February 2019 Monthly Running Challenge

No miles for me today, but I saw no fewer than NINE people running on my way to and from the gym today - four solo and one group of five. Way to go, Minnesotans! Of course, it made me feel a little bad about my decision not to run today, but not that bad. I might be getting better about the comparison thing!

The last couple of nights I’ve been having some pain in my left hip. This is maybe the second time I can think of that my hip has ever hurt in my life, so it’s got me a little concerned. Not PT concerned, but chiropractor concerned. Also my shoulders have been tense and the chiropractor’s office I go to includes a 10-15 minute massage plus 5-10 minutes e-stim with every visit. My insurance covers the chiropractor but not massage therapy, so that’s my workaround.

Anyhow, I’m guessing that the hip pain is a combo of running on snow and heavy deadlifts on Monday. With my second 10K of the year coming up this weekend, I decided better to give my legs a rest. Which probably means bike tomorrow, BLAH. Ah well.

I stopped at REI today and picked up a balaclava and some heat packs, so I am ready to rob a bank and keep my butt warm while I do it!

2/1 Fr - rest
2/2 Sa - 0:40:33 - 3.80 miles
2/3 Su - rest
2/4 Mo - sick
2/5 Tu - sick
2/6 We - playing catchup
2/7 Th - gym closed due to all the snow
2/8 Fr - GLORIOUS GYM WORKOUT! But no run
2/9 Sa - 50 minutes (aka 1 episode of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) on the stationary bike. UGGGGGGGGGGGGG!
2/10 Su - 1:29:18 - 6.64 snowy miles
2/11 Mo - 0:23:21 - 1.77, strength class
2/11 Tu - shoveling snow counts!
2/12 We - strength class

February Mileage: 12.21 / 35 miles

2019 Races! (italics under consideration)
January 26: Securian 10K Chip time: 1:05:07
February 16: Half Fast 10K
March 23: Hot Dash 10Mi
April 27: Get In Gear 10K
May 19: Women Run the Cities 10K (rolling registration cost)
June 1: Grand Teton Half, Jackson WY
June 12: ESTRS French 5K
June 29: Lift Bridge 10K
July 10: ESTRS Lebanon 7Mi OR
July 17: Torchlight 5K
July 27: St. Croix Crossing Half OR
August 3: Minnesota Half Marathon 10Mi OR
August 7: ESTRS SLP 5Mi OR
August 10: Gopher to Badger 10K
September 8: Sioux Falls Half Marathon
September 21: Surly Trail Loppet 7Mi
October 5: TCM 10K or 10Mi
November: Undecided Half?
November 28: Turkey Trot St. Paul 10K
December: Undecided 10K

February Running Totals (miles)
2/1 –5.16 course preview
2/2 – 7.29 warmup, commute, 8K XC race
2/3 – 10.81 easy
2/4 – rest day
2/5 – 10.52 warmup, speed work, cool down
2/6 – 8.78 easy
2/7 – 7.59 warmup, speed work, cool down
2/8 – rest day
2/9 – 11.50 warmup, 8 mile race
2/10 – 13.33 MP with hills
2/11 – rest day
2/12 – 8.21 warmup, speed work, cool down
2/13 – 6.31 easy

February running total to date – 89.50

Nominal February mileage goal: 190 miles

Real Goals: Train well toward Boston. Work the February races into the training plan smoothly. Remain uninjured, even if it means cutting back on planned mileage or races.

Today's notes – This morning I felt a little beat up physically, and quite a bit beat up mentally. Ended up skipping all my morning exercises except the pull-ups and push-ups. Sorry, no calf raises today. Beautiful sunny skies with temp just below freezing and 24 mph wind this morning; but I needed recovery from yesterday evening's speed work.

By the time I was recovered enough to face 6 easy miles, it had just started in on snow showers. Clear roads, a few flakes in the air, pleasant run, right? It turned into a bit of a snow storm while I was out. The 1.5 miles into the 24 mph W wind went okay, tough but expected. Then the easy residential section was mostly snow covered, for more effort than expected. Back on the major roads, the pavement was clear . . . except when traffic forced me onto the snow-covered shoulders. But I made it through the planned short run and felt pretty good until about a quarter mile from home. Then I realized, "Oh, *kitten*! I need to go out driving in this mess later!"

Got back home, and my driveway was snow covered. Went to go in, and found that my porch had a light cover of snow on top of a sheet of smooth ice. Totally surprised me, but my reflexes were good enough that I didn't fall. I can now confidently state that while the Peregrine Ice+ shoes are better than the standard Peregrines on snowy roads, they are no better on smooth sheets of ice.

