Saturday has gone to the dogs

It's been a good week and shaping up to be a good weekend.  We had a date night thanks to Uncle Cayce.  The last one we had was on vacation in Tennessee,  so its been a while.  We hit the local steakhouse for steak night.  While the service was horrible, as it always is, we did have good perfectly cooked steaks and some tasty beers.

Too bad it wasn't in a Royal's glass.  As of right now, they are in first place in their division!  I got hooked on royal's baseball when I was preggers, and enjoy watching them every night when they are in tv.  Had some boulevard wheat beer with a big ole lemon in it.  I haven't had BW in so long, probably two or more years.  It was very smooth and fun to drink.  I had my normal two and stopped:)  The more I run, the less alcohol tolerant I am.  I was suppose to do 800 meter repeats that night but I felt like having a nice relaxing evening with the hubby was more important.

I did do my 800 meter repeats friday night.  Wow, mind blown.  Those were tough.  I was able to hit my pace marks on all four, but I did do walking recovery.  I wasn't sure if I was suppose to walk recover on 800 meters or 400 meters, but since I was doing this on a straightaway, I wanted to start and finish where mine and stella's water was.  Next time I will bring two water bottles, so i can try 400 meter recovery, since I felt recovered by then anyway.  It was super humid out, but a nice temp in the low 70s,  and as the sun went down, the humidity got a little better.  I wouldn't be lying if I didn't say I am a little tired today, and didn't get up super early as usual to do my recovery run.  Will do it later today or tonight, when it cools off and the humidity goes down.  I also need to do a 9 mile long run tomorrow, and i will get up early for that if it kills me.

Today was our first disc dog practice. I have always been intrigued by this sport, but no clue how to get into it.  I have two dogs (Harley and Stella), who would catch frisbees all day.  We did get somewhat involved when we lived in Colorado, but then I moved back to Kansas and agility took over.  The ladies that organized this event are both taking disc dog classes and have a ton of knowledge to share.  I didn't get any cool pics because it was just stella, deuce and I for the first few hours, but tony did show up and threw for harley for a while and stella a few more runs for us to figure out what discs we need to order.

This was post disc dog fun.  I thought we could get the dogs down to the water for a swim, but we couldn't figure out how to get a good path down.  They have really changed this area of Tuttle Creek, to the point where it is near impossible to get near the water.  We turned it into a mini-hike instead.  

Someone didn't want to leave.  He was having too much fun picking up rocks and playing with bugs.  We had to convince him that petting or hugging bees was not a good idea.  I hope he doesn't have to learn this lesson the hard way, as he is very into bugs right now.  

Have a great weekend!  

TGIT

TGIT=Thank God it's thursday!  Lots of changes going on in our house lately.  Lots to talk about.  First, a cute picture.  Caught him reading about trains in the IBEW magazine while on the toliet.  Boys.

Next, we went to Petpoolza this year in manhattan.  Petpoolza is an event where they close the city pool, so just dogs can swim and  in turn, you make a donation to the animal shelter and win prizes.  Met my agility trainer in town for some swimming with her and her pups.  Really wanted to take both water dogs (harley and stella), but decided in the end to just take stella.  Lots of dogs, no fights surprisingly, and lots of swimming.  Stella had a blast.  Was hoping the professional photog got some pics of us, because she like to jump in and let me hold her, but sadly, they didn't.  She did try to drown me once I was in the deep end and couldn't touch.  She left some war wounds on my arm and back.  Overall she did great and had a good time.  Didn't wear her out at all, go figure.

The weekend turned out great with the arrival of Andrew's Uncle Cayce.  Uncle Cayce is going to live with us while he gets back on his feet.  We have faith in him that this is a clean start and he will address some underlying debt issues, and get a good job and a place to live.  So far, andrew is digging having uncle cayce around, and we are digging potentially having a baby sitter for some date nights, something we don't get very many of.  Uncle Cayce has been busy applying for jobs and doing odd jobs around the house to help us out so nights aren't quite so crazy.  

