Tag Archives: Fitness

Mid pack runner defeat

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Wednesday marked the first Franks XC race of the year. I have talked about these before but the short of the long is that they are a series of XC races that run for ~5 weeks in fall then spring all between 4-8km and I have been doing them for about 5 years now.

It was miserable out. I mean its mid-April and still snowing. They had to change the course to paved trail instead of XC track it was so bad. Fml

It was freezing my legs have been super tight and my stomach factory has been working over or under time depending on its mood – not making the situation better. My specialist thinks I have “lazy bowels” my response to him was well what happens when they are not lazy and I almost poo in my pants. Hmmm?

Alas I decided to run anyways because that’s what I do and it was only 5.25 km. About 1 km in my whole body kinda cramped basically it was telling me “Teagan you are so SO dumb. We hate you” and my right hamstring started to hurt. I wanted to drop out but I kept running slower and slower then walking then built energy run pass people then walk etc etc. I fully admit I am not close to front pack but I am defiantly a mid to high pack runner on good days in my age category. I knew a shit ton of people passing me are people I usually beat just hurting my “ego”. As the race went on my hamstring totally cramped so I would walk then build enough strength to pass people then it would cramp again so I gave up and turtled to the finish 29 minutes and 50 seconds. On the way home I am sure (I know I was) I was a sassy cat to Jesse who ran a good race 25 min or so and he is nice enough to put up with my relentless antics and analysis of every race we run.

Got home hobbling around stretching everywhere magically wishing the mild nagging pain will just disappear and waiting to check the results. Refresh – refresh – refresh. During this time I talked to my mother and father who BOTH told me not to run COMPLETELY separate I mean the people are divorced haha. And the inevitable response from them to their 25 year old daughter that is “mature” enough to own a house was;

Mother – “Well told you so. It’s a good thing you are only doing a 5km race when you go to Hawaii tomorrow not the marathon you were going to do”

Father – “What did I tell you yesterday. Not to run. Don’t you race again in like four days. You never listen to your parents you turkey”

Haha after these kind and true words I laughed because Jesse reads me the riot act about over training and not listening to my body. So although I feel defeated for running poorly in an amazingly insignificant race I finally learned a valuable lesson about myself that has taken me 6 years of competitive running and more than one injury.

Take time to stretch, listen to your body, recognize some races don’t really matter hell most don’t they are just races, and last but should be first listen to your family they know you best.

So how did it end? I ran 5.25km in 29.50 came in 26th out of 39 in my age category. And in the end it doesn’t really matter haha but I made a mountain out of a molehill and FINALLY learned a lesson. Emburrrassssing (yes that is suppose to be spelt wrong)

In the words of my coach one of my favourite people on the planet.

“You won’t get fat or slower for taking a week or two off”

Currently I am on a plane to Hawaii with a cramping hamstring that is suppose to race on Sunday and I am the only one to blame.

Ps – Family I love you all of you crazy animals.

The summer post sin 7

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After Sinister 7 this year my body gave me a giant F you. My legs were tired and I felt completely depleted; the week post Sin I ran 40km when I should have been resting this also did not help my cause. So I decided not to sign up for Merriot Duathlon (where I wanted to get top 3 to apply for Tri Canada POO) and not to sign up for the St.Albert Tri and not to do the Edmonton half marathon. I really wanted to do the St.Albert Tri and the Merriot Duathlon this year because I have been putting lots of km on my road bike and in the pool since Sin ruined my legs and I mixed up my training. Two years ago when I did the St.Albert Tri-a-tri I got second so I really wanted to come back and push hard in the Sprint – however there is always next year and the year after that! Next year I will for sure I am going to race a Duathlon qualifier.

For the last few weeks I have been running 30km/week and a minimum of 30-50km on my bike! I even had a 35km road bike business meeting; it was awesome minus the fact I couldn’t clip out fast enough at one spot and ate poo during a meeting so embarrassing. On the long weekends Jesse and I always go to Jasper so of course we were there August long! We hiked/ran Whistlers with Chocolate his first big hike and did all the normal stuff. I got a few good runs in while we were there and our puppy thinks camping in the bomb diggity because the tent is a giant snooze pillow and he thinks deer should be his best friend.

