Best Run of the Season?

Well Well Well.

I went out at 5pm today for a marathon dress rehearsal. The plan called for 7 miles with 2 at Marathon Pace. Since I am undecided about my marathon pace...I know I know we are 4 days away blah blah.....I decided to run the first two slowish, nice quick pace for 3 and 4 and then easy breezy for 5-7. After having a frustrating work day (I really do exist right? Like I am sitting here typing this....ok I thought so. GRUMBLE.) I probably did the first mile too fast which of course lead to 2-4 being a bit too fast. But I have to tell you, I felt STRONG. I had sore shins for the beginning miles but I was caught at a light for a few seconds and I stretched them a bit....kinda helped. I think it just goes away eventually. I ran the first two miles in 8:58 and 8:51 respectively which lead to an 8:06 and an 8:01 for 3 and 4. I know this is too fast, but I felt great so I am thinking that an 8:30-8:45 pace is going to feel just fine. The last three miles were 9:13, 8:49 & 8:54. I have to say that I was feeling smooth and strong on those last three miles.

So. There. I don't know what to do with that. It was only 7 miles, but we'll see what Sunday will bring me. I still think a 3:40 is out of reach........but you never know what the 2nd half of the race will bring.

I did get some valuable information from the run as it was raining. The shirt I was planning is not going to work. It's almost spongy like (it's a Nike shirt, but maybe not dry fit?) and when it gets wet it's going to get heavy and chaffe my arms. So I am on a mission to find a singlet that will work better for the race. All the other clothes felt great, including the socks I was wearing (sometimes the bottoms of my feet get really sore....getting to warm?). My clothing plan for the marathon will be shorts, singlet and an old technical long sleeve shirt that I have, ear band and gloves that I modeled here. I will loose the long sleeve shirt, ear band and gloves during the race either at Mile 1, 3.5 or 8 where our spectators will be.

Come on Sunday!

**Note : Jason was still out today trying to fix his back. He say the ice is helping. He'll go out for the 5 miles on Friday and see how it's doing, at least to get an idea of what to expect to feel while running. Think good thoughts!**

Best Boy In The World

That's right Jason, I'm talking about you.

Poor guy has been best friends with icey dixie cups and ice baths and our wood floor the past two days. He missed yesterdays run and will be missing todays as well. Yet I know better than to keep asking him if he'll be ok on Sunday. That's because I know he'll be next to me toeing the line (I use "toeing the line" loosely and we will be "toeing the line which is 1/4 mile behind the actual line"). I know he'll stay with me during the course because he is one of the toughest people I know (I also know this becuause the back is getting a lot better). I was asked earlier what would happen if he had to slow down in the race or step out of it completly. I also love that we understand that although we run together it is our own races on Sunday. If something happens to either one of us the other is not expected to wait around for them. But it's good to put that on "paper" for both of us to remember.


He has been there for me and gone along with my crazy running/working/commuting/eating/reading/writing/"the future" plans. I don't know how he does it as every day he'll hear, "JASON I know what we should do when we grow up.......LET'S WRITE A BOOK" "Let's write a book" has many variations ranging from opening bars and restaurants to moving to mexico and working in a bar or restaurant. Thank you for only looking at me like I'm crazy when I turn my back.

You are what every person should get to have by their side as they move forward in this life. So thank you for beliving in me and standing by my side when I feel like I won't succeed or that I am standing along.

Thank you for letting me post these ridiculous pictures of you and your Afternoon Ice Bath Adventure. ;-)

Starting Gear?

Stop hitting reload on Weather.com leah. STOP IT. Digging through boxes for hats and gloves, glad we found them.

Um....WHAT

Seriously. Snow Showers? I know it's early still and I know that it's only 40% chance of percipitation.....but come one! At least the high for the day moved up a degree.

6 Solo

My Jason has as a really sore back. He has been laying on the floor all day. Not good a few days before the marathon. Hopefully all the heating he has been doing will help.

Because he was stuck laying on the wood floor I went out for a 6 mile recovery run solo. Felt good the whole way, stopped to stretch a few times, had some kids through some paper at me out of a bus. Lovely. Finished pacing 9:20 miles. I took some music (which I haven't done for awhile and it was really nice) with some Recovery type mellow music on it. I ended up having the Garden State soundtrack for most of the run along with Room At the Top and Echo by Tom Petty. Nice groove to music as my cool groove 9:20 pace felt.

The weather has moved down to a high of 45. It's going to be fine. Maybe I'll finish in 3:40ish just to get out of the cold :-) You never know. Crazier things have happened. (realistically I am going for 3:45-3:50.....)

Saturday Morning Run?

Hello people running Chicago.

Jason and I are thinking about heading down to the finish line early Saturday morning and running about 3 or 4 miles out and back from the finish line in the direction of the course. In other words run the last part of the race. There will probably be some traffic but if it's early enough it won't be too bad. We will do these as a recovery run, so at about 10 minute miles.

Anyone else interested? We'll probably be down there around 7 or 8am.

Now this is Crazy...

Thanks Mark!

Getting Worse

Ok people. The high for Sunday is now 48 degrees with a low of 34 degrees and showers. I am still planning on wearing a tank top and shorts though. In then end you will warm up quickly AND you really don't want wet heavy clothes sitting on you for the duration of the marathon, so for all of you thinking about what to wear take that into account. Plus there is still only a 40% chance of rain....which of course means there is a 60% chance that it won't.

To Thomas : Yes I have been posting a lot more :-) I am very jittery about the race and all that nervous energy has to go somewhere!

6 recovery miles later today.

HE COULD GO ALL THE WAY!!!!!

BEARS WINNING.....

they could lose it.......and he shanked it

BEARS WIN BEARS WIN BEARS WIN!!!!!!

Let's give it up for the Bears defense shall we!!!!!

Why Can't My Teams Be Easy to Watch

Why Why. Why couldn't I grow up a Yankee fan or a fan of any team that doesn't give me a stroke in the first 1/4 of every game.

What is this Bears Shit on the field. Not the team we have been watching for the past 5 weeks. And what ESPN? is this the Matt Leinart show? How about one more shot of him? Please. It's like when the Cubs were in the playoffs in 2003, it was all about the stupid goat. That's what I hate when they are national TV because you lose the home team announcers. Matt Leinart my ass.

I have now put myself into my office with the door closed and am listening to music loud enough to drown out the Bears game that Jason is faithfully watching. He'll just be happy because his beloved Colts will be undefeated and the Bears will have lost to a shitty ass team.

GRUMBLE.

**update : in case you were wondering, the idiot ESPN announcers "really like" what the cardinal offense is doing. Really like it. Really like it. They also like Matt Leinhart. By the way, the could also stop showing his stupid college highlights as he is now in the NFL. Jesus the Bears look bad tonight!**

28926 & 28927

Leah and Jason got their confirmation booklets! Our mail is totally screwed up so we didn't think we would get them. But we did and Leah is already winning. I kid.

Some Things I Remember

Alright Alright, we are 6 days away and I can't stop watching any kind of press on the marathon. Land of the Gods, a couple times a day, Highlights video, I'm currently on my third pass, the course video have now gone through that one once (which after watching it i am happy that I have done so much more running along city streets this year, I think knowing Chicago city blocks will help a ton). I can't worry (well I can and I will, but I'll say I won't) about the weather yet. Jason and I had an outdoor wedding so I watched weather.com for days and days before our big day. We had rain predicted all the way up until the day before when it switched to mostly sunny (at which point I started screaming in joy and woke Jason up as it was about 6 in the morning).

ANYWAYS.

Somethings I remember about last years race that I thought all you Chicago Newbies would interested in. For those of you that have run Chicago before feel free to add on!

• The first mile = AWESOME. I looked around and thought, why would all these people be doing something so stupid :-)
  
• Miles 7-10 are run on the northside through Boys Town and are incredible. I was so overwhelmed that I forgot to look around. I saw our spectators and rows and rows of other people watching us and that's about it. There are lots of cheerleaders here and a big party in the neighborhood. There will be a bar on the left hand side of the street about 1/2 mile past the 8 mile marker called 'Murphy's' which is where Jason and I used to hang out. Look around and enjoy it!
  
• Miles 13-18 a bit tiring. Not as much of a party atmosphere. At mile 15 last year one of the water stop people said, "This is when the slow people come by" I was not thrilled to hear that and told him we weren't slow, we were in fact awesome.
  
• Miles 21-22ish are through China Town. Jason's dad who was spectating loved this part of the spectating becuase it was so awesome with all this stuff happening and he always asks if I remember it and how incredible it was. I don't. I was so in the moment at the point getting a final wind to push it through that I don't remember a lot of it. So like the northside of the race. Look around and enjoy!
• There is a slight hill at probably mile 25.9. When you get to the top you make a left, there is a sign that says 26 Miles and you can see the finish line. Push as hard as you can up that hill and you'll be home free in no time.
  
