ALONE

This weekend past was Labor Day weekend.  Twin 1 headed to the parents and Twin 2 stayed in the city.  Sunday Runday called for 16k.  Alone.  This was HUGE.  We were each left to our own devices.

RECAP by Twin 2

As the race is getting so close (16 days left!!!) and panic is starting to set in, my usual thought on Saturday is “What can I eat for supper tonight to help fuel for Sunday’s run?”.  On Saturday I went out for the afternoon with Sista Wi to do a bit of shopping and to get some groceries (I figured Sunday’s grocery run as per usual would be crazy b/c of the store closure on Monday).  I racked my brain wondering what to eat for supper and came up with a salad, sweet potato and chicken (beats the chocolate bar suppers I’ve been having every other Saturday). 

I checked in with Twin 1 after supper on Saturday evening to ask her what time she was heading out in the morning.  The plan was to leave the house around 6:00/6:30 a.m. as per usual. 

I woke up at 4:30 a.m. and had my staple of toast with peanut butter and banana.  Not sure why but I didn’t quite get ready in time and didn’t head out the door until approximately 7:00 a.m. when the sun was coming up and it was starting to get warm out.  At that moment I thought “well maybe I should wait and do it tonight when it cools off” but then thought better of it because our actual race starts at 9:30 a.m. in the morning and it will definitely be hot by then.

My original plan was to leave the house and run 4k out and back toward Hubley then back to my house and run 4k out and back toward Lakeside for a total of 16k.  Let’s go.  When I hit 4k I thought to myself “I wonder if I should just continue at least another km because if I run by my house I’ll probably want to stop in for whatever reason and then not start up again”. So I decided to run at least another km.  As I approached 5k I thought “if I turn around now that will take me to 10k by my house and I will only have to do 3k out and back after passing the house”.  While in the process of thinking about turning around I again thought maybe I’ll just do one more and saw a side road into a fairly new subdivision that looked pretty quiet.  I made the turn into the subdivision and it was the best decision.  It was just me and the road. No houses, no cars. 

As I approached 6k the road I was on ended so I turned down a side street and continued on.  As I was approaching 7k I thought “I could turn around now and that would take me to 14k and then only do 1k past the house and back” but then thought “well it’s so quiet here and such a good run and I’m not worrying about traffic why not keep going as it’s only 1k more”.  So I did.  And it worked out perfectly because as my Garmin beeped at 8k the road ended and I had to turn around anyway.

I usually carry my phone with me on my runs and when I was about 2k from home I heard a text coming in and I thought to myself “I bet that’s Twin 1 texting saying she is done”.  YAY for us!

Tip Tuesday

Eat at least three meals a day - every day.  Our bodies have become hardwired to conserve calories when faced with a food shortage.  When you skip meals, your body immediately slows your resting metabolic rate.  And when you skip meals on a regular basis, your RMR may remain permanently low.

Stay tuned for each of our 16 long lonely km run recap...

Was It A Dream?

August 19/14 - Last round of hill training – 9x300m hills

During the warm up km run to the hill (steepest one yet – we apparently saved the best (or worst) for last) Twin 2’s shins were bothering her again.  As Twin 1 made her way up the first hill run Twin 2 tied her shoes a little tighter and walked the hill to see if she could walk out the splints.  It worked.  Like normal, as Twin 2 was making her way down her first one Twin 1 was on her way back up.  We both decided to walk down the hill as it’s so steep that while walking down you felt like you were going to go head over heels so running just wasn’t an option. 

Towards the last few hill repeats Twin 2 figured that Twin 1 had 2 hills on her (because Twin 2 didn’t count the one she walked).  When Twin 2 mentioned it to Twin 1 the convo went like this:

Twin 1: “Oh we’re not counting the walks?”

Twin 2: “Well I’m not because you ran up the first one and I walked”

Twin 1: “Oh, well I walked up 2”

Twin 2: “What? When?” (and here Twin 2 was feeling bad about the first walk up)

Twin 1: “I walked when I couldn’t see you but when you started coming down over the crest of the hill I started running”

HA!  Twin 2 didn’t expect that at all.  Anyway we did our 9 hill climbs and went home.

August 21/14 – 6k

A short run around Glengarry on the road.  Nothing fun to report.

August 24/14 – 19k

We wish we could say that we could remember this run but we mentally blocked it out – both of us.  Completely forget running it.

