:-S

I found a new fitness app recently and have been doing its workouts occasionally, not really sticking to a schedule. They're nice b/c they're short. Yesterday I did 2 workouts with lunges, and today my legs are sore and have been getting more sore over the course of the day. I can't wait for tomorrow morning! ;-)

To run or not to run

I went running last Thursday, and afterward, my hip hurt so much I almost cried. Finally on Saturday I took 2 Aleve twice (morning, evening), and it felt better. The ache has wrapped around the side of my hip now, though it hasn't felt as tight or as bad as even before last Thurs. I'm nervous to try running again now. Bicycling is nice; I don't have to use that muscle to bend my leg up b/c my other leg does the work as I pedal. I really ought to go to the pool to see how it does swimming, but right now I have a cold. Ugh. There's a Christmas 5K/10K coming up; do I run? I could probably walk it. It didn't hurt after walking to work this morning (~1.3K).

I found the Skimble app for free on the Amazon store (daily special) and downloaded it. It mostly has paid workouts plans, but there are some free ones too. I've done 1 week-long plan and am in the middle of another. The workouts are about 7-12 min, so nothing major, but yesterday's did help me stop feeling cold in my own house--I just needed to get my blood moving I guess. We had such nice weather up until Sunday afternoon, and then it just got really cold all of a sudden. I was warning my kids about it, and when I said it would be 20deg (F) in the morning my son said "That's not cold! We had that in Ohio, and I stood out in it!" (for crossing guard, thought I think that was pretty close to the allowed lower limit)

After tracking my food and exercise in myfitnesspal for a month, I ended up the same weight as I started. I figure I was giving my exercise too much credit for calories burned. So now I'm just logging food and not exercise, most of the time...well, not so well since Thanksgiving, but I'm getting back into the habit. Still drinking too much Coke at work.

Aha! Tensor Fasciae Latae

...or TFL for short, is what's been hurting in my hip for the last month. It's sharp-achy and tender to the touch just below the right iliac crest. I found a great discussion/conversation on it here: http://www.adoseofhealth.com/2010/05/hurt-tensor-fasciae-latae/

I couldn't find any tennis balls around the house, but we do have a back massager, so I used that on my hip, and it helped. Now though I feel the ache has spread farther around my hip. I haven't run in 2 weeks, but I did do 2 kettlebell workouts last week, and I think they exacerbated the pain in my hip. I've also done 3 longer bike rides recently: Thursday (1.9mi), Friday (3.2mi), and today (5.7mi!).  The KB workouts were short, ~15min or less. I started with 4-5 min of 2-handed swings: 30sec work, 30sec rest. Then I did cycles of clean and jerk; the 2nd workout I finished up with a set of snatches. The next day my wrists were slightly bruised from the 2 workouts in 3 days and no wraps--my kids lost them. I tried using my arm warmers folded in thirds over my wrists, but they kept sliding, so it didn't help as much as I'd hoped--but it did help some.

Sitting also exacerbates the TFL pain, and I did quite a bit of sitting at work yesterday and today. What hurts the most is changing from a sitting position to standing and then putting weight on that leg. And the longer I've sat, the more it hurts. Lately it's been extra noticeable how much time I spend sitting.  On the plus side, my other hip has been hurting less; I've even been able to sleep on that side lately, which is nice. I was getting pretty tired of always sleeping on the same side.

When the weather turned colder, dropping into the 30s (F) at night, my bike tires got low and sluggish, so much so that the back inner tube shifted & the valve was no longer perpendicular to the tire. My husband fixed it and aired up my tires more, so my bike rides much faster now. Today's ride averaged 11mph! Cool beans!

Hey, what did Einstein's mother say when he didn't want to go to the family reunion?
"Why not? It's all relatives!"   Ha ha, told ya I was a nerd.

Still running

I had two good runs last week--1 Monday and 1 Thursday.  Monday I did 1.65 miles at an average 12min/mi pace, and it felt pretty good.  Thursday was my fit test. I did 1.5 mi at an 11 min/mi pace; it felt harder. ;-)  I didn't score as well overall on the fit test b/c I've gotten fatter since my last one, so I lost some points there. I managed to make up half a point by doing 30 push-ups instead of just 26--0.1 pt per push-up for those last few.

