Thanksgiving Week
I'm not usually one for warm and fuzzy sentiments... but I really do love Thanksgiving. Went home for the week to Boston, and had plenty to be thankful about. I still don't WANT to be slow forever more... but I do realize that there are more important things.
Monday was my mom's birthday, and then Peter came for Thanksgiving. My mom had friends over too, so we ended up having WWII Villians Thanksgiving (with 2 German people and 4 Japanese people). I felt relaxed and happy and did not have nightmares for the first time in months. Cooked a big turkey, enjoyed some long, slow, (hopefully regenerative) not on a schedule runs. It actually felt somewhat de-stressing (but also a little bit stressing) to just run in a non structured way for a little bit. I just did what I could when I felt like it.
Sunday 11/23: Off, all daylight hours were consumed by flying/time zone change. Woke up at 4 am, and felt completely wiped out when I arrived so went to bed at 8 pm Boston time, which is 5 pm LA time.
Monday 11/24: 1:24:20, River path to Eliot Bridge. Decided that 40 degrees is still acceptable running weather. Once you warm up, its not half bad. Saw one other crazy person who was wearing shorts like me. Took it real easy and thought this was a nice relaxing run until I got home to my map of River Loop distances and saw that I only ran 9.3 miles... which makes this run kind of on the ridiculously slow side... bah. But today is my mom's birthday, so I did not waste any of it on being disgruntled about the slowness.
Tuesday 11/25: Off, torrential downpour. Also stuffed myself silly with scones upon getting up in the morning and felt barfy, which did not really make it any easier to want to run. Then I dug up some old running logs and remembered that in winter of 2005 I ran 11 miles a day rain or shine in the 35 degree weather when I was at home in Boston. One of those days was really rainy and miserable, and I still ran 11 miles... at sub-8 minute mile pace. Who would have thought that in 3 years I'd be all lazy and slow... lame, totally lame.
Wednesday 11/26: 1:34:31, River Path to JFK bridge (10.9 miles). Felt motivated to get out there after spending yesterday feeling grouchy. This run was better, found some nice dirt paths that I'd never ventured to try in years past. Also, had enough energy left to push the pace a little bit for the last 2.5 miles. Felt good to get going, and made it up Big Hill in record time. (We now live at the top of a half mile long, somewhat steep hill which is inevitable to get to the river path)
Thursday 11/27: 1:15:30, Shorter River Path plus detour to gas station (8.9 miles). We picked up Peter from the airport yesterday, and he came with me on my run (on bike) this morning after we patched up my old mountain bike and pumped up the tires at the gas station. It was really nice, but I realized that I was being grinchy to him, because I didn't want him to see me be this slow. I know that this is wholly irrational, because 1) numerous discussions over the years have revealed that not everyone has speed goggles to the same degree that I apparently do and 2) me at my very very best would still be woefully underwhelming to a former national champion/professional triathlete anyways... so, I should really get over this--but it's harder than you think. There's still this side of me that wants to be a badass in front of her man. When I race (er, IF I ever race again...) I want Peter to be able to say "See the one kicking everyone's butt? That's MY girl." Anyways, I suppose I can ruminate on this problem another time.
Friday 11/28: Off, bleh. Being lazy again. I think the laziness is correlated with it raining. I didn't feel too horrible though, because I have a big day planned for tomorrow :).
Saturday 11/29: 2:06:18, give or take a couple of minutes, the first ever Run-Bike Boston Tour of Megumi's Childhood Relics. Took Peter around town (me on foot, him on bike) to see where I grew up. I had an elaborate route planned out, but the farthest landmark had to be foregone due to time constraints (we had to catch our flights home). It still mapped out to ~14.5 miles though, so I wasn't going as ridiculously slowly as I thought I was. Anyways, it was fun. Felt a little groggy and sore after this + 5 1/2 hours of sitting on a plane.
Training this week: 6:20:39 (43.6 miles*) a big week on 4 days.
*This is the first time in over a year that I've run a 40 mile week. Feet and ankles are holding steady. I also did not feel catastrophically awful this week for the first time in about a month. That's something to be thankful for!