Running has been good, mainly due to good sleep, and very nice fall like weather.  I had one of the best ever tempo runs the other night.  I still get confused on exactly what to do on a tempo run.  Since I get confused and my coach hadn't signified a specific pace, I decided to break it up into 5 minute segments, with the first being warm up and half marathon paced, the second being 10 K paced, the third being 5K paced or as hard as I could push for the full five minutes, and then reverse it. I also had a 5 minute cool down and then four hill repeats, post tempo run to keep my hill running while fatigued theme going.  Hills are getting to be my favorite, and I feel so much stronger on my repeats because coach has me doing SO many.  I can't wait till next weekend's 10 K to tackle the monster almost 1 mile long hill climb.   Anyway, the tempo run just felt perfect.  I hit all the paces I wanted to and was able to push for a full five minutes down into the 8s.  This was huge to me.  I haven't seen 8s (well other than my 400 meter repeats), since my 5 K PR last year about this time.  I am kind of bummed though.  The 5 K i had my PR at(Run Back to School 5 K recap here, read for a funny snot story) is the same weekend as the Speedy PD 10 K, that I also want to try and PR/PB at.  I didn't find this out till a few weeks ago and it makes me sad to truly miss a local race.  Like walk five minutes away from my front door race.  Oh well.  

I also did a nice 4 miler with my BRF last night.  She teaches so the craziness of school just started for her yesterday and I had lots of therapy to catch up on with her too.  We went slow, we sweated and talked, and got our mileage done with a smile on our faces.  I sure do love her:) 

Speed work tonight in the form of 800 meter repeats.  I have missed these so far due to being sick the last two times they were on my schedule.  No, I am not avoiding them.  Yes, I am going to do them no matter what tonight, scouts honor.  

Long run saturday and easy run sunday

Pardon the nose art on the door.  It's been a week of seeing this every time I leave.  He likes to make a big deal of me running at night.  He makes me feel really, really guilty and has included giving me lots of kisses when I leave too now.  That makes it worse for sure!  Maybe one good thing about morning running is he usually isn't up.

This happened this week.  It's a nail, not sure of length.  Long enough to puncture the bottom of my shoe and poke my toe.  It bent on its way in or it would have probably penetrated my foot.  I heard it go in but thought it was a rock till it started poking my big toe.  When i stopped to look I didn't see it because it was so skinny and had bent.  It tore a big hole in my sock but luckily didn't do much to my toe other than poke it a few times.  

That was an interesting run anyway.  We had a huge storm with hail, lightening, and thunder.  I wanted to run earlier than later and it looked like i could go between storms.  It was HUMID.  Cool but HUMID.  

It rained most of the time when I was running but it was a gentle rain and it felt good.  Other than a nail in the foot and dripping sweat, it was a good run. I had to stay close to the house so did loops just in case the other storm hit.  It never did anything else so I guess I got lucky.  

I also had hill repeats this week.  I tried the 6th street hill which is a nice steep hill and the perfect distance if you start at the church parking lot.  I was lucky in that a kitty lived at the top of the hill and stella noticed him on the second repeat and pulled me up the hill for the next 6.  Thanks stella and thank you little kitty!  I also used my watch for the first time for a work out and I LOVED it. No longer do I have to stare at it to know how far or fast I went.  It beeps to start and beeps when you hit your distance on the hill and then you tell it when to start again for the next repeat.  It also prompts you for the cool down and warm up.  GENIUS!  I can't wait to use it for the 400 and 800 meter repeats.  I always slow down looking at my watch to see if I am close to the end. Now I don't have to:)  

My BRF is out of town this weekend and I dreaded a long run without her.  I posted on one of my wamego running groups to see if anyone would be going out.  It just so happened that one of my super speedy friends needed to do 4 or 5 easy, so we decided to meet up and go out.  I was a little scared, she is SUPER fast, and I am not, and i didn't know if she could go slow enough for us to run together.  It ended up that when we got up, it was storming so she went back to bed and I stayed up and watched the storms.  We were lucky in that we got a break and the second storm never hit us, so we got our 4 in together before I headed out to do the rest.  She was very gracious to keep the speed low and we had some good conversation the whole way.  

