A recovery run it was not

I did a 5 mile recovery run on Saturday. Only it ended up not being a recovery run at all but instead a race. I even beat my 8k PR easily. Whoops. I'm not quite sure what it was. Weather was OK; it was snowing though and the snow kept getting on my eyes & eyelashes driving me absolutely bonkers. I ran around Luke's parents neighbourhood; same as the 10 miler last weekend. I had to run past the house to finish up a tenth of a mile. Luke saw me and when I came back, he was outside waiting for me. At first he said that he couldn't believe that it was me because it was too soon. Then I showed him my watch as I was still catching my breath. 42:57 for 5 miles. He couldn't believe it. Hell, I couldn't believe it.

I saw my first mile was 8:32 and was like OK 2nd mile I'll be slow. Nope, 2nd mile 8:36. OK, well, I'll keep this up for 3 miles and be slow in the last 2 and I'll still be under 45 minutes. Nope, 4th mile was still fast and 5th mile was even faster. No idea what happened.

Luke had his 15k race that afternoon. He's injured because of it. He still managed to squeak out 11th overall and 2nd in his age group. But he's limping. Badly. Wasn't bending his knee. We iced it all day on Saturday night. And he took some painkillers. He even cancelled on skiing with me and 2 of my friends on Sunday. That's how bad it was.

I did end up going skiing with my friends Wes & Joe at Cascade Mountain north of Madison, WI. It was a fun time. Such great weather, over freezing and I didn't get cold until the sun nearly went down. I went down several blues, several times. I didn't want to risk too much for fear of breaking anything so no blacks for me. I did pull a groin or lower stomach muscle pulling myself up a hill to a line for a ski lift. But it only hurts when I flex my lower muscles. Doesn't bother me when I run.

I ran 3 miles today. Man was that tough. My calves are a bit sore because of the skiing. And then I added an incline to the treadmill of 1% so that didn't help matters but you know how it goes. It's a good burn. I keep stretching out my calves everytime I get up from sitting for a while.

Tomorrow Luke is coming out and we're going to hit up my YMCA for swimming. We actually didn't do it. But might do it tomorrow if I drive out there. Then we're going to sit down and discuss the strategy for our trip out west to San Francisco and Lake Tahoe for more skiing!! Hopefully he'll be able to do something this weekend. We were supposed to run 12 miles together on Monday around the piers but alas, he can't run. Not sure what the deal will be. Either I'll be out running my 12 miles alone in SF -OR- waiting until I get back to midwest and trying to squeeze it in somehow before 14 miles the following weekend.

And finally, I always hoped to find friends through my running. Meet them in running groups or races or something. We could talk about running, go running, or even maybe just have a glass of wine and hang out to not talking about running. Haven't really done that unfortunately. I have a few "friends" online through these blogs but no one I really hung out with. Jesse & I have hung out the most; from Chicago Marathon twice to St. Louis Marathon and then Milwaukee and again, we'll be together for Rockford Marathon. I was really just hoping to meet other people (more specifically girls but could have taken anyone) my age. My running group here locally, not too many people my age so thus they get up at an ungodly hour of 5am for runs since they have the family thing going on. And then the Rockford Road Runner's group is too far away for any of their runs. I did try to meet up with a few people on Saturday night from a unofficial running group that Luke is in and I know one of the guys in there but the bar was too crowded and I got too intimidated since I only barely knew that guy. Guess what I'm just trying to say here is that I'm jealous over what some people seem to have with their running friends while I don't really have it. Oh well. I have Luke now, that'll do.

Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 869 ft Location: Cherry Valley, IL Elev. Gain: +3 ft Date: 02/20/10 Up/Downhill: [+232/-229] Time: 09:35 AM Difficulty: 2.5 / 5.0 Performance Distance: 5.00 miles Time: 0:42:57 Speed: 7.0 mph Pace: 8' 35 /mi Calories: 529 Map Elevation (ft) Pace (min/mile) Splits Mile Pace (min/mile) Speed (mph) Elevation Gain actual +/- avg actual +/- avg 1 8' 33 -0' 02 7.0 +0.0 +26 ft 2 8' 37 +0' 02 7.0 -0.0 -13 ft 3 8' 41 +0' 06 6.9 -0.1 +3 ft 4 8' 45 +0' 10 6.8 -0.1 -6 ft end 8' 22 -0' 13 7.2 +0.2 -6 ft Versus average of 8' 35 min/mile

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Categories: 5 miles, Luke, running with friends, skiing

Catching up is hard to do!