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Week of 11/16/2008 - 11/22/2008 (Not Good Week #3)
So on Sunday...
They canceled the first ever Pasadena Marathon due to forest fires... which was an extreme bummer to the many who had trained, traveled and congregated for this event. But for me, it brought some neat silver linings.
One, is that I got to spend some extra time with Kamalah, who was in town for this event. She is one cool chica. Second, I felt less guilty about not going on a run on this day.
While walking to Trader Joe's to get our consolation exercise... I realized that I should probably stop pretending that the persistent pain in my L ankle was 1) going to go away on its own and 2) not affecting my stride. Hell, it was painful to keep a normal walking gait.
I can't help but feel like my running career is circling the drain at this point and desperately needs a Do Not Resuscitate order...
Sunday 11/16 - Thursday 11/20: Nothing. Waiting for my ankle to feel less horrible. Turns out its taking a really long time. On thursday I decided I had already hit the diminishing returns principle on further days off... but I couldn't motivate myself to get out of bed and go run. Bleh.
Friday 11/21: 46:14, Monterrey Recovery Loop to test the ankle. Didn't feel fantastic, but it pretty much held up. I think I expended more effort than I could have to produce a decent time for this course, but in general I felt good. I think it felt good just to have gotten up, biked to the Arroyo and run... instead of lolling around in bed trying to sleep and ignore the feeling my body and soul being crushed into an ever smaller cube.
Saturday 11/22: 1:28:54, Brown Mountain to the Saddle and back via El Prieto with KB. This was a fantastic run. I was really really nervous and concerned about my ankle and my fitness and wondered if I'd need to be airlifted off of the mountain... but I was glad that I went anyways. Despite the many days off, felt not terrible going up, in the beginning it felt pretty horrible but it got better and I was feeling pretty chipper by the time we got to the saddle. Maybe there's hope yet. Was really great to run with KB. Breakfast with the gang at Corner Bakery afterwards. Saw Susan there too.
Training this week: 2:15:08, this week was kind of a wash anyways... but the goal was just to run again. Hopefully things will stabilize next week.
They canceled the first ever Pasadena Marathon due to forest fires... which was an extreme bummer to the many who had trained, traveled and congregated for this event. But for me, it brought some neat silver linings.
One, is that I got to spend some extra time with Kamalah, who was in town for this event. She is one cool chica. Second, I felt less guilty about not going on a run on this day.
While walking to Trader Joe's to get our consolation exercise... I realized that I should probably stop pretending that the persistent pain in my L ankle was 1) going to go away on its own and 2) not affecting my stride. Hell, it was painful to keep a normal walking gait.
I can't help but feel like my running career is circling the drain at this point and desperately needs a Do Not Resuscitate order...
Sunday 11/16 - Thursday 11/20: Nothing. Waiting for my ankle to feel less horrible. Turns out its taking a really long time. On thursday I decided I had already hit the diminishing returns principle on further days off... but I couldn't motivate myself to get out of bed and go run. Bleh.
Friday 11/21: 46:14, Monterrey Recovery Loop to test the ankle. Didn't feel fantastic, but it pretty much held up. I think I expended more effort than I could have to produce a decent time for this course, but in general I felt good. I think it felt good just to have gotten up, biked to the Arroyo and run... instead of lolling around in bed trying to sleep and ignore the feeling my body and soul being crushed into an ever smaller cube.
Saturday 11/22: 1:28:54, Brown Mountain to the Saddle and back via El Prieto with KB. This was a fantastic run. I was really really nervous and concerned about my ankle and my fitness and wondered if I'd need to be airlifted off of the mountain... but I was glad that I went anyways. Despite the many days off, felt not terrible going up, in the beginning it felt pretty horrible but it got better and I was feeling pretty chipper by the time we got to the saddle. Maybe there's hope yet. Was really great to run with KB. Breakfast with the gang at Corner Bakery afterwards. Saw Susan there too.
Training this week: 2:15:08, this week was kind of a wash anyways... but the goal was just to run again. Hopefully things will stabilize next week.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Week of 11/09/2008 - 11/15/2008 (Not Good Week #2)
A Medical Freak Show...
