Weekend 18 recap - Owie!

It’s the end of a crazy week here in Jill world; one which has left me sitting here virtually lifeless as I type.

This morning I woke and shuffled across the floor like some 92-year old; Good Lord, my glutes and inner thighs are screaming! I have no real idea exactly what caused this sheer agony for the past three days, but I think it was a combination of excess leg time in the gym; an unfortunate, but necessary, result one to reform this bod (recall “the plan” in the last blog). Single-legged leg press followed by some 3-way lunges on Thursday, then slap a 12-mile run on Friday and Athletic Training class on Saturday and yowzie, I hurt today. Oh, and all this on top of joining an interval training group on Tuesday where I'm certain the coach thought I was totally lying when I said, "Yes, I run in the 7-8 min/mile range for 5 and 10k's" when I was hanging on for dear life with the group. Where has my speed gone??? Arghhhhh, please Speed, return to my legs!!

I have to tell ya about my Athletic training class; it could quit possibly kill you if you didn’t cheat and cut something short somewhere. Here’s the class synopsis: warm up with a 5 minute run. Somewhere “warm up” isn’t quite computing and my friend Jim is running at neck-breaking speeds…and the competitive girl in me isn’t going to wuss out and run slower. “Great warm-up pace, Jim” I mention…which takes about 2 minutes to complete cuz this 6 min/mile warm-up pace alone is killing me. The Nazi Drill Sergeant (let’s just call him NDS for short) then has us split into two groups for a series of drills, which last about 10 minutes. High knee running, quick feet, high speed sprints, side swings, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc and etc. 10 minutes of these and I’m breathless. NDS yells, “Everyone sprint, and I mean SPRINT to the top of the hill at the stoplight." Huh? We didn’t do this last week. The top of the hill is like ¾ of a mile long. And I’m not exaggerating. And it gets steeper as we climb. Sprint? Um, I’d consider myself in probably the top 5% of conditioned females in that class and there was no way I could “sprint” that beast. I did manage to run up it all, though (many did not. Ahem). Get to the top of the hill and NDS’s evil twin is all freaking smiling to the point you just wanna slap him, and tells us, with no resting after our “sprint,” to do 75 burpees. Did I hear correctly, 75??? As in SevenDfive!!?? My speedy friend, Jim, who can’t do burpees to save his life, got there well before me and is looking at me dumbfounded. He’s too tall or something; he has no coordination whatsoever and I’m laughing hysterically. Yea, well, I got the last laugh; 75 of these were just about ready to take my arms off. I’m certain I’ll have burpee nightmares for the next few months. The chick next to me is in agony and says, “It goes a little better if you do them in sets of two then take a short break.” Oh my, she’s going to be there a loooonnnnggg time. This comment actually made me laugh and lose my count so I did 10 more and decided that was enough (cheat #1. I have no idea how many I actually did, somewhere in the mid 60’s I think). Get to the parking lot and NDS’s female compadre tells us to “frog jump” the rest of the way in. I tried. I failed. She showed me again. I tried again and I failed again (nothing like being consistent!). She shows me again. Repeat scenario times 6 and I finally told her I got the hang of it and let her torture someone else awhile. The problem with these was that it was hurting my knee (seriously!! Well, a little anyway, don’t want to risk it, right?). So I half-ass frog jumped then walked 6 steps, repeat, until I got to the end (cheat #2). Really, I’d still be there in that parking lot a day later if I had to frog the entire thing. Apparently frog jumping skills are an acquired skill; I've got some work to do on that one. Get back to the outdoor classroom (aka: torture chamber) and instantly take a 40 lb sandbag and squat and heave the thing over your head. 45 times. I did 38 and called it quits (cheat #3); my shoulders were about to explode. I figured I can’t balance myself running without my arms; this was a valid excuse. Now we move onto the tires and we have to push one 25 yard. Not roll, PUSH along the ground. It may look like it’s simple and fun, but I’m here to tell you is it NOT! My shoulders-on-fire from that last FUN sandbag drill were yelling and my chest was in protest. Jim was complaining it hurt his ab muscles (huh?? Jim, you use your LEGS to push the tire, not your abs!). Push the dang tire 25 yards, times 5. I did not cheat. I swear I didn’t. But I wanted to! Immediately, rush out of the torture chamber and across the parking lot (don’t Run for heaven’s sake, this is a SPRINT ) to the dirt hill, about a half mile away. Do not stop, do not pass go, do not collect $200 – instead you immediately do 25 pushups when you reach the other parking lot. No problem, I love pushups, and manly ones on my toes, too. 25 pushups on wilted shoulders from those god-awful sandbags and tires and I was dying by the last 4. Now we get to take a 35 lb kettleball and run UP the dirt hill (about 50M). Incline of about 30%. Get to top, 5 second rest, run back down. 25 more pushups. Argh!! Seriously??? Oh yeah, NDS is serious and shouts we GET to repeat this beast 25-pushups-run-up-30%-with-35lb-kettleball 6 times. For those not so good at math, let me explain that 25 manly pushups x 6 = 150. 150 on-your-toes pushups. Insert cheat #4. By the 3rd set of pushups, I was down to 20 and by the 5th set, I also did 20 but took a short break after 10. Okay, Jilly, you’re not as pushup tough as you thought you were. Wimp! And those 6 uphill runs with kettleballs? Um, cheat #5. When the woman I had been whining to previously that this workout was going to leave me too sore to pace Tara the last few miles of her marathon tomorrow say, “No way in hell you’re running your friend in tomorrow…” that was it, I was done. This class is much-needed in Jill’s little quest to reform her body, but my #1 priority this weekend is to get Tara across her first finish line tomorrow in one piece, feeling strong. YEA, that IS a valid excuse. And ya know what was bothering me most about this uphill mistreatment? We were stomping out all the natural erosion vegetation growing there. Tumble weeds serve a purpose, guys – that’s to stop the hill from rolling down into the parking lot! I pointed this little tidbit fact out to NDS, who was not interested. Yea well, he may be once we get a freak rainstorm and that “little hill” is now sitting on top his truck! Run (no, sprint!) back to torture chamber, stretch (which never felt sooo good) and crawl back to car and hope you have one functioning arm muscle so can drive home.