Friday I went to the Polar fitness site and set up a new program. I'm going to alternate running and biking (once I add air to my tires anyway; they've gotten low with this cold weather). I was supposed to start yesterday, but I was really tired from staying up too late Sunday night. Maybe I'll go out later tonight. I miss the daylight in the evening! But I'm also glad to have the daylight in the mornings. Sigh, can't lose for winning.

Brrr!

A very chilly run at Aberdeen Proving Grounds tonight! I was wearing dark blue shorts, running shirt, arm warmers, red calf sleeves, purple baja, and of course socks and shoes.I had on my half-fingered gloves, so my fingertips kept getting cold, esp in the wind. It started pretty typically, running on the sidewalk in an unfamiliar place. There was one notable difference: I could run longer with less effort, well, I think it was 8 min after a 5 min warm-up, but it felt easier than the other day, not just in my legs but in my breathing. (Actually, with the compression sleeves, my calves and shins felt tireder, or maybe I just need to get used to them--they're tight!

I started out behind the hotel and saw some deer! A young buck and 5 does/fawns.  I tried to get pictures, but my phone couldn't take a good one at that distance (not so far really, but it's a phone, not really a camera). As the deer crossed the street I saw there were a lot more! Like another dozen! Pretty cool. I headed out along the street planning on just doing an out and back. I ended up making a loop out a ways and then heading back.

This is the best shot I could get of the buck.

As I re-approached the hotel, I still had time left I needed to run, so I ran past and around to the right where I wouldn't have known there was a road if not for the MapMyRun app map. Turns out we're quite close to the water! I ran past Outdoor Rec and through the grass to a park. Paused for a bit to swing and ran some more past all the playground equipment. It was great running through the grass and leaves--better than trail running b/c I didn't have to watch my feet as much. Couldn't really, it was getting dark. ;-) I passed another deer--maybe 50 feet away?--on the way back. She stood so still as we stared at each other. And to think, I almost didn't got out b/c I was really tired and new it was cold.

OK, so My Tracks. I uploaded the map today. I had selected to save a kml file to my SD card, but there was nothing in the folder when I looked. So I resaved as a gpx, plugged my phone into the computer and uploaded the file. It saved just fine including route/timing data. Sweet!

Faster & new app

I finally did my second run of the week tonight. It felt good, & I felt faster. I used a new app this time: Google's My Tracks. It has a map screen, a time & elevation screen, & a stats screen. One thing I didn't like was that the map screen--in addition to the map--only showed time elapsed, unlike Map My Run's which also shows pace. On the My Tacks stats page, it shows speed in mph while I prefer min/mile. It also seriously cut off a few corners; I haven't seen anything like that since I got my new phone. One cool feature is being able to replay the route run; I think I saw a comment that it also records music played during the run & plays as party of the playback.

The run went well & felt good. There was still a lot of walking, but I also did a few (3) sprints. I would have done more, but I felt like if I did I'd re-experience the red chile chicken burrito I'd had for dinner 3.5 hrs before.

Tomorrow I get to find out how easy (or hard) it is to transfer the My Tracks file to Map My Run.

Ugh, so slow

I ran twice this week and both runs were slow. 1st was Wednesday; I had fasted Tuesday and not gotten quite enough sleep that night. I rather expected Wednesday's run to be slower. Plus I ate too late that morning before the run, a half PB&J. 1 lap walking to warm-up; Total distance 2.2 mi, avg pace 15:54min/mi.

Today was long run day. Warm-up 10min walking, then alternating running and walking, lots of walking. Total distance 4 mi, time 1 hour, avg pace, 15:00min/mi. I started feeling mild tension around my forehead somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 of the way out. It was 47deg outside, sunny, breezy here and there. "RealFeel" temp was 56deg. I went out with a cap, t-shirt, compression shorts under soccer shorts, calf compression sleeves, (shoes and socks), and 1/2 finger gloves. About a quarter of the way out (out and back route) I took off the gloves; about 1/4 way back I pushed down the sleeves--they're really warm! When I got home, my 64deg house felt hot, and I opened the back door. My 4yo complained and closed it. ;-)

I hope to get a new Polar HRM soon and start heart rate training. Max HR today was ~190, HR range 155-190 most likely. I reset the Timex watch a couple of weeks ago to the proper date and time, but it has since re-reset to some default date and time. It's unreliable, so I won't try to use it afterall.

