Geez Louise, I am one tired girl. Work is insane right now and I feel like my head is constantly spinning with so much going on in it. I’m late, but it’s still Friday, at least for another two hours.. so here are my five things for this Friday!
1. We joined a gym! I’m excited about it — they offer yoga a few times a week at times that actually work with my schedule! It’ll be nice to have the option to run inside and try out some new stuff for cross training too. I went for the first time last night and.. well.. I need some treadmill lessons. I had no clue how fast I was running (it was supposed to be a tempo run) because I couldn’t figure out how to get it to display my pace. Then when I looked up what my pace was online later, it seemed a lot slower than what it felt like I was running. Any insight? I thought treadmill running was supposed to be easier!
Braden really loves it — they have a kids club where he can hang out while I workout and it’s really great. He was in there for an hour last night and didn’t want to leave. On the way home, he told me that I need to let him know every time I go there because he wants to go with me.
2. I thought today was Thursday all day. I switched up my work schedule since Braden started Kindergarten and it has me so confused. I used to go in all day on Wednesdays, but now I’m going in two days a week and leaving at 1:30 so I can get home in time to pick Braden up from school and get back to finish out my work day at home. Throw in the endless conference calls and design meetings and fixing stuff from our last release.. ahhh! I’m thankful to have a great job that I love though, so I try not to complain too much.
3. I was listening to a podcast from the ladies at Another Mother Runner a few weeks ago and they were talking to Greg McMillan, the guy behind the McMillan pace calculator.
Dimity and Sarah talk to the pace guru Greg McMillan, the coach whose online calculator is like a Magic 8-Ball for runners: It not only predicts the time of your next race finish, but also tells you what speed to muster on your long runs, tempo runs, and track workouts. In this podcast, Greg gives great injury-prevention advice for newbie runners, including to run less mileage than you think you can (love that!), as well as offers sane words on how to accept age-related slower paces. (Sigh.) And he answers the head-scratcher of race versus tempo pace. – Another Mother Runner
I learned a ton from it, I actually want to go back and listen again. I haven’t really been paying much attention to my paces in my training runs. I have just been running by what feels easy or what I think a tempo run should feel like. I went and plugged in some of my previous race times and what I think my marathon goal might be and this is what it came up with for me. I thought it would be a lot more scary than this. I can totally do this. Remind me I said that when I’m griping about maintaining the paces for my tempo run next week
- Recovery: 11:02 – 11:51
- Long: 10:04 – 11:19
- Easy: 10:00 – 10:53
- Tempo: 9:01 – 9:16
- Intervals: 8:51 – 9:11
- 400m: 1:55 – 2:02
- 800m: 3:59 – 4:09
- 1000m: 5:06 – 5:21
- 1200m: 6:07 – 6:34
- 1600m: 8:34 – 8:49
4. The vet’s office called earlier this afternoon to let me know that they had Sammy’s ashes. I picked them up and we had every intention of spreading them out in his favorite spot to lay in the yard. I can’t bring myself to open the box though. I want the whole process to be over so we can move on and try not to be so sad about it. It’s hard though, I miss him. It’s so surreal. This whole life, this wonderful pup that we loved for so long, it’s all in this bag.
5. I was so worried about Braden starting Kindergarten. I shouldn’t have worried. He’s doing wonderfully. His teacher is wonderful and he really seems to be enjoying it. A week and a half in, he’s already reading some simple sentences and he’s SO proud of himself! I love seeing how excited he is to learn and I hope he learns to love reading as much as I do.
I feel like we got really lucky with his teacher too. The third day of school, she stopped me as I was leaving at drop-off and asked if we could have a conference. I said sure and asked if things were going okay with Braden and she said yes, he’s doing really well, she just wants to refer him for speech therapy. I wanted to hug her. We’ve gone back and forth for the last three years with his pediatrician and ENT, trying to get them to refer him for speech therapy. They kept telling us that his speech was okay, he’d outgrow the issues, not to worry. It’s hard not to worry when you can understand your child, but others can’t. It is frustrating for Braden because even people who are close to him have to ask him to repeat himself multiple times. I’m so glad that he’ll be getting help and so thankful that he has a teacher that is so pro-active!
What are you guys up to this weekend? Any fun plans??
I wanted to do the Summer Beach Run, but I bailed on my long run already once this month to do Tour de Pain, so I need to get that done. It’s supposed to rain off and on all weekend though — I can’t decide which is worse — 13 miles in the rain or 13 miles on the treadmill?