ONE disabling injury and 15 pounds ago....

(no idea how I came up with that title so just go with it.....)

Again I have gone much too long since I've posted anything so a quick recap to get you caught up.  Weight loss has been going pretty good.  Kind of hitting another plateau lately at 140-141 but that means I'm down 15 lbs from the beginning of the year.  I feel so much better about that!!

As for training.......below is a picture from the Monster Dash 10-mile (Oct 30th)

And here is a picture of our backyard, two weeks later, Saturday Nov 13th

So how do you think my past few weeks of training have been going.   Shitty, shitty....  1) because of the slippery, snowy trail conditions and 2) because my IT band has been giving me serious trouble, especially when slipping or trudging through snow.  

Mark has been amazing trying to keep me from freaking out but.....I'm still freaking out.   About 6 weeks ago I started having IT troubles when we would run past 15 or so miles.   Due to the major snowfall two weeks ago when we were supposed to do our second 20 miler, we did 10 miles in the snow (MISERABLE!!) and my IT was pretty tight by the end.   We drove home to do the second 10 miles at home where the trails were better but I didn't even make it 2 miles before I had to stop.  My IT was locked up and it felt like there was a knife shoved in behind my knee cap.  (^$}{!$&*}**&%#$*(%*!!!!!)

I've been taping, stretching, rolling, Adviling and havent run more than like 5 miles in two weeks.  Yesterday we went out for a 12 and I thought everything was feeling pretty good.   But again, mile 5 my IT started to freak out.   Inside my head I was just pissed but we continued the 12 miles, stopping about every mile for a very quick stretch since it was really cold out and we didn't want to cool down.  

And now this morning my entire IT band is on fire.   Treatment....no running until Vegas :( :( :(   I really think it's the only way I can get through it successfully.   I don't want to further injure myself and I have done enough training that I have the endurance.   I'm just so frustrated that I was on pace to give Mark and myself new marathon PRs for our wedding before we start the tough training for Boston Qualifying.   Our long runs have been averaging 9:20-9:25min/mi.   

I don't want to hobble through my wedding so it's off running until Vegas.   I'm a runner, take away the run in me and I'm miserable but I know it's the smart thing to do.   It's potentially going to cause me to slow my overall pace and probably struggle a bit more through the last few miles but I'm counting on adrenaline to carry me though and the ultimate goal for me is to successfully finish my first marathon as Mrs. Kuhn, hand in hand with my husband, and celebrate our new life together (not on crutches ;)

SO IF ANYONE OUT THERE HAS SUGGESTIONS ABOUT WHAT I SHOULD DO FOR MY IT BAND BETWEEN NOW AND THE RACE, PLEASE POST A COMMENT.

Monster 10 mile recap

So training has been going ok (I think the last time I wrote we did our 16 or 18 miler) and we successfully finished our 20 miler with no nutrition issues.   Since I've been having knee pain issues we opted to his the Luce Line which is an old railroad bed that has been converted to a limestone trail.  So it was flat, soft and straight.  My knee held up pretty well until around mile 15-ish when I started to get tweaky pains from time to time.  (damn it....)    We managed to hold an overall average pace of 9:20-something so I was pretty happy with that. 

This past week was a step-back week so while our weekday mileage went up and the weekend went down, it was all Easy pace which was nice.  Unfortunately though we got stuck inside for an 8 mile day due to really bad weather so we did 4 miles going in circles on a short track and then 4 miles on a dreadmill.  yuck!

Last weekend was Halloween and since our training run was supposed to be 8 miles and we had a discount to enter the Monster 10-mile we opted in to that race and decided to dress up.  I had an old pirate costume and Mark bought a few accessories.  It was a lot of fun running as pirates and surprisingly the miles went by relatively quickly.  I think when your past long runs have been 16, 18, 20.....10 goes by pretty fast, especially when there are people in costume all around you to look at. 

We went into the race thinking I could potentially get a new PR but after the first two miles of what felt like a major shuffle-fest, I wasn't so sure that was going to be possible.  But once we got free of the pack we started averaging 8:10-something miles and I was feeling pretty good.   Not a super hard pace but moderately hard.  My knee started to give me problems around mile 8 so it was more of a mental struggle to get throught the pain the last two miles.  

We pulled in to the finish in 1:24:02...holy S^$! that was a little over 8 minutes off my old 10-mile PR.   And I think, had we not gotten caught up in the crowds of the first few miles, we would have even beat Mark's old PR of 1:22:--   Now granted if he wasn't running with me he would have blown that out of the water but still it was pretty cool to cut that much time off my own run.

Arrr maytee!!! :-P

I have not been logging my training miles/paces/heart rate very well and I do want to find an easy way to start doing that but luckily looking back at my past few seasons of run/tri training I do have evidence that my speed/endurance has improved.   I need to go back and review that from time to time because, like I think a lot of athletes struggle with, you never FEEL like you are getting any better, faster, stronger.   But the race results prove it.

