From Bad to Good...

I came home from work yesterday and thought the house felt cold. After awhile, I got so cold I put my coat back on... then, I wanted mittens. My hot-blooded husband then called down to me to check and see if I had left a door open because he was cold. Uh oh... doors were all shut. The thermostat said it was 64 degrees and dropping. The heat was suppose to be on but it wasn't. Our furnace was dead.

The furnace repair guy finally showed up at midnight. $265 later, we had heat. We also found out that a typical furnace is good for 16 -18 years. Ours is 26 years old...

It was a short night. The original plan for today was to be at the fitness center at 5 am when they opened so I could get 10 miles in, then drive G to school by 8 am for jump rope team practice, run through Meijer for grocery deals, then be at my chiropractor's office in Fishers by 10:30 am for a massage. That way I had the rest of the day free before having to take G to the dentist at 4:30 pm.

The morning did not go as planned...

First off, I couldn't get up when the alarm went off at 4:30. Then, I reasoned that I couldn't get 10 miles in and be home on time since G wanted me to wake her at 6:45 am and take her to school closer to 7:45 am. So... the run I wanted to get in before my massage got pushed back to after my massage.

I go into G's room at 6:45 am and she is sitting on the floor crying. She can't find her Orthotane... the clear plastic dental mouthpiece that costs a bazillion dollar. She is suppose to sleep with in in her mouth every night so she won't have to get braces but it won't stay in her mouth. It falls out, then gets lost in the covers, on the floor... Belle has eaten two of them... in the span of a week in January. We were the talk of the dentist's office that week. We now lock her door every night so the dog can't get in but the Orthotane is lost AGAIN! Arghh... what should I do? Should I cancel her dentist's appointment for the afternoon? I can't possibly call them AGAIN to tell them we lost another one! It's got to be here. It can't just vanish into thin air. But we can't find it.

So here's the plan... just go to the dentist's office today because she's just getting her teeth checked and don't tell them we lost it again...yet. Hopefully it will turn up.

G gets to school. I go to Meijer. I thought cans of Maxwell House coffee were on sale for 0.99 when you buy 8. We are coffee addicts at our house but we are not coffee snobs. Maxwell House is what we drink and 0.99 a can is my "buy" price. So... I read the ad wrong. The Crystal Light pictured next to the Maxwell House is 0.99; the Maxwell House is 1.99. I left empty handed.

Now onto the chiropractor's office. I got there a hair early and got to lay on the Aqua Jet table. Ahhh... my favorite... I totally fell asleep on it. Michelle, my massage therapist woke me up. Then I got a totally awesome massage... like the heavens opened up and angels sang. All the knots on my hammie and my shoulders got worked out.

Onto the fitness center. I floated through 10 miles. Maybe I should get a massage before all my runs. Got home in plenty of time to shower and pick up G. Plus, I got my nibblebox from graze.com. Yeah! Sometimes it's the little things that make your day. I chowed down two snacks.

We went to the dentist's office and didn't even talk about the Orthotane... and I passed level 139 of Candy Crush in the waiting room :)

Went on to teach my dance class tonight and class went really well.

Finally, changed all the sheets on G's bed tonight trying to find the Orthotane. No Orthotane. Sat down on the carpet at the foot of the bed... and found it!

Phew! Now I won't have to call the dentist tomorrow.

My Love Hate Relationship With Speed

I love to run fast. I love that effortless feeling of flying at the beginning of a long race. I love to turn on the afterburners and kick it in at the finish. I love the feeling of accomplishing what I set out to do.

Unfortunately, I was not born fast. I don't look like a runner. I have short stubby legs and a not-so-thin body. In fact, one of the biggest off-hand compliments I got in high school was when one of my younger brother's friends told him, "Your sister is a lot faster than she looks" - after I smoked her in the 800. I've had to work tooth and nail for every bit of speed I've built up over the years.

me on the far right...

 

...unlike my long legged daughter on the left

Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, I was born competitive. I like to win. Sometimes it makes me crazy... and so I've developed this long term love hate relationship with speed.

I love to run. Just run. At a comfortable pace, I feel like I can just go on forever. I think though that that "comfortable pace" for me is about 10:30 - 11:00 minute miles. Not all that fast if you want to be competitive. There are days I really wish I could be happy just running a couple miles at my comfortable pace a couple times a week and be good with that. Unfortunately, the competitor in me is not happy with that!

