20 Miles For Breakfast

Yesterday was a super busy day for me. Not that I did all that many things, but starting your day with a 20 mile run means you’re spending a good part of your day running. I started writing this post yesterday, but we had to run for Travis’ birthday dinner, and it got put on the back burner.

Here I am at 5:00 a.m. Saturday morning, ready to head out to Griffith Park for my first 20 mile run ever. I look scared, right? I was. Really, really scared.  So scared I didn’t sleep well Friday night, and my tummy felt gross when I woke up.  It was still dark when I woke up, so I layered: a dry fit t-shirt first, then a long sleeved dry-fit on top. I also wore my hat anticipating that it would be sunny by the middle of our run. I didn’t want to be squinting for 10 miles. I also loaded up my new Camelbak with cold water (I stuck the bladder in the fridge overnight) and three packets of Gu. I also stuck one and a half packages of Shot Blocks in my Spibelt.  I wanted to be prepared to fuel during this run so I could avoid hitting a wall, and generally wanting to die.

Off I went, and I have to admit, we didn’t have this route planned out quite as well as I would have thought we would. Most of the time we’re pretty good about planning a very specific route to follow in order to meet our milage goals. Although, the 15 miles we did totally ruined that trend.  The good news is that there are all kinds of options in and around Griffith Park to make up mileage, so I actually wasn’t too worried about us hitting our goal. I was more worried about other things, like: coyotes,serial killers, pooping myself, knee pain…just to name a few. Janna and I originally planned to meet at Travel Town, but it was still really dark, and all of the signs said NO PARKING SUNSET TO SUNRISE and had a little tow truck on them, so we decided to park in the only lit parking lot: The Zoo.  We did a few minutes of stretching and then headed off along our normal route.  I’m not going to lie, at one point, I saw a dark shadow coming out from one of the trees along the road and jumped a bit, certain we were about to meet our demise.  Never fear, readers, it was only OUR OWN SHADOWS. Janna and I laughed about that.

Anyway, the first half of our run really went well. We made a bathroom stop just before mile 6, Thank God for the Griffith Park pony ride bathrooms. We were feeling great, keeping decent pace (my personal goal was to stay between a 12-13 minute mile the whole time) and aside from when just before mile 10 when I stepped in dog poop, things were going swimmingly.  My right knee was a little bit tweaky feeling around miles 8 and 9, but we stopped a few times to stretch and that seemed to help.  We stopped at a car wash just after mile 10 to get more water and some gummy bears (to meet the credit card minimum purchase, boo.) I have to say, this is the first time I’ve run with my ID and any form of money with me, and it was great because I knew we’d need to refill our Camelbaks at some point. Cash would have been easier, but I never have cash so card it was.  In other fun news, I now own a Road ID which I also wore on our run.

As I said, things were going really well, right up until we hit about mile 11.5 or so.  That’s when things started to get a little shaky.  My right knee had been a little tweaky since about mile 9, but I’d been holding it together well, stopping and stretching as much as possible. Mile 12 was uphill, and that didn’t go as well as the same hill at mile 3, then going downhill was not great either. We stopped again just before mile 14 to hit up another one of the bathrooms in the park, and then continued on, realizing we were getting very close to being int he home stretch.

The good news is once we hit mile 15, I was not feeling anywhere near as terrible as when we ran our first 15 miler.  In fact, I was feeling ok. My knee was hurting but I could keep moving and was fairly confident that the next five miles would be okay.  Mile 16 is when the wheels really started falling off.  My right knee was really painful, but aside from wanting to finish 20 miles, we were still about three miles from our cars anyway, so we both powered through.  I had to power walk most of that, and Janna had to keep jogging because if I jogged it hurt, and if she walked she hurt, so we just kept moving at whatever pace we could.  By mile 17.5 I was almost sure I wouldn’t make it, and I was starting to get really worried about being able to do another 8.5 miles on race day. Mile 18 I made my third, and final bathroom stop at a port-a-potty along one of the paved bike paths in the park, that was surprisingly not too gross, and we trucked along.  When I hit mile 19.5 something crazy happened, and I was able to find a way to run again, probably crazily looking, until I hit that 20 miles.  I just kept pushing myself forward, and had some knee pain, but it was manageable.  I’m really hoping this will also happen on October 16th when I’m at mile 25 and want to die.

