Winging it Week 2: Pacing Running with the Cows half marathon

Here we are again with another week of winging it and I am going to enjoy it to the max.  Spring is being a beast right now with lots of rain and lots of severe weather, so I am trying to get what I can and not feel guilty about what I can't.  Plus I have my first pacing gig this year!!!!!!   Running with the Cows 2:45 group, here I come!!!!

Monday:  Cross fit day...except no sleep happened before cross fit day started, so 4 am turned into a reset alarm clock and more sleep and that didn't even help.  We had severe storms start about 10 pm Sunday night and continue all night long, and my newly freaked out thunderstorm phobic deuce laid next to me or on me all night shaking like a leaf.  I need to try his thunderstorm shirt on him to see if that helps because if not, drugs might have to do the trick, because storm season isn't a short season here in KS.   I was pretty much a zombie all day even with mucho caffeine.

so much water in newly planted fields :(

Tuesday:  5 miles with some strides.  I am trying to get some speed work back in, just in the form of more easy speed work than big repeats.   I figure strides are the simplest way, so I am trying to do 6 or more strides in my Tuesday runs.  I will try and work up to 10.  My strides are 30 seconds in length, since I am a poor judge of distance when it comes to 100 meters on a road.   Many of the gravel roads I run on were flooded and most of the newly planted fields had water standing on them. I actually saw several fields that had pumps.  I have never in the years I have run on these country road seen the farmers using pumps to try and save fields.

the mess that is our flooded basement.  Mostly junk down there of the hubby's but still a huge mess:(

Wednesday:  Does running around like a chicken with your head cut off count for anything?  Let me try to make this short and sweet.  Had to run to Manhattan to close out a bank account that I thought had been closed months ago.  I got a NSF note in my email and was very upset to find out it was never closed down and an automatic subscription had gone through and caused me to rack up some fees.  Was told if I came in, paid the fees (even though it was their mistake for NOT closing the account originally, that all would be fine and they would close the account and give me official documentation that the account was indeed close.  TBC.  Then we had to go be adults because our old washer and dryer both died while doing laundry and was not about to spend a small fortune in quarters to finish it up.  At least now we have matching made in the USA washer and dryer.  Then we had to head back home to pump water out of out flooded basement thanks to all of the rain we have had lately.  Yeah for old houses.

matchy matchy!

Anyway, it was a mess of a day, but my hubby was a super hero and got everything pumped and hooked up, and even ate my horrible cooking without complaint AND got on the roof and made sure our gutters were totally cleaned out.

Thursday:  Easy run + Crossfit. I tried to run on pavement since my body is not really use to harder surfaces, and also pick a nice hilly course around Wamego.  I decided to do one mile with Boom and then 3 with Stella ella.  I am kind of nervous because post run, my right calf did not feel happy with the pounding of the pavement.  I am probably going to err on the side of caution and wear a compression sleeve just in case for pacing.  I really hope I did not screw something up that Trina or Doug can't quickly fix, as i have not one but two pacing gigs coming up.

Later on in the day, I hit the Cross fit gym to get the lifting done that I had missed earlier in the week.  I did my back squat series that the class did Monday, and then some deadlifts that Coach Erin suggested I try.  We did Romanian or stiff leg dead lifts, regular dead lifts, and pause dead lifts where you pause at the knee for 2 seconds and then continue up.  It honestly felt so great to not be rushed to get a WOD in or to be constrained by a 1 hour class.  While I love my Crossfit gym and coaches, I am really falling in love with power lifting and am looking into possibly doing some power lifting in Wamego versus driving to Manhattan.  I don't want to leave but it would save me time, gain me some sleep, and also save me a ton of money since Crossfit can be a bit pricey compared to a regular gym membership.  Decisions, decisions.