Not sure why but the rest wasn't very good.  I was tired and it was getting hot and muggy.  I tried to run in the shade of the corn stalks but a few times we had to head away from them.  Some runs are awesome and some are not, and this one ranked in the not category.  Not sure if it was lack of someone to talk to, or the heat/humidity.  I saw that other people who were out long running yesterday also had struggle, so it must have been more the weather.  I was literally counting down the tenths of miles till i was done and I usually don't do that. Oh well, it's over and done and maybe today will be better.  It is already cooler thanks to some overnight storms but the humidity is pretty high.  May just have to be a night/afternoon run.  Have a great rest of the weekend everyone and happy running!

Night time running

My streak of night time runs continue.  My hubby is actually back working in Manhattan and I really thought about getting up early this morning and running a double but i just couldn't do it.  I  have to say that I am enjoying my night running.  I get done about the time andrew is winding down and then the time it takes me to wind down is the time it takes him to get to sleep.  I have actually gotten some good reading in lately, while we both get ready for the sand man.  I was an avid reader pre-kiddo and it feels good to get back to that status.  I have to admit, when I started running, it was at night with an aussie, and I have come full circle back to night running with an aussie.

The humidity is usually so much lower and the town is usually quiet and ready for bed when I head out.  I will look forward to fall running when I can run when I get home versus waiting till the temperature drops (last night it was bearable at 8:30, other nights it is closer till 9 pm) so I don't have to eat the minute I step in the door.

On another note, I am learning how to program my watch for specific work outs.  We have had experiments lately with lots of down time so I have had time to read up and watch videos.  I do like using my phone as I use it for all of the challenges that Map my Run has but I would like to not have to stare at my watch for paces or distances when I am doing repeats or hill work outs.  I think I have it down but don't have another speed work out till tomorrow.

Tonight is four easy miles and I can't wait!  Been putting in a lot of hard work with repeats, the recent 10 K race and even have hill repeats on the schedule this week.  As I have said before, I really like speed work that involves recovery, so fartleks are pretty much one of my most favorite speed workouts and I got to do some last night.  Last night was just one of those dream runs that felt effortless.  I saw low 7s on my 1 minute fartleks and felt like my recovery happened quickly in my 2 minutes slow jog.  I did 7 repeats per my coach's instruction with 5 minute warm up and cool down.  I did have a biker on a road bike blow by me which scared the heck out of me.  I didn't have earphones in, just was running with my music playing on my phone, and I didn't even hear him till he was right by me.  I also got a little leery because I had decided to run sans stella since it was still in the 90s, and I was out in the middle of no where on a dark highway.  While my hubby can live track me, he doesn't always take his phone to upstairs with him at night and he didn't last night, since it was on the bar when I got home.  I do run with my phone so I could have at least called 911 if needed (not saying this guy was a bad guy but he was out on a bike in the pitch black dark at 9 pm).  It just left me feeling unsettled and I am not sure why.  I guess my normal routes that I run at night usually don't have traffic or bikers and or I don't usually go out without stella.  Maybe miss stella will have to go out tonight no matter what with her cool coat on.

Since I am running at night, I am not getting lots of cool pictures so I leave you with this one:

Happy Wednesday everyone!

Running on empty

Here are a few shots from the race the other day.  They aren't the best but you can't beat free!

 Hiding behind the clock, making the turn  at the 5 K mat!

 Almost there!  Thanks for the down hill!

I have the weirdest running form but I guess it works!

I actually did something non running and non dog sunday.  I had a ladies night out with a couple of runner friends.  We went to the Motley Crue concert in KC.  Unfortunately it got started almost an hour and a half late.  We waited in line out side in the heat and then inside crammed together like sardines.  I am 5 foot even so I am usually the shortest person there so I tend to get a little claustrophobic when I am in crowds. 

This picture was taken by a friend of a friend and posted on my FB page.  It was hot and many people got very upset. I am glad were at least inside but if people would have gotten rowdy or a fire had happened, I shudder to think what would have happened to us.  Let's just say the fact that I know how to do some deep yoga breathing helped immensely.  People may or may not have thought I was crazy.  

They finally let us up to the level where our seats were but still not in our seats.  At least it was less crowded and we could sit.  My poor friends both had on substantial heels so I know they were glad to sit.  It just so happened that there was a fruity beverage stand right where we were seated.  This was so delicious and so needed at the time.  

Our seats were far up but amazing.  Both alice cooper and motely crue had big stage productions so it was good to be far away to take it all in.  I had a little panic attack with the height of things but once the concert started I was fine.  I even stood up for a few songs to sing and dance.  

