Tonight was the last formal speedwork session of the summer

As much as I disliked the speedwork sessions this summer, I'm kind of sad to see them go. As tough as they were, I actually saw progress with them.
Since I missed last week's group session and did my least favorite workout (25 100 meter windsprints with jogging in between each one) I was really glad to get to the session tonight, even though it was kind of misting a bit when I arrived at the track. Other than the light mist, the weather was perfect. It was a lovely 67 degrees out when I left the house, which actually felt really cold to me after multiple weeks of 90 degrees or hotter.
Tonight there was no actual workout, just the mile time trials. The rainy weather kept a lot of people away, so we all did our time trial at the same time. I was really nervous about the time trial. I knew that I was getting faster, but I set the bar really high at the time trial at the beginning of the summer, as I was trying to stay in front of the girl who was right behind me. My mile time trial back in May was 7:42, and since most of my speedwork was done at about an 8:00 or slightly faster pace, I thought I had a good reason to be worried. I was concerned that I'd be embarrassed when they posted the scores on the Fleet Feet website and mine was the only one that got slower.
Fortunately, there I was worried over nothing. Even though I didn't have anyone to pace myself off of, I ran the fastest mile I've ever run. Are you ready for this? Drumroll please.......I ran my mile time trial tonight in 7:00 flat!!! I'm pretty damn pleased with myself. This number makes all of the hard workouts that I put in this summer seem worth it. Who would have ever thought that me, the girl who could barely finish the mile during the Presidential Fitness testing in elementary and high school, could run a mile that fast. The best part was that I didn't even feel like I was breathing hard or very tired after running it. I think I could have actually gone faster if the track hadn't been wet, but every time I hit the curve I felt like my shoes were slipping.
The rest of the workout for me was cake. I ran an easy 2.5 to warm up before the time trial and an even easier .5 to cool down after the workout. Only one more short run this week and then it's on to the major mileage with an eighteen miler scheduled for this weekend.

I never thought I'd be so glad to see Monday

Tomorrow I go back to my regular job. Thank goodness for that. I've spent the past five days at a continuing education seminar. It was very interesting and informative, and I learned a lot of good information that I can immediately put to use in my clinic, but it was pretty much the longest five days I've been through in a long time. I think I'm spoiled by only having to drive five minutes to get to work. It took me an hour the first three days because I was stuck in the middle of rush hour traffic. Today and yesterday the drive was only a forty five minute one though.
I was plenty busy with other stuff too. Friday night we went to the ballgame...Cards v. Cubs, an age old rivalry that is always an interesting time. The Cards took home the W on Friday and also won yesterday afternoon, so we're looking for the sweep tonight! Last night we went to my grandmother's 85th birthday party. Technically this was not a party though, as we just went to dinner and then back to her house for cake. I'd like to say it was fun, but...my brother was there. That sounds horrible doesn't it?
My brother and I have a tumultuous history at best. He feels like he's always been stuck in my shadow and I feel like my parents have always coddled him. He is an angry, angry little man. His interactions with me consist primarily of him trying to bait me into an argument, taking potshots at my self esteem, and constantly telling me that I'm a "stupid bitch". My parents, of course, always pretend not to see the verbal onslaught and constantly make excuses for his behavior, which is absolutely asinine in my opinion.
What it's turned into is a big mess. When I go to family functions, I'm basically silent. I spoke when spoken to, and I try to stay as far out of the conversation as I can, particularly when he's in earshot, as he doesn't even have to be part of the conversation in order to tell me how wrong and uneducated I am. I figure staying silent makes me a smaller target and thereby preserves some shred of my self respect. I realized last night exactly how much I resent my brother's bad attitude and my family's permissiveness of his verbal abuse. So I had a little conversation with my mother, which of course didn't go well...
I guess the good part about having a dysfunctional family is that you learn how not raise your own family when you have one. Silver lining in every cloud, right?

