Middle Aged Runner.....

The big 4-0

2012-02-10T07:37:00.003-05:00

Looks like I'm going to have no problem cashing in on a 40 mile week. (all I need to do is run 3 miles today and cha-ching! it's in the bank...)

Officially, this will be my highest mileage week EV-AH. Since I have 5 planned for today- and a Saturday rest day it appears that 42 will be the grand total.

It was a LOT of legit hill work. (all my daily mile friends already know this- I've been wailing and moaning about the HILLS every day!) Everything has been done at about an 8:15-8:30 pace which is well within my confort zone.

After the 7:30 m/m 10 miler last Sunday I re-determined that speed like that is mose certainly NOT easy for me. Bottom line, if I want to become faster in the Half I'm going to have to dedicate some time to real speed work.... Which I do NOT enjoy... BLAH...

I feel good about the mileage that I accomplished this week. I'm a little tired!

A day when an unexpected race shatters records...

2012-02-06T08:27:00.006-05:00

The highlight of my week, hands down, no contest.
Being given a bib number to a very popular Maine race by a kind, generous fellow blogger/legendary runner who couldn't make it.
I also felt obligated to PR for her and was scared to death because she had kicked the course in the teeth recently in something insane like 1:19.... Scared I was...

And scared was the rest of the world, when they saw my sweet race day fashion.

Believe it or not, I was not the most garishly dressed runner there. I saw worse....

I was pretty pumped to run this race as it's been on my list of races to run for a year. Hard to get into though, in the manner of Beach To Beacon...

It's easy to get there, it was cold (ZERO) when I left my house but warm (TWENTY!!) at the start of the race. I was a little nervous- my hamstring was so bad just 7-10 days ago and I haven't been training as hard as I'd like. I can't breathe as well when it's cold... I was scared that it was going to be really windy. I was scared that I was going to finish last and have to get a ride with the sweep vehicle. I was scared that I was going to finish in 1:47:48 and disgrace my bib-donors name forever.

For such a self confident woman I sure do get the nerves before running. I am an asshat who needs to get her business together STAT as self doubt is an unattractive quality...

Anyway...

Once again at the start all I could see was a SEA of backs. I'm so short...

The race started and I ran (thank you captain obvs...) And it went a little something like this:

-"It's cold, and it's not 13 or 16 miles so I can start a teeny bit faster than normal"

-Oh shit, that clearly isn't working out for me.

-UGH! Why am I so slow! I hate running and am going to kick it in the face!

-this run is a bucket of assholes!

Then I ran past the 3 mile marker. (oddly the first one I noticed due, in part, to Ms. Negativity living in my head.) It read something INSANE like 21:22. I DIED. They had to come and scrape me off the road. THE END.

Only not really. This is what happened::

-"Jesus H! Slow down woman!"

-Well that explains the bucket of assholes...

I shattered my current 5K PR snagging a 22:27. Snap, if only I could do that at an actual 5K!

Then I kept running, with fewer pissed off thoughts.

I looked up again at the 6 mile mark and was DIED AGAIN: 45:40ish.

I killed my current 10K PR and managed a 46:31

At that point I started to get grumpy again. It was a fairly perskickety run for me to be truthful- because that it what happens when you are running as though the cops are chasing you....

-I was mad at the songs on my ipod....

-I got a stitch. then another stitch.

-I couldn't breathe happily and my nose was really runny and gross.

-My ponytail was really bouncy and aggrivating

-my number was going "crackle crackle"

HAHAHA. I was such a grumpus. It makes me laugh a lot now because I'm in a good mood.

When I ran past the 8 mile marker in exactly 1 hour I knew it was in the bag which was rather cheering and my mood improved somewhat. Good thing...

My final time was 1:15:11. Average pace of 7:30 which is so insane and fast for me that I'm still in moderate shock. No wonder I was sooooo pissed! No lie, I stood there by myself for a minute going "AHHH! OMG (cough, hack) SQUEEE! ZOMG (hack, spew.)" VERY excited.

I coughed up a lung for 10 minutes which was outrageously attractive.

I wrang out my sweaty headband, bringing sexy back once again.

I texted my results to people who care and then I swaggered all around

I saw people I knew

I had pizza

I did NOT throw up which is epic....

And THAT, my friends, is THAT!!!

Winning at Fashion

2012-02-04T15:51:00.002-05:00

What was good about this week? Have a look at this picture. Clearly Awesome..

What was bad about this week? OH MAN like, everything else. Booo fricking HOO I know.

OK, let's redirect.

What was good:
-Throwing those orange laces onto my purple shoes. Boom goes the dynamite.
-Hamstring 90% better.
-Ran outside. Love.
-I thought I was going to have to pay the Vet $400 for something and it was only $94. Winning.
-My friends
-Chocolate & PB Chip cookies. Shoot, hello lover...

What was bad:
Absolutely everything else!

But hey, it happens right? And explains my lack of internet time this week.
More good news is that I'm doing something exciting tomorrow, which is a bit sneaky (in a running kind of way...) and unexpected. Stay tumes for the dirty deets....

Wrapping up the "11 Things" Thing

2012-01-29T07:55:00.007-05:00

In the name of playing fair I'm wrapping up the "tag" I got a few days ago by telling all of you 11 random facts about myself.

Does it go without saying that most facts about me are random, period?

1: After talking about my favorite TV shows yesterday I realized just how much I miss Lost! Man, that was such a great show. Even Lame-ass season 2 was better than almost anything on TV now. (sighs with nostalgia...) Am I the only one who feels this way?

2: Up is one of my favorite movies of all time. I made a critical error in watching it almost immediately after my Granparents passed last year which led to me hiding out in the bathroom leaking huge, copious tears. Sad. However! If you don't get wrapped up in the sad it's such a terrific movie- especially if you have a couple of chronically foolish dogs.

3: I absolutely HATE the word that describes something that is "not dry", starts with an M and ends with a IST. EKKKKKK. I ALSO can not stand the word commonly used to describe ladies undergarments, which starts with a P and ends with an IES.
Heaven help you if you choose to combine those words. My ears will literally bleed hate.

4: I was in the shower last night and I noticed how absurdly large my hip flexors are. I was like "well, hellooooooo." There are not many parts of my bod that I look at and think "well isn't that just super sized" so I was amused by this. Thank you running, you have given me haaaaa-youuuge legs.

5: It's really hard for me to find skinny jeans that are little and skinny enough. This pissed me off because (as discussed) mah legs are freaking huuuuuge. WTF skinny jeans?

6: I don't like country music. But that song by The Band Perry- "If I Die Young" was in my head ALL Summer. It made my heart ache and gave me legit sad feelings. Just like that new Lady Antebellum song that is playing all over everywhere- Just a kiss- or whatever makes my heart all warm and fuzzy. which, in turn, makes me what to get a grip... Sappy old woman.

7: I am too small to give blood but plenty big enough to ride Space Mt at Disney. Thank heavens...

8: I hate baby showers and Bridal showers. Equally.

9: I really like waking up to nice weather. I know that "everybody" likes this but it makes me really happy. Simple things for simple minds?

10: You know when you're running and you have that moment (or series of miles) when you are convinced that you could just run forever? I like that. I like that a lot. Makes me kind of giddy just thinking about it...

11: If you can make me laugh it is likely that we will be friends. If you make me laugh and bring me cookies and/or beer you're in for life.

Uh. Oh. The 11 things GOT me.

2012-01-28T08:03:00.010-05:00

Awww shoot! I got tagged to do this "11 things" thing that has been sweeping the blogosphere like wildfire.
Thanks to:
Kristen @ Every day is Run Day!
And....
Danielle @ Ohh breathe, just breathe!

Thanks a bunch ladies. I feel like I'm sitting at the cool kids table now...

Apparently There are RULES
Well. I'm going to break these rules... This little 11 questions thing-a-majig has BLOWN up on the interwebs and I don't think I know a single person who has not been tagged...
However, I'm going to be a good sport and at least answer the quesitons.
(I still owe 11 random facts, will make good on that ASAP!)

Here are the Questions from Ms. Danielle-1: what is your favorite blog(s) to read and why?
-I think I had better say Danielle's. I'm scared of what might happen if I say otherwise...

2. if you are a runner/swimmer/biker/all 3... whens your next race?
-RUNNER only. Half At The Hamptons on Feb 19

3. coffee or tea?
-Coffee. Coffeecoffeecoffee. I NEED IT.

4. what is your favorite recipe? (write it in here so we can all have it!)
- I'm not lying when I tell you to look on the back of the toll house chocolate chips. You need look no further...

5. what tv show do you never miss?
- It used to be Lost (sigh, miss it..) Big fan of How I Met Your Mother (Ted, WHO is the mother of your children??) Guilty pleasure shows like Family Guy, It's always Sunny and Entourage (oh God. I'm not very intellectual, am I?) Classics like Seinfeld (can't help it.)

6. what is the best book you've ever read?
-Oh MAN. That's a HARD one. Harry Potter. Hunger Games. Angelology (thought this was going to be crap- it was awesome.) Prodigal Summer. Girl In translation. So, so many more..

7. peanut butter... discuss.
-A food group in and of itself. Critical. Good on many things. Love.

8. if you could eat one thing for the rest of your life for all meals what would it be? (i like food, can you tell?)
-Um. Cookies and PB? And pickles? And a steak?

9. what article of clothing do you own that you would be devistated if you lost or it somehow got thrown out?
-my lulu shorts that were absurdely pricey and are insanely hotttt. Chase THAT, boys!

10. what kind of cell phone do you have?
-iphone, love it.

11. are you going to the movie theater on march 23rd???
-YES WHO ISN'T?????

And here are my Questions from Ms Kristen:1) Favorite kind of Girl Scout Cookie?

2) Flats or heels?
-Well. I'm 5'2" WITH shoes on so heels if I want to see above elbow height. BUT flats if I want to be happy.

3) What guilty pleasure website do you visit nearly every day?
-Facebook. Daily mile. MAN I'd have more time if I NEVER visited those sights!

4) Ice cream or frozen yogurt?
-Honestly I'm "ehhhh" on both. I just get them and coat them in candy- so I'd rather stick to the straight up candy!

5) Three things you would do if you won one million dollars in the lottery?
-I'd pay off my mortgage. My OTHER mortgage. My CAR. My credit card. Then I'd have like, $30 bucks left and I'd buy y'all a beer...

6) What's one hobby you never thought you would get into?
-HAH, running! Go figure...

7) Would you rather have a job you dislike that makes you a lot of money or a job you love that pays next to nothing?
-I currently have a terrible paying job that I LOVE. I am not sure that I would suggest this route to the Youth Of America...

8) Trails or roads?
-roads. I fall on trails and break my face.

9) What is your favorite race distance? Or, if you haven't sampled too many, what is your dream race distance?
-I like HM the best, by far, hands down.

10) What was your favorite subject in school and why?
-English, because it was easy for me and I'm a geek. :-)

11) Favorite non-sweating activity?
-eating and drinking beer. thinking profound thoughts. reading. catching up with friends. ALL AT ONCE so that I don't sound like a cheater!

Race Report! 16 miles in Derry, NH

2012-01-25T08:12:00.004-05:00

Major delayed reaction on this race report from last Sunday.
I'm sad, I CAN NOT find my camera and a race report minus pics of me looking smokin' hot is like a fricking day without sunshine. Or oxygen.

I was nervous before this race. Like, really nervous.
I literally had to haul back and bitch slap myself into a better head space. (incorrect use of the word literally. but in my imagination it was oh-so real.)

By the time I had made the long treck to Derry I felt fine about things and was ready to run like normal people. If normal people were to run 16 miles over hill and dale that is...

It was COLD. Like, maybe 3 degrees at the start and I got that full-body seizure like shivering going on even though I headed for the start at the last possible second. Due to my late arrival at the start I was fairly well trapped up against what looked like a sea of backs and elbows (all I could see from my short vantage point...) I noticed that the road conditions were complete crap- lots of snow and slush, basically enough clear pavement to form a single file straight line on.

Y'all can imagine how the first few miles played out. Bumper to bumper traffic and no way around it. I made it thru the first mile in OVER 10:00 which filled me with horror, and fear that I would finish in 4:45:09. I managed to chill the heck out- mostly due to the fact that I feared that running like an idiot thru the slush for the first 5K would do nothing more than burn out my legs. I was spinning my tires like crazy as it was, very high output running for slow speed. SUCK-OH.

Around mile 4-ish the road opened up and cleared off. I was finally able to zone out into my happy running place and run normally for about 7 miles. I had warmed up, things felt good, I was congratulating myself for being fabulous in every way. Ahem.

I had been warned about the killer mile 11 hill and it was a bit of a monster. I had a little trouble breathing (thank you whooping cough for that chunk of scar tissue which impeded my wind on occasion. nice, really nice.) BUT I fought thru it and ran thru the HM split in 1:47 ish, not too shabby.

Sure, I could have done without those last 3 miles but it wasn't all bad! The crowd had really thinned out and for the first time all day I was able to avoid a constant flow of snot rockets, spit and other bodily fluids. Yuck. My feet hurt a little, and I was hungry. I had crammed a little bag of pretzles down my bra (handy place to carry things!) but couldn't be troubled to get them... I actually crammed quite a few things in with my boobs- pretzles, a few m&m's, cough drops, tissues- ALL this between my poor not-even A cup ta-tas! Go me! The poor girls got kinda scratched up from all that junk though so I may need to rethink this little arrangement?

Anwyay. I ran those last 3 miles like a boss because I was SO ready to be DONE. the left side of my head was all "NO problem rock star! Can't wait to do it again! Blah, blah, blahr-de-blahr..." The right side of my brain was more like "you are insane woman. and a jackass. get a normal hobby. you idiot." Conflicting emotions, per the norm.

My official time was 2:10:23. My GPS said that it was long- 16:2 miles, and that I ran it in 2:09:03 but whatever, it made no difference to me.

I did have fun (crazy old woman) It was long and hard (that's what SHE said) I could really feel the effects of the snow/slush covered road in my feel/ankles the next day but wasn't too terribly sore (thanks to my post race cwx tights frozen veg outfit, I'm sure!)

Little break now before hitting up the Half at the Hamptons in February... Phew!

In which I show you how to dress for success!

2012-01-21T14:38:00.004-05:00

It has been a hard week to stay at my fighting weight. Between the mileage, the snow shoveling and having a tiny nervous feeling about Sunday's race I was a bit off my food...
I tried to rectify this disaster by having a whole loaf of bread, freshly baked (NOT by me!) with beer and currants. Hot damn, if that wasn't fricking delicious!

It gets cold here sometimes and I work outside allllll day which is just fabulous when it is 10 degrees. So, I dress for success, as you can see in the picture below. Lookin' good, good lookin'!

I don't feel that the above photo does justice to what I have on. Here it is: hat, scarf, sexy socks. Three pairs of pants (three! for reeeelz!) thermal, fleece, vest. And a dirty pink coat which I put on post photo op. And no, I don't go commando in the barn but I'm not about to show y'all my knickers... Come on! Looks like I must carry around about 20 pounds of clothing!

Now that you are all jealous of me and my fan-tab-ulous outfits let's recap this week's running insanity.

I was trying to keep the mileage under control and was pretty successful. I WAS finding myself to be much more nervous about this 16 mile madness than I had anticipated. I pretty much had to haul back bitch slap myself in the face and get a grip. I mean, GAHD! What's the big deal here? I'm gonna be fine. What could happen?

My total mileage for the week was 20, all done in the confines of my basement on my new lovah, the dreadmill. GRRRR! Better than nothing fo' sho'!

So. By this time tomorrow I'll be all done with the madness and about to watch some serious football. I hope to finish feeling better than like SHIT and without falling down in the ice and snow, shattering my kneecaps and dreams!

Wish me luck friends, wish me luck....

I refuel with BEER, Thank you very much!

2012-01-18T15:41:00.003-05:00

I have been surprised lately, to see how many people in the blog-world have jumped onto the "Refuel with Chocolate Milk" bandwagon. (there must be some sweet perks.)

I am skeptical about this concept as dairy and I are not always the best of friends.

I am also suspicious of comments like this: "OMG!!! I just ran then REFUELED with CHOCOLATE MILK!!! Yeah right you did. Who wants a belly full of think, creamy, heavy dairy after running?

You got home and pounded a beer like normal people- admit it!!

Speaking of pounding a beer after a tedious run... I think I'm onto something here. I will talk the local brewery into sponsoring a legendary race team.

I feel that it is MUCH more desirable to fill up on a nice, logical IPA after sprinting over hill and dale (sweating an absurd amount- but looking oh-so-cool in the process...)

Hey Baxter Brewing! (love you) http://www.baxterbrewing.com/ (check em out.)

I'm sure that they would think it would be a great idea to start an "I just refueled with BAXTER!" campaign. I can really see this taking off (and PS: Poor Baxter. I don't work for them and they probably think this is a terrible idea. But I drink enough of their beer to know it is good for ya.)

Bottom line:
A: Runners enjoy beer
B: It is full of carbs and happiness, two things that runners need.
C: You could get atractive ladies to race in Baxter shirts. Good for business, right?
D: I can be the founding member. I am fun and know my beer like a BOSS and so clearly would be a tremendous asset to the team.

I feel like I'm posting a resume.

Really though, I think that it would be a much more honest way to go about things as I feel the choc milk schtick is getting old. 9 out of 10 adults would for SURE perfer beer over MILK after a hard workout anyway!

Just wait! This is going to be EPIC..

Smutfest Recap

2012-01-16T07:34:00.006-05:00

Bet you all thought I was still running since I'm so damn late with this recap! But no, I'm still here ready to fill you in on all the gory details paired up with some of the worst running pictures in history thanks to my Dad (who is usually quite a good photographer. We shall blame the camera, the odd light in the dome, or- more probably- the fact that I was so damn fast that the camera couldn't handle me. Yeah, that's it...)
Before we get into the wonderous world of photos here's the stark facts about this little sprint. I really loved running on the track- not gonna lie. The temp was perfect (although I was sweating like a pig. not that pigs can even sweat but STILL.) It was a novel concept to have no worries about potholes, ice, giant hills, 30 MPH winds, dinosaurs, rapists, 18 wheelers, rabid dogs- yeah- all those things that I try NOT to encounter. I ran at a pace that felt good and never got out of breath or pissed off. Usually there is a point in a Half when I'm just like "Dude... This feels like such a bucket of assholes..." and I never got to that point. And I did NOT throw up which was the highlight of the whole experience.
Anyway. On to the good stuff. Ahem.

We drove to Milford. It was 3 hours away, just like everything else in the world. My Dad decided to come which was good- we always have fun on roadtrips and have a lot of snacks. And my Dad pays for the tolls which is a perk. You can see a blurry little me in the above picture. I ran past my poor Dad 68 times (count em. sixty freaking EIGHT.) and I showboated every time. Are we surprised by this may I ask? Doubt it.... Oh, by the way? I'm not gonna apologize for my white pasty legs. Avert your eyes and remember that I live in Maine and do not tan.

It looks like I barely have any friends to run with but the truth is that it felt like a constant chase. Anddddd there is nothing I like better than the feeling of chasing down ill advised people who are slower than my sorry ass self. That dude in orange probably was up about 20 laps on me but we can pretend for a minute that I was about to soundly beat him. This, I believe, is in the last 10 laps when the FAST boys had gotten the hell off the track and it was just me, the slower dudes and the chicks.

Why am I fist pumping? Actually, the question is WHY am I running in the outside lane when there is NOBODY else around? DUH. SIGH. Hope I didn't do that too many other times like a big dumb dummy. But HEY- I was showing a little Jersey Shore style love to the finish because I was about to WIN!

OK. I can hear you all say "Yeah Right" but NO REALLY. I really did win. I know.... Gatorade called me IMMEDIATELY and offered to sponsor my fabulous self and insure my ghostly white legs. My fame has spread throughout the world like a highly contagious disease.

I won beer. I'd like to say.... A win is a win is a win. (and a PR is a PR is a PR.) In no way am I having delusions of grandeur here people, my time is NOT the kind of time that would hold up for better than one millionth place at a bigger race- but bottom line- I was the fastest girl out there on that day and that's that! 1:45:32. Best time for me by 8 whopping seconds (no hills!) I need to shave about 20 minutes off of that to run with the rest of y'all but (as they say in the sticks) IT AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN!

I do not lie when I say that the best part of the day was feeling quite well after the fact and not hurling on anyone or anything... Good times, good times. Oh. It was also nice winning beer. Have I ever mentioned that I like beer?

And now! Counting down to the VERY hilly and VERY cold 16 miler on Sunday. I'm not scared (yes I am...)

OH! A little PS: People have asked if it was boring and laborious running around the track and no, it was most certainly not. The time flew by, and since it was almost impossible to know what lap you were on all the time it wasn't like "oh there's mile one" then 40 hours later "there's mile two." It was shockingly easy, fast, and entertaining- who would have thought!

Countdown to Smutfest 2012

2012-01-13T08:11:00.003-05:00

I continue to refer to tomorrows race as The Smutfest. I imagine that will earn me some interesting blog hits/google searches. Enjoy, creepers, enjoy!

Off I go tomorrow to run the 4PM heat of the Smutfest Indoor Half. Sounds intense, no? Should be an interesting time.

Did I manage to complete my Training Plan?
-YES. HELLS TO THE YES. YES! yes. YESSSSSS! First time EVER! I KICKASSSSS!

Did I have a Taper Tantrum? Phantom pains? Imaginary illness? (3 part answer)
-Ummmm. Not too badly to be honest. Better than last year.
-No phantom pains. A real pain when I hurt my hip on Monday (see more below)
-My throat felt crappy last weekend but I am suspicious that had something to do with the 7 mile tempo run in VERY cold weather. Death on Mt Everest, yo.

Am I freaking out?
-Nah
-Unless you mean this: OMG! It might snow! I might not be able to get thurrrrr! It is going to be 59 degrees in that dome! I am going to die of heat stroke! My legs are so pale and hairy and I am gonna have to rock the short shorts! I am going to get so bored of track running! I am going to get LAST! AKKKK!
-So as you can see, no freak out happening here AT ALL.

What is my plan for this race?
This is a tricky one. I consider myself to be in the best running shape that I have ever been in. Come on over, challenge me to a race and I'll take you down (no. I won't... unless you are geriatric or only have one leg.) (I digress) On the 22nd I have a 16 mile race which is the most absurd thing I have ever signed up for in my life. I might have to find that sweep vehicle... BUT! With that in mind I do NOT feel that I can push the pace at ALL. I would like to finish in less than 2 hours and MORE than 1:50:00. I think that 1:55:00 would leave me with fresh legs for next week and the ability to drive myself home safely (and will emable me to hit the LAZY button- yay!)

What did you do to your hip, you idiot?
I developed a side stitch due to the fact that I had eaten almost an entire package of TJ's Gummy Tummy Penguins (not so good for MY tummy!) I lifted up my arm in a vain attempt to quell the pain and POP my hip tweaked. OUCH. 4 miles from the finish, I considered calling for a ride but decided to suck it up. Lots of ice, a quick massage, more ice and 24 hours later I could tell that all would be well.