When we reached our cars again we stopped to stretch, although it’s tough to stretch in a parking lot, especially one that is now full of families taking their kids to the zoo.  So we did the best we could.  I drove home and once there, immediately rolled my Tiger Tail over my IT Bands and quads, and hopped in the shower to get all the dirt and grime off.  Once out of the shower we hauled ass to The Counter for lunch because, well, after 20 miles, I was starving. After lunch I had to bake Travis’ birthday cake, and while it cooled I took a short nap.  Once the cake had cooled, I iced and decorated it, and then had just enough time to sit down and start this blog entry before I had to rush to get ready to head out for dinner.

Dinner was great, I ate garlic knots, and almost an entire bowl of pasta the size of my head, and some of the birthday cake and a few small glasses of wine.  C&O’s Trattoria in Venice is seriously one of my all time favorite places.  It was the perfect atmosphere for a large group dinner.  After dinner, Travis went with some of his friends to try and watch the UFC fight (which was already over,) and I met up with an old friend from the Bay Area who is now a Flight Attendant and had a stop over in Los Angeles. We both met up with Travis and a couple friends at a bar in Santa Monica called The Cock & Bull which was a great divey English pub.  Even though I had been awake since 4:30 a.m. I was having so much fun I didn’t care.  We ended up getting home close to 2 a.m. which is WAY past our bed time, and I face planted and crashed almost immediately.

Now that it’s the day after my 20 miler, I am surprised that I am not more sore. My right knee is a bit sore, but nothing terrible, and my muscles are tight, but also, not terrible.  We’ve got errands to run, and laundry to do so I need to head off and become human again (still in my PJs at noon! Wheeee!!)

I’ll do a full break down of the 20 miler stats tomorrow :)

 

How was your weekend??

 

2 Comments

Catherine, September 25th 2011 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in 2011, accomplishments, food, Griffith Park, life, Los Angeles, Marathon, training

Stepping Forward: One Step at a Time

This morning, Janna and I did six miles in Griffith Park. Because we were only doing six miles we started at 7am and the weather was perfect. It was slightly overcast the whole time we were running. I’m hoping that’s what the weather will be like the day of our marathon in San Francisco. We’re also doing shorter runs alone next weekend, and then our first 20 miler the following Saturday.
I’m not going to lie, I am very nervous about our 20 miler. My knee started hurting a bit toward the very end of our six miler today, and after last weekend’s 15 miler, I am worried I won’t be able to finish the marathon which is now only five weeks away.
In non-running news, I’ve made a decision about work that I can’t really talk about here yet, but it involves my taking a bit of a risk that I hope will end up being a good thing. It may mean that teaching dance goes on the back burner for a bit, but I’m ok with that. I’m still going to take my TCRG exam, they released a date: February 2-5th 2012. I’ll keep you all posted as soon as I can!
What’s the biggest career risk you’ve taken?

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Catherine, September 10th 2011 | Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in 2011, Griffith Park, Los Angeles, Marathon, training, work

Personal Distance Record

Snapbucket

This morning, I woke up at 5:30am, met my buddy, Janna at Griffith Park, and together we finished 15.68 miles. Now, we certainly didn’t do them quickly, in fact, it took us almost 5 hours to finish, but we did finish.
According to our colleague, there is a trail that starts near Travel Town, and goes 13 miles. We have been looking for this mystery trail for a while now, and had not been successful. So, today, we figured we’d try again. We started at Travel Town in Griffith Park, headed up the big hill. When we were nearly to the top we saw an entrance to a trail, with a steep hill at the beginning. This fit a similar description we’d been given, so we headed up the hill. Turns out, that particular trail was only a very hilly 2 miles loop right back to where we entered the trail head.

Photobucket

This was the view from the top of one of the hills.

So, when we finished that loop, we kept on our normal route. A little farther along, we found another trailhead, and even though there were even more hills, we found the path we were looking for. We took that trail, up and down hills, mostly up, and went around in front of the Hollywood Sign, all the way around and up to the Griffith Park Observatory, down past the Greek Theater and then down Los Feliz back into the park and to our cars.

