sunburns and tequila

Summing my day up this way makes it sound way more exciting than it was, but it was pretty sweet. I woke up this morning and bummed around for a while before picking up my buddy Lisa (aka Interceptor 600HP) and Ashley (Thrashley 6, though I will always remember her old school at 666) and going skating at Sandy Creek Park. Ashley still plays derby, but Lisa and I have been indulging what I suspect is a long drawn out derby withdrawal period by hanging out and skating and talking about how we miss derby and how we are so glad we don’t play anymore. Yeah, both of those.

Sandy Creek has a main loop that’s about .75 mile. We skated a bunch of the main loop and a side road a few times for a little shy of eight miles in a bit over an hour. It’s an uphill on one side and downhill on the other, but we were pretty liberal with the slalom and I’d guess we might have been slower on some of the downhills than the uphills. It was slower than last week, but last week was definitely flatter. I uploaded my Garmin and saw my fastest speed was 3:xx or something (when I switched the activity to skating, it reconfigured to 18 mph) and knew it was on this first section where I started slaloming way too late and thought I was going to eat dirt and lose a few teeth. The bonus of skating is generating your own breeze and being on wheels (duh), but this is more or less made up for by having a helmet on and kneepads/gaskets/etc which make you super hot. Also, Lisa and Ashley are both somewhere in the upper range of five foot something, whereas I am definitively in the lower range at 5’3″ and thus my short legs were busting moves to keep up with their casual gangly strides on uphills.

After apparently becoming sufficiently red, we changed and went to “the beach” aka the lake, which was full of little kids and warm spots, if you catch my drift. It was part awesome and part gross. Lisa and I moved on to the Taco Stand for food and margaritas; I would venture to say there were a few “warm spots” of humanity there as well. The day drinking is too much for me, even though it was one drink. I thought I could power through and get some stuff done at home, but caved to a one hour nap before working for a couple of hours and doing an evening run. I’m ready for a new week! Please let it be a good one.

parkinson’s law

Parkinson’s law – work expands so as to fill the time allotted for its completion. Story of my life. The less I have to do, the longer it takes to get done and vice versa.

I went to NC from Thursday through Monday morning. It’s gotten crazy hot in the past week or two. I woke up late on Friday, or late enough that I couldn’t get it together to run early. I ended up going out around 10:30am and ran a little over seven miles around the lake. My mom was my crew chief and dropped a bottle of water off for me at the 4.5 mile mark, which was a lifesaver because the water I had left at that point was super warm and gross. It was really muggy and about 80 when I got back to their house.

I wanted to run longer on Saturday and had semi learned my lesson, so I got up and left the house by 8:30am. Somehow it was even hotter earlier in the morning and I knew I was going to struggle to run for two hours, so I talked my mom into giving me a 55 minute head start before she left on her walk. This way I’d be most of the way around the lake and would keep running until I caught up with her on the same loop. Since I’m not actually training for anything, I’m good with having the extra time on my feet even if it’s not running. I carried a frozen bottle of water and a cold one, and the frozen one was fully melted three miles in. I ended up doing a little shy of eight miles before “catching” her, but she was actually waiting at the bottom of a hill for me. It was already 85 degrees and I was dying-dying-dying the whole way; if I had gotten to the bottom of that hill and not seen her, I would’ve been miserable. We walked the remainder of the loop, a little over six miles in 1:42 (didn’t count this as miles run, just exercise time).

On Sunday, we walked Emmie down to the water (two miles or so each way; didn’t write this one down) so she could go swimming at the boat docks. She doggie paddled and was way into it.

She makes weird faces.

After dinner Sunday, I finished up with a short three mile run in the dark. It was almost cool enough to warrant long sleeves (if not running, anyway), so I wore them…ah. It will be fall again before I know it, right?

All three runs were music-less, which is not necessarily a first for me, but the first time by choice. I’ve always thought I would hate running without headphones, but it was super pleasant and once I got over listening to my own heavy breathing (…in the first quarter mile, haha) it was nice not to be distracted by thinking about how many times I’ve heard a song or whatever. I might be turning over a new leaf and have to admit I felt at least a little hardcore. I ran a half marathon without music once, but not by choice, just because my ipod kicked it about ten minutes into the race. If I can get over listening to music, it’s one less thing I have to carry around with me, which I love.

I got back from the grocery store on Tuesday and was greeted by oh so sweet, oh so free shoes from Brooks at my front door. This morning I was pretty stoked to see a post on Old-Runner.com offering up three entries to the Charity Chase Half Marathon in Hickory, NC next month. Sometimes working on the computer all the time pays off in the form of frequent Google Reader refreshes. Thanks, Richard!

