Archive for August, 2008

Pantry moths.  We discovered them a few days ago flying around the dry goods shelf.  The day after, I threw some pasta into boiling water and realized I was looking at a moth carcass and a wormy sac floating among the bubbles.  “Aha!” we said, Nick and I, agreeing that that’s where they must have came from.   I re-attempted the meal with an unopened cellophane package of noodles, doing a half-assed job of forgetting what I’d seen.

The next couple days, I took a broom and joyfully smashed any of the little suckers who’d parked themselves on the ceiling, mocking us in our hunger.

Thinking I’d gotten them all, Friday comes and I open a taco box kit (the taco shells are always in a sealed tray thing) and out fly a few more.  Inspecting the tray, there seemed to be a little crack in it so, for the second time…”Aha! so that’s where they came from”.  We ate frozen pizza that night.

Now that I’ve thrown away pasta, oatmeal, flour and all sorts of other good food, I went to the grocery store today and realized I’m screwed as far as shopping goes, unsure when I’ll be able to buy a box of anything again without wanting to hurl.  The thought of these disgusting flying creatures and their larvae sacs are enough to put anyone off their carb load.  Looks like it’s egg noodles for a while (stored in the fridge).  Nature sucks.

A fun run today!  17.5 with 3.25 MP at the end (was going for 3 but happily, overshot it a bit).

I’d been reading about adding MP miles to the end of Long Runs which seems like a good idea, since  I only have one more dedicated MP run next weekend.  That said, I had a mild hamstring tweak the other day, so I waffled about doing the MP miles today, but yesterday I foam rollered, iced and Sticked, so felt good as new and went for it.

My goal was to start out where Pfitz says (10:00/mi), but it wasn’t happening, so I at least put the brakes on enough to stick around 9:30s-9:20s for the first 11.  It was a blissfully cloudy day and I was feeling cheeky in a running skirt and bra top.

I had a strange energy throughout and was in exceptionally good spirits from the get-go.  By holding back at the start, when I finally gave myself permission to run freely, it was just fun.  The MP miles felt good, though not exactly a leisurely stroll in the park, not difficult.  The run averaged 9:06 with the last 3.25 splits at 8:20, 8:20, 8:13 and 8:21 for the last 1/4.

As I was coming home, I saw something disturbing.  There were 3 people together, 2 of them helping a 20-something kid, who must have just got hit by a car or ran into something.  He was completely dazed and was held up by one of the other people, before being sat beneath a tree.  There were 2 bikes, so I couldn’t make out if he was a runner or a cyclist, but it was horrible to see and brought tears to my eyes, reminding me of Nick getting hit by a car a couple months ago.  Hope the kid is alright.  And please everybody, be safe as you can, it’s too easy to get messed up.

But enough doom and gloom.  Looking ahead, tomorrow is a rest day, then Sunday is 4 recovery w/strides, then the 4-mile race on Monday.  I probably won’t be writing again till Monday afternoon or evening, so have a great Labor Day holiday folks, and for anyone else racing (Doggiepoo, Greenlee and Bruce): kick ass!

In the past week or so, for some inexplicable reason, I’ve begun to drool out the right corner of my mouth while running.  It’s not a huge stream of spit or anything, and passers-by wouldn’t be able to tell, but I am having to wipe the corner of my mouth every so often.

Now, I know I’m not running with my head sideways and my dental work hasn’t changed, so it’s a mystery as to the cause.  Meanwhile, I can only hope this is a passing phase and doesn’t develop into a full-fledged rabid dog foaming at the mouth type of situation.  My race pictures suck as it is.

Today’s run was 13 with 2 trips up Smile Hill.  Good run in general, even with the hill, averaged 8:53.

Don’t know if any of you are familiar with the underground comic strip, Zippy The Pinhead, but I realized today, while looking at the elevation chart, that Smile Hill looks a lot like Zippy…don’t you think?

In non-running news, I’m waiting for the UPS guy to bring me the case fan so I can repair the power supply in my computer.  My workaround, while extremely effective, is somewhat unsightly and takes up a lot of space. It’s also causing me to sit a little crooked from my monitor.  Hey…maybe that’s why I’m drooling!!

