Week 9: Training for the 0 Mile 50K (PEAK WEEK)

Peak week is always tough no matter how you try to ease into it.  With the plan I am using, peak week includes 5 runs a week instead of 4, including a 5, 4, 21, and 3.  Of course mother nature blessed us with several days of cold, super windy and rainy days that totally blew my plan out of the water, plus my monthly friend decided it was time to also join the party.  I needed to run Tuesday through Thursday, cross train and then 21 and 3 on the weekend.  

Who wants to eat post scope?  This man, that is who!

Tuesday was not a good day for me and I was exhausted most of the day, thanks to a super early wake up time.  We had Tony's scope in Manhattan (25ish minutes away) and had to be there at 6:30 am.  Tony is perpetually late, so even though I was in the car and ready to go, he was still getting dressed, running around finding things, and not ready.  I needed to get him dropped off and checked in so I could drive back to Wamego to get Andrew dropped off at school and then drive like hell back to pick him up.  We really need family closer, but I digress.  Starting off late put everything else late and add some bumper to bumper non moving traffic thanks to the damn never ending road construction on Highway 24 created a fair amount of stress.  The good news was though the scope only found evidence of acid reflux and that is an easy fix.  The surgeon even thought that may have caused the nausea and the vomiting as well the day we went to the ER.  After all of that running around, trying to catch up on emails and calls I missed, blustery wet cold weather, and just a crappy afternoon at work, I was just not in the mood at all to run.  I chose a good meal, a beer, and bed.  Except I laid in bed wide awake not sleeping.  Sigh.

Please don't kill your brother

Wednesday dawned with very little sleep, but I was determined to get my run week started.  I couldn't run before work as I had my weekly business networking meeting.  I couldn't run after work as we had to head to Manhattan to get fitted for our Girls on the Run modeling gig.  That meant a lunch time run it was the only option.  It was still very cold and windy, but it at least had stopped raining.  I headed home to change and get ready to head out and got the dreaded call that my kiddo was in the office with a tummy ache. They wanted to monitor him for a bit as his anxiety has been high lately causing some stomach issues, so I changed into shorts and a tank to run on the mill so I would be closer to school if he needed me.  I lasted about 5 minutes on the mill and said screw it.  I constantly now feel like I am falling and I have NO clue why.  I couldn't do speedwork hanging onto the railings, so had to give up and change again and head out and pray they didn't call me to come pick Andrew up.  The wind was relentless (hello 40 mph gusts) but I am use to it since this is my 22nd year living on the prairie.    The dogs were being absolute aussholes, wanting to play and attack each other and continuedly stopping in front of me.  Stella at one point started limping on a front leg again, but she shortly stopped limping, so I think it was maybe just something she stepped on.  Way to continually give me a heart attack Stella ella.  

Thursday was still cold and blustery, but not rainy.  I just took Boom with the intention of doing speedwork except when I stepped on the gas to get going, nothing was there.  I decided one more day of easy running was okay and not doing speedwork wouldn't hurt.  Again, lack of sleep this entire week really kicked my ass and honestly I am not even stressed about anything right now.

I need to live life more like Buck!

Friday was a wash.  I was slammed all day at work, so I couldn't get away.  My tummy was super upset the entire day meaning when I wasn't at the computer working like a mad man, I was in the bathroom.  I was unable to eat much thanks to my stomach rolling and having therapy at 4:30 pm on the other side of  Manhattan.  I planned on running as soon as I got home from therapy, but therapy was super rough for me and I just needed to get some food in my tummy and get to bed.  I missed my 4 miler this week completely, but I will not fret. I am sure it will be fine.  Reliving some past trauma is proving to be very hard for me, but I have to do it to finally heal myself and change my present day behaviors.  I am committed to getting through this and to the other side a better person.

21 miles with Queen C and the doodle girls.  We were blessed with amazing weather, cold at the start with a gradual warm up, very little wind, and no humidity.  Can I please order up this weather for race day?  Fueling was good although ran out of tailwind and just had to make do on water from a spigot.  Saw an eagle, lots of hawks, and the cops.  We were doing some short loops out at the airport aka the tiny runway on our running route and the cops showed up.  There are cameras on several of the buildings, so not sure if they saw us and thought we were up to no good, but they should know us after 10 + years of running out there.  For many years that was the only porta potty on our route and then they got rid of it :(  I as well as several other runners would love to donate to have it back versus squatting in ditches.  