Survived the mandatory driving to get a few groceries so I won't have to drive again till the trip to club practice tomorrow evening. No, I didn't get bread or milk (unless you count the bread in the Subway sandwich). But I do hate getting my car out in this slop. I'm ready for winter to be over, or at least for the snow to stop coming down every week.

2019 Races:
January 1, 2019 Freezeroo #2 (Resolution Run 7.5 mile) (Mendon, NY) finished in 50:55
January 5, 2019 Winter Warrior Half Marathon (Gates, NY) finished in 1:30:48
January 12, 2019 Freezeroo #3 (Pineway Ponds 5 Mile) (Spencerport, NY) finished in 33:10
January 26, 2019 Freezeroo #4 (Hearnish 5 mile) (Victor, NY) 4.9 miles, finished in 32:28
February 2, 2019 USATF XC Championship, Masters 8K (Tallahassee, FL) finished in 32:53
February 9, 2019 Freezeroo #5 (Tom Brannon 8 mile) (Greece, NY) finished in 55:55
February 23, 2019 Freezeroo #6 (White House Challenge 4.4 mile) (Webster, NY)
March 16, 2019 USATF Masters 8K Championship (Shamrock 8K) (Virginia Beach, VA)
March 17, 2019 Shamrock Half Marathon (Virginia Beach, VA)
April 13, 2019 BAA 5K (Boston, MA)
April 15, 2019 Boston Marathon (Hopkinton, MA to Boston, MA)
November 3, 2019 TCS New York City Marathon (New York, NY)

Had a very nice run this evening. Beautiful weather - 60's and a little breezy. Even though Monday's run was tough, the super slow pace did seem to refresh my legs a little. I had a tempo run on the schedule for tonight and I had a better time keeping the pace up today and overall ran a faster pace!

2/1: 1.4 miles
2/2: 3.5 miles
2/3: 3.3 miles
2/4: 1.5 miles
2/6: 3.4 miles
2/10: 5.7 miles
2/11: 2.5 miles
2/13: 3.1 miles

Feb total: 24.4 miles
Feb goal: 40 miles

2019 Races:

Piney Woods Trailfest 5k - 2/2/2019 29.23
Rodeo Run 10k - 2/23/2019 registered
Run Houston! Minute Maid Park 10k - 3/23/2019 registered
Brazos Bend 50 10k - 4/6/2019 registered
Galveston Island Wine Festival Champagne Fun Run 5k - 4/27/2019
El Chupacabra de Houston 10k (night trail run) - 8/2019
TWRC Run WIld Run Free 5k - 9/2019
10 for Texas 10 Miler - 10/2019 registration opens Jan 2019
Wine and Dine half marathon - 11/3/2019

Run the Year 2019 - Team Five for Nineteen

@Avidkeo i agree with the vinegar in the hydration bladder. Think i heard lemon juice would also help if vinegar bothers you. I do put nuun tabs in mine, i haven't tried anything else and i avoid putting sugar in it but know others use UCAN or other similar products for long runs. I freeze it about a third full and that way the ice is cool on my back and dilutes the nuun down as my run progresses, or just use ice cubes. I find i do better with electrolytes earlier, even before a run. Which I'm not currently running.. but did.

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Heres a bit of no named tiny-ness. Dh is responsible for this one...

8.5 miles on trails at Shelby Farms - last long run there before my husband's and my 10k there next week. The most recent time we practiced there the course kind of kicked our *kitten*, so we threw in a couple of extra miles of running on grass in hopes the extra conditioning will help. Anything over 10k is a long run for us - very tired coming back!

Perfect running day - 60 degrees and bright sunlight - wet underfoot - we must have seen every deer in the park! Since I was slow to get moving we were still running a few minutes before sunset (park officially closes at sunset) and the deer were grazing in herds in the middle of the trails and seemed very surprised to see us! There are already a couple of new twin fawns.

Funny story - the last part of the course runs on grass paralleling the back road leading past the park. This road gets really backed up at rush hour, which of course coincides with sunset right now. So we were running alongside a mile of stop and go traffic, with many people who had their windows open because of the nice weather. I was getting tired and starting to pay attention to my breathing, when we passed a car blaring hip-hop music. Now, normally I'm not a hip-hop kind of person, so I had to google this song later, but as we passed Lil Duval yells at us, "If you're breathin' you achievin', we having fun this evening..." and I was like YES. It was very timely! I yelled at my husband, "Look at us, we are faster than CARS!" and he started cracking up because all the cars were stuck dead in traffic and we were passing them.

I do pistol squats when brushing my teeth. I have an electric toothbrush which buzzes every 30 seconds, so I focus on one leg for the first 30 seconds, then switch.

It's a challenge to be sure, the trick is not to use water during that time - just toothpaste on the brush and keep the mouth fairly closed!!!
And the whole being on one leg is....not easy. But it's a great stretch for my achilles.