I believe on my last post I complained of ankle pain. On this post I will complain about foot pain (only for about 2 sentences, I promise) To fix my ankle issue, I bought an ankle brace, wore it too tightly, and now I have a case of the...well...I' don't think there's a name for it, but I'll call it sore foot. I have been sidelined since Sunday and since then I have come down with a case of restless leg syndrome. I'm itching to get out there.

I'm ready to go in, coach, just give me a chance.

However, I am also trying to be smart. My foot was feeling pretty good today, but I wanted to wait one day after it felt better again to run.

While I've been sitting around on my butt all week, I decided to make a new playlist. I stopped running with music a couple of months ago because I found myself not paying attention to the music anyway. I would just get lost in my own thoughts. But, it occurred to me that I just think I was bored with the music. I had the same playlist for 3 years. So, following the "5 key Ingredients to the Perfect Playlist" I created a new playlist. Incase you don't want to click the link and find out wat the ingredients are, I will state them for you.

1. “Hanging By A Moment” by Lifehouse. Lauren swears by this song. This song has been on every running playlist she has made. Since I'm following her rules, I added it to mine.
2. A mixture of songs.  This is self explanatory. Don't have a list full of only hip-hop, or techno, etc. Explore your musical tastes eclectify (yes, I do make up my one words) your playlist.
3. Separate out each “type” of song and artist throughout the list. I should have a problem with this because I use an iPod shuffle...so it shuffles for me :)
4. Make the playlist longer than what you think you’ll need.  She says to do this for two reasons: a.) in case you end up hating certain songs while I’m running and want to skip them, and b.) in case something goes wrong during the race and you end up running longer than expected.
5. Do not underestimate the power of boy bands.  I think this is probably the best advice. I looooooooooooooooooove music, and I looooooooooooooooooove to sing outloud to music, because it makes me happy. Boybands make me happy!

So...drumroll please...

Total songs: 39    Total time: 2.4 hours

I have included some power songs (Remember the Name, Just a Girl), some fun songs I just live to sing and jump around like a buffoon when I hear them (Gangham Style, Footloose, Love Shack, Pretty Fly for a White Guy), some of my playlist staples (Bad Moon Rising, Inner Smile, Dashboard), and a little of everything else in between.  I am excited to try the new playlist out and see if it helps me move a little faster. Let me know what you guys think.

Do you run/workout with music?

What songs are on your playlist?

So, I have been using my borrowed Garmin all around town. I keep trying to find extra excuses to run, just so I can use it again. It is soooooooooooo much easier than carrying my phone with me. I just discovered it even has a map on it (which is great for me because I have the absolute worst sense of direction. I have never ran a new route and not gotten lost...sad, I know)! I just learned how to upload all of my workouts, and I swear I probably feel how Benjamin Franklin felt when he discovered electricity! Ok, probably not, because I have no clue how he felt, I'm going to guess a lot of pain. Anyway, I have been uploading all of my data on a plethora of websites. Strava, Dailymile, Garmin Connect, Map My Run, just to name a few. I know, I know, I've gone obsessively a tad overboard, but I can't help it I'm so excited i dont even want to use capitalization or punctuation in this sentence anymore! My favorite site in particular is Strava. Did you know that you can race other people when there not even there? Well, you can. I am trying to set a course record for the Sparks Marina. I currently hold the second fastest time for a female, but that #1 spot is in my grasp!

Besides the excitement of the Garmin, I have recently convinced my sister-in-law, Stephanie, to start running. She has been doing so great, running 4x per week! She is even buying new running shoes! She is a lot more committed than I would have been starting off. She runs with her stroller, which is insane and intense. I really hope when I have children I will be able to do that. Right now I struggle just trying to lug my own body weight around. She lives in Puyallup, WA, but she is coming down for a visit in August. She is going to be running the Liquid Gold 5k with me when she comes. I'm super excited that I will have someone to run with. This will be her very first race!

Switching the topic yet again. On Saturday, I did a pretty tough speed workout with the running group. 5x 1000k. We ran the first 2 intervals on grass and the final 3 on the track. I think the grass running really messed me up. The next day I woke up sore beyond belief. My ankle and the muscles surrounding it were super stiff and sore. Unfortunately for me, that day was my long run. I was scheduled to run 11mi which would have been a distance PR for me, but I was only able to bust out 7. My ankle was just too stiff and I didn't want to risk injuring it. I went for a tempo run yesterday, and it was still stiff. I'm not sure what's going on, but I am praying it goes back to normal soon.


