November 2018 Monthly Running Challenge

Treadmill’d it today. The weather was decent but I was lazy and by the time I worked up the motivation to run it was dark out, so I did it to myself. Did 4.4 miles total, but I walked the first mile so I’m only counting 3.4!
This is TMI but I forgot my sports bra and was subjected to running in a regular bra. Let me just say, my nipples are on fire 😭😭😭
It looks like I may actually make my goal this month!
11/2: 4.1 miles
11/3: 3.3 miles
11/5: 2.4 miles
11/7: 5.1 miles
11/10: 6.5 miles!!!
11/14: 3.5 miles
11/16: 3.3 miles
11/17: 5.2 miles
11/21: 3.1 miles
11/22: 3.1 miles
11/24: 3.4 miles
Cumulative for November: 43/50 miles

I thought about running today but my right foot is still twinging at times. So I went shopping for new trail shoes instead.

These have an 8mm drop, so pretty much right between the two pairs of road shoes I alternate between. The tread isn't as aggressive as my Peregrine Ice+ but these will be great for most of what I'll be running with them.

Taking running day by day right now. Since I had some sensation today I won't attempt until Tuesday. Starting to get stir-crazy though.

I'll make a better post later.
Turkey trot complete. 1000s of people. No pr but my friends ran their first 8k. This was my first race and first 8k a few years back too.
I'm on day 3 of my streak. Doing the rw streak. Snowstorm in the forecast for tomorrow.

Happy late Thanksgiving. It's been way too long since I posted and need to get back to the challenge, I've missed you all. I've been running on and off, but taking care of Skip has taken over the past couple of months. Since you all have been her virtual family I wanted to let you know what is happening with her. First thank you to those of you who have been there to give me advice and help me help her.

As most of you know Skip went to college in August on a running scholarship. She was so excited and the first few weeks were wonderful. She was getting along fairly well with her dorm mates (after a bit of a rocky start with her actual room mate) and things seemed good. She was busy with school, running and generally all the things you expect at college. After a few weeks she started to seem like something was wrong, she was having problems with her team mates, some of it of her own making and some not. She had started to drink, she swears one time and got drunk, and some other behaviors that I didn't appreciate, behaviors that were just not her. She started to lie to me about the littlest things and her grades started to drop. Seems the boys on the team started to treat their dorm room like their own and just stayed there whenever they wanted, against school rules. She told them they couldn't stay there every night (they would sleep in the living room on the futon I supplied) or with their girlfriends in the other bedroom. It ended in a big fight and the boys stealing the futon when she wasn't in the room. At this point I had heard enough and listened to Skip cry enough about how she was being bullied. For the record I only believe 50% of what she tells me and that was bad enough. I called campus security, that blew up into a whole thing with the Coach. The Head Coach (this is what Skip was told) told the team to ice Skip out, don't talk to her and isolate her from the team. She talked to him over the weekend and he swears that is not what he said he told them to stay in their own damn dorm room where they belong. Who knows. It's been months of he said she said.

Anyway...at a meet in October a mom told me something else about Skip that sent me into orbit. I dragged her home from the meet telling the Assistant Coach that I wasn't sure she would be back. It was the most horrible weekend of my life, and trust me it was hers too. I drove her back to school that Sunday with a promise to me she would get her *kitten* together. She tried, she really tried, she stop hanging out with the team (the issue is really the freshman) and started going back to church, joined a local youth group, starting hanging out with others outside the team. Well evidently this pissed some of the team off and they decided to make her life a living hell. This I know is the truth a team member told me that herself, so I didn't hear it from Skip. They would steal her food off her plate in the cafe when she got up for a drink, tell her practice changed to another place and then tell Coach they had no idea where she was, they would let her sleep through her alarm, etc etc. One even pushed her. No matter how she tried to separate herself from it she couldn't. It got to the point that one girl's mom reached out to me that her daughter was afraid Skip couldn't take much more and would harm herself. The worst phone call I have ever received in my life.