5/2 sunday – off
5/3 monday – 7.01 miles, 60:00
5/4 tuesday – 6.75 miles, 60:08
5/5 wednesday – 4.54 miles, 40:00 + 45:00 spin class
5/6 thursday – off
5/7 friday – 7.20 miles, 68:43
5/8 saturday – 7.96 miles, 76:30 + walk 6.11 miles, 1:41:59

total miles run: 33.46
total run time: 5:05:21
total cardio time: 7:32:20

good day for a run

I have been taking it easy this week for the most part. ING Georgia is four weeks away and it seems like about the time that I usually start feeling a little burned out. You know when you aren’t sick, but it seems like it might not be too far off if you don’t watch it? So, I have been chilling out and trying not to catch anything. I retired some old shoes with about 500 miles on them and got a new pair this week since I’ve been having some achy feet lately. I’ve done two runs in the new shoes and my feet are feeling alright so far. Usually I wear Saucony Progrid Guide 2s, but I have exhausted all the women’s color options besides white/baby pink and I bought the 3s instead after seeing them in Runner’s World, which said they were pretty much the same shoe with some minor tweaks. There’s nothing wrong with pink shoes, but I was not having a pale pink kind of week. I’ll let you know if I ever do.

My last swim class was Monday. The pool I swim in was hosting the SEC swimming and diving championship this week, so I haven’t been over to swim since. No spin, either. My gym has been having a fundraiser for Haiti this week where you pay $5 to reserve a spot in advance. Classes fill up really fast, so I haven’t had the heart to schedule around getting to class only to find out it’s full. Maybe tomorrow; I am definitely missing going to class.

This afternoon I met up with Melissa while she was visiting Athens and went for a run in the most perfect, perfect weather we’ve seen in months. Short sleeves and shorts! She was super nice and it was fun to run with someone for a change. I have to credit Melissa with making it pleasant enough that when we finished, I decided I might as well do my long run today instead of tomorrow since I was already six miles in. She has a really good attitude and I have a terrible one! I figured my feet might hurt or I might be a whiny bastard tomorrow (forecast: likely), so no time like the present to get it done. Running in town is so much different than running out here in the sticks and a lot more entertaining. Also, getting to stop at stoplights is pretty awesome. At mile 9, I stopped by Georgia Cycle Sport for two Hammer Gels and at mile 15, I stopped at the Golden Pantry for water and some Lifesavers, which were pretty much the most delicious things ever, except for the package being rife with the green flavor which immediately got chucked. Another thing that is awesome about running in town: places to buy things so you don’t have to carry them. I ended up back at my car after 18.xx miles (can’t remember exact time, average pace was 9:24) and called it done. Nothing too notable happened except that I saw the engine on a UGA bus explode on Milledge Avenue. I can just feel my student transportation fee increasing.

This is not related to anything – well, it kind of is because it’s part of why I have been stressed/not running as much – but I had my first statistics exam this week and miraculously scored a 19/20. The class is scored out of three 20-point exams so I was pretty stressed about doing poorly on the first one and having to scramble the rest of the semester. Somehow, I ended up taking this class with a bunch of people from my department even though none of us took the prerequisite course and I only had one undergrad level stat class. I’m not a math person, but I like statistics well enough; it’s easy to say that now that the test is over.

hitting restart

Today was pretty low key. Lots of house cleaning, a good way to start off the week. I went and did about 30 minutes in the pool (1000 yards/914 meters). I did 100 yards each freestyle, breast stroke, and back stroke, repeated 3 times, and tacked on another 100 yards of freestyle to even it out. It’s nice not being really sweaty! My goggles were kind of killing me today, though. They weren’t any tighter than normal. I always have a little puffiness underneath my eyes for a few hours, but they don’t usually hurt. Am I doing something wrong? I was a little stressed that I’d have to share a lane with someone since the 50 meter pool was closed, but the place was fairly empty. Social trauma averted.

1/24 sunday – off
1/25 monday – 6.76 miles, 59:58 (8:52 avg) + 45 minute swim (not 45 solid minutes, though)
1/26 tuesday – 7.0 miles, 61:46 (8:49 avg)
1/27 wednesday – 4.74 miles, 42:18 + 45 minute spin + 30 minute swim
1/28 thursday – off
1/29 friday – 15.31 miles, 2:23:06 (9:20 avg)
1/30 saturday – 7.25 miles, 65:30 (9:02 avg)

total miles: 41.06
run time: 6:12:38
cardio time: 8:12:38