Every Wish That We Put Into Motion.... (comments welcome!)

[garneska]

The puppy is adorable, but yeah teenage mode will be fun.

 

[Herding_Cats]

The puppy is adorable, but yeah teenage mode will be fun.

Yeah, I figure I'm slow enough that I can probably start "running" him at about 6mo for the 3mi and shorter runs. He's already doing zoomies around the backyard at 11 weeks old. And these guys are bred to run all day chasing birds. Soooo yeah. I'm taking all the sweet snuggles and focus I can get right now.

 

[Herding_Cats]

I just realized that I'm going to run into a shoe situation mid-summer, if not sooner.

Someone remind me that running in plated shoes is BAD for every run. And that I shouldn't do it. Because I love the bounce of the supercomp trainers I bought last summer. I'm seriously considering buying up a few more pairs of the V1 because all of the reviews said they toned down the bounce and roll with the v2. Uuuuuugh. Maybe I'll borrow DS2's saucony's and try those for a run.

 

[WillRunForPizza]

Someone remind me that running in plated shoes is BAD for every run. And that I shouldn't do it.

When I strained my Achilles, a coach told me that's something they're seeing increasingly with supershoes. So yeah. If you want to have functional legs in the future, don't do all your runs in plated shoes

 

[DopeyBadger]

Someone remind me that running in plated shoes is BAD for every run. And that I shouldn't do it.

Don't do it.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Weekly wrap up. I swear my memory is not this terrible, but I only vaguely remember last weeks runs. Like...I did run, right?

Sunday: it appears that I did my 6mi long run. I sort of remember doing some really horrible runners math about when to turn around, and then re-did that math when I was almost to where I thought I should turn around. Yeah. I was like half a mile off (so I would have been a mile short) so I'm glad I caught that. It looks like my avg pace was 13:18, and I stayed in zone 3 for almost the whole run. I know that zone 2 gets talked about a lot, but I have to walk to stay in zone 2, even though I've been running for 3? 4? years now. Granted, I do take some time off, but either the wrist-based sensor is horrible, or my body just likes zone 3. I don't get too hung up on that stuff though....it's more of a baseline and I know from experience that the further I get into a marathon plan, my HR does start to creep down closer to the bottom end of 3/top of 2.

Monday: rest day, cleaning for MIL to come over and house-sit for us. I got off-schedule at the end of the previous week, so things got pretty weird this week while I tried to compensate, travel for DS1's robotics competition, and everything else.

Tuesday: 6 hill repeats on the treadmill. I try really hard to do the "workout" runs on days DD has school, but running a goal-pace run, then a long run, and then hills all in a row seemed like a bad idea. So I pushed these to Tuesday. I used 5% incline, and made the hills 0.25mi long. This was brutal. I was ready to throw in the towel after 3, but managed to force myself through all of them. Shortened the WU/CD to half a mile each as the timing worked out that I finished up, got cleaned up, and went to DS1's baseball game.

Wednesday: travel day for VEX robotics. We flew out of a regional airport about 2 hours away, had a connecting flight out of Chicago, and were in Dallas by 3pm. Then I got to figure out Uber for the first time ever, because we don't really have uber where I live, other than in the high tourist months, and then it's because the tourists are so used to it being an option. I had intended to go for a run that evening, but we ended up doing a lot of walking around the downtown area and with the hour time-change it felt too late by the time we got back to the hotel.

Thursday: after a looooong day of robots from 730am until 630pm, I forced myself onto the treadmill at the hotel for what was supposed to be a 40min tempo run. I started at 8:40, which felt like 9:40. And ugh. I did everything "right" until I got to the end of the goal-pace section, and then walked the remaining time (about 10min) because I was over it. Opening ceremonies for the contest were really cool, but it was just a long drawn out day. Essentially, teams are scored on a solo autonomous and driver-skills section, and then have random pairings within their division to be seeded for an elimination tournament on the last day. The kids that do this are amazing. I think there were 37 different countries represented at the competition, from all continents (except Antarctica, obviously.) Our team had made some modifications to their robot between state finals and worlds (Why? I have no idea.) and struggled with the solo/autonomous section that they usually score pretty highly in. Stress levels were up for everyone with that going on. Also, DS's teammate was exhausted/sick from a different robotics competition that had gone on the week prior with their engineering academy robot. DS skipped the trip/competition because he didn't want to miss 2 weeks worth of baseball games, but his teammate went, and they pulled a couple of all-nighters fixing some things on that other robot. So he was very rundown, and is the driver for the VEX robot.

