Friday Night Vertical 2021

Friday Night Vertical 2021

Monday, February 18, 2019

Slowly Building Fitness

Little dog in the big city
The keyword in the title is "slowly" with it's adjective form describing myself. I'm feeling pretty miffed at how slow my running is right now. It's horrifying. I feel like I'm running with 50 extra pounds in my legs every run. Everything is tight, and I feel like I'm running for the first time every time I step out on the road. I'm planning to get into see Tina for a deep tissue massage soon and hoping for a miracle. It has actually happened before. My races for the first half of 2016 were all mediocre (due to right-sided glute pain that I now suspect was tendinitis in the high hamstrings since the pain is similar). One visit with Tina, and I was like a new person for the rest of the year. Just feeling the hamstring muscles, I feel all sorts of knots so I'm going to have her really dig into the glutes and hamstrings at my visit. I feel so physically incapacitated, like abnormally. I'm so pissed I took all of that wasted time off, too. Grr. But on a bright note, I'm back at it and doing the best I can right now.

Like I said I am at least building fitness, slow or not. I had a decent week running-wise and could have easily put in more miles even with a zero day on Wednesday, but the weather put a damper on that. No snowmobile trail runs due to soft snow. And the roads were shit. But I got in a long run. Yay! I did a marathon training workout and another hill repeat workout, both on the treadmill. I had one aborted, terrible road run and a slow, snowy mess of a trail run and another half-terrible road run. So it wasn't ideal, but I still got in 51.8 miles for the week. Knowing I could have done more makes me feel better so I'm planning to get up into the mid-50 range this next week and onto 60 miles weeks for all of March. Well, I'm hoping, at least. I'm still feeling really discouraged about Boston coming up, but what can I do at this point other than continue to increase my weekly miles and long run distance and add in workouts.

I've decided to start looking past the Boston Marathon to the rest of my year since I feel like this early bullshit is a wash. I've thrown in a few more ultras on my tentative calendar. I really wanted to do Manitou's Revenge but realized I would have to have 50 mile race under my belt to qualify. So that will be a 2020 goal with a 50 mile goal for 2019. I already have one definite 50K on my calendar that I registered for yesterday ($15! You can't beat that!). I'm still toying with the Pineland 50, but I don't think I'll be ready for that yet. The other 50s I'm looking at are in the fall which I think would be wiser as far as my fitness level is concerned. One race I had on my definite calendar was scratched. The Quebec Mega Trail 50K. Just looking at logistics and cost, it seemed like too much. I'd have to book a room at the expensive hotel where the race finishes so that John could stay in the room while I ran, but it's a tough course and would probably take me over 7 hours. I don't really want to leave him in a hotel room for that long. Plus it's a long-ass drive. So it's off the calendar. I'm replacing it with closer races. I'll make more decisions on that as I get past Boston. I'm still planning 6 out of the 8 races for the mountain series and 5 out of the 6 for the New England Runner Pub Series. Plus, Escarpment, Run with the Beavers, 3 GP races, the All-Terrain Series and CIM (well, not a definite yet, but very possible). So as of now, I have 23 races planned for 2019 after Boston. Definitely a lot, but it sounds more like the me I used to know. Haha. And of course, I might always change my mind on any of them. I've had the JFK50 on my list for 10 years, but I just don't see that one happening anytime soon. Logistics for CIM would actually be much easier for me than the JFK50, believe it or not.

On a positive note, my uphill (and downhill!) skiing has significantly improved since I've been doing the uphill ski races. The downside? They're almost over! Boooo. They wouldn't have to be if I had my own ski setup, but that's definitely not affordable. Around $2000 for a full basic setup. Hahaha. Oh well, it's been fun. This week was awesome since we skinned to the summit again, and unlike the conditions at Shawnee Peak with John on Sunday, Thursday's conditions were near perfect. So perfect that I skied downhill faster than I've ever skied in my life. It was still scary, but I felt confident and actually beat my rival on the downhill portion for the first time. By 11 seconds. Total course was 2.4 miles with it about 1.4 miles to the summit. We had another unlit section tonight which was really cool with the moonlight. I also had my fastest transition ever at 2 minutes flat. Crazy it took me 28:31 to get to the summit (1,212ft of gain) and only 2:52 from the summit to the base. It was so fucking fast. I was 3rd to the summit and 4th to the finish. Rick Chalmers always catches up to me at the transition then kills me on the down. I feel fit from a cardiovascular perspective, and even though these races are only once a week, I think they have helped with that. Every race is like a workout. High intensity, high HR. I'm sad I only have one left.