Ah, Saturday

I haven't run in over a week. I did do some extra cycling on Tuesday and a home workout including KB swings and snatches. I think I did too many snatches--I think I pulled a muscle in the right side of my back; it's been hurting ever since. Yesterday or the evening before I did some sit-ups and they hurt my back more. :-(

I had to run a class this week, which requred me to be in earlier and stay later than usual. Add that to the evening activities we have, and I either didn't have the time to run or the energy. But today it's all over. I haven't tried running yet, my back's still tweaked, so we'll see how it goes today. Fall festival at the local elementary school, and my 2 youngest want to go. Plus I'm baking cookies. Slept in.

Checked out "What to Wear for Runners" to see what Runner's World would advise this morning. It included a vest to keep the core warm but let the arms stay cool for that "in between" temp. Problem is, my core warms up just fine, it's my arms and hands that get cold. Plus at this altitude, the sun feels more intense, so shorts and a t-shirt would probably still be fine in 55deg temps. It depends on the breeze--they've gotten quite chilly lately!

I still bike to and from work. I learned a shortcut, so it's even less of a workout now, because of course I take it. Next week, since I don't have to be at work as early, I'll go the longer way again. I need to bike farther. I think I'll take lunch on Wednesdays for longer rides. I know a ~5mi route that takes around half an hour. Make it worth the $ to get bike-specific tights this winter. (padded--I wore my padded cycling shorts this week, and they were actually comfortable with this new seat. Yay.)

OT: Failing student

How do you remotivate a student who should be making A's but is failing? In one class he's not even turning in his homework; he says the teacher doesn't ask for it. I asked him if maybe he just didn't hear the teacher ask for the HW, and he said, as he sits 2nd in the row, he'd notice if the kids behind him were turning in their HW. Also this teacher has a reputation for being mean: yelling at the class and calling kids stupid. Last week during the after school program the students in my son's group discussed this with their adult leader. She said she was going to get the vice-principal involved.

Last Monday I saw an assignment in my son's binder that was due today. I only glanced at it and thought it was an extra credit assignment, so I wan't too worried (not that he doesn't need the points) when I suddenly remembered about it last night shortly before bedtime. So my son started working on it, stayed up late. This morning I could barely get him out of bed, & he lay on the couch until it was time for him to leave. I took another look at the assignment; it's not extra credit. :-(

His lack of caring literally has me in tears.

I was looking at one graded assignment that he failed: latitude and longitude. Had me worried that he was really confused about it. I looked at the ones he missed, but he got them right! When I asked him about them, he said they were counted wrong b/c he hadn't put down the country as well as the city.  !!!  The worksheet asks for the city. Apparently the teacher said to include the country. OK, how about partial credit? The way it's graded makes it look like he doesn't understand the material! To me, the point of HW is to learn the material, and tests gauge mastery of the material. How can that occur when you're nitpicking? I understand the need to follow directions, I do. We get onto our son about that quite frequently. But that's a different section of the grade book.

He also learned how to do multiplication some "matrix" way; it's very messy. His current math teacher doesn't want him to use it anymore. Yeah, good luck with that. Until he can see a very good reason for changing (which will have to be something other than "b/c I said so"), he's going to resist changing, and he's quite stubborn.

We visited Sylvan and talked about their study skills and organization program, but it's expensive!!! My husband would be willing to do it, but he doesn't believe our son will take it seriously, and that it would just be a waste of money in the end. Does anyone have any experience with it?

Getting back into running

Well I think I ran twice the last half of September. I had made a challenge to run 6 times. I had a class last week which threw me off my plans. I did get in a"long" bike ride of 5+ miles one day at lunch time. I ride along the bike path & was pleasantly surprised to see a lot of vegetation had grown along it this summer. I was NOT, however, pleased to see HUGE goat head sticker plants encroaching on the path! There were many at least 4 feet in diameter. With a dozen stems radiating out from the center root, a plant that size could take out both bicycle tires, they produce so many stickers.

