Wednesday, June 12, 2013

I heart hills.....right?

Just a few days until I run 7.6 miles up 'just one hill'.  I hope I'm ready, I don't really FEEL ready, but how do you prepare for running up the largest mountain in New England?  I haven't really trained for this, but I'm going to do it anyway and see what happens.  I mean I ran Big Sur only 7 weeks ago, then Reach the Beach 4 weeks ago and Run to Remember half marathon the week after that.  I have been pretty consistently running 4 days a week with one mid-distance run in the week and a long run on the weekend, a little speed/fartlek running along the Charles and an easier 'recovery' run in there too.  Still haven't added any strength or cross training and really need to, but haven't felt motivated.

It's been a rocky few weeks training and living and trying to resume normal routine at work after the traumatic events in and around Boston made it very difficult to focus on anything.  I'm getting there.  I finally feel like I can sort of think straight and get things done.  I go through spurts of attention to a particular task and focused effort then it's like a fog rolls in and the focus blurs and my brain either goes blank and stops or goes into overload and thinks about everything all at once.  I'm sleeping a little better with only occasional nightmares when someone in the neighborhood decides to set off fireworks or some other type of expolsions or undetermined origin.  Doing my best to keep the stress in my life to a minimum and keep the fun at a maximum.

Last weekend for example, it was kind of rainy and gross out Saturday.  I did a 16 mile run over lots of hillstrying to prepare a little for Mount Washington even though there really are no hills big enough to even do repeats on to train for a MOUNTAIN.  It was still a really great run.  It was rainy and gloomy when I started out, but not cold.  About half way in, the sun came out and when it did it was STRONG. I could feel myself cooking instantly.  I had to keep going though, only one way home, and it was 8 miles away.  Kept a pretty consistent pace the whole time and felt good.  Slower than I'd like and a little gassed on some of the hills, but overall I finished 16 miles and felt good about it.


After the run, I showered and ate some food, then I headed to the mall.  I had received an email during the week about a celebrity appearance that sounded pretty funny and like it would be worth checking out just for fun.  I figured no one else would go to the mall since the sun had come out and it had been raining for several days, but I was wrong.  I got to the mall and there was a HUGE line for the appearance.  I got in line with all the other people and started people watching.  It was really entertaining and made the time pass pretty quickly.  Ok, so most of the people in line were under the age of, ummm maybe, 10 years old.  I may have been the only adult, but it was funny.  The mall security was all over the place trying to keep things organized and the staff were walking through the line giving thigs out because the line was so long some people might not make it in time to see the celbrity before they had to leave.  I MADE IT!  Hahahhahaha
HELLO KITTY!
Sunday, my neighbors had a yard sale so I threw some of my things out on the lawn to try and get rid of stuff and make a little money.  Of course this caused some drama with my nut job neighbor.  I didn't organize it.  I just jumped on board.  The crazy guy upstairs came out yelling at everyone because he was not included and asked why I didn't tell him.  I'm chairperson of the association and something involving the community and the property happened and he wasn't informed.  OMG, seriously?  I just ignored him.  I didn't send out the information and didn't verify that everyone was included.  Not my job to make sure all the neighbors talk to each other and play nice.  I just threw some stuff on the lawn hoping to get rid of it.  I ended up making a little over $100 and ALMOST got rid of my PEZ collection.  Will try again.  I have about 400 of them, wanted to sell them for 50 cents each or $100 for the entire collection.  A steal if you are a collector.

Anyway, back to work on Monday.  I made the mistake after my fun over the weekend of relaxing on the couch and started to watch the much talked about 'Game of Thrones' show On Demand just to see what the fuss was about, and I got hooked.  So I stayed up way too late Sunday watching it and didn't get enough sleep so I was super groggy and sleepy when I got to work.  I made it through the day, but did not feel like going for a run after work (plus it was raining AND I had a few more episodes of GOT to watch to get caught up). 

Tuesday it felt like a Thursday and my brain was just not functioning.  I was wicked productive in the first few hours of the day and then it's like my brain shut down.  I got a lot done, but then by afternoon I was pretty much mentally spent.  I went for a run and it was AWESOME.  I had rested 2 days in a row!  It paid off.  I did my favorite 6 mile loop along the Charles and could have kept going.  It was cool and cloudy and there was not much wind at all and I ran really decent pace for the entire run and stayed strong the whole time, finished up and felt amazing with a huge smile on my face.  Then I got stuck in traffic for 90 minutes trying to go home. 

On my way home I had a brilliant idea though.  About the race this weekend, I know it's going to be more of a hike than a run.  I will be walking as fast as I can up the mountain and trying not to get too burnt out and just enjoying the experience.  Then I thought wouldn't it be fun to do it in a costume to REALLY have a lot of fun with it and get some great pictures AND advertise for the Stair Climb too!  So, I'm thinking I might wear a Heidi-like, lederhosen sort of costume and wear my hair in my typical braids.  Oh and I made a back bib with the Climb Flyer so that I can really draw attention to it.  I figure people that sign up to run up the biggest mountain in New England must like to climb so they would also enjoy running up stairs.  I hope it works.  So, I posted the same photo that is at the top of this blog on my Facebook page for the blog, like it, share it, comment on it and I will run in costume and post funny photos next week.  Here's a preview of the costume I might wear.....

No comments:

Post a Comment