To get faster, you have to practice fast stuff - like intervals and tempo/pace runs. Stuff that makes you hurt. Pain is OK for awhile but if you get your butt kicked time and time again, it's not so fun anymore. The purpose behind speedwork is to prepare your body to race fast - to increase your VO2 max and lactate threshold. But it's hard... and it's suppose to be that way to push your limits.

So, lately, I have come to dread my pace workouts. It's like a weekly test. Have I put in my mileage, eaten right, and gotten enough rest so my body can keep pace on my given day? Lately, I've really faltered on the pace days and just couldn't keep up. However, last training cycle, I just gave up even doing my pace days and just ran the mileage on those days at whatever felt good on that day, thus never pushing the pace. I reasoned that I got my speedwork in by racing 5K's on the weekends. I got really close to my marathon goal but blew up at 16 miles. So now I'm trying again and trying to do it better...

This training cycle, I'm determined to at least try to keep pace on my pace days. I have told myself over and over that it's all mental. I think I really can keep a 8:45 - 8:50 pace for a whole marathon. I just have a really hard time practicing that on my own.

So today was pace day. 9 miles on the schedule. Goal was 9 minute miles. I decided to take all my new red blood cells from Montana out on a run... I also decided to run by feel and only look at my watch every mile. So...

Mile 1 - warmup
Mile 2 - 9:12
Mile 3 - 9:04
Mile 4 - 9:02
Mile 5 - 8:53
Mile 6 - 8:50
Mile 7 - 8:56
Mile 8 - 9:03
Mile 9 - 8:50

Average pace for 8 miles - 8:59

I felt good. It was a great run. I FINALLY felt like I was back on track on my training. Today was a great confidence booster. This is week 10 of training and this is where the real meat and bones of the training starts. Tomorrow I am suppose to run 19 miles. Next week starts a series of 20 miles every other week as the long run.

I am going to try and embrace my hard runs so I can enjoy that feeling of flying...

Yup, I'm a speed addict.

Derby Training Week 9... Dreadmill, I Hope to Never See You Again!

After my last 2 weeks, this past week has been a fabulously exhausting week. Loved it! Hope I don't crash this week.

Sunday I ran my 5K so that counted as 3 miles. No warm down so I was sore as hell on Monday.

Monday I ran 9 miles and got ready for Big Sky.

Tuesday I traveled all day.

Wednesday I did my pre-conference Wilderness and Urban Survival course all day then did 5 on the dreadmill and about died.

Thursday I spent the whole day doing Wilderness Medicine classes and took an extra Map and Compass Navigation class. No running. We get a break from 10 am to 4 pm. This is where you can either take your extra classes or do fun stuff. Most people went skiing. The powder here at Big Sky is unbelievable!! The only bummer for me this week is that I had so much other stuff I wanted to do with the extra classes and running that I didn't get to go skiing. The one-day lift tickets were $83 and I couldn't justify paying that plus ski rental for just a couple hours of skiing. Big Sky though is simply wonderful and I definitely want to come back here with my family to go skiing. It's not crowded at all and the runs just look divine!

Classes run from 7:30 am - 10 am, 4 - 6:30 pm, then from 8 - 9:30 pm so it ends up being a pretty full day.

Friday I ran 13 miles on the dreadmill during my break. Someone had a pulse oximeter and I found out my oxygen level here is 92%. That means I'm breathing about 15% less oxygen here than back in Indiana. Your pulse ox is suppose to be 100%. Back when I was a medical student, we would try to hold our breath to see if we could get our pulse ox to drop. You simply cannot hold your breath long enough to get your pulse ox to drop by more than 1-2%.

OK, I digress... anyway, I felt somewhat better than Wednesday. My 5 mile time was 53:35, which was about 5 minutes better than Wednesday. Woohoo, I was feeling pretty good. I decided to slow down at 7 miles to drink some Gatorade. It was all downhill after that. I just couldn't get going again. I had to walk a little again at 10 miles, then again at 11.5 miles. The last couple were pretty ugly. I finished 13 in 2:21:50. Not the pace I planned. Plus, I discovered that I list to the left when I run on the treadmill as my left foot hit the side a couple times. Anyone else list to one side when they run on a treadmill? I hope I don't EVER have to run that far on a treadmill again!

Since Friday was Valentine's Day, I treated myself to a chocolate cupcake with raspberry caramel buttercream swirl after my run.

I am definitely in the Run-to-Eat Club!

