Sunday, August 28, 2016

6 weeks till Hell Creek on Heels 50K! Training Week 13

Did I say I was ready for a taper yet because boy am I ever!  Not yet, not for a couple of more weeks!  YIKES!  I can do this, right?

Monday:  Planned Strength/Cross training.  Well, that was according to my schedule.  I am helping with a local 10K saturday, so I had planned on taking that as a rest day, but it just didn't work that way. We have been making monday nights our grocery night, and we didn't get home till late so no strength and no bike:(.
I am a fool for jigsaw puzzles.  This was suppose to be a family puzzle, but I ended up doing the whole thing myself!

Tuesday: Speed work.  Two cycles of 1 mile, 800, 800, with a quarter mile recovery between each.  Despite the 90% humidity, the temps were lower, so we tried to push as hard as we could.  We were kind of all over the map, but most of the speedy stuff was around 9:30ish.  We did walk our quarter mile recoveries.  I also did over 1.5 miles with the dogs.  I had programed their walk/run intervals into my watch, but never hit start (whoops), so we didn't get our total 2 miles we had been getting.


This week we are doing 5 minute warm up, 90 second run, 2 minute walk (repeat 6 times) and then 5 minute cool down.  It's hard to tell how stella is doing, because she is so hell bent on eating EVERYTHING on the ground.  Suddenly, everything is a potential food source, so her nose is on the ground constantly.  Sigh.  I will be so glad when we get OFF of steroids for good and healthy!  Now, of course, Deuce is on them too due to an allergy flare up.   Just call us the house of roids!

My new lab organism, Gonium!  My life is green now:)

Wednesday:  Planned Strength/Cross training.  Not even going to make an excuse.  Another rest day.  Was on my feet from 8:30-4:30 going 90 mph all day at the lab bench and hood.  I love my new lab, but it is going to take some time for me to adjust from doing hardly anything all day, to doing experiments all day every day, every moment of the day.

Thursday: Planned 6 miles.  The weather man had been warning about all night storms and rain.  When i got up at 4 am, it was cloudy, but no rain or thunder/lightening.   We decided to try and get our run in, and just be wary of the weather.  Well, about mile 3 we started seeing lightening.  There was nothing we can do at that point, as we are out in the middle of nowhere with no shelter, so we just hauled ass home.  At one point, there was a HUGE flash of lightening that caused us both to scream.  That was probably the bolt that cut the power to town.  We were confused as to why all of the street lights were out, till I got home and opened the door to a dark and quiet house.  Well, quiet until andrew started up.  The cut in power woke him up immediately, since the fans stopped making noise.

Friday:  Try to get in 10 miles or strength/cross train.  I woke up to storms, so I settled on a bike ride post work.  It was also my 2 week appointment with Dr. Needles and stella's monthly recheck.  My old injury is flaring up, so he double and triple checked for any type of bone stress or stress fracture and found none.  Whew.  Looks like that tendon is just super hateful, and not liking Konza at all anymore.  He wanted to needle two areas on said tendon, but I told him hell to the no.  He claims it doesn't hurt in spots other than the foot, but I know otherwise. Sigh.  Another case of Peroneal Tendonitis thanks to Konza.  I so want to be a trail runner, but it seems the trails don't love me back.  I am still trying to get use to the lift in my left shoe, that is suppose to make all of this go away, so hoping that once I am more comfortable in my lift shoes, that I can go back to running pain free and not worry about trails versus road.


A little stella update here too.  Stella had her monthly check up.  Good news: joint taps are clear now, pred can be lowered.  Blood pressure is down and in the normal range.  Bad news: still dumping lots of protein in her urine.  She was almost double what she was last time.  Now they are thinking that this might be a normal for her?  We are going to have to do a study to see if that is normal.  I am just ready for her to be done with steroids period!