What a week

I can't believe it's only Wednesday. This week has been so crazy. My continuing education seminar started today, it runs through Sunday. In order to make up for the fact that I'll be out of the clinic and thus unavailable to my patients all of the second part of this week, I worked extra hours on Monday and Tuesday. The company has arranged for someone to cover for me tomorrow, but I didn't want to load her schedule up too badly...I'd kind of like her to come back next time I'm out of the office.
I worked so late on Tuesday that I missed my formal speedwork session. I did drive to the closest high school track though so I could complete the workout on my own. It sucked. I really dislike windsprints. I'm quite certain that they are my least favorite type of speed workout. I did twenty five 100 meter repeats at a full out pace, with 100 meter jog breaks in between each wind sprint. It totally kicked my butt.
So far, my course seems pretty interesting. It's a very small course, only seventeen participants, only one of whom seems really annoying so far. The instructor said that the usual size for this course is forty to fifty people, so I feel particularly lucky to be in a small class. If I decide to pursue my DPT degree from this particular university, I can count this course towards my requirements.
I've been toying with the DPT idea for a long time, but haven't been able to convince myself to make a decision. This course is probably going to help sway me, as the program is much more reasonably priced than others I've looked at, and is only 22 credit hours long. Plus, you get credit for going to the seminars and becoming certified in manual therapy, which is something my employer wants me to do anyway. I guess I figure that if I can get someone (ie: my boss) to pay for half of my degree, it'd be money well spent, especially since I have to do the continuing education seminars anyway.
The only thing I'm concerned about is the time commitment, which I know I can't fulfill now. Maybe after Chicago....

Rainy running = No running skirt debut

I know, I promised to review the running skirt today...but I didn't wear it. Primarily because the shirt that matches the skirt is white, and it was pouring down rain this morning when I got up to go run. I settled instead for some boring old shorts and a colored singlet. I ran this morning at 6:00am with my friend Laura and her friends, Tiffany and Sam. We ran sixteen miles, and it rained for about the first ten of those.
The course we ran was definitely challenging, but it was fun because it was all new to me. There was a small area of the course that covered territory that the St. Louis Marathon covered, but most of the run was new and different. We ran it pretty quickly considering that it was raining, and muddy in some parts, and extremely hilly in other parts. (Don't let anyone ever tell you that St. Louis is flat...cause it most certainly is not). Our pace was just under 9:50/mile.
The thing I liked best about the run this morning was that there weren't a lot of people out at first. It was kind of fun to watch the city wake up. The other great thing about this run was that the bathroom and water fountains were plentiful. We ran through the heart of Clayton, which is an extremely fitness friendly town (the St. Louis Track Club is based out of Clayton). Some shops/restaurants won't let you use their bathrooms or refill a water bottle, but all of the coffee shops, gas stations, and restaurants that we stopped at today were very nice. Everyone wanted to know how far we were going and what we were training for. It was a nice change from the mainly residential area that I normally run in.
Tiffany, Sam, and Laura are all also running Chicago. Tiffany and Sam are also going to try to run the full Lewis and Clark marathon (I'm doing the 1/2 and then some) next month. They've all qualified for and run Boston numerous times, so I'm kind of the rookie in the group. It was nice to have different company today though.

I am so glad

That I switched the order of my runs this week. I was dragging some serious butt this morning when I got up. In fact, the only thing that kept me going was the fact that I only had to do four miles this morning, and that it was all on the treadmill, so I didn't have to get all dressed to go outside. Although it wouldn't have been so bad to go outside this morning as it was only 59 degrees in St. Louis at five o'clock this morning. I cannot wait for fall to be here for good.
Today was a regular day. I got up, ran, went to work, saw a bunch of patients, had a bunch more cancel on me, did a marketing lunch (that went really well), saw a bunch more patients, got stood up by the last one of the day, and am now blogging while I wait for my yummy dinner to finish.
Dear husband is cooking tonight, we're trying a new recipe. It's called chile relleno casserole (from the Eating for Life book). We don't actually follow this program completely, but a lot of our meals come from the cookbook because most of the stuff tastes decent and is fairly easy to make. I'm hoping it tastes at least half as good as it looks.
On a funnier note. My hubbie got a ticket about two or three weeks ago. The official infraction is "illegal lane usage". The actual rule that he broke was pulling into what everyone uses as a turn lane off of the highway, but come to find out is actually the shoulder of the road...just poorly marked. Apparently they nailed him for driving on the shoulder to avoid the traffic signal (yes, we live in a semi-rural, fast becoming suburban area, that still has stoplights on some of the highway intersections...instead of overpasses). The price tag on this? 177 dollars. He was going to be a smartass to the clerk as he paid it, but fortunately saw the sign that said rudeness and sarcasm would result in an automatic, mandatory court appearance and decided to keep his mouth shut. Thank God for that sign!