Snapbucket

Along the run/mostly walk we saw 7 coyotes, 4 rabbits, countless birds, 6 horses, and quite a few people. The trail we found was really popular, which was comforting, with all the coyotes we saw!
There were quite a few times when I was in so much pain, I considered calling Travis and asking him to pick me up and take me to my car. I wore my new, right knee brace, and it was so uncomfortable, too tight, that it was digging into the back of my knee and causing a terrible pain there. I rolled it down to my ankle for the rest of the run at one point, but then my knee started to hurt, and I couldn’t tell which was more painful. The tight muscle or my knee. By the time we were almost to our cars, maybe two or three miles out, m y hips felt like they were in a vice they were so tight. I was really disappointed and upset by this run. I could hardly run at all. The biggest challenge was the hills, we didn’t really expect as many or as steep hills as we found along our route.

Photobucket

As you can see on the bottom graph in the elevation vs. miles, our route was extremely hilly. The hills slowed us down considerably. By the time we were in more flat terrain, my knee was in so much pain I couldn’t really run at all. I was so happy when we reached our cars. Even though this was exciting because it was a personal distance record, the time makes me incredibly upset. It makes me really concerned that I won’t be able to finish the marathon in a decent time (meaning you know, within the 6:30 guidelines for getting the Tiffany necklace.) I drove straight home, sat in a cold bath and after getting a terrible fast food lunch with Travis, took a nap.

Tonight, we’re going to an all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ place, and it’ll be early to bed for me. I’m babysitting early in the morning and then have a 3 hour dance session to struggle through. I have no idea how my knees and legs will hold up for that. We’ll just have to see. I need a deep tissue massage like woah.
Have you recently reached a personal distance record?

4 Comments

Catherine, September 3rd 2011 | Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in 2011, accomplishments, Griffith Park, Los Angeles, Marathon, training

13.1 Unexpectedly

<a href=”http://s1191.photobucket.com/albums/z473/jigandjog/?action=view&amp;current=866e2801-ce93-44ad-928f-fd0ba756874e.jpg” target=”_blank”><img src=”http://i1191.photobucket.com/albums/z473/jigandjog/866e2801-ce93-44ad-928f-fd0ba756874e.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”Snapbucket”></a>

Yesterday morning, I woke up at 5:15am and met my running buddy, Janna at Griffith Park at 6am.  On my way out the door, I’d eaten a piece of bread with peanut butter on it, and by the time I got to the park, I needed to find a bathroom.  So, before meeting Janna, I high tailed it to the nearest bathroom and prayed for two things.  One, that there would be toilet paper, and two,that there would be no murderers or animals in the bathroom. Thankfully for me, my prayers were answered. When I first met with Janna we agreed to just see how far we could go today. I had no real milage goal other than “maybe 6 miles?” We first went along our usual route, up a giant hill, down the giant hill, around the golf course and were heading out toward the road when we discovered a side street we hadn’t noticed before.  It lead us up onto a trail that took us back around to near the golf course and we just kept going.  By the time we got to the Pony Rides, we had hit a little over 6 miles. Janna then told me that her goal for the day was a half marathon, 13.1 miles. We had tried to keep our pace at conversational, which for me meant really slow, but my legs felt good.  My left knee was feeling ok, but my right was starting to twinge a bit, and I had done a lot of power walking. So, knowing it was at least another 4 miles back to our cars, I said I’d see how I felt once we hit 10 miles.  I wasn’t feeling super awesome, my hips were getting really tight which made my IT band really tight, which made my right knee sore, but I toughed it out, walking almost the whole thing.  We eventually finished our 13.1 miles, and then spent a good 15 minutes stretching.  I’m still not proud of the time it took us to complete the milage, 3:34, it’s a whole hour slower than I finished my last half marathon race, but I was proud of the fact that we covered the distance. I kept reminding myself that it has been 8 months since I last covered that kind of distance, and being mostly out of commission for several weeks hasn’t helped either.  Next weekend, I’m going to lobby for doing 5-6 miles and then we’ll try for 14 or 15 the following Saturday.

When you start to feel your muscles tighten up during a run, do you stop and stretch or power through?  We stopped to stretch twice, but I have a feeling I may actually also need a little extra arch support in my shoes.

This morning I’m a bit stiff and sore, but not nearly as bad as I thought I’d be.  I think the extra stretching, nap and icing I did when I got home helped.  Also, the ibuprofen.

