ARDIRI

Saturday Slrog Roundup; Slacker Edition: June 8-28

• June 9, Monday--3 miles running; the SCHoW (the Sarah Connnor Home Workout)

I've taken a week off from running after royally fracking up my knee doing free-standing squats and today was my first day back in my running shoes.  And it was awesome!  My pace was spot-on, the hills felt like friends rather than mortal foes, and I felt like I could run forever.  Wondermous!

• June 10-17--various days of the SCHoW (see above)

• June 18, Wednesday--3 miles running.

The MP3 that I "lost" has been finally found so I'm on the road again (By gods, I love Willie Nelson, how embarrassing!  Oh, and if you do happen to like Willie, this is a beautiful, but sad, song--"I Never Cared for You".).  I don't feel like I lost a lot of endurance or strength, s0 yay for me!

• June 23, Monday--3 miles running. 

Listening to: Led Zeppelin

• June 26, Thursday--Gym/Weight workout (abs, chest, legs)

Saturday Slrog Roundup: June 1-7: Temporarily Decommissioned

• June 1, Sunday--

Doing what I call my "Sarah Connor Terminator 2 Prison Workout"--that is, my at home strength training, I managed to really frack up my right knee doing free-standing squats.  OUCH! was the key word when it came to simply walking or climbing stairs.  Icy-Hot salve, Ace bandages, ice, and ibuprofen, and staying immobile as much as possible became the "in-words" for the week.  Totally sucked.

• June 7, Saturday--

Changed the "Sarah Connor Terminator 2 Prison Workout" to include wall squats (see pic) rather than free-standing squats.  Hopefully, I will have a happier knee and tomorrow I can resume running?!

Saturday Slrog Roundup: May 25-May 31

• May 27, Tuesday--6 miles running.

• May 29, Thursday--5 miles running.

• May 31, Saturday--3 miles running.

Saturday Slrog Roundup: May 18-24

• May 18, Sunday--5 miles running.

Although the race for the Bay to Breakers started at 8am and I did my run at around 3pm, there were still hundreds of "runners" strewn throughout Golden Gate Park in their costumes doing kegstands and just generally acting silly.  I've finally figured out what the Bay to Breakers is for: Partying!  I ran it once and absolutely hated the race as I wasn't a "seeded runner" and waited at least 10 minutes to just walk across the starting line!  But now I understand, Bay to Breakers is all about costumes, silliness, lots of alcohol, and non-fitness-y fun!

• May 20, Tuesday--2.25 miles running; 10 rounds double-stepping of the Strybing Steps

This was supposed to be a 5+ mile run;  that is, until my Sansa MP3 player crashed and I don't do the running thing sans music.  It looks like my MP3 player has called it permanent quits on me!  Oh well, it lasted 2 years and I am quite rough with it (dropping it frequently, while running, onto hard concrete or asphalt, etc.)

• May 22, Thursday--6 miles running.

MP3 player not broken--Yippee!!  Today I added on another mile by running further into Golden Gate Park and around Lloyd Lake.  And lemme tell you something, Lloyd Lake is definitely not a lake!  It is a veritable pond with lots of happy-looking ducks and grumpy geese.

• May 23, Friday--5 miles running.

Running is a total mind game.  I know I could go out and run at least two or three times the mileage I usually do, but it all comes down to will--the will to keep going, to put one foot in front of the other (at a running pace!), to not stop and futz with the way you've tied your shoes.  Distance running is a physical manifestation of the will-to-power, which is especially evident if you read the biographies of ultra-marathoners like Dean (yummy) Karnazes and Pam Reed.

• May 24, Saturday--2 miles speedwork on treadmill (0-2 incline, 5.5-8 mph); upper-body weight so amazing to not be sick training; 1/2 mile hill treadmill-hill-walking (at incline level 10 out of 20, 3.7 mph).

• ETA on May 25: It is so amazing not to be sick any longer.  I highly recommend not catching the Haemophilus Influenzae bacteria.  IT SUCKS!  And it will literally knock you on your ass for at least a couple of months--10 weeks in my case--even with antibiotics, copious amounts of rest (and I mean going to sleep at 7pm almost every night!), and taking good care of yourself.  It made climbing the four flights of stairs to my apartment seem like a marathon.  I am SO HAPPY to be healthy again!

