The REAL week 5: Training for the Rockin K Trail Marathon

Another week of snow and ice???  Will this ever end?

Happy Valentine's week!

Monday:  Cross fit class.....That didn't happen because when I woke up and looked at my weather app it looked like this:

After the last time of having to drive on solid ice and white knuckle it all the way home I decided that was a NO for me.  Of course I don't think it did anything but rain and spit some sleet, but if I would have gone, it would have been pure ice.  My gym has open gym on Thursdays and I figured I could just make up my work out then.  

Later we took the kiddo to see the Harlem Globetrotters at the KSU basketball stadium. I remember seeing them as a kid and LOVING their show, so I was SO excited when Lindsey from LivingLovingRunner won tickets and asked us to come along.  Wouldn't you know, one of the Harlem Globetrotters was from my little home town of Jackson TN???  After the game, we went down and chatted and he knew my brother.  He went to a different high school than we did (and was born when we were graduating from high school, boy I sure am getting old), but it was so cool to see someone from back home in our little apple.  

Tuesday:  Another round of ice and another instead mill run.  Schools were delayed by 2 hours to let the roads have time to thaw, so I jumped on the mill with just an hour before I had to get the kiddo ready for school.  I decided to try something fun since I stare the display anyway.  Every minute of the four minute run interval that I did, I did a different speed starting slower and then getting faster. I think I maxed out at 6 mph as my fastest minute and that way I finished at one hour and one minute and didn't loose my mind.

Happy Galentines day to one of my favorite GALS!

Wednesday:  Cross Fit.  Deadlift day!  We did our dead lift series and then did a super fun WOD that killed me but made me feel so strong!  We had to carry a sandbag 200' and then 12 burpees jumping up to touch a target and 8 hand stand push ups (i am still scaled to dumb bell presses).  It was an AMRAP for 20 minutes and I was pouring sweat.  I am not sure what the weight of the sand bag was but it was more than my 64 lb kiddo.  The only bad part?  My knee was a little twingy from running on the mill I guess the day before and I woke up to my feet being a little bothered, so running on the mill definitely bothers both.

Thursday: Easy 5.  I need to get back to hill repeats since I can't get to a trail that isn't a mess and that was my intention for the days run.  When I woke up I was SORE from working out.  I decided powering up a steep hill while my hammies were tight and sore was not a great idea.  I stayed flat and got it done on a beautiful morning!  Then the temperature DROPPED!  We went from a nice balmy 50 down to feels like 21.  WTH Kansas????

Friday:  Rest and SNOW DAY.  Yet another snow day for the kiddos. I have no clue how many they get a year but I am betting we are at the limit.  I am glad they canceled though, it started snowing about 5 minutes after we got up and continued all day.

Saturday:  Long run day!  In some ways I seriously love winter, like the fact that I can sleep in (meaning 7 am versus 4 am in the summer) and run whenever the day lets me and I won't be roasting/sweating to death.  Once again, my hubby had to work so I was at the mercy of his schedule.  I knew he had to be off by 2 at least because i had won basketball tickets and KSU played at 3 pm and he had to be home to gather andrew and head to the game.  We had between 2 and three inches of fresh snow so I had dug out my yaktraxs.  Y'all I am just going to be painfully blunt, I hate yaktraxs but they are a necessity some times.  Especially when your hubby doesn't have time to screw your shoes before your run.  They hurt my feet like no other but they get the job done so I suffer in silence.  The above picture is me in the first part of my long run.  The skies were blue, the temp was good and the roads were for the most part plowed.

Then it started sleeting HUGE ice pellets and the ground and road became covered again.  I really wanted to get as much done out on the road as possible but ended up being about a mile and half short with the sleet/snow getting worse and the visibility getting worse as well.  Not all of the roads were plowed in town so I just headed home and did a quick change out of clothes and hopped on the mill.  I was so sore post running, probably a combo of the yaktraxs changing the way I run and the mill.

Sunday:  Well, I was suppose to do 6.  We had a wrestling tournament that lasted till past 4 pm and then my Hubby had promised andrew he would take him to see the 2nd Lego Movie (that started at 6:15 about 20 minutes away) and he wanted met to go as well.  Sigh.  I really needed to get on the mill and grind it out. I figured I would get it done when I got home, except we didn't get home till almost 9 pm and the last thing I wanted to do at that point was to get on the mill.  I wasn't happy with skipping a run just because my schedule was not ideal, but it is what it is and I am just going to not freak out about it. 