That’s it from me today, later kids!

Sunday’s 22 was surprising in that my legs felt great afterwards and I had no soreness at all.  I expected DOMS yesterday but…nothing.  So I was feeling ready for today’s 8w/5x600s at 5K race pace.  What I didn’t take into account was that the 22-miler topped a peak week of 57 miles, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when once I got outside, all I wanted to do was travel at a snail’s pace.

My goal was to hit the same as last week, 7:15 avg, since that’s McMillans corresponding 5K pace for a 3:40 marathon. I begin the intervals and my first one is 7:26…hrmph!  That sucks.  OK, time to start paying attention!  Got it together and did the deed.  Intervals splits were 7:26, 7:14, 7:09, 7:12, 7:08…avg. 7:14. So it ended up ok, though I’d have preferred even pacing.

Funny though, afterwards I felt really energized and instead of my usual apres-interval-poopedness where it’s all I can do not to walk home, I continued on to run 4.5 more miles at 9:01 avg. pace, leaving me with a total of 10.5 for the morning.  This is good because I’m having to rearrange my schedule to accommodate Monday’s race and toploading the week will allow me to get a mini-taper in there.

Meanwhile, I’m having little shivers of anticipation for the race.  It’s an automatic PR because it’s my first 4-mile race, but I want to do well.  On the other hand, with marathon training it can go either way – you have tired legs so short races might not be up to par, then again, you’ve been improving fitness, so it could be a good time.  I don’t race a whole lot, so it’s hard not to want to set an aggressive goal.

I think the way I’ve figured is to take my 7:52avg. from last week’s 7 mile tempo, convert it to 12K, then input that as a race into my Daniels’ spreadsheet, which predicts a 30:19 (7:35 pace) for a 4-mile race.  Since I’m basing it off a tempo, it shouldn’t leave me redlining.  Then again, I don’t know the course at all, it’s in a different town – though I must say, Google Street View was very helpful in this regard.  I was able to “travel” a good chunk of the course that way, so it’s not a complete mystery.

My main thing is, I need to stop making races (especially little ones like this) so “oooh, big deal” in my head.  I think the way to do that is to do more of them so when they suck, it just gets absorbed into the mishmash of race outcomes.  Here’s to a future of mucho racing and carefree attitudes!  Yeah, right, haven’t I said this before?

Such a lovely number, dontcha think?  I like it even better now that I’m done running it.

Got up at 5:30, had my usual bit of coffee, even had something to eat beforehand (rare occurrence)…peanut butter on a 1/2 a hot-dog bun (don’t ask).  I knew I was going to be out for a while, so figured a little something in my gut might be a good idea.

Wore my Tramp Stamp shorts which I am no longer mad at.  Now that I know where to apply the Body Glide, I’m liking them quite a bit – a gal can always use a back pocket.  I filled my gel flask with 2 gels & water and then stuck an as-of-yet-untested-flavor Power Gel Double Latte (double caffeine) in that back pocket.  Wanted to see if more caffeine at the end would be noticeable or not.  It wasn’t.

It was 73 degrees with 75% humidity when I started at 6:30, so I actually took the first 3 miles at recovery run pace – 10:07s.  I told myself that the object of today was time on my feet, and not to feel guilty if I went slower than usual.  By the end of the run it was 80, so it was a bit of a toasty morning.

I had a good run!  Did the museum loop and the Schuylkill riverwalk, then went back the way I came, detoured onto Smile Hill at around 15.5 for a single up-and-down (I won’t kid you, I was happy to see I only needed to do it once to make the correct mileage to get home), then 4.5 back home.

I lucked out, didn’t have one red stop light the whole run, so I never stopped the clock, the only physical stopping was 1:20, the amount of time it took to refill my water bottle 4 times.  Avg. for the run: 9:32, pretty much smack dab on Pfitz’s prescribed pace with the last three miles averaging 8:48.

Btw, don’t know if your city has them, but Philly is putting those fab new walk lights at almost every main intersection now, they give you the actual time left before the lights change, which is soooo helpful.  No more kamikaze running across to beat the light, I can actually see I’ve got 6 seconds left and speed up accordingly.  Really cool.