Saturday Slrog Roundup: May 11-17

• May 12, Monday--1.5 miles running; 10 rounds double-steps at Strybing.

This should have been a 3 to 3.5 mile run, but unfortunately the snooze button on my alarm and I are way too good of friends.  In fact my snooze button gave me an extra half hour of sleep; we are so BFF (best friends forever).  Plus, I hate running in the mornings.  I'm an evening runner type of gal.

• May 14, Wednesday--5 miles running.

I'll take it as a good sign that I saw the same two Buddhist(?) monks at Stowe Lake on my second 5 mile run after getting over being extremely ill.  I am going to count each monk as a good luck charm for each one of my gimpy knees as I work on increasing my mileage towards that marathon goal!

• The rest of the week was BUNK for running as I got massive blisters on both bottoms of my feet at the base of my little toes from wearing high heels for a job interview (and walking approximately 4 miles in them!) on one of the hottest days in the Bay Area.  I wish I would've followed my initial  instinct to pack a pair of flip-flops in my little business-y satchel, but the desire to look professional at all times--even on the walk to and from public transport far from my interviewers' eyes--outweighed my first instinct.  The good news is that it looks like I'll be getting a teaching job at a nice private school pending approval for my salary from the school board!  So I suppose a little --OK, a LOT--of suffering paid off!

Saturday Slrog Roundup: May 4-10

• May 4, Sunday--3.66 miles running.

• May7, Wednesday--3 miles running.

• May 8, Thursday--3.66 miles running.

• May 10, Saturday--4.97 miles running.

This last run was spectacular!  I felt so strong and in the moment.  I added a convoluted loop--or rather, two--around Stowe Lake in Golden Gate Park and just blissed out on the scenery as the fog rolled in and the mist rose off the lake.

Saturday Slrog Roundup: April 27-May 3

• April 27, Sunday--3 miles running.   

I SO NEED NEW SHOES; mine are totally flat and I can feel it especially in my left arch and my knees.  So it's either to Fleet Feet or Zappos that I'll be heading (I'd rather support Fleet Feet for running shoes, but it really may come down to a time factor--that is, actually getting on the bus and going to get the shoes vs. ordering them online with free, 2-day shipping).

• April 28, Monday--1.5 miles running; 10 rounds of running the Strybing steps (double steps--i.e. skipping steps). 

All "sponsored" by the good ol' man in black, Johnny Cash--especially "Folsom Prison Blues" and the uber-cheezy "One Piece at a  Time".  Definitely a complete change from my usual MP3 soundtrack of melancholic Radiohead albums! 

N.B. A good place to hear music for free via your computer is Deezer.com.  There you can listen, listen, and listen again to my favorite Blonde Redhead album Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons  (<--honestly, click there to the left to hear the ablum!!  Pandora.com is also a good place to discover new music based on their "music genome" theory.)

• April 30, Wednesday--3 miles running.

My obliques are completely, almost-irrationally sore from doing the Strybing skipping steps on Monday.

• May 1, Thursday--3.66 miles running; 10 rounds of running the Strybing steps (double steps).

Listening to: Vampire Weekend/Vampire Weekend (& especially loving the songs "Oxford Comma," "Bryn," and "Campus") and Mika/Life in Cartoon Motion.

I bought Vampire Weekend's album essentially based on a newspaper review and am happy to say that I am quite pleased with it!  It has a sorta old Police-esque reggae sound to it, with some gorgeous lyrics thrown in.   I seriously need some good running music and am a bit lost in the Electronica section as it's been so long since I've been caught up in that scene.  I finally made my way--made my "pilgrimage"--to the Amoeba store down the street (i.e. Haight Street) and to be perfectly honest, I felt like a bumbling nerd in the music store with a bunch of cool, in-the-know sorts of hipsters scanning the CDs.  Wow, I definitely felt like the dork at the high school dance!  Then when I left and reclaimed my backpack, the cute clerk asked me if I becoming back to watch The Breeders play.  I was too embarrassed to admit a lack of knowledge (as to who they are!) and just said I had had too long of a day of work and was headed home.  Ugh, I am so uncool!!!

• May 2, Friday--no running; very, very angry knees! 