On Sunday I wondered if it's just in my head that I'm falling apart... so I decided to break out the trusty HR monitor to take on my standard easy long run.
... and sometimes there's stuff you kind of wished you didn't have to know. Started out nice and easy, HR about 160, pretty standard. I was starting to think maybe this was going to be a normal run and I was going to be alright... but then about 15 minutes in, I happened to glance down at my watch and saw 185! Holy moly...
Tempo runs go about 185... the steep part of the Bailey hill climb gets about 185... not your run of the mill, slow, flat run. Good grief, I thought my eyes would pop out of my head, but sadly I still had about 7-8 miles left, so I decided just to see what would happen.
What happened was the I started to gradually feel worse and worse, with HR peaking in the 190's... until I decided to drastically reduce my pace to about a crawl, which is how I finished the run HR hovering just below 180. Yikes... so, no, its not in my head that my body has completely melted down into a blob.
Also, this week contained a 4 day weekend (work is doing this thing where they try to compensate lack of pay for more vacation days...) during which I think I slept 14+ hours per day. Seriously. I think I'm dying....
Sunday 11/09: 1:25:51, California back to stables, then around RB. Horrible, horrible experience. See above for details. Rode my bike to the Arroyo and around town a bit.
Monday 11/10: 30:42, due to unexpected day off of work, I had time in the evening to run sufficiently after my shot so as not to cause problems. I felt horrible, so I decided just to do 10 easy laps around the North Field. Unfortunately, that was apparently too ambitious of a goal. Somehow, I couldn't hold 10 minute mile pace for 30 minutes... first 5 laps in 14:55, next 5 in 15:35... how is that even POSSIBLE? 10 minute miles aren't even exercise! I think it's officially time to be worried now.
Tuesday 11/11: 1:06:46, Monterrey to RB. Biked to the Arroyo and then ran as conservatively as I possibly while still maintaining forward motion. Felt okay. Extremely slow, I guess that's par for the course lately. In other news, at least it's getting easier to get up the hill on California on my bike.... goodness only knows something could be improving these days.
Wednesday 11/12: 49:04, Monterrey Recovery Loop. Didn't feel catastrophically awful, but felt tired and was slow. However, I discovered that my bike has its own security man! There's a friendly guy who guards the warehouse by the Monterrey entrance to the Arroyo, and apparently I lock my bike right next to where he stands. Very nice!
Thursday 11/13: 53:15, Lorain, unsatisfactory. Got kind of a late start... didn't feel very motivated. Felt alright but then when I saw the time it definitively felt like WAY more effort than such an incredibly slow pace would merit. Gah... things are so not getting better....
Friday 11/14: Off, slept in. Felt crappy. I don't really remember too much else about this day.
Saturday 11/15: 1:07:20, RB to JPL gate... wow, another contender for "Worst Run Ever". Slept in, rode my bike to the RB around 11 am, when it was already about 85 degrees, and probably over 90 when I left. Felt super awful, slowed down a great deal in the last half... and I'm not sure I can blame the heat for all of it. Arghhh... well in statistical fairness, in the past I've always chosen less sleep over running in the heat, so its only fair that I give the other choice a few shots before deciding what's better.
Training this week: 5:52:58
On Sunday I wondered if it's just in my head that I'm falling apart... so I decided to break out the trusty HR monitor to take on my standard easy long run.
... and sometimes there's stuff you kind of wished you didn't have to know. Started out nice and easy, HR about 160, pretty standard. I was starting to think maybe this was going to be a normal run and I was going to be alright... but then about 15 minutes in, I happened to glance down at my watch and saw 185! Holy moly...
Tempo runs go about 185... the steep part of the Bailey hill climb gets about 185... not your run of the mill, slow, flat run. Good grief, I thought my eyes would pop out of my head, but sadly I still had about 7-8 miles left, so I decided just to see what would happen.
What happened was the I started to gradually feel worse and worse, with HR peaking in the 190's... until I decided to drastically reduce my pace to about a crawl, which is how I finished the run HR hovering just below 180. Yikes... so, no, its not in my head that my body has completely melted down into a blob.