Anyway. With 24 hours to go I am as ready as I can be and plan to rock the crap out of this insane indoor half. Good times people, good times...

What happened LAST week??

2012-01-10T08:04:00.004-05:00

LAST week's PLAN!
How did it go?
One again- very freaking well thank you very much.
(logically, so many weeks of good running prompted me to start the countdown to wheels-fall-off-bus as I crash-and-burnnnnn...)

Sunday: The remarkably icy 12.1 miler. at an 8:29 pace which is just madness and insanity. One of those runs where I was like "I'm an olympian! I am ahmaaaaahhhhzing!" and all that bogus nonsence that evaporates when I watch Desiree Davila knock out a few 3 minute miles like it is nothing. (that woman is a demon but my money is still on Shalane, I'm a big fan.)

Monday- 6.2 recovery miles. A very good idea as this was the fastest "recovery" that I've ever had from a long run.

Tuesday- Ummm. 4 miles on the treadmill? I think so.

Wednesday- It was 18 degrees out which is cold. I ran 7 tempo miles shooting for an 8:10 pace and snagged an 8:03. Had a very slow first mile but that was the only mile that sucked the life out of me. Had some very, very fast miles (in that 7:30 range) up over hills and into a fierce and frigid headwind.

Thursday- Pretty sure I eeeeked out 4 on the treadmill on legs that had just about had enough fun for the week.

Final result- 33.3 miles. For some reason I think I have screwed this up and that I did one mile more but (as is very apparent) I can't completely remember what I did.

Stay tuned to see those infamous wheels fall off my infamous bus!

Round Two of WIN! FAIL! 2011

2012-01-08T12:24:00.002-05:00

When being attacked with a large camera some people pose and try to look sultry. This is how I look (awesome. obvi!) This is also how I look when contemplating how I WIN! FAIL! at life.. Henceforth, this photo is going to get us started today with round two.
Let's talk about shoes. I have two pairs of Mizunos (I did indeed have problems with one shoe out of the 4, I attacked it with some kitchen scissors and BOOM that did the trick.) Anyway. I saw these hot red Mizunos and HAD. TO. HAVE. THEM. I mean, LOOK at them!! To make a long story short I hated them more that I have ever hated any other pair of shoes- including Kinvaras (which I abhore) so I sent them back. VERY SAD!!! WIN: shoes were freaking gorgeous. FAIL: They sucked.

These are the Mizunos that I love, love, love. WIN: I have one pair with over 800 miles that is still going strong. FAIL: You can't find this exact model anymore. even if you could I have it in my head to get pink shoes next. (winning!)

5K races. FAIL: PRing. It wasn't going to happen this year and it really pissed me off. My best time was 23:14 and my worst (well, we won't speak of that...) WIN? I bitch slapped myself and got a whole new attitude. Why do something that is your "hobby" and freaking hate it? After that revalation I ran a few fall 5K's and really enjoyed myself. Sometimes you just need to kick yourself in the britches. (one of the reasons that I was HATING 5K's- look at how alone I am in this picture? How is THAT fun? It is NOT because I'm winning. FAIL!!)

Half Marathon Madness. A definate example of Win/Failing.

Half #1: FAILED at completing a full training cycle. WON because I still did it and finished pretty fast (around 1:48 if I remember correctly) FAIL: Becasue at mile 6 I started hurting in my left groin/hip flexor and basically hobbled the second half. WIN: I finished.

Half #2: FAILED at competing a full training cycle AGAIN. WIN: A solid PR (1:45 and change I think...) FAILFAIL: Started to feel sick at mile 6, felt sick for the rest of the race and for hours after. WIN: realized that I just can't eat and run at the same time... FAIL: Was massively burned out post race and pretty much OVER it. Win: Legs felt fine this time.

Half #3: WIN: It was a helluva great time. FAIL!!! Ummmm. How to say this? I "tapered" for 5 months, went into the race with 7 miles being my longest run (in 5 months) snagged a SOLID PW- around 2:05 was my time, I was SICK (with a cold not belly issues, thank heavens!) Oh and FAIL: THE WEATHER! But also WIN- the weather was so bad that it was truly funny. WIN: I really had fun, go figure. That confirms that I am a nut case times 1,000. FAIL: BIG foot injury the next day- probably due to running 13.1 miles on weakass feet?

This picture gives thanks to my favorite post long run recovery beverage, BEER. YUM! WIN!

2011 WIN/FAIL Part One

2012-01-07T07:41:00.005-05:00

This (2011) was the year of many great things. Unlike 2010, which I couldn't WAIT to see go I have many fond feelings about 2011.
The odd thing was that in many of my running conquests I felt that I was walking the tedious and fine line between winning at life and accomplishing an epic fail!
Was I worried about this? Hells to the NO.
Did I think it was odd and worth a blog commentary? Well, clearly....
This will be a multi part series but let's get started, shall we?

My Fashion: WIN because I have yet to be run over on the road or raped by nameless strangers in a windowless van. FAIL because unless you're blind you can't help but notice how truly heinous most of my outfits are.

Running with friends. WIN because it's WAY more fun to hang with a bud both before and after a race. FAIL because inevitable somebody is going to wish to go faster or slower, it is easy to loose people in a crowd and that causes mental anguish and frustration.

Overall though, I'd say my foray into the world of running with friends still ends up with a clear WIN because it added a different element to the race experience.

Summer Running: Win: Ummmm. FAIL: Because I rarely do it, a 9 mile week is "high" mileage, I hate the humidity, the bugs, the traffic, the sweat; I run gadgetless and trick myself into thinking I'm running a 7 minute mile which is actually a 27 minute mile, it is impossible to stay hydrated if you plan to run longer than 0.3 miles (and the list goes on and on.) Win: Oddly, some of my better 5K times come on those well rested summer legs.

Winter running: WIN: I prefer the frigid temps, I have more time, I get to wear awesome rocking socks, I actually CAN run faster since it is not 99% humid, I scamper off to run races that last 48 hours, It is fully possible to stay hydrated most of the time, arm socks are the fashion statement that we have all been wishing for! FAIL: Well, see all of the above. Plus the fact that if it snows on race day I'm out $50 and that sucks!

Join me tomorrow for episode TWO of Win/Fail and see what I have to say about Half Marathons, 5K races, PR vs PW, shoes and fabulocity in general!

Daily mile madness. Countdown to 16 miler madness.

2012-01-03T09:51:00.004-05:00

Oh man..... I have jumped on the Daily Mile bandwagon 1,324 years late.
Please friend me! Kinda lonely out there right now...
My Daily Mile

So. Last week's PLAN called for not much of anything and that's exactly what happened. I had 10 cousins up to visit for the better part of the week, some VERY icky weather and (to be honest) I knew that at this point in my training cycle a light week would be awesome-o.

Sunday- 3 crappy treadmill miles. The Dreadmill and I have not yet become pals...

Monday- 8.1 miles at 8:41. The road was all covered with snow so that wasn't easy but it was fun.

ANNNNNNNNND... Saturday! 4 Dreadmill miles which were not bad at all due to True Blood Season 3 Episode 1. Thank you very much....

So far this week I have pounded out 12.1 at an 8:30 pace. MUCH faster than I had planned on going but my legs were in GREAT shape thanks to lazy week so it was excellent. The road was SUPER icy, it was warm (41... so odd!) I did hills, dirt roads, you name it it was there to kick my ass. At mile 8 there was a car accident (nobody was hurt, thank heavens) but I stopped for a few to chat up my hay guy who was all firemanned out on the fricking street corner. Gotta love my town and my friends! It was a touch hard to get back into the swing of things but I did. (I had been running at an 8:20 pace- so as you can see I slowed down.) Regardless. I was glad to not suffer any bodily harm on this run and except for the last mile which was intensely zombie like I felt just fine.

Yesterday, knowing that we were about to head into some crap cold weather I snuck out for a 6.2 mile recovery run at the arduous recovery pace of 9:13. I had planned on 9:30-9:45 so, as you can see, I clearly rocked this out. URGH!!

Next week I start a semi-taper leading up to my indoor half on the 14th. Looking forward to booking it around a track 66 times! No idea how that's going to work out for me but my goal is to NOT. PUSH. IT!!!! I have a week to recover after that before I hit the hills of NH for a brutal 16 miler. Again, not so sure how that is going to work out but what could happen? It will be fine and a solid adventure.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-02T10:18:00.002-05:00

Last week was light on running heavy on fun. I think 16 miles was the grand total but I'll check up on that later for my official weekly PLAN update!
My cousins came to visit and they are awesome. It runs in the family.

We went snowtubing because that's what adults do!

Can you tell that we are related? That's my cousin, the pirate.

Ringing in the New Year, pirate style with my sister. Yes, we must be related too!

How did The Plan go this week?

2011-12-25T13:04:00.003-05:00

Hey, Hey! Merry christmas!
We all enjoy the quiet life around here on the biggest Holiday of them all (not so much here!) so just a quick update to review the week. No heinous pics today, sorry...

Overall this week was VERY good. I fear that means I'm in for a doozy next week in which everything sucks. Not so this week though- with the exception of the treadmill runs which I'm still having a hard time getting into, things were good.

Sunday- 3 miles, treadmill not terribly fast or fun...

Monday- 11 miles outside, at some really decent pace like 8:37 or 8:43 or some such not so shitty number. Rolling hills, upper 20's for temps (perfect.)

Tuesday- Rest

Wednesday- Legs felt like ass. Put them on the treadmill for 3.2 miles- that felt like 300- and they were better after that. This was the only icky run of the week.

Thursday- 6 miles, tempo. I still felt like the legs were a touch rough from earlier in the week so I figured that an 8:30 pace was optimistic... I missed it for the first mile coming in at 8:59 but really kicked it up after that and finished with an average pace of 8:03. This was a different and more challenging route than my last tempo run with an uphill finish (about 3/4 mile of uphill climbing- ugh...) I was very pleased with this.

Friday- 3 stupid treadmill miles

Saturday- 6.2, outside planning to take it as easy as I felt like. No pressure. finished with an average pace of 8:18 which I was pretty surprised about. This was kind of an "extra" run as it wasn't on the list of things to do... but it was fun!

Total: 32.4 miles? Really? Wow! for me that's a helluva week!
And short lives- this week is scheduled to be under 20 miles for the first time in a while...

Holiday Fashion Fabulocity!

2011-12-24T07:32:00.003-05:00

Merry Christmas Eve friends! To welcome in this festive magical time of madness I will sing more of my chosen Christmas Carol of 2011 to ya. Better known to you as the deeply sarcastic (from my perspective) "Sexy and I know it..."
The theme of today is soooo obvious.

"I've got PASSION in my pants and I ain't afraid to show it. show it. show it. "

Actually this is a bag of frozen veg post 6 mile tempo run, the hip is sore.

But really people, passion? Frozen peas and corn? No difference....

And the socks of today. "HO HO HO LIKE YOUR MOTHER" said I, wisely.

If you know of anyone more awesome that I, please feel free to point me in their direction to say hello. Once again, I feel that there is no real question of my fabulocity- especially in the fashion department! I'm sexy and I KNOW IT... YEAH.

What I see on a long run.

2011-12-23T07:00:00.002-05:00

Ran my way thru 11 miles this past Monday- cold, but beautiful weather. Had planned to run 10 but ended up needing to do 11. I'm definately not the cute type of person who is all "I just ran 30 miles by accident!" The bottom line was that I still had a mile to run in order to get to where I had started (bad mapping on my part) so I ran. Managed to average an 8:37 pace which is rather remarkable, and I didn't feel like I was pushing the pace. I was, however, a tad sore the next afternoon....
Anyway, on to what I saw!

What is this doing in a random field?

Hmmm. Muddy trail...

Ahhh, it's a ski trail How's THAT working out for ya?

Our local ski bump.

And Mt. Washington. IT has snow but WE do NOT!!

THE HILL.

2011-12-22T08:18:00.001-05:00

There is this hill in my town which is such a monster that it is even a pain in the butt to drive up. I can barely manage more than a shuffle when I run up it (I avoid it. It is avoidable and really, is just ridiculous.)

I have been curious about what kind of incline this hill provides as it seems FAR and beyond the acceptable norm. I finally have an answer.

TWENTY PERCENT.

Put THAT in your pipe and smoke it!

I work outtttttt.....

2011-12-19T08:30:00.003-05:00

We went to a wedding this weekend. Both of us look creepy in this picture but it is the best one that I could find. EGADS. The wedding itself was beautiful and fun, Christmasey and tasteful.

We, however are not so Christmassssey and tasteful. While waiting for the valet to bring our car to us in the freezing cold my sister, BIL and I broke into song. We are really good at singing, so this was like our version of wassailing. (or, wailing. but who is paying attention?)

Us: in perfect 3 part harmony:
"ahhhh, look at that body... AHHHH! look at that body, ahhhhhhhh look at that body... UNGH!"
"I WORK OUT!!!!!"

We continued on. Much to the horror of the world at large. We can't figure out if that song is horrible because it is genuinely awful or if perhaps, LMFAO is attempting irony? A question for the ages there, my friends.

Anyway: I DO work ouuuut. "HEYYYY" Umm, yeah.
Sunday- 3.1 miles, race
Monday- 8 Miles- outside (I think my average pace was 8:45, faster than I set our for and amazing because I wasn't feeling all that great.)
Tuesday- Off
Wednesday- 3x1 mile repeats. My least favorite work out, I tried to trick myself into enjoying this torture but it was no fun. Since I still SUCK bigtime on the treadmill I was shooting for 8:45, 8:20, 8:00 and think it ended up being 8:37, 7:59, 7:50. IT WAS ROUGH.
Thursday- 3 miles
Friday- Was supposed to be 5 but was 4. Oh well!
TOTAL- 23.1 miles

THE PLAN... OH- Twelve Style.

2011-12-16T08:24:00.004-05:00

Remember THE PLAN from last year? the pesky little sub-two Runner's World PLAN that became, for a time, a second husband to me? A judgemental second husband, with a secret agenda- one that involved causing me pain, mental strife and taper tantrums of the highest quality. A PLAN which I tried to follow to a tee- but did not complete a whole cycle of for either Half that I ran due to some injuries sustained from snow shoveling and perhaps slight overtraining.

One thing I have learned in the past year. Make that two, actually.
ONE!!! You don't have to be married to your plan in order to complete a Half. Flexibility is key. I was SO burned out in April that I was doubtful that I would ever be interested in running serious mileage again (and look at where I am now- blissfully forgetful of those troubled times... must be like childbirth? who knows.)
TWO! You're gonna hurt. You'll get so used to walking with a hitch, and to be unable to decend stairs in a ladylife fashion that it will become second nature.

Looking towards my Half on January 14th and my SIXTEEN MILER the following week I constructed a PLAN for my own self. I based this plan on the wish to develop strength, mental fortitude, avoid burnout and the hope to be able to complete the whole cycle. Here's to hoping! Also, I was able to construct this plan with an eye on my busy schedule, the Holidays, and there is room for flexibility for things like weather as I hope to get the majority of my long runs done outside. (again: here's to hoping!)

LAST WEEKS PLAN! DONE AND DONE!
Monday- 8 miles, 6 outside 2 on Treadmill (got DARK!)
Tuesday- off
Wednesday- 4 Miles, Treadmill (still getting used to treadmill- I SUCK running on it after taking 10 months off from it. I am a MUCH better road runner!)
Thursday- 3 Miles Dreadmilllll.
Friday- 6.2 Miles Tempo- was shooting for an 8:30 pace and snagged an 8:10- I was VERY impressed with myself especially as the route had some good looking hills!
TOTAL: 24.2 miles

Epic Christmas Present!

2011-12-14T15:11:00.004-05:00

I mentioned a while back that an early Christmas gift had put me into some serious holiday cheer. (then my camera batteries dies, life got in the way, blah blah.)
So what was so exciting?
My parents, bless their little parental hearts are known for their fits of christmas generosity. Sometimes this christmas generosity shows up several times a year. Half heartedly, my sister and I encourage them to stop spoiling us but we in no way shape or form actually mean it.
(more on why we are not spoiled on a later date. My mom would be horribly offended if she was accused of raising spoiled brats, even if we are in our 30's now.)
AHEM. On to business.

What is THIS? A wall of BEER? Did my parents give us a WALL OF BEER?

No. But that would have been cool to the M-A-X.

Sadly, these are all empty. I collect bottles cos I am cool? Yeah..

Looking on the OTHER side of "The Wall Of Beer"..... What have we here?

Did my parents give us a treadmill AND a TV???

No they did not. Hmmmmmmm?

Another angle just to admire the view and my training schedule stuck to the slab of tacky-tack board. So what WAS this EPIC gift?

THE WHOLE ROOM! This space was created out of what was previously a dumping ground for much assorted shit in my basement. After we requested a "work out space" my Dad jumped right on it and had the walls built and insulated, all the electric done and springy excercise mats fitted- and was DONE in less than 4 days. The man is out of control! (and should be contacted for your building needs, clearly...)

The TV I bought on sale on Cyber monday. The treadmill was my Grandfathers and I know that he would have gotten a kick out of seeing his treadmill getting serious workouts! We have a little more tinkering around to do down there, and some decorating (using obvious things like my race numbers, finishers medals, picture of myself, etc...) However, it is certainly done enough to use and enjoy now that the weather is getting ooogly.
BEST. GIFT. EVER!

Last Race of 2011!

2011-12-13T07:55:00.004-05:00

Wrapping up the year (and 11 in '11- DONE!) at the Brewers Dash in Portland on Sunday.
It was a beautiful freaking day, and the nice sunshine made up for the fact that it was about twenty below... Or 32 above but really, no difference there...

I got to run this little dash with (one of) The Huz's best friends. This was his FIRST 5K and he was nervous enough to seriously consider hitting the vommmmm button. But he did not..

There is no denying that I am scarier than he is. As it turns out I am scarier than almost anyone! It would have been nice to get some pics of the waterfront- which was super pretty- but it was too damn cold and we kinda waited until the last minute to head outside. Our epic coaching squad of The Huz, and BFF's Wife and Mom were ready to dash back to the bar before we even lined up to start.. Wimps!

I was rocking some mad sexy socks for this race. Oh Snap is right, suckahs... Actually I'd say my whole outfit scored pretty high on the anti-rape meter. Too bad that the BFF didn't take a page from my bright color book- at the turnaround I lost him- perhaps it was the complete clusterfudge of people but suddenly he was nowhere to be found... We stuck together pretty well, elbow to elbow crowds and all for the first mile (in 9:00) and thru the next .5. I thought he had managed to get in front of me so I sprinted ahead to catch up and found that it was another dude in non-descript clothing. There was no finding him then... So off I went!

Here we are after our big finish! BFF managed a LEGIT PR in 27:55 (awesome!) and I snuck in at 24:47- dudes- I ran the last mile in 7:07. WHAT??!!! Shitttttt.... That's what I'm sayin..

We drank a beer and it was really good. Then we went out and ate sausages and THEY were really good. We wrapped things up by snagging a gellato- it is NEVER too cold for ice cream products!

Then we all went home. THE END!

2012 Legendary Race Schedule

2011-12-08T07:33:00.004-05:00

2012 is lurking right around the corner. Since winter is the time that (if I so choose) I actually have time to run and/or train to race better than badly I have formulated a plan. Of sorts. Subject to change.

Here is a casual list of what I have lined up for the near future. Races in "bold" are races that I have either signed up for or will be shortly.
And FYI- my thought process when a little something like this (prepare to be scared or confused.)
"I want to do 12 races in '12 as that is very catchy. I'd like to run 4 half marathons, and for at least one of them to be a new one. I'd like to try something that I never have done before. I'd like a challenge that pushes me out of my comfort zone but do not wish to marathon because I might die. I must keep in mind that by June 1st my real training season will be OVER so anything during the summer will be casual- per the summer norm. I must also keep in mind that last year I did not race in May, June, and September so if I plan to uphold the same schedule I need to race extra in the cold months to make it to the BIG 12 Also... I need to remember that as of right now my Fall schedule is VERY much up in the air and I can't count on getting much done then. We'll see!!!"

December 11- 5K with a friend to wrap up the year. Clearly, this does not count for the Oh-Twelve season.

ONWARD TO 2012!!!

January 14th- Half Marathon Palooza of pure magic in the bizzaro land of an INDOOR Track in NH. No lie here, I am going to run 66 times aroundandaroundandaroundandaround this track with a bunch of my new best friends. This definitely qualifies as both something I have not done before and something that I am not 100% comfortable with. Looking forward to it though as I think it will be a hoot. No bit time goal for this one as (as it turns out) it will be my last long run before....

January 22- 16 miler, "Boston Prep" race in Derry NH. Looks like a real beast of a course, in the DEAD of winter, at an ODD number of miles. 16 miles ABSO-FRICKIN-LUTELY pushes me out of my comfort zone but i think I can handle it. Goal for this race: Be able to GET there- meaning NO bad weather. AND to FINISH...

Feb 19th- Half At The Hamptons, Hampton NH. Did this race last year and despite the fact that it was 17 degrees with a 20 MPH wind I loved it. Great race, beautiful course, fun times. I hope to have no issue getting under the finish in less than 2 hours here...

March 18th- (I need help deciding!!)
EITHER
Half Of Quincy (Quincy Mass)
New Bedford Half (New Bedford Mass)
Any thoughts?

April 7th- Race The Runways Half, Brunswick ME. Run 13.1 miles around a big old airport? YES... I see no reason that I should not be able to sneak in under 2 hours here as well. This is ANOTHER new race to me which I am very excited about!

Here marks the end of my super fun, ultra challenging, and VERY COLD winter race schedule. For may and June I currently have NOTHING in the book as there is little to choose from at this point (and my Equine Competitive season is in full swing thru those months.)

July (all tentative, but I almost always run these...)
4th- 4 on the 4th, Bridgton ME: Two choices here, PR like a boss or run with the kids and PW like a fool.

11th- Harrison 5K- usually 100 degrees but is 7 minutes away from my house and is right next to a bar. Yessssss.

21st- Lovell Old Home Days 5K- Always has the worlds WORST race tee but they have really good donuts post race..

August- Beach 2 Beacon (if I get in.)

October- Maine Half Marathon- Kickass..... Loved this race despite the shittastic weather.

Mid October my town always has a cute 5K that I enjoy.

Apparently in November there is going to be a Half literally NEXT DOOR (well, next town over) to where I live. Barring unforseen events I fully plan to do this.

Also in November I can scoot over to Lovell for a Gasping gobbler.
I hope to run the Portland 4 miler on Thanksgiving as it is not my year to cook!

Anywhoo. That should get me my 12 in 12 although as I mentioned the Fall schedule is out of my control at this point with MANY variables.
Feel free to leave some feedback, suggestions and let me know if any of y'all will be racing theses races. We can meet up for a donut....

In which we learn that I now suck less than 5 weeks ago.

