Thursday, September 29, 2016

The Hay is in the Barn. Let's go!

I am not going to write up a day by day workout this week, because I have been mostly biking and resting.  My leg/ankle/foot feels much much better, but I don't want to push my luck.  I was planning on biking tonight, but we had soccer practice, and then I decided to just go out and run a mile.  Mostly, I wanted to see how the tape felt while I was running.  Previously, when I have been taped up for tendonitis, it didn't feel well as it put too much pressure on the ouchy spots.  I am happy to say that the tape isn't really bothering anything and feels helpful.

I go back for re-taping on Saturday morning.  I have to say, I haven't been distressed about my injury, and have been thoroughly enjoying my down time and biking.  Kind of scary right?  I am one of those hard headed people who will run on one leg if need be.  Apparently so is miss stella, but that is a different blog post.  Anyway, I have been going to bed early and sleeping till the last moment that I can and still get andrew and I ready in the morning and to school and work.  I have been eating good food and having a few beers and relaxing.  I honestly feel good about this weekend, even with the lay off.  I am ready.  The hay is in the barn.  I have trained all summer diligently, and I have pretty much enjoyed every humid, hot sunrise/sunset.  I have had so much fun training with this crazy lady!!!!!


This woman is my rock.  She has been by my side for almost every sweaty minute of this journey.  I love her so much, and I am so excited we are going to rock this course together!  We may not be running together for this race (we run our own races when it comes game time), but she will be with me every step of the way, just a few steps ahead.  


This course is going to be absolutely gorgeous, and I can see me taking lots and lots of pictures.  I am going to enjoy this course, and not be in a super hurry.  I hear there are only about 13 people registered for this event, and I will probably be DFL, but I just don't care.  What matters to me most is again getting my nutrition right, honoring this course, and finishing with a smile on my face or at least a grimace that resembles a smile.  I hope my body/lower leg behaves and lets me honor my goals.  

Well, I guess I will see y'all on the flip side!  I am hoping we have some sort of service so I can post to my instagram throughout the race.  Feel free to give me some cheers on my FB page (Michelle Gordon Coleman) or my instagram feed (redaussie3). I am so excited to be doing this race and so excited to take y'all with me!!!!








Monday, September 26, 2016

Stella ella recheck take 4 or 5???

I thought I had updated about her last recheck, but I can't find the post.  Basically, when we went last time, everything was good except the dumping of protein in her urine.  It was time for her recheck, in which they wanted me to collect urine for three days, refrigerate it and bring it in.  They would pool it to get an average to see what she dumps over a period of three days.
Unfortunately a few days ago, well maybe a few more than that, Stella became lame.  September 17th to be exact.  We had run 7 miles together, and she was completely fine during and post run.  Many hours later, she was laying on the bed with me, and she proceeded to jump down to get a drink.  She started limping on her front right leg, almost like her shoulder hurt her.  She continued to limp on that leg the remainder of the day and night, but was completely fine the next day.  Reminder, she is still on 10 mg a day of steroids once a day.  Anyway, I just chalked it up to her jumping off of the bed oddly and landing oddly.

Fast forward till September 20th.  We ran 6 miles post Konquer the Konza.  In fact, I took her and Deuce, which is probably not a good thing.  They run, rough house, stop, go, play, bump, and just generally act like NUTS.  They were both covered in mud, but very happy when I got home.  The lameness didn't start immediately, but I noticed over the course of several days, she was favoring a back leg.  She then would go from holding it up and being three legged lame, to running around like no problem.  I took her in with Deuce on friday September 23rd for his yearly check up, to just make sure we weren't missing anything.  We did palpations on every part of the leg, and could not find anything wrong.  We felt like it couldn't be too serious if she wasn't 100% three legged lame.

Fast forward again till last night September 25th.  Again on and off again lame, but sometimes to the point of not using that leg at all.  I started to think about how i was going to get another loan to pay for a TPLO.  The lameness so reminded me of how berry acted when she blew out her CCL.  I tried not to jump to conclusions because again, she wasn't like that all of the time.


September 26th.  KSU recheck.  Went in to pool the samples of her urine, but quickly unloaded all of my thoughts and fears about Stella to my poor student.  What if this is a flare?  What if this is a tear?  What if the steriods are going to make all of the test results null and void?  Can we taper again?  What about Tick borne disease again?  Are we still confident in our diagnosis of IMPA?  Here is what we know so far:

The KSU vets do NOT feel like this is a flare up (YIPEEEE).  However, they do not want to decrease the steriods in this case, until the lameness resolves.