I've run twice this week, & my shins are achy, so it's probably just as well I didn't run 6 times over the last 2 weeks. I should make 1 day a week a walk to work day instead of riding my bike every day...restrengthen my muscles. This evening I did my Indian School road hike & ran a little. Aside from my shins, my legs felt good running; it was my heart & lungs working hard. I also need to find my hrm strap & start heart rate training. I hit over 200bpm trying to run up that incline. It's actually harder & possibly slower coming down b/c of the steep grade.

Kettlebell found!

Wow--that huge white screen is hurting my eyes...1/2 size, darker background, much better.  Crap, I just realized today was supposed to have been my 3rd run this week. It wasn't even my 2nd. I didn't even workout today. Thursday, I was going to run, but DH had to take the truck to the shop, DD was not feeling well, so I started looking for my kettlebell again but still couldn't find it. Finally DH got home and said "I told you, it's by the x-box stuff."  Well, I'd looked in the cabinet where the x-box stuff was, and it wasn't there. So he walked over to the corner of the living room, moved the Rock Band stuff out of the way and pulled out my KB. "See, with the x-box stuff."  I told him where I'd looked and added, "not by the Rock Band stuff!"  OK, so it's Rock Band for x-box, whatever. ;-)
So to meet my goal, I have to run 5 times next week. I was going to at least walk to work on Friday, b/c my knee had suddenly started hurting Thursday, but I was running so late I rode my bike instead. Fortunately my knee was feeling better.

My lower back was sore Friday from my KB workout:
10 sets 15sec work, 20sec rest; amounted to 9-10 swings/set ea hand, 5 sets per hand.
10 sets of 5 cleans per hand, 15sec work ea, 3-5sec rest.
5 snatches ea.
Leg swings (15 ea, forward-back & side to side), 15 squats, 15 jumps, a la Active Warm-up.
Didn't feel hard doing it, but was shaky afterward.

I still haven't rescheduled my fit test; I'm not feeling the urgency anymore; watch it come back to bite me in the butt. I took a look at my hrm watch the other day; it's still sitting on my bathroom counter where it's been for months and months. I saw a strap a couple of weeks ago or so, but I don't remember if it was Timex or Polar. MapMyRun now supports Timex files, but I'd still like to get a new hrm of a different brand. I still like Polar but am starting to be more open-minded about Garmin too, now that they're starting to get smaller. I have small wrists! I like how the Polar watches calculate calories, whereas the Timex don't. You have to upload your workout data, and then the calories get calculated, so you don't see them until then.

I've also been tracking my food--mostly at work--in MyFitnessPal and have improved my calorie and nutritional intake. There's still a lot of room for improvement nutrition-wise, but I have seriously cut back on soda (2 last week vs 1/day) and junk snacking at work. My weight is on a gentle, downward trend--10lbs is all I'm looking to lose. It's also more motivation to exercise b/c MFP adds those calories back in to your 'allowance.'

Ramblings

OK, so, I was going to fit test last Thursday, but the test was canceled b/c the wind was too windy. After I got to work, I looked at my training log for the last few months and realized that I've hardly done any running since I started riding my bike to work--just a few runs a month since April! So I set up a personal challenge in MapMyRun to run 6 times by the end of this month. 2 down, 4 to go.

A while back (last month or two) I got a new seat for my bike--a gender-specific bike. It's not as squishy as my last seat (which I didn't feel was very squishy to begin with) but b/c of the shape it's more comfortable. I still find myself bending at the waist instead of the hips, but then I fix my posture and can breathe better and still be comfortable.

DH is trying to improve his fitness and has a goal of hiking the La Luz trail. I suggested he should go ahead and get tires for his bike so he could ride and get out more. So he did, they came today. He also bought a Trail Gator to connect Monkey Boy's little bike to his, so they can ride together. They're supposed to go out tomorrow. Lately DH has been feeling extra tired, achey and sick. In some reading last night he discovered that a fungal infection explains all his symptoms -- of course, there's a very wide range of symptoms, but it's one thing his doctor hasn't looked at yet.

Well, gotta go put DD to bed.

WooHoo!

After a 40min ultimate football warmup, I cranked out 20 push-ups no problem! Yay! Now to see how my elbow feels later.