I won the usual Ski the Whites chocolate baguette as first female and a heart-shaped focaccia bread in the raffle. I took a happy selfie with it then remembered it was Valentine's Day and took a proper photo with it. Sad and only half a heart is more accurate. The bread was actually cold, too. Made it even more accurate. Haha.


I should have changed my FB profile photo to this to counteract the stupid couple photos everybody posted for Valentine's Day.
Running for the Week

Monday, 2/11- 5.3 miles. 43:08. 8:07 avg pace. I only worked half my shift since I had to take my WEMT refresher course at SOLO from 9-5. I was super excited to get an outside run in that morning until I got outside. It was just stupid cold and windy. Like 4 degrees and the road sucked. I ran down Rt 16 to the Kanc and turned into a crazy cold headwind that I could barely run against, but I kept going for a mile then said fuck this and turned around. Ended up in another cold headwind on the way back. I should have just run on the treadmill since it would have been more productive. Oh well. At least I got a run on Monday so that I could take my day off on Wednesday.

Tuesday, 2/12- 16.2 miles. 2:10:30. 8:06 avg pace. 1243ft of elevation gain. Ran from Tamworth Village, up Page Hill, down and up Turkey St. The rest of Page Hill to 113 and up to Gardner Hill Rd then an out and back to Fowler's Mill Rd on 113A. I wasn't happy with this run. Just too slow. For some odd reason, my watch froze exactly at mile 4 and I didn't notice until exactly at mile 5 (I drove it after, and it was 5 miles on the dot. Haha.) As soon as I noticed the watch was frozen, I started up my Strava app for the rest of the run (glad I had my phone!). Since I had done this run before, I was able to make an educated guess on the time for mile 5. The other 15.2 were accurate. I'm not sure why this run was so slow. I did it a year ago, plus two more miles, only 4 minutes slower. Once again, realizing how much I've lost in a year. Ugh. I felt ok, but I also felt like I hadn't run. This is the first time I'm ever doing long runs where I haven't felt tired after. But, it's only the second long run so far so I guess I'll cut myself some slack.

Frozen watch. It did actually save this, but it was inaccurate when it uploaded to Garmin. Said 3.8 miles and 30:00 so I deleted it from Strava.
Wednesday, 2/13- Zero day. Honestly, just pure laziness that early in the morning. If I didn't have to work 24 hours, I would actually run on a lot of these zero days because I could do it later on. I don't have that option at work during the winter.

Thursday, 2/14- 12.2 miles. 1:28:45. 7:16 avg pace. Treadmill marathon workout. I copied this workout that someone told me about that someone else was doing. Haha. 4, 3, 2, 1 workout. 1 mile warm up. 4 miles at goal marathon pace, then .3 miles rest, 3 miles slightly faster, rest, 2 miles slightly faster than the 3, rest, 1 mile slightly faster than the 2. I only did a .3 mile cooldown after that. I did this after shoveling for 4 hours so I was a little tired and actually unsure I would get through the workout.

The hardest part was actually deciding on goal marathon pace since I have no idea what I'm capable of running right now. Like no idea. So I went with what I would like to run. A 3:05. Haha. I don't think I'll come close to that, but I suppose that's my high goal at Boston. The closest to that was 8.5 on the treadmill. So then it was 8.6, 8.7 and 8.8 for the rest. I won't say it was easy because I definitely felt it by the end, but I think I could do that workout a bit faster. I hit my splits on the watch. I never changed speed so any discrepancies are just the treadmill and the start of the 3rd mile in the 3-mile section when I hit my lap button late. Average HR was 144. I do plan to do this workout again if I'm stuck on the treadmill.




Friday, 2/15- 5 miles. 53:49. 10:45 avg pace. This did not go as planned, but it worked out ok. I was picking up John in Boston that night so I thought I'd get out of the blizzard and make a day of it in Massachusetts. I'd been wanting to run the Battle Road Trail in the Minute Man National Park and incorrectly assumed the trail would be mostly snow-free by today. Hahahahaha! Yeah, no. Completely covered. Plan B was to park at the Hapgood Wright Forest, where I had already planned to take Phoenix on a walk after my run, and run on the roads around Concord. I had to use the bathroom after the long car ride so I walked out on the trail into the woods first and realized that the trail was snow/ice covered, but runnable with microspikes! So I bagged the road run, walked back to the car, put on my microspikes and got Phoenix.