Yes, the steriods could skew the results.  Even with the taper from 20 mgs to 10 mgs once a day, we still may not see the numbers change, or it still could be she just dumps protein naturally because she is a freak of nature.  OR the steriods could be causing the dump.  Still won't know till possibly months after she is off the roids (which doesn't look like it is going to be happening any time soon).

They do NOT think this is still some unresolved tick borne disease.  They did not feel like a new panel would give us any information other than drive up my already huge vet bill.

They are calling her injury an "athletic injury".  They felt she had response in her knee and hock in the back left leg.  She had no fluid so no inflammation in either of those joints.  They felt like she had some sort of subluxation somewhere, and that was why she was good one minute and not so good the next.  If it is a tear that is causing the instability, it is a partial tear and could have some stability in a month or so with inactivity (wish me luck).  The Ortho attending gave her an exam and felt like a month's rest was the best way forward.  No running, no rough play, just leashed walks and lots of rest.

We are going back in a month for an ortho re check and then after the test results today, should know more about the protein in her urine issue.  She did have an accident in the bed last night, which is kind of unusual, but in true stella form, she also got into the beef bullion cubes and consumed who knows how many cubes, and could have just drank a ton of water, thus the accident.  I will keep everyone posted in my normal weekly posts and then in a separate post on her recheck in a month.  I feel like we are moving in the right direction and this is just a temporary detour.






Sunday, September 25, 2016

2 weeks till Hell Creek on Heels 50K! Training Week 17

Perhaps doing a race two weeks out from our 50K was a mistake, but I had fun and am hoping I didn't beat up my body too much.  Here is how the week went, and here are a few cool pics that Barb got at the race.
This is the best shot EVER!

Monday:  Rest day.  YES!!!!!

Happy wet and muddy puppies

Tuesday:  Planned speed work.  Nope.  Big nope.  6 easy miles full of walking, pokemon hunting, and running easy.  I honestly didn't know how I would feel, especially after not getting much sleep thanks to a toddler not wanting to go to bed.  Another phase we are going through, and I really hope it passes quickly.  Took the doggies along and while they both did 6 miles no problem, Stella is now oddly lame again.  She isn't limping, but I can tell she has a back leg that is bothering her.  Looks like both of us are having issues at the same time.  Back to KSU for her next week:(  Hoping that it was just too much mileage too quickly, and not a relapse.

All three of us in one shot!

Wednesday:  Planned strength training/cross training.  I biked 10 miles.  I am at this weird place where I feel super guilty if I leave my kiddo and hubby at night to do anything.  I am not sure why this has reared it's ugly head again, but mom guilt is real.  Still not 100% comfortable biking in the dark, but need to give it a try so that all of my work outs are done prior to anyone getting up in the morning.

Hiding in the pink hat

Thursday:  8 miles planned.  6 miles is what happened.  My foot/ankle/leg is very hateful right now. I am really getting nervous about my 50K.  I do feel like the shoe with the lift is causing most of the issues, so I am hoping a reduction in mileage, plus giving my lift shoes a break will help.  I am hoping that I haven't literally shot myself in the foot (sorry about the pun) with using my lift shoes plus the stabilizer.  I haven't had pain while running in a long time, and my foot is pretty much hurting the entire run now.  Going to pow wow with my coach.  It's possible I may be taking the rest of this week and all of next week off to try and get any healing done that I can.  This is NOT ideal, but I want to be able to run the race that I have trained so hard for all summer.

Friday:  Planned strength training/cross training.  I biked 12 miles. The corn is being harvested and the beans aren't too far behind.  I would like to bike longer than 12 but I have to bike after work for light at this point. I bike on gravel so not sure how that would work to avoid bigger rocks.  I need to just try and see how it goes some time so I can get in longer bike rides.   I almost got hit not once but twice.  People really do NOT pay attention.  I am glad that i am super vigilant when I run and bike and could tell that they were super distracted.

