38 Days and an Unwonked Foot

I don’t feel like blogging. I also don’t feel like cleaning, driving, taking care of my family or working. I think I’m going to give all these things up for the remainder of lent. I’m not Catholic…can I still do lent?


I ran a whopping 10 miles over the course of this weekend. And I felt pretty ok. I could still feel my foot..and although it didn’t hurt at all…it felt different from the other one. So I waited again…and ran 3 miles today…and they felt incredible….and I’m fairly sure I’m fixed. I have a 15 miler on Thursday and that will be the true test…but in my gut…I feel that it’s going to be ok. Tomorrow night I have a running clinic thingy that is being put on by the PT department from my work and medical director for my marathon…and I’m going to sit down with the good Doctor…who seeing as he is the medical director of my marathon…has a moral obligation to get me to the starting line injury free and awesome. He’s also the dude that got me back up and going after blowing my knee out two summers ago…he’s a runner...and he’s pretty adorable. They are also speaking on barefoot running…and I am very curious to see what they have to say about it. The one who is speaking on that is an Athletic trainer and fellow runner…his name is Kevin…and I will look at him in a whole new light if he speaks favorably. And if he does not..I know what he drives and will slash his tires..:).

My second half marathon is a little over a week away. I’m not particularly excited about it as I am treating it as a marathon pace run. I think I’ve convinced Skip to stay home because the more attention that is paid to this race the more likely I am to blow it and hurt myself. I’m good for that kind of dumb shit. I’m hoping to get a little better idea of a finishing time for my marathon. I’m been taking it real easy on my training runs so I’m not 100 percent that I’ll be able to hit and keep that pace going for 26 miles. This will help me know if I can do it for at least half. We’ll see.

And on a final note..I ‘think’ I may have found my latest running conquest. I’m not going to say anything else about it right now because I don’t want to jinx it…but there it is.


Hope everyone is having a great week!


38 days

Cross Training and American Dad

So my little brother sent me a link to the article about the former sumo wrestler who finished the L.A. marathon last week. I guess that’s meant to inspire me that I too can run a marathon….thanks asshole…HA!



This week is a week of cross training. After my run on Saturday my foot was still a little tweeky. I almost couldn’t feel it…and it may all be in my head to keep the voices company…but either way…I made an executive decision to take a week off from running. I have my big ass base….that isn’t going anywhere…and this is a step back week anyways…so there we go. Skip made me promise not to run till he’s back from D.C. and I agreed. Sunday I did a 40 minute Jillian Michaels Yoga Meltdown and it was one of the hardest things I’ve done. And does anyone know if she is really a girl or is she some sort of cross gender transvestite thingy? She is seriously downright creepy….eeek. Tonight was Tae-bo and Yoga. I’m not sure what to do instead of my 6 mile run tomorrow. Blah…I’ll figure it out. Wednesday is my off day and I’ll substitute a 1.5 or 2 hours workout for my long run on Thursday.

So when Skip is out of town….and when he’s in town for that matter…the only things I ever watch on T.V. are King of the Hill, Family Guy, and American Dad…is that strange for a woman approaching 35 years old? I love those shows…I quote them at work and elsewhere and actually think about them occasionally when I am NOT watching them. It’s a good thing that these are the only shows I’m interested in watching because they’re on later at night and the TV in the bedroom is the only one in my house I know how to turn on. I think American Dad is my favorite….it took awhile for that one to squeek out past King of the Hill…but it did eventually happen. God I need a life.


So tomorrow I get off at noon and I can’t run. What the hell am I going to do with myself with an afternoon free and no running to do? Holy shit this taper is going to be a nightmare.


What do you do when you can’t/don’t run?

No Dragonboat?

You don’t say. Skip and I had been wondering why our 300 dollar deposit check for our team hadn’t been cashed. Skip took the kids out to breakfast while Lori and I did a quick or not so quick 5 miler this morning and when they were done stuffing their faces….he went to visit his sister who happens to work with Dragonboat Scrunteye. Dragonboat Scrunteye told Skip that they had cancelled the festival this year because they did not have enough teams signed up. There were 34 teams last year…I just don’t see how that many could have dropped? And when you have to pay over 700 bucks per team..times 34 teams…that’s a lot of freakin cash…..like 23 grand worth of freakin cash…and that doesn’t include the donations from local businesses and whatnot. Not enough money? I don’t really see how. I am pissed and Skip is so very disappointed. We had high hopes this year to have a team that didn’t suck. We’ve met once a month since LAST August with our team to do land practices to prepare. I had our shirts designed and I’ve been buying cases of water since before Christmas.