Also, this week contained a 4 day weekend (work is doing this thing where they try to compensate lack of pay for more vacation days...) during which I think I slept 14+ hours per day. Seriously. I think I'm dying....
Sunday 11/09: 1:25:51, California back to stables, then around RB. Horrible, horrible experience. See above for details. Rode my bike to the Arroyo and around town a bit.
Monday 11/10: 30:42, due to unexpected day off of work, I had time in the evening to run sufficiently after my shot so as not to cause problems. I felt horrible, so I decided just to do 10 easy laps around the North Field. Unfortunately, that was apparently too ambitious of a goal. Somehow, I couldn't hold 10 minute mile pace for 30 minutes... first 5 laps in 14:55, next 5 in 15:35... how is that even POSSIBLE? 10 minute miles aren't even exercise! I think it's officially time to be worried now.
Tuesday 11/11: 1:06:46, Monterrey to RB. Biked to the Arroyo and then ran as conservatively as I possibly while still maintaining forward motion. Felt okay. Extremely slow, I guess that's par for the course lately. In other news, at least it's getting easier to get up the hill on California on my bike.... goodness only knows something could be improving these days.
Wednesday 11/12: 49:04, Monterrey Recovery Loop. Didn't feel catastrophically awful, but felt tired and was slow. However, I discovered that my bike has its own security man! There's a friendly guy who guards the warehouse by the Monterrey entrance to the Arroyo, and apparently I lock my bike right next to where he stands. Very nice!
Thursday 11/13: 53:15, Lorain, unsatisfactory. Got kind of a late start... didn't feel very motivated. Felt alright but then when I saw the time it definitively felt like WAY more effort than such an incredibly slow pace would merit. Gah... things are so not getting better....
Friday 11/14: Off, slept in. Felt crappy. I don't really remember too much else about this day.
Saturday 11/15: 1:07:20, RB to JPL gate... wow, another contender for "Worst Run Ever". Slept in, rode my bike to the RB around 11 am, when it was already about 85 degrees, and probably over 90 when I left. Felt super awful, slowed down a great deal in the last half... and I'm not sure I can blame the heat for all of it. Arghhh... well in statistical fairness, in the past I've always chosen less sleep over running in the heat, so its only fair that I give the other choice a few shots before deciding what's better.
Training this week: 5:52:58
Monday, November 10, 2008
Week of 11/02/2008 - 11/08/2008 (Not Good Week #1)
So... what can I say about this week, other than that it was bad?
Well, sore and tired come to mind... which is ever so odd because I didn't run very much at all. Nevertheless, for the time being, at least, we must resist the urge to jump out the window and wait to see if things settle down--or if it's really time to start worrying.
Sunday 11/02: 1:11:16, 3 laps of Washington Park, reeeeeeeealllllly slowly. After yesterday, I was seriously worried about my ability to complete 3 laps. It was ugly and painful, but I made it. I think I kept repeating to myself, the only goal of today is to finish, the only goal of today is to finish. Thankfully, all of the quick folks seemed to be going clockwise today, so I was spared the additional consternation of seeing lithe, athletic bodies fly past me left and right. Felt really wiped out afterwards, and the charleyhorse in my calf was really painful.
Monday 11/03: Off, shots. Flying home. Thank goodness for the off day. I think I was walking funny due to the calf soreness. Feeling pretty apprehensive about the elections.
Tuesday 11/04: 51:26, Lorain (6.3 miles). I felt really tired and horrible in the morning, AND it was drizzling and grey out, but got myself up and out the door pretty quickly, because I knew that today could be a historic day in the making. If it did turn out to be so, I didn't want to remember till the day that I died that I was a lazy ass and didn't get out of bed that morning. So I got out of bed, and I ran and thought about hope, and somehow I fought through this run without slowing down too much, even though I didn't feel very good. Saw the team run by at Lacy through the fence. I don't like to think of myself as a superstitious type of a person... but Obama was selection #14 on my ballot, which is an auspicious number due to it being also my birthday... so I had a good feeling about the presidential race--and I was right!
