Week 7! Wow. I should totally be in shape now. Should being the key word in that sentence. Sadly, I am still the same chubby girl I was when I started.
The theme for week 7 training was RICE! With my knee hurting me I decided to take it light and hopefully heal up. So there was a lot of rest and a lot of ice going on in my house. My knee was really hurting on Monday, Tuesday it was a little better, but still hurt to go up or down stairs. So finally on Wednesday I gave it a shot. I went for 3 miles around the park with Matt. I kept my time good, and my heart and breathing are finally back to normal. I was sore by the end and pretty gimpy the next day, so I took Thursday and Friday off too. But by Friday night I was feeling much better in the knee department and decided to go for it on Saturday.
I woke up at 6 and set off for my longest day so far. I went 10 miles. It took me 2:16 (which is a LONG time). But that was right on pace with what I need for a 3 hour half marathon. It was actually a little faster than my planned "race pace" so that was good. Even better I felt good. I could have done three more miles (if I had enough water). My heart rate stayed low and it was good. Maybe this chunky girl can do a half marathon after all.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
Under Pressure (der der der de de der der)
Turn on the sink in the bathroom and a sound issues from the pipes that makes you think the end of the world is coming. That is how it was at our house when we moved in. We knew about it, and we knew we would have to fix it. I kept putting it off because it sounded like a hard and expensive thing to do. We needed to replace the regulator valve (I think that is what it is) on the main water coming into the house. I was able to ignore it because we didn’t really use the plumbing in the basement that often anyway. But with my brother BJ living down there now, the sink gets used a lot more – and the pipes have been singing!
Matt decided it was time to fix the problem. He read up on it and picked the brains of people he knew until he was ready. A (few) quick trip(s) to the hardware store and it was time to shut off the water. Here is where his silly wife comes in. Matt tells me it should be e
asy, and we should be ready to go in a couple hours. I say “OK” and don’t bother filling pitchers with water. Not so smart – but we will get to that.
So Matt has a relatively easy time of changing the regulator, but since the water was off, and since we were messing around with the pipe anyway he wanted to put in a new shut-off valve. The one we had was the old kind – the kind you had to turn and turn to get the water off (and the handle was broken). He wanted to put in a ball valve (I could be so wrong on all the names of this stuff) so that we could just turn the little handle a quarter turn and the water would be on or off.
Unfortunately we didn’t really have the right tools to do that job on Monday night. So – the water stayed off all night. I didn’t realize how much I love running water until I didn’t have it for a night, and I wasn’t prepared not to have it. The next morning it was hard to get up and go to work – but I did it! When I got home from work the job was almost done. A few small leaks stood in the way of me and running water! It didn’t take much longer for Matt to have it all fixed.
Our water pressure (unregulated) was running at over 100psi (I hear that is high). We are down to below 60 now, much better. Oh – and it no longer sounds like the end of the world when you wash your hands. It was definitely a good days work for a do-it-yourself plumber.
Matt decided it was time to fix the problem. He read up on it and picked the brains of people he knew until he was ready. A (few) quick trip(s) to the hardware store and it was time to shut off the water. Here is where his silly wife comes in. Matt tells me it should be e
asy, and we should be ready to go in a couple hours. I say “OK” and don’t bother filling pitchers with water. Not so smart – but we will get to that.So Matt has a relatively easy time of changing the regulator, but since the water was off, and since we were messing around with the pipe anyway he wanted to put in a new shut-off valve. The one we had was the old kind – the kind you had to turn and turn to get the water off (and the handle was broken). He wanted to put in a ball valve (I could be so wrong on all the names of this stuff) so that we could just turn the little handle a quarter turn and the water would be on or off.
Unfortunately we didn’t really have the right tools to do that job on Monday night. So – the water stayed off all night. I didn’t realize how much I love running water until I didn’t have it for a night, and I wasn’t prepared not to have it. The next morning it was hard to get up and go to work – but I did it! When I got home from work the job was almost done. A few small leaks stood in the way of me and running water! It didn’t take much longer for Matt to have it all fixed.Our water pressure (unregulated) was running at over 100psi (I hear that is high). We are down to below 60 now, much better. Oh – and it no longer sounds like the end of the world when you wash your hands. It was definitely a good days work for a do-it-yourself plumber.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Training - Week 6
This training log is becoming my excuse log. But this week I really do have a good excuse! Really!
Monday I skipped out and really didn’t do anything. However, I did go and donate blood at the Riverdale Community Center. They convinced me that I needed to donate double red blood cells because of my blood type (I am such a sucker). So I was hooked to this machine for a half hour and they took twice the red blood cells out that they usually do during a donation. I didn’t think much of it until I finally went out for a walk on Wednesday ( I was a slacker on Tuesday). My heart was just pumping like crazy to keep me going at a 14 minute mile. I only did 3 but I was dying!
