Week 2: Training for the Hell Creek 20 miler

 What I was suppose to do this week:

Monday: Rest

Tuesday: 3 miles

Wednesday:  3 miles

Thursday: Cross train

Friday:  Rest

Saturday:  5 miles

Sunday:  Race day/rest

Monday:  Rest day/Strength training.  I stuck to my normal.  Rear squats (10 lb plates), 30 second plank, dead lifts with 15 lbs of plates, single leg balance with kettle bell in farmer's carry.  Easy peasy, lemon squeezy, yet so effective.  

Tuesday: 4 miles.  Temperature was wonderful, humidity was not.  I had to get up a little earlier thanks to hubby needing to be at work at 7.  After a previous night of not sleeping, I got a full night's sleep and got my butt out of bed early to get done by 7.  I brought stella ella since it was a little cooler.  

Wednesday:  My usual rest day thanks to the day O' meetings.  Business networking at 7 am and then board meeting later that night.  We had to shuffle things around because hubby had to go into work extra early and I couldn't get to my meeting and drop my kiddo off to boys and girls club for his field trip.  Oh well, I think I can have 2 absences ever so many months.  Honestly, I really am burnt out on the networking group and wouldn't mind stopping my attendance all together. I don't have the time I need to devote to get all the CEUs and networking I need to do to make it work.  I feel horrible, it's a great group of people and businesses, I just have really struggled to do all the things I need to do to stay in the "Green".   Everything I do is done at 110% and if I can't give that 110%, it really, really bothers me.

 

Thursday:  Another super early morning for the hubby to up and at work, so no running for me.  Plus, after work kiddo had football camp and I had to mow post camp.  Ah the joys of owning your own home.  Andrew had a much nicer day at camp, and bonus, we got our back to school hair cut done at  real barbershop!

Friday:     Didn't get up early to run.  Bad mistake.  Finally got out around 9ish thanks to a busy day at work.  I sure do love being able to work from anywhere even if sometimes the accounting side of it drives me insane.  I also hit the weights later in the day and did front squats, deadlifts, planks, and some hammy exercises.  I still struggle with my front squats so not upping the weight on those any time soon till I can comfortable lift two 10 lbs plate + bar.

Saturday: Long run day! I totally forgot I had signed up for a Hive Hustle Challenge with Honey Stinger.  I had to do 10 miles to complete the challenge and earn the medal.  At first I was going to hit the trails with Melly mel and get in 10 trail miles.  We were suppose to have 100+ temps and I was dreading it, but I also wanted to support Mel as she trains for her 100, even if it was only for 5 miles.  Then we had a Covid positive at the race track and another mom and I who have our vaccinations and have had Covid decided to meet at the track and clean before the next race.  This meant I needed to be done and out pretty quickly if we were going to meet and clean.  I decided to get up at 4 am and start running at 5 am to be done and showered and on the road.  OF course as usual, I was wide awake till past 11 even with the help of melatonin, so 4 am didn't happen, but 5 am did and I was out by 6 am after coffee and fuel.  The temps actually came down to about 76 around sun rise and the humidity was in the high 80s, but I was drenched after 1 mile.  I also had massive stomach issues and had to make an emergency pit stop in a ditch.  I ended up walking a full five minutes both times i fueled and sometimes taking a 2 minute walk break instead of 1. I am fine with the fact that it took me over 2 hours to get done. I was so over the heat and just trying to stay upright.  I took one bottle of water and one bottle of Tailwind Colorado cola to get me through, plus my honey stinger waffles.  No pups since the dewpoint was at 70 when I headed out.  I draw the line at 69-70 and that much heat for my dogs.  

Sunday:  Rest day.  Post running and cleaning, Andrew practiced both of his cars and then we went to a cook out at one of the family's houses.  The kids played their butts off till almost midnight and we had fun just sitting and talking.  We are all battling some similar issues with our kids and all kind of trying anything and everything we can to keep them successful and happy.  That was Saturday, so fast-forward to Sunday where I slept till 10 am!!!!!   I can't believe how late I slept!  We had planned to go on another day trip, but voted to have a lazy day at home instead.  

On a side note, we had a friend and expert in our chassis go over the cars and he found many things wrong with both.  We don't claim to be experts but we were shocked but happy to find there were reasons why Andrew slowed down over this season.  We all took our kiddos and the cars out to practice and tune.  His animal car, the red one had the most wrong with it, but even after fixing it, his times did not get better.  The white car got slightly better but still not the increase in times we had hoped for.  Sigh.  We even had a kiddo that is really good and his size drive it, same times as Andrew and a kiddo that is much lighter than him and really, really good, same times as Andrew.  We are all very very puzzled.   To be continued.  

