Oh Boy, where do I even begin? It has been a roller coaster of a weekend, and maybe to your disappointment, there wasn't a lot of running involved. This is why. Meet the Girls.

Wednesday morning was pretty much one of the happiest days of my life! I got to pick up our newly hatched baby chicks from the post office. It was a highly anticipated day for me, and I've been preparing for probably a month now! 

I ordered 5 baby chicks from mypetchicken.com. The ship as little as 3 per order to your house, and you can get all kinds of breeds. It's recommended to find a nearby farm to avoid the stress to the chicks, but I wanted specific breeds with friendly temperaments. The result? Dyno - the Easter Egger, Nugget - the Buff Orpington, and Eggitha, Pebble and Margaret Hatcher. One is a Black Copper Maran, another is an Australorp, and the last is an olive egger but right now it's hard to tell the three apart. They should all lay different color eggs except for the Australorp and Buff Orpington which is a standard brown egg. I'll try to spare you from the hundreds of photos we took, but here's a couple of my favorites.

Jon and I fell instantly in love with these little ladies. They are just the cutest things I've ever seen! They grow so fast too so every day you will see something new, whether it's new feathers, or a new skill. Prettttty sure I'm driving everyone mad with all of our chicken updates on fb and instagram, it's just totally devouring my time, energy, and life right now. Please bear with me...there will be running talk.

Dyno has new shoulder feathers!

Speaking of which, most of my runs have been very chill lately, and I only did two weight lifting sessions last week. Jon and I just craved to be home to spend time with the chicks. It was nice though, and I gave myself a bit of a break from all the exercise since last week was really pushing the envelope for me. I am pretty sure I was on the verge of overtraining with all the climbing, lifting, and the two races back to back.

Since my last post I have done one 4 mile run, one 8 mile run, and one 10 mile run. The 4 miler was a bit slow which I expected from the hard week prior. The 8 miler was in the afternoon and I kept it under MAF for once! It was so relaxing and beautiful. It was supposed to be a 6 mile run but I extended it so I could catch more of the gorgeous sunset. 

I tried to keep them all at MAF (149 heart beat or below) but the 10 miler yesterday was really hard to keep my heart rate down.

The reasoning? Well, #1 it was hot. It has been scorching in San Mateo recently. It'd be great if we had air conditioning to catch some relief, but our house is built like an oven and it's often hotter inside! Also, my diet has been complete crap lately. My typically iron-strength willpower has been caving to plenty of carbs...hot dogs with giant fluffy buns, pho, and hard ciders. My salads no longer contain the plateful of lettuce topped with veggies. Instead it's...a plate of tomatoes with some mushrooms and radishes sprinkled on top. I need to get back on track with eating more veggies. 

My heart rate Sunday was also high because I was also under an unusual amount of stress because one of our chicks (little Nugget) was falling ill.

I noticed that she was unusually sluggish on Saturday. She has always been the smallest of all of them, which is why I named her Nugget in the first place. She was sleeping a lot, not eating, or drinking, so we basically carried her around in our hands to keep her warm with our body heat and tried to get her to eat and drink for the entire day. My stress levels were slowly going through the roof seeing her go downhill. She started to get better Saturday night though, and eating more.

Sunday, after my run I spent the day painting the chicken coop. I think it's turning out well! What you can't see is that there are shingles on top. It's so cute!

By the end of the day though, little Nugget still wasn't feeling well, and at midnight we decided to take her to the only emergency veterinary office that would do anything for us. Turns out, she wasn't an expert, and actually knew next to nothing about chickens. While she was very sweet, I am pretty sure I could literally hear her typing, searching for treatments in the room next to us.

Long story short, little Nugget passed away sometime last night. I woke up at 7am to check on her, after getting to bed after 2am. 

We sobbed. All day. 8 hours of crying. I can't remember the last time I've cried this hard. It was just so difficult watching her become so week that she could barely do her signature peep. I felt so helpless.

Wah wah. Sorry to be a Debbie Downer and have almost an entire post about chickens and death, but that's basically everything that's been going on. Here's Little Eggitha was able to get a smile on our faces with her new skill of perching.

To take our mind off of things I ended up going to the gym to get back into the weightlifting routine. Bodybuilding.com made sure to remind me that I was a slacker, and needed to get back on track. 

I enjoy the workouts for the most part. I like that they mix them up every 1-2 weeks, and it doesn't get boring. What I don't like is that some of the workouts are really...weird...and not very convenient. Sometimes they use very specific machines that are hard to find in regular gyms. Other times require a partner, and while sometimes Jon hops in to help me, I'm usually forever alone.