The only pic i got when Motley Crue started playing.  Man, their music brings back so many memories of childhood.  I can remember me and my best friend mendy hanging out with her older sister (because she was way cool) and listening to her albums like Ozzy and MC and Poison.  I remember going to the yearly fair and riding rides and hearing hair metal being blared out of the speakers.  I also remember watching MTV and thinking they way they dressed and acted was SO normal.  It was a great night and one of the best stage shows I have ever seen.  Vince's voice wasn't as bad as I had heard but they did drown him out the whole first half of the concert.  Alice cooper was amazing as well but we couldn't see details in his stage show since we were so far away and they didn't use the huge video screens.  I really loved Tommy Lee's drum fiasco or solo or whatever you want to call it but it did make me sick watching him go upside down and spin while playing the drums.  The best part was the encore, when MC came out and played Home Sweet Home on a stage that raised up and was almost level with our section.  It made going home and getting in bed at 3 am a little bit better.  Still don't know why everything was so late but it was a great night out with the ladies and I can't wait to hit another ladies night out concert!  Tonight's my first run after not getting much sleep the last two nights so should be interesting for sure!

Random sunday

Just a little funny video of andrew in the bouncy house.  In a way, it was a good thing that he had the bouncy house to hang out in while I waited for awards and for the raffle.  It kept him busy and wore him out so we could nap as soon as we got home.

I also really enjoyed this chocolate milk post race and on the way home.  I convinced my mom to stop and get us chocolate covered doughnuts and she came out with chocolate milk too. She is so wonderful!

A few facts about yesterday's race.  I was 259th out of 375.  I was the 99th female out of 194 and 18th out of 33 in my age group.  The first place overall male came in at 30:30 and the overall first place female finished in 39:06.  All i can say is WOW!  I admire their fleet feet on a tough course.  I also love this race because you get free pictures and free video of your finish.    They take a few days to post so as I soon as I get them, I will post them.  I am not sure that I did my typical finish pose as I was pretty close to throwing up from pushing it but hopefully they didn't catch me turning off my watch.  

I just framed all of my spring half pictures.  I now need to print off my various 5 K and 10 k pics and get them framed.  I saw some pretty awesome collage frames at hobby lobby the other day and they had a 50% off sale on all frames.  I don't mind paying 25 bucks for a nice collage frame versus 50 bucks.  Now to get a medal holder to finish off that wall and get those medals off of my bedroom mirror.  

We had one last walk before mom headed out this morning. I ran three slow recovery miles with my BRF and then to cool off, we walked two before she got in her van and drove off.  I am really sad to see her go.  Andrew loves her so much and she does so much for me when she is here.  This trip she got to see my new job and equipment and we spent quite a bit of time together.  I so wish she would move to Kansas because i love her so and miss her so when she leaves.  She was so generous to stay an extra day or to so I could race and run this morning.  Safe travels mom!

Brew to Shoe review

I am so excited!  This was the first race I did post andrew last year and I knew I could do better this year.   I am a much stronger runner this year and hills don't scare me near as much after I did the hospital hill run.  I had decided I would push the first three miles and then hope I could hang on for the last three and shoot for under an hour time.  I knew weather would play a big part in how i did so I was praying for little to no humidity.  So let's start a few days before.

I had repeats on my schedule.  This is where I commonly do my repeats.  It's in an industrial park and there is little to no traffic.  I can also have stella pretty much off leash and I can't have her at all on the track so I go here a lot.  Mom even did a few with me.  Here is a picture of her during the repeats.   

Bless her heart. She is 66 this year and running and working out is her thing!  You could call her a gym rat for sure.  They don't have many options for running safely outdoors so I have shown her all of my favorite routes this week in hopes she will move to Kansas just so she can run LOL!  I sure had hoped that having repeats and then one day of rest was enough before the race and I think it was.  My legs felt good the entire race. 

