Difficult

My legs felt very heavy today from yesterdays workout. So I did only 12k very very easy. I knew my calves will be killing me so I wore longer warming compression socks and it helped but my thighs felt horrible. My plan was to do weight lifting afterwards but it would not be a very good idea since my legs felt that bad.

I am leaving in one hours for Nantes for volleyball tournament and am taking my running shoes with me, of course. Will be back on Sunday.

April SUMMARY

April mileage: 199k (124miles)
Mileage total (2010): 901k
Mileage by weeks:
1-4 56k
5-11 50k
12-18 16.5k
19-25 19.5k
26-30 57k


Others:
Walking: 33.5k
Bike: NO :(
Volleyball: 15h
Weights: 2x
Yoga: 1.5h

Not very successful month mileage-wise because of 1 week vacation:) But had one pretty good 3k race so I am pretty satisfied.

Tough workout

Todays 10x400 w/ 400m log was tough but mostly because of hot weather. We started at 2pm and it was around 90 degrees. Blah. Usually I like running when it is hot out but not today. Way too tiring.
Our coach told me to TRY to run them at 1:24 because that's the last 400m I run in my 3k race 2 weeks ago and he thought that it was already too fast for 10x400. But at the beginning of May I did 6x400 at 1:16-18 pace. So WTF? I do not get it. No, I do get it. He does not remember anything. (Maybe that's the reason why we do always the same workout, because he forgets that we did the same thing last week.) So I am sure he did not remember that we did 400s at 1:16-18 before and it wasn't too difficult. And also, he does not know anything about running. I know I keep complaining about this all the time and you might ask why I go there then. Well, it is the only time I have a chance to run with people who help me to get through a workout. So, that's the reason.

But I had solid workout it was nicely controlled and I felt I could run faster if I wanted to (but I did not want to): 1:23, 1:22, 1:22, 1:20, 1:22, 1:22, 1:22, 1:19, 1:20, 1:29 but after the 7th one, my recovery jog was more like recovery walk because it was sooooo hot out.
I drank almost 1 liter of water during the workout and then another 1l after.
Then I did 4 cool down laps and drag myself to volleyball beach pitch:) I played for 30min but then it started to rain because it has been so hot all day so we decided to call it a day.

It is sunny again now and I am leaving for Spanish class.

Run, volleyball

Nothing special, school, visa paperwork, more school, more visa paperwork and it was almost 7pm when I found time to run. Thankfully Paris is so far on the west but in G+1 time zone, which means that we have light until 9pm and during summer it is until 11pm! Awesome.
I did 12k and then ran directly to volleyball practice, which was not a very great idea because I was tired and therefore my performance was kinda ridiculous. But that is ok. It was a good training.

Today was crazy and I am tired

I went to sleep at 2am because I had to finish visa sponsorship paperwork. Which means that I have not studied for my Strategy exam at all. Although I knew it would be an easy exam, I got up at 7am to study until 9am.
From 10 to 12 I took the exam and then spend another 2 hours working on visa thing.

Then went to running practice, which was pretty good. Of course we did 6x500 as every Tuesday (honestly, I think I might stop going there only because we always do the same thing!!!).
I was supposed to do 1:43-45 and I had only the best intentions to stick to it.
I did the first interval in 1:43 (although I started little bit off 100m mark and therefore it would be appropriate to add 1-1,5sec to every interval).
Next was 1:41, then 1:39, 1:40, 1:38, 1:34 (plus 1sec to each of them).
Why have not I sticked to my plan? Pride. If I had continued running at that pace, I would have been among the last people in our group. In our running group nobody knows anything about running, paces, VOMax and everybody just runs without any plan. This meant that some people did 1:41 for the first one, then 1:46-48 for next ones and last in 1:36. What's the point?
I am too proud to finish last in front of our running group, rugby players and other people on the track. I know it is not right because those people do not know anything about running and I should not care about them and do my thing but I cannot help it.
And it drives me crazy when a volleyball player comes to me after my 5th interval of 6x1000m with 200m jog between and says that 3:41 is pretty slow and that I should run faster. Would not you want to kill him? I know that he would not be able to do that workout at that pace, he might not be able to do one 1000m at 3:41 and that he does not understand anything, but still. It makes me to want to run faster to show him that I can run faster 1000m!
Therefore running alone somewhere in the woods is so much better:) No pressure (apart from Garmin).
After the workout I did 4k cool down, some abs and back exercises.