As always I am linking up with Wendy at the Taking the Long Way Home and HoHo runs.  Check out the amazing blogs that link up there, you won't be disappointed! 

6th tournament of the season: Rumble at Rock Creek

My hope for this last tournament was to end on a good note.  We started out the season so strong and i wanted to end strong.  Of course who knows what goes through a 6 year old's mind.  I knew his confidence had taken a hit because he had become very reactive, waiting on his opponent to always make the first move.  As always my criteria was to have him try hard and never give up, not win.  Winning is just icing on a very yummy cake of hard work.  

trying to get his mean face on

I was a little taken aback when I looked at his bracket.  Several of the kiddos in his bracket hadn't lost but a few matches and most had won those matches by pin.  Instead of stacking a bracket with the good kids in one and the beginners in another, it seemed as they had mixed them all together.  Doesn't matter, you have to take the ass whippings to learn.  My kiddo has never been aggressive or competitive really.  I keep hoping some day it will come and yes, we have lots of years to discover it.  You have to be the aggressor in wrestling and until he is ready to be that, we will always be fighting from the bottom.  

Here is his first match.  It was over quickly.  The kiddo was really, really good.  Notice the body slam.  OUCH!

Second match was a little better.  Some fighting back happened.  That is all I ask, don't give up.  He actually got out of a half and did a little defense here.  I was proud of this match because he is listening to his coach.  This match was also 60 matches after his first match since we had a bye in the second round.  That is a long time to wait!

He was kind of bummed after his loss, BUT I like that.  That means he actually cares.  Coach McNutt was so good with him today, getting him pumped up and helping him with specific moves.  He even used his own kiddo to show him what to do during a match, which was cute!

Third match was the kiddo he pinned at the Manhattan tournament.  I was hoping he would have confidence to actually try and take the kid down.  Here are the three periods and they are kind of painful to watch as they mostly danced around.

I really wish his wins would come off of better matches, but it is what it is.

Go figure, those two matches were only 8 apart after sitting for over 60 matches and waiting.  Then we had another wait for our last.  The kid was once again super good based on his track wrestling record, so I knew how it was probably going to end. Again, I just wanted effort, not a win.

I am proud that he fought back and didn't just give up because once again, this kiddo was really good.  Plus, this was the end to a very long day and Andrew had done really good at getting ready for all of his matches, something that we needed help with.

  

We ended up 4th out of 5 wrestlers and ended the season on a decent note.  He actually tried one of the moves that Coach McNutt went over with him on his last match, so I call that a win.  This season has been full of ups and downs with our first win, our first pin, and our first of many body slams to andrew and to his opponents.  I have seen his confidence bloom and then wither and then start to peak out again.  He always goes on the mat with a smile and comes off mostly with a smile, so we will give it another go next year.  We love our Wamego Raider Wrestling family and have some true friends there.  Andrew has gained some new friends too via playing video games in the stands and that makes me so happy to see him excited to be with them and travel with them.  I hope we can figure out something to do this summer, so we don't loose our skills we have gained.  I know we will have baseball and most if not all of our wrestling family plays baseball, so we shall see them on the diamond.  

Till next year wrestling!  

The Real Week 4: Training for the Rockin K Trail Marathon

Oh cut back week, how I am going to enjoy thee!  My last coach for several years didn't do cut back weeks, and I am glad to have programmed myself one every 4 weeks of my training plan.  I am going to thoroughly enjoy every single easy run!  I did find some facts that said you don't want less than 20% of the week before, so I had to do some tweaking to get my mileage up a little bit.  Kind of nice to build, build, build and then ahhhh.

Not sure who to give credit for this but it is SO true. I HATE the assault bike!

Monday:  Cross Fit day!  We continued our back squat series.  I totally biffed it though and did not pay attention to the percentages we were doing on the app, so my spreadsheet was slightly off.  I improvised and totally found myself with a back squat PR!!!!  On my 95% I was at 78 lbs and it felt okay, so I went with it.  That meant we had to re-figure my whole back squat percentages for next time, GULP.  Our WOD was row for 30 seconds as hard as you could, rest 30, as many as possible burpee box jump overs in 30 seconds, and rest for 30 seconds.  I think we did 5 rounds for 10 minutes total.  It was hard but fun.  My knee was NOT super happy with the jump overs, so I had to make sure I was landing as much as possible on my left leg.  Kind of glad I grabbed my bondis that morning with all the extra cushion.  May not be great for lifting, but perfect for the concussion of jumping off of a box.

