Hamptons Marathon Training – Week 11

Sunday 7/27
Rest and recovery from what was a fantastic party 🙂

And get back home way too late considering the amount of writing left to do on the F32 fellowship resubmission :-/

But not without some flashy new stitches…

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Thanks Dr. A 🙂

Monday 7/28
Writing and more writing and Dr. Pantelis’ PhD defense!
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Tuesday 7/29
A repeat of the above. The week is not getting off to a great start 😦

Wednesday 7/30
5 mi (@ god knows what pace) crammed in to the day by the hairs on my chin…or something like that…

Thursday 7/31
8 mi break from writing — a nice change of pace from just sitting on the ass and writing (although I’m again, not quite sure what it actually was :-/

Friday 8/1
rest (and write)

Saturday 8/2
An early 15 miles to get it out of the way and get on with the day. Not the best I’ve ever felt but there are too many other things going on right now to really have time to care (namely the F32 fellowship resubmission :-/)

Total: 28 miles
Ouch! Bad Dr. Trot! Unfortunately, this has become more and more the theme for this training cycle! Reflecting back on my first marathon, I was running 5 days a week instead of 4 and I missed only 3 training runs all season, all season! I also spent quite a bit of time (i.e. my two off days each week) at (my wonderful) chiropractor as well, so I don’t know that this is 100% a good thing, but it makes me feel increasingly shitty as I miss run after run this season :-/ Next week Dr. Trot…next week…

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Hamptons Marathon Training – Week 10

Sunday 7/20
8 miles @ 9:40/mi

Monday 7/21
rest

Tuesday 7/22
5 miles @ 8:40/mi

Wednesday 7/23
rest 🙂

Thursday 7/24
8 miles @ 8:56/mi

Friday 7/25
Princeton to Boston miles for the KrakSmad wedding of the summer!

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We wear fancy tshirts to fancy weddings.

Saturday 7/26
14 beautiful Boston morning miles @ 9:01/mile

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The Commons

+ Brunch…

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Hmmmmm 🙂

+ Newbury Street Shopping
+ Wedding festivities of the summer forever at the Boston Public Library…

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Outside

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Inside

with my hottest wedding dates…

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Date Dr. Annebelle

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Date A x

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Ok, not my dates exactly, but they had to be included...

And only one mysterious injury…

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No idea. None.

Total: 35 miles
Not such a bad week. Miles felt good overall and don’t mind me patting my own back for getting the old ass out of bed at 6 am on vacation Saturday for a solo 14 mile run. Never mind that it was through The Commons, Cambridge, and along the river (complete with a google map on the cell phone that displayed public water fountains!!! on a beautiful morning and just join in the patting…

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Hamptons Marathon Training – Week 9

Sunday 7/13

6.7 mi @ 9:13/mi

Another HOT day and late start 😦 The goal was 7 today but I elected to err on the side of staying alive and cut it short by 0.3. The good news is that aside from being generally irritated and a little dehydrated, everything (shins, knees, etc…) felt more or less ok.

Monday 7/14

rest 🙂

This was needed.

Tuesday 7/15

rest

Ohoh! So I know that I can’t let myself fall into the “but I’m so busy today and it’s not that nice out…I’ll just get the miles in tomorrow instead” mindset, bbbuuuttt… I was just so busy today and it wasn’t that nice outside, so I will just get the miles in tomorrow instead. :-/

Wednesday 7/16

5.4 mi @8:24/mile

This actually felt really good. I went out a little faster than I had any business going out, but what’s a girl to do when it’s finally <500F and 500% humidity outside? Never mind that I was going downhill! ( What smarter thing to do than start a run going quickly downhill ?!?!:-) 70F, 50% humidity and a modest decline never felt so good! Positive splits be damned.

Thursday 7/17

7 mi @ 8:38/mile

This also felt reasonably good, considering 1) yesterday’s “speedy” run and 2) the fact that the temperature and humidity are again joining forces and engaging in operation Drown Dr. Trot. 

Friday 7/18

8 mi @ 9:05/mile

With big weekend plans on the horizon I decided one of the two 8 mile weekend runs had to be done today. So, off we went after work…

Considering that this was the third run in a row on legs that haven’t been subject to that kind of “abuse” in a while, all went very well. The heat, humidity and hills all tried to get the best of me, but I wouldn’t have any of it. Well, maybe just a little…

Saturday 7/19

cross training and refueling…

…in DC with Dr. Allison and Sir Jack!
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Today’s regime included:

    1. Walking through old town Alexandria
    2. Shopping
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Anthropology’s absolute finest.