Mom decided we would have a date night so Tony and I went to the pasta feed.  The proceeds of the pasta feed benefitted special olympics.  Unfortunately, out of 700 something runners, only 10 signed up for the pasta feed and boy did they miss out.  The pasta came from a local eatery called Coco Bolos that does food that is out of this world.  We got a HUGE plate of a cheesy, chicken pasta with a roll and a beer and or water.  We got to keep the pint glass and coozie, which was a bonus.  I was on the fence about the beer. It is one of my favorite beers, so I had to take a few sips before giving it to my hubby.  Major sad face.  The pasta was very delicious and very filling.  I ate 2/3 of it and then had to tap out.  It immediately gave me indigestion, but I didn't care because it was yummy.  Nothing a little zantac can't fix.  Us and the other 8 people got to sit in an VIP section and watch a concert that was put on at the bandshell in the park.  The band was called Run Boy Run and they were a bluegrass/folksy type of band that we really enjoyed.  If both of us weren't so incredibly tired from andrew getting us all up at 5:30 that morning, we would have enjoyed it so much more.  We ended up coming home close to 10 to try and get some sleep.  Our little angel was already tuckered out which was a good thing.  Thanks grammy!

5:00 came way to early, but I wanted a full 2 hours before the run to digest.  I normally don't eat for 10 Ks but I wanted to try and get my long run eating habit in place just in case it helped.  I really think it did.  Anyway, we had to wake up the rest of the house as well around 5:30 so the hubby could go to work and i could get dropped off at the start line.  My hope was that andrew would go back to sleep in the car and mom could even get a little bit of shut eye before the race ended.   That didn't happen, but that was okay because we all took a four hour nap post race.  It was so much fun seeing all of my local and non local running friends before the race.  Some of them I only see at this race so I really look forward to it.
My game plan was to take advantage of the mostly flat road for the first three miles and really push it and hope I had enough leg for the second three.  There was a smaller hill in the four mile leg and the big three were at mile 5.  According to my watch, I was 9:12, 9:18, and 9:26 with a 28:55 5 K time.  I had locked on to a couple of women who were running at the pace I wanted to go, so I kept repeating to myself my typical pace run mantra, comfortably hard, comfortably hard.  I started seeing 9:30-9:45 from mile 3-4  and I was trying not to let it bother me.  Mile 4 was a 9:37 and after the big hills, I was at a 10:28 for mile 5.  I am not going to get down on myself for the time creeping up.  By the time I hit the hills, I was getting hot and tired.  I had my own water but I was getting water at the water stations and dumping it on my head.  I had stopped taking water because I felt like I was getting a stitch in my side and I had, had problems with those the other night when I was doing intervals and taking in more water than normal.  What I am a little mad about was my mile 6 time of 9:59.  I think I could have done better, but it is what it is.  The last mile was on a very narrow side walk, and I had caught up with the walking five K people.  While most got out of our way, a few didn't and I got stuck a few times.  I also got stuck behind a walker that had a double stroller.  I don't remember this being an issue last year but I am wondering if there would be anyway to have them on a different course or start them much later or have a course for those just wanting to walk.  I also heard several people got caught up having to wait for traffic.  I was lucky in that I was always with a pack and that never happened, but that would have upset me if it did.  I am very happy with my finish time of 59:08, which is a course PR for me and a 10 K PR for me since my last PR pre-andrew was 59:59.  I am ready to tackle my next 10 K in a couple of weeks and try for another PR.  I am not sure I will be under an hour but I think I can do better than my previous course time of 1 hour 4 minutes.   The course has a HUGE hill that is at least half a mile long and my goal is no walking this year on that hill as I had to walk some last year on the up and down.

This year was better organized post race than last year so kudos to all involved.  I got my beer and pizza slice (last year they ran out of both fairly quickly) and strangely at 8 am wanted to eat and drink.  One of my running buddies got third in our age group, so I stayed for awards and the amazing raffle.  You have to love a race that gives out beer mugs as placement prizes.   I didn't win anything in the raffle this year again, but there is always next year.   They had a free bouncy house for the kids and andrew pretty much stayed in it for at least an hour, which is kind of funny considering in april he was terrified of them.  I can't wait till next year and hope we have the amazing weather we had this year.  Chilly at the start and hot at the finish but no humidity.  I also hope they do a better job of advertising the pasta feed.  It was a great deal with yummy food and all for a good cause.   Overall, one of my favorite races and I look forward to shooting for an even better time next year!