Adjusted Reality

Didn’t have any expectations for the Dash 4 Dads 5k.   Last three weeks I have been taper, injury, taper, sickness, allergies.  The last week is the first week in almost a month I’ve been able to fully train and I’ve been living it up.  An 8 miler Sat, sprints Mon, 10 miles Wed, and biking and swimming and weights and yoga so today, I was soooooooore.  No taper for this gal.

Didn’t have the greatest race.  Goal was in the 26s (because I know I can do it).  However, see above.  Plus two MAD hills and needing some mental work on short distances… I had no hopes.

I finished around 29 minutes.  My worst 5k ever.  It was long (3.25 miles) and as above, stupid hills, and I still really need to work on my mental game.  I had a stellar first mile (8:20-ish miles), but slipped into 9:20’s for the last 2.  I didn’t even sprint to the finish, which sucks.  I had given up, especially when I saw the time.

Apparently I knew things would be awesome with my blue steel look there.  Glad past Quix has foresight…

I wasn’t as bummed at the Gladiator Games, I realize that I’m not training for it, and I felt ok but was thinking about how to improve.  My goal was to go out fast and try to hold on, and around 1.5 miles, I failed at that.  I need to figure it out.  I felt pukey after the first mile but… who doesn’t racing a 5k really hard… but I still couldn’t do it.   The second mile is usually my worst but I usually rally for the third.  I tried but the third included an epic hill.  I even walked two steps and then told myself NO.

I finished, we hung out and waited for everyone to finish, and then left.  I kept trying to google for results and couldn’t find it.

An hour later I got an email with the title “1st place”.  Apparently, I WON MY AGE GROUP.  Holy crap!  I’ve never place in a running race, let alone first.  Holy shit!  Sadly I didn’t stay for awards, because that would be fun.  I’m not saying I’m fat, all 175 lbs of me, but I am not generally the person that you’d expect to be on the podium, let alone be on the top.  So, freaking-a.  I am jazzed.

Zliten ran also, and he is now has just started training for the 3M half marathon (hope he doesn’t mind me sharing this).  His tempo pace is 11:15  (finish was about 35 and some change).  He ran the 5k at almost exactly 11:15 – a great run for him.  His goal was 32-33, but that was minus the stupid hills.  Someone came to a STOP right in front of him on the last mad hill and killed his mojo but he finished str0ng (his sprint t0 the finish was quicker than mine,  he, unlike me, didn’t give up).

Morale of the story: never, never, never give up.  And run the hills.

Quix out.  More next week.

Normally on weekday evenings, you’ll find me a) in the gym or b) on my couch, resting and relaxing or occasionally c) at work if something went wrong.  About once or twice a month or so, I go out on a weekday but I usually try to keep it mellow-sauce.

Normally, I go one, MAYBE two days without a workout or I go insane/feel like a slacker/etc.

However, this last week hasn’t been normal at all.

Last week, I had the perfect storm of my glute acting up, then a cold, then my race getting cancelled, so I did NOTHING after Tuesday trying to save up all my strength for a race that didn’t happen.

This week started already behind the curve.  Monday, I had a lot of catch up to do with chores and groceries since I was laid out this weekend sick, so I didn’t even eat dinner until 9:30, let alone work out.  Plus, I was still a little under the weather, so I didn’t push it.

Then, we’ve had our annual game industry convention in town the rest of the week.  This means session and panels and expo floor and networking, oh my.  This means lunches and dinners downtown with old friends, coworkers, and new acquaintances.  This also means lots of open bar parties and many hours out and about until all hours of the night to catch up and socialize with said fine folks.

This also means no time to run and do formal workouts.  I haven’t hit the pavement or the gym since October 4.  That’s 9 days counting today.  That’s a lot for me, if you haven’t noticed by paying attention to my normal schedule.  Four years ago, I would have FLIPPED THE HELL OUT and thought “OMG I haven’t worked out in forever and I’m going to get out of the habit and I’m never going to work out again and get fat and go from runner to couch potato ARGHLARGH!!!”  Today, my thoughts are, “Whew, nice little break before my marathon training officially starts!”  It’s nice to be reasonable sometimes.

While I definitely indulge the healthy living/racing/social adventures part of my life much more in this blog, I do have a pretty sweet video game producer gig.  I don’t talk about it much here because a) most of the people reading this are probably not interested and really are more curious to know much more interesting facts like I am addicted to costco packs of sliced apples now and I currently weight 176 lbs and I got some really cool random tee shirts in the mail and more importantly b) I really like my job, and I’d rather not walk the line of deciding what’s appropriate to post about the industry and my day to day.  However, even though I don’t really believe it, people tell me I’m kind of a big deal, and it’s kind of nice to really revel in that and conferences with your peers are a great time to do it.

Most days, I wear my producer hat for a while, and my athlete hat for a while.  I love the dichotomy of having two vastly different aspects of my personality and tasks each day.  My day job is rife with decision fatigue and sitting on my butt and telling other people what to do.  My superhero self only has to decide to put one foot/pedal/stroke in front of the other and it’s like as far anti-butt-sitting as possible and is all about the doing.

