Training Week 2 – More Fizzles

March 9, 2015 / Amanda / Leave a comment

Good morning and holy hiatus!

Last week ended up a bit cray so the blog got a little neglected. So did training. In fact, most everything got neglected except for grad school. Cause that’s how it goes sometimes. Some weeks, grad school is just like having a 9 to 5 job. You go, work, and come home. Other weeks, grad school is your worst nightmare. Nothing works, people panic, and you end up rediscovering just how brilliant of a multitasker you really are (Seriously, simultaneously fabricating a new material for project A, making a flexible circuit for project B, teleconferencing with a group mate about project C, and talking with a friend about issues with project D). #skillz

Here’s a pic of part of the circuit I made. Not very impressive and pretty simple, but it’s flexible! Those blank spaces are for the rigid components.

Anyways since Mondays are rest days and I choose to update y’all with my training on Mondays…here’s my slightly embarrassing training summary for week 2 of Raleigh 70.3 training.

Workouts completed – maybe half
Workouts skipped – most….oops
Miles run – 16ish
Miles biked – 11?
Yards swum – 1300 (sad trombone)
Bike maintenance performed – Allen wrenches were thrown
Workouts skipped so I could drink beer instead – 4
Priorities y’all –^

AAAAAAAND here’s the daily breakdown

Monday – Nada. Nothing. Rest day. Sighs of contentment.

Tuesday – Biked 11.2 miles on the trainer in 45 min. This was pretty good. I felt like I was able to push my speed a bit more even though at 6am my legs refuse to function. Did my one swim for the week in the afternoon and did about 1300 yds. Probably could have done more, but I wasn’t feeling it. My personal rule for workouts is, when you’re not feeling it (and I mean really not feeling it) do part of the workout. If you’re still not feeling it after you’ve started, then stop. Usually, once you get started, that solves the whole motivation thing and you can finish the workout. When you’re really not feeling it though. Don’t stress it. It’s a sign you need either a mental or physical break; which is just as important to fitness as exercising is.

Wednesday – Long run of 8.2 miles in 1:17 so about a 9:23 min/mile pace. Which is pretty solid for a long run. Especially since it was CRAZY windy. I’m talking like 30 mph headwind on the uphills. Ugh. But it was a seriously gorgeous day out. AND I ran on my favorite bridge, but didn’t take a picture since I didn’t have my phone. Here a nicer pic of what the view looks like…

Awesome right?!? Love this view. The run is a little hilly, but this view is totally worth it.

Thursday – Had a bike and swim planned. Didn’t do either. Had a really long day at work and was really wiped out. Decided that sleep would be the best idea.

Friday – Had a run and swim planned. Again was too tired so I skipped both. It was my third day in a row of non-stop work action. And to be honest, I also had a pretty rough mental day. My med dosage was a little weird and my mood got funky towards the end of the week. On days where my mood goes weird, (read: depressed and I’ll do a post on grad school and depression later, but let’s keep this post a little less sad today, okay? okay.) it can be hard to function, much less find the motivation to cook, workout, make decisions, etc. Luckily I was able to get back to my normal dose of antidepressants the next day and life was good again 🙂

Saturday – Was supposed to be brick day, but Sunday was supposed to be really pretty so I swapped Saturday’s and Sunday’s workouts. I had a short, easy run planned so I decided to join Steve on his long run and turn back halfway. Well it felt so nice outside that I stuck with him for the whole thing! We did about 8.2 easy miles and I gotta say it felt great to move again!

Sunday – Brick day! I decided to adjust my bike position to be a little more aero (read took out some spacers on my handlebars to lower them slightly) and add in a new water bottle holder (a behind the seat holder). Thanks to my non-circular stem, the holder didn’t fit. Tried a zip-tied configuration and it still didn’t work. Threw a wrench at it and that definitely didn’t help. So I gave up and had a beer. On the porch. With Steve and Indy. For the rest of the afternoon. AAAAAAAND the brick was skipped. (hangs head in shame)

Because the day was OMG AMAZING LIKE 70 DEGREES AND SUNNY!! We hung outside and gave Indy some much needed attention

She really enjoyed her spa day with the rejuvenating creek waters

She was happy. We were happy. It was a good day.

