Another week.

Monday
Did: 20 mins strength/core
I didn't even bother writing down today's workout because it was so short, and at least half of it was my core PT / stability ball exercises. I did mostly upper body stuff for the rest of it. I was pressed for time and it was the end of the day after a really tiring Monday that felt more like a Wednesday for some reason. Ugh. And the rain doesn't help.

Tuesday
Did: 6.2 mi @ 8:23/mi #10kTuesday treadmill 3x3x400 speedwork
Rain and busy meeting schedule and solo parenting = treadmill speedwork in the morning for #10kTuesday. I really wanted to run outside, but resigned myself to the hamster wheel after looking at the forecast and my schedule for the day. Turned out to be (as usual) a good workout, and (again, as usual) happy to have it out of the way first thing. Now I can focus better!

Dem splits.

Did my current go-to treadmill workout of 3x400 at 10k pace, 3x400 at 5k pace, and 3x400 at 1M pace. I had the treadmill set on a sub-6 pace for the 1-mile paces, but the accel/decel time made it a bit slower overall. I was working HARD by the end of this. Woohoo!

Schweddy.

Wednesday
Did: 1.4 mi @ 8:30/mi + core PT and weights
It was SO gorgeous outside that I just had to go out for a quick run before lifting. I didn't have much time for a workout in general, but squeezed it in. After a run, did my core PT on the stability ball, then a few lifts before calling it good.

Thursday
Did: 9.3 mi stationary bike + Big 5 stretching
I never feel like the stationary bike is a great workout, but man, my profuse sweating would say otherwise. I did the "hill climb" program today and it was tough!

Friday
Did: rest

Saturday
Did: 10.02 mi @ 10:23/mi avg w/ stroller
D and I met up with Robin & Dale to do 6 miles from Furman on the Swamp Rabbit trail. The weather man on the tv said it was in the 50s, so I donned capris and long sleeves. Um, no... too warm. It was at least in the 60s when we started out, so I was glad I had a singlet under my long sleeves. I didn't even start running with it on! After we parted ways, Super D and I finished up with another 4 miles on the trail and felt great. Even had a sub-9 pace for the final mile! Hooray double-digit stroller run.

Sunday
Did: 14.3 mi mountain biking
Family mountain biking day! It was a beautiful weekend, so we headed up to Bent Creek outside of Asheville for some mountain biking. Scott pulled D in the trailer on gravel roads for the entire ride, and I did a few side loops of singletrack where available. It actually worked out really well, despite my navigational challenges (thank goodness for the MTB Project app!).

  

  

The ride included over 1800 ft of elevation gain and a rolling average of 7.9 mph - that's definitely fast for me! :)

Enjoyed post-ride beer and lunch at Hillman Beer

Week-ending thoughts:

Uhhhh.... still not much to say here. Not training for anything, but enjoying staying in pretty good shape overall. Kinda want to train for something, but kinda don't. I'm keeping my options and my eyes & ears open...

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Monday
Did: strength
Continued with the different routine of all lifting followed by core/PT exercises.

Tuesday
Did: #10kTuesday (61 consecutive weeks) - 6.21 mi @ 9:20/mi avg
Planned to run with Megan downtown this morning but happened to start at the same time as the rest of the early downtown group. We were all doing different distances/paces, so by the end it was just Megan and me. Felt good and steady through the run, and of course, loved getting this done by the time the sun was coming up. Also, WTF on this weather? It's MID APRIL!

Um, what??

Wednesday
Did: 14.4 mi @ 15.8 mph avg road bike ride
Road bike ride w/ Scott today - and spring weather is back! It was a little breezy but not too bad. Felt good, and ended up with a good average speed despite the wind.

Thursday
Did: 2.92 mi @ 9:29/mi avg trail run + Short Track Race #2 (5.1 mi mountain biking)
Ended the workday with a little trail run just to get a few more miles in, then changed and headed over to Gateway Park for Short Track Race #2. I was tired and hungry before the race started, so it's no surprise that I placed 4th out of 4 women in the Beginner/Sport category. Ah well, can't podium 'em all.

Friday
Did: nothing
I even tried to walk on the treadmill desk, but it kept tripping the emergency stop for no reason, so I got annoyed and quit after 0.8 miles.

Saturday
Did: 8.02 mi @ 9:28/mi avg w/ Megan and stroller
Gorgeous morning for a stroller run on the Swamp Rabbit w/ Megan! We meandered to the north and turned around just past the memorial gardens in TR, heading back to where we started at Furman. Just a nice, comfortable run and good times with a friend. :) Really enjoyed this run!

