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.

bodybuilding bodybuilding.com chicken chickens chicks double dipsea MAF maffetone method nugget progress progress photos running strength training weightlifting

A week of MAF...and baby chicks.

HeatherIhn 1

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You know one way to prolong a cold? Run stupidly hard for 3 hours, barely sleep, wake up at 6am the next morning and run another 6 mile race way faster than you should. Then think you're ok, barely eat anything both days, and do groceries and prune your tomatoes for the rest of the day.

Sorry, that was me virtually slapping myself in the face for this insane weekend. I'm okay now. *deep breath* Here's my race report for today's Summer Scamper.

I woke up this morning at 6am after another restless night due to my continued cold. I will be so happy when I can breathe out of both nostrils in my sleep.

I carpooled with two of my co-workers, and we arrived around 7:25. Parking seemed to be pretty plentiful, although there were a lot of cars in a long line waiting to be parked. If you do this race, it's best to arrive obnoxiously early to avoid a late start.

I hopped out early and picked up my bib to be safe. I also hit one of the many porta-potties that to my amazement had NO line. My bib came with this adorable light blue tech tee. I'll be happy when the Summer Scamper actually gives out women's shirts as well, but I understand that it's difficult to make cost and numbers speaking. I just never wear the men's smalls, my 5'0" frame drowns in them.

I was super thankful that they had a really easy gear check there. They had paper bags and just wrote your bib number on them. I had mindlessly jumped out of the car with my keys and jacket, and now the summer scamper shirt that I didn't know what to do with, so that solved that problem.

I had convinced a group of approximately 20 people to sign up for this race, so we tracked each other down at the starting line. Storm8 graciously allows me to design team shirts for this race, and it really helps us find each other amid the thousands of people attending.

The Summer Scamper is one of the two races (the other being the JP Morgan and Chase Corporate Challenge) I spend organizing for our Storm8 group because it is a well supported, highly attended, family friendly and walker friendly event. People have the choice of a 5k run, a 10k run, or a walker. It is important to note that they close down at 9:30 which means you need to run/walk faster than a 15 min mile. There's also four kids runs splitting them up between ages 3-4, 5-6, 7-8, and 9-10. Being a race that is created to fundraise for the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford, it is a very family friendly event. The cherry on top was that it's Father's Day today! Kids had a lot of fun playing the games in the finisher's area.

Back to the race. A group of us had decided to push forward toward the middle of the 9 minute mile pace corral. One of my co-workers mentioned that she wanted to finish in 58 minutes, which came out to around a 9:25 pace, so I thought I'd stick with her and try to help her to her goal.

We bolted when the gun went off. It was quickly clear to me that her 9:25 pace was a LIE and that she was a shark in the water. Here are our mile splits.

2015's Summer Scamper

This is the third or fourth year I've attended, and this route this year was different than last year. Last year I vividly remember a hill that surprised me in the middle.. This year we went up a little bit and then down hill a lot. We were all groaning about all the downhill since we knew it would go up again, but amazingly it didn't. I guess in the first couple of miles we were going up an unnoticeable incline.

2014's summer scamper

The weather was definitely sunny and warm out, but not unbearably so. There was a cool breeze, and a lot of the streets that we ran on were shaded. There were plenty of aid stations, but I tend to not hit any aid station that's under a half marathon's length. There were also plenty of supportive and sweet volunteers cheering everyone on. A giant thank you to them for their time and energy.

Photo courtesy of my friend Masato

My only issue with the race was that the mile markers were off and I'm fairly confident that the course was short. I wasn't cutting the tangents too much, yet my watch had still only clocked 5.8 miles, not the 6.2 that is a 10k. When we hit the 5 mile marker, my watch had only displayed 4.5 miles. :S My friend mentioned that the 5k course also was a bit short. It's CERTAINLY okay for me, and I definitely didn't need the extra .4 miles, but to those that were aiming for a serious race PR it's something to note.

