Lunchtime Run

First off: I LOVE HOT HUMID Weather . . . and I LOVE COLD and SNOW (to a point) . . . but right now we are experiencing drop dead gorgeous weather in Wisconsin. I had forgotten just how nice our fall weather could be!


The temp's have been in the mid 70's all week with nothing but pure sunshine and blue skies! Just beautiful. I realize that parts of the east coast and south have been experiencing more rain than necessary . . . but not here.

I have been following a training program getting ready for, a yet to be determined fall 1/2 marathon, since I will be on a mini vacation to Florida during the Haunted Hustle. On the schedule today was a moderate tempo run of 5 miles with 1 warm-up and 1 cool-down. Last night I stayed up too late - watching the Super Bowl Champion Green Bay Packers!!!! and just couldn't drag myself out of bed early enough to not only get in 7 miles but also make it to work for an 8:00 meeting. I usually get to work around 8:30, so getting there for a 8:00 meeting throws a wrench into my normal routine . . . plus getting 7 miles in . . . just wasn't going to happen this morning. I did get up and ran 2 miles with Sophie - warm-up for 1 mile and then 9:10 pace for mile 2. I decided it was so nice out that I would run the other 5 miles at lunch. I work downtown and have access to a many wonderful routes, one along the lakeshore. So I set out a little after noon. Based on my first mile . . . I must have known that I had already did my warm up mile in the morning. Mile 1 - 9:02 Mile 2 - 9:18 Mile 3 - 9:49 and Mile 4 - 9:15 and then finished with a cool down 1/2 mile at 10:15. Happy - very happy with my time.

During my cool-down mile I stopped at a little coffee shop/ restaurant for a veggie wrap to go, because one other things that I didn't get up early enough to do this morning was make my salad for lunch, headed back to the office to shower and get back to work - oh and write a little post ;-)

WI Ironman is this Sunday - it was very motivating to see competitors in the water practicing, what I assume to be, their final swim before Sunday. Good luck to all!

Snow, sleet, rain, wind, thunder - you name it - we had it

First, let me contragulate all of the Boston finishers.  I loved, absolutely loved reading your race reports.  ENJOY!

Flowers are starting to sprout!

Tuesday morning I headed out the door for 4 miles with Sophie - it was a light drizzle and 30 degrees.  The light drizzle quickly switched to sleet and then snow.  Just to remind everyone - it is April 19th - normal highs for Madison should be 59 . . . not mid 30's.  Oh well that is Wisconsin.  As I have said in the past - I love winter and I love snow - but not at this time of year.  My daffodil's are out - my tulips are up and almost all of my perennials are starting to grow and yet - this is what my yard looked like on Wednesday morning.  Enough complaining about the weather.

Tuesday morning we are greeted with this!

Poor daffodils

On to running.  I needed to switch things up a bit this week, just to keep things interesting.  Since I almost always run by myself and in the morning - at times it can get a little boring.  SO on Tuesday and Wednesday I ran in the morning before work and also brought my gear and ran on the treadmill at work at lunch.  Then today it was pretty nice outside, mid 40's and I decided to ran outside at lunch.  Changing the "normal" routine helps keep me motivated.


So what do I have planned next?  This weekend I am accompanying Jamie, of Running Diva Mom, HERE on her 4th 1/2 marathon of the year.  We are meeting in the morning and will be running an out and back course.  Although she runs faster than me, she graciously slows down a little so that it is manageable for me.  THANKS Jamie!


Then the excitement shifts to biking.  Next weekend I will be traveling to New York with 4 other friends / co-workers to participate in Bike New York on May 1 -  pedaling down 42 miles of car-free streets through all five boroughs, taking in views of iconic landmarks like the Empire State building, Brooklyn Bridge, historic Harlem, and the Statue of Liberty.  I am very excited.  Major road trip - at 55 years old, I would much rather fly - but we will be driving.  Probably pulling an all-nighter - Oh my gosh - what did I get myself in to?  It will be great and I know I will have a GREAT time.  What an experience - once in a life time - for sure.  Stay tuned - I will try to blog and post a couple of pictures from the road trip and the bike ride.  


I have tomorrow off of work and am sooooo glad.  I plan to turn my alarm clock off and wake up - whenever.  I know myself and I will probably get up / or get woken up by the dog or cat around 6:30.  But just knowing that the alarm is shut off and if I want to go back to sleep - I can - is a wonderful feeling.  