Awesome speed session tonight

Tonight's speed session was the best workout ever. It was 400 meter repeats every four minutes. We were doing twelve sets, and the idea was that it was a staggered workout. So instead of everyone starting together, the slower runners started first and then the faster runners started last. You were supposed to look at the speed charts and chose your start time based on the time you would like to run your 400 meters in, everyone was supposed to finish at the same time (the three minute mark) then we'd rest for a minute and start the clock all over again. It seemed to work so much better this way.
It was nice not to have to stare at the back of the faster runners, I kind of felt like it tricked me into going faster. Plus, there was a huge pyschological advantage to catching the people who were in front of you. Once you're circling that track, you totally forget that those people didn't start at the same time as you.
I ran my three miles of speedwork in just over an 8:00/mile pace...I'm finally seeing some improvement in my times on flat ground. I ran my two warm up laps slightly slower at an 8:30/mile pace, which is still faster than my long run pace. I think I read somewhere that long runs should be thirty to forty five seconds per mile slower than your normal, 5k pace. Does this sound right?
Also, I got my RBF cd exchange cd's last night! Great job on organizing this exchange, Running Jayhawk. Many thanks to Running Rabbit and Little Miss Runner Pants for two awesome cds. I've already found some new favorite songs. Although I could have done without the glitter in Rabbit's cd...it's all over my kitchen! My husband now thinks that I went to the strip joint instead of working yesterday afternoon.

It feels so good...

To have my longest run of the week out of the way already. This week was supposed to be a screwed up week, where I started with small mileage and progressively got longer as the week went on. I hate doing longer runs on Wednesday and am usually ass tired by that time of the week anyway, so I thought that I'd switch things up a bit and work my way down from longest short run to shortest short run. So, having said that, I ran six miles this morning.
Those who know me, know that I work a lot of hours on Monday, and that those morning patients start at seven o'clock every Monday. (Alright, so I start working at seven every morning, that's beside the point.) To run six miles, I had to get out of bed before five this morning.
Yep, I got up at ten 'til five this morning. Now, this is truly a miracle...I wasn't really sure that there was more than one 4:50 on the clock anymore. It has been a long time since I've seen that hour of the day, and it might be the first time I've ever seen that hour from this side of the day. In the past, I only saw that time of the day when I hadn't quite made it to bed yet, but I digress.
So, to summarize, I got up early, ran six miles (actually had a pretty good run), then went to work...where I still sit now...at almost six in the evening. Something is so wrong with this picture. Fortunately, things are winding up, so if my student ever gets her notes caught up, I can actually go home. Wheeeeeeeeeee!!!

I jumped on the fashion bandwagon

I finally did it. I've been contemplating/eyeing those cute little running skirts for about six or eight months now...pretty much ever since the new spring/summer gear went on the market last winter. I just couldn't justify spending forty or fifty bucks on a skirt to run in. I beat my running gear up so thoroughly that it never lasts very long, so spending a ton of money on basically "disposable" clothing is something I just don't do. Anyway, imagine my delight when my weekend ad circulars came around and I saw that Sports Authority had the skirts on sale!
Immediately, I scheduled a trip to Sports Authority as part of my day yesterday. I managed to find two really cute running skirts...one in teal trimmed with orange and white, and one in navy trimmed with fuschia and white. I was excited to find that the medium sized skirts were actually too big! I actually own something that is a size small now!
Speaking of sizes, there was a small fitting room debacle...which involved me locking myself out of the fitting room, with all of my street clothes inside, while trying to find the skirt in a different size, and then being unable to see the large button that said "ring for assistance". Being the intelligent woman that I am, (I'm so embarrassed to type this) I decided to crawl under the door back into the fitting room. Halfway into the room...head and torso in the room, legs sticking out into the store, I twisted my shoulders and upper body, thus managing to get my hips "stuck" between the bottom of the door and the floor. Fortunately I realized what the problem was and was able to remedy the situation before the store employees noticed.
So, long story short, I purchased the running skirts, took them home, and tried them out this morning on my short run. Of course I slept in today, so my short run took place on the treadmill, which isn't really the ideal spot to try out new equipment, but I must say that I really liked the skirt. I'll try it again on next weekend's long run and post a more complete review of the skirt at that time.

