Classic Me Weekend – Running & Tacos & Yoga (+ Bonus Vomit)

With just a couple weeks until the Key West Half Marathon, I gotta keep at it. So this weekend, I did my best.

Friday wasn’t so good. I didn’t run. I had some weird nausea and light headedness. I even had to pull over my car so I could vomited on the side of the road.

Fast forward to Saturday…I felt less vomity, so I met up with some friends at White Rock Lake early in the morn. The plan was 14 miles @ 8:30 pace. We ended up going a little further and a little faster than planned. Felt good.

Looped the lake, and then some.

After the run, a small group of us went for tacos…duh!

The devil made me do it.

While Saturday was chilly, it was nothing compared to the 30 or so degrees it dropped over night thanks to the Arctic air sent down from Canada. Yes, I blame Canada (can you please fix the Texas weather Mrs. Outdoor Running Adventures?).

I do.

I had put a call out to some of my Sunday Runday buds to join me for some chilly miles, but all I heard back was cricket creeks. I guess a 25mph constant wind that causes a 16 degree wind chill wasn’t up their alley.

Anyway, I decided that since the conditions were tough, that I should say ‘screw it’ and make my run even tougher. So I did 7 miles with a series of nasty hill repeats. My cheeks were frozen by the end.

After, I warmed up with some yoga…

So what, I’m in a yoga class in a Lululemon – I can still keep it old school gangsta.

So there ya go. Pretty much what you’d expect from me, right? Running, tacos, yoga, misguided blame…Just a typical weekend in PirateBobcat’s world. Love it!

How bout you? Did you get Arctic blasted? Do you blame Canada? Ever make a tough workout tougher just to spite the weather gods?

-Scott

Birthday Runs & Tacos Addiction

The day after St. Patrick’s Day is my berfday.  Always has been.  Which is kind of bitter sweet.  Sweet in the fact that it’s so close to one of the biggest parties of the year.  Bitter because the day after St. Pat’s, not too many people want to party (many are hungover).  But I can’t do nuthin about it, so I try to make the best of it!

I celebrated with a Guinness in my personalized glass, along with the 4 leaf clover plant my wife got me!

Bring me luck!  #please #luckyclover #andluckyguinness

I seem to always go for a run on my bday and that didn’t change this year.  And to keep the birthday week going, I did another run today.

And look out competitors in my age group – I did hill repeats for the first time this season.  Hill repeats are basically the beginning of speed work, and soon I’ll be moving back to the track.  #Yeehaw!

Other than that, I’ve been taking full advantage of birthday meals this week.  So far I’ve had three taco meals.  I took a photo of two of em.  (I scarfed down the third before I could snap a pic.)

That’s an Independent and a Dirty Sanchez from Torchy’s Tacos. #Honestly #that’stheirnames #veggietoo

Mahi Mahi was so Goodi Goodi. #Iknowit’samahisteak #youputthepartsinsoftcorntortillas #tomakeataco

I still have a few days left in my birthday week, and I have some more stuff planned.  #willkeepyouposted

How bout you?  Anyone doing hill and/or track work?  What’s your birthday meal?  Am I using hashtags correctly?  Anyone want to celebrate with me the day After St. Patty’s Day next year? #i’llbeyourfriend

The End is Near

I ain’t talking about the end of the world, that happened last year as the Mayan’s predicted.  I’m talking about your training.  Every day is one day closer to the end.  I reminded myself this a couple times this week already.  Why?  Not because I wasn’t enjoying it (I was…kind of), but it was hard.  I had to remind myself that I will need the strength I’m growing now when my race(s) come later.

Lemme splain.  In high school soccer, our coach ran us into the ground in preseason training.  We had 3-a-day summer practices, starting at like 5am and finishing at dusk.  People be pukin everywhere.  But he kept reminding us that we were going to need the fitness we were gaining not then, but a few months later when playoffs started.  In the middle of July, he kept saying we were training for October.  He was right.  We were faster, stronger, fitter, then every team we played.  When October came around, we never got tired.

I was a notorious midriff show-er.

So when I woke up the other day and saw “hill repeats” on the schedule, it was not only tempting to get back in bed, but to skip the hills for just an easy run.  But then I remembered, I’m not training for October, I’m training for January.  Every hill repeat I did, I reminded myself that come race day, I’ll be glad I did these now.  Same in the gym…when my legs were screaming from all my walking lunges and I wanted to skip a set, I reminded myself that I’ll need this strength in a few months.

If it was easy, everyone would do it, right?  We have to do the hard stuff now, so that we’re injury-free, fitter, and stronger later.

So if you have a training this week, remember that you’ll be glad you did it come race day.  If you have a race this weekend, remember that you did the time, you did the work, and you’ll be ready to go!

What about you?  Did you ever do a workout you didn’t want to do and afterwards wish you hadn’t?  I doubt it, ha!  What upcoming workout are (not) looking forward to, but will destroy anyway?

 

Hill Repeats Wednesdays

This morning’s Dopey Challenge training called for 5 miles at race pace.  Every other Wednesday it calls for race pace, with just a normal slower run on alternating hump days.  I’ve been taking these days to do Hill Repeats.  I ended up doing probably 1.5 miles of repeats.  If you’ve ever done them, you know they are hard.  But you also know how strong of a runner they make you.  Besides strength, they also make you a faster runner.  And pretty much every race is going to have some sort of incline at some point – even the “flat” courses…I found this out the hard way a few months back.

I was running the Outer Banks, NC Flying Pirate Half Marathon.  Since it was on an island at sea level, I assumed it’d be flat.  Also, the course description on the web site said it was flat, but with one hill right before the finish.  Like a fool, I believed them.

Battling the Unexpected Hills (Not sure if that’s their official name or not)

Yes, it was mostly flat.  But there was one noticeable hill around mile 5 when we were running by the shoreline and had to take a left to enter a neighborhood.  The shoreline was sea level, the neighborhood was not.  We had to run up a hill to get there.  But that was it until mile 10.  Only one hill in the first 10 miles? I will take it!

But after mile 10, things changed.  We left the paved path and entered an unpaved nature preserve.  The last 3.1 miles were full of ups and downs…literally! I hadn’t done a stitch of hill work preparing for this race, and I paid for it.  The PR I was on pace for tripped and went rolling down a hill.

I wrote all about it in my race recap HERE.

I won’t get into the details again in this post, as I just want mention it to make a point:  Always do at least some hill work when preparing for a race!  If you do, you’ll be prepared for any hills you face.  Also, if you do luck out and your race is perfectly flat, then you’ll be stronger and faster for having done some hill work.  Imagine how much easier a flat race is if you’d done some prep for it by running up and down inclines!

So yes, do go out there and make mountains out of molehills!

-Scott