OK, let's see my runs for this week have been: 2.

Run #1: Monday I ran with my BFF Rob. He was out here visiting from Lincoln, NE for a few days. So we went on a little jaunt before a meeting I had to get to. I knew he needed to blow off some steam. It always helped me and he says that it helps him too.

So I came home from work as quick as I could, we got dressed and decided that we would go a mile and see how he feels. Luckily, thanks to Phil, I knew where a mile was at and I knew a 3.1 mile course too. We did a little bit of talking on the way down, next exactly a good idea but he wanted it slow. Unfortunatley, he did most of the talking. Once we got to about 3/4 of a mile, I picked up all the talking. We completed the mile in 10 minutes. Then we went to the bridge that would get us to 1.55 miles, halfway to the 5k goal. Again, I was doing all the talking. It was a conversational pace for me.

At the bridge we walked back to the 1 mile mark and picked up running again. Once we were on the last 3/4 mile again, I picked up the pace a little for me. I teased him and grabbed my ass a few times, encourgaing him to goose me! I thought I heard him running faster so I picked it up again, not wanting to let him pass me. This was fun! Eventually he stopped and walked before the stoplight so I stopped as well. He didn't want to just stop at the stoplight and wait. He knew he needed to walk a bit. So that was that run. It was pretty fun running with someone, even if they are slower than I. I got a lot of talking in! But it was also good that I ran that slow. Technically it's the pace that my training runs should be done in anyway!

Run #2: Was at work during lunch. Actually it was at 11am. And it was um, weird.

I got dressed in the locker room which was AWESOME. At the Daily Chronicle I had to get dressed in a storage closet in the women's bathroom. Not cool. I left the building and decided NOT to run on the roads. I didn't want to die on my lunch break after all. So decided I would try around campus. I found a sidewalk. I ran on that until it ended. Then into the grass I went. Did that for a little bit and remembered what a co-worker said about a path around the lagoon we have. I headed back to there and did that about 6 times around and got really BORED with that fast. So again, I took off in the grass, heading to the outskirts of the campus and found the edge because I saw a fence! Luckily there was a strip of grass between the trees and the fence so I did that to the very back of campus and came across a guy mowing the lawn! Didn't think I would find anyone back there! Ran around the corner, past horticulture and their compost and greenhouses and then back to the lagoon where I did 2 more laps to complete 30 minutes. It was the longest 30 minutes ever.

I didn't like the running in the grass part because I had to keep looking down to make sure I had good footing and they had just mowed the grass so I kept getting grass clippings in my shoes & under my socks! It sucked! After I was done, I tried getting back into the building and then I realised that last sumemr they locked all but 10 doors around campus for security reasons. I never made note of where any open ones were! I went to about 5 different doors until I found one that was open near the locker rooms. I didn't want to go through the buildings looking all red, sweaty and with my running outfit on in case I ran into a co-worker or worse yet an Administrator! I got back in and saw that the locker room had showers. Which means, I could do a quick rinse after a run! (If I decide to do that again!) Just have to remember to bring a towel. I was quite sweaty. I cooled my face & neck down in the sink as best as I could. I was walking around in my underwear so I was hoping that no one was suddenly going to come in but since it's the summer I should have been good. Took me about an hour to cool down and stop sweating I think.

Tomorrow morning I'm hoping for Run #3 of the week. 60 minutes of running! I have a 10k on May 30th to prepare for! Then Sunday is a 30 mile bike ride on Lake Shore Drive! I have plans a 4.4 mile ride. It'll be nothing but at least it's something. Plus, I get to try out my new biking shorts (which I'm already wearing and not that fond of) and my new clipless shoes!

Categories: biking, running at work, running with friends

Tomorrow makes 8! Or would that be 7.5?

Went running this morning. Around 9:35 we started out; I talked a LOT at the beginning, I think that's why I had to walk twice. But the guy I ran with was good motiviation. He kept telling me to keep going when I wanted to walk while running up a long gradual hill. Really good motivation! Towards the end he started talking more cause I couldn't do it any longer. I had to wipe my face on his shirt once though cause the sweat was getting in my eyes and burning; man was it EVER burning!

The guy this morning called me his friend. That was sweet. Wasn't expecting that. But he said that while he's finally on his way up in the friend number (me being one) I'm on my way down with Rob leaving (now one left in town). Eh, I'll get over it. My own fault for grasping onto one person again! haha

Ok, now I'm off to eat some frozen fruit popups. I'm hot.

Categories: running with friends