Nebraska Hills (wind) meets Wisconsin rollers for a windblown sufferfest. There were times on this ride I was actually leaning at a 45 degree angle just to keep upright during the gusts. Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 827 ft Location: Rock, WI Elev. Gain: +7 ft Date: 05/16/08 Up/Downhill: [+1404/-1397] Time: 04:36 PM Difficulty: 4.6 / 5.0   Weather: Mostly Cloudy   72 F temp; 30% humidity   72 F heat index; winds W 14 G 22 Performance Distance: 31.10 miles Time: 2:11:10 Speed: 14.2 mph Pace: 4' 14 /mi Calories: 1705 Map   Elevation (ft)   Speed (mph)   Splits Mile Pace (min/mile) Speed (mph) Elevation Gain actual +/- avg actual +/- avg 1 4' 40 +0' 26 12.8 -1.4 0 ft 2 5' 24 +1' 10 11.1 -3.1 +20 ft 3 3' 35 -0' 38 16.7 +2.5 -55 ft 4 4' 05 -0' 08 14.7 +0.5 +33 ft 5 3' 03 -1' 10 19.6 +5.4 -10 ft 6 3' 34 -0' 39 16.8 +2.6 -43 ft 7 3' 29 -0' 44 17.2 +3.0 -19 ft 8 4' 28 +0' 14 13.4 -0.8 +6 ft 9 5' 21 +1' 07 11.2 -3.0 +27 ft 10 4' 15 +0' 01 14.1 -0.1 -49 ft 11 4' 05 -0' 08 14.7 +0.5 +6 ft 12 4' 48 +0' 34 12.5 -1.7 +49 ft 13 5' 01 +0' 47 11.9 -2.2 -62 ft 14 4' 46 +0' 32 12.6 -1.6 +29 ft 15 2' 22 -1' 51 25.2 +11.0 0 ft 16 4' 19 +0' 05 13.9 -0.3 0 ft 17 3' 28 -0' 45 17.3 +3.1 -36 ft 18 3' 44 -0' 29 16.0 +1.8 +6 ft 19 4' 39 +0' 25 12.9 -1.3 -16 ft 20 4' 09 -0' 04 14.4 +0.2 +10 ft 21 7' 58 +3' 44 7.5 -6.7 +115 ft 22 2' 22 -1' 51 25.2 +11.1 -125 ft 23 3' 05 -1' 08 19.4 +5.2 +16 ft 24 0' 01 -4' 12 3583.9 +3569.7 0 ft 25 4' 30 +0' 16 13.3 -0.9 -29 ft 26 2' 25 -1' 48 24.8 +10.6 -7 ft 27 4' 38 +0' 24 12.9 -1.3 +20 ft 28 4' 55 +0' 41 12.2 -2.0 +33 ft 29 4' 30 +0' 16 13.3 -0.9 +6 ft 30 3' 55 -0' 18 15.3 +1.1 +6 ft 31 5' 07 +0' 53 11.7 -2.5 +23 ft 32 4' 36 +0' 22 13.0 -1.2 +10 ft 33 2' 30 -1' 43 23.9 +9.7 +16 ft end 5' 11 +0' 57 11.6 -2.6 +27 ft Versus average of 14.2 mph

Posted from bimactive.com

Back in the Saddle Again

Today I took short slow run after 9 days of rest from running. This was intentional - I was trying to give my IT band a rest and see if it helped with pain. I had to try SOMETHING..... there's this marathon in like 12 days and it would be nice to be in some sort if injury-free state so I can attempt to finish it instead of sitting at Bratfest waiting for Mike to come over the timing mat. I could eat a lot of brats in 5-6 hours, especially if I am feeling sorry for myself for missing a race.

So anyhow I prepared to run by popping in my Yoga for Athletes DVD and doing about 35 minutes of yoga as a pre-run stretch. I took it very easy, did a little walking and waited for the familiar pain twinges to set in. Funny thing was they never really kicked in. I was a little sore from time to time, but nothing like the searing pain that has led to my extreme frustration these last few weeks that rendered me virtually unable to complete my final build in volume for the Madison Marathon. Now that I am feeling a little better, I should be tapering.