• The finish. I was almost in tears. The number of people that are lining the street between miles 25 and the finish are obsence
• The runner meet up was a disaster! We had plans to meet people at te 'W' and it took us forever to get over there and there were so many people in that runners meet up that we could hardly move. Along with the people there were people with big giant strollers taking up tons of room. So you might want to just pick a street corner to meet on instead of trying to deal with the runners meet up area.
  

That's all I have at the moment.

Damn It

Well that doesn't look so good. Still a bit early I guess, but I am worried about that temperature.

12ish & 42nd Week

Today we had 12 on the schedule. We did all if it but walked the last mile. Our legs were a bit tired and didn't want to over do it. I didn't bring Garmin and we had a really enjoyable run in our city. It's important sometimes to leave the computer and the gadgets and the music and the Gu's at home. Then it's just you and the running. It's nice to just get out there and be without the numbers game. What was my pace this mile, what was it last mile. I know that's important and I do it most everyday, that's why it was nice just to go out and RUN today. So I don't know how fast we went, probably not very fast at all, which I'm ok with. Too much stopping and starting down Chicago Ave becuase we left late this morning, but again, no big deal.

In preparation for the race we wore shorts and a t-shirt since it was probably about the same temperature that it will be on race day. I will wear a tank top and shorts and I felt that I would be fine in that kind of clothing in the kind of weather that we saw today. The only problem is that my toes and my fingers get a bit chilly, but warm up after not too long.

I realized that the race will be taking place on the 42nd week of the year, which for those of you that have read Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams know's that this is the answer....the answer to EVERYTHING.

(for those of you that haven't read it, there is a really large computer named Deep Thought that is built to come up with the answer to Life, the Universe & Everything. Deep Thought works for a very long time (7.5 Million years to be exact) and it comes up with 42. When they ask the computer what that is supposed to mean, the following ensues

"I checked it very thoroughly," said the computer, "and that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you've never actually known what the question is"
"But it was the Great Question! The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything," howled Lookquawl.
"Yes." said Deep Thought with the air of one who suffers fools gladly, "but what actually is it?"

So if you haven't read it, go get it, I promise you will laugh out loud....many many times. As I was just looking through it for the above passage I had troubles not typing in many more lines :-) )

AND of course a quick shout out to my good friend Barb who wrote this fabulous little story.

1 week to go people. 1 week.

We're Famous!!!!

I called my dad and stepmom (Sue) today and while I was chatting with Sue she asked me what Jason and I were wearing in the race last year. I told her and I heard her say to my dad, "Yep that had to be them"

Thanks to the anonymous commenter (Berner) that pointed us to the marathon movies that are on the Chicago Marathon page. Go here and watch the highlights video (which is awesome and will send your heart a fluttering again)....actually click on the links for 'highlight video' becuase the one that starts playing on the site is really bad quality. Close to the end of the movie they start showing everyone finishing, there is a row of girls that put their hands up in the air and then there is a guy, name Paul on his shirt that says, "Wow", a guy in a orange shirt runs through, a bunch of guys wearing red give each other hugs, a black guy runs through in a white tank top and right after that you will see soon after that you will see two people on the left hand side of the screen. A guy in a white tank top and black shorts and a girl in a teal tank top and royal blue shorts with her hand way up in the air like a monkey......which of course is Jason and I!!!!!!!! hahahaha. Aweseome!

Enjoy the movie.

Getting Anxious?

Well I think 4 posts in one day pretty much shows that I am getting all excited about the race. I keep thinking about the race and our strategy and going back on it and wondering if we should do it a bit different and what is our goal finishing time and yadda yadda. I think I watched that Marathon Movie like 5 times today. Everytime they show the start of the race my heart jumps a little bit and sit up in my chair and remember how awesome that moment is.

woof.

We had 5 miles with 6x100m strides tonight. Felt great on all parts of it. We have found a school near us that is about two blocks long on one side, but no street that interrupts the sidewalk, and there is very little foot traffic along that sidewalk, especially around 6pm in the evening.

Tomorrow is off and then 12 on Sunday.

Anyone else out there doing Pfitz think that there are a lot of miles before the race? 5 next Friday and 4 on Saturday. I know these are both recoveries and I know that Pfitz knows more that me so I'll probably do them, just wondering what others were planning on. Last year I did like 2 miles on Thursday and none on Friday or Saturday. I don't really want to question the plan now though.

Ok. Movie time.

The World According to Garp by John Irving

No I didn't forget how to read. But I did read this one a bit slow because of moving and time being less available now that I am not on shifts anymore. Ok on to the review.

Strange to say the least yet really good. I read Cider House Rules a couple of years ago and I wasn't a huge fan. My friend told me it was her favorite book and I read it just to get to the end of it (if that makes sense). Garp was also given to me by a friend who said it was the best book she had read in awhile. I was a bit skeptical after my previous experience with Irving, but I found this book to be a lot better.

T.S. Garp was born to Jenny Fields who was a bit of a nut. The book starts off with descriptions of Jenny's life and how Garp came into the picture and then moves on to follow Garps life as he grows up. It follows him through world travels, first novels, first loves, first kids, second kids, pains of love & life Jenny becomes a famous feminist and Garp has that on his plate as well.

I realize that I am doing a less than stellar job describing this book, probably because I started it so long ago that my memory on the beginning part of the story is a bit vague.....then again it could be that I am not a professional book reviewer. So as usual in this reader's opinion, a good read. I believe, however, it's a book which needs to be sat down with and read for awhile at a time. I was reading a page here and a page there and I think I lost a bit in doing that.

Enjoy. Read On. Run On. Taper On.

Happy Friday!

Too Good To Be True

I know it's early, but here's to hoping things stay the same as it
wouldn't get much better than this!!!!!

New Marathon Movie Trailer

I still don't know when this movie is coming out, but the new trailer is awesome. Lots of shots of the race itself and it makes me all jittery and a bit emotional.

MarathonMovie

At the end of the trailer there is a line :

When you cross that finish line, no matter how slow, no matter how fast, it will change your life forever.

There can't be a more true statement about my life than that one.

Preview of Winter

On the way into work this morning we had quite a bit of snow coming down. None of it has stuck however, but just a nice little preview of the next few months.

When I woke up to a "feels like" temperature of 30 degrees this morning I realized I am going to have to get my body used to being cold if we are going to be training for an early spring maraton. Of course you do get adjusted and soon enough 30 degrees doesnt' feel too bad, but I am going to have to make sure we have proper clothing/hydrating equipment (they turn off the water fountains on the lakefront path in the winter) to get through the winter months. It will be a very different experience as usually I run just enough to keep in shape, so we'll see what happens when there is a 20 mile run and it's 15 degrees outside.

No running today which is good since I only got a few hours of sleep due to a meeting this morning and a late night shift last night. Tomorrow it's 5 and then Sunday 12 and then it's only

1 WEEK AWAY

Street Corner Advice & Consistancy to a T

Today we had a V02 Max workout on the schedule. 8 miles with 3x1600m @5K pace with 2 min recovery between them. After going back and forth between just 8 miles and then 3 of the miles fast or going down to the track and doing laps we opted for the latter. We decided to run the 4 miles to the track, do the 3 miles of quickness and then about .5 more and then get on the bus home.

On the way to the track we did our usual stopping to stretch at 2.5 miles and a woman came up to us and said that she had just started running the day before but her legs were really sore and did we have any advice. Did we have any advice.....me....talk about running? Shut up I hate doing that....oh no wait...I LOVE it. So we gave her some tips and laughed and after she left I asked Jason if he thought standing on a street corner selling running tips could be a lucrative career, he said....well no, but it could be fun :-)

We got to the track and I have to be honest. For some reason I have been dreading this workout for the past many weeks when I first noticed it on the list. I had measured the track on Google Earth before we left and it is exactly .25 miles around so I left Garmin at home and just used my regular digital watch to keep the splits. We started the first one and I kept an eye on each lap so I could know how I was doing, and if I had to make any adjustments. I wanted each lap to be at 1:50. Our first lap was done in 1:42, and the next three were done in 1:50 each giving a total time of 7:10 for the first 1600. We walked/jogged for 2 minutes and started the next one. This one was awesome, each lap was done in exactly 1:50. Exactly. We finished in 7:20. Jogged for another 2 minutes and were consistant again at the 1:50 pace finishing off the third 1600 in 7:18.

I am so happy with this workout. That is a perfect pace for us for a 5K and we felt strong on all three of them. Just more confidence to go into marathon day with.

I am back at the lab tonight for another stupid shift (even though I am not qualified to be there.....in my rant against the paper work I told them if I couldn't be there maybe I should be sent home....oh no we don't want to go that far. I HATE IT!!!!!!!). No running tomorrow, 5 mile recover w/6x100 on Friday, off on Saturday and then 12 on Sunday......me likey the taper.

Bullshit

That's what I said that all the paperwork is to the head of my experiment. I think we can expect that he won't be giving me a recommendation.