Saturday:  Volunteer at a local 5K/10K and run 10 or so miles.  I really love volunteering.  I have a big mouth, and I love using it to cheer on runners!  Nothing makes my races go better than a very vocal and cheerful volunteer, so I try and give back as much as I can.  I was at the area where the 5K runners would be coming back after their turn around, and the 10k/5k runners would be going out to their turn around together.  I had another volunteer for a while helping, but honestly, I just about lost my voice yelling!  The problem is the 5K runners can see the finish line, and they think they are done, but they are not.  It was fun encouraging them to just go a little further!  Then we had the 10 K runners coming down and needing to get through the 5K walkers, which again meant i got to yell  :)  Post helping, Melly and I tried to run 10 miles out at the lake, and while it was super beautiful, it was just too hot and humid.  Most of the campground was shaded, but we decided to do the race route, which goes up a HUGE unshaded hill for almost a mile.  While we made good time going up and I never walked,  it kicked our butts later.  We were near the car around mile 8.5, and i was out of water and feeling sick to my stomach, so we ended it.

Sunday:  Planned 18.  We decided to sacrifice a little bit of a heat for a little bit more sleep.  While Melly seemed to be okay, the heat kicked my ass.  I got super nauseous at the end, and had to walk a lot more than normal from about mile 15 on, but you do what you have to do to get done and be safe.  It sucked big time, and you bet we will be getting up earlier next weekend for our second 20 miler of the training session.
By the end of the run, she was making deals with me just to get me to finish.  We had found a water fountain on the trail, that I never knew was there, and had refilled our water bottles around mile 10.  I am so glad stopped and did so, because we would have been out of water close to the finish, and in more trouble.  By the time we got back to the car, it was feels like 92 out with a dewpoint of 72.  While I don't like to make excuses for runs, I feel like the last two runs were not fun at all due to the heat.  When we were in the shaded part of the trail, we were fine, but in full sun at the end, I just couldn't handle it! Kind of scares me because even in october, we can have hot days, and this trail does not look very shaded by the pictures I have seen.  Hopefully I won't be taping out at the 30K mark!

Total miles for the week:  41 miles.  

Looks like next week has a chance for rain every day.  Hoping to get the dogs back on their pooch to 5 K program.  We are going to repeat week 2 again, since we only got one run done due to rain.  AND we have ANOTHER 20 miler to do. This will be my first training cycle with two 20 milers and a 22 miler.  Gulp.  I can do this, right?






Sunday, August 21, 2016

7 weeks till Hell Creek on Heels 50K! Training Week 12

A week of changes.  A new job sort of and a kiddo starting PreK.  I am pretty much exhausted 24/7 and soccer hasn't even started (assistant coach here:) I have such a love hate relationship with getting up at 4 am four mornings a week.  I love the me time, and the time to get computer work done and read emails and blogs, but I hate feeling like I am ready to go to bed at 8 pm every night.   I usually switch over to after work runs after it gets cooler, but I am liking having nights free to do whatever I need to do (like watching the olympics for three straight hours).

Monday:  Rest day, or should I say grocery shopping day.  Andrew's first day of Pre-K.  He really is growing up too quickly.
We had already taken the supplies in earlier, but I wasn't sure if he needed a back pack or what.  So we improvised with Thomas and stuffed our daytime blanket in there to look official.  
Everyone asked if I cried.  I was pretty much busy with my new job yesterday (more on that later), and didn't have time to reflect. It isn't that big of a change really, since he is still in the same building, and has been transitioning to Miss Kim's room for a while anyway.  

Tuesday: 7 miles with 4 miles of repeats "comfortably hard", with 1 mile warm up and 1 mile cool down.  Quarter mile recovery between each repeat.  This work out felt GOOD.  We were able to maintain a 9:30 pace for our repeats.   The temperature was wonderful, but we still had 90% humidity.  
We started our pooch to 5 K program, since the weather was so nice.  Day one was running for 60 seconds and walking for 90 seconds, for a total of 20 minutes.  We did a 5 minute warm up/cool down.  She tucked in once like she was tired, but then was fine the rest of time.  

Wednesday:  Planned strength and or cross training.  I am not going to make excuses, I just didn't want to even get on my bike, and my hubby was working late, so I didn't.  Will this lack of strength training come back to bite me, Yep, you bet it will.