Anyone have suggestions where I should be going with these last 12 days? I frankly am at a loss. I am resolved to go for it, be undertrained, and hope for the best.

I also took the pups in for their checkups. Daisy, my 10 year old ESS, got a clean bill of health. They said she's old (DUH) and she has a chipped tooth (probably from holding rocks in her mouth from time to time). Maddy is also a pretty healthy girl too. She's about 3 1/2, and still acts like a dumb puppy, but age is catching up to her a little too. I noticed when I gave them their spring buzz cut that her hiney was a bit larger than when I shaved her in the fall. Well after setting Betty Big-Butt on the scale, we saw the cold hard truth - 56 pounds! That is an 11# gain (24%!!!) since her last visit 10 months ago. Time for Maddy to quit eating both bowls of food when her sister's not looking. Also started her on a little doggy Detrol to address her little "leakage" issues. We shall see if that works.

Getting to the vet was interesting. Maddy is a nervous car rider and requires an empty stomach and some dramamine for every trip, no matter how short. The last time we went to the vet, she barfed 3 times on the way there (the vet is about 6-7 miles away). Today, we got to within sight of the building before she let the first (and only) gutload loose. YEAH! AND she didn't puke at all on the way home. Double yeah! If your interested, the Toyota Matrix is a godsend for those with queasy dogs - when you fold the seats down, the surface is hard plastic - no carpet- making cleanup a breeze. On the downside, braking and turning sends them skidding across the car. It's also pretty little and one of my dainty girls was letting some RANK nervous farts, so it was kind of like rolling down the road in a mobile latrine.

Weekend Update: Mother's Day Style

So yeah, guess it's been a couple days.

Thursday last week I went swimming and tried to make up all my mileage for the week in one night. If I could quit talking, I could have done it, but I got close anyhow.

Friday night, I did a little bike (I think I posted it).

Saturday, Mike wanted to run. but first he had to work. Then it was cold and windy, so we went to Home Depot and got some stuff to fix up the yard. We mowed. I weeded and removed the debris in all 5 gardens. After a while I just lost the time and motivation to squeeze in the 20 miler. What can I say? No excuse.

Sunday was of course Mothers Day. It POURED all morning and into the afternoon. Then it was time for supper at my sister's with my mom and dad. She made lasagna and an AWESOME eclair pie dessert.

In getting ready for mothers day, I found THE.BEST.COOKBOOK.LIKE......EVAH. We have cooked out of it like every night. Yum-O. Check it out - its The Hungry Girl Cookbook. Buy it, it rocks. And for sure get it from amazon by clicking through my banner so I get credit for it (shameless plug).







So..... what did I get for mothers day?



First of all, I got a sweet pair of race tires. Look closely now........ yes those ARE pink sidewalls on those bad boys!

Also there was the DeSoto transition bag, of course in pink. (I am kinda feeling like a rolling Pepto Bismol ad.....but whatever). That will come in right handy at, say, PIGMAN or SORT.