Wednesday 11/05: 47:33, Monterrey Recovery Loop. Unfortunately, woke up in a pretty dark mood due to Prop 8, a rather cruel juxtaposition to everything that an Obama victory represents. Felt alternately sad and grouchy through most of the run, except for two highlights: 1) the homeless man under the bridge kept yelling at me as if I was in a race "you can catch'em! you're in third place now, work that hill!" 2) my Wednesday morning Arroyo rendez-vous with Ian and the oxy team running the opposite direction.
Thursday 11/06: 58:30, RB to yellow gate. The theme of this day is "hope". Seeing all of the Obama stickers go by on the freeway made me realize... a better world IS coming, whether the conservatives like it or not. The prop 8 battle may be lost but the war is not over. We have been and we will continue to move towards a more open, equal and accepting society. This run was pretty decent, as in, for the first time I didn't feel incredibly horrible. Hopefully this is indicative of good things to come.
Friday 11/07: Initially I wanted to do a short run today, but I'm still having a lot of trouble with fatigue and erratic sleeping patterns. Couldn't get out of bed this morning, and felt consistently groggy all day.
Saturday 11/08: 51:51, Huntington up Oak Knoll. Ugh. So much for hope. I let myself sleep in today, which meant that I had to run when it was uncomfortably warm and sunny, but that doesn't really account for how awful I felt. Started off not bad, but I just became tired very very early on in the run, and was pretty much wiped out by the time I got to the grass median on Huntington. Hips/glutes also insanely sore. Not sure why... just did not feel good at all.
Ugh, about a month ago, I was finally starting to feel pretty good! What the hell happened to that shit? Gah... goals are suspended until I can figure out how to fix this....
Training this week: 4:40:36
Well, sore and tired come to mind... which is ever so odd because I didn't run very much at all. Nevertheless, for the time being, at least, we must resist the urge to jump out the window and wait to see if things settle down--or if it's really time to start worrying.
Sunday 11/02: 1:11:16, 3 laps of Washington Park, reeeeeeeealllllly slowly. After yesterday, I was seriously worried about my ability to complete 3 laps. It was ugly and painful, but I made it. I think I kept repeating to myself, the only goal of today is to finish, the only goal of today is to finish. Thankfully, all of the quick folks seemed to be going clockwise today, so I was spared the additional consternation of seeing lithe, athletic bodies fly past me left and right. Felt really wiped out afterwards, and the charleyhorse in my calf was really painful.
Monday 11/03: Off, shots. Flying home. Thank goodness for the off day. I think I was walking funny due to the calf soreness. Feeling pretty apprehensive about the elections.
Tuesday 11/04: 51:26, Lorain (6.3 miles). I felt really tired and horrible in the morning, AND it was drizzling and grey out, but got myself up and out the door pretty quickly, because I knew that today could be a historic day in the making. If it did turn out to be so, I didn't want to remember till the day that I died that I was a lazy ass and didn't get out of bed that morning. So I got out of bed, and I ran and thought about hope, and somehow I fought through this run without slowing down too much, even though I didn't feel very good. Saw the team run by at Lacy through the fence. I don't like to think of myself as a superstitious type of a person... but Obama was selection #14 on my ballot, which is an auspicious number due to it being also my birthday... so I had a good feeling about the presidential race--and I was right!
Wednesday 11/05: 47:33, Monterrey Recovery Loop. Unfortunately, woke up in a pretty dark mood due to Prop 8, a rather cruel juxtaposition to everything that an Obama victory represents. Felt alternately sad and grouchy through most of the run, except for two highlights: 1) the homeless man under the bridge kept yelling at me as if I was in a race "you can catch'em! you're in third place now, work that hill!" 2) my Wednesday morning Arroyo rendez-vous with Ian and the oxy team running the opposite direction.
Thursday 11/06: 58:30, RB to yellow gate. The theme of this day is "hope". Seeing all of the Obama stickers go by on the freeway made me realize... a better world IS coming, whether the conservatives like it or not. The prop 8 battle may be lost but the war is not over. We have been and we will continue to move towards a more open, equal and accepting society. This run was pretty decent, as in, for the first time I didn't feel incredibly horrible. Hopefully this is indicative of good things to come.