2011-12-05T08:03:00.003-05:00

Check back tomorrow for the "What I am excited about" news. I'm really stringing this along, aren't I. (actually, I feel that I need photographic extras for this story and not only is my camera dead but I ran out of batteries.. )

Let's talk about how I suck less than I did back in October. I seems doubtful that I am going to make the 2012 Olympic team for either the Marathon OR the 100 Meter dash, much to my shock, but things are improving regardless.
Which brings up (again) the title of that book I'm going to write:
"How to improve at anything: Work at it you idiot!"

I do appriciate the kick in the britches that scampering around with my brutally honest GPS/Nike iphone app gave me. No longer could I lie to myself and believe that my 9:48 mile was closer to 6:34 (ha. HA. ha.) No longer could I trick my simple little mind into thinking that a 3.7 mile run was 4.0 miles. Alas, the days of being half assed were behind me and it was time to face the music.

Clearly, I do not head out into the mountains of my little town daily to beat the clock. There are days when I run fast (er than some) and days when I just don't (most days, as a rule.) Regardless of my lazy desires the numbers don't lie. I have not had ANY miles that start with the number "9" for a few weeks now. My average 5 mile run is done between an 8:03 pace and an 8:35 pace. (over hills and all kinds of absurd terrain.) This is good. I banged out a 7:30 mile the other day without even trying. don't ask me HOW that happened other than I was rather focused on getting the hell home, taking off my shoes and drinking a beer. (this is motivation at its finest!)

Anyway. Fleet footed gazelle like being I am not. More fit and happy to be held accountable middle aged woman I am!

In which I make yet another return from no-blog-land...

2011-12-04T08:18:00.002-05:00

Yeah, yeah. I know. Weeks have gone by.

BUT!

Now I have things to talk about that are more exciting than "what I had for dinner last night" "How Thanksgiving was just like every other thanksgiving that there has ever been" Or (my fav) "MY FEELINGS" (like that would happen.)

I took a couple days after the last race- ever since falling down the hill and breaking my foot into a million pieces in early October I have been bothered by extreme tension in my achilles. To combat that potential land mine I took a couple days which turned into a half dozen due to the pesky foot of snow that dropped on us. (oh good! an original post about "Listning to my BODY!!")

Rightie-OH.

But really! I have fun things coming up. For example:
-Why am I so EXCITED?? Why? WHY!!!
-Do I still suck at running as badly as I did 8 weeks ago? (maybe!!)
-What's next? Since you are all so curious about the mediocre efforts of this old hag I expect that you'll all be on the EDGES of your seats for this one.

And, of course, my typical musings about all things neon sock related, pot roast for breakfast related, and perhaps I'll sing a song or two just to make your stay more exciting!

......signing off now, a real cliffhanger, come back tomorrow for details yo.....

Weekend Wrap Up Extrordinaire!

2011-11-21T08:15:00.003-05:00

A good weekend was had by all, with (perhaps) the exception of my stomach who was VERY sad after being overloaded with yummy birthday goodies. URGH. (it seemed worth it at the time to eat oysters, sweetbreads, a slab of pan seared flounder, a lemon buttermilk tartlet, a slab of cheese, (and later...) pumpkin whoopie pies, fondue, mushroom risotto ball things, Martha Stewart style beef stroganoff, and so on and so forth.) What can you do??

Needless to say when I woke up pre-race on Saturday I was a little icky. (and I had not even consumed half of said items yet.) Again, WHAT can you do?! I took a few pepto, ate some boring toast, force fed myself a yogurt and was on the fast track to a full recovery.

It was a perfect day for a race! Sunny, low 40's and windy (it is always windy.) I had very different expectations than the last time I 5K'd for a few reasons. Let's review, shall we? (and here shall end my Epic Blogging Week-ish. NO idea how ANY of you manage to pull off a whole month of this!)

-I 5K best if I take it VERY easy leading up to the race. Like, a 6 mile week. THAT didn't happen as the weather was too good to pass up on making quality mileage. STRIKE ONE!

-The race was all on dirt and grass, a medium that I don't run on much. STRIKE TWO!

-Speed work. NOT! STRIKE THREE!

Regardless I had come to the conclusion that I should enjoy myself, run as well as I could on that day (what a novel concept) and know that a PR was not a reasnable goal.

I only have positive things to say about how the race went and considering my typical struggle with the 5K distance (I hate sprinting) and my tendency to run the last mile in like 47 minutes, AND the feeling I usually get that I wish to DIE this is very good indeed. I ran with brutal and honest consistency. (thnks gps) However, the race was NOT brutal and I never wished to lie down and wait for the paramedics even though I was running much faster than I have been able to manage in practice. Even though it was a very small race I passed 10 or so people in the last mile (which accounts for more than 10% of the runners!) The course was a teensy bit long according to the ever honest GPS but that's cool- better long that short so it "counts"!

The one tricky thing about this race was the FOUR hairpin turn-arounds. I found that no matter how I prepared for the little buggers there was NO way to keep a good pace around them. Given the fact that I had the chance to do them FOUR times I tried a variety of things, none of which worked. SLOW. SLOW!

And YES, I (along with everyone) was soundly beated by the State Champ, a skinny, leggy little kid who has legit skills. He runs in the manner of a gazelle, barely skimming the ground as he runs 5 minute miles with barely a modicum of effort. Little asshole....!

In conclusion, to finish in 24:08 was just fine, I won my age division (proving it was, indeed, a very small race) and was thr 4th or 5th place woman. I had to skedaddle before the official results were in but I'm pretty close on the final results!

So, from here I have another 5K in mid-December that I am running with a friend then it will be winter, 2012 and we'll see where the road takes me!

5K today!

2011-11-19T13:08:00.003-05:00

I zipped around a 5K today- and by "zipped" I mean I drove in, jumped out of the car and ran the race, ran BACK to the car and went back to work (people were still running, lots of people...)

I am VERY happy with how today went, and most of you will be shocked by that since my recorded finish time was 24:08. (3.14 miles, 24:08 giving me an average pace of 7:43 I think.) (GPS said at 5K I was at 23:57- silly extra 15 steps...)

EVERY mile was completed with the first number being "7" which is incredible considering what I have been managing lately...

MORE tomorrow- including the gory details of off road running,hairpin turns, being lapped by the state champion who runs like a little 17 year old Ryan Hall and my results. Stay tuned!

My Bad/ Disgusting/Odd Habits/Shortcomings- Part Two

2011-11-18T09:22:00.003-05:00

Time for another episode of what makes Mr Middleaged a lucky man!!

-I have this pair of gloves that I run in (well, I don't run IN the gloves..) and wipe my runny nose ALL OVER. Who can be bothered to carry kleenex?? I will wear those gloves 12 something times before washing... Those mo' fo's can stand up and walk away by the time I get around to pitching them in the washer. EWW. Just. EWW.

-When I notice that my hair looks ratty I grab the kitchen scissors (like, out of the knife block...) and hack away. Nobody seems to notice so I will assume that I am a stylist extrordinaire!! (or, more likely, that I always look so gross that there is little difference.)

-I have 4 running shoes. I only use 3 of them... True story here (this makes up the "odd" part of todays episode) 3 out of 4 shoes fit well and feel fine (and they are all the same brand/style, I am NOT scampering around in mismatched shoes!) and one shoe feels like crap. I see no issue here (other than the obvious that I paid for a defective shoe...)

-I rarely clean my car but needed to do so recently as we were carpooling to a dinner date. On the way out with the huge shop vac I slammed my knee into the wall and began bleeding everywhere. (but, evidently did not notice?) I bled all over the car turning it into a flipping bio-hazard war zone. Whatever, we are all family and we can share the hep-b (just kidding.) After schmearing blood everywhere I peeked under the front seat and was shocked to see a quart of cream- which expired in JANUARY. It sat in there ALL SUMMER!!! Imagine if that sucker had burst...

-I can't be troubled to shave my legs. I had a look at them last night and was horrified enough by the braidable leg hair that I decided to scrape a razor over the mess. I clogged the razor like, 76 times. This taught me nothing and I do not intend to clean up my act at all.

-When we have guests over I throw all the unfolded laundry BACK into the washer, ANY dish gets thrown into the dishwasher, ALL the stanky running gear gets PITCHED into the crap closet and we run the epmty beer bottles into the darkest corner of the basement. That is called cleaning.

Today is the day... when I become a WOMAN!

2011-11-17T15:52:00.006-05:00

It is my BIRTHDAY! IT ALWAYS RAINS!!

(I shout that thing about becoming a woman every year on my birthday and I AM STILL WAITING!)

I LOVE my birthday. I do not have any issues with aging and I usually enjoy spending the day working per the norm and eating good food (thanks Mom!) I had butterscotch bread pudding for breakfast- need I say more? Then I had a little 5 mile run- the bread pudding did me well and stayed put where it belonged!

It was a solid day. My clients brought me candy and scrub brushes for horse buckets (this was a funny gift!) The Huz is going to take me to dinner tomorrow at the very best-EST place ever.

I am intending to finish up my day, go home and drink a couple of beers to celebrate the fact that I have been able to do so legally for 11 years now. Hooooray to being 32!!

PS: I will continue the streak of blogging thru the Birthday weekend- yes, WEEKEND, I am a CELEB! Longest blogging streak EVER.

Running Haters

2011-11-16T16:39:00.003-05:00

Do any of you notice that Running Haters are usually NOT EVEN RUNNERS??!

True, I have a love/hate relationship with running but in the end I LOVE it and try to do it as often as possible, even if I am not the worlds best or fastest.

I was talking to my coach today, an elite rider who is quite a bit better than I.

Coach: I don't know how you do it, you are going to ruin your knees for sure.

Me: You know what I normally say to that? "I might end up with bad knees but you are out of SHAPE!" HAHA! (but she is not, and she knew this was tounge in cheek)

Coach: (sadly) I can't even run two feet....

Me:(helpfully, and stating the obvious) You might be going to fast?

Coach: Maybe, but I really can't do it. I have asthma.

Me: Well. Lots of people with asthma run, and I know some personally so know it can be done, can be done well and you are only a mild case. You could start off really slow, take lots of walk breaks, easy stuff!

Coach: Really, when I try to run to airport terminals I get all out of breath, I just can't run.

Me: (getting sick of conversation) When you run in the airport you are most likely hampered by luggage, running faster than you can manage and under pressure. And honestly, do you even want to run??

Coach: No because I can't. And it would probably ruin my knees.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Running Geek...

2011-11-15T18:56:00.003-05:00

Oh My. I am Forrest Gump.

Sorry about the blurry, my Mom took this pic and I imagine that she was quaking from horror (who wouldn't??)

Owww yeah, awwww yeah. I'm sorry but this is Legen... WAIT FOR IT!!!!... DARY!

What am I doing here? Go ahead and guess.

Just barely snuck in today's episode. BUSY!

Marathon Musings for Monday

2011-11-14T07:27:00.000-05:00

I would imaging that the thought of successfully completing a marathon is something that has danced thru the mind of almost every semi serious runner out there.
This is getting to be something that is on my mind lately, and that I have rather mixed feelings about. It is true that 10 months ago I had never run farther than 4 miles and that a 10K was still a questionable goal. Since then I have proven to myself that I can complete the Half Marathon distance in some degree of health and physical soundness. **ahem** Truth be told, I have proven to myself that I can, in fact, RUN the full 13.1 miles on no legitimate training what-so-ever and emerge unscathed. (slow, but unscathed none the less.)

Could I have continued another 13.1? HELLS to the NO. No, NO, NO.

Do I think that I would have to become 100% more committed to my training plan than I was last winter when I managed my best Half time? YES, YES, YES!

AND... Do I honestly think that I can fit that into my schedule? (I work 50-70 hour weeks. No lie) Well, no I do not. I simply can NOT imagine finding the time to fit 40+ miles into my week- I don't know how you working gals do it. Please send me some of the kool-aid that you are drinking at your earliest possible convenience!

Here is how I see it. I could probably kinda train and finish, kinda slow. Or very slow. Is that what I want? I am not sure that I can say at this time. I have been finding myself thinking seriously of trying the full distance, if for no other reason that to say I did it. BUT! (and this is a but but for me...) I honestly have a hard time doing things half way, and imagining myself finishing 26.2 miles in 6+ hours reminds me of riding a Grand Prix test (just to check it off your bucket list) and getting a 55%. Not so hot.

A good comparison, there. Grand Prix is the highest level in Dressage and it takes a hell ton of training and years to get there. (and most horses will never make it to that point, period, good rider up on them or not.) Case in point, I am lucky to have trained over the past 13 (count 'em) years a horse of my own, from being a badass baby to FEI dressage. He is thisclose to being able to complete the Grand Prix test but in all probability we would not score as well as I would like to. This is because he is not an athletic dynamo, but is a very good boy who I love and respect for being the interesting critter that he is. He might NEVER be the kind of Grand Prix horse who can throw down huge scores, and that is just fine. A good friend of mine has said to me "Hey, you are THISCLOSE. Just DO it because life with horses is SO uncertain that he could come up lame tomorrow and it could be YEARS until you are THISCLOSE again!!" And I say "True. BUT to get a score that will reflect well upon me professionally I will have to push this horse past his physical limits, making him sore, maybe lame and definitely not happy. He is VERY good at what he does now so here we shall stay for the time being." The string that ties marathon running to FEI dressage is that in order to be really good at it you (or your horse) need to be a crazy freak of an athlete, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound and prone to eating small children for breakfast. Or similar...

In my running there is no partner involved and the only one I can inflict severe mental and physical strife upon is my own silly self. And hey, that means that if I wish to run 342.98 marathon miles then a: I can only hurt myself and b:there certainly isn't any shame to be found in finishing slow.

This has been on my mind as of late mostly because if I choose to go for it it will HAVE to be in the Spring. As we have all discovered over the years I have no time to train for a 1K from May to September so anything longer than the length of my driveway is OUT.

I'd love to hear some opinions, training suggestions, scoldings, recipes for whatever all you super-women out there eat to make you so damn fast, and maybe a non-paid assistant to free up some of my time. Thanks and Thanks!

The name of my blog, de-mystified.

2011-11-13T07:00:00.000-05:00

I do appriciate the fact that the population of the internet does not think that almost 32 is "middle" aged.

I must say, that I do not either.

Back before this blog I had one called "middle aged waitress" telling the sordid tale of a horrible job that I was unfortunate to have. In the waitressing industry (although not at this particular hell hole) I felt quite a bit like a middle aged person in a sea of barely legal tartlets.
(feel free to check it out- go back to the begining and live the horror that was my LIFE!! http://middleagedwaitress.blogspot.com/)

Needless to say, the name just stuck! Accurately, I consider myself to be a "median" age runner but that does not have the same catchy ring to it that "middle" aged runner does, ya know?

Sorry about the short post today, I promise more entertainment tomorrow. I have a lot on my plate as I have my fabulous cousin visiting and we have a fun activity planned. Called "The Worlds Worst Trip To The Dump" and involves the relocation (to the dump) of a large amount of construction materials. Which have been sitting in my basement since 2007.

And y'all thought that I didn't know how to show my houseguests a good time! HAH!

Will the Big 12 happen??

2011-11-12T07:00:00.001-05:00

**Update** Yesterday evening I ran 5 miles, on the road, in a snow squall, up massive hills and a 19 MPH headwind (wtf...) at an average pace of 8:22 per mile. TAKE THAT!!****

I had a few simple goals coming into the 2011 "Race" season.

-Run a 10K (did it)
-PR in a 5K (not gon' happen)
-Run a Half Marathon (did 3!!)
-Run 12 races (well... Only about 3 days left in 2011 so it's not looking good!)

As it stands right now I have 9 races under my belt. The 3 halfs. 2 10K's. A 4 miler. And 3 miserable 5K's! (MAN how I hate those 5K's...)

At this time of year there is very little to do and I missed my shot at another Half due to the wounded foot crap of doom and gloom.

I have signed up for two 5K's (UGH.) One local, boring and thoroughly dismal one on November 20 and another, more fun and beer laden opportunity in Mid December.

I would like to make my 12 race goal happen. I just have to decide if it is worth it to take a weekend morning off (loosing lots of money from the clients I would be missing out on) and driving at least 3 hours total for a dreaded 5K.

Time will only tell...

The proof is in the numbers. And the numbers SUCK!

2011-11-11T07:00:00.000-05:00

Remember that 5K I ran back in September? The one where I had the feeling that I was running faster than I had EVER RUN BEFORE? The race where despite the fact that I ran as HARD as I could I missed a PR by a decent chunk of time and actually recorded one of my slowest 5K times? (and yes, it was still quick enough. BUT I felt like I was running 7 minute miles and was pretty pissed.)

After that race I ran a Half, hurt my foot and was on the DL for 3 weeks. I needed something new and entertaining to get my thru my recovery runs so I downloaded a couple apps- I map my run and the Nike one. I figured it would be fun to see my routes and to get a handle on how fast/slow I was running.

**A quick reminder that I spent the whole summer burned out on calculating time, distance, splits, incline, whatever. I ran gadget free for months and thought all was well***

WELL. After the recovery period was over I set out to run for real- I wanted to run a few miles, one for warm up then a few closer to race pace.

I must say that I DO NOT appriciate the brutal honesty of Miss Nike. "ONE MILE, NINE MINUTES FORTY SEVEN SECONDS" she informed me. "OH, OK NBD" said I. "That was my "warm up."

Mile two was my chance to kick it up a notch and so I did. I was feeling good, rested, the foot wasn't bugging me, it was a beautiful day and blah de fricking blah. "TWO MILES" Said Miss Nike... "EIGHTEEN MINUTES, FORTY SECONDS."

Oh, hold the fricking phone....

And now we all know WHY I did NOT PR at said September race. HAH! Apparently, devoid of a watch, a treadmill, and a concience my "fast" miles were coming in closer to what I exoect my "warm up" miles to look like. I was a touch horrified but I also react well to brutal honesty after my initial reaction of throwing my iphone to the ground and stomping it. (just kidding, I love my iphone and it is not its fault that I am lazy!)

As I look towards a couple of fall 5K's I am now aware that I am in desperate need of some mile repeats in order to kick my game up a notch. Only time will tell if I have the motivation to make that happen...

The final countdown. Until my B-Day, that is.

2011-11-10T08:10:00.005-05:00

It is good that I can admit that I am a bad blogger. There are no other words for it, I am not "fair" or "poor" I am quite simply, BAD.
My time has been remarkably limited and as I always say (really?) if I have spare time and can either run or blog I'm going to run.

To make up for it, I plan to conduct my own version of the November daily blogging thing which many of you seem so fond of. ONE WEEK. That's all I can manage and I might only get 3 words in! What the hell, it's a start and should get me caught up. The whole thing will reach a climactic end on the biggest day of the YEAR- my Birthday. Whoot!

I leave you now, with horse pics from the end of the year. I plan to attempt to devote my next 6 (count 'em) posts to RUNNING so I thought I'd squeeze these suckers in today.

I LOVE this pic! With my BEST horse friend after we snagged 1st and 2nd at Regionals!

My Little guy- if he isn't just the cutest damn thing!

My 80/20 Rule

2011-10-23T13:20:00.002-04:00

As I mentioned in my last post I really hurt my ankle/foot back on October 3rd. DUH ME.

I saw no reason to bore you all with my daily whinings of a minor, although painful injury so I have been MIA. Also, I was busy wrapping up my equine competitive season in a bang up way. Kicking ass and taking names, very proud of the way that my boys finished up the year! (or, technically started next year. it is now 2012 in the Dressage world.)

...I digress....

I was hurting to the point where walking was questionable from the 3rd to the 14th or so, and advil was my every 4 hour friend. It was not the most comfortable time and I was prone to small fits of yelling at my foot and hollering "creak creak" randomly. (although it wasn't that random- my foot was literally creaking. whatevah..)

I think a good rule of thumb is that if 100% of your day is spent in foot pain one should not run. Especially when the application of one's running shoes makes one scream and writhe in agony.

Slowly, the pain started to decrease to a 50/50 ratio- still with a hearty dose or several of advil a day. Finally, on Monday I was able to spend a FULL day advil free and felt that my pain was finally down to the magic number- 80% painless 20% slight discomfort.

Well hot damn! Time to run a marathon! PR in a 10K! GO NUTSSSSS!

In reality! On Wednesday I hit the road for a little "run" and made it exactly six tenths of a mile in fairly bad pain. Crap! When I pulled off my shoes I was all better though, no lingering side effects (odd.) On Friday I tried running in my "old old" shoes and it was a bit better- I made it thru an awkward, and walk break riddled 1.5 miles- again with no ill effects. Today I threw on the "old" shoes and found that they were somewhat better than the "new" shoes so gave them a try. I made it thru a slow 3 miles- but only needed to walk for pain reduction during the first mile. I ran the last 2 miles at a slow and steady pace with very little ouch factor.

Which is good news if I do say so myself...

I still have not needed to pop any pills since Monday. And for that, my liver thanks me.

Hopefully I am over the hump and can get back down to the business of running less like an invalid and more like a middleaged woman!

Running with The Kids: Part 3

2011-10-11T09:45:00.004-04:00

It's that time of year again. My cute little town has a cute little 5K slash nasty chilli cook off. nothing inspires me to feel vommy more than the thought of chilli at the end of any mileage...

Last year this race was a study in fall weather. It was no more than 40 degrees out with a stiff 35 MPH headwind. It was rather brutal really, but allowed me to PR with (as usual) no practice. Being that I have been running a good amount I was ready to go for the effing gold this year, win the womens race, PR (maybe) and walk off with a gallon of maple syrup.

Then my plans changed.
Last Monday I hurt my foot. Don't ask me how (because it is too damn embarassing) but I did, and in a big way. Figuring that I'd be pretty well 6 days later I modified the plan by asking the kiddos if they wanted to join me. Everybody was too wimpy except for good old 8th grade (who has grown a staggering amount this summer but despite what this picture tells you I AM still taller than she.) This was 8th Grades FIRST 5K! Yay for HER!

8th Grade did not get the memo about the "scary face." She is embarassed by me, as any 8th grader worth their salt should be.

Have to make a comment about the weather. It was HOTTER THAN HOT. Seriously, it was 80 freaking degrees which is hot for this time of year in Maine. (reason #2 that I was rather pleased that a fast race was NOT in order.)

Reason #1 that I was pleased that I was not going for the gold? My damn foot. Hurt like a bitch! I was not convinced that I was going to be able to run at all, and I gave 8th Grade some good instructions incase I had to lie down on the side of the road and wait for Stoneham Rescue to come and save me.
As it turned out the foot did not feel any worse than normal so off I gimped. I did indeed run like peg-leg-Pete but what can ya do?

It looked like little 8th grade was going to run a pretty decent race! (note: she hasn't run since the 4th of July, bless her little heart.) We kept up a casual, but totally do-able 10-11ish minute mile. Around mile two she came to a grinding halt "I am going to THROW UP! Maybe we should WALK?" I think she thought I was going to be mad. Which I clearly was, since that is how I roll- getting all pissed at poor little kids and whatnot.... So off we walked, and I tried to keep 8th Grades mind off things like chilli, which can easily induce vomiting in the most stoic of runners.