We do remember trying to get out at 6 a.m. (it’s still dark out) but not making it out until about 6:20/6:30 a.m.  Weather was overcast.  We started from Lakeside (Twin 1’s house) to Hubley and back on the road all the way (no trail).  Road running is certainly different than the flat gravel trail under foot and on the body.  There are way more hills/turns/angles to run on.  During most of our runs, until now, we have been doing a mix of trail/road runs but we thought as the race is only 3 weeks away that we should do all runs now on the road to become more accustomed to the inclines, etc.  We again ran 10 and walked 1 the whole time.  That 1 minute certainly gives you a little break to catch your breath and get revved up for the next 10 min.  We kept pumping the Honey Stingers into us about every 5k and water every 3k (there are water stations every 3k on the race route so thought we would try this out to see how it works).

Twin 2 may have mentally blocked this run out because for some reason after 18.88 km her Garmin stopped tracking her running.  She didn’t realize it until during the last .15 metres her Garmin kept telling her she was at 18.88 km and for some reason just couldn’t get that 19 km in on the Garmin.  Now she knows that she did run 19 km because Twin 1’s Garmin tracked it and so did mapmyrun.com but the Garmin doesn’t lie….but in her head she never reached that 19 km mark.

Aug 26/14 – 8k

This was our first “interval” training.  We looked at the schedule and it said 6 x 3 min int for 8km.  HUH? The math doesn’t add up cause if we only run 6 times for 3 min that would only be running for 54 min and we can’t get 8k in 54 minutes like I’m sure some people can.  So we forgot about warm up and cool down which would have been equal to 8k with a few minutes between the intervals but we are not so good at math and didn’t figure this out until after we were half way through.  We set our watches to Run 3, Walk 1.  We did this for 4k and we were getting tired as we were running faster than the norm for 3 min.  At the ½ way mark and during the 4k home we switched it up and Ran 1 minute and walked 3.  Those 1 minutes were all out sprints.  It was actually a very fun run and more enjoyable than running a steady pace for a full 8k. (Which we are scheduled to do on Thursday).

Tonight calls for strength training and HAIRCUT!! WE LOVE HAIRCUT DAY!!

Tip Tuesday

Shaving seconds off your runs may be as simple as spending more time in the sack.  Sleep guarantees that your muscles will recover.  To help nod off, shut off all technology one hour before bed or soak in a hot bath for 15 minutes before turning in.

Tip Tuesday

Less intense core and stability exercises (planks, bridges) are fine the day before hard running workouts and before or after an easy run.  Avoid all strength training right after a hard workout so you don't interfere with recovery.

A Little Break Goes A Long Way

What has been going on since Tip Tuesday you wonder? Let us tell you.

Tuesday evening was our hill training 8x400m....we each do our own run on the hill training but we arrive and leave together.  We ran 2k to the hill, did the repeats, 1k back then walked the last 1k up the hill to Twin 2's house.  We had enough hills that night.  One more night of hills tomorrow and we are done with them.  Twin 1 ran up the hills and walked down while Twin 2 ran up and down.  Running hills is not the funnest training on the schedule as you can imagine.

We started doing some strength training for runners from one of the books we purchased from Chapters "Quick Strength for Runners".  The schedule calls for Wednesdays and Fridays. That will take us to race day.  The book targets the areas runners need to strengthen to be a better runner.

Thursday called for another 10k.  We thought it would be cooler as the wind was blowing a bit but we found it humid from the get go.  There was some huffing and puffing with not much energy and therefore the run seemed to be a bit slower.  We Googled why the sluggishness (what did we ever do without Google) and it does say that we might feel tired and may seem to be running slower at this point from all the training and a little bit of rest may be called for (music to our ears).  We weren't sure if this was the best idea at this point with only a month left until race day but our Saturday evening discussion over cookies and water (yes we're still trying to tame the cookie monster) we decided to forgo the 13k run we had scheduled for Sunday morning and bike instead.  

We decided to take our annual trip to the Bike & Bean in Tantallon.  We were both looking forward to it. Did I mention that it was 15k each way?  We skipped a 13k run for a 30k bike ride....guess that shows how much of a break we needed from running.  It was a cool one but refreshing (would have been a great morning for a run lol). We rode full out to B&B but stopped a few times on the way home to take some pictures. The next few pics are from our morning ride.

We each had a mochaccino, Twin 1 had a raspberry scone (with white chocolate) and Twin 2 had a cranberry oatmeal muffin.  We decided to split them so we could both have a taste of each. DELISH!  Well worth the trip.

Excuse the duplicates as I have no idea how to delete them.   And not sure how to write captions......remember that tablet I was grateful for?....Still am.

AND Twin 1 might be a faster runner but Twin 2 is definitely a faster biker! She made Twin 1 work to keep up.  Just goes to show we all have our own strengths at something.

So begins another week of training after our rest day today.