Tuesday:  Easy run and massage....ahhhhhh.  5 miles and it was oh so cold.  I was not dressed really well enough.  I needed my thicker gloves and i guess I needed my running skirt to help with the wind on my thighs and butt.  I also really needed a hat instead of just something on my ears, but luckily my buff took care of that.  I had frozen eye lashes for most of the run.  I also had to pee three times, so I was hoping i wasn't getting frost bite on my bum!  Took me a while to warm back up post run, and was very grateful that Trina's table was heated.  I could have just stayed there all day!  She worked on my feet that have been bothering me on and off and really worked on both quads to keep both knees a little happier. I think at one point i had cups all over my body!  I love those little cups, so much pain at the time, but so much less pain later!  I left feeling very tingly and happy.  Seriously, if you want a good all body massage, check out Trina at Rising Phoenix Wellness over by paramour coffee in Wamego.  She is amazing person and an even better massage artist!

this is our driving on ice faces, expect Tony is driving!

Wednesday:  Cross Fit.  As always, today is dead lift day.  The WOD looked a little cray cray on the app, so I decided to give it a chance and hope for some semblance of scaling when I got there.  Once I figured everything out, we were good, but the first round I was kind of a mess.  The WOD was E2M with hand stand walks for 10 meters  (i scaled to walking on the wall), Toes to bar x 12 (I scaled to knees up on the bar) + 30 seconds of ring rests (kind of like holding a plank, but on the rings), and then 8  bent over rows using the bar and as much weight as you could get through 8 with (i did 20 in plates + bar).  I kept getting confused and jumping the gun going to the next thing, but I got it done.  Then I had to drive home, on ice, freaking out the whole way.  They had predicted some freezing rain that day, but it wasn't doing anything when I got up to go to the gym. When I got done however, my windshield was covered in ice and i had to drive all the way back to Wamego (12 miles but it takes about 20 or so minutes) going about 35-45 mph.  Luckily, most of the traffic is going the other way in the morning, so I didn't have to worry about slowing down anyone else or getting hit since I was going so slow.  As soon as I got home, school was canceled.  I am SO over ICE!!!!  I still had to venture out later to get my yearly mammogram, so the whole fam got to come and little man got surprised with a flu shot.  He pretty much hated me afterwards, but then he admitted that it really wasn't that bad.

Thursday:  Easy run on the dreadmill.  I knew post the ice storm we had the night before (there was thunder, ice, sleet, snow, and lightening!) that there was NO way I was going to run outside.  Everything was coated in a very light sheet of ice and school was out yet again.  I am really glad our school system was proactive with this storm, but of course I can do my job for Coleman Electric at home thanks to me being so mobile now.    Five miles and 63 minutes and 31 seconds later, I stuffed my poor brain back in my head and got on with the day.  I really, really hope I don't have to do anymore runs this week on the mill, but I suspect it might happen.  We have more snow and ice predicted :(

Since this was snow day # 2, we spent the rest of the day building legos, practicing wrestling moves, and cleaning with a little bit of computer work thrown in. I generally avoid cleaning specifically toilets and dusting, and I did both.  I tackled a few projects I had been putting off, like cleaning out a lawman's book case that we are going to bring to the shop and taking everything off of our big book shelf and dusting every.single.thing.  Let's see how long it will last with 3 dogs and 1 kiddo!   

the view from my mill.  If you open the windows you look right at the side of my neighbor's house or our backyard

Friday:  REST DAY.  Okay since this is rest day a few things to share.  I am down 7 lbs since January 1st!  I can really tell it more by the way my clothes are fitting and how my body shape has changed.  Of course the first fat to go was my boobs, not funny body!!!!  I am just food logging on myfitness pal app, trying to stay under my calorie goal for the day, and trying ever so hard to hit my macros.  Calories are pretty easy, macros are not!!!  I get close every day, but always higher on fat and lower on protein than I need to be.  I have also started using CBD oil and am really happy thus far with the results.  I put it on the bottoms of my feet every night and I have noticed a HUGE difference with my PF.  Now, that could be from the cross fit i am doing or it could be from the oil, but I don't care, my feet feel one thousand times better now! I get my CBD oil locally, and it is third party tested for the correct amounts of CBD and it is THC free.