And provided the body doesn't fall apart.....there may be a Boston in me one of these next years.  Cross your fingers for me please :)

Wedding updates have been posted on our combined, A Life More Complete, blog.

Marathon Training and Wedding Updates AND...another job added to the mix

Sigh....again I come to my blog with a thousand things to write about which means....I have no idea what all to say.  I'll try to slam down some categories and then go from there.

1) Training and New Shoes -
I really felt like training was going pretty well up through the Birkie Half marathon.  I felt great at paces faster than what is on our training schedule.  Then....we both spent nearly 2 weeks being sick.  The first week took us nearly completely out of the game.  Got in a few really easy runs but my sinuses were on fire and it just made me feel dizzy.   A couple runs I think I ended in a near panic attack because I was so %^@! frustrated at feeling like this cold was making me take steps backwards in my training.  Damn it.....
Plus I made the decision to buy different shoes than I've been in the past few years.  Mostly because I was fit for them and they are at least $40 cheaper.  So far I think they are ok.  Knees were heating up a little bit and damn near failed on me during our 18 miler last weekend but they seem to be recovering.   I just hope that the shoes I'm going to be running in (which are my old brand/model again) are going to be ok.  

Wedding Shoes, my usual brand



New Shoes for Training, new brand

We had our first long run LAST weekend.  (Strangely enough we are starting to call anything up to 13 a "run" and if it's over 13 it then becomes a "long run")  It was a 16 miler so we plotted out a fairly flat course around the lakes and down the parkway.  We had a good breakfast before we left and I brought 3 gels to take about every 4 miles.  Everything was going pretty good until mile 13ish.  SMACK!  (Who the hell put that wall there???)   Our bodies were going downhill fast.   My problem was more that my knees and ankles were starting to get weak and very sore and Mark was out of fuel.   The last 3 miles were awful and we had to walk a bit. 
Some definite adjustments when we did our 18 this past weekend and luckily it was much cooler weather.  I had caffeinated gels with me and a pack of Sharkies as a solid food.  I probably took 4 miles to slowly suck on those and actually finish the pack and I think that made a big difference in keeping my energy up better than just gels.  

Please send happy, healthy, unpainful thoughts for my knees at this weekend's 20 miler...

 

New Work - ZapEvent Marketing -
Work has been going great and we are looking at some definite growth over the next year.   The scary/exciting part for me is that I've decided to transition myself out of the customer service roll and into strictly Marketing (note....I have little Marketing background!)   It's going to take me some time to get my feet under me and figure out what exactly I need to do to be successful in 2011 but I think I have great support from Jeff to make it happen.  Some days I get really nervous about being able to be successful at it but I'm going to give it my best....

More New Work - Examiner.com -

My Profile Pic - I'm up in a tree and NO
I'mnot being impailed through the
shoulder.  The short branch in front of
me just lines up nicely with the one
that's behind me :)

As if I didn't have enough going on already, I submitted an application to be the writer for Examiner.com specifically about Minneapolis Geocaching.   And I got accepted!  It's not something you do for the $$ but it's a lot of fun researching ideas for articles and getting to do profiles on my local geocaching friends.  Some days I get stressed about the fact that I basically added a 3rd job and get sick of not being able to just sit and watch TV some nights.  I am going, going, going until 11pm just about every night lately.

Some days between ZapEvent work, USAT work and wanting to post an Examiner article AND having personal items to do (clean the house, laundry, lawn/garden work, misc projects, wanting to actually cook dinner, keeping up on blogs, paying bills....see my problem?) I just feel like my head is spinning and at any given moment I'm not fully focused on any one thing.   

Diet -

Been pretty good with eating healthy on round 2 of the 3 month "diet".   I do really hate calling it a diet since I'm hoping it's more of a reduced calorie learning experience so that when I reach the end of my weight loss I can maintain my weight with continuing to eat better.

I've been stuck at 143.5 for like 3 weeks now and it's driving me nutz.  While looking at healthy recipes in my Runners World Magazine, I got all obsessed with wanting to buy healthier food but since our money is really tight we don't buy fresh groceries as often as I would like.  I told Mark a few days ago that I wanted to get a subscription to Clean Eating.

He earned SERIOUS brownie points when I came home yesterday to the latest Clean Eating Magazine and all the ingredients for a watermelon salad recipe I pointed out that I wished we could try.  I was so excited to actually get to make a new healthy recipe for us :D

Wedding -
Not much real planning to do any more without the reception so we're basically just down to making sure we have all of our outfits in line.   Mark picked up his wedding shoes this past week so we are going to use them for short, clean runs to get them broken in between now and the wedding.  I picked up my tulle and some other shiny, sheer fabric.  I've got some fun ideas for my veil but now just have to figure out how in the heck to actually put it together.