Last night my parents took Travis and me out to an early birthday dinner. I chose Flemming’s Steakhouse  in El Segundo because I’d never been, love steak, and had heard good things about it.  It did not disappoint, although the dining room was really loud which was kind of annoying. The food was great, the service was wonderful and we all left with full tummies.

Now, I’m off to breakfast with my parents at their hotel, then to dance to help and finally we’re having a friendfamily dinner in the Marina tonight.  Travis and I are bringing a Greek Salad.  :) Hope you’re all having a wonderful weekend. 

2 Comments

Catherine, August 21st 2011 | Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in 2011, accomplishments, food, Griffith Park, half marathon, life, Los Angeles, Marathon, training

Half Marathon in Griffith Park

I ran/walked a half marathon this morning. Right now I’m wiped out, so there will be more on this later.

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Catherine, August 20th 2011 | Posted in 2011, accomplishments, Griffith Park, Los Angeles, training

Back On The Horse

This morning, I was up bright and early at 6am for a long run in Griffith Park.

It was a bit chilly this morning, so I went ahead and tried out my arm warmer/sleeve thingies.

They were perfect.

We attempted 6 miles, and went back to our first route, going up a giant hill near Travel Town, but both of our knees were not cooperating, and we ended up walking most of the route.  5.58 miles.  I was super bummed, hoping that taking a week off from running, and adding in stretching and icing would somehow magically make my knees better.  I do enjoy immediate gratification, you know.

When I got home, I had a date with this lovely guy.  It hurt so good, and then it was time for this:

I’m in serious need of more frozen veggies as this bag of corn is the only one I have left that is adequate for icing.

Early lunch was somewhat Easter themed.

Bunny pasta!! I ended up spilling some of the cheese sauce on myself as I was mixing it, because that’s how I roll, so it wasn’t really cheesy enough.  I beefed it up with some baby spinach and the last link of chicken and apple sausage.

I attempted to be somewhat productive, but my desire to read (I just started City of Bones, part of The Mortal Instruments series,) and nap won out.  Now, I’m sitting on the couch, watching Harry Potter, avoiding cleaning and the grocery store.  ;)

Still no word on the Nike Women’s Marathon, and no bib yet for the Revlon Women’s 5k but I’m holding out hope for both!  Definitely still considerably nervous about the Nike Women’s Marathon.  Not certain I can manage 26.2 miles with all those hills.  Eep!

How are you spending your Saturday evening?

2 Comments

Catherine, April 23rd 2011 | Posted in 2011, Griffith Park, Los Angeles, San Francisco, training

Mars Needs 6 Miles and Kitchen 24

Last night, I set my alarm for 5am.  I planned on joining my running buddies for part of their 14 miler, and was actually pretty excited about it.  It had been a while since I’d run outdoors, so I checked my alarm twice before going to bed, and crashed around 9:30pm.  I woke up at 5:50am, my alarm never went off.  I still can’t determine what it is I did wrong in setting this alarm as it is the same one I use during the week for work, but whatever.

I hauled ass to Griffith Park to meet Janna, and we set out.  I had to meet friends at the Arclight at 9:40ish for a MARS NEEDS MOMS screening, so I knew I’d only be able to cover about 6 miles, which was disappointing.  I had been hoping to get in closer to 10.  Janna and I started out, and did about a mile warm up walking, and then started running, but about 2.5 miles in Janna’s knee was really bothering her, so we just walked the rest of the loop.  One thing that was kind of exciting to discover: we took a different path than usual to try and stay on paved road as long as possible, and they’ve paved over a huge portion of what used to be dirt path.  This makes running so much easier because normally there’s so much dirt that it’s like running on really soft beach sand.  It makes both of us nervous that we’re going to twist an ankle.  So, it wasn’t what we had planned, but we at least got some mileage covered!  In my haste to get to the park, I skipped breakfast (I know,) and then didn’t end up leaving the park until about 8:30 which made me nervous timewise.  I realized I now didn’t have time to shower (which wasn’t as gross as it sounds since we walked the whole way basically.)  I rushed home, changed, grabbed a cereal bar and hit the road for the Arclight.

I have to say, that MARS NEEDS MOMS was terrible. It was disjointed, upsetting, and actually pretty racist and sexist in ways I was shocked by.  I am really kind of surprised this is a kids movie, and know that if I were a kid, and watched this movie, I would be really upset by it.  I actually said, out loud, during a particularly upsetting moment “THIS IS WORSE THAN BAMBI!!”  It’s in 3-D and doesn’t even really look cool, there wasn’t anything special about the movie that made it necessary to be in 3-D. So glad I didn’t pay to see this movie.  I wasn’t, however, disappointed by my small popcorn and Coke.  I only drank about a quarter of the soda, but man, that popcorn was good.