Saturday:  Wrestling tournament day!  I moved my longish run to sunday.  Overall we had three matches wrestled, and he won one by pin, one by forfeit and lost the other two.  The first was against a team mate that i have never met and he kind of gave up(boo).  The second was against a kid that usually pins him in the first 5 seconds of the match and he lasted 20 seconds, which is a win against this kid in my book.  Third was his FIRST pin and I was over the moon happy with how he ran a half, pushed the kid over and settled!  I always write a blog about the day so if you are interested, check it out!  After the tourny I headed out for a quick 5 with stella ella. Once again I miss judged the temp and was a little chilly.   Glad I had my buff on my neck, so I could at least cover my ears with it.  I swear it felt like the temp dropped during my run but i didn't check it before we went so can't say for sure. 

Sunday:  Longish run.  Yeah cutback week!  Only 8 miles on the books.  I had originally planned to hit up Clinton with Teri and saw all of the trail hawk's posts about how bad the trail was.  We tried to figure out an alternative, but if one trail is bad, they are all probably bad.  We woke up to a glazing of ice. I decided to wait till later in hopes that most if not all of the ice would be melted by afternoon.  Lucky for us the ice was only bad in a few spots on the gravel where it is shaded and the mud wasn't horrible.  I stuck to my 4:1 run walk ratios (WHICH I LOVE) and felt great.  That was probably the first run in a few weeks where nothing hurt and i could just run. 

As always I am linking up for the Weekly wrap with HoHo runs and Wendy at Taking the long Way home.  Check out the amazing bloggers that link up, I have found some new favorites for sure!

Little Apple Classic-fifth tournament of the year 2019

I am going to be honest here, I was a little nervous entering Andrew in this tournament because it is a bigger one than we normally do. Sometimes bigger = kick ass competition, and while we are getting closer to being able to handle that kind of competition, we aren't quite there yet.  I feel like Andrew is still in the confidence building stage of wrestling, even though he has wrestled for three years now.  This is really the first year that things are clicking and he is starting to get it.  If you want to see how our other tournaments have gone, click here for the first, here for the second, here for the third, and here for the fourth.   

We got there super early and one of our wrestling ladies had spread out and saved a TON of space.  We had so much room to spread out and it was SUPER nice!  They boys all congregated at the top with their game systems.

The very first match was with a teammate that I never have met.  I guess he usually wrestles in the 61 lb class.  They went and warmed up together and then hit the mat.  Andrew started off strong, but gave up :( After the match, the two talked and his teammate told him exactly what he did wrong, which I thought was super cute!

He worked hard to get out of every half his teammate put him in, so that makes me happy.  We have been working on half defense and I think it is showing!

Second match was the kiddo that was sick from last weekend.  As usual, he pinned andrew rather quickly, but andrew didn't give up and that is my main bone to pick with him.  Work hard and loose, I don't care.  Go out there and give up = mommy is not happy.  The kiddo's parents apologized to me for last weekend.  I told them that I knew their kiddo was sick and that there is nothing you can do about it.  Apparently he had hurt himself at another tournament and then was scared to wrestle and worked himself up so badly that he got sick to his stomach.  I told them to tell him not to be afraid of andrew ever :)  Maybe someday, but not right now LOL!!!!!

Third match I broke down into several videos.  I had looked at this kid's record just because we had never seen him previously.  He was 0-4 meaning he has just started his wrestling career.  My kid's record is pretty bad too, but I knew that Andrew had a chance with this kid and i was excited for them to meet.  Here is period 1.  It's kind of funny listening to the coaches try to get andrew to shoot.

After a little bit of dancing, there was some confusion as there was 2 seconds left.  Finally, they got through the first period and into the second.  Our coach deferred and their coach put their kiddo down.  I think their coach was hoping the little guy could get up and get some points since it was still 0-0.  

Andrew got his first PIN!!!!!!  He actually tried and mostly executed a half!!!!!  After a brief chat with his wonderful coaches Justin and Roger, he got a big hug from me.   It took a while to get him to stop smiling.  Here is the post hand raise and shaking the hand of the other coach :)

The last match was a no show, but I knew that was going to happen as the kid had scratched all day.  It was a shame because Andrew had beaten the kid previously, so it would have been a good match.  Andrew ended up with a third place with one win and one FF.  

I really hope this boosts his confidence and we can end on a good note at our final tournament next weekend.  Again, I saw good things in every win and lose and I am excited for the future!  

Wrestling Tournament #4 for 2019: Super Silver Lake

This was our 4th tournament for the season and another new to us tournament.  I had heard good and bad things, and i was hoping for the good.  Here is how our day went and spoiler alert, it wasn't great.

