Catching Up February

I haven't updated since mid February and I feel a little bad about it! I'm not really sure how to catch up except by doing just a quick little recap of the last two weeks of February.

February 17: 5 Miles, 10'01" average pace
February 21: 6 Miles, 9'28" average pace

Total Miles for February 15-21: 11 miles, a 50% decrease from the previous week. Hmm.

Opening night reception!

 

We opened Death By Chocolate to rave reviews! The process has been great and the cast and crew have been really wonderful. I'm so glad I auditioned!

Saturday Brunch with JW, Rachel, and Chad

February 22: 4 Miles, 9'42" average pace

February 23: 3 Miles, 9'21" average pace

February 28: 8 Miles, 9'50" average pace

Total Miles for February 22-28: 15 miles, a 36% increase from the previous week. Getting a bit better, but still pretty inconsistent. 

Rehearsals begin!

I had two big auditions the last week of February, on Thursday and Friday, along with my three performances for Death by Chocolate and three Arcadia rehearsals. Whew!

I've been walking more, trying to get to 10,000 steps every day - it's so hard! The weather has been gorgeous lately, so I'm happy to get some amazing pictures out if it.

March began more or less the same. I had a performance on Sunday followed by an Arcadia rehearsal (I slept so good that night! So exhausted..). I have one rehearsal for Arcadia this week, and one callback to go to, but after that all I have are the three remaining performances for Death By Chocolate. I can't believe we're almost done! I'm going to schedule my massage soon (Christmas present from the in-laws)- I'm really looking forward to it!

Here's to hoping the weather stays beautiful!

The Beauty of Eating Carbs

I must say, the weather here has been PERFECT lately. There were only a few days that were cloudy/foggy (cloggy?), and the rest were sunny and  bright. The week ended (or began, depending on how you look at it) on Sunday at a sunny 60 degrees - is it early spring or something?!

I think it's obvious that I put carbs back in my diet this week. My paces certainly reflect the extra energy - last week I was absolutely dragging in comparison. It's really interesting to know and see with evidence that my energy level really depends on what I eat during the day. That may sound intuitive, but sometimes I forget, honestly. 

January 19th: 5 Miles, 9'24" average pace - SUNNY, 47°. I felt so energized during this run! This was right after I had an amazing audition - I have literally never before had such a perfect audition where I walked away and wasn't immediately analyzing everything - and I felt so motivated to MOVE afterwards that this run felt like the bomb.com. Do people still say that? Anywho, I felt awesome, my pace was nice and quick especially for the mileage, and it was in the sun as a bonus. I even wore short sleeves for the first time in a while! Amazing, right?!

January 20th: 3 Miles, 9'40" average pace - sunny, 45°. The humidity must have been lower than the day before because damn, I was COLD. I also wasn't really feeling this run and felt like I must be clocking in 11 minute miles, so I was pleasantly surprise when I saw my pace. I wore a lot of clothing - my Nike wide-legged pants (I usually wear these as comfy pants around the house), a long sleeved shirt, gloves, vest, and ear warmers - probably too much clothing for only 3 miles. Oh well.

January 21st: 3 Miles, 8'53" average pace - cloudy, with some sun peeking through, 42°. I wore three layers on top, which was probably too much, and capris - but it was GLORIOUS. It was such a fantastic run, I'm not really sure what made me feel like I had so much energy! I had some oatmeal, flaxseed meal, and a banana beforehand. Carbs, man. I really didn't want to run, either - I had been really sore the past few days - and I toyed around with moving it to Thursday but then knew I'd be screwed if I forced myself to run three days in a row at the end of the week. I'm so glad I ran that day instead of waiting!

January 24th: 8 Miles, 9'39" average pace - cloudy, 55°. This run felt AMAZING, even though it was at 7:30am. I had a full day ahead of me, but I also had food as a motivator - I had a huge meal Friday night (at Dinner Detective), and I had a huge meal planned for afterwards, at Portage Bay Cafe. It fueled me to keep up the pace throughout these 8 (8! My longest run in quite a while!) miles, and I felt great.

Total Miles for January 18-24: 19 miles, a 5% decrease from the previous week. Whoops!

This is the first week since I actively started making sure I increased mileage safely that I've skipped a planned run. I was "supposed" to run 3 miles on Friday, but I went to yoga instead, and never ended up running that day. I figured it was okay because clearly two days of rest meant one of my best long runs in a while...!

January is almost over, and I gotta say, I'm not sad about it. I'm ready for February - my show opens, rehearsals for the second show begin, my friends' shows open.. lots of stuff is going on and I couldn't be more excited about it!

What I've Been Up To Lately

Man, I've really fallen off the wagon with this blog. I mean, considering this is a running blog and not much running has been going on..

So, what have I been up to? Well, I'm still trying to keep up my mileage by increasing it by percentage.