Thursday:  6 miles planned.  Woke up to lightening in the north west.  Storms were hours away, so we decided to chance it and run anyway.  The storms stayed way to the north, so no problems.  Pretty cool to see the thunderheads building and the lightening between them.  Got done and grabbed the dogs for day 2 of Pooch to five 5K.  I am kind of modifying it, and doing a full 30 minutes with a 5 minute warm up and 5 minute cool down. In the middle, we did the same we did Tuesday, run for 60 seconds, walk for 90 seconds. I think if I mapped it right, we did about 2 miles of walking/running.  

Friday:  Planned strength and or cross training.  I got off a little early due to them waxing the floor in my new lab, so grabbed my bike and headed out to beat the storms.  I got a little over 12 miles in before I had to stop.

Okay, a little about my new sort of job.  I work at KSU, and our lab is a service center for a company called Bionano Genomics.  We have not always been a service center, this happened about 4 years ago when our grant did not get funded for our developmental research, and we decided to keep the lab open by other means.  We don't get paid by the company we are a service center for, we just take clients and use their technology,  but they do give us LOTS of technical support and help.   The last few months we have had one, maybe two clients.  Usually summer is my super busy season, but this summer, not so much.  So we started planning long term.  There is another professor we work with, and he needed some projects finished in his lab, and was willing to give me a temporary home for now.  He has given me the option that it could become permanent IF the service center doesn't have anymore clients in the future.  I am so torn, I LOVE what I do, but learning something new in a new lab with a big group of undergrads, grads, and postdocs is fun too.  Right now I am learning all new techniques, and while slightly overwhelmed, am really enjoying it.  

Saturday:  20 miles planned.  It rained much of the night, so I was super worried my route would be pretty mud slogged.  I also would be tackling the route and this distance by myself, as Melly had to go out of town.  It turned out while super humid, the morning was wonderful!  The temps were in the 60s, a breeze was blowing from the north to keep it nice and cool, and no crazy wild life tried to kill me!  I did see a possum and some odd birds but that was about it!

This train did scare the daylights out of me.  We have several rural crossings where there is no rails that come down.  I couldn't see him coming because of the corn so when he appeared and honked his horn, I just about jumped out of my skin.  I was able to get my phone out quickly and snap a few pictures for Andrew.  This train was LOADED with tanks probably headed to Fort Riley.
And while I am still not a huge fan of getting up early, this makes it all worth it!
It's crazy how the sky will turn all sorts of colors quickly and be done as quickly as it starts.  I always stop and take a pic and seeing this NEVER gets old.  Since I had done 20 before, this wasn't too scary, like last year.  I didn't have any issues, fueled every hour, and had plenty of water.  

Later in the evening, we attended our town's Agricultural Heritage day.  There were so many kid friendly events!  Andrew got to participate in his first tractor pull as well as sit on many cool tractors!
He told me later that, pedaling that tractor was super hard mom!  I don't think he made it quite past the point of them pushing him (they give the youngest guys a push to get them started) but he had fun and got a cute little tractor key chain just for trying.  I am super proud of him trying because there was a huge crowd and he gets stage fright sometimes when that many people are watching.  
Sunday:  Planned 8 miles.  Day 3 of Pooch to 5K.  I decided to split up my runs and do 6 miles on my own and 2 miles with the dogs since that is what they are up to with their walk/run intervals.  It was a cool but humid morning.  I am loving the temps but NOT the humidity still.  ENOUGH KANSAS!  



41 miles total.  

What a week.  I will be honest in that my tib/fib thing that I battled with 2 years ago seems to be flaring up, so I am being super careful by icing and doing lots of stretching and compression.  I think my body just doesn't like running that much on Konza, although it has been fine up until now.  Maybe it is a cumulative effect.  Needless to say, I took a break from trails this week just in case.  I would love to be a trail runner, but once again I am scared that the trails just don't love me.  




Sunday, August 14, 2016

8 weeks till Hell Creek on Heels 50K! Training Week 11

Another week closer!  We booked our hotel rooms finally for the race, and the butterflies are starting to flutter!  Get ready for some random pictures:)
A bell sprout in my boss's office
Monday:  Rest day.  YESSSSS!  I had a morning doctor's appointment, so I had time to take the dogs for a nice long walk and hunt some pokemon. I will write a separate recap about the fun I had at the surgeon's office.

