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Jul 4

Running free

Today is Independence Day. It’s a day when the country celebrates the freedom granted to those living in the United States. It’s also a requisite day off for most people, myself included.

But I’m not running today. I did an eight miler on Tuesday and am preparing for a six-hour endurance run this weekend. I’m thinking less time on my legs would be good. But I want to run. I really do.

Because something changed a couple weeks ago.

I was heading out to Mountain House for a run with Jennie and kind of running behind. I grabbed my water bottle and headed out the door. I was less than a mile from the park when I looked down and realized I forgot my Garmin.

Crap, I thought.

This can’t be good.

I’ve run races upon races, ever since my first half marathon, with my Garmin. Every outdoor run I do, it comes with me.

I nearly called Jennie and cancelled. I didn’t know how we’d run without knowing how far along on our six miler we were. But I decided we’d figure something out. I did text her to warn her.

She was right. I knew the route. In fact, I made I route. We weave through one area where the houses are still being built, then we hit the community’s perimeter. I don’t know the exact locations of the mile markers, but I know approximations.

So we set off and just started running. I was anticipating the same leg aches I’ve been getting recently, specifically tightening of my calves. We got nearly a mile in and a pace that was comfortable, but not fast. No pain.

We kept running, picking up speed here and there. We chatted and ran. It was breezy afternoon.

And I suddenly felt so free.

Six miles later, the sun was setting and instead of paying attention to my Garmin I was paying attention to what a nice day it was. There’s something to be said about running just to run. On that day, it didn’t matter how long we took or what our splits were, we just ran. It felt amazing.

I’ve picked my Garmin back up several times since then, but I’ve maintained the same kind of feeling. I don’t know if it’s the new shoes (though those are amazing too, enough I may buy a new pair to horde this weekend because East Bay has a sale), or something else, but I’m a different runner.

So I’m leaving my Garmin home a little more now. It sits on my desk at 100 percent charged.

And I’m adding up a higher mileage count too. Last week I ran 38.5 miles. That’s the highest number I’ve ever run in a week. It felt amazing. I logged a total of 117 miles for June, including the not-so-great marathon.

So today I’m celebrating a little. By not running. But also by knowing that I’ve had the two best running weeks I’ve had in six or seven months in recent weeks.

Jul 2

About that heat

It’s been a tad warm lately. And by warm I mean, “it’s not hot enough to not run outside from time to time but let’s be real and stay on the treadmill.”

I know my limitations. The hooter temperatures make me not want to run. I get cranky. I want to quit. I basically start out hoping for seven to 10 miles and then stop at four.

On the treadmill, I know I get the distance. And, lately, I’ve been upping the resistance to simulate outdoor running.

The problem with treadmill running is the monotony. I’ve let my mind wander enough times and nearly fell off the deck to figure out some time back that I needed to do something to keep my mind occupied.

I started with music on my iPod.

Then, last summer, I got an iPad for teaching. And we got Netflix. And Hulu Plus.

And now, I spend most of my treadmill runs watching videos. Usually two, which gets me anywhere from eight to 10 miles.

My latest obsession as the mercury rises is The Walking Dead. Netflix has the first season available on instant streaming. I got through the first six episodes pretty quickly during my runs this past week. Having something I’m interested in to watch even helps with mileage, which stands at 33 miles this week, though I’m hoping to hop on for some more after I’m finished cleaning my house and blogging.

Plus, I’m waiting for season two to download onto my iPad.

Believe me, the distraction makes the runs go by faster. It also helps me keep pace. I know I’m at my goal pace if I can finish a certain number of miles before the episode is over.

Of course, the treamill makes Netflix a little wonky from time to time. That means the first four minutes of my run I’m trying to get Netflix to reconnect to the Internet, despite the fact that I’m only 40 feet from the router.

The mill runs are also helping me train for the event I’m doing this weekend: the Brazen six-hour endurance run.

I logged 117 miles for June, which I figure is a good base to run six-hours straight. I’m looking forward to it, to test my endurance, but to also see how far I can get. If I can run a marathon in around 5:20-5:30, I’m hoping the event will be my first ultra. That’s pretty exciting to me, considering I’m using it as a “training run” for the San Francisco 1st Half Marathon later in the month. (I’m not nearly crazy enough for the 12-hour race.)

So I’m beating the heat, staying indoors and keeping cool on the treadmill, with a little help from The Walking Dead.

My hope is that those three words aren’t needed to describe me during my six-hour run on Saturday. After the disaster in San Diego, I need a good run.

Jul 1

Undergoing site maintenance

I haven’t written in a couple days because I’ve been performing some very necessary site maintenance.

When I started this blog last September, my running buddy Sam was kind enough to let me “borrow” some space from her on one of her servers. I built this site from the ground up there. It’s blossomed there.

But it’s also time for me to be a big girl and move to my own hosting client. So I’ve spent the past three hours moving content and download databases to move to new server space.

I just switched out my name servers for my URL. That means the switchover should happen anywhere from two hours to 48 hours from now. I’m crossing my fingers that I figured all of this out right. We’ll see. I usually deal with content management systems in my daily life. I never, ever worry about the 15+ plus year domain my job’s site runs through.

It also means I’m blogging this one last post on the borrowed space and then copy and pasting it over to the new servers.

This means nothing for my readers (unless I take the site down), but if there are some glitches in the next couple days, that’s the reason.

And for what it’s worth, I built this site off a template. I basically “fancied” it up. When people come here, they often ask who designed my blog or who built it, etc. It was me. It’s not perfect, but it’s more than just a typical WordPress install. It’s all me.

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