Thoughts on Tonight's Little Run

I thought I'd be safe from getting sick over the summer since I'm out of the germ factory (school), but apparently not. A couple days after book club, we all came down with it. It hasn't been fun.

I ran Sunday morning and started getting sick afterward. Since then I haven't really been able to exercise. I went on short walks Tuesday and Wednesday with Cookie, which was all I could handle, and today (Thursday) I woke up feeling awful. After a few extra hours in bed, I was feeling a big better so decided to try to get in a short run tonight. I was shooting for 5k and made it 6.27k, even slower than usual.

Here are some random thoughts....

1. There is someone who missed the runs more than me, and that is Cookie. She was happy happy happy! Halfway through, we saw a little old man walking with a walker on the path with (I assume) his daughter and grandchildren. He was waiting for his family on the path and was looking at Cookie and smiling, and asked me her name. I told him that her name is Cookie, and he said "Hi Cookie" and Cookie was soooo sweet. When he said her name, she stopped running, walked over, stood right next to him, looked up at him, and stood perfectly still so he could pet her. It was so heartwarming to see how happy he was to pet her and how good Cookie was. She is so intuitive and just knew she needed to be calm and still. It made me wonder if there's a retirement home where they like to have dogs come in. I'll look into it.

2. I got a side stitch. I haven't gotten a side stitch in months. :(

3. Bug spray with deet is only partially effective against mosquitos. Some mosquitos don't care. Some seem to like it. A couple days ago I forgot to wear deet and got tons of bites, and tonight I sprayed on loads of deet but still saw several mosquitos trying to suck my blood. Pretty much all I've been doing the last couple days is scratching mosquito bites and blowing my nose.

4. Working out is much more fun with someone else. Jesse isn't into running but likes riding his mountain bike, so he rode around on the path while Cookie and I were running. It was fun seeing him on the path. Cookie was thrilled.

5. Amazingly awesome running shorts:


6. I don't think I'm going to make my run goal this month. Here are the distances I have run each month this year (in kilometers):

January: 58.68
February: 65.48
March: 90.74
April: 64.63
May: 93.3
June so far: 64.61

It's not looking like I'll make it in the 90s this month. :(

Ahh, summer!

First, the good....

1. Since I haven't weighed in for a couple weeks, I stepped on the scale today and was down 1.6 lbs.

2. I'm getting into a running groove. I didn't run all week after the Bolder Boulder. I actually wasn't sore or anything.... I was just WAY too busy. Anyway, since we're off from Crossfit this week, I've done some good, easy runs. I've been running laps through my neighborhood with Cookie, which I've really been enjoying. It's nice being close to home in case the weather changes. Here are my runs in the past week:
Saturday: 6.87K
Monday: 5.85K
Wednesday: 5.93K
Thursday: 7.11K

3. Summer break is just plain awesome.


Now the, er, not so good news (in my house, we've learned to not say the word "bad" because Cookie gets all upset and thinks you're talking about her. Yup, she's got us wrapped around her cute little paws!).

1. Losing 1.6 lbs is good good, but I'd really rather be losing that much each week rather than every 2 weeks.

2. Yes the summer break is WONDERFUL, but food is more of a struggle. I was into such a routine before... healthy breakfast, healthy lunch, normal dinner. Now sometimes I'll sleep through breakfast and skip it entirely, or have a late breakfast then a weird lunch/dinner meal and a snack later. We've gone out for ice cream once this week and froyo once. And last night I had to turn down Dairy Queen, which the husband insisted that he "needed". Yes, I love going out for ice cream in the summer. It's pretty much my favorite thing in the world to do. But seriously, no one "needs" ice cream three times in one week!!!

BTW, if you're looking for some really good ice cream, I highly recommend Little Man Ice Cream in the Highlands neighborhood. I got the Bailey's Chocolate and it was to die for. They have a Scoop for Scoop program where they donate one scoop of rice to Ethiopia and Myanmar for every ice cream scoop sold. Here's a pic of Little Man:


And here's my froyo.

Bolder Boulder: Recap

The Bolder Boulder was awesome! I'm so glad I signed up.

The husband and I were really worried about the logistics of it all.... traffic, where to park, etc. It turned out to be fine. We never found the runner drop-off point, but we got fairly close to the start and I hopped out and walked to the starting place. It was easy to figure out where to go and you didn't have to check in or anything. I was happy to find my friend Hilarie before the race started, and we came up with a plan to meet up afterward and go out for lunch. Jesse ended up parking at Wild Oats, and he rode his bike all over town while I did the race. He found me at two spots along the way to cheer for me.

I was in the 70-90 minute joggers group, which turned out to be perfect. When it comes to pace, I was about in the middle of my group (slower than half, faster than half) which exactly the kind of group I wanted to be in.

A few minutes in, I was looking around to see if anyone was going about the same pace as me, and spotted someone who looked familiar. It was Michele, a parent of a former student of mine! I took off the headphones and jogged over to say hi, and we ended up running the entire race together. It was WONDERFUL having someone else to run with! We chatted a lot, especially during the flat and downhill parts. It was such a fun race. There were people in the neighborhoods spraying us with water, throwing marshmallows, handing out beer and snacks etc. The hardest part was the hill going up to the stadium at the very end. I gave Michele my phone # and I'm going to see her tomorrow, so I'm hoping we can schedule some time to go on a few more runs together. She's been running for 30 years and I think she'll be a perfect running partner.

I had 3 main goals: 1. Don't Die. Check! 2. Run the whole distance. Check! 3. Finish in under 90 minutes. Check! I finished in 82 minutes. Here are my stats:


Honestly, even though my goal was 90 minutes, I'm really disappointed in my pace. I would have liked to have been in the 11 or 12 minute range. Michele pointed out that I talked a lot, and said that means I could have gone faster. I don't know. I CAN go faster, but I can't keep it up for long periods of time because I get so worn out. Then again, while I was tired after the race, I wasn't any more tired than I usually am after a longer run and I wasn't sore or anything. Maybe I do need to push myself a bit more. Then again, now that I know what kind of back and neck problems I have, I'm reluctant to push it very much.

For now, I want to just keep on doing 3 miles twice a week and 6-8 once a week, ditch the walking breaks entirely, and see if I can slowly improve my speed a bit. I also want to start bike riding. And of course, I'll keep doing crossfit with the ladies from work and keep working toward losing weight.

It's going to be a busy summer! 2 more days... can't wait!!!

June's Push-Up Challenge: Enter if you Dare!

I'm a day late posting this, but it is now officially June Push-Up Month! (I might be making up the "official" part). Last June, Brenna challenged us to do 5k of something. My lovely friend Erin helped me through jogging intervals for 5k (I think it was 60 seconds jog, 2 minutes walk). A year later I ran a 10k! After push-up month, who knows, maybe a year from now I'll be able to do 60 push ups! Maybe my arms will be rockin! Maybe my core will become stronger than strawberry jell-o! Heck I'd be happy if I am able to do just ONE proper man push-up by July.

So every day you do that many push-ups (the 1st you do 1, the 2nd you do 2, etc). I skipped yesterday because I forgot, but today I did 2 push ups. If you can't do a man push-up, just go down like a man push up then back up on your knees. Had I not been so ridiculously exhausted I might have attempted to do them properly today, but instead I did the down on your toes up on your knees thing.

Come on people, who is brave enough to join the PUSH-UP CHALLENGE????