Off to Fleet Feet for shoes.  I love Fleet Feet!!  I was in no shape to run for them (so they could see my particular needs, form, feet issues, etc.) and so they simply looked up the last pair of shoes I had bought (Nike Air Skylon) and brought them out in the right size, suggested a few alternatives just in case I wanted a little more cushioning and a longer-lasting pair of shoes, didn't try to upsell me on a more expensive pair, and were just darn friendly and helpful!  Bonus--you can run in your shoes for a month and if they don't work, they'll take them back no questions, no problems!  *Smooch*--love the Fleet Feet company!

• May 3, Saturday--3.66 miles running.

Awesome run in the sense that I felt strong the whole way and not like some bumbling, shuffling, two-left feet fool.  If this keeps up--and I don't catch every germ/bug/virus that my students carry with them to school--I shall have to decide to do the first half of the RunSFM Marathon in August!  And then...Perhaps? Maybe?  A full, real deal marathon?!  (If so, it'll likely be the California International Marathon.)

New shoes=happy, happy feet!  Happier knees,too; nevertheless still icing and doing the ibuprofen routine. 

Saturday Slrog Roundup: April 20-26

• April 21, Monday-1.5 miles running; 20 rounds of running the Strybing steps (10 rounds single steps & 10 rounds double steps--i.e. skipping steps).

I felt like I could've run five miles, but I made a commitment not to increase my individual runs by more than a half mile, which definitely breaks the "increase mileage by no more than 10% per week rule" (see rule #8).  Trying to not frack my knees up too much this time around.

• No running in between Tuesday and Friday as I went home to visit the parental unit and didn't want to deal with high-altitude "carousel head".

• April 26, Saturday--2 miles running.

Saturday Slrog Roundup: April 6-19

• April 8, Tuesday--1.5 miles running.

I finally took my first run in forever--or rather, what feels like forever: 10 weeks!  After getting sick with not-the-flu, not-strep-throat, but the dastardly, horrible Haemophilus Influenzae*; a rare--at least in the "first-world" countries and especially among adults, as most of the population  [75%] are  immune to it--bacterial infection that practically turns you into a zombie from throat pain, voice loss, neck stiffness, fever, headaches, body aches, etc.).  Anyhoo, I finally got my courage together and pushed myself out the door and down towards Golden Gate Park.  Yay me! 

*Trivia! and Information! 
Haemophilus Influenzae was accidentally misnamed as the influenza as it was discovered in 1892 and thought to be the cause of common flu until 1933.  If not treated, it can potentially lead to meningitis and/or severe pneumonia.*

• April 13, Sunday--1.5 miles running; 5 rounds of running the Strybing steps.

Oyster Stew--even if it comes from one of my favorite oysterias, Hog Island Oyster, Co. (at the San Franciso Ferry Building) isn't very pleasant as burps when running;  it is quite gross, indeed.

• April 14, Monday--Swimming.  320 yards mixed strokes, 240 yards kicking, 240 yards pulling, and 40 yards underwater swimming (holding breath to increase lung capacity).  For a total of less than half a mile (.48 miles)--eek, ridiculous!
  

I am swimming at the UCSF Millberry Fitness Center Pool and, boy-o-boy, that pool is short (20 yards long) and only 4 lanes wide!  Their (UCSF's) pools at the Mission Bay Center are fabulous--one on the rooftop near and climbing wall and the other indoors.  However, I am not going to take a 30 minute shuttle or bus to swim when I live a mile away from the Millberry pool.  So my complaints about the size of the pool are now finished.

BTW, swimming is excellent for the triceps.  Mine are just sore enough to let me know that I've not done hardly a thing with them in quite a bit.

• April 16, Wednesday--1.5 miles running; 6 rounds of running the Strybing steps.

• Thursday--I'm off to Disneyland, so no running till Sunday or Monday.  Just lots of walking about the parks.

Saturday Slrog Roundup: January 27-February 2

An excellent decision (IMO) was made by me last week; that is, delay the marathon till August. 

Why was my decision so excellent beyond all the points I listed in this post?  Well, because I've gone and caught my wee sinuses yet another sinus infection!  Time to hit up the general practitioner Doc for a referral to an ENT (Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist) and if I can afford it--since my health insurance doesn't cover Eastern Medicine!--visit a good acupuncturist for an overall body/immunity tune-up.

Thus, I must sadly report that there was not a single run this week.  But, now I at least understand why I was so damn tired all week long and felt as if my head were about to explode!