Training Log

I got my wisdom teeth removed on Monday so I've taken the week off. The weather is so bad in Maine I don't think I could have ran anyway. I just went cross country skiing with my Dad - on the roads of my town. I hope I cant get to the airport tomorrow! 

Happy New Year!  I will definitely be running in 2010.

Exactly a week ago I got my wisdom teeth out! First time back running. I was going to run in the morning but all my running clothes & shoes were in luggage that was lost.

Finally got my luggage back and ran 3 miles on the apartment treadmill. 

Well, kind of. The transition to more solid food + antibiotics + not having run for a week = intestinal difficulty. I ended up walking for a good 1/3 of a mile just because of the pain.  Ran by a friends house and almost knocked on her door (I should have).

Treadmill.

The snow covered side walks are making running much more of a workout, especially trying to go up hills. I had someone suggest yak trax the other day, but I'm not so sure...

4.2 miles in 42 minutes, it's super hard to run any faster. The sidewalks were "plowed" but still are covered with an inch or two of snow in some places. It feels like I'm walking on a slippery beach or some other poor analogy. Hills in this stuff are ridiculous -but fun. My favorite part was where sidewalks met roads and there was a mound of snow on the boundary, built in hurdles! 

7 miles, shower, waffles & coffee :-D

I did it! I ran in the morning! 

 I woke up at 6:00 AM - the sun doesn't rise until 8:07AM here. I got outside and realized it was snowing pretty hard, if I didn't already have my running stuff on I would have gone back inside.

It was dark, yet glowy, due to the winter/snow/clouds. I still only ran 3.5 scaredy cat miles -this town doesn't believe in street lights so I tried to think of routes that might be lit. I ended up running past a cemetery ha ha.

Another 6 AM run. This time it was dark, a little too dark. I'm not in love with the running in the dark thing at the moment.

AM- tried to run but everything was covered in black ice. Driving to school I even saw someone fall.

PM- I had a meeting that lasted until past sundown so I ended up running on the tredmill.

Mile 1: 6 mph

Mile 2 : 6.3 mph

Mile 3: 6.9 mph

Mile 4:  7.2 mph

Icy.  I think I ran 80% and skated 20%.

54.30 minutes. Slow for running, fast for ice dancing.

No classes today due to Martin Luther King Day so I decided to do another longer run! I felt so good on this run I picked up the pace for the last mile. It was also HOT out today- like 32 degrees :-D   I had to take my hat & mittens off.

Yay! The site is working again!

4 miles on the treadmill because I didn't feel like running in the dark :-D 

6 miles with Kelly. Yayyyy for running friends

9.4 miles 1 hour 24 minutes.

I woke up at 6am without an alarm clock so I ate some toast and watched tv in bed until the sun rose. I was going to do this longer run tomorrow, but a bunch of my friends are going out for brunch tomorrow morning so I'll have less time. Priorities, priorities :-D

5 miles on the treadmill. Now it's brunch time with a few friends! I'm hoping for blueberry french toast... 

8:10 pace. A super quick run because I have lots of studying to do for a test tomorrow!

4 treadmill miles watching the part of the michigan v. michigan state game

10 minutes elliptical waiting for a treadmill then 4 miles at 9:30 pace.

My apartment gym is probably smaller than a lot of peoples bathrooms. It barely holds 2 treadmills, 2 ellipticals, and one bike. There's also no air in there so I end up dripping. There was a couple in there using the treadmills when I got in, which is totally fine and I was happy to wait. When they stopped running the female kept working out and the male just stood there and watched TV. I jumped on the treadmill, after asking if they were done, and the male started to lean on the treadmill right next to me. He was there for my whole 4 miles! I wanted to ask if they had a TV at home or if he could at least DO something like walk on the treadmill so it wouldn't be so awkward. Almost 40 minutes! Of standing next to me on the treadmill! So close I could have touched him! Gahhh.

Anyway, I wanted to get out of their so fast I skipped my usual cool down and stepped off the treadmill, I ended up slipping off the treadmill a tad. Anyway I said "oopps" to try to shake it off but the guy started cracking up. I called him a <badname> and slammed the door. Problem is, this couple is ALWAYS there when I want to go to the gym. I guess this is the start of me running in the AM again.

