Monday, October 31, 2016

8 today on TM, mostly at aerobic pace. Hoping to get 6, decided to do a bonus cool-down mile, and then a couple minutes in realized I should just go back to aerobic.

107 for October. I'm feeling about 85% recovered and hoping to be back 100% in another week or so.

Saturday, October 29, 2016

10/29

7 easy on TM with a half-hour baby break at 4 miles. (Does that make it a double?) That's six days for me this week in what should have been a lighter post-race recovery week. Yoga yesterday seemed to make a huge difference; I told myself I would stop immediately tonight if I had the slightest twinge in my hip, but nada. This was a definite mental-health run; Neil gets home tonight. Hallelujah!!! It's been dang hard without him--hence the six consecutive days of running (albeit pretty low miles). Now that it's 11 PM I should get to bed...

30 for week, 99 for October thus far.

Friday, October 28, 2016

Friday: Easy 3 + yoga today. Right hip really started to bother me about 2 miles in so I cut it short--I've been having some aches and pains on that side but this is the first time it changed my gait. Probably bc I've run 5 days in a row and I haven't done that in...like a year? Maybe not the best choice the week after a race, but my daily mileage has been so low that I was hoping it wouldn't be a problem.

Thursday: 
Short version: 5 on TM with intervals (3 min at HMP, 2 at easy).
Long version: Well, today was pretty intense. No sleeping baby + up at 6 to get kids off to school + day of school parties + day 2 of DH's absence put me on the TM at 9:30 pm. Baby woke up a mile in (WHY?!) despite all my best efforts to ensure he would sleep--was hoping for double digits tonight. Managed to placate him until 2.5, then had to stop to feed him. for some reason at this point it seemed like a good idea to dye my hair (been so busy it has literally been six months since I've had it done), so ran another 2.5 while the dye was doing its thing. This is either a life hack or a huge mistake--we'll see when it dries.


Wednesday: 
6 on TM--started out easy and then moved it up a little to finish in time. Neil flew out for his grandmother's funeral this morning so running may be hit and miss the rest of the week while I'm flying solo with the kids.

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

10/25

5 on TM; mile warm-up, 3.5 of intervals (2 minutes at 9:13; 3 minutes at 10), then half-mile at 10--was planning to run cool-down mile but phone rang and I'm getting treated to a delightful afternoon on the phone with the insurance company.

Monday, October 24, 2016

10/24

4 miles on TM--baby woke up at 1.5; managed to run another 1.5 before he got super upset (stopped twice to restart the music on his swing), fed him for 44 minutes, then back on the TM for the last mile. I'd planned to make this an easy 2-3 but ended up cranking up pace after 1.5 trying to finish before he got too upset and then figured I'd do another mile to see if it would make him go back to sleep. Good news is that the faster pace felt totally fine which I didn't think it would after Saturday.

I'm officially back into the weird-runs-bc-of-newborn stage. Also...need something new to train for!! I'm toying with the idea of doing a one-month focus on speed before a Thanksgiving 5k.

Saturday, October 22, 2016

Purdue half (2016)


Race report:
I knew going into this one that my main constraints were going to be lack of training, ongoing healing from delivery, and lack of sleep, and sadly there wasn't much I could do about any of them! Thursday night I got about 2 hours of sleep, so I went to bed as early as I could on Friday and was asleep by 9. I woke up around midnight absolutely soaked in sweat and freezing cold (one of those lousy hormonal post-delivery things that hits me every 3rd or 4th night), so I changed all my clothes, rolled up in a dry blanket, and tried to sleep a little more, then at 1 am Matthew's swing totally gave up the ghost. Fed him at 1, 3, and 5 with about 80 minutes of sleep in between each feeding, then got up at 6:45 and got ready. Drove down to the parking lot and fed him in the car again up until the last possible minute in hopes that he wouldn't go crazy before I was done!

I found my friend who was running her first half--we run different paces but were thinking we'd hang together for the first few miles and see how it went pace-wise. We lined up with the 10/mm pacer since she told me she normally ran about 9:30-9:40/mile and wanted a 2:10 finish, so I figure we would shoot for around 9:55 average for the first couple of miles and see how that felt. . Started off out of the stadium parking lot and first mile along Cherry was 9:38--I felt kind of bad because I kept telling her to slow down on this mile--that adrenaline is hard to combat! We walked through the water stop in the second mile (10:07), but she was already struggling with the pace and asked me multiple times to just go ahead. I felt pretty bad leaving her but I also didn't want her to feel pressure to go faster and I knew I couldn't slow much and still make it back before Matthew got crazy hungry.