We haven’t heard from Racine Rotary yet….so hopefully the broad is wrong….but she tends to be ‘in the know’ of such things. There are several other festivals in Wisconsin…one in Madison during the summer and again in Oshkosh in the fall…but it’s not the same. Fuck.


In other news…I did a 50 minute yoga again this morning….and I have to say…I am hooked. So relaxing and difficult at the same time. And I felt amazing while running due to starting so completely loose. Good stuff.


In other other news….Skip is leaving for D.C. tomorrow so I have a peaceful week ahead of me. They had requested him for a couple months but his boss said no…and instead…ok’d him for a number of 1 week stays..which is fine. I hope Obama appreciates all we do for him.

Happy weekend everybody!

50 Days Left and 24 Miles

So I am 50 days out from my first full marathon and I am in hypersensitive mode about everything. I need to calm the hell down…and running 24 miles today didn’t do that. But as I’ve said many times…there aren’t enough miles in the world to fix me….HA!



The Good


-I don’t have to this again till next month.
-It was gorgeous out today despite the wind.
-I fueled properly…I need more fuel in the second half of my run.
-My SPI belt didn’t drive me nuts the entire time.
-I discovered that my MP3 has over 4.5 hours of music on it.
-I didn’t cramp at all and am recovering nicely.
-I met an awesome guy filling the underground gas things at a gas station that told me to get my ass moving because he’d already done his 20 for the day. People love a tired runner girl.
-I ran into one of my patients out on 4 mile road and he recognized me…and I haven’t seen him in over a year…AND   we were over twenty miles and two towns away from where I work…isn’t that funny?
-They were doing firefighter training down on North Beach…and they were sexy


The Bad


-I had my first encounter with being a breath away from getting flattened by an asshole in a minivan.  I seriously smaked his hood with my hand. Have I mentioned that I hate minivans?
-The wind.
-My left foot feels wonky and I don’t like it.
-I have a sunburnt face and legs.
-24 miles is a long freakin way and 26.2 miles is 2.2 miles longer then that!


So the good far outweighed the bad this time around. I felt pretty incredible until the very end and that’s as it should be I suppose. I hope my wonky left foot gets un-wonky because it’s too late in the game for shit to go wrong.


And because I haven’t done it in awhile…


70 days, 6 hours, 3 minutes and 6 seconds smoke free.
1405 cigarettes not smoked.
$385.00 and 10 days, 17 hours of your life saved.
Your quit date: 1/6/2011 12:59:00 PM


50 days

Take Two….Work and Barefoot Edition

So I did something I don’t think I’ve ever done before and will probably be fired for….here’s hoping.  I took my camera with me to work….I only work a half day on Tuesdays and then I generally run from the hospital. I didn’t get my good friend Dawn and I really wanted to get a pic of Dr. S and I doing wall squats…our record is 3 minutes…LOL.  Here are some of the gals I work with.

Stacy my manager with Jess on her lap.  Jess actually works in the ER but was visiting her FAVORITE department.  Notice our beautiful bullet proof glass.

This is our longest employee Jan...giving us an action shot of the copier.  That's Dawn hiding in the background.

Pic looking south from the hospital...that's the cloud maker according to lil T.

When I left the hospital I headed west for a quick 5 miler….it was alright.  I took it easy because I’m looking down the barrel of a 24 mile shotgun this Thursday…ha.  The weather was good..the wind was down.  But the good part of the run came about three quarters of a mile from the hospital when I was able to loose the shoes. 

This is literally the only way my legs look long.

That's better....all done.  Hope everyone is having a great week.  See ya on the flip side of 24 plus miles on Thursday.

Yasso 800's and V's 15th

So in keeping with my training plan my monster mileage buildup is over and now it’s on to speedwork. Don’t get me wrong..I still have big ass long runs coming up…but not like the buildup of the last two months. There’s a method to my madness…we shall see if it holds come race day.

I decided this time round to try those Yasso 800’s that I’ve read so much about. Last time I did mile repeats as my interval/speed stuff and I HATE those….so I was looking for something different…easy if you will. Now for me to run a sub 4:30…lofty I know…marathon….I need to be able to run 10*800 at a rate of 4:12-4:28 per repeat. On Thursday I did 6 of them with an average of 4:10. Could I have done 4 more? Probably…but my pace would have been dropping at the end I’m sure. Either way I am happy with these results for my first time out. Now I will only do these every other week when I’m not doing a huge long run….and I’ll add another repeat every time out. So next time I’ll run 7 of them…trying to fall in that same time range…then 8…etc etc. I like the simplicity of this…and though it’s really supposed to work…I don’t see how being able to complete 10* 800 meter repeats at a certain pace predicts marathon time. And it is HARD! I didn’t realize how much! With recoveries in between intervals my run was almost 8 miles! Good though…and lord knows I am not afraid of work.