 

Saturday was another full day of conference classes. I took an extra Winter Survival Class during our break and got to play in the snow and build more fires. I am dying to show the kids how to build an igloo when I get home! I just have to go buy some snowshoes (to tramp down a "quarry"), a hiking shovel and a snow saw. Rumor has it there is lots of snow in Indiana right now.

 

Saturday was another "rest" day. I squeezed in a 50 minute deep tissue massage between my afternoon and evening conference classes. Not exactly the massage I was wanting as the masseuse couldn't massage hard enough and then couldn't figure out what to do with my legs. She asked what my "problem spots" were and I told her my left hamstring and glute. I think that freaked her out a bit since it wasn't my back... she ended up doing something to my calf that sent my foot into pedal spasm... and made me yelp and flex my knee so I could relieve the foot spasm... and it was pretty much downhill from there...

 

 

Week 9 Total Miles: 30

 

This was a recovery week in the training plan so I hit all my miles. The only thing that was different from the training plan was that I was suppose to run a half-marathon, or I suppose, do my 13 all out, but 2:21:50 was the best I could do given the conditions.

 

Today was the last day of my conference. Classes were done at noon. I did 4 more miles on the dreadmill. This time my left foot hit the side of the treadmill and made some God-awful squealing sound on the belt as it drug along and I almost took a header but grabbed the rails just in time.

 

I would be happy if I never saw a treadmill again!

 

The shuttle bus is coming to get me at 3:10 am to take me to the airport so I think I'd better take a nap now!

 

Winter Camp for Adults

Yup, I am definitely at winter camp for adults. My day flew by and I got to learn all kinds of ultra cool stuff...

Did you know you can start a fire by crossing the negative and positive poles of a 9-volt battery with some steel wool? You should bring out your inner pyromaniac and try it!

Also got to jimmy the inner doors open in an elevator between floors and unlatch the outer doors on the floor above you to crawl out. Hint - ALWAYS crawl UP, so if you fall, you fall back into the elevator!

For some more practical advice, if you are traveling with children, stick your business card and/or the card of the hotel you are staying at in your kid's pocket before going sightseeing so if something happens they will have some contact numbers on them.

Got to learn how to make a pulley system to rappel out of a burning hotel room.

Also got to play in the snow and make my own emergency snow shelter...

                                                                              ...and build an igloo.

Plus LOTS of other stuff... like how to remove a bot fly out of someone with a cigarette, or petroleum jelly, or bacon... important medicine related stuff like that!

The day ended with a welcome reception. I didn't get back to my room til 8 pm. Then, I had to get my run in. I SO wanted to blow it off. But, I told my sole sister Michelle that I was dedicating my run tonight to her so I ran, on the dreadmill, for the longest time ever.

I had 5 miles on the schedule. I scoped out the terrain around the resort this afternoon on my lunch break and decided there really isn't anywhere to run. There are plenty of trails but the problem is they are all covered with several inches of powdery slushy snow. I have cold weather running gear but the problem is my shoes. My feet will get soaking wet in no time flat and then they will freeze. I managed a 5K in December like this but I can't imagine running any longer with frozen feet. So treadmill it was. I decided to start at a 10 minute pace. I almost quit after a half mile because I couldn't breathe and my head was pounding. Then I decided to try the run/walk method that many of my sole sisters do. The TV in the exercise room was on so I walked at a 15 minute pace through all the commercials then speeded back up to a jog through whatever was on. Longest 5 miles of my life in 58:39 but I'm proud to say I got it done!

I hope I can acclimate a bit more before my 13 on Friday.

My Big Sky Adventure

Today was the first day of my Big Sky Adventure... and I am absolutely giddy... admittedly I've had some wine...

I'm attending the Wilderness Medicine conference in Big Sky, Montana. It starts tomorrow morning, I spent the entire day traveling. The airlines make no sense. When I looked at flights here, my choices for getting here from Indianapolis were to fly through Phoenix to get to Bozeman, Montana and spend the whole day traveling, or fly through Minneapolis with a 30 minute connection. I decided to go for Minneapolis.

So, I check in in Indianapolis. I immediately get a notice at the automatic check-in thing-a-ma-jiggy that says the flight from Minneapolis to Bozeman is overbooked and they are looking for volunteers to get on another flight. Uh oh... Then, the thing-a-ma-jiggy won't print my boarding pass for Bozeman and says to check in with the gate agent for my boarding pass when I get to Minneapolis. Hmmm... Delta is betting I won't make my connection.

