If Wishes Were Pigs...That Would Be Weird

Workout:

x5
20 kb swings (16kg, 16kg, 20kg, 20kg, 20kg)

x5
10 (per arm) kb snatches (12kg)
10 (per arm) sledge hammer tire slams (16lb)
100 yard farmer's carry (two 40kg kbs I think?)

x3
15 (per leg) raised leg toe touch crunches
60 second plank

Drove home, ran the dog for a mile.



The workout was hard, but good. The slow mile with the dog was an asskicker. I guess three days in a row of running the shit out of my legs finally kicked in. This does not bode well for tonight's 11 miles, with 5 pace miles in the middle. Uh oh.



YUMMY ARMPIT ACTION.

I'm trying to frontload my week so I don't have to do a hard run the day before spending 24 hours in the air, but it might not play out well. We'll see. Worst case scenario I slog through 9 miles and skip my pace run. I'm not too worried. My comfort on the plane is more important than forcing training in.

I was going to do a post that was all "Exercises To Do On The Plane" and have the body be all "EL OH EL WHO THE FUCK WANTS TO EXERCISE ON A PLANE JUST FUCKING RELAX." But, I never figured out what else would be in the post. So you get this paragraph instead. This is why I'm blogging for all seven of you and not 3 million hits a month or whatever the "I quit my job so I can post about oatmeal and camel toe for a living" bloggers get. I'm too lazy to think of content beyond listing how I sweat, and posting pictures of me looking gross.

Speaking of gross, I have a blister inside of a blister on my middle left toe. It only hurts if I poke it, so I'm just going to avoid poking it, and everything will be cake.

Pace, Face, and Race

Pace:

Tempo Run.

6 miles in 45:30

8:34
7:30
7:13
6:58
6:40
8:34

Ummmmm...fuck yeah? FUCK YEAH. The 6:40 miles (that's 9mph, because I hit that on a treadmill, yo) was a last minute decision, because I still felt awesome.

And then I ran the dog for a mile. Good times. Felt awesome. My legs still have a lot left before I hit my limits. Interesting. I keep surprising myself. Impressing myself. I'm curious to see where my limits are, what I'm capable of. So much new territory to explore and uncover. And what to do with this fresh speed? Focus on short? Pull out a respectable marathon? Can I do it all (no)?

There will come a time when I will start hitting a wall and disappointing myself, so I'm just going to revel in this while I can.

Face.

Why do I always have such silly poses?





Because otherwise all my pictures would look like this:



Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Also, my face looks stupid in repose.

Race.

So, Ragnar is this weekend. And I dropped out.

Why?

I'm going to India on vacation instead. Exciting!

I leave Saturday morning, and I'll be gone for 9 days. I'll have access to internet and a gym, but it remains to be seen how much I'll use either one. I'm losing the two weekends before my half marathon to air travel (flights to India are so LONG), so my half status is up in the air right now (har har). I'm not concerned, because hello vacation to India.

So, yup. Life is pretty awesome right now.

I Make Stupid Faces

Saturday: Pace Run



6.45 miles in 51.01

I started with a one mile warm up, then planned to do five miles at 7:51



I'm not so good at keeping my pace runs on pace. This was like some sort of pace/tempo hybrid.

Also, to zoom in on my pace miles, I can't seem to run at a steady pace in general.



I don't know why. I don't know if this is a bad thing or a normal thing.



Due to Friday's rainstorm, there was a bit of mud on my loop. I didn't let it stop me.

Compared to last week's pace run from fucking hell, this was awesome. Compared to nothing, this was still pretty good. I felt good. My pace felt tough, but maintainable. I don't know if I could have held it for 13 miles. But I felt spent and awesome afterward.

==============

Sunday: Long Run



11.65 miles in 1:46

My moving time was 1:42. 4 minutes spent waiting at stop light. I don't know how that factors in to my mile splits below. Whatever. It's a long run. Splits don't really matter.



But, that 12 minute mile?



For some reason I thought THAT would be a good idea for my long run.



It worked out fine. I'm not sure if bringing my Garmin on a long run is a good idea. I checked it every mile when it beeped, and then either felt good about myself "so fast for a long run!" or bad about myself "you can do better, Rose!" Which is stupid.