Suck it up Buttercup

Took a quick bike in the country with Mike. It was windy, but felt pretty good. The hills were easier this time too which is a dfinite plus. Mike showed off and was climbing like a goat up every hill. I made myself giggle several times if thats possible by chanting my new going-up-f'ing-hills-mantra........ repeating over and over to myself "Suck it up Buttercup." Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 827 ft Location: Rock, WI Elev. Gain: +3 ft Date: 05/06/08 Up/Downhill: [+1082/-1079] Time: 05:29 PM Difficulty: 4.9 / 5.0 Weather: Mostly Cloudy 79 F temp; 23% humidity 76 F heat index; winds SW 17 G 25 Performance Distance: 23.20 miles Time: 1:28:25 Speed: 15.7 mph Pace: 3' 49 /mi Heart Rate: 147 bpm (Avg) Calories: 1323 169 bpm (Peak) Map Elevation (ft) Speed (mph) Heart Rate (bpm) Heart Rate Zones Zone Range (bpm) Time In Zone Distance In Zone Zone 5 167 - 185 0h 02m 2% 0.11 mi Zone 4 148 - 167 0h 44m 50% 11.93 mi Zone 3 130 - 148 0h 37m 42% 10.67 mi Zone 2 111 - 130 0h 09m 10% 2.53 mi Zone 1 93 - 111 0h 00m 0% 0.05 mi (none) out of range 0h 00m 0% 0.00 mi Splits Mile Pace (min/mile) Speed (mph) Heart Rate Elev Gain actual +/- avg actual +/- avg 1 4' 10 +0' 20 14.4 -1.3 129 0 ft 2 4' 33 +0' 43 13.2 -2.5 153 +9 ft 3 3' 29 -0' 20 17.2 +1.5 144 -50 ft 4 4' 04 +0' 14 14.7 -1.0 131 +20 ft 5 3' 39 -0' 10 16.4 +0.7 155 +10 ft 6 3' 57 +0' 07 15.2 -0.5 146 -56 ft 7 3' 46 -0' 03 15.9 +0.2 146 -16 ft 8 4' 11 +0' 21 14.3 -1.4 146 +17 ft 9 4' 16 +0' 26 14.0 -1.7 152 +27 ft 10 3' 20 -0' 29 18.0 +2.3 150 -66 ft 11 3' 39 -0' 10 16.4 +0.7 147 -13 ft 12 3' 46 -0' 03 15.9 +0.2 144 +13 ft 13 7' 32 +3' 42 8.0 -7.7 152 +108 ft 14 2' 21 -1' 28 25.5 +9.8 130 -121 ft 15 0' 00 -3' 49 5378.1 +5362.4 140 0 ft 16 2' 47 -1' 02 21.5 +5.8 -- +6 ft 17 3' 44 -0' 05 16.1 +0.4 159 +49 ft 18 2' 53 -0' 56 20.7 +5.0 151 -76 ft 19 3' 40 -0' 09 16.4 +0.7 143 +20 ft 20 2' 55 -0' 54 20.5 +4.8 147 -20 ft 21 3' 19 -0' 30 18.1 +2.4 154 +33 ft 22 3' 48 -0' 01 15.7 +0.0 147 +29 ft 23 4' 27 +0' 37 13.5 -2.2 145 +43 ft 24 3' 56 +0' 06 15.2 -0.5 149 0 ft end 5' 18 +1' 28 11.3 -4.4 157 +36 ft Versus average of 15.7 mph

Posted from bimactive.com

Confessions of a Drama Queen

Okay, so here is my confession. When I was really little, our kitchen had an oven that was set into the wall across from my place at the table. The front of it was reflective and I spent nearly every meal looking at myself in the oven door, making faces, and generally not paying attention to what was going on at the table. My mother finally got so sick of it, she would cover the oven door at dinner so I couldn't vamp it up all through the meal.
I haven't really had a big problem with that for a long time. That is, until I discovered the webcam feature on my new laptop. Basically I can set it so I can have a little streaming live video of myself the whole time I am puting. Which is dangerous. I find myself looking at what I am doing, all.the.time. AND taking pictures of myself puting. And making goofy faces. And fixing my hair. And thinking about what I could take a picture of myself doing next. And......you get the picture.
I am really not sure how to fix this. Maybe my mom should come and put a towel over the webcam so life can get back to normal.