Then I spend another hour on visa thing and finally sent it to the sponsoring agency.

At 5pm I decided that I should benefit from the awesome weather we have today and that I should go get some peanut butter and those protecting things for knees and elbows for roller skaters (yeah, I brought my skates with me from Slovakia and I am very likely to kill myself in next few days using them).
So 8k to the store, bought "protectors", eggplant and peanut butter (I just realized that I bought the chunky one instead of smooth one. Well, the advantage is that now I am not going to eat the entire jar in 2 days) and 8k back.
I got to my room at 9pm and I am exhausted.

I have quiz in school tomorrow and have not studied for it yet. It seems that I will have to get up at 7am again tomorrow to get prepared.

Just running log

12k easy run (used my knee support and no problem)
2h of a pretty intense volleyball practice (we have final tournament of Coupe de France this weekend and our coach apparently thinks that he can make wonders with us this week)

Week update

Ok, so I am back to France.

As I had predicted I have not run (almost) at all. But this time it was not only my laziness and my non-understanding parents, I had problems with bronchioles and was coughing and it was just better not to run than to listen to my mother's lecture on how I am going to end up getting pneumonia if I run. Not running was so much easier than listening to that:)

So Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday = no run.
I wonder whether it is possible to gain 13 pounds in a week because if it is, I am sure I did it.
I spend 4 days with my parents and 4 with grandparents and you can imagine how it is when you visit your parents and grand-parents after almost 5 months. They prepare all your favorite foods and my family is no exception. I end up eating way too much cakes, pies, ice cream (when my mom and grandmother were not watching), nuts, fruits, puddings and more cakes and pies. Occasionally I ate also some normal food but 94,73% of my food was sweet. I know, I am an idiot. But it can not do any harm once or twice a year. I hope.

Basically I was loaded with sugar and then I had this great idea to run 10k race on Saturday in a city where my parents leave. By Saturday my cough was gone but I still had to listen to "pneumonia lecture" both from my mom and grandmom.
One would guess that being loaded with sugars should help me, but no. I was sluggish and it was a pure torture.
The fact that I had no running clothes with me was not helping neither- I wore my worn-out trails sneakers and old pants that were too short and too loose so I looked like a complete weirdo compared to other runners that were wearing shorts or spandex.
I ran 44:35 (and was 1st woman (out of 4:)), but not prize money, grrr).
Now I know that doing nothing but eating sugar all week before a race does not help my performance:) But I should have known before...

Today I did another stupid thing: I decided to do 12k since I am back in France and bored and I decided not to wear my supportive knee bandage. Bad decision. I did 8.5k and then had to stop because my knee started to act up. So I walked 3.5k back. I hope it will not have any consequences. But it is weird because I started running at the beginning of March so I though that I should already be fine without support, but apparently not. This means that my knee is not 100% yet! Bummer. But I am going to keep running but only with bandage.

On non-running note: I got the internship with Detroit company. I am soooooo excited!!!! But I need to start on June 1 and there is no way that they can obtain permission from US homeland security/immigration office to hire me in less than 4 weeks so it seems that I will have to get visa paperwork form one of those hyperexpensive agencies (it will cost me around 1000Euros min). But I am sure it is worth it.

Now I am off to study for Accounting final exam I have tomorrow.

3k track race

Let's start by saying that I am impressed by myself. I am not impressed by my time but myself, remember that please.