After the movie, we walked to Kitchen 24, where I bravely resisted the lure of the amazing Disco Fries.  Disco Fries are seasoned fries, with cheese, and gravy.  They are incredible, and probably even life changing. However, I figured, since I’d just stuffed my face full of popcorn, that I should probably go with something healthier.

I ordered the Tree Hugger which is their homemade granola (delicious!) with yogurt and strawberries.  It was perfect, refreshing and just enough food.  I am totally in love with their homemade granola. I wish I’d thought to ask if they sold it.

When I got home, Travis and I finished up our menu and grocery planning for the week and headed out to the stores.  We usually do Trader Joe’s and then Ralph’s.  Let me tell you, today must be asshole day because everyone out and about at the grocery stores was a total jerk.  People taking up whole sections of food areas while leaning on their baskets and talking on their phones.  People letting their children run amok around the stores screaming and pulling things off of shelves, people who decided to leave their carts completely blocking aisle ways and walk away.  It was exhausting.

Right now, I have four things planned for the next hour and half: kitteh bath time, brief clean up of the office, nap, shower.  This evening we’re heading out to meet friends at Father’s Office in Santa Monica for a bit of some goodbye Mikela and Happy Birthday to another friend.  Travis and I will be picking up some cupcakes at Frosted Cupcakery, which I am really excited about.  I’ve never had their cupcakes before, but I’ve heard good things.

Full weekend, but definitely worth it. Did you have a full weekend?

4 Comments

Catherine, March 6th 2011 | Tags: , ,
Posted in 2011, Eating, food, friendship, Griffith Park, life, Los Angeles, Movies, training

Down and Dirty

This weekend, I had an event to work on Saturday, the weather wasn’t terrible when I got to work, but when I left, it was pouring.  The parking lot at work was starting to flood and I had to trudge through the rain and flooding to my car.  I decided on the drive home to make another batch of Broccoli Cheddar Soup, so I picked up some frozen broccoli, cheese, and some French bread.  I also used my free Red Box rental to rent Easy A. The movie was totally adorable and made me love Emma Stone even more than I already did.

Travis was out with friends until after 10pm, so I made my soup and watched my movie, and it was a great evening.  Sunday morning I had a 5 miler, and one of my running buddies and I decided, even though it wasn’t raining to do our run indoors on a treadmill since Griffith Park’s trails would most likely be a flooded, muddy mess. It was a bit tough, my right knee was twinging a bit for some reason, probably a tight IT band, but I made it through in an hour and two minutes.  After our run, we stretched and then I headed home.  My best friend was planning on coming out to see our apartment, so I wanted to eat and get some cleaning done.  Sadly, she texted me just as I got home saying she couldn’t make it.  She’s pregnant and had been on bed rest for weeks, and wasn’t feeling well, so she needed to rest.  Obviously I understood and want her to be well, but I had been looking forward to seeing her.

Breakfast both Saturday and Sunday was poached eggs and some fruit.  Sunday I had some French bread toast and eggs, but Saturday’s breakfast was really tasty, a poached egg, tomatoes, broccoli and some fruit salad.

Travis and I cleaned anyway, a deep down, dirty clean.  We needed to fix the curtain rod in the dining room because during one of her jaunts around the apartment, she managed to pull down one side of the rod. Did you have any home improvement projects to take care of this weekend?

So, there was a lot of dusting, moping, and scrubbing.  So, in addition to the 5 mile run, and short arm workout I did, I also spent about two hours doing “vigorous house work.”

Of course, right after we’d dusted all the furniture, the kittehs managed to get tiny little paw prints all over the place. At least now we’ve got a mostly clean apartment.

We made a quick, easy dinner of “veggie pasta,” which had squash and tomatoes.  Normally we’d have pine nuts as well, but for some reason, pine nuts have gotten REALLY pricey.  We also forgot to get some goat cheese, so sadly, we were without that as well.

After dinner we also ate a couple of cookies, and watched Being Human, which is our new favorite Sunday show.

