April 2021 Monthly Running Challenge

TheMrWobbly wrote: »

What a beautiful day for it!!! my apologies for my tardiness checking in today, I know I am little late and should have posted by, erm... February!

Interesting time, injured my knee in Jan, made it worse in Feb coming back too early, two year ends at my new job (we have Dec and our parent Co has Mar), every week I was the bad news bear - £30k worse for this, £50k worse for that until eventually I made the magical "Your results are £1M worse than when you bought the company last year" - good job on the due diligence Mr Auditor!

In the process many nights without sleep, stuffing my fat face (I knew what I was doing and ate a whole 3kg bag of jelly beans in a week) and no exercise so I imagine I will be around 230 lbs when I weigh in tomorrow.

The past cannot be changed, cycled to and from work for the last couple of days. Year end and most of the audit completed so I can get back to a routine. A long way from my target of running a marathon later this year but I have to do this!

I have read through all the posts I missed, well maybe skim read a bit - there was over 1,000!!!!
@Camaramandy648 achievements abound, congratulations on the On run crew appointment, surviving bee stings and a belated happy birthday
@hamsterwheel6 I'm not sure what Morton's Neuroma is but it sounds like Morton should keep it to himself!
@kirstymn hope the parkrun is a regular thing, still waiting for them to restart in the UK
@rheddmobile some great runs and fantastic that your hip is all good
@martaindale brilliant HM time!
@Faebert I totally feel you with injury and UK lockdown, I'll follow your lead and get back out there
@shanaber good to see you are recovering, I hope you neighbour is okay after the cat attack!
@skippygirlsmom you have got more steps in than me and you are just out of a cast - good to have you up and around again
@ContraryMaryMary the Mairaeta HM looks like a great challenge, not sure I'm ready for uphills again just yet
@RunsOnEspresso fantastic signing up for the virtual BM, keep us in the loop on how the training is going
@Katharmonic very impressed, especially the 'injured' HM
@Avidkeo another great HM and I am sad I missed tracking you through it
@polskagirl01 glad your rest worked out and your quads have decided to do what they are told!
@quilteryoyo you have a lovely grand-niece
@eleanorhawkins you are unusually quiet, what are you planning

My apologies to you and the others ( @Scott6255 @AlphaHowls @Tramboman @Teresa502 @kgirlhart @marisap2010 and others) for not keeping up on the Run the World challenge and thank you to @quilteryoyo and others for keeping things 'real' on the way!

Welcome and welcome back to the newbies and returnees

Right, day 1 of my new streak. I am again fat, fat with a capital FATBASTA.. and I am going to try a gentle 5k to kick things off.

I am not qualified to join in on the 'leakage' discussion so I can only refer you to youtube

To everyone else feel free to share something more with us, I'd love to hear successes, offer support or just have a good laugh together.

Keep safe, stay awesome!!!

@TheMrWobbly not planning anything, just so busy I can't keep up!
The trail club is great fun, but sooooo hard. It's usually just me and 4 or 5 guys, which my husband is REALLY pissed about 🤣 and their easy pace is about my 5k race pace, so umm yeah, I'm exhausted. Just praying my legs don't go on strike.

Gosh, the Run the World group is almost to Memphis! Thanks for the heads up @quilteryoyo !

When I checked they were passing through Bolivar, which was known when I was growing up for being the place with the scary asylum. It was originally housed what is called a Kirkbride building - if you have ever seen a scary movie with a gothic looking asylum, it was most likely designed by a man named Kirkbride, whose original idea was to make stepped buildings so that every patient would have access to fresh air. They may look creepy to us today but we’re considered a huge step up at the time! Bolivar’s Kirkbridge building is situated on a high hill and visible from some distance from the road, and it is reportedly haunted. We used to tell ghost stories about it when I was in high school - a great way to pass the time on road trips, since we always passed Bolivar shortly after leaving Memphis. Back in the day it was called Western State Hospital. The old Kirkbride building is no longer used for patients but there is still a psychiatric hospital there today, Western Mental Health Institute.