First thing, we got there an hour before the tournament even started and the place was already completely full.  We even had to park at another school and walk a few blocks.  One of the wrestling moms had saved some space at the very top of the bleachers, but we decided it would be better to be outside the gym since the gym was SO small and SO packed (and HOT).

Second, Andrew's bracket only had three kids.  That meant 2 matches.  This made no sense when there were 3 other 64 pounders in the other 64 6U bracket.  Why not have 6 kids in a bracket and do a round robin?  I would rather my son wrestle multiple times and not get a medal, versus 2 times with a guaranteed medal.  Of the entire wrestling team there (and I filled out the bout sheets so I know) he had the least amount of mat time.

Third, there was little to no room for the wrestlers to get ready/warm up/focus.  The edge of the mat was at best 5 feet from the edge of the tables and that was also how people got back and forth from all the mats that seemed crammed into the gym space. I think I counted 7 if not more mat spaces marked off in the tiny gym, which meant mass chaos.  Plus, people had put their stuff in that space that people were trying to walk/warm up in and I think that should NOT be allowed.  If people needed to exit that walk space quickly, that would be a huge tripping hazard. Don't let the photo below fool you.  Just to get to the mat for Andrew to wrestle, we had to push our way to the mat. 

this is blurry but this is andrew doing some jumps with daddy

Okay, those are my gripes.  Our goal was to try hard and warm up well.  He has gone into most of his matches kind of flat and we wanted him pumped and fired up.  Kind of hard to do, but we tried and I think it worked.  Yes he lost, but he never stopped trying like he has in the past.

Prior to his match, we had him review all the moves.  He could recite and execute most if not all of them, so we were pretty excited.  I love the fact that he jumped the whistle twice, as we have been working on him being ready to pounce.  While I would have liked to have seen this match go longer (and it looked like from our angle he wasn't pinned but again the ref has the best angle), we were still happy that he was trying to move and trying to get up.  Bridging would have been the better move, but he was still moving the entire time.  

We didn't have much time to wait before the next match.  Andrew very quickly got ready and got out there to find he didn't have an opponent.  As they were calling for his opponent, the kiddo came running out on the mat, crying hysterically and clutching his tummy.

The ref called the coach over quickly after talking to kiddo, and between the parent and the coach they decided it wasn't worth him wrestling. He is a really good kid, so I have no doubt he was really not feeling well.  The ref really confused Andrew because he made a HUGE deal about Andrew winning and then Andrew was so confused as to why were weren't as excited as he was.  

We don't wish that our kiddo needs win every match, but we want him to have the experience of wrestling.  Only have two matches isn't great, only have one kind of sucks.

  

We got to leave super early, so there was that.  We have two more tournaments before the end of the season and I am SO happy with the improvements we have seen.  He did an amazing job warming up today, so I can't wait to be in a better more spacious gym where we can see how that plays out. Onward and upwards!

The REAL week 3: Training for the Rockin K Trail Marathon

Week 3 and my first time of doing two Cross fit classes early in the morning.  Pass the coffee and the advil please!

Monday:  Cross fit class.  I slept like CRAP.  Let me rephrase that, the little sleep I got was nice, but I mostly was wide awake from midnight on with some Britney spears song on loop in my head. I have no clue why, but I just couldn't sleep and I started playing that, well, if I go to sleep right now I will get 4 hours of sleep and then 3 hours and then 2.  I finally fell asleep, but I got maybe 4 or so good hours of sleep total.  I even tried going down stairs and sleeping in the guest room but nope, the sandman had blessed me with falling asleep initially, but once I was up, I was up.  I was wide awake at 4 am and ready to go and get my butt kicked in Cross Fit.  I had noticed the words Death By 10 meters and I was excited to learn what that meant.  After our normal back squat series (I bumped all of my weights up by 5 lbs this time), we go to the WOD.  Basically every minute, you ran.  The first minute it was 10 meters.  Whatever time you had left over you rested.  Then the next minute 20 meters and so on.  I was able to get 130 meters in before I was basically getting done and starting again.  I was toast.  I was on the side nearest the heaters and they were blowing full blast on me and Mel.  I also tried to sprint as hard as I could at first, and honestly, taking it easy on the smaller distances probably would have been the smarter thing to do.