What I did this week:

Monday:  Rest/Strength train

Tuesday: 4 miles easy

Wednesday: Rest    

Thursday: Rest

Friday: Strength training/3 hot miles

Saturday: 10 miles

Sunday:  Rest/Race day

I am still really digging this plan, especially with the heat this week. I can wrap my mind around 3-5 miles in the heat.  While I still would prefer to NOT run in the heat at all, I am hoping we can make it through the end of July/August in one piece without passing out.  Onward and upward.  

Week One Training for the Hell Creek 20 miler

Welcome to a short mileage week of training but nevertheless week 1!!!!!  After a nice long break from formal training, I think I am ready to be back at it. I say think because getting up early is still not one of my most favorite things in the world.  Here is what week one is suppose to look like:

M: Rest

Tues: 2 miles easy

Wed: 3 miles easy

Thurs: Rest

Friday: Cross train

Saturday: 4 miles easy

Sunday: Rest

As you know or maybe you don't, I have a networking meeting every Wednesday in another town, which means an early up and out.  Also Wednesday nights are for either board meetings or club meetings for our racing club, so Wednesday anything is pretty much out unless I can do it over my lunch hour.  This is how the week played out.

Monday:  The day of all the appointments.  Andrew got to go to his favorite dentist and got a mostly clean bill of health.  This kiddo hates brushing his teeth and I am shocked that the sealants are good enough to circumvent that issue.  He has one small cavity in a baby tooth they are watching, but it's in a molar that should be gone soon anyway.  We also went to the track to practice.  We just can't get these cars dialed in and it's not for lack of trying. I am all for paying someone to go over them and figure out what we are missing.  The black and green car wouldn't fire up at all, but we aren't racing that one anyway, just practicing.  It was still a frustrating practice for all us since we just can't find the speed and seem to be going backwards.  Again, I know it's the cars and not the kid in practice because his lines are tight, he is driving hard, it's just some small thing we have to be missing on the cars.  Everyone else has their cars dialed in at this point and we are still just flat out struggling which erodes Andrew's already low confidence.  The best or maybe worst part was all of us pushing the 160 around the track praying it would start and just not getting anything but exhausted.  Tony and Uncle Cayce are not runners, but they were that night!

Tuesday:  3 miles easy.  First of all, late night getting home  (we didn't even get to eat dinner till almost 9 in Topeka) meant a wind down period which meant an early morning was not happening.  I was able to sneak out around 8 and get a quick 3 miler in before work and shuttling Andrew to Manhattan for art class.  The temps and humidity were still low enough for me to bring boom boom and there was still tons of mud/water on our running route for him to get in and cool off if needed.  

Wednesday:  Since I have no time really to run with BNI in the morning and board meetings at night for the racing club, I had to settle for a 30 minute lifting session at the shop.  I am keeping it simple, 4 rounds with front squats (20 lbs on the bar), kettle bell swings (20-25 since I have a light weight), dead lifts (20 lbs on the bar), and 30 second planks.  Nothing fancy, simple basic lifts.  I kept a big eye on my form and I am dripping with sweat by the end without doing anything crazy.  On the coaching front, I have contacted a few coaches and while I do feel like the prices they charge are warranted for what they do, the cost is just not fitting into my current budget for what I want.  It makes me sad as I really want to do some sort of strength cycle and be professionally followed while doing so for form and safety, but I may have to put that desire on hold for now.  I would rather spend that money at the chiropractor getting fixed :)

Thursday:  Woke up to heavy rain, lightning and thunder.  Sigh.  Waited and still storming.  Had hoped while Andrew was in art class I could get out somewhere in Manhattan and get a run in.  We pretty much had rain all day and by the time it stopped, it was hot and humid and jungle like, and I had to desire to run.  Took it as a rest day instead.  I love watching Andrew create.  He didn't know I was sitting there watching.  He was so deep in thought with his painting.  

Friday:  3 miles.  It's so weird to just be running 3 miles, but at the same time with my hatred for all things summer running, I am enjoying running "just" three miles.  Post running Andrew had his last day of art class.  God bless his teacher, she was amazing and patient and I think she will do so well teaching elementary art.  We decided to stick around and paint some ceramics, which I found to be way harder than I thought it would be.  You have to paint 3 coats of every color to make it look good and that takes a long while.  I will be back for sure on a rainy or bad weather day as it was a fun way to pass the time.  I can't wait to see the final product.  Andrew painted a Mandalorian helmet mug and i painted a plate that said one spoiled dog.

He worked so hard to make it look "weathered".  I love that he loves to be creative!  I was the same way as a kiddo and I outgrew it but I hope his love of all things art stays. I can still remember begging my mom for those paint by number velvet things at Walmart. Remember those????

