and BUH-ed than never to have run at all, I guess. 

But maybe I should have just stayed in bed.  The cat, apparently, is much smarter than me.

I'm not that smart, but here are some learnings:

• Seriously, I'm glad I didn't run at all.  The pace wasn't hard, but apparently the rest of my body wasn't having any of this "running" nonsense this morning.
• Stupid fitness photos are my specialty, in case this is the first time you've ever read this blog.
• Sleeping is also my specialty, one I didn't get to practice much last night.
• You think female cat is mocking me by napping like that while I was on the treadmill?  Yeah, I think so too.

Tomorrow's workout:  Boot Camp with Cathe!

Day 4, Week 10: Some thoughts on workout variety and another dumb workout picture.

Well, I like running too.  Running is also my favorite.  And I think Cathe's PHA Training (this morning's workout) is one of my fave weight lifting workout DVDs of all time because of the heavy weights and the use of the step.  I think it's large dog's favorite too, only for an obviously different reason that he showed me after I was done.

That was one tasty workout.

Small dog just thought I was too stinky to take a selfie with. (Which I was.  I ain't afraid to lift and I ain't afraid to stink while doing it.)

How long must I endure this smelly woman?

Now, I've talked about why lifting weights is good for you before, but I keep getting a lot of crap about why on Earth I would want to lift weights when I am actually training for a running event.  You see, there's this thing floating around in the run-o-sphere that goes a little something like this:

To get better at running, you have to run.  (NO WEIGHT LIFTING implied.)

I completely disagree.  Kind of.  Yes, you have to run to get better at running...but there's nothing that says you have to just run all the time.   I want to re-work that statement into:

To get better at running, you can't just run.

Really, you can't.  You can't just work your running muscles.  You have to improve your overall fitness, which means working on strength AND running AND flexibility.  How do I know? Because that's what I did all summer and then holy cow I took first place in an Olympic distance duathlon out of freaking nowhere and finally ran a sub-2 half marathon on a course that I have never managed to do that on.  And when I didn't work on total fitness and just did a whole lot of running and skimped out on my weight workouts I kept coming up short on all of my run goals and was continually disappointed.

Don't be continually disappointed.  Run, but don't just run.

And then blog about every single workout to bore everyone in the run-o-sphere, posting dumb workout pictures at every single opportunity because hey-it's better than crabbing about work.

A feeble attempt to summarize this post because, speaking of work, I have work to do:

• You have to have variety in your workouts--variety that makes you greater than the sum of your workout parts.
• Everyone should have a cool step like I have.  Cats love it.
• There is no way to keep the dogs out of my pictures, so everyone will just have to deal with that.

Tomorrow's workout:  3 mile easy run at 4 freaking AM.  Good thing large dog is an early riser, too.