Week four training for the Rockin K Trail Marathon

Another week, another rejection wah wah:(  Another Mother Runner is the ambassador program I want to be in the most and yet again this year, I got rejected.  I really must be the worst ever at filling out those applications because I BOMB waaaaayyyyy more than I get.  It was weird this year because I didn't even get a got your application or anything email.  Not even a hey, we are in the process or hey, you didn't get in so wondering if my application didn't even go through.  Oh well, I think I am finally over the glory of  being an ambassador for anything. I am still am ambassador for Honey Stinger, even though I have transitioned to using Tail Wind as my fuel of choice.  They do make amazing products and i still LOVE their waffles, but the allure of little to no stomach issues and not having to carry big waffles that freeze like bricks in the winter is winning out.  Plus, I do love the fact that I get a few calories over and over, over the hour I drink down my 17 ounce bottle.  I really don't get anything from the Honey Stinger program (kind of like Nuun), so I am not sure what the point is anyway.  Enough with the sour grapes and onto the week!

Monday:  Rest day.  Last day of rock band to the new year.  Since I am finished coaching GOTR for the year, I can now become the head chauffeur for my kiddo and all of his nightly activities.  He has his big recital this weekend for Rock band in which they are going to play Jingle Bells. I feel like it will be cute but a big disaster as they really haven't gotten the song down really well.  Thank goodness his music teacher Mr. Timmy is so awesome because he will make them look amazing even if they freak out when they get up there.  God bless awesome teachers and coaches.  Mr. Timmy is the most wonderful teacher I have ever seen, especially with little kids!!!!  On the drive home Andrew said to me, I'm exhausted mom and promptly fell asleep.  Usually when we get home he wakes up but NOPE, he stayed asleep till we all went to bed around 8:30 and stayed asleep till 5 am!

Tuesday:   5 with some HIIT thrown in (mini speed work?) and Cross Fit.  I'm slowly trying to find my love or should I say tolerance for speed work again.  I had just read an article about how to incorporate easy HIIT into your easy runs by doing a minute hard and a minute easy for 10 cycles.  I feel like this is very doable but working back up to it.  My old coach always had me doing 400,800,1000 meter repeats as well as mile and 2-3 mile repeats during my training cycles and other than the 400 and 800 meter repeats, I HATED doing speed work.  I am trying to get back to some level of tolerance, not for a PR but just to get that leg speed back.  Last week I did 2 rounds of 1 minute "hard" and one minute "easy" and today I tried 4 round of one minute "hard" and one minute "easy".  I like this so far so will build up to 10 cycles of hard and easy one day a week during my shorter runs.

Cross Fit was fun as usual.  Coach Erin had me work on front rack and front squats again.  This time I had my wrist wraps on and I had little to no wrist pain YIPEEEE!   I am ordering some of my very own as I type this!  We worked on sets with heavy 3 lifts and then sets with very light 10 lifts and did 3 cycles of that.  Then our workout consisted of 10 calories on the assault bike, 10 wall balls, and 20 kettle bell dead lifts.  We did this every 4 minute for 4 rounds and it was TOUGH!  My legs were feeling the accumulation of running, squatting, and then riding that damn bike.  I know I wasn't getting all the way down in my full squats when I was doing my wall balls but I had to do the best I could.  I always walk away feeling SO amazing, dripping sweat, and feeling like a total bad ass!

happy 6 month birthday Mr. Serious!

Wednesday:  Rest day.  Last day of sylvan...I think.  We love Sylvan and love the program but we feel like Andrew doesn't need four nights a week of after school activities.  We have been trying to quit sylvan for a month or so and they keep drawing us back in.  We are either the biggest suckers OR they are best salesmen ever.  I did get Christmas shopping finished up while Andrew was in tutoring, so that was a plus.  It's really hard not to buy crap to put in their stockings but this year I tried to really minimize the little things I bought will donate in a month tops.  

Cray cray

Thursday:  SUPER easy 5 and Cross fit.  My legs felt trashed so I knew this run was going to be tough.  I tried my normal recovery routine of running  nine tenths of a mile and then walking a tenth but my heart rate would not stay down and my legs were just tired.  My biggest fear was that Cross fit was going to trash my legs and I guess after Tuesday's session, they were trashed.  I don't want to do things that interfere with my running and I am getting ready to start in just regular classes so this concerns me.

