You know how I said before that I really like training plans? Well, that’s still true. What also appears to be true is that after my first marathon I seem completely incapable of actually following one.

“What’s that? 6 mile tempo run on the schedule? YOU CAN’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!”

And so it goes. Here we are again, on the verge of another valiant distance effort with pretty much just the bare minimum of training that will allow me to not completely maim myself. Why, Joselyne, why do we keep doing this? BECAUSE YOU CAN’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!

I am apparently my own worst enemy. Oh well, don’t worry, folks, (wow that was a lot of unnecessary commas) I have still been very active. What?! Picking up 50lb bags of soil and digging rocks out of clay does so count as exercise! Plus my garden is now totally fab.

I’ve done all my required long runs, and believe me they have been long. Don’t get me wrong, I like my own company – but after five hours I’ve had enough of even my own witty banter. Hard to believe but true.

So here’s the deal – I was supposed to do this 30 mile run in celebration of my 30th birthday (which is May 7th BTW even though I was planning on doing the run on the 6th – just in case you want to send me presents). Well I’m not sure I can tolerate more than one more 22+ mile run by myself. I’m sort of tapped out here. Plus, the wildflowers are amazing right now and Saturday is supposed to have glorious sunny weather (a rarity in these parts apparently). So I’m gonna go ahead and just run this thing. In two days. The day after tomorrow. Holy Sh*t. It will be my run to celebrate my not-quite 30 yet but almost in 3 weeks birthday. That should fit on a race bib, right? I’ll just say the time delay is due to it being a leap year. Yeah. Plus, if I DNF for some reason I can always come back here, delete this post, and proceed on the 6th as planned*

So I’m running 30 miles on Saturday. Pictures and bitching to follow!

*This will never happen. Once I get started with something I’m going to finish it if it means pulling myself through Washington Park on my fingertips.

Week One was a success (nevermind the fact that 3 of the 7 days were rest days recovering from Hagg Lake…)

It feels good to be running regularly again, to have a training plan, and a cool goal.

For some reason I have a fear of tempo runs. Specifically I have a fear of tempo runs on the treadmill. I didn’t have a choice this week, so the first tempo run was treadmill-tastic – 800m warmup, 4 miles at tempo pace (9:30 because I’ve gotten S-L-O-W [plus I’m training for a 30 mile run here folks, let’s be serious about how fast that is actually going to be]) The only thing I have to say about the tempo workout is that it got done. Ugh. Next week I’ve got to move it outside.

The highlight of the week was the 13 mile long run – Matt and I did it together, and ran up Lief Ericsson. What a break to be able to run 13 miles straight without having to stop for traffic, walk up hills, or put my shoes back on after having them sucked off in mud! Matt suffered most of course, because I made him run my LR pace (I hesitate to even write down what it is on here). Finished up in 2:19 – which is funny because that’s only 10 minutes off my first 13.1 RACE. Training, how does it work?

Today is my first gym workout of the plan, Squats, push-ups and deadlifts. I’m going to be establishing working weights, then go from there on a 3×5 plan. I’ll wait til the gym clears out around 8 so as not to scare the students 🙂

Friends coming to town this weekend so I get to practice shuffling the schedule all around to fit everything in. Good news is I get to run my 15 miler this week on some sweet new terrain – Bend, OR here I come!

 

Does anyone else like making training plans or am I just weird? Don’t answer that.

After the race this weekend, I’m pumped for 30 on my 30th. I’ve been working messing around with my training plan all afternoon.  So much goes into making a training plan – peak weeks, ideal paces, weekly mileage, planning around work and vacation, trying to control the raging hungerbeast inside me…

I was Googling around looking at tempo paces (oh god, the dreaded tempo run…if I accomplish nothing else this training cycle I WILL conquer the tempo run) and had a typically hilarious Google experience: as I’m typing “ideal length of tempo runs” Google sagely asks, “did you mean ideal length of a nap?” Oh Google, I love you.

I’m planning on incorporating weightlifting into my regimen this time – I have a handy (free!) gym at work and I really liked the feeling of strength crossfit gave me. I have it pretty simple, Mondays are “Weights A” and Wednesdays are “Weights B.” A is squats, push-ups and power cleans, and B is squats, overhead press, and dead-lifts. Also featured in this training plan are Yasso 800’s (BARF!), tempo runs (double barf) and the traditional Long Run (which is why I run in the first place why can’t all my working out be just running along at a nice slow pace foreverandeverandever oh yeah because that takes a lot of time I don’t have and I’m tired of being so slow)

Still a little tweaky from Sunday but overall feeling pretty good.

Happy Running!

The website is "haggmud.com." That should tell you something right away.