Saturday:  Rest day.  We didn't have soccer or anything going on, so we took it easy.  It was family day at KSU, so we headed over to partake in the activities.  Unfortunately, rain was threatening, so all activities were sent inside and downsized.  We got to see a nice band play, make powdered sugar pixie sticks, and andrew won some junk to be donated prizes.  About the time we were heading back to our van, the bottom fell out, so we headed downstairs to try and bowl.  Andrew wasn't hugely into it, but we promised him M&Ms, so he made it through one game.  The games were free, we just had to buy socks and rent our shoes.  We had fun, even if he didn't really get addicted to the new sport of bowling.  Bumpers make the game way more interesting for us grown ups!:)
Little red also got some new KSU clothes.  His current KSU clothes were 2T and very tight, so we fixed him up with a couple of new sets of KSU clothes, that are slightly bigger than what he needs.  Lots of room to grow! No running or biking all day, just slept in, took it easy, and had fun!
As I posted on Instagram, target is the devil.  Did we need a pickachu sweatshirt, no, but it was too cute not to buy.

Sunday:  A repeat of saturday.  A target trip, a whole lot of laziness including sleeping in, and some biking.  I got 13 on my bike and even got to ride through some pretty big puddles, none deep thank goodness.  

Total miles run:  12
Total miles biked:  25

Well in retrospect, I should have biked early in the week, and then run towards the end of the week.  I am not too freaked out by the fact that I missed two runs, including a long run, because honestly, the hay is in the barn.  If I don't get to run next week either until the race, I won't freak out then either.  Right now my focus is to arrive on the finish line as healthy as possible, even if that means loosing some fitness in the process.  Seeing my chiro monday and will go from there.  Have a great weekend and week!

Sunday, September 18, 2016

Konquer the Konza 2016

Another Konquer the Konza in the books.  Still on a super runner's high from this one, minus the feeling of ick, and not being able to eat.  At least this time, I am not heading to the ER:)  I am overall very pleased with how the race went.  While it got hot towards the end, and did slow me down and make me take some walk breaks, I was able to get a 6 minute PR from the last time I did this race.
My friend at LivingLovingRunner (check out her blog at https://livinglovingrunner.com/ )took this pic and sent it to me.  She was not in the race, but she was doing her long run out at Konza.   I tried to get some pics as the sun came up, but they aren't near as beautiful as this!  Thanks to her for sending me this and then hooking up with me during the race and helping me during a time when I needed some company.  Okay, getting ahead of myself.
Here is my attempt.  Not near as pretty.  
Here is the Wamego crew pre race.  Matt and Jen did the 10K while Tom, Pat, Melly and I did the 25K.  We all rode together to let the littles sleep in.
This is the only picture I got during the race.  Barb got a few that I hope she posts later, but she had to deal with some down runners more than she could do photography.  We started out with the 10 K people, which is quite crowded on a trail, but they very quickly headed off while we kept trudging on.  The race started out nice and cool, but then the sun made an appearance, and quickly heated things up.  I think it was feels like 84 when we were done.  I felt like I was on point with nutrition and hydration for once.  I fueled every hour, so two times with the honeystinger waffles.  Since I was getting towards three total hours, I decided to take the third waffle I had brought along, and just have a big bite.  
This cool pic was taken by Matt Piper.  I can't wait to see what Barb got as well!

Some observations during the race:  

I saw Lindsey towards the end of the first loop, as I was heading back up the stairs again for the second loop.  I wasn't down, but I had been alone for a long time, so it was nice to see a familiar face, well someone other than the first place runner Joe lapping me on his second lap, while I was STILL on my first.  

A lot of people seemed to be undertrained and over dressed.  Yes, it was in the 60s when we started, but it quickly heated up.  I also saw tons of people in black, which just made me hot looking at them.  It's hard to not feel the pain of those struggling.  I seriously wanted to give each and every one of them a big hug and tell them they could do it!   

I tried to talk to many people on the second loop to try and lift their spirits, but they all had their head phones in.  The very few that didn't were fun to talk to, and we commiserated about how hard the race was.

Towards the end, a gentleman whom I had passed early passed me.  As he was motoring past, he yelled out, "come on, don't quit now! " (my pace had not changed, so not sure why he yelled that out)  I quickly told him that I was doing a 50K in two weeks, so no sprinting home for this one.  He laughed and finished ahead of me.  He made me smile for sure.  Well, him and my kiddo running with me to the finish.  I am pretty proud of the pace I was able to maintain for pretty much the whole race, minus the gigantic hills.  

