The Last 2.5 Months

Hey! Yes, I’m still here. Life has been good, but super busy. Here’s a quick recap of the last 2.5 months – in running and non-running news:

August:

• I paced the 2:20 group at the Brazen Summer Breeze Half Marathon, finishing in 2:19:39. This was only 2 weeks after Dirty Dozen, and probably the worst I’ve felt during an easy half marathon. Probably because I was still recovering? (DUH.) I was relieved to finish on-pace, and to have helped several runners finish strong.
  

  
• I traveled to exciting Merced, CA for my first workshop. As part of my job, I have to do several of these workshops a year, where I give a presentation on a specific product, then do a series of hands-on demonstrations. This one was short and sweet, a nice and low-key intro to the experience.

September:

• I raced a 5K at the Race to the End of Summer (RTTEOS) in San Jose. I’ll be honest, I did this mostly for the post-race brunch with SP, bt, and Angela. But it was also nice to run a very short race on a COOL day on a course where I’ve struggled mightily in very hot conditions previously (see: last year’s RTTEOS 10K and this year’s Dream Mile Marathon). I finished in 26:13, good for 3rd in my age group (40-49) and 9th female.
  

  Happy finishers at RTTEOS

• Work was really insane in September. The first week, we had the grand opening of our new office in South SF. Big wigs flew in from all over the U.S. and Germany, so the pressure was on! The next week, I flew to Philly to attend a training. The week after that, I flew to Honolulu for my second workshop. The last week of September was spent catching up with all of the odds and ends from my time away, and getting ready for my first BIG workshop at UC Berkeley.
• Did I mention I was in Hawaii for a week? 4 days of work in Honolulu and 2 days on my own on the North Shore. I couldn’t convince the Gypsy Runner to come with me, so I did some exploring on my own. I also gained 2 lbs. from all of the food I ate!
  

  The North Shore is so ugly. 😉

• The GR and I celebrated our 8th dating anniversary. Woot!
  

  Nothing says true love like bread pudding and peach cobbler a la mode

• We got an Instant Pot. I’d love tips and recipes if you have any to share.
• I got an email from Strava with the depressing stat that I only ran 42 miles in all of September. Some of that I blame on work travel, and some I blame on my own laziness. More on this below.

October (so far):

• Last week was my first “real” workshop, where I had to give a talk on a technology that I’m not super familiar with (#impostersyndrome in FULL EFFECT), and lead ten 2-hour demo sessions throughout the week. Fortunately, one of my colleagues from SoCal came up to help me. He’s an expert on the system, so he answered all of the questions I couldn’t. Compared to my last two workshops, this one was more stressful because I had to be on my game at all times, because the audience was much more advanced and knowledgeable (sorry for the shade, UC Merced and University of Hawaii, but it’s the truth). Anyway, I’m happy it’s over, but I have to do it all again the week of the 15th at UC Davis. The good news is that the UC Davis workshop is my last schedule workshop for the year.

So, I wanted to write a quick blurb about fitting in running amidst work travel. I’ve been in my new-new position for 5 months now, and while I really enjoy it, it has been hard on my running routine. When I was still training for Dirty Dozen, I managed to fit runs in, but there were whole weeks where my weekday mileage was below double digits because I just couldn’t fit in any runs. This is especially true when I have to travel to the East Coast for work. Usually, I don’t mind getting up early to run, but I draw the line at when I have to get up at 3am Pacific Time *and* still have to be functional at work. Most of those days on the East Coast start at 8am Eastern Time — and we often have work dinners at the end of the day. So, the best I can usually do is walk on the treadmill for an hour after dinner, while I’m still digesting. Could I run at 9 or 10 pm? Sure, but I don’t tend to sleep very well when I run so late in the day.

Even when I’m in my own time zone, there are weeks (like this past week), where I would’ve had to get up at 5am to run. I know that some people are really good at getting up at the butt crack of dawn to get their runs in no matter what, but I’ve decided that it’s not worth it to me at this point in time. If anything, I should get better at going out for post-work runs, or just being more flexible in general about running whenever I get a chance instead of being so regimented.

Anyway, it’s a work in progress. While I don’t have any specific goals in mind, I would still like to run 3-4 times a week, 15-20 miles total. I also know that my work schedule will ebb and flow, and that this has been a particular busy couple of months. Fortunately, things look lighter in November/December. I hope to take advantage of that and start rebuilding my base for London at that point.

Random photo of the GR and I from September, posted just because I think it’s a nice photo of us

 

About Jen

Howdy! My name is Jen and I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. I like to eat, run, and blog, but not usually at the same time.

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Tagged with: 5K, pacing, random, travel, work
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