Andrew's 1st grade play day.  Listening to rules

Friday:  Round two of bank crap and rest day.  I had decided to forgo a hotel room (NASCAR is in town so hotel rooms go for a premium) for Friday night in Kansas city and sleep in my own bed.  This meant I needed to get to bed early so I could get up before 4 am and head out.  But first, let me explain round two of bank crap.  I finally got a refund from the company that charged me automatically and caused my supposedly closed account to overdraft, but instead of just refunding my paypal acccount, the money went back to the bank to the account I just closed.   In a panic I called the bank and low and behold, my account was STILL OPEN and on top of that, my runner's world subscription that I thought was taken out of my credit card was trying to come out and of course there was no money in the account to begin with.  I was told if I drove to Manhattan immediately and put money in the "closed" account to cover the charge, I wouldn't be charged an overdraft fee.  Insert FACE PALM SPLAT.  I had to sprint to town since Andrew's school play date at the local park was that afternoon (think field day but with cooler events), get that paid, get another round of paper work that said the account was closed YET AGAIN and come back to work.  I am so tired of dealing with this and I fear that it will never end, especially when i am given paper work saying it is closed and it isn't.  Anyway, got back in time for play day, which is a day of relay races that are super fun and cute.

  

There were so many fun games that the kiddos did and I loved helping, but seriously God bless those teachers!  I only had 5 kids to deal with and I almost lost my mind trying to keep those 5 together, listening, and not killing each other.  I can't even imagine having 20 of them every single day!

Saturday:  Pacing 2:45 group for Running with the Cows half.  This is one of my most favorite road races of all time.  HUGE pre-race spread, lots of photo ops, party post race, and amazing staff and volunteers.  This is a fund raiser for a local school in KC and they do it RIGHT!  The merch is cute, the tech tees are always colorful, and the medals always have queenie the cow.  

Since I didn't get a hotel in KC, I had to get up at 3:30 am and get ready to be out of the door by 3:50ish.  The drive was about 2 hours and we needed to be there at 6 am due to parking issues.  I also needed to fill up Jon Snow the Tahoe since I had made several trips to Manhattan this week.  I kept leaving and coming back in because I had forgotten things.  Whoops.  Finally got on the road right before 4 am.  Didn't take coffee, just took some coke zero to keep me awake.  It rained the entire way over, but I think that helped me stay awake honestly.  Got there right at 6 am and parked in a very wet field with wreckers all around (eeeekkkkk).  Jon Snow the Tahoe has 4 wheel drive, but I have never used it.  Anyway we waited until 7:10 am to line up as pacers because of the rain and cold.  Believe me I am a fan of cold and rain versus heat and humidity, so I wasn't mad, until they delayed the race because people were still trying to get parked and get to the start line.  Then the cold became a factor and I started shaking until we started. 

my 2:45 co-pacer

We started out with a few people in our pace group, but by mile 10 most had either pushed out or fallen behind :(  It makes me sad to not be able to directly help people, but I know people keep us in their sights or make it a point to stay ahead of us, so even though they don't finish with us, they still get the benefit of us being there.  

finishing by myself :(

I love this race for the course (it's tough but I have my half PR from this course), but the post race is amazing.  Think homemade goodies x infinity.  Everything from baked goods to fancy delicious pasta to delightful sub sandwiches.  It's amazing and it's a party!!!!  I am not really into eating right after races, so I had a small sub sandwich and some chocolate milk.  I had to take the pacing sticks back with me to take to packet pick up of the next race I am pacing at so I just kind of hung out till the 3 hour pacers were done and then prayed I could get out of the mucky field.  Lucky for me, i was able to slowly make my way out and back to home.  I was in bed by 8 pm and out by 8:30 pm after reading a few pages of my book.  YES!

Happy mother's day to my sweet and awesome mommy!  She really is the best!

Sunday: Mother's day!  We had a million things to do and not enough time to do them.  We needed to get to the track for race car practice and some tuning up on andrew's car.  I also wanted to finish working on the front flower beds and make a target trip, plus our local running store was having a sale on goodrs and you can't have enough goodrs in my opinion.  I also secretly wanted my favorite lunch of quiche and fru fru coffee, something my kiddo loves (the quiche that is), but no one else in my family is a fan of.  Well luck would have it that on and off again rain showers kept us home from the track and allowed me to get all the things done I wanted to do, even the fru fru coffee and quiche plus a quick target trip BONUS:)  Happy mother's day to me!!!!!

And a huge THANK YOU to my mini me for making me a mommy!  I love you so much and enjoy being your mommy more than anything in this world!

And thank you to my four legged kiddos.  Thanks for letting me sort of sleep in till 7:30 am this morning without too much fuss.  Happy mother's day to all of the other bad ass mother runners out there!!  Have a great week!  I am looking forward to getting back to the gym for more lifting, giving my calf muscle some tough love and time to stop freaking out, and andrew's third points race with his newly tuned race car.