    1. Ice cream eating
    2. Swimming in a two-story pool with a current!
    3. Pho 🙂

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Total:  27 miles

Overall this week felt good although I definitely needed the cut back. Now I don’t like needing this so early in the season, but as long as it does the trick and the next weeks go well, I’m not going to think too much of it.

Considering that work is insane, it’s hot and humid outside and each weekend somehow gets overbooked before I know it, over the next few weeks I really have to be good about making a point to:

  1. Get the miles in — oddly, I wedding dances and mall-walking don’t seem to count
  2. Eat/drink right — ice cream and beer are apparently not the same as veggies and water 😮
  3. Stay off my feet for more than the 4 hrs (not a type-o…and a perfectly valid excuse for being grouchy at basically whoever I want to be grouchy at) I’ve been sleeping each night

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Hamptons Marathon Training – Week 8

Sunday 7/6
7 early WARM miles @ 9:08/mile
followed by a belated but wonderful 4th of July Weekend Picnic…

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A patriotic picnic 🙂

and less wonderful 4th of July Weekend Picnic burn lines…

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Ouch! 😦

Monday 7/7
rest

Tuesday 7/8
5 miles

Wednesday 7/9
rest 🙂

Thursday 7/10
7 miles

Friday 7/11
A drunken celebratory evening in honor of Dr. Marvin being back in Somerville (aka Little Manhattan — per one delusional, yet entertaining, little cab driver) and all of us not being “there”…

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Two and a half gophers and a photobomber!

Due to the unfortunate timing of this picture (or the unfortunate timing of the numerous glasses of whiskey prior to this picture) our t-shirts are unreadable 😦 For your information “I may live in New Jersey, but I’m always in Minnesota Country.”

Saturday 7/12
13 messy miles @ 9:25/mile (see above)
This is what one gets when there is:
a) Too. Much. Whiskey.
b) Not. Enough. Sleep.
c) 80F by 8 am
d) Time sensitive work to do on the weekend
e) Locks on the G damn building that perpetually change/do/do not work with our assigned keys/group mates that are always at work but have apparently started going to yoga from 9:30-11:30 every Saturday

Let’s just say that I was glad to be done, alive and optimistic that people had occupied themselves with alternative sources of entertainment for the morning.

Total: 32 miles
Aside from making a few questionable delicious decisions and the oppressive NJ heat/humidity, the week wasn’t half bad. This just needs to continue for another 10 weeks or so…with massive milage increases…no pressure!

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Hamptons Marathon Training – Week 7

Sunday 6/29
rest (in royal beer drinking and World Cup watching fashion)

Monday 6/30
rest

Tuesday 7/1
4 mi

Wednesday 7/2
rest

Thursday 7/3
7 mi

Friday 7/4
rest

Saturday 7/5
12 mi – warm fragmented over 3 legs (sections of running…not the 2 normal ones that connect my feet to my ass + 1 extrea…as impressive as that would have been…) between time points

Considering my apathy for running when I started bright and early at 6:45 am, all went well. I gathered my motivation as the miles clicked by (realizing that I would actually rather be running than back in the lab) and got it done.

Afterwards it was a lovely afternoon of napping on the porch with a kitty cat and checking football scores 🙂 Sadly there are no pictures of this 😦

Total: 33 miles
A whopping 33 miles is at least double digits and includes a long run. This is the last week of delinquency that can be allowed. From here on out runs will be completed as they are supposed to be, the long run in particular and someone (Dr. Trot) is going to regain something resembling mid-marathon-training-season fitness before all is totally los!

 

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Hamptons Marathon Training – Week 6

Sunday 6/22
200 very hungover, but very worth it, miles back to Princeton.

Monday 6/23
rest

Tuesday 6/24
4 miles — with the not-so-simple-goal of surviving them per the glutenous weekend

Wednesday 6/25
rest

Thursday 6/26
7 miles — not super fast but feeling much better today 🙂

aaannnddd…Kitty City construction…
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…for and ungrateful Princess Pheona 😦
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Friday 6/27
rest

Saturday 6/28
rest

Total: 11 miles
sssoooo…yeah.
11 whole miles for the 6th week of marathon training. While there is really no good excuse for this…I do have a VERY VERY good excuse for this. I am currently not going to elaborate however. You can look forward to this at a later date 🙂

 

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Hamptons Marathon Training – Week 5

Consider this your first of two ridiculously delayed Hamptons Marathon training updates. The first order of business is for Dr. Trot to wrap her little brain around how life so often gets so totally out of control?!?!
I suppose the answer to that question isn’t all that difficult, eh? It starts with the fact that Mon-Fri are packed with more “normal” work than a reasonable human being can handle and then Sat-Sun are packed with more “postdoc” work than a reasonable human blablabla…. And then you try to squeeze a few miles in here and there, and then a few more, and then god-forbid you have a friend or two, and then the rest of your life starts screaming at you… Summer times is best/worst for this. Work is exciting, but way to GD much, running is lovely but time consuming and oh my poor, neglected, yes still so understanding friends… :-/

Sunday 6/15
A warm afternoon 6 mi @ 8:37/mi
It felt good to turn the legs over and was a pleasant recovery from Saturday’s rough long run.

