Some girlfriends make plans to meet for coffee.  Others meet for cocktails or lunch or lunch with cocktails.  My friends?  We meet to run.  Ok, so not all of my friends of course, but I have a few who love to catch-up while logging miles.  Right now, a great friend who I’ve been running with for the better part of 10 years, is training to run the Boston marathon in April.  Another good friend of mine is doing training runs with her, basically just for fun.  I didn’t say we were sane, I said we were runners!  So, on Saturday they planned on doing 18 miles.  My plan called for 13.  We headed out in 14 degree weather, with the sun shining and a lot to chat about.  At the 6.5 mile mark, it was time for me to turn around and run 6.5 alone, back to my car, for a total of 13 miles.  I just couldn’t bring myself to turn around and leave – we were having too much fun.  So yep, I ran 18 miles for no good reason other then I just didn’t want to leave my friends.  It was the equivalent of “I’ll have one more, if everyone else is,” at the bar.  We’re addicts.  We’re just addicted to fitness.

THE RUNDOWN-6

WEEK OF FEBRUARY 24, 2014

RUNNING:  I had a big running week my friends.  My training last Monday called for a 15 miler.  I haven’t run 15 miles since I last trained for a marathon in 2007.  When I train for half marathons, I don’t usually go over 11 or 12 miles for a long run but hey, I just do what I’m told and follow my plan.  I headed out determined and I wasn’t disappointed.  I ended up running a hilly, windy, 15 miles at a 7:48 average pace!  I had just enough energy to do a little dance in my driveway to celebrate.  The training is working.  The rest of the week looked like this:

Wed: 6 miles at 7:39 pace/Thurs: 5 miles at 7:57/Sat: 18 miles at 8:40 for a grand total of 42 miles.  Holy crap.

CYCLING: I had three solid days on the bike, including riding just over 99 minutes on the spin bike.  In case you were wondering, when you get past 99 minutes, it resets to zero but keeps your mileage (50 miles).  What it should do is flash a message that says GET OFF!  Coach Rocket Scientist (CRS) told me to get prepared for a lot more cycling, a lot less running and more rest days in the near future.  After I run the NYC Half – changes will be made!

I hope I never see these kind of number again on a spin bike!

I hope I never see these kind of number again on a spin bike!

SWIMMING:  I’m only putting this here this week to tell you that I didn’t end up doing the indoor TRI at my YMCA.  After running 18 miles the day before the event, I decided to just do my bike workout on Sunday, during the TRI and yell and scream motivate those who were doing it.  Volunteering is so rewarding.

CROSS-TRAINING:  Besides my usual strength class and added exercises for my glutes, another thing got my heart rate up this past week.  There was a shooting on the main road below my neighborhood on Thursday.  The S.W.A.T Team landed a freakin helicopter at the elementary school that’s less then a half-mile from my house, which sounded as if it was landing on my house, and all while my husband was away on business.  Of course.  No one is quite sure yet exactly what happened but the general consensus is a murder/suicide.  What?  Even though I often refer to the place I live as my ‘hood, it’s as rural as rural can be, with more cows then people and more corn then cows.

RACING:  I’ve been receiving a lot of updates from the good folks at NYRR for the upcoming half-marathon.  I’m a little worried about the logistics of getting to the start of the race.  It begins in Central Park, we’ve been told to take the subway to get there and to enter the park only via 59th street.  Um, is the subway safe?  How freakin crowded will it be at 6am on race day and where the hell is 59th street? Luckily my dad knows everything about properly navigating the city so I should be fine.

FUEL:  You all know how much I love Runnerbox but they have knocked it out of the park this month.  Maybe it’s because I had a monster training week but my routine consisted of run, raid runnerbox, stretch, repeat.  These are my favorites and I haven’t eaten my way entirely through it yet:

IMG_3233 IMG_3223

So that’s all I actually got pictures of, the rest I scarfed down too quickly but include: True Bar in coconut cashew, Rani’s Yummy on-the-go granola pack and Earth Balance bars.  I need a case of each, stat!

SPEAKING SPANISH:  This has been a fail for me this week.  Slacker!  However, I added the post You’re Going to Spain to Do What? to the SITShare Fest on Saturday and, from the fine bloggers who read it, I found out that “pompis” is the polite word for “butt” in Costa Rica and it’s “culata” in Spainsh.  What do you think Latinos think of Dunkin Donuts Coolattas? Interesting.

THINGS I LOVE: Being reunited with my husband after he was away for the better part of the week!

THINGS I DON’T LOVE AS MUCH: People who talk during spin class.  Just don’t.

MUSIC: I went to see Frozen in 3D with the kids this past week.  I had heard about the song “Let It Go” but when I actually heard the song, it was awesome!  I’m usually more partial to Flo Rida, Mackelmore and Pit Bull so you can understand this was quite a shock.  The kids and I listened to Elsa sing her little heart out on YouTube at breakfast the next morning until the boys knew most of the words by heart.  A line from the song can also be used as a winter running mantra:

The

TV:  Oh the joyous return of so many shows!  I have to admit that I was too afraid to watch Hannibal without my husband home.  That show totally freaks me out but I love it!  I also heard that Kerry Washington, who plays Olivia Pope on the hit show Scandal is the keynote speaker at FitBloggin in June!  I guess I had better watch!  Oh yay and there was something called the Oscars on last night but I fell asleep around 10.  See “cycling” above for reasons why.

READING:  My running friend mentioned that she just read Catherine Switzer’s book Marathon Woman. For those of you who don’t know, Switzer was the first woman to run the Boston Marathon and head trainer, Jack Semple, tried to physically remove her from the course because women were not allowed to run it.  Right.  You’re probably thinking that happened in the 1800s but no, it was 1967.  I can’t wait to read about her badass, woman fueled, running awesomeness.  Thank you Catherine.

Imagine running 26.2 miles in that outfit?

Scene of the crime.                                                         Imagine running 26.2 miles in that outfit? One word – chaffing.

RANDOM THOUGHT OF THE WEEK:  The original Superman movie is pretty cool, and you can’t beat the music.  MISS TESSMACHER!!!!

Have you ever been talked into extra mileage by friends?  What else have your friends talked you into?  What’s the craziest thing that ever happened in your neighborhood?

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