Cross Fit was fun and challenging as usual.  Coach Erin had me work on one legged dead lifts with kettle bells and then I got to do some strict presses with dumb bells (one at a time).  My AMRAP was 7 ring rows, 7 slam balls and 7 lunges with Stella the sand bag for 7 minutes.  We finished up with heavy kettle bell swings with a 44 lb kettle bell that FORCED me to use my hips to pop that baby up!

Friday:  Rest day. I had to get in with my girl Trina at Rising Phoenix Wellness, as I had a lot of niggles that were adding up.  Riddle me this, why does just running on flat gravel so much harder on my body than running for hours on technical trail?  Plus add on Cross Fit and my body was starting to scream uncle.  After some cupping, some deep tissue massage, and some Reikki, I felt one thousand times better.  I just love Trina because she fixes not only my body but also my soul!

Saturday:  Easy 5 on the Manhattan River Trail.   So i think I have talked about this before, but after showing interest in having a chapter of Canicross in Kansas, I was asked to start up a chapter by first starting a FB page and then a FB group.  The next step was to help plan a meet up for the virtual run that Canicross USA was going to put on in January.  I have a few friends around that run with their dogs, so I approached them about helping me set something up.  There is a short dirt mountain bike trail off of Linear trail (not really a "trail" crushed limestone) that lots of runners run in our area. I am leery of it because 1) there are homeless people who camp back in there 2) mountain bikers and runners do not mix on single track hilly trails.  I went ahead and put an event page out there that said we were going to do our meet up out there and planned a run to check it out.  The maps were a little confusing since some said it was 3.7 trail and some said 5.5.  I started out on Linear and hit the trail head fairly quickly.  The trail is very pretty with some single track, some bike ruts small width stuff, and some steep hills.  I thought it was very beautiful, but I felt always on guard for homeless people and also bikers.  The ONE time I zoned out Stella got ahead of me (something she usually does not do when we are running alone) and a biker was coming the other way.  He fussed at me for having her off leash and reminded me we were in the city and she was to be on leash AT ALL TIMES.  I felt horrible because I usually follow the rules, and I didn't this time, and got caught and yelled at.  I am not really sure I want to go back, mainly because I am not sure how this trail would work if there were bikers on it.   On the way back, the hills were pretty steep and if a biker was coming down it and I was going up, that would make for a pretty nasty wreck.  It sucks because this would be a very nice training trail when I don't want to head to Clinton or Fancy Creek, as it is SO close.  Next time if I go back, I will go out MUCH earlier to try and avoid any bikers.  I didn't see any other cars in the parking lot when we got there, but I started running around 11 am, so I think as the day unfolded and promised to be warm and beautiful, more people got out and hit the trails.

Post getting my trail on, Andrew had his very first recital with Miss Emily's school of music.  Y'all, these kids got up in front of a packed house and played their instruments one by one and I was so amazed at how brave they were!  I did one solo in concert band and was a wreck!!!!  Andrew played with his band and they played solos and then a rendition of Jingle bells.  They were SO cute!!!!  Afterwards we had dinner at the student union at KSU at a little place called JPs and then bowled a few frames before heading home.

Sunday:  Easy 4.  We had two things going, a wrestling tournament and then a birthday party. I knew it was going to be dicey getting my run done, especially if I waited till after both events to run.  As predicted, I was wiped clear out when we got done.  I tried to rally and after doing 3 loads of laundry and cleaning the house a little bit I just said screw it, I am exhausted and had a beer and some soup for dinner.  I am SO proud of Andrew though.  He won his first match EVER 17-0!!!  Couldn't pin the kid to save his life but he won!!!!  Then promptly went out and got pinned in less than 20 seconds the next match, but oh well.  His other two matches were pins as well, but he fought and tried and that is all I ask.  He has come a long way and we have a long way to go, but we will get there!  We are probably going to do 3 or 4 tournaments this year since he actually seems to be paying attention in practice and trying.  We are proud of our little 64 lb, 6 year old wrestler!!!!

Another great week and another trail.  I missed one run but in the long run, resting was probably better than forcing a run.  Have a great week everyone!!!!

This week I am participating in a Link up (or trying to, forgive my stupidity as I try and do this). I am linking up with HOHO runs and Wendy from  Taking the Long way home.