No Excuses

Call tonight to the hubs on the way home from the airport... approximately 5:30pm

Me: I'm thinking of going for a short, quick run before dinner, is that okay?

Hubs: It's dark outside

Me: I can see that but the path is well lit

Hubs: It's cold and crappy

Me: I've run in worse

Hubs: yeah, I guess

Me: at least it's not raining!

Hubs: (big sigh implying I will never understand you and your running thing) okay

Poor guy all he wanted to do was get some dinner and I shot down all his reasons why I shouldn't go for a run. Unfortunately for him all I wanted to do was run after my long day of sitting. I sat so much today from the research office, to the airport, to the airplane, and in the car in traffic that my butt start to ache! I had to get moving. Plus instead of waking up early (like all you other good bloggers!) I re-set the alarm for an extra 50 minutes of sleep this morning and was feeling ultra guilty. Normally I don't run after working and traveling all day long; I'm too spent. Today, I lucked out in catching an earlier flight home and finding some energy.

I walked in the back door before 6, quickly changed, and headed out the front door sans garmin by 6. Before I even made it to the path I ran into some neighborhood hoodlums who were looking for trouble. They started to harass me but for whatever reason they took off and I made it by without much incident. A bit of a scary way to start. Once on the path there were a number of bikers and runners and I quickly found my groove. Not quite 4 miles later I was back home with a newfound energy! Ahhh - much better!

Wednesday Wrap-up

My work week is over! Yay! Of course I didn't finish everything I need to but I'm hoping that all comes together before I leave tomorrow. Yes, you read that right, I am leaving again! For a little girls weekend in the mile high city! I'm so excited!!! Now I just need to find the energy and desire to pack. The boys have this annual golf trip they plan in Colorado so I decided to use my miles on crappy american airlines to also fly to Denver to hang with my friend (the wifey) of the golf trip planner. I haven't been out there with just us girls so it will be a nice change. I know there will be a lot of cross training happening in the form of hiking, yoga, and pedicures with wine (yes this is cross training ;) ) but not sure how much running will be happening. My friend (a Boston qualifier!) never made it to the big event thanks to injuries and has been told recently to lay off the running. Maybe I can convince her to bike while I attempt to get a few miles done. I'll be playing that by ear. But since we are leaving Thursday it screws up training (yet again!). Oh well, when you travel as much as I do you need to be flexible!

Our flight is around noon and I knew there would be no way in hell I would wake up early enough to get 13 miles done (w/ 8 at marathon race pace). Thus the mid-long run happened tonight. I'm happy to report I made it through the 13 this week! There were moments of bliss and moments of not so much bliss but I got 'er done. I did not complete the 8 at race pace thanks to the heat, humidity, and blow you over wind happening but I did 6 around the race pace so I'm happy. I tried berry Zym and black cherry new shot bloks tonight (see a berry theme? I love me some cherries and berries). Zym is similar to Nuun but I have to say I enjoy the zym a little better. It may have been because of the flavor nuun I picked up a few weeks ago. It's my first experience so we'll see how it goes a couple more times out before I recommend. But for the first time I'm very happy. Not so happy with the black cherry shot bloks thanks to a weird after taste. I also decided to forgo the gatorade as my stomach has been a mess lately as well as experimenting with fueling with the bloks earlier and more often. I did much better tonight and no stomach issues mid or post run! Wahoo! I hope to get out there tomorrow morning before the flight for some recovery miles as I am a little (a lot) sore right now. Although the Goose Island Summertime is helping :)

Thursday is also a big day for Fred (aka dad). He has his first chemo treatment at the Cleveland Clinic. The first treatment will last around 8 hours and he needs to stay overnight. Apparently after the first chemo infusion the cancer cells get over excited and release a lot of uric acid into the blood; which he already has thanks to the blood cancer. That could lead to an all system failure if he's not receiving a constant saline drip, monitoring, and some other drugs so he needs stay overnight. Luckily it's just for the first treatment. Then fingers crossed there are only 4 more treatments after that. If cancer cells remain after the 5th treatment he needs 3 more. So he could be done by early October or late December.

Here's a couple of pictures from last weekend. We were all matchy patchy on Friday night. I called him before I left to see what he was wearing :)

The man loves his Coors Light what can I say?!?

Back to Reality

Okay so I came off a itsy teeny weeny bit whiny yesterday when overly complaining of my travel. I do apologize because I don't want to come across as this bitch who complains all the time. I have my days and all but not a total brat ;) It was a long 8 days with work people (some of who were extremely rude for no reason), little sleep, little exercise, boring meetings, and bad food that all just caught up with me. All was not horrible on Marco Island though. Jacob did come to visit over the weekend so I got a break from the work people for 1 1/2 days. We took in the sun and scenery and it was nice. The weather was gorgeous when I was able to get outside on breaks to enjoy it. And I got to run in the sand and expense fruity drinks to my company. So yeah there were good parts. But it is nice to be in my home office and getting back to my normal routine. My body is seriously out of whack! And now I can catch up on blogs and all my other stuff I haven't had a chance to get to over the last 8 days.