Tuesday: 8 miles planned.  Stupid clouds kept the meteor shower out of site and the temps were a bit cooler, but holy cow the humidity.  After running, the dogs and I did a 30 minute walk/pokemon hunt.  They both were fluffed out from the humidity and that made me think of this GIF.


Wednesday:  Strength/cross training planned.  The best laid plans of mice and men.  Sigh. I think I am going to have to move ALL work outs to the morning.  Had a bike ride planned.  Then went to pick up my kiddo, and he was FINALLY in purple (they rate them on a color scale by how they behaved that day, and he has been near the bottom for a week or so).  I had promised him if he worked hard and got in purple, he could have a golden Thomas that he had been wanting at target.  

Behold the golden Thomas!
Well of course, as soon as we knew he was in purple, we had to redeem our promise.  I tried to make him happy with Mcdonalds and target this weekend, but that didn't work.  Headed to town and ended up having dinner in town as well.  Got home and just wanted to sleep.  Made myself work on Stella's exercises, that I should have been working on all week, and then drug my butt to bed.  

I may or may not have had this beer.  Okay, I did and I enjoyed every ice cold moment of it!
Thursday:  6 miles planned.  It was feels like 85 when we got up at 4 am!!!!  THIS IS RIDICULOUS!!!!  I am seriously over summer now.  I just feel like we can't win.  We had a very unique situation happen while on the run.  We run on very rural roads.  The most traffic foot or vehicular that we see are the farmer that lives on the road, the workers of said farm, and one other family that lives on that road.  Pretty much any other car is usually teenagers looking for a place to smoke or drink, and when they see us out, they usually don't stop.  We know the cars that should be on the road, and generally, the people that should be on the road.  I carry my phone with me at all times.  We occasionally see skunks, deer, and the droppings of coyotes.  Most everything four legged is getting ready for bed around dawn.  Anyway, we saw something in the distance, something that looked big and small at the same time. I know that sounds super weird.  We could see occasional what looked like eyes low down, but then also something higher up but seemed red and moving in a circular motion.  Honestly, it didn't look normal, and we couldn't pick it up with our headlamps.  My instinct is always to get behind or grab melly.  She is a double black belt and much taller than me, so my default safety net.  As it got closer, we kind of huddled together because we just couldn't tell what the heck it was.  I called out, as I thought it might be a person on a bike with a dog, but it didn't answer.  We started backing up as it was getting closer and closer.  Finally it got to the edge of our headlamp's range, and it was two people walking at dog.  At 4:30 am.  On rural roads.  Both had cigarettes lit, thus the red lights we were seeing.  The dog never uttered a bark or a growl.  They waved and we both exclaimed, we thought you were aliens!!!!  I asked the guy why he didn't respond when I called out, and he said he wanted to freak us out.  Well mission accomplished.  I am not passing judgement as to why they were walking at 4:30 am on very rural roads, but i have my thoughts.  I was practically shaking as they passed by and we started running again.  Especially with all that has happened lately with runners being killed.  

Friday:  Planned long bike ride:  My plan was to get up at 3 am, watch the meteor shower, and then go on a nice long bike ride when daylight started to creep in.  I got up to thunderstorms and lightening.  Tried getting back up at 4 am, still storming.  Same at 5 am.  I gave up and slept in till time to get up for work.  Saw Dr. Needles in the afternoon. Totally forgot to bring my new lift +shoe, but did tell him about my very ouchy foot and the fact that my tib/fib area had been quite sore.  I got introduced to the fun of scraping.  I hope it works for the sake of how much it hurt.  Still not as bad as needling, and he even asked if we could today and I said NO WAY.  There is a huge knot in the area of my tib/fib and it is SO painful to the touch that he can not even try and work it out.  It doesn't hurt when I run, so I am not too worried about it, that spot has always hurt on and off when pushed on.  He worked above it and below it so maybe soon he can work that knot out without me climbing the wall in pain.

