Archive for February, 2009

Sorry about the whining yesterday. The weather looks better and depending on which weather site I choose (because of course I have 3 sites on 3 tabs open for endless refreshing), it looks like it’ll be 32 w/26 windchill, 9-11mph winds, 10-20% chance precip. Whew. I can deal with that.

I took yesterday off for my hurting big toe knuckle and it felt ok for the first 3 miles of today’s run, like a distant shadow, but then when I did my strides, it was smarting as it banged against the top of the shoe. The bad part is that I was wearing my go-to “safety” shoes, the previous model Inspires that never gave me trouble but I guess the knuckle is swollen enough that it keeps getting bumped even in this pair.

The good part is it only seems like a bruise so I’m not going to my crazy place, imagining it’s something really bad. I’ll be wearing my Elixirs tomorrow, which are super light, plus I re-laced them so there’s no laces in the first holes so that should leave the ole knuckle unmolested.

But about the race, with so much whining I haven’t even mentioned the two cool points about tomorrow. First off, I get to meet up with a couple local forum friends and blogger/photographic documentarian ShoreTurtle. Secondly, the race course is the very same bike path I run on every single day, so I know exactly what’s coming up when. It’s almost like cheating.

Oops, look at the time, I really must go as I have many weather pages to refresh over and over and over and… Thanks for the positive wishes in the previous post, sweet readers. Have a lovely Sunday morning and I’ll catch up with you tomorrow. EEk.

That’s how I’m feeling, not truly blue, but dancing around it.

Yesterday, I had to cut my run short because my newest Inspires have been bugging my right foot and it hurt too much to continue. The decorative piping that joins the tongue to the shoe puts pressure on the knuckle bone of my big toe and while I’ve tried different lacing techniques, it hasn’t helped, though I’ve kept it at bay by switching with my older Inspires. So after hobbling home, I took a pair of scissors and snipped through the piping to make more room.

It’s not the first time I’ve done shoe surgery, still I never enjoy cutting into a pair of $70 sneaks. Hopefully it’ll resolve the issue. But I’ve taken today off because my foot feels a little bruised when I apply pressure. I’m also icing it every so often. That’s baby blue.

Meanwhile, the 10K I’ve been looking forward to this weekend looks like it’ll be in shitty weather. At the moment, sleet and wind are firmly in the forecast. Aargh!! I so wanted to kill my PR in one ceremonial swoop, and while that should still happen to some extent, it won’t be as dramatic a murder as I’d hoped. More blue.

At least I had a good amount of work this week (4 out of 5 days is a lot in voiceover land). Most of it was the usual dry stuff, except for one job where I played a dog for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art – I love doing character work, so that was big fun.

My next role is to play a duck this Sunday. Hopefully the sleet will roll right off my back and I’ll just keep waddling to the finish.

Yesterday: an easy 8-miler at 9:01. Because I had a scary speed session planned for today, it was my pleasure to stay at a sensible pace.

Today: my last set of intervals before Sunday’s race. My usual pre-race speed session is always a light one, around 2 miles worth of 600s or 800s @ 5k pace. Hudson’s concoction, however, was a different beast entirely: 2 miles easy, 1mi at 5K pace, 4min easy, 8×400 at 3k pace w/1min recoveries, 2 miles easy.

Here’s the damage:
The 5K-paced mile: 6:48. My splits for the 400s were sadly all over the place. It was only my second time going for 3k pace in a workout so I just ran as fast as I could and hoped it came out alright. It came out fine, as far as average pace, but the first two didn’t help the rest. Paces for the 400s were 6:21,6:22,6:35,6:20,6:43,6:30,6:36,6:42. Average pace, 6:31. Now on to the subject of weight…

I started at 126.5 lbs. at the end of December. While the first couple weeks in January gave a rapid drop, my goal of 114 has been taking it’s own sweet time. While the scale continues to fluctuate, my calorie intake has stayed pretty consistent throughout, between 2000-2100/day (though I suspect I should increase it again).

Two weeks ago, I hit 117 for a couple days, which would have made a 9.5 lbs. loss, but then last week was my “lady time” and aside from Monday morning at 117.5, I’m currently holding steady at 119.