I drove to the school and spent the day with her and she said she could make it to Christmas break but she couldn't go back next semester. Okay I was fine with that. Again she tired to separate herself. At this point she did manage to get her grades up, she spoke to her professors and they helped her out, she dropped one class at the teachers recommendation so it wouldn't pull down her GPA. She started seeing a counselor at school and would spend a night or day a week at her friend's dorm room to get out of hers. Yes I realize she should have moved dorms but she refused to let them force her out, afterall she still had to be with these people. I was very proud of how she was doing, she was setting new PRs at meets and seemed okay, though she looked awful from being afraid to sleep at night.

She made it to regionals and I went to Florida to see her run. No matter what she said or did a couple girls on the team were just out to get her. The coach and I had an argument because I felt he was allowing this to continue instead of putting a stop to it. They all went back to school and Sunday night she calls me that the room mates are livid at her and she doesn't know why, she has had enough she's scared and physically getting sick from it. I sent her to a hotel for the next 3 days, this was this past week. The assistant coach sent her a text that accused her of telling me that he was making sexual advances at the girls on the team, she never told me that and she was really upset that he would accuse her of that or that someone would tell him something so awful. Then I found out that the Coach (supposedly) told one of the girls that Skip said her mom tried to poison her (they went there for lunch while at regionals). Skip would never ever said something so awful about someone's parent, she called me hysterical (that is why she ended up in a hotel). That was it, they finally broke her. She wanted to come home now.

She went to all her professors asked if she could take her finals now. She could not, but they all told her go home, finish up the semester here with me and then come back for the 3 days of finals. One teacher even told her not to come back for his final, that he drops one bad grade every semester and would drop her final grade still giving her a high B in his class. He was so sweet, she said prayed with her and even got teary eyed to think people could be bulling her so badly that it came to this.

So Thanksgiving day I went out there packed her all up and brought her home. Thursday night was the first time I've slept more than 3 hours in months. She emailed the head coach and the athletic director thanking them for the opportunity and explaining for her mental health she couldn't stay there. We have applied for a waiver with the NCAA so she can run somewhere else, the school will approve it so hopefully she won't get a penalty. For the next semester she plans to go to community college and has started looking at 4 year schools again, she cannot talk to coaches, but her high school coach can and is eager to find her another school to run at. Besides all of this, if you can imagine there is more, the assistant coach has offered to buy Skip alcohol and basically has beat her down in texts to her personally and to members of the team (I have all the texts). One of Skip's team mates was her saving grace (along with a couple older team mates) and I won't do anything to jeopardize their senior track season, however, the school has not heard the end of me. I sent what a thought was a smart well adjusted 18 year old to their school and got a broken child in return who just keeps crying. In defense of the school itself, they have done everything to help her, I think that is what upsets her most, she loves the school. It's the way the running program is handling that is insane. The more I talk to people and the more I see and the more I investigate things, there is a lot of not so good happening with that program.

Anyway, I'm sorry for the long post, and probably it's more than you all ever needed to know about mine or Skip's personal life. But you all have always been such great supporters of my girl I wanted to let you know. On a side note she did have a great season, once she decided to get her crap together and I'm very proud of her. A local coach even talked to her and said "tell me why we didn't recruit you" ha ha. It will take time for me to trust her, but we are working on that. Many of things she did I expected from a college freshman away from home for the first time, however, the lying to me is not acceptable and she knows that.

If you are the praying kind, please say a pray for my girl, I know more *kitten* will hit the fan when the kids get back to school today. All the furniture, curtains etc in the dorm belonged to her so it's all gone from the room. The futon she insisted we throw away because who knows what was done on it yuck! She is waiting to block everyone on social media until they get there, she feels better handling it that way.

TL:DR Skip screwed up, got bullied, left school and is home.

Thanks.

Yesterday I got to run 6.31 miles in the Mustache Run 10K. It was the first time I’d run more than five miles in a month so I was a little worried, but it turned out just fine. My official time (1:04:56) was even a little faster than my last 10K, making it a PR, which surprises me a little bit given the weather and how I’ve gotten out of shape, but I definitely ran a faster front half and I suppose that adds up.