Next the route passes through the tiny community of Elba, within half a mile of my mom’s house, where I grew up. Speaking of haunted houses, the Run the World route also passes right by a circa 1840 antebellum plantation house, the Old Miller Place, which was abandoned when I used to live there. When I was a teenager, the boy who lived across the street and I used to walk down there all the time. Once we even held a Halloween party in the abandoned house! Back then it was completely empty, just a giant empty hall with high ceilings and a massive wooden fan over the front door. There were also several surviving outbuildings, including former slave cabins. I remember on that Halloween we dared each other to go down to the slave cabins at night. I don’t know if it was haunted - I think the main danger was probably snakes living up under the cabins - but it was certainly creepy to walk there in the dark and think about all the things that had happened there. Today the house has been restored as a wedding venue, and the slave cabins have been turned into a dressing room and waiting area for the groom, of all things. The present owners have rechristened the place Heartwood Hall, and - this makes me a little sad - removed the original giant fan from above the door, replacing it with a much prettier but not nearly as interesting window. Oh well!

The route crosses the road just north of my mom’s front pasture!

From there, the route continues southwest towards Collierville and the Wolf River bottoms, where my husband and I do most of our trail running. It goes past the Collierville Greenbelt trailhead, which is where we spent most of lockdown running since hardly anyone ever goes there. It’s mostly gravel trails but we were very thankful for it! Then on past one of our favorite running places, WC Johnson park in Collierville, several miles of well groomed soft dirt trails passing through a wetland nature preserve and arboretum.

Once through Collierville, next is Germantown - the route nearly touches our most frequent run, the railroad access road at CD Smith road - two miles of mostly straight road with very little traffic! Most of our virtual races have been here. We will be running here tomorrow!

After Germantown, the route continues on through our neighborhood and even crosses Stout, which is one of the roads we regularly run when we just get out and run the neighborhood, and then goes through the parking lot of our Kroger store. I haven’t measured but I think we pass about two miles north of my house.

Past our neighborhood, you’ll go past the Memphis International Airport and see a whole bunch of Fed Ex planes.

Next the route passes Graceland! Yes, just like the song, we’re going to Graceland, Graceland, Memphis Tennessee.

There’s no bridge on the map route, so we should probably divert North a bit to hit one of my other favorite runs, the old Harrahan train bridge across the Mississippi. This train bridge has been beautifully remade into a foot bridge, and it’s where my husband and I ran our first half marathon. And after that we’re in Arkansas!

4-1 7k slow
4-2 7k slooooooow
4-3 4k easy
4-4 7k slow
4-5 7k easy
4-6 rest
4-7 7k temperate (between tempo and moderate)
4-8 4k easy
4-9 7k easy
4-10 7k temperate
4-11 7k tempo
4-12 rest
4-13 7k tempo
4-14 4k easy
4-15 6k treadmill
4-16 5k treadmill
4-17 6k treadmill
4-18 7k tempo
4-19 rest
4-20 7k tempo
4-21 6k treadmill
4-22 5k treadmill
4-23 rest
4-24 7k tempo
4-25 7k hard

April Total: 131k
April Goal: 150k

Great racing and running, everybody!!! Congrats on the PRs and finishing positions. Nobody needs to know how many people are in your age group -- how do you think I occasionally finish first in mine?????

Cloudy, upper 40s F with a light wind out of the southwest today. Seemed like a good day to run hard, so I did. Set a new 7k PR; Garmin said I set a new 5k PR as well. Wasn't the first 5k, so it must have been the last 5k.

When you pop in here claiming your December 2021 mileage, what accomplishments will you have made?

PUT THE FUN BACK IN THE RUN!
Return to a good running weight of 175 lbs (second attempt)

2021 Races:

6/26 Direction Up 5k, Solon, OH
9/18 5k Run and Roll, Aurora, OH

4/1 13.23 miles
4/2 13.44 miles
4/3 13.34 miles
4/4 13.6 miles, 1070 Days on the run, 252 days HM+ streak
4/5 13.65 miles
4/6 13.63 miles
4/7 13.56 miles
4/8 13.28 miles
4/9 13.24 miles, 1075 Days on the run, 257 days HM+ streak
4/10 13.66 miles
4/11 15.6 miles
4/12 15.47 miles
4/13 13.25 miles Crazy Laps
4/14 13.54 miles, 1080 Days on the run, 262 days HM+ streak
4/15 13.6 miles
4/16 13.25 miles
4/17 16.51 miles
4/18 15.36 miles
4/19 15.16 miles, 1085 Days on the run, 267 days HM+ streak
4/20 15.2 miles
4/21 13.32 miles Crazy Laps
4/22 13.42 miles Crazy Laps
4/23 13.52 miles Crazy Laps
4/24 13.55 miles Crazy Laps, 1090 Days on the run, 272 days HM+ streak
4/25 15.6 miles

I am still here, one foot in front of the other.
*dew claws up*