Saturday:  Long run day!  4 miles LOL!  Again due to my lack of good sleep I am not getting out early enough.  Robin and I both commented that we got out too late and when we get longer runs this will have to change.  Sigh.  Can someone figure out how to make me sleep 8 hours straight so I can get up early and not feel like a zombie?  Post running we got cleaned up and headed to Hutchinson Kansas to the salt mines.  I had seen several people post about this place and with it only being 2 hours away, had to get to there and check it out.  I need to do a post about it on it's own because we had SO much fun!  We did three tours: a train ride through the mines, the dark tour on a tram through another part of the mines, and a salt safari which was a more in depth tour of the 1950s part of the mines.  Who knew salt mines could be so educational and fun!   Who also knew that this existed 650 feet below ground thanks to Kansas at one time being an ocean?  Plus, the film industry uses this very mine to store film props and old film because of it's safety from natural disasters and it's constant temperature and low humidity.  Here are a few pictures from our adventure:

I had been warned about the dark elevator ride to go down into the mines.  It's 90 seconds of being crammed in an elevator in the dark while going down.  Not my jam since I am not a fan of tight spaces, but since I was prepared for it, I was able to breath through it and not freak out.  On the way back up was a different story as some sensor got tripped and we had to sit for a few minutes in the dark, but again, I was able to hold it together and not completely loose my you know what in front of my kiddo.  

Sunday:  Race day/Rest day.    I wish I could write that things went well, but I can't.  I am going to keep it super real.  We can't get the cars fast enough for Andrew to be competitive.  He is feeling that we are struggling and he like me is super sensitive to that and it's killing his confidence.  Whereas at the beginning of the year, even if he wouldn't pass he would hold his position and line, now he is clearly stepping on the brakes and moving himself to the back no matter what.  He had great positioning twice at the race and didn't even try to keep it.  His confidence is shot and I am not sure how we are going to bring it back.  Stay tuned.  We aren't giving up, but I am not sure what we are going to do at this point.  We are not quitters and things can change if and only if we can get the cars faster, BUT I am not sure how we are going to do that.   

So here is what I actually got for the week.

M: Rest

Tues: 3 miles

Wed: Cross train/Strength

Thurs: Rest

Fri: 3 miles

Saturday: 4 miles

Sunday:  Race day/Rest

Have a great week y'all!  Football camp starts this week and we have yet another race.  Plus, we may go paint ceramics again :)

Last week of FREEDOM!

Short work week, but lots of work to catch up on being out for four days!  Two more months of summer running and I am seriously counting down the days. I am all about #teamwinter.

Monday was all about clean up.  I am so glad we had the day off but dang, I was not ready for the mess left at work from being off Friday-Monday.  Monday was also the last day of firing off fire works.  This holiday truly is my hubby's favorite, so he had spent a ton of money and we still have quite a few left.

We also took advantage of the after holiday sales.  I am a sucker for all things stars :)  Hoping this can be his fall picture day shirt.  It really makes his blue eyes pop.

When I came home from my very short and hot 4 miler, I came upon a chicken in a dog crate on my porch.  Yes, you read that right.  Not only do we live in the middle of the city with owls and foxes, we now have chickens.  Sigh.  I posted on the city FB page in hopes that someone might come forward that was missing a chicken.  I finally got a FB message at 4 pm that her mom was looking for her.  No more chicken, but an odd smell started wafting from under our porch.  Hmmm......TBC.

Now that we are post Covid, trying to do some fun things to make up for lost time. Our tiny town now has an 8 lane bowling alley complete with arcade and pool tables/dart boards.  Andrew wanted to go and they have really good pizza and beer, a win win situation.  We bowled two games and then played pool, one of my most favorite games of all.  Many a weekend we spent in Manhattan shooting pool at Fast Eddies as well as in Martin TN at Cadillacs.  If I could practice more and get better, I would totally do pool leagues.  Andrew of course prefers the claw machine and pacman.

Thursday meant running was on tap and I woke up to cooler temps, but holy moly the humidity was pretty close to 100%.    I decided to keep my run short since I still can being off plan and take stella.  I am pretty sure she smiled the entire run even if she was puffed out like a huge puff ball thanks to the humidity.  When we got home the smell was SO bad on our front porch and even in the house that we had to do something.  Tony fashioned a hook out of conduit and started dragging stuff out from under our porch.  I am not sure what IT was but IT was big, had brownish hair, was covered in maggots, and smelled horribly but was not bloated so hadn't been there too long.  It had part of a tail and I could sort of make out rings so maybe a raccoon is our best guess.  Not sure why it was under our porch unless it got hit and just crawled under there to die.  We really need to figure out a way to enclose that underneath so that doesn't happen again.  It was a HORRIBLE smell and if anyone drove by while tony and I were fishing it out, you would have seen lots of gagging and gasping.  