Rest weeks rock

Today was only a ten miler. This is the second of three (I think) scheduled rest weeks in my training program. It was so nice, not to mention easy, today since I knew that I only had to go ten miles. It was nice and cool out too. I checked the forecast last night and knew that it was supposed to be just a little cooler, so I gave myself the luxury of an extra half hour of sleep this morning. So I got started around six thirty instead of six o'clock this morning. The first half of the run was pretty foggy, but as the sun started to come up a little it cleared out some. It remained cloudy for the rest of the run though.
There were a lot of people out taking advantage of the cooler weather today. I counted over thirty other runners. Quite a few of these runners were cross county boys from one of the local high schools. There coaches have them run the Fleet Feet long run a couple of Saturdays every month, and the coaches (who look entirely too young to be teachers) ride along behind the team on their mountain bikes. Usually I can't hang with these teenage boys, but this morning I was able to.
I was a little ahead of them to begin with on the out and back course. I passed them as I was heading back and they were heading out ( somewhere around the 5.5 mile mark), and then about another mile down the road they start to pass me on the way back. Today, only one teenage boy managed to pass me on the way back, and I managed to pass two of his teammates who hadn't done the full five miles out. This was a pretty big ego boast for me.
My total time for the run today was 92 minutes, which translates into a 9:12/mile pace. Now, if I can only pick up a little more speed on my training course over the next nine or ten weeks...I should be in a pretty good position to meet my goal at Chicago. I'm hoping I'll be aided by the almost flat (so I've been told) marathon course. I'm really looking forward to the Lewis and Clark 1/2 marathon in five weeks, as it's mainly flat and should give me a pretty good idea of how I'll finish in Chicago.
Good luck to everyone running the CDC this weekend!

Is it Friday yet?

I am exhausted. I've been so busy this week that the entire week has literally flown by. I've been very glad that this has been a rest week. I'm really looking forward to only running ten miles this weekend.
I'm still going to try to get up pretty early on Saturday to get the mileage in, because I'm fairly certain that it will be about three thousand degrees out again by this weekend, but at least I'll be done early if I get out early.
My biggest headache this week is my job. I alluded to how busy I've been earlier this week, and of course things have just snowballed from there. By the end of the week I will have seen twenty three new patients already during the month of August...that's twenty three new patients in eleven days (and two of those days were weekend days...thus no patients seen then). This number of course does not count the two new patients who cancelled earlier this week due to illness/family emergency/whatever. I'm on pace to do almost seventy patient visits this week, which is a full 20 more than last week.
I like being busy, but I dislike people being rude when they can't have the appointment time that they want. I've got one patient in particular, who is only available for a two hour window three days per week, and I'm at lunch for 1/2 hour of her two out window. With those type of restrictions on "when she can come in" it's no wonder that its a little difficult to coordinate her appointments...especially since she doesn't call until the day that she wants to come in. She doesn't understand why I can't just drop whatever it is that I'm doing and squeeze her in. Today she was almost a full forty minutes late for her appointment, so I cut her session short by forty minutes. I felt like that was fair, especially since she was the last patient of the day. I've stayed late every day this week, I just couldn't do it this week. I cannot wait for a weekend.

So much easier

Another speedwork session tonight. Tonight was 1200 meter repeats. We only did four sets, so that was nice, although it still kicked my butt. It's nice to see progress though. I was able to complete the three miles in 24 minutes, which is fantastic for me.
The coaches told us to look back at our previous 1200 meter repeat workout to see how much we've improved since Memorial Day, but of course, I really am not anal about recording how fast I do my workouts, so I have no idea what I did that workout in the first time around. I know that my PR for a 5k race is just over 25:30 though, so I'm estimating that I may have shaved about a minute off of my 5k pace.
Of course, there's pretty much no way in hell that I could ever maintain my 5k pace for a whole marathon...
Everyone was fairly well behaved at tonight's session. Arrogant runner dude (who's name I find out is actually Cary) was on his best behavior after his dressing down courtesy of your's truly last week. He even mumbled a half hearted sorry about last week to me at the beginning of today's workout. I'll count this battle as a victory. Nice to know that decency still counts for something occasionally.
I'm officially exhausted. It seems like when one aspect of life starts to go smoothly, another loses all sense of control. My job is kicking my ass from one end of the clinic to the other pretty much every day now. Don't get me wrong, I love to be busy, but I've also got a student intern now, and suffice to say, she's not all that quick on the uptake.
I'm actually really worried about how I can justify not forcing her to remediate this clinical. I had a talk with her today about how it doesn't really seem like her heart is in her work, and she admitted that she thinks that my type of clinic is not for her (she...like 95% of the rest of her class, wants to work with kids). That's great and all, but you still have to give 100% effort at this internship to get out of school. It's making for a frustrating workday.
I also need some serious advice on how to work my training the weekend of August 25-27th. I have a continuing education seminar from Wednesday to Sunday that week (8:30am to 5:00pm), and I have a sixteen miler scheduled. I really don't see any option other than to get out of bed at 4am on either Saturday or Sunday to get the run done. That's gonna make it hard to stay awake for the class...any suggestions?