The park is small so we did a lot of out-and-backs and pretty much just ran without a plan. The trail was covered in both frozen footprints and some slush so it was pretty slow going. I was glad I'd planned this as a short, easy day. Supposed to be 6-7, but with the time it took to jog this, I cut it down to 5. Plus, Phoenix protested every time we came to an intersection that led back to the car so I had to go back and leash her for a bit before she would keep following. This park is nice since leashes aren't required, just voice command, which she is for the most part. I leashed her when she was protesting and picked her up if I needed to which was only once. It was a nice park. I wouldn't run there again just due to it being so small, but I would definitely walk there again.



Saturday, 2/16- 8.1 miles. 1:05:26. 8:04 avg pace. Too nice of a day not to run outside, but the roads from my house all the way through Cranmore Shores were total crap, so about 5 miles of the 8 were on ice and snow. Fortunately, Tasker Hill and Allard Hill were free of it so I had 3 miles of good running on that part. So basically, another shitty road run, though.

I've run this route so many times but have never stopped to take a photo of the awesome view from Allard Hill looking back toward Mt Kearsarge North. Since my run was already in the crap pile, I actually decided to stop and take a photo today.


Sunday, 2/17- 5 miles. 42:06. Treadmill Hill Repeats again. Nice day out, but I was all set with running on the road and the snowmobile trails would still be too soft from the foot of snow we got total over the week. Had the conditions been good, I would have run on a trail for 10 miles. But it was okay. I like this workout and I did it faster this week. Overall pace is obviously slow since my rest was around 10 min/mile. It had to be this slow because I never put the elevation all the way back down. For the first .1 of the rest, I drop to 2%, but for half that time it's still going down. For the last .05, I go ahead and bump it up to 8% so it's ready for the next interval.

So anyway, same workout as last time. 1 mile warm up in 8:05. 10x .15 mile at 8% grade. Kept my splits, but Garmin was down and never uploaded them, only the time and "mileage". 1:16, 1:15, 1:15, 1:14, 1:14, 1:14, 1:13, 1:13, 1:12, 1:11. Instead of a mile cool down, I did a quick mile in 6:52 to finish it off.

Workouts

I continued with LIIFT4 Week 3. I had to skip the HIT component with the Chest/Triceps workout due to lack of time on Monday. Back/Biceps on Wednesday and Shoulders on Saturday. Bulletproof Leg Circuit on Sunday. Upped my weight, but surprisingly not sore this week. Hmm.

Only did my glute activation 2 days and the hamstring eccentric exercise 1 day. I was actually pretty busy most days or beat from shoveling.

Walks/Hikes/Skiing

Monday, 2/11- During my Wilderness EMT refresher, I took a very short walk at SOLO after lunch. I thought their trails would be packed, but they weren't and I postholed the whole way until I got to driveway/road for the way back. The only reason I continued postholing was because we were getting a big snowstorm the next day and no one was venturing up there between now and then. .7 miles in 20 minutes. Very slow going.


The calm before the postholing
This wasn't the only exercise I did there. We ended up doing a mock litter carry out of the woods where we had no choice but to post hole through snow up to our knees/thighs. It was tough moving, but I never got tired enough to hand off my position to someone else. I was, however, drenched in sweat after that. The old guy in the group didn't like me since I was trying to be funny after we packaged our patient and lifted him up. I yelled out in a serious tone, "Ok! On three, everybody let go!" Haha. Everyone laughed except the old guy. Instead he said with an annoyed tone, "Oh. We have a comedian in the group." Um, yeah. And? That wasn't the first time I made a joke or 5. I guess I forgot I wasn't in the urban EMS environment. Everyone was actually pretty cool, though. We had a good group that day. And my friend, Chris, with whom I had taken my original Wilderness EMT class in 2011, was the instructor. So that made it even better.

Tuesday, 2/12- Took Chill and Phoenix on a 2.2 mile walk on Corridor 19 before the snow started. Conditions were actually perfect for running so I was kind of bummed to have wasted that on my long run, but oh well. Ran into my friend, Kevin Callahan, out there. He was out for a run before the storm.

