Yes, I will melt…

This week was tough. I realized I misread my calendar and I SHOULD have run 5 miles Monday. Oops. Oh well, I made up some of it on Wednesday with the unplanned 3. Still, my plan looked like this

MON: 5 (didn’t do)

TUES: 10 miles with 5 at 15k/Half marathon race pace. Race pace miles didn’t happen.

WED:  Cross-train on plan. 3 easy miles with kid instead.

THURS: 11 easy miles. Felt long and not great.

FRI: 5 miles easy on Jenny’s treadmill. BEST RUN of the week. Good pace, didn’t feel strained. Ironic that the dreadmill was my friend this week.

SAT: 17 miles in horrible, humid, hot weather. Super slow…but more on that in a bit.

48 miles total on plan, only 46 done.

I went back and forth about what to eat Friday night because of my ongoing GI issues on longer runs. I went with tacos because it seemed like nothing made a huge difference. Weirdly enough, it worked out great. I had no issues. We went to a Oaxacan restaurant near us and it was awesome. Funnily enough, when we ordered, my husband thought I was ordering the 6 taco plate for us to share. I quickly disabused him of that notion, and he picked some tacos of his own. Haha. Delicioso.

For whatever reason, they also chose to place us at the biggest booth for the 4 of us. On a side note, we have made the decision to let my 5 y.o. start playing Minecraft. It’s a very weird and confusing game. Supposedly people watch YouTube videos to figure out what the heck you do. We like to pretend it’s educational and stuff so it’s ok. In our defense, we did say the kid couldn’t play until he was done eating.
Saturday morning wake-up was brutal. I woke up at 4:30, which was actually later than I should have to get all my miles in before meeting my friend Corey (I was going to run 5 miles before meeting her at Waterfall Glen to then run the 12 she had on her plan). My first thought was, “I can’t do this. I’m so tired. I’m going to cancel.” The weather looked awful for this weekend, though, and 17 miles alone sounded even worse, so I forced myself out of bed. It was slow going. And just like the previous week, but even earlier (cuz it’s still DARK at 4:30, I was chasing the remaining fingers of night as I headed toward Waterfall Glen).  THIS is the awesome weather I was looking at for the start and duration of my run. Higher temps and humidity. It was like running in a swamp. It was actually cooler in Darien; it was in the 80s at home already. And running in the woods and shade was definitely better. Still, when Corey and I were done running, one of us squeezed out several ounces of sweat from our drenched tops. It was the slipperiest, slimiest run I’ve ever done.
I’ve run with Corey in groups before, and she was on my Ragnar team (but Van 1). However, this was my first chance running alone with her. It was great! We chatted about everything under the sun, from raising daughters to body image to feminism and adventure races. I love how runs, especially long ones, bring out such amazing conversations. I could not have done that run without her. She even took one for the team and did the extra mile with me (I was a little late and could only squeeze in 4 miles before we met instead of the 5 I needed). We took several Gu/water/walk breaks as the hills were rough with the humidity. As my thanks to her, I’m posting this selfie of us where it’s like I purposely chose the most unflattering angle for my face yet managed to get her to look cute.

Running in high heat and humidity can be dangerous if you’re not careful. I froze my water bottles AND my big Nathan bottle and topped off my water belt bottles twice. I also had a couple Gu’s and shot blocks, AND a bag of potato chips for afterwards 🙂  I also brought a towel for after the run so I didn’t soak my car with my nasty sweaty self. One good way of helping to stay cool is to lower your core temperature itself by drinking something extra cold before the run. I also so runners with bags of ice under hats and wet bandanas on their necks. Because I didn’t have any pace/tempo miles for the long run, Corey and I took it super easy. We weren’t too worried about pace and were more concerned with just getting the miles in and feeling ok.

Finally, we got to hang out with our friends all day yesterday doing stuff around town. I love when kids and parents mesh really well. Plus, they are ridiculously adorable 🙂
I hope everyone stays cool and hydrated this weekend. I have some friends who raced yesterday (and placed in their age groups! yay for running small, local races!), and some more friends running the Rock ‘n Roll Half today (of whom two got photo ops with Meb–I think he’s pacing for the race?). Be safe out there and happy running everyone!