Monday 6/16
rest

Tuesday 6/17
Another warm ~ 4 mi @ 8:19/mi
I was practically moving at the speed of light today! Happy Tuesday!

Wednesday 6/18
6 mi @ a comfy, non-Garmin-Day pace

Thursday 6/19
rest
(rest = drive up to CT for Dr. Annebelle’s wedding weekend! 😀

Friday 6/20
4 lovely morning miles in CT with the bride-to-be @ who cares min/mi
+ a mad dash first around the hotel room, and then back and forth between cars, around the house, up and down the street and then up and down and through the ditch in search of a purse, a wallet, two credit cards and a driver’s license who apparently do not prefer traveling via Beetle-rooftop. :-/
In the end, Dr. Trot: 1, sissy (yet important…as is ironically so often the case…but never mind…) plastic cards: 0. 🙂

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I got-em back!

Saturday 6/21
rest
rest = brunch, hair and make-up done, catered lunch, etc…

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A very fancy Dr. T

rest = rest today…until the party started :-/ And then rest = WEDDING!! 😀,
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pictures, more great food, doube triple dessert, a lot of whiskey, singing, dancing, dancing, dancing, and dancing…
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rest fueling and cross training day 🙂

Total: 20 miles
Not a particularly great milage week but a damn good life week so I’ll take it. It’s not every weekend that you get to celebrate one of your favorite partners in crime tying the knot with one of her favorite partners in crime on an absolutely beautiful day (looking absolutely beautiful herself…of course)

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Hamptons Marathon Training – Week 4

Sunday 6/8
rest/recovery (never mind from what 😉

Monday 6/9
5 after work miles in light rain 🙂

warm evening, light drizzle and high humidity

At the risk of sounding totally nuts, this was fantastic! The smells were great, the sweat glands were going and the rain felt super refreshing. Not a run I’d recommend prior to being seen out in public afterwards, but it was fun 🙂

Tuesday 6/10
4 after work miles

warm and humid

Not the best run of the last few weeks, but also not the worst (thank god). It’ll definitely be nice to have a rest day tomorrow!

Wednesday 6/11

rest — this was good, the legs were starting to feel a bit fatigued :-/

+ The Bachelorette 🙂

Thursday 6/12
6 after work miles — soooooooo did not feel like going out today. Work has been exhausting lately and I (brainlessly) effed up the one experiment I was doing today. So, by 7 pm I was feeling like I may as well just stayed in bed and was in a serious hurry to get back there and forget that the day ever happened.

Thank goodness I didn’t let myself actually do this! Instead, I suited up in fresh (Shocking! I know!) flashy purple running attire, my favorite purple compression socks, mapped a new route and headed out the door. It’s amazing what a little variety can do for your mood out on the trail and even more amazing what a few miles can do for you mood once you’re safe and sound (and stinking to high heaven) back home! I felt sooooooo much better after these 6 measly miles. Even after many years of running I’m still amazed what difference a few miles can make. I think the take home message is that next time things start going wrong I ought to immediately abandon ship and hit the trail! Right?

Friday 6/13
rest day

Saturday 6/14

11 ugly, warm, humid, morning miles to work and back

I’m not sure what the hell happened this morning but the hours from 7-9 were brutal! You know how you start off and things just don’t quite feel right, your legs are heavy and things don’t want to synchronize and you just think to yourself “stick it out…it’ll get better…give it a half a mile…it’ll get better…give it another half a mile…it’ll get better…” Well, I was doing this until it was more like “give it another half a mile and it will be over!” Things just did not want to cooperate. I was stiff and a little sore (the muscles AND some joints AND…I really don’t want to admit this…the shins) and heavy feeling. BOOOOO 😦

By the end, by all of 9 am, I was sooooo warm! I had sweat completely through everything I was wearing! When I checked the temp and humidity I was SHOCKED to see that it was only 72F and 70% humidity. I was absolutely convinced that there should be an extra 1 out in front of both of those numbers. I guess the one nice part about this was that the perceived heat and humidity also translated into (perceived if nothing else) that fresh, warm summer smell that you get of dirt and grass and flowers etc… shortly after a rain (it is always not long “after a rain” here…) This was the first run of the season in a real summer smelling morning (shame on me, I know…) and that part actually did bring a smile to my face (in between many a scowl and without causing my language – colored to match my most fantastic outfit (see below) – to miss so much as one beat).

