Wearing Hats Keeps Me Cool

For these three runs, I wore my UT hat to keep myself cool. We've been having some really warm weather in the PNW lately, and I needed to protect the sunburn I got going to JW's gig last Saturday, lest it get any worse. It's not a bad sunburn by any means, but it's right on the back of my neck, so an easy target especially while running.

During this run, a biker came up behind me on the trail and slowed to my pace, and I took out my headphones because I saw he was clearly making some comment to me - and he was asking, "Did you go to UT?" and I smiled and said I did, and he asked when I graduated - and I laughed because this guy was clearly my parent's age, if not older, and I told him I graduated in 2011 - and he told me he graduated in 1978, and got his master's in 1989, and his sister and niece and someone else also went to UT - and here I am jogging along trying to keep my pace, listening to this guy go on and on about his family... and though I do appreciate the random act of kindness, I was kind of like, how is this conversation going to end?? But he was perfectly nice and said it was nice to meet me, and I laboriously said "Nice to meet a fellow Longhorn!" but he was gone by the time I got to "Longhorn", so anyways. That was the longest run-on sentence ever, but okay.

This run was clearly on a very beautiful day - I tried to enjoy every minute of it - but I got started later than I wanted to (it was Saturday! so hard to get out of bed...) and basically broke up the run into 3 segments of 4 miles. At the end of each segment, I stopped for about 5 minutes to wrap my mind around the next segment.

I was on my last segment, and someone biked passed me with his head turned towards me, clearly saying something - and I only caught the last of his comment, but it was something along the lines of  "Nice hat!", so that was kind of cool. I always get a little jolt of adrenaline when a stranger on the trail encourages me or gives me a thumbs up or compliments what I'm wearing... so that's always nice.

92 degrees... my own fault. I wanted to get up early, but apparently if there's nobody else getting up with me, I have no motivation. So, I chose sleep and ran this after I got my new car title transferred to my name, in Issaquah. I ran this while listening to Harry Potter and without any of the voice feedback on each mile, only at the halfway point so I knew when to turn around.

The trail was pretty empty (re: 92 degrees), but there was this one guy who was running towards me in the other direction, who seemed to be struggling - and I wasn't doing that great either - but in the moments before we passed each other, he gave me a thumbs up, and I gave one back. I love those moments!! It really does make it so much better for me to have people, or even just one person, cheering me on.

So, I guess wearing a hat makes me cool. :P

12 Miles and OU STILL SUCKS!

Saturday was a big day and started pretty early for me with an easy 12 miler. Did I ever before think that I would call running 12 miles "easy"? No. But perspective, people... 12 miles is certainly easier than 20. I realized the other day that I ran over a half marathon distance for the whole month of September and the first weekend of October. Whoa!!

I accidentally forgot to change the setting on my Nike Plus app to Outdoors, so it really just tracked my pace rather than by GPS. Fortunately it was still syncing up with the mile markers on the trail so I'm sure I still ran 12 miles.

No map :(

Sweet - Negative Splits to the halfway point at least!

Sunshine through a sea of clouds

49 degrees is coollddd! For some reason it felt so much different than 55 degrees, which is the median temperature of my last few runs. I wore my fleece while driving, but ended up wearing it during my run because I was so cold. I wonder what the weather will be like in San Francisco on Sunday...

Right now weather.com says there's 0% chance of rain and it'll be mostly sunny. Well that's exciting! All this next week, Seattle is supposed to be sunny, too. I'm so excited!! I feel like the last week has been a mess of clouds.

After I ran 12 miles, I watched the Texas/OU game at 9am and let me just say HOOK 'EM!!!

Oldie but a goodie- me with really short hair!

Circa 2011 - Bevo!!!

Me and my mom with Hook 'Em!

I got pride. We rock. :)

Then I went to the U-District to host one of The Dinner Detective Shows. If anyone is interested in tickets, click on the image below!