When I put my walk in Strava I used voice text for the title but didn't notice until Beth commented on my crazy title. I guess voice text picked up the radio and also me talking to Chill. It was so funny that I couldn't change it. Now, "porchy" is becoming a word, and I want credit for it!

"Corridor 19 walk with dogs nobody oh she's still porchy I'm sorry buddy what's the deal"

Looks like an oozing slimeball, but it's just dirty melting snow. Haha.



Wednesday, 2/13- I brought Phoenix to work with me since John was gone to Washington DC so I got her out on one walk with my snowshoes on the trail out back. We walked .7 miles in 25 minutes. Could have done more, but we didn't. And we ended up being pretty busy with 911s.




Thursday, 2/14- Today's walk was brought to me by 7 inches of powder snow. Due to my snow piles being so high already, this took me forever. I couldn't lift most of it up and over so it just fell right back down. But I still had a just narrow enough driveway to get my car through when I was done. I guessed it would take me 4 hours. Took me 4 hours on the dot! Exhausting. My neck was sore and both knees were really bruised up. My right quad, too. I have to use my leg to help lift up the shovel.

I went right from this to that treadmill workout, then had two hours to veg before leaving for the ski race. And this was after getting up at 0421 for the first of two calls before 0700. I was SO beat.





One of my bruised knees
Saturday, 2/16- I ended up going into work to cover from 2-5:30pm so we didn't do any walks. I let John enjoy his first day home after the trip. I did shovel some of Friday's snowfall for 28 minutes, though.

Sunday, 2/17- Took John and the dogs xc skiing at Believe in Books. I've never seen the place so crowded. So many vacation people! They were all super nice, but it's just a pain with the dogs. We didn't have any issues, though, just a few times where had to stop and let people go by. John is still an awesome skate skier so I let him skate the whole time while I used my backcountry skis. He had a lot of fun. He always does. We did 3.2 miles total. Another beautiful day.






When we got home, I finished shoveling Friday's snow. It was actually pretty quick because the snow was light. Took 45 minutes.

Random Things

So I said I wouldn't let Bryan get to me anymore. Well, unfortunately, I failed at that. After I got home from my class on Monday night, Bryan dropped John off and drove away out of cell service land. The last we knew was that he had no idea if he had to drop John off or pick him for the Washington DC trip. He just disappeared. He had acknowledged my text messages with all of the pertinent information, but apparently never actually read them. He was mad I was home and not at work, as if he has any right to be mad I'm at my own home. I had told him I would be. It was acknowledged, but he didn't read it. I had also told him that John had to be at the the school by 4:15am the next morning. Also acknowledged, but also not read since he told John he no idea about anything. I had even forwarded him the school emails.

So anyway, I had to go into work at 7pm and I had no idea how John was going to get to school the next morning. I was scrambling trying to find a way. It upset me so much that I was in full blown tears. I honestly thought John might miss the Washington DC trip because of this. I couldn't leave work. Our only taxi company doesn't run between 1am-6am (wtf?). Lyft had someone in the area but they can't take minors without adults. I didn't know what to do. I was just about to leave for work when John realized his teacher, Brie, could probably pick him up on her way down. He messaged her and he was good to go. Oh the relief! In the end, I'm actually really happy that John was the one who thought of the solution and made it happen. It's awesome that he did it instead of me. Solving his own problem. But oh man, that drained the life out of me. Can't say I was feeling great going into work, but I was better quickly. And wouldn't you know it, Bryan came back into cell service land at some point and drove to the house. So after all of that, he could have taken him, but John still rode with Brie anyway. I just don't get it. Why acknowledge something you didn't read? And why doesn't he care enough when it's for his son's sake? He seems to think every text message is me bitching. Well, you can bet there were some bitching text messages during this whole ordeal, but in seriousness, I don't typically text him unless it's info about John or the dogs. I don't know what goes through his head. I really don't. But I haven't felt this drained from dealing with a Bryan issue since 4 months after we were divorced when he was harassing me for hours every day...via text. (I'm the one who shouldn't read HIS texts). Our marriage drained the life out of me for years at the end. I had forgotten what that felt like until tonight. And I'll be honest that it's a week later now and I feel like I haven't even recovered from it completely. And I swear I'm not being overly dramatic. I lived with this person for 16 years. Although we did have good times, when I look back I see all the red flags I missed. All the times I should have walked away, but instead 16 years of this life suck. Him saying to me, "My goal in life is to change you." Finally, 16 years later, I free myself. I felt like I had fully recovered from that time after 4 years of freedom until this happened. Now, I see it doesn't take much to put me back in that place again. In the end, Bryan never understood why I was upset. Just me being "bitch mom" which is what he calls me in front of John. And that's why I needed to stop letting him get to me, but when it could have affected John like that, I couldn't stop it.