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This weekend, Mike and the boys went trout fishing, so I was home alone. I did some picking up around the house, did a bunch of laundry, got caught up on all the shows I had DVRed, and trimmed the dogs nails. (Sounds exciting so far, eh?) Friday night I watched Martian Child from the spinner (pretty good movie). Saturday, my planned bike ride with the SWAT team got rained out (boo) and my parents stopped over to get caught up (they got back from snowbirding in Costa Rica on 5/1, first I had seen them since Christmas). I got some shopping done in the rain, including buying a foam roller with a video for some pressure massage for my knee (anyone have any good tips?). I watched 27 Dresses from the spinner (great chick movie!).
Today, I got up and went to breakfast with my sister and her kids, and my parents. After I got home, I worked up the courage to go out on my long run, a scheduled 18 miler of long slow distance.
I made sure I had plenty of fluids (water and Gatorade Endurance), some Sharkies, some sports beans, and a goo. I took some naproxen about an hour before, I stretched and stretched. I made sure I had my phone and I took off. The first several miles were OK, I took it easy and tried not to watch the time. I walked a little bit at first, but not too bad- I always seem to have a hard time getting started anymore. I got to about mile 5 and it started to get kind of uncomfortable so I walked more and ran less. I was able to stop for water refill and potty at the hospital, and took off again. Since that area was pretty flat, I decided just to zigzag back and forth through the neighborhood at about 50/50% walk/run. The discomfort was pretty constant but not really bad, I ran as much as I could then walked until it was better, then ran again. About mile 10, I was thinking I was doing pretty good that the pain was just a dull annoyance and had really not gotten worse so I started planning the rest of my zigzag route. I stopped to cross the street and walk a bit at about mile 10.5 and as soon as I started walking the knee hurt BAD. I decided to just give up the ghost and walk home for fear of making a bad situation worse. I limped for a while, especially on the downhills (think driveways and crosswalks), and it gradually loosened up and felt a little better. It was barely a twinge when I got home. I stretched more, iced it for about an hour, and now I rest on the sofa. Feeling pretty good now, we'll see what tomorrow brings. Wanna see the ugly details and graphs? Click here for the BIM post.
We are 21 days from the marathon. My plan is to take it kind of easy until then (with just one more long run next weekend) and other than that, focus on bike and swim, yoga, and foam rolling like mad. I will start the marathon. If I can't run it, I will walk it after I have to stop running. There is a 6 hour cap on the event, so i will either a) finish just under the wire, b) get scooped up by support because I have no hope of finishing in time, or c) flag down course support and eat brats at Johnsonville Bratfest until Mike gets done. Let's all cross our fingers for option A shall we?

The Saga Continues.......... that's craptastical!

So, my ITB area still hurts after todays run. That sucks. Ice, Ice, stretch, NSAIDS, and a couple days of rest and we'll hopefully see some improvement. It didn't bother me on the short run last night, but todays longer run really kicked it in. I think switching back to my old shoe brand helped, but was kind of like closing the barn door after the cows are out. Just.too.late.
I was looking at my volume totals for this month, and I think I see another major contributor. I increased my miles from 39.77 for March to 64.5 in April, compounded by outdoor mile volume actually doubling, which I am sure is harder on all my parts overall than the treddy or the elliptical.
27 days to the Madison Marathon. Crap. I sure hope I can hang in there and at least finish that beast.

Today's news

So, the puter blue screened again. Completely dead. Nick plans to revive it and hopefully use it for good and not evil.

In the meantime, I need my online fix. Best Buy hooked us in and I am the proud owner of this little beauty. It kills me to start over from scratch......D'Oh!

Yeah this is a picture of me when I plugged in my ipod and lost, like, everything by accident......

Here is a picture of me and Lucas from the integrated webcam.

This was when I played the song from Juno that drove him crazy. It gets stuck in my head all the time.