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Last week was a very interesting week! I think I have been signing up for too many races lately and they are cutting into my training time as most races are on Sundays, and that is my current long run day. My schedule for this week was supposed to be

Day of Week	Scheduled	Actual
Sunday	9mi LR	7.79mi
Monday	Rest	Rest
Tuesday	5mi EZ	Absolutely nothing
Wednesday	Yoga	Nothing again!
Thursday	3x1mi repeats	5k race
Friday	Rest	Rest
Saturday	5mi EZ	3x1mi repeat
Mileage total	24	16.89

So, not very good at keeping with the schedule. Last training schedule I was so good at sticking to. I followed that plan to the tee. This week is already a little bit off. I am on, mileage wise, but pace wise is all over the place. I think I mentioned I found a running group to join, well on last Saturday I met up with them for 1 mile repeats at Virginia Lake.  Those people are crazy! They are all sub 3 hour marathoners! One of them was attempting to set the CR for Virginia Lake on Strava, which he killed by over 30 sec. The “coach” of the group was super nice and is letting me take his Garmin for a 2 week test drive. I wore it on Sunday for my ling run, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. It’s a lot easier than carrying my phone around, but it is really big and bulky. It does make me feel like more of a runner though.  For my long run on Sunday, I met up with Reno Running Co for their weekly Sunday Store Runs. I ran with them last week as well, but that was a disaster. As you can see from the above table I was supposed to run 9 miles, but I quit right before 8 miles. I didn’t have the energy, I got lost twice, I ran out of water, and I was just hot. I called my husband to come pick me up. This week, however, was better. I ran the first 7 miles solo, and then met up with the group to run the final 3. I finished with an average pace of 10:37/mi (thanks to the final 3 I did with the group. I can’t help it, when everyone else is running fast, I don’t want to get left behind) which is crazy because before I started with the group, my 7 mile average pace was 11:20/mi.

I am meeting up with another group, NSET, today for a 5 mile run. I met 2 of the NSET runners on Sunday and they convinced me to stop by and run with them. If I keep up with all of these group runs, I will only have to run one day solo, which would be incredible. I would much rather run with others.

In other news, I ran the Tahoe Firecrakcer Trail Trek on the 4^th. I was really excited about this race for some reason. I had this great idea in my mind that I was going to kill it. I would finally get one of those age group medals (judging by previous year’s results). Not so. This was the absolute toughest race I have ever done (even though I haven’t done that many). I know the title of the race includes the word “trail” but don’t ask me why, I had convinced myself, that it was mostly a road race. Wrong again! ¾ of the run was on trails…the soft (like running on sand), extremely narrow (two people aren’t gonna fit on here at the same time), and hilly. It was also the longest 5k of my life. I felt like I was running for hours. I looked down at my phone at one point and I was already at 26 mins (so much for a PR or an age group placement) and I still had half a mile to go! I really wanted to just give up! I had already stopped and walked during parts of the race (with my head hanging low), but instead I thought I would just enjoy the scenery and not try and push my already slow steady pace. I finished in 30:11. This was a short course according to my GPS of 3.02mi, so that puts me at exactly a 10:00/mi pace. I have to say I was a little surprised, seeing as I had walked at three different times, that this wasn’t my worst 5k…just my second worst. All in all, though, I had a good time. I loved the foresty trail we got to run on and just like the last race, I learn a lot from (what I consider at least) my failures. It’s only going to make me a better, stronger runner!

Tox-ic Miles
/ˈtäksik mīlz /
noun
a run that is too short to build endurance, to slow to build aerobic or anaerobic capacity, not hilly enough to build eccentric resistance, then it is toxic


Yep that sound about right. That sums up today's run to end my 2nd week of half marathon training. My schedule this week was:

Sunday - 5k race
Monday - Rest
Tuesday - 4mi EZ
Wednesday - Yoga
Thursday - 5mi EZ
Friday - Rest
Saturday - 4mi EZ

Sunday was supposed to be 7mi, but I had signed up for a race that day, so I skipped it. The beginning of this week went well. I competed all I was supposed to in the ranges I was supposed to. Which brings me to today. I have been lacking on sleep lately, and I went to sleep last night at around midnight. So when I woke up at my normal weekday time of 5:45am, I thought it'd be better if I just went back to sleep to catch up on some ZZZ's. This was mistake number 1. When I woke up again at 8:00, I felt completely un-rested, groggy, and heavy, like I had overslept. I felt fine when I wok up at 5:45, I should just gotten up and ran then. My second mistake, not eating or drinking anything before I ran.
By 8:30, it was already 81 degrees out. I had to force myself out the door. The heaviness and grogginess was very present on my run. My breathing was sooooo out of control and my HR was through the rough! Near the beginning of my run, I dropped my phone, which is my GPS (I really, really need to get a watch), I dropped my phone. i picked it up and made sure it wasn't damaged, and continued to run. At some point a while later, I looked down to see how close to ending the torture run I was, when I noticed I'd apparently only gone .43mi (I'm assuming when I dropped my phone the GPS stopped) and the pace for the .43mi was 11:09/mi. Are you kidding me? That was the final straw. I threw in the towel right then and there and turn around and ran home.  I was supposed to do 4 miles today, but I have no clue how many I did. I'm positive I didn't make the full 4, but I definitely went more than .43mi. How can run 2:30/mi slower than my race pace feel so. excruciatingly. difficult? It is days like this that makes me wonder why in the hell-o kitty I run. On the hopefully flip side, usually after a disastrous run like this, I usually have a great run the next day which is good because I have a 9mi long run tomorrow.

