Friday, July 22, 2011

Lesson Learned

Training cannot be crammed. If you blow off a training day or two and think you can make it up you are usually wrong. I have a training plan I created for myself but I haven't really been paying attention to it lately and the result is not pretty.

Summer is hard for everyone because of the heat. Summer is hard for me because I love hanging out with my kids. My boys are 16 and 18, I know they will not be around forever. The good news is for the most part they like spending time with me too so it's really hard to leave for a training session sometimes. Training also means having coverage for the girls so one of the boys has to be home or sometimes I can take the girls to the YMCA while I run or swim. Making everything a bit trickier is the kids activities. Cory is working but not yet driving, Brendan is taking a driving class at the local community college and band practice has begun, the girls are involved in cooking class, swim lessons, swim team, volleyball camp etc. I am a taxi Mom. So now that I have laid the ground work of excuses......

Yesterday I did not train, my Mama plate was very full so I got on the trainer around 8:30pm. I knew it wasn't going to be a long ride so I pushed it pretty hard. When I was done I ate some blueberries and a dollup of greek yogurt. If I was going to run today I had to do it before the cascade of activities started. Due to my stellar procrastination skills the run started at 10:15. The lesson I learned today is that a hard trainer ride the evening before + no breakfast + running at 10:15 in July = Disaster at the agonizing pace of 13 and small change.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Good Runs & Bad Runs

It happens to all of us, the horrible run. Maybe more likely to happen because here in Houston we are running in sauna conditions (with more humidity) a good part of the year. It is sadly surprising how much temperature and humidity has an effect on a run.

I am NOT a morning person, everyone knows this. However, I was coerced into a 5K on July 4 at 6AM! Of course by coerced I mean somebody said 'hey I'm doing a 5K, you should come' and even after learning it was at 6 AM rather than PM I agreed.

The great news is Ken and Brendan volunteered to race with me. This was a small neighbrhood gathering at our local YMCA of 15-17 runners. The good news is we all placed in our respective age groups :) The BAD news is I was DFL=Dead Flat (or substitute your own F word) Last! Most of these folks run together on a regular basis but I also run on a regular basis. There is no point to making excuses when it comes to a race it was either good or bad but I will confess the tummy issues definitley slowed me down. Making sure this run didn't include runs took some inner strength for sure.

Fast forward to Wednesday, traditionally my 'long' run day. I started running all over again going shorter distances/less time but running more often. I had a 45 minute run on my plan. Wednesday we were blessed with some much needed rain and that was all I needed to talk myself out of a run. Of course it stopped raining hours before I planned on running. I told myself I would hop on the trainer instead but I'm not sure how dedicated I was to that idea either.

At 8:00 when I was trying to look busy on the computer it occurred to me I didn't have a reason not to run. I am not injured and I've been doing a good job of sticking to my plan so why stop now? I got my running clothes and new Zoot shoes on and headed out. Turns out I had one of my best runs in a very long time. Unfortunately, the shoes were pretty tough on my feet and I am sporting some blisters today but I'd rather have a couple of blisters then regret skipping a workout.