Andrew ran the last little bit of the race with me.  He SMOKED me!  He never even looked back and then wore my medal the rest of the day.  I hope we are bringing up a kiddo that loves running as much as me!  I will try and embed the video, but I am technologically challenged, so don't hold your breath.  
Miss Kansas was handing out the medals so Andrew wanted his picture with her

Overall I was very pleased with my effort.   I feel like my fueling was on as well as my hydration, even if I did sweat very salty.  I quickly after the race drank three cups of water and NO Gatorade this time.  I tried to eat about an hour post race, but my stomach just didn't want it.  Not that I felt sick, thank goodness, but it just didn't feel like it wanted food.  What I did crave other than water?  Soda!!!! I had some soda at lunch, and then had to stop at a gas station and get more.  Why does my body want soda so bad and nothing else post hard races?  It's diet soda so not getting any more sugar in.  It also craves coffee, so had some coffee post race too.  I am still feeling good as I type, so hopefully no repeats of what happened last time.



Imagine my surprise when not only did Melly won first place in our age group, but I got 3rd place!!!!  When she checked my bib number, she exclaimed I got 3rd, but I honestly didn't believe her!  I made her look it up again.  I didn't get a medal, but I was excited just the same.  Now a couple of qualifiers, apparently we didn't have a ton of runners run the 25K this year. I think we only had 4 in our age group total, but heck, I will take it!  I guess a whole bunch of people changed from the 25K to the 10K, due to lack of training which was due to the horrible summer we have had with regards to weather and humidity. 

I am excited for my 50K, although I will be taking it a bit more easy in the 50K race.  I have heard it is super hilly, and NO shade, so going to respect that, hydrate like a boss, and walk those hills.  I want to thank each and every volunteer out there today!  I have volunteered for this race and it is tough, especially when the weather heats up.  I so loved the banjo player playing on the course.  Wanted to request rocky top, but was too busy running.  Thank you to Manhattan Running Company and to Konza Prairie for putting this race on.  Great job everyone!!!!  Till next year.........................









3 weeks till Hell Creek on Heels 50K! Training Week 16

TAPER WEEK!  Yes I am yelling because I am SO excited!  Now if I had just thought NOT to have planned a super hard trail race right in my taper:).  Here is how the first week of taper went.

Monday:  Rest day.  32 miles in two days equals rest day.  YIPEEE!

Tuesday:  Fartlek fun.  We had a fun and short fartlek work out on the docket, and we thoroughly enjoyed it.  Although, we felt like we had just warmed up when we finished.   We got rained out in the morning so had to run post soccer practice.  Another note, soccer practice was a bit better, although my son still didn't want to really participate.  Oh well, maybe soccer isn't our thing.  No biggie, we will finish the season and then do track club in the spring.

I also had a visit with Dr. Needles.  I have been horrible issues with this tendonitis.  I have been trying to manage it with everything other than not running.  Stupid, I know.  Anyway, I got to experience some fascia busting.  So glad (I think) that i have a chiropractor that likes to do lots of continuing education.  This is what my calf muscle looks like tonight.
I hope this works.  Finger's crossed.  Oh the things we do to continue running.  Sometimes the treatment is way worse than the injury!  Yikes!


Wednesday:  Cross training/strength training.  I caught the campus cold as they are calling it.  Luckily, it was only a couple of days of feeling like crap, so I took the night off, got in bed by 8 pm, and prayed for a short illness.

Thursday:  8 miles planned.  Woke up feeling worse, even though I got tons of sleep. Decided to sleep in rather than run.  3 hours of sleep sounded like a good idea.  Unfortunately that meant running at night possibly when it would be feels like 90 something and high humidity.  It is what it is.   It wasn't pretty, Mel had to try and keep me motivated the whole 8 miles.  We had to take walk breaks every mile so I could make it through but we did it, thanks to Melly's cheesy dancing to my 80s music, and a whole bunch of water + nuun.  In fact I drank my entire hand held full of water and wanted more.  

Friday:  Still not 100%, so took a rest day again.  Stupid campus viruses!  This was their first cycle of tests (my student had four this week), so stress levels are high and germs and abound.

Saturday: Planned 7 miler.  Had to get up early and get going due to hubby having to work all day.  Planned on going out at 4:30, but decided coffee and breakfast sounded better so ate and digested till 5.
  
It was super duper foggy.  Like drink the air and wear it foggy.  Like I couldn't see very far ahead of me even with my light.  Yikes.  I put on a podcast, leashed up stella ella and headed out.  She hasn't gotten to run all week due to us having to run at night instead of mornings and it being so freaking hot at night.  Fall, please come back.  Anyway, she exacted revenge on me this morning by getting my purse off of the bar, bringing in the living room and shredding most of it's contents.  Sigh.  I am hoping the 7 miles wore her out as she can't race with me or even cheer tomorrow, since we are at Konza.  