In other running news, I’m pretty excited because my schedule calls for an 8k-15k tune-up race next weekend but there isn’t anything local, so I was going to do a time trial.  But I found a 4mile race for Labor Day in a town about 45 minutes away, so I’m going to do it!  OK, it’s not 8k (aka 5 mile race), but it’s better than a 5K and I’ll be able to give it a proper race effort, which a time trial wouldn’t have been. I’m scared though!! I don’t race enough to be used to them yet, which is all the more reason for doing it (and one of the reasons Pfitzinger puts them in the plan in the first place).

And now, I’ll leave you with this link to a hilarious Usain Bolt spoof.  He’s the guy that set new World Records at the Olympics in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay.  But in the 100m, Bolt showed an unfortunate lack of good sportsmanship when he looked around, then beat his chest in self-congratulations before the race was even over.  Hah, this video is perfect.  Enjoy, and I’ll see you back here later.

Why High Five?  Because for the second time ever on a run, a runner I didn’t know at all gave me a high five!  But let’s go to the beginning…

I mentioned in yesterday’s entry that today’s 12 would partly be spent around Lemon Hill for a couple easy hill loops.   However, after several comments to that post referring to the Philly marathon and the accompanying hill at Lansdowne, it seemed apropos to revisit that area today.  After all, I had only been on it once since the Philly Half and that was at the beginning of marathon training, way back in June, so I was anxious to see if it was still as big as it appeared in my mind.

Today’s accessories included one handheld, gel flask with 2 gels and water to the top (first time filled to the brim) and sunglasses.  I wanted to test the flask filled completely since that’s how it’ll be marathon day and since the waistbands in my shorts are small-width elastic, I knew there’d be some bouncing.   Didn’t take long to figure out that by safety pinning both top corners of the flask holder to my waistband, it would immobilize it perfectly.  And with that, the flask situation is now officially 100% worked out.

Out the door and on to Landsdowne.  So yeah, there’s the hill I remembered, but it’s only 1/4 of a mile so nothing as daunting as my self-proclaimed Smile Hill.   Went up the thing, messed around in the concourse area (part of the marathon course), took a couple more smaller hills, then as I was backtracking to take another swipe at the hill, this huge burly running man passes me with a big ole smile and says “How you doing today?” and held out his hand for a high-five.  What could I do but give him a matching grin, say “Great! How’re you?” and slap that palm!

He got the raw end of the deal as my palm was gross and sweaty and his was quite nice, but I’ll tell you, that grin didn’t leave me for miles.   Funny how some nice people are so brave with their happiness, it’s a beautiful thing.

After that I messed around with the hill and the surrounding area some more, than got back on West River Drive to continue the loop and finished out my 12.  Because I spent extra time around the concourse area, I ended up getting to 12 while still 1.25 miles from home.  Ordinarily I would have kept running anyway but Sunday is going to be 22, so I was like, “screw it!, it’ll be nice to walk home” and I did.

Speaking of Sunday, of course as soon as I publicize what I’m going to do, I change my mind and the route for Sunday’s run is no exception.  I was going to do it on the trail, but that’s a hard run, lots of ups downs and gravel, but the real deciding factor is that it’d be a two-handhelds + gel flask run.  I’m ok with taking the 2 handhelds, but not if I’m also taking a gel flask – that’s just a little too much extra weight and plastic accoutrements to sit well with me.

So the new decision is to do my regular loop forward and back again and then, as I’m nearing home, do a couple trips up and down Smile Hill.  After all, that’ll mimic the race better because there are a couple hills towards the end and also, I’ll just need one handheld and the gel flask.  Besides, a 22 is enough of a workout on it’s own, I don’t need to add the difficulty of a trail in there, too.

And that is it for Friday.  We’re going with our friends Lara and Jeff to some kooky bike race today near Allentown at the Velodrome.  It’s a Madison which I’ve never seen before and sounds crazy cool.  Basically, they fling each other forward while bicycling madly.  Should be a blast, not to mention lots of good looking cycle boys because that goes with the territory.

So have a fine Friday, some strong runs and I’ll be chatting with you all later.