My normal M.O. for long runs is "easy, whatever." No stressing about time. But, I was reading, and some people recommend doing the long runs 30-60 seconds slower than their goal pace. Which seems pretty fast to me for a long run. I hit that sometimes. I hit that this time. well, the 60 second part. But that seems like a lot of pressure for the long run.

And some people online recommend doing pace miles in the middle of your long run. Or speed up to faster than pace runs for the last few miles of the long run.

So many ideas. Is what I'm doing right? Will some other way of doing the long run make me faster? I'm mind fucking myself.

What's your strategy with the long run? And how is that working out for you?

==============

Bonus pictures from the Run4Kids from a few weeks ago:

Running with one of the EMTs, who also EMTed me when I did my ultra.



Running in my rain coat.



===============

My quads hurt so bad from Thursday's 250 squats that I spent all weekend hobbling around. It hurt to sit down or stand up. The first mile of each run was hilarious. I felt like Forrest Gump before his leg braces fell off. I haven't been sore like this for a while. It's a good thing, though. It means I'm getting stronger.

Building An Ark

Los Angeles is getting tagged teamed by two storm fronts right now, one from Santa Barbara and one from Orange County. It's making me real glad today is a rest day.

Yesterday was my long day.

Workout:

x5 for time
30 seconds handstand
50 squats, ass to medicine ball

14:10

x3
12 rows, 50lb per arm, holding for 3 seconds at flextion (or whatever the real word is).
10 per side weird side arm movement things that sucked a lot

x3
10 (per side) reverse lunges with dumbbell curls (15lbs each) at the top
12 tricep pull downs

x3
15 per side raised leg crunches
15 per side woodchopper things

The workout started out fucking AWFUL. And got progressively better.

Then I got home and ran the dog a mile to get him to leave me alone.

Then I put on Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune and spent an hour on the bike.



Long day.

At least I have a new denim jacket. Well, new to me.



I am, hands down, the coolest person I know.



It's crazy raining here, which is good, since we're looking at a summer drought if we don't get enough rain. I hate water rationing. Plus, more rain means paying less to water my lawn. My fruit trees have to be so happy right now.

But, it's raining hard enough, and our building is old enough, that I've had to walk around reminding employees to save things on a regular basis, because the chances of us losing power today are pretty high, if this rain keeps up.

And man, no one here knows how to drive in the rain. No headlights on, 60mph on the streets? That will get you home safe. 20mph on the freeway? Sure, buddy, safest way to go.

I grew up in a place where *gasp* rain was normal. Mind you, I didn't DRIVE back then, but I still knew that shitting yourself and stocking up on toilet paper and canned goods.

Then again, based on how everyone else reacts to rain, it kind of is a crisis in LA. STORM WATCH 2012! And, the streets do flood every time it rains. And there are mud slides. And the power goes out for 6 hours, and SOMEHOW someone dies during that time. From not being able to watch Oprah or something. Whatever. At least there are lots of pretty people and restaurant options.

More Track Work. Thrilling, Right?

Track work: 6.31 miles @ 52:51
Trainer Assigned Homework: 20 minutes
Dog Running: 1 mile @ 10:00 (estimated. I don't time that shit)



This is the track workout that almost didn't happen.

I live by CSUN (California State University, Northridge). I discovered two weeks ago that I could, due to what looks like a long term jimmyrig, access the University track. Score! So, last night I parked a good distance away (as close as I could get without needing a permit), and headed over to the track.

Only, the gate was locked. FUCK.

Okay, Rose, you can do this. There's a 300m dirt loop somewhere around here. You just have to find it.

So, I jogged around a baseball field and a soccer field and some other well gated fields. And then I found it. Except, it had rained a few times during the day. And the dirt track, on top of only being 300m, now had large lengths of slippery mud.

Fuck. That. Noise.

Now, while I had spent most of the day not wanting to do this stupid track workout, I had jogged over a mile at this point, and I wasn't going to fucking give up. I thought about trying to make it work on my treadmill, but the arm handle things are not long enough. I have tried to dismount that thing, and I risk faceplanting. I wasn't willing to take that risk 9 times. I resigned myself to staring at my watch too much and doing sprints on a semi-deserted street. Which would be fucking awful. FUCKING AWFUL.

But, as luck would have it, I had to jog by the other side of the track. And there was another gate. And while this gate was closed, it was NOT locked.

And so, I ran.