The class actually felt really good. It did, in a fatigued-my-sorry-butt sort of way. I really do work so harder in this class than I ever have training on my own. I love it!

As Mother’s Day comes to a close, I thought I’d pull a few memories of my mom from my childhood memory bank:
- She had a heart of gold and a soul to match.
- She came to all my high school track and swim meets, no matter what. She even made it to as many college ones, too - and I went to college 3-hours from home.
- Every day in high school, she’d get donuts at the corner donut shop. I believe this is where I developed my fetish for sugar. Her and my grandmother also made wicked desserts.
- She grew up in a small town called Church, in NE Iowa (population of maybe 24). She went to school in a one-room school house from K-8th grades. I was fascinated with this as a kid and when I’d go visit my grandma, I’d spend hours roaming around that school house just lurking and pretending I lived in that era. I googled and spent a lot of time trying to find a picture of that special place in my world, but to no avail. I have a picture I’ll try to scan one day and share.
- My favorite memory of my mom and I together is when I was little and we’d go up to my grandmother’s and take walks to the woods and pick wild berries and dig up Ladyslipper plants and replant them at home. We’d have the best chats. About nothing. Man, what I wouldn’t do to just have one of those times alone with her again. She died when I was 25. Lung cancer. Never let your kids smoke.

I hope all the moms out there had a special day! I spent the first part of my day (bright and early on the road by 6a.m.) running dear friend, Tara, the last 7 miles to cross her first marathon finish line, (so VERY proud of her, and of Beth, whom I saw at mile 19 and got to cheer on for a little bit). I later shared a beer with a RW friend, Natalie and got home about 1:45 today. Ate a ton of food, way more than I ran off earlier in the day (don’t you get a freebie day on Mother’s Day??) and topped off my 400o calorie intake with some gelato from Abbey’s boyfriend’s new place of employment then just hung out with my kiddos. It was a great day! A day I hope my kids will remember when they dig deep in their memory banks, as I remember my own childhood mother stories.

Week 18 2010:

Week’s Running totals: 38

Running Total for 2010: 788.45

Weight training: 1
Athletic Training class: 1

Beth at mile 19; she was looking mighty sassy in that leopard print skirt!!

Tara coming up the hill to mile 19; both of us filled with emotion!

Tara around mile 23 and cranking out some good speed. "I just want this thing to be over!" Haha. Yeah, no one likes those last 3 miles. I was trying to get her to focus on the scenery, it was gorgeous! Well, aside from that trailer across the river.

I just couldn't be more proud of that girl, overcoming all her health problems last fall and finally landing across her first marathon finish line.

Way to go Tara and Beth!!