Getting boom use to his running set up by run/walking him to school

Tuesday:  Easy 5.  Some days I think am doing so well and some days I feel like I am falling apart.  Out of no where during my very easy run, my right knee started aching.  I have NEVER had knee issues, so this was so weird.  The only thing I can think of is that I somehow tweaked it when I was doing the sprinting part of the WOD yesterday and just didn't feel it??  I had pain on and off all day, nothing major, but enough to make me a little worried about doing Cross fit again Wednesday and or running Thursday. I don't have time for knee issues.  I did try rolling out everything above my knee just to make sure nothing was tight and pulling on anything, and I tried icing when I was sitting as well as took a naproxen before bed.  I got a little angry because this was the first day my gravel roads were neither icy nor muddy, and I could actually run.

lifting math at 5:30 am

Wednesday:  First time doing Cross Fit class on this morning.  I was a little nervous because there wasn't a strength portion listed on our app we use to reserve classes, and the WOD was a partner WOD for time that included dead lifts.  I honestly almost didn't go because I wanted the strength more than the WOD.  Luckily for me, the strength was on the board when I walked in, which meant a few moments of panic as I had to do some quick math.  Y'all, feel free to total make fun of me here because I have a spreadsheet that does all of this math for me and I hadn't made it because I thought we weren't doing the series.  A few panicked moments with my calculator on my phone and viola!  I really like the fact that we are repeating this series and also bumping our weights up each week.  I like the comfort of doing similar things.  The WOD was a partner WOD and I was a little worried.  Two of the exercises I had to scale  and the dead lift portion I had to try a lighter weight, but we got it done.  I don't like doing lifting for time or as a race, so I took it easy and my poor partner had to suffer with the slowest time, meaning no T shirt winning for us.  Oh well, form is the most important to me right now. I was very excited that I was able to get my knee ups on the bar successfully and quickly.  #Progress.  Oddly enough my knee was fine during the work out and afterwards.  Thinking maybe I need knee sleeves but I have heard they are just a trend and don't really do anything?

Now we have lost both of our front teeth!

Thursday/Friday:  REST days.  I decided to give my knee a couple of days off in hopes that whatever was wrong would resolve its self.    Next week is a cut back week and I thought about switching the weeks, but since I am not a running coach, I wasn't sure if that was a good idea.  I figured one run wouldn't hurt me, and Friday is my new total day off so it worked.  I tried to ice my knee anytime I was sitting still and I did take some anti inflammatory meds at night.

Saturday:  Long run day.  Since we have a tournament and then super bowl on Sunday (I'm watching for the commercials, NOT the game), today was the day.  We were blessed with a warm but overcast day. It's funny how upper 30s feels like a heat wave when it's been in the negative real feels.  Granted we got lucky and it wasn't as bad as some places this week!  My hubby had work to do and didn't know what time he would be done, so I had to eat normally and be ready to go at any minute.

By the time we got started, it was 60 degrees!  Stella and I decided to hit the local paved trail to stay a little less muddy and to hopefully see some eagles.  We weren't disappointed as we saw lots and lots of eagles!

While I am not a fan of running on pavement anymore, it's nice to get to look around and not stare at your feet.  I really do enjoy running out at the Rocky Ford/Tuttle Creek area.  I used the 4:1 intervals again and my knee felt fine.  Other things hurt on and off, but so goes running.  It started getting dark and I still had about 3.5 miles to go, so I did a bunch of out and backs until I hit my mileage.  We even did the giant hill that we run down for one of the local 10Ks and we ran most of it UP!

Sunday:  Tournament day and easy run.  We were up early to head to a little town called Silver Lake for our fourth tournament.  When I looked the brackets early in the morning, Andrew only had 3 kids in his bracket.  WHAT?  They had taken a weight class with 6 kids and split them into two.  Instead of wrestling 4-5 times with a 6 man bracket, he wrestled twice.  The gym was TINY and it was packed by the time we got there (which was an hour before anything even started).  We ended up camped out in a hallway, which honestly is my fav place to be at big tournaments BUT we could barely make it to our mat due to how things were set up.  Needless to say the first match wasn't his best but still better than most and he fought hard but got pinned.  Hoping for a better second match and the chance to medal, we headed back to the mat to not have an opponent.  Hmmm.  They called for him and he came, crying and clutching his tummy.  

The ref immediately grabbed the coach who talked to the parent and the kid forfeited.  Poor Andrew was SO confused.

Then the ref made a HUGE deal about Andrew winning and Andrew was even more confused.  He ended up winning second place but we didn't stay for medals.  We just wanted to get out of that place and never go back.  We have two more tournaments the next two weekends so hoping for a better experience with the next two (and no illnesses because it is going around for sure).  

