Running Shorts

To my fellow athletes and writers:

I think it's time to hang up my keyboard.  At least for a bit.  I'm kind of an over-sharer and this blog is a mish-mosh on-line diary of parts of my life which can be a bit weird at times.  I've recently started hiding previous school and sports posts b/c I don't want people to come across them.

I cannot write under these conditions!  When I started two years ago I knew fewer athletes and people in Boston and I think my blog was a great thing for me.  Now, since I CANNOT HELP MYSELF from writing about the people I'm around, I don't think it's such a hot idea.

Thanks (more than you can imagine) to everyone I've "met" along the way.  Trust me, I'll be checking in on your progress from time to time (if I'm honest with myself probably more often than that!).  I'm really going to miss you all.

Take care, and thank you (again) to each of you who have made this such an interesting journey.  If you want to keep me on your feed readers I may experiment with posting from time to time (race day perhaps?) but the daily posts-not so much.

Good luck reaching your goals.  It will be a crazy summer (and beyond) I'm sure.

I leave you with the quote from the top of my original blog:

"There is no reason to attempt such a feat of idiocy...It's a contest in purposeless suffering."
                     --Lance Armstrong, It's Not About the Bike

Love every moment of it.

Sleeves suck

There is one blog whose tag line includes something along the lines of:  Everyone remembers the one moment when you embraced running into your life.  (I can't remember whose blog that is-sorry!)  But my swim motivation this morning did not stem from a feeling as pure as that.  I was not embracing my inner athlete or the serenity or passion of a good workout.  Oh no.  I was telling myself:  You make me sick!  Get off your lazy butt and into the pool for the first time since Sunday.  SUCK.  IT.  UP.  BUTTERCUP.

So I did.  I had a few phantom moments of pain-is using the pull buoy using my groin muscle in a bad way?  Does this hurt?  Should I scrap the workout and go back to my apt? (!)  But alas, it didn't hurt and I continued on for 35 minutes.

Then I took a shower and as I walked out of the bathroom I caught a glimpse of my back.  Um, what is that??  Is that...tan lines????  It's still April!  I'm a sun screen, visor, sunglasses, public health girl.  I don't DO sun.  I studied the shape of the tan.  What shirt, and by deduction (or is it induction?), what workout was that?  It was the 5K on Sunday.  (I wasn't wearing sunscreen on my arms/back).  I have to admit, as much as I don't think getting tan is a good thing, I think wearing sleeves is a worse thing.  I HATE SLEEVES.  Long, short, doesn't matter, I would rather wear a tank-top or go sleeveless.  This will definitely be problem when I start going on very long bike rides.

(Apparently cycling guys rarely go sleeveless b/c "none of them have the upper body to pull it off."  Hehehehe.  This was told to me by a bike store employee.  HIL-ARIOUS information!)

BOOoooooooo

Ran in the rain.  It would have been lovely had I not had groin pain.  Ow.  I think I hurt myself during the bike ride yesterday as I could feel the beginning of a niggle during the running portion of my brick.  Guess what?  It didn't get better by this evening.  I still went running.  Silly Audrey.  [Kicking herself].  It looks like I'll be taking a couple of days off from running and biking.

Better

~26 mile ride.  hills.  fast speed.  trying not to get dropped which was successful overall.  more women on tonight's ride than before.  i was kind of bothering one guy about whether or not his gf was going to show up.  i was trying to collect women for the ride! she actually got a flat so myself and a guy stopped mostly to keep her company since she competently changed it herself in under 5 minutes.  after the ride i put my bike on my car (after finding said car since i was so late getting to the ride i didn't check what street i parked on), locked my bike to the car, and put on some sneakers and a reflective vest for a 15 minute run.  my.  legs.  were.  tired.  i ended at my car and then changed inside the car into street clothes (on a kind of urban street but, eh, it was dark), and hopped on my bike with flip flops and jeans (and a shirt of course) to bike over to the tavern.  unlike the last time i went on this group ride i was parked a bit further away from the pre-ride meeting place that doubles as the post-ride watering hole.  i didn't feel like dragging all of my clothes with me there henceforth the car changing and flip-flopped ride.

so that is that.  i feel really good about the ride.  they weren't going as fast as the first time out and, without having to stop and fix my chain and then getting caught at lights, I didn't get too badly dropped at all (yes, many of them are still on fixed-speeds...).  i would say it was my hardest ride to date.  the hills and the speed really got to me.  by the end of the ride i wasn't too thrilled about the brick i had self-scheduled, but my first tri isn't that far away so off i went.

That sounds about right

From my Dad in regards to my HS age little brother:

K set a PR for himself in the 800m yesterday.  Then, 5 minutes later the refs asked why no one from his school was running the 1600 M against another town's star.  That race is co-ed since so few people do it and it takes so long.  So, K volunteered to run (with no rest) and almost collapsed (his coach was yelling at him to stop).  However, since K was the only other boy besides the winner, he came in second (4 minutes after the other kid) and got his school 2 points.  He also got himself 3 of the 5 varsity points he needs for a letter.  He doubts this scenario will be repeated and actually allow him to get a track letter, but now he's a legend-- or an idiot!

Fraps.Rest.Goggles

My Starbucks drink of choice is a Java Chip Light Frap.  A couple of Starbucks I've gone to have recently been "out" of the light formula.  An inquiry on my end led me to find out that the light formula (used in all of the light fraps) has been recalled.  Um, let's just say I've consumed a lot of it.  Uh huh.