Snoozing in the tent.

On our hike. Someone is more interested in the birds.

So pretty. Whistlers.

Things are finally back to normal this weekend we are going to the cabin, next weekend we race 5 Peaks Chickacoo one of our favorites minus Devon which is the BEST ONE EVER; and then we will be back in Jasper for September long with our best friends and their new puppy. Him and Chocolate are becoming the best of friends.

Then from there we are back to September, which for me is the busiest time of my life; because I work in a post secondary and I start coaching cross country again. I have tailored my training to cross country specific now, last week was my first week back training specific XC and it was awesome. My fastest 5km time was 24 minutes so I am very pleased and my 30×1 w/ 1 intervals went really well. I will be training XC specific with a mix of ultra training thrown in there (Sunday LONG runs) because on October long I will be soloing the Grizzly Ultra 50km with Jesse and our best friends will be there to cheer us on and help with our pup. Love them AND we get to have a big thanksgiving together.

Anyways back to zooming; MY FAVORITE race series of all time starts in a few weeks the Frank McNamara Wednesday night races – fall races are much harder than spring but they are awesome because all the post secondary teams run them so there its lots of people and I get to run with my team! This will be my 5th year of Franks races between all the members in my family including Josie we have a bizillon franks shirts!

I was looking in to doing Canada Pentiction Ironman next year but it is just too much money right now because we want to buy a house and on top of our normal warm holidays registration alone for the full iron = one week in Mexico; so I am thinking of doing Canada Calgary Half Ironman and my dad and I are doing the 175km Tour de’l Alberta 175km together because he road bikes also!

That is all for now and remember to eat healthy because;

hahahaha too funny I had too!

Sinister 7 2012

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Was REALLY REALLY HAWT. This year Sinister was amazing as per usual but was hot as sin (get the joke hahaz).

Sinister this year was awesome the race directors never fail to amaze me; they put on such a great well-organized event and find the worlds best volunteers ever. I mean ever mad kudos to all the volunteers and especially the ones at the water station on leg two that kept refilling my water cup and feeding me gummy bears. On top of this group of amazing people the transitions and course were full of amazing people from the running community.

I am dead serious trail running people are the nicest, coolest, and most helpful humans on this planet. I had the great fortune to run with some soloists and other team runners on the legs I did. I also got to see grand acts of kindness in action. One of the coolest things I saw was a man coming in from leg three absolutely destroyed he couldn’t walk anymore and two other people carried/dragged him across the field to the transition line to chip in so his next team runner could go out. Now people say running isn’t a team sport well let me tell you ultra running is and people will literally kill themselves for their team. I saw it happen more than once.

My team was made up of incredible people I could not have asked for a better group of individuals to run sin this year in the blistering heat.

I ran legs one and two. It was super sweet; I would do it again any day. The first leg was fast the beginning 10km were flat and fast then from there it was a steady easy climb up a giant hill in to the trail system. I had a great run for the first 12km then had to poo REALLY bad so I throttled back and walked a bit to the transition; I would have gone in the trees but it was super exposed and pooping in the open is awkward for others. Really really awkward. I came in to transition 1 and had a quick bathroom break and a glass of water then headed out for leg two. This is when it started to get hot; I had a grand hike/slow jog for a while that eventually turned in to some great flat and down hill running. From there I had another giant climb then it was downhill the whole way home. There was a longggg downhill section of single-track mud which was SUPER fun to run. The only minus of the whole run was I got a small tear in my new compression sleeves and I ran slower than I wanted too. But it was hot and I finished fairly strong so I am very pleased with that 32 km.

Legs 1&2 of Sinister 7

Something pretty funny/kinda scary for my sister who ran leg 6 (the leg I did last year). Right before she went out for her first night and ultra/ mountain run ever one of the volunteers announced a cougar was actually on her leg. I seriously thought she was going to vomit in her camelbak. Then she went out and threw down like Bobby Flay. After she was like crazy high on adrenaline and I thought she was ready to like go to war. However; this was actually positive. Everyone on the team ran well and I think (HOPE) everyone had a good time!

