Tough few days

Yesterday, during work, I got a call from my mom that my grandmom had passed away. It's been a long time coming, but it's sad nonetheless.

I don't have a lot to say right now. The services are Saturday, and these next few days will involve LOTS of family time.

Thankfully, my running has provided some quiet, peaceful periods of time.

Love you, Meem.

Running away.

I worked for a few hours at the store yesterday and then hit the road. Drove up to the Poconos to meet some friends for the night. I got there too late to ski, but with enough time to meet them for some beers at the ski lodge bar. Sadly, no cute boys to mingle with. My friend and I really, really tried to find some...

I was running away, admittedly. (Not in the same running, away sense as I did in March.) I needed to get out of town. Thought it would be good to hang out with my other friends, away from home. It was a long drive for an overnight trip that, truthfully, cost too much money for stuff we could've done right here in Philly. However, I thought it would be good to step away from things that have been frustrating me at home. I thought a good drive with some good music and a night of hanging out with old friends would be a solid distraction.

It wasn't. A distraction, that is. And it didn't really do for me what I wanted it to.

But, I did have a nice time with my friends. And I did have a good 10 mile run in the hilly area around our rented house this morning while my friends slept. I found myself running a 5 mile route that wound me around Lake Naiomi, and I did that route twice. It was chilly, quiet, peaceful.

And when I got back to the house, my friends were waking up, and we had lots of coffee, fruit, eggs, bagels, pork roll, bacon, oj, and more laughs.

As I made my way home, I realized that the decision to run away was smart, even if I was returning right back where I started. Often, the run itself is the best part.

I need to feel some good.

I need to feel happy. Light. Like things are all good.

I'm walking through my days waiting for something to lift this feeling of grrrrr.

I'm frustrated, I'm conflicted, I'm feeling unsettled.

It's not a good feeling. It's not a comfortable way to go through my days.

I don't feel good in my own skin right now.

I may feel differently tomorrow, but today, this is how I feel. Enough to write about it, which I don't often do.

From the outside, people would say I have nothing to complain about.

I know that. I know in the grand scheme of things I don't.

But in my personal world, I need to feel some good.

I need to feel happier. More comfortable. Lighter. Peaceful. Good.

I don't right now, and I don't like it.

Frustrations.

I should clarify that image. I'm not feeling stressed, just frustrated. Banging my head seems appropriate for this as well.

Frustrations. I have a lot of them today.

My kids at school are wearing on me. The students of today are NOT as smart as the kids I taught 10 years ago. Not only are they lacking in basic skills, they are lacking in common sense, and they are lazy. That's right. Even they admit to the lazy part. I know it doesn't sound good for the teacher to feel this way, but it's true. It's frustrating. It's wearing on me.

I got an email at work today about a special schedule coming up for a district writing test. This schedule has many of us working while a whole other group of teachers has an hour off. Free. No commitments. Yeah, that's fair. Frustrating.

A certain someone. At times, I'm feeling like there's still a definite interest. Things said, actions done, lead me to think that. Then, in the next minute, not so much. I don't want to walk away, and I don't want to push the issue, but I also don't like the hot/cold of it all. Frustrating.

My motivation with house projects. I've started some things, and I have ideas for others. But my lack of an interior decorator eye and my distaste for shopping stalls these projects. I've enlisted my sister's help, but I need to get some things done. I just wish someone like Thom Filicia would come do it all while I was at work one day. (See, I really thought running right, smack into him during the Great Urban Race would've made us BFF. My email apology to him about sweating all over him and running away went unanswered, though.) Anyway, the point is, I have house stuff that needs/I want to get done. But I'm not doing it. Frustrating.

My working out. Yes, I'm following D's schedule. Yes, my running's going just fine. But I don't feel like it's enough. I miss the two-a-day workouts of the summer. I could fit in a swim or a bike ride after my runs some days during the week. I could. But, I know D wouldn't really like that, and I have way less time in my day during the school year than I do in the summer. I should be spending more dedicated time to stretching and core work. I do that stuff (most mornings when I wake up), but not as diligently as I should. I'm not sure why my motivation is lower about that, but it is. Frustrating.

If I think about it, I can come up with several more frustrations. But the ones above are the biggies. These are the ones -- school stuff, guy stuff, house stuff, and workout stuff -- that I think about most. I'm not feeling stressed about them, but I am feeling frustrated.

Like I want to bang my head against the wall.

Plugging along

Nothing too exciting to report about the running this week. I went over 40 miles for the first time since November, I hit all my paces, and I got to run in shorts twice.

All good stuff, and nothing too special.

My week's been busy, and I've meant to write a few times, but haven't had the chance. This is a boring post, but I'm just plugging along right now...