It was a dark and stormy morning…

Actually, for Portland it wasn’t that bad. Matt and I headed out to Henry Hagg lake to run 16 miles in what promised to be a slippery, sloppery (and sometimes slobbery) mudfest. Thanks to the wonderful race directors, Matt and I won “SUPERSTAR” parking. We got to park right next to the start/finish, which was much appreciated as I watched everyone else shiver themselves silly before the race. Logistics-wise they seemed to have it down – plenty of space heaters to keep those unlucky peons warm, and good aid station grub as well.

Off to the races!

The race started with a 1.75 mile out and back up a gravel road. Emphasis on the “up”. It was a good warm-up though, and as we swung back by our superstar parking spot I was able to toss my outer layer. This is the first winter race I have done where I did not chronically overdress. Well, probably only because I was able to drop off my outer layer in the first 2 miles.  The out and back helped us spread out before we hit single track around the lake. Matt and I ran a lake loop (14 miles) about a month ago in just about the worst possible conditions – rain, snow, shin-deep mud, major downed trees/bushes, the works. In comparison, this first part of the course this go ’round was a breeze. Until…

You know on Everest where people get all held up at the Hillary step waiting for climbing nOObs to get their act together and figure it out? Hagg lake has an equivalent hill. I must say, I think I had the best running shoes for the course of anyone there. I rocked the Inov8 Talons, and the grip on those suckers never let me down. So there was this one downhill section that was pretty steep and treacherous if you didn’t have the right (read: my) shoes. There was a line of 30 people waiting to descend. Yes, you read that correctly. I timed the wait with my watch and it was literally 5 minutes. Granted, it was 5 minutes of slip ‘n’ slide spectating hilarity, but still. Come on, people. When it was my turn I ran down it like it was no big thing. I am such a pro. (thank you again, Inov8, for being a balm to my pride…and my backside). There were a few sections where the trail popped out onto the road and we had some pavement running. For the ~1 mile total of this throughout the day, the shoes sucked. Definitely not for pavement. Overall though they definitely helped my day. Maybe if I mention In0v8 enough times in my blog they’ll send me some Talons for next year… 🙂

The trail around Hagg Lake is truly beautiful, with lots of winding switchbacks and little ups and downs. I ran the whole time, with only a few minor and one major (see above) stops. I even ate my GU on the go, which I’ve never been able to do before. Mmm, espresso love mud…I think that should be a new flavor.

I misremembered my time from our training run and thought I should be running this in about 3 hours. I was disappointed to find myself at 1:30 at the 6 mile mark, but kept on keeping on. Later in the race I remembered that I should be aiming more for 3 and a half hours, but miles 6-8 were very painful as I tried to coax my muddy legs into greater and greater turnover.

THE MUD

Mile 9 saw the beginning of The Mud. Sections of “double track” (I think that’s what it was supposed to be, but it was hard to tell underneath the general boggyness going on). Hagg Lake has a 50k the day before, so the trail had already been pummeled by two laps worth of runners plus all the gazelles from this morning. BTW, anyone faster than me is a gazelle in my book. By the time I got to it, it looked something like this:

Hagg Lake in all its shoe-sucking glory

Keep in mind this photo is from last year, which was by all accounts a much drier year. The sections above with the standing water? Imagine that but at least twice as wide with no way around except tricksy hassocky ankle breaking death on either side. Good times. The mud slowed everyone way down. In the last 10k I passed at least 30 people, many of whom were probably faster than me on paper. Apparently I have a mud gift – all I had to do was completely surrender any desire to stay clean or dry, and accept the fact that I might break myself spectacularly at any moment. I passed three people wearing crossfit shirts in this section and couldn’t help but heckle them. 🙂

The mud was really bad in the last 3 miles. Really, really bad. People kept trying to pick “good lines” and dodge around. Not I. I just slogged straight through that mess and pretended it was the smoothest beach sand. I’d like to say that beach visualization worked (it didn’t) but I tried to remember my mantra: “relentless forward progress,” and onward I went. Of course they posted the photo guy at the top of one of the gruntiest hills, so I’m sure there will be plentiful documentation of what I look like in the pain cave. Always a good one to show mom.

I finally crossed the finish line in 3:19, but I’m taking 5 minutes of that back from the Hillary Step so I’m calling it 3:14. Next year I’m gonna go sub 3, so watch out.

Matt had a great race, coming in 12th overall and 3rd in his age group (show-off). At the end of the day, a great time was had by all (except the poor girl who broke her arm but hobbled to the finish like a champ). A + + would slog again.

Now to start my training for 30 on my 30. Wooooooo!

…right here in my blog!