Ok, but please. I have worked here for 2.5 years and all of a sudden I need 4 MORE certificates on things like :

• personal protective equiptment (make sure you wear shoes to work)
• environmental hazards (don't eat glue)
• hazard communications (don't put the phone to your face cause you might break out)

I mean come on! How is this necessary? Apparently all new employees have to take these. I didn't have to take these when I started here. So they waited until they had the tests online for all current users of the lab so they could do them then. Whatever, I have five other training types but apparently being radiation ready or able to assist in the beam pipe just isn't good enough. I hate this bureaucratic government bullshit.

I love it, cause no one here knows how to deal with me. When I ask what's the point, they say, "cause you have to". I LOVE it. My dad can attest that my side of the family does not like this kind of crap.

What a shitty day this ended up being.

Oh yeah....and Jason and I aren't going to get paid 550 dollars of our salary (we get a cost of living adjustment for the move from Southern-Indiana-Hickville to Chicago-Land-Of-Coolness). They knew about this at the end of September, we found out today (yes that's right almost 2 weeks later) that we wont' be getting this. I so was planning on getting that money this month and so spent accordingly. Well, I'll tell you what, I am going to love the blinds and curtains I put up in my bedroom cause I'm probably going to have to be eating them by the end of the month. AWESOME. What makes this even better is that while I was about 2 dollars above minimum wage, now I'm like 50 cents above. See, they aren't treating us like slave labor. Again I say Bullshit.

GRUMBLE GRUMBLE GRUMBLE.

Ok, pissy act is over. Shift is almost over. Time to go home.

Leg Pain Receding Like....

Jason's hair line (just kidding baby!)

Today was 7 miles with 8x100m thown in for fun. I have been running in my new Brooks Adrenalines for the past three runs and today I really felt the difference. Hardly any shin pain which is nice and the pain I had on the inner lower leg was a lot les. I have really been worrying about my leg pain with the marathon approaching, but it looks like the Saucony's I was running in were the culprit. That and now that I am running a bit less with the taper my legs are having the opportunity to heal up.

Anyways, we are working 4-midnight (I have two shifts that I have to make up for a friend) so we went running around 10am. We ran for about 2.5 miles and then stopped to stretch for about 2 minutes and the continued onto the track. We started sprinting the straightaways and then walking along the curved portions. After the second one I turned around and noticed Jason farther behind me than I was expecting. Apparently he had slightly pulled his groin muscle and so smartly decided to just slowly run the last three laps and stretch after each lap. I continued on with the strides and while they were "ok" I felt really winded which was wierd. I don't think I was recovering enough after each one, but whatever. We both finished about the same time. Ran about 2 more miles and walked another 1 mile to get back to the house.

Jason is currently enjoying the ice bath he is in and I am off to ice massage my shins to keep them feeling healthy.

(I am VERY happy that my legs felt better today!!!! Just wanted to re-interate that :-) )

Reflection

My feet hit the pavement.
Left Right Left Right
My legs hurt
My shoulders are tired
Left Right Left Right
9 miles to go today
Left Right Left Right
2 weeks left till race day
Left Right Left Right
You can't help but to ask,
All the work, will it pay off?
Left Right Left Right
It's taper time.
It's time to think about why we do this.
To think about why we run.
To think about why we pound the pavement.
Left Right Left Right.

Run On.

From my sister-in-law.


I just love this picture. Thanks Susanne!

DA BEARS!!!!

You put the Bears 'C' onto anything, and I will buy it. But I have to say these beer cozies are quite fun. What's the coasters under them? Oh that's Peyton Manning. I can't wait to get the trib tomorrow morning!!! I love the 12 page sports section on the Bears only. This is such a Bears town and boy do we love it when they are good.

GO BEARS!!!

Extremely Negative

Don't worry, the title makes is seem worse than it was.

Yesterday's run never got off the ground. On the schedule was a 8-10k tune-up race and, without any races scheduled, we decided to do 5 miles at pace.

That is, we decided to do that the night before. The morning of I could barely drag myself out of bed and then when Leah's shins started acting up again we gave up. 0.8 miles for us and back home to ice and rest. Leah needs to get those shins healthy for the big race and, hell, I never wanted to go for the run in the first place.

This has been a running (heh, "running") theme for me during this taper. My motivation to run has been practically non-existent. This continued with today's long run.

Today Leah and I went out for 16 miles. We were up and out the door by 6:45 and it was a beautiful, albeit cool, Chicago morning. It was 4 miles to the lakefront and then out past McCormick Place, then back home. For Leah, the issue was shin pain. For the first 4 miles or so (I'm guessing here as she doesn't complain much) she had that stupid shin pain we all know and hate. For me, it was more mental. I just didn't want to run and 16 miles seemed so far. As a result, our first four miles were over 9:30 with a couple of them over 10 (minutes, in case that wasn't clear).

Hitting the lakefront, we started to heat up a bit. Our paced picked up into the low 9's and things were getting better. I still felt very, very unmotivated but it's not really all that hard to keep moving forward. You know, left right left right (lather, rine, repeat). There was another brief potty break, the second in two weeks after zero in 2 years for Leah and me, and we continued out 8.25 miles before turning around. A bit after that we took Gu and...

Zing!

Something happened with that Gu (magic Gu?) as our next miles were almost all under 9 minutes plus some under 8:30. Leah's shins were feeling good, my mind was revived, and we were speedy. My legs felt fresh and strong and the second half of the run was much faster than the first half. It was 16 miles with a very negative split, but a final pace of 9:15 minutes/mile which is about right.

In the end, just another easy, breezy 16. Bring on 26.2.

2.5 Weeks?

Till the Chicago Marathon? Well yes....

but I am talking about the number of weeks it's been since your fearless duo has done laundry. With running we burn through 3 or 4 "outfits" (I use outfits loosly as I work at home and so outfits are t-shirts and jeans....but still) a day. PJs, "work" clothes, running clothes, evening clothes. so waiting to do laundry for so long means that, well you might say, it has piled up. Piled up such that there are no more containers in our apartment to hold it all. This is addition to the few bags of sweaters/whatwasleftattheoldapartment means that the party on Friday night for J&L is at the good ole' laundrymat.

Oh Please, I know you are jealous.

We have 4 miles with 6x100m planned for early evening. We'll run down to the track and sprint on the straight parts and walk on the curvy parts. Tomorrow it's 5 miles at a higher clip, then 16 on Sunday. I might run the 5 tomorrow in my new shoes to get them warmed up to be fast.

Happy weekend everyone.

To Garmin or Not to Garmin

That is the question.

Tonight on our recovery run (and by recover I mean total recovery at +10min miles 50:14 total) Jason and I were talking about whether or not I should wear the Garmin during the marathon. I think we decided that it has the potential to be a bigger pain in the ass than helpful. I worry about signals being lost and miles then being totally off. Much of the race is through downtown Chicago where the watch could have potential problems. I worry that I will worry more about the watch than about the surroundings and my actual running.

I think I will wear my $30 Timex watch and just hit the lap button every time we get to a mile marker. This is not like a training run where none of the miles are marked so it's helpful to have Garmin at your side. Of course in the marathon all the miles are marked and so I think it will be easier to just hit the "split" button on Timex and see how I am doing on a mile by mile pace rather than being frustrated because the miles on Garmin aren't lining up with the miles on the race course. I did this during the Indy 1/2 and it worked just fine.

That's my opinion for now anyways. What are other Garmin wearers planning on doing. I realize that if you have the attached heart rate monitor it's a different story.

Taper on. Taper. On.

Urban Safari

Today was 8 miles with 5x600m @ 5K pace. Right before we left I read Barb's post mentioning that there was only 2.5 weeks left to race day.

Gulp.

Scary enough, but I realized that I didn't have my shoes yet for the marathon. I have been running in a pair of Saucony's which have been fine, but I have never really loved them. I had been going back and forth with sticking with this style or going back to the Adrenaline stand bys. I remembered how good of a race I had in Indy wearing these shoes (and yes I am a little superstitious about those kinds of things) so I decided if I could find them in my size I would go that route. I called our favorite place, Running Away and to my delight that had a pair for both Jason and I. They said they would only hold them till the end of the day so we hopped in the car and drove over there. Our favorite guy, Tim, was working and we chatted a bit about shoes and why the tops of my feet get this really deep red mark on it when I run and why I was going back to the adrenaline. He gave us some socks, we grabed some tri-berry Gu and our shoes and we were on our way. We parked our car on Augusta and Ashland and started our run from there.

It was 2.8 miles to the track and I just felt....fine except that I am having some horrific shin pain. I am so used to this, but it's JUST.SO.ANNOYING. I feel like my entire lower leg gets really stiff and so I feel like I am running without moving my ankles at all (no heal to toe action).....if that makes any sense.