Luckily, my plane lands in Minneapolis on time. We deplane on Concourse A. My connection is on Concourse F. %!$#*F!! The monitor says my plane is boarding. I took off running for the tram, then ran from the tram to the gate. Made it from one end of the Minneapolis airport to the other in 15 minutes. I got on that plane.

All is well until we approach Bozeman. Just as we are approaching, Bozeman gets hit with a snow squall with 50 mph wind gusts and quarter mile visibility. We circle, get low on fuel, and end up going to Salt Lake City. For awhile, I thought I might end up spending the night in Salt Lake City. Luckily, Delta needed my plane in Bozeman to take some more people back to Minneapolis tonight so we refueled and went back to Bozeman. So I got there. Three hours late. About as long as it would have taken me if I had flown through Phoenix.

I got off the plane in Bozeman and had the best chicken salad on a croissant and Gatorade I'd ever had. Maybe it was because I'd left Indianapolis at 9:40 am and landed in Bozeman at 5:45 pm Indy time. I was ready to chew my arm off!

After regrouping, I got on the shuttle bus I'd booked for the hour ride to Big Sky. I'm glad I booked the shuttle instead of renting a car. The road was slushy and winding. I was tired. I finally got to my hotel at 9 pm Indy time.

I have a huge room to myself. Two queen size beds, sitting area with couch (that also pulls out into another bed) and cocktail table, two more tables and a sink area with mini-fridge and microwave. I could have a party in here! It was good just to plop all my things down and stretch out.

I was suppose to run 5 miles today after I got here. Well, after traveling for 12 hours, I was tired. It's already dark outside. Then, it occurred to me that I'm also at 7500 feet. I decided running was not a good idea. And, I was starving again.

So... went down to the bar. Had some chardonnay and cheese fondue. Chatted with some retired school teachers that had been snowmobiling in Yellowstone all day. One of them had even climbed Kilimanjaro the same route I did in '97 and stayed in the same huts I stayed in. It was fun. I'm so happy I'm finally here. Now I'm ready to crash. I have a Wilderness and Urban Survival course at 8 am in the morning with my Navy Seal instructor. I think I need to get some sleep!

Showing Up... Dash for Heart 5K

It's cold. It's dark. I am totally unmotivated. I'm having a really hard time getting my body to show up for it's work outs.

The past two weeks have been a struggle. Week 7 of Derby Training was tough but I got all my runs in, mainly with lots of support from my fellow online Sole Sisters...

Sunday - rest
Monday - 8 miles
Tuesday - 4 miles
Wednesday - kettlebells
Thursday - 4 miles
Friday - kettlebells, 8 miles
Saturday - 16 miles

Week 7 Total Miles: 40

Last week, Week 8, it all fell apart due to weather and weakness (on my part)...

Sunday - rest
Monday - 4 miles
Tuesday - 8 miles
Wednesday - I had to bag my 17 mile long run due to 7" of snow and spending 3 hours shoveling
                      my driveway before going in to work
Thursday - rest (and really, I was too sore to move)
Friday - kettlebells, 4 miles (still sore)
Saturday - my 10K was canceled due to the weather. I should have done my long run or at least
                  done 8 miles but hanging out at home and making more Nutella cookies before going
                  into work sounded like a better idea so I bagged my run again.

Week 8 Total Miles: 16

So now I am into Week 9 and had a 5K on the schedule yesterday morning. The race was at 1 pm in Nashville, IN. I was suppose to be at work in Bloomington, IN at 2:30 pm. Timewise, it was going to be close. Plan was to run my race, jump in the car and drive to the hospital, shower and change at the hospital and clock in. I hate being rushed...

So why the heck did I sign up for this? I hate running in cold weather. I believe I've only run outdoors twice this year. What possessed me?

I'm cursed with a competitive spirit. This weekend's races were the first races of the year for the Crossroads of Indiana Race Series. I really want to win my age group this year. I think I can win my age group this year as I'm now running in the 45-49 age group and I think I'm a couple minutes faster than the next fastest runner. However, you have to show up and run the race to get credit. It doesn't count to sit on the couch and look at the race results and say, "I could've run faster than that."

So I showed up. It was cold. It was windy. The course went straight uphill at the midway portion of the race.

I ran like hell but I think everyone ran like hell since the women's winner ran 21:32. Here are my crappy splits...

Mile 1 - 7:45
Mile 2 - 8:41
Mile 3 - 8:28
last 0.1 - 1:53

Official finish time - 26:47
Average pace - 8:37 (ugh, that was the pace for my last half-marathon!)