This year of Sinister was hard for a lot of people and I give mad kudos to any soloist that finished. You people are my heroes; Sinister is damn hard and in the blistering heat it is even harder. I read all the posts on the Sinister 7 Facebook group and they make me smile all the time; I love hearing all the stories and knowing I get to be apart of such a great event every year! I will run Sinister for ever; seriously so fun and I encourage everyone to do something this cool.

At the pre-race meeting the MC said that it is amazing all of us (runners) decide to put ourselves through hardship when we live in a society that could live hardship free. I think that was a really powerful thing to say and its true because if anyone tells you it’s easy they are lying. I promise.

Start line.

Post 32km. Munching oranges.

That is all on Sinister 2012 for now. I will post more when I get more photos and such. My computer is also going to die and I left my charger at work so I am out of time!

Another year of Wednesday night races in the bag

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Yesterday marked the final race of the Spring Frank Mcnamara Wednesday night race series. There are 5 races in the series; personally I think the spring series runs are supAr fun. This is my third year racing them and every year seems to get better. This year I beat all my times by a minimum of a minute I also came in 8th in my age category, usually out of 20 plus girls. I’m super pumped about all of that considering my goal was top 10 each race. How we say success. The only pit fall of the series was at the last race my stomach was acting up pretty bad and by pretty bad I mean I was constipated (gross I know). So I took an Aleve to subside the pain? It helped a bit…ish. Now to rectify this little hiccup I am drinking smooth exit tea – YEAH that’s the real name; what if the exit isn’t smooth hmm? It tastes like weird camomile tea. Awesome, we will see how that pans out; even the package it comes in looks all weird organic medicine-y.

Training has been going really well; last week I was in Jasper with work and I got in some great training (in my favorite place super shocker I know). I didn’t take any photos which, was totally my fault but I did hill intervals at Old Fort Point with the sheeps and ran with the elks almost everyday. It’s May so they are out in full force. My interval day I did up Pyramid lake road they were 9 – 3 minute intervals w/ 1 min walk 1min jog. This is my little fancy chart thing from the run to spice this post up.

Interval training day. Woot.

I did a few two-a-days; they are hard but I noticed a difference in my performance when I did an am run before a Wednesday night race. I felt really strong and ready to go. Now that we are in May I have started back training in the pool and on my awesome possum bike because Tri season will start for me in August. I sport my swim cap and one piece bathing suit – I am sexy and I know it. Then I go back to work looking like a drowned rat because I swim on my lunch break once per week. Sew tutes. Back to running training; I have started running more in my 5 fingers so like once a week instead of once every 2 or 3 or 5 weeks. I truly love them but usually just wear them on hiking, adventures, and in the gym. It has been a nice change they are so comfs. (comfy if you didn’t catch my personal abbreviation).

This Saturday will be the first 5 Peaks race of the year! Party on! Can’t wait hopefully I race it much better than last year because I got the shit kicked out of me. No lie but I still had fun because they are that awesome. Then I am gone to Ontario for work for Cystic Fibrosis Canada Shinerama! My people! Then the weekend after that is the Blackfoot Ultra, I will be doing the 25km baby ultra. See there is my training schedule and motivation notes. Nerd nerd nerd nerd. Also the  picture will not rotate you can do some neck stretches to look at it if you wish.

 

The picture will not rotate I do not know why.

That is all.

 

For now.

 

Garmins 1 Year Anniversary

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Today was my Garmins (Garmys) 1st Anniversary. It has been a fantastic year; that addictive watch and I have faced a lot. Investing $175.00 on my visa when I was a poor student was worth it..now that I am all grown up and work full time and such.

In the last year that watch and I have adventured in 3 countries, many provinces, through mountains, on beaches, and here at home. Classic classic.

See on a mountain. Sulpher skyline to be exact.

 

Here is the report from the last year of Garmin runs, this includes everything except 30 or so treadmill runs last winter when its was minus 7905739025 and 905739 feet of snow!

Just my Garmy Stats.

I am very fortunate that running brings a lot of happy in to my life even when sometimes it doesn’t seem fun. I also love to nerd out to my Garmin I think it is just the coolest invention ever. Besides grape flavored nuun tabs my new love in the electrolyte drink department. IT MAKES WATER TASTE LIKE GRAPE POP! Invest.