Hit 100 miles for the month.  The only reason why I know this is Melly and i were added to a 100 mile challenge on FB.  Got second place to a lady that does OCR and runs a ton apparently.  It was fun to have a challenge to work towards, even if I am bound to only running 4 days a week, while others apparently run pretty much every day.  My body can't take that kind of running, so no first place for me, but that is okay:).  They are suppose to be giving prizes away, but since the majority of the people in the challenge are not that far along with their mileage and I typically run around 100-150 miles a month, I am going to encourage them to give it to the third place winner.

A little side note, soccer was much better today.  Andrew played the first and second quarter, and while he did score another goal in the other team's goal, I cheered like no other.  I just want him to try, and he did so much better about trying.  I think part of the problem is these kids are learning balance right now, as well as ball skills, and so when they all get in and kick, they have to balance with arms and thus hit each other and push off of each other.  Andrew doesn't like that, so he tends to stay out of the scrum, so to say.  I don't think it is intentional in any way at this age, but he just doesn't like it.  I would say our teams were evenly matched, and the game was really fun to cheer.  Two of the players on the other team were from Andrew's day care, so he gave them lots of high fives and cheers before, during and after the game.  



Sunday:  25K race at Konza.  Well, not stepping to the line 100% thanks to this tendonitis, but my goal for the race was to have fun, and use it as a training run.  Here is my recap from the first time i ran this race.  Note: this race sent me to the emergency room that night and you can read about that fun here.  Not sure exactly what happened, but my feeling is I over fueled and my stomach revolted.  I am more mindful now of that kind of scenario and also recovering post race.  Here is a little preview of the post I am doing on the race.  I had a PR of 6 minutes, and I came in third in my age group, and Melly came in first in our age group!  YIPEEE!!!

Total miles for the week:  34 miles.  Kind of goofed and did not do our fartlek work out correctly so we only got four miles when we were suppose to get around 8 I think.  Oh well, probably needed the rest.

Hoping for a nice easy recovery week!  Have a great weekend and week ahead!


Sunday, September 11, 2016

4 weeks till Hell Creek on Heels 50K! Training Week 15

A short week for work equals one good week!  While we didn't have plans to really do anything labor day, sometimes a lazy day is what you need.  Looking forward to peak week, and then taper!  Here is how the week went!

Monday:  Rest day, glorious rest day.  Had several friends going out to do runs, and i was surely tempted to go, but my body needed a rest.  It was a beautiful day, although it got quite hot towards the end.  We stayed in our pjs most of the day, did some grocery shopping while dressed, and then headed back and got back in our pjs.  I don't do lazy very well and very often if at all, so it was kind of fun.  I caught up on the new show that is the biggest craze, Stranger things, and Andrew and I read some books and watched some Thomas.

Tuesday:  800 meter repeats x 5 at a 9:15 mile/minute pace.  Woke up to feels like 82 with a dew point of 70.  Thanks Kansas.  Thanks for teasing us last week with a hint of fall, and then hitting us with summer again.  We decided to not make any decisions till we had warmed up.  Well, by the time we did our one mile warm up, we were both drenched.  We decided to just do 5 miles, and call it good, which was probably a good thing since my watch died mid run, and it keeps up with our intervals and pace.


I also tried a new routine with the dogs.  We walked for five minutes and then ran till we hit a mile.  We walked for two minutes and started up again.  At mile 1.5, I felt like the dogs were starting to lag a little, so we walked for another two minutes, and then finished up our second mile.  We walked a few minutes for a cool down, but not a full five.  I felt like it worked, and will probably continue this type of run/walk.



Wednesday:  10ish miles on the bike.  We got started early enough, but was greeted with an early sunset :(  I am not ready for the sun to set so early.  We also had our fair share of bugs.  Extra protein right?

Thursday:  Planned 8 miles.  We woke up to feels like 84 and a humidity that put the dewpoint at 73.  Plus, there were storms all around us, and I had not slept well due to a situation at work + a toddler that refused to sleep.  Melly and I decided we would rather risk running post work, than get stuck out in the middle of no where with lighting.