Since I am pretty sure that the track is a 400m track we decided to do 1.5 laps instead of letting Garmin figure the distance out because I think it has problems on the turns of the track. This worked out fine and our splits were :

1. 2:23
2. 2:43
3. 2:41
4. 2:43
5. 2:38

The first one was too fast, but I was really happy with the consistancy of the last four. This was a total distance (according to Garmin) of 2.4 miles with the 200m recoverys we put in there in between the fast stuff.

We did the 2.8 back to the car for exactly 8 miles.

The run was a bit annoying because, although I realize that running down Chicago Ave, I am bound to get caught by some lights, tonight I got caught by every single one. It just got so annoying after awhile. I should leave later if I am running at night so at least if I miss the light, there would be less traffic.

Where does the safari come in?

As we were coming home, with about a half mile to go we were running by these apartments. All of a sudden a gigantic dog behind a fence barks like I am trying to come in and rob the place. It was so loud and so surprising and so close (just on the other side of a fence) that I jumped in the air and screamed! Then about .1 miles later we were running under a viaduct and pidgon was flapping around and scared me a bit too.

See, we city kids have wild life too.

Run Far Fast! (not for 3 weeks though!)

Taper Madness

Between those who read this site and those who write on it, many of us are entering the marathon taper. Last year the taper was pretty awful for me. I was always tired, felt sick, and couldn't run three miles in consecutive order.

This year, Runners World had an article on tapering that I thought wat pretty interesting. I totally forgot about it until Josh mentioned it over on his site. I tracked down the actual article and think it's worth a read, especially for first-timers.

Taper Traps

Because Pictures are Fun (and everyone loves them)

Because our cat Dagny is awesome and iPhoto is addictive :


Because our cat is clingy :

Because Aaron is a riot :


Because it was sad moving out of our old place :


Because our new place is tons of fun :

DA BEARS

A great article for all you Bears fans out there.

Oh Sweet Love of the Taper

Well folks. The race is 20 days away. Say it slowly Perry Cox style (that's a little shout out to Lisa and Evin or any other Scrubs fans) :

Tweeeeeeennnnnnnntyyyyyyyyy Daaaaaaaaaaaysssssssss Leeeeeeeeeeeeft

Right.

Ok.

Don't freak out.

I am starting to be pissed at myself for missing some runs during this training series, and for doing some too slow. What if I had made every run. Would I still have Boston in my eyes as I did at the beginning of the summer. What if I could have been tougher and gotten runs in, even after working midnight - 8am or after our initial move to the apartment when Jason and I schelpped stuff in cars for roughtly 40 hours on 3 hours of sleep. What if....

What if life hadn't gotten in my flippin' way.

Well then it wouldn't be called life I guess. I did what I could given the hours that Fermilab handed me, and well it's just going to have to be enough.

Now it's time to taper (how fun was it looking at the schedule for the week? It was beauty!) and time to reflect on the race itself. What's our plan? When do we start to kick it? 20 miles 15 miles? 23 miles? Will we be able to be tough in those last 6 miles? How many times will we get gatorade or water? How many places are we going to see family? How do we make it as great of an experience as last year (last year by the way I told Jason at mile 15 that I would NEVER ever do this again.....then I finished......can't beat that feeling).

Jason and I are working on our plan and talking about how we want to race it. Last year it was all about finishing, this year it's about finishing.....but finishing in 4 hours or less :-)

20 days people. 20. days.

22 Miles!!!!

we DID it!!!!

22 miles pacing 9:19 miles. We ran for 3 hours and 25 minutes. The pace includes all stops including a bathroom stop for mr. jason.

This was a specatular run. It was a beautiful day in the city and we ran all the way to the Museum of Science and Industry. that has always been a landmark that I have alway wanted to run to. We also ran along side the Chicago Half marathon which was fun.

I feel more confident about the 26.2 coming up in 3 weeks now. I think we can break 4 hours as while we were running the miles that were around 9 min/miles felt VERY comfortable and effortless.

ok one more trip to the old pace for last minute stuff then nap time!

(i realize that this isn't the most brilliant post....but mrs. leah is a bit sleepy :-)!!!! but she's very excited about the run and wanted to get it down!)

It's windy and I'm weary

I'm starting to get pretty tired so I think it's time to taper.

Some rather fantastic lyrics to a Barry Manilow-esque song about running? No, just the way I feel today.

Leah and I had ten miles to get in today and, since we also had to take in the rent to the one rental agency towards which we harbor no ill will, we decided to run straight down Damen to Lincoln and Montross and then back. Heading out there got out to a slow start as Leah's ankle was acting up (there's going to be much icing during the next three weeks) but we eventually made it to the rental agency. We dropped off the rent and the management lady (Carolyn or Caroline or University of North Carolina or...something) was so awesome. She was so excited that we ran all the way from our neighborhood and thought it was so cool that we were running the marathon. I'm so glad we moved. I like nice people.

Then we turned to head 5 miles back.

Straight into the wind.

Lots of wind.

booo.

But we made it back. Basically, my legs were just tired. They didn't hurt super bad or anything, they just really, really wanted to stop moving and assume a horizontal position. Despite that, we still pushed on to finish a very hard 10 miles. Grueling, you might say. It's sometimes nice to have those sort of runs so that you know you can run when tired. Or, at least, that's the positive spin I'm putting on it.

Oh, and when we arrived back at our apartment, the Garmin read 10.00. How amazing is Leah at making routes?

Forgot to Mention Speed

With the bitches over ot Hayes Properties consuming my mind I totally spaced on talking about our workout on Wednesday, so here we go.

The plan was 10 miles with 4x1200 @ 5K pace. We ran the 4 miles down to the track, stretched and started running. I don't know if was because we left late (yelling at rental agency for an hour before we left) or we suck, but the repeats were slow. We thought we would like to get them done in about 5:30 or so and they ended up being

1. 5:43 (4:46/km)
   
2. 5:57 (4:58/km)
   
3. 6:04 (5:04/km)
4. 5:46 (4:49/km)
   

Which is really dissapointing. When we ran an 8K back in March we paced 7:34 miles. Those 8K times are roughing coming out to be 5minx5K = 25 minutes/3.1 = 8:06 min/miles......which obviously is about 30 seconds slower than our 8K pace......humpf.

Perhaps next time I'll stay away from the track and just head to the lakefront path and use Garmin...my legs are getting a bit sore from the turning. I don't know. We ended up running all the way home, so we were probably at about 10.5 miles or so which is nice.

No running yesterday but today it's 10, 4 tomorrow (only 4!!!) and then we'll try for 22 on Sunday......get ready because then it's time to sit back a bit and taper....but that means that the race is only 3 weeks from Sunday...um....gulp.....nervousness already setting in.

Do Not Rent From HAYES PROPERTIES - Part 2

Didn't catch part one? Read it here.

Three days before it's time for the lease to transfer hands, Jason a.k.a. Wonder Husband, called the Big Bad Rental Agency (Leah pretty much refused to talk to them after the makeup case incident) to find out how to get our keys back to them. Simple question equaled not such a simple answer.

They wanted Jason to get in contact with the new tenant to find a time in which the keys could be exchanged. We don't feel that this is our responsibility and so Jason tells the woman (who's name is Robin so we'll call her Bird Bitch) that we would rather just drop the keys off to them and they can deal with it since....well since they are the fucking rental agency.

Bird Bitch said, "It's too hard for us to do that, we have like 60 apartments." (so my previous value 24*$1000 can be bumped to over $60,000 a month). B.B. continued to say, "The new tenant would like to move in Saturday night so if you could get him the keys before then that would be great."

Jason said he would call back when we decided what we would do. The happy couple is heavy set on the fact that we don't own the building we shouldn't have to do their key exchanges for them. We noted that when we moved into our new apartment the building manager met us here and gave us keys, showed us the important parts of the building...you know....how it should be done. However, we realize that we are going to be at Wrigleyville Disaster on Saturday morning finishing moving our stuff and cleaning the place so we decide that if the new tenant would like to meet us there at 10am that would work for us.

Leah calls back and leaves a message saying that is what we will do.