Lucky for me, the weather was quite nice post work, so I was able to get out on my bike and get in a 12 mile bike ride.  Hubby had a steak freshly cooked for me when I got home from riding.  That is love, even if it isn't really optimal fuel the night before a race:)
Last year's race.  Boy I missed stella ella this year!
Saturday:  Back to School 5K.  How can ever resist a local race that I can walk from my door and 5 minutes later be at the start?  Plus it benefits my kiddo's future school so it really is a no brainer.  Plus, they allow dogs but this year would not be the year for miss stella ella to run.  I think I will do a separate race report because so much happened.  No PR sadly but a really fun, really good time.  I wrote a recap here.  

Sunday:  Planned 18.  We decided since the weather was to be nice, to do our 18 out on Konza.  Konza is the closest to what we will experience at our 50K.  The weather was really nice, but we still got eaten up and chewed out by the trail.  We did way more walking than we thought we should have, but it is what it is.  
We had to wait a little till it got lighter before we headed out.  It was still pretty dark until daybreak broke.  The beauty of this place always leaves me in awe.  
I have been fueling with honey stinger waffles, since my fig bars have mysteriously disappeared from all shelves in any of the grocery stores around.  I am really digging them.  I break them in half and put them in a ziploc bag,  and then they fit in my pack pockets nicely.  I am using about 1 every hour.  I think I need to vary the flavors though.  Three chocolate ones today was a bit much.  
Loved running past these sunflowers and seeing them turning and following the sun.
Sometimes Melly gets ahead of me on uphills and dowhills, but that is okay.  She always waits for me to catch up:)  She is such a strong runner, and a testament to what weight lifting can do for a runner.


Even though Konza beat us into submission today, I love each and every time we go there.  We did three loops, two going up the stairs and one going down to work different muscles.  It was an amazing run and I am so glad to be done and on to the next mileage.  Can you say time for a 20 miler?

Total miles for the week: 35

Onward!  Have a great week!






Saturday, August 13, 2016

Raider Run: Run Back to School 5K 2016

I am very honest when I say I am SUCKER for local 5Ks.  There is nothing like getting up and walking to the start line a few minutes before the race starts.  Wamego is very lucky in that we have multiple local 5ks, one local 10K, and a local half/full. I so also love local races because all of the RDs of these races allow dogs.  Well, this year Stella was out due to her bout with IMPA, but I wasn't going to miss this super fun race!!!!  Central PTO puts on this race, and they have so much fun, family oriented events.
I was SO tempted to take her and just drag her along if she got tired.  This was her face before I left.  She looks sad, but actual she could hear my hubby upstairs making noises, so she was listening with her eyes. 

I had serious decisions to make  pre race.  The theme is super heroes, and they encouraged everyone to dress up.  I didn't have any true super hero themed clothing, so I figured I would just go with colorful.  I decided on the bottom outfit, since it is super colorful and fun.  

A little bit about the morning.  I knew it was cooler out, but the humidity was pretty high.  I had no pre race goals, and was going to make a game time decision.  I thought as I walked to the start line that it was cool enough for me to try and PR.  The field was super small, but packed with FAST local females, but I am competing against myself, not them anyway.  I walked up with about 15 minutes before the race started, which was perfect.  I decided to run with music, something that I haven't been doing.  I am really glad I did, because I got super nauseated around mile 2 and it helped me breath and not puke.  

A review of the course: you start at the school and go down a big hill on 8th street.  You head over to the rec complex and do half a lap on the concrete track (mostly downhill), and then head out onto balderson.  This part is very flat and fast and mostly full sun.  My first mile was 8:19 and I wanted to lay out three 8:30s, just like I had been consistent at the 10 K last weekend with my miles.  I told myself to settle down and settle in, so I didn't crash and burn.  