Lucky for me,  I didn't have to go to work as I was speaking at our local high school about running.  I started speaking at 11:30, so I decided to take the dogs out and get their 2 miles in before getting ready.  I decided to try and add an extra half mile.  We walked at the beginning, took a break at 1 mile for a tenth of a mile, took another break at 2 miles for a tenth and then finished up our half for a total of 2.5.  We had a short walk back to the house, and both dogs had huge smiles on their faces.

My booth at the high school.  got to talk about running to a whole bunch of high schoolers!

We finished up with our 8 miles later on in the day post melly's work.  It was hot, humid, and just down right horrible, but we made it work, and got some pretty pictures during one of our walks.


We had lots of interesting clouds and of course, cows!

Friday:  Planned cross training/strength.  Another day of talking all day, this time to kindergartners in the morning, and 6th, 7th, and 8th graders.  Both groups were challenging and we talked for hours but it was hugely rewarding!  Melly got to help with the bigger kids in the afternoon and of course is a natural!  I really enjoying talking about things I am passionate about, like science, running, and dogs.  After talking all day, I took a little break and then headed out to help coach some soccer.  By the time we got home, I was toast!  Decided to take a rest day and rest up for my 10 miler and 22 miler.  

Saturday:  Planned 10 miler.  Got to sleep in a couple of extra hours, due to the cooler weather, YIPEEE!  I was devising some plan where I would run 7 miles or so, and then pick up the dogs.  Then I decided, what the heck, I am going to run with stella, and just see how she does.  When she tires out, I can call the hubby to come and pick her up or turn around and head home.  


I am proud to say that she made it a full 7 miles, and i believe she could have done more!  I wanted to get at least three with Deuce, so turned around at 3.5 and got 7 upon reaching the house, and then switched out the dogs and headed back out.  While I missed the sunrise, I had beautiful temps and low humidity, which made running so much more enjoyable. 


After running we had doughnuts, library time, and then soccer.  I am not going to lie to you soccer was not much fun this week.  We had multiple melt downs, sick kiddos, and kiddos just refusing to get on the field.  I feel so helpless, because I don't have the right tools to motivate 4 year olds.  


I kind of feel like once we lose them, they won't come back no matter how much we beg, bribe, or talk to them.  If anyone has any advice, I would love to hear it.  Post soccer, the meltdowns continued with my 4 year old, and we should have just gone home, but we tried to power through.  Huge mistake.  Oh well, sunday is another day.  

The butterflies were all out this morning!


Sunday:  Planned 22.  Got to sleep in a little which was nice.  Woke up to temps in the 50s and very low humidity!  Win and WIN!  I would like to say this run was perfect and magical, and it was pretty much, but it was tough at times and we had to still take a few walk breaks.  I tried fueling 4 times, and my tummy was not happy with the fourth time, so going to have to find something else towards the end that my tummy might tolerate better.  Maybe pretzels?  I was craving salt even thought I was drinking my nuun water.  Had pizza buffet afterwards and ate ALL.THE.THINGS.  Recovering now as I type this.  Super tired, would love a nap but you know, 4 year olds don't understand mommy needs a break.

Total miles: 49.5.  

I am ready for the taper but do have a TOUGH 25K this coming weekend.  It fit my taper as I needed to do 15 for my long run but it will beat me up a bit which is probably not ideal for tapering.  Oh well.  Looking forward to some shorter runs and then RACE time!  Have a great weekend!


Monday, September 5, 2016

Lately...or coffee date...or Let's have a beer

It's the first of the month and it's time for those runfessions that we all like to get out. While I love coffee, and am sipping on my pumpkin spiced keuring coffee as I type, I think we need a "sit down and have a beer" blog prompt too!

Okay, pretend I am sipping on my Harvest Pumpkin Blue Moon.  I would tell you that while I love working in my new lab, boy is that and training wearing me out. I am pretty much busy from the time I walk into the lab till I leave, and I am usually doing stuff as I walk out of the door to go pick up my kiddo from school.  It's tiring going from a job where I was sitting at my computer most of the day, to standing up, running around, and going upstairs to the other lab and back down multiple times a day.  I am still learning the techniques and the personalities in the lab, but I feel like I am much better prepared now to do the experiments and participate in the daily routine.  If you would have told me that I would enjoy working with Algae a few years ago or when I was younger, I would have laughed at you for quite some time.  Life is so strange sometimes.