We ended up walking about 7/10ths of the last mile but made a good push for the finish. To take 8th Grade's mind off her Vom-Dot-Com situation I babbled on in full storytelling mode for the last mile. ....that will teach her to walk, hehehe..... As we rounded the corner to the finish another one of my little students (a 4th grader!) blew by us with some serious speed, "Run 8th Grade, RUN!" I shouted "Are you REALLY going to let this HAPPEN??" OFF she sped, as I laughed hysterically at this epic finish to our super slow effort! In the end 8th Grade got a conscience (silly) and 4th Grade snuck infront of her. Gosh, we really need to teach that kid that there is NO MERCY!

Overall, not a bad effort at all! 4th Grade finished in 33:08 (she's gonna be a hot ticket) 8th Grade finished in 33:10 (with practice she's gonna kick ass!) and I laughed my way in just behind them in 33:11.

8th Grade did NOT throw up so no vommy award for her this time! She is excited to do it again (which makes me happy!) and we are going to try to shave about 3 minutes off the time at the next race- which seems reasonable if we can fit in a bit of practice.

I find that I really enjoy running with the kiddos, it is good to see kids getting into a healthy activity and being so excited about it.

Here we are, showing off our Zumba Strength! RAWR!!
We went home and ate some candy.
The END.

My Odd Childhood Fears!

2011-10-08T08:08:00.006-04:00

I read somebody's post about Odd Childhood Fears yesterday and it made me think of days gone by. In terror!

One must know that I was an oddly practical child and was really not scared of much. However, to say that I had a vivid imagination is an understatement so (on occasion) things got a bit out of hand in my little head.

1: The "Spider Book." My parents were all into nature so they had books of shockingly vivid photos of birds, bugs, animal turds and... SPIDERS. I was SO horrified by this book that I did not like to be in the same room as it, let alone TOUCH it. Eeeekkkkkkk. I can still feel the creepy crawlies now! (they still have this book and to be honest, I feel rather the same way about it.)

2: E.T. What! This was supposed to be a fun family feel good movie? Oh eff that! I was absolutely terrified of E.T., his freakishly long phalanges and his creeper creeper little voice. (and to be honest yet again- I still feel this way.) The movie even put me off my Reeses for a time.

3: The "Child Eating Monster" in my closet. I was a child, need I say more? This dude was badass and scared me until I was about 23 years old. (who am I kidding! I still close the closet door before bed. The Huz understands completely.)

4: The "Detatched hand under the bed". UGHHHHHH. Imagine a cold, pale, clammy detatched hand under your bed. He probably kind of flips and flops around in a half dead way until he sees you coming! Then YARGH! He'll jump out and grab your ankle and drag you down! (to WHERE? There is no DOWN!) Anyway. Yeah.

5: "The Pit and the Pendulum." Well no shit, what child wouldn't be scared of this? Gotta love my Grandma who thought that this was a very age appropriate scary story for a couple of teeny tiny kids. (oddly, it did not scare me much at first and my Sister and I often asked for repeat readings- complete with "voices" and "sound effects!" it became MUCH more hair raising as the years went on...)

6: The "Skunk" in the corner of my room behind my plant. Thanks to my cousin I became rather convinced that there was a super scary skunk in the corner of my room. Whenever there was a little sound I'd be all "AK! SKUNK!" for many years. We still talk about that guy...

So there you have it. My top childhood fears! Childhood fears are much more fun to think about than our top adult fears of going broke, breaking bones (the hand under the bed... the skunk...)

My LOVE/HATE list!

2011-10-05T15:38:00.004-04:00

You know how sometimes a period of time goes by and you hear so many people say "OMG! You are a runner/reader/eater of foods/fab person! you should try so-and-so because you would just love it!" Time marches on, you continue to hear these cries of joy about the newest and the greatest thing of the hour and you more or less avoid the whole shenanigan laden minefield. Maybe you even roll your eyes a bit and figure that when the fad dies out you will still have those dollars in your pocket that the rest of the world dumped into the new get-fit-quick scam. (or whatever.)

.....oh... that's just me? well moving on then......

Over the course of the summer I decided that I was going to be a yes-sayer and try things that I suspected that I would hold in disdain. Why not? What could happen? Life is too short to always be practical and sensible. Here is no particular order are a few of the things on my brand new, tried and tested "Love it and hate it" list!

Love It- OK, I love Harry Potter. We all know it and I am not ashamed to admit that I know pretty much everything about Harry and his band of friends. When people started pestering me to read "The Hunger Games" I rolled my eyes and wrote it off as another "Twilight" debacle of horror. .....And was I ever WRONG..... The books are pure genius, smart, well written, blatantly politically incorrect and the final book does not end with "everything" working out. They are cutting edge lit in the young adult field and I was jaw-droppingly delighted to read the series in less than 3 days. Read em. They are the bomb freaking diggity.

Didn't love it or hate it- I caved and read "The Help" It was fine and did not change my life at all. Do feel free to argue, many people have....

HATE it- Thorlo Experia socks. Dudes, do you LIKE running on mattresses? Cos I don't.

HATE it- Shot Blocks. GU. Energy Gummies in general. Actually, you know what I hate? Eating while running. So I don't anymore, eff it.

HATE IT- Zumba. My sister talked me into a class. (remember, she talked me into running which I LOVE) We all lined up in some gym and the instructor started throwing down dance moves straight out of one of those movies about (ummmm) kids dancing on the streets of Havana or whatevs. I stood there is silent horrified disbelief, watching in fear as the rest of the class attempted to do some semblance of what the Dance Queen was doing. As the dance became more and more apocalyptic (and as I flailed around, laughing hysterically in the manner of Elaine on Seinfeld) I looked over at my Sister and said "WHAT the FUCK is THIS SHIT??" That summed up how that went for me. Boom.

LOVE it- Salmon on pizza. holy hell, is that good. Go to David's in Portland, ME for the BEST Salmon, Asparagus and Goat Cheese pizza in the WHOLE world!

LOVE it- Running however I feel like, training plans be damned!

LOVE it...... training plans......

And the final HATE: Saucony Kinvara's. Thank God I did not buy a pair. Just running around in a friends pair was all it took.. (feel free to argue the point, I don't mind.)

LOVE it- (these things are not new. but still.) My own fab house, my own fab dogs and the bag of kit kat in my fridge. Gotta love the little things!

Maine Half Marathon: The official slow race report!

2011-10-04T10:00:00.000-04:00

After my epic beer race report of yesterday I thought it would be prudent and adult of me to type up something a bit more legit for today. Don't ask me why, as my post yesterday pretty much summed it up!

Let's backtrack for some second.
- I did not train for this shiz AT ALL. My last run over 7-8 miles was in APRIL. I did NOT follow a training plan, I did NOT PLAN at all!
-This meant that I did not have time to suffer any over training injuries (well, duh. I have been on a "taper" since May!)

Let's now take a look at Sunday morning.
I woke up with a fresh shiny new cold. REALLY??? Really. Oh well.
The weather was amazingly bad and it is hard to amaze me with bad weather. OH WELL.

Off I went in the dark, rain and cold. I was feeling pretty good about things because why the hell not? Nothing says "here I come" like an old, untrained sick person, right?

I snuck to the start in the nick of time (parking took a bit) but what luck... It was pouring buckets so I managed to stay fairly dry until the gun went off. Being that I got there last I was way back in the pack at the start- I think it took over 3 minutes to actually cross the start line!
(good think I put my number on sideways so that it could be read properly. Other MM participants will know what I mean.)

Before mile 1 arrived my feet were already more wet than they have ever been before. As the race progresses I was seeing some horrific blisters on other runners- I have never been so happy to have good socks!

It rained so damn hard! I had on a "waterproof" windbreaker and I ran with the hood pulled up over my head the whole time. It didn't do a bit of good as I was still completely and totally drenched at the end. It was also freezing cold and around mile 4 I began to have serious doubts about the wisdom of walking at all. I was quite nervous that I would get so chilled that I would not be able to get warm again...

I ran at SUCH an easy pace that running the whole thing began to seem like a viable option at the 1/2 turnaround point. I took a moment to evaluate and honestly declared that I felt quite well. VERY wet, but good. At this point I had had to pause once to re-tie my soggy shoes and I had walked thru one water station (thanks to the amazing volunteers who stood around for hours in the awful weather!)

Remembering back to my last half I knew that the second half might sneak up and get me. I still have vivid and unpleasant memories of having to talk myself into taking every step of the final 5 miles last time... I did not enjoy that. As it turned out this time I had plenty of gas left in the tank- remarkable considering my lack of long runs. During the second half I ran each mile faster than the previous one, passing people along the way.

I knew that making it in under 2:10 was going to be almost impossible given my 10K split but I ran along in a comfortable pace, checking out the scenery, laughing at the beer drinking boys at mile 11 who (from their porch) screamed "whooooo-hooooo" whenever a group of ladies ran by, and in general really enjoying my run.

As much as I enjoyed the whole epic 13.1 I was still glad to see the finish and VERY pleased to run under the clock in 2:06:50 (final net time was 2:04:09) As you all know this is MUCH slower than my PR but MUCH better than I had ever hoped for!

I had a lot to think about on my drive home.
-Clearly I made the right choice to run within my "comfort zone" as the odds of an injury with my lack of training were higher than I would have liked.
-I enjoyed this run tremendously, head cold and weather and all...

And this makes me wonder, should I just be cool with running slower than I feel I should in the name of "enjoying" it? Usually I would scream a resounding "NO" as I feel mediocrity in the name of comfort is one of the seven deadly sins!

But let's face it people: I am no elite runner nor will I ever be. Why push myself to the point of vomiting and burnout? Perhaps I can find a balance- I would prefer to be finishing in under 2 hours (seems do-able) but perhaps kick aside the goal of consistent 1:45 finishes?

This was a whole new 13.1 experience for me and one that I honestly thought was terrific. I enjoyed listening to the conversations around me, I liked the fact that I had given myself permission to stop whenever I needed to, and I liked the fact that there was no high pressure and challenging to obtain goal hanging over my head (I have enough of that in the equine show arena, thanks!)

Anyway. I finished, got a tinfoil blanket, ate several bagels, drank a Gatorade and two chocolate milks, went home, ate half a bag of caramel creams and a slice of salmon, goat cheese and asparagus pizza, took a pile of cold meds and sat down.

THE END.

The BEST race report EVER.

2011-10-03T12:44:00.007-04:00

I have often thought that I should have made a name for myself as a beer blogger. I expect that I would have had far more to talk about on a daily basis, if nothing else...
Here is a mini race report from yesterday, using some of my favorite things,
Enjoy!

As we all know, I had forgotten about this race because I am a:

Perhaps being a bit of a fool is a good thing. It brings the old ego down a bit and keeps me from running around yelling:

Knowing that there is NO chance of finishing in less than 4 hours also keeps me from being a big old:

One of my biggest concerns, and rightfully so, was being struck down by the dreaded and hard to avoid: (Luckily I was able to avoid the krampus! yay!)

So. In the:

I gazed out upon the EPIC weather. Best described as a:

After 0.2 miles my feet were so waterlogged that I suspected that I had misplaced my sneakers and was instead wearing:

I finally fisnished! And in 2:04:09 which isn't too shabby considering that I expected to walk the whole thing (didn't walk at all). The BEST news is that I felt GREAT, which was a welcome change from the normal feeling of: (a polite way to say shit??

I was pleased to be done, but really had a very good race. I wrapped myself up in one of those tinfoil blankets, ate some bagles, drank a gatorade and left. Much to my great delight I was home just in time for:

THE END.

A "real" race report to follow, not that I really left anythng out!

Math

2011-09-29T07:00:00.002-04:00

Math: I hate you. Barely made it thru Algebra for Dummies in Highschool, for serious!

However. To figure out how badly I'm gonna PW at the upcoming Maine Half I took out my calculator for some addition. I did not wish to have to take off my shoes to use my toes, ya know?

Al-righty oh. My PR for a half is what? 1:45:48? Or is it 1:48:45? I plan to look into this. This was back in the day when I trained for such activities, was in lethally good shape and could keep up a brutal pace for hours at a time. I might have thrown up afterwards but what's a little Vom between friends??

This time: Blissfully unaware, unprepared, woefully out of shape, sadly slow.

The plan. Walk the whole damn thing. Oh wait a sec, the marathoner will finish before I do. No thanks.

The REAL plan: Run a few miles super slow. Walk a mile. Run a few miles super slow. Sit down, Cry. Walk a mile. Run a mile? Take a nap.

Where the calculator comes into play: Say I manage to run my miles at 9:15 (fair guess) and walk a mile in what? 16-17 minutes? How the hell long does it take to walk a mile?? Anyway this is how it might play out-

Run 4 miles (I can do it!!)- That will take about 37 minutes. I'm cutting myself some slack here because there is bound to be start line congestion.

Walk a mile- 16 minutes.

Run 3 miles (maybe...) 28ish minutes

Walk a mile- 4 hours (or 16 minutes) (we're at mile 9!)

Run 2 miles- 19 minutes cos I suck

Walk a mile- 17 minutes cos I suck more (are we at mile 12?)

Run the final 1.1 in a huge burst of speed!!! or in 10 minutes because who am I kidding??

That has me finishing in 2:20 which seems VERY optimistic. I think I may have missed an entire mile in there somewhere, maybe mile 0-1 which I always forget about (don't laugh.) Feel free to check my math...

I think I'll shoot for 2:30. That gives me 45 extra minutes which I don't think is enough!

We shall see....

Belated Race Recap, Komen race 9/11

2011-09-28T07:00:00.000-04:00

I missed this race last year for two reasons. One, I was injured and homestly lame as lame could be. I thought I might go and walk the damn thing then the shit hit the fan. My Grandmother passed the day before (9/11/10)... We all knew it was a matter of days but it was a dark day, regardless.

Onward to the 2011. Not only did I want to make up for the fact that I had to bail due to being 8 legged lame but it was a great race to run to honor the memory of my Grandma, and sadly, two other close frineds who lost their cancer battles in 2010. Suck-O. This felt like an important race to me (combine that with the obvious fact that it was the 10 year mark of 9/11 and there were all KINDS of emotions running thru my little head. Shoot!)

It was a nice day. I had been running a good amount. In the back of my head I thought probably too much, as it is a known and proven fact that these old legs can only run a decent 5K after having at least a week off. Logic and reason at its finest? Regardless of the logic it is indeed a proven fact.

Annoyingly, I did not have time to pick up my race number the day before (sorry, Portland is a bit of a drive from where I live) so I had to arrive horribly early and then kick tires, pace around and get VERY bored and just a touch crabby. The race had a super late start- 10:00- which was good for not having to get up at the AC of D BUT not so awesome for the "waiting around for all damn day."

Finally things got going. I started off a little fast due to my desire to just GET GOING but then I settled into a more reasonable pace. Had a bit of trouble getting enough air- my allergies were really the worst I have felt in years (yuck.) There was no clock or people who helpfully shout your time at you during any part of the course so I felt a bit lost, and as though I was running blind. However, I felt like I was keeping up a very respectable pace and actually felt confident that this could have PR potential! (at this point, I can accurately guess my mile per minute speed within a second or two as a general rule. Or NOT, as we will soon see...)

Coming into the final stretch I had just enough gas in the tank for a little push so off I went, until I caught a glimpse of the clock. It read, shockingly, "23:18" and I still had a few hundred feet to go. I was BAFFLED and seriously came almost to a full halt in my horror! Disgusted, I steadily ran under the clock in an abysmal 23:30 (give or take a second or two- I was excluded from the final results due to some chaos at the finish. I could have called them and asked to have it fixed, but I didn't want to admit to a final time of 23:30. GRRRRRR)

Honestly, I was unimpressed. To feel that I ran well and FAST and to come in 30 seconds slower than my PR and 15 seconds slower than my average pace for a 5K very irratating. I was prepared (for a change) well fed (but not TOO well fed!) and feel at this point that I can tell how fast I'm running... GUESS NOT!

OH WELL. In the big picture who gives a crap, right? I ran for a great cause, enjoyed a nice day, got some excercise, and had some snacks at the end.

THE END.

Oh HELLO. The story of the shocking email.

2011-09-27T07:59:00.005-04:00

I had a wonderful plan, back in oh- May, June or perhaps even a bit earlier than that.

I would finish up my equine competitive season (which was freaking amazing, more on that later) transition to bigger and better miles on the road and run a Half a few weeks later. With that in mind I signed up all nice and early for a Half on October 22. GO ME. Way to plan ahead.

Over the weekend I was having a nice mental chat with myself. It went a little something like this:

Me- Looking good me! I haven't been able to put in a ton of mileage due to the "horse show situation" but I have had a few good weeks of legit running. Some hills, some 7 milers and a little 5K (more on that later.)

Phone- "jingle jingle" indicating email.

Me: Moseys towards phone, still congratulating myself on my fabulocity, fashion sense and wisdom. "I'll get in a few runs early this week to break myslef back in (and NOT to break myself, mind you) do 10-11 miles over the weekend, try for another 10-11 in CT over the weekend of the 15th (horse show) then I should be fine to finish a little slow, but respectably well for someone of my advanced years. (and yes, when I chat to myslef in my head I do indeed speak in run on sentances.)

Phone: I HAZ EMAIL, FOOL!

Me: Looks at email. Sees race email. Takes no notice and moves on.

.......fast forward to later that day........

Reads email: The race is coming up! (me, smugly: YEAH in a few WEEKS!") Packet pick up on SATURDAY OCTOBER 1st.

ME: WTF??? wtf? W....T....F....

OH GOD.

The race is this Sunday. How did this happen? Here are the choices:

1- I am an idiot

2- In my head "After the competitive season" meant AFTER the show mid October. Evidently, back in the early Spring I was probably just thinking post-Regionals. I dunno!

3- Really, it is very easy to mix up the 2nd with the 22nd. Right?

4- I AM A GODDAMMMMMMM FOOL!

I ate some bacon. Freaked out for one minute. Said eff it.
See you all at the Maine Half this weekend. More on my plan for Epic world domination in the upcoming days.

Things I learn Along the way...

2011-09-03T08:23:00.003-04:00

Things that I learn along the way.. Part. Two? Three? Twelve? Who knows!

1: Last summer I discovered that I simply did not have time to run as much as I wished to. I felt guilty about this, overdid it when I had time and hurt myself badly enough to have to take about 5 weeks off. I remembered all of this (because I am so wise) and tried hard not to repeat the chaos this year. So far, success.

2: Life comes in this order:
a: Work
b: Work
c: other things, like family stuff and the thing I like to call running
d: blogging (don't know how y'all manage to do it daily or even weekly!)

3: Every run does not have to be epic. It does not have to be hill work, speed work, a 10 miler, or even need to feel very good (and believe me, it doesn't.) NEXT year I will remember these words of wisdom!

4: Apparently I can still run a 23:14 5K with no practice. Maybe I just WON'T practice!

5: However. If one wishes to PR in a 10K or if one has a Half on the brain then practice is advisable (so sad.)

6.a: If the run actually feels good keep running in the manner of Forrest Gump. What could happen!? (see words of wis #1...)

6.b: Hmm. So this year I can spontaniously bust out some decent mileage and feel fine. I wonder if it has to do with all the miles I put in last winter and muscle memory? It is like that with horses- once they lay down a base of muscle structure they can get back to hard work quickly after some down time. Well, much faster then when you bring them into good condition the first time around at any rate. Is it like this with people? Who the hell knows...

There are my words of wisdom.
The End.

Beach To Beacon 2011: The Day I conquered the WORLD. Not!

2011-08-10T10:17:00.004-04:00

Have a little story to tell before getting down to the business of actual running/racing/moving in the manner of a turtle, which is what I call racing.

First: This blog had a few title options. 1: "The Day I saw a lot of strange penis" I decided that would earn me a lot of scary blog stalkers which would be most undesirable. However, we will return to this topic shortly as I wish to bring up the fact that girls can pee without waving their junk all around for the world to see... Other contenders were "The race I slept through" (I did not I went slow enough so that I could have.) "What do Ice Cream and I have in common? We both melt in the HEAT." And so on and so forth.

Second:. Last week... Week three of the busiest 3 weeks of the year. These are the 3 weeks of Summer when it is effing balls to the walls around here! We (my staff and I) have our normal camp riders, which equals about 60 a week. We have another camp group each of those 3 weeks which equals about 80 more rides during each session. Not to mention the fact that I also have my year round students to teach and a couple horses to train! It is NONSTOP MADNESS.

Needless to say, I forgot that the Beach To Beacon was last Saturday.

Luckily my Dad said something about it on Thursday, just enough time for me to appreciate the fact that in the past month I had put in 4 runs. FOUR, count 'em. And luckily in enough time for me to haul ass to Cape Elizabeth and snag my race number.
For the 48 hours that I had to enjoy my pre race excitement I waffled back and forth repeatedly on whether or not I was going to do it. LAME, I know. In the end, I decided that anybody could run 6 miles and that it would be a waste of a hard earned race number to wuss out- so off I went, at 5 AM on Saturday morning to try to beat the traffic, the heat, and at least 1 person so as not to come in dead last.

Similar to stories of childbirth, one never hears positive tales of successful trips to the start of the B2B. The traffic is notorious, the road closures are endless and parking is supposed to be a complete shit show. Perhaps it is because I was completely filled with fear and horror which inspired me to leave 43 hours early but I had no issues. Got to park at the start, hit no traffic on the way and only had issues with the dire boredom which happens when one arrives at a race 687 days early. Egads!

Now, on to the story of seeing far more man junk then I would EVER EVER want to see EVER. Too many people plus not enough porta potties equals peeing in the woods which I am not scared of. What am I scared of? After discreetly doing my thang, turning around and seeing multiple men peeing all happily with their bits and pieces fully exposed. Now, I'm no prude but I actually squeaked in horror and fled the woods as if a monster was in hot pursuit! AK! Never in my life have I seen so much strange penis and never in my life do I wish to again. Sorry boys, but COME ON!!

After that I was scared enough to run slightly faster than a 12 minute mile... Only slightly though! It was hot as shit, so hot that I was sweating bullets after mile 1 which is very unpleasant.

It was a REALLY nice run, it was REALLY pretty and flat and fun with tons of spectator participation. Good times! HOT TIMES. SO HOT...

I felt just fine throughout but really, who doesn't feel fine when running an 8:20 minute mile. The good news is that I ran the exactly same mile every single mile. It was nice to be done at 6 miles as well, it was no day to go sprinting my way across the universe in a marathon like style.

Made it across the finish on 52:11. Not terrible. Not great. But well deserved given the fact that practice is not my friend!

I ate 3 slices of watermelon, 2 cartons of chocolate milk, a package of crackers and then I left.

THE END.

Ultra Marathoning with my cousin

2011-07-17T13:57:00.004-04:00

Hah! Made ya look, didn't I?
Ultra Marathoning is about as likely to happen around here as hell freezing over, or the humidity levels dropping. Ugh!