Hey everyone, how’s it shaking? I can’t believe I’ve been running for three years now. Holy cow. Not a lot to show for it in terms of time improvements, but man have I had some great running and racing adventures. I went from starting out and building up speed in glorious and year-round-running friendly Santa Barbara, to finding awesome insane running friends and adventures in Fort Collins, to losing, gaining, losing and hopefully gaining again my direction in Portland. Three wonderfully different places, three different parts of my life.

Welcome to part three. Matt and I finally moved out of our stinky apartment! We bought a lovely townhouse in Portland less than one mile from the scenic and extensive trails of forest park. Work and home have been taking up a lot of my time – have you ever tried to paint a bathroom yourself? I think my fingernails are permanently blue. As well as certain other parts of the bathroom that probably should not be…

I’ve been working and and doing crossfit, but I’ve been feeling funky. Matt and I signed up for (and are running in less than a week!) the Hagg Lake 25k. Having a race to train for usually perks me up, but getting into a routine has been unusually hard. Suffice it to say, I’m doing this 16 mile race on Sunday with probably the minimum training required to not injure or permanently embarrass myself (that last part takes a lot of doing, after all).

I’ve found myself just feeling sort of “meh” about my running lately – and I refuse to blame it completely on the incessant gray skies and freezing drizzle. I had to quit the crossfit due to budget constraints (and let’s face it – I’m a runner at heart). I have been keeping up with my strength training at the gym on campus (woot, private university that allows staff to work out at the gym for free!) I think I’ve been letting life stress and poor health choices erode some of my inner jawsomeness. Well. Let’s not have any more of that!

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: running is mental. Like I tell my therapy clients, often the thing that’s getting in the way the most is our own damn selves. So, this is me getting the hell over myself. Seriously. Sometimes you try things and they don’t work, so you try again differently and it still doesn’t work, and you give up. Until you realize that really all those attempts were just weak-ass excuses for being lame. How do we stop lameness? Stop being lame. Simple. 🙂

I thought back to what I love about running: competition over short* distances, and long relaxing adventures over crazy distances. I remembered back to my first real race – the Santa Barbara Half Marathon. Oh, back to those halcyon days when I felt like I needed a week off after running 13 miles. I’ve been doing a lot of trail running, which is wonderful in its own way – but maybe I want to get back on the road for a bit – switch things up. I’ve never really pushed myself in a training plan for a time goal – both the half and full marathons were “just to finish.” I think I need a little extra motivation these days. So. I just signed up for the Wine Country Half Marathon in Oregon on September 2nd. Sure, it’s a little premature to get excited, but the training starts in earnest in June. You have been warned.

Hagg lake mud trail run race report to follow shortly…assuming I don’t drown in a bog.

Oh. And I’m running 30 miles for my 30th birthday in May.  🙂

*short may or may not refer to distances that are objectively short.

…this blog doesn’t.  Things have been going well around casa de Jawsome. The stinky carpet still stinks, but I’m getting used to it. Okay that’s a lie – I cannot wait to move out of this apartment. Matt and I have been looking at homes to buy, but it’s a bit tricky considering I work way out in the middle of nowhere. This is fine as long as I can find a place that is at least somewhat close to public transportation. My wallet cries inconsolably at the thought of driving an hour plus each way.

As for working out, I’ve been doing that a lot. In fact I have a confession. Sorry, runners – I’ve gone over the to dark side. No, not triathlon training – remember what I said about about the sensitive wallet – no, I’ve started crossfit. Yes, I’m drinking the Koolaid. Tastes pretty good too. It all began because of that pesky stress fracture in my foot (which still nags occasionally). I needed to do SOMETHING, and clearly, as my “scars on every limb” body will tell you, cycling is not for me.

I started working out with Beaverton Crossfit. Now I get to reach puke threshold EVERY DAY, instead of just during races. Isn’t that AWESOME? I really like it – it combines my love of intensity with finally teaching me how to do a freaking pull-up (not there yet, but SOON!).

I haven’t given up on running completely – in fact, Matt and I just ran a race on Wednesday. Let’s see, in the past 10 weeks I have run approximately 3 times for a grand total of 13 miles. So I decided I would run a 10k. You know, just for funsies. It was ugly, as I’m sure you can imagine, but I did it. This is part of the forest park trail series, so I’ve got something like 5 more races coming up in the next two weeks. My plan for now is to stick to crossfit 4 days a week, and run twice. We’ll see how that goes.

 

I’ve been out of commission lately due to foot and bike injuries (not to mention my MOVE TO PORTLAND!!).  Matt and I are here now, and in spite of our small, slightly stinky apartment we are happy.