Crazylegs

Saturday was our second attempt at running the Crazylegs Classic, an 8K to raise money for UW athletics. It is a HUGE event, with thousands of participants. I was nervous about it this year because my knee has been giving me so much trouble, so Wednesday, i took a little recovery run after my stupidity run on Monday. I wore my old Kayanos instead of the new Sauconys and ran a slow little 3 1/2 milers that felt pretty good. Slow, but good.
Friday night before bed, we got ready for the big day. Garmin charged? check. clothes ready? check. Ipod charged? Nope. I plugged it into the side of my computer and instantly got the blue screen of death and an error message. Restart. Got some weird Checkdisk thing that ran before booting, talking about repairing my puter and saying something about fixing orphaned files. Yikes. Long story short- after lots of farfling around, it was determined that I had bad sectors on my hard drive that crashed me and I.had.lost.everything......EVERYTHING. Crap.
Went to bed and woke up to near freezing temps and strong winds, a wind advisory. After postponing the decision to go or not, we finally got packed up and left. It was super windy and cold. We even saw a blackbird flying into the wind that was actually going backwards - no lie.
We got the car parked at Camp Randall and took the shuttle bus to the start on the capital square. the Farmers Market was in full swing, but it was just too cold to check it out while we waited for the start. We ended up loitering around inside the capital building, which was apparently the same idea a lot of other runners had since there were people everywhere and the line for the ladies room was a least 40 deep.
We finally got into the corral for our wave. We were in wave DD, which I thought was funny - my former bra size. We finally got started about 40 minutes after the first wave. Got to high five lots of UW athletes, Bucky Badger, and Uncle Sam on stilts.
I knew I was in trouble about a mile in. My knee hurt. My left foot went numb. I walked Observatory Hill (yeah that hill totally bites.). I basically walked about 1/4-1/3 of every mile. I would run until pain or numbness made me slow to walk. And then there was the cold. And the 40 mph wind gusts. There were actually whitecaps on Lake Monona as we wound around the trail next to it.
As I got near the stadium, I tried to pick up the pace a bit. It hurt. I passes a couple of race walkers and a couple other hobbled up looking runners. As I rounded the corner to run down to the finish on the 50 yd line, the race walkers had started running and passed me. Crap.
I finished with a time of 1:07.26 per my Garmin. You can check out the graphs and data on BIM here. We were supposed to meet up with some of the SWAT peoples - Gary, Al, Brian, Anne, and whoever else was there. We looked and looked and couldn't find them anywhere. Crap.
My official finish: 1:07.26 .... overall 10095/10174, age group 1212/1221. Last years time was 54:32, so this year took me an extra 12.5 minutes. that sucks.

I have been reflecting on what happened to cause the problems in my knee lately. I haven't really changed a lot. I have increased training volume, but really not enough to trigger this. My biggest issues seem to have surfaced in the past several weeks, which coincides with purchasing new shoes - a new brand and style, the Saucony Triumph 5. When I ran in my old Kayanos earlier this week, I had no trouble. I really can't continue to use the old shoes as they are definitely too worn to sustain much more mileage. So I think it is reasonable to buy a new pair of Kayanos and see if that doesn't improve the situation. It really can't make it worse. And I do have a marathon to run in 1 month. I don't think I have much choice than to give it a shot.

Mikey got my puter working sort of again, but she is limping. The sector that housed all my personal data was totally wiped and I have to build a new profile from scratch for everything. It wiped out everything, so anything I have done since I backed up last week is gone. Worst of all there are things that were only on my PC, like the templates for the SWAT team website, among other things. If you sent me email this week and I didn't respond, that's why - sorry. Ratfinkie. I hate it, now I don't trust my computer and am going to think she will screw up at any second.

The Accidental Half

Monday was a beautiful afternoon, sunny and warm with a nice breeze. I got out of work about 3 pm and Mike had to work late, so I had some time to kill. I thought since I missed my long run a couple days prior that I would sub the quick 2 miler on my plan with a long run in the country. Mike had been talking about a new route he wanted to try that was a modification of one of our biking routes. If you go straight at Rockport and cut back into town, it was a 7 mile loop. If you went out a little further and picked up the bike trail you end up by Fisher Creek trailhead and it's 10 miles. In my head, I thought I had a pretty firm grip on where the routes went and where to turn on them. my plan was to go for the 10 miler, but if I felt like I couldn't do it, I would just cut in and do the 7 mile loop when I got to that point. I loaded up my fuel belt with 4 bottles of Powerade Zero and a bag of Clif Blocks. I took off into the country at a comfortable pace, not worrying about going fast because I was going long.