Sunday
Did: nothing
The threat of rain and the residual tiredness from Saturday afternoon's beer festival was enough to keep me indoors for the day (yes, on Earth Day, boo) - not to mention the 5 loads of laundry that desperately needed attention.


Week-ending thoughts: Ugh, I feel lazy. I need to train for something.

Solo week

Scott's in Germany all week for work, so that automatically makes everything seem busier even if it really isn't!

Monday
Did: strength
I've officially been "released" from PT, but I'm not cured/healed yet. So it's now up to me to continue doing my exercises and modifying appropriately. I'm excited to bring a few things back in the coming weeks, but trying to take it slowly to build strength gradually and not dive right in.
I also took it easy on my legs today after the hard weekend of biking.

Tuesday

Did: 6.22 mi @ 8:29/mi avg + Big 5

The sun's up early enough for me to run outside at work in the morning! Yippeeeee. I had zero thoughts, plans, or goals for this run - just a steady run. Turns out my "steady" is pretty decent! Really happy with this run, especially since I could still feel the tiredness on my legs from the weekend. 

Wednesday
Did: 10.5 mi @ 16.4 mph road bike ride
Nice solo ride today - beautiful sunshine. Felt good and turns out it was a pretty fast ride! Maybe all those hills this weekend helped my speed.

Thursday
Did: core PT, 2.36 mi @ 8:45/mi avg, Big 5
Started off with my core PT routine (about 20 mins) on the stability ball, moving planks, and wipers.
Next headed out in the glorious sunshine for a little cross-country run on the trails at work, no pace or distance in mind, just wanted to keep it easy and shake out the legs for a couple of miles before Saturday's upcoming race. Turns out 8:45/mi pace is "nice and easy" even on trails. Well then.
Finished with Big 5 stretches.

Friday
Did: rest
Resting up for the weekend

Saturday
Did: Ville to Ville Relay
Race report: https://littlechemistruns.blogspot.com/2018/04/ville-to-ville-craft-brew-relay.html

Sunday
Did: recovery
Yep, the quads are definitely feeling the efforts from those hills. And it's raining. That makes for a gooooood rest day. :)

Ville-to-Ville Craft Brew Relay

The Inaugural Ville-to-Ville Craft Brew Relay took place on Saturday, April 14th. The 73-mile course traveled from Asheville, NC to Greenville, NC with stops and sponsorships by many local craft breweries along the way. No, there was no beer-drinking during the relay, but the entire theme still made it a lot of fun.

Our team of 6 was named Happy Hour since all of use have worked together at one time or another. There was myself, Robin, Bernard, and Dale - all current Milliken associates - along with Megan and Tamara, who are former associates. All of us have also run relays together in some combination before... 4 years ago, Tamara, Megan, Bernard, and myself ran the Gulf Coast Interstate Relay. Robin and Dale have run the Smoky Mountain Relay for several years, and Dale also participated the very first year when I ran the Blue Ridge Relay (in 2010?).

All of us are locals except for Tamara who lives in California, so she flew in earlier in the week and stayed with me. We all attended the check-in event on Thursday evening, and then Saturday was the big day for race day!

We rented a minivan for the event instead of a 15-passenger van since it wasn't overnight and we figured we'd have less stuff to carry around. It turned out to be perfect - plenty of room for junk, comfortable for everyone, and much easier to maneuver in the tight transition parking areas!

Race Day

We made the team decision to not stay overnight in Asheville the night before the race. We got assigned a 5:40 AM start time, which meant we departed Greenville at 3:30AM on Saturday morning. It was a VERY early alarm, but we actually had a hilariously giddy/exhausted ride up to the start line at Highland Brewing. 

Team pre-race selfie

Robin at the start line!

My First Leg: Leg #2 - The Hillman

6.0 mi @ 8:11/mi avg, 738ft elevation gain

This leg was ranked as the hardest leg on the relay due to the large hill from mile 1 to mile 2. I'll be honest, I walked up a good portion of that hill because I ended up moving faster that way. It was TOUGH. It was also early in the morning, the race day adrenaline had my heartrate way high (I averaged 181 bpm for this run), and I just needed to walk it off a few times. After I crested the top of the hill at Mile 2, I FLEW through the rest of the run. Just look at my splits. 

That Mile #2, though...

 I pushed through the rest of the leg and ended up passing a total of 9 people ("kills" in relay-speak) during my leg.

Beautiful cloudy sunrise over the mountains

Photo-bombed by some random dudes

We continued on through the rest of the legs in order, everybody doing an amazing job and we were nailing our predicted race time.