Thursday I did 5 miles in the evening (I was still having trouble getting out of bed early. I am going to try to do better at that this week.) I was fine, still slow – about 4.5mph but my heart was pumping like CRAZY! My Garmin was yelling at me the whole time but I couldn’t slow the heart down. I got home and my knee was killing me. I iced it and went to bed and then limped around all day Friday. It hurt! I iced it at lunch and after work and by Saturday I was feeling better.
I slept in again on Saturday, but felt guilty about skipping my miles so I decided to go out in the afternoon. So I got up about 4 and set off. OK – there is a reason that marathons don’t start at 4 in the afternoon in Utah. It was dang hot! I foolishly thought I would be able to do 8 miles with my bad knee in the 90+ degree weather. Smart! So I started and as soon as I got as far away as I could be from home I hit a wall – and I hit it hard! Of course it is the only time I have ever forgotten to take my cell phone on a walk with me. My heart was just racing – going faster and faster even though I was going slower and slower. I finally had to stop in the shade and just wait for my heart rate to slow down. I considered sitting and waiting for someone to come get me but I knew I just had to get home so I went slow and made it back. I was just dreaming about laying down on the lawn in the shade and covering myself with the garden hose. But I did make it home and my knee has been swollen and gross ever since. Hopefully the reason I was having so much trouble has something to do with missing my red blood cells and that it will get better as time passes.
Monday I skipped out and really didn’t do anything. However, I did go and donate blood at the Riverdale Community Center. They convinced me that I needed to donate double red blood cells because of my blood type (I am such a sucker). So I was hooked to this machine for a half hour and they took twice the red blood cells out that they usually do during a donation. I didn’t think much of it until I finally went out for a walk on Wednesday ( I was a slacker on Tuesday). My heart was just pumping like crazy to keep me going at a 14 minute mile. I only did 3 but I was dying!
Thursday I did 5 miles in the evening (I was still having trouble getting out of bed early. I am going to try to do better at that this week.) I was fine, still slow – about 4.5mph but my heart was pumping like CRAZY! My Garmin was yelling at me the whole time but I couldn’t slow the heart down. I got home and my knee was killing me. I iced it and went to bed and then limped around all day Friday. It hurt! I iced it at lunch and after work and by Saturday I was feeling better.
I slept in again on Saturday, but felt guilty about skipping my miles so I decided to go out in the afternoon. So I got up about 4 and set off. OK – there is a reason that marathons don’t start at 4 in the afternoon in Utah. It was dang hot! I foolishly thought I would be able to do 8 miles with my bad knee in the 90+ degree weather. Smart! So I started and as soon as I got as far away as I could be from home I hit a wall – and I hit it hard! Of course it is the only time I have ever forgotten to take my cell phone on a walk with me. My heart was just racing – going faster and faster even though I was going slower and slower. I finally had to stop in the shade and just wait for my heart rate to slow down. I considered sitting and waiting for someone to come get me but I knew I just had to get home so I went slow and made it back. I was just dreaming about laying down on the lawn in the shade and covering myself with the garden hose. But I did make it home and my knee has been swollen and gross ever since. Hopefully the reason I was having so much trouble has something to do with missing my red blood cells and that it will get better as time passes.Happy Birthday - Everyone!
It seems that July is the Birthday month – and this weekend was full of birthday celebrations. Friday night Matt and I went to his Aunt Amy’s house to deliver a present to Matt’s cousin Isaac who just turned 5. I let Matt do most of the choosing on these presents, because I have never been a 5 year old boy, and I have no idea what one would want for his birthday. I did put my 2 cents in and say that we couldn’t get the bag of 100 little green army men, because I remember stepping on those as a kid when my brothers had them. I have some consideration for the Moms when I buy presents.
So we went out to Mountain Green and had a good time talking to Amy and Greg. Matt and Greg have this ability to just get talking about the deepest and most profound things. It is fun to watch and listen to. They talked about nearly everything there is to talk about. Time flew by and soon we had to make our way back home. Which brings me to some advice to anyone planning on driving in Weber canyon in the middle of the night – don’t! The lanes are so skinny with big headlights coming straight at us. I am glad Matt was driving instead of me. I don’t do well driving down the bobsled track.
Saturday morning I was scheduled to do 8 miles for my training. I knew it was going to be hot, so I planned on doing my miles starting at 7am. My alarm went off at 7 and I laughed. That is right, I laughed at it and turned it off. I needed to sleep in. I know now that anyone reading this with kids is rolling their eyes at me and my need to sleep in. But maybe there is a reason I don’t have kids, and maybe that reason is that Heaven knows that I need my sleep and that I would be the meanest most grumpy person alive if I didn’t get to sleep in once in a while. You never know.