I've been slacking on progress photos, but honestly I am not sure if I can see much of a difference. I *feel* a difference though, and I think that's what matters. Things I've noticed though are that I definitely have more strength. I have gone up in the weights, and struggle way less than before. I also have lost some belly fat, and have less of a muffin top. So that's nice. I haven't lost too much weight, but that wasn't my goal. 

Before and after. When I first started training to today. Cheesy bicep pose.

Before and after. Photo on right is from today.

Oh, and to swing things back to running, here are some photos I found of myself at the Double Dipsea. I didn't realize how terribly balanced my running vest is! I guess I noticed that it slips off my shoulder, but I can see now it's because the straw is pulling it over. It might need some tweaks. I'm surprised I'm running in any of these photos. That was a tough race.

Anywho, that's about all I have in store for this post. I plan on getting back on track and training longer distances to prepare for our three person team for Brazen's Dirty Dozen and Half Dozen. So excited for this race! I will probably just be doing about a half marathon, but hopefully will be able to push the pace a bit so we can score well. The race is July 11th, so definitely check back afterwards to see my race report about it!

Ok, somehow I'm still running on 5 hours of sleep but I think I need to go to bed before I pass out. RIP my little Nugget. This one goes out for you.

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A week of MAF...and baby chicks.

HeatherIhn 1

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The past week and a half I've been sticking with a rather rigorous plan of running most mornings (4x's a week), and then at night heading to the gym 4-5x's a week for weights followed by a brief climbing session. I know, it's kind of psychotic, but I'm seeing some pretty significant gains and I have a lot of energy. Another bonus...sleeping like a total rock lately. I used to get up to go pee every night, but now...I just pee in the bed. Just kidding. But seriously, I sleep through the entire night - SOLIDDD. I feel like I just sink into bed. Ah...bed.

My climbing has improved as well! I just finished my second V4 (since coming back into training), and each night I seem to make progress on problems that I've been working on. I feel confident on most 3's, which is kind of where I was before I stopped climbing. What surprises me most is that after a grueling 45 min weightlifting workout, it strangely gives me more power in my climbing. You would think I would be spent, but I think it gives me an adrenaline boost or something.

The weights have been tough. I am sore almost every night, and this is my 3rd week in. Things are amping up each week. Now the workouts are a bit longer, there's 5 of them a week, and the breaks are shorter. Most recently, the leg workout nearly killed me. It's been three days and they are STILL pretty achy. The worst part is that I just checked the schedule and realized tomorrow is ANOTHER leg day. *groan*

These One-Legged Deadlifts are kind of the worst. They look easy, and the first few definitely are, but they are deadly! I find that with deadlifts, the first ones you do are always the worst as far as soreness after. Hopefully tomorrow won't be so painful.

I think the weakest part of my body is by far my chest and triceps. My back is in decent shape from the climbing, and the legs are good from running (for the most part), but I certainly abandoned my chest and tris. Come back to me, precious muscles!

Somehow I managed to head out to Mt. Diablo on Sunday with Jon to try to run up it. I keep making the mistake of sleeping in, even though I know better. We didn't get started until 10:00am, and the sun was scorching. So much regret...

I hadn't had such an awful "run" in a long time. We were pretty much hiking up the entire thing. Jon had picked this new alternative route, thinking it would get us up there faster than our previous 16 mile summit. Well, the shorter version was technically less mileage, but wow was it steep. 

We only managed to get to Eagle's Peak, a neighbor summit to Diablo. Jon and I had not prepared for that kind of heat, and each only brought about a liter of water. I was rationing mine out to make sure I didn't drink it all, so we were becoming dehydrated fast. We both were feeling not so hot, so we decided to turn back early to be on the safe side. In the last couple of miles, I found some energy and was able to do a decent jog, but most of it was a slow trudge.

Data stolen from Jon's Strava (his was most accurate)

Oh! And I got myself some Hoka One One Challenger ATR's. I love my Cliftons so much, that I figured I needed to try these out since they are basically identical but with a trail tread. I can't say it was love at first run. I am used to my cloud-like Cliftons, and the Challenger's seem a bit heavier, and stiffer. I probably just need to break them in. They look great though! 

New out of the box!

one trail run later...

Lastly, my garden has been on my mind a lot. Oh, and chickens! My four baby chicks arrive June 22nd, and we are going to build a coop this weekend. Pretty excited! On a more dark note, we are also taking a class for home butchering: fowl edition. I have to admit, I'm a little terrified, but I also feel like I want to know where my food comes from, and to fully appreciate every bit that I get. That's a whole different blog though there...

My monster turnip

My beautiful tomatoes!

More to come for next week! I don't know which trails we'll hop on this weekend. As always, stay tuned for more!

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Still trying to get buff, and our attempt to summit Diablo (again)

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Cover photo credit goes to Rini Sugianto. Thanks! 

It's been a while! I haven't had much time to update the blog, but I'm sneaking a post in at my lunch hour. 