The course turns on 6th and heads through city park and up 4th street.  This is where I got into trouble.  We were in full sun at this point, and going up a steady incline.  I could feel myself overheating, so at the 2 mile water stop, I just took two big sips of water while walking, and then dumped the very full cup on my heat.  Honestly, this normally helps me, but this time it did NOTHING.  Mile 2 8:59.  Mile 2-3 are again up a stead incline, but you are on shaded neighborhood roads.  The traffic at this point was pretty thick as people were geting out and about in the neighborhood, and I guess it took my mind off of the fact that I really, really wanted to puke.  I was overheated, breathing hard, and just trying to hang on. I had passed several people from mile 2-3 as the humidity was getting many people.  I was keeping a lady in my sights that I thought might be in my age group.  She started walking.  Part of me said, YEAH, i can catch up.  A bigger part of me said oh no, she is suffering just as much as I am, and I am ready to throw in the towel with her.  I made myself continue to run but at that point, I felt like we were both crawling.  Mile 3 was 9:42.  I struggled, I fought, and I tried, but I had to slow my body down to risk throwing up and major overheat.  Luckily, the finish was downhill, but that was a tough course made tougher by the stupid Kansas humidity.  Finish time 27:52.  Then the fun started:)
Of course we had to take as many pictures as we could.  This year they had three different photo ops.  This one had masks you could use.
Andrew didn't get the point of this one, and my hubby's shadow is on the picture as well ,but super cute idea!!!  We were flying!
This year they had not only the mask making station, but also a cape making station.  They may have had that last year, but we missed it.  I thought the capes were such a CUTE idea!!!!  Andrew loves his, and they looked so easy to make.  They are just t-shirts with the collar of the shirt left on, the front and sides cut off and the back tapered.  The kids could decorate theirs however they wanted to.

Then Andrew had his very first race.  I am so proud of him.  He was excited to run it, and even though he asked me to run it with him, once he took off, he never looked back.  We need to work on that kick though LOL!!!

Post Andrew's fun run, we cheered on the bigger kids and finally the 1 mile fun run.  I so love watching the kiddos put it all out there!  There were so many fun games to play post running that were all super hero themed, and this year there was a bouncy house.  Pretty much lost andrew to that thing all day.  Although as I type this, he is out cold, so maybe this is a good thing.  I was shocked that I won third in my age group and beat a few speedy ladies that beat me last year.  I also won best dressed female with a trophy and a 10 dollar gift card to our local running store.  Then I won another gift card in the raffle, that I gave to the little girl that won the mile race, and andrew won the kids raffle.  We had quite the haul walking home!
I wish more people would come to this gem of a race!  Great family fun for all and a great cause that the money/school supplies go to!  I know next year, andrew will be attending Central, and I will be probably joining the PTO, so please come and run this fun and fast 5 K next year!!!!  You won't be disappointed!  It's pretty much a family tradition now for us and will continue to be!






Tuesday, August 9, 2016

A split update: Breasts and Stella oh my!

