After procrastinating for an hour or two by perusing articles online I finally managed to get out the door this morning and go for a run.  My chest, arms, back, and abs are a little sore from yesterdays, but not as bad as I expected.

While my legs felt okay, I still got off to a horrible start; Sally, my dog, decided she did not want to run past the industrial leaf blowers the pavers are using and would rather turn around and run home.  After pulling her, with her legs stretched out in a stop position, around the leaf blowers we settled in for a nice run around the neighborhood (it was about 70 this morning.)

Not knowing what kind of shape either of us would be in I decided to do some loops around the cemetery instead of doing a larger loop.  That way if either of us got tired we could easily turn off and go home.  After about 2.5 miles I got bored of the cemetery and was ready to head out elsewhere, but Sally looked to be getting tired so we trudged home instead.  Sally, being a drama queen, trudge at full length of the leash behind me. However, the moment we got home she was doing full speed figure 8s around our apartment!

Sadly, I’m to lazy to head back out and add on mileage.  Instead I am going to start trying to do the Perfect PushUp workout calendar again.

Trying to remember that working out is fun …

So the title for this post is almost a week late, but today was my first real workout in over a month!  Sad that I wasted the great shape I was in by not running for a month, but such is the life of a law student.

Anyways, I am back on the horse.  Went to the gym for a workout and a run.  Yes I know painful and stupid on a treadmill, but I was too lazy to leave the gym once I was already there.

I got in a good lift session and then ran 4 miles.  I was planning on running 5, but started to lose motivation around mile 2.  Going for a real run outside tomorrow.  Excited to get back into shape.  Hopefully I won’t be too sore and it won’t be too painful.

So I roughly sketched out my plan for this week.
Monday: was a rest day because I was burned out from last week (Wed 10×1000m, Th 9 base, Fr 45 bike, Sat 2×3mile tempo, Sun 14)

Tuesday: Planning on 8 or 9 at base pace. Already did 3 with Sally so will run 5 or 6 tonight at the gym (depends on whether the hockey game is any good.)

Wednesday: Speed work (400m 800m 1200m 1600m 1200m 800m 400m) 2 mile warmup and cooldown. Guessing half rest in between the sets. WITH THE GROUP

Thursday: Active recovery 7 or 8 at base pace

Friday: Spin/bike ride depending on whether and how late I have to stay up thursday night to finish my paper.

Saturday: Think that the group will either do a tempo or some form of hills (probably a tempo) Guessing 8-10 total miles

Sunday: Long run with Sports Basement Group. Something around 14, but whatever people are willing to do.

It’s 63 out so I am taking the pup for a 3 mile lunch time excursion! Still haven’t figured out my own running plans for the week.

So I disappeared again. But I am trying! I’ve decided that writing a recap of all my runs the last two weeks would be a waste of time (time I don’t have.) Instead I will try to post anything a day. It will hopefully be running related. Although I am thinking of combining my two blogs (don’t worry the other has never been updated.) Potential title: Running from the law.

Anyways, the good news is I have found some training partners and my running is better than it has been since college. The bad news is my motivation is waning and I am a little burned out from all the workouts last week. I took today off with the intent of stretching and strength training. Neither happened. Oh well I deserved a day off!

Checkout buckeye.com for workout by workout breakdowns. I am off to bed so I can wake up at a decent hour and run tomorrow!

So this week has been a true “Run When You Can Week.” Amazingly I still haven’t missed a workout (sorry about the posts, but you’ll see why.)
This week I had a paper due Monday night, a midterm on Tuesday, and another paper due Friday (ah the life of a 2L.) Needless to say it was a stressful week. To demonstrate how bad it was I normally get just under 8 hours of sleep a night (or at least try to.) This week I averaged 5.
My workouts this week:
Monday:
Got up early and lifted and then did 6.5 on the treadmill. First run in my new Wave Rider 12s. They felt so much lighter then my old shoes.
Added on 2 with Sally when I got home.

Tuesday:
Ran at 8pm at the gym. Was supposed to do 7 but ended up doing 7.5 because I had to stop in the middle to run to the bathroom. Overall an amazingly quick run despite the lack of sleep, tiredness, and intestinal issues.

Wednesday:
Spun for 45 in the morning with Amy. We went to our usual class with Cathy who had us doing 2 minute intervals. They were surprisingly difficult and it was a great workout. Added on 3 miles with Sally when I got home.

Thursday:
Unfortunately had a fit check planned for this morning at 6:30 a.m. Didn’t really have time to do much of anything cause of all the work I had to get done on my paper. The fit check went ok. He tested my VO2 (somewhat inaccurately because we had to use the bars on the treadmill to check my heartrate. He calculated it to be about 62 (ended up doing 2 miles of running/walking on incline for this test.) Also tested my body fat %. He tested it twice (7% and 7.2%). Once I finally got free of him and his economic theories I managed to squeeze in 5 on the treadmill before I HAD to get back to work.