Friday was my first day back strength training.  I had moved all of my equipment to the shop and Tony had carved out a small space for me in the back to set up. I can't leave stuff out, I have to put it up every day post working out but I will take it.  I was kind of worried about the ability of the stand alone rack to handle the weight but they seem very stable and very convenient.  I did a simple set of 10 back squats, 10 regular deadlifts, 30 second planks, and 30 second one leg balances with a kettle bell held over my head.  Easy peasy but oh so hard!  We also were dealt some bad news Friday afternoon at the shop.  One of our service guys who has been a very hard worker for us has decided to give his body some rest and take a break from electrical work.  Being of the same stature as me, he has been the one for years to go in all of the crawl spaces and attics and his body is just not having it anymore even though he is in his 30s.  He has been involved in some pretty awesome ministry at his church and with area wide foster youth and his heart is telling him that this is an area that might need to be explored in the future as employment.  We wish him all the best in his next endeavor and will be on the look out in the next few weeks for a new service guy who will have big shoes to fill.

   

Friday night we had some big windy thunderstorms roll through.  Not sure if it was the wind or lightening that got so many trees in our town but it looked like a war zone.  That also means lots of people with trees near their houses got their service ripped off.  We don't technically do emergency or weekend work, but if it is a repeat good customer we will if we have guys to work.  It just so happened most of our guys were in town working at our big industrial customer anyway, so one agreed to go do one of the service calls we got.  

In the meantime, our favorite local winery was having a bbq food truck and music later on.  We decided to go early as previous food trucks had run out of food or were just about out when we arrived.  We got there and the band was setting up, but the food truck had just pulled up.  While waiting for both to set up, a small storm blew through with a little bit of rain, but the nasty stuff stayed south of us.  

Was pretty cool to watch the storm approach, dump a little rain, and then move on.  We decided to go ahead and get a bottle of wine and enjoy the cool evening while we waited on food.  About the time we started eating the service call we had been working at got power turned back on but for some reason the power was not coming into the house.  Tony decided to go and check it out and leave us at the winery, thinking it would be a short call.  Two hours later, we needed to head home before the sun set if we were going to head out on foot.  

I run this route regularly so I know it's about a mile and a half.  We both had flip flops on, which made the trek a little more challenging, but we made the walk and had fun doing so (even if he had a sour look on his face).  

I knew Sunday that we were suppose to have rain in the morning, so getting up super early didn't need to happen.  Lucky me, got to sleep in till 8 and then hang out while the showers showered and then moved out.  Boom and I still had plenty of cloud cover and a nice wind to keep us cool.  There were also tons of fresh puddles on the road for boom boom to cool off in.  Not going to lie, still felt those bottles of wine but we made it through 6 miles on the gravel.  

Every day he gets a little better and more consistent at running.  He will never be like my stella ella but I am starting to have more fun with him running wise.

Have a great week y'all!  It's going to be busy with lots of racing practice, lots of appointments, a last minute art class for Andrew in Manhattan, and race day!  Plus, I start back on my official racing schedule and this is a super short week of 3 runs, cross training, and strength training.  

Base Build in 2 weeks?????

 

Another week and more fun!  We started out by cat sitting our friend's 11 cats.  Thank goodness they are all spayed and neutered!  I want the orange one soooo bad!

Little man got his first shiner.  We are not having a lot of luck at boys and girls club this year.  First Covid and now this.  I am surprised this is the first time.

After a long night Monday night, getting up early was not in the cards.  Luckily my hubby could take the kiddo to BG club so I could get some quick miles.    Yeah for clouds, boo for humidity.  

Wednesday meant the fair a block from our house opened.  It is SO nice to get back to some sort of normal even if variants are running wild.  We got arm bands and we got our money's worth.  This is Andrew overcoming his fear of scary rides.  I told him he would love the scrambler and I was right!  He rode with his girlfriend several times.  We ended up closing down the fair :)

Thursday morning meant a 5.8 mile run to celebrate my running BRF's 58 birthday!  It was super duper humid, but there was a cool breeze.  The dogs needed to stop several times to drink from puddles and cool off, but being dog runners we are use to that.  

One more run for the week on Saturday.  A nice slow 4 miler for the 4th, except it was the 3rd.  One more week of taking it easy before we dive back into training officially.  

Probably do a separate post for Boomtown.  We invited several families from the track and two came to party with us.  I think we all had an amazing time and I think we are already planning for next year.  I always think Wamego can't outdo the previous year and then the next year comes and they blow it out of the water.  If you haven't been to Wamego for the 4th, you are missing out and i will gladly let you have VIP passes to see the BEST fireworks show ever.  30 minutes straight of a finale set to music??? Yes please!

Have a great week y'all!