Missed My Long Run....Kinda Freaking

My Dad went in for a knee replacement last week and due to a bout of pneumonia, has had a bit of a set back in his recovery.  I have been trying to hang out with him as much as possible because he's been a bit bummed out.  The good news is that this weekend, he was finally able to get in some much needed PT and is getting around better on crutches, not the walker...yay!  The bad news is that I've missed quite a few training runs.  Obviously my Dad's health comes first but this morning, I had three emails from my running friends chatting about what a great 21.5 mile run they had on Sunday.  Including my friend who is running San Francisco with me in, oh, I dunno, TWO WEEKS!  Holy mother of all crap balls.  I know, I know, San Fran is "just for fun, not time..." but still!  Sure would feel a bit better if I had that 21.5 under my belt.  They are dropping down to 12 this Sunday which I'll be able to join them for but I still feel pretty shaky for missing the super long one.  I'm hoping that I can get out one morning this week, like Wednesday, and get in a 15 miler.  So hard to do during the week though.

My weekend was spent either with my Dad or on the phone with my step-mother talking about my Dad so I have absolutly nothing of interest to talk about today.  I did learn, however, that I respond to stress/worry by eating.  And by eating crap.  I've had either ice cream or cookies every night since he went into the hospital.  And wine.  Lots of freakin' ass building, stomach bloating wine.  Awesome.  He better get out soon or I'm going to explode.

I did get myself a new coffee mug though.  Check it out:

I know what you are thinking: "I didn't realize I was reading a blog written by a 16 year old." I promise, you are not.  I realize it's totally immature, but I can't help it.  I love it.  Oh, and it's sitting on my other favorite thing, my mouse pad with the best photo ever taken: me and Santana Moss.  Sigh.  Love me some Redskins and Santana Moss.

I got a tad more adventurous with today's green smoothie.  Well, that is if you consider cucumber and celery adventurous! This one has unsweetened almond milk (about 2/3 cup), 2 full cups of baby spinach, 1/2 cucumber, 1 stalk of celery, a big handful of baby carrots and 1 banana.  Oh, and a tablespoon of  chia seeds!  Verdict: no difference in my normal smoothie.  Again, the banana masks the flavor of everything else in there.  Although I will say that the more veggies I put in, the less I can taste the banana.  It's now a background flavor to....well, nothing.  Hard to explain but it doesn't have a ton of flavor.  I think next time I might had a small drop of honey to sweeten it up a bit.  I really want to get to the point where these smoothies are mostly veggies/greens and not a lot of fruit at all hence today's version.  I keep reading about people putting kale in addition to the spinach in their green smoothies and I think that may be what I try next.

As for the chia seeds, I think they may be the solution to my consistency problem that I was having with the ground flax.  This site has some interesting information about chia seeds and after reading it I'm starting to think I can omit flax all together because the chia is better.  Since they don't need to be ground like the flax, they don't change the smoothie texture.  I think I mentioned before but if you are just starting out with green smoothies, I would recommend starting with a yogurt base rather then almond milk.  The yogurt adds a nice sweetness and a much creamier smoothie.  I stopped using the yogurt because I'm trying to avoid as much processed sugars as possible.  I guess I could also go to greek yogurt, but I'm getting used to the almond milk.


On Tuesday, I set out to run the 10 miles on my schedule and had yet another crapy result.  When I was about 6 miles in, I started feeling really weak, kind of shaky and all around shitty.  I had to stop at 9 which just burns me up.  One more freaking mile and I had to stop?!  Seriously.  This has got to be nutritional.  I'm making so many big changes so quickly that perhaps my body is just not handling it well.  I feel great in every other way though and don't have problems with other workouts I do like Body Pump at the gym.  Then yesterday, I got most of my speedwork in.  Again, had a massive failure and had to stop before I finished the entire thing.

Here is what I did:
Warm up of 1 mile at 6.5 (9:13)
1 mile at 7.1 (8:27)
2 4-minute reps at 7.6 (7:53) with a 2 minute jog at 6.5 in between reps.
1 mile at 7.1 (8:27)
2 4-minute reps at 7.6 (7:53) with a 2 minute jog at 6.5 in between reps.
2 minutes at 6.5
.5 mile at 7.1 (8:27)
That's where I stopped.  That last .5 was supposed to be a full mile then I was supposed to do 4 x 1:30 at 7.9 with a 1:30 rest in between each rep followed by yet another mile at 7.1.  So.  Didn't quite make it.  This run ended up only being 5.5 miles.  I'm starting to get kind of pissed off.  I never had to stop in the middle of a speed session before when I was training for Delaware so something is definitely off.

Today is an off day from running, although I am going to do body pump, so I'm just trying to regroup and figure out what the hell is wrong.  Tomorrow I have only a 6 miler which better go off without a problem because this Sunday is a 16-miler out in the heat and I really don't want to go into it feeling down because of a crappy training week.  So! I'm a little ball of sunshine today, eh?

To end on a better note, head over to Fitbottomed Girls and read their interview with the incredible Tosca Reno.  Love her (although I'm still not giving up my wine)!  And love Fitbottomed Girls!