In honor of Garmins 1st birthday we went on a SOLID interval run fueled strictly by chocolate because it is Easter after all. Did you know Ferraro Roche makes FULL chocolate bunnies. Invest. Todays workout was 30 x 1 minute intervals with 30 sec walk 30 sec jog recovery. My splits were awesome regardless of knee pain! I wanted to put my behemoth chart of my splits here but it is giant and looks stupid. So a quick summary 80% of my intervals were sub 5 min km; the slowest I ever got was 5:15 km. Overall 9.3km. It was a great run and I am very pleased. Runners high all over here.

In bigger news I am washing my running clothing that has not seen a washing machine for awhile….a long while… and the Frank McNamara Wednesday night races start this week. I went and pre-ran the course with Josie yesterday to see how the trails are and they are MUDDY. It should be a fun run this will be my 3rd time racing it!

And that is all. For now.

 

Why Pinterest Is Evil…..and wonderful.

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We all know what Pinterest is, the site women go crazy over because they can sit at their computer and look at pretty things over and over and over. Now I am not hating on Pinterest I am also on the wagon; I have made a magical wardrobe online, it is like a reference point for when I go shopping. There is also really cute pictures of animals and I luffs myself a tute animal photo.

Why is Pinterest evil?

Because of the “motivational” photos all over it. Some of them are very positive but I find a lot of photos that girls will just sit there and look at and wish they could be that. Some of the photos allude to thinspiration; which is something that people with eating disorders obsess over. Trying to be that skinny, or that fit, or that small. Also staring at “hot” people on a computer screen won’t get you in shape; I find it easy to waste time on Pinterest and that could be valuable time for some people to work out. I use to be super addicted and now I just “Pin” if I am bored or have free time, like my day off from running. Also under many of the picture girls pin they write “one day”. It is the purest form of media influencing people to hate themselves.

This girl is shredded. She also probably only eats chicken, celery, and egg whites.

This girl is shredded. She also probably only eats chicken, celery, and egg whites.

Screenshot taken right from Pinterest.

Many of these girls are fitness models, who live and train to be shredded and super fit. The everyday person is not going to look like that from working out a little bit. It is also important to find targets that your body can actually meet because everyone is not born super tall and thin. Below are two of my favorite “fitness” pins.

This is fairly accurate.

Hahahahahahha so true.

Now for some more positive words about Pinterest; you can find fancy outfits, funny things, and cute pets; here are some of my favorite pins.

No one would mess with this super cat.

Hai GURL, just working on my fitness.

hahahah

I get han-gry all the time haha

That is all for now, time to be productive and all that stuff adults do.

10 Thank You Thursdays

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Thank you and Thursday sound fancy together so I thought I would make a quick list of things I am thankful for. I’m even going to use numbered bullets and photos.

  1. The fact that kilometers are superior to miles for two reasons. km = Canadian and km’s sound way more impressive than miles. “I ran 13.1 miles today, oh really I ran 21.1km” Sounds so much better.
  2. The Nest had an ice cream special on today and I ate it at 10:30 in the morning. I now feel extremely sick regardless of taking lactose pills. But that is okay because it was DELISH. I will also never learn.

    Nomnomnom chocolate and roasted coconut.

  3. The cool new shirt I just bought. I luffs it. Shameless self photo via computer in my office.
    Yes, I took this photo in my office with my computer
  4. The beautiful weather in my less than beautiful city. Its finally in the double digits sometimes which, is very nice 10 and 12 degrees you make me smile!

    12! Like the tropics!

  5. That running has been going pretty good lately. My stomach has been acting up really bad but I have still made it through all my runs and they are all in the sunshine. I even am starting to take my gloves off and hill training twice a week! Holla!

    3km of hills after a 7km run.