Either way, we finished strong with a time of 49:20. My co-worker demolished her time goal, to the displeasure of my already sore legs. It was worth it though.

I hung around the finish line to catch my other co-workers crossing through. Everyone had done so well, and it was a really beautiful and happy morning with a lot of good energy. I was really shocked when one of my ol' running partners ran through with both his 1 year old son in a stroller, AND his dog Truffle.

We wrapped up with some group photos, and then I took a brisk walk around the finisher's center where they had quite a few booths set up with freebies and samples. I didn't partake in the post race food, but I noticed some bagels and fruit. Since I had raised $425 (thank you to everyone that had donated), I got this little frame for free. I'll have to print out one of our group shots.

Not my family. 

All in all, I think it was another successful race for Storm8, and I'm hoping we'll be back with another group next year! There's not much that makes me happier than seeing or helping other people reach their goals, so I was thrilled to hear that so many people had done so well. I know that the hardest part for most people is rolling out of bed at a ridiculous hour on a Sunday morning, so thank you all for doing that. :)

After the race, I continued buzzing around, getting errands done. After a full day I decided to lay down for a quick nap which turned into a two hour battle for consciousness. My legs started to get super sore, especially my calves. Anddd I'm still sniffling, so I'm going to chill out for a while to let my body heal up. MUST BE STRONG FOR MY BABY CHICKS.

But check out the coop! It now has a roof and is just waiting to be primed and painted!

Alright, enough talking, more sleeping. :) Thanks for reading!

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Summer Scamper 2015

HeatherIhn 0

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Writing this the same day as the Double Dispea while it's fresh in my mind!

I did it. I finished Brazen Racing's Double Dipsea, and I didn't fall. *high fives self* It was the first real race after the AR50 in April, so I have been anticipating it and dreading race day. The website boasts of it's 4,500' elevation gain in 14 miles, and the 671 stairs that it features, as well as the unique handicap times categorized with age/sex.

A screen grab of their website

The race itself sold out very quickly, since it's kind of the alternative to the notoriously hard to obtain but sought after entry to the Dipsea race (America's oldest trail race). When registration opened for the double, I jumped on the opportunity to sign up before my brain really knew what I was doing.

While I have been slowly getting back into hills and trails, I still think I was unprepared for this race. The most I've done in training for this race was 2500' elevation and 12 miles. I also foolishly signed up for the Summer Scamper 10k which is tomorrow, so I knew I couldn't just go all out.

I peeled myself out of bed at 5:15 after a restless night's sleep. The cold I had been trying to fight had taken over and gotten worse, and it made it really difficult to breathe. So I cracked myself out with some coffee to make up for it, and ate a slice of toast. I put my usual running clothes on, and filled up my 1 liter Spry vest with some Tailwind and ice. I chose to wear my old Nike Wildhorse shoes since I wanted to be more nimble and less likely to trip again.

We left the house at 6am, and got to Stinson Beach at 7:15am...about an hour and a half early. The drive itself was something I wasn't looking forward to. I don't get motion sickness very easily, but Jon does, and even though he was driving he was not feeling well. It is one curvy drive! You could tell from the pre-race chatter that everyone else was experiencing some nauseous too.

I hit the porta-potty about three times within the hour and a half just to make sure everything was all clear and I wouldn't need to make any emergency stops on the side. There's almost nothing more annoying than starting a race and needing to pee the whole time! There were about 10 porta-potties, but well over 600 people in the race, which meant long lines. I heard a lot of complaints about that.

We picked up our bibs there on race morning, which went quickly and smoothly. It was a big bonus to me that the bibs had our names on it. It is so nice to have people cheering you on by name!

With the registration we are given the option of no tee (I think it's $5.00 off registration), a tech tee, or a cotton tee. I got the cotton t-shirt since I realized I just don't wear tech race shirts, and I love it! The detailed backside with the elevation map, and the noted trail names on them was a plus.