Third mile was 9:41--nothing really interesting about this. Walked through the water stop again hoping my friend would catch up but when I couldn't see her I figured she was too far back and I needed to just run my own race. 4th mile we got the first decent downhill on Salisbury (9:26) and then the fifth mile was almost all downhill across the bridge to Lafayette (9:06) and skipped the water stop. I was taking Honey Stinger chews every 2.5 so I grabbed my second one here. This mile also made me realize that I couldn't go much faster than the 9:30 pace, since I started to really feel it in my pelvis (that's been getting steadily better since delivery but I sure didn't want to push it!), so I took it back a notch and felt much better.

6th mile was 9:39. This is where we started to hit the hills again in Lafayette that I was dreading, so I reminded myself to just keep a consistent effort and not worry about pace. Ran under one of the church clock towers just as it started chiming, which was really nice coupled with all the steeples and scenic downtown/fall leaves. Walked through the next water stop and slowed a bit with the hills to keep effort the same for mile 7 at 9:59. Mile 8 back over the bridge was 9:36 and then mile 9 with the first of the hills I was REALLY dreading was 9:53...that's the seemingly eternal gradual uphill to Chauncey. It really wouldn't be that bad except all the short steep rollers preceding it in Lafayette wear you out and it's at that crappy point in the race where you've come a long way but haven't hit the double digits yet, so it still feels like a long way left! Then we ran forever through campus, which is a different route than I remembered, so I kept wondering when the heck we were going to turn (and also trying to not think about the fact that I could just turn NOW and be back at the parking lot within 5 minutes!).

Finally turned and ran past the new Co-Rec for mile 10 at 9:37, then down the Engineering Mall and tried to mentally gear up for miles 11 (9:56) and 12 (10:14), which were the second set of hills I was dreading--the two back to back hills on Stadium (mile marker 11 was just before the top of the first hill) and then immediate right turn to McCormick and more uphill. I seriously felt like I could have been walking faster on this part than I was running at the 11-mile marker--this was also the first place where I noticed a headwind during the whole race (of course!). I told myself it would turn into a tailwind during the last mile, but I know my HR was awful at this point and I felt pretty nauseated and awful. Once we cleared the hills I felt much better and was able to enjoy the last mile (9:34) and passed SO MANY PEOPLE, which is always nice to do that late in the race! I was consistently passing about three times as many people as were passing me for most of the race, but in the last mile I passed 34 people and was only passed once, which was nice. Downhill to the finish and last .14 was 1:03. Passed DH and kids as I ran into the finish chute, then met up with them and waited a good 30 minutes for the kids' fun run (which gave me the opportunity to sit down suddenly before passing out, wish that there were more Porta-Potties, and very classily feed my baby on a curb underneath a giant blanket). Walked the half-mile to the car, which really helped with post-race stiffness, then home to my shower and some Tylenol with codeine for my grumpy body that was like "are you kidding, just had a baby, let's lie around and eat cupcakes instead of this craziness."

Chip times still haven't been posted; Garmin time for 13.14 was 2:07:26 (9:42/mile).

Random thoughts:

1) Kids' fun run was AWESOME. I loved loved loved this part. Look at the hand-holding! The intensity!! (Jules was feverish and Isaac kept her company.)



2) Neil went to the store after dropping me off, bought cider, and then added his signature spice blend to it and brought me a thermos of hot spiced cider. That was pretty much the best post-race drink ever...I always get SO freezing cold after a race and that was the perfect antidote! Three cheers for him!

3) My current PR is on this course. I hate this course in terms of runnability--there are so many hills--pretty much the entire time you are going up or down, and the big downhill is in the first part of the race, so the last half really is rough. It's beautiful and you run past lots of gorgeous trees (fall is the perfect time for this!) but I wonder what kind of PR I would be able to set at the Mini?

3) I'm really glad I ran so much through my pregnancy. It got pretty hard at the end there with nerve pain in my leg, and I can tell that I'm not 100% healed, nor do I have the fitness that I would have liked to have, but all in all, I don't feel like I crashed and burned during the race the way I was worried I might. :-)

Wednesday, October 19, 2016

10/19

3 on TM--first 2 were easy and then did 6x1-min. fartleks @ HMP just to remind my legs what that felt like, then walked half a mile to cool down and did 20 minutes of yoga. Last run for me before the Purdue half on Saturday.

The last time I ran this particular race I thought I was crazy for training for a half with such a young baby (he was 6 months old when I ran it and go figure it's my current PR) and now I am doing it with a 3-week-old...oh man! But however this race goes Saturday (and I'm trying to tell myself that my goal is just finishing and not a great time, bc I'm not going to be able to do a great time), I'm really grateful that I'm physically able to toe that starting line! So many times during the last few months that I just did not want to run and it's pretty exciting to see all of that work to maintain fitness coming to fruition now.