 Yes, I over reacted and made my futures even more awkward. I've had a really long week though - I was very much looking forward to running. My roommates and I ended up getting ice cream after :-D They think it's pretty funny. "Hey Beth, I did the dishes, don't call me a <badname>.

7.4 glorious outside miles. I waited until 2pm to go run - it was 4 degrees this morning!

10.2 miles, 1:33.55

I signed up for the Disney Princess 1/2 marathon!!! It's on March 7. I think part of the route goes through the castle. I've always wanted to run through a castle.

After my boyfriend, currently residing in CA, are going on a cruise to the Bahamas :-D I am so excited!!

5.8 miles, nothing special.

4.4 dark scary morning miles!

A bit snowy this morning! 38.21

So so windy.  

Wind: From NNE at 17mph gusting to 26mph

Is that a lot? It felt like a lot... 

I walked out of the apartment door to hear the song, "Eye of the Tiger" blaring outside. Usually this would be an awesome way to start a Sunday run. I turned the corner only to see the the starting line of a 5k race right in the middle of my planned route. Not knowing the proper etiquette, I decided to steer clear of that area all together. I also resisted the temptation to register for the race :-D

In the end, I made up a route. My original route was 7.5 miles and I ended up running 8.5 miles at 9.02 mile pace.

My legs felt so tired! Beautiful day outside though.

It snowed ~9 inches last night! Oddly the sidewalks are more clear than the roads :-)

 My motivation to run was pretty low - so I called (acutally I texted) my friend Kelly. We ran a random route on the clearest sidewalk which makes my miles ran a very rough estimate.

11.4 miles at about a 10 min/mile pace.  During my run I tried to eat some clif blocks - the food that will be at the race (I think). My last half I only did water and it wasn't a good experience but, I don't think chewing and running is for me. Although, for some reason, I think eating and running at the same time is pretty humerous.

Happy Valentine's day! Sadly my boyfriend is across the country - but that didn't stop me from eating chocolate waffles this morning! 

20 minutes on the elliptical, 1 mile on the treadmill. This will teach me to not be lazy and run in the morning!! The apartment gym was packed.

I really wish I did run more today - I will be in a hotel in Seattle all next week at a conference. I'm rooming with 3 non-runners. Next week is 2 weeks before my half marathon!! I'm quite worried.

Pardon my running freak out...my knee is starting to click constantly when I walk due to some ITBS and my shin is sometimes starting to hurt. I'm so paranoid of shin things- my track career was cut short due to a stress fracture on that leg.

4.5 AM miles. I felt really old and rickety since I haven't ran much this week. I'm getting shin splints in my left leg - I'm doing my long run tomorrow since I'm flying to Seattle on Sunday, I hope it goes well!

1:49.51

My IT band was a big angry near the end of the run. Hopefully nothing a little stretching and rolling can't fix.

 I leave tomorrow for a week long conference in Seattle! I hope to will get a run in tomorrow morning before I leave for the airport. I also hope to will get some hotel treadmill runs in. Gotta keep going for my 1/2 in March!

5.8 before my flight to Seattle

6 hotel treadmill miles

After a successful week of running in the hotel at the conference I fell off the wagon today. Today was supposed to be my last long run before a week of a taper and my race next Sunday.

I took a red eye from Seattle to Texas, had a 5 hour layover, and took a flight from Texas to Detroit, with a 1.5 hour drive back home. I really want to run today but it's pretty late for a long run  and I'm so extremely tired + more excuses blah blah

I'm hoping this won't effect me too much... 

Feeling a bit under the weather - hopefully I'm better before Sunday!

Ever since I got back from my conference in Seattle I've been sick! Has anyone run a race on antibiotics??? 

A PR by almost 10 minutes!

 Splits: This is probably the first race I've ran negative splits.