Second Leg: Leg #8 - Tali-Ho!
3.5 @ 8:17/mi avg, 325 ft elevation gain

This was the shortest leg of the race, but it climbed over 300 feet in 3.5 miles, making it challenging after the morning's hill climb efforts. I started a bit before noon, which meant my two legs fell at very normal-feeling times of the day. This was nice! I managed to not walk during this leg and felt really strong climbing the hills... not to mention 14 kills.

Finished!

I felt really good about my 2 runs. I wished I could have pushed a little more up the hill in the first leg, but I think it was a good call to take it a little bit easy to have something left for the second run.

The rest of the day was a slow decline into exhaustion but still maintaining the fun and happy atmosphere for the rest of the team.

Beverages at Swamp Rabbit

We gathered at the finish line party and all ran to the finish with Dale, our final runner. We felt really good about our finish time!

Nothing award-winning, but very proud of our efforts and consistency!  Really enjoyed this single-day format for the relay... still challenging and exciting, but much less stressful (on the mind, body, and organizing skills). :)

Busy week and my first Enduro

Monday
Did: strength
Got a bit of a late start and had a lot of PT to work in, so instead of super-setting I just did several sets of lifts and then saved the PT for the end (when the gym would be getting busy with the lunchtime crowd). This worked out great and I got a lot of lifting in! Felt really strong today.

Strenf. 

Tuesday
Did: #10kTuesday - 6.21 mi @ 11:47/mi avg
Got to run with my favorite ladies today! They both agreed to meet butt-early to run downtown, and it was a beautiful morning for a 10k as the sun rose over Greenville.

Runner friends 

Wednesday
Did: 14.4 mi @ 15.6 mph avg road bike ride
Lunch ride with Scott today - boy it was WINDY. oooof. But a good challenging ride and nice to get out w/ Scott for a change.

Thursday
Did: treadmill speedwork (5x400) + Short Track MTB Race (4.5 mi @ 9.7 mph avg)
Was able to get in a quick speedwork session on the treadmill right before I had to leave to head to the Short Track race. Did a quick warm-up, then 5x400 @ 1-mile pace with 200 recovery in between. These were hard (look at that heartrate!) but over quickly.

So many splits, so little time.

Wrapped that up, then changed and went to Gateway Park for the first of four Short Track races for the 2018 season. Usually the Beginner/Intermediate category goes for 30 minutes and you do as many laps as you can in the allotted time, but because of the time crunch with the sun setting around 7:45, we had to shorten it to 25 minutes. That was fine by me! These are always harder than I anticipate because it's basically a sprint for the entire duration. I was one of two females in the entire category, and I was happy to get the 5 laps I got. Averaged 9.7 mph over the 4.5 miles.

Friday
Did: nothing
Rest day was needed before the big race weekend!

Saturday & Sunday
Did: Ladies' Mountain Bike weekend at Fire Mountain
Read the weekend report here!

Ladies' Mountain Bike Weekend at Fire Mountain

Man, this was SUCH a fun weekend!

It all came about during a SORBA ladies' ride a few weeks ago, and several of the girls (i.e. everyone but me) were discussing doing this event (Fire Mountain Women's Enduro). They talked about getting a cabin for the weekend, riding on Saturday, and doing the race on Sunday. I thought about it, and decided on a whim to join them - my first Enduro (i.e. "real" mountain bike race).

Educational Sidebar: An "enduro" is a combination of endurance and downhill racing. You ride the entire course (i.e. you don't get shuttled up to the top of the mountain) but you're only timed on the downhill sections ("stages"). Results are based on the cumulative time of all stages combined.

Anyway, I'm NOT a downhill racer. I'm much better at slow and steady pedaling up hills, and not so good at bombing down a mountain. I had zero expectations going into the event, and met all zero of them. 😜

We had a crew of 6 going up on Friday, and 4 of us carpooled together starting after work. We got up to the cabin around 8:30pm and finally headed to dinner at Nantahala Brewing Company around 9pm. The food was eh, and I was wayyyy tired, but we still made it up until about 1am just hanging out at the cabin after we got back.

Home for the weekend

The next morning, had some awesome breakfast casserole then rolled out to the trails to meet some others who had driven up that morning. Rode together for several hours and got in 9.2 miles with 1,400 ft of climbing, with plenty of stops and socializing. It was supposed to be rainy the entire day, so we were pleasantly surprised that we stayed dry and relatively warm!

After a great morning/midday of riding, we headed to the cabin to drop off bikes and do a quick-change before heading into Sylva for their 3rd Annual Brew Hop festival - yep, beer festival during ladies' bike weekend = perfect timing! We enjoyed a just-enough-but-not-too-much afternoon of yummy beers and food in the lovely town of Sylva, NC (who would have thought??) then ended the night with some mexican food before crashing relatively early back at the cabin.

