Thursday, June 28, 2007

It's been too long since I talked about running

Tomorrow evening I finish my Old Chicago World Beer Tour #2. Only took me 2 years to finish 110 beers with driving 40 miles one way for it. HAHA. It'll be good.

I've been swimming this week for cross-training purposes. I got in the pool on Tuesday, did some laps and spent a total of 30 minutes in the pool. I was expecting to be more sore on Wednesday but nada. Was in the pool again tonight. Only spent 20 minutes this time but that was because Zach in the next lane swam 22 laps in a row and totally showed me up. I can only swim 3 laps in a row. I blame the fact that I have no goggles. So I'm buying goggles this weekend or next week.

Next week cross-training will be biking. My legs will be more sore after that. I like the recumbent bike better. I can read or watch tv better and it's easier on my ass. I go for like 7 or 8 miles on that in 30 minutes. It's a pretty good sweat workout.

I'm hoping to lose 10 pounds. It'll help with the running, if I'm more svelt. I don't want to lose it for the body image but to help me run. So maybe it's not the weight I want to lose but instead the bulk around my hips, thighs and stomach. We'll see if it happens. I highly doubt it. Three years ago I was 15 pounds less than what I am now but I was also younger too. I don't know what I did to lose it but I did. I think it was the working nights and driving an hour to work.

I'm also doing a few sets of weights after running on the treadmill. Nothing too big and fancy. Just working the tricep (a problem area), the hamstring lift (I need to make that stronger for running) and free weights curls for the biceps (my skinny arms need to get stronger).

I saw an orthopedic last week. He told me that I'm incredibly flexible which is why I'm having problems with my wrists. But he said what will help me with that is strengthening up the forearm. So I have to look into getting a squeezy thingy for those muscles. I can work those at home. This guy I know just does it while he's watching tv and his forearms are HUGE. So I'm hoping that will keep my wrists good as I have a cyst back in my bad one and my one good wrist is painful as of late.

I'm also training for the St. Jude Children's Hospital Half Marathon for later on this year. It'll be in December. Someone from work motivated me enough to get excited about the stupid thing. It's in Memphis. Here's a map of the route. I have a regimen to follow for 16 weeks. I started it this past Monday and I only run 3 times a week. That seems way less that what I should run to me but I up my long run mileage by a mile each week. It has tempo runs (which is slightly faster than your estimated HM pace) and speed work (in which you run like a mile fast - mines is at 8:06) and easy/long runs done at a pace slower than your HM pace (mine is 10 minutes). I've never really done those before. I always just ran a straight steady pace which might be why I only run at that pace.

I got this schedule from Runner's World. I subscribed to it 2 months ago and it's been really helpful. I totally look forward to it every month. It has good articles about running, shoes, strides, food, etc.

For the past two Friday's, I've been running at lunch because I usually end up staying until 7pm to get our weekend classified sections out. I can't explain why but it sucks. Luckily, because tomorrow is my WBT finish, I'm leaving at 5pm, I don't care and I'm not running. It's a rest day for me! With a 6 mile run on Saturday. :-)

I've been planning my camping weekends for this summer. I'm totally looking forward to Alton/Grafton and then sometime to Wisconsin. I also plan an overnight trip to Springfield. It's been way too long since I've been to our state capital. I like Abraham Lincoln a lot. My dad is also going to come up here for a week of camping in August. I'm excited about that. He's actually staying in Sycamore too so he'll be close to me! Unfortunately, since all my vacation time is all ready locked in, I can't take any of those days off but I'll find stuff to do with him during the week. May lose out on a few training days. We'll see.

I swear, if I see one more story or hear of another newscast or commercial about the iPhone (which is all I'm seeing on NBC tonight), I'm going to scream. I can't even go to some of my favourite geek sites because all they have are links and articles about this iPhone. How not to be jealous of the iPhone, how to make your phone look like the iPhone, how the iPhone stands up to other phones, finding Wi-Fi spots with your iPhone, how the lines are building for the iPhone launch, the fact that the iPhones are arriving and being unpacked. I want to stage a sit-in in protest over this hype that they are having over this new device. I'm sick of it. SICK. OF. IT. People were complaining about the overexposure of Paris Hilton. Well, how about this iPhone?!?! I'll end on that note.

Saturday, June 16, 2007

Brett's Run 5k

Friday, June 1, 2007

awesome

My co-workers are just awesome.

I come in to work on Thursday morning and first thing right away, Frank the IT guy, gives me a high five for my finish in my race on Monday. Then several other people come up in the morning and congratulate me. I'm a little confused. I ask finally, how on Earth did you know how I did. I only told Frank. (He called me on Tuesday morning about a problem they were having and asked me how I did. I was half-asleep when he called since it was 7am and just told him.) That's when I realised that he went around and told everyone. Not that it's bad or anything, he just wanted to tell people and I was fine with that.

Later on in the afternoon, I went over by Proofing and saw on their whiteboard, they wrote "Congrats, Lindsay!!" WTF is what I immediately said. I didn't know what to make of it. I told George of what happened to me Thursday night and how my mother said that she wasn't going to come to my race. (I cried on Thursday night so my eyes were all puffy and red on Friday morning so I was wearing my glasses. My co-workers know that when I wear my coloured glasses, something's wrong.) Anyway, so I guess George wanted to be supportive and he wrote that down. He said that people were walking by on Tuesday wanting to know what I did. At first he was telling everyone that I was pregnant but by Wednesday he changed the story when he found out that I wasn't going to be there to disprove that claim until the next day.

I got to show him the pictures of my trip and everything. Then Proofing is going to take me out to lunch on Monday or Tuesday.

Anyway, so I've got some awesome co-workers that actually support me. I like the company I work for and the people I work with. We seem to be friends at times. I like that. And some of us like to hang out with each other OUTSIDE of work times. That I like too. I'm very content.