Fall and My return

Happy Fall everyone! It's my favorite time of the year, fun fact. 

Well in theory it is.

If I didn't live in Atlanta I would get a real fall, instead of today's high being 80+ degrees. One of my favorite parts of fall is fall-styled beer. Oktoberfests and Pumpkin beers. Pumpkin being number 1. Today's pumpkin beer is by Heavy Seas.

 

Crafty beer!

It is, so far, very good. Actually much better than I anticipated. Not overwhelming pumpkin but can definitely taste the cinnamon/fall flavors desired.

Now away from beer.

Yes I still run. No not as often. I'm 6 weeks out of my sprained ankle and it's still giving me a lot of hate and discontent. It swells every night, especially when I'm on it a lot, and I've been having to ice it regularly. I originally thought this was just a 4-6 week recovery but it's looking to be a lot longer.  I still cannot even come close to wearing heels, the angle hurts, and it some days my ankle is tender to the touch. 

All bad news.

So tomorrow I have a DR appointment at 10am to get it looked at and hopefully get a referral for physical therapy.

I did run 4 miles twice last week and it wasn't too bad.  The after-swelling is pretty rough though.

So this explains, not excuses, my absence from the running world/my blog.  So I've been a little bitter, yes. 

I'll be around now though. Because the BF, seen here (yes with me, classy photo):

is finally on my ass about it. 

He says he has his eye on me...

See you guys around!

Bad Poster

Man, I am just AWFUL at keeping up sometimes. I vow this week I will stop posting only once a week.

Vow, promise, swear etc. 

I'm currently sitting at work, sipping my coffee, prepping for a long day in this office which I just opened at 8am. And I will be closing at 8pm.

Tricky right?

Anyway as I sip my coffee and peruse the running world websites I frequent I find myself wondering if sometimes, even though I fail to write on here, I peruse too much and don't do enough school work. 

Goodness, there, I said it. I'm preoccupied with my training. School is getting more and more difficult to focus on.  I'm stuck in this mode where I don't want to graduate, but I really want to graduate, so I'm at a standstill.  Kind of stuck in limbo honestly. I'm always/generally more than willing to get up and go for a run or go to the gym...but try and get me up early to do a lab? No thanks.  I like school, I really do, I'm just a little...well tired of it. 

Enough about that blah blah. 

My 5k last weekend was wonderful, I got a PR by 2 mins and was first in my age group! With a 26:47. Not the best time in the whole wide world, but I was very happy with it. I started off at a 9 min/mile pace because I was pacing someone else and then progressively got faster. It felt good, and smart, and like I could definitely run one faster.

Good news, I have that opportunity in a few weekends! Another free 5k! 

I'm very happy I'm an Atlanta Track Club member. 

I have a 7 mile run planned tomorrow and I am legitimately excited for it. The weather in Atlanta is supposed to be beautiful!

Look at THAT!

That's all for now. Later I will be posting everything I will be/want to order from the Brooks website.

I may-or-may-not have a very long list.

I need an overhall on my running apparel!

Oh hey the south IS warmer.

So yesterday I left Atlanta at 7am and made it here a little before 4pm.  SUB NINE HOURS. Thea and I should have totally gotten a ticket somewhere because that's just ridiculous.

My knees are a little achey from the drive, man saying that makes me feel old, but it's glorious to be home. I slept for 10 whole hours last night. Passed out at 9:30 and had my loving huge dogs wake me up at 7:30.  I have all my cold weather running gear laid out for a run today just haven't decided when. I think I should just go early/soon.  I'm waiting for the sun to finish coming up.  

I struggle with winter because I'm such a morning runner but it's so much colder in the morning!

Oh and so much colder when you travel 500+ miles north of your original running area.  It's 44 in atlanta, it's feels like 18 here in Arlington.  

EH??

Well I'm off to finish my coffee and don my running apparel so that I can bake with the family all this afternoon.  

Oh baking...this is going to certainly be a struggle of a holiday when it comes to sweets.

Lame

I am LAME.

I am lame for not writing about the past few weeks. They have been epic. 

I had a rough rough cold after that 7 miler two weeks ago. It held on from Thursday till the next Tuesday. I  missed my long run, and my Tuesday morning run. Got back into the gym for weights on Wednesday and then had a lovely, hot, humid, muggy, early 5+ mile run on the silver comet. Mmmm flat road. 

That week (last week) I had my goal set. I had missed a long run and I had one more weekend before I could sign up for the half with the 55$ price tag. 

I was scheduled via THE PLAN for 8 miles. But I wanted 9. I set it out. I mapped it on map my run and knew on Monday that's what I'd be running Saturday. I wanted it. I dreamed of it. I told everyone I could that I was going to do it so that I could really celebrate Halloween. So I had enough people that knew I was going to do it that I wouldn't back down.

