Training for 8/28/17

I’m currently in (the passenger’s seat of) a car rolling down Route 50, so this’ll be relatively quick, but I had a pretty great weekend of training for once and I wanted to write it down.

Friday evening, Clark and I went to the beach house. We took our bikes, and stuff for swimming and running the next morning. Clark’s got three short tris coming up in September and it’s time for him to actually train for them haha.

We just hung out at the house Friday night, then got up early Saturday to get some training in.

We started with a swim in the ocean. Clark’s dad went with us. It was a perfect morning for it, and the water was warm. But… it was still swimming.

Clark went out past the breakers, where we couldn’t touch any longer (also where the buoys are in an actual tri.) I did at first, but a few flailing strokes later, I got freaked out and went back up where I could touch. Not gonna lie, most of the “swim,” for me, consisted of walking along where the waves were breaking haha. Every time I’d try to swim, I get in a few strokes before I’d freak out again. I hated it.

The best part was when we swam under some surf fishing lines extending out in the ocean, and the fishermen on the shore yelled at us. Really? You can’t just get pissed at everyone else using THE OCEAN, jerks. We didn’t even touch anything.

So that was kind of a bust, but the biking and running went better. We rode our bikes 24 miles, over the Indian River Inlet bridge and back, and then we ran four miles.

The most entertaining part of the run was when we were just about to pass this guy as he was power-walking into a busy intersection, and someone in a car turning at that intersection yelled at him to get out of the road, so he yelled back. Then someone in the very next car flipped him off. The power-walker started screaming at the second car haha. In all the years I’ve run, I’ve never had an altercation with a driver that made me yell like that, and that guy had two in the 10 seconds I knew him.

Clark and I were done with everything by about 10:30 a.m., just in time for the big breakfast his mom made for everyone. I took the beach cruiser down to Dunkin’ Donuts and then around Fenwick Island. We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out with Clark’s family, celebrating his grandmother’s birthday.

That night, we were supposed to go to Lewes to meet one of Clark’s coworkers, and to watch the fight somewhere, but when we were almost there, his coworker texted he was just going home. OK… so we turned around and went back to the Greene Turtle in Ocean City, the closest place we could find to the beach house that was showing it.

By the time we got there, it was already 10:30 p.m. and I was tired, and there were still two fights before the main event. I really wouldn’t have minded just going home then, but we’d paid $40 a piece to see this freaking fight, so we stayed.

When the main fight finally started, I was hoping one of them would knock the other one out like six seconds into it, so I could go home. But no! Those jerks went 10 rounds. It was almost 1:30 a.m. by the time we got back to the beach house.

Sunday, I slept in. Then we had another big breakfast with Clark’s family. It wasn’t looking good for getting in the 16-mile long run I had on the schedule.

But then Clark said he’d ride the beach cruiser with me while I ran, so we went up to Rehoboth to ride/run a loop made up of the trails that compose the half and full marathon courses in December.

It was 12:30 p.m. by the time we started moving. It wasn’t a super hot day, but it was warm enough I wished I’d gotten up and gotten it done way earlier. I still didn’t think I was going to do all 16 miles. I figured I’d run until I felt like turning around.

A mile and a half into the run, we stopped by Revelation Brewing so Clark could get a browler (bike growler) filled with beer. I had my water bottle full of Roctane, so he needed a refreshment too haha.

We made our way through Rehoboth, which was kind of dicey (got honked at by some idiot from Pennsylvania — enjoy all the other bikers and runners you’re going to see out on the roads at all times while you’re in town, tourist!), and to Gordon’s Pond State Park, where we were finally back on a trail closed to vehicles.

This trail connects to Cape Henlopen State Park in Lewes and is only used by the full marathon runners during the race, so Clark hadn’t seen it before. (I’ve run it a couple of times with Pepper.) By the time we were halfway to Cape Henlopen, I was feeling pretty good. Plus, we were only at about seven miles when we got there, which I thought was about halfway, so I figured the whole loop would be less than 16 anyway. I decided to just do the loop.