About 2 minutes later our phone rings and what do you know it's Bird Bitch. She first asks for Jason and I ask who's calling and when I realize that it's the BBRA I say she can just talk to me....the following conversation ensued :

BB : It's not fair for you to just pick a time like that. What if he's working at 10 am?
Leah : It's not my problem if he's not available, that's when I'll be at the apartment.
BB : You don't understand. How am I suppose to get the keys to him. I left a message but what if he doesn't call me back?
Leah : I thought you wanted a time in which we could exchange the keys.
BB : Well you can't just pick a time!
Leah : Would you like me to be there all day Saturday and Sunday to meet up with him?
BB : You don't understand how inconvient this is for us.
Leah : I don't live there anymore. I am trying to make this easier for everyone. You told my husband that this guy wanted to move in on Saturday night anyways.
BB : I NEVER SAID ANYTHING LIKE THAT.
Leah : Actually you did to my husband.
BB : NO I DIDN'T
Leah : How is this my problem. I am not the rental agency. I am telling you when I am going to be at the apartment finishing our move. HOW IS THIS NOT WORKING FOR YOU?
BB : WILL YOU PLEASE CALM DOWN YOU ARE GETTING ALL HYSTERICAL AND MAYBE YOU SHOULD TRY CALMING DOWN YOU SOUND A LITTLE OUT OF CONTROL. MAYBE IT'S FROM THE MOVE OR SOMETHING.
Leah : YOU'RE RIGHT I AM GETTING FRUSTRATED BECAUSE YOU WON'T LET ME FINISH A SENTANCE AND I DON'T KNOW WHAT ELSE YOU WANT FROM US. I AM TELLING YOU WHEN WE ARE GOING TO BE AT THE APARTMENT, WHEN WE ARE MOVING OUT AND IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU WANT US JUST TO HANG OUT AND WHEN HE GETS THERE WE CAN GIVE HIM THE KEYS.
BB : You are being ridiculous. If the tenant hasn't called you yet to set up a time to exchange keys.....
Leah : Wait a minute, how is it ok for you to give our number out to random people?
BB : We aren't giving it to random people.
Leah : Well I don't know the new tenant, so yes in my book that would be a random person.
BB : Why don't you call back when you are being more rational and have calmed down.

CLICK.

The bitch hung up on me?!?!?!?!

Which let me say, hanging up on me (a phone in our past died becausue of this type of situation) calling me names and interrupting me does NOT GO OVER WELL.

Jason immediatly called back and asked to speak to Robin. Here is their conversation:

Jason : Hi, this is Jason you just spoke to my wife and apparently hung up on her?
Robin : Well, she was being hysterical and yelling. I could hear her the first time we talked and I could hear here yelling hysterically in the background (which Leah would like to add that she wasn't she was just talking to Jason to try and understand what they were talking about)
Jason : I don't think it's your place to tell me how my wife acts.
Robin : Couldn't you hear her talking to me. What's wrong with her?
Jason : Yes I heard her, she wasn't hysterical.
Robin : Maybe I don't know how she talks or what hysterical is.
Jason : It's not our place....
Robin : blah blah blah.
Jason : Can I finis.....
Robin : blah blah blah
Jason : Robin?
Robin : blah blah blah
Jason : Robin? Can I say....
Robin : blah blah blah
Jason : Robin, you never let anyone finish a sentance.
Robin : Well neither does your wife. (What are we 9 years old Leah asks...this woman is all about the Your wife is mean.....)
Jason : I have worked in customer service, it's your job to let me finish my sentance and not INTERRUPT ME!!! Now, what is wrong with Saturday?
Robin : Well what if he was out of town all week and got back next week on Thurday?
Jason : Um? I am guessing you would be giving him the keys at that point right?
Robin goes on and on and on and on about how hard it is for them to get the keys out and Jason could not get a sentance out to her.
Robin : Forget it, I'll just make copies and get him the keys on Friday.
Jason : BUT WHAT IS WRONG WITH GIVING HIM THE KEYS ON SATURDAY MORNING? All we know at this point is that he hasn't call anyone back to let them know if that will work for them.
Leah says to Jason : Why don't you get his number and we can try and call him
Robin : She there she is again yelling and being all hysterical in the background
Jason : Why don't you give us his number and we'll see if we can get the keys to him sometime.
Robin : No I'm not going to give you his number (so it's ok for random people to have our number.....). We'll see if he calls us back..

CLICK.

Bitch hangs up again.

I have NEVER in my life been treated that way. EVER. I do not think that someone should be complaining to my husband about my "hysterical" behavior. When we had all the problems with Comcast last week, I called them and I admit that I got a bit agitated because I was missing days of work......do you know what they did on the other end of the phone? Nothing. They just were quiet until I finished my tirade and then they said, "Maam, I am really sorry for your inconvenience.." Did I stop yelling? Eventually. And eventually they gave us a bunch of credits to our account. This interrupting people and calling them names and yelling at them on the phone because they aren't making your life (you the owner) easier is ridiculous. I don't own the building. I don't rent the apartments. So. Fucking. Ridiculous.

The happy couple will have lots to talk about on thier run tonight. They are guessing that the speed workout will go relatively well considering the fire that has been lit under their asses.

Thus our story time ends and the moral? STAY AWAY FROM HAYES PROPERTIES. They have awful awful customer service. (Hope no one out there just signed a lease with them)

Do Not Rent From HAYES PROPERTIES

A story of a bad rental agency.

Once upon a time there was a beautiful happy running couple by the names of Jason and Leah. After their wedding in 2004 they moved into their dream house (ok apartment) in the middle of the hustle and bustle of Wrigleyville. They were close to their beloved Cubbies, tons of bars and restaurants, the city's 18 mile running path and tons of other city spectacularness. It was perfect. sigh.

Within the first six months of their glorious wedding, they were realizing that it wasn't paradise in which they were living. Fast forward to 1 am at our New Years Eve soiree with our best man barefoot and soaking wet while he plunged...not that kind of story....our toilet. The happy couple thought that the toilet had been fixed in the previous 4 or 5 times the rental company had tried to fix it. Apparently not so, as us and our guests had to go across the hall to use the neighbor's facilities. Jason and Leah continued to have problems with the toilet.....for 18 months. Sometimes it would be fine. Other times they were forced to go stay the weekend with Leah's parents because there was no emergency number.....and zero water going down the toilet does not equal "livable". Finally the sewer men found the culprit : a makeup case was stuck down there. Leah was sure that it was not her makeup case since she had not bought that type of makeup for roughly 2 years. The Big Bad Rental Agency called Leah and told her she owed them $150.

Her eye widen as she says, "Um....well.....I don't own.....it's been broken since we moved in."

B.B.R.A. said, "Well if there was a problem, you should have called when it happened."

Leah said, "Well, I did. Don't you guys have a record of that kind of stuff? And for that matter it's not even my makeup case so why should I pay for it"

B.B.R.A. said, "Well, you just don't understand how expensive this stuff is for us."

Leah thinks, "Wait I pay about a grand a month in rent........so do the other 24 tenants of just this building....and these are the reasons that I RENT!!!" She proceeds to write a letter to the company explaining the situation and that is all that was ever heard about it.

Fast forward to July of 2006. The couple get a letter in the mail stating that their rent will be going up $25 and that we had to tell them within 2 weeks otherwise it would go up an additional $5. Jason and Leah were ready for this since they had dealt with this same issue the previous year, but had argued with B.B.R.A. to only increase the rent $10 which they had thought was fair. What is brilliant with the B.B.R.A plan is that there are no aparments available for October 1st on July 15th. So if the happy runners don't find anything they would be forced to pay the $30 instead of the meger value of $25.

After all the problems with the company, the happy couple decided to move to the Village of the Ukrainians. They found a nice 2 bedrooom apartment for $100 less than the Wrigleyville Disaster and found a nice rental agency to go along with it. They have a buildling manager that can be reached at any time if there is an emergency. And although the move in was a little shakey with some feline urinary issues, the company straightened everything out and were very nice and quick about it.

Fast forward to when it's time for the new tenant to take over the Wrigleyville Disaster, as that is when our story really gains momentum.

Stay tuned as Leah fixes the gasket she blew talking to B.B.R.A. (which is Hayes Properites if it wasn't clear from the title)

Recovery for Reals

Yesterday was a 5 mile run with 6x100m strides. We started the run from our old apartment so we would be forced to finish there so we would be forced to fill more boxes and move them. I hate this moving in town shit. When you move out of town you better have everything done on moving day. At least all of this will be over by Saturday.

The run was fine. I am having some pain in my lower left leg....don't know what that's all about. Today we have 10 miles with 4x1200m@5K pace (that's right...it's another V02 Max). We'll run down to the track on Chicago Ave sprint it out and run back.

Friday it's 10 miles, then 4 on Saturday and the plan calls for 20 on Sunday but I think we'll try for 22 and see how that goes. Hopefully my lower leg agrees with all the miles....

Monday we start the taper....who's excited? ooooh me memememe!!!!!

My Little Helper

Working from home today and only somewhat torturing kitty :

5 Paced, Phase 2, 17 LSD & I'm 27

This weeked was BUSY! On Friday night we went to our old apartment and apparently, "Jason, all we have to do is pack up a few things in the kitchen and we'll be done." was slightly exagerrated. We started opening all the cabinets and realizing how much storage space we have in that apartment compared to our new place. We packed up a box or two and then headed down the street to get some burgers and beers and then grabbed a few of the boxes and headed back to our new apartment.

I had dreams of getting up at 5:30am Saturday morning and crusing through a 9 mile pace run before going to get out Budget truck and continuing with the move for the day. Right. No. That didn't happen. I did get up at 7am however and we cruised through a 5 mile pace run. It went well, we pace 8:30 miles for the whole thing which is pretty good.

