Tails on the Trail week!

I think this was from the first year I did this race and is still part of the brochure

It's Tails on the Trail week!  This is one of my most favorite dog themed races, hands down!  I am even skipping a local race to go do this race since we are the poster children :)  Yes it's only a 5k and yes I will have to do a long run (hopefully on technical trails) the next day, but I can't not do this race!

Monday: Rest day and GOTR day.   Let me back up a minute to Sunday.  Yes, i kind of didn't talk about this in detail, but my legs were SUPER sore Sunday during my long run.  I wore my compression socks because well, I do when I race so why not when I actually train. I  had so much pain in my legs when I started, I almost ran back home to take them off.  I have no clue if this was because of my massage or what.  I know I didn't drink enough water post massage even though I tried.  I kind of have been off of my water kick since it is so cold in our office too and i need to get back on that band wagon.  Anyway, the pain faded after I got about a mile and half in and I have no clue why it hurt so badly.  Now fast forward, I was sore again Monday too, but I ran a bit with the GOTR girls.  There was too much walking and I tried to lead by example that the 45 second run, 15 second walk is doable.  A few of the girls hooked on to me and stayed with me for several laps, so I think it worked.  

Tuesday:  5 easy miles.  I don't know why but 5 miles just feels like the sweet spot, but it does, so that is what i am doing. I did add in some walk breaks since my legs are still slightly sore.  I also ordered some new shoes when I got home because I am pretty sure my Bondi's are done. I have tried so many things to get rid of this PF and I am hoping new shoes will be the solution since I have changed so many other things.  Buying new shoes, especially shoes you can't try on is SO scary!  

Cross fit was pretty tame (or so I thought at the time)  and I am okay with that.  We did lots of weighted lunges, squats, one legged squats, weighted sit ups, and kettle bell dead lifts.  I ended with a 500 meter row for time that I will be doing again at some point to see if I improve.  Erin told me that I would probably be super sore and boy was she right!

Wednesday:  Just survive the soreness day.  Forget DOMS I had immediate soreness!  Those lunges and squats made my butt and quads feel like they wanted to leave my legs.  OUCH!

I will be very honest when I say that Halloween is not my favorite holiday now that I have a 2 legged kiddo.  Trick or treating consists of standing in line while very nice people hand out candy, but what fun is Halloween if you don't actually go to houses? To try and get into the spirit, I decided not only to make Andrew or i should say Mario a mystery box, but also make Boom a costume so he could partake.  All of this was decided about 30 minutes before Andrew's class room parade and party.  Yeah, living on the edge and praying that the yellow marker didn't crap out.

I will have to say that everything turned out much better than I planned.  The mystery box worked great after a little reinforcement via daddy's hand, and Boom left his little costume alone the entire night.  

  

Boom had a turtle on one side and an evil mushroom on the other side!

After going through downtown and then a few houses on the way back, little man opted to hand out candy versus go to another neighborhood and do more trick or treating.  This may change in the future, but I loved hanging out with our neighbors, just letting the boys play and handing out candy.  We don't really know many people on our street, so it's nice to know at least one, even if her kiddos are a bit older than Andrew.  They honestly treat him like a little brother and i love the patience they have with him, teaching him how to throw the baseball in the summer and the football in the winter.  

Thursday:  practice 5K with the GOTR girls.  Okay y'all, I really wasn't sure how this would go.  We have a much better group this year, but still we have some that primarily walk and we had an hour to get our out and back 5K in.  We had four coaches this year, so we split up into groups and let the girls figure out what pace they liked the best.  Y'all, I am OVER the moon about how well our girls did.  They tried SO hard and most if not all finished in under an hour with multiple hills.  We even had a few girls that wanted to continue running, and did 4 miles with me still in under an hour!

Friday:  Cross fit.  Normally I work out Tuesday/Thursday, but this week I had to move it to Friday thanks to my coach having basketball Thursday night.  She works 5 jobs and I wish she didn't have to.  I wish we could have enough people taking privates from her that she could quit a few of her jobs.  I really don't know how she does it and does school.  Anyway, we worked on the push press to find my max and then did some sets at 80% and at 60%.  We also did a WOD that included 10 ring rows, 10 push ups, and 10 band pulls every 2 minutes for 12 minutes. I thought it sounded easy until I did my strength part and my shoulders and arms were TIRED!  Glad i had 2 minutes because I used every bit of that 2 minutes!

Saturday: Tails on the Trail day!  It was a cool, cloudy day and it was perfect for racing.  It seemed that there were less people there than previous years, but I could be wrong.  I think most people did the walk or the 1 mile walk instead of running the 5K.  Stella pulled me to a 3rd place finish in our age group.  

I really do love this trail and wish I could get on it more often.  Its no so rocky rooty, so you can really open up and run, plus it has some challenging, but doable hills.

  

I didn't get a PR, but I felt SUPER strong on the trail and that made me smile!  We would have had an even better time, but Stella needed a drink at the last water stop and probably took 30 seconds or more to drink.  Oh well, it was fun, we pushed and we got another cute little trophy to add to our collection.

Sunday:  Trail run with the girls.  At first I wanted 2 loops or 14ish miles out at Fancy Creek to get ready for my next race, a 25K out on the trails of Clinton Lake.  Then I backed down to 10 after I woke up super sore and the others wanted to do less.  We rode separately, so we could all do what we needed.  Teri, our new trail friend, ran the big loop (which was 5.94 on my watch, but the trail gods that created it say it is 6.6 because switch backs aren't counted correctly) and then headed out.  I was a bit behind them as I am a little slower on trails so got the loop done 20 minutes later. Then Mel and I headed out to do another trail that ended up being a 2.3 loop, again according to the trail gods who had made the trails and were out doing trail maintenance.  They had accurately measured the trails with non GPS means, so I guess I need to trust them.  So almost 9 miles (my watch said 8.45 when we got done), still a little lower than I would have liked, but probably smarter since I was pretty tired and sore from the day before and getting woke up now at 5:30 am instead of 6:30 am (thanks daylight savings time).  

Have a great upcoming week!  I guess I will take it easy again since I have another trail race coming up!  Can't wait to run some Clinton Lake goodness!  Maybe someday I will get my trail hawk name.  Any suggestions?  Pretty sure red hawk is probably taken :)