First things first — my escort had to make a pit stop as soon as we got to Cape Henlopen haha:

We made our way out of the park and went past the Cape May-Lewes Ferry terminal. When we got to mile 10, I wasn’t sure exactly how to get back to the trail. I’ve run just about every piece of the loop at one time or another between all the races I’ve done in Lewes and Rehoboth, but I wasn’t sure here.

After consulting Clark’s phone, we had to run along the shoulder of a busy highway, which included a crossing at a major intersection with absolutely no crosswalks or signals. That was also a little dicey. But then we picked the trail back up, and found a trail map alongside it that confirmed we were going the right way.

At about mile 13, the “trail” was a wide median through a subdivision. The sun was beating down and I was getting tired. I did have to take a couple walk breaks there.

Then we got to the entrance back into the woods. I felt better except for one thing — my butt. Of course. At mile 14.5, I had to make my own pit stop.

You know, we run that section of trail in the second half of the half marathon, and except for 2009, I have never made it all the way through it without having to stop to poop. What is it about that stupid trail?

Anyway, I felt a LOT better after that stop, and I ran the rest of the way back to the car.

The loop wound up being 16 miles almost exactly. I stopped my Garmin at 16 on the dot and walked the rest of the way back to the truck.

I’d run 16 miles in 2:22:24, an 8:54/mile average, almost exactly a minute per mile faster than the 14.5-mile run six days earlier. I was pretty happy with that.

Honestly, having Clark helped a lot. There’s no way I’d have run that long if I’d been alone.

We went back to the beach house, packed up, took Pepper to Macky’s for dinner and came home. I was in bed by 9:30, completely exhausted.

I got up early this morning and ran another lap around the 4.5-mile loop (it was chilly!), unpacked and repacked, and now my younger sister and I are on our way to Ohio, to ride all the roller coasters at Cedar Point in Sandusky and see the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. I’m going to wrap this up now so I can stop being poor company in the car. I’ll be back next week!

Training for 8/25/17

Last night, Clark and I did the adult thing and completely blew off our plans so we could stay home instead. Once we’d settled on that, I went out for the run I thought I was going to skip.

I did a lap around the 5.5-mile loop and it felt amazing! It was right before sunset, so it’d cooled off and the humidity was OK for once. It was a highly enjoyable run.

Today, I did my usual thing and put off my run until the middle of the afternoon. I mean, I did have a lot of stuff to get done for work, but I could’ve easily gotten the run done first thing this morning. I just didn’t.

Anyway, today wasn’t terribly hot, but it’s still August, so 3 p.m. wasn’t really a great time to be out running. I just did a slow lap around the 4.5-mile loop.

Tonight, Clark and I are headed down to the beach house for at least part of the weekend to celebrate his grandmother’s birthday. Tomorrow, I’d like to get in a few more easy miles early, and Sunday, I have a 16-mile long run on the schedule.

I told Clark at some point this weekend I will try an ocean swim with him, and if it goes OK, I will consider signing up for the tri in Dewey Beach in three weeks. No promises!

Training for 8/24/17

Yesterday evening, after Clark got home, I went out and ran an easy lap around the 8.4-mile loop. It was a pretty nice evening for it, overcast and not too hot, but still humid. It was a decent run.

I didn’t get up this morning in time to run before I had an early assignment, and we’ve got plans for tonight now, so looks like today is going to be another rest day.

Training for 8/23/17

I have not run yet today. Some of it was pure laziness. Some of it was seeing the same amount of condensation on the back door this morning as there had been yesterday morning and not wanting to deal with the humidity again. But mostly, it was Pepper.

He is driving me insane. He’s always had separation anxiety — my aunt calls him “emotionally disturbed” — but the more I’ve gotten to work from home the last couple of years, the worse he’s gotten when I do have to leave the house, whether it’s for work or to do something I want to do (I swear he knows my “have to leave because of work” clothes from my “I’m leaving because I want to” clothes.)