Spring, my first DNS in recent memory, and it’s coffee o’clock somewhere

Spring has sprung. For real. We started soccer (and by “we,” I mean the little people have started playing, and the big people have started carting them around). Nevertheless, we lucked out with the weather and both the kids’ first “games” (really just organized chaos) were at the same time, so we got to really enjoy the sun.

3 y.o. is in blue getting ready to kick

5 y.o. in red in back corner getting ready to kick

The quick warm up of the day Saturday made dressing a challenge for the long run. Jen had her usual fit over trying to wear too many layers. I hurled insults of “amateur” and threatened to teach her little grasshopper self good–we’ve been joking that I am so wise and she is the grasshopper learning from the master (although sometimes she tries to turn it on me. We know who the real boss is obviously). I also over-dressed, though, and sweat like a maniac. I think the temperature jumped like 15 degrees in 2 hours so it wasn’t completely easy dressing for it.

While there were no–ahem–emergencies for the group, Julianne’s house did receive a “regular” pit stop by some of the group. My stomach was also off for most of the run. I can now add “spicy thai curry” to the list of things not to eat before a long run. So, my brilliant, revolutionary list of things not to eat before a long run:

• poutine
• deep dish pizza
• spicy thai curry

I know, rocket science.

Otherwise, the run was fairly uneventful. We had a good little crew going, although the marathoners in the group were tired and there was a fair amount of cussing as each mile ticked by. I did treat myself to monkey bread afterwards (and I wonder why I’m not thinner, ha). Jen had to race home, though, so she could be all dance mom for her daughter and do her hair and make-up. Yup, Jen’s a dance mom.

I’ve recently become obsessed with running form as I’ve mentioned before, and I had to wince watching my 3 y.o. on the soccer field (are there “run moms?!”). I think she started running that way (with weird stiff arms and hunched over shoulders) to be funny, but now she just does it. We did a kids’ dash this morning, and she ran the same way the whole time. She didn’t win. There were no winners. Blah blah blah, all kids are winners. She’s the kid in the blue shirt running like a robot.

Because spring is on its way, I figured we’d get our seedlings for peppers and tomatoes started. It was a gorgeous warm day, and they were pretty good. We practiced our numbers by counting out the seeds (hey, I gotta work on my tiger mom skills, right?). I’m excited. I have yellow pear tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, regular tomatoes, sweet peppers, and assorted hot peppers. Our peppers didn’t do great last year, but the tomatoes grew like crazy.

Mr. UnRunner, aka Erik, tilled and composted our vegetable boxes (we have 4 in the front) and the space behind them. We had corn and wildflowers in that spot, but Mr. UnRunner did not like the overgrown chaos of the wildflowers and some critters tore into the majority of the corn–I thought it was squirrels at first, but I’m pretty sure it was rabbits. I was pretty enraged last year finding torn up corn cobs in the yard and looked like a maniac racing at animals and hurling obscenities each time it happened. That is one of the downsides of having a front yard garden.

I had a 5k this morning that I DNS’ed (did not start). I went back and forth about it, but both my legs/feet/ankles and my time were tight. I have some big professional deadlines this week (hence my more erratic posting recently), and I was concerned about the time suck of the 5k. I was planning on racing (although not 100%) the 5k to replace my tempo work out this week. However, that would have required a 2 mile warm up and 1 mile cool down, so roughly 50 minutes of running plus lining up, travel time, etc. My feet, ankles, and legs have also been super tight this past week (and I’ve obviously bellyached about being tired), and I was nervous about racing the day after a long run with that. So…I listened to my body (GASP! Who am I?!) and decided it was too risky. I still feel guilty about it, especially after seeing the awesome times some friends posted. All in all, though, with only two weeks left to game time, I decided it wasn’t worth it. I feel like this might be called “growing up.”

Finally, I encountered this amazing gem.

Now you can enjoy your coffee in the evening and get a great night’s sleep. Our Swiss Water® decaffeinated coffee is blended with organic valerian root (herbal sedative) to create a great tasting coffee and help you unwind after a long day. Available in both our original Bedtime Blend / 40 Winks and our stronger version Lights Out! with more valerian added and a bolder taste. We hope you enjoy both the coffee and a well deserved peaceful sleep.

If anyone has contacts at the company and can get me some free samples, I’d love you forever! I mean, coffee for helping you sleep. So coffee 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, BRING IT!

What was your last DNS? Do you feel guilty about it?

Are you getting ready for spring planting? If so, what are you starting inside as seedlings?