Which actually allows me to transition nicely into my saving grace of the day. What kept me moving (besides my 10:30 date with Miss K…but never mind) was my genious decision to debut this year’s CEMS Marathon Team’s uniform! 🙂 I’m actually being totally serious here. There is something about wearing a brand new outfit that makes anything just a little bit more bearable. (There is also something about being dressed like a highlighter box explosion while running through your small town that motivates you not to stop and ask someone for a ride home.)

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Sweaty highlighters love popsickles too.

A second saving grace was knowing I had (however freezer-burned it may have been) a lime-sickle waiting for me back home if I survived to claim it. SO SO GOOD.

Total: 25 miles

This week was kinda rough. Work was tiring and running was a bit of a chore 😦 Not good. Not to be repeated next week. Next weekend is already my first long run cutback which I (unfortunatley) feel that I need. :-/ This means that I need to be doing a better job of hydrating and fueling and resting. That will be the mission for this week. Get the miles in feeling GOOD and make use of the cutback so the following weeks will be a building of QUALITY higher milage.

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Hamptons Marathon Training – Week 3

Sunday 6/2
5 lovely miles through the rolling hills of Berkeley

Monday 6/3
2000 miles (from CA back to the lovely NJ)

Tuesday 6/4
rest

Wednesday 6/5
5 fat, slow, painful, sluggish, water balloon mascarading as a Dr. Trot, miles
warm, but not that warm
It was one of those runs that was just great to be finally done with and makes you appreciate the days when running doesn’t suck :-/

Thursday 6/6
5 after work miles — soooooooo much better than yestereday
+ The Bachelorette viewing (complete with a dinner of cookies and chips)

Friday 6/7
rest day
+ NYC trip #2 in 3 weeks 🙂
In related news, have you ever wondered what $9 million can get you on the lower west side? If so, wonder no longer…
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You’re welcome.

Saturday 6/8
11 morning NYC miles — up from the Lower West side to Central Park, through the park (complete with a few hundred of my cyclist friends…
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…and a smattering of my beloved public water fountains…
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…take note NJ, take note), and back down town (complete with a game of tourist + trash heap Frogger)
+ a day of trekking…and shopping…
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…and eating (at Merci, Isabella and Otto)…
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…all over my favorite city in the world. 🙂 A wonderful weekend 🙂

Total: 26 miles
It was nice to get some more miles in this week and get the first double digit long run under the belt. Days are heating up, work is piling up and the weekly milage is creeping up. It’s finally summer 🙂

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Hamptons Marathon Training – Week 2

Sunday 5/25
Recovery from Saturday night day

Monday 5/26
7 warm, informative, evening miles
Lessons learned:
1) No running on the tow path with out glasses in the summer
2) No running at night without glasses in the summer
3) No running after a rain without glasses in the summer
4) A gazillion little bugs feel good in neither the eyes nor the lungs

Tuesday 5/27
3 afternoon miles — without glasses.
Lessons learned:
4) No running in the afternoon without glasses in the summer
5) Dr. Trot is an idiot

Wednesday 5/28
rest

Thursday 5/29
CA travel day with Penelope 🙂 via EWR 😦

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Happy Reunion!

(+ futile 2 mile walk to and from the Tiger Card and transportation offices in hopes of getting my new ID card and parking pass given my new appointment extension through January…which is apparently NOT in the system yet. 😦

Friday 5/30
5 morning miles down to the bay and back
It was a cool morning — requiring long sleeves for the first few miles (thank you California! :-/ The run was nice, through residential areas and on a slow but steady decline all the way out to the bay. Good thing it took me ~2.5 miles to finally warm up so I could handle the climb home!

This was followed by refueling with a most excellent brunch at Squat and Gobble

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Veggie Crepe @ Squat and Gobble

and then a trip to the SF Zoo for some QT as a butterfly!
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Who needs to trot when you can fly instead?!?!

Saturday 5/31
More refuling?

With salads and beers 🙂
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This counts, right?

Total: 15 miles
Not exactly high milage, but this was just the way it had to be this week. Low milage and a lot of good RnR and delicious refueling 🙂

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