Week 10 of 12: Training for the Hell Creek 20 miler

This accurately describes where I am at right now.  

 

For my mental health I may have to walk away from a few things and while it is going to be super hard I think for me it will be the best thing in the long run, even if I lose some friends. Stay tuned.  

Monday: Rest day

Tuesday: 5 miles

Wednesday: 4-5 miles easy

Thursday: 4 miles

Friday: cross train

Saturday: 16 miles

Sunday: 7 miles

Monday:  Rest day.  Football practice night and the boys had an amazing practice.  It was so fun to see Andrew take snaps on 2nd team offense and defense.  

Dis my grammy

Tuesday:  4 miles at 5 am.  Seriously, here lately the late afternoon/early nights have been calling my name.  I just need to eat a protein bar before Andrew's practice and then run when he gets done.  The only saving grace was that the humidity was super low and tolerable.  My left shin which has been quiet is now screaming at me and my left groin is hurting again.  My chiro fixed it last week, but I apparently un fixed it.  I am sure it is because I have not been doing strength training at all.  I am really enjoying my nights watching my kiddo practice football instead of lifting.  Again, I need to get my butt out of bed but it's just not happening. 

Wednesday:  Rest day.  Again, I had hoped to get up and run before my networking meeting but my body needed sleep and I let it get the sleep it needed knowing the next few nights were going to be super rough.  We had a club meeting after work in Topeka and it was rough as expected.  It saddens me greatly to see grown adults act so nasty about a kid's sport.  It should be about the kids, but personal vendettas are being brought forward and used and it just makes me deeply sad.  I have many friends in this club that I care about and to see them all fighting amongst themselves is killing me.  Again, walking away may be my best option at this point, even if it means walking away from watching my kiddo do the thing he loves.  

Dis my new friend at work

Thursday:  5 miles post football practice.  Had hoped the nicer cooler weather when the sun went down would be a welcome respite to the hot and humid mornings.  Since I didn't get much sleep the night before  thanks to my brain waking me up at 2:30 in the morning, waiting till later made sense.  Except in never really cooled off like it had in previous nights and Boom and I were dying when we headed back home to no wind or breeze.  

Friday:  Rest day.  I had intended on going out post a protein bar and running at night.  Instead I stayed home with Tony's mom and just talked about life and enjoyed catching up.  Feeling pretty down about myself lately, and between her and my mom and my good friends, I have needed and enjoyed that talk therapy.  Sometimes I think maybe I am the problem, so it is nice to have someone else look at the problem from a different angle and discuss.

Saturday:  Game day!  Okay I am going to be SUPER honest with you on this one. I was VERY nervous for this game.  Mainly because we did win our scrimmage, but it wasn't the best scrimmage ever and honestly Andrew got in a total of 5 snaps maybe, so I had NO idea how he was going to perform in a game.  

The game was also an away game an hour away in Council grove AND started at 8:30 am meaning we had to be at the field at 7:45 am.  Happy to say we were the second family there, breaking the Coleman curse of always being late.  

I could tell he was nervous because he was talking 90 mph on the drive over.  The first part of the game was a nail biter as we were evenly matched and I felt like equally nervous.  Then our offense got going and we never looked back. 

The most exciting part was that Andrew got subbed in on a touch down play with the starters and he laid a great block that helped his team score.  I was SO excited to see him get lots of high fives, congrats, and have his name called out.  I am hoping this will help him with his confidence moving forward.

He got to go in and out a ton in the 3rd quarter and played most of the 4th quarter on either defense or offense.  He even got to play a new position on defense, which I think he really liked.  Then we got a 5th quarter for all the non starters and he got to play the entire 5th quarter with other first year 4th graders and 3rd graders.  Our  team even scored a touch down in the 5th quarter!!!!!!  Overall, amazing experience and I can't wait to see how this season goes.  

After football we went to Manhattan since everyone was at the stadium already and had pizza and one beer at my favorite tasting room since I was planning on running later.

   

I finally got on the road around 7 pm and got in 4 miles.  My leg is screaming right now and the sensibly thing probably would be to take another break, but it shuts up after 4-5 miles so should be good for my long run right?

Sunday:  Long run day!  I had an idea of a range from 10-15.  I was going to let my body dictate what. I also cheated and took and advil on my way out the door.  I know, I know, not a great idea but my shin stayed quiet.  The temperatures were amazing but the humidity was sky high and we had to keep a close eye on the dogs and stop frequently for water breaks because of it.  I am SO ready for some fall weather.  I felt great, felt strong and I am praying on race day we have cool temps AND low humidity.  The whole time all I could think was the poor runners on the Konza today doing Conquer the Konza. Got 10 miles, felt strong but knew my limits and was happy to fully be in taper mode. 

After running we headed to the pumpkin patch.  Yes, it was 90 degrees out and yes we did all the things that scream fall, but of course the barn with the kittens won out and we spent most of our time there.  

Monday: Rest day

Tuesday: 4 miles

Wednesday: 

Thursday: 5 miles

Friday: Rest

Saturday: 4 miles

Sunday: 10 miles

Have a great week y'all!!!!  Still praying for fall over here.  Going to be a busy week, football games and racing will end our super jam packed week of goodness!