Month: December 2012

I skipped my two-miler this morning because:

1. Tired
2. Slightly sore throat (NOT OK)
3. Tired legs (which would probably fit under the umbrella of #1, but it sounds better to have three reasons)

We’ll be on our way to Vancouver shortly. I just remembered that last time we went to Vancouver, Aaron rode his bike there in the RSVP (Ride from Seattle to Vancouver and Party).

I also ran 8 miles along the seawall, and we both posed with Lego Whale (known to more sophisticated folks as “Digital Orca”).

There will be no bike riding on this trip, but there may be running — I have 4 miles to do tomorrow, and Aaron is packing his running shoes to potentially join me.

And there will certainly be partying. RSVP, indeed!

Yesterday, I broke TWO dishes. Completely shattered them. I can’t remember the last thing I broke before yesterday, and then I broke two things in one day.

The first thing was a cute little bowl that I collect my eggshells in to take out to the compost. I dumped out the eggshells, then dropped the bowl.

The second thing was a wine glass full of champagne. To the surprise of approximately no one, I knocked this over immediately after drinking another wine glass full of champagne.

May it rest in peace with the dozens of wine glasses that I broke in college.

To segue into the running portion of this post, that broken wine glass did not prevent me from drinking still more champagne (like a champ), and I didn’t know how my stomach would hold up to the six miles I had to run today.

Good news: After a slight cramp during mile two, I was juuuuust fine.

I feel like I’ve been doing my “long” runs a bit too fast, so I aimed to run 9:15-ish miles today. I felt so good by the end that I cranked it up a bit for the last mile and finished with a bang. Also did some pushups and sit-ups for strength training when I got home because I was too tired/lazy to lift weights.

I had 40 minutes of spinning on my training plan for tomorrow, but Aaron and I are leaving for Vancouver early-ish and I can’t get on the spin bike at 7:00 a.m. because it is super-loud/shakes the floor and will probably piss off the occupants of the condo below. I changed it to an easy two-mile run, so we’ll see if my legs feel good enough in the morning to actually do that. They are ti-red right now!

In other news…

Aaron and I hit up the Brooks outlet store in Bothell (near the Brooks headquarters) and I got some new running gear for half off! I got a cozy track jacket, a long-sleeve tech shirt, and a Rock ‘n’ Roll Seattle hat (from 2012, but I ran it in 2011 and am going to run it in 2013, so whatever) — all bright pink, because that’s how I roll.

I’m not sure about the wi-fi situation in our Vancouver hotel, so… this may or may not be my last post of 2012! Eeek!

If it is, everyone have a safe and happy New Year’s Eve. Try not to break your glass full of champagne!

I wrote last week that I’d mix up my speed interval routine this week in order to keep getting better.

This led to… interesting decisions today.

The workout:

• 0.5 mi warmup
• Four sets of 0.5 mi fast and 0.25 mi recovery
• 0.5 mi cool-down

That means I doubled the distance of the speed intervals to a half-mile and kept the recovery distance the same as usual at a quarter-mile. HOLY HELL was this difficult!

You can see that my first 0.25 mi “recovery” period was wayyy too fast at 9:05 pace, so I about died during the next speedy half-mile. I had to straight-up walk for the first little bit of each remaining recovery period, and then jog slowly to regain some energy for each speedy half mile.

This workout pretty much felt impossible, but I never stopped during the speed intervals; I just slowed down a bit when I felt like I had to stop, then tried to speed up again as I neared the end of the interval.

My lungs and legs were wrecked when I finished. I think that’s the sign of a goooood workout!

I loved wearing the SmartWool training headband that Aaron got me for Christmas.

My ears will never be cold again! This thing is so soft and incredibly warm for how thin it is. It also doesn’t budge a bit. Now I don’t even need to wear a hat if it’s not raining! Ohhhh, the freedom!

I also did a quick post-run lifting session: Three sets of 10 reps of bicep curls, hammer curls, and military press with 15 lb. weights.

Rest day tomorrow. 6 miles on Saturday. And on Sunday, we trek up to Vancouver, B.C., for a little getaway to ring in 2013!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

I attempted to kick off the big day with a 4-mile run… but only made it 0.40 miles. Lame.

My left knee felt funny. Not funny “ha-ha,” but funny “oh shiz, what is that?” So I stopped, turned off my watch, and half-limped 0.40 miles back home in the nasty rain. 

BUT! This story has a happy ending. I massaged and foam-rolled the heck out of my left leg yesterday, because the funny feeling felt like a super-tight IT band, and today I was able to run those 4 miles with no pain/funny feelings whatsoever. SUCK IT, IT band.

I’ll be extra-vigilant about stretching and foam-rolling for now on! I’ve never had to quit a run that early before, and I hope to never do it again.

In other news, Aaron and I got to celebrate Christmas four times in three days! That is the joy of having two sets of divorced parents who all live within an hour of each other.

First up, we had day-before-Christmas-Eve brunch and presents at Aaron’s mom and stepdad’s place.

We got several cute ornaments to start our collection, plus many other thoughtful gifts!

Next, we stopped in for a few hours to Aaron’s stepsister’s house to spend time with his dad’s side of the family on Christmas Eve. We had just enough time to catch up with everyone, eat hors d’oeuvres, and drink some wine before heading to…

…MY dad’s for Christmas Eve dinner and presents! And several vicious games of Spoons.