Today was the JOURNEE PREPARATOIRE AU CHAMPIONNAT UNIVERSITAIRE D’ILE DE FRANCE race in Anthony. This race was basically the race where athletes could test themselves before actual IDF championship that is May 6.
I did not know until last minute whether I will do 3k or 1500.
It has turned out that they do have 3k race so I signed up.

I have felt really tired the whole day because I went to sleep at 1am the night before and had to get up at 7am.
Let me think about other excuses for couple minutes now:)

I was the only girl signed up for 3k. Bummer. So they let me run with guys who did 5k. At least I was not alone...for first 200m, then almost all of them were way ahead of me.
I felt ok. My plan was to try to run 11min, but I did not feel very confident that I can do it. I decided to start at 88s per lap pace and see whether I can keep the pace or whether I die after 2k.
I started too fast first 200m at 38s but then immediately slowed down. I managed to keep 88-91s pace for the whole 3k but my arms were hurting and my calves were/are killing me!
Last lap I was catching up onto the last 5k guy and I wanted to pass him so I "sprinted" the last lap in 82. I got him 150m to go.
My final time: 11:00.88.
As I said, 11min is not that fast generally speaking, but I think it is pretty good for me. My high school PR was something around 10:38 (or was it 10:28, or 10:42, well, I do not remember). But one sure thing is that I have not run this fast in couple years. I ran faster than under coach L "leadership". That proofs something I guess (1, either that I was a major slacker or that 2, coach L was no good. I go with the second choice. She never listened to me and it took me 2,5years to persuade her that I was not a distance runner. And she had "one training suits everyone" attitude).

I am freaking excited about this because I really was not sure whether I can run 11min. But I CAN!
I am little disappointed that it was not under 11 but I cannot have everything. I feel that I could have run it under 11, maybe not much faster but at least couple seconds.

On non-running note:

Change of plans: Detroit company boss will call me on Monday. 4 more days of nervousness.

I am leaving tomorrow for Slovakia to visit my parents for a week. I am not too excited about that, I would prefer staying here, but they are excited. They are even taking couple days off work to be with me. I wanted to take 2 suitcases and was already ok with the fact that I have to drag them 2k to train station and then change 3 times before getting to bus station. (Did I mention I am taking a bus from Paris to Slovakia and it is a 19h-long drive? ) But no trains will operate between my school and Paris after 9am tomorrow because of "travaux". They provide buses but I am not going to count on them because they are even worse than Greyhound buses between Boston and NYC. So, I need to go to Paris at 9am and if I manage to get to Paris then I have wait for more than 4 hours at a bus station. No way I am taking 2 suitcases in these circumstances!
But what am I going to do with all my crap? Why do I move so often? Why cannot I just stay at one place for at least 5 years?

My parents are not too enthusiastic and supportive about my running (my mom mostly), I have not even told them that I ran a marathon and they do not know that I train every day. So I am not sure whether I will be able to get in some runs next week, but I will try. Also, I will be without internet connection for couple days, so I will not update my running blog:(

Last two days

were crazy!

It is midnight and I still need to take shower and I have race tomorrow. Not that I am super careful about doing "the right things" before races, but still...Midnight is pretty late for me in general.

Anyway, quick running post:

Tuesday: 1k w/u, 6x400m pretty slowly @ 1:26, 1:25, 1:23, 1:24, 1:23, 1:23, c/d 1k. To stay fresh for tomorrow race.
Then I went to see the musical our school theater group prepared and it was pretty awesome (and it has nothing to do with the fact that the cute volleyball guy I have mentioned few times before was playing there).

Wednesday: no running. I wanted to but did not have time and honestly, I do not think that today's run would make that much difference for tomorrow.
2h volleyball practice, but it was pretty pathetic since our coach was not there.

I sold my home trainer today, finally and I am really glad I got rid of that thing. I sold it for half the price I paid for it but there was nothing else I could do with it. I am not dragging it along with me to Slovakia and to the US and then who-knows-where I will end up living.