I can’t believe this weekend went by so quickly, I guess working Saturday didn’t help, but I’ve got so much to do this week at work, I can’t wait for the 28th to be here and our fiscal year to end.  I’m going to need my workouts this week, I can already tell. How do you manage your stress?

 

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Catherine, February 21st 2011 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Bits, food, Griffith Park, life, Los Angeles, Movies, training

Tough (run) Love

This morning I had a 12 miler on the schedule.  My second half-marathon is coming up in just two weeks, so today marked our final long run before the race. I was actually kind of excited about this run, because I wanted to really push myself and see what time I could finish 12 miles in to give me an idea of when I might be able to finish my half.  Sadly, this run not only turned into just 10.71 miles, it was a total train wreck of a run.

I tried to hydrate as much as possible yesterday, since I knew spending the day hungover wasn’t helping anything.  Sadly, I didn’t get enough hydration yesterday, and I could feel it this morning.  Waking up at 6am was rough, I didn’t sleep well, and it was cold and dark out.  However, I kept telling myself how much better I would feel once I was done.  I ate my peanut butter sandwich, packed up my stuff, and headed out to Griffith Park.

I met with one of my running buddies at 7am, and it was cold. I wore a long sleeved tech-tee, and a light weight windbreaker type jacket, long pants and had a hat and gloves and still felt super cold for the first two and a half miles.  We stretched a bit before we headed out, but I could already tell it was going to be a tough run.  Aside from the cold, my brain was working against me, constantly reminding me how cold I was.  I was also wearing my hydration belt today with my PowerBar Endurance drink mix, which I couldn’t seem to find a comfortable position for.  This whole training process for this half, I haven’t worn the water bottle with the belt, and it was really awkward and made for an uncomfortable first few miles.  I finally took the bottle out and carried it.

Los Angeles has had a ton of rain in the past few weeks, and most of the dirt trails we run were full of sticky mud, and holes in the path, so we cut across at one point and hit the paved road for the rest of the run.

At about the 3.5 mile mark is when things started to go downhill faster.  Suddenly I felt weird.  Not totally lightheaded, but close, and off balance slightly.  It was really kind of scary, so I spent a good portion of time walking starting then.  I wanted to keep pushing, but decided passing out in the middle of Griffith Park was worse than walking.   The other bummer is that while I use a Garmin device, my buddy uses an iPod with the Nike chip, and by the time my Forerunner said I’d hit 5 miles, her iPod said we’d gone over 6 miles.  Normally, I would have just pushed myself an extra mile to make the numbers on my Garmin total correctly, but I was starting to get really stiff and sore in my hips and knees and I still felt kind of wonky, so I just said forget it and turned around.

When I finally hit that mile 6 was when my stomach started acting funky, and I felt really gross and started burping.  Again, lots of walking.  I was so frustrated with myself, and thought about pulling an extra loop to get in that lost two miles, but my hips were so tight it was really painful, and then my hamstrings started to cramp.  I’d never experienced actual muscle cramping while I’d been running before and it was not pleasant.  I figured it was because I wasn’t hydrated enough.

I finally made it back to my buddy at the top of the trail and was so disappointed, but I had to remind myself, this was only one run.  Yes, it was my last long run, but, aside from a really difficult first 10 mile run back when I was training for the Disneyland Half, I’ve been lucky with my long runs.   So, I just keep telling myself that this was just ONE bad run, and it doesn’t mean I won’t be ready in two weeks.

Here’s how the run broke down on the Garmin

Total Distance: 10.71 miles
Total Time:  2:40:21
Avg. Pace: 14:58

Seeing that total time and average pace was rough, considering the 10 miles I did on Christmas Eve was so much stronger.  However, that was on a treadmill, with controlled temperatures, so maybe I shouldn’t have gotten so excited about those numbers before.

Mile 1: 18:21
Mile 2: 13:34
Mile 3: 13:25
Mile 4: 13:47
Mile 5: 12:37
Mile 6: 16:27
Mile 7: 14:13
Mile 8: 15:47
Mile 9: 15:01
Mile 10: 14:38
.71 nubbin : 17:00

I’m glad I went out this morning and got in a double digit distance, even if it wasn’t the strong 12 miles I was hoping for.  What do you do to get over having a bad run or workout session? For a lot of this run, I was feeling so gross I didn’t even listen to my iPod, which was kind of interesting.  Luckily in the park there’s a lot to look at which keeps the runs interesting, but I also have to say, it was kind of weird running outdoors again after the last two long runs on a treadmill.  I have to say, I missed the climate control of the gyms.