I've been doing a lot of different things lately, mainly because I can't seem to focus or make up my mind. That seems to be the trending topic lately, but I think I am starting to narrow things down. 

Last week I did my first Adventure Run of the year!!! These are runs that happen the first Thursday of every month at the San Carlos Road Runner Sports. I am a big fan of them. Basically, you get to the store where they have a little festival/event set up with fun booths. You can try new products, I often wear the shoes that they lend out. Then you are given a map, and you run to each spot to collect raffle tickets. After an hour, you race back, and sit with a cold beerski and win prizes. 

This time, my friend Brian who regularly goes with me, won two gift certificates. I won a fleece blanket, which I'll throw onto the growing pile of random blankets. I really just enjoy the sprinting from point to point (averaging about an 8 min mile). Oh, and this dog totally made himself at home on my lap while we waited for the raffle to start.

Friday through Sunday I spent either in the car riding to/from Mammoth Lakes, or spending time in the actual mountains! It was my first time visiting there, and I absolutely loved it. My very gracious and badass friends, Rini and her husband Brandon (SERIOUSLY, check out his photography RIGHT NOW), gave me a taste of hiking/backpacking/mountaineering by making our way up to Crystal Crag. We weren't expecting snow, especially the amount that was there. I welcomed it with open arms, and for most of the trail we were the first footsteps, but it did make the potential climb up Crystal Crag to be icy, so we didn't make it to the summit. I guess they figured they didn't want to scare me to death, and wanted to leave this as a pleasant inviting experience. Good call, Guys.

Rini scrambling up to Crystal Crag

A view from the top. Gorgeous!

A little snowman we made. Asian snowman.

Not to toot my own horn, but I love this shot I took of Rini!

The badass couple that you will be seeing more of

A classic Brandon Riza shot, my first time being over 10k (that I remember)

We made it! I'm still alive!

Amazing views, eh? I had a blast, and surprisingly wasn't sore after. I think the best part was playing in the snow, I haven't seen the stuff in years! I only half-wish we could have climbed to the top, I still am a baby and the idea of it kind of freaks me out. I'm grateful to have such experienced mountaineers as friends that don't mind having a newbie slow them down. ;)  We will be back for more, for sure.

And of course, we needed to go for a run. I really just wanted to see what running at 8k-9k feet elevation felt like, the views were just the icing on the cake. We did an 8 mile run up to the top of Panorama Dome, with just a bit over 1k feet of total elevation. Running up there definitely was harder than normal, but surprisingly not as bad as I thought it would be.

View from the top of Panorama Dome

Weeee just finished 4 miles, now back down!

Rini makes her own trails!

Running partner 4 Lyfe!

Of course a Bloody Mary had to happen. Delicious!

The trip back was long...7 or 8 hours due to closed passes, but the trip there was even longer! It was worth every minute though.

Sadly, one of my old climbing shoes rolled under the bed at the Air B&B that we were staying at. I am going to get it mailed back to me, but decided to buy a new pair in the mean time. These are the Scarpa Vapor's. I love them! I especially love how the upper has the rubber there, which keeps it from indenting into my toes like the Muiras do. They don't look too bad either...

My new climbing shoes. Love them!

Lastly, I've also been getting into weight lifting. It's been a while, and my muscles have deteriorated since my days of bootcamp/crossfit. My old trainer would shake his head at me, while I tremble and shake to press an empty bar. I'm looking forward to tracking the progress. I have a great friend, Susan, that's helping me with the process. I'm not familiar with machines, and actually kind of hate them, but I feel like I need to give them a fair chance.

So far, I have been sore every day. A good kind of sore though. I also have been climbing several times a week now too, which has significantly improved my abilities. I'm participating in the Jamie Eason's Livefit Trainer program, which is 12 weeks long and was suggested to me by Susan. I won't be doing the diet as much, but I'll keep eating clean. It's just nice to have structure again. Feel free to find me if you're on bodybuilding.com, my username is HeatherIhn.

Ah so relaxing at the gym. Latte and all.

I actually got Jon to lift weights with me!

Oh, and I'm still running of course. Not as much, and the efforts are a bit scattered. This was today's run, where I gave it a hard effort at the last three miles. I clearly lost some of my speed with the MAF training. My very hard effort is probably an 8 min mile now. I want to work on getting faster, but still doing most of my runs at MAF. I'm not sure if this is going to be a problem, and actually make me go backwards both aerobically and anaerobically, but we'll see.

This weekend I have a big 10k race that is giving me butterflies. I haven't gone all out in a 10k in a long time, so it makes me scared! I'll post all about it next time!

Last 3 miles - med/hard effort

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My trip up to Mammoth Lakes, and WEIGHTLIFTING BRAH.

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