Allergies suck

...and I'm not even talking about food allergies. It's peak "weed" pollen season here according to weather.com. I wish they were more specific about which weeds. The Allegra I had been taking wasn't working as well and didn't keep my eyes from itching. I ran out of it about a week ago, but was out of town and not bothered by allergens. Now I'm back, and last night my eyes started itching like crazy again after the wind kicked up. I used some Visine, took some Claritin (which doesn't usu help much, but I figured any was better than none) and turned the air purifier on medium all night. After a while I stopped sneezing, and my eyes stopped itching. But I have felt so sleepy all day. I'd like to try some Zyrtec to see if that will work. Usually the Allegra suffices, but it's more than met its match this time.

I'm missing my weekly hill hike tonight. I usually drop my son of at scouts and then go, but they needed my husband to help out at scouts tonight, so I'm home with the younger kids. My left elbow started hurting suddenly the other day, on the top between the bones. I did a pull-up yesterday or Saturday, which made it hurt a little more. So now I don't know if I should do push-ups or not; I haven't been since last Wed when I did a 100 push-ups in 6 weeks workout. I've been looking for my kettlebell to do some cross-training (hopefully it won't hurt my elbow more), but I can't find it. Someone cleaned up the living room and moved it. I could restart the Kratos.dk workouts; I may have reached the limit of how far I can go in that program b/c I only have 1 KB, and last I saw you needed 2 for the workout.

Saturday night I went running and had barely left the house when I saw 2 coyotes cross my path ahead a bit. The second one kept looking at me as it trotted past, and I kept thinking "I'm too big for you." It's small, but some, comfort to know that coyotes are much more likely to run away than dogs. I don't like meeting unleashed dogs when I'm out. Deer in the headlights--that's me. I've been threated 3 times over ~12 years by dogs. The second one acted all friendly until I told it "Go home!" That was weird. The other two were growling as they ran up behind me, so I knew from the start they didn't like me.  There was one dog once that trotted up behind me as I was out walking. It kept pace with me for quite a while except when I ran across the road to introduce itself to a couple of dalmations being walked. I got some dirty looks from the dalmation owners. I tried to tell them it wasn't my dog, but the dog made me look like a liar. Eventually I ditched it when it stopped to smell something interesting (I ducked into a building and waited for it to go past). Poor mangy dog.

I could so sleep right now.

The kids left the computer unattended!!

So, let's see. I went to Germany for two weeks. I hiked up to two castles: 1 was mostly an incline, the other was 300 stairs.

Cochem Reichsburg

Heidelberg

 There are 314 steps, but coming out of the parking garage we started at 13.

On two occassions I went to a gym and used the elliptical for 30 minutes each. And one day I went for a long run/walk. Halfway through my right knee started hurting again, on the outside actually just below the knee. I had to walk back to my room to grab my credit card then down to the restaurant. That's when I decided for sure not to do the tri this month. Not only had I the knee pain, but I also had not been training for the bike or swim portions either. The friend I asked to join me said she couldn't this year, but she did get a bike and is willing to train together for next year. (oh and my knee was hurting coming back down from Cochem castle too.)

Wednesday morning my fitness group met to play walleyball. You were supposed to do 3 push-ups everytime your team gave a point to the other team (rally scoring to 21, so lots of points). I think I did nearly 100 push-ups in 2 games. Maybe not, but by the end of the 2nd game I couldn't do sets of 3 anymore and had to just do 1 slow push-up per point.

Thursday I took the 2 younger ones to the pool--earlier than is my wont b/c my daughter wanted to go at the same time as the neighbors. I got rather burned b/c I forgot to put sunscreen on my back. The kids got a little burned on their faces despite the sunscreen. Friday at a summer "bash" I climbed a rock wall for the 1st time in 5 years. I almost made it to the top, very close. Afterward my hands were like jello. I picked up one of those stress balls at a vendor booth to work on hand strength.

Cross training day

Since I couldn't find my shoes yesterday I pulled up RunnersWorld Fully Fit and worked through most of the active warm-up. I was in a small room, so I couldn't really do the 20yd exercises.