But really. We headed out on Saturday AM (A sweltering Saturday BTW) to the infamous Lovell Old Home days 5k. Then we made pirate faces. It is in our genetic code to do so. The Cuz missed the memo about the FACE that goes along with the hook. Silly boy/man!

OK. This is us looking normal. As normal as we get...

So on to the good stuff. We decided that it would be a great idea to race because I have not been practicing my running very well lately and he has not been running for years. Overall, we felt very prepared. Who cares, right? No way we are going to do our best in the 80 plus degree insanity anyways.

Decent crowd at the little race this year! About 50 more runners than last yeat for a total of 150 finishers. Neither of us had any expectations and decided to run at a comfortable pace and to meet up at the end. The course is a funny beast- the first mile is easy and flat, the second mile has a hill and a big curve and the last mile is fully dirt (which was a bitch to run on this year- slippery, rocky and a mess!) and a hairpin turn as the course is a lollipop. Pretty much impossible to manage negative splits but whatevs, we were out to have fun!

We ended up doing pretty darn well.

Me- 23:13 (1 second FASTER than last year with NO speed work. Hmmmm?)

33rd place and the 5th placed woman. 3rd in age group (damn fast 30 somethings!)

(Edited: I thought I was 3rd but was actually 2nd! It was 10 year age group blocks too, which stinks...)

Him: 26:04, 60th place- (sadly in the fastest male age group so no age award.)

We ate some donuts and went home.

The end.

Racing with the kiddos

2011-07-07T18:48:00.005-04:00

Well Hot Damn, an actual running post in the so called running blog.

Don't get used to it. (just kidding. sort of.)

The 4 on the 4th. A big old mess of a race that fully overloads the local town's capacity, porta potties, parking situation and road space. A damn fine time if you ask me.

I did a pretty bang up job in this race last year, finishing in the top 200 and coming in somewhere around 31:30 or so. (I admit that I am too lazy to double check that. Go ahead and sue me for my pride, that is all I have!)

Different ball game this year. The kids (we'll call them 8th Grade and 9th Grade for obvious reasons) came along for the ride. Good, athletic kids who play sports (8th grade is a National Competitive Cheer Champion. And a fine Equestrian) (9th Grade plays ALL the 9th grade sports and is agressive enough to make me look passive. yikes!) Who also rides horses, obviously. Oh, and they have never run a day in their lives. Something that I know a little bit about. Yeah.....

We set off to have a good time and to try to run the whole thing, not vomit and finish as close to a 10-11 minute per mile pase as possible.

Gotta say, those kids started off stromg. Clocked in the first mile at 10:10 and all seemed well. Shortly after the one mile mark the wheels began to fall off the bus a teeniest bit for 9th grade. I have to suspect that she may have some excercise induced asthma (paging Dr. Middleaged....) Honestly, I only guess that because her breathing sounded so similar to people I know who are affected by said situation. OK. Moving on.

Mile 1-2 was ok in roughly 12 minutes. A pace that fely arduously slow for me, but I reminded myself that this race was about the greater good of the youth of America and not about me. And really, I was JUST fine with this. They were a riot to run with, and so cute!

At the end of mile 2 I asked 9th grade if she needed a medic. She did not. We walked, drank water. Recovered. Took 13 plus minutes to get to the start of the last mile which I thought was solid, considering the break that we took for medical purposes.

The kids really woman-ed up for the last mile and kicked it into high gear for another 10 minute mile. I was proud, they were pumped to get to the finish line! We finished in 45:55 and as much as I secretly cringed on the outside I was (of course) all pumped up! The best part is that both of them are excited to try again at some point in the near future. I fully expect that little 8th grade will run another 4 miler at the end of the month. 9th grade was a bit slower to commit, and I after chatting with her Mom the wheezing issue might get a checkup first.

But really, a good time was had by all!! (and here we are!) And yes. I am the same size as tiny children. Do not judge...

My spring in pictures

2011-07-03T13:02:00.007-04:00

Please take note of the definate LACK of running victory shots. Oh wells. I am sorry about the size and funky quality of most of these- they were taken from my phone as I am far too cool/hip/busy to be bothered with a camera..

Hey Lester! Getting big there buddy. Still though, the cutest damn dog.

Mister B. First show. Dominated the FEI Freestyle division and scored the first blue of the year.

Took a break from the horses and went to DC for Savor- only the biggest craft beer event in the universe. Or something. It was kickass. And on a running note, there was a Komen race the day we were in DC- I could not believe the MOB of people. Turns out, there were something like 48,000 finishers. AMAZING. JUST AMAZING.

Chauncy at the second show of the year, and the first time that he decided that the judges were not going to BBQ his little yellow butt. See what happens when you behave Chauncy? You win classes. We managed a total of 4 blues, one red and a pretty pink before all was said and done.

The following weekend. He was even less scared which resulted in a huge pile of ribbons. We added 2 more blues and another tri color before we headed home He is THE. COOLEST. And (like my dog) just so danm cute!

Then we went to PA for a wedding. It took a long time to get there as this was our average speed. Thank you, 6 pound 4 ounce baby Geezes that I like my inlaws or this would have been a mother effing nightmare.

We did eventually arrive. Went to a wedding. Put on our most attractive faces.

Look Who is BACK!

2011-07-02T15:21:00.002-04:00

I am completely shocked that everyone has not unfriended me. Thanks kids, you are really the best!

So. What has been going on in my world of chaos? Well. In short, chaos!
This is the time of year when I work 14 hour days 6 days a week. When I run around so damn much all day that the only thing I can run to when the day is done is dinner and a big fricking beer. (oh sure, get up earlier! not me, not NEVAH. I get up at 4:45 as it is and it makes me want to poke out my eyes with a red hot poker.)

Ahem.

Despite all this insanity, my renewed dislike of the sweat slick that runs down my bod in the 80+ degree heat (and not just while trying to run, mind you...) and the fact that my weekly mileage total is about -47 I am hitting the road on Monday for the infamous and ever hilly 4 on the 4th. the cool thing about this is that two of my teenage riding students are jumping on board for the helluva fun good time that we are clearly going to have. Oh yes. So FUN! SO FUN!

But really. I look forward to this and am ever so tickled that I have opened their eyes to more than foul language, bitter sarcasm and beer drinking. (I kid. Really, around the little ones I am as wholesome as Ma Ingalls on the prairie. For serious...)

I look forward to posting pictures of the three of us showboating like fools because that is how we roll. I look forward to knowing that the race will be OVER after 4 miles that I will not have 9 more to go. And I look forward to having the 4th of July OFF!!!

By the way. I fully dominated the horse show circuit this Spring if y'all were wondering. Tons of fun, and I'm pretty pumped for the fall season of Finals and what not. Good times.

Puppy Pictures!

2011-05-23T13:39:00.008-04:00

Here he is! After stringing all of you along for many weeks I thought I'd post a baby pic of my new little munchkin. Love his face. You can't appriciate how teensy he was because I am roughly the size and shape of a 5th grader. But hot damn, if he is not cute then I don't know what is!

We have not seen the sun in 14 days.
Ah well, who needs it?
To spare you all from my weather musings (and yes, I'm from Maine! ALL we do is moan about the weather. Seriously, we enjoy it!) I'll just post more puppy pics. Prepare to DIE from THE CUTE!

Here he is! Lester Danger my-last-name. Doing what he did best for the first few days, which was to sleep under a chair with a friend.

Lester playing with his big bro Rufus. Clearly badass.

AKKKK SO CUTE! 8 weeks old playing in the yard. Well... sitting...

Crappy Spring Weather

2011-05-17T09:23:00.003-04:00

The dreary weather is getting old, and I'm getting sick of seeing it!
I suppose that the one good thing is that 44 degrees and drizzle really does a hell of a job keeping the bugs away. UGHHHHH.

Let's backtrack a bit. I made an offhand comment about loosing weight post-half training insanity. I do feel the need to clarify that I certainly do not need to loose weight, nor am I excited to see it happen! The only time that my weight goes up is when I am seriously muscular and the only time it goes down is when I relax the intensity of the training. Or when I'm vomming for hours on end, or when work gets really nuts and (Heaven Forbid) I have to miss meals.

There is simply no denying the fact that day after day of this shiznit crapola weather is really testing my good mood. After spending the whole freaking day slogging along working outside in it the LAST thing I want to do is slap on the old running shoes and get soaked to the bone. MEH! So I'm taking the bull by the horns and heading out right NOW to sprint thru the gloomy countryside. (which means that before my next client I'll have to do something about the soggy clothing, frizzball hair and disgusted attitude.) **SIGH**

Three Things Thursday

2011-05-12T14:59:00.000-04:00

Or... TAKE THAT! Thursday.
As in... Take THAT on my promise for a Warty Wednesday post! Bottom line, I refuse to blog from my iphone and I've been on the go 24/7 and that's what I would have been stuck with. Awesome-o...

1: Since I have quit running 30 miles per week some amusing things have happened. I have lost about 4 pounds (which adds up to 2 each leg. I was a BEAST!) I can also walk straight down stairs now instead of doing a hoppidy-waddle due to my knees and hips being chronically flat busted. I was in such a habit of doing my downhills in an odd manner that I recently took time to relearn how to take stairs like a lady.

2: The weather is KICKASS for running and I must say that I continue to enjoy running short distances whenever and wherever and how ever fast I damn well please. The bugs on the other hand are completely out of control and I may need a blood transfusion if they keep sucking on me at this rate...

3: Good weather equals summer running gear. I had forgotten how annoyingly swishy some of my shorts are. I hate to hear them the same way that I HATE to hear my race number crinkling and swooshing. GRRRR. Time to buy some nice quiet shorts, or to get a grip on reality.

In other news I'm packing up the boys and heading to Mass for the first show of the year. The older boy should be a rock star because he's 15 and knows how to act, bless his little chestnut heart. The younger little monster is on the fence about his plans for behavior- it is his first show ever so (as always) I have realistic expectations. He has a long time to grow up and just needs to get out and see what the big kid world is all about!

Monday Mayhem!

2011-05-09T16:02:00.005-04:00

Yes, yes. You all are into Triple Tangent Tuesdays, Friday Favorites and the like.

Me?

Mayhem Monday.
Warty Wednesday.
Take THAT Thursday.

I am very cool. Very inventive. Very Hip.

Mayhem is a bit of a fib. It was my motto for the pre-show horse training this morning, as one should throw a lot of terror at one's pony pre show so they are glad to get the hell off the farm. Really, when you have been around the horse block as many times as I have that statement reeks of logic and reason.

Just got back from a nice warm run of a sensible distance, if not terrain. 4 miles still seems so delightfully short and simple after the months and months of long distance training. It was lovely, kind of sweaty and buggy and my feet are not completely healed (come back on Wednesday. You should already know why!) But still.... (where did the lighter fluid come from?)

I feel myself getting the urge to sneak to a race (not sure if I could sneak since I just advertised this interest on the Internet. Hmmm.) I had a feeling that after an easy month I'd get the bug back and I can feel it! Not really sure what I'll do before the 4th of July, perhaps it will be something spontaneous and last minute? And under 13.1 miles FOR SHO.

My puppy is GREAT! YOU GUYS! No pics, I'm so sorry but my Dad stole the camera before I could load them. GAHD, like its his or something... (it is.)

On a final note. Even though I have been supremely bad at commenting on all of your wonderful blogs lately please know that I am reading and enjoying.

(and don't get too excited now, but I will be back on Wednesday. For real.)

I am the WORST BLOGGER EVER!

2011-05-03T09:14:00.003-04:00

You guys! Thanks so much for sticking around and not un-following me during my lengthy and absurd dissapearences....

Spring is here! The roads are lookin' good. From afar, as I really wouldn't know.

I kid! Somewhat... Since I no longer have 13.1 miles of terror looming on the horizon I no longer feel pressured to put insane mileage on my shoes. Damn good thing too since I no more have time to run extreme miles than I have time to take a nap. Or wash my hair. Or do laundry, which is piling up in a most alarming fashion...

The reason for this? NEW PUPPY TIME! (pics to come, promise.) He's a great guy but between the extra babysitting and the fact that the older dog needs an ativan I've been running myself ragged! So look- I HAVE been running. Yeah suckahs!

In reality I have put in a few nice, 4ish milers which have been delightfully low pressure. I run as fast or slow as I feel inclined. I look at the scenery. I listen to all the springey noises and...ummm... joy radiates thru my very being?? Nah, but it is nice to hit the road in some nicer weather. Not to mention the fact that I'm done before my legs even eake up to the fact that they are doing something!

So. Please don't stop following me. As the busy season continues I am going to try to blog 3 times per week (yes, yes. That is two times more than I have been lately. But I'm gonna make it happen!) Puppy pics are coming, horse show insanity in less than 2 weeks will keep you all amused and coming back for more (on the running blog) and I have plans to run a race again soon. (a race against the fricking clock maybe as I struggle to get shiz done....!)

My Weekend in pictures

2011-04-26T07:55:00.005-04:00

Or.. I could title this "DAYUM. I'm GOOOOOD LOOKIN'!!!"

Or.... ""THE HUZ IS SO LUCKY....."

Or better yet.... "I'm big and scary! Bwa-HAHAA!"

Some odd weather this weekend prompted me to put on peculiar jumbling of clothing and leave the house for a run without looking in the mirror. AKKKK! I look so funny and homeless... That is my "pirate" face btw because the Huz says that tank top makes me look rather pirateish, whatevs... I think I look dead sexy per the norm. Kindly avert your eyes form the sliver of painfully white thigh peeking out from between the tall socks and shorts. Looking hot-hot-hot!

I took The Huz to Funspot so he could play Donkey Kong like a frickin boss. I put a token in that game and won like a billion tickets which completely freaked me out as you can see from my priceless expression. This pic is crappy and blurry but totally worth including since I look fully absurd.

Ye-AH bitches! This heyah is my new toy. In Maine we drive our tractahs to school because we think we're really cooooollll! Best thing ever: we have to take off the "OMG! You have fallen from the seat- Safety stop feature because I'm so skinny that the tractor refuses to believe I'm sitting on it and it will not allow me to drive it. The tractor is an A-HOLE!

Do take note that I am in some way scowling in each and every one of these pictures. Heaven forbid that I see a camera and try to look pretty... Oh no, I sneer, make odd hand gestures and generally look A FOOL. Oh well. I am a cool fool and don't care...

I'll be back later in the week with a post that actually pertains to something relevant. I promise!

How to maintain sanity within the chaos: Part one

2011-04-22T07:05:00.003-04:00

My schedule/life has quite simply been in utter chaos this week!

Perhaps that is a touch dramatic, I suppose that chaos is pushing the limits of reality but to say that I have been exceptionally busy is an understatement. I, right now, am at the 100% limit of what I can manage business wise on my own without calling in help (and help has another job, damn her!)

An important side note: I AM NOT complaining about being busy!! Being busy keeps me in the black, keeps me entertained and from causing too many shenanigans and bottom line: I have a business and one must BE busy to BE in business. Duh. Come to me if you want an epic 5 year plan, because there it is right there. Boom...

I am NOT exaggerating when I declare that the weather has been outrageously horrific. Pouring down rain, 34 degrees with hail and (??) Thunder! 40 MPH winds. Imagine all nasty weather- minus tornadoes- and that is what we have had here. YUCK.

After my little run earlier in the week I have been kept away from the pavement due to the diabolical combination of all the things I just mentioned. Crazy, I tell you!

This has caused me to take a moment to reflect upon my priorities, time management (the weather) and of course, one of my favorite topics: Excuses VS Reasons.

In my line of work I hear a lot of excuses as to why things are going wrong, or not progressing as they should. It amazes me sometimes the balderdash that I hear pouring from peoples mouths as to why they have not practiced AT ALL between training sessions.

I don't like this. BUT, if improving is not your priority then fine! If someone is a casual equestrian then whatever makes them enjoy their time in the saddle is cool with me. BUT, if someone has serious competitive 9or other) aspirations and are still making silly excuses then I try to encourage a more workmanlike mindset.

I was wondering this week if I was falling into the excuses trap in my running life. I took a few points into consideration.

-I am a hobby runner. This will NEVER be a career move for me unless mediocrity and zero money ends up being something that I find desirable. Hmmm?

-I am NOT waking up in the morning saying "OMG! I'm gonna run today" and then spending hours procrastinating, whiling away my time on facebook, or otherwise avoiding the issue. NO, I am waking up in the morning going "HOLY S**tballs! I hope that I can find a second within the madness to eat meals and such!"

-I need to be sure to have my priorities straight. I MUST work (obvi) I MUST take the extra time during these Spring months to be sure that the horses who about to begin their competitive season are fully tuned up. And I MUST have time at the end of the day to see The Huz and Rufus. The Huz has endless patience for the way that my job keeps me away from the house as I came into the relationship with all that attached to me. Understandably, he gets a touch miffed if then I head out to run for 10 miles during the only time we have to see one another. Don't blame the guy one bit, I am (after all) terrifically entertaining to have around not to mention blindingly attractive and smelling of flowers.

My hope- which might be a wild fantasy- is to figure out how to incorporate a few days of running into the schedule. (weather permitting.) Balance is important.

A well deserved break!

2011-04-19T07:04:00.004-04:00

Hey, I'm finally BACK!

A quick shout out to all you Boston Marathoners- terrific job yesterday! Quite an exciting finish for the elite runners as well, edge of your seat stuff.

So. What have I been up to?

After the Half I took a few days off and headed back out for some easy running days. I'm not going to lie here people, no matter what i did those runs were anything but easy. They were agonizing (more in a mental way than a "SNAP, I HURT" kind of way.) My brain was not in the game, my legs did not want to show up and play, I was exhausted. Done. Stick a fork in me.

I thought about my situation, especially since I was considering jumping right back on the big time training bandwagon and hitting up another Half in early May. I mulled over what the issue was with my poorly functioning body and contemplated where on EARTH this brick wall had come from. What I concluded:

-Work is insane. Try doing an extremely physical job for 70 plus hours a week. It will tucker a girl out, no lie.

-It is the time of year where I am just buried (back to the work thing) in paperwork, tax crap, impending horse show chaos, and am literally AS busy as I can be while running on a staff of one, who is ME.

-Add 30 miles a week of hill sprints to this and Boom. Apparently I am not superwoman. Suck-OH!

I thought about getting pissy and throwing a pity party for myself and my ineptitude and then I bitch slapped myself in the face and got a grip.

AND TOOK TEN DAYS OFF FROM RUNNING.
WHAT did I DO with all my spare time? (other than... WORK?)

Went to the super fun micro brew fest with My Dad and The Huz. I'm clearly having a laugh in this pic as you can pretty much see my wisdom teeth. All 3 of them.

Picked out our new baby doggie! This is little Lester Danger My-Last-Name at 5 weeks old...

Here I am with the most precious puppy ever! So excited...

As you can see my days "off" were well spent. We also caught up with friends, I sold a horse (YAY!) which means that I paid some pretty major bills, I caught up on forgotten chores, had the Corolla inspected and did so many other adult tasks that are too dull to mention.

Now that I have recovered both mentally and physically I am beyond pumped to hit the road later today for a nice, easy 4 miler.

Mega Blog Issues!

2011-04-16T07:08:00.002-04:00

Hello Hello!

No, I am not gone for good. (lucky you guys!)

Not only have I had a busy week but something has been wrong with the old blog... First it would not allow me to access the "new post" page (crap!) and NOW (at least from where I sit) I can not see my followers! Double Crap!

Don't know what is wrong around here. Trying to figure it out. Not having luck....
Advice?

Why I am Gross! Or: Disgusting habits part two

2011-04-11T16:09:00.002-04:00

Thanks for joining in the fun, lurkers of the past and followers of the NOW!
So, 51 followers FORTY NINE TO GO until the big one hundred. Perhaps that will happen in my lifetime?

Thanks to Aging Novice Runner you may all sit back and enjoy one of my infamous gory over sharing epics.

Todays tale is a non running one... But gory enough, I believe.

One of the biggest things that plagues we equestrians (other than the fact that owning a horse costs more than having a gaggle of small, private school attending children) is the constant battle against the saddle sore. Yes my friends, saddle sores. Perhaps they sound innocent enough, like you get a widdie bittie pinch from your saddle that you ignore and barely even notice? That kind of saddle sore is amateurish stuff and simply not in the realm of the horror that I know all too well.

You know it's coming. You made a bad choice and wore your too warm breeches on a 90 degree day, or made the heinous decision to throw on a pair of seamey cotton knickers to ride 4 horses in. In the rain. In a too-big saddle, or in a pair of overly large riding pants. Regardless of your original thought process by the time you dismount from your noble steed your butt cheek feels rubbed raw and blisterlike. Upon further investigation you discover that is exactly what happened and, as luck would have it, you still have 4 horses to ride.

We're not too shy, as equestrians, about talking about, showing off and taking photos of our worst war wounds. When I reminisce about some of my more sorry times one story comes to mind.

I was smack in the middle of day one of a 5 day show and was having one of those moments. I was in the saddle for much longer than I had planned much to my rear ends dismay, and since I was expecting to ride multiple times a day for the duration of the show I had saved up all of my finest non-chafing knickers for the occasion. But was one pair short... (so clearly the "occasion was NOT day one) It was 85 humid degrees of pouring rain to add insult to injury and no lie- the vast majority of my butt skin was peeled right off. Imagine.... A snake loosing its skin? But weeping. Bleeding. Thinking about pustulating.

This was bad news.

I was far past the point of being able to "prevent" this madness with a touch of powder or anti-monkey-butt paste. Oh, no- there was no turning back from the brink of horror.

I stayed awake most of that night desperately uncomfortable as I could not lie on my back and every time I rolled over my butt skin screamed "NOOOO, lie still you IDIOT!" It was not the greatest of times.

The next day I went into "save the breeches" mode. I'm not lying when I tell you that a saddle sore is a weepy mess. The damn thing will weep its way thru your undergarments, thru your (white, $200) riding pants, and right onto your saddle causing onlookers to back away as though you have a flesh eating disease. I put on my sturdiest and most non chafing set of drawers and went about the business of trying to sit on a few horses. Ohhhh, they were good times let ME TELL YOU.

Sure enough, at the end of the day there was.... weep?.... everywhere. I had a good look at the stash of knickers that I had brought and discovered that the ones I had already worn were the ONLY ones that would cover the offending area. Offffff course...

Have I mentioned before that underwear is exempt from my "get 3-4 uses out of before washing" rule? Yes I have, as recycling the undies is the ultimate nastiness due to the fact that butt sweat is dirty sweat. But what choice did I have? I had a whole bum full of half dollar sized bleeding, pussing, weeping in fricking AGONY sores and there was nothing else to do.

So. For 4 days I rocked the same pair of white underarmour compression shorts. In my defense , at the end of the day I would try to wash the worst of it out in the hotel sink with a little bar of soap. I'm quite sure that did a tremendous amount of good.... (and this is why.... the Huz is unlikely to ever tag along to a horse show.)

The whole fiasco really rubbed me the wrong way (SNAP I am funny, you laughed, admit it!) It was weeks- no lie- before my skin grew back and even more weeks before I wanted to see a pair of underarmour compression shorts.

Forty Nine followers, ONE to go!

2011-04-11T07:14:00.002-04:00

Forty nine followers....

Not bad, considering that my blog is mostly random blatherings.

However. Follower number 50, stop lurking and join up already! Let's find me one more follower by the end of the day and I'll reward you with a quality post about something gory. Maybe more of my bad/disgusting habits! (always a good topic.)

I probably should have bribed y'all with a giveaway but I'm saving that for the big 100 follower day (which might never arrive!)

What next??

2011-04-07T07:57:00.004-04:00

I am a woman without a plan. I do not like this... Evidently, my motivation is driven by my competitive nature and without a race on the horizon I'm flipping around like a fish out of water. Directionless... And a touch confused. Let's take care of this problem, shall we? Keeping in mind that my Equestrian competitive season starts on May 14Th, and that (no lie) I am booked every weekend in June this is what I have my eyes on at this time. I'm going to outline a few possibilities and then leave it to you all to decide for me. Or to help at any rate, no pressure people, no pressure!

1: May 7th, Big Lake Half Marathon: Alton, NH
http://www.biglakehalfmarathon.com/biglake/wish-racer.html
So, do I have the tine, energy and attitude to do one more half before Summer hits and I'm reduced to running 8 miles a week? (A WEEK! BLAH!) My original grand plan was to have last weekends Half be the last before moving on to shorter distances for the Spring and Summer months. This Half looks fun- hilly (at least they admit to it... better to know!) and not too terribly far from where I live. So the question is.... Do I go for the distance one more time??

2: May 8th, Portland Sea Dogs 5K: Portland ME
So this is one of those big, jolly local races where there are a bazillion people all dashing thru the narrow streets of Portland. I'd be looking for a PR here which would mean that for the next month I would get to work on speed work shorter distances and all that craptastic stuff. The other option is that I could get a couple friends to run this with me "for fun" Like I do anything "for fun..."

3: May 22nd, Evan's Run 10K, Norwell MA
http://www.evanhenry.org/
Probably wouldn't think twice about this one but the WHOLE family lives down there and I could probably talk some of them into running. Or hanging out... Probably even feeding me! And it has the 10K option- 10K's are really hard to come by from the looks of things. It would be a bit of a haul (3.5 hours) but like I said... The whole Family!

I know for sure that I have the 4 on the 4th (of July, Duh) in my plans as well as the infamous Beach To Beacon in August. So the task at hand is to figure out what to do next. Your opinion is much appreciated!

Some serious Art

2011-04-06T09:51:00.007-04:00

My Huz is a funny guy. He'll sit down, start drawing and hilarity ensues.

I asked him if he could produce some serious running art for me, depicting the events of Sunday's Race. Here is what he came up with.

They did not scan as well as I had hoped for. But oh well.

OK. So, here I am racing away. Two things this pic that are distinctly out of proportion. My sunglasses. And my Double D sized ta-ta's. I asked The Huz if that was what he actually SAW and no, it is just what he imagines. Ahhhhh, men... I laughed for a long time.

After the race. Appears that my boobs have diminished- must be due to the 5 lbs I loose during a Half. All in the front end, clearly. This is a sad picture. Very accurate.

Oh shit. Eating dirt. On tha floor. Down and out. And uncomfortably spread eagled to boot...

Hello Race Report! Great Bay Half, in the Oh-Eleven...

2011-04-05T06:49:00.003-04:00

Race report time! (pictures to come.... later...)

Good old New Hampshire... I seem to have darkened the doors of our neighboring State several times this winter all in the name of running insanity. This time for the Great Bay Half which was held in Newmarket, more or less on the water.

The weather was remarkably and unusually good. This left me feeling confused about what to wear and how to operate as I have not run in temps much above 32 for the past couple weeks. The high temp at the race was a blistering 55 degrees and despite the stupid wind felt quite balmy. Perhaps I am exaggerating slightly but compared to sub arctic mid 50's feels downright tropical.

I felt good! An extra weather related day off seemed to be just what I needed to get rid of the dreaded and unnecessary knee pain. I ate food, drank purple gatorade, donned odd layers including sunscreen and was ready to go!

There were lots of people there plus many cute puppies. Cute puppies = happiness and warm fuzzies in my heart.

The whole shebang got off to a smooth start despite the fact that there was a 5K running at the same time and that can make things frenetic. It was not bad though and I set what felt like a decent pace for what my legs and I had in mind. I overtook the 8:30 pace group before mile 2 which surprised me as I didn't see them at the last 1/2 until mile 11. I felt fine about this since my goal was to maintain about an 8:20-8:30 pace throughout. Evidently, I have an excellent inner Garmin as I don't actually have any way to measure my pace other than in my head. I am a real woman of genius apparently and seem to be fairly competent at pacing myself. (I am a real woman of genius in many other areas too, don't want to short change myself.)

Anywhoo. It was great to be running on a warm day! With friends (ummm, strangers but who is paying attention!) In a tank top after mile 3! All these exclamations do justice to how I felt. Just fine.

There was a rather troublesome stretch of dirt road. Not overly troublesome because of its surface but due to some never ending potholes which required some dodging and leaping. I had more or less fallen into pace with a good number of runners at that point and we all stuck together more or less, for a couple miles. It was hard to tell how fast the "real" runners were running because the 5K start had fuddled things up. Regardless, I certainly wasn't expecting to be in the top group of runners so I stuck to my arduous pace happily.

I missed the memo that this was a hilly course. I think the "Cool Running" blurb on the race casually said that over the past couple years they have designed a course with "10% fewer hills." 10% fewer than 100%? That's what it felt like. Have I mentioned that I train the hell out of the hills in my own town? Yes I have... BUT STILL. It wasn't that the hills were long it was they they were friggin relentless and JUST. KEPT. COMING. I was planning to pick up the pace a bit after mile 7 but the hell if I could what with the hills knocking me on my ass at every turn. I wasn't so much tired... As I was tired of seeing more hills. It was really pissing me off, to be completely honest. The other thing that was really grinding my gears was that for whatever reason the Shot Blok stupid things were NOT sitting well. Again, what the hell? I practice eating those little weirdo's all the time so shiz like that does not happen. It wasn't the best, and hiccupping slightly while I run kind of messes with my nice breathing rhythm.

Despite my trials and tribulations I soldiered bravely on, passing people here and there and feeling small twinges of victory.

Here is what I was thinking around mile 8-9ish.

THE GOOD-I'm at mile 8-9ish. Almost done? Almost done...
-NO PAIN!
-What a nice day
-Not feeling tired

THE BAD-I'm only at mile 8-9ish. WTF??
-Shot bloks feel like lead weights in stomach. bleech.
-Number is swooshing annoyingly. swoosh, crinkle, swoosh, crinkle. GRRR!
-Chafing under right arm. Must have a flabby bit there.

At mile 11 we came to the "out and back" part of the course (another thing that makes me cross. seeing who is ahead of me!) The front runners had indeed set a blistering pace- quite impressive. I don't feel like having to run that hard for 13 miles though, thanxxx.

Mile 12 was a sight for sore eyes, sore feet, multiple chaffed areas and an ever growing more uppity belly. At that point I was still pain free (as in, hip flexor and knees! yayyy!) and I knew I could make it. I had one more bizarre moment when my allergies got the best of me and I sneezed. I don't know if it was because I was running into a very strong wind, because I was slightly breathless or WHAT but the sneezed backfired and seriously chocked me. Yes, bizarre. No crap, I could not get a single breath of air in and was imagining a horrifying situation that involved me, the paramedics and some sort of tube stuck in my neck to give me air. Luckily, my imagination was far worse than reality as I quickly regained my breathing capabilities and got on with it. Not before several people managed to pass me...

I ran into town, thru the finish and saw that I snuck in just under 1:46. Found the Huz and tried to walk off the unpleasantness in mah belly. To no avail. I should have given up and lost my shot bloks on my shoes but I sucked it up and held back on the projectile vomming. I definitely felt dehydrated (stupid warm weather!) but for the life of me could not force anything down. I spent a couple hours curled up in some sort of sick, fetal position going "ewwwwww. ewwwwww. I hate myself" and things of that nature. eventually I was able to straighten up, gulp some gatorade and get back to life... In an attempt to fix me, as lack of food was certainly was playing a part in my lightheadedness we went over to Redhook. Our waitress said that she was seeing an awful lot of green hued runners who were announcing the probability of imminently loosing their lunches. I was quite pleased that I was not alone in my struggle... I suppose I could have won myself one of those coveted pukie awards if I had just hurled immediately upon crossing the finish line- I'll have to take that into consideration for my next race!

So, despite feeling green around the gills after the race I felt good about how everything went. It is better to hit the wall immediately upon finishing then to bonk at mile 6 (a good way to look at it?) I was super pleased with my time of 1:45:40, and to finish 215th- out of about 1200. I was 9th in my age group and the 47th placed woman.

So! I met my goal of shaving a bit of time off my last Half, not feeling the same pains and finishing strong. Now I have to figure out how to finish well and not feel like junk!

Small Race Update

2011-04-04T08:03:00.001-04:00

I'll take time later to go over all the sweaty, tiresome, hilly, pot-holey details. Also plan to have some oversharing time- "how I almost vommed on my shoes" or similar...

Until then I'll leave you with this.

1:45:40

Boom.

Here we go again!

2011-04-02T18:00:00.001-04:00

Well, this is it!

Tomorrow is the big day and if nothing else, the weather looks better than the last time I made the peculiar choice to run across 13.1 miles of frozen tundra.

I do appriciate the Runners World advice to "take it easy and stay off your feet as much as possible" the day before a big race/long run. Needless to say, that did NOT happen. I had a whole weekend of work crammed into today and it was quite hectic!

I am hopeful that tomorrow will go well and that I will finish in the same time range as last time, and hopefully pain free. So.... Fingers crossed for 1:48:00. That will cut 54 seconds off my last time. No idea if that is realistic what with the dirt road and all that but to hell with logic and reason!

Off to carb load. AKA have a beer. Beverage of champions!

In which we discover that I can outrun the long arm of the law....

2011-04-01T07:19:00.003-04:00

Oh. Hello BLIZZARD! Thought/hoped you might be a big bad April fools joke. Guess we know who the fools are now....

I am having a challenging time picturing myself running my planned itty-bitty 3 miler in this shiz. I expect that I would be run over by a snowplow, lost in a whiteout or hit by a car and lost forever in one of the still towering snowbanks. I'm not in a good mood about this storm. The grouch is threatening to overtake my usually oh-so sunshiney nature.

Since running seems to be on the bottom of the to-do list (half marathon, you go run yourself will ya??!!) I'll venture off on a tangent.

I ran (umm, drove) out yesterday evening (with the rest of the free world, all whipped up into a pre storm frenzy of hysteria. sigh.) to do some stupid errands.. I was getting em' done! Makin' the headway! Avoiding almost everyone I know to prevent chit-chatting delays (and I was straight from the barn. hat on head, nasty ski pants on, stinky sweatshirt firmly in place. I know I'm a stone cold fox, I can go out any way I damn please and turn heads... because people are freaked out/disgusted! hahah.)

ANYWAY. I like to multi task when I'm out and about so I was driving from point A to B while returning a phone call. I was driving at 0.2 miles per hour to adhere to traffic laws when suddenly I saw a Cop sneak up behind me. "Uh OH!" I exclaimed to the person on the other end (my Hay guy, calling me about the logic and reason of having a street sign put up on my veryvery long driveway for 911 purposes. Bet y'all didn't know that Hay guys are also the 911 guys? So confusing...) In my head I was ready to give Mr. Hay Guy full responsibility if I had done something to attract attention from a cop. I enjoy passing the buck, avoiding blame/responsibility and so forth. But I digress... I flung the phone aside, thinking hard about what sorts of traffic violation I could have made when sure enough the blue lights went on. Frantically, I looked at myself in the vanity mirror and discovered that flirting my way out of anything would be challenging in my condition- which was messy. Damnit!

I stopped. He stopped. I was confused. Mr. Cop got out of his car and kinda.....skulked all around my car for a minute. "WHAT did I DO??" I shouted, smoothly, out the window. "Well... I thought you had a plate light out... but you don't." Oh.KAY?? "do you currently have a warrant out for your arrest?" He arbitrarily asked. "Ah. about that..." (NO!) Just kidding, I was obviously like, NO! WTF? He took my licence and said "well, this is embarrassing. BUT look! Your inspection has expired!" **sigh** Having no womanly charm to fall back on I was relieved that he simply gestured for me to leave, and off I went.

The HELL??

I should be fully invisible in the granny like Corolla that I drive but this is not the first time that I have been pulled over for nothing! GAHD! I was amused and perplexed. It was very April Fools like- but a day early. My feeling was that once again- the bizarre had struck its favorite target. ME.

I was thinking that my Hay Guy was really going to take the piss out of me for being such a hardened criminal when I finally called him back to continue our (slightly bizarre- big shock there) conversation about the 911 capabilities in my town. (Which clearly are not as good as the 911 capabilities in the town I got pulled over in, since they saw my delinquent self driving around and really got on the hop.) However, at this point most of the people in my life are so used to me coming up on the wrong side of the law that this was like, old news.. no big deal! (kidding. I'm a model citizen.)

So. Avoiding arrest, handcuffing, booking or at the very least a warning for an overdue inspection sticker was a good way to finish up my day. Sigh...

In which I fail at long runs, but win at life.

2011-03-30T07:22:00.004-04:00

The time has come to discover the answer to the age old question... What is worse? Big hills? Chapped knees? Muddy roads? Or what? The winner of this diabolical question is all of the above... And just a bit more for good measure.

I was looking at my long run with a bit of trepidation as I have really been pushing it a bit lately and henceforth, feeling it in my knees, my shin, and especially my brain which was just tired! I took a day off after my muddy hilly dirt road 6 miler over the weekend (which, despite the sounds of things was a solid run! go figure...)

My plan for the infamous long run of torment was to bypass all the mountains, avoid the 30 MPH wind and 25 degree temps, and baby my poor little knees along on the treadmill (which hasn't been blessed with the presence of my feet in weeks!) Alas, it was not meant to be. Things got busy and before I knew it my driving to the gym time had been absorbed by what I like to call "answer impossible question time". This is the time of day when my clients ask me to solve their life problems for them. This presents something of a challenge for me as I am only well versed in a few subjects- but what the hell- I always give it a good shot.

So... Armed with the knowledge that I had another happy client who was more tech savvy thanks to my instruction off I went. Gusting winds in my face. Frozen ground under my feet. An attempt to maintain a positive mindset... in my brain? Yeah....

Things felt just fine until I got to mile 4 and then I discovered that I was freaking starving. Evidently, it was a lot later that I thought it was and was nearing my snack time. Which is one of the most important times of the day for me, thank you very much. You should not get between this girl and her food unless you want to have an epic battle in which I win, and then steal your candy! HA! So... I reached for my Clif block shit thing only to discover that in my haste to depart I had neglected to put on my vest which normally carries all my valuables: aka: FOOD. Damnit.

Things did not end well. We'll leave it at that. After 9 wimpy miles I crept back into my parents driveway completely worked over, sore, starving and really grouchy. What a complete shit show, I was irked by my complete lack of planning and general incompetence. Upon witnessing my dive into the dirty snowbank and hearing my agony my Dad did the only sensible thing.

He brought me a beer. Good thinking!

I am so delighted to see that despite my MANY layers of clothing that I still am roughly the size and shape of Justin Bieber. Why, WHY?!

Anyway. I survived. For the rest of the week pre race I am going to do the easiest runs imaginable and try to nurse my sore body parts back to good health. I think this is a good lesson to all: nothing- bad weather, sore muscles, idiocy- NOTHING- can resist the medicinal purposes of a good old fashioned beer. Cheers!

Mega Tangent Monday OR: Why people pay me for advice

2011-03-28T08:00:00.001-04:00

In my last post I mentioned in passing my goals for my upcoming race and how I plan to achieve them (essentially, I have kicked the crap out of myself physically for the last month. well done me!)

This got me thinking about goals in general, how they can be useful and how people manage their own personal world domination. ....which in turn made me think about my job, where I get to yammer on quite extensively about all of this!....

It is my job to help my clients set and reach goals, boom! plain and simple. With the horses there is an extra challenge of having a 1500 pound four legged beast with the approximate maturity level of a preschooler on crack. There has to be a crap ton of flexibility in any "plan" where a horse is involved because they are fragile creatures who occasionally need a change of scenery or pace in order to stay fresh. Top priority, in a nutshell, is to maintain the happiness and soundness of our furry little problems. I mean friends, bless 'em.

Throw a few high maintenance, slightly eccentric equestrians into the mix and things start to get interesting! Add me to the equation and (believe it or not) logic and reason always prevail. Really!

I always have endless words of wisdom for my clients when it comes to goal setting. I have been doing this shiz for years!

It is good to have a BIG goal: "I have competitive aspirations! I wish to earn xyz award over the course of the next few years!"

Some smaller goals: "To earn this award I will need to compete in several recognized shows at two different levels and get x score."

Add in some personal goals: "I have lingering show nerves... I will take time for positive imaging before I ride, will schedule weekly lessons and practice in front of a crowd in my home environment to overcome my fear."

And a dose of reality: "I am going to need a lot of money/time to manage to reach my goal. However, it is important to me so I will commit to making this happen by cutting back on social outings/careless spending (booo!)"

Then think about what needs to be WORKED on to get to step one:

"I am not in good enough shape to ride my horse as well as I can. I will improve this by going to the gym three times a week."

"I have never ridden at the highest level that is required for the award I am aiming for. I understand that it will take at least another year before I/Horse am ready for this challenge."

You get the picture, and how this (honestly) directly relates to running goals as well! For me, because riding goals are almost second nature at this point I find myself taking my own advice when it comes to setting (foolish. unreasonable.) goals for my running. ...take the horse out of the picture and I only have my own silly legs/mental health/fitness/attitude to worry about. It is really so damn easy......

It is discouraging for me when people present goals that are not.... mature....

"I want to go out this year and kick so and so-s BUTT in the show ring!"

"I just want to win ribbons so I'm going to move down a level, even though it presents no challenge to me."

I imagine that this relates to the running world as well and is equally **ahem** productive. It is good to wish to come out on top, right? But at the end of the day meeting a personal goal is more important.

One seriously good thing about competitive running is that there is NO question of how you did, or why you finished up in 288th place. No mystery, no head shaking, no nothin'. It is also easy to have a look at your personal results and see improvement (or not...) It is the tricky thing with horses- you might go out and have your best go EVER- but if the judge does not agree you won't get your best score. And yeah... there are serious judging standards but at the end of the day it still boils down to personal preference. It's part of it and we all accept it for what it is and don't moan and wallow. We just drink a few extra beers...

So! In horses, running, or fabulocity in general there seems to me a common thread. In order to improve, reach goals and see progress one must work hard, smart and fair (in regards to horses.. oh and yourself, I suppose!) You need to know not only where you want to go but how you are going to get there, and what can help you to get there in the smartest, happiest and healthiest way possible. And you always, always, need to have a Plan B to fall back on if Plan A goes to hell in a handbasket. (these are good rules to live by. perhaps I'll write a book of inspiration! NOTTTTT.)

Anywhoo! I promise no more long preachy posts for a while. Honestly, I think that the setting of goals is an interesting topic and one that I deal with every day so I have a lot to say on the matter!

Next time: what is worse: big hills? chapped knees? spongy dirt roads? or something far worse!!

The Final Countdown. Version 2.0

2011-03-27T14:01:00.006-04:00

One week until the Great Bay Half in Newmarket, NH. I have not looked at the forecast because it really doesn't matter to me- I will run in anything as long as I can get there! Let's all hope for some sunny warm non-snowy business though- I'd really appreciate it.

One of the perks of being in a Mainer... Ability to be the master of the weather... Or Not...

3 miles of this half is run on a dirt road. Excellent! A new way to add challenge to the already impossible mission of running an absurd distance. No big deal though, I have mud filled, squishy, rather icy and hilly dirt roads to practice on around here. My shoes are officially ready for retirement now...

I was mulling over the past month and how I have prepared for Half Marathon: Round Two. After Half Version One I identified a few issues that I had to address.
1: Lack of outdoor running left me ill prepared to deal with the reality of the roads. Amazing how 6 weeks indoors (even with hill challenge days thrown in) can leave you soft and traumatized by a frost heave. Humph.
2: By mile 8 I had shredded my hip flexor. Lack of terrain training played a big part in this, I am sure. Suspicious that the minimal hill work I had been doing weakened all important parts of my leg and it reflected in the H/F strain. I am hard core. I know that in order to improve, one must actually get on top of things and take responsibility for some serious ass kicking. I have to listen to people's confused feelings all the time about why they plateau for weeks, months, years and really, it is easy. You need to work, harder, better, smarter to improve at anything!! And you need to get the eff out there and work in horrible conditions, rain, muddy roads and big stupid hills so that they don't bother you on race day. This is what I have been shouting at myself lately and it is a solid train of thought for sure.

My goal is not to run a much better time in a week but to finish pain free. Or, with a different pain (OK to make errors, but not the same one twice!) I think with the hill work, long runs, dirt roads and extremely variable terrain that I am oh-so lucky to have around here I'm well prepared. I have felt less and less discomfort in my hip every run- even after 13.1 miles last Monday. (I was sore as s**t, don't get me wrong, but it was much better!)

Miraculously I have yet to throw a screaming fit about anything. Evidently I am a calm and zen like person, filled with remarkable inner poise and having no need of a taper tantrum. Perfection, people... Perfection...

So, we'll see how this week goes. Only a few more runs until I get to see if the hard work has paid off or if I should hang up my muddy shoes in disgust, in favor of a calmer lifestyle. We shall see..

Beach To Beacon, 2011

2011-03-24T06:51:00.003-04:00

Last Tuesday I woke up (per the norm) had some coffee, fed the dog and 9 absolutely starving to death horses then made my way to check my email.

My eyes drifted to the calender... March 15th.... Why does that date sound important??!!

OH CRAP. It's the day to register for the friggin Beach To Beacon.

In something of a panic I checked the clock- 7:08- and dejectedly, I knew that I had blown it. Registration had opened at 7:00 and fills in the same way that I fill myself with candy. (a good comparison, honestly.)

I. Was. Pissed!

I did the sensible thing and threw my name into the lottery- for 5 bucks I would have a chance to get my name drawn, along with 1200 or so others out of the million or so people who were delayed in their registration reactions.

For the week that I waited to find out which way my fate tide would turn I mulled over the "whys" of this race. Why in the hell did I want to do it anyway. Case in point.

-It will be 10,000 degrees out
-There are legit elite runners at this little bash. those crazy Kenyans run a 4:28 mile and don't break a sweat. It is absolute madness!
-The town that B2B is in really can't handle it. It is a shit show.
-No parking. No escape once you have parked.
-You have to arrive 4 hours early due to said parking situation.
-No way to win my age group unless I can miraculously manage to cut a minute per mile off my 10K time. Run a 6:40 average 10K? I highly doubt it!