Nice 9 Miler

This morning I headed out for my 10 mile (or close to it) run.  Next weekend is the Black Earth 10 mile Run - my April race - so I wanted to make sure that I at least had one run longer than 6 miles under by belt before next Saturday.  I was planning on taking Sophie for 5 miles - dropping her off at home and then heading out again.  I asked my son if he wanted to run with me and he said he would (I was a little surprised - I love to run with him - but run quite a bit slower than him)  . . . Joe hasn't been running much lately -  but did run last week and used my garmin.  Check out the 3 minute difference in our avg pace!

JOE - 3.6 miles in 23:49 for a 6:37 avg pace

then the next morning I ran 

ME - 2.5 miles in 24:22 for a 9:36 avg pace.  

Clearly - he would need to run slower! 'cause I can't run that fast! 

It was a sunny but chilly day in Madison.  Temp was 23 with strong 14 mph winds out of the north.  This makes the wind chill somewhere in the 10 degree range . . .  brrrrrrr.  One of these days - Spring will come! 

We headed out - I wasn't sure just how far we should go with Sophie - she has only run 6 miles before.  But she did GREAT.  She just kept running - only having to stop a few times for sniffing breaks - which occurred during mile 5.  

Right around mile 7 we returned to our neighborhood.  Since I wanted to get closer to 10 - I was going to do our neighborhood 2 mile loop, while Sophie and Joe were going to turn off and head directly to our house.  Well, Sophie would have none of that - while I kept going, Joe and Sophie turned left onto our street and I guess she came to a stop - she wasn't budging.  So all of a sudden I hear them behind me - Joe turned around and he and Sophie caught up to me and we finished the loop together for exactly 9 miles.  

Here are our splits:

1 - 8:59

2 - 9:12

3 - 9:45

4 - 9:25

5 - 10:09 - we stopped several times for Sophie to sniff

6 - 9:49

7 - 9:29

8 - 9:37

9 - 9:05

for an avg pace of 9:30.  

Great day!  Great run!  Great time with family! 

Start the week off right!

I love to get the week started off on the right foot!

After running 6.5 miles yesterday with Kerri and Jamie, I woke up to 30 degree temp's this morning and took Sophie out for our 2 mile loop.  It was really windy - but felt so nice to have warmer temp's.
As I was getting dressed for work, I decided to pack up my running gear so that if I had time I could run at lunch.  Even though my work day was really packed - I decided that I would make time.  It was 40 degrees, still windy - but sunny and beautiful.  Lots of people were out enjoying the weather on bikes,  roller blades and of course plenty of other runners.  I did 5 miles and felt tired - but soooo good.  That makes today a 7 mile day - yahoo.

Since I didn't have my camera yesterday when I ran with Kerri and Jamie - I took it with me today.  Here are a couple of photo's from my lunch time run - which was on the same path as yesterday.

Lake Monona in the background

View of downtown across Lake Monona

Dinosaurs stuck in the snow!

Tomorrow morning I will take Sophie out again and then hop on the bike trainer.  I have too many meetings going on tomorrow so no running at lunch, which will give me a little rest.

Miles Miles Everywere!

I need to simplify how I track my miles.

For some reason this year I have too many different places to track my miles!

1. Spreadsheet
2. Garmin Uploads
3. Daily Mile
4. Ticker Updates

I need to simplify this update process.  I just started using Daily Mile and "think" that I like it - but I haven't included all my runs and the total includes my bike rides - so the number there doesn't tie to the ticker, which currently doesn't tie to the spreadsheet, which doesn't tie to the Garmin (but that is because I don't always wear my garmin).

I need to get them all updated and then either establish a process to update them weekly or ditch one of them.

Which one is currently closest to being accurate?

January Race - The Green Bay Packers are in the Super Bowl - Quarter Marathon!

Just got back from a beautiful run with Sophie.  She did the entire 6.6 miles (quarter marathon) with me.  The temp's were great, 32 with low winds.  I ended up taking my little Lucy jacket off and just running in my long sleeve tech shirt, hat, pants and tucked my gloves away.  Stayed pretty comfy.

I had wanted to run a race every month but missed my opportunity in January (there aren't a lot of races around here in January), so I made up my own Quarter Marathon race and Sophie and I ran together.  While it was a pretty slow overall pace, 1hr 6 min  - 10:04 average pace - I am OK with that - I just enjoyed being outside in such nice temp's!   ;-)