100 running miles for August

It was a lot muggier than I was expecting today and it was kind of a struggle, but I put in an easy 5.75 miles after work to hit 100 for the month again.

Yay!

I feel like running is the one thing actually going right, so I'm going with it. I'm not training for anything, so there's really no reason to do more miles than this.

It'll be a nice couple of days off and then I'll lace up my running shoes again this weekend.

Week in review Aug. 21-27: Eat junk food, work late, run

Just running this week.

I’m trying to be gentle with myself because last week was tough with two evening work events, but whenever I have a less-than-ideal training week I tend to beat myself up for not doing more with the time I had. Story of my life. So, I focused on one thing, fitting in runs, and bagged everything else.

I did an easy run Monday with my husband, who takes priority training-wise since I’m trying to be supportive and encouraging when he wants to run. (I am still working on him to become An Actual Runner.) Tuesday was a 14-hour work day, and Wednesday was a 10-hour work day, so I didn’t even bother. I spent a couple hours Wednesday doing some grocery shopping and mid-week food prep to get me through the week.

Thursday's and Friday’s runs were enjoyable; it had cooled down quite a bit and I didn’t even bring water with me on Thursday. I went back and forth with how far to go on Friday, but ended up calling it at just less than an hour so I could go home, shower, and relax.

I really did have good intentions to ride and lift on Saturday. We have been going to the farmers market with our bachelor friend, who has been trying to eat healthier, and often asks me for advice. While it’s very flattering (and makes me feel like I have ONE THING going right in my life) if we run errands afterward, like we did Saturday, motivation to work out later in the day is in short supply. I got home and started thinking about everything I needed to do to go for a ride, and I needed to do it RIGHT NOW if I wanted to hit the street closed to traffic before it re-opened, and I just couldn’t summon the energy. I tried, I really did.

We ended up putting in a couple of hours at our garden instead, which turned out to be the perfect afternoon. The dogs got to play and eat grass, I went on a tomato side shoot chopping spree, everything got watered, and I took home a bunch of ripe squash, eggplant, green peppers, and tomatoes. (My kale is almost done and my cucumbers all died… sad face.) Later on, we met up with friends camping at a nearby state park to sit by their campfire and chat. It was awesome!

I did rally yesterday (Sunday) afternoon for an easy-ish 9-miler. I drove to the river for a change of scenery and it was just what I needed. My left hip has been a little tight and sore but not unrunnable as long as I don’t push too hard. I see some stretching and foam rolling in my future.

It worked out to be:

Run: Four runs, all on the road, for 25 miles in a bit longer than 4 hours.

As far as my title goes, I really didn’t eat THAT much junk food. I made some peach crisp with peaches my husband had picked hours earlier from trees he planted a couple of years ago. We may have ordered in barbecue on Saturday, I may have eaten a family-sized bag of potato chips over the course of the weekend, and I may have had some wine while watching the season finale of Game of Thrones last night.

It’s pouring rain now, but I am hopeful it clears out and I can go for another easy run to kick off the week. Here’s hoping I can squeeze in more than I did last week.

It's been downright cool

I went for a run after work yesterday and it was 65 degrees!!!!!! in August!!!!!!! I couldn't believe it. I wore capris instead of shorts and didn't even bring water with me.

Friday night Detroit temps.

It was slightly more seasonable today, with temps around 75 when I went out. It was plenty warm enough although it was nice not to have to deal with the stress of pending heat stroke.

The 10-day forecast has high temps in the high 70s and that's it. I'm not ready for fall yet but I will enjoy these cooler runs.

Week in review Aug. 14-20: Decent run and bike for the time I had

Last week wasn't too shabby. I managed four runs, including one with my husband. I got on the bike twice, once on the trainer and once on the road. And I managed a barre class and a bit of yoga.

I had to skip a weekday because my parents were in town, picking up their dog who stayed a few days with us. But other than that I was pretty consistent, even getting in a nice run on Friday when I really wanted to go home and go to sleep. We had plans with friends on Saturday so that was extra incentive for me to go to an early barre class, which was a nice change-up.

Not too bad.

I'm going to keep this snappy because I need to go to bed, so here's the week by the numbers:

Run: Four times, all on the road, for 25 miles in a bit longer than 4 hours. This worked out to be a couple of medium runs and a couple of easy runs.

Bike: Twice, once on the trainer and once on the road for 35 miles, for a bit longer than 3 hours. My ride outside was a beautiful day and I managed a decent-for-me pace.

Weights: One hour-long barre class.

Yoga: 20 minutes on my own.

Total: 8 sessions in about 8.5 hours.

I was happy to hit 25 running miles again, happy to do a bit of almost everything, and happy to fit in things like leisurely breakfast and family and friend time.

A non-triathloning triathlete

Guys, I'm sad.

Part of it is because of Facebook memories. All summer long, I've been getting reminders of memory after memory of this or that fun race I did over the years. My first tri, my first age group award, etc.

My award shelf. It's been collecting dust lately.

And today is/was Michigan Titanium. It was the first and so far only 70.3 I completed in 2014. I tried again in 2015 and got pulled from the bike course with three miles to go because of lightning.

