Month: January 2013

I flew back to Seattle last night and was greeted with dense fog and a temperature of 32 degrees. RUDE.

I was glad that my workout today could be done indoors: 50 minutes on the bike trainer, plus weights. I watched Lance Armstrong’s interview with Oprah the whole time, so it flew by.

Bike-trainer stats:

• Time: 50:15
• Distance: 12.66 miles
• Average speed: 15.1 mph

Plus three sets of the following with 15# weights:

• 8 bicep curls
• 8 hammer curls
• 8 upright rows
• 8 military presses

I’m glad Lance finally confessed to doping. I didn’t think he ever would. I do think he fibbed about some things in the Oprah interview (read Tyler Hamilton’s book The Secret Race for all the details that Lance glossed over), and he certainly has a looooong way to go in terms of apologizing to many, many people and making things right legally (he sued people who told the truth about him, accepted prize money while doping, lied under oath, etc.). It’ll be a long, tough road for him.

ANYWAY. Aaron and I spent the rest of the day running errands (which sounds like “Aarons” when I say it). In five hours, we hit up:

• A friend’s house to jump-start her car (Aaron did not bring his jumper cables… whoops)
• Lunchbox Laboratory
• REI
• Sports Authority
• Target
• Home Depot
• Safeway
• Road Runner Sports

Aaron brought his hipster face to Lunchbox Lab.

We bought SIXTEEN TUBES of Nuun to share, and I used Christmas gift cards to get a whole box of chocolate Clif Shots for marathon training and six new pairs of the best running socks ever!

I also found a Brooks hoodie I’ve been coveting since before Christmas, and it was on sale! Aaron got it for me as a belated Christmas present.

I’m a sucker for soft, comfy, purple stuff.

And now I’m exhausted. Time to rest up to do a nice five-miler on my day off tomorrow!

No surprise here: This was a glorious, sunny run!

I got a bit of a slow start as I tried to figure out my route and how to use the Runkeeper app on my iPhone. My Garmin turned itself on in my bag during the flight to Palm Springs and completely drained its battery, so I downloaded and used Runkeeper for the first time instead. I’m impressed with it!

I still prefer my Garmin, though.

This area is filled with lovely, wide, super-flat sidewalks and streets built on a grid, so it was easy to just do an out-and-back without getting lost.

Two highlights from the run:

1. An older gentlemen walking his little dog offered me the leash as I ran by and said, “Have her back in an hour, will ya?” I laughed so hard.

2. I almost got run over by a golf cart. I was waiting for the walk signal at an intersection when I heard something zoom up next to me on the sidewalk, and it was a golf cart all up on me. That’s why the sidewalks are so nice and wide!

I’m heading back to Seattle today, so I’m saying goodbye to warm temps for several months. Depressing.

I’m heading to pool now to soak up as much sun as possible before I go!

I got to leave work early today since I have to pack for Palm Springs tonight and go to the airport first thing in the morning. Woo-hoo!!! I was so excited to do my run in the daylight.

Light or dark, running at Green Lake never gets old.

I’m also pumped about my speed intervals! I never have a goal time for them; I just run nearly as hard as I can, without running so hard that I have to stop. Looking at them now, I see that they were nice and fast and CONSISTENT!!!

Looking at this reminded me of Yasso 800s, the workout that can supposedly help predict your marathon time. During marathon training, you work up to running ten 800-meter (half-mile) repeats in the same number of minutes/seconds (like 3 minutes, 55 seconds) as the hours/minutes you want to run your marathon (like 3 hours, 55 minutes).

I only did four half-mile repeats, but I’m still thrilled to see that I consistently did them in about 3:55! So… 3:55 marathon? Sounds good! Perhaps I’ll integrate Yasso 800s into my marathon training plan.

I was also pumped on Monday to finally run 4.5 miles in less than 40 minutes, and super-pumped today to do it in less than 39 minutes!

Sorry to be so CAPS-LOCK-Y and exclamatory!!! today. I just love seeing and feeling PROGRESS!

OK, I’m done.

I was too tired to post my workout last night… instead, I went to bed at 9:30. Excellent decision! Both Aaron and I find ourselves getting hungrier and hungrier as we ramp up our workouts, but only I find myself getting tired earlier, apparently.

I did a rare Tuesday-night run because I know I won’t have time to do these easy three miles on Thursday, when I’m traveling to Palm Springs and have a full agenda until 9 p.m.:

The key was to slowww dowwwn, since I don’t normally run three days in a row and I need to save my legs for speed intervals tonight. We’ll see how successful I was…

I also did an abbreviated weight-lifting session because I was so hungry for dinner.

Two sets of:

• Bicep curls — 8 reps, 15#
• Hammer curls — 8 reps, 15#
• Military press — 8 reps, 15#
• Bent-over row — 8 reps each side, 20#

And now for my last day of work before three days at a resort, the warm temps of Southern California, and a long weekend thanks to MLK Jr. Day!

There’s something about long runs on Saturdays and spinning on Sundays that makes my legs want to go fast on Mondays.

The strange thing about this run is that I didn’t feel like I was going super-fast. I tried not to look at my watch very much and just settle into a comfortable pace while also pushing myself a bit, and when I did look down at my watch, I was shocked to see that my pace was in the 8:30s and 8:40s.

I guess the way to become a faster runner is to run to the end of your comfort zone, and then run some more. One day you’ll find yourself cruising along at a pace that used to make you feel like death, and it. will. feel. awesome.

P.S. I keep forgetting to mention that I created a Wedding page, where I’ll post links to all the details as Aaron and I plan our wedding! There’s not much on it now but, ohhh, just wait.