Our friend Johan joined us, and we had the same starting time. Jon started thirteen minutes after us, at 9:00 because he's 30. The race starts based on handicap times, giving a head start to the elderly and children. You can check out the specific wave starts here.

My teeth were chattering as we started. It wasn't unbearably cold, but the cold combined with my nerves was making me physically tremble. I hadn't been this scared for a race in a while. The only time I've ever ran over 4000' in a single run was at AR50 and that was...well, 50 miles long! I knew this run was going to kick my butt.

The weather was perfect for us. A slight cool breeze, mostly foggy, yet there were some sunny and warm spots at the top of the hills.

The trail began with a steep three mile ascent on soft shaded singletrack. It had a very serene jungly vibe. Everyone was pretty pooped a mile into the race, but I was very conservative with my pace. I'm a timid runner, so I had a hard time passing people that were going too slow.

The following two miles of downhill is when I really started to dislike the race. People were bombing down the trail, and the people that started in the waves minutes after us were catching up and running all out. I was terrified of literally being ran over since I was being such a slow poke, so I often would come to a complete or near stop to let people pass me. This happened...a lot. I think I was passed by almost everyone at this point. I did notice one runner down, and I know that others took falls as well. It was pretty dangerous.

Once we hit the bottom, we went right back up for another mile. When we started the descent, we hit most of the 671 stairs. I was having a difficult time going down them because the ones at the end were very small and numerous and my brain started to get dizzy with the visual confusion and poor depth perception.

And this is why my descents are almost as slow as my ascents. :(

I was still pretty fresh at the turn around point, and headed back up the same stairs that I went down. It wasn't too bad but again - I kept getting stuck behind some very slow people, and at this time there were a lot of people coming down the stairs on the other side so it was hard to squeeze through. It didn't help that there was a giant group of hikers thrown into the mix meandering up the same set of stairs.

Going down the little hill again was a breeze, but going back up the big hill was rough. The side going back was much more steep. My only and slight advantage was the mild 5-10% grade ascents that most people still were walking up. I could muster up the energy to keep running on those, although I'm sure the run was probably a 12 minute mile. There was an aid station at the top...and I got to witness a runner upchucking her nutrition. Delightful. :| On my way back I also saw two runners on separate occasions on the ground holding their cramped up legs.

Coming back was a bit easier for me because there were less people that you had to watch out for, and nobody was constantly on your heels. Amazingly, despite all the constant passing on the single track, almost everyone was very civilized and supportive of each other. Trail runners are so friendly.

I was most impressed with the amount of wonderful volunteers the course had. It was such a smooth running operation!

After running through the finish line, we were handed these awesome giant medals that double as drink coasters. They also gifted us with a fancy patch! I would love if more races started giving out patches!

ignore the scarred up legs

The food they gave out was also plentiful, as every trail run that I've done is, but I stuck with just the watermelon. It is a carb lover's dream though, ranging from tiramisu slices, rice krispie treats, peanut butter filled pretzels, cookies, bagels, and more. Not really much of an option for the low carber.

this is just half the table! 

My boyfriend Jon finished strong, and I'm glad that I got a chance to take a quick video of his finish. Our friend Johan was way ahead, even though yesterday he had just finished a really difficult long run.

In the end, I'm thinking that this type of race just isn't for me. I'm too timid and anxious to have the faster runners behind me, but it was a really great experience and I'm very happy I did it. My Garmin tells me that we did 14 miles and 4,107 feet of elevation. I was 21st out of 40 in my age group, and 343rd overall place of 628 folks. I'm just glad I didn't wuss out completely. It was a close one.

Oh and my wildhorses were great! They're starting to get tiny holes where the fabric creases, but I am so impressed with how the tread is holding up. They practically look unworn, and have almost 300 miles! I think I'm going to invest in the Kiger or another of the older wildhorses since I think the newest version that is soon to come out has a thicker heel and higher drop.

A little wear on the uppers but the soles are still good!