And now on to fun stuff. Here are a few pics of my little darlings from Vincents 15th birthday.

V and lil T

V and Papa....two peas in a pod there

My brothers and my boy...

Oh yes I did make him that ghetto cake and he LOVED it.

Can you tell how happy they are to spend time anywhere near me?  Please please let us get away from our mom!!!!!!!

I love her sparkling eyes

Today and yesterday I was on my own. Lori was having some mad back pain after knocking out a 25 miler this week preparing for her ultra the end of this month. Yesterday I did 4 miles easy and this morning I ran 8.5 miles..6 of those at marathon goal pace and 2 at sub 9’s. I was feeling amazing and kicked off the shoes at the end and did a half mile barefoot. I am about to come out of my skin for spring and back to barefooting!!!!!!

I hate these shoes...I really do.

ABC's of Me

Staci at She Runs In Sandals was sweet enough to tag me for the ABC thingy that’s going around…



A) Age: 34..going on 13…maybe


(B) Bed Size: Queen..it’s the compromise for Skip and I


(C) Chore You Hate: I HATE to empty the dishwasher…hate hate hate hate hate it.


(D) Dogs?: Yes…Jenga a redbone coon hound and Brian..both runners.


(E) Essential Start Your Day Item: Coffee…and now Synthroid


(F) Favorite Color: Blue


(G) Gold or Silver?: White gold.


(H) Height: 5’2’’


(I) Instruments You Play: Piano and I used to play oboe


(J) Job Title: Occupational Medicine Specialist, Mother, Wife, Sister, Daughter, Friend


(K) Kids: 2 teen age boys and 1 crazy little girl


(L) Live: Wisconsin….born and bred


(M) Mom's Name: Jessica


(N) Nicknames: My real name is Clara but I go by Claire…does that count?


(O) Overnight Hospital Stays?: Having the kids…breast reduction, and gastric bypass


(P) Pet Peeve: Too many to list.


(Q) Quote from a Movie:“of all the gin joints in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine.”


(R) Right or Left Handed?: Right


(S) Siblings: Two brothers..one older, one younger


(T) Time You Wake Up?: 5:30 during the week..it really varies on the weekend.


(U) Underwear: Sometimes?


(V) Vegetable You Dislike: I used to hate sweet potatoes and spinach…now I eat those damn near every day..so none I guess


(W) What Makes You Run Late: The kids…that’s my story


(X) X-Rays You've Had Done: Foot, Wrist, Ankle, Teeth


(Y) Yummy Food You Make: I am a really good and inventive cook…so everything 


(Z) Zoo, Favorite Animal: There’s a pretty bitchin rhino at the Racine Zoo…so I pick him.

That's it...I had a great easy run this morning and started my interval training this week with Yasso's 800's...more on that later.  Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Torn

I know he doesn’t read this so I can vent here. V does not want to run track…and I am destroyed. A little background. V is a running prodigy see here…he beats adults on the 5K with no training. He took 3rd last spring on a 5K with almost no training…only a little from me and I don’t know what I’m doing. Not 3rd for his age group…3rd for the whole thing…taking first for the 13 to 18 age group...he had just turned 14 at the time. I can’t even imagine what this child could do under the hands of a real coach.



He ran last year…and really enjoyed it…until he got spanked on the mile in All City at the very end. I think quite a bit of him not wanting to do it this spring is fear of the unknown…and a little teenage laziness thrown in.


I don’t know what to do. There are certain things I will force my children to do…schoolwork, church…hygiene..things I know they need. But do I force something that I know he’ll be good at….and enjoy once he’s doing it? Or is that my dreams for him talking? I let him choose football over cross country this fall..because although he would have liked to…he couldn’t do both. And he rode the bench almost the entire season. But he’s always wanted to play football…so I let him….and it was a bust. He is such an amazing, natural runner that I can’t even believe it…such beauty and EASE when he runs. Here is one of my race reports about him.


Track starts this week….what would you do? I really need some feedback here folks.

"I just felt like running" Race Report

So I planned to do this race yesterday but as it turned out…I didn’t do a damn thing yesterday…and it was awesome.