October 20:

October 23:

October 25 (in Austin, in 80 degree weather! Woof!):

We were there for the weekend to witness one of my best friends from high school get married!

Back in Bellevue, I used Mapmyrun because Nike+ kept crashing (and I kind of love how it shows splits!):

On Halloween, I ran my last run of October:

I went to a Halloween party, as Wednesday Addams (JW was Ace Ventura!):

I even made little witches' brooms (pretzels with string cheese) and "pumpkins" (oranges with celery sticks)!

Basically I've been cruising along and have really been surprised by how quickly time is passing. I mean, November? Hi. Long time no see. But still, wow. Can't believe you're here now. It's definitely fall now.

November also brings NaNoWriMo, the 50,000 word novel-in-a-month challenge of which I've made multiple attempts and always failed. It started yesterday and I realized within the first hour of working on my novel idea that it just wasn't going to work. Haha! I'll spend the next few days thinking of something else, but if nothing sticks, then I'll just try again next year. I'll crank out a novel one of these days. :)

Feeling Burnt Out

This week was the first week I actually said, "I am so ready to stop running". :( I think I over-trained. I just feel tired all the time. I can tell I'm getting lazy with the run itself, because I'm not controlling my pace when I first start out. I end up going way too fast because I'm way too excited about running feeling like it's not a chore to not just try and get it over with as quickly as possible.

Looking at my runs themselves, if I didn't have any idea how I felt before and after, I would think these are pretty good, actually! The pace isn't half bad and I had great weather - but I just absolutely dread the run beforehand, for almost the whole day.

Beautiful day!

Reshuffling runs is now an everyday occurrence, and I'm trying to figure out how little I can run to still be in shape for this half marathon on the 28th.

This last run was done pretty last minute - JW basically convinced me to go because I was so riled up from other things that are happening in my life right now. I'm trying to figure out how I want to spend my time for the rest of the year, and it's stressful deciding what to give up!

I'll leave you with a nice picture of JW and I taken over the weekend - aww!

Longer Runs

Hallelujah! Seattle has finally gotten the memo that it's still July, and therefore still allowed to be summer. It's been warm, sunny, and almost hot this week - and I've loved every minute! It really reminds me of how short this beautiful time is, and how quickly it'll return to gross, cold, dark Seattle.

Jimi Hendrix rocking out in the sun this weekend

Strictly Seattle, the dance camp I was attending, wrapped up last weekend and it went really well. I loved dancing every night, but I won't miss rolling on my shoulder every night, multiple times a night, or abusing my face with heavy eye makeup.

our performance piece. yep.

I looked like a zombie. Neat!

The end of Strictly Seattle also meant I had enough energy to go back to yoga! I've gone the last two nights and it's been glorious. I forgot how much I love that hot room, and how limber I feel afterwards.

On Monday, I ran 4 miles with Chelsey down a new path - down a huge hill, around a lake a few times, and then back up the hill. Then I ran 4 miles on my own, the usual way.

the 11 minute mile was getting back up that hill!

The first half was glorious - I felt really fast with minimal effort, at least except for when we got to that hill. Even the second half was great- I listened to my running playlist for the first time in a while, and that seemed to really help keep my pace in the low 9s. There were some spectacular views that morning!

This morning, Wednesday, we ventured out for another run - 3.5 miles with Chelsey, and 3.5 on my own. We went the usual way - around the same loop twice (for me, at least) - but it was so hard. I felt so sluggish and my legs felt like sandbags.

Ugh! My pace definitely reflected how tired and unmotivated I felt. It was even worse when I was alone - bleh. Sometimes you just have to get through those "junk" miles!

We move into our house TOMORROW and I couldn't be more excited! So that means tomorrow is my last early morning run with Chelsey. I'm honestly a little sad about it! It's been so nice to get the run out of the way (and sometimes I even get to go back to sleep when it's finished, so how bad is it really?!) and having Chelsey as a motivator has really helped me get out of bed at 5am.

I figure I'll find a new trail near our house, but I won't be going out at 5am on my own for safety reasons. Maybe I'll aim for 7am?? Who knows. Anywho, I'm ready to finally move into our HOUSE that we OWN - eee!

Zero Week

It's been officially over one week since the marathon, so here's what I did for Zero Week and why.

I vacillated a lot on what to do - my ultimate recovery week. Should I get a massage? Should I take some yoga classes? How soon should I start running again?

Monday: Still in San Francisco - rest day. All I did was walk around Haight/Ashbury and into a few of the costume shops. Probably a little less than a mile and a half of strolling. Flight that night, got back to Bellevue around 10:30pm.

Tuesday: Massage early in the morning!

First task of the day was to get up and walk to this massage clinic and then lay on a table. Score. It actually wasn't that relaxing since it was a sports massage, but he got most of the kinks out. He did comment that my right hip (the one that was hurting during the marathon) was like cement. Well, great. He also had to step outside the room to splash some water on his face when we had about 10 minutes left. That was weird. I think I definitely prefer the floofy (his words) massages as opposed to the nitty gritty sports massage - maybe I'll get a deep tissue massage at a nice spa next? I didn't leave feeling totally relaxed, I guess.