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

10/18

3 easy on TM--so tired with so little sleep.

Weighed myself first thing this morning instead of midday like I did yesterday and I was down 3 more pounds.

Monday, October 17, 2016

10/17

4 on TM today; progression run. Averaged 10:17/mile; started at 11/mile and worked up to 9:32. Trying to decide on plan for the rest of the week--probably 3 tomorrow and Wednesday, yoga Thursday, and totally off Friday before Sat. race.
And as Matthew will be 3 weeks old tomorrow, today is the official start on getting back to racing weight--right now I'm about 2.5 lbs below where I was at the beginning of pregnancy, but I'd gained with the stress fracture and marathon training, so I've got a ways to go. What's worked best for me in the past is to really focus on veggies, cut out sugar 6 days a week, and not eat after 9 PM, so that's my plan for now. I'd like to set new PRs for 5k, 10k, and half by next May.

Friday, October 14, 2016

10/14

7 at 10:17. Boys had a playdate today so I decided to get my "LR" in today while the baby was napping.

Thursday, October 13, 2016

10/13

5 at 9:51 on the TM. Why is it so much harder on the TM than outside?

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

10/11

3 easy on TM. A little pain tweak here and there but not as bad as yesterday. RW post-run yoga to finish.

Monday, October 10, 2016

5 on the TM at 10:14. Had to stop a few times in the second half for kids--pretty tired today but the run helped with the residual soreness from the hills Saturday. Let's just say that today's run was a good training run in case I don't get any sleep the night before the Purdue half...not much sleep last night.

Saturday, October 8, 2016

10/8

























10 glorious miles in the beautiful October weather today! Really good run--I was pushing hard and definitely felt like I left it all out there on the trails today. So actually it would have been a great race effort but probably not so good for just a regular training run, but...yeah. I'll have to take it easier next weekend in preparation for tapering.

9:27 with most of my splits pretty tightly in the 9:20 range. 3 sub-9 miles (mile 4 @ 8:57, 5 @8:25, 10 @ 8:51). Mile 8 was uphill the whole way and so dang hard--10:57. I was seriously trashed after that one--I was planning an out-and-back but Neil called to let me know that Matthew was going crazy so I met him planning to nurse Matthew at mile 5, but Matthew had fallen asleep...so I ended up doing 5 laps on the mile-long hill that I knew would be super killer instead of the 2 I'd planned, since it was adjacent to the playground where Neil was hanging out with the kids. But I did manage to get the whole run done before Matthew really wanted to nurse, which is nice since it's always soooo hard to start again once I'm cooled down and shivering like crazy feeding the baby! (Shades of training for my first marathon and running 18 miles on the treadmill at 10 pm and stopping to nurse Nathan at mile 14 and then getting back on the TM...) I think the worst part right now is that my sports bra feels like it's cutting off my ability to get a deep breath and my chest always hurts--have to wear super compression ones right now with such a young baby and it is not fun at all.

23 miles for the week, 26 for the month, 958 for the year.



Thursday, October 6, 2016

10/6

Rest day yesterday--boy did I need it! Got all my midterm grading done so that was a huge relief.

Today: 5 on the TM at 10:06. Stopped at 3 for water and my baby (who was in the swing on the other side of the room) immediately woke up--he fell asleep as soon as I started again. Looks like he was trained in utero!

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

10/4 and 10/3

Monday: 5 on TM at 10:12/mile (aerobic); comfortably hard but not as enjoyable as the faster run on Saturday. Some pain.

Tuesday: 3 on TM at 11:20/mile (easy)--this one felt harder by far than yesterday, since Matthew did NOT sleep much last night--I'm a total zombie today and thank heavens it was an easy one on the schedule today or I probably would not have been able to handle it. Took 2.5 hours to start this run for real from the time I'd originally stepped on the TM to start--baby was not in a good mood today and Luke & Nate were both super cranky as well.

Sunday, October 2, 2016

Update and first postpartum run

Didn't run Monday bc I just did not feel up to it.

Walked five miles Tuesday, then had a baby two hours later. Super great delivery and was by far my easiest and most peaceful birth!

Rested Wednesday all day and walked a very little bit Thursday--I was feeling pretty weak. Normal activity level Friday.

Ran 3 miles Saturday. Garmin didn't pick up until 1.12 miles in. Second mile was 9:51, third mile was 7:59 for the remaining .88, so 9:04/mile, average pace was 9:30. Pretty darn nice to see those numbers again!

95.6 for September, 3 for October, 935 for the year.