Hills, snow and training partners

Survived the windy trip back to VT pretty well and after a day of getting ourselves settled in got myself back up the hill running. The wind has stuck with us and, along with a few inches of snow, made these last two runs cold ones, but I had lots of company. My college friend, Celeste, came up for two days with her two dogs and so it was a crowd of humans and doggies who went out Tuesday am for 5 miles. I will admit, it was a partial walk run, since pushing Brynny in her baby jogger over snow covered roads still turns any run into a power workout, especially going up hill, but the run parts were good, easier than in October, and it was so nice to run with Celeste again.

Today we did a 4 mile tempo run without Bryn - starting at the other side of the hill (Nate dropped us off), warming up for a mile, going up the "heartbreak hill" training hill (one mile of steep - perfect for training for that 3/4mile of torture!), and then kicking it down to home. Windy and wicked, wicked cold.

Celeste was my training partner when I'd get home to Durham every weekend the summer of 1995. It was such a joy to get out with her on long runs through all of Durham, following trails she knew from mountain biking and skiing, taking a mental and physical break from Brian's treatments, the obvious pain he was in, and the stress it was having on all of us. Those runs always brought me back to home with the strength and spirit to continue whatever support I could offer and is likely part of the reason I've returned to running this year and why the DFMC is such a fit.

I ran my first half marathon, the one I was training for that summer, two days after Brian passed. He ran with me that day...until I hit the wall at 11 miles, then we just laughed as I walked/ran, got some fuel in me, and still manged to run fast enough to take 3rd place in my age group, taking home a yummy apple pie.

Flat

Yup, that's what Minnesota is, flat, at least in comparison to my neighborhood and typical running routes. This is not to disparage any MN athletes either - no way! I know way too many folks from MN who kick my butt! Instead it just allowed me to get in two good runs while we are visiting here over Christmas. There is a nice 5 mile loop on bike paths that I did once on Christmas and then twice yesterday. Yup, did my ten miles - managed to run slow enough for the first 5 to negative split by nearly three minutes the second 5 miles. It was a good run. Now I'm a little tight around the quads and calves, but a few yoga series seems to help and we'll get in another walk this afternoon to make sure I get some blood running through those legs before the flights back to VT.

Hopefully there will be snow still in VT when we get back so we can enjoy some nordic and tele time. It will be a balancing act (what's new?) to get in the ski time and still keep up with the long runs. I'm not really concerned about the fitness part of things - beleive me, nordic skiing will keep me in shape, but yesterday's run confirmed to me that nothing else will do but running for these long runs.

Training and sleep....

November was a month of working out how to work out....I didn't manage a lot of long runs, but did manage to get to the gym or go for a 4-5 miles run at least three times a week. That seems to be doing the trick of getting my base fitness down. I attended my first nordic ski training session last week and I actually felt like I was semi in shape...unlike the last three years.

So I tested the theory that if I went slow enough the base would carry me through a 8 mile run, and it did! Last Sunday I went up and over the hill and back, with just a 4 minute walk up the last 1/3rd of the mile hill on the other side. It felt great, I stretched, took a little vit I, and drank lots of water and I was still walking well come Monday and Tuesday. Hmmmm, this training thing does work. :-)

Alas, this has not continued this week, which started out so well - 35 minutes on the erg Monday, 60 minutes on the elliptical on Tuesday...then the Wed day off extended into Thursday, into Friday, Sat, and now Sun. The reason: no sleep. Somehow Bryn and I have to figure out how to stop getting so dried out every night. We wake up at midnight, mouths dry, Bryn gets a boob, Mom gets more dried out...this goes on every two hours until a final boob at 4 and sleep until 7. Mom wakes up like a zoombie for most of the week and this weekend has been dealing with migraines.

So the plan for this week:
Today - get out for some sort of run 3 to 6 miles or erg 30-45 mintes
M - run/erg 30 minutes, yoga at noon
T - ski training two hours
W - off or erg 30 minutes
R - gym training 60-90 minutes
F - run 45 minutes/Ski training 2 hours
S - downhill ski/off
S - try for 8-10 miles - GMAA run?

Oh boy...and get ready for xmas and bake lots and lots of cookies...chase after Brynna and Hailey too!