Sunday Night Postcard

{“Is there a goat behind me?”}

Paul and I just spent the weekend in Austin, and I feel incredibly refreshed and recharged.  We had a wonderful time hanging out with friends, some old and some new.  Among the adventures we had was a visit to Agua Dulce Farm, an urban farm in south Austin.  At the farm, we got to see the hydroponic “beds” (can I call them beds?), the seaweed that Paul’s friend Lewis grows for his company Austin Sea Veggies, and most charmingly of all, the goats.  There was one large brown goat who acted like a tour guide and accompanied us on our tour with Lewis.  The kids were adorable, frisky and fearless.  Here’s one on the porch:

We were all completely smitten with them.  They kinda liked us too.

There was a lot of petting and laughing as the goats ran around among us.  It was a really wonderful weekend in lots of ways, but the goats may have been the highlight.  They were really special and perhaps even happy to see us.  We were definitely happy to see them!

Have a good week, friends!  I’ll be back later this week with my marathon training update.  Tomorrow night I head out on another 3+ hour work-out—yeehaw!

Week Fourteen: The Heat Rolls On

A few photos from my weekend…

{Lucy loves a good reading pile as much as I do.}

Week of September 9, 2013:

Monday: Off

Tuesday: Evening run, 39 minutes total with 30 minutes of running.

Wednesday: Off

Thursday: Off

Friday: Longer evening powerwalk for dinner + groceries, 93 minutes total.

Saturday: Bike ride across town to hang out with friends

Sunday: Off (so…hot…)

Total miles run/walked this week: 9.8.  Total minutes: 132.

The heat got the best of me this week.  90+ degrees every day, temps close to 100…I’m melting just thinking about it.  Thank goodness this was a step-back week: the long work-out is only 60 minutes.  I ended up skipping it today (so lazy!), but I’ll get it done tomorrow evening.  Today was filled with lounging, cooking, cleaning, and some academic reading.  Tomorrow begins another work week and a busy weekend, as Paul and I are headed to Austin for some to-be-determined fun.

I had a good Saturday.  There was a lovely morning spent cooking at home, the evidence for which you can see above.  I popped in for a visit with some friends over the A & M football game, then Paul and I had a driving lesson followed by dinner and a movie.  I felt super inspired this weekend to start thinking about big dreams and five-year plan; I even started drafting notes on a new book idea.  Despite the neverending heat and the skipped work-out, it’s been a great weekend.  Here’s to carrying that momentum forward into the new week!

Have a wonderful new week, friends!

Week Thirteen: The Sweetest Taste

Week of September 2, 2013:

Monday: LONG WALK!  2 hours 36 minutes total.

Tuesday: Short evening walk, 23 minutes.

Wednesday: Off

Thursday: Evening run.  41 minutes total, with 30 minutes of running.

Friday: Short evening walk, 34 minutes.

Saturday: Bike ride to HEB for groceries

Sunday: LONG WALK!  3 hours.  Details below.

Total minutes walked/ran this week: 434.  Estimated miles: 30!  WHOA!

Today’s post is a three-parter story.  First of all, I watched No Impact Man after reading about it on Chrissy’s blog (thanks, friend!).  I really enjoyed the movie—it was a quirky, fun story about a family that embarks on a mission to reduce their environmental impact to zero (hence the title).  What I really loved about the movie is the personal growth that one of the family members experienced—and she was the family member who went along with the project to support her husband, not because it was her idea.  This person, Michelle, gives up A LOT to make the project happen: shopping, coffee(!!!do not like!!!), her television shows, even electricity and a normal refrigerator.  There’s a scene in the movie where she’s at work, and she shows us her new secret vice.

Are you ready for it?  It’s iced water.  Iced water!

The backstory is that by the time that scene rolls around, the family has given up electricity in their apartment, so there’s no ice at home.  No burning dinosaurs to cool water into a delightfully frozen state.

I too love a chilly glass of water.  But I love it more than anything on this planet during my long walks for marathon training—it is by far the highlight of those work-outs.  On Monday, when I power-walked my way to Target, I stopped by the Starbucks counter.  When I asked for a cup for water, the kind woman working behind the counter gave me not just a cup that I could fill at the drink dispenser, but a cup of iced water with a lid and a straw.  Bless you, kind Starbucks lady.  You are the best!

I think I’m getting better at this thing where I’m trying to train for a marathon in summertime Texas.  Today I was on my feet for THREE HOURS and with 36 minutes of running mixed into that.  Here is what I did differently today to make it more tolerable, despite the still-formidable heat and humidity of my training location.

* Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate!  I drank a lot more water during my walking today.  Some of it was even iced, which was amazing.

* Take breaks.  Go inside, even, to stretch.  I took a few breaks to refill my water, stretch, and give myself pep talks.

* Adjust paces as needed.  Today I ran, walked, and took breaks.  I tried to keep the pace strong when I was moving, but I also tried to stay aware of how good (or not good) I was feeling.  Building endurance is a bit of an art, I think—you want to push yourself outside your comfort zone, but you do it by walking the line between discomfort and flirting with disaster.  It’s still really hot and awful outside for us here, and I need to respect the multiple challenges I’m throwing at my body during this training cycle.

I do need to step up my game in the fuel department.  I didn’t eat anything during my work-out today; I should probably have eaten something salty to make sure I replenish the salt I’m losing from sweat.  This one is hard for me because I don’t like eating during my work-outs, but I know it will help my performance.

Finally, here are the details on the running portion of today.  I mixed it up quite a bit because three hours is a long time to be on your feet.  I’m finding that a mix of walking and running is good for my muscles, especially my hips, as walking and running don’t see to use the exact same muscles with the same intensity, so running can give my tired walking muscles a bit of a break.  Does that make sense?

So, 36 minutes of running in the following forms, spread throughout three hours of training.

* Two rounds of 10-minute jogs.

* A ladder: 1 min. run, 1 min. walk, 2 min. run, 2 min. walk, 3 min. run, 3 min. walk, 4 min. run, 4 min. walk.  (That adds up to 10 minutes of running.)

* A smaller ladder: 1 min. run, 1 min. walk, 2 min. run, 2 min. walk, 1 min. run, 1 min. walk.

* And at the very end, two 1-min. run intervals.

Whee!

On the calendar for next week is a break: only one hour for the long work-out.  I’d love to do more running than walking during that one, but we’ll see how I’m feeling and how the weather is that day.  On cooler days, a 30-minute run feels great outside.  On a day like today, getting through those 10-minute running intervals was challenging.  Thank goodness that in less than five weeks, I get to fly north to much cooler temperatures.  Hopefully all of my struggling through Texas heat will pay off in Detroit!

Happy week, friends.

PS  Weekly cat picture on this blog: yay or nay?     

Week Twelve: MIA?

Week of August 26, 2013:

Monday: Off

Tuesday: Off (tired legs from walking around campus for about an hour)

Wednesday: Treadmill work-out.  37 minutes total, running portion was 25:20 continuous, with a ladder of increasing speed for the last 5:20.

Thursday: Treadmill work-out?

Friday: Off (off to Houston to help a friend move)

Saturday: Off (off in Houston!)

Sunday: Bike ride to HEB and back

Total minutes walked/ran this week: 37.  Estimated miles: 3.5  (Sad trombone!)

It seems I’ve been a bit delinquent in the marathon training department, but can you blame me?  I’m spending all my time cuddling with the most adorable kitty.  Her name is Lucy, and I just adopted her from my friend Courtney.  Lucy is a wonderful companion.  She enjoys sitting on the couch with me, or sprawling underneath the table while I’m eating, or sleeping on my feet while I’m sleeping.  She likes to be close to me, but generally she’s happy to sit near me without sitting on me, which I appreciate.  (A few days ago, however, when Paul and I were sitting on the couch watching Forrest Gump, she decided to sit on both of our laps at one time.  It was adorable.  Thank goodness Paul is a cat person because Lucy loves having his attention.  They’re pretty cute together!)

Back to training.  You’ll notice I didn’t do a long work-out on Sunday—I ended up kicking that to Monday because I was so tired on Sunday from a busy weekend in Houston.  To double-up on my to-do list, I did my long walk to Target and back (with a long swing through campus and several neighborhoods).  To reward myself for walking ten miles in the searing Texas heat, I bought a new shirt.  I adore black-and-white prints, and today I paired it with my red skirt that Paul just tailored for me.  I should have taken a picture!  It looked awesome.  But I came home and changed immediately so I could bike to the pet store to buy food for Lucy.  Later this week, that outfit is going to make another appearance, so maybe I’ll get a photo then and share it.  In the meantime, here’s the new shirt by itself. 

Do you think it will go well with the “Property of Lucy” tattoo that I should be sporting?

Happy September, friends!

Special Edition: “She freaking made it.”

{Screenshot from here}

There was a very exciting event this weekend.  Diana Nyad (do you remember I blogged about her TED talk long ago?) finally conquered her dream of swimming from Cuba to Florida.  It took her five tries (damn those jellyfish), but today, TODAY, she made it.