Now it’s to the point I can barely do anything in the house without him starting to panic that I’m getting ready to leave forever. If I go to the bathroom, he’s standing in the doorway, shaking. If I brush my teeth, he’s standing in the doorway, shaking. Often he adds this sort of “muted screaming” noise on top of the shaking.

Then there’s the destruction of the utility room when he is left home. He’s clawed through the drywall in one spot. And I really hate how he’ll stay inside for hours, but then I leave the house for 45 minutes to run, and when I came back — surprise! — I just happened to pick the one small window of the entire day when he had to poop, and now I get to clean it up. Really drives down the motivation to actually go out and run.

He also howls when he’s alone. (I don’t know if he does it the entire time we’re gone, since we’re, you know, not here, but boy is it a good thing we don’t live in an apartment, because our neighbors would hate us.)

A lot of people ask why we don’t just drug him. I don’t want to have to dose my dog every time I want or need to leave my stupid house!

So anyway. Today, Clark was in Pennsylvania for work, having gone there last night, leaving me home with Pep. He just got home. Which means Pepper won’t have a meltdown now, so I can go for my run.

Training for 8/22/17

I am so over humidity!

First of all, I didn’t sleep well last night. I woke up around 2 a.m. and just could not get back to sleep, no matter what. At one point, I got up to get a drink of water. Even with all the lights out in the house, and only a little bit of moonlight outside, I could see the back glass door was coated top to bottom in condensation. HUMIDITY.

I went back to bed and pretty much just waited for my alarm to go off. Clark’s went off before mine though, and he left for a run of his own — two minutes before my alarm. Pepper was, of course, already starting to freak out, since Clark was gone and I was moving around, so I got fully dressed but lied back down and waited until Clark returned to go for my run.

He got back just after 7 a.m., dripping in sweat. I stepped outside and… uugggghhhhh.

I ran an easy lap around the 4.5-mile loop. By two miles in, every time I moved an arm to swat away a bug or scratch an itch, a stream of sweat would fly off my elbow. I took a walking break just after the end of the third mile to swear at the weather a little bit. And by the time I made it home, I’m pretty sure I was more thoroughly drenched in sweat than I had been yesterday, when I ran 10 miles farther.

I checked my phone when I got in the house: 79 degrees, 96 percent humidity. At 7:45 a.m. GROSS.

I was glad I got it done when I did though, because I had two assignments for work today, one first thing in the morning and another this evening, so my only other chance to run would’ve been in the middle of the afternoon. That definitely wouldn’t have happened.

I think tomorrow is going to be another hot and humid run, but then it looks like we’re going to get some storms followed by a cooling-off, which sounds like heaven.

Training for 8/21/17

Did you know there’s an eclipse today? I wasn’t too excited about it — Delaware is nowhere close to the path of totality — but I’ve got CNN on right now and the reporter in Missouri got so hyped up when the clouds broke just in time to see the total eclipse, I couldn’t help but get a little excited for her. The pictures so far are pretty cool, I have to say.

Anyway, running this weekend was kind of a bust. Friday afternoon, I did go out and knock out a run around the 4.5-mile loop. It wasn’t particularly great, since the heat index was still around 106 degrees at that point.

That evening, Clark and I went to the beach house and hung out with one of his coworkers and his wife. We wound up staying up pretty late, and I didn’t get up until 9 a.m. Saturday. I didn’t feel like running yet. Instead, I rode the beach cruiser down to Dunkin’ Donuts to get an iced coffee.

While I was standing there waiting for my order, I saw a kid with a race bib on, probably from a 5K that morning in Dewey or Rehoboth. For a second I felt a little stab of FOMO, but then I remembered it was 9:30 and I was still in my pajamas — I definitely wouldn’t have wanted to run a 5K that probably started at 7:30 or 8.