And I have received a phone call from Detroit company today and THE big boss wants to talk to me, so tomorrow my future (or at least my summer future) will be determined. I am pretty nervous but the thing they want to talk to me is a good sign, right? If they did not wanted me they would have already told me, right? But let's just wait till tomorrow 3pm ETS (which I guess is 8pm here...).

Wish me look for tomorrow. Still do not know what I am going to run.
I was excited about this race few days ago but now I am little scared because my Tuesday's workout felt maybe a little bit too harder than it was supposed to feel. Well, we shall see tomorrow.

Some running and volleyball

I already miss a beach and gorgeous weather we had in Barcelona...It has been cold and windy, although sunny all day in Paris.

I decided that I would not go running today. I did not have any particular reason, just wanted to take a rest and "taper" before Thursday's race and maybe work on presentation that I am supposed to have on Thursday morning...(BTW, it seems that they changed the schedule and there is no 3k race on Thursday, which means that I will have to do 1500m. I hope that they put 3k back). But this "insane" thought of not running somehow vanished later in the day and I did 7k easy run around the lake on our campus.

Then I got back to my room, drank one glass of water, change my running shoes to volleyball shoes and went to play a volleyball match. This was a last minute thing, because until few minutes before the match we were not sure whether we have enough players. But we did and we went to Orsay to have some volleyball fun. Of course we lost (no surprise there, since it seems that our setter is still drunk from Barcelona...) but we had super fun. At least I did. I played the whole match and again had my bright moments:) Our coach was however pretty satisfied with our performance. He said that this was the first lost match of the whole season that we really played well because other matches that we lost were due to our "ridiculous performance" not due to strong opponents. Well, ok, he knows.

Of course I did not do anything for my presentation, I really need to start working on it tomorrow. Nothing can distract me, except maybe running practice and then some beach volleyball :)

Barcelona weekend

Barcelona was fun but let me just say that I was the only one who went there to do sports...

I was too naive and thought that it was about volleyball. In fact it was more about parties, sangria and tapas. (There is one thing about me: I do not like parties, going out with people in night and I do not drink)

Of course we played also volleyball: we had two teams, and both of them managed to get to quarterfinals but there we got eliminated. Which meant BEACH TIME!

Thursday: No volleyball. Some sightseeing and then a run. Yeah, you read it right. I brought my running shoes and ran. I did 6k, then 10x 100m (approximately) strides on sand and 6k run back, and stretching. Evening was a party time, although I went to bed at midnight while the others continued training *drinking* for next day matches.

Friday: Well, let's just say that after hard "training" night some of our players had hard time getting up and we missed out first match. Bummer. Still managed to win other matches and qualified for next stage. Evening, sightseeing for some, running for me. 10k at pretty fast pace but my knee started to bother me:( "Training" continued throughout the night, but I got to bed at midnight again, although I got woken up at around 3am...

Saturday: We managed to get to out matches on time. Hooray! But lost:( Nobody was complaining because that way we could have gone to the beach and spend the rest of the day laying on a beach and swimming. I got sunburned. I decided not to run because of my knee. I did not want to push it too much. But I walked kinda a lot. Around 15k, not bed. No party for me that night, although the other came back at 5 in the morning...just in time to start getting ready to get to the airport:)

Sunday: No run, no nothing. Took a flight back to Paris and then met Lena and Hannah in Paris for hot chocolate. It has been almost 2 years since I have not seen them so it was really cool. I am glad we managed to get together.
Then it took me more that 2hours to get back to school although it is only 15k from Paris. Not only it was Sunday (which means train once in a hour) but SNCF workers are on strike (again)...

It is 11pm and I am dead. Quick shower and I am off.

If something interesting from this weekend pops into my mind, I will add it tomorrow.

No run

No run today. Only 2 hours of volleyball practice and tomorrow morning I am off for some more volleyball at EuroESADE on Barcelona beaches!
Of course, I am packing my running shoes with me:)

Tempo runs, blah

Today was the hottest day this year so far and I loved it.