  6. I just got a new keyboard because my other one broke while writing this post. The cap locks did not want to turn off and I don’t think people want to READ THIS ALL THE TIME. It feels like typing on magical clouds with spurts of rainbows and kittens running around. I am sure this will up more productivity 5%. Thank you work for the new keyboard.
  7. My big fat tax return. Thank you to my mothers fancy tax program and data input skills for getting me this haha. I doubled my “I might have enough money for a down payment for a house when I am 80″ savings account by depositing my cheque. My tax return was huge and went in to haus One day it will happen.
  8. This magical cheque also means I have a bit of money I am going to go shopping with. Oh Hai Lululemon.
  9. The Wednesday night cross country race series starts soon and they are my favorite races of all time besides Sinister. Just simply amazing and fun. To top that off Mountian Equipment Co-Op in Edmonton is having a race April 15th. I love MEC and races that cost $10.
  10. Finally, I am thankful for Old Spice Game Day deodorant, yes it is mens but it smells SO GOOD. I will not lie to you I, sometimes smell my armpits during the day it smells that good. It is also superior at masking post running/fitness sweat if you don’t want to shower. Story of my life.

    INVEST.

    That is all for now. I am really excited for summer. I downloaded an oceans sound app to help me daydream about my cabin and summer things. Pathetic I know.

Summer I am coming for you. So tanned and happy haha.

The Skinny on Running

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I don’t run to be skinny. I do activities to be healthy, and to channel the bouts of extra energy I seem to have.

I use to have a fancy glass electronic scale and every morning when I woke up I would weigh myself and record my true weight in my agenda (such a loser). Why did I record these numbers; good question I don’t know either it was just this weird obsession like “oh everyone should monitor their weight” Horse shit. My scale died when Josie thought it would be funny for me to get on his back and jump on the scale to see how high he could get the numbers; I think he got it over 400 pounds. In doing this fun activity repeatedly the fancy glass scale obviously broke; who would have thought. I use to ride Josie’s ass about buying me a new one but in reality I don’t miss my scale at all. I do not really care how much I weigh I know I weigh 125 pounds and have basically weighed the same give or take 5 pounds each way since, I was oh I don’t know 16.

Regardless of my weight I try to eat healthy because that is where weight loss for most people starts! Exercise helps oodles and kaboodles but I think running and fitness stuff should be things people enjoy and look forward to not a chore. I try really hard to eat healthy(ish) somethings I just can not shake…doughnuts, ice cream, cookies etc; I also try and eat clean(ish) because my stomach has it out for me with some foods, I am sure you could ask my toilet what it thinks after I eat dairy it would be a vivid and oh so lovely picture.

My sister got me this for Christmas, so fitting!

More to the point I read a lot of articles, blogs, and talk to many people who say they started running to get skinny. I think most of those people who continue to run or weight train or whatever see that sport is fun for a reason. Weight loss might be a cool side effect for some but I do not believe it should be the catalyst. Also being obsessed about being skinny IS NOT WORTH IT. Being healthy and happy is worth it. That is why I promote sport, coach, and run myself because I like to be healthy and I want to live past age 90, pending I can still walk then.

Mini Teagan blazing trails. Check out the hiking stick and self painted shirt haha.

You can’t live hating yourself because of your size, but you can live wanting to be healthy and having fun. My parents are amazing people who raised my sisters and I outside doing every sport and activity ever, for this I am so grateful and hope that others discover what fitnessy type activity they like to do the most!

For Example,

Mamahen walks and jogs,
Papakins bikes,
Mdawg Bballs and runs,
Hbanana Vballs
Josie, Lifts hcore and runs
I, obviously run

That is all for now, I am off to Jasper again. Shocker I know.

Five Fun Facts

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Fun fact # 1  I made soup. Thats right folks I am the opposite of domestic and I made delicious and healthy vegetable soup. For me this was a HUGE feat. I will also continue to make soup because it is actually really easy.

My creation.

Fun fact # 2 It is starting to get nice out. The other day I ran and it was PLUS 12! I almost fell over with joy because I did not have to wear 32947590576349 layers of clothing. Success.

Fun fact # 3 I have been going to Jasper every two weeks. Lots of fun snowboarding and lots of fun training. MARMOT HAS SO MUCH SNOW = SO MUCH LOVES.

Onsie for the win.

Fun fact # 4 My hip pain is gone but has manifested in to left knee pain. To top off this lovely turn of events I slammed my knee into the wall yesterday. Winning.

Fun fact # 5 Tim Horton’s cups LIE. You DO NOT have a 1 in 6 chance of winning something because I am 0 in over 12.