The 2 1/2 hour ride to Miami was interesting. The little old driver was super cute and very talkative. He kept pointing out alligators while flying down the road in this bus that has seen better days. Just to give you an idea on how broken this bus was the drivers side window fell apart and had to be taken down on the side of the road halfway through the ride. Crazy! Miami airport was chaotic as always. We were delayed but I made it home without too many further problems. Jacob picked me up and we got home and went for a short run. Left the garmin at home as I knew it wasn't going to be a great job on my part. And it wasn't. I am totally okay with it though and am happy to get the legs moving again.

traveling fool

Sitting here chilling in my sweet hotel room watching The Biggest Loser. Okay, it's not a sweet hotel room; just the same old Hampton Inn I always stay in Atlanta. But a girl can dream. Watching the biggest loser is making me feel guilty about my meal choices today, especially dinner.

Work is crazy right now. I am a traveling fool until Nov 28th. In Atlanta this week, Pembroke Pines, FL next week, then back to Atlanta. Then December is mine to catch up on everything I couldn't do the rest of the year! No traveling! Well unless you count the marathon and going home for Christmas. If I travel because I want to it doesn't count.

The schedule has me on an "easy" week. Monday I ran 5 miles on the treadmill. The last mile I did hill repeats. Decided just to throw those in and they seriously kicked my butt! Definitely going to be working on that more often. Then I ran the stairs back up to the hotel room. Overall a good workout. Today I moved up my workout that was supposed to be for tomorrow because of what else but travel. It was supposed to be 7 miles but I did 6 miles on the treadmill. I'll probably make up that mile running outside on Saturday.

long day but a good run

I feel like it is much later in the week than Tuesday. Yesterday was a long day. Had the alarm set for 4 am to catch my 6:45 am flight. ugh. I had Monday's with early flights. Jacob and I had the debate if it is better to travel on Sunday versus waking up nearly 3 hours before the sunrise to fly the same day. I say no. And here is my reasoning - you take a 5pm flight to get you into Florida by 7:30pm. I would have to leave my house by 3pm to catch the flight and of course I didn't pack on a Saturday night so my day would be over at 1pm while I try to catch up on work I need to take with me, packing, and general getting ready to go. Your Sunday is then ruined. I complain about 4 am but it is a heck of a lot better than losing a Sunday to work travel. Now if I was headed to a beach...ah, for another day I suppose.

Anyways, woke up at 4am finally made it to the site around noon and left for the hotel around 5pm. I quickly changed to run a planned 5-7 mile easy treadmill run. The schedule called for 7 miles but I was tired! Some lady was walking on the mill so no dice. I stay in Hampton Inn's and there is only ever one treadmill if I'm lucky. I decided to go back upstairs and grab my phone, debit card, and ID (after marathon 1 I'll never leave home without some form of identification now!) and head outside. Now, I have traveled here several times and never ventured outside usually due to the extreme heat but the only path I know of is a concrete sidewalk. Yesterday was humid but not unbearable. I told myself I would go for as long as I could but no pressure. Then as I turned onto the main road I hit the headwind. A little over 2 miles I came to a gas station - Thank God! I got some water and stretched my calves. Very close to having a nasty charlie horse. That would not have been good. The run back went smoothly and I felt strong. I know the tailwind helped! I am not sure on time (left the running watch at home) or distance (maybe short of 5 miles).

No workout today because I am headed home. I have a local visit tomorrow (which should be interesting) then speed work is on the schedule. And it is Halloween so that means Jacob and I are headed out for our annual dinner at a haunted bar (the Red Lion). We have never seen the ghost but the costumes are always entertaining and the fish and chips are excellent!

Delays and such

This morning found me staring at the alarm at 4 am asking why I haven't won the lottery so I could retire early. Yeah, girlfriend had a 6:20 am flight. I hate waking up that early to travel for work but I hate traveling on Sunday - my day of rest ;) - even more. I chose the lesser of two evils in my opinion. Thing is, I probably could have just slept longer. First, we are all lined up and ready to board in 2 minutes instead of boarding we receive the following announcement"Ladies and Gentlemen we have some sort of mechanical issue so we are now departing out of gate B10" I guess the good thing about leaving first thing in the morning is they have some extra planes hanging about. So everyone rushes to the next gate where we proceed to stand in a boarding line for the next 20 minutes. Okay, our depature time has now come and gone. Finally, they board the crew then us and then we...sit...I sleep...wake up 45 minutes later and still I'm sitting (drooling) on the tarmac in Chicago. Nope, haven't moved. This plane had mechanical issues last night and the paperwork went missing. Seriously, you have to be kidding me. Oh, then they found the paperwork except 1 page was missing so that had to be located. And why isn't it filed in a folder on the plane and available at take off. Because that would be way too easy. So yeah, 2 hours later we take off. And people think traveling is glamorous.


Finally I made it in one piece just a little sleep deprived and cranky. Work is proving difficult to focus on (hence the writing on the blog in the middle of the day). I was supposed to do cross training yesterday but I was too dang tired after Saturday night and entertaining people all weekend. I may do the training tonight or run on the treadmill. I need to do something!


Race day weather. I promised myself I wouldn't look until Weds but I checked it out Sunday. My parents used to ask me what the weather was going to be like for the day instead of watching the news - I was obsessed knowing the week's weather when growing up. Lately not so much b/c I am never in one place long enough to really care. But with the unseasonably high temps in Chicago (80's over the weekend) I had to look. Yesterday, weather.com said high of 78 (at start time in the 60's). I was freaking out! So of course I had to look today to see if the cold front is coming to Chicago sooner than expected. It showed a high of 64, 50's at the start of the race. I'll take the 64 please! So I'll be tracking closely over the next few days. A girl needs to know how to plan her first marathon outfit :)