Depressing

I just checked the 10 day forecast...except for Friday, it's gonna be
over 100 degrees. I sure hope this means we are in for a perfect fall
and winter. Knowing our luck, it will flood all fall and freeze all
winter!!

This weather pattern is solidifying my plans for 2010. No fall
marathon for me!! Not sure I can do this again anytime soon.
Sent from my iPhone

Anxiety Attack

It did not help that as I was driving to our 6:30pm run, the guy on the radio reminded me that this was the hottest July on record. For some reason, I have not acclimated to the 100 degree temps at all. I'm OK in the mornings but being out in the full on sun and heat just isn't working. Today we were to run 4 miles warm up, 2 miles steady state (that being strictly effort based and not worrying about actual pace) and 4 miles cool down. I figured I'd be good for maybe 8-8:10 for the steady state - maybe!
As we got started we ran up a slight rise in the sun and I paniked in my head thinking "I'm not even going to make it 4 miles). I ran with Brandon and we decided to stick to an easy pace for the first 4. Appaerently that was nobody elses plan as they took off for the first 4 miles. By mile 3 though, I noticed that the front group was coming back to us.
Brandon was thinking 8:15 was doable for the steady state so we started carefully, planning to pick up the pace on the second mile if we felt OK. First mile 7:59!! Second mile 7:59!! I was really happy as we had not being pushing very hard to get that done. I thought I'd do the last 4 miles cool down but my legs and head weren't in it so I cut it a little short and did 3.25 instead.
So overall, a good run - especially being that it was Tuesday and Tuesdays aren't usually very good to me.

I am noticing it gets dark faster now and there is often a nice breeze in the evening. I can totally live with that.

Diet update - I'm down to 144...yay!!!

Stupid

Hot=slow!! I decided I was too tired to run on Sunday morning after work. So I decided I would run 8 miles after work. It was 100+ degrees and there is NO shade where I live. I did a 3.5 mile loop, stopped at my driveway and grabbed a new water bottle. Ran down to the shadeless but flat neighborhood across 969 and refilled my bottle at the convenience store. Did a loop through the neighborhood, refilled at the store and shuffled home. I was satisfied with 7.5 miles. It was slow!! I will run when I get home tomorrow even if my eyes are closed the whole time. The good news is the run tomorrow will be subtracted from the miles I run in the heat on Tues PM...this is my new strategy to get as few super slow runs in as possible. I am not adapting to the heat and it is just an exercise in survival everytime.
I forced my self to eat dinner when I got home and took a "cold" shower.
I drank 4 hand held water bottles (I'm guessing 16oz each) and still lost 2.6 lbs in 7.5 miles.
Speaking of weight, I am heading the right direction finally. I was well hydrated before the run and am at 145. 5 weeks - 5 pounds...I'm not going to do anything different and if I get to 140 yay but if not, I'll be close. Then it will be 2-3 more pounds before Houston and I'll be good to go.

Runtex to Barton Springs

The north group has been begging Karen for a run to Barton Springs for weeks. Finally she treated us with a surprisingly challenging 20 miler that end up at Barton Springs. The south group joined us and did some MGP while we logged some base miles. I ran in my new Asics and of course Karen was freaking since I had never worn them. They were fine - could use a little more cushion in the left forefoot but otherwise great. I ran with Karen the whole way - we would take turns pushing the pace a little and at mile 17 she suggested we just ease up a little and finish the run. Right Karen...she picked up the pace the whole way. I hung on pretty well but decided that I'm not about to waste a kick on some base miles so I let her go for the last 1/2 mile. Barton Springs was awesome!!! The cold water felt so darn good. Afterwards, I went to Whole Foods and had a breakfast taco and raspberry square and water. Indulged with a 90 minute massage. Had a kind of crappy nap prior to going to work. However, I will say the compression socks I put on immediately after the soak at Barton Springs and again for work work great - much less leg fatigue.

Shoe drama

I had ordered some replacement shows from Rogue. I went yesterday
after my run and the guy working there was horrified at the amount of
outward sag there was. He said it was caused by too much stability
plus my orthotic set up. The shoes above are some old Mizunos I wear
at work but you can see they suffer the same problem. So I tried some
neutral shoes and will use them plus my inserts for now.
Also got some knee high support socks to help reduce my calf/ankle/
foot swelling.

I need to practice grabbing my iPhone faster

I'm driving around the HEB parking lot yesterday and make note of 2 cyclists.  I swear, one was completely naked.  Turns out he was, other than the skin colored thong he had on.  Sorry I was unable to get a picture for your viewing pleasure.  He did not resemble any of the cyclists Sadie had on her post!

Weekly Wrap up

Tuesday - 8 miles of hell.  It was hot (now there's a surprise!) and my legs were like logs.  I was supposed to run 10 but after 8 I knew that wasn't happening.  Since I ran less, I had time to do strides and core before I went to work.