After warming up YourselfFitness style I did
20 forward leg swings ea
20 side leg swings ea
10 donkey kicks ea
15 side scissors ea
15 forward scissors ea
10 Cossack extensions ea
10 V ups
5 sets of push-ups via 100 push-ups in 6 weeks
wrestler's bridge several times during the push-up rest periods
regular bridge several times, plus bridge with knees together (that's hard!)
10 rocket jumps

Then, using my mom's very light weights in lieu of a medicine ball (because I was at her house, and that's all I could find), I moved into the core work out
10 rotating knee lift ea
10 woodchoppers ea
5 big circles ea (my right knee was starting to be bothered)

and finished up with curl-ups (sitting, right leg infront of left, curl up to the right, left, center; switch legs and curl up to the left, right, center).

Today my hips and hamstrings are very sore! Not helped of course by sitting in a truck for 10 hours w/o much room to stretch my legs.  I definitely need to do that workout more often.

Oh and then a couple of hours later my husband found my running shoes behind a pile of laundry.

Well that was disappointing

I got up this morning & got ready to go for a run only to discover that I'd left my sneakers at my in-laws' yesterday. We'd gone to the lake earlier, & I'd been wearing my sneakers b/c DH had talked about hiking a bit, but we just went to the water, so I switched to my Crocs for the beach. When we got back to the house, I took both pair of shoes in. I think I was planning on putting my sneakers back on, but I put my Crocs back on instead.
So now, I have no running shoes, & I got hungry fast this morning, so I've already eaten. I guess I'll do a full Active Warm-up set and some ab work--I've hardly done any of that.

Running in Texas (or trying to)

This morning I headed out for a nice low-altitude run. The problem is that it is quite humid here! At least it is to me! It's almost as hard to breathe well here as at 1mi high; I jokingly told my mom it's like trying to breathe underwater. I ended up walking most of my 1.96mi, but at a <16mi/mi pace it wasn't too slow. I'm not used to getting so sweaty when I run!

I'll try again later this week. I also need to work on cross training to maintain aerobic fitness when I'm not running. I've pretty much dropped it completely lately.

in Washington

Washington state. It's been mostly cloudy and cool. Monday I did a 1.5mi run along part of the Clear Creek Salmon Run trail. It was very pretty and green, lots of plants new to me.  If you have the right view, you can see the snow-capped Olympic mountains, and in another direction Mt Ranier is a solid cap of white. I was told that it's actually a glacier-covered volcano with ice caves and stuff. The hotel backs onto an inlet. Very pretty.

Lots of geocaches around here. I found 6! Well, a friend actually found 1 of them--his first cache (aww). :-P One of them was one of those really-challenging-until-you-find-it-then-it's-easy ones.

That tiny green thing was hiding here:

Saw several ships too:

That day was sunny and warm--a little over 70deg. Apparently summer doesn't start till after July 4th and lasts all the way through August! Nice place for a summer home... ;-P

To tri or not to tri

So the only women-only triathlon in NM is Aug 25th, the day after I get back from a week-long businss trip. 7am, at least an hour away. Should I go for it?

I asked a friend about doing the tri together. She said she doesn't bike--but she's fine with running and swimming. We could do a rely. But then I'd only get to bike? (She'd run, I'd bike, she'd swim)

Also, my right knee has been hurting right along the outside of my kneecap whenever I run or even walk for a while. Usually after 30min, but almost from the start during my fitness test--maybe b/c I'd biked to work and then to the gym already. I guess I should see the doctor about it; it's just that if I see the same doc as last time, he'll likely just say "don't run or walk", maybe order an x-ray (I never found out the results of the one on my left knee, but since it's not hurting anymore I guess it doesn't matter).

So, should I tri?

Last night's run

After a .75mi 15min walking warm-up I ran for a solid 15 minutes--woohoo! That ended up being 1.25mi at about a 12:30 pace. I'll need to pick it up a bit Thursday for my fitness test, but this is the first time I've run that long all at once in quite a while (quite possibly since my last test 6 months ago--sadly).  Since I did my run straight out, the walk back was long (there were a couple of jogging sessions in there). BUT my right knee started hurting again just along the outside of my knee. I guess I'll have to see the Dr about it after all. Hopefully he can refer me to someone who can help me with whatever is causing the pain and not just tell me to stop running (and poss walking) for a few weeks. It would probably help if I did better cool downs, warm ups, and used my foam roller. At least I haven't had shin pain in a while.

