Weekly Workout Recap, Week 8

I have no pictures right now because my camera is being weird... so, sorry about that. But we'll make this recap short and sweet and I'll try to find interesting pictures to throw in from my phone :)

I bought this shirt for $2.88 at Academy. $2.88!!

What I was supposed to be doing:

Monday: Rest/Cross-training day

Tuesday: 2 miles @ 9:54 min/pace

Wednesday: Rest/Cross-training day

Thursday: 6 mile tempo run; 4 miles @ 8:26 min/pace

Friday: Rest/Cross-training day

Saturday: Rest/Cross-training day

Sunday: 18 miles @ 9:54 min/pace

What really happened:

Monday: rest rest and more rest

Tuesday: 2 miles @ about 9:00 min/pace with the brother; 30 min Pilates

Wednesday: Jackie Warner's arms & abs circuits; 30 minutes on the bike at the gym

Thursday: 6 mile tempo run; 3 miles @ 8:27 min/pace, 1 mile @ 8:20 min/pace with 1 mile warm up & 1 mile cool down

Friday: Jackie Warner's arms & abs circuits; I don't remember if I did anything else, but I think I might have walked and I don't have my workout log with me so I'll update this later ;)

Saturday: 5k race

Sunday: 18 miles; the first 9 were at a solid 9:50 min/pace, the last 9 varied between speeding up and slowing down; 10 min total body Pilates, 10 min long & limber Pilates

Overall planned miles: 26

Overall actual miles: 29.1

Louie decided to get in a quick run before I went out to conquer 18 miles.


Despite the fact that I really had a hard time getting motivated to work out for most of the week, I feel like my week went pretty well. My 18 mile run went much better than last week's 16 miler, and it left me pretty satisfied with my whole week of workouts.

I'm taking this week really easy because I'm tired and my body just needs a break. That being said, hitting 18 miles was a really big deal for me because it showed me that my body is capable of carrying me through a full marathon. I don't know what it was about making it to 18 but it made it very real and exciting :)


Tell me something exciting about your weekend! We went out for Mexican food on Saturday night and I had the most ginormous margarita of my life! Because I am a lightweight these days, I was also tipsy after that 1 margarita. We also went to see Horrible Bosses. Eh...

Lunar Rendezvous 5k Race Recap

This past Saturday I ran the 33rd Annual Lunar Rendezvous 5k race out at Space Center Houston.

Let me just preface this by saying this was not a good race for me. 

Let me also get all of my complaints out of the way and blame this on Sean. It was hot. It was humid. It was about to rain (seriously, it started raining about 10 minutes after I finished running). I got no sleep because Sean was out with the guys and I waited up to make sure he got home in one piece which means I went to sleep at 2am and got up at 5:30am. (Ok, it isn't Sean's fault, but I was really tired.)

See how gross that weather looks?!

Complaining over, this just was not a good race for me.

For one, I started out way too fast. 

I ran the first mile in 7:13 (who am I?!).

The first 1.5 miles were OK. I felt ok, but not great. By about mile 1.75 my head left the race. I wasn't into it, I didn't feel great, and I was running way too fast for me. I couldn't slow down. And I mentally gave up. And I walked for about 30 seconds. My pride died right then, I've never walked during a race before. How I can run 18 miles and be OK but walk during a 5k race is beyond me. 

Needless to say, even with my 30 second walk, I ran the second mile in 7:15 (yeahhhh.... I was running wayyyy too fast)

And then I mentally shut down. I've never even come remotely close to walking in a race before. Everyone talks about how running is a mental sport - it is.

I walked twice more after that. I didn't want to be there anymore. I didn't want to run. I just wanted to go home and cry. Was I being overly dramatic? Yes. Did I care? No.

When I slowed down for the third time (I was less than 4/10's of a mile away from the finish) a guy ran up to me and said "NO". And he paced me in the rest of the way. What a miracle worker. I could have hugged him I was so happy that he showed up when he did. Here's a tragic picture of me finishing:

The irony?

I PR'd.

Go figure.

I also came in fourth in my age group, which I don't want to talk about because if I hadn't stopped three separate times I would have placed somewhere in the top 3. 

All I wanted out of the race was to beat my PR. My PR was currently held at 23:18 BUT the course was only 3 miles, not a full 5k. I finished this 5k (and it was the full 5k) in 23:14. 

And then I ran 18 glorious miles on Sunday. GO FIGURE.

3 Things Thursdayyy

I'm still running on a high from a great run this morning so I'm in a superb mood.

Which brings me to 3 things thursdayyyyyyyy!

1. I guest posted for Britt, so you should go check it out! You can read my post here :) I adore her, so I was thrilled to post for her!

2. I did end up signing up (gah, I'm so last minute about these things sometimes!) for a 5k this weekend. I just couldn't pass up paying only $18 to race out in the heat and humidity this weekend. Hopefully I'll come back with a nice PR.

3. My best friend's hubby is coming home tomorrow! He has been gone since January (he's in the Navy) and I could not be more excited for her!

Tell me something (or 3 things!) about you! 


Anyone else running any races this weekend?!