Since we got done so early I was able to get some running done.  It was quite windy but 68 degrees!!!!  Amazing weather!  Although it looks like cold and snow will re join us this next week.  BOOO!  My knee isn't hurting but it still feels off.  I am looking forward to a nice cut back week :)  Glad I am coaching myself and put those in on purpose!

As always, I am linking up with HoHo Runs and Wendy from Taking the Long Way Home for the weekly wrap up!  Check out some amazing blogs in the link up, you won't be disappointed!  I have found a few new ones i really, really enjoy.

The REAL week 2: Training for the Rockin K Trail marathon

Thank you everyone for all of the input on length of cycles.  I feel a little bit better at shortening it to 12 from 20 now.  Now to figure out how long my 50 miler training cycle should be!  I have heard up to 6 months so need to figure that one out!!!

Monday: Cross fit. Okay, so I always check on the work out the night before just to make sure if there is anything math related, I have it done ahead of time.  I can't math on a good day in the middle of the day, so early in the morning is a NO GO.  When I saw the WOD for the day I thought, geez, that is going to take me forever.  180 single unders, 30 kettle bell swings, and 15 burpees for 6 rounds.  Mind you this is post back squats and a warm up that is what I use to do as a work out LOL!  I wanted to quit several times, not going to lie.  After the first round, my coach let me scale back to 120 single unders and a lighter kettle bell, just so I could get 6 rounds done in a reasonable time.  She also gave me a choice to do 10 burpees, but I was already doing super scaled burpees, so I felt like that was unfair.  I did 6 rounds total in 34 minutes and some change and I am SO glad I didn't give up.  That was tough and I was hoping I could function for the rest of the day semi normally!

Tuesday:  Run day.  Most of my weekly runs in this cycle are going to be 5-7 miles.  I am keeping it very simple since I am the one making this plan :)  Speed work is going to be by feel.  If my legs feel good and I want to push it, I will probably do cycles of 1 minute hard 1 minute easy up to 10 or so cycles.  Nothing too crazy since my legs are being tested in Cross Fit.  I woke up with SUPER sore calf muscles.  I did two things recently that i think may have caused this.  One, I ran without my heel cups in my shoes Sunday for my long run.  I have a couple of pairs that I rotate around in my various shoes and I had taken mine out of my Stinsons to put in my bondis to run on the dreadmill.  I didn't even notice till I got about a mile down the road, and I didn't want to go back due to the stupid ice.  I also did 720 jump rope skips in the WOD the day before.  I haven't jumped rope since probably elementary school oh 30 or so years ago, so that one also might have contributed to my soreness. Compression sleeves, R8 roller and some stretching to the rescue!

I also stood up all day yesterday at the shop for the first time in a long time, on a stress mat of course, but still I sit A LOT now and so add all of those things together and you get some sore calf muscles.

I thought as I walked Andrew to school that the snow and ice was turning into slush, thanks to the warmer temperatures and the drizzle we were getting. Boy was I wrong!!!! I headed out to feels like 37 and got home to feels like 24 and ICE!   I said many cuss words and had to have stella steady me several times to make it.  I thought there would be enough snow that I could run in the snow on the side of the roads, but even that had been turned into crusty ice.

my running route was solid ice!  Tried to keep in the crusty snow as much as I could

By the time I got back to the shop, school was being let out due to the buses sliding on the ice in the morning and the ice only getting worse.  It is days like today that make me SO glad that i now work 2 minutes from the house and my hubby is my boss :)

Wednesday:  After a disastrous Tuesday due to ice, the schools decided to call off school for Wednesday and i am really glad they went ahead and made the decision.  We had a lot going on at the shop, but our workers needed extra time to get to the shop (voluntary attendance, they just come because they love us), so we slept in and took our time getting ready to go to the shop.  I had started feeling badly Tuesday night.  Andrew had a little congestion the past couple of days and I guess I got whatever he was incubating.   The only problem, mine came with a really horrible sore throat too. I will take it, i would rather have the version that is the worst.  Early bed times, vitamin C, and lots of rests built in through out the day were a must.