Gotta pick up the training this week though. Luckily it’s spring break for the university so it’ll be more of a chill week and I can focus on training.

And just for shits and giggles, here’s some ~~slightly fuzzy~~ pics of Indy when she decided her foot was delicious

Have a great Monday!

My training brain

March 8, 2015March 8, 2015 / thievinsteven / Leave a comment

Yesterday I ran 8.2 miles, my longest run yet. I never thought I’d run that far before deciding to train for a half marathon. To be honest I used to think I couldn’t do it. I thought that my old ankle injury would handicap me too much and to be honest, it’s really stiff today. I can barely bend it.

I think about it differently now though. I think about a lot of things differently. Training for this race and steadily increasing my longest run distance has changed me. I feel more capable in general. I feel more confident. Barriers seem less insurmountable. I see challenges in a different light which helps me see ways to tackle them.

A week ago I did a 7 mile run. Mile number 7 was really difficult and I had to really concentrate to keep running. This week the first 7 miles were pretty easy and it was mile 8 that was really difficult. I did have Amanda with me on this run which was a huge help as far as making the run go quickly and distracting me from having to think “Ok, still running, keep going, only x more miles to go.” but still, the progress is there. I’m stronger than I was. I have more endurance than I’ve had in… decades I guess.

In the past if I tried to do something and woke up with an ankle this stiff that made me hobble around I would have said well… I guess I can’t do that. My new training brain is thinking about how we can best recover so I can make my 3 mile run on Monday. I look forward to pushing myself. I relish testing my limits. I take pride in my achievements.

This training brain thought process isn’t limited to running and exercise. It bleeds out into the rest of my life and is positively impacting my attitude toward challenges in my studies as well. In all aspects of my life I’m shedding apathy. I see footholds in barriers that seemed smooth and shear before. It’s refreshing and encouraging. Sure I still have days when things seem extra hard but I’m constantly proving to myself that I can do things I didn’t think I could and that makes a huge difference.

So, no jokes this post and I haven’t been taking many pictures lately, but here is an inspirational picture of Indy for you. She is becoming more confident all the time too (maybe a little too confident and a little too comfortable with being off her leash, but that’s a story for another time)

No context

March 3, 2015March 3, 2015 / Amanda / Leave a comment

Steve: “kind of weird hearing voices from my eyebrow of wisdom”

Amanda: “it looks less creepy with eyeballs, so I left them in”

Mike: “I don’t want a bowl, but I’ll have that bowl and maybe I’ll want a bowl later”

Steve: I don’t need no lips. I got plenty o’ stache

Shake: My wrists are really moisturized
Matt: My nipples are so hard! All 400 of them!

Ice Hurdling

March 2, 2015 / Amanda / Leave a comment

Hi everyone!

As of today, I have completed 1 week of training for Raleigh 70.3 (cheers). Here’s a summary of what I did and how it felt.

Time Training- 7:08
Miles Run – 14.1 mi
Miles Biked – 47.8 mi
Yards Swam(Swum?) – 3312 yds
Trees Hurdled – 3 (6 if you count out and back)
Curse Words Invented – approx. 2
Netflix watched while on the trainer – ummmm like 9 episodes or something idk
Bugs accidentally swallowed – 0!
Times I have had to stop in the middle of swimming a lap because my contacts decided that the back of my eyeball was an ideal location – 10

Now let’s break it down by day! This go around, I’m tracking everything using Training Peaks This training plan is based on workout time rather than workout distance. So rather than saying to bike 10 miles, I need to bike for 40 min. Green blocks are planned workouts I’ve completed. The red blocks are mad at me.

Can you read that?? Neither can I

Lemme break it down for you

Monday – Rest Day!! WooHoo!! Unfortunately this was like the only decent day to actually work out this entire week….boo.

Tuesday – I did 40 min on the trainer and ended up finishing 9 miles. This was a Z2 workout (Zone 2 of heart rate) so it’s not supposed to be fast. Gotta build endurance and stamina first! I was supposed to swim as well, but this was the first day of snow and the pool was closed.

