NYC Marathon! Track workouts! Who needs AAA??

The good news of the day is that I seem to be the only person in the world to have snagged a NYC Marathon lottery spot. I consider this to be a stroke of amazing luck and am VERY excited to run another major Marathon in 2013. Yay! Yay. YAY!!!

 

In other news in between some of the worst Spring weather that we have had in years there have been some glorious days, although they have been few and far between.

My workouts have returned to a place of feeling mostly good, which doesn't mean that I go skipping out of the house in the morning singing a happy song about muddy miles (of crap, yes I do...)

Lots of kickass track miles. Some decent long (ish) runs! I'm feeling good and really excited to race at Quassy this weekend since my competitive opportunities have been few and far between lately.

 

OK. Before you all get bored and quit my blog here are some pictures of my best faces.

 

I totally did hurdles at the track. ALL the hurdles.

Giving anger fist to the track. I love the track so this was silly...
No really, I LOVE the track!!!
Seriously. I'm not joking.

Need a trailer tire changed? I'm your girl...

 As you can see I am a woman of many talents. Tire changing, yes. Hurdle jumping, yes (NO). Able to still run at a sub 7 pace, YES! Lottery luck, HELLS YES!

I'll be blogging with some actual purpose over the next few days as team Shut Up Legs prepares to travel to, and conquer the Rev3 Half at Quassy with great attitude, talent and style. Can't wait!

A Kickass Cycling Adventure!

I'm pleased to say that the past several days have been more acceptable in the workout department (and in normal everyday life. well, as normal as they can be around here!)

I had a couple of everyday- kinda- base- runs (my fav kind btw, 7-8 miles at 8:30 pace FTW!!) 

I also had a track workout which happened to be the first since November. I felt good and was happy with the numbers although looking back they were downright slow compared to what I was running this time last year. Like, way off pace! but now that I'm thinking back...

LET'S REFLECT shall we?: this time last year I was downright injured (from overdoing it) was still running 8x800's FAST (dumb) was still banging out 50+ mile weeks like it was NBD (dumb dumb) was racing almost weekly (dumby dumb) and was training for a marathon and to be crazy fast simultaneously. (oh gahd the humanity, wtf woman?!)

Ahem.

Suffice it to say, I may be slower but I am in zero pain. And have clearly grown as an athlete as well as a logical woman (I am eager for Eric to read that sentence as he may or may not agree...!)

Because I am on the brink of being a truly amazing multi sport athlete and therefore must declare my prowess on the mountains of the coast (yes they exist) I took my hot exclusive dating partner future hubs fiancee to Bah Hahbah for a 24 hour vacation.

When we vacation we cycle ALL the miles cos that's how we roll, bitches.

We started off the weekend right with TONS of pasta and champagne!

Looking out over Frenchman's Bay.
On a hella beautiful day, daaaaayum!
ACADIA I LERRRVE YEWWWWW!

Oh yes. We are a hot athletic couple!
By Thunder Hole. Many agreed that Thunder Hole is a TWSS.

I did get a little too excited when I walked by the MDI start!
I'm NOT wishing the summer away but I AM excited for October!

Anyway. We had a great time. It was a totally decent workout, obviously, as we cycled 28 something miles which is a lot for a lame-o like me. I mean a terrifying Bradley Wiggins type person, duh. If he married me and then changed his last name he'd be Bradley Bradley hahahaha. I kinda love him.

ANYWAY. This is about my vacation with my EDPFHF and not about my secret boy-biker-crushes (yeah, the abbreviation? try typing exclusive-dating-etc a few times and taking a shortcut seems fun!) It was a lovely day for a romantic bike ride up enormous hills and such. We stopped a couple times to take in the view, which was amazing as always but we kept up a pretty steady pace. No lounging, no slacking! We met up with a biker gang that I plan to join at a later date. Eric almost suffered an untimely death when a tour bus came very very close to running him down (crisis averted!) Many moments of excitement as you can plainly see.

Cycling doesn't kick me in the teeth quite like running but it sure makes me ravenous. Seriously,we got off the bikes and I was all "GIVE ME THE FOODS MUST EAT ALL THE THINGS!!!" which was terrifying to everyone within my general vicinity.

A really fun day though. Excited to go on more cycling adventures as the summer continues!   