The Course Map and Elevation Chart are also available now if you are interested in seeing the RnR route.  The second half is a LOT of twisting and turning but luckily the final 6 miles are nearly all at a nice downhill grade.

You can also sign up for runner tracking HERE if you are interested in keeping an eye on how we are doing on the marathon.  We will be running all of the marathon together so you will only need to really get updates on one of us :)

I'll finish with this cute picture of my Maverick tearing apart his favorite toy.....my roll of paper towels.

He's too cute to be mad at :)

The First Official Training Week

So Monday was the first official day of our marathon training for the Las Vegas Rock 'n' Roll Marathon.  While I do have a time I hope to finish in, considering this is our wedding, I'm not too overly concerned with how long it takes us to finish.   If a photo op presents itself, we will be stopping :)

Yesterday was supposed to be just an easy 3 miles.   The training plan we put together and are going to follow said my easy pace is supposed to be 9:49 but a mile in our pace was just over 10.  Damn it!  So my easy run turned into more of a moderate run.  My bad habit is that if I make a training plan too aggressive, I won't slow down to what feels easy, I'll push for the pace it last listed for me that day.  Has kicked me in the arse before so we'll see how this goes.

Mark just got his GPS training watch so that will be helpful for us to keep pace.  I've really been missing my Garmin since it died last year.   Since he's WAY faster than me, on occassion I kick him in the butt to take off and run ahead so he can get in a hard run too but for the most part he said he's going to stick with me on training runs for this marathon since we're running it together anyways.  (Love you Handsome!)  Having him next to me is motivation a lot of days to push just a little harder.

We have the Ragnar Relay this Friday/Saturday.   Kinda bummed out that my run legs have been modified since we chose which ones we all wanted to run.   Mine got shorter and easier.  I wanted to have more of a moderate set :(   It will be fun though provided the weather doesn't make a mess of things.  Currently there is a forecast of humid rain on Friday and hot/humid on Saturday.   We start 9:30am Friday and predict to finish up around 3:00pm on Saturday.  

Still haven't gotten back to the pool.  Our focus has been so much on running we just haven't had the motivation to throw that into the morning routines yet.   Have been getting to the gym to lift at least once a week which has felt great.

Wedding reception plans are a little stalled out right now.  We are deep into evaluating what we can afford.  I'll just leave it at that.

No Longer Obsessed

Well as anyone that is within 1000 mile reach of me, you got my obsessive PLEASE HELP, VOTE FOR US!!! messages last week for the wedding contest.   I'll spare the details and let you read more about us and our wedding contest HERE.   We are still waiting to see if we won, we were in 2nd place and really couldn't figure out the couple in 1st place so we are hoping they were a fake or they totally cheated!!  Results were supposed to be posted today but no luck.....stay tuned.

We have been out running a lot lately and have officially written up our training plan betweeen now and Las Vegas.   It likely won't include too many actual events because money is well beyond tight but have a few in mind.  We can get into Monster Half for free because of our volunteer hours and we've been eyeballing the Birkie Half Trail Run as well.  1) because it's a huge trail run and 2)...is has a sawheet medal!

Work has been....work.  Don't get me wrong I do enjoy what I do but spending time in a cold little cubicle with very little human interaction and really annoying office environment "things" makes me want to "Pull a Slater" (which is what a lot of people seem to be calling it after yesterday's national news), I decided that I needed to request a change.   Since it's a small company, there are currently no benefits including no holiday pay so I opted to ask for days at home.  For now we discussed allowing me two days a week to work from home.    :D I can't even tell you how much happier that makes me.  I worked from home for a number of years and I miss my own environment, the stress-free-ness of my own desk, being able to throw in a load of laundry, work with my kitty on my lap, not have to bring crappy microwave meals for lunch, being able to open the window and get FRESH AIR!!!!  So my sanity has been spared a bit.

Totally different subject...I'm very excited that this Saturday is the annual open house at Home for Life so I get to go spend a few more hours there and cuddle with all the animals and my sweet girl Olive.   Not sure if I posted this before but here is a photo from our last visit last month where my sister came along.

Deb and Lily and Lily's friend Kate get to join us at the open house and I hope they enjoy getting to see the facility and all the great work they do to care for these animals.   And of course meeting my sweet Olive :)

(look out....left field!) We haven't been back to the pool in a LONG time.  Last time I did laps anywhere was maybe once since Minneman on July 4th.   Now that we are getting more settled into one house together, I think we are just enjoying that we can choose to sleep in so we haven't made it up to the pool just yet but I'm pretty confident one of these days we are actually going to regain the WANT to go swimming and then we'll fall back into a 2x per week rhythm for over the winter.