I do not know why, but my quadriceps were kind of sore today. It might have something to do with running with my backpack yesterday.
I have not realized it until I started doing a warm up run. Our coach wanted us to do 6x250m all out (oh, I hate it!) but I was sure it was not a good idea because of my muscle tightness. I persuaded him to let me do tempo run. My first tempo run in more that 2 years. Man, I hate tempo runs (because I suck at them) but they are supposed to be good for your training, so why the hell not trying one. I was not really sure how far or fast I should go but somewhere in the back of my memory storage thing I remembered something about Coogan loop and how we did one loop twice and then rest and repeat. It was something like 3 miles repeats. I do not remember exactly because those are not nice memories and I try to erase them:) I hated the run and was not able to finish it. I managed it once (maybe twice) though.
Therefore I decided to do 2x 3 miles (5k in European language) at 6:40-45ist pace with 10min rest. 6:40ist pace because that was my pace for 10k three weeks ago, so I though it is reasonable.
First 5k was ok, not too hard, nicely controlled, I did it in 20:59, which is 4:13/6:43ish pace. But honestly, I was not sure whether I can do next 5k at that pace.
I started the second one and told myself "let's see how it goes. You can drop out, nobody knows what you are shooting for and you can lie and say I wanted to do 1k if they ask you". And surprisingly it went better that the first one, 4:12 pace, 20:55. Really, with less effort. The only negative thing (except for my splits:)) was that I was getting really hot. I did not want to run in my sports bra because it is just something people do not do here and they are not used to that and our rugby players had practice at the same time and some high school track team boys were there too. But it was unbearable so I got rid of my t-shirt and you boys better get used to it because I am not going to suffer just to not make you feel uncomfortable. Although I do not think that they mind it that much:)
So tempo run did not go that badly, I might try to repeat it once in a while.

I did core and legs exercises afterwards (abs, back rises, squads, calf rises etc).

When I finally got to my room after 3 hours, I got a call from our volleyball captain asking whether I want to join him and couple other players in 10min for beach volleyball. Yeah, why not, I am not dead yet (close though), so I should finish myself, right? 2 hours of beach volley was a lot of fun, although I am sure my calves and quads will love me for that tomorrow.

Now it is time to finally start working on my strategy case report. Yeah, the one that I wanted to start and finish yesterday...

One positive thing about studying in Europe

Yeah, it is true. After all my weaning about stupid European school system and why the f*** I have not stayed in the USA, I found ONE thing: Easter Monday = no school, no work, no nothing. (I am not sure how it is in the US in general, but at least at Brown we did not have this day off).

No school, no rain! I have enjoyed this day to my complete satisfaction!
Although I promised to myself that I will finish (but I need to start first, right?) my case report for strategy class on Thursday and continue sending more internship applications, I failed terribly.
I have received email this morning (!which means that they sent it on Sunday evening...) from company in Auburn Hills that they will contact we within 10 days about next steps. What the heck does that mean? That I got an internship and we will discuss visa issues or that they will let me know whether I am taken or not. Or what?!? Why cannot they just tell me YES (or no, but I would still prefer yes:) I secretly hope it means discussing visa issues therefore I have not had any urge to send more applications today.
Nothing happened that could have destroyed my urge to write a case report though, so still need to work on it.

I was thinking about finding a way to get to either Paris on foot or to La Miniere lakes. I have been to La Miniere before on bike and I liked it and I knew that it is not too far and that I can walk there and then run back. I packed my backpack with food (aka candy), water and cloths and I went. I have not followed the road I took when on bike and rather try to find trails that go there. And I was successful. It was awesome.



Horse farm and viaduct


Me on a bridge


One of La Miniere lakes



It took me 2 hours to get there and I ate way too much candy but I was happy. I wished I lived closer, that way I could run there every single day! There are 3 lakes and one of them is huge. I took me almost an hour to walk all the way around it. Lot of people were out enjoying holiday and nice weather.