Abq 10K

I finally looked up my score for the Albuquerque Half 10K event. I knew I was very close to the end, especially having to walk the last 2+ miles.
I was 179 out of 184 participants, and 19th in my age group. I would've thought there'd be more than 19 people in my age group, but apparently not. :-P Bib #834
My knee has continued to bother me since then, thought not quite as much. Chip time = Gun time b/c there was no mat at the beginning; all times were based off Gun time. My pace was actually better than I expected--I hadn't calculated it. It's really not far off my regular pace when I include my warm-up.

Place  City         Bib No  Age Gend    Age Group  Chip Time    Gun Time    Pace 

179    Albuquerque   834    39   F      19 35-39   1:35:22.1    1:35:22.1  15:21/M

from 6/2/21012 just found another draft

Just finished a good 2mi run. It was my second run of the week. No biking, no walking, just a few sets of pushups & sit ups. I kept staying up late--for some reason.
I ran Thursday in Shreveport; it was hot, & muggy, but green.

I'm a slug, 7/17/11

Found an old draft post I apparently never finished:

Aside from 8min bike rides to and from work, I didn't work out last week. I threw in a couple of sets of push-ups against the bathroom counter and scrubbed 2 bathtubs. But no running, not even chasing kids.

In the meantime, my 3yo likes to wear his "swim soup" to play in the water, and my 6yo thinks it's a good idea to put a folding chair at the end of the slide.  We had a good visit from my brother and his family last night. They stopped to spend the night on their way back home from vacation. They have 4 kids, the oldest of whom is 10 days younger than my 6yo. The youngest does a mean army crawl. :)

I almost made up this weekend for sleep lost during the week due to staying up too late (as usual). Used the bone stimulator a couple of times last week. My shin's been hurting more; hopefully it's just the stress. I'm looking for a new job. Scary.

The new house is nice, not really any bigger as far as actual living space goes. In fact, the kitchen's smaller. But the master closet, inside storage, and utility room are all about twice the size as in the other house. Oh and the back patio too! And we lucked out and got a fenced back yard, so now we can put up the trampoline.

Bike Ride

It was a nice morning for a ride. I went out the bike path along Wyoming and kept going south. After a while it turned east past the archery range and down a steep hill and across an arroyo. I almost turned around at the top of the hill b/c I knew the hill would be a killer to ride up. But I also knew it'd be fun to ride down, so I rode down and across the bridge. It was fun, and a little scary, going down (I haven't ridden down a steep hill in a long time). I turned around at the far end of the bridge. Coming back up the hill was a killer--I had my bike in the lowest gear and almost got off to walk it up, but I had just enough determination not to. It felt great afterward to know I'd made it up the hill.

I finally got my bike fixed and started riding again last Monday, and of course it was a very windy day. I almost walked to work it was so windy, but I decided to ride anyway and did make it to work faster than if I'd walked (the going-with-the-wind part really makes the difference, and against the wind I may still have been faster than walking). Of course my butt was sore by Thursday; riding only 8 minutes twice a day can do that when you haven't ridden since the 1st of November. But the riding has already made a difference in my running. I did my 3rd weekly long walk on Friday night and put a fair amount of running into it this time. It was a good, windy run. I did start to feel the tightness along the outside of my right knee like I felt at the 10K, but I stopped and stretched my ITB a few times, and that helped.

If it's not one knee it's the other

"I was only dreamin'"...yeah.
Saturday I did my second 10K. I taking it easy since I'd hardly done any running for about a month. After warming up a bit I started running about 30 seconds at a time with a couple of minutes walking in between. Around mile 4, however, my right knee started hurting along the outside. It got to feeling really tight every time I tried to run. It stayed achy all day. Today it was feeling better until taking a walk this evening. (I walked to & from work today.) My 10K time was about 1:35hr. That's  only about 10 minutes slower than last time, so not too bad. Just frustrated about my knee hurting b/c the reason I hadn't been running was that my left knee had been hurting.