We spent the rest of the day moving our furniture to our new place. Thanks to my cousin Lisa and her fiance Evin for helping us. Our old apartment was on the third floor, so we had a nice bit of cross training. We made the first trip back to the new place with our funiture and Jason gets to tell me, "I told you so" because everything fit! I was convinced that it wouldn't but as he reminded me, we live in a 3D world :-) On the way back to the old place for another trip we realized we were starving and saw a Burger King and so for the first time in a long time we enjoyed big Whoppers with Cheese and some fries. So. Delicious. When we got back to the old place I just started throwing stuff into boxes. None of it goes together but it's all somewhere. I had one box that had some pictures in it, a fancy pillow, some CD's some books and some kitchen utensils.

Now our apartment is filled with furniture (yeah) and lots and lots of boxes (booo). We will try and get through the boxes this afternoon as this isn't quite what you would call work conducive. The best part (aside from having a couch to sit on) is that we have our bed now. No more air mattress, and wow that proved to be nice and I slept really hard on Saturday night and woke up at 5:30am Sunday morning sans alarm clock.

On Sunday morning we went out for a 17 miler. My garmin's batteries were dead, but I knew about where we should turn around. This ended up being really nice as sometimes, it's really nice to just go out and run and let the world around you pass by and not be only in tune with your watch. It was a beautiful morning along the lake front and I don't remember the last time we were up so early. It's amazing how quiet downtown bustling Chicago can be at certain times of the day. Very. Cool.

We ended up doing this run in about 2 hours and 35 minutes which is great. 2 hours and 33 minutes would have been 9 minute miles. So a good day.

Sunday was also my birthday. I'm the big 27. I don't know why I feel so old. I know 27 is not old, but I think when I was in my lower twenties, I was like 27? That's old. Sigh. Oh well, my next scary age is 44 so I got some years in between. Hopefully by my birthday next year you'll all be able to call me Dr. Leah.....that's if my advisor doesn't give me the boot first (hence I should get to work)

Jason gave me Bears tickets for my birthday!!!!! The Sunday after the marathon which should be loads of fun. This Sunday however we went out to a bar called Cans and met up with Mike and Barb, our friends Jake and Laura and Lisa stopped by for awhile as well. We had a great time and it was a perfect way to celebrate. It was hilarious because the Bears were down with 2 minutes to go and I was like, "That's just perfect, all I really wanted for my birthday was a Bears win". The next two plays......TOUCHDOWN. It's when you can win not easily that I think shows that potential of a team. So Go Bears.

Alright, it's off to work for me (now that I am working from home this just requires me opening another window...I love working at home!). Enjoy your Monday's!

It Only Took 8 Hours

And another missed day of work. Whatever, Comcast comped us and addition 25 dollars on top of the 3-4 days we had already gotten. Hopefully we won't have as many problems now.

BUT because we had to stay home all day yesterday, we had to come into work today to try and catch our advisor. This means that we won't be able to get to the old apartment early this afternoon to pack. Which means we'll be there late...which means we'll probably be skipping the 4 miles tonight. I want to have a quality 5-9 mile run tomorrow morning though so I think this will be fine.

I will post pictures of the new place soon, I have just been wanting to wait so that I have furniture in there so it doesn't look so barren. Everyone cross your fingers for our furniture fitting into the apartment (I wouldn't be me if I didn't have something to worry about)

Comcast, The Last 4 Miles and Furniture

oooooh I am livid. We had an outage all day yesterday and we just got all of our services hooked up on Monday. Not looking good for Comcast so far. I love when you call these places and they say, "Well we just know there is an outage, but we don't know what it is or when it will be turned back on" I let loose on the third lady that I talked to and actually I have to hand it to them they did give me a three day credit and told me the outage would be over at 10pm. When everything was still broken at midnight we called back. "Oh yes the outage is still happening and we don't know when it will be fixed....". When we woke up this morning and everything is still not working we call again, "Oh there is no outage now so there must be another problem so we'll send out a tech guy. But just so you know if it's not a problem with the cable we are going to charge you" They are going to see a nasty Leah runner who works from home if they charge me for anything! I guess the woman gave us another credit this morning. Grumble. Grumble. Grumble. If I miss the Grey's Anatomy premier this evening because I can't DVR it I am going to go balistic.

Alright then.

Right the 11 miles yesterday went well. We did it much slower this time coming in at about 9:30 min/mile pace.

While we were running I rememberd something that helped me get through the end of the marathon last year and I thought I would share. Last summer at the end of any run we did when there was 4 miles left I would stop talking to Jason and focus in on the distace that was left. 4 miles, 3 miles, 2 miles, 1 mile, finish. This was beyond beneficial on marathon day because when I got to 22 miles I had a surge of energy because I knew that distance. I knew exactly how much farther I had to go and I knew that I could get through 4 miles because no matter how bad I had felt during my training runs, I powered through the last 4 miles. I will start to do this again, concentrating on that exact distance. We did that last night and our last four miles were 9:05, 8:50, 8:45 and 8:41. Just a tip that helped me last year.

The rest of the week is 4 miles on Friday, 8-15K race (we aren't racing but we will run as if we were) and then 17 on Sunday. The only hitch in this plan is that we are moving all of our heavy furniture on Saturday so I am hoping that Sunday's run will go alright. We should have some help though and we are doing it in one big move instead of many many trips. I am convinced that our furniture is not going to fit into our new apartment although Jason promises me it will.....(but I have measured......I don't think so) Doors will come off, windows will come out. Dammit I am going to have a couch to sit on. If anyone is not busy on Saturday and wants to lift furniture (I know I know there isn't much else one would want to do) let me know....there will be free beer for helpers :-)

Just the Norm V02 Max

Tonight was another V02 Max workout. After last weeks 5x1000 repeats we were ready to kick some ass on 5x600 repeats.

We did the 4 miles to the track and since there aren't any markers on the track I just change the units on Garmin to meters and then set the quick workout for intervals with .6 km followed by 90 seconds of recovery. I am almost 100% sure that the track is a 400m track (I ran the 400 in high school for two years...actually I ran the open 400, the medly relay 400 and the mile relay 400 at each meet.....I know the distance well :-) ...I love the 400m race, I think it's by far the most exciting race in track and field....ok...back to todays non-400m workout shall we......alright) TODAY was 600 meters which should be 1.5 laps. I think that two of the repeats were too long since we went what seemed to be an extra 100m so those times were slow, but as far as the feeling of the repeats they all felt about the same. So a good workout. I am having some kind of pain in my lower left leg, but it goes away after running for a mile or two...so I'm going to say I just need to stretch more....so I should actually do that!

There was another running couple at the track and holy ass were they fast and beautiful runners. I think they were doing 800m repeats and just very very speedy. So to them, if you are reading this....and I'm sure you not.....but nice job.

This evening Jason and I went to the container store because I got tired of trying to find a butcher block/cabinet type thing for out kitchen on Craigslist. It's all still kind of expensive and I couldn't find anything that wasn't kinda crappy. So we got this cool elfa shelf thing with drawers, a cutting board on top and wheels so we can move it around the kitchen, I think it should work out well.

To our delight we ran into Barb and Mike who were buying a hamper solution thing. It was good to see them and this is the second time we have run into them outside of running, we must have some kind of couples karma :-)

Anyways, tomorow is an 11 mile medium long run which we are going to try and slow down a bit since these midweek runs have all been too fast and I think this was the problem last week on Sunday.

Happy Running Everyone!

Bad Distance Runners BAD!!!

Well disappointment.

Today was a 17 with 14 at marathon pace. After all the good runs we had this week we were looking forward to it. Unfortunaly I don't think Jason and I are recovering enough and I think we are doing our midweek runs too fast. What does that mean? Dead, tired and not moving legs. We stopped several times in the first three miles for water and to stretch and after 4 miles (that's total not an additional :-( ) we stopped and stared at each other with the What The Fuck look in our eyes.

Granted we know this is not good, however, we have 5 weeks to get our shit together. We have a few long runs to get in still and 5 weeks to work on sleeping and eating better. One slice of frozen pizza after the 12 miles just isn't going to cut it. I also realize that we have missed a few of our longer runs in the training schedule, so I guess we can say we are running a modified Pfitz program. Since this is only our second marathon and we have had a summer from hell I am not that worried about it. I think we have already done more total miles than the plan we followed last summer and we ran 4:20 last year. We are hoping with the additional runs (even though we have missed some) we will be able to get under 4 hours this year. That's the plan anyways.

I am very dissapointed but I am hoping that next week things will go better. We will probably get up early tomorrow and try to run 10 at a brisk pace to make up for today. Then we'll do our run on tuesday in the evening to still give us plenty of recovery time.

Dammit Dammit Dammit.