I was going to go to an all women's bike ride tonight but after my unexpected sprint with my classmate on Friday, my bike ride Saturday (which admittedly wasn't that hard), and my race yesterday-I'm calling my legs tired.  I.  Am.  Tired.  I need the day off.

Are any other swimmers allergic to latex?  My primary care doc looked at my goggle eyeballs (yes, it's now plural, god i am so cute right now) and said:  latex allergy?  Are most goggles made of latex?  I've worn latex gloves before almost daily and that wasn't a problem...but that was years ago...hmmmm....

.Calm down.

I've calmed down.  It was fine.  It was fun.  I think people had a good time.  People discussed their times when they finished but it was totally normal.  One of our guys was the number two overall with a time of ~16:26.  We had a whole slew of guys in the 21-22 minute range.  I came in at 23:35 [and yes, the running hurt] for 1st in my age group.  We were waiting around for #2 guy to get his award and they called out my name.  Surprise!  It makes no sense b/c I know I got passed by young women in the race.  It really makes no sense.  But they did hand me (and #2 guy who won his age group) a $50 gift certificate to Marathon Sports so that is kind of cool.  [And #2 guy and a whole bunch of other people forgot to sign up as part of our team or else I really think we would have won the team award too. I mean, he beat the people on the winning team by MINUTES!]  Not that I should care about that considering my rant last night...Then we had a bunch of men and women come in in the mid to late 20s.  It was interesting too b/c I talked to a classmate who has to be the nicest person I have ever met who ran in college-but hates racing so was just jogging today.  How cool is that??  She knows racing can suck-so she doesn't do it anymore!

I took pictures of people and stuff.  I hate to be annoying like that but I feel like people usually like the pics after events even if they think I'm being annoying during said event.  It was maybe 70 degrees.  And hot.  And gorgeous.  I think everyone met some new classmates.  There were 12 of us.  And people wanted to know what was on tap for the summer-so yeah!  They're sticking around the running scene.  And one guy had to call his mom to tell her how he did!  How cute is that :)  We rounded out the morning at IHOP.

I'm glad everyone came.  Deep breaths :)  [but as a side note, one guy called me last night after i posted to ask who was the slowest.  i'm not kidding.  that did not relieve my anxiety].  But I do feel a lot better now considering that everyone was totally normal (as normal as we can be) at the race.  Oh, and my professor totally had a running skirt.  It rocked.  I am SO buying one.

EDIT:  What happened was that I got beat by a slew of women in their 30s and 40s-leaving me with the 20s age group award :)  PS.  My team was 6/15.  Um yeah, if people had remembered to put our team name down on their registration we would have totally DESTROYED all of the other teams by a huge margin.  HUGE!!  Now I see why my running club coach is always sending out e-mails (which I totally did too!) reminding us again and again to do that!!

Huh, it looks like I'm not so different than my competitive classmates. I think maybe I just hide it/behave better.  But inside it kind of looks like I'm the same.

Title-mania

These are some titles I threw around for this post:

That was stupid

It depends on your definition of stupid

Where my girls at?

All of the runners were randomly congregating in the school locker room and one guy and I were both headed out running right then.  We decided to go together and, by our best guesstimates using my watch and his Nike/shoepod combo, we ended up running 3.97 miles in 30:24 (~7:39 min/mile).  I was hustling.  It was not easy or laid back.  It fell into neither of my plans (see previous post) for this weekend.  I need to find me some women to cycle and run with!!  It was fun though (it's beautiful out and I never get a chance to actually TALK to my classmates about normal things) and if I'm not planning on this 5K to be my A race, which it isn't, I guess it doesn't matter.  [That's why I almost went with "It depends on your definition of stupid" as a title.]  I'm definitely feeling faster than earlier this year.  My gentle treadmill run this past Tuesday was 4 miles at 8:40 min/mile while all of my easy runs from February/March were ~9:00 min/mile so things are looking up.

VALIDATION:  [This was potential title number 4].  Apparently starting off too fast in a 5K and slowing down is okay.  In one study the people who started the fastest did slow down the most-but the people who started only a little bit too fast or ran even splits could never make up the time the too fasters gained in the first mile.  Check out the Runner's World article to validate what you previously thought were crappy starts!

Eye on the prize

But what exactly would that be?

Am I little miss triathlete and I should bike on Friday and Saturday (in addition to my Friday training run and Saturday swim) and then race my running 5K on Sunday a little fatigued?

Or am I miss running chic and I should taper/rest a bit and try to do well in the 5K so therefore don't need to be biking all over MA?

Hmmmmm.....

[Um, and at some point I have to be little miss law student so maybe I shouldn't spend so much time biking/getting myself to and from biking since I will die if I ride near my apt...]

Girl talk

Thanks for asking everyone.  I'm still a full-fledged, enrolled law student.  The argument went fine.  There were some criticisms and some praise.  I apparently have a pleasant sounding voice!  Overall, about what I expected and I am pleased with it (for my first time).  I will hopefully get a lot better.

I just hit the pool for 35 minutes.  I am slow, but I am WAY IMPROVED over last year when I went into my tri with about 15 minutes of swimming a week under my belt following my disabling wrist tendinitis from my 3 hour tennis match.

At school my friend and I were chatting about boys.  I have a first date next week with a triathlete.  I told my friend that she should take up cycling if she wants to meet guys.  Seriously, there are masses of guys and a handful of girls.  She says since she used to swim she is even down with the shaved legs...