My goal: 1:40-1:45 per 400m, nine times

Actual 400m times: 1:34, 1:33, 1:33, 1:31, 1:33, 1:33, 1:34, 1:33, 1:32

I thought this was not as fast as two weeks ago (my last track workout), but I double checked, and hey, it's slightly better. So, that's good. And, fun fact, I've been sick for BOTH track workouts. Fucking lame. I'm interested to see what I can do when I feel fine.

I wasn't pushing myself as hard as I could. I was pushing myself. And it was difficult. But it wasn't awful. My lungs were struggling, and I spent a lot of my recovery laps coughing up gross shit. But when I was actually sprinting (well, running fast, I wasn't sprinting) it felt good. Slightly uncomfortable, but maintainable. Which was nice. Satisfying.

So, yup.

Rest and Muscle Ups

Monday is was exhausting to just exist. My limbs were heavy and I wanted to curl up on the couch and watch tv. So, after work I blew off running and curled up on the couch and watched tv. I also drove 3.5 blocks for soup. It was kind of horrifying, and exactly what I needed.

Tuesday I felt better. Not "lift a car off a baby" better, but "I only cough sometimes and my legs feel like they weigh a normal amount" better. So I went to work out with my trainer (workout? I DON'T KNOW!)



I don't know why I took that picture. I like to pretend I'm a monster. Okay, apparently I do know why I took that picture.

Anyway:

x5
30 second single arm rope slams
30 second double arm rope slams
10 (per side) tire smashes (15lb sledgehammer)
5 band assisted muscle ups (!!!!!!)
10 band assisted pull ups

The band my trainer has makes things a little too easy. I am not strong enough to do muscle ups. So cranking out 5 in a row, boom boom boom, means the band is working a little too well. They should have been more difficult. I should have been struggling and whimpering after two, not slightly tired after five.

But, there's something awesome about doing a muscle up, even if I am getting WAY too much help. It's one of those "holy shit this move could actually save my life" type things. Straight up functional. Not frequently functional, but I can imagine scenarios (even ones that don't involve zombies) where being able to pull myself from a dead hand up over whatever ledge I'm gripping, yeah. Awesome. Maybe some day I'll be able to do one of those on my own. To be fair, probably not. But it would be wicked.

x5
20 kb swings (20kg)
10 clean and presses with one handed swings in between in one (12kg)



Oh, wait, I mean....soooooooooooo exhausted.



Also worth noting:




Ignore my disappearing (reappearing!) arm and just look at my ass, okay.



That's better.

Today I have track sprints. 9 of them. I have my "goal time." But I'm also coming off being sick, with lung sickness (that's a thing, right?). So, if I can't hit my goals I'll lower my standards. Look at me. I'm clearly used to lowering my standards. Just kidding. I'm fucking awesome and get whatever I want. True story. Anyway, I have no qualms with wussing out if my body needs it.

Random:

Turkey bacon creeps me out. I'm not sure why it's "better" than regular bacon. And it looks weird.

My trainer and I have a pact that if we ever shit ourselves we'll tell the other person right away, and if we ever see strangers masturbating in public we'll tell each other as soon as we're done video taping it.

Considering the amount of fruit I bought last night, I might be shitting myself any day now. Don't worry, internet, I would never fucking tell you, because that's disgusting, and I don't need that kind of shit online.

I bought my husband a titanium spork years ago as a joke, and I really enjoy eating things with it.

Weekend Round Up

Saturday: 1 mile warm up, 5 miles @ pace -- 48:20
Sunday: 10 miles @ 8:51 -- 1:28:30.8 (plus 25 minutes of "homework)

==============

Friday was a rest day. It was also Passover. We invited our best friends over and had a half assed Seder. We played with plague finger puppets, ate horse radish, and watched Game of Thrones. That show just gets better and better.










===============

Saturday: One of my neighbors was mowing his lawn at 8am, so I was up early. FUN! I puttered around as long as I could justify. The longer I waited the more I wanted to do yet another tempo run on the treadmill. But, I won't be running my half on a treadmill, so I need to be used to pushing myself at my desired pace.

One of the things holding me back was the feeling of something settling in to my lungs. Two weeks ago I was sick for almost a full week. It felt like I was getting sick again.

But, I wasn't bedridden, so out I went.