City Running, for reals

On Friday, Leah and I went for a 12 mile run throughout the city. It was quite the trek, I must say. We started on Iowa and Western (Iowa's 900 North), went East a mile to Ashland, zig-zagged around like crazy (Leah can fill in the details, but we hit Cortland, Southport, Lincoln, and a few others) all the way North to Montrose (4400 North). Given that there are 8 block to a mile, this was still almost not enough and we had to do a bit more zigging on the way home.

It's crazy, I know.

City running is so different than running on the lakefront path. For one thing, the blocks are relatively short, so a milestone is never far off. As a result, it seems like you are travelling a long ways, but the watch tells a different story. I find it takes a lot more mental discipline to run far in the city than along the lakefront. Between the difficulty in estimating distance and the lack of a well-worn route (so far, we just moved out here), the miles don't just slip way like on the lakefront path. That being said, the marathon will be run in the city, so I do believe this to be very good training for the marathon.

Finally, the real difficulty with running on the city sidewalks is the concrete. The entire 12 miles was on concrete and that was some serious pounding. I felt it all the way up into my hips and my feet got really sore. While the run was still good, I definitely felt the impact of each step more than I prefer. But, hey, high impact's good for ya. We don't want no sissy runners around here.

I'm not ragging on running in the city versus the lakefront path, mind you. I'm just noting that it's a bit harder. That being said, I really like winding my way through all the different neighborhoods and exploring new areas of the city. It's the only way to get around. Still, I'm pretty happy that the 17 milers later today will take place primarily on the lakefront path because my calves, shins and knees could really use a break.

They be achy.

Spring Break Marathon

Hey People

Jason and I are thinking about running a spring marathon. We are thinking about this one :

www.sarasotamarathon.com

It's on March 4th and so perfect timing to start training after a short break after Chicago. It's much smaller, I think there were like 1700 runners last year in the inagural run.

Anyone else interested? We could start a winter training group. People might have different paces but we could try and do the same workouts each day and then after the long runs go and get breakfast or whatever. If you are interested and not in Chicago we could of course still compare training notes. I was thinking this race could be a bit more fun and just more experience in running the distance. Road trip?

PLUS this marathon is about 30 minutes away from my mom which means that everyone could meet her :-).

Let me know if you are interested.

More Working At Home

Jason and I have been throwing around the idea of working almost exclusively from home. I am not hooked up with any kind of postdoc at Fermilab so there is no one to talk to on a daily basis. And with the ease of iChat video on the Macs I can actually video conference with my advisor easier if I am at home. Plus the iMac that we have is much faster than my desktop at work so that's not an issue.

That being said....we all know that working at home turns into "working at home" frequently. We have to make sure that we get good quality work done at home to make it possible. We are thinking about giving it a two week trial period and seeing how it goes. We'll still have to go in once a week probably to meet with our advisor when he's in town, but that's really it.

So that's the idea, I am really hoping that we can make it work. On Monday, Comcast comes and puts in our new shiney services (we went for the triple play and we are getting DVR which I am super excited about) so we'll be able to start the work at home plan next week. Here's to hoping.

12 miles later today which will be more neighborhood running, hopefully I can dodge the lights a little bit better today.

Before I head off to bed

Alright, I'm wrapping up the last week of these stupid midnight-8am shifts. I did manage to sleep a couple hours before coming to work, but I'm still pretty tired so hopefully this is at least half-way coherent.

Yesterday Leah and I stayed home from work since I knew that I would be coming in for these shifts and I didn't really want to be at work for 24 hours (I love work as much as the next physicist, but...). She went to our other apartment to take advantage of our super-fast computer and I went to use the wireless at a cafe. Sadly, our favorite coffee shop, Cafe Ballou, is closed on Wednesday so I had to head over to this other place, Cafe Zori. This place couldn't possibly be more Ukraniane.

I just ordered coffee to start off and the lady gave me a nice big cup, simultaneously pushing the cream and sugar in my direction. I thanked her and started grabbing for my coffee when she frowned and asked if I didn't want cream and sugar. I assured her, no, I take it black. She looked very concerned and asked if I was sure. When I assured her I was, she offered to make my coffee stronger with an extra shot of expresso. Other than the extra expresso shot, I'm fairly sure I've had the exact same conversation at Leah's Ukranian Grandmother's house. Oh those Ukranians.

(hmm, that story sounded more interesting in my head. sorry about that)

Anyway, Leah and I worked separately before combining our efforts at the Bucktown library to tackle this coding problem that was driving her crazy. Honestly, thinking about it started to make my head hurt. Eventually, though, Leah triumphed over her code and the error was discovered. Basically, the problem was that pointers are evil, and I'll leave it at that.

Code bugs vanquished and the afternoon growing late, it was time to run. We have 9 miles with 5x1000 meters at our 5 k pace. This was, to say the least, terrifying. I was honestly concerned about getting through this run.

We did the usual, running down Augusta/Chicago to the track over by Lakeshore Drive and then walked about a lap to get ready. Then we were off! The first one was kind of hard, but I think that's because we were a little fast at 4:17. Our goal was around 4:30 for each kilometer, so we agreed to slow it down for the next one (and my lungs were thankful). In the end, the splits were as follows (between each, we walked for 45 seconds and then jogged for 1:15 minutes):

1 k: 4:17
2 k: 4:30
3 k: 4:26
4 k: 4:29
5 k: 4.37

Neither of us could understand how the last one could possibly have been that much slower than the rest, but maybe we were just tired. All in all though, we were both really proud to hit the pace so well and feel that we did them about perfectly. In the end, the first and third ones were hard, but the other laps weren't so bad.

We then jogged 2.5 k back to make an even 15k, which is right around 9.3 miles. A great run, I have to say. We then stopped at a really expensive sandwich place to get a drink, hopped on the 66 bus, and were home in time to eat and fall asleep watching the Cubs play really bad baseball. And after that? Well, I'm here. Boo.

Okay, my relief should be here soon and then I'm gonna grab me some air mattress.

ZigZaggy 8 Miles

Yesterday evening Jason and I went for an 8 mile run through the streets instead of heading down to the lake front path. This is one of the best things about Garmin for city kids, because when you miss a light you can just turn down a different street and you don't have to worry about screwing up a preplanned route. We made it almost all the way back up to our old apartment but headed back west a big south of Belmont. We got a little turned around near Diversy and Damen which is a neighborhood that you don't really want to get turned around it. Hence that miles was done in 8:18.

We finished pacing 9:02 miles (I think) which is good. I feel like our runs however are creeping towards all about the same speed. I think we could have been around 8:50 last night had it not been for lights (even though you can dodge them...you can only run west for so long).

At the end of the run we stopped in a sandwich place on Western for a nice big Pepsi and found the guy working there to be really really nice. He looked at us and said, "Oh it must be raining out." and we said, "Actually, no it's not....we are just that sweaty". We walked back home ate some frozen pizza for dinner (I thought I couldn't get tired of frozen pizza....turns out...I can as I had 1.5 pieces).

Tonight is a V02 Max workout : 9 miles with 5x1000m at 5K pace. We'll head down to the track on Chicago again later this afternoon. If anyone else in the city is doing a speed workout there maybe we'll see you :-)

A Surprise Weekend

What an awesome weekend!!!

On Saturday morning the floor guys came to fix our floors and so Jason and I were in and out all day. We went to the laundry mat, to the coffee house, to Dodo for a late breakfast, to Borders to our Old apartment to pick up some stuff. Anything to stay out of the house while they were sanding and scraping and painting. That evening we were going to a surprise birthday party for old friends of the family. So all of a sudden it was 3:30 and we had to leave for the party (we didn't want to miss the surprise part and hand to be there between 4-5). We didnt' get a run in that day because I could get into my apartment to change into running clothes and they took all day, so we decided to skip the 8-15K tune up race because well...life got in the way.

So we head out to Brookfield for the party and I call my dad and tell him that our floors look awesome and and I am so happy with the job they did and blah blah blah. I tell him Jason and I were close to the party so I was going to let him go. We got to the house and Kay and Gary say that their son Sam for who the party was for was in the basement playing the drums and that Jason and I and Evin (my cousin's fiance) should go down and surprise him. I am a little thrown at this point because I thought it was going to be a big surprise party, but ok, I guess it's just going to be the three of us. So I head downstairs and who is behind the drum set?

MY DAD!!!!!!!

He came into town to surprise me for my birthday! He did this last year too and I totally did not see it coming. He came two weeks early so that helped keep the suprise, but oh it was just so much fun!!!!

That night we watched the end of the Notre Dame game (they could go all the way this year!!!) and hung out.

Jason and I went back home and got up early on Sunday to get our 17 miles in. I have to say we felt pretty damn good. Even though it was raining sideways for about 16.5 miles of the run we had a really nice time out there. I talked to more people along the path which made the time go by a bit faster. We paced 9:17 miles which I can only be happy about. When we got home I called my dad and he came to the city and we spent the rest of the day hanging out in our new neighborhood and watching the Bears (sorry Bob) kick some Packer Ass. Hey Bears fans....how good did they look!!!! We have been waiting for Rex to play like that for years....let's hope he stays healthy.