Let's switch to a darker beer now.  I am digging my Left Hand Black Jack Porter, so pretend I am sipping on that now.  I have been asked to speak to students about running this week for the Wamego 150th celebration.  I have a variety of ages from kindergarten to high school kids.  I am going to confess that I haven't really come up with a great plan.  I am going to kind of wing it I think.  For the littles, I have a few running themed books to read and for the bigger kids, I am going to somehow incorporate goal setting and show them gear and some of my cool medals, but other than that, I am clueless.  The good news is that I am really good at speaking have a big mouth and like to hear myself talk and thinking on my feet, and I love public speaking, so I am hoping we have a great time talking about running, and all things related to running.



Back to my Harvest Pumpkin from Blue moon.  Stella update time.  We had our very first morning of no accidents!  This is so huge because previously we were going through towels to clean up accidents so quickly, that i was having to do laundry every day to keep up.  She would have at least three large accidents in our dining room at least three times a day if not more (not sure why three was such a popular number).  I was having to get up super early before my training runs to clean before I left, and that was usually the first thing i had to do as soon as I got home. While I am very happy she is healthy other than the effects of the pred, I am very glad to hopefully be saying good bye to this rather gross effect.  We have another appointment towards the end of september where we are doing the urine protein study, and then I am hoping we will taper even further down to almost no steroids period.  Her running is coming along nicely and I feel like we are going to fast forward her return as the walk/run intervals seem too easy for her. I have SO missed her on my runs, and while I do have Melly, I miss her little furry butt on the trail.  I have several races I want to do with her this fall, so I need to get her back into shape mileage wise!


Last one and finishing up that Blue Moon because I SO LOVE ALL things PUMPKIN!  Yes I am yelling, I am that person.  I tried to wait till at least september, but I had to cheat on my coffee because Target had it in stock already.  I also just purchased my first bag of candy corn, but I shared with my new lab.  I am so excited about my next training cycle.  Melly and I sat down and planned out next spring, and while I am ready to rest and recover from my first 50K, I am so ready to run in cooler temps!  I am a fall/winter runner like no other.  Kansas is usually pretty nice to us runners, with only a few days of degrees below zero and a few big snows.  I have decided that I am going to do a spring marathon in my hometown of Jackson TN, the Andrew Jackson Marathon.  I am also planning on doing The Wicked Half in Wamego and the Running with the Cows half in KC.  I am also eyeing the Bill Snyder Half, since I have never done it and maybe Storm the dam in 2017. Guess I'd better talk to my coach and see if she thinks this is all kosher before I sign up for too much, and start asking for money for my birthday and christmas to pay these entry fees :)

And one last thing as I am taking my beer bottles to the recycling bin.  This is going to sound silly, but I have ALWAYS wanted to be on a podcast to talk about running with dogs.  I am by no means an expert or a vet, but i have been running with my dogs since I started running, and started running because of a dog.  It kind of made me sad to find out that this week, not only did my favorite podcasters have an episode about said topic, but they didn't invite me to be in it:) AND I didn't get the information that they were taking voice memos and pictures about running with dogs, both of which i could have contributed.  I have been having weird issues with their new podcasts not downloading to my phone like normal so am a few episodes behind.  Not that they even know about me or my blog, but my little dream was to be on their podcast talking about one of the topics i am most passionate about.  I was just kind of sad about the whole thing and haven't gotten a chance to even listen.  I am sure it is awesome and i will enjoy it, but still sad about the whole thing.  Someday I will get my dream, someday:)

Alright enough typing and beer sipping.  Time to enjoy this beautiful Labor day!  Have a great week and month!

Sunday, September 4, 2016

5 weeks till Hell Creek on Heels 50K! Training Week 14

I feel like a broken record, but I am oh so tired.  I am really ready for the taper, and it looks like we have at least two weeks more of some hard miles.  Sigh. Parts of me are dying for a break, yet parts of me are LOVING how my body is responding to these hard miles.  Yes, parts of my body are being hateful, but that is manageable.  I am also pretty exhausted, yet happy with my new lab job.  I feel like I am finally part of the flow of the lab and i like that so much.  Let's talk about running, shall we?

Monday:  Rest day. Which is also grocery shopping day.  Little red has been eyeing these pokemon balloons.  I had successfully convinced him they were not for sale, that they were for looks.  Well, daddy kind of ruined that, and bought him one.   He seriously loves it, and carries it around the house pretty much from the minute he gets home till he goes to bed.  He says bye to it every morning when we head out.  Who knew a balloon would be so meaningful?
Second soccer practice and I get there an hour early  Whoops!