When I got back to the beach house, Clark’s mom had made us French toast, bacon and eggs for breakfast. A little while later, Clark and I decided to go for a short run.

At this point, it was nearly 11, the sun had come out, the day had gotten hot and we both had a belly full of breakfast. In other words, it was a terrible time for a run.

We ran about a mile to warm up, then did the pyramid intervals — 30, 45, 60, 90, 60, 45 and 30 seconds of hard running, with a minute of recovery between each. It was ROUGH. We were a little over two miles in when we finally finished those intervals, so I slowly ran enough to at least get in 3.1 miles. Woof.

We both went back to bed for a nap after that. Then we had to rush home, get cleaned up and go to a surprise birthday party for another one of Clark’s coworkers. We were there all afternoon, and then we went to Salisbury to meet TK, her boyfriend and her mom at Evo for dinner.

When we got home from that, Clark invited over yet another one of his coworkers and his girlfriend. Another late night.

When I woke up Sunday morning, I didn’t feel up to anything, including running. So I didn’t. Instead, we went to a boat-docking contest at Suicide, something I’d never seen before. It was pretty cool.

Today, I went out to do the 14-mile long run I’ve been putting off for what feels like weeks now. I left the house pretty late. At first, it was fine, because it was overcast. Unfortunately, the sun came out about six miles in, and my pace absolutely nose-dived over the last 8.5 miles. It got pretty ugly, but the 14.5-mile loop got done, finally.

Training for 8/18/17

I did ride my bike Wednesday. Clark’s Garmin Fenix 3 was fully charged and sitting on the ottoman in the front room where we keep our bikes, so I took it with me. That thing feels like it weighs 10 times as much as the 220 I use for running.

I rode the 29.2-mile loop that crosses the Sharptown bridge twice. It was still pretty hot in the early evening, but not too windy. It really didn’t feel that bad.

When I finished, the Garmin said I’d finished the loop in 1:34:xx, an average speed of 18.5 mph. My fastest recorded speed was 26.6 mph — when I was going down the bridge, I’m sure.

Yesterday, Clark got home from a work trip early enough (and I put off my run long enough) that I was able to go out without having to leave Pepper home alone. It was about the same time I’d left for my bike ride the day before, and just as warm and humid.

An easy lap around the 6.5-mile loop was much less pleasant than the bike ride had been. I was absolutely drenched in sweat by the end of the first mile. But, other than an inevitable bathroom break about halfway through, I ran the whole thing at a steady clip.

Today, I still have not run. I need to get out there soon if I’m going to. It’s freaking hot, like in the triple digits. Also, I thought it was supposed to rain, so why is it so bright and sunny out there, just making it feel hotter? Ugh.

The other day, a friend who’s as obsessed with pumpkin spice as I am texted me that she was ready for cool days and pumpkin-everything. We must’ve been in the middle of those couple of weeks where the weather was actually kinda nice for summer, because cool days didn’t sound good to me yet. Well, you know, I could really go for 55 degrees and some reasonable humidity right about now.

As for this weekend, what I should do is run a 7-miler tomorrow and that 14-miler I just blew off all week Sunday. I have no races at all, and Clark is going to be home, so no excuses there. But it’s going to be just as hot as it’s been all week. We’ll see how it goes.

Training for 8/16/17

I did not do that long run yesterday. Just the opposite, actually — I let it turn into another rest day.

Today, however, I resisted Pepper’s attempts to make me feel like the worst person alive for putting on running shoes, and I went out and ran an easy lap around the 7.3-mile loop, this week’s middle distance run. Unfortunately, it took me until about 11 a.m. to do it, so it was pretty warm on top of the usual humidity, but it turned out to be a routine run. Nothing great, but not awful either.

I might take the bike out this evening. It’s supposed to storm the next three days, so it might be my last chance for a bit.