My running lately has been nonexistent due to the above-mentioned injuries, but I was a good patient and did not push it. Thus, I am now fully healed and getting back into things. Somehow I managed to not gain 10 lbs (after running 30-40 miles per week, this was a SERIOUS eating adjustment).

My first real run  (over two miles) was yesterday. I ran along the Wildwood Trail in beautiful Forest Park. This trail is a runner’s paradise. 30 miles ONE WAY along an almost completely flat, winding, barefoot friendly forest hillside. LOVE. There are plenty of steep side trails for hill training, but this was just what I needed to get started again. I did 5 miles. Felt pretty good – a little rusty and DEFINITELY slow – and I can’t wait to do more!

Wildwood Trail

I think 5 miles was a good place to start, as I’m “training” for the Forest Park Trail Series – a series of five races between 5 and 8 miles. I signed up for the whole series, and each race is limited to 100 people. I’m just coming off of this injury, so I’m not going to push it. Still, hopefully I won’t come in last!

Happy running

Welp, looks like I made my first lottery entry! I will be lining up with 200 other runners for the McKenzie River 50k in Oregon in September. Woot!  I am definitely taking a pass on Bighorn this year, as Matt and I will be flying out to reconnoiter in Portland that weekend. Important things, you know, like finding a place to live.  🙂

However, I do plan on the North Fork 50k as my last Colorado trail running hurrah.  If my 15 mile run in the Vibrams yesterday is any indication, I’ll at least be able to complete the distance!  Now to plan for hot and/or cold weather conditions.  Happy running!

Where have I been? Man, I don’t even know. The last month has been a ridiculous rollercoaster of travel, interviews, family crises, family not-so-crises (wedding. birthday, mother’s day), house hunting, job hunting, getting sick…

You will note there is no mention of running…and I’m supposed to run Bighorn in a few weeks? Hmm, seems like a bad plan as my last double digit run was the horsetooth half LAST MONTH.

The good news: everything worked out. I got a job (wheee!!!) in Portland and the travel is done for a while (until the move, anyway!). So now I have more time to get back to reality and running! I’ve updated my training plan to try to accomodate the OTHER 50k I signed up for this summer (North Fork on July 16th). If I don’t miss a single long run between now and then, I think I can complete the distance successfully. I could probably run Bighorn in a couple weeks and finish (maybe?) but that’s a long way to drive to probably injure myself and not have a good time. I’m going to take it one day at a time, and if that weekend pops up and I’m feeling great, hey I may make it into a glorified training run and just spend some time in beautiful Wyoming. If not, no biggie.  🙂

In case you were wondering, running 16 miles on pavement after taking a week completely off and not having run any pavement in 3 months is not a really good idea. By the bottom of Bingham Hill my hip flexors were SCREAMING at me, but as usual there is nothing for it but to keep going.

In a mysterious fit of race entering, I signed up for the Horsetooth Half (a hilly road 1/2 marathon – why?!). It’s in two weeks. I figured I should probably check out the course. It’s so funny to look back on my running history and think that my first big race was a half marathon that I took MONTHS to prepare for – now I can run 13 miles “for funsies” whenever I want. I love that.

So, I woke up early-ish on Saturday and rode my bike out to Maxwell Trailhead (7 miles?). There was actually some big bike-related event happening in the parking lot, and I felt a little silly riding my old converted mountain bike – which was then translated to awesome as I changed into my running clothes and ran off.

The hills on the course are a little intense – there are three good grunters which I hope to actually run during the race (I’ve done it once before in training) but I’m debating about how this will impact me in the later miles. I may revert to my “hike if you can hike it faster than you can run it” plan. It was a beautiful day, and I tried to enjoy myself in spite of the relentless pounding. I spent so much time on the bike path training for the marathon last year that I wasn’t particularly excited to be on it again, but hey – maybe familiarity will help me during the race.  I did the 13.1 in two hours and 25 minutes, which I was pretty happy with considering the level of derping that was going on. My 1/2 PR is 2:07 – and while I don’t have high hopes of PRing on this course it would be nice to get close.

Which means…back to running. I’m feeling rested now and am ready to ramp up my training for Bighorn. I feel like I’ve built a really good base these last few months and I’m ready to rock it. I surprised myself by actually going to yoga yesterday (after another bike ride with Matt), and it was really good – she happened to focus on hips so I was happy. I think I will really need to make an effort to do yoga regularly during this training cycle to keep things loose.

I also need to get my nutrition back under control and keep eating things that are good for me (it doesn’t help that it’s the end of the semester and it seems like everyone and their brother is having a going away party at work). Eye on the prize, Joselyne – and away from the cake!

Happy running