I needed to do two updates today and they are both a little short so I thought i would combine them with a catchy title.
here is a boob shot :)  My newest moving comfort sports bra!
First I will start with breasts.  Remember my cancer scare around christmas of last year? I wrote about it here and here.  Well, I had my 6 month mammogram last month, and while totally weird (surgeon said he would be there/be involved, yet didn't show up), the radiologist at the time said no change, go back to yearly mammograms.  Then, I get a very odd call from my doctor's office saying the report they got was really weird, and had I spoken to the surgeon?  I had to tell them the long story of what happened, so they contacted the surgeon's office,  who in turn called me with an appointment.  An appointment for what I wondered?  And why was my Dr's office acting so weird about a normal mammogram?  Fast forward to yesterday.  I was put in a room, and while I was waiting, I heard the nurse tell the surgeon that she had NO idea why I was there.  I then heard them call my Dr's office to find out why they had set up the appointment (the appointment was made by the surgeon's office, go figure).  Now mind you, i had to take off a morning of work, and we actually had a timed experiment that day that needed to be completed.  Sigh.  I then heard the surgeon say that he remembered me, and then I guess all the pieces fell into place (mind you his office set up the appointment, but I digress).  After a re introduction to the hottest surgeon on the planet, we started talking about my latest mammogram.  While there we no changes, the radiologist who read the mammogram suddenly suggested a surgical biopsy.  My surgeon was in total disagreement with that assessment, so we decided on yet another 6 month mammogram to check on those rogue cells, and THEN go back to 1 a year if everything looked the same.  He showed me last time's mammogram as well as this time's mammograms, including the pictures taken during the ultrasound.  I love it when the Dr lets me see the science and reasoning behind the decisions.  At this point, I am going to trust my surgeon and wait.  I don't have any bad feelings in my gut that this is the wrong decision, but if anything changes, I guess I will get a third opinion.
Now on for a different update that doesn't involve boobs:)  Miss Stella ella is up to 30 minute walks comfortably.  The weather has been helping, the temperature is much lower lately, however, the humidity is still pretty bad.  I try to take the dogs out after my runs on tuesday and thursdays, and then whenever it is tolerable in the afternoons.  We had our first non accident day in months (she typically has three pee accidents during the time we are at work), but then she followed it up with several accidents during the night:( I can't believe the amount of pee that comes out of this dog sometimes.  I am going to say that while I am VERY happy she is alive and on the mend, the floor that we will have to rip up and redo including the subfloor, and the drywall are going to cost us some major money.  Plus, we have a vent right where she has been having accidents, and I am sure that the flood is going down that vent as well.  Time will tell when we turn on the heat in the winter and get that wonderful urine scent.
She is actually pulling me in this picture like she use to!
The pred hunger continues as well, and she has snatched several things out of andrew's hand, which scares me.  She got him pretty good the other day trying to steal his apple slices, and while it didn't break the skin, it scared andrew pretty bad.  I was hoping with the decrease in pred, that we might see some decrease in side effects but nope, not yet.  I am not sure how long the effects of the high dose will linger.  Again, please don't misconstrue my complaining, I am very, very glad she is alive and well.  She is starting to go up for frisbee throws and ball throws, and seems to be putting on weight again.  She wants to play ball and frisbee and is initiating play sessions, something that she had honestly stopped doing.  We have been evaluated for a canine fitness program, but honestly, I have not had time to start our exercises yet.
She did give us a scare a couple of nights ago.  Her third eyelid was up on one eye almost all the way, and then on another eye part of the way.  I was ready to scoop her up and take her back to KSU, but after some panicked texts, my vet called me and assured me that the level of steroids she is on should prevent relapse at this point, and that she probably just had a small trauma to her eye.  We iced it and waited, and sure enough, the next day she was back to normal.  Thanks for scaring the crap out of me stella ella!  I guess my biggest concern at this point is the fact that her head still has no meat on it.  She is still very cone headed and that hasn't changed.  While I haven't noticed any issues with her chewing (one of the side effects from another muscle wasting disease), I was hoping the reduction in pred might cause her to gain some mass on her head.


All in all, great news in our household!  I am hoping we both continue to have great news in the future.

Sunday, August 7, 2016

9 weeks till Hell Creek on Heels 50K! Training Week 10

Another hot week in Kansas!  Also race weekend for Brew to Shoe 10K.  So excited to do a race to see where I am at speed and fitness wise.