I took yesterday off from work to hang out with my dad some more. He came by the apartment around 8:30 and we promptly put him to work fixing stuff around our apartment. He put dimmer switches in our dinning room, and just some other little odd jobs that we needed help with.

It was so awesome to see him and already can't wait to see him in 6 weeks for the marathon. So happy birthday to me (although it's a bit early) and thanks Dad for coming to visit. You and Jason will have to get more clever as the years go on though if you keep doing this :-)

Today is an 8 mile GA run and then...well I haven't looked at the rest of the week yet, so I don't know.

We'll Have NEW Floors!!!

On SATURDAY morning!!!!

The contractor for the building came to look at our floors today and I'm not insane as apparently when he and Jason pulled back the plastic we had covering the spots the smell was way overpowering! The guy was like, "That's gross" and called (of course) his cousin to come out and take a look at what actually would have to be done.

After dude #2 came out they decided to rip out the old floor boards and lay down some new ones in large areas surrounding the bad floor boards in the two rooms AND they are going to sand and reseal both rooms as long as they are in there.

I am so excited and now just so much more excited about the apartment. I can't wait to move all my furniture and organize the rooms and.....well and it's just going to be so much fun!

The best part is that they are going to be there on Saturday morning so we won't be living in Stinkyville for much longer. So for the record, we like our rental agency as they got this problem taken care of in one weeks time.

11 Weekday Miles

Yesterday Jason and I did an 11 mile medium long run. I guess these paces should be around where you long run paces are. Our first 5 miles or so were probably a little too fast (9 and under) but as we were running down Chicago Ave we made every single light. For those of you city kids you know how infrequent that is. We got to the lakefront and since all of our distances are screwed up from as we knew them before we decided to shake things up a bit. Now wait for it....we get kind of crazy here.

Instead of staying on the lake front path after the aquarium, we took a left and ran out onto the point by the planitarium. This was probably at about 7:30 pm and the view of the Chicago skyline was breath taking. New Yorkers....you don't have much on that view. Sorry. We turned around on the other side of the planitarium, stretched for about a minute and stared at the full moon with several sailboats beneath them. I would love to have a really nice digital camera where I could take long exposure pictures that would have the moon or even that night time skyline in them.

We finished the run averaging 9:14 min/miles which is perfect. We stopped at a Walgreens for some gatorade and then jumped on the Chicago bus back to western. I had worn a cotton t-shirt last night and it was soaked with sweat, so I was totally that nasty sweaty person on the bus. Oh well, I say if you don't like it.....don't take the bus.

We have a contractor coming to look at our floors today. I had to go to work today so Jason is in charge of making sure it gets taken care of. You can all imagine how much I like not being in charge, but Jason is a lot nicer than me so Mr. Contractor won't get yelled at if he thinks the floors don't need to be done....which he cannot possibly think as far as I am concerned. I am hoping that Jason can convince the guy that since he is doing a patch of the kitchen floor to do all of it because they aren't in the best shape...we'll see.

Happy Thursday everyone!

Speedy in Chicago

Last night was a speed session. 8 miles with 5x600m at a 5K pace with 90s of jogging inbetween these.

When Jason and I went running on Sunday we found a track that is on Chicago Ave and basically Lake Shore Drive. For you Chicago people it's right next door to the Museum of Contemporary Art. I was talking to my dad and I think that it used to be a part of Northwestern. It has proved to be a really nice find.

Anyways, we decided to run there from our new apartment which we have found to work out really well. We have found the best way to get over the expressway and to the lakefront is to take Augusta over it and then hang a right at Elston and take this to Chicago Ave and then Chicago Ave to the lakefront. Chicago Ave does get really crowded and lots of stopping and starting with the lights...but as dear old dad says, "that's just a problem looking for a solution". It's a little over 4 miles to the lakefront path which is a nice warm up to get ready to run.

Yesterday however we stopped before the lakefront path at the track to start our speedwork. We ended up running 4 miles before starting the speed repeats. Our goal is to do these repeats between a 6:50 min/mile pace to 7:10 min/mile. We totally started off way way too fast and we were both sucking wind severly after the first one. We didn't really know what the problem was, but we scrapped our bodies off the track and kept going. Later when looking at the repeat times I realized why we were so tired:

1. 5:44 min/mile : 2:10.69
2. 7:12 min/mile : 2:43.87
3. 6:53 min/mile : 2:36.80
4. 7:04 min/mile : 2:41.00
5. 7:00 min/mile : 2:39.47

I think that if we had slowed the first one down we would have been able to be a bit faster on the other four. The speed workout ended up being 2.5 miles total. We ran 1.5 miles west on Chicago and jumped on the bus and rode the remaining 3 miles or so to Western and then walked the few blocks home.

While we were running these repeats there was TONS happening over by the park. There was a 16" softball game happening as well as live music coming from the MCA next door. It was a really really wonderful evening in the city and just more fuel for my "I don't want to leave Chicago" fire.

I am really enjoying doing more running in the city. When we lived in Wrigleyville we always did the same route.....waveland to the lakefront....south for x number of miles and then back north for x number of miles and then home. Not too exciting and I'm sure we'll get into similar ruts in our new place, but as of now there is tons to see and fun making new loops.

Anyone interested in going to the Ukrainian Village Festival on Sunday afternoon? This is taking place 3 blocks from our apartment and is 1-10pm on Sunday afternoon....perfect for after say a early morning long run. Beer Garden and Ukrainian food and dancers....really anything better? Let me know at jasonleahrun@gmail.com.

School Project Help

Hello to people out in blogland. My advisor's son is taking a statistics course and needs to get lots of people to answer some random questions. He's having some problems getting enough responses SO...

Please go here :

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=247262538621

and answer 10 random questions. The project is due tomorrow (Sept 5th) so if you don't read this until tomorrow....don't worry about it.

Thanks everyone!

Not Far Enough

Well the weekend of moving has come to an end.

We are slowly making headway in moving the important stuff from our old apartment to our new apartment and have a solution for the cat urine stains. Jason's dad (thanks Walt!) had a good solution to try and contain the smells at least until we could talk to the apartment folks on Tuesday. We got some plastic painters floor covering and put a big rectangle over where the stains are and then sealed the edges with duct tape. I think it has helped a lot already and so hopefully the apartment will air out in the next few days and then we can deal with the stains on Tuesday (hopefully!)

What's frustrating is that they aren't my cat's stains as she always goes in her box (and let's all give Dagny a big hand as even though there are cat smells all over the new place she is dutifully using her box!).

The run today was well. crappy. after the whirlwind of the last few days I have to say I am happy that we went out at all all. We went 5 miles yesterday and then 7 today with about 3-4 more walking back to the bus stop. I am a bit dissapointed, but that's what happens when Life happens. We should get things under control today and tomorrow and get back on the schedule this week. OH AND I found a nice little track on Chicago and basically the lake front. My dad said it might have been a part of Northwestern but now it's just a track for the public. It has two softball fields in the middle of it so no need to dodge the high school kids since it's not part of a school. That's a huge find because I'll be able to do my speed workouts there.

Alright, we are currently at our old apartment getting some last minute stuff (coffe pot and pizza cutter are vital to our living) and then it's back to the new place to clean up the rooms, put clothes away, move boxes out of the room that has now been labeled the 'P' room....and probably watch some Scrubs on DVD...which by the way is the best show ever!

A big thanks goes out to Jason for being so positive about this experience. He is and always the be the best hubby a girl can have. :-)

Here's to a better week of running and living situations!!!

Apartment Disaster

This has been the worst move ever. We are renting our current apartment to our friend semi-furnished for the month of september. The thinking here was that we would then not have to rent a truck and could just move things in stages. We worked from 8pm Thursday night to about 10pm last night with a 3 hour nap in between. needless to say our 12 mile run didn't happen. And? Oh we still don't have a bunch of our stuff that we need....like our coffee pot for example. (although it's all getting there)

The big problem though is that the old tenant at our new apartment had a cat that apparently missed the fucking litter box. For 2 YEARS. The whole apartment smells like cat urine and it's all soaked up into the wood. I tried to clean it up with this extra strength cleaner, and scrub it out. Now I have just made the floors worse and the smell not better. There are two main spots, one in the kitchen and one in the second bedroom. Of course I won't be able to talk to the apartment people until Tuesday because of the holiday and I am guessing when I tell them they have to sand and resurface those two rooms (it's all hard wood) they are going to say no. and I am going to continue to have a nervous break down. I went to Home Depot and asked the guy if there was anything I could do and he said it would be such a pain in the ass and to tell the landlords they have to do it.

I am so pissed because I actually love moving and this has made the whole experience awful and depressing. Whatever.

I hope to get 5 miles in tonight and then 20 tomorrow and count going up and down three flights of stairs for 24 hours equal to 12 miles.

shit.