Have you had a disastrous run recently?
How did you get back on your feet?

I was really looking forward to this run. I signed up a while back, and for some reason, I though this was going to be my race. I had this great picture in my mind of 1st in my AG. I checked all of the races from the Reno 5000 (they hold 3 races a year) for the past 4 years. Even if I didn't PR in this race and just got close, i would place. They even have a podium and the Reno Gazette Journal took pictures of overall and AG winners 3 deep. Here is how the race went:

I woke up at about 5AM and did a shakeout run. I always hate shakeout runs, I have to constantly remind myself to slow down. I'm not even sure if it helps, but I still do it anyway. After my shakeout, I normal pre-race breakfast is bagel with peanut butter. Unfortunately, I forgot to buy some last night and they don't make them that early, so I had to go with a piece of bread with peanut butter. I arrived at the race at about 7:15 (the race started at 7:40). I did a warm up of about .5 miles and 4 strides. This was a race of about 1000 people, and the last bigger race I ran I started out in the back and spent the next mile dodging walkers. This time I lined up near the middle frontish. When the race started, I tried starting my GPS, but it went to some weird screen. I tried backing out and restarting the app, but it went back to this weird screen. After some time, I was finally able to get it going. This particular race started and ended with one lap around a high school track. It took me the entire first lap to get my GPS going. I think this was my first mistake, because I was messing with my GPS, I was running really slow and a lot of people passed me.

Once I got started I was feeling pretty good, I soon got over that feeling. I am not sure why, but this was a rough run for me. My effort was too high, for not getting a PR! In the beginning, I tried staying with a group of runners, but I couldn't keep up. Then, one woman passed me who sounded super winded, I thought I could keep up with her because she was sounding so tired. I never saw her again. This "flat and fast" course, turned out to have more hills than I predicted. I don't do hills. Even the little humps on the sidewalk where a driveway starts, I think are too big of a hill. Needless to say, I struggled some. I usually get really excited and a surge of energy comes to me when I can see the finish. This was not true for today. As I entered the parking lot of the high school, a woman passed me. I tried so hard to keep her with me, with plans to pass her in the end, as we rounded the final lap of the track she took off, and I had absolutely nothing left. I found out later, that final woman to pass me was the 3rd place in my age group winner. I am bummed. I wanted a PR or AG placing so bad. I was so bummed, I didn't even partake in any of the post race goodies. I didn't even bother to have anyone take my picture.

I did however take a picture of my awesome personalized bib!

 I really need to work on my losing skills. My final time was 26:43 58th overall, 4th in age group. Oh well, in order to pick myself up off the floor, I singed up for another 5k on the 4th of July. It's good to have bad races because I learn so much more from a race I perceive as going wrong than I do from races I think I succeed in.

Today marks the first official day of my half marathon training journey. Having never run more than 10 miles consecutively, I’m a little nervous about running 15 miles as my longest run. But I’m sure just like Gloria Gaynor, I will survive.

 I recently joined a running group I found on meetup.com. I was a little shy to start running with a bunch of people I've never met before, but then I remembered how much I love the running community and how accepting most of them are. Yesterday, I went to my first group run. This “group” run turned out to be me and one other guy named Dale. Dale has been a runner since before my mother even had the twinkle in her eye. He has run over 52 marathons, his fastest being 2:34. To say I was intimidated would be an understatement. However, he is now 60 years old, so that gave me a bit of a handicap. We ran a 2 mile loop 3 times and did strides for the last 0.5mi on the last 2 loops. He let me set the pace. Which was nice, but I felt like I was holding him back. I thought about pretending to have contracted some strange new virus that left me weak and unable to run as fast as I normally was capable of, but I decided to save him the theatrics and just run.

For my training plans, I use an app called Runkeeper. It has a plethora of training plans from 5k to a full marathon. It even has a training plan for just losing weight. When you choose a plan it automatically loads it for you when you run and tells you when to speed up, or slow down, etc. It even tells you the pace you should be maintaining during each run. The best part, it’s a free app for the iPhone!

 Ok, enough of the Runkeeper commercial. For the past 4 months I was using the sub 60 min 10k training plan. I loved it; it helped me go from a 10:00/mi 5k to 8:30/mi. So I am putting my faith in this program for my half marathon. I signed up for the sub 2:15 half marathon training plan. Although, my goal is actually a sub 2:05, they didn’t have a plan for that, so I will just run the suggested paces a little bit faster. Now, before I go completely off track, Dale said if I sent him my training plan, he would tweak it to my fitness level and goals. He has been a running coach for 16 years and has coached some really elite athletes. So I am very much looking forward to his input. I am excited to be part of this new running group. He told me about some of the other runners, they all sound like the American equivalents of Kenyans, but I’m looking forward to the challenge I think I can learn a lot from them. I will have to channel my inner “little engine that could” to get through some of their planned workouts, but all I've got to say (at least for right now while I’m feeling brave) is “BRING IT ON!”

Is anyone part of a running group?

How have you liked it?