To Taper or Not to Taper – One Week!

Posted in Motivation, Training by

Workout: 6.5 mile run

Diet: *cough cough*

It’s been a whirlwind of activity career-wise for the past few weeks so I’ve been sort of distracted with my training. Now the Disneyland Half is less than a week away! By this time next week, I hope to be eating Dole whip in Disneyland with a big shiny medal around my neck … or sleeping soundly at the hotel (still wearing my medal). ;)

Victory!

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I’ve been debating ALL week whether or not to do 13.1 miles today (a dry run for next week) or to taper to half the distance. Despite encouragement from family and friends, my lack of motivation resulted in me doing NADA last Sunday. After reading a lot of advice online and listening to my body, I decided to taper this week. My longest run was 11 miles 2 weeks ago, so I should be ready to cover the distance come race day. It takes me awhile to recover from a long run, and I want fresh legs come Sunday so hopefully I made the right decision!

After today’s 6.5 mile run (3 of which I ran straight … woohoo!) I felt as if I could go MUCH longer. Twice as long to be exact. ;) . I feel so grateful to be running again. I remember when I was training for my marathon in college and 3-5 miles on the treadmill were no big deal. Now I am super grateful just to be able to cover the distance again without stopping. Oh, how I took it for granted!

This week I plan to do two easy 2 milers and that’s it. Eeek!

Have a GREAT week!!!

No Motivation

Posted in Motivation, Running, Training by

I SO wish that I had the motivation to run right now. I’ve been really tired the past couple of days. Possibly from all the O.T. that I’ve been doing. I’m supposed to do 13.1 miles today but I just. can’t. do. it.

Sorry, Nike.

Maybe later on tonight I can get the inspiration to run 13.1 miles. It just seems so daunting to me for some reason right now. Any body have any motivating running tips? Or maybe my body is just telling me that it needs a break this week. I’ve done 11 so I know I can bust out 13.1 come the Disneyland Half, but I wanted to do the 13.1 for the mental preparation more than the endurance. We will see.

Sorry for the lame post. Hopefully I will have more positive news to share later! Have a great Sunday. :)

11 Miles Done!

Posted in Olympics, Running, Training by

Workout: 11 miles run/walk slowly

Diet: Did someone say BBQ? :)

Hello all! Hope you had an amazing weekend! I did! I finally did 11 miles! With three weeks to go until the Disneyland Half Marathon, I am now confident I can complete it! And the best part is that my foot no longer hurts at all. :)

I woke up early on Sunday morning and was out the door by 6:45 am. It was already close to 80 degrees by then. To make sure that I covered the entire distance without gassing out at the end, I decided to walk the first mile and ease into the run/walking after that.

I did a 6.5 mile loop and then shortened the loop by cutting through another street doing 4.5 miles for 11 miles total. I planned it this way so that there would be no option other than completing the entire distance. Yes! My parents picked me up and I finished the day with BBQ and more Olympics-watching.

I watched the Men’s Marathon.  Uganda’s Stephen Kiprotich won – he’s run a sub 2:05 marathon before! CRAZY!

USA’s Meb Keflezighi, who won the silver in Athens, finished fourth in his last Olympics.

My idol! AND a fellow UCLA alum. Go Bruins! :)

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I have yet to watch the closing ceremonies, but I’ll watch it tonight. Hope you all enjoyed watching the Olympics like I did! ENJOY your week! :)

Heat and Library Cards

Posted in Cool Stuff, Random, Running, Training by

Workout: 8.5 mile walk/run

The “26 days” countdown on the right side of my blog is freaking me out just a tad. I can’t believe that the half is just around the corner. I am really happy that I decided to get my butt off the couch in March and start running again (albeit slowly). It’s only been six months but I feel so much better and my diet has vastly improved.

That being said, the foot injury did slow down my progress and I’m still behind on training for the half. I simply was training too hard when I barely started getting my fitness back. My body couldn’t handle the training I was putting it through. I’m definitely going to walk/run the half now and hopefully I can get at least 12 miler in next weekend.