I stayed at the site until about 10:30, and then met JW at our friend's apartment in Seattle for some Dirty Scrabble. Words like "Boytoyin'", "Sexloaf", and "Vlag" were used. Use your imagination ;)

We left around 1:15 and I hit the sack as soon as I got home. We didn't wake up until 1:30pm! I sure did need it.

What's Next:

I need to be sure I get enough sleep, eat fairly well, and mentally prepare for Sunday's marathon. Technically I need to decide before Monday if I'm going to be running in the Seattle marathon, but I'm leaning towards no since I feel a little burnt out. I think I'll take the time between after I finish the marathon and Christmas to do some yoga, strength train, and SLEEP so I feel refreshed and recovered. In my heart, I want to run more than one marathon, I know I do. But if I push it to run two races within 6 weeks of each other, I'm afraid I'll get sick of it. 

I'll let you guys know what I'm up to. I'm always in training for something (hence the name of this blog!) and I won't stop posting after the marathon! :)

Preparing for a race? Which one?

12 Slow Miles

Well, it happened. I skipped a workout.

I was supposed to complete the NTC Beginner Get Lean Cardio Surge, a 45 minute workout, on Thursday. But it just didn't happen. I was dealing with some pain in my right Fibularis longus muscle, as well as some pain in my left Biceps femoris muscle.

Source: Wikipedia

I ultimately decided to just take the day off. I was already going to be dancing heavily that night at rehearsal, so at least I got somewhat of a workout in?

On Friday, I completed the Kara Goucher Pro-Running Stretches. Now, that's my kind of workout! It was 3 sets of 5 different poses, all held for 1 minute.

This is another one I did in my pajamas. It felt really good - lots of hip and hamstring stretching. I wish NTC had a stretch video for after long runs. I'm thinking I should probably just look one up on Youtube, unless anyone else has any suggestions??

On Saturday, I did my long run much later than anticipated. I had wanted to put an audiobook on my iPhone to listen to while I ran the slow 12 miles, but my iTunes was acting up and basically wouldn't play the audiobook on my iPhone once I had put it on there. It took about two hours (!) to figure out, but I ended up just listening to Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets rather than starting with Sorcerer's Stone. You win some, you lose some.

I tried out some different fuel as well.

PowerBar Performance Energy Blends - Banana Bluberry flavor (80 calories)

I ate these along the trail to keep me going. (6 chews = 100 calories)

I really enjoyed the Energy Blend - it was tasty, and I had set it in the refrigerator so it was nice and cool when I drank it. If it had been room temperature then I think it would have been pretty nasty. The Gatorade Chews were really tasty as well - I almost like them more than my Clif Shot Bloks, but maybe because they were just easier to chew. Sometimes with the Clif Shot Bloks, it takes me several determined chomps to get them to be swallow-able. The Gatorade Chews were about half as thick as the Clif Shot Bloks, so that was probably why.

Zero Nike Fuel Points... WRONG.

I think, if you have easy runs coming up in your schedule, listening to an audiobook is definitely the way to go. My mind wasn't really on running, but more engrossed in the story. It's true that I started out too fast, and that my pace unwittingly quickened in the second mile, but ultimately it helped to keep my mind off of how much time it was taking to run.

I was pretty pleased with my average pace, 10'12''.

Recovery Drink

I drank about half of this bottle simply because it tasted so chalky that if I had tried to drink the whole thing I probably would have thrown up. Ugh. It was a chore to drink half of it. I really didn't enjoy it.

Running 12 miles was difficult. I hadn't run for that far since mid-May. I could feel it in my calves most of all - and I was acutely aware of my left hip, which has given me problems in the past. I feel like that has to do with me skipping one of my strengthening workouts, so I'm going to make it a priority to not skip any more!

This upcoming week is pretty lenient, until Saturday - 14 miles! I've never run that far in my entire life. Eep!

How was your weekend? Any suggestions for post-running stretches?