Friday:
I did nothing! Ended up staying up all night to finish my paper (took a 1.5 hour nap.) Then crashed the rest of the day on the couch and watched TV.

Saturday:
After class I ran with Sally over to the Buchser middle school track (about 2 miles) figuring I would tie her up and do my 2 scheduled mile repeats. Turned out there was nobody at the track so I left her off leash as I warmed up and stretched. There was still nobody around, so more out of curiosity then anything I launched into the first repeat with Sally still off leash. Turns out she loves intervals as she stayed right with me for the full mile. I was worried about killing her with all the distance so I tied her up for the 2nd one (at this point I had decided to do 3.) She was not keen on this at all and she WHINED SUPER LOUD whenever I shot down the straight-away away from her. Feeling guilty I untied her during my recovery and let her do the last mile repeat with me. Again she held my pace (although she figured out that she could cut the turns to save some energy.) Overall she probably did over 6 miles of running (far more than her previous high of about 4.) I was worried about her being totally worn out on the way home, but as we ran back through the cemetary she tired to sprint after a squirrel so I decided she was fine. She crashed when we got home, but by the end of the day was back to normal.
The repeats went well although I doubt that the track is truly 400 meters. (I have yet to measure it myself, but I called the school and they said it was — I still have my doubts.) The mile splits were 4:49, 4:53, 4:42.

Sunday:
Wet 12 miler with Herman and MJ. Herman was hurting a little at the end, but it was great to have the company. At the turn around I was really not looking forward to the last 6, but we ended up talking about the IP issues around the Kindle2’s new talk to speech feature and the miles flew by.

This morning I woke up and it was raining! I checked the weather report and the chance of rain from 9am 30% to 10am 15% had me thinking we would make it dry after all. It was not to be.

Just before we stepped out of Sports Basement it started raining and it didn’t stop at all during the run. On the plus side there were a surprisingly large number of people who made it to the run this morning.

I ran with Jean, Mameen?, and Herman this morning. Herman only did the first 4 with us before turning around. We did 10.5 at around 6:30 pace. The run itself was fine, felt good but not great. But running with company was awesome. I am definitely feeling like I am starting to get a running group. Jean said that West Valley was thinking about starting a cross team. Exciting stuff. Definitely enthused again.

For some reason I am really looking forward to my run tomorrow morning. It’s supposed to rain, but I am hoping some fast people show up and that I have someone to run with.

Probably excited because it isn’t law school work and I will be running outside rather than on a treadmill.

Ever since high school I have not liked track workouts. They weren’t so bad then when the duration and speed were slower, my expectations were lower, and nobody on the team could beat me.

Now I dread them. Speed workouts equal intense pain. Pushing oneself as fast as possible around an oval path. Trying to limit rest time to simulate races. And nobody to train with to push me and make the workouts more interesting and pass by more quickly.

So with great trepidation I had penciled in 4×400m with 200m active rest for today’s workout. I drove to the track in fear of the pain and slow times that lay ahead.

After a two mile warmup and stretch, I added in a few striders and extra half lap warmup too delay the inevitable. The 400s weren’t too bad, although they felt really awkward. I did not feel fast or smooth; the whole experience made me want to start working on technique drills.

So I didn’t actually race last night. It was more of a race against the clock to get my workout in.

Due to my inefficiency getting work done Wednesday I still had a ton to do Thursday before class. As a result I postponed my morning run to an evening run (and switched the plan track workout to Friday.)

As a result of all of this I needed to get my planned 7 mile base run done btwn the time my last class ended at 7:15pm and when I was supposed to pick up Amy’s mom from the airport eta 8:15pm.

So I raced. Raced to my car from class (annoyingly our professor let us out late), then home (quickly packing a Kong to keep Sally occupied), then to the gym. Managed to be on the treadmill at 7:40ish (yes it would have been faster running outside from my house, but I don’t feel safe running at night due to car fears. As a result when I do those runs, they end up being slow as I have to slow to ensure that cars see me.)

I figured I had till 8:15 to run so I could make it to the airport by 8:30 (southwest.com had the flight running 10 minutes late.) This would have left 35 minutes for my run (not enough for me to run 7 miles.) To my surprise I got a text from Amy’s mom at 8:05 that she was already on the ground. Texting back from the treadmill I told her I would try and leave w/in 10 minutes.

I ended up running 6 miles @ 6:13 pace (did the last mile at 5:52 so I wouldn’t be late to the airport.) The good news is that it felt easy. I am really enthused by this workout. Should mean that I can easily run a qualifying time for B2B.