It’s been boiling in SoCal. Where I live it going to be in the triple digits all week (!). I started my long run a little late yesterday (I left at 8:30 am, but was gunning for 6 am) and had to cut it short because it was 92 degrees by the time I returned home. I even had to take a sit down break during the last half mile. I barely made it through the door before I sprawled out on the floor.

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On a super-dorky-totally-unrelated-to-running note, I got a library card last weekend! I haven’t renewed mine since before I left for grad school in Boston (6 years!) so it was about time I got one again. I love reading and I’ve been spending WAY too much money on books for the past few years — it’s time to save $$$ and go to the library again!

My shiny new card.

Since I have such a long commute (2 hours total per day), I decided to borrow some books on CD and listen to them in my car! Duh! Why didn’t I think of this sooner? Reading + commuting + saving money = Multitasking score!

It’s the little things like this that make me happy. :)

Hope you have a great week! Stay cool!

“Running” on an Elliptical

Posted in Olympics, Running, Training by

Workout: 6 miles run/4 miles elliptical = 10 miles

Diet: Decent

Since I’ve been waking up at 3am for the past week for work, I was excited at the thought of “sleeping in” (a.k.a waking up at 6am) for my long run on Sunday.

Instead of sleeping by 10pm-11pm on Saturday night, I ended up staying up to watch all the Olympic programming I’d missed while I was out (women’s weightlifting? skeet shooting? Yes!) and stayed up until 2am. Fail. Needless to say, I didn’t get out on the road until 10am.

Go USA! This is Kimberly Rhode’s Fifth Olympics. She is the first American to win individual medals in five straight Olympics!

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It was quickly heating up by the time I got out so I did six miles. I intended to do eight, so when I got home I did four more miles on the elliptical. 10 miles total, but I’m guessing that the 4 miles I did on the elliptical is probably equal to 2 miles of running. So probably 8 miles total instead of 10. Two maintenance runs this week and then 9-11 miles this weekend! I’m happy to be back in the groove.

Anyway, I hope you all have an amazing week!

London Olympics!

Posted in Random, Running, Training by

Workout: 2 mile easy jog

Diet: Apparently when I’m sleep deprived I crave carbs.

Happy Olympic Friday, everyone! I don’t know about you but I LOVE  the Olympics, especially the summer Olympics. My favorite sports to watch are track and field, swimming, tae kwon do and gymnastics. I can’t wait to see what Danny Boyle’s got planned for the opening ceremonies tonight.

The network that I work for is covering the Olympics which means an early start time for me (4:45am!) for the next few weeks. The one HUGE downside to this is that I’ll see who won before I get to watch the event on TV (because we’ll be interviewing them).  I’ve always wanted to be part of the Olympics in some way, so I guess this is it! :)

Yesterday, I jogged two easy miles. I felt a twinge of pain in my foot toward the end and immediately walked it out. This weekend’s long run will have to be nice and slow. I have 8ish miles planned, but we will see how I feel.

Are you planning to watch the opening ceremonies tonight? Or any part of the Olympics? What are your favorite sports to watch?

Hope you have a fun Friday and fabulous weekend! :)

Back in the Swing of Things

Posted in Motivation, Running, Training by

Workout: 2 easy miles run/walk

Diet: Cheat weekend due to a birthday and a friend’s wedding; otherwise good!

Yesterday was my first run since injuring my foot. I took nine days off and did some cross training and walking. Although I still feel an occasional ache, I decided to go for it yesterday.

I did the two-mile hilly loop around my neighborhood, probably walking about half the time, jogging when I felt like it.  It sort of felt like I was starting running all over again, but I’m happy to say that my foot survived! And it felt so great to run again! I stretched out like crazy and used the poor woman’s foam roller/tiger tail (read: rolling-pin) afterward.

I’m behind on training now, with a little over a month before the Disneyland Half so I need to reassess my goals. My longest run was 10 miles on July 5th. I would really like to get a 13 mile run in AND taper before the race, so I’ll have to rearrange some things. Maybe mostly walking the long runs? We’ll see.  I used to have a time goal but now I think I just want to cross the finish line feeling good and injury-free! If that means doing some more walking than I intended then so be it. I have other half marathons lined up to set a time goal.  Plus, I’ve never run a half before only two fulls, so whatever time I end up getting will be a PR. :)

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