June 28, 2016

Running and an update on Monica

Well, I knocked two more runs off of my Cookies Summer Running Checklist. The first was a run with the kids yesterday. The kids have been doing a GREAT job at following their training plans. They've really surprised me! They haven't skipped any runs, and they haven't even complained about them.

Last week, I decided to order Eli a Garmin on Amazon. Jerry and I each have one, and Noah got one for Christmas in 2014. Eli was always borrowing one of ours for his runs. I thought since he's doing so well at sticking with his training, I'd get him a Garmin of his own.

I bought him the Forerunner 10, which is the same one Noah has. At $80, it's the most basic GPS watch, but it does exactly what he needs it for--to track his time, distance, and pace. He loves to write down his time on his schedule after each run so that he can compare it to previous runs.

It arrived on Sunday, and I set up a Garmin account for him. Unfortunately, I forgot to put the watch on the charger. Yesterday, Jerry and I took the boys to the State Park for a run. Jerry was going to run one mile with Eli, and I'd run two and a quarter with Noah. Eli was excited to use his new watch--and when we turned it on, we noticed it had a low battery. Totally my fault. I just hoped it would last the duration of his run. He and Jerry headed out one direction and Noah and I headed out in the opposite direction.

It was extremely hot, and I felt like we were running about a 10:00 pace--then I looked at the Garmin, and it showed an 11:20 pace! Noah was really surprised, because he said he felt like we were going much faster, too. (He recently ran his fastest mile ever of 8:30!). I was glad I decided to bring the handheld water bottle for him, because he was struggling in the heat. I told him we'd run nice and slow the whole way.

At one point, we came up on Jerry and Eli, who were running toward us. Eli said his watch had died, which was a bummer. (I put it on the charger as soon as we got home, so it's ready for tomorrow's run).

It was a tough run in the heat, but both the kids did great! I'd wish I'd gotten a picture of all four of us afterward. I counted that run on my Checklist as the "Child's Play" run (running with a kid).

Today, I planned to do very short, very hard intervals--20 x 30 seconds with 60 seconds of recovery between. I set up the workout on Garmin Connect, but for the life of me, I haven't been able to transfer it to my watch. It was driving me CRAZY. I finally just decided to forget about it, and do a tempo run instead. I had no idea what kind of pace to run for a tempo, so I just went by feel--my effort level was about an 8 or 9 on a scale of 1-10, so it was tough. Making it extra tough was the fact that I went out at 1:30 pm, so it was the hottest time of day.

I was guessing my pace to be around 9:00, but was surprised to see it at around 8:40, so I just went with it. I wanted to slow down several times, but I knew I was capable of doing three miles at that pace. (It's kind of crazy to think that less than three months ago, I was running a 10K at a 7:55 pace!).

When I hit mile three, I was still a third of a mile from home, but I stopped my watch and walked the rest of the way. That was a tough three miles!


My heart rate was 160-169, which is perfect for a tempo run. (Thankfully, I didn't have any run-ins with birds. Hopefully they're done being mean for the year.)

My face was SO hot and red after the run--I've missed that feeling! I've been doing so much low heart rate running, that it's rare I get to feel pretty exhausted. Even after taking a cool shower, my face was beet-red. I really needed that run today, and I almost feel like it worked out for the best that my Garmin wasn't cooperating with the interval plan. I've been struggling a lot lately in regards to maintenance, which I'll write about tomorrow, but today's run boosted my spirits for sure.

So, since I started my run at 1:30, I decided to count it as the "RUNch" on my Checklist (a run started between 12 and 2 pm). I've completed five of the runs on the Checklist so far (each run that I do only counts as one item, even if it fits into multiple categories). It's been kind of fun to focus on something other than pace and mileage!


Olivia (a.k.a. Monica)--our foster cat--is doing really well! I wish I had a lot to write about her, but she's seriously SO CHILL that I have no stories. She doesn't love the other pets yet, but cats usually take a while to warm up to each other. She's super cuddly, and when she wants to be petted, she'll head-butt us until she gets attention ;)

She hid out in my bedroom a lot the first few days, but she's been venturing out more and more now. I've been trying to get good pictures of her, but she always looks so pissed off! Hahaha, she has a "resting bitch face"--she can be happy as a clam and still look like she's angry at the world.


In this picture, she was lying on my lap and purring. Anyway, she's really a very quiet, laid-back cat. She's been great!


8 comments:

  1. Hello Katie,
    talking about the Garmin watch - which type do you use for yourself (or your husband)? I consider buying one for myself for my forthcoming birthday and I am not able to choose among so many types of fit watches :( Thank you

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  2. I love that your boys are running! At 5 Noah is starting to want to go out with me also. I hope that the more I get back into running the more he will want to do. :-)

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  3. lol You're so lucky that you have the confident, non-territorial kind of cats! We have two and our female is the kind who does not like change or new things! We took our male (2 years older that she has been around since she was a baby) to the vet last year for a cleaning. When we brought him home from the vet that evening apparently he smelled different and she didn't recognize him. (There is an actual name for it - nonrecognition aggression) She attacked him every time he got close and even scratched him in the eye which necessitated another trip to the vet. We had to separate them in separate rooms (which was interesting since we live in a 40 ft fifth wheel) until she got used to his scent again - which took TWO weeks!! It was quite the experience and we are hoping that is the last time we have to take him to the vet for a procedure.

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  4. Sounds like Eli takes after his momma, being obsessed with times, stats, and keeping track of it all--how cool is that? Love your new kitty and her name. You could have a new cat phenom, like Grumpy Cat, only she is Bitch-Face Cat.

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  5. Love the kitty!!!

    Great job on the run!!

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  6. OMG the Garmin Connect drove me up the wall for hours!! I wanted to throw my 620 against the wall twice. I feel like that portion of their site is not user intuitive at all.

    I don't know if you figured it out yet but I found a long way round. I eventually found that if you put the intended workout in the workout section, then go to calendar and click on the day that you want to run that sequence and add it there. Then hit sync on the calendar which is the weird random arrow on the upper right to send workouts to your device. Then you can find it when you click on the trophy on the home screen of the Garmin It works best too if your watch is connected to the computer too. Like I said, its a LONG way around but it works for me.

    Good luck!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm glad I'm not the only one, but damn, that was driving me CRAZY. I tried again yesterday, and I just couldn't get it to transfer over. Your work-around did work, so I'll have to do that for the time being. But with all the technology Garmin is known for, you'd think this would be super easy!

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  7. Garmin Connect can be a pain, I hope you manage to figure it out!

    Your cat is super cute! And I totally know what you're talking about with the resting bitch face: my cat Onion is the sweetest and cuddliest thing ever, but she always looks like she's ready to murder us all, haha.

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