This particular run I picked partially because of the timing, partially because it looked like a fun and well organized race, and partially because I appreciate the cause: raising awareness and funds for prostate cancer and men's health. My husband has had two colonoscopies in the past four years that came up with numerous pre-cancerous polyps, and if it weren't for some freak (and apparently unrelated) abdominal pain several years ago that led to the first colonoscopy, he could easily be dead of cancer right now. So I run because he can't... because he's a lazy so-and-so.

With five races under my belt, we are starting to get into a comfortable routine. Up an hour before we need to leave the house, get to the venue 30-45 minutes in advance, he drops me off to register while he goes to find parking, then a little awkward chatting and people watching before I head to the start and he goes to find a place to take a starting line picture/video. Then he goes to a coffee shop for an hour or so of work (or in this case, reading books on interior design) before meeting me at the finish line.

It was a little warmer than expected, around 40 when we left at 7:30, and very humid. My lower layers worked out well, but I ended up a little too warm on my top half - I’d have been fine with a short-sleeved shirt under my windbreaker and the official event hat, while amusing, was much too warm for running. My hands never really warmed up - usually that’s one of the first places to get warm but I think maybe the wet cold was getting to me.

The race started and ended at the same place as my very first race back on the Fourth of July - just across the river from downtown, along the riverfront and across the Stone Arch Bridge, a railroad turned pedestrian bridge which I think is the second oldest remaining bridge crossing the Mississippi. Today’s route added a few miles with an out-and-back downstream from the bridge, which was mostly downhill on the way out and mostly uphill on the way back. Apparently I haven’t lost all of my juice, though, because I was able to get through it without too much trouble.

I started a little faster than I’d planned - around 10:30/mile - but settled into it and decided to just let it ride out. After the hill I accelerated and started picking people off and put in a mile at 9’35”, which is pretty zippy for me but not nearly as fast as I finished the last 10K. There were a lot of walkers at this point, which was a bit of a drag.

I think I should continue to push my early pace bit by bit and see how that does me - my first 10K I gradually increased from miles 1-5 before opening up for the last mile and change. This time I ran a pretty steady pace over 1-4, with a slower 5 because of the hill, and a moderately fast last mile. I’d be curious to see what my time would look like with an easy first mile or two, then more juice for miles 3-5 before the closing sprint. Maybe I’ll find out in two weeks, assuming that the weather doesn’t throw a huge wrench in the works. Ice on the ground doesn’t really lend itself to speed-work.



Starting photo!



Why I run: SHINY AND AMUSING MEDALS!

NOVEMBER MILES:
11/1 Th - 0:40:01 - 3.76
11/2 Fr - rest
11/3 Sa - 0:30:46 - 2.93
11/4 Su - rest
11/5 Mo - 0:55:43 - 5.07
11/6 Tu - rest
11/7 We - 0:43:29 - 3.70
11/8 Th - rest
11/9 Fr - 0:42:05 - 3.63
11/10 Sa
11/11 Su
11/12 Mo - 0:41:59 - 3.72
11/13 Tu
11/14 We - 0:54:52 - 5.07
11/15 Th
11/16 Fr
11/17 Sa
11/18 Su
11/19 Mo - 0:42:54 - 3.70
11/20 Tu
11/21 We
11/22 Th - 0:36:15 - 3.25
11/23 Fr
11/24 Sa - 1:05:24 - 6.31

November Total: 41.14/75 miles

2018 Races!
July 4: Red, White and Boom! 5K Chip time: 0:32:20
August 25: Glo Run Night Race 5K Chip time: 0:30:40
September 8: Helen Gold 10K DNS - trip postponed
September 9: City of Lakes Half Marathon Net time: 2:28:25
October 6: Twin Cities Marathon Weekend 10K Chip time: 1:05:14
October 21: Mankato Half Marathon Chip time: 2:29:25
November 24: Mustache Run 10K Chip time: 1:04:56
December 8: Reindeer Run 10K + 5K