8:51:81

8:43:62

8:37:49

8:45:18

8:33:35

8:30:81 (through the Disney Castle)

8:32:17

8:22:15

8:20:91

8:22:06

8:28:32

8:09:37

8:08:13

50:37 (the .1) 

  The brightly annoying outfit

 Me with an Epcot halo

 Just out of the Castle

The entertainment of the race was awesome and the feeling of running with 10924 finishers was fantastic. The race was so well run!

Cons were that I had to be on a shuttle at 4am to get to the race which had standing room only. Standing from 4am to the race start at 6am and then running a half was an event in itself - especially since it was freezing out!

After the race I showered and hopped on another shuttle to Port Canaveral to go on a cruise! I saw a few runners on the boat that had the same vacation idea :-D 

Three miles on the cruise treadmill :-D

 I wasn't super motivated to run this week. I was "resting" from the 1/2 marathon. 

55 degrees today! It's warmer than it was in Florida some of the days. My legs are either still tired from the half marathon or stiff from not running for the week.

I don't quite feel like my normal running self yet. 

 It rained the whole run making the sidewalks are getting quite puddly. On my run I passed a playground by a river that was almost completely underwater - free water slide!

Ran half a mile and then took a face dive on a very busy intersection. No one blinked or said anything. Ran the half mile back, falling AGAIN. I'm now missing a silver dollar sized pieces of skin on both sides of my hand and one knee and I have a bruise developing down the length of my thigh. It's shower time...getting blood on the computer.

I actually think it's quite funny...

Such a beautiful sunny day! I tied my shoe laces 4 times, I was actually pretty nervous about going out :-x

60 degrees, mostly cloudy, wind whenever I ran uphill at 21mph :-D

I got out of a meeting super late and starving. I tried to go out for my run but wasn't feeling it (bad excuse, I know). I got ice cream instead :-D

The plan was to run at 9AM with a local running group. Their workout was 5x1 mile and I really wanted to get some speed work in. It was snowing outside and I hate feeling awkward when I'm in a group of people I don't know. I ended up doing 5x1 mile on the apartment treadmill. 

I waited until 11AM for the weather to get better and it never did. Those few days of 50 degree weather really spoiled me!

A nice 7 mile stroll in the beautiful weather! It feels weird to wear shorts outside.

Just a short run to kill some time :-D

A quick run out to celebrate the end of a loooong week!

I woke up at 8am to go running today. Instead I ate pancakes, graded, ate lunch, watched Alice in Wonderland, ate chocolate covered pastry, cleaned the bathroom. I finally ended up running at 4pm. 

I've got a bad case of the lack of motivations.

I'm already getting a watch tan and it's only March!

There is so much acid in my legs today for some reason. I was struggling not to walk!

Is it the heat? Is it me? Another terrible run, I thought resting yesterday would fix it. My legs have been feeling like there is lots of lactic acid build up and just heavy lately. It's also a lot harder to breathe!

I actually DID end up walking today. At this point, I feel like I should be able to run 3 miles easy....

Ran early this morning. I think the heat was my problem because today felt great!!!

Such a beautiful easter morning!!

I can't believe MSU lost! To tell the truth, I got bored after the first 1/2 and went to read a book. I'm such a bad grad student. 

Ran with the mid michigan track club tonight. We had thunderstorms and tornado warnings all morning so I was lucky that it cleared up.

 The workout was 6 x 880 yards with a next to nothing rest (15 to 20 seconds at most for me anyway). My pace group started ever 4:15 minutes. 

Light rain!

I ran at a pretty relaxed pace due to the speed workout last night. 

I've flaked out the last couple of days and didn't run.

Today felt great though! The temperature outside started at 30 degrees and by the end of the run got up to 36. I realized I love wear running tights and it was fun to get back into them.

 I recently joined a womens soccer leauge and I have a game tomorrow! I'm really excited. Even though it's a lot of running, I guess  I log it as cross training?

Played about 70 minutes of full field 11 v 11 soccer. Does that count for anything? I'm writing this actually on Monday and I'm SO sore. My back and quads are dead.

Ran with the track club again! 

3 x 1 mile with half a mile jog in between. We ran this with partners so total rest was however long it took your partner to run! My miles were about 7:30. I think I could have gone faster - I think it's going to take me awhile to get used to this speedwork stuff.