Finally, after my failed run, we went to my mom’s house for Christmas Day. We nibbled on chocolate babka, deviled eggs, veggies, chips ‘n dip, and cheese before opening presents, watching Jaws (which my mom’s fiance received on Blu-Ray as a gift from my bro), and doing a blind taste-test of hard ciders.

Everyone agreed J.K.’s Solstice was the best. I would avoid that Snowdrift, if I were you.

I also picked up some pieces of mail from my mom’s, including this sweet t-shirt I received from Rock ‘n’ Roll Seattle for registering super-early for the half-marathon!

Usually, free race t-shirts: 1) have an ugly design; 2) have an ugly color; and/or 3) fit poorly, so I’m actually thrilled with this shirt! Cool design, nice dark gray color, great fit. I’ll actually wear this one, and it’s got me all excited for a race that’s 6 months away!

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for you now. I worked from home today and will do so again tomorrow, so I’m beyond thrilled to be able to run in the daylight during my “lunch break,” and squeeze in the very last sights and smells of Christmas from the comfort of my couch…

Don’t asked me how this happened.

Trust me, I wasn’t all like, “Hey, I think I’ll run nearly all 9:00 miles today.” It just happened. So weird. But it makes me very happy!

There’s something to be said for consistency.

It probably had to do with the fact that I did almost the entire run on the completely flat Green Lake path (elevation gain: two feet). When I start training for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Seattle half, I’ll definitely do hillier runs and even dedicate one run per week to hill repeats. Luckily, I have no shortage of nearby hills to choose from!

Fun fact: Five miles is the farthest I’ve run since I sprained my ankle back in May. The last time I ran five miles was on March 30 in Airlie Beach, Australia (9:13 pace). Not a bad-looking route, huh?

Oh Australia, how I miss your beaches.

ANYWAY. I’m extremely excited to tackle six miles next week!

I lifted some weights after today’s run to squeeze in my second strength-training session of the week. I also stretched, spent quality time with my foam roller, and watched the incomprehensible spectacle that is “Ice Loves Coco” on E!

I… don’t even know.

Louis C.K. was awesome last night!

(Stolen from Aaron’s Instagram)

I had watched one of his stand-up DVDs and seen a few episodes of his TV show before, but I didn’t think I would love Louis C.K. in person as much as I did. He was hil-ar-i-ous (and juuuust inappropriate enough) for two hours straight! My face hurt from smiling and laughing so much.

I made the excellent life decision to use a few hours of PTO that I’ve accrued so far to take this morning off and sleep in, then roll into work at 1 p.m. I got a lovely eight hours of sleep, and even got my run in during daylight hours!

Just a quick two miles down to Green Lake and back.

It started raining during the last half-mile, but it didn’t even bother me after running in hellish wind and rain a few nights ago. I have seen some shit, y’all. Rain will have to try a little harder to get me down.

Aaron has finally converted me to the iPhone, and so I’m officially the last person in the world to have Instagram (just as everyone else is quitting it, naturally). So far I’m just ‘gram-ing food and stuff.

Aaron and I made… hmm… interesting life decisions for dinner and dessert tonight. Let’s just say we were sick of eating big salads at home, so we went out for an end-of-the-world style meal.

The Boar’s Nest: BBQ pulled pork, cornbread, fried mac ‘n’ cheese, onion rings (ate about half; the rest is lunch tomorrow).

Hot Cakes Molten Chocolate Cakery: Dark Decadence molten cake, vanilla ice cream, salted caramel, butter toffee nibs.

And now we drink homemade grape juice* and watch the movie Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. I smell a theme!

* Did you know that it is illegal to ship wine from Italy to the U.S.? It is, however, legal to ship “homemade grape juice.” Not that I know anyone who’s done that.

I’ve never seen legit waves crash up against the shores of itty-bitty Green Lake… until tonight.

Luckily, I was dressed for the relentless wind and rain!

Notice Aaron photobombing me with his version of Strutting Leo. Heh.

I wore Aaron’s beanie to keep my ears warm, my running hat to keep the rain off my face, and the hood of my jacket to stay dry. It all worked well until the wind blew fat raindrops horizontally, right into my face.

Well played, mother nature.

Tonight’s speed intervals:

• 0.5 mi warmup
• Four sets of 0.25 mi fast and 0.25 mi recovery
• 1 mi cool-down

I enjoyed that speedy mile home! Anything to get me away from the windy death trap of Green Lake.

Post-run: Is it rain? Is it sweat?

Who knows? That’s the fun.

I’ve slacked on some areas of my training plan, but in four weeks, I’ve done all my speed workouts. And they’ve really paid off!

I just added the average pace of each of my completed runs to my training plan, and you can see the pace slowly dropping through the weeks. I’ll try longer speed intervals with shorter periods of recovery next week to help me get even stronger and run even faster!

I’ve made tomorrow my rest day and moved a 2 mi run + strength training to Friday because we’re going to see Louis CK perform standup tomorrow night! The show starts at 10 p.m., and I usually try to be in bed by 9:58, so it’ll be interesting trying to stay awake. Not to mention trying to stay awake the next day at work…

And I shall end with a random photo from Aaron’s holiday party last Friday. Shh, just go with it: