I'm Awesome and I Know It

Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle Yeah.


Thursday:
I was awesome. I didn't feel that great and I took the night off and didn't feel guilty. Okay, so I have done that a lot over the past few months...but this time it was during the awesome challenge. So, well, it was awesome.


Friday:
I got done with school early and went out to Old Chicago's with B. However, this was an awesome trip to OC for two reasons. First, I rode my bike there with Sprocket in our new (to us) Chariot and, second, I shared a Calzone with B. Awesome.


Saturday:
B hiked with Sprocket while I did a 60 minute trail run at Hall Ranch. Last time I ran this trail was when I was barely pregnant with Sprocket. It was rough going up, but it felt great to get some time in on the hills. Plus, I didn't trip or almost die on the way down. Awesome.


Sunday:
B and I hiked Rabbit Mountain with Sprocket in the pack. It was a beautiful morning and great to get out in the sunshine. Awesome.


Monday:
I moved about 10 wheel barrows full of rock from our backyard to our front yard (and got a bit of sunburn), planted a vegetable garden, and helped our neighbors move. There may have been a bit of a throw down with neighbor about quasi-hoarding practices. I was definitely sore this morning, so even though it wasn't one of my typical workouts, it definitely felt like a work out. Awesome.


I won't lie...there is definitely room for improvement in my Awesome Adventures, but this challenge is about recognizing the things I do everyday that are going in the right direction.


991 Awesome Points.

Awesome and Less Awesome

The Awesome Challenge is about recognizing all the awesome things that I do and not getting down about the non-awesome things. So...I am considering them "less awesome." It's like a participation award for adulthood.


Sunday:

• Went on an 11.75 mile run with a stroller with a half flat tire and a 15%tile 16 month old -- Awesome! (654 Awesome Points)

• Forgot to put on sunscreen and got a running capri farmer's tan on my calves -- Less Awesome! (-111 Awesome Points)

Monday:

• Went on a 5-ish mile bike ride with B and Sprocket in his new (to us) Chariot bike trailer -- Awesome! (234 Awesome Points)

Tuesday:

• Planned a kick-ass afternoon of activities for my 8th graders that involved water balloons, candy speed-eating, and random chanting whilst (yep, I said whilst) dressed in battle gear. I ran around all afternoon. -- Awesome! (189 Awesome Points)

• Ate a Chipotle burrito bowl and a crispy taco for lunch -- Less Awesome! (-67 Awesome Points)

• Had Dairy Queen after dinner -- Leeeeeesss Awesome! (-91 Awesome Points)

• Walked to and from Dairy Queen (including a train-induced detour on the way home) and only ate part of a twist cone -- Awesome! (57 Awesome Points)

• Drug myself on a 4 mile run with C Rad even though it made me want to dig my eyeballs out with spoons -- Awesome! (488 Awesome Points)

Wednesday:

• Run Around Like an Idiot Part 2. Great day with kids that may have included me getting a pie to the face/hair -- Awesome! (108 Awesome Points)

Total Awesome Points = 
654 + (-111) + 234 + 189 + (-67) + (-91) + 57 + 488 + 108 
= 1461 Awesome Points

Hey...look at that! The awesomeness outweighs the less awesomeness. And I managed to include some complicated math...Hooray!

Sixty Days of Awesomeness Challenge

In 2010, there was the RAGBRAI Royalty Challenge. Pounds were shed, people were made, stomach contents were barfed...but mostly, it was just a lot of complicated math.


In 2011, there was the Team Beaver Super Friends Challenge. A flashy video, point system controversy, more complicated math, and some athletic improvement.


That brings us to 2012.


No flashy videos.


No funky math equations.


Just 60 days of being awesome. Awesome can mean a day of clean eating in the face of temptation, or working out, or a long bike ride, or a solid run, or a needed day off. It is really about recognizing all the awesome things that we do every day to work towards a healthy lifestyle. Points will be self-awarded (whatever value we feel it deserves) and documented via Blogland over the next 60 days. We will usher in the start of RAGBRAI (in only 60 days!) by laying out the awesome red carpet and strutting our awesome asses down it.


Be sure to check out Normie's progress in the awesomeness challenge.


Anyone else want to join us? Erica...you have been pretty awesome lately, want in on the challenge? Caddywumpus, the internets have missed you, wanna join us? Decaf Please, you are very awesome...want some arbitrary points for that? C Rad, you are awesomely training for a half marathon. Wanna earn some awesomeness points?


I got a head start on my awesomeness (the challenge starts tomorrow) by running today. I was only supposed to run 9 miles, but somehow ended up on a different trail and did 11.75 miles! It was brutal, but I am feeling really proud of myself. Plus, I just earned myself 127 pre-sixty-days-of-awesomeness points. Woot!

Here is Sprocket being totally awesome...he was awarded 3,045 awesomeness points for this.

Be the Bull Snake

Last week, we encountered a Bull Snake on the trail. Well, actually, we encountered a hiking couple that said they saw a Bull Snake up the trail. Bull snakes are actually constrictors. The are a feisty lot and are known for their "bad attitudes." They are defensive and can be very aggressive when approached by humans. They actually fend off predators by making a rattling noise with their throat and flattening their head to give it the classic rattle snake triangular head shape. A boring ol' constrictor that slowly suffocates its prey will mimic a rattle snake to scare things away.


In other words...they fake it.


I learned all this from B in the car on the way to Rabbit Mountain to do my long run on the trail. He decided to walk with Sprocket in the baby backpack while I ran a couple loops. In the car on the way there, B pointed out that he could feel my nervousness. He questioned, "why the heck are you nervous? It's just a training run on the trail." At the time, I mentally acknowledged my nervousness, but had no idea why I felt that way.


Once I got on the trail, I motored up the first half mile (it's all climbing) and began thinking about how running on the trail is different than the road. I realized that this was my second real trail run (packed pea gravel doesn't count) and I just kind of felt a little awkward and unsure of myself on the trails. Just out of sorts. That is when I decided that I just needed to Be the Bull Snake. 

Fake it 'til I make it.

Quick pic of B and Sprocket down below as I ran up the first hill

So, I set my mind on my goal to run 70 minutes on the trail and just acted like a trail runner. I ended up running for 80 minutes (6 miles!) and felt great. I did two loops (one loop is about 390 feet of elevation gain) and only  had to stop a few times...once to stretch, twice to snap some quick pics, and once to rinse my hands off after I fell.


Yup. I fell. I guess playing the part of the trail runner means taking a tumble. I tripped on a rock and sprawled hands first on to the rocky trail. The good news is that my expensive tights protected my knees from getting scraped up too badly.

The bad news is that my expensive tights protected my knees from getting scraped

Still in good spirits after the tumble.

I spent the rest of the day shoveling food into my face and helping my neighbor with her garage sale. Around 4, B started giggling and pointed out that I had a wicked tanline on the back of my calves from my capri tights.

Knee scrape, ankle scrape, and burn line. Oh my.

So, at the end of the day I have a belly full of Chipotle (lunch) and barbecue (dinner), some hand and ankle scrapes, a funky looking sunburn, and a definite feeling of pride. Be the Bull Snake.


Oh, and I will leave you with a bit of Sprocket cuteness.

66%

I had a plan.


Tuesday: Balls to the Wall run with C Rad. 1 mile easy, 1 mile hard, 1 mile easy. Check!
We encountered two people dressed in full grass camo.

Dramatic Re-enactment.

They walked towards us without saying anything. I instantly went to the "two women running alone with no cell phone at night" and assertively said, "Hey, just beware that we are alone and get creeped out easily." They turned the corner and I think I heard some giggling. I felt a little silly for reacting like that, but it's when you let your guard down that you get attacked by grass people.


Thursday: 2 miles at 12% grade on a deadmill. No Check!
I am chaperoning a field trip to Pennsylvania in May and I found out that I have to be CPR and First-Aid certified for the trip. My district has free trainings, but the only one I could go to was on Thursday. So, I didn't get a chance to run...a little excuse-y. But well. It just didn't happen.


Saturday: 7 mile long and slow run. Check!
Sprocket and I went down to Children's Hospital to visit one of his NICU buddies that was admitted for some feeding issues. I took the soup, salad, and brownies. While making said brownies, I may have eaten some. Four to be exact. Ugh. Sprocket has also been screaming his face off lately -- we think its teething. He fell asleep for the last 10 minutes on the way home and then. just. wouldn't. go. down. for. a. nap. Finally, at about 3:45 he fell asleep. B came home from his hike and I got out for my 7 mile run at about 4:45--- much later than I had hoped. I mapped out a 7.25 mile route, but I deviated on accident. I ran it in 1:22 and when I remapped the actual route it was 7.75 miles, which  made me feel a little better about my time.


So, I get a 66% for the week. However, I feel pretty good about that grade. Next week will be better, but for now I can relish in the fact that I ran longer today than I have ran in about two years. I even had to wear my Amphipod belt for the first time since my marathon.


Now all I have to do is double that distance and do it up a 14'er. That should be easy, right?

Down, Super Woman, and a Plan.