When I received confirmation in my email box yesterday that I was one of the lucky ones with my name on a bib I was positively ecstatic! Which proves once more that I have descended into the depths of running insanity. I am looking forward to B2B fervently, 6:40 MPM time of not!

Monday Morning Mountain Mini Marathon....

2011-03-22T06:00:00.002-04:00

I was so hyped up about my hills yesterday that I completely forgot that I was the Featured Runner over at Run Courtney, Run! I am excited about this- go check it out!

In other news.... I mentioned a few days ago that I had planned my long run to be held on the treddy of terror in the climate controlled gym (haha) on a FLAT (or 1.5% incline) surface.
Well... My plans changed. I ended up running over the mountain of doom because I just didn't have the extra time to drive to my gym! I ran an abysmal first mile- if there had been a bail out button to transport me straight to a couch I would have hit it. Gladly! looking at my watch at mile 1 I was truly horrified (but not shocked- my legs, although not painful, felt like garbage) the time was 9:57!!! WHAT? When do I EVER run an almost 10 minute mile!

Luckily I did not call it a day at that point.....

I ended up running the first 5 miles in 44:28. Not great. Not too gross considering that I started out on the wrong foot. Or pair of feet.

I ran the second 5 miles in 41:45. Uphill. Boom.

Then... I threw in a 5K for good measure. In 27:32. (As I made the choice to do the final 3.1 I said "I'm going to shoot for 10 min per mile just to get extra time on the road- I shouldn't over do it!) I came close, and the last 3.1 were- AS USUAL- very hilly.

So... You run 10 miles then add in a 5K. What is the total?

13.1 suckahs. Take that stupid legs. In 1:53:05 which is nothing to cry about given the 67% incline that I was on for the whole freaking duration.

I came home and promptly threw my body in a snowbank because, as expected I had pushed the hip flexor to its limit (it did not hurt until mile 10-ish, and was much better that last week.) The snowbank was cold and unforgiving. Most unpleasant. I had some coffee milk which is much more palatable to me than any other kind of milk. I hate milk with a passion to be honest but am trying it, since it seems to so popular as the recovery drink for you hardcore runners! then I ate some cadbury eggs, some real eggs and some toast.

Then I got back to work.... Thank you Monday for being quiet enough to allow me to take 2 hours off!

I was thrilled at the end of the day to have almost zero discomfort in any part of my body. I don't know if I should thank my mad skillz, the snowbank or the coffee milk...

The Hills. Need I say more?

2011-03-21T07:56:00.004-04:00

As many of you have probably noticed I often complain loudly about the fact that I can not run any distance in my town without encountering a few pesky hills. while I'm sure that those of you who live in Vermont, for example, encounter much worse than this my feeling is that I am forced to do some solid hill work on the regular.

Or, perhaps I am just a whiny little weenie? I ask you to be the judge of that..

For your consideration, just a few of the local speed bumps.

See above for the hill that is honestly referred to AS the "speed bump." There is no avoiding this hill and it has become small enough not to even register in my brain. It is a real bitch at the end of 10 plus miles though, not gonna lie here....

OK! So, if you get to this point you have already climbed up a small mountain. On this route there are 3 hills this size plus the infamous speed bump (really, you can't avoid it.)

What you don't realize about this little hill is that there is a hill on the side of this hill. You can almost see it between the first two phone poles. The picture does not do it justice- this hill means business. Come to visit me and the bumps in the road will kick you in the face!

That is just a small sampling of what my town has to offer in the incline department. Go ahead, tell me I'm wimpy to fuss about having to scale those beasts on a daily basis, I can take it!

I feel that I should put out a "beat my hill" challenge. Email me pics of your mountainous nemesis perhaps and I can create a "my hill vs your hill" challenge! (maybe I'll rename this post "Ways to have fun with your hills" or "this is your brain on incline" or something of the sort...)

A sprint around the neighboring town

2011-03-20T07:00:00.005-04:00

Hey, I'm back!

Sorry fans, I disappeared form the blogosphere rather suddenly. Damn work. Damn busy schedule!

Not such a busy running week but luckily not a complete bust. In the name of repairing my stupid hip flexor I took 4 days off from pavement pounding. Since I am now an old, seasoned Half Marathon pro (emphasis clearly placed on the old) I was not in the slightest bit worried about messing with The Plan. I was also getting really sick of the old hip starting to go "twinge twinge" at mile 1.5! I did a super short and easy run mid week- like 3 miles of the flattest surface that I could find (not easy to locate) with no pain.

Yesterday I headed 2 towns over to get a change of scenery. I am so sick of all of the roads in my town, even though I have only been back outside off the dreaded treadmill for a couple weeks.... I ran a 4.4 mile route that I have done 4 miles of before (it is the 4 on the 4th route) which is literally done over a mountain. The first 2 miles are straight uphill (and the last 1/2 mile is thru town- which requires showing off and fast running) which I thought would be a good test for my leg. The sun was shining enough to make me feel OK about the 20 MPH winds blowing in my face... Even better though was that I didn't feel a peep from the hip flexor- it is a tiny bit sore today but I'm hoping that I'm now on the other side of the problem. The showing off sprint thru the town made for a decent finishing time too- just a hair over 32 minutes which I consider acceptable for a loop that is half 10% or greater incline....

I'm going to do a long run on the treadmill tomorrow since it is going to be a rainy mess. I'm hoping that I can manage to do it pain free or to at least make it past the 5 mile mark with no agony. Fingers crossed....

I promise that there are more posts to come in the following days- don't stop following me because I have been so bad at blogging lately... I vow to do better in the coming days!

The run of torment...

2011-03-16T07:28:00.003-04:00

I'm back!

Before I departed on the trip that lasted an eternity I took a large chunk of my Saturday and ran all the way across my town.

I had contemplated hitting up the gym for my long run but the much improved weather and slightly better road conditions changed my mind for me. I gave some thought about which direction I should travel in to avoid the worst of the hills. Bottom line, there was not a single route that I could design that was anything close to flat. **damnit!**

Throwing caution to the wind I headed out the door, fueled by pretzels and bravery/insanity. It was by far the warmest day that we had seen in quite some time, I think the thermometer might have hit a scorching 42 degrees at the height of the day. Very decent running weather in my opinion.... The first 5 miles were tolerable, if you call climbing Mt Everest while dodging huge puddles and periodically loosing your footing in sink holes tolerable... I knew that 10 miles was an ambitious goal under the conditions that I was dealing with but my basic feeling was that it could be done with a minimum of swearing and agony.

I wouldn't say I was completely correct!

As hilly as the first 5 miles were they were basically flat compared to the final 5. By mile 7.5 or so I was being troubled by my pesky hip flexor- it is really becoming a terrible nuisance to me! I was covered in mud and my feet were completely soaked and I could feel them becoming more pruney with each passing step. By mile 8.5 I was starting to drop the eff bomb on the regular due to the ever increasing incline, my drenched feet and the traffic that kept almost running me off the fricking road.

My sneaky rage spiral came to a head when with at mile 9 that STUPID local dog (who I have had encounters with before) came bursting out of the woodd scaring the bejeebus out of me and refusing (as usual) to go home or allow capture. That dog is my nemesis and I have extreme dislike for the fact that he is allowed to run rampant on the town with no collar or tags. We were well over a mile from his home and I had zero interest in backtracking that far to tell his negligent parents that their naughty yellow child was about to become road kill. I got a large number of dirty looks and unhelpful comments from passing cars as they advised me to put my dog on a leash. No s**t yo, he isn't my dog!

After laboring, sweating and cursing violently while hopping on one leg for the final stretch of my run (with the dog yapping and circling me in a most annoying manner) I finally made it home. Thinking that I would catch the idiot canine, throw it in my car and return him to his home was good in theory but not in practice. Fully wound up he refused capture and continued to prance around like a chicken on crack. I felt murderous... So I called animal control and had them take him away. (now, before you all get wound up know that this is a small town and the dog catcher knew who he was and returned him home. I knew that would happen. I'm not an asshat I swear!)

I must say that for a variety of reasons that was hands DOWN the hardest run I have ever done. If I was gearing up for my first half I think I might be a touch freaked out to be honest! However- 10 miles on my roads in much more impossible then 13.1 on relatively flat surfaces.

Anyway! I survived. The dog survived (miraculously!) and after a couple days off I'm ready to test out the old legs again. We'll see how it goes...

I'll be back!

2011-03-13T15:21:00.002-04:00

Hello Blog Friends! I will be MIA the next couple days due to very busy work stuff and an insane 1 day, 16 straight hours of driving, trip to NJ starting at 2:30 AM tomorrow. Yikes!

I'll be back to the interwebs late on Tuesday to catch up with all of you cool kids and to fill you in on the most arse whooping, muddy, pot hole filled (and MOUNTAINOUS) 10 mile run that I managed to survive. Barely...

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

Another exciting week in my world...

2011-03-11T07:30:00.004-05:00

Another week almost over!

The weather has been persnickety, typical for the Northeast at this time of year but not particularly desirable for much of anything that pertains to life.

Despite the delightful and never ending deluge of snow/sleet/rain/all of the above mixed with any of the above I managed to get in a couple decent workouts.

Tuesday I donned the dreadful Easter Egg like outfit and hit the surprisingly dry roads for a quick little 3 miler. No problems on this run, 3 miles seems to be easy for my still recovering left hip flexor (stupid thing...)

Wednesday I discovered that my normal 6 mile route was more or less under a floodplain, which had turned into a skating rink of terror. A trek across that would be sure to lead to a broken hip, concussion, or significant blood loss for for yours truly... Yes, my coordination is well known across the countryside. After a bit of consideration I settled upon running back to my house after executing a hay collection errand on the other side of the infamous hill. I don't think that many people appreciate the magnitude of hills in my little town, they really provide a certain element of excitement/horror that a treadmill is not capable of. While the route I chose bypassed the worst of them it still left me with a series of rolling and somewhat icy and still occasionally steep terrain. A definite challenge to my slightly shredded hip flexor.... Not sure if it was the constant incline, the inability to freely move my left leg after mile 3 or the occasional (read: constant) need to prance across icy death cookies but I was feeling a touch whipped before I reached the end. Not "OMG I'm going to stop, die, vomit and drop the eff bomb" whipped but plain old sucky "that kicked my trash" whipped. Not my best effort but a solid 6.2 of HILLS at a decent pace.

Thursday was a "rest" day- I had planned it and the ultra rotten weather confirmed that I had chosen the correct day to stay off the roads. Of course, the weather continues to labor along in a rather offensive manner which might spell trouble for my sprint to the gym later today... But we'll see, where I live if you don't like the weather this minute it will give you something else (unpleasant) the next minute... Delightfully diabolical!

My Fashion: Part THREE!

2011-03-09T06:59:00.002-05:00

I am such a trendsetter, both in the blogosphere and the fashion world.
All together now: HA. HA. HAHHHHHHAHA.

I think a fab new thing to do with our blogs should be something like this: Fashion Fail Friday? Wise Words Wednesday? Oh Hell I'm So Sassy Saturday?

Until I figure out what the next big thing on the interwebs will be I'll leave you with this gem. As my running outfits continue to veer towards the absurd I feel the need to get my Mom's reaction towards them. It is a great boost for my ego and delightfully amusing.

"How do I look TODAY?" I shouted at her, detouring from my run to find her in her house.

What did she say?

"VILE. Just VILE. Like some kind of crazy Easter Egg.... the neighbours are going to call me to complain, I hope that most of them are still at work...."

I was oh so offended at her harsh assessment of my gorgeous self.....

I fought the treadmill... and the treadmill won?

2011-03-07T07:09:00.004-05:00

Despite spending the week declaring that I was going to bypass my weekly long run what did I end up doing yesterday? Well, besides spending my day teaching a gazillion riders in truly horrific weather (thank you indoor arena, for keeping the business trudging along) I went to The Gym to log in a 10 miler.

Disaster! The best treadmill (and the only one with a fan) was occupied by one of the infamous slow walkers. Get off the good treadmill, slow walker!! Go and use the ones that LIKE to go at 1.8 MPH, come ON!

I digress. Not wishing to wait 3 hours for SW to complete his 0.45 walk I hopped on the second to worst treddy. The very worst one bounces and will make one bleed because it has little bolts sticking wayyyy out which I tend to smack my hands into. Needless to say I make every attempt to avoid that one as I do not wish to need stitches at the end of a run. It seems at this point that the 2nd worst Treadmill is inches away from becoming the WORST. It has about 3 feet in the grave as it was not just bouncing, but it was also grinding in a worrying manner and would occasionally let out a whoop of fury.

I got about my business, ignoring the wild protesting from the dreadf***er and attempted to ignore its moans of anger/impending death. At mile 6.9 after treating it gently and with love (avoiding the incline! Not going over 7.8 MPH!) it had had enough. Letting out one last shuddering gasp it came to a screeching halt and died, unceremoniously throwing me off the back end in a surprised and sweaty heap.

OH SHITBALLS! I exclaimed, trying many means of CPR in a valiant attempt to breathe life back into its cold, still features. After having zero luck in the life saving department but with a keen desire to salvage my workout I sprinted to the better Treadmill which the slow walker had fortunately disembarked from.

Feeling decidedly nervous that I was going to have my membership from THIS gym revoked I mentally penned the note that I felt the need to leave for the owners. "I might have killed your treadmill....." "your treadmill almost killed me...." "It was on its last legs anyway!" Feeling paranoid about the whole situation I pounded out the last 5K of my workout in 23:22 which is astonishing since it came at the tail end of a distance run. Nothing like a little speed on the last stretch, right?

After my epic sprint to the imaginary finish I walked back into the main room, prepared to pay my penance (or at least leave a "I'm Broken" sign on the TreadStupidFace.)

WHAT did I FIND? The little AssHat running along JUST perfectly, with a slow walker marching along on it. What was THAT all about? Did it just need a little break? I was completely baffled by the strange second life that it had found but also relieved that I was not going to get given the boot for treadmill murder.

I have to say that the point in this round goes to the treadmill, despite the fact that as I was picking myself up off the ground I was having an evil "HA! I killed you suckah!" thought. It managed to throw me, get a break then was resurrected in time for me to see that I had not managed to sink it... so very odd!

In which I am given the smug treatment by a toddler.

2011-03-06T05:55:00.002-05:00

When I go to my somewhat local running store it is usually a lovely safe haven filled with like minded people. I can usually go in there all smelly and disheveled without getting the nasty side eye, get what I need and skedaddle with out further ado. nobody bosses me around. People mind their own freaking beaswax, if you know what I mean.

UNTIL YESTERDAY. THAT IS.... (insert doom music HERE.)

(obviously you can already tell that this is going to be another story about my awkward interaction with humans. Why?!!! I attract funny stuff, that's why...)

After rounding up my usual bevy of shot bloks, shoelaces and a discount hat I made my way to the checkout where a lady my age and her two young daughters were also waiting. The Mom and I struck up a chat right off, as she was about to purchase a Garmin and we proceeded to geek out about its fabulocity. She got sidetracked from our conversation when her smaller daughter dropped something.

Coming out from behind a rack of running tights the larger girl, probably a preschooler looked at me and lamented that she was "always having to take care of her sister when she dropped stuff..." I told her that in all likelihood she'd still be doing that when she was 30, so she has best get used to the idea.

Then... She got all smug on me, the way that only a preschooler or somebody in need of a grandchild can. Looking me up and down she put her little hands on her tiny hips.

"WHERE is YOUR baby?" she demanded.

Hmmmmph.. Out and about and I'm getting bossed into motherhood by a toddler! WTF? Holding back the urge to explain to her that I do not have a baby but I still have my FREEDOM I told her that I just didn't have one. Take THAT!

"WHY....?" well, obvious question. Bossy 4 year old! Get off my back woman!

I told her that I couldn't be bothered. Her poor mother was getting embarrassed. I was trying so hard not to laugh that my ears hurt.

"Well. Do you at least have a DAD???" Bossyboots demanded!
I was a touch confused. A Dad for my phantom baby? Or my own Dad?

"I have my own Dad. Everyone has a Dad or they would not get born in the first place." I told her, with the sensibility of a 7th grade sex ed class in mind.

"WHERE is HE?" Good God! Where is your baby? But why is your Dad not here? Because! I'm a grown up!

"He is at home with my Mom. Where is YOUR DAD???" Two can play at this devious mind game, kiddo. You have met your match!

"My Dad is at work. Then he's going to go running. Maybe with YOUR DAD" Ah. Even our Dads are in cahoots! I knew there was more to this story...

I started laughing. Her Mom started laughing. The WHOLE STORE started laughing.. The sassy little girl got all embarrassed and ran and hid in the corner of the store, peeping out from behind some reflective gear and clearly trying not to crack up too.

I do enjoy the way that young kids get about their little lives in a completely filterless state and get away with it. I also enjoy the fact that my Dad has a top secret running buddy on the side.... But most of all I love the fact that I got schooled by a toddler... Snap!

Returning to Reality

2011-03-04T14:51:00.002-05:00

After the drama and intrigue of my last post I am unsure of my ability to create such a buzz today...
Thanks for all the comments, and for a slew of emails that I got as well! As tempting as it is to throw Captain Asshat and his Gym of Discrimination under a bus I'm going to take the classy road and leave him and his disgraceful "business" well enough alone. Obviously I told all of my closest friends, the Internet and might have mentioned it to a few people who have been known to talk a lot in public... But really, I am a nice lady and have no plans get all lawerly on him.

(I do enjoy that I have just claimed to be classy yet have no intention of washing my hair or putting on makeup today. Thank heavens that I am blessed with such epic natural beauty and can get away with such things.)

Anyway! After leaving The Gym Of Stupidity in complete consternation I somehow managed to lay the smack down on a 3 miler. I killed the thing- somehow pulled it off in 22 minutes which is truly peculiar since I haven't been throwing down the numbers in my speed work lately. I am certain that I was able to execute this fabulous fleet footed feat (oh snap!) because I was a touch pissed off. Better to take it out on the road, correct?

Yesterday I went back to The Gym That Welcomes Me With Open Arms. I felt as though I entered the building in a way that made it obvious that I had been trying to cheat on them. I had... The face of an adulterous? Luckily there was nobody there to see me do the walk of shame, or to hear my confessions of transgressions.
I did some particularly restrained mile repeats. My hip flexor wasn't flexing in a pleasant manner so I was a bit more careful than I would have liked to be. I did 5 miles, 3 repeats in 8:41 (suck-a-rama) 8:20 (wouldn't want to try to hard, would I?) and 7:53 (a bit better.)

Hit the road in my very best garb today in an attempt to frighten the people in my town. I said to my Mom as I was leaving, that I thought I looked rather well put together, all things being taken into consideration. She disagreed. My Mom... She always knows what to say!
Her words: "Well.... Nobody will try to rape you!" AHAHAHAH. HAHAHA! HA!.... Well, I certainly don't want to be thrown into a windowless van of terror so I simply couldn't see what was so bad?! Once I got past my non-rape-ability hysterics I managed to terrorise about half of my town (why was everybody out on the road? to see me? in pink fleeced horror garb??) and did 6 miles of hills and doom on legs that kept whining like little bitches. It was a pretty good run though, with no rape- thank goodness!

DENIED! My Bizzaro Gym Story.

2011-03-03T06:47:00.005-05:00

Welcome to the winter of my discontent..... And what might be the Best Post Ever!

I have remarked several times on my general dislike of all things Gym related: driving there over miles of treacherous roads, having to wait for the slow walkers to remove themselves from the treddy, having said treddy bounce and rattle like it is one second away from exploding when set over 7 MPH.... You all know, you feel my pain and I'm SURE are very sympathetic.

With the road conditions between my house and my gym rapidly circling the drain and the belts on all 3 of the Gyms treadmills progressively becoming looser I concluded that perhaps it was time to give The Other Gym a try. I felt a touch guilty, cheating on my empty, airless and straight out of the '80s place of exercise but what's a girl to do.

Read on to find out....

The Other Gym is open 24/7 so is locked, members are given keys and it is all oh-so very formal. I scheduled an appointment to pick up said key and to be "given a tour."
Upon my arrival the owner seemed very frazzled and appeared to have quite a bit going on. Ah, the stress and strain of owning a business that actually has a client base. The poor guy. Taking into account his particularly stressed out expression I let him know that we could bypass most of the weight rooms and such as I only needed the cardio equipment.

This is when things took a turn for the worse.

Eyeing me with suspicion he inquired "So. Training for something?" Without thinking (and I'm sorry. But with PRIDE beeyotches!) I replied that I was indeed gearing up for a Half. He STOPPED DEAD in his TRACKS. "Well. We don't usually allow people like YOU to join the gym." was his shocking statement. "OhKaaay" I said "30 minute treadmill limit, right?"
Instead of just coming out with it and saying that yes, the gym had a 30 minute limit that he was not willing to budge on he hemmed, hawed and threw some real gems at me that I am feeling compelled to share.

Him: "It isn't so much the wear & tear on the Treadmills but the fact that people who spend more time then that on the treadmills are basically stealing from the gym because they use too much TIME."
Me: "Well say a client of yours spent 30 minutes on the treadmill, 30 minutes on the elliptical then did some circuit training? Is that a problem too."
Him: Lost for words

Me: "Honestly, I only need a longer period of time on a treadmill once a week- I'd be happy to swap treadmills and leave if a line formed. Or, just tell me that it is your policy to refuse access to "people like me" and I'll head on out."
Him: "well... there are never people waiting for equipment... but people would start to see you coming and get angry."
Me: Lost for words... Completely lost for words...

Me: "I'm not going to ask you to change your rules for me. But you won't just come out and tell me no, so perhaps there is a loophole that you have not mentioned" (at this point it was almost fun to watch him squirm in discomfort.)
Him: Well, ermmmm, ummm. Well I don't know. We really try to avoid "people like you" because of the way that you "abuse" your membership rights."
Me: (haven't we covered this??) So you have an overall time limit on how long ANY gym member can be on location?
Him: Clearly dying inside.

To make this long story short (or no longer) He Denied my membership request. In retrospect I clearly should have told him that I was a casual runner, putting in 4 miles per week tops. (then just continue to do my thing...) At the time though I certainly saw no SHAME in being a real runner, and no need to deny what I frickin do! BAH!

I know that many gyms have a Treadmill (or cardio equipment) time limit but also know that there are many ways to get around this rule- unless there is a mile long line forming behind you! It was pretty clear from the get go that this business owner did not want my money or for me to be "abusing my membership!"

One part of me wants to get seriously offended by this blatant discrimination. The other part of me is laughing it off, feeling a bit sorry for him, and feeling like I will continue to run at my normal (and so charmingly dated) gym until the weather improves...

My Family, My Bestfriends, My Hay Guy and Me...

2011-03-02T08:18:00.009-05:00

Catchy Title today. Rather poetic?
It has been a fairly uninspired week of running. Non running is the most accurate term since I have been avoiding it like the plague. Back to it today, perhaps, and hopefully my legs will decide to behave.