1 9:19.0 (warm up)
2 7:49.0
3 7:45.0
4 7:56.3
5 7:49.1
6 7:41.6

Total Time: 48:19.9

My "goal pace" is 7:51 - 8:00. While my average pace (minus the warm up) was still below my pace time, mile 4 depresses me. Sure, I have plenty of excuses. The wind was in the face. But, the wind was in my face for mile 5 as well. And yes, I was tired, and it was hard to breathe, but that didn't get better for miles 5 and 6. I just tried harder.

Mile 4 was the point where I repeatedly considered stopping my Garmin, sitting down, and crying. It was hard to breathe. I was not going as felt as I felt I was going. My lungs hurt. Everything was so difficult. I told myself a lot of lies during that mile. And a lot of possible truths. I seriously considered quitting early.

But, training for a race isn't just physical. And, I wasn't injured. I wasn't on my death bed. Things were just *hard.* So I started playing the "you have x miles to go. ANYONE can run x miles." and "The faster you go the sooner you'll be done." My breathing was mildly scary as I soldiered through.

But, I did it. It was awful. It felt like one of the worst runs I've had. But, I did it. I did it all. I didn't die. I didn't cry. I didn't quit. I didn't crap out (too much). I feel like I should be proud of that, but it also feels stupid to be proud of not pussing out. I don't know.





==============

Sunday. Was rough. I was sore. I was tired. I was still feeling sick. I canceled morning plans so I could attempt to sleep in. I made it to 8:15am. Lame. It was still 9 hours of sleep, but I could have done with me.

Marla and Andrew hosted an Easter brunch, so I dragged myself out, ate some bacon and fruit, made a comment about prison rape and beaver pie, and dragged myself home. A few hours on the couch and I was starting to feel like I could probably do my run. 10 miles seemed like a way to go, though, so I hatched a plan with my husband, and headed out the door.



Three miles later, I met up with my husband at the dog park.



Hello doggies.

While he played at the park, I knocked out four miles, then met him back at the park.





Then I ran the three minutes home.



Ten miles, done and done. The last few miles burned my lungs a bit, but overall they were so, so, SO much easier than Saturday. Not just because it was slower. I felt so much better the whole time. Sick lungs versus slightly less sick lungs, I guess.

============

Weekly workout time total:

Running: 4:24
Non-running: 4:05
Total: 8:29

Not too shabby.

=============

Was it smart to do a hard run and a long run while sick? I don't know. I felt worse after the hard run and better after the long run. Obviously I wasn't on death's door or I wouldn't have done either. I'm stubborn, but I'm not stupid. I just didn't feel well. I wasn't coughing my lungs up. I wasn't having intestinal issues. I just didn't feel well, but I ran anyway. I guess I would have quit if it was too much. I don't know how much worse that would have had to be. I was still able to keep the pace I wanted, so I guess it couldn't have been too bad. I've been sicker.

I've heard you should cut out the running if the sickness is in your lungs. Clearly I didn't do that. It didn't ruin my life.

Anyone have any authoritative knowledge on this?

Long Ass Day

Morning: 60 minutes on the bike trainer
Trainer Warm Up: 2 miles @ 7:30 pace (!!!)
Workout: 60 minutes kettlebell shit
Dog: 10 minutes (1 mile) running the dipshit




Thursday is my strength + cross training day. Exhausting! The neighbor's lawn guy woke me up really fucking early by mowing the lawn a few feet from my head (ug), so I dragged myself out of bed, set up the bike trainer in the guest room, and knocked out an hour of peddling. I made it about 17.5 miles, which isn't bad considering I figured out I can read while I bike. I can't read and SPEED, but I can pedal along leisurely while sitting up straight on the bike with a book. Fucking awesome. I might actually start biking more.

After work I met up with my trainer at the park. He was already jogging to warm up, so I jumped in with him. 2 miles, 15 minutes, and a number of curse words later, we were quite warmed up. So, it's like a messed of version of the fucked up crossfit slogan: My warm up is MY workout. (Since a 7:30 pace was my tempo run yesterday). I hate that slogan. I don't go around telling people "your goal jeans are my fat pants." Dick move. It's less common now, so that's good.

Anyway, ass kicking "warm up."

And then we tossed kettle bells back and forth until my palms oozed.



We dropped a lot of bells, and dented a lot of ground. I knocked myself in the neck, chin, and crotch. Not hard enough to bruise, just hard enough to freak myself the fuck out. Because, yeah, hitting yourself in the crotch with a kettlebell is terrifying.