To take it off the somber note, I was actually super excited for John to go to DC. I went when I was exactly his same age. And I mean EXACTLY...to the week! I was 2 weeks from turning 13 when I went in 1989. He was 2 weeks from turning 13 for this trip. He ended up having a great time! I didn't hear from him during the trip, but I got to see all of his photos of the places he visited. He loved the zoo at the Smithsonian. And he was laughing yesterday that their Air B&B was literally in the ghetto next to some Rotisserie Mart with bullet holes on the wall and a generic dollar store.



So as I said, I had to pick him up in Boston on Friday night. They were due in at 8:30 via Greyhound at South Station. So after my run with Phoenix in Concord, I got my nails done and then drove to Maynard to check out the Battle Road Brewery. I was starving and this would be the only meal I'd have all day since it was HUGE. The beer was ok, but not what they had advertised online so I was little bummed.


Pretty sure I've never been to Maynard, but it was a super pretty town. I caught the sunset over the pond as I walked out of the brewery.



I headed into Boston from there. Hit some traffic, but it didn't matter since I had planned to be there over 2 hours early so that I could walk to Trillium's new place. Parked in my usual garage on Congress St, just over the bridge from Seaport. The weather was an amazing 52 degrees so it felt great to walk in the fresh air. Trillium was so packed that it was 100 degrees in there so I was actually able to stand outside and drink my beer. What a beautiful night! Seriously! And Trillium's place is really nice.

Coconut PM Dawn


I still had an hour to kill so I walked back to the car to get Phoenix and take her for a walk. It was funny how much she loved walking around Boston. I took her on a loop over to Seaport and back. She didn't bark at anyone. I guess the city shuts her up. She was very uncooperative for our photos, though. Haha.


Neither of us is looking at the camera. haha.


I put her back in the car and walked over to South Station only to find out the bus was delayed...and then delayed some more... until it finally came in almost 2 hours late! Just too much traffic. I was so happy to see John. I got him food and then we drove home. I struggled big time the last 30 minutes. Got home after 2am.

He said he slept almost the entire bus ride. Haha.
Me looking super purty on Friday morning... I know! Irresistible, right?!


Still so much snow!!!!


Heavenly Hill





Phoenix at work. She's actually lying on the spikes of my acupuncture mat with me. She loved the space heater.



Always begging for food


The emblem on John's USSR hat fell off so I fixed it for him while he was gone. I took this photo to send to him and only just noticed today how the sun was shining in the photo.


Some relatives are keeping track of our lineage on FB and posted some neat stuff about my grandfather and grandmother. So if you read my previous blog about my llama ring history, you'll see briefly mentioned in my grandfather's obituary was his flight over Peru. That's when he got my ring.




And this is my grandmother. I have all but one of the books on nursing that she wrote. I think she wrote 4 or 5 of them. I was close to her so her death was big loss for me. She drove around in a yellow Volkswagon VW van up until she died which was pretty cool.


And one last photo of Phoenix impersonating me!


I'll admit that I like Eminem. My music tastes are on a very broad spectrum. Haha.


4 comments:

  1. Brilliant Photos Throughout This Amazing Post - Well Done
    Sending Positive Vibes & Warm Hugs Your Way
    Stay Strong

    Cheers

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Glad you enjoy it! Many thanks for the kind words.

      Delete
  2. Well at least you aren't still porcy over Bryan. He really is a porchy bastard. Gotta use the new word, right? LOL Chili chilln' in the snow always makes me smile, he really does like it doesn't he? Dogs, what would we do without them?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Some of your best photos yet. I also take exaggerated glee in taking pics of me imitating Rosie (or the other way around) when they come out as hoped. You would never guess we were single, right?

    ReplyDelete