Saturday morning I rolled out of bed, meaning popped up like it was my life plan, at 7am and was out the door by 7:30. I had most of a power bar and had a gel in my pocket and was READY. I think I literally said "ok i'm ready" out loud as I left my apartment complex.

I had some issues with my left shoulder cramping up really bad, and a sidestich on the same side but they went away after about ohhhh 4 miles or so.  I can't believe I can say that so nonchalantly. 4 miles. MEH no biggy!

I found out how tough North Avenue was, the hills are absurd, and managed to finish in 9.2 miles in 1:41:11. I think I almost cried when I got home I was THAT happy. I promptly officially signed up for the Half on Thanksgiving psyched to get a personalized bib!

It was glorious, and my legs didn't even feel that bad! They felt a little sore/heavy after halloween but I think that was from my heels/falling/being absurd.

Tuesday I turned around and ran 6 miles in the morning with sub 10 min/miles. GLORIOUS. Legs felt great, everything felt great actually. Tummy has been acting up but the mileage is doing it.

So then this morning, I get up, ready to do another 5 and it's raining. And cold. I mean really cold and rainy. I was not feeling it. So I skipped. I feel awful, but I just couldn't go out in the rain before the sun came up when it was cold out. It felt like running into my own horror movie. I was going to get snatched up by a chainsaw-trucker or something. So I went back to bed. 

And watched my 20 mile week go BYE BYE. unless I make it up tomorrow or Sunday.

Saturday however, is going to be it. It's going to be my first double digit run. It's going to happen and I can't WAIT. 

I actually might cry. 

Really. 

Day 2/3

Ok sorry I didn't post yesterday. School may or may not be killing me right now. 

Yesterday was day 2 of training and involved a light 3-4 mile run. I got up at 6 was out on the turf fields by 6:30 running laps. 

Who ever thought running laps was fun? Goodness gracious it's 3 laps to a mile. By lap 5 I was getting dizzy. Mind you these are big laps but still. Ridiculously boring. 

Anyway I'm not sure what pace I was at since my BF has lost his garmin watch charger....failure...but I think I was a little under 11 min/mile. Which is exactly where I'm ok sitting. I know now that to get up into those double digits I'm not going to be able to just run my little heart out at whatever pace I want. The 3 miles felt like nothing! The good news is the weather has gotten considerably better here in Atlanta. Especially in the morning. I actually had to pull out my running pseudo leggings and a sweater. It's amazing how little you sweat in the cold versus the heat. Until I stopped running, then I started pouring sweat out from every pore. 

Speaking of sweat, just to ramble about things I've learned since running.

                                                     

These (sock-ish-things stage Left)are the most amazing things EVER if your shins hurt (lightly). Once upon a time I tried to run and ignored my shins. This ignorance resulted in stress fractures and put me out of the game for 4 months. These are compression thingys. You can buy them with socks attached so that they're literally compression socks but I bought them to wear when I sleep to help my shins not feel so battered. I scoffed at the 40$ price tag but they were so worth it, especially when my shin splints were beginning to plague me again. Now I always wear them the night before runs.  Plus they're warm. Who doesn't want warm calves in the winter?

Back to the sweat. Stage right is my new (as of when I began running) deodorant. I may or may not sweat a lot. It's a problem. And not very cute, says the BF. He gave me this. It's men's deodorant. This was a conflict at first for me but DAMN does it work well. It is now my every-day deodorant. Seriously, if you sweat or stink like I do, this is for you. It's the best investment I've ever made. Those girly little deodorants don't hold a candle to this stuff.

Ramble done. Today is a weight lifting day. After a failed meeting this morning at the god-awful time of 5:45am I will be going later today. After I study system dynamics and heat transfer until my brain explodes. No worries, that won't take too long!

Tomorrow is a 4 mile run, I think I'll run to Piedmont park and back. Now that my feet and ankle are feeling much much better I'm willing to run some (aka a shit ton) of hills to get to the park. Hopefully my legs hold up.

This is me being lame and showing off my frogtown medal. 

I ended up 23rd overall in Women and 77th overall in men and women of 331 participants. Not too shabby eh? I also averaged an 11 min/mile, which for the amount of walking involved to get up the trail hills and get across the log crossings is pretty damn good in my opinion.

Off to study. Happy Running everyone!

It's totally the stars.

Weekend over, now to begin my finals week.

Er, Final week, just one.  It's just Fluids, no big. 

So in running news, Saturday morning I found myself in Ringgold Georgia and planned on running around Chickamunga (bless you?) Battlefield with the BF.  Alaram went off at 7...Not really sure what happened after that. I tried to wake him up and then I fell asleep and then I woke back up and tried to wake him up again...then I fell back asleep. 

Viscous cycle. Made me miss clocky.

Ok, only a tiny bit.  Clocky is the electronic devil.