Practice swim before Michigan Titanium in 2014. A long, long time ago.

That was the last multi-sport race I did. Some health problems set me back a bit, my work schedule changed a bit, and the rest is a big fat "it's not a priority right now."

Part of the reason I'm sad is FOMO, fear of missing out. My friends and people I follow on social media are out riding, swimming, running and doing fun things. I'm so jealous!

The other part of the reason I'm sad is because I feel I've fallen pretty far off the triathlon wagon. I'm not biking anything longer than 2 hours or so lately, and I can literally count on one hand the number of times I've swum this year. I think back to what I was capable of 3 years ago, and I couldn't hold a candle to it today.

I tell myself that people leave and come back to the sport all the time, for lots of reasons. Women I know take a few years off to have babies and eventually find their way back to racing.

I also remind myself that when I first started out, I wasn't in as good of shape as I am now. If/when I do build back up, hopefully my fitness curve won't be as steep. I've had to build running back up from zero twice now, and both times I came back just as strong.

But still. It doesn't stop the frustration I feel NOW. I want to be out there swimming, riding, and running. I want to be pursuing bigger goals. I want to go faster and longer. I want to get better.

I don't know that there is an answer except keep doing what I can, when I can, and make a point to enjoy it.

Week in review August 6-13: Come hell or high water, I WILL run on Sunday!

It was an … interesting week last week. I started off strong, with a track workout Monday that ended up being my speediest run in the past year, and a nice and easy run on Tuesday. I ended up having to run errands for part of the evening Wednesday, so I made the day a mid-week food prep day instead. (Healthy eating is a LOT of work.)

Thursday I had the most blah run in a while, but somehow managed the exact same pace as Tuesday while feeling dehydrated and like my legs were 100 pounds each. I had good intentions for a run Friday, but a work emergency popped up, and by the time I made it out the door I was in ZERO mood to run. When I walked into the kitchen, my husband had already poured a glass of wine and opened up a bag of chips for me. Ha! Now that’s true love. I didn’t do anything more strenuous than catch up on House of Cards that night.

Yes.

Although I’m not training for anything, I still made it out to ride my bike on Saturday. My Garmin has been moody lately, and it was super overcast, so I kept logging splits at 50-60 miles per hour and registered a max speed of 104 mph. Amazing! Someone call Kona for me! After I did the math and compared to Strava (#stravaoritdidnthappen) it turned out to be a very average yet enjoyable pace. I was able to follow up with most of my heavy/body weight lifting routine before my parents came into town for a Tigers game, where we got to see an amazing comeback.

BUT, because we were out late-ish Saturday, I didn’t get out of bed as early as I wanted on Sunday, and my whole day felt a few hours behind. We skipped our usual Sunday afternoon coffee date because neither of us has been sleeping well as a result, which saved some time, but what I thought would be a quick hour trip the garden turned into a three-hour tomato pruning extravaganza. (Those side shoots will be the death of me.) I was halfway through my food prep routine and feeling sorry for myself, when I realized if I left for a run RIGHT NOW I could do a quick lap around the neighborhood and be in a much better mental place as a result. I had wanted to do 9.75 to hit 30 for the week, but I decided 4.75 to hit 25 was good enough. And, I had JUST enough time to do lunges, squats and abs that I didn’t have time to do Saturday.

I saw a meme the other day that said “I don’t need a motivational quote, I need to go run.” I can’t find what happened to it so I made my own. That was exactly how I felt yesterday: I don’t care what I have to do to get this run in, but it will get done.

Again, yes.

Last week by the numbers:

Run: Four times, three on the road and one mostly on the track, for 25 miles in a bit less than 4 hours.

Bike: Once outside for 35 miles in a bit longer than 2 hours.

Weights: One heavy/bodyweight session in two parts in a bit longer than an hour.

Total: Seven sessions in a bit longer than 7 hours. With the way this week went, I’m happy with an average of an hour a day.

There are still a lot of areas I feel I’m slacking on, but at least I’m on track to hit 100 running miles for another month. Time to launch that momentum into another week.

The good and bad of my fastest run in a year

Around and around and around I go.

I went to track last night and killed it. The meat of my run was a ladder of 400 / 800 / 1200 / 1600 / 1200 / 800 / 400, with a 400 recovery lap in between each and a couple water stops when necessary, including before and after the 1600.

(Tangent: I don’t think I’ve ever gone farther than an 800 on the track before. That 1600 was very long.)

After logging this into DailyMile, it shows up as my fastest run, by a 1-second-per-mile average pace, than any other run since August of 2016. The good news: Yay, I’m fast! Or, at least, relatively so. The work I’ve been doing is paying off.

The bad news: Wow, I really haven’t run any faster than that any time in the past 13 months? Eeeek.

But, and this is more good news, I descended every lap on every multiple-lap set. Sure, sometimes the following lap was only a few seconds faster, and I MIGHT have sandbagged gone a bit easier the first laps of the 1200s and 1600, but they were all faster. And I ran multiple laps at a pace that began with a 7, which is always great to see.

And even more good news, I didn’t lose my afternoon snack, which was questionable for a lap or two.

It was a great night and I headed home tired and happy.