Wednesday AM - less than 12 hours after the run from hell, I had a very pleasant 9 mile run with some moderate hills.  Tried to say hi to the cutest donkey ever but it ran away.  Watched a guy gallop a very attractive horse on the exercise track near my house.  All in all, a nice run.  Made better because I don't have a functioning watch and my Garmin had a low battery.

Thursday AM - 12 miles with Karen, Trevor and Mike.  After 2 miles I was mildly concerned that I would get dropped. Sucked it up and hung on.  Ran the last 4 with just Karen as the guys were just running 10.  Karen told me to pick up the pace for the last mile (I'm sure she was just tired of our back and forth increase of pace and wanted to get rid of me!).  I enjoy running with Karen - we are well matched in pace and push each other just the right amount.  I am pleased with my running - I'm keeping up a lot better this time around.  Going to tweak my schedule and run 30 min on Mondays and cut down the number of miles on Tuesdays.

Friday - Meesha ran around all night and then started some meowing nonsense at 3 am.  I got up and fed her and went back to sleep until 9:30AM.  Am having a hard time getting going with laundry, house cleaning etc.

Sold Out

Unbelievable...the Houston marathon and Half Marathon sold out.  It opened at 0001 Friday morning and the site crashed at that time.  Our north team group is using Houston as our A race and it looks like everyone signed up fast enough.  And got great hotel rooms!!!

Friday/Saturday

Riley did fine in his first 2 classes.  I did not run Friday AM - too tired.  By Friday afternoon, my legs were so puffed up, I could not get my riding boots on.  Thankfully a friend who was riding at the same time has the same sized feet and bigger calves so I wore her boots.  Jumper classes went OK...Riley is starting to think not jumping might be an option...not good.  He jumped his first real jumper class and went clean but was slow.

Saturday - I had planned to run at 4am...at 4 am I thought better of it and went back to sleep until 6am.  At this point, I was running late but got to the show and ready to ride.  Not so good...Riley stopped twice.  Once for absolutely no good reason...Came up with a plan for the evening jumper class.

Jumper classic - no big deal but you win a few bucks!  I had put a different bit on Riley's bridle and carried a bat so I could spank him if necessary.  Course looked pretty challenging. My only goal was for Riley to go clean in the first course.  He did and went clean in the jump off.  He is a little slow in the jump off because he is inexperienced so I take longer turns than most people so he can clearly understand what he is supposed to be doing.  Ended up 4th.  I was really pleased.  Another 6 months of training and he will be competitive with the other horses.

Time for bed...I'm tired.

Thursday

Medium long run from Mccallum High.  Easy flat loop.  Ran 2 miles extra before the official run.  Felt great on the run -really strong, no over heating and enjoyed not carrying water!  Plan to sign up for Houston first thing on Friday AM.

Went and spent the day setting jumps for the horse show.  Definitely tired at the end of the day.

Keeping busy

Saturday - ran 18 miles and it went well. Had a minor sinking spell at mile 16 but got my act together and finished nice and strong. What can I say...hot and humid. Short spell of minor butt pain.
Sunday - fantastic 5 miler on a road I don't often run on. Pretty much 2.5 miles up hill - turn around and 2.5 miles downhill.

Monday - Riley (the horse) choked. That means he got his dinner stuck in his esophagus and couldn't swallow it. Fortunately the vet was able to get it cleared pretty easily. Riley is a total light weight - he got a dose of sedation for a 600lb horse (he is 1100lbs) and it totally kicked his ass. He could barely stand up. Any way he spent a miserable 20hrs in a stall with no food and all his buddies were outside - I finally threw caution to the wind and put him back out with his friends on Tuesday afternoon since he wasn't drinking enough water. So far, so good.

Tuesday - I am at a horseshow this coming weekend so won't be doing the long run. I am going to do as much mileage as I can but I know I can't show my horse and run 18 miles on the same morning. I will run 5 miles on Friday, Sat and maybe a little longer on Sunday. Just depends how tired I am. Anyway, I added 2 on to the run on Tuesday for a total of 10.2. Felt great for the first 8 and then got over heated and dizzy on the last 2.

Thursday

I reluctantly got up at 4 am this morning for the 5:15 run.  Not too many people at the workout considering how hot it's gonna be this evening.  Karen seemed a little agitated about the number of people missing.  Sounds like she may nix the afternoon workouts and go strictly with AM because of the heat...hopefully it will cool down even a little, soon.  She is worried about people's safety when it so hot.  The little weirdness in my right glute/hip/groin was completely gone this morning.  I did a warm bath with epsom salts last night and used the foam roller this morning.  My run was slow pace wise but spot on effort wise today.  However, it looked like everyone was slow.