The race started and finished at the Nashville YMCA so I was able to grab a shower there instead of at the hospital. I got changed and thought about staying til awards but there were still people running the course when I got done showering so I jumped in my car and drove to work and looked up the race results later.

For the race, I ended up 10th overall woman, second in the women's 40-49 age group, 40 seconds out of first. For the race series, I won the 45-49 age group by 2:17. Looks like I have a lot more work to do getting my speed back up.

Today, again, I didn't want to show up to kettlebell class. 5:15 am is so freakin' early for nightowls like me! (Especially after working til midnight.) I basically stumbled out of bed with the angel and the devil warring in my head and got to class before I woke up and could change my mind. Class is always fine once I get there. There's loud rock music blasting and a 20-something looking guy yelling instructions at you so you feel like you're 20 and at boot camp. It kicked my butt. I got home and made it to the couch, then fell asleep again.

So now I've still got 9 more miles on my plate today. I need to show up! Tomorrow I'm flying out to Montana for a week long Wilderness Medicine Conference. I'm excited but nervous about how I'm going to get my runs in. Luckily this is a "down" week in the training schedule.

Gotta run now!

Nutella Sea Salt Stuffies and Lessons Learned

           I was destined to make these cookies this week. First, the good folks at King Arthur Flour sent me this awesome recipe in their email newsletter. Next, there were really good Nutella coupons in this week's inserts.

Buy One Get One Free, doesn't get any better than this!

 

 

Then, Meijer has Nutella on sale this week (through 2/12/14).

 

 

 

...and since I don't own a 7 lb tub of Nutella like my friend Isabelle (check out her photo HERE along with another Nutella recipe), I decided to go stock up.

 

 

Now onto the recipe...

 

Nutella Sea Salt Stuffies

original recipe HERE

 

Filling

1/2 cup Nutella chocolate-hazelnut spread

 

Cookie dough

1 cup Nutella chocolate-hazelnut spread

1 cup flour

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon espresso powder

 

Topping

coarse sea salt

 

To make the filling, scoop small balls of Nutella onto a lined baking sheet and freeze for at least 3 hours.

 



Lesson #1: SMALL BALLS... mine were too big

 

 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

 

Mix all your dough ingredients together.

 

I decided I didn't want to waste any Nutella by putting it in a measuring cup and then scraping it into a bowl. I decided to measure it out by weight instead and put my whole mixing bowl on a scale, zeroed it, and put in 8 oz of Nutella (that's 1 cup, right? no, I was wrong...)

 







All the cookie dough ingredients

 

..."the mixture will be cohesive, fairly soft, but not sticky; think modeling clay"

 

Well, my mixture was incredibly crumbly. Something wasn't right. I decided to double check the Nutella measurement. One of the things I love about the recipes on the King Arthur Flour website is that you can measure your ingredients by volume, ounces, or grams - all you have to do is click your choice and everything is converted for you. The default is by volume but I changed it to ounces and discovered I needed 10.5 ounces of Nutella.

 

I put the mixing bowl back on the scale, zeroed it, and added 2.5 more ounces of Nutella.

 



Adding more Nutella to my dry cookie dough

Lesson #2: 1 cup does not always equal 8 ounces

Scoop your dough into heaping tablespoons.

Filling on top, dough on bottom. This is when I realized my filling balls were too big.

 

 

Flatten a ball of cookie dough. Place frozen Nutella ball in the center.

 



I ended up only using a 1/3 to a 1/4 of each frozen Nutella ball in each cookie.

 

Wrap dough around Nutella like a dumpling, completely enclosing it. Roll the ball of dough between your palms to seal any cracks and round it out. Place cookies on cookie sheet. Flatten slightly and sprinkle with coarse salt.

 



Lesson #3: frozen Nutella balls "melt" rather quickly. I had to put the rest back in the freezer to firm back up after just making 9-10 cookies.

Bake cookies for 8-10 minutes. I baked mine for 10 minutes.

Finished cookies. They don't spread much.

 

This is how much frozen Nutella I had left over.

Admittedly, I probably used far more than half a cup to make these balls.

 

 

Cookies can be served warm or at room temperature. Warm cookies will have a melting-center lava-cake like effect. The room temperature cookies will have a more solid center.

 



Warm cookie

 

 

I ended up with 18 cookies and used not quite two 13oz jars of Nutella. Hope don't make the same mistakes I did and enjoy some Nutella cookies!