I've noticed lately I have had a really hard time getting going the first couple miles, so I just roll with it. i run a while, then walk a few hundred feet, then run some more. No big whoop, and it seems to pass after I have 2 or 3 miles under my belt.

The first thing I noticed is how frigging hilly this route is. I bike this all the time and know they are rollers, but on foot it feels like constant mountain climbing and descents with very few flats. I got a few miles into the run and got onto Rockport Road. As I crested the first hill, I noticed a dog running towards me from the house across the street, a big brindle colored Pit Bull, barking at me from his yard aggressively. I hollered "Stop! Go Home!" This brought him out into the road, barking and growling at me. Shit. I try to remember dog spray when I am in the country. Not today. All I had to defend myself was my wits (not much of weapon) and a squirt bottle of powerade. I squirted some at him. I think I heard him laugh at me. I started yelling as loud as I could towards the house "Come and Call your F'ing Dog!!!" over and over and ordering him to stop and go home. He kept trying to get behind me so I was walking backwards down the street so I could see him. As he stepped out into the road again, still growling, a car came over the hill and stopped in front of the dog, next to me. He heard me yelling and started honking his horn at the dog, which finally turned the dog towards his house. I shouted a thank you and ran away hell bent for election.

As it came to decision time for the route length, I decided I had almost enough drink left for a 10 miler (slightly at risk for being a little dry but not bad), so I took a right up Hayner Road and right into a headwind. I ran and ran for a couple miles (didn't realize until this time that country "blocks" are all almost exactly 1 mile long...)I passed a couple turns and headed towards the corner that would take me around it and to where the bike trail starts right by the poop plant. As I neared this corner I started doing some math in my head....... no way was this going to be a 10 miler - try more like 14....... crap. Realizing that I was somehow way off course and way undersupplied with fluids and nibbles, I slowed way down to conserve energy. As I ran and pondered, I decided to run slowly to the 10 mile mark, then walk home from that point, with finding a place to refill my bottles as a priority. I was certain that there was a bubbler along the bike trail somewhere. Ya know what? I was wrong. I got to the 10 mile mark, which was a real struggle. After that, I pretty much walked the rest of the way. I was way far out of water and there were NO options to refill. No big deal, I wouldn't really need it if I walked the rest of the way. Problem was I was only at the Fisher creek trail head, estimated quickly as about 4 miles out from home yet.

I saw a shortcut up the onramp to the Crosby bridge, so I headed over the railroad tracks and across the marshy boggy spots to take the detour. I just wanted to get home. My long run was pushing 3 hours, no one knew what I was doing, and I still had a long way yo go. I had my cell phone, but was just too stubborn to call. I reasoned with myself - your legs don't hurt THAT bad, you are closer than you think, it's just a couple miles, Come on cowgirl up you've got a marathon in a little more then a month. by the time I was a mile or so from home, I was visualizing the straightest line to my house, cutting through back yards and any which way to save steps. Ended up with just under 13 miles, just short of a half-marathon. By accident. With nowhere near the supplies I needed. Stoo-pid!

I walked into the house and looked at Mike's mad face. I introduced myself to him as the stupidest person alive today.

As he looked at my Garmin map, he said "I see where you went wrong - you forgot to turn left where I told you to." Well, no shit.

That evening, my legs cramped up. my knee (in particular my left IT band) was killing me. Tuesday, I could barely walk and stairs were definitely out. What an idiot.

Monday's lessons:

1) Uh yeah. Double up on the liquids you bring. Especially if you don't have a place to refill them if they are empty.

2) Perhaps if you are visualizing a map in your head, you should consult an ACTUAL visual image of said map. Then you know you are discussing the specifics of the same map.

3) If you realize you have gone horribly wrong somehow, quit being a martyr already and call for a ride. Seriously.

4) Dog Spray is like American Express. Never leave home without it.

Today the knee felt better so I opted for a short recovery run. It was slow and I still have some knee twinges, but overall not too bad, just slow.

Saturday is the crazylegs 8K. Fun Race - I hope I'm feeling up to it!