LIARS

 

In other news I have been crazay busy at my place of employment; training has been going okay minus the fact my body hasn’t been cooperating to the level I would like it too. I am currently only run training 5 times a week and weight training 3. My runs have been kinda wonky noodles lately with my pacing. Some days are great and I am running in the 5:15/km pace band no problem and others I have been struggling to stay at 5:30/km. Josie (aka manfriend) and I have been training together a bit and he said my gait is messed. I am overcompensating on my left side; we ran on Sunday and he said it is starting to get better but I can definitely feel the difference in my training. So I am continuing to work on correction of my gait and get my knee pain to subside.

For the month of March I am only running 30-35km/week to recover and getting ready to up my mileage I am trying to run every km solid and maximize this time of training. aka trying to minimize junk miles. I have been neglecting my yoga practice and I need to slap my self in the face to go more. Yoga is good for me and it HELPS

My training weeks look like this;

Monday – Run off Lift on
Tuesday – Run 5km
Wednesday – Run 5km
Thursday – 8km
Friday – 6km hill intervals Lift on
Saturday Run off Lift on
Sunday 6-10km

As for races I am gearing up for the Spring Franks XC series and then the next big races are 5 Peaks Terwillieger (8mm hardcore trail) the Blackfoot Ultra (25km trail).

Life and the Edmonton Hypo Half

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Life has been CRAZY lately! But really positive crazy; and I love crazy lezbehonest.

Quick catch up of training.

Training has been going extremely well with one hiccup that has been raining on my parade a bit as of late. I have been hitting my weekly mileage goal (30-40k) or surpassing it; since it is March soon I will be adding hill training and regular intervals back in to my schedule to start building up for trail racing season. I have built a solid base as part of my winter training schedule so I can put a big ass check mark beside that. Had a great 10km trail run in Jasper last week; the run was actually brutal and my legs were like rocks from snowboarding the day before but it was good none the less. The hiccup I have been fighting has been my hip; a few (2) weeks ago my hip started to hurt when I was training like it popped out, but like a true stubborn athlete I just fought through the pain and have not stopped training. Then it has started to get a bit worse and sometime I hobble around like a strange cave creature, and to add insult to injury I ate shit on a training run last week on that hip. Karma I tell you. So this past week of mileage was in the big old pooper because I took some time off to try and heal it and to taper for the Hypothermic Half in Edmonton.

Now for the Hypo Half

Honestly there is nothing I enjoyed about this race. It was really expensive. It had snowed over 20cm in the last day before this race which, was well crappy. The course wasn’t plowed at all and the mushy slurpee-oatmeal like snow was really hard on my hip. I wore compression socks, 2 pairs of pants, base layer, base tank, lulu zip up, XC dry fit, and a wind breaker along with hand and head coverings, I felt like the Michelin man. I did something that I have only done 2 times before in my life and that was quit a race. The first two races I dropped from were because I was going to poop my pants and well we all know what that looks like when runners do. If you don’t Youtube it. I started the race knowing I shouldn’t be running on my hip so to “cure” this I took two Aleve (the best pain reliever in the WORLD EVER) But despite that I could start to feel that weird muscle burning you feel when you know you’re hurt at about 4km. I dropped at 10km managed that out in 55 minutes which, is a good time but my body was not having any of it and I did NOT want to risk getting hurt further at a stupid “fun” race. I do not regret dropping it is hard because I am competitive but I know its for the better. As half marathons go I think I will stick with the real Edmo half, the Victoria half, or just major events in general..much much better.

AND Now

Back to normal training and life things. I bought new Inov 8′s (Terraflys) and loving them. I have a serious running shoe addiction but that’s okay these are a great minimalistic trail shoes. I have also been lifting like normal, focusing on major muscle groups and hip stabilization. I saw the movie Act of Valor LOVED IT.

Week of Training

Monday – 5km
Tuesday 5km
Wednesday – Off
Thursday 8km
Friday 6km
Saturday – Off
Sunday 8km

Next week we do hill intervals..oh babay.

I also saw this photo and it is SO SO SO TRUE for runners and made me laugh! Check it!

Story of my life..Totally addicted to my garmin