Friday: more robots. Same 11 hour day. We found a tiny taco place near the hotel and went and had dinner as a group, which basically took away the time I would have attempted to run. But DH and I did a lot of walking around the convention center between matches. Also, this is where stress got really high. Someone stole the air compressor from our team. Or took it accidentally and didn't care to turn it into the lost and found. This is a necessary piece of equipment for their robot arms to function, and teammate's dad ended up driving to a Home Depot and buying a new one. The volunteers for the lost and found are a couple that are semi-local to us, and said that entire carts were disappearing from team's pit areas. It was bonkers.

Saturday: same as Friday. Another piece of gear (the spacer they use to set up for their autonomous portion) went missing between matches. And then each division does a draft/selection process for 16 alliances for the single-elimination tournament. DS's team was not selected, so we packed up, and watched the remainder of the tournament. Of course, it went over on time, and we ended up grabbing food from the hotel bar for dinner, and then packed up everything else for a 5am ride back to the airport.

Sunday: another travel day. We were thankful to not have any delays or cancellations from all of the severe weather. The house was absolute chaos when we got home. DD was super clingy (expected) and the puppy was screaming when I walked in the door because apparently he could hear me in the garage. DS2 appears to have pinkeye (probably caught from a teammate who also had it) and my stress level is back through the roof trying to get everything organized.


But it's a new week, so it's time to get back on track with training. Still trying to just look at one week at a time so I don't get overwhelmed with what's coming up. I don't even know what today's run is supposed to be. I did finally tell DH about my plan to possibly attempt the POT race in the end of June, but also included the fact that I have exit points throughout the plan if things aren't going well or it becomes too much with everything else that we have going.

 

[jmasgat]

With a week like yours, it's no wonder you can't remember a run. If it makes you feel better, I have a race that is supposedly my 5k PR--and I have zero recollection of doing it.

Also, it really sucks that people would steal from other teams. I mean....people. Sometimes I think the world would be better off without them.

 

[azrivest]

DS skipped the trip/competition because he didn't want to miss 2 weeks worth of baseball games

I'm confused, did you go to your kids' robot competition without your kids?

I hope you enjoyed the 11-hour days nonetheless, that looks pretty hectic!

 

[Herding_Cats]

I'm confused, did you go to your kids' robot competition without your kids?

I hope you enjoyed the 11-hour days nonetheless, that looks pretty hectic!

DS1 had 2 robot projects. One was “club” and 100% after-school work: VEX robotics. That was the world championship competition that we attended this past weekend (which they qualified for through our state championship in February.) MIL came and stayed at the house with the other 3 kids.

His other robot was for a NRC competition (not sure if it was a mid-west regional or national) and that robot was built during class time at his career-tech school/engineering academy. He chose to skip attending the NRC competition because he would have been gone Wednesday through Sunday, gone to school Monday and Tuesday, and then left for the VEX contest on Wednesday (his robotics teammate did both and was super run down and exhausted as a result.) Doing both would have had him missing 4 dates/8 baseball games. And since that’s his favorite sport, and his grade wasn’t contingent on attending the NRC contest, he opted to stay home.

 

[The Expert]

Someone stole the air compressor from our team. Or took it accidentally and didn't care to turn it into the lost and found. This is a necessary piece of equipment for their robot arms to function, and teammate's dad ended up driving to a Home Depot and buying a new one. The volunteers for the lost and found are a couple that are semi-local to us, and said that entire carts were disappearing from team's pit areas. It was bonkers.

That IS bonkers!

 

[Cabius]

Bummer that you didn't get to get out and run in Dallas after all, though the weather ended up being weird anyway. Sorry about for the ring of robotics thieves.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Bummer that you didn't get to get out and run in Dallas after all, though the weather ended up being weird anyway. Sorry about for the ring of robotics thieves.

Yeah, after wandering down to the farmers market and then back to the hotel, and seeing how bad the phone gps was, I had kind of shelved the idea. And then yeah....the weather was really weird. But we did get to watch some fun lightning shows from the upstairs of the convention center for awhile on Friday!

 

[superchime]

Oh my goodness, my younger son started doing robotics this year and those competition days are so long! I can't imagine trying to squeeze a run into one of those days.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Oh my goodness, my younger son started doing robotics this year and those competition days are so long! I can't imagine trying to squeeze a run into one of those days.

Yeah. We took DD (who is 4) to state finals with us, and she couldn't even handle the day and a half that lasted. I ended up sitting out in the car with her (while she melted down) during the awards and missed their biggest one of the year. And I was definitely in $*(@ this mode during the one run I managed.