Sunday was rough, no lie.  I again got no sleep (why brain, why) and couldn't sleep in due to texts coming in on my phone and buzzing my watch waking me up.  I couldn't let another day go without a run, so I drug myself out of bed, drank my coffee, and headed out with miss stella ella.  I was sore, it was a slog, but I rewarded my effort with a dirty chai and a small piece of lemon bread at the Brew post run.  

There you have it, peak week.  Not the way I wanted it to go at all thanks to lack of sleep and typical Kanas spring weather, but it's all downhill from here till race day.  I am hoping a little less wind and rain for the next week however it's Kansas and it's spring, so I probably won't get my wish.  Have a great week y'all!

Week 8: Training for the 0 Mile Flint Hills 50K

 Week 8 and Spring Break Week!  YAHOOO!

One of the joys of owning your own business means you can get away some times and work at night instead of during the day.  My mom came to visit for Andrew's spring break and we decided to sneak away a few times and take some day trips locally and me just work my butt off at night returning client phone calls and doing bookwork.  

We celebrated Pi day with some pizza pie!

We had fancy chai lattes and pastries at The Brew downtown.

We went to Salina to Rolling Hill's Zoo to see the baby rhino.  

AND we got to see the baby giraffe again that is now grown quite a bit since we saw him right after birth. 

We also went downtown to the Oz museum to check it out for the millionth time AND hunt ghosts.  

Love living in a tiny town that has some fun touristy stuff to do when you are stuck and can't travel anywhere too far.  

Running was fun this week.  I only got three runs in, but that is okay.  I got a 6 miler, a 4 miler, and a 17 miler done.  I missed my three thanks to us being at the track all day for Need For Speed, our yearly fundraiser.  The above run was post work with 40 mph winds coming from the north, so my loving hubby dropped me out by the airport on the gravel so I could run south and east only.  

I also got a 17 miler done with admittedly more walking that I wanted to do but again, it is what it is.  We had an extremely windy day with wind coming from the South and east, I was a little hung over (see below) and sleep deprived from 2 extremely late nights for me watching racing, and it was much hotter than it has been for any of my runs lately with very little acclimation.

In other news Stella got her monthly adjustment.  She won't run much in the summer since it gets so hot and she doesn't tolerate it well anymore, but I will get her out for super short runs when I can.  Can you tell she LOVES Dr. A?

  

We also celebrated St. Patrick's day with some good stout and some green!

We practiced some baseball!

We had a very productive club meeting with only one small issue (WINNING since I had been practically  puking the whole morning worrying about the meeting and how people were going to act.).

We had amazing beers post Need For Speed at the track at the Happy Bassett Barrel House (see the above about my 17 miler and why this might not have been a good idea but eh, you live and learn).

AND we had another very successful Need for Speed where we raised over 1200 bucks for our club and got lots of interest in driving at our track.  

I will leave you with my kiddo's chalk art from NFS.  Have a great week y'all!

 

 

Week 7: Training for the 0 Mile Flint Hills 50K

This whole week was kind of screwy.  My board meeting that is normally on Wednesday nights changed to Tuesday, which meant my running also changed.  Plus, we had an action packed weekend that included a parade and rookie training in Topeka.  

I ran four times again this week, one speedwork sesh, one easy run in big snowdrifts, a long run of 14, and a shorter recovery run of 4.  Of course thanks to our weekend shenanigans, I had to scramble everything around.  

In retrospect, I should have waited till the snow stopped to get my magical snowy run, but I just couldn't wait.  Don't let this photo fool you, she was all about the snow and running with the mama.  She was full on Tigger mode the entire run and almost knocked me over so many times.  She is the snow queen.   I made this photo my FB profile photo.