Training for 8/14/17

Friday, I never made it outside for a run. Pepper’s guilt trips every time I leave the house to run without him are starting to wear on me. And then, after Clark got home and I had plenty of time to get in a run if I wanted, Pepper did this:

Anyone who lives with a dog knows if the dog is comfortably lying on you, you don’t move.

Saturday was rainy as forecasted. Around noon, I went out for a lap around the 7.3-mile loop. It wasn’t a particularly great run. I didn’t mind the rain at all, but it was just so humid. It only felt more humid when it stopped raining halfway through the run.

That evening, we took Pepper to Specific Gravity for dinner, and then we went to Clark’s coworker’s house to hang out. I wound up snoozing on the couch the last couple of hours we were there (I am such a fun guest!) but it was for the best, since I had that rescheduled final summer series 5K in the morning.

Even after that nap and then going straight to bed when we got home, I was still in no mood to get up and run a race when my alarm went off Sunday morning. In fact, I’d apparently been wishing so hard for the race to get postponed again or even cancelled, I’d dreamed it happened. I had to check my email immediately when I woke up — nope, that wasn’t real life. So I got dressed and was ready to go when TK got to my house.

The Dam Mill 5K was held in Millsboro, which is closer to my house than all the beach races, so that was nice.

We were parked about a half-hour before the 7:30 a.m. start. We got our bibs and event shirts, and then I did my usual easy mile to warm up. The temperature wasn’t bad, about 74 degrees, but it was still stupid humid.

We got the commands and we were off.

The course was pretty simple, basically an out-and-back with a little loop at the beginning. I didn’t feel great at first, in spite of having warmed up, but I felt better as the first mile came to a close, which I ran in 7:10.

By this point, we were on the long straightaway of the town’s main street that made up the majority of the course. Heading out of town, there was a nice easy downhill, but that just meant we were going to have to run up it going back.

The U-turn was at about mile 1.75. I was still feeling OK, but the humidity was starting to get to me. I knew my pace was slipping, but what else is new?

I finished mile 2 in 7:25. Knew it! Oh well. I kept plugging away, up that downhill that was now an uphill, which sucked.

Instead of retracing that little loop at the beginning, we made a left turn off the main street to run straight back to the finish line. I finished mile 3 in 7:29, and then ran the last 10th of a mile — all downhill! — to cross the line in 22:46, my second-fastest 5K of the summer series.

Sorry, I don’t have a picture of myself drenched in sweat and gasping for air at the finish line of this one; Fredman, our talented photographer, had already committed to photographing another local 5K yesterday before this one had to get rescheduled. I’m sure it would have looked just like all the other pictures I got from these summer series races this year.

I did another slow mile to cool down, and got back to the park in time to see TK finish.

When they posted the results, I was first of five in my age group.

Top three in the F 30-34 age group.

I was also fifth of 67 women to finish, and 27th of 136 overall.

And best of all, I am finally done running enough races to qualify for the summer series for the eighth year in a row! This year, I finished with a grand total of 9 (four first place finishes, one second and one third), which I believe should be low enough to win my age group for the series again. The awards will be handed out after the Last Blast Prediction 5K on Sept. 2.

TK and I got iced coffees at the Millsboro Dunkin’ Donuts and headed home. She’d just gotten back from a weeklong vacation the evening before and had plenty to do at home yesterday afternoon.

I lazed about for a bit at home with Clark and Pepper, and then we went to the beach house in Fenwick. Later that afternoon, we took a couple surfboards to Indian River, but there were already close to 50 surfers out there competing for the handful of decent waves that were coming in, so neither of us felt like getting in the middle of that. We just sat on the beach with Pepper and had a couple beers instead.

Look at all those surfers floating around out there behind Pepper!

We went back to the beach house, grilled up some salmon filets and asparagus and came home.

This morning, the temperature was all the way down the mid 60s, so I went out and did the short easy run on the schedule first thing. While the temperature felt great, the humidity was still 95 percent, so I was just as sweaty as ever when I got home. It was still a pretty good run though.