 

1 Comment

Catherine, January 2nd 2011 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in Griffith Park, half marathon, lessons, training

8 is Great!

This morning began like yesterday, waking while it was still dark out to go on a run.  It was just two of us today, and while we did walk the first mile again, we really kept up a pretty decent pace (at least for me,) on miles 2-4.  By the time we hit mile 4 it had warmed up, and was slightly uncomfortable with our long sleeved shirts.  We walked some more, and then ran/walked the rest of the way.  We made our 8 mile goal, so woo!

Total Distance: 8 miles
Avg. Pace: 15:39 (still way slower than I’d like, but I keep reminding myself those two mile walking  breaks really add up)

Mile 1:  21:35 – warming up, and chatting
Mile 2: 13:54 – slowly getting into a groove
Mile 3: 12:39
Mile 4:  12:44
Mile 5: 20:41 – it was getting hot, lots less shade than the first 4 miles, now that the sun was higher in the sky
Mile 6: 14:37
Mile 7: 16:03
Mile 8: 12:53

While I do wish I had toughed it out and run more instead of taking that walking break just after mile 4, I’m proud that we got out there and did our two runs this weekend.  I could have kept running once we hit mile 4, it felt like I was finally hitting my stride, but, the last bit of mile 3 was uphill, which was rough.  The last bit of the run itself was uphill and wow, it was hard, mentally for sure.  I’ve got my alarm set tomorrow for 6am so I can go into work early and workout first.  It’s time to get really serious about this Rock n’ Roll Half Marathon.  I’m feeling very behind in my training, and I know if I just keep at it, and run consistently until the race, I’ll be in decent shape.  I’m not sure if I’ll PR, but I’m hoping I’ll at least feel more confident come race time than I do now.  How do you mentally prepare for a race?

After my run, I came home and Travis and I put together our weekly menu and grocery list.  We had quite a few errands to run, and I was starving.  We started at Target, picked up cat litter and baby wipes, and I somehow managed not to commit a murder-suicide in the store.  I swear, stores at Christmas time make me homicidal. I am definitely more of an online shopper.  The people aimlessly meandering in the middle of the aisles with their carts blocking entire rows of products, the children shrieking and crying, the two dudes who stood for at least five minutes, blocking all of the tooth paste and tooth brushes while they compared what seemed to be EVERY single toothbrush in the store.  It’s enough to drive you batty.  Luckily we ate before we hit up Target, sadly, my food from Daphne’s was disappointing.  I was so hungry I just inhaled most of it before taking a picture, but the calorie count on the Gyro I ordered made me sad.  Why is the Gyro like 600 calories?!

They did have a new feature at their soda fountain, and I added a shot of cherry flavor to my Coke. Shhhh.  I know, I really only wanted water, but I was starting to get shaky and figured downing some sugar would be helpful.  I didn’t drink the whole soda, I can’t seem to finish sodas anymore, since I don’t drink them regularly anymore, they’re just too sweet.

After Target, we stopped at Trader Joe’s where we got this baby!

I know, I look great, right? But look how awesome all those sprouts are! I love Trader Joe’s. We ended up getting almost all of our groceries there this time.  We only had to go to Ralph’s for a few items. On our way home from Ralph’s we swung by The Urban Pet which is where we get food for the kittehs.  They are right near our apartment, and they charge about $3 less per bag of cat food.  It’s also really nice to be able to support local business.

When we got home and unpacked all our groceries, I finished reading Never Let Me Go, and then iced my Achilles, and my knees.

This is the real reason I always make sure to have a bag of frozen peas on hand.  My knees and Achilles weren’t swollen, but they were sore,  and even after soaking in some Epsom salt and warm water, I was still feeling stiff and sore.  I hvae a feeling this has more to do with my ongoing inability to REALLY stretch.  I know I’m supposed to, I do, honest. I just can’t seem to manage to make it as much of a priority as it should be.

Dinner was steak and baked potato, and now we’re going to attempt to catch up on Dexter, and then, early to bed for me!

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Catherine, December 12th 2010 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in food, Griffith Park, life, Los Angeles, training
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