Sorry for the novel, I just wanted to be thorough! I'll post another for tomorrow's Summer Scamper!

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Brazen's Double Dipsea Race Report

HeatherIhn 1

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Well. I think Dr. Phil Maffetone would be disappointed with my recent activities. I've gone up and over my MAF zone multiple times recently, and I'm suffering from my first cold in a long time in result! Fortunately, I'm able to keep it kind of at arm's length, and it's pretty tame. I've been ODing on oregano oil (a couple drops of diluted oregano oil under the tongue 3x's a day), goat's colostrum (tiny scoop in shake), Bragg's apple cider vinegar (a tablespoon or two in a glass of warm, not hot, water) 3x's a day, and Emergen-C. Throw in a light run and a light weight session...Jon doesn't believe I even had a cold in the first place (even though he had it first). Good job, Me.

luckily I haven't need to resort to the Umcka yet

The past couple weeks have been all about hillwork! I'm trying to get my speed and endurance back on the uphills, and I think I'm progressing? The Double Dipsea race is this weekend, and I just want to survive through it.

Last week I did one of our old runs that I used to do often back in 2013 and 2014. It was the first hill run that I did  recently that I didn't need to stop and walk up. This hill is great because the grade isn't terrible but it's not easy either. I think it ranges around 8-9% for the first mile and a half, and the last mile to the top is about a 4% grade, just enough to open up the stride a bit. I was pretty pleased with this run, because I was feeling so weak on uphills.

This is the run I did last night to compare. The first time I did the run, I was going at a hard but not terribly hard effort. Last night's effort was much harder, yet I think there was still room to go faster. I always start the first mile out with a slow and MAF heart rate, but you can see at the super steep hill at the end, my heart rate hit 188! That last hill is between a 12%-19% grade, so it's a heart pumper.

Our main hill run was done at Huddart, where I smashed my last effort. I did this run a couple of weeks ago and was so weak I remember constantly stopping and walking. This time I made it about 4 miles in before I had to walk. 

I am obviously no pro at hill work, but I do have some advice that has helped me out tremendously this week. First, pump those arms! It helps SO MUCH. Really swing them and use momentum to get your legs up the hill. Secondly, make your stride smaller, like going down a gear on your bike. Small quick steps with some serious arm pumping will boost your endurance for long uphills.

I haven't been climbing as much as I'd like, running is taking priority this week. I did have to say goodbye to my climbing/weightlifting partner, Lin. She's been a joy to have around, and it was nice to have someone to do my weirdo workouts with. 

Happy Travels Lin!

I've been sticking with the bodybuilding.com regimin. I am excited to finally see some noticeable improvements. I can lift more weight with ease, and I think it helps with climbing and running.
I had to skip my workouts on Saturday because...well, I have a life! Not really, but we do need to finish this chicken coop we've been working on. Gotta take care of the homestead! 

My sad attempt at leg lifts. Jon thought it was funny that this is my "rest" day so he took this pic.

The chicken coop has been a LOT of work, with some long hours in the sun. Thankfully I think the weightlifting has helped me out, because I haven't been sore from the coop building. I guess that's one advantage.

Jon's picking some of our AWESOME lettuce! Sooo soft!

With the help of a good friend, and a lazy dog, we worked together to build the coop.

Getting close to completion!

Getting the chicks next week! Don't worry, you will hear all about it. Also, I plan on writing a recap from my crazy running weekend of back to back races at the Double Dispea and then the Summer Scamper! Please please consider donating to my fundraising page (the page works best in Firefox) for the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital! It's a truly wonderful cause, and I am almost to $500! 

Lastly, I will leave you with this tip that I found on NomNomPaleo's podcast. Buy these Garlic Gold Nuggets, and put them on EVERYTHING. Oh man they are sooo delicious, and make fried eggs even better somehow! They're a little pricey but worth it. My problem is that we use them up so fast! 

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Hills and Chicken Coops.

HeatherIhn 0

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