Anyway – I slept in and stayed in bed all morning (partly because I felt guilty for skipping my miles). It was a great lazy morning. We did some shopping and such, but nothing too extravagant. We started making plans for the evening and I decided I had better do my training or I was going to be so angry at myself. I won’t bore you too much with how that went because it is in my training log for the week. But we can say that I got back not feeling very well. We had tentatively planned on going to a Shakespeare play at the Union Station, but it started about an hour after I got back from my walk, so we revamped the plans to give me more time to recover and we went to comedy instead.
Sunday was Cailey’s birthday party. She turns four today (Monday), but we had her party on Sunday. It was our first time out to Becky’s new house. I must say I was a little jealous. The house is great! It is huge and on a giant lot. Their master bathroom is bigger than my master bedroom. Beautiful house! I assisted more in picking out the presents for Cailey and we got her a baton with water and glitter in it. I remember having those when I was a kid and how much I loved them. Hopefully kids now a days can enjoy the simple things too. It was fun to see the kids and have cake and ice cream with them.
Sunday was also my nephew Drake’s 1st Birthday. It makes me kind of sad that the adorable little boy is a year old and I still haven’t had a chance to meet him. Thanks Lori for keeping me up to date and posting pictures. Happy Birthday little Drake.
So we went out to Mountain Green and had a good time talking to Amy and Greg. Matt and Greg have this ability to just get talking about the deepest and most profound things. It is fun to watch and listen to. They talked about nearly everything there is to talk about. Time flew by and soon we had to make our way back home. Which brings me to some advice to anyone planning on driving in Weber canyon in the middle of the night – don’t! The lanes are so skinny with big headlights coming straight at us. I am glad Matt was driving instead of me. I don’t do well driving down the bobsled track.
Saturday morning I was scheduled to do 8 miles for my training. I knew it was going to be hot, so I planned on doing my miles starting at 7am. My alarm went off at 7 and I laughed. That is right, I laughed at it and turned it off. I needed to sleep in. I know now that anyone reading this with kids is rolling their eyes at me and my need to sleep in. But maybe there is a reason I don’t have kids, and maybe that reason is that Heaven knows that I need my sleep and that I would be the meanest most grumpy person alive if I didn’t get to sleep in once in a while. You never know.
Anyway – I slept in and stayed in bed all morning (partly because I felt guilty for skipping my miles). It was a great lazy morning. We did some shopping and such, but nothing too extravagant. We started making plans for the evening and I decided I had better do my training or I was going to be so angry at myself. I won’t bore you too much with how that went because it is in my training log for the week. But we can say that I got back not feeling very well. We had tentatively planned on going to a Shakespeare play at the Union Station, but it started about an hour after I got back from my walk, so we revamped the plans to give me more time to recover and we went to comedy instead.
Sunday was Cailey’s birthday party. She turns four today (Monday), but we had her party on Sunday. It was our first time out to Becky’s new house. I must say I was a little jealous. The house is great! It is huge and on a giant lot. Their master bathroom is bigger than my master bedroom. Beautiful house! I assisted more in picking out the presents for Cailey and we got her a baton with water and glitter in it. I remember having those when I was a kid and how much I loved them. Hopefully kids now a days can enjoy the simple things too. It was fun to see the kids and have cake and ice cream with them.
Sunday was also my nephew Drake’s 1st Birthday. It makes me kind of sad that the adorable little boy is a year old and I still haven’t had a chance to meet him. Thanks Lori for keeping me up to date and posting pictures. Happy Birthday little Drake.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Training - Week 5
I did not do well this week. Monday I was pretty mellow and didn't want to wake up early, so I just did some slow walking after work. I almost don't count it. Tuesday I went out and did my 3 miles at 6AM. On some days 6 is SO EARLY that I can't hardly move. I only made 4.3mph that day. Disappointing. Wednesday I did better, kicking it up to 4.6 for 3 miles. I started a small blister on the back of my foot. It didn't hurt too much but I said I needed to take a look at my shoes. I forgot to examine them and went out on Thursday for a 5 miler, I got back with the most painful and humougous blister on the back of my foot. It slowed me down and I did 4.5mph that day. I got home and swore I would never put my feet in those shoes again! So Friday I didn't go out, but got some new shoes. Saturday was scheduled to be an 8 mile day - but it was the 4th of July, which meant I was going to a parade early in the morning and was busy all day. I also justified my skipping it by saying that I can't just take my new shoes out for 8 miles the first time I wear them. Then who knows what kinds of blisters I would get. So I am OK with that. But that was my painful and blistery week of training. Hopefully I will do better this week. I am going to switch out the 6 miles I am supposed to do this Saturday for the 8 from last week. Hopefully that will work, and hopefully my new shoes will be better than my last pair!
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