Finally some cooler weather

I ran my scheduled fourteen miles this morning. I was contemplating saving my long run for tomorrow because a friend, who is also training for Chicago, was going to do her long run tomorrow and wanted some company. After this morning's beautiful run, I'm glad I elected to go ahead and get it out of the way today.
When I woke up this morning at 5:30 it was only 63 degrees out. This is about twenty degrees cooler than it's been for the past two weeks at that time of the day. At first I thought that my eyes were playing tricks on me, but then I got outside and realized that it really was cool for the first time in ages.
My fourteen went pretty good today. I did my normal five out and back course and then went "exploring" for the remaining two miles. I found a huge hill that I'm going to have to try to start adding into my long runs as they get longer and got to cruise by a bunch of old, classy homes. It was a really nice run. The fact that it was cooler and I was having a good time made me faster. I was a little slow (10:00/miles) for the first half, but managed to pick the pace up to 9:30's on the way back in.
My ankle felt pretty good while I was running, but was slightly sore for the rest of the day. I've decided to see how next week goes, since it's a rest week, but if I'm still having trouble I'm heading to the doc after that. I am such a bad patient.

Cross training how I love thee

Seriously I do. Sometimes my poor joints just need a break. Today was a good cross training day. I spent some time on the stationary bike and am planning on heading upstairs pretty soon to do some light weight work. This has been such a long week.
I've had a pretty good week as far as running goes, although work has been pretty much kicing me in the pants everyday. I've also been finding myself functioning on a lot less sleep because I'm spending more time out of the house due to work kicking my butt. I cannot wait to go to bed tonight.
I finally got my ride back. Turns out that the cooling fan was faulty and that this was a factory defect. It's nice to know that it wasn't just my imagination that el carro was making too much noise. I have to say, this dealership did a good job once they finally started working on the car. It just took them about sixteen hours to finally getting around to looking at it.
So, tomorrow's Friday and all is right with the world. This weekend I'm planning a fourteen miler on Saturday morning, and hopefully I will not run into the "running jerkface" from Tuesday night.

Arrogant runner guy strikes again

It seems like pretty much every Tuesday night my speedwork recap includes a comment about the general unfriendliness of the "veteran" runners at the session. Tonight is no different. Tonight we had the option of 500 meter or 600 meter repeats and were working on our finishing kicks. We were supposed to run the first 400 meters of each repeat at 5k pace (which for me is about 8:30/mile) and then kick it into a higher gear for the last 100-200 meters of each repeat. I chose to do 500 meter repeats because 1)It was what fit with my schedule and 2) I didn't really feel good.
That said, I was one of the slower runners out there tonight. I'm really fine with that, seriously I am. I run to beat my own best times and am not out there to prove myself to anyone else. I really admire the faster guys out there (the sub 5:00 milers) and almost all of them, unequivocally, are class acts. They are all complimentary to the slower crowd and try to really encourage not only each other, but also the rest of us "average joe and janes". Those guys, I have no problem with. It's the other runners...the ones who think they're speed demons but really aren't more than thirty or forty five seconds faster than us 8:30 milers. I've got a problem with one jackass in particular.
This guy has never spoken to me before tonight, but every week I see him out there dogging other runners, and every week I think what a jerk he is. Tonight...as I was running "shorter and slower" he chose me as his target. I'm sure he thinks his sarcastic "encouragement" is helpful, but it's not. Don't worry though, I set him straight.
He told me that "You need to run faster and give more effort. It looks like you're taking a leisurely jog out there. This is a speed session." I was dumbfounded and speechless for all of thirty seconds at which point I told him exactly what I thought about him.
Slightly paraphrased my reply went something to the tune of: "I'm out here giving 110% every week, and that's all I can ask of myself. Maybe my fastest time is something that you would be embarrassed to pull on a slow day, but it's good enough for me. I have nothing to prove to you. I'd rather be the slowest runner out here, but a genuinely nice person than a speed demon who's also a miserable human being like yourself."
Fortunately, quite a few people overheard this exchange and even though he's one of "the cool kids" and most of them find his brand of humor enchantingly funny, there are other people out there like me. One of the other guys stopped me as I was leaving and told me that they were pleased that someone finally stood up to this jackass, because "he's had that coming for a long time".
Unfortunately, the whole experience has soured me on formalized speed sessions with this particular group. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about speedwork from now on. Part of me wants to keep going to this group just to show him that I won't be intimidated or bullied, but part of me wants to switch to the Thursday night group, or just complete the last four workouts on my own without the group. I'm not sure which I'll do yet.