Sometimes, like during a peak training week, it’s all about the training.   Work is work, and I’m in right on time and out the door 8 hours after (although, a lot of times peak training week and crazy crunch weeks collide, and that is ever so fun, running 9 miles after a 12 hour day is not exactly awesome but, whatevs) to either train or get in the maximum amount of rest I can.

Some weeks, like this one, I do n0 formal activity beyond walking some miles and a multi-hour dance party last night, and I’m in producer/network/game industry mode all day.

It’s all about balance.  More balance than this dude has…

I’m looking forward to a little more yang to this week’s yin as the sickness and injury seem to have passed and the convention has come and gone as of today, but for the next few evenings?  My ass + couch = match made in heaven.  I even turned down an invite to a fancy party tonight.  I did however hit the gym today for a nice mellow 35 mins of arc trainer while catching up on twitter and it felt awesome.  Tomorrow, my goal is to run somewhere between 10k and double digits.  As slow as I wanna.  No need to hurt myself but wanna log some mileses.

Cool things that happened this week:

-We won an audience choice award for our game, and were nominated for 2 others.  Fun fact – my name was up in lights (sadly, I didn’t get to see it because I didn’t notice the names until after but I was told).  We got to sit in the VIP section and everything, it was pretty cool.

-My old CEO (of a pretty big company) recognized me, and is a huge closet fan of my game.  Awesome!

-I’ve been recruited for roller derby by a cool chick that works with me.  I’m going to at least go to a practice and check it out.  Probably not going to try to do that + marathon at the same time but it would be fun to see what it’s all about.

-It’s always fun to see people that only knew fat Quix from San Diego and see their jaw drop when they see me.  Nice ego boost.

-I have been recruited to go try out Roller Derby.  I’m going to go to a practice soon.  I don’t think I’ll be joining up during marathon training or anything, but it would be cool to check it out.  I love me some roller skating, and I’m not horrible at it.

-Tore it up on the dance floor with a bunch of coworkers for hours.

-Saw a lot of old friends/peers.  It’s nice to see a lot of the people I worked in the trenches with are now also coming into their own awesome successful careers.

It’s good to start to be back to normal, but different is fun sometimes!  Especially when different = fancy parties and winning awards and good peoples I haven’t seen in a long time! 🙂  Do you ever take some time away just to indulge an  aspect of your personality you normally don’t let consume your life?  Anyone do anything super cool this week and wanna brag?

If you follow my ass on twitter or facebook, this will probably be redundant.  But because not everyone signs up for my exhilarating tweets and posts about how fage, chocolate almond butter, rasperries, and stevia is the best breakfast ever and that I ran 3.5 miles in 34 minutes and felt good, I’ll compose this little ditty.

About 2 weeks out, I was dreaming about back to back PRs.  How cool would that be?

The day before my tri last week, Tricia drove the course and said “OMG the HILLZ” (my paraphrase).  So we all know my LOVE of hill running (not), so a PR was probably out the window (but still was dreamable).  Then, I smashed my A goal at the tri.  I could do anything!  I had a nice recovery swim on Monday, and a GREAT QUICK 4 miler at what I hoped would be race pace (around 9:30) and felt awesome.

Wednesday, my glute muscle felt PULLED.  Strained.  Whatever it was, it hurt.  Bagged my run on Thursday because it still hurt, figured I’d go on Friday.

Friday, I woke up with a head cold.  No lung issues thank the dear and fluffy lord, but a sore throat and sniffles.  I went to work, and by the end of the day I was beat.  I’m not sure if I was just less focused on my glute, and it still hurt, but it felt better.

Yesterday, my cold was worse but still just above the neck.  We had lots of errands to run and I was WIPED after a few hours of just being out and about.  We picked up the packets, and drove the course.  It had some crazy hills between miles 7-9 and 11-12, but it wasn’t as bad as Austin Half.  I psyched myself up for the best.  Pop a dayquil, get some caffiene in me, and I’ll be fine, I thought.  The faster I ran, the faster I’d finish would be my motto.  It drizzled a little bit, and I figured it would be a-ok, and made the contingency plans if it was still raining during the race.  Windbreaker, wearing tri shorts to run in instead of normal shorts since they do well when wet, hat instead of headband, electronics in plastic bags, etc.  I made an epic playlist, ate my pre-race filet tater and veggie meal, chugged some Nyquil, and drifted off to sleep peacefully 8 hours before alarm time.  The hills, the rain, my body – it was not going to beat me.

Woke up this morning, and noted that it was FREAKING POURING and LIGHTNINGING.  Watched the news and saw that there was no letting up all day today.  Whatcha gonna do?  We did all the normal stuff – half a coffee honeymilk (caffeiiiiiine), get dressed, eat a little breakfast, get all my gear plus readied everything for running 2+ hours in the rain, plus dayquilled, vitamin C’d, and zinc’d up (more caffeiiiiiiiiiiine).  Checked emails, and nothing yet, so we headed down to the race (luckily it was like a 10 minute drive from the casa).  I commented that I wouldn’t be surprised if the race was delayed, cancelled, or just cut to a 5k.  We got halfway there, and I saw the confirmation tweet – the race was flat out cancelled.  I made Zliten drive to the start just for… I dunno… closure?  To be sure?  To make sure we at least got to the start?  But yeah, everyone was turned right around and not allowed to park.