The next day, it was the Big Event. We got up to the trails and loaded up in the COLD (32F) weather, had our pre-ride meeting, and then we were off! The start of an enduro is pretty low-key since your timing to get UP the mountain doesn't matter at all. We casually rolled out about 10 minutes after the official "go". We'd all bundled up pretty heavily, but by the end of the first climb, we were all definitely warm!

We hung out at the top for a while, then started out on our first downhill run! It was long (10+  minutes for me) but exhilarating! Next we had to turn up and go back up the same way again, then down another fun downhill for Stage 2. The "climb" to Stage 3 was minimal, and Stage 3 was also very short. Finally we had one last climb up the mountain followed by a long Stage 4 downhill to finish.

Whee! Total of 14.2 miles with 2,100+ feet of climbing.

Mountain x3

So, the results?

LAST in my category, but there were at least 3 slower people overall... so I'll take it. Besides, a field of only 26 total racers was pretty small, so I definitely did not expect to place. I'm proud of myself for getting out of my comfort zone, doing the race, and actually not falling over!

Considering doing a few more of these this year... but I need to work on my downhill skills for sure.

Action-packed Easter

Monday
Did: strength
Had to reduce the superset activities because my PT exercises are taking over and occupying ALL of my workout time. *sigh* Was a good session, though, but I did something to my right shoulder and now it hurts. It's always something!

Tuesday
Did: #10kTuesday treadmill ladder - 58th consecutive week
I posted to the early downtown group last night but as of this morning, the only person who'd said they'd be there had backed out... and I'm just not brave enough to attempt downtown in the early morning hours by myself. So into work I went and actually KILLED it on the treadmill with a ladder workout @ 5k pace.

10k PR is 47:39 and I was below 46 minutes when I hit 5.9 miles. JUST SAYIN'

Yeah. By the time I'd reached my cooldown, I could have easily pressed onward at a faster pace and gotten a PR for a 10k. WHAT? However, I refuse to PR on the treadmill, so I slowed down and cooled down as I'd planned. BUT STILL. 0_0

Wednesday
Did: 10.5 mi @ 16.0 mph road bike ride
Solo road ride today, did the hill + USC Upstate loop. Managed 16 mph average despite 10+mph headwinds for part of the ride! BLEH. Felt nice though, even though the sun didn't come out as I'd hoped.

Thursday
Did: 4.5 mi @ 8:32/mi cross-country run
Didn't feel like speedwork today, plus had a hard run Tuesday that my legs are STILL a little sore from (what??) so I decided on an "easy" (yeah right) run at lunch on the cross-country trails. Was a gorgeous spring day and really just wanted to get out in the sunshine a bit. Felt so nice!

Friday - Holiday!
Did: 16.5 mi mountain biking
The rare treat when daycare is open but work is on holiday = mountain biking for mom & dad! We went to Tsali (near Bryson City / Cherokee NC) and enjoyed a great day on the trails. We got sprinkled on a little bit, but the sun came out towards the end of our ride and it was just perfect. The trail system consists of 4 loops (Left, Right, Mouse, and Thompson), but only 2 are open to bikes on any given day. We got to ride Left and Right loop. We started on Left loop with the knowledge that Right loop has several opportunities for short-cuts if we got tired.

River and reservoir that Left Loop went around

At the top of Left Loop.

We did an extra little side-loop to see the overlook... it was worth it!

Bikes at the overlook

Gorgeous view

We finished up Left Loop and proceeded to the next intersection where we decided we'd tackle Right Loop. We ended up doing ALL of Right Loop for a total of 16.5 miles and 1,500 ft of climbing!

Decisions, decisions

Got a little muddy

Yep. Mud.

Felt really good about this ride and excited for next weekend - I've signed up for the Fire Mountain Enduro, and all-women's mountain bike race. My first "real" mountain bike race. Eeeek!

Saturday
Did: rest
I'd thought of doing a long stroller run today, but realized I hadn't had a rest day all week so decided to be lazy.

Sunday - Easter
Did: 12.01 mi @ 9:28/mi avg
After not getting a long run yesterday, I got the wild idea to run Altamont from the house (9 miles round-trip) when we got home from Easter Sunday church service. A few miles into the run, I then decided "Hmm, I kind of want 12 miles today."
So I did.

The Mountain.

Ran up and back, total ascent time 23:26, then did a loop around Furman to get to 12 total.

I made it!

Felt great, but didn't realize the warm Easter sunshine gave me a sweet head start on my sports bra tan for the summer.

Ouch.

Whoops. Gotta remember the sunscreen from now on!