Friday 11/07: Initially I wanted to do a short run today, but I'm still having a lot of trouble with fatigue and erratic sleeping patterns. Couldn't get out of bed this morning, and felt consistently groggy all day.
Saturday 11/08: 51:51, Huntington up Oak Knoll. Ugh. So much for hope. I let myself sleep in today, which meant that I had to run when it was uncomfortably warm and sunny, but that doesn't really account for how awful I felt. Started off not bad, but I just became tired very very early on in the run, and was pretty much wiped out by the time I got to the grass median on Huntington. Hips/glutes also insanely sore. Not sure why... just did not feel good at all.
Ugh, about a month ago, I was finally starting to feel pretty good! What the hell happened to that shit? Gah... goals are suspended until I can figure out how to fix this....
Training this week: 4:40:36
Friday, November 7, 2008
Week of 10/26/2008 - 11/01/2008 (EPIC FAIL)
So, as such things turn out... trying to recover by simply cutting out workout days wasn't really an effective form of re-initialization. In fact, by the end of last week, the system was even more full of fatal errors.
I finally got the blue screen of death on Sunday, wherein I ran for about 15 minutes before I turned around and came back because I was feeling so deathly horrible. 10 pounds of shit, 5 pound bag.
Demoralized by both sleep deprivation and the inexplicable decline over the past week or two... I decided that I really had to turn the system off for a little bit. After all, how else can you fix a mystery problem where you're not really sure what's wrong, and a doctor would probably tell you you're stark raving crazy if the only symptom was decline in running performance....?
Anyways, I took Monday - Friday off completely, and expected to feel better on Saturday, and boy was I disappointed.
I ran 2 laps (5.2 miles) of Washington Park near Peter's house.... maybe it wasn't a good idea to have the first run back be at altitude, but, that's what was available, and I was determined. I started out sore (strange since I hadn't moved in 5 days), and remained sore all throughout. In addition, I felt extremely tired very early on, and also a little bit barfy and actually... extremely oxygen deprived. Ran a positive split on the two laps (21:30, 22:15), and staggered home where I immediately proceeded to hug the toilet, waiting to barf or pass out, whichever came first. It felt like the type of nausea associated with extreme oxygen deprivation... brain damage anyone?
At any rate, it was terrible. I felt so depressed afterwards... if this is what it feels like after a lot of rest, there's got to be something REALLY wrong with me. Also, I somehow managed to give myself a charley horse somewhere deep in my R calf immediately prior to this run...
I finally got the blue screen of death on Sunday, wherein I ran for about 15 minutes before I turned around and came back because I was feeling so deathly horrible. 10 pounds of shit, 5 pound bag.
Demoralized by both sleep deprivation and the inexplicable decline over the past week or two... I decided that I really had to turn the system off for a little bit. After all, how else can you fix a mystery problem where you're not really sure what's wrong, and a doctor would probably tell you you're stark raving crazy if the only symptom was decline in running performance....?
Anyways, I took Monday - Friday off completely, and expected to feel better on Saturday, and boy was I disappointed.
I ran 2 laps (5.2 miles) of Washington Park near Peter's house.... maybe it wasn't a good idea to have the first run back be at altitude, but, that's what was available, and I was determined. I started out sore (strange since I hadn't moved in 5 days), and remained sore all throughout. In addition, I felt extremely tired very early on, and also a little bit barfy and actually... extremely oxygen deprived. Ran a positive split on the two laps (21:30, 22:15), and staggered home where I immediately proceeded to hug the toilet, waiting to barf or pass out, whichever came first. It felt like the type of nausea associated with extreme oxygen deprivation... brain damage anyone?
At any rate, it was terrible. I felt so depressed afterwards... if this is what it feels like after a lot of rest, there's got to be something REALLY wrong with me. Also, I somehow managed to give myself a charley horse somewhere deep in my R calf immediately prior to this run...
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