Weekend Recap

Man-o-man. Last week was a very stress-filled week for me.

Friday after work I drove over to my friend Lindsey's house - she just moved into her first non-roomie apartment and another girlfriend and I drove over there to see her new place and indulge in some girl time. Thank goodness for girl time. Unfortunately, I spent way too much time stuck in traffic getting over there and she had quite the incident with some abusive neighbors in the parking lot (but you should click her name and read her blog post about that, because I wasn't actually there to witness it). I got home exhausted and passed out almost immediately. In keeping with the way the week went my sweet, sweet kittie woke me up at 4:30 meowing and never stopped. So I got up early Saturday too (enter: bad mood). I did manage to get quite a bit accomplished on Saturday, but I was in a huge fog. I forced myself on a brutal mile and a half run (mile and a half! that is not even that far or that long!) and then I eeked out 50 minutes of yoga. Yoga makes me happy.

We met my parents for an early dinner at Berry Hill and I sucked down a couple margaritas. Um, yes, I ran a 5k on Sunday. I'm telling you - I was in a huge funk. At that point, I was seriously considering skipping the race entirely. Luckily, I have a super supportive husband. We were on our way home from dinner and we drove past the Catholic church on the road that runs in front of our neighborhood... They were having their Spring Festival. No, we're not Catholic. Yes, we did stop.

We wandered around, listened to the country band, drank a few beers, and at this point I was positive that I wasn't going to run in the morning. I complained to Sean about it that my head just wasn't in it, and he spent the next however long coaching me through all of my complaints and self-doubt. My hubs = best ever. Seriously.

When my alarm went off Sunday morning I got up, had some peanut butter toast, made coffee for the hubs, felt hung over (big shock), and went back to bed. I woke up an hour later, checked the times for the races, checked the distance to the race, and then went back to bed. I finally forced myself out of bed and thanks to Sean made it to the race in one piece.

I killed it. Seriously. I ran fast and hard and finished 8th overall and 1st in my age group. After doing a million things wrong, it was the one thing that I needed to happen to get my head on a bit straighter. I floated around for most of the day after that. And I owe 150% of that success to my husband. He is the best race manager/cheerleader/photographer I could ask for, seriously. As I came barrelling into the finish line (and this little kid came out of nowhere and passed me - ughhh I would've been 7th!!) there was Sean, video-taping the whole thing. He is my favorite.

We drove over to his parents house after where my ravenous self devoured an AWESOME homemade taco salad courtesy of Sean's mom. Yum yum yum. I promise you that my body believes that it runs marathons, when in fact it does not. Yet.

I have a long run today after work that my head isn't entirely in yet, but I'm in a much better place than I was. Oh and my Garmin freaked out and stopped working after the race yesterday. Not sure what that's about, but it's frozen at 9:57AM. Hopefully we'll get that fixed ASAP.

Oh and I made an amazing pizza last night for dinner. Wanna see?

Delicious. Be jealous.

Hills.

After the Blue Bell Fun Run 5k I realized something: for as much as I train and run and cross train and strength train and do yoga and pilates, I never really focus on hills. I do some speed work here and there, but hills have been, well, obsolete in my life.

The Clover 5k in all of its suckiness SHOULD have been an indicator to this, but I gleefully ignored why the race sucked so much (other than poor layout). Hills.

The Blue Bell 5k was even more hilly than the Clover 5k, but for whatever weird race reason I floated through this race.

Once I crossed the finish line one of the first things I said to Sean was that I needed to spend some time with hills and speed work.

Hills and I had our first official date this morning, along with the trusty and reliable treadmill. We all three met up nice and early in the quiet and dark and I left a hot, sweaty mess.

6 miles of hills is brutal. My poor calves are just plum tuckered out.

This whole week (since the 5k) has been an intensive work out week. I did a 33 minute speed session Sunday, a training run Monday, Spin Class and ab work Tuesday, a training run and strength session Wednesday, 6 miles of hills, 10 minutes of Pilates and (will do) an hour of yoga today, and tomorrow I have a training run, strength work and probably another 10 minutes of Pilates. That really doesn't sound too bad when I read it. In fact, a lot of my weeks look similar. But it's been awhile since I've taken a day off. Remember when we talked about that?

I have a good reason, I really do. See tomorrow morning, I get to go and have LASIK. No more eye infections for me (hopefully).

And after I have LASIK I can't work out at all (not even yoga, boo) for at least 3 days. My running self almost cried (I wish I was kidding). No running? No. What about yoga? NO. ehhhhhh ok. fine.

They said I could do a "light walk". What a tease.

Anyway, I get to take the day off work tomorrow and force Sean to spend all day with me (he's a good husband!). So hopefully I'll have some time to update my bloggin' friends on the rest of my life. But today, today all I can think about is those darn hills. And how much I really love them. Is that weird? Don't get me wrong, they were AWFUL. I wanted to quit so many times. But as soon as it was over, even though I was dripping with sweat and wanted nothing more than to just sit and die, all I could think about and have been thinking about is how much I wish I started doing hills sooner.

Oh and P.S. Our one year anniversary is this weekend :)