I started out in town with my new ice spikes that I hadn't gotten to use yet.  Let's just say after half a mile of fighting slush, icy water, drifts, and ice, I gave up and came back home.  Got my hubby to drop me off on the gravel, took those damn ice spikes off, and got my run done.  Both Yaktracks and Icespikes really hurt my feet, so I guess I will just have to keep it old school and run in screwed shoes.  Was hoping to find a solution that was a bit better than killing a pair of shoes but for me, looks like that is my only option.  As I sit here and type this my feet still hurt from those ice spikes. 

 

I had to swap my long run days around because our TKQMA racing club was in the St. Patrick's day parade. This was our first time doing a parade with the club and boy was it fun.  I took like a million pictures of the kids in their green and the cars all decorated with their shamrocks.  We didn't get to see much of the rest of the parade as they moved our line out first but what we could see looked like a good parade full of a variety of floats, candy, and beads. We ran out of candy and would need much much more if we do it again and the weather is nice as the cold kept many away I feel.  

My long run was a little bit of a struggle but full of excitement.  We saw two eagles on our route and one went into the nest that we have observed for years.  I hope this means she is sitting on an egg and they will be hanging out for a while.  I met Robin already in progress and did 4 miles by myself as she headed home.  I was pretty hot the entire time and sweated pretty salty and really honestly needed water.  I think it's time to start wearing my vest again and carrying my tailwind.  

Post long run we had our first rookie training of the year.  The board usually likes to be present so the new parents get to meet us and can talk to us with any questions we might have.  We have several great families joining our club.  Post rookie training a few of us headed over to Happy Bassett where they have not only a tasting room, patio, and back patio but a freaking dog park!!!!!  How cool is that?  While my dogs aren't huge fans of dog parks per se, it was quite empty so Stella could just hang out under our table and enjoy.  We need to go back some time soon and try some more beers as they have so many good ones to try.  We had the strawberry blonde and the new Irish red.  

Have a great week y'all and Happy St. Patrick's day!  

Week 6: Training for the 0 Mile Flint Hills 50K

 How about some pictures and very few words?  I am fine with that if you are?

#truth

I did four runs this week.  An easy run of 5, 4 miles of speed work (snowman run, need to rename for spring/summer), a long run of 11, and an easy run to end the week.  All runs went well with some wind, hot temps, and some ammonia nitrate injections.  The farmers are getting ready for spring planting and I had split my long run so Stella could go for part of it.  When I headed back out, the farmers were busy getting their anhydrous ammonia in their fields and boom and I could not stand the smell, which meant we had to run in town and get very creative to get our mileage finished.  

I needed every run to combat major life stress this week.  My hubby had what he thought might be just  a stomach virus, but he was seeing blood in his vomit and that was very scary for both of us.  After seeing our PCP that morning, she wanted us to go to the ER so we could get testing done quickly.  She wanted a scope, a CT scan, and lots of bloodwork to rule out any bleeding internally from his esophagus or his stomach.  While I do appreciate the staff at the hospital, I think they ruled him out very quickly as just someone who had a stomach virus and nothing more.  I am kind of glad he filled two bags with bloody vomit when they were doing his CT so they actually believed us.  We were sent home with nausea meds, Tylenol, and lots and lots of lab results.  When we saw our PCP the next day, they were very unhappy with the lack of scope and the fact that an EKG was performed and no one informed us it was abnormal.  Also nothing was done really to get Tony's blood sugar down.  He is a diabetic that isn't doing a great job of managing his diabetes and he was close to 400 when we were at the ER.    We formed a plan of attack including a scope to rule out ulcers, a stress test to make sure his heart is okay, a visit with an endocrinologist to decide if he truly has type 1 or type 2 and how to treat, and insulin bolus at night to get the blood sugar down immediately.  

We were treated with some beautiful sunsets this week.  

Andrew also had a day off from school so we hit the coffee shop and the library.

It was 60 at 5:30 am when I got up to run.  I am not ready for the crazy high temps we had this week.  One day it even got up to 81. I  need a gradual warm up please!

Because of the warm up happening so quickly, Stella was not able to do many of the runs with us this week.  It makes me super sad to leave her behind but I know the heat is not her friend any more.  Even on Saturday when she did 5 of our 11 miles she was struggling with the humidity and it seriously broke my heart.  I am not ready for her to be old or retired.  She's been running so well all winter.  Sigh.