25 December 2010

Failure........or perhaps not

Yes, I've been a bad, bad blogger but I promise there will a proper update later this week.  I just had to come in write about today's run......it was gonna be almost immediately but kinda got waylaid, lol so a little bit of the initial rush has worn off.  First off I've had a bit of a tough week driving wise with the all the holiday traffic and such plus I might've pushed a bit on getting home last night.......actually I pulled in the drive right at 1:55am this morning then didn't get myself into bed until after 3am, woke up at approx 7:30 then lolled about in bed until after 10 am.  Thoroughly enjoyed it too (huge grin).

My problem was that I had a 7 mile run on the schedule that should have been run on Thursday (my new long run day) and I had extremely fatigued legs.  I honestly thought I'd be lucky to eke out 2 miles before calling it quits.....but then the thought of some possible heckling spurred me to keep going.  And as is the usual case I eased into a rolling rhythm that was slightly slower than my other runs lately, just a nice easy sub 10 minute pace........right up to around the 2 mile point........new home constructions are a welcome sight because they = portapotties!!!  Since it's Christmas day, most places are closed so these were greatly appreciated, haha!

Nature call taken care of, its back to the zoning out of my "long" run......again fatigued legs, slower pace but I start thinking about running up what the locals call either Backbone Ridge or Hitler Hill (called so because it goes up at the angle of that hateful salute)........I'm tired, legs are shot, and I keep thinking "run up it, you're not going to make it, but run up it anyway".  This is going through my mind on an endless loop and I honestly thought I was setting myself up for failure.........Not to mention that the light rain has turned into light sleet (eventually turned into light snow) and it's actually getting colder as I run......so 5.25 miles and I'm at the crossroads, turn left and head towards home, doing a 1 and 3/4 mile tour of the neighborhood to get my 7 miles or turn right and head towards that blasted hill....

I turn right.........how stupid am I? I'm exhausted and my legs are seriously grumbling at me to quit, I'm struggling to get up the incline to get to the road for that hill and I'm telling myself, you're not gonna make, you're not gonna make it.  What kind of idiot sets themselves up for failure like that??????  Reach the top of the "little" incline and again it's turn left or turn around......  I turn left, then right and start up that bitch, still thinking I'm gonna have to stop half-way up.......

But then after a few yards up it, I start thinking, why, why, why would I set out to run up that KNOWING I couldn't make it up and immediately switched to this hill is gonna be MY bitch.  Head up, look at the apex and just keep moving. Failure was not an option today......so yeah, lungs burning, legs screaming I ran up that sunovabitch hill all the way.........Lol, ok, ok, to the casual observer I was prolly at a snail's pace but I DID NOT WALK A SINGLE STEP.  Job done.

Problem was I still had approx. 1.5 miles to get my dumbass back home, lol.  Felt like I was slogging the entire distance too......but y'know what, my 7 miles got done and I didn't fail.

Today's stats
Mile 1 9:08
mile 2 9:14
mile 3 9:00
mile 4 9:05
mile 5 9:18
mile 6 9:50 (going up that hill)
mile 7 9:19
mile 7-7.17 9:15


Backbone Ridge by the way is .2 mile, 150 feet long at an 11% grade according to an accountant/cycling training partner friend of mine for the curious amongst my readers.

06 December 2010

New earworm: Awolnation

Its been a while since I did a desert island pick so thought I would share a band that's responsible for my latest earworm--Awolnation.

Adoring "Sail" but you need to check out their YouTube channel--great music & cheesy sci-fi, how could I not love this band?

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SLisC9F2ncc?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/eYz_e4vuixQ?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Sorry writing this post via my phone, you'll have to cut & paste the links until I can fix it on my notebook--now updated with the embed codes

05 December 2010

Rambling on

An update is a bit overdue I guess.  First off I'd like to say thank you to everyone for their comments here, on twitter, and those i know in real life  The amount of support has been simply amazing and  I've found myself overwhelmed by all the kindness and non-judgementalness (I don't think that's a real word, lol).  THANK YOU

I have kind of let time slip by me, not getting things done except in short frenzied bursts.  ATT is frustrating the heck out of me but I finally have everything sorted. Mobile phone bills are separated and the dsl & wireless modem are ordered so hopefully I can get that installed for James next weekend.  

Work....well I'm having a difficult time adjusting to the schedule change. And yes this was requested by me so I can't complain but y'all know I will anyways.  Friday night I was driving by all the 1/2 empty fuel stops and for the life of me couldn't figure out WHY there were parking spots available at some of them when it finally hit home that it wasn't Monday. D'oh!!!! 

Today finds me chasing the logbook because I'm bumping right against the 70 hour rule, grrr. 6.75 hours available to work today, 6 tomorrow. Enough to get me home but to get a 34 hour restart there I have to get up at midnight tonight.  Totally throws my body clock out of sync but it's either that or take my 34 hours at Laredo.  

So there's my whinging for the day, I'm headed for Hillsboro so will have some wifi at Starbucks to do another blog post with pictures--if I can find a parking spot that is.  Ohhhhh, that reminds me, I've lost my unlimited data plan on my iPhone due to the switching of accounts, grrrrrrrr.