This past week has been one bummer after another. I am not going to go into many details on here -- it's just not the time or the place. I had a leadership opportunity at my school, I truly felt like I had a shot, but politics suddenly got in the way. I work hard and I am very devoted to my craft. It feels really ugly when you work as hard as I do and you get overlooked because of some extenuating circumstances.


It is what it is, and I just need to move on.


I had strung together about 10 days of healthy eating and I allowed this emotional setback to send me in a nutritional tailspin. I have been eating like cah-rap ever since it all went down. The only consolation is that I went running twice this week with my neighbor, C Rad.


Tuesday: We set out to do 5 sets of 1K with about 400m of resting interval. We ran a quick warm-up and then went balls to the wall for our first 1K set. Our pace should have been about 45 seconds/mile faster than our 10K time. Some fancy ninja math lead me to an expected 5:35 for our 1K speed interval. We ran it in 4:47. Holy Crap! We both wanted to die and decided to notch it down to 3 intervals instead of 5. It was some great speed work, but not quite as fulfilling as our Bad Ass run last week.


Today: C Rad called me up to see if I wanted to go on a 5 mile long run with her following a route we had run together in the past. I told her I was game, and 45 minutes later we were heading out the door. I was excited to have company for my nice and slow long run. We stopped to stretch in the shade about 12 minutes in and then got moving again. C turned to ask me if I had remembered to start my watch again. That is when I realized it...she was running for time :::insert suspicious look here::: That is when I knew that my nice, long, slow run was going to become a suffer-fest. However, that is what is so great about running with C Rad. We are both so damn competitive that we push each other more than we would if running alone. I suffered my face off for the next 4 miles. This thrashing was punctuated by the fact that SHE WAS PUSHING A DOUBLE STROLLER WITH AT LEAST 30 MORE POUNDS OF KID AND A FLAT FRONT TIRE.

Schooling me.

When I zoom in...you can really see the signs of her super status.

Damn Super Powers.

So, after a good whooping, we finished our 5.1 miles in 51 minutes. It was hot and seemed way harder than a 10 minute pace, but it felt great! Plus, Sprocket got to play at the playground on the way home.


I may have followed the run with a goat cheese, green olive, bacon, and jalapeno pesto burger at a nearby pub. 

But! I came home and did some research to map out a plan for training for The Ascent. I got out a big calendar (left over from the days of taking monthly Sprocket pics) and wrote down all the long runs leading up to the Ascent, which is a mere 17 weeks away. I then loosely followed the FIRST half marathon training plan to fill in some tempo runs. I also did a bit of research on a few Pikes Peak Ascent websites to get some ideas of hill/incline workouts.


The General Plan:
-- 1 Long run per week -- alternating trail vs. road every other week
-- 1 tempo run per week -- 5-6 miles total with varying combos of tempo vs. easy running
-- 1 treadmill incline run or hill repeat run per week -- I mapped this out until the end of May so that I can revisit the plan in this area
-- On the weeks where my long run is on the road, I am hoping to get out and do a short trail run during the week
-- Some sort of cycling to also train for RAGBRAI. I am hoping for one short ride and one longer ride per week (once school gets out)


I am a little worried that I won't have enough mileage in before the Ascent, but I don't want to cause an overuse injury. Most PP Ascent veterans say to train like you are running a marathon, since that is the amount of time it takes to do the Ascent. However, I just don't like to spend more than 3 hours running at a time and when I trained for my marathon I hated life. So, I am just going to do what I can and hope it works out. Remind me of this post when I complain about dying on the mountain.

Did Ya See That? We're Bad Ass.

I had a date. With my neighbor. To go running.


CRad (my neighbor that brought out my competitive streak at the Turkey Trot this year) and I decided to do a bedtime run at 8:15 after the kids are in bed. I got to choose the route and I challenged her to a 3 mile run -- 1 mile warm-up, 1 mile at rip-your-legs-off pace, and 1 mile cool down.


The route I mapped was a fun loop through a nice neighborhood and included a pretty dark and secluded backroad-ish street where we would do the hard part of our run. I took B's awesome new bike lamp for the dark stretch.


I turned on the light when we headed toward the dark road and totally intimidated a car. It slowed waaay down and passed us at a nice, safe speed. I exclaimed, "Did ya see that? We're bad ass!" to some ladies walking nearby. Apparently, rapes-r-us roads are very busy at 8:30 at night.


Of course, I didn't feel so bad ass when I wanted to puke my guts out about a half mile down the road. We finished our hard mile and cooled down a bit. On the way back, CRad challenged me to pick it up a bit and push it for the last half mile home.


We finished the 3.17 miles in 28:01, which is an 8:50 pace. Not setting any land speed records, but a great run with some high intensity.

We have a date next Monday.