In honor of my 4 days of non running fun this post is dedicated to the interesting people who keep my world going round. And round.... Making me dizzy.
But really! In the horse world one needs a plethora of people to keep things operating well. These are "people" that most "normal people" might not have around (well. with the exception of BEST friends!) I have ommited my possee of Vets, Farriers and all the others who take large clumps of cash from me and do not amuse me in the least. I'm picky- in order for me to give a shout out to somebody (especially if I have to pay them) I must be entertained by them in some fashion. So here we go!

My Mom (on the left!) My friend JWH (on the HUGE horse) and ME! (looking a touch mystified.) I love these guys. We have tons of fun at shows together and have been toughing it out since 1995. We are the coolest ever.

Looking dead sexy with JWH again. See why we are so awesome? It's tha boots!

The Excavation guy. Gotta have one with all this bullshit snow. My Excavation guy might not be the very most entertaining person but he always shows up with huge machines which I like. And big dumptrucks which I like too. I am a hick?

After the Hay Guy brings hay, blinds me with his sarcasm and vanishes, My BFF's and I drink a beer in the hay cart. Snap. There's my Dad creepin in the background. It should be noted that I give my Hay Guy more money per year than anybody else. HMPH. Good thing we are friends. Do I have to pay people to be my friends? No. Clearly not.. Right??

My Dad! I didn't want all of you to think he was a creeper in the back of a hay cart. (well, about that...) No really! My Dad is the bombdiggity and fixes a lot of the things that I break. And I break a lot of things so he's always busy... Lucky!

I promise that I'll try to get back on topic in the next few days, being that this is a RUNNING blog and all. But HEY, every now and then it's amusing to go off on a tangent (is it Tuesday? No...) find a bunch of old pics and throw caution to the wind.

Hitting the exhaustion button!

2011-02-27T06:00:00.001-05:00

I am one tired girl! Halfway thru a very busy weekend after a week that was completely insane I'm starting to feel the strain... Oh well, better to be too busy than not busy enough. Right?
In other news today is the day that I think my guest post will arrive on Run Courtney, Run! Go check it out! I liked the idea of talking about running, riding and how the two go hand in hand (or not!) A small disclaimer, I was running on empty when I wrote it and do hope that it doesn't turn out to be an epic fail... Make me happy and go read it and leave uplifting comments!

Anyway, back to why I'm so darn exhausted right now.

Sunday: 13.1 bitches!!

Monday: Boston, Wang Theater (she said wang. hehehe.)

To see David Gray! My favorite. Love the guy.

Tuesday: To New Jersey to buy myself a magical new horse! He's gorgeous, isn't he??!!

Wednesday: Drove back from NJ. It took about 10 hours due to traffic... We won't talk about that because it was very booooring...

Anyway, that was my week in a nutshell. I'm super busy at work because I was gone so much of last week and also have houseguests- who I LOVE, and who luckily love me too since the house is a mess and we have no food.

Good luck to all of you running right now in Disney- I'm super jealous and hope that you all have an amazing time. Can't wait to hear all about it once you are home!!

100th post! And a plea for advice...

2011-02-24T07:48:00.003-05:00

I had a blog entry all planned out for today and then I realized that it is the big day! My 100Th post, which I think is quite an achievement of excellence.

I thought of several topics for today:

"Why I kick ass" (we already know why...)
"500 miles and counting...." (a topic for another day.)
"I need new shoes, damnit!!" (related to above topic.)

Anyhoo, despite having all these excellent ideas I'm going to stick with a more boring topic- which leads to a plea for advice.

"Maintenance: How to run between Half Marathons. Help!"

I have until April 3rd to keep up the good work. I'm not looking to shatter my PR but would not mind shaving a minute off my time. I did a fair job following "The Plan" in my initial 1/2 training and feel that it set me up for success. I have a decent base of fitness and want t new "plan" to maintain.

What do all of you suggest? Most of you have done quite a bit more than I have so I feel that you should be able to throw a girl a bone here and help me out.

My thought is a couple short runs (3-5 miles depending) a 6 mile tempo run and a long run. But I'm second guessing myself a bit and definitely want some help!

So!!! 100 posts. Good for me, and thanks to ALL OF YOU for sticking around and reading throughout all the strife and madness. Here's to 100 more posts!

The official HALF MARATHON race report!!

2011-02-22T07:46:00.008-05:00

Here it is! What you have all been waiting for! My official Half at The Hamptons race report.
Sorry this is a day late and a dollar short, Mr. Middleaged and I took a trip to Boston yesterday to freeze just a little bit more, look at the penguins at the Aquarium but most importantly to see David Gray in concert for the unpteenth time. One can never have enough of a good thing and this was the first stop on this particular tour so it was kind of a big deal. We are super fans!

Anyway! This is a running blog so on to what keeps you guys coming back for more....

Saturday was so windy that it was ridiculous. I told the Huz that if the wind kept up at that absurd rate for Sunday that running would be next thing to impossible. He and my helpful Dad assured me that not only was the wind goiung to die down but that the temps would climb to 30 for sure- once I saw their hairbrained theory backed up by meteorlogical excellence on TV I relaxed and took their word for it.

Well THAT was a mistake.

We left town at 6 AM and shoot, if it wasn't 9 degrees with the wind gusting at 45 MPH (I have a wind gauge, I am a GEEK.) I decided that FOR SURE things would be better on the coast since we all know that it is never windy near the ocean. All together now: HA. HA.

By the time we arrived in the desolate snow covered frozen solid wasteland of Hampton the temp was up to a primising 12 degrees. Thank heavens the wind was making up for the balmy temps and keeping the heat wave to a minimum, with that kind of increase in temps I was worried about heat stroke or similar.

Went in. Registered. Ate Fig Newtons. Listened to the race management apologise about the weather over and over and promise that if people couldn't stand it that a sweep vehicle would pick them up promptly and bring them back to safety. That wasn't scary or anything.

Got dressesd. Looked hot, per the norm. Wondered how the wind would affect the outcome of the whole situation.... Decided that I didn't care but wondered if I would need to be rescued by the paramedics after my feet froze to the ground.

As you can see from this picture I was feeling a bit worried about the whole shebang.

We all lined up in the gusting winds (but beautiful sun!) and BANG. Off we went. It occured to me that perhaps I'd stick with the 8:30 pace group but I lost them in the crowd because I was fighting so hard to run against the wind. Luckily, after the first 5K or so we came into a more sheltered area and the winds lightened up... It was rough!

I suffered from the coldest feet ever for about 4 miles but decided that it was a bit of a blessing because I could not feel my warts! Whoopie fricking doooo!

I felt good from the start despite the cold stupidity. What can you do, right? And running is a great way to warm up so off I went like the effing wind (haha. into the wind is more like it...)

Felt strong all the way to mile 6 then evaluated my condition to see if I was circling the drain. I was NOT, things were feeling pretty darn good at that point so I opted to continue on and not break my rhythm. I did throw a shot blok into my face at this point (I might not have mentioned that I chose these because they are easy to chew.) what did I find? The little sucker was frozen SOLID. I had to suck on it for about 10 minutes before I could get it down- ewwwww! I threw the rest of them down my pants and that really helped me to eat the remaining ones with much less difficulty. Meaning that they thawed.

After the 6 mile point the miles flew by so fast that I was a touch baffled. I had, for sure, picked up the pace a bit- my legs were cooperating wonderfully and I knew by mile 8 that I had it in the bag. Ummm, yeah. this was a good feeling.

Right around mile 10 I felt a little pull in my left hip flexor and "pop" ouch! I hip hoppidied along for a bit (refusing to stop, almost there after all) and it loosened up a bit but plauged me tremendously for the remainder of the race. This is when my mantras of excellence came into play in a big way. "You're almost there, idiot, keep moving your stupid legs!!" "Run, you stupid shit. You didn't run 100,000 miles to cry like a bitch at mile 11!!!!" were the thoughts running thru my head. Need a little motivation friends? You can arrange to have me come to your house and shout at you for a small fee and a slice of pie.

Despite the pain I had enough gas in the tank to really kick it up during the last 2 miles. I found and passed the 8:30 pace group (I told the pacer that I had been looking for him so that I could catch him and pass him...) I also passed about 56 people in the last mile. HAHAHA.

About to come thru the finish. Look at that huge snowbank! Look at my fashion! look at my "pain" face! I need a haircut!

DONE! Thank heavens! I have a hole in my arm sock!

Why do my cheeks look so chubby?

I was able to find The Huz really quick at the finish and celebrate my Excellence In Running. He was quite pleased that I had beaten my goal time because he was getting really cold and sick of hanging about in boring Hampton. Understandable. I felt good except for the pulled hip flexor which hurt like a screaming beeyotch. (I later threw a huge bag of ice on it- which leaked all over me making me look like I had peed my pants. ooops!) We finished up by saying hello to a few people that we knew and then grabbing an excellent beer. We love beer....

Beer! The ONLY way to rehydrate!

So! I managed to finish in a good time with 51 days of "training", no runs over 12 miles, 8 unscheduled days off and a Taper Tantrum for the ages. And I must say.... I CAN NOT WAIT to DO IT AGAIN!!!

Edited: Pleased to see that my 1:48:54 time placed me 13th in my age group. There is no denying that 30 something women are scary fast. And there were well over 100 ladies in my age division. Go me!

I DID IT!

2011-02-20T18:35:00.003-05:00

I made it!
I promise a longer more detaile dpost tomorrow but we'll recap for the evening.
1:48:56, 289th place out of 1200 finishers. (8:20 pace)
Ran the second half MUCH faster than the first because my feet thawed.

Temp at the start of the race? 17
Wind speed? 30 MPH
AWESOME

I had a great time. Pics and details tomorrow!

This is it!

2011-02-19T14:37:00.005-05:00

The final countdown has arrived. In about 22 hours, give or take, I'll be DONE with this whole ordeal!

I'm getting kinda excited slash terrified.

Hopefully I'm over my taper tantrum (doubt it.)

Here are some realistic goals/plans.

-Start slow. Shouldn't be a problem with 1600 runners on a "VERY NARROW" road.

-Run to the 10K point and evaluate. Consider walking for a minute, having a little snack, stretching.

-Looks like hills at miles 8 and 10. I'll be getting tired by then and if the legs are hollering I'll slow down accordingly.

-Have enough gas in the tank to be able to run the last mile or so withoug wishing for death.

My expected finishing time?

1:58:55

I'd be pumped.

Feel free to guess my finishing time, maybe there will be prizes?!

Wish me luck, THIS IS IT! EEEEEKKKK!

I'm Breaking!! Yikes!

2011-02-18T16:15:00.004-05:00

Hey-OH!
Wow, you guys are good friends! Thanks so much for the sympathy and advice regarding my warty little feets. The sad part? They are plantar warts so are literally all up inside my foot! They will need to have the skin cut from them with a scalpel and then will have to be frozen. I have had this done before, can you tell? MOST unpleasant...

Did my last run today. 3 lousy miles.... It was ok, I seem to be having a minor physical breakdown but who cares, right?

Issues:
-Warts
-Left hip hurts
-Back feels funny
-Right armpit hurts due to horse throwing me around while I was trying to give him medicine...
-Have not run 13.1 miles ever
-Left hamstring hurts
-Very old

I might break this weekend. Or curl up and cry after running 0.13 miles... EGADS!
I'll try to do a lsat minute recap tomorrow... AHHH!

Warty Wednesday

2011-02-16T16:08:00.004-05:00

On Monday I was running along, all sprightly and filled with joy (and cookies) when I felt my foot get ouchy. Not "OMG CALL 911!" ouchy but "there's something in my sock" ouchy.
I did a thorough investigation when I took my shoes off and found nothing, walked around a bit on a foot that felt just fine and forgot all about it.

SO. Repeat all of that mayhem on yesterdays run.
I sat down and had a long, hard look at the ball of my foot and much to my dismay, TWO WARTS. WTF? Whose nasty shower have I been in?

So! I was running today and no s**t my left foot started to hurt. I sat down in a snowbank on the side of the road and took my shoe off. Want to guess what sort of nasty little bugger was staring right back at me? MmmHmm, if you guessed a matching wart from the right foot then you are correct.

Great timing, right??!! NO way I'm going to be able to get them frozen out of my feet before Sunday- even if I could I would not dare to. I'm a wuss for pain and I don't want to be hobbling around 8 legged lame for 13 miles on Sunday.

I must have picked up the little painful disgusting friends last time I went on Vacation and they have been dormant ever since, biding their time until I had a profound desire to smack the crap out of them for long distances. seems ironic. Asshattery at its finest. if you ask me.

Anyway. This really qualifies as TMI but you all can handle it. Once again I'm showing you how it's done (continuing my trend from yesterday) obviously Warty Wednesday is going to be all the rage here on the running blogs.

I'm gonna show you how to DO STUFF! 3 Tangent Tuesday style.

2011-02-15T07:24:00.006-05:00

Today on Three Tangent Tuesday I will show you how to do stuff so that you can be the very best. The focus today (obvi) is how to be the very strongest, stylish and finely honed athlete that you can be.

And we all know that I'm the person to turn to for advice. I'm known in many circles as being hip, cool and well read. (only one of those statements is true. which one?)

Here we go!

How to fuel up for a long run, or what to eat to recover from intense training.

How to dress for success and look tough. No further explanation needed.....

How to lift weights. Do I look scared? I should....

I hope this helps all of you to become your very best, or at least shed some light on how I have developed such a high level of excellence over the years. I'm sure you are all envious now, but don't worry. With enough cookie baking, on-sale clothes shopping and dedicated beer drinking you too can be sublimely fabulous!

Weekly Recap- after a hiatus!

2011-02-13T07:20:00.002-05:00

Unlike last week when zero miles were accumulated, two critical long runs were postponed (and by that, sadly, I mean missed completely because I can not magic up a few extra training weeks) I have a WEEKLY RECAP!!

On man, aren't you guys all excited!
(well, if nothing else this means that you do not have to witness my tear soaked pity party or watch my decent into the Time Off Tantrums. Right? right...)

Monday- 30 minutes of something that resembled running if you were to use your imagination. I was scared S***less that I was going to feel my back twinging or my hip grinding painfully. I did not. And the angels sang and the world was at peace once again.

Wednesday- 40 minutes, about 4.3 miles with a few tiny hills thrown in. Slow, but still pain free.

Thursday- 50 minutes, 5.8 miles- several small (4-5%) hills.

Saturday- 90 minutes, 10.5 miles, about 10 4% 1/5 mile hills in the mix.
An important note regarding this workout: My LAST "long" run. (EGADS.)
There may or may not have been a Valentines day celebration the night before. It may or may not have involved some spectacular and rare beer, (limited edition chocolate porter! the only keg in existence of a bourbon black!) Pair those with some kickass chocolates and the following morning just might have been.... A touch foggy? Things MAY or MAY NOT have been a touch rough on the treddy for the first 3 miles or so. Just sayin' people, just sayin'...

I guess at this point the training is over and all that is left is to get thru this week and run that race next Sunday.
It was fantastic before my 10K 6 weeks ago feeling so prepared (looking back at the pre-race training that I did I might not have been as prepared as my brain led me to believe- but all went WELL anyway!)
I am not thrilled about the plain and simple fact that I have NEVER run the full 13.1 and there is NO time to do it now. I have managed a few solid long runs- all within very close mileage and nearing the time frame that I hope to finish in.

I'm not going to lie or put on my brave face. I'm sweating bullets over this ever so slightly... Still, like I declared last week I am as fit as I'm going to be, delighted to be pain free once again and determined to have a fun time next Sunday whether I make my goal time or not!

One week... 7 Days.... 168 hours....

Excited to win! Looking for topic opinions...

2011-02-11T07:33:00.003-05:00

My birthday came early this year! OMG I don't want to be 32 already!!
Just kidding (sort of.) I DID, however, with a giveaway over here at Daily Vitamin F who definately is getting a big old THANK YOU from yours truly!

In other news I will be posting a guest blog soon for Run Courtney, Run! and I'm curious to know what all of you think that my topic should be. Writing about plain old running seems just a touch vanilla to me if you know what I mean.... I want to branch out, pick a topic that really fits my left of center personality and just let the creative juices flowwwww.! HAH! I already warned her that I was once asked to write a post on toilets and I was more than up to the job. Which makes me think, toilets would not be such a bad source of inspiration- heaven knows all of us runners have seen our share of them! Andyay, I'm excited for this opportunity and also VERY jealous that she's about to run the Princess Half in Disney- my favorite place on Earth.

Well, that's it from the Frozen tundra that I call my home. I'm planning on a short & easy run today (not that any runs this week have exactly been long or arduous) to gear up for a longer run tomorrow or Sunday.

Happy Friday to all!

I'm less funny when I'm not mad.

2011-02-10T16:18:00.002-05:00

This week. Better than last week... That's not saying much since my grand total mileage clocked in at a big fat ZERO.

My back felt better on Monday but my legs were really acting up. I was starting to hit the hysteria pretty hard thinking that I had a pinched nerve, some kinda of freaky defered pain, or a bizzare medical mystery. So I went for a run. Obviously.

Seemed to solve the problem completely. So I started to wonder, after banging around running 25+ miles a week for the past month then stopping completely if my legs had a funny reaction to that? I bet if I looked around I'd find a technical name for it. "crampy achy legs due to inactivity?" Or something of the sort. Tell me internet friends, TELL ME!

My week has looked like this:
Monday: 30 minutes- 0000.1 mile
Wednesday 40 minutes- Oh- point- six miles
Thursday 50 minutes. Maybe broke a mile

Well my stars, if that isn't marathon training then I just don't know what is!!

10 days and counting to the HALF MARATHON. I still have not run 13.1 miles, as the back of doom thwarted not one but TWO important long runs. Oh well, to hell with the plan. The plan can shove it as far as I'm concerned at this point. I have my eyes on doing about 90 or so minutes this weekend as my long run and then calling it good enough.

I am SO happy to be able to run again this week that I'm actually able to look at the big picture- I feel like doing th 1/2 is still an ok option, I will NOT kill myself to get "all" the mileage in beforehand and I seriously doubt that the world will end if I sneak in under the finish line in over 2 hours. I'll just be happy to be there, and to be able to run pain free. YAY!

Three Tangent Tuesday: A really random one

2011-02-08T08:32:00.009-05:00

I guess this is really only one tangent- but it's a good one..

Since most of last week was consumed with my moanings of a bad back (and subsequent time off) I did not have to get up super early in the AM to run! Therefor I found myself staying up past my 8:45 bedtime to see what was on TV at such an ungodly hour.

Much to my dismay, unless I wanted to watch Snookie and JWow (or whatever the other one's name is) act like complete skanky drunken fools there was little else.

So how excited was I to come across one of the BESTEST (read: really, really worst) movies to come out of the 1990's! I think I was about 12 when this movie came out and between the epic Bryan Adams soundtrack and the unbelievable hotness that was Christian Slater I must have watched this mess 100 times.

Look at the amazing skills and marksmanship. Oh Maid Marion, you didn't stand a chance.

Sorry. But did anybody else find that the rather middle aged, puffy and heavily mulleted Kevin Costner was a questionable choice for a man in tights? All together: EWWWWW!

Hot. So hot. Be still, my pre pubescent heart....

Snape, Snape... Severus Snape. You were badass as the smarmy Sheriff. But better as the Hogwarts Potions teacher. I kind of love you....

I managed to make it through approximately 35 minutes of the forced dialogue and raging battle scenes before I got too grossed out by Kevvie and had to shut 'er down. MAN- that was a much better movie in the 1990's!

Which got me thinking.... How many things of my past that I fondly remember would I HATE now??

-Hyper color shirts (pit stains, anyone?)

-Duran Duran. Nope. I still love them...

-Wearing 2 pairs of neon socks, bunched up over my high tops with neon bike shorts. BAD.

-The "Fear Street" books. I loved those. I doubt that I would now.

So, All of you on the interwebs- what did you absolutely require to live during your childhood that makes you say "MEH" now??

Edited to add: Tight rolled jeans! HOW could I have forgotten THAT?

AND the huge fashion fail of 1994-ish when enormous jeans (Jnco, please) flannel shirts, black nail polish and ghastly WHITE eyeliner were all the rage. How horrid!

Time off tantrums

2011-02-07T16:12:00.004-05:00

I just ran, suckers...

We'll see how that decision ends up treating this old lady! However, nothing about the run hurt and I was going stark raving mad times a million.

The thoughts running thru my head before just doing it: (doing it, and doing it, and doing it well......)
-I will never run again because I have forgotten how.
-I expect that I have a faulty spine. That's why my back feels funny.
-My legs no longer feel like they are attached to my body. WHY! (PANICS)
-No way will I ever be able to do .13 miles, much less 13.........
-I have gained 1.2 million pounds for sure and lost 100% of my muscles!!
-I hate everyone. EVERYONE.

It came to me that perhaps my legs felt odd because I had not run in a week. They do indeed feel better now and much more awake! And no lie, I had no issue other than I had absoultely forgotten how to run. I did a VERY easy 3 miles, it took about 11 hours to complete but why overdo it like an idiot douchebag on my first day back.

Good luck to me on feeling 100% ASAP. At the very least I am no longer as crabby, and realise that I might have been getting a touch emotional (and plan to go right back there STAT should things start circling the drain....)

Head! Desk!

2011-02-05T18:45:00.002-05:00

AH-HAH. HAHAHAHA. HAAAAAAhhhhhhhh............
Yes. That's about where it's at right now kiddos...

SNOWING. Again.

My back? A screaming DISASTER!

I did see my Chiro yesterday, bless his good natured heart.

I laid upon his Chiro table of torture and doom and he said to me "So, you mentioned that one of your legs felt longer? Which one??"

"THE RIGHT ONE" I said, in ominous tones.

"You're RIGHT!!!" He declared, in an absurdly cheery manner.... Damn that man....

There was MUCH that was wrong with me. Tipped pelvis. Crooked sacrum. One million vertebra out of whack. A neck that was on totally wrong. Oh, and that pesky little thing of my right leg being "alarmingly" longer than my left leg. No wonder that I felt like a HOT MESS!

I feel even worse today, as if my muscles and tendons are trying in desperation to being my spine back to its ill alignment to no avail. I am not impressed....

We'll see what tomorrow brings (and yes, it will bring snow- awesome-o!) Hopefully, in addition it will bring a happier feeling hip/back so that I can consider running a couple miles soon.

Half Marathon: 15 days and counting. DOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

BAD MOOD!!! BAD BACK!!!

2011-02-03T18:47:00.002-05:00

A quickie..

-The weather had been HORRIBLE!!!!

-My back is totally EFFED in the A. I thought it was bad before snowmageddon did I? Well now??? Fuggedabout it. I'm freaking out. More on that tomorrow....

-AND? The internet has been down until justthisminute. WAY behind on my blog reading.

I seriously could not be more cross right now. I'm gonna go make a grilled cheese, eat 10,000 sour patch kids and hit my head against a wall. And leave message #67 for my Chiro to for GOD sake fit me in STAT.