 Fantastic day though! 

5.8 miles, 67 degrees. I think I need to start wearing sunscreen!

80 minutes of soccer. I scored 2 goals! We still lost 3-4 though.

1 mile warm up. 4 x 3/4 mile with 2 minute rest in between. 1 mile cool down. 

Perfect weather - sunny and in the 60s 

I can definitely feel my workout from yesterday - my legs be tired!

I got home to the apartment to find a matinence worker in my bathroom! All I wanted to do was go for a run but, I had to wait until the water was turned back on because I also really had to go to the bathroom.

4.5 miles before the rainy weekend! The 5k this Sunday will be interesting in the rain.

Overall Time: 23:32

1 mile warm-up.

6x880 yards with hills. The rest was how long it took our partner to run! My partner was faster than me.

Splits:

3:25

3:26

3:20

3:15

3:18

3:21 

1ish mile cool down. 

 9 minute miles, 63 degrees with a light wind :-D 

The craziness of the last week of the semester has resulted in some low mileage. Emotionally I am so drained, but maybe my legs are getting some rest?

 Yesterday I was at school from 7AM to 10PM. Same goes for tomorrow as well. Oh grad school... 

80  minutes of soccer with no subs. 

I've really been slacking this week, I've got to get back on track! 

I tried to run but I felt terrible and ended up walking the rest of the way. Overall I was out for 4 miles but probably only ran 1.

Evergreen cemetery  2 person relay, each 6  x 880yds with a 440 yd jog back

Such a hard workout! It felt great though!  

I needed this run after a three hour exam! I can't wait for this week to be over.

58 degrees, sunny, light breeze.

 I was getting a little worried because I have been feeling weird on my runs lately. Today felt amazing though! I have one final left and then I get to relax for a day or two.

Thunderstorms all of yesterday and now the wind woke me up this morning. 

Wind: From W at 25mph gusting to 39mph

 I don't want to go. Maybe some yoga? 

Brrr. 30 degrees

I experienced today that grad students don't get summers. I wish I realized that last summer! 

Tried a running experiment today to see if I feel any better. This probably wasn't a good idea, but I haven't run since Monday and I missed it. I also want to see how my body reacts to running

 Went out extremely slowly and for the first 20 minutes I felt great. After that my chest started to hurt a little bit so I walked. Then ran for 10 minutes until my chest hurt again followed by more walking. Repeat for 7.5 miles and a total of 56 minutes of running and who knows how many minutes of walking. The weather was so perfect out I couldn't help myself.

The chest pain that sent me to the ER was on the left side of my chest. While running (so not a good idea in retrospect) the sharp chest pains were on the right side of my chest. Now my lungs kinda hurt.

I'm feeling better. I decided to test things out and went for a 4 miler this morning. It felt so good to really run again!

The weather has been so beautiful here and this non-running thing is killing me. I'd give anything to go for a run outside right now.

I have a soccer game at 4 and I took a small run on the treadmill to see how I feel. I shouldn't go, but it's so tempting. My chest and head hurt after 15 minutes of running.

 I had a head MRI yesterday and I'm going in for a chest CT tomorrow. I'll just have to be patient (not one of my best attributes). 

3 mile run with a walk break in the middle. I just had to go for a birthday run. I'm visiting the boyfriend in California and I'm in love with all the bike paths and the great weather they have around here.

We're going down to Santa Cruz area for the weekend. We hope to hit the Monterey Bay Aquarium and I've always wanted to try to run on the beach.

2.5 miles in 26 minutes :-P It felt as good as not running for several months can. I'm pretty bummed that I've missed all these beautiful summer mornings.  To replace running, I've been doing lots of yoga in the interim and I like it so much I think I'll stick with it.

I have no clue how to start a running routine again. Hopefully it comes back easily!

2.5 more miles. Hopefully I'll be adding more soon! 

Running is getting a bit easier now that I've been out a few times. I hope to go a little further tomorrow.

 I bought a used bike yesterday for $20. It needs some love but I can't wait to go for some rides.