Then we stretched a bit, which means I whined a lot. We talked about wanting to go back to Bikram yoga (I've only done it with him), but not having the time.



And then I drove home and ran the dog for a mile, because he's an asshole, but it's the quickest way to get his walk in. He's the WORST jogging partner, with his peeing on everything and trying to eat random poop and sniffing, all the sniffing.

Dogs, man. Bunch of ass sniffing shit eaters.

Speaking of asses...



Today is my rest day. We're doing Seder tonight, which means printing out a picture of Elijah Wood and playing with plague finger puppets.

Making The Tempo Run My Bitch

Tempo Run: 5.21 miles in 41:36 minutes
Dog run: 1 mile ~10 minutes
Homework: 20 minutes

I think I did better with the tempo run this time, because it sucked really really hard.


I was too fucking tired to smile or look at the camera.

My training plan suggested my fastest pace for the tempo run be my 10k time. Since I was doing my speed work based on a fantasy 5k time, it made sense to do my tempo run at a fantasy 10k time. Right? So, I made a note on my training spreadsheet to peak at a 7:30 pace.

My area of the city does not have a plethora of running paths without stop lights, but there are a few options. I chose one that gave me a 5 miles loop. I was supposed to do 40 minutes for the tempo run, and I figured 5 miles would bring me in a little over 40 minutes, but it would be worth it to be able to do a loop. I planned for a one mile warm up and a one mile cool down, and three hard miles in the middle.

I wasn't sure what I was going to do with those hard miles, besides hitting that 7:30.

My splits: 7:21, 7:22, 7:28

Yeah.

It was awful. I thought about slowing down. Often. After the first mile I thought I would just let my tempo run peak early, count that as hitting my goal, and gradually slow down. But, I couldn't let myself do it. It was a cop out. After the second mile I was comfortable with having two solid tempo miles under my belt, and figured I was supposed to gradually slow down for the final tempo mile. But, it was just one more mile. And it was so close to my race pace, I had to TRY. I wasn't trying to maintain the 7:22. I was just trying to keep it under 7:30. I don't know why. I like to compete against myself.


I was trying to take a picture of how grossly sweaty the back of my neck was, but it ended up being a super creepy picture of my back. I'm sharing it because this is the internet.

The cooldown mile (Well, 1.2 miles, whatever) was awful. Everything was awful. The whole thing never stopped sucking. But, as far as I could tell from the advice you guys gave me, and what I read online, it was supposed to suck. So, yay?

And then I drove home and ran the dog for a less shitty mile.

And then I did my stupid trainer homework. Still stuck on only two pull ups in a row. PISSED to go back to that after getting up to three. *sigh* I did basically take 3 weeks off from pull ups, so there's that. Still pissed, though. STUPID ARMS.


This is my "I would make love to the camera if there wasn't sweat running down my ass crack and sunshine in my eyes" look.

So. Tempo runs. I'm not sure if I'm doing it right, still, but it feels like I'm doing *something.*

Today I'm meeting my trainer at a park by my office so we can throw around heavy kettlebells without worrying about breaking any concrete. I'm stoked. So stoked.

Back In The Saddle

I hadn't seen my trainer in over a week, due to me being sick, and him being paranoid about me being sick. I probably could have worked out (I did run last week, after all), but my body sure enjoyed the rest.

That said, it was good to be back. The garage had a new spiffy machine, with a pull up bar, so I got to show off one wicked pull up (followed by one really shitty pull up, and then lots of shame).

My trainer wasted no time setting me up to get my ass kicked again. He called this "run fran run" which I can only assume is some crossfit thing, but I'm too lazy to look it up, because fran-kly I don't give a shit.



x10
10 thrusters
0.25 mile sprint

I did the first 6 thruster sets with a 45lb bar, and the last 4 sets with two 20lb dumbbells because my wrists ached way too bad. My trainer says the wrist part gets easier, and that my wrists will be pretty sore today. Fun!

The sprints were more like "sprints." I was having some pretty ugly cramps on my leg side, so I spent most of the sprints doing 7.5mph. Ug.

x3
60 second plank
15 per side raised leg toe touch crunches



Just to be clear, that's not a gang sign. That's scissors. As in

Rock.



Paper.



Scissors.

Because I really don't like clothes near my neck. Ug.



Today is my tempo run, which means I'll spend the day reading over the comments from my tempo run two weeks ago, and try not to fuck it up this time.