Sore glute.  Sick.  Very very close to TOM (I wouldn’t have been surprised if it hit during the race as hard running seems to bring it on).  Pouring rain.  One week after racing a tri HARD.  I feel bad for the people who were training up hard for this race as their goal race, but frankly?  I’m relieved.  I was going to toe that line no matter what if they didn’t bag the race, but I’m so very glad they did.  In a way that I have never ever felt on a race day.  I signed up for the shirt and damned if I don’t have that pretty little shirt in my hot little hands and I’ll wear it proudly, since I showed up and was willing to run even though I had a host of fucked up conditions that would have very likely made it a rotten race for me.

That being said, I have a lot of pent up “rarin’ to go” for a race and nothing long scheduled for a while.  So this morning, I’m drinking mimosas (it’s kind of a requirement – it was the race for champagne, plus, what else am I going to do with my uber hyper self at 7am, right?), watching IM 70.3 Las Vegas coverage from last month, and surf for some fall/winter races, and getting some major rest so I can get healthy and back to training.

I will definitely run long next weekend as long as my body is up for it (not sick and no butt hurty).  Skipping this weekend means my 2nd without a long run.  Though, to be fair, 1:39:44 of heavy triathlon type-effort probably excuses last week. 🙂

In 2 weeks, I have a flat 5k race on a military base.  I can’t lie, I would love to prove to myself that I still can run 5ks fast.  My PR is 25:10, but I still question if it was a short course.  My other PR is 26:31 from 2 years ago.  My goal is 26:30.  I know I can do about 26 easy on a treadmill without much of a thing, maybe I can pull it off on a flat course.

Some other options:

DRC half and 5k Nov 6.  An excuse to go to Dallas for some In and Out (yeah, we’ve been looking for an excuse).  Zliten could run the 5k.

Azle Half, 1ok, 5k. Nov 12.  Small town race outside of Dallas.  Super cheap.  Another excuse for In and Out post race.  Cheap ass race entry (15 dollars each for Zliten and I).  Zliten could run the 10k or 5k.

Rock N Roll Half, San Antonio, Nov 13.  If I don’t do the one above, maybe this one.  I raced it last year and PR’d the crap out of it and enjoyed the race.  It’s fast, it’s flat, I know the course, there’s lots of support, and pushing for the next 3-4 weeks beyond the 13 miles might help me not fade out after mile 10 like I did last year.  Downsides: Expensive and Zliten isn’t ready for a half and there’s nothing less here, so he’d just be spectating.

Spicewood Vineyards Dec 3rd 10k and Half.  Not sure which distance I would race, I love me some 10k runs and I’ve only raced one.  However, it’s hilly.   Probably not a PR course (well, maybe for a 10k because, well, my current 10k PR is 2.5 years old), but should be a nice race day.  Zliten would be ready for a 10k here.  We will VERY likely do this one.

After that, there’s Decker Half but I heard it’s miserable (or maybe it was just one bad account of it), and I’ll keep looking for other race options, but soon after that, I’m dedicating weekend to 26.2 training, but I’d really like to race a half sometime this year while I can.

Have you ever had a race cancelled on you or skipped a race due to sickness?  Ever ran a race you regretted?

Today is the second anniversary of my marriage to this guy (which means we’ve been together for about 12 and known each other for like, 16, I’m we’re just slow):

When I was 20, he got me (re) hooked on video games and we thought, hmmm, maybe we can make something out of this.  Now it’s our bread and butter and we’ve been making games (mostly together) for over 10 years, and have definitely built a life around it with most of our friends being in the industry, so we can be unabashedly geeky together!  I can certainly say that I would have never thought of this on my own.  I always knew I wanted to entertain people, but didn’t know exactly HOW I wanted to do it.  Good call on the careers, Zliten!

When I was 30, I got hooked on a little thing called RUNNING.  While Zliten still isn’t a huge fan of the run, I did get him hooked on TRIATHLONS.  So much that we decided on a crazy race goal before 40.   I’m sure you can probably guess what it is, and potentially why all of a sudden I decided on a 2012 marathon.  Good call on the hobby, me!

Two years ago, we got hitched in Vegas in a tiki hut.  While I ended up stressing the details at the end, Zliten came up with the theme and ended up securing the venue.  Even though the lady made it VERY clear she would PREFER TO BE SPEAKING WITH THE BRIDE KTHX.  It was the best day ever.  Good call on the wedding, Zliten!

While we definitely have bad decision nights….

…we’ve gotten all the major ones right.  Most importantly, to spend the rest of our lives together.  Cheers to another year of good (and bad) decisions, my love, my bestest friend and my adventure buddy!