Sunday Wrap Up: That Was Fast

Connemara Ultra Training Week 2: Fail.  I know, I know: that's pretty quick turnaround from the naive optimism I was feeling after a successful week one.  But unfortunately, Tuesday's sick day morphed into Thursday's birthday pity party which became Friday-Sunday's full blown flu, complete with a cancelled birthday party and 40 straight hours without leaving my apartment.  Thank God I mustered a trip to my usual Soul Cycle class on Friday morning before I realized how sick I was, because I imagine walking from the couch to the bed in a tiny one bedroom apartment can't do much for endurance or calorie burning. (Also, because something awesome happened there, and it was both the highlight of my birthday and also an eye-opening fitness experience that will get a post all its own.  Stay tuned...)

I was NOT that into spinning at 6am on Friday.

The good news is that being incapacitated by the flu left me with an insatiable desire to get my run on - burnout be gone!  And (knock on wood), I don't have an injury, and after 6 days of on-and-off ailing, I'm on the mend.The bad news is that we're now only 8 weeks from 39.3 miles and my weekly training looked like... this:

Number of Miles Run Last Week: 5.  I felt pretty bad when I woke up on Thursday morning, but really wanted to run on my birthday.  Good thing I did, since that was the only run I had in me this week.  While I'm normally of the opinion that sweating out the sickness is actually possibly, I spent all day Tuesday and all day Saturday, as well as Friday from 5:30pm on, under a mountain of tissues in a Nyquil coma.  Luckily for the one run I did manage, running itself requires very little head and neck movement: my lymph nodes have been so swollen I haven't been able to turn my head.

Number of Beers Consumed Last Week:  Not nearly enough.  I had grand plans for a birthday bash at Bier Kraft this weekend, but had to cancel on account of being on my death bed.  Incidently, I think I ended up on my death bed as a result of drinking aggressively while I was already under the weather on Thursday...

Types of Beers Consumed Last Week:  Whale's Tale Pale Ale, Heineken, Stella, Mission IPA. 

I'm probaby the only person who is now looking forward to turning 30, if only because it can't possibly be as lame as 29 has been.

Several Reasons Why I Don't Feel Good (Update: And One Reason I Do)

In a most unfortunate turn of events, no sooner did I hit "publish" on my weekly wrap up post than I was knocked on my ass with a cold that's kept me in a drug-addled semi-sober state for 3 days. Not the most auspicious of beginnings for Connemara training, nor for my 30th year on this earth.

Yup, today's my birthday. Twenty-nine-mother-effing years old. I don't know how that happened, and I most assuredly just freaked myself the hell out by thinking about how this is actually the start of my 30th year. Jesus. On the plus side, I know I say this every year, but no shit, I think I actually learned some things getting to 29. Not that I've applied these lessons, but at least I know I'm doing things wrong before I do them now (does that make it better or worse?). Maybe that's something to work on before the 30th year comes to a close.

I can't bear to not run on my birthday, despite the drugs, so I'm going to try to get myself outside in the next couple of minutes. In the meantime, you may admire my gifts to myself:


UPDATE: I didn't want to mention it since it's not my story to tell, but two of my most treasured friends are making it official.  Read Abbe's tale of Baker's proposal here.

Monday Wrap Up: She's baaaaaaaack

Week one of my ten week Connemara Ultra training program is under my belt, and no one is more surprised than me that I actually did it. By Friday morning, I was really sore and starting to think maybe I was making a huge mistake by diving into training feet first after taking January largely off, but a day of cross training and not running seemed to put me back on track. I was pleasantly surprised to find that, after a 2-hour Saturday run in Central Park, I wasn't sore on Sunday and was able to knock out the final 90 minutes of the week without a problem. Best of all, the runger kicked in right as I was sitting down with Ryan to watch the Superbowl with chili, corn muffins, cookies, chips, and beers.



Oh look, it's a wrap up!

Number of Miles Run Last Week: 45. As compared with Number of Miles Run in January: 63. Please don't do this to yourself, because it's a terrible idea to increase mileage so drastically. Please also don't wish bad things upon me for continuing to do it time and time again. Anyway, January was the lowest mileage month I've had in approximately 28 years aka ever. And in just a few weeks, 63 miles will become weekly mileage. Again, assuming I don't suffer crippling injury from ramping up mileage.

Number of Beers Consumed Last Week: Yikes, waaaay to many. Like 20. I had my first beer shortly after noon on Saturday and drank straight through to 11pm. In that time I also wrestled a dog, went out to
dinner twice, and thought we were under attack when I felt cold things stabbing me in the face, only to be told it was snowing.

Types of Beers Consumed Last Week: Guinness, Peak Organic IPA, Belfast Ale, Heineken, Whale's Tale Pale Ale, Lake Placid Nippletout Stout, Magic Hat Heart of Darkness, and two Polish beers, which I learned are generally named for the city in which they were brewed. Drinking is educational!