Despite the wind

I was able to get my first, real-quality workout done today. Plan was for 8 total miles with 4 at marathon pace in the middle. D put 8:35 as my marathon pace at the top of my schedule, so despite thinking he's crazy for that, that's what I set out to do today.

The temps were finally in the 30's, so I left the long tights at home and got back into my capris. Love them. I didn't think about the wind chill still being in the 20's, but my legs really felt fine the whole run. My hands were another story, though. I can never get them warm enough...

So, I got started with the first two easy miles and MAN was it windy! I was running pretty much straight into the wind for the first 4 miles of this run out and around the river, except for the few areas where it swept more across the side of me. I need to look up the wind speed/gusts today, because I was really fighting it and almost got knocked sideways a few times!

I was excited about this run -- I love these tempo style runs -- but I was nervous, too. Other then the 4x400's I ran Saturday, I've been running all slow, easy miles. I wasn't sure I'd be able to hold this pace today, and decided if I needed to, I'd back it down to 8:40 pace.

Surprise, surprise, the paces were easy to hold. I was a little fast, even. I really tried to keep it right around the 8:35 pace once I knew I could run that, but I ended up with 8:36, 8:29, 8:30, 8:27. Sweet! Take that, Wind!

I got hit by a car.

Well, bumped, really. It was more funny than serious, but it did leave a mark... that I didn't notice until 2 days later...

This doesn't do the coloring justice. It was much deeper two days ago!

I was on the sidewalk, on my run on Wednesday, and a car was pulling out of the Wendy's. They were on the sidewalk part of the driveway entrance/exit, and so I stopped. Another car, which was trying to pull into the lot, stopped, waved me by, and I looked into the car in my way and met eyes with the passenger. Neither of the cars moved, so I went in front of the car exiting. I put my hand on its hood, and slid it across as I ran past. When I was right in front, the driver decided that was the best time to exit the lot. Apparently, a runner in front of her car wasn't a deterrent...

As she hit the gas, her grill/front bumper area hit into me and popped me out into the road. I kept running, because it wasn't like she was going fast enough to really hurt me, but I turned to give her a look. As I did, someone in her car was yelling. I just kept going.

I kind of laughed it off with my friends when I arrived at the running store after I finished my 8 miles, and then sort of forgot about it for the next couple days. Friday, I noticed a bit of discomfort in my left leg around the outside of my knee. That's when I noticed the deep purple/yellow bruise. Huh. Where'd that come from? I thought. I couldn't remember banging it at school or anything. Weird.

Then today, two days after noticing the bruise and 4 days after the bump from the car, I realized that's where the bruise came from. Duh.

The tortoise or the hare...

Day 1 of training for The Illinois Marathon is in the books. Got the plan from D today! Well, I got the month of January, that is. He said we'll evaluate and take it from there at the end of the month.

So I look at what he's got for me, and this week it's all easy stuff, with some 400's thrown in on Saturday. Looking at the weeks ahead, it's 4 easy runs and 2 runs with speed stuff in them each week. One day off. I can do this. I did this for the fall races.

Then I look at the top of the page, where he listed the paces.

Easy = 10 mpm
400's = 1:50
marathon pace = 8:35

Um, what?! I'm going to skip commenting on the marathon pace. I'll reserve judgement on that for now. But looking at that easy pace, I think I actually let out a "Wha???!!!" right there in front of him. 10 mpm seems so slow to me right now. I know it makes sense, and I know D knows his stuff. And I followed his plan and did really well in the fall, so I'll follow it again. But I've been running an easy pace of about about 9:30 - 9:40's and 10 mpm seems sooooo slow.

But that's what he said, so that's what I'm doing. That's what I ran today. 5 miles in just under 50 minutes. I ended up with a 9:52 pace. I feel like D would say that's ok. I hope he would. It was tough to slow down more than that. My legs felt a little heavy, even. But, I did it.

And I'm looking forward to the rest of the workouts, too. Even the one at the end of the month that D warned me would be hard. He even offered to have "one of us" (meaning him, or one of the store guys, etc) run with me for it. It's 2 mile repeats. Fast.

I'm looking forward to the challenge.

And, it's done.

The smooching with the cutie, that is. I'm sad about it. He has to get some life stuff together.

No further details necessary. Just didn't want it to be a topic here anymore. :(


On a different and better note, in a bit of a surprise to me, "coach" has me starting my training plan tomorrow. 17 week plan.

And that means my LR for this week is a whopping 8 miler.

I haven't seen the whole plan yet, but the timing to refocus couldn't be better. The fun is coming to an end. I really enjoyed it, so I'll need to figure out how to balance things better, but based on how I feel right now, refocusing on the running is what I need.