Tomorrow morning, I should have enough time to get in the 14-mile long run I didn’t do this weekend.

Training for 8/11/17

I haven’t run yet today. No real reason, just being lazy. I would like to go out and run the 5.5-mile loop at some point.

Yesterday, Clark and I went to Ocean City and met Bart and Marybeth at the weigh-in for the White Marlin Open, a huge weeklong ocean fishing tournament they hold every August. This was its 44th year, but I’d never seen any part of it in person.

It calls itself the “world’s largest and richest billfish tournament,” this year with $4.75 million in prize money up for grabs. There are different categories in which to win money, but the biggest prize — $2.6 million — is for whoever catches the biggest white marlin. So it attracts some very fancy fishing boats.

Registered boats can fish three of the five days. Monday and Tuesday were crap days, so most of the boats waited until Wednesday to go out for the first time, meaning yesterday was also pretty busy.

We got to the official weigh-in site at Harbour Island, at 14th Street and the bay, a little before 4 p.m., when the scales opened.

The day before, we’d seen a pretty snazzy-looking orange and black boat cruise by the condo out in the ocean. It wasn’t a fishing boat, but it was docked in that marina, so we had to go look it over. It has five 400-hp engines. I’m no math whiz but I can figure out that adds up to 2,000 hp. I sent Dave a pic of it and told him this should be our next ski boat.

Right after 4 p.m., the first boat came in with a white marlin to be weighed. It didn’t unseat the current leader, but it was big enough — 72.5 lbs. — to take over third place and the $40,000 prize.

We hung around long enough to see another white marlin hit the scales. It’s hard to see in this picture, but it’s dangling on the scale, alongside the big screen display. It wasn’t big enough to land in the prize money.

None of us were really that into watching fish get weighed, and we were getting hungry, so we went to De Lazy Lizard for dinner. Corey met us there too.

Bart and Marybeth left after we ate, but Clark, Corey and I hung around there until we left to meet Aunt Helen and Uncle John for a dinner reservation at The Sunset Grille in West Ocean City.

I’ve only been there once before, in the middle of the day in November, so I didn’t know how popular it was during the White Marlin Open. It was packed, and the marina was full of the huge fishing boats competing in the tournament. A lot of them were lit up, which looked pretty cool.

It was after 11 when we left. Clark’s parents had Pepper for the evening, so we didn’t need to drive home. Instead, we just drove to Fenwick and crashed at the beach house, then got up this morning and drove home.

I had this really weird dream last night. (I’ve been having a lot of really weird dreams lately.) In this one, I was signed up for my first triathlon. The open water swim went great (I couldn’t tell if it was a river or a very calm ocean) and I was one of the first ones in transition, but when I got there, I couldn’t find my bike. I finally found it, but then it took me forever to get ready to go out on it — I was the last one to leave. And on the way out (of the building??), this woman stopped me to ask for help finding an administrative office or something. She wouldn’t let me go. I never made it to the bike course, just pushed my bike around this building trying to help this woman. There was a sandwich involved too but the details have escaped me haha. And that was the end.

Clark said it was a sign I should sign up for a tri in real life, because I survived the swim, the part I really don’t want to do. There are three short-distance tris in the area in September. One is the same day as the Dogfish Dash, which I’m already registered for, but the other two are open days on my schedule. I said I’d consider Dewey Beach, because there’s an option to do a half-mile run in the sand instead of the half-mile ocean swim before biking 15 miles and running a 5K on pavement. But Clark is working on me to just bite the bullet and do the tri. Eh, we’ll see.

My only plans for the weekend are a middle distance run tomorrow, probably the 7.3-mile loop again, and then the rescheduled Dam Mill 5K on Sunday morning. It’s supposed to storm again tomorrow, hopefully not so much this time it washes out that race again. And then I’ll do the 14-mile long run early next week.