Meanwhile, my little mOron bodyfat analyzer, yet another fluctuating marvel, has continued a steady trend downward, showing a bodyfat loss of 1.7% since I started. But nothing tells the story as well as a tape measure. So far, this is what’s missing:
waist: 1.25″
navel: 1.5″
butt: 3/4″
thigh: 1/2″ each
calves: 1/4″ each
arm: 1/2″ each
boobs: a distant memory

Let this remind you guys that the scale is not to be trusted. If you’re on a mission to lose a few pounds, take your measurements! You’ll still freak out at the slow moving scale but not half as badly.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some pushups to do. Will the fun never end?

What a morning. I was sitting here in my robe, putzing around the house thinking about when I would run, checking in on the forums, when at 10:13, I get a call from a recording studio, “Where are you?!” Oh shit! I totally forgot I had a voiceover at 10am! To a perpetually early Virgo, this is akin to killing a baby.

I apologized like mad, slapped on some clothes and drove like a bat out of hell. Twenty-five minutes later I walk in the door, sooo apologetic, the client and my friends at the studio are “no problem, don’t worry, everything’s ok” and I did the job. Still, that feeling of fucking up pervaded the day.

As for yesterday’s running report, I had planned to keep my 14-miler in slow territory and even though Hudson said “last 15 minutes hard”, I figured I’d skip that bit, since I’d done the tempo and 200s the previous day. I was feeling pretty good though and while the idea of speeding up seemed like a pipe dream at mile 10, I figured I could try it for a mile, see if it sucked, and if it did, slow down again.

As usual, the thought of doing is often worse than the actual deed. I picked up the pace around mile 11, it felt ok, so I picked it up a tad more, ending the run with 7:50s for the last two miles. Avg. pace for the run, 8:42.

After my job debacle this morning, I put off today’s run as long as I could because it was window-rattling gusty outside. Once again, I was making deals with myself “I give myself the ok to do a measly 4 miles as long I get those hill sprints in.” which got me out the door. It ended up being a fine recovery run, 7.6 miles w/ 7 hill sprints.

My highlight of the run was (with no other runners in sight thanks to the gusting wind) when I languidly picked my tights outta my ass at the very millisecond some fast guy appears next to me from behind saying “Hi, windy day, huh?”

Timing…I just didn’t have it today.

Fun workout today, 8 miles total including 2×10min@10k pace w/2min. recoveries, then 8×200s at 3k pace with 200m recoveries. The results were:
10min lap #1 – 7:02/mi (avg HRR 86%, Max 89%)
10min lap #2 – 7:08/mi (avg HRR 88%, Max 90%)
200s – avg. 6:33/mi (avg HRR 84%, Max 88%)
Looking good for next weekend’s 10K.

Backtracking a day, yesterday was super windy, so instead of my usual river route, I explored Lemon Hill for hill sprinting alternatives. I hadn’t realized, but there are all sorts of grassy hills with higher grades than the road, so it got me all motivated to do the sprints weekly from now on. Just testing the different hilly areas yesterday made me see how beneficial it’ll be to strength so I’m excited to have yet another tool for improvement.

The other thing I’ve been entertaining myself with is an old link on LetsRun.com that a fellow forumite pointed me to. Man, this is an amazing thread. Yes, it’s dense but it’s crazy chock full of famous coaches giving their 2cents, sniping at each other, making their cases for or against high mileage, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Many subjects are touched on here and it’s really fascinating stuff. I’m only on page 33, savoring it slowly.

I just saw this on my calendar. Today marks my 2nd year of running, starting with my first run/walk day of C25K. Well, ok, I started on week 3 because I’d been doing some fitness dvds for a few weeks beforehand. This was my first day running:

Brisk 5min warmup walk, then 2 repetitions of the following:
* Jog 200 yards (or 90 seconds)
* Walk 200 yards (or 90 seconds)
* Jog 400 yards (or 3 minutes)
* Walk 400 yards (or three minutes)

I knew from the start that I was in love with it, so sure of my mounting obsession that it was only a couple weeks later when I splurged on a Garmin. Some things you just know.

Anyway, without any fanfare (because I didn’t remember the anniversary till afterwards) I did an easy 11 today though it rained the last couple miles, it was a sweet run. Sometimes dark and cloudy is beautiful.

Because I don’t have much to say today, I’ll leave you with this non-sequitur of a clip. If you watch The Soup, you’ve seen cupcake trance doggie, if not, enjoy.