I went home and relaxed some, then went off to a meeting for Snowflake Lane for about 45 minutes at the mall. It required some dancing, which was the first real physical activity I had done since Sunday, but it wasn't too bad. I just felt a little stiff, and still fatigued.

That night, we went to a Jazz Club in Seattle to watch JW play trombone in a jazz band, Mach One.

JW in the second row, playing trombone

I was pretty tired after that, and I went to bed feeling refreshed.

Wednesday: All I did was run 2 miles on the treadmill. I was thinking of going to a yoga class, but by the time JW had gotten home, it was too late to eat dinner and then go to yoga... it just wouldn't have been a good idea.

Running felt great, albeit a little slow. I kept checking in with my body on how I was feeling, but everything was feeling fine. The massage definitely helped and gave me confidence that I wouldn't get injured.

Thursday: I activated my Yoga Groupon in the morning, starting off nice and easy with a class called Restore. I'm going to go to as many classes as I can in a 30 day period at Get Zen Yoga, a hot yoga studio here in Bellevue. It's about a 10 minute drive - pretty reasonable.

The Restore class was incredibly easy- I didn't sweat at all. They keep the room cooler than usual for Restore - I didn't really mind it. I've taken Bikram Yoga before and that room was hot, so this was pretty comfortable. We literally just laid in stretching positions for 5 minutes at a time.

The instructor even rubbed what she called China Gel on us - our choice of shoulders or lower backs. I chose shoulders because mine are always a little tight. The sensation was a lot like BenGay. The best part about class was when we were sitting on the ground in a forward fold, and the instructor came around and massaged our necks. That felt sooooo good.

Thursday night, I ran 4 miles outside around 5:30. I let the stoplights guide me and was amazed that I never had to stop! I finished just as the sun was setting. I felt awesome. I was probably running a little faster than I should have been, but it felt amazing and I didn't want to stop. I'm starting to see how people can just run and run and run and go to race after race after race....

Friday: I set my alarm for 5am for a 6am Power Yoga class, but 5am came and my brain said "NO WAY" so I reset it to go to the 9:30am class. Fine by me. I got in some extra ZZZ's and felt great when I woke up.

I wasn't sure what to expect with Power Yoga- I didn't know if it was another name for Bikram, or if it was each instructor's choice as to what they wanted to do in the hot room. I found out it was nothing like Bikram. If you didn't know, Bikram is a set of 26 poses in a room at about 105 degrees and 40% humidity. I took Bikram somewhat regularly in March, but hadn't touched it since then.

Either I've gotten a lot stronger from running, or Bikram is just a lot more challenging than Power Yoga, or maybe a bit of both - but I didn't have that much trouble with Power Yoga. A lot of people were sitting down, and I didn't feel the need to. It was only when, at the end of class, we got into some Bikram poses (Eagle pose, Standing Bow Pose or Dancer Pose) that I felt the intense heart beating and panic of  It's so hot!!, but I didn't give in.

Later that evening, JW and I went to our friend's new house and hung out for a while. We may or may not have went to Safeway for the purpose of getting pastries... and they may or may not have been delicious.

Saturday: Big day. Yoga in the morning, and three and a half hours later running 3 miles, then participating as a seated actor in my Dinner Detective Murder Mystery job.

3 Miles with messed up tracking... the blue is what I actually did, with black direction markers (LOL at my paint skillz)

After Dinner Detective, I realized I had forgotten my wallet, so I rushed over back to my apartment and then went back over to Seattle, found parking, and went to the Microsoft Halloween party that JW was at. We danced and had a great time. It was such a long day - starting at 9 and ending past midnight, constantly on the go.

At the Halloween Party (notice no costumes..)

There was a prop table...

Sunday: Another big day. I wasn't sure how I was going to do everything - I needed to see my friend's play on Bainbridge Island, but I also needed to run 8 miles, and ALSO go to Yoga. Ack. My schedule:

10:30-11:30 - Yoga
1- Leave for ferry
2:05-2:40 - Ferry ride to Bainbridge Island

Bainbridge Island, doing it right.

3-5:30 - See Shrek the Musical with my friend Mary

Rejoicing because we got standing-room only seats.. on the stairs...

6:30-7:05 - Ferry ride back to Seattle

Sunset

8-9 - Private Acting Coaching
10:30-11:40 Run 8 Miles

Watching Saturday Night Live (I know, I'm switching it up.. who am I??)

Watching The Carrie Diaries. Sue me.

I was exhausted by the end of it. Phew.

Just reading over this week makes me tired! Glad that I'm getting back into having a bit more of a schedule now...

How are you??? How was your week??