What an exciting accomplishment!  My friend Liz posted about the event on Facebook, and I was excited to catch the last part of the 50+-hour swim.  Diana’s blog feed is full of fun real-time updates from the swim.  At two miles from the Florida shore, she stopped to say thank you to her crew, and I bet it was a very touching moment for all who got to hear it.

“I am about to swim my last two miles in the ocean. This is a lifelong dream of mine and I'm very very glad to be with you. Some on the team are the most intimate friends of my life and some of you I've just met. But I'll tell you something, you're a special group. You pulled through; you are pros and have a great heart. So let's get going so we can have a whopping party."

Such an inspiring story.  It makes a marathon look like a walk in the park.

(More about marathon training soon.  Happy day to you!)

Week Eleven: Is It October Yet?

{Sunday cherries // Monday clouds}

Week of August 19, 2013:

Monday: Evening bike ride for 30 minutes

Tuesday: Evening run…OUTSIDE!  Oh, joy!  32 minutes total.  Running portion: {5 min. run, 1 min. walk} x 4 for 20 min. running total

Wednesday: Off (off making delicious tofu tacos with Paul!)

Thursday: Off (off eating migas with Courtney!  Migas are the best.)

Friday: Treadmill work-out.  34 minutes total.  Running portion: 22 minutes continuous.

Saturday: Outside walk to the hippie grocery store, about half of it powerwalking.  41 minutes total.

Sunday: LONG WALK!  104 minutes total, power-walking about half of it. 

Total minutes walked/ran this week: 247.  Estimated miles: 17.9.  (Excel spreadsheet calculation!)

We’ve reached the halfway point (more or less) for this marathon training cycle.  I admit to a yo-yo attitude toward the marathon: sometimes I am grateful for the structure it has imposed on me this summer; other times I cannot WAIT for this race to be done so I can have my Sundays back.  I’ve still got four very long work-outs ahead of me, so “halfway point” feels like a relative term.  Up next: two hours and forty-five minutes on my feet, after a weekend of helping a friend move.  Yay?

Last Sunday’s long walk was a mixed bag.  I felt pretty good for the first two-thirds of it, then I developed a raging thirst and wanted nothing more than to be DONE NOW.  Predictably, I’m ready to be done with August, but then, just like that, the weather cooled off a bit!  After all these hours working out in 90+ degree heat, any day that’s below 90 degrees is a day for running outside.  If I’m lucky, I’ll get one of those outdoor runs today!  Nope.  It’s 93 degrees out now, so to the treadmill I go.

Happy running to you!

Week Ten: Passport to Run

Marathon Training Week Ten (Week of August 12, 2013):

Monday: Off

Tuesday: Treadmill work-out.  55 minutes total.  The hard part: 10 min. run, 1 min. walk, 10 min. run, 10 min. walk, 11 min. run.  All the walking was done at under 14:00/mile, so it was POWERWALKING! 

Wednesday: Off. 

Thursday: Treadmill work-out.  ~34 minutes total.  The hard part: 10 min. run, 1 min. walk, 10 min. run. 

Friday: Powerwalk outside, ~32 minutes total.

Saturday: Does ping-pong count as a work-out?  Either way, it was a lot of fun!

Sunday: LONG WALK!  2 hours.

Total minutes walked/ran this week: 241.  Estimated miles: 17.

You know you’re training in Texas when a few days of 90-ish degree weather feels like a relief.  It’s been a little less sweaty around here and a whole lot nicer to be outside, hence the powerwalk on Friday night.  The idea of escaping the treadmill was too much—I had to do it.  But Sunday I was supposed to be on my feet for 2.5 hours, and I only finished 2.  Boo.  I know.  I wasn’t feeling so great at the 80-minute mark, and I managed to get another 40 minutes under my feet, so I consider that a success.

In other news, my passport arrived!  The second-to-last piece of this marathon puzzle is in place.  (The final is my plane ticket for October.)  Diligent readers or other Detroit Marathoners might recall that the race goes into Canada, so you must have a passport to pick up your race packet.  My application was approved, so I’m good to go.  My only regret is that I look like a damn serial killer on it—it is truly one of the worst photos of me that I have ever seen.

(No, I’m not going to show you.  There is no way I am immortalizing that image by sharing it with the internet.  But suffice to say that I am not smiling, I am staring blankly, and my hair looks terrible.  But it’s a real passport, and it’s mine, so that will have to be good enough.)

Happy school-starting days to all my friends in academic spaces!  I am getting excited for the students to come back for the fall semester at A & M.