On the horse side of things, Riley had his massage today and Amy wondered if he had a little upset stomach since he was cranky and he has been kicking out a little when I ride.  I ordered him some special "whole food" treats to help with that and got him some Aloe Juice for his feed.  Other than that, he is doing great.

I had the pleasure of sending Judge Biscoe (the head of Travis Co. commissioners court) an email, as did a group of other horse people in Austin regarding the sad state of the footing at the Expo Center.  The County is refusing to pay for additional sand in areas where it is needed.  Apparently the flood of emails were very effective and the footing is being taken care of right now.  Too bad the City of Austin isn't as reasonable.  I'm sure the people that run the facilities owned and operated by the County were not happy to get the call from the Judge!

"Get off the Internet"

That was one of the emails I saw on my work email last night.  It was a mass email sent out to all employees during Michael Jackson's Memorial.  Apparently critical functions were failing because too many people were on line (and not working).  I thought it was pretty funny!!

Why I love my job!

I have a photo from work I really want to post - it sums up the worst part of my job. However, knowing how the internet works, it would catch up with me in a bad way so instead I'll sum it it up in a few words:

a guy who turned 21 today goes out drinking to celebrate. He ends up depositing all of his alcohol and pasta dinner - maybe pizza on the floor of my office. EMS comes to get him and while they are holding him in a semi-standing position, I have to pull his vomit soaked pants off.
As EMS says - what a great birthday - $700 bill from EMS, $3000 bill from the ER and a PI. Yay!!

Struggling...a little

Saturday we did a 10.5 mile run from Coach's house - then a dip in the pool, food and silly games. The run sucked - 80 degrees and high humidity but the fun part was just that fun. I felt like I rehydrated pretty well as well as drinking plenty on the run but by Sunday I had a persistant headache which I couldn't shake. I blew off my 5 mile run.

Monday - still feeling tired with a little headache. Continuing to work on food choices and hydrating.

Tuesday - woke up Tuesday afternoon feeling great. Drank my usual Accelerade pre run and had hopes of a good run. It was hot, a little humid and windy. I set out at a conservative pace, carried water, took some Endurotabs but unfortunately by mile 5 it was falling apart. A little dizzy and lightheaded. I stopped and ate some Sport Beans and got going again. At the 6 mile water stop, I ate the rest of my sport beans and 2 more endurolytes and drank some water. Felt OK but slow on the remaining 2 miles. Because I ran so slow today, I did not have time for a core w/o. Will do that on Wed.

I'm thinking my iratic diet is not helping so I am starting a food diary to make sure I'm getting enough of everything and to be accountable. I'm thinking of completing my food diary for a couple of weeks and then checking in with Meredith to see where the problems are.

Plans for the rest of the week - 5 miles Wednesday AM, 10 miles Thurs AM (both at a conservative pace no matter how good I feel), lunch with a friend whose visiting from CA on Friday.

Spa Friday

Got my hair colored and cut and then considered taking a nap on the
salon's super comfy sofa. Decided on a pedicure instead. What relaxing
way to catch up on trashy magazines and come out looking better than
when I went in.
Went home and made some delicious homemade chicken salad.

Sleep

So does the fact that I woke up to my cat crashing around in the kitchen while she was looking for a snack at 2:30am and then didn't go back to sleep until my alarm went off at 4am mean 4.5 hours was all my body needed?

I broke down and gave her a can of cat food at 2:30 in hopes that she would eat and go to bed.  No such luck.  She was busy getting on and off the bed and drinking water and then the obvious trip to the litter box the rest of the night.  I think she lay down for 20 minutes total. Obviously she needs more activity during the day because she never bothers me when I sleep during the day.

Broken record

I have tried hard to not obsess over my weight and despite people kindly telling me that they have never thought I should not be running in only a sports bra, my weight is creeping up in a bad way.  I know perfectly well why and the only way to get it under control, is for me to eat better food and be less lazy.  It's July 1st and I am going to try once again to get things in check.  However, I am not dieting.  I am eliminating foods from my diet that don't contribute to good running...cake, cookies, chips.  I figure if I am careful but not obsessive, I should be down 5-8 lbs by September.

In other news I have been doing well on my runs...we got an extra down week due to the heat and are enjoying slightly cooler temps.  Keeping on top of my hydration.  Am going to be doing the 5:15am runs on Thursday from now on.

Took Meesha to the vet today just to weigh her...6.15lbs.  Yikes.  However the tech thought she looked really healthy despite the drastic weight loss.  She continues to eat fairly well and is active.  She thoroughly enjoyed the ride in the car.  Stopped at the Manor Farmers market and got some tasty yellow cherry tomatoes and peppers.

Silver dog enjoyed a 30 min run today and then a nice cool bath and roll in the dirt.