Wednesday – Long run day. I ran on the snow dammit. Not gonna let a little snow stop me after my run in with the Jesus Geese! Was scheduled for 1:10 of running and got 7.5 miles in during that time. For a long run in the snow, it wasn’t a bad pace 🙂

Thursday – snOMG. Power out. Stuck at home. Decided this would be a good test of my mental fortitude on the bike trainer since Netflix was not available. Was slated for a 1:00 recovery ride. Did about 13.4 miles and read a book in the dark for entertainment. Swimming was obviously out. Stupid roads.

Friday – Run and Swim! Although in hindsight, maybe it’s best to do the swim first. Not that I’d know from personal experience or anything 😉 For my 40 min run, I was able to squeeze in 4.5 miles and then I made a mad dash to the pool and did 2000 yds in 1 hr. Most exciting part of this was NEW RUNNING SHOES!

Here’s a super blurry pic. Yes they are pink/yellow tie-die. Total love. ❤

Saturday – Brick day. Basically long bike immediately followed by a run. I did 25.3 mi on the trainer in 1:40 and then walked out to the melty ice/snow to go for a run in the balmy 25 degree (Farenheit) weather. Considering the terrifying conditions (i.e. icy greenway and 3 trees that had fallen in my way) I managed to hurdle all the trees without falling on either the tree or the ice and did 2.1 miles in 19 min. It’s the little successes.

Sunday – ‘k well I was supposed to run, but I also had a swim lesson so I decided to skip the run and just swim. Same thing right? I did 1200 meters in about 40 min with a lot of coaching breaks.

Well that’s about it for training this week! I’ll be sure to update the Gear page with my swimming and biking things.

Lights Out!

March 1, 2015March 1, 2015 / thievinsteven / Leave a comment

Back in action after another snow storm and a power outage. We got a little freezing rain this morning but I think now we’ll get a reprieve from the winter weather. We had a nice night at home on Wednesday I think before the snow started. We watched Guardians of the Galaxy with Matt and Lisa and cuddled with the puppy on the couch. Indy has overcome her fear of furniture and is now taking full advantage of it for naps.

We woke up in the morning with no power after a night peppered with booms of transformers exploding. Fortunately we picked up some firewood to keep warm and bundled up to go explore. We got about 5 or so inches of snow with a little bit of wintery mix so the snow was wet and heavy but crunchy on top. Indy had a blast and reaffirmed her status as a cold weather dog. The university finally decided to cancel classes but the university was technically still open which totally stupid. I can’t believe they expected people to drive to work in that mess.

This picture was also from exploring the snow covered greenway.

Which reminds me a lot of this picture from last year. We got trapped on campus when the sky suddenly opened up and dropped snow on Raleigh at a rate of inches per hour. By the time we got ready to go the mass exodus from campus had clogged all the road ways out of campus so we abandoned our cars in the parking deck and walked back to my apartment. It was about a mile walk and we stopped by the grocery store for the essentials (read: beer)

After getting very bored with no power by 11 or so in the morning we decided we may as well start drinking. We channeled our inner Russian in honor of Amanda’s brother William who is teaching in Russia and had some vodka shots with snow in them. After that we made Eskimohitos with rum, lime juice and snow. We didn’t have any mint but we made do 🙂

While we were drinking on the porch the power came back on! We finished up our drinks and Amanda passed out around 4 or 5 in the afternoon :p

On Friday, enough of the snow melted so that we could get to campus for the afternoon and we decided to go out to a new barcade (bar + arcade) called Level Up with a few friends, Michael, Leah, Abhishek and Francisco.

We. had. a. blast.

Amanda and I love arcade games and pinball especially. There was only one pinball machine so far because they just opened up and are still expanding but it was a fun one with a Playboy theme. Doing certain things in the game would uncover scandalous pictures which was quite entertaining and distracting.

Sorry for the quality. I took this picture with a potato.

Then on Saturday we had a nice relaxing day starting with coffee at Sola and watching House of cards. In true college student fashion we had Cookout for dinner 🙂

PhDeviants

Misadventures in grad school, running, and life

Month: March 2015