After 3 hours of walking, I put on my running shorts, drank some water and decided to run back. It was pretty good easy run. I was running with a backpack and I love the thing. It is one of those backpacks for running/adventure races that has different straps and therefore does not jiggle around as you run. It was definitely more difficult to run with it but it had not bothered me at all.

Ok, now I am going to write that strategy case report about Patagonia. (I am also thinking about applied for an internship there...)

Sunday long run

"There's no such thing as bad weather, just soft people." Definitely true!

I was supposed to run with a friend today but she sent me a text message in the middle of the night saying that she cannot make it. (On one hand, I like company and was glad to run with someone, but on the other hand, this girl is not fast at all and we would have done together maybe 5k at 6min/km pace (my most optimistic scenario), so it was also kinda relief when I learnt that I going to run alone)

I header out at around noon after I ate one grapefruit (I love grapefruits) for 18-20k easy run, trying to do the loop I wanted to do last week but could not because of a scary dog.
Then 19k, 5 rain showers, 1 hailstorm (I felt like a bad-ass, although I am sure that people in cars driving by thought I was crazy), 6x30sec pick-ups later I was soaked, tired but happy! My average pace was 4:58min/km. Which is great because I was not even trying.
My legs felt fresh, probably because they were well rested due to a VERY slow run yesterday, although my butt was still sore after Friday's strength exercises, but it loosen up after couple kilometers.
Those pick-ups and hailstones definitely helped to speed up my pace:)

Since I ate only one grapefruit before this run, it was not lack of energy that made me feel tired yesterday. It was something else, not sure what though.

I did 30ish minutes of yoga right after the run. I did something less challenging this time and it felt good. I am going to carry on with yoga!

Of course when I was done running, sun started to shine and clouds disappeared... I hope it stays like this for next few weeks/months. I could not restrain myself and went for a 2-hours long walk because I was soooo bored. I do not have any friends, I do not have my bike and I cannot stare into computer screen all day long. So I grabbed an apple and a packet of PB M&Ms and off I went:)

I am back

I have neglected my blog past 2 days but I am back now.

Thursday:
We had school practice and did 6x500m (what a surprise....we do that every week. But I am already like whatever.)
It went awesome and much better than last week although I ran alone and I did 300m jog between not 300m walk. Truth is that I ran alone because nobody else wanted to do 300m jog, they thought that it was too hard that way. So they walked, suckers. :)
I managed to be very consistent and it did not felt as hard as last week. I did 1:40, 1:41, 1:40, 1:40, 1:41, 1:40. I am pretty excited. Hopefully my workouts continue going this well.

Friday:
14.5k easy run and felt pretty good although weather is horrible here. Like a real April weather.
Did weights (legs) afterwards: 5x (20 both-legged squads, 15 left-legged squads, 15 right-legged squads), and few exercises for quadriceps and I am soooooo sore today.

Saturday:
Mu butt being sore from those squads (rain and the fact that I have not eaten anything this morning) might have something to do with my horrible run today. I did 14k and felt awfully sluggish and I had to walk the last hill because I was so tired (I wanted to start walking many times before that but pushed myself not to stop, but that hill was too much. I am that weak.). But I got a run in and that's good.

March SUMMARY

March mileage: 161k (100miles)
Mileage total (2010): 702k
Mileage by weeks:
1-7 0k
8-14 29k
15-21 47.5k
22-28 73.5k
29-31 11k


Others:
Walking: 62k
Bike: indoor: 2h outdoor:245k
Volleyball: 3.5h
Weights: 3x
Push Ups Challenge: W2 (total 218), W3 (300), W4(240- did not do day 3)

I did a lot of bike and walking first week of March, but then I started running on Friday 13/3 and knee felt ok since. Sold my bike on 13/3:( (One of the saddest days of my life, really)
One race on 18/3: 10k on track (42:13), felt good, I hope I do another 10k to see what I can do if I try to push myself.
Running is going great for now, I am excited to see what times I can do.