We finally got out there around 10 and lucky for us it was overcast and not too hot.  Did a leisurely 4 miles around the park at a 9:50 pace ( I think).  Definately was a struggle for me however. Had some really bad cramps to deal with and really didn't think I had four miles in me but apparently I did.  My total for last week was at 17.35 by then.  

HOLY CRAP 17.35.  No wonder my feet hurt and my knees are starting to yell at me. Goodness gracious. 

Moving on from Saturday, it is now a NEW WEEK! And a new month.  Happy August! 

First off, I have found, and have purchased, the most amazing food contraption ever. Portable Peanut Butter. 

Heaven

I frequently struggle with trying to bring Peanut Butter and pretzels (or whatever else I feel like) to work or when I'm out all day in class.  The dilemma: If I bring the whole jar, it WILL be gone. I have a weakness for this stuff. My solution was to pack servings of PB in a little tupperware. This is just annoying in general but I do it.  And then I found these babies. These fine looking super awesome portable peanut butter packs.  God's gift to starving runners all across the world. 

Maybe just all across the US. But still.

I am one happy camper. I will be taking one of these to work today with my pretzel sticks.

  Second topic for today, my run this morning. 

Well lets just say it was...er...a run? The BF had a final at 8am this morning so I told him I'd get up at 6, wake him up, go for a run and get back in time for him to leave for his final.  Between snoozing and having to wake up, drink some powerade, eat a lil sommin sommin and stretch etc (and having to wrestle the hibernating grizzly bear out of my bed) I didn't leave the APT till about 6:40ish.  It is exceptionally UGLY here in Atlanta this morning. I stepped out to a gloomy, dark, very very humid, post rained city.  I could no longer see any sky scrapers.  It's not that it's super hot (maybe 75 degrees by now) but I felt like I was breathing water.  

To skip ahead of the story, I had wanted to run four miles this morning, but by the time I had hit 2 I was feeling a little like death warmed up. I decided to cut my 4 goal down to 3 (ugh) because not only did my feet hurt, but my left knee was bugging me, my shins were starting to hurt (oh dear) and overall I felt like crap.

Portable Peanut Butter = happy camper

Horrible run = not happy camper

Maybe the stars were aligned funny and that's why my run sucked. 

Right? 

Right.

I ended up running 3.3 miles with a 9:27 pace.  I'm pretty sure my first mile and half I was running 9 min/miles and honestly that is just way way way too fast to start a 4 mile run for me. Between that and last week being my longest running week ever I think my body is just angry at me. So now I'm recouping and hoping that I won't have to rest tomorrow.  My recoup tools this morning consist of coffee, cereal, IB Profin, and compression socks (that are kinda big for me). 

I <3 IB Profin

No worries everyone, I only took 4. Between that and the BF's compression-tube-thingies and a cup of coffee the size of my head, I'm doing better.  

Super Sexy. Please work.

Now I just have to go to work and sit for 6 hours. And study, or stare at keys all day.  We'll see how that works out.

Hopefully some recoup will allow me to run tomorrow and actually run the 4 miles I need to.

Now off to pack some snacks for work. 

You know what THAT means. 

PORTABLE PEANUT BUTTER

Oh yeah, just like the wind.

So my 4 mile run this morning (yes I did complete the 4 miles I assigned myself) felt like it was going to kill me. I woke up with a slight headache, I'll blame the excess food and 2 mojitos from dinner last night, and just a bad feeling of tired that I couldn't shake. Now mind you, no one is happy about 5am. NO ONE should be happy about 5am unless you're getting paid boatloads of cash for it. Instead, I am paying for it in calories and hours of sleep. Good to know I've gone crazy.

Anyway, got up, stretched a bit, drank some powerade and popped a few of those new sport jelly beans (they're awesome) and headed out with the goal of 4 miles. By the time I hit .5 I knew I was in for a painful run. My body just did not want it this morning. I also think I was going a bit too fast. My pace turned out to be 9:30 min/mile. Which I'm super pumped about considering that about 8 weeks ago 4 miles would have been at about 11+ min/mile pace (I also would have been dying and had to stop many times) but I should have eased off. My pride definitely got in the way of training.

I've been on cloud 9 and feeling invincible after last week I ran 16 miles total and was starting to crank out 3 miles at a time without really thinking. This morning I've already got my weekly tally (since Monday morning) up to 12.66. Since I've realized I can run 4 miles I don't really like running anything less, unfortunately I don't think my body agrees with my logic.

I'm currently in the process of bumping up my weekly training to 15 or more miles a week. Last week felt pretty easy, it was a breakthrough week for me actually. I'm starting to see I can do a lot more than I think I can. Now I just need to know when I can't do everything.

I hurt, I'm exhausted, and I ran out of coffee this morning. Needless to say I lack my usual runners high this morning.