Because sometimes you just need a day off. Or four.

The last couple of weeks have been a little strange.

 

After trying to recover from Boston, despite being VERY sick with the death plague that was going around my legs felt really great.

I zipped around the Duathlon feeling good and THEN. The following week I just hit the damn wall. I went 13 days without a rest day (this was obviously my own idiot fault, a couple sneaky nice day bike rides that might have been a little more challenging than scenic more or less pushed me over the edge.

 

Due to my chaotic schedule I also managed to have 2 "long" runs in 4 days. (long at this point is 11-13 miles. The kind of run that tricks me into thinking it is going to be cake then proceeds to kick me repeatedly in the face)

By last Thursday I was like EFFFFFF THIS NOISE FOOL!!!!! Did I mention that my equestrian coach is back, I have horses, kids and myself in full blown horse show training and have regularly been working 11-12 hour days????

 

Mini Me and I went to the horse show and rode fabulously.
Look at us! We can share outfits, it's ballin'!

I had a couple of optional workouts to do in the 3 days that I was competing/coaching and I passed on every single one. I was exhausted to the point when I start to feel grouchy and snappy, achy and pessimistic. This is totally not my norm but seriously dudes, it happens to the best of us.

Luckily, the show went very well. I can ride well no matter what my tired level is because it's my job to do so, and my occasionally rambunctious little equine really settled down for some quality arena time. And mini me kicked some booty in the JR division as well. Winning.

 

But then things got even more exciting.....

 

After a long show weekend we came home to a VERY sick dog...

After a very long night and a very long day, with many hours spent with the poor boy and his 104.9 fever and inability to walk we discovered that he was suffering from a bizarre autoimmune anemia (there were more words, lots of vet stuff but that was the take home message.) Luckily his prognosis sounds good, with some maintenance he should be healthy from here on out!

 

This 24 hour period of time did nothing to improve my mood and demeanor. Neither did it give me workout inspiration. (let's face it, even on an OFF day I have hours of manual labor. HOURS. I'm on my feet all day, I ride a half dozen freaking horses. Not restful.) I seriously considered sitting down, having a long sobbing cry and a mini meltdown.

Miraculously, just before this occurred Eric cleaned the whole house, did ALL the laundry and this act of extreme kindness restored order to my life. Sometimes that is all it takes! (actually it was a big deal, the house was a legit mess.)

So with a clean house, a healthy puppy and 4 days of "rest" I happily got back to my routine.

I hate reminders that I am not superwoman and honestly think it is bullshit that I am not, but every once and a while one just needs a couple days to get their act together!

Looking forward to a few fun things right now and am excited to have my mojo back.

 

Polarbear Duathlon madness!

I enjoyed reading everyone's guesses about my latest questionable decisions.

Some were pretty legit, a 50 miler? Why not!! (UGH) And while Tri's or Ironman races might seem legit it appears that my poor swimming skills have been forgotten. To add to that, *some* people like to think I'm being cute: "oh gosh, I can't swim, OMG WATCH ME KICK YOUR ASS!!!" But no, I honestly am a terrible swimmer and also do not plan to get better!

And Danielle. It is more likely at this point to find me Ironman training then deciding to produce playmates for Hank. My lady parts are beat up enough from biking, thoughts of birthing a child cause me to spasm in horror!

 

So what did I do? A DUATLON! And it was SO FUN!

 

 

The whole gang at the competitors meeting.
Which I stopped paying attention to when I discovered that I did not know all the rules.
UGH. That's the way I plan!
Luckily Eric knows the rules for this sort of thing and set me straight.

With 6 whopping days of biking under my belt I knew I would not be competitive. I took a look at the prior years results just to confirm and indeed, I certainly could have won the run if there was no silly biking involved. Gosh!

I was very hesitant to blow my load in the first two mile sprint as I had never, ever biked after a run and had NO idea what was going to happen. I knew what my run would be like post bike (awful) but also knew that people would be out riding me by 10 or more minutes. Not the kind of time that could me made up in a teeny run. So why bother hustling? (because that is what I do...)

Also.... I very distinctly remembered what happened to me at this time last year when I ran balls to the walls for no good reason. 5 months of various injuries followed and NO, no thank you. So conservative was the plan.