Last night I texted with Lori and planned to meet her over on the path at 9. My plan as to go over there around 8:30…knock out this 5K and be done. I headed over there around 8:15 so I could take a couple of pics before I started. My only real plans for this race was to possibly bury my previous 5K pr from this past September which was a very unimpressive 28:28.


The Course.

The competitor..yeah right.

The course was covered in ice so I quickly decided to reroute this race.

The New Course.

So I found my starting line..part of a crosswalk and turned on my MP3…only to discover that while I thought I had been charging it all night…I had nothing. Oh well…I knew it was only 3 miles and then I’d have Lori to keep me entertained…so it wasn’t the end of the world.


Mile one headed dead into the wind that the weather man promised me wouldn’t be there today…but by .5 I turned around and headed back down the road. A good portion of this 5K was on my half marathon course from last spring….funny. Mile two I was already turned around because I had not encountered a single car and things were moving along nicely. Somewhere coming up on mile 3 I had to slow down due to possible hurling which didn’t end up happening. But the end result was….dah dah dah.

This!

I think I can safely say that I CRUSHED my previous PR from only a couple months ago. Is it the marathon training? The not smoking? Not sure….don’t really care. That time there is pushing respectable folks..and if I can do that on a virtual…what could I do with the real thing? That’s an improvement of 1 minute 19 seconds…or something like that.

Done.

After I was done and positively glowing…I met up with Lori and knocked out 7 more miles to make a lovely 10 mile day. I feel good…strong…ready for anything…including V turning 15 in two days.

Best Running Partner EVER!

This is a great place to run that Lori showed me today.  She called it the Enchanted Forrest...I call it one big ass pee fort!

Have a great week everyone and thanks for hosting this race Jeff!

22 mile Train Wreck

Actually it wasn’t too bad. This was the text I sent Skip when I got home.


*22 miles, I hate running, I’m dropping the marathon and never doing this again.*


He didn’t even flinch. Skip rocks my world...soo accustomed to my nonsense.


This has been a good week. Tate and I did a 45 minute Tae-bo on Monday followed by a 15 minute Ab Yoga thing from OnDemand on tv…it was HORRIBLE!! My abs are still sore and it’s Thursday!! I will definitely give that another go.


Tuesday I ran after work at the hospital..nice easy paced run and I found a wallet! It must have been buried under a snow bank for a really long time because I couldn’t even salvage one thing from it and also couldn’t figure out whom it belonged to. No money..unreadable i.d.


Yesterday was a rest day and that brings us to today. I knew I had to knock it out fairly early because lil T had a half day and would be home right after noon. So as soon as I put her on the bus I headed out. I got my SPI belt in the mail Tuesday and I loaded it up last night and wore it today….and I have to say…I didn’t love it. It bounced..and I had to dink with the damn thing for 22 freakin miles. Maybe it works if you’re a dude and don’t have hips…or maybe I just have to get used to it…because I’ve never run with anything around my waist before. Ah well…I’ll try it again before I decide. So I had 21 miles on my schedule and ended up with 22. At about mile 15 I checked my watch and realized I was going to really have to shove the shit along if I was going to make it home by the time lil T got off the bus. I got there right behind her as it was and she was PISSED! It was a decent run…recovery wasn’t bad…certainly better then the last two 20’s I’ve done….so it’s working..I’m getting used to it…just like Vincent said…LOL.


So that brings me to roughly two months or 9 weeks left till the marathon. The long runs for the remainder of this training session are as follows.


26.2 miles
15 miles
14 miles *half marathon race instead this week*
26.2 miles
13 miles


You will notice that there are not 9 runs there…only 5. The other weeks include the taper and step back weeks to recover. Another thing is those 26.2 mile runs may not happen. 24 maybe..but I don’t think the 26 is necessary. I know I said I had to know….but pushing myself up over 20 multiple times is going to be sufficient I think. When all is said and done I will have done 5 or 6 runs in the 20 plus mile range…and I think that’s plenty. If I feel like doing the full 26 miles..I will…if I don’t…I won’t.
I just don’t want to be house bound and unable to walk for 2 days after my marathon. I have a life to lead and shit to do.


And my ADD thought for the week are…


*I’m only working a half day tomorrow and I won’t be sorry to see that place in the rearview come 12 o’clock tomorrow.
*Vincent is turning 15 next week…how is that even possible?
*I am running my first virtual 5K this weekend…I’m excited!
*I wish I could run with Lori on long runs…I bet they would suck considerably less.
*I told my mom today that my dad better be at the finish line because I think this is the only marathon I will do…too damn time consuming.
*I’m still not smoking..and I miss it every day…I wonder when that will stop?


Happy Thursday!!!