Tuesday:  Planned Intervals.  400 meters 8-10 at 9 min/mile pace.  We walked our recoveries, and we  pushed our intervals.  Everything went great, and I was glad to see my legs still had some speed in them.  Repeating part of week 2 of the pooch to 5 K. Got almost 2 miles with the puppers.  I feel like they could do more, but taking it easy.  We also had our second soccer practice.  We got almost 45 minutes out of the kiddos and they did great!

Wednesday:  Cross training:  A nice long bike ride my running partner Rocking Robin.  We didn't push it, just enjoyed the nice weather, the scenery, and catching up with each other's lives.  Please keep her in your prayers as her dad battles cancer.

Thursday:  Planned 7 miles.    It was 61 when we woke up with 91% HUMIDITY!!!!  Really KS?  ENOUGH!  Did another run of week 2 of pooch to 5K. I am thinking maybe I will go head and start on week 3 since they are doing so well.  Well, other than trying to eat everything on the ground, and I do mean everything.  Roid rage is for real.

Friday:  Planned cross training.  Ended up going to the Rock Creek versus Wamego football game instead.  KSU's band did not travel with the football team to CA for the football game, so they instead came to a local football game and played.  I LOVE listening to marching bands, since I was a band nerd once myself, so we headed out to support our local foot ball team listen to the BEST band in the land!  We found a nice spot in the end zone area where andrew could play and we could sit, and had a great time.  I sure do miss Friday nights at the Rock in Jackson, so was fun to be at a different Rock for a game.
I hope some day andrew plays football or marches in the band.  It's just such a great experience for me to be in marching band and for my hubby to play football.  We marched over 200 my freshman year and dominated the competitions.  We would play friday night at the game, get up early saturday morning and practice and then head out to usually a day time and night time competition.  My hubby also played on a stellar football team that repeatedly won championships. 

Saturday:  Planned 20 miles.  Decided to stay in Wamego, versus driving to a trail.  We were rewarded with amazing temps, and an amazing sunrise.  We also had an earthquake, which neither of us felt nor generated:) It's just funny that 20 is not that big a deal to me anymore.  It's just a number on my training calendar.  This is our second 20 this training cycle, and we are going to do a 22 next week.  Dear Kansas, please, please, please dial back the humidity!  While the temps were perfect, the 91% humidity was not.  I know I sound like a broken record, but seriously!

After running, I had to clean up quickly for a jaunt to the library, and then off to our very first soccer game.  We were playing a team full of andrew's friends, so I knew it would be super hard for him.  He did end up scoring a goal, but that was after half time and the goals had switched, so it was technically their goal.  Oh well, we all cheered for everyone and every play no matter what and we did NOT keep score.   We did have a few melt downs on the field with a few players, but Coach Kristen handled them so well, and we were able to play a full game!

Sunday:  Planned 10 miles.  What an odd day.  We wanted to head to Konza for a tough 10 miles.  When I got up and of course drank a few sips of coffee, I noticed someone on FB had posted that rain was hampering their morning plans.  I happened to take a gander at the radar and saw this:
Well, on paper it looked like we could beat it, but as we were driving towards manhattan, the sky lit up several times with lightening.  We decided to head back to Wamego and try and get as many miles as we could before the storm hit.  While we were treated to an amazing sunrise and got to explore some new routes, the rain finally hit us as we were headed back to Melly's house, where I was parked.  We figured we were close enough to 10 miles at 9.43, and called it good.  


Round about 7 miles we picked up the dogs from my house, and also noticed our elderly neighbor out trying to get her cat from off of her roof.  While I got the dogs ready to go, Melly tried to coax the cat off but to no avail.  We decided to skip to week 3, since we had 3 total work outs of week 2, which had longer runs.  The pooch to 5 K program, while certainly good, is not really working for my dogs. Once we finished the prescribed walk/run intervals, we just decided to run the rest, and they were of course fine.  I think I will modify what we are doing, and still do a 5 minute warm up and cool down, but just do a full mile run with a walk break if needed, and get a week in of doing 2 solid miles before moving on.  


Total miles for the week: 46.14 (that includes the dog run/walks)

I really did feel better this week, but I think that was because of the massive cool offs we had.  The humidity was still pretty brutal, but the lower temps helped a ton.  Looking forward to peak week and then TAPER TIME!  Also looking forward to some shorter runs so that the dogs can join in more often and more soccer!