Finally not sore

On Tuesday (Mar 22 our thereabouts) I participated in a group workout that left my upper arms & shoulders very sore! We did a 30 sec work 30 sec rest circuit workout: pull-ups, jumping jacks, push-ups, supine bicycle, sit-ups, burpees, and squats. 2x. It's been at least a year since I've attempted pull-ups. I had a hard time changing clothes for the next couple of days. I was surprised my abs weren't more sore at first since I wasn't used to that much ab work either, but they got sore late Thursday. At least it wasn't all at once!

update...again

I haven't felt much like bloggin lately. One reason is that I've been writing more in my mapmyrun entries and don't like writing the same thing twice. (Though I usually tried to keep that more technical and this more general.) I also don't get much time to use a computer at home; even if the PC or netbook or tablet is available, I'm usually busy chauffering kids around or doing dishes or cooking dinner or something. Sometimes I also figure "what's the point? nobody reads this." Not that I started it hoping for an audience; a friend had invited me to access her blog, so I had to create an account, so I figured "what the heck? I'll start a running blog." Maybe another reason is that I feel like I'm not making any progress. Of course it's hard to make progress when you don't run. It's also hard to make progress if you run too hard and get injured. I wish I could find another slow runner for a running partner.

I finally registered for the Abq 1/2...um, 10K next month. I also need to schedule my fitness test for this month. (Love those. Ha.) I've been making progress in the C25K program, on week 6, but I keep having trouble with those "longer" run times (ooh, 8 min!). I also started a Polar Personal Trainer 10K training program; I'm overlapping it with the C25K plan (i.e. finding some sort of average between the two). I'm ALSO doing the Kratos.dk KB program. I'm still in week 2 of week 1. Month 2 just came out. I should do those 4 days/week. I should have worked out today, but I was full from a late lunch until dinner time! I should just go to bed now. Then I could work out early in the morning. I need to find motivation!! Motivation that will motivated me even when I'm barely awake in my comfy, cozy warm bed on cold, dark mornings!

Wed C25K W4D3 + Thurs KB W1D2 + Fri hiking

After not running for 3 whole weeks, I had a good run Wednesday. I took a couple of extra short walk breaks & felt good at the end of the workout even though I didn't do an extra long warm-up. A few hours later though I could feel some soreness in my quads.

Thursday I finally did day 2 of the Kratos kettlebell program I did day 1 about a week ago). It was a good follow-up to the running. I threw in some push-ups (modified), sit-ups, & snatches during the longer rests.

Yesterday my husband & I went hiking with our 4yo. It was somewhat slow going as you might guess. We spent quite some time looking for a geocache but couldn't find it. :(    It was around a cool rock formation though: "Sandia Stonehenge" is what the cache was called. We hiked for about 45 min I think, not counting the geocaching.

Last week I ran and then wrote a post on my phone, but it never published. Now I can't even access it on my phone. The post shows in the list and has a perpetual "publishing" next to it. That's all.

So I bought the C25K app so I can use it AND listen to music at the same time. It can't start the music from the app (it's supposed to but I always get the message that it can't) BUT I can open the music manually to play while the app is also running. (apparently the free app doesn't work that way)

Anyway I'm up to W4D2 and in the last 2 runs my left shin hurt a lot, right where  I had the stress fractures two years ago. There has been a lot of stress in my life lately. I've started applying for jobs and got a call for an interview. The guy wanted me to fly half-way across the country (not on my dime) for the interview with only a few days notice. We ended up settling on a VTC (tomorrow) instead. The job looks great from the small amt of info on the notice, but it would require us to move...again.

Thierry Sanchez has offered a kettlebell program for free (or was) at kratos.dk (here's the info: http://kettlebellfitnessdk.wordpress.com/2012/01/16/kettlebell-training-school-progressive-kettlebell-programs/) I wasn't 100% sure I was following instructions correctly to sign up--they're in Danish, but I did and the program is in English (the email it came in is also in Danish--maybe I should learn it, sounds fun!). I haven't started it yet, but it is basic and for beginners. After 4 weeks, as I understand, I should get Part 2 & so on. I don't know how long it lasts altogether, but I'm looking forward to it. I've also created a 10K training plan for the ABQ Half, 10K, 5K, Kids' K in April. I haven't registered for it yet; I plan to early next month.