Um, heck yeah!

Day 1 of 3 morning running - complete!

AND my first mile clocked in at 11:55!

I leave you with "super happy dog":

Manic Monday

Sorry for the short absence! This past week got a bit hectic.

• I ran twice before work last week. Ya'll, this is a big accomplishment for me. I love me some sleep and the fact that I willingly wake up a full hour before i have to....well, it's big.
• Starting tomorrow, I plan to run three times in the morning before work. Cross your fingers.
• Saturday I had an 8 miler on the schedule. Nothing good nor bad to report. I was feeling really tired and decided to just make this a slow/easy long run. I'll do 8 again this Saturday and plan to push myself more.

And, here's this week's weather report - we are still in the center of the sun. It should cool down around, oh, October. :P

Center of the sun.

Being met with this...

means Melissa will not be running after work this week.

And take it as a sign of the apocalypse, because I woke up this morning before work to get 3 miles in! And i plan on doing it on Thursday, too!

This coming from a person who loves her sleep. (ie i slept for 11 hours Saturday night and still took a 3 hour nap on Sunday. Oops.)

A surprising run

So as i write this blog post, Tom is staring over my shoulder. This makes for a very awkward situation. Hi Tom. You suck. :)

Moving on. I was a bit dramatic in my last post. As you can probably tell, i get frustrated with running pretty easily. However, i stuck to my plan and got up before work on Friday to run 3 miles! It honestly wasn't that bad - but i also knew i got to leave early from work that day. Where i promptly came home & took a nap. :)

Saturday's run called for 7 miles. How'd i do?

Turtle Times
Mile 1 - 13:06 i felt good and knew this was going to be a decent run
Mile 2 -12:09 yeah, i have no idea either!
Mile 3 - 13:14 incorporated walk breaks starting here
Mile 4 - 13:21
Mile 5 - 14:01 started to fade a bit
Mile 6 - 13:19
Mile 7 - 14:19
Total Time: 1:33:26

My splits were kinda all over the place, but this was a good run in my book. I kept an average pace of 13:21, which is what i need to get that sub3!

Arizona is returning to the center of the sun this upcoming week, with temps between 108-113(!) all week. Sigh. This means i may need to do early morning runs again this week. Good thing i picked up some Monster Energy drinks at the grocery store today... :)

Three Things Thursday

1. This has not been a good week for running. Tuesday's 4 miler was cut down to 2.5 due to calf problems again. It's so frustrating, having to hobble along when you know things can be going better. And tonight called for 4 miles....not only is it 111 out, we are in the middle of a huge haboob (dust storm) right now.

2. I'm going to try to fit the miles in tomorrow morning. I am not a morning person. And i don't have the best track record of waking up early on the weekdays. But I'm scared to not get my mileage in. :(

3. My half marathon is 2 & 1/2 months away. I'm having negative doubts about my time goal. I know I am doing the best I can and that's all I can ask....but I'm still worried. UGH. I just need some good weeks with good, consistent runs! Plllleeeeaaassssseeeeeeee....

Good run Saturday

First off, thanks for the compliments on the headband! It's actually a Bondi Band - i have two of these and want to order more because they have some great patterns. I wear them to the pool, too. (Disclaimer: I do usually have to put a couple of bobby pins in to help them stay in place, though.)

So Saturday I went out for my 6 mile run. Not even a quarter mile in, I was already grumbling to myself about how tired i was (why hello, 5:15 IN THE MORNING) and how i didn't want to run. But i made myself go a mile and see how the rest went.

Surprisingly, it went well! After the first mile, i decided to walk a quarter mile then run the rest of the mile. Wash, rinse, repeat. This system worked well! I felt strong and wasn't really tired until the last mile (as usual). In full disclosure, i did stop the Garmin about every half mile or so to drink water/take a breather for about 15-20 seconds. Now i know i can't do this during the race if i want to meet my sub3 goal, but it really helped on this training run.

Turtle Times
Mile 1 - 13:04
Mile 2 - 13:23
Mile 3 - 13:13
Mile 4 - 13:19
Mile 5 - 13:51
Mile 6 - 15:27  (i forgot to stop my Garmin while i was stopping at a water fountain to refill. Otherwise, it would have been faster!)
Total time: 1:22:18

Tonight's 4 miles again - it'll be another hot one, but i got some new running clothes so maybe that will help. ;)

It happened!

MelissainPhxAug 11, 7:58pm via Echofon

Well kids, end of world is near. I just had a great run and Tom is actually watching football. Hug your loved ones.

That was my twitter status from last night. Last night was weird. I come home from my run to find Tom willingly watching football, which never happens, and I had just completed a great 2 mile run. These things are not in the norm. I embraced both of them. :)

6 miles tomorrow and 3 miles on Sunday....we are getting to the bulk of training now!

Sigh of relief...

Ok, so I must have just been running like a straight up crazy person on Tuesday because I didn't have any leg problems tonight. (Knock on wood.)

But thank you for all the well-wishes! Hopefully it was just a fluke and it doesn't happen again! Tonight was 4 miles. And although my time doesn't really reflect it, i feel like it was one of my stronger runs this training period. I still needed walk breaks, but during the run I felt stronger. Still not where I want to be time-wise...but I'm going to try out some speed work sessions soon and we'll see if that helps.

Turtle Times
Mile 1 - 12:54
Mile 2 - 13:46
Mile 3 - 13:52
Mile 4 - 14:53 (damn this last mile! Every. Single. Time.)

Upon getting home, Spencer immediately went for my socks. Still can't break him of this habit. What can I say, the pup likes sweaty, stinky socks.

Shooting pain...

Um, not so fast.

I went for a run last night and the wheels completely fell off. I have no idea what happened. It's as if my legs were not my own. Halfway into the first mile, my calves seized up. I had this problem during my first half marathon training, but not since. I decided to stretch & walk some to see if I could ease the pain, but walking was actually more painful. 

Imagine your calves feeling like there are just blocks of solid clay in them. It's horrible. So i hobbled along into a jog and then got a shooting pain through my right knee down to my shin. Wth is going on here?! I stopped and stretched, tried to jog again and the same thing happened.

I hobbled home after 2 miles, feeling super disappointed & worried. 

And the shooting pain has happened 3 or 4 times today, just sitting down.

Um, legs. Let's have a talk. This is not how you are supposed to behave. GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER.

Anyone else ever experience this? I'm not going to run again until Wednesday, but now I'm scared...

So, you're saying there's a chance!

I believe Llyod Christmas said it best.

After a couple less than stellar runs, I was really hoping my 5 miler on Saturday would go decently. And it did! The temps that morning were slightly cooler and I think that helped. I went back to my goal of keeping each mile under 14 min - I didn't quite achieve it (stupid 5th mile) but my overall average pace was under 14, so I'll take that!

Turtle Times
Mile 1 - 13:01
Mile 2 - 13:47
Mile 3 - 13:18
Mile 4 - 13:39
Mile 5 - 14:30
Total - 1:08:14 (a full minute faster than my first 5miler two weeks ago)
Avg pace - 13:39

What i guzzled after my run. Mmm chocolate milk.

My Friend Gerry sent me a couple of speedwork options and I think I'm going to incorporate those into my training schedule next month (once the temps go down a little bit).

I just want to continue to hit my training runs and work on my times and just do the best that I can. That way I can feel fully prepared come November 6th. As you know, I'm training for a sub 3. I really, really want it to happen - but if it doesn't, I want to know I did everything I could.

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

This pretty much sums up my past two runs.