 I've been at my parents house in Maine for a week and a half - I drove all the way from Michigan! I know I said that I was going to start running more frequently again but I'm sorta having fun being really lazy for a change. Isn't that what summer is all about? I've got one year (hopefully) of grad school left and I'm ready to get things started.

 I started this run way too fast and ended up walking the hill back to my house. I think I'm going to sign up for a 5k that is exactly a month from today. It's the first race that I ran in Michigan so it has some sentimental value. While I probably won't be winning my age group again, it was a really fun race and came with free massages and cupcakes afterward. 

Another 2.5 miles. I could hear my heart beating in my ears after -I'm definitely not ready to add more miles.

I'm driving back to school for the next two days. I hope the weather cooperates. 

2 miles in between lots of walking. It was such a beautiful day out and I wanted to spend as much time as possible outside.

2 easy miles

I'm getting so bad at track my miles. oops.

12 miles on the new bike. I took the bike in to get the brakes fixed so today was finally its first ride. I'm a novice rider so I stayed to the bike trails. It went fine although sometimes a lot of times the bike seems to shift on its own. The chain also fell off once.

I anticipate that my quads will hurt later so I'm going to yoga tonight!

So, I've started to get back into running. I'm feeling much better than I did this summer. Although my grad school schedule is kicking my butt, I really enjoy running. To motivate me I signed up to run this race and I half trained for it for the month of October.

There were about 3,000 runners who ran thru Hell, Michigan. There was actually a line to get into Hell, so the race start was postponed about 15 minutes. I guess everyone took the highway to Hell.

It was a cold day in Hell. Hell is also quite hilly. This is probably the hilliest race I've ever ran. It was also an out and back so I knew exactly what I had to run up on the way back. So considering my general not in-shapeness and the hills, I think I did alright.

The costumes were pretty neat. My favorite: Two people dressed up as trees and between them they had a clothes line with clothes pegged to it. I did not wear a costume although I wanted to dress in all gold and wear wings and be the snitch from Harry Potter. But I am not fast enough to wear that sort of costume and I doubt many people would have gotten it.

I pretty much died throughout the race. My miles were a consistent 8:25 but with each hill I was being drained of pretty much everything. Even worse was that I got out-sprinted at the line by a girl much younger than me. Documentation of this can be found at: http://timeframephoto.exposuremanager.com/p/10hell-up_to_2651/10hell-finish-292_11_67_2_1 as I still really haven't figured out how to insert images quickly. I'm bib number 2254.

Hell, Michigan was fun and the bad puns were limitless. After the race, my friend and I hit up the 2 local stores: Hell in a Hand Basket and Screams Ice Cream from Hell - where I bought a coffee mug. 

A quick 2.5 before dinner.

Someone mentioned the "snow" word to me today in my genetics class. In preparation, I  ran 3 miles on the treadmill because I just didn't feel like running in the cold.

Yoga tonight! 

It snowed yesterday. Well, I saw about snow flakes, but still it was a sad, sad day. I'm absolutely loving this fall weather and I'm going to be sad to see it go.

How awesome is an extra hour to the day?! Running, followed by homework, followed by some yoga tonight!

Oh the end of the semester! This is my last semester of ridiculously impossible classes. Running seems to help though :-D

One great thing about grad school is that I make my own schedule (besides classes and teaching). Somedays I'm at school way late or on weekends, and somedays I'm out by noon. Today was a noon day :-D

I'm really really liking this 60 degree November. Please don't go away. Lots of great non-mundane things planned for today like getting my haircut and cleaning my tortoises cage.

I was out way too late last night at a dueling piano bar so I wasn't planning on running today. However, the satellite tv has been out all day, so running became a good option.

Nothing special, just 3 miles on the treadmill. It seems like everything is due next week because of Thanksgiving. I'll be so glad when all this work is over!

Just once around the block.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! My boyfriend flew over from California to celebrate the long Thanksgiving weekend. We managed to squeeze in 3 miles.

Another three miles with the boyfriend. Who then broke up with me later that day after 4.5 years. Ah.

Played 50 minutes of indoor soccer.  Does this count as running?

I've been slacking recently, I know. I've just been a bit down. Running did lift my spirits though! I must remember that in the future.