Monday:  Rest day.  Somehow our sunday trip the grocery store is being replaced by a monday night visit instead.  Works for me since it is rest day.  Had a visit with Dr. Needles.  I honestly learn something new each time I go in.  I am still waiting for my shoe to come back with the lift in it, and excited that that might be a fix for all of my issues!  He did several things to my hip flexors and my lower back that were excruciating, but I know through the pain comes better running.  I just have to tell him to stop and give me a break, and he does. I must turn blue because he is constantly telling me, just keep breathing, just keep breathing.
Tuesday:  Planned easy 7.  Woke up to not a cloud in the starry sky, but lots of lightening.  WTH???  I guess heat lightning can strike you per my quick google research, so we decided to go back to bed, versus waiting it out.  It was still lightening at 5 am, so I am glad I gave up.  This meant that we had to run in heat of the afternoon, yet again.  We set out around 7:30ish when the dew point was at 75.  We were prepared to walk every mile or more than that, if needed.  While we were both drenched, it was not a bad run at all, and as the sun went down, we felt much better.  I tried taking a bag of ice with me and keeping it in my pocket (my shorts have huge pockets on the sides), but ended up putting it under my hat as it melted.  This felt wonderful, as the bag had a little pin hole in it, and the water dripped down my back periodically.  I will be trying this again!
This is not what we want to see at this stage.  The band of green should be much lower down :(
Wednesday:  Strength and Cross training planned.  Sigh.  Had to work super late.  We were doing an experiment in parallel with another scientist at our parent company, and we got unexpected bad results.  Both of us, her in CA and me in KS, were trying to salvage what we had.  I still won't know if it worked or failed till tomorrow afternoon, but it wasn't looking good for either of us.  Needless to say, when I got home, working out was the last thing on my mind.  Getting food and going to bed where the only two things I could think of.  So I was a sloth yet again.  #sorrynotsorry
Thursday: 6 miles planned.  Let's preface this run by saying the de-stressing process the night before, I may have had a beer or two.  I followed that up with Nuun before bed, but I am sure I wasn't totally back to fully hydrated.  Let's just say this run was a slog, and I am going to forget about it.  I had to make two emergency pit stops, and I just felt horrible the whole time.  Afterwards at least, I got to take the kiddos on a 20 minute walk and catch some Pokemon:)  I am still contemplating when to start running with stella again.  I am now thinking about holding off till closer till september, and making Tails on the Trail her comeback race.
We made the front of the brochure and the postcard they are sending out!  I LOVE this race, so I am hoping we can get back to running consistently by then.  This is our goal!

Friday:  Rest day.  Day before the race.  Decided to not do anything but watch the opening of the olympics, and get to bed early.  Unfortunately, I had to go to bed when the teams were still filing in, and missed the lighting of the fire, which is my favorite part:(

Saturday:  Brew to Shoe 10K race.  This was my fourth year doing this race and the second year on the new course.  I knew a PR was possible, due to the flat course conditions, IF the weather cooperated.  I was in luck!  The weather was perfect, a bit humid, but over cast and cool.  I got an 13 second PR, and I am SO excited!  Official time was 56:32.  I think I was 12th in my age group, which is a huge improvement over previous years!  

Normally, I would celebrate with a beer from Tall Grass Brewery, but this year we opted to go into the mall, and celebrate with a giant cinnamon roll instead.  What I am totally excited about this year versus other years?  Not the PR totally,  but mostly the fact that I was much more consistent than other years.  9:12 9:25, 9:10, 9:14, 9:16, and 9:17.  The 9:25 is due to my double knotted shoe coming untied.  I have NO clue how that happened.  I remember watching a girl run in front of me with her shoe untied and thinking, man that would suck, and then looking down and my dang shoe was untied. So weird.  I had to hop over to the grass, calm down enough to tie my shoe and then sprint back onto the course.

On a side note my running partner Melly got 2nd in her age group and got a HUGE PR!!!!! I am taking full credit for her sucess:)

Sunday:  14 miles planned.  
This seems to be a common theme lately.  I really thought I had enough time to at least get 12 or so in before this hit.  I fueled and had my coffee, and THEN decided to look outside one more time before I got dressed, and of course it was lightening like crazy.  I know the lightening was still probably far off, but I just don't want to take that chance.  
The problem is, the whole day looked like rain.  Now as I have said 100 times before, I don't love running in the rain but, I will run in the rain before I will run on a mill.  Luckily for me, the rain stopped and stayed away the rest of the afternoon.  The humidity stayed around 96-100% and I felt like an old woman running, but I got it done.
My hubby even came out and rode his bike while I ran.  He hung with me for an hour and headed home.  Then I saw a familiar vehicle on my route.  
Tony came back and followed me for about a mile just checking on me and talking to me.  I was on the suffer bus majorly at that point.  Every part of me hurt, and as I sit and type, I am still in pain.  I have iced and rolled and I see drugs in my future. My foot is very unhappy with me as I have been running in my kinvaras while the lift gets put in my new balances, and apparently that angers my foot.  I am also worried that my shoes I bought to wear every day might have also angered my foot.  I can't wait to see Dr. Needles on Friday, especially with another race saturday (5K) and an 18 miler.  

33 total miles this week.  kind of a cut back week and kind of not!

Have a great week!!!!  Keep your finger's crossed that I might have one more PR left in me for the year:)