Look at my effing leg muscle. I am a beast!
This is the end of run one. Easy peasey.

I did the first run in 16:18 which was a reflection of my terror of running too fast and screwing myself on the bike. (um. that sounds wrong? whatever.) I had a tough time holding back as the frontrunners took off but I wasn't in it to win it so I moseyed on. (and hated it. but smart move for sure.)

I cruised thru T-1 in 31.8 seconds, remembered to buckle my helmet, mounted my bike after the mounting line and took off in a blaze of glory.

Yeah....

I'm not really a biker yet so it stands to reason that I was a little uneasy. The good triathletes blew by me like I was standing still which (of course) made me unreasonably unhappy. I got over it, remembering that there was no way I could win so I might as well enjoy the torture!

I made it thru the bike in 41:14 and wobbled my way thru T-2 in 31.7 seconds.

I then teetered out, laughing, to try to run on my shit show legs.

It was a sight to behold.

I wobbled along and more or less settled into a pokey rhythm after a half mile or so but my legs were kinda iffy. Not terrible but certainly not normal by any stretch. It was an enjoyable run although I was fairly certain at one point that I had become lost which was rather disconcerting. Luckily, I had not but gawking around looking for other runners/directional flags/something helpful did not help my "speed." Hah! (apparently the course was well marked with little orange flags but, not having listened to the pre race meeting I did not know this. however, I DO now know how to pass people legally on my bike so it's still a win?)

The BEST photo EVER!
I was happy to have made it.
Second run in a molasses slow 24:27 for a final time of 1:23:21

Typically Eric and I are the athletic power couple.
Too bad Coach Kelsey had to show up with her Hubs and ruin that for us!!! :-)
Eric smoked me. Jerk!

The best part about the race was seeing ALL the friends!!!
And eating donuts. Mmmmmmmm..

So overall I'm really proud of my newfound skills. I just wanted to finish alive and under 1:30 so I'm just winning all around. It wasn't a big pack of finishers (30 women) and I placed 9th which is not a disgrace although I was considerably off the lead pace (gosh I wonder why? out biked by 15 minutes that's why!!) I definitely want to do this again, it was so much fun and a nice change from the arduous marathon running that I enjoy so much.

It was the first time out for quite a few of my friends too, and they all did awesome! (and most of them are brave enough to swim, crazy!)

So there's the big news, I'm now an amazing multi sport athlete and as soon as darts replaces the swim I'll move on to Tri's as well!

April Recap!

I can NOT BELIEVE it is already MAY!!!

Time for an April recap, only a few days late this time!

Miles run: 118 Gotta love a zero week!

Hours of cross training- Hmmm. 10 I'd guess.  see next question... 

Number of disgusting colds caught- 2 This legit kept me out of Yoga for almost a month. Trying hard not to spread the germs... Really cut down on the cross training hours!

Number of times I puked on my shoes- ZERO! AGAIN!!!!!

Number of times I quit running- ZERO!!! first time ever for realz.

Number of teeny tiny xs girl bikes gifted to me by my exclusive dating fiance partner.
Hang on. What? Shit what should we call each other?!?!
Anyway! One. And I love her. Time to cross train like a BOSS!!

Number of races run: ONE and it was BOSTON so a BIGGIE.

 

Number of PR's: One, thankfully and fabulously

 

Number of BQ's: One, again thankfully. fingers crossed for 2014 as this is gonna be "the" race for sure.

 

Number of times I have reached mile 24 in a Marathon and idiotically thought "I think I want to kick some ass at GCI!!!" Um.... One. One time and never again I bet!!

What have I been doing since Boston?
Well. This.
I mean, we work and work out A LOT too.
But seriously, When you're with a fabulous sexy boy (or girl!) take time to sip champagne!
(this is my way of saying to stop and enjoy what you have right now kids. #sappy)

I leave this blog post today on a mysterious note.

Since I have had a couple of weeks to recover from high mileage and relax (somewhat) what kind of trouble do you think I'm going to get into next? Knowing me he way that most of you do it has become apparent that I have been making a lot of good choices lately and staying out of trouble! I'm not out setting PR's every week like last year (or overtraining like an idiot but whatever...) However, one can only live on good choices, order and decorum for so long before a questionable choice or two needs to me made.. Stay tuned!!