Thursday:  I woke up feeling much the same, not better or worse but it wasn't in my chest and I follow the rule of head up, keep going, below the head or fever, rest.  After walking andrew to school and seeing HUGE patches of ice, I decided even with Yak Tracks that it wasn't worth it to run outside.  Cue up the ridiculously loud pop music that I never listen to and the 4:1 intervals to pass the time.  I tried to play with the settings so i was doing a variety of speeds during the 4 minute run to try and keep my sanity.  When my mill hit 5, my watch still said 4.5 but i noticed when my walk intervals came up that it would blank out the speed, so that makes sense.  Deleted my watch data and just did a manual entry.  My mill's output made the most sense for the speed I was going on my walks and runs compared to what i had been doing outside anyway.  Mill for the win :)

Later on I had my very last private session with coach Erin.  While Coach Erin teaches my classes that I am taking in the mornings, I still will miss our one on one time.  We decided to just do strength training and skip the WOD since the WOD Monday just about did me in.  I did voice my concern about having class, run, class, and run before I had a rest day, but we both decided to try it and see.  There are no classes on Thursday as it is open gym, and I hate it because Thursdays would fit in my schedule SO much better than Monday and Wednesday. URGH.  We worked on our dead lift series with my final 2 x being at 123. I actually felt like I could go a little higher, so am super excited to see where I can go!  We also did some shoulder work using the bar and some light weights to do strict presses.  I really wanted to use my legs to get that bar up.  We ended with some core/mid-line work doing some dead bug.  That exercise looks so easy, but when you try hard to keep you lower back on the ground while doing the exercise, it kicks your ass!

Friday:  After a long night of not great sleep thanks to super weird dreams about running an MRI machine and having to read MRIs (I have no clue where this came from and no I did not take any meds), I woke up super tired and super snot filled.  I have heard this version of the cold I got takes at least 2 weeks to get over.  At least my throat isn't hurting anymore and I am glad I have a worse version than my son.   By the end of the day, we were both running super low grade fevers and feeling pretty icky.  Some jambalaya, some decaff coffee, and Momma Mia on the tv was just what the doctor ordered.

Saturday:  Long run day!  Since Sunday is jammed packed with activities, my long run day fell on Saturday this week.  I really, really, really wanted to find a place that wasn't ice/slush/mud, so I put it out on FB asking what shape our local "trail" was in.  I was told some snow and some ice but not bad.  Well, I should have known better because when I parked at the very end of the trail, it was solid snow that quickly changed to ice the further I got.

Ice from where people had hiked and made slush and it had re frozen

 I thought about trying to do the river trail and headed down for a short jaunt, but it was solid ice with a little bit of snow on top, so I was slipping and sliding too much.  I still haven't screwed my shoes OR started with my yak traxs, so it's my fault I couldn't get traction.  I quickly turned back to get back on better footing.  Plus, you guessed it, loose dog on the trail that while super friendly would NOT get out of stella's face and the owner could NOT get it under control.  The owner almost fell trying to get the dog back on leash, but I honestly didn't feel sorry for him.  He made a statement about this is why you never get off leash max or whatever the dog's name was, yet not 15 minutes later they were on the main trail WITH HIM OFF LEASH AGAIN.  Okay, so why did you even say that dude if you aren't going to keep your dog on leash?????

In heading out, most of the trail was like this.  The part of the trail that were on concrete I had to walk very carefully on, and the parts that were on the limestone gravel I was able to slog through.  By the time I turned around to head home, a lot of that had turned to pure slush and mud, and I got to wog home so that I stayed upright.  I LOVE winter running, but this is getting super old.  Can we just have cold and negative wind chills and no ice???  Please?????  Afterwards stella and I hit up the coffee shop (my prize for making it through was a nice cup of frufru coffee topped with whipped cream) and had coffee and soup.  

I kind of didn't realize how muddy I was because the front of me was fine.  Whoops!  Stella was also covered but she dried quickly and I was able to brush her out instead of washing her.

  

Sunday:  Easy run day, baseball camp, birthday parties, and grocery shopping.  I woke up not totally read to run yet so I headed to manhattan to grocery shop and get that done with.  I actually go to go solo and it was kind of nice :) Back to the house and finally out the door to run.  My normal running route was now solid mud, so Deuce and I had fun slipping and sliding.  We kind of had an adventure when we got back to town and there was a train sitting on the tracks not moving. 

We could see the end of the train, so we chose to go off road and around the back and then resume our run.  I hope I didn't break some sort of rail road law, but we crossed plenty behind it.  When we got back, I opened the bathroom door and prepared for a fight.  Deuce was covered in mud but he HATES the bathroom and baths and will fight you to the death.  Surprisingly, he ran in and leapt into the bathtub like WASH ME!!!!  I was so shocked that he willing went in.

the aftermath

Have a great week!  I am looking forward to less mud and less ice.  How about you?

I am linking up with HoHo runs and Wendy at Taking the Long Way Home for the weekly wrap!  Check out all of the other great bloggers who blog in the link up, you won't be disappointed!