Runnin' The Mile!

I need to give people awesome nicknames for this blog, I mean Kakes is awesome as a person and a nickname, and Warlordblade too! So yeah - everybody gets nicknames!

Back in Jr. High Gym Class every Friday morning was the dreaded "Mile Run".

EVERYBODY in the class had to do it - AND they'd post a list of the fastest kids in the coaches window outside the locker room.

I think my top ranking (somewhere around a 6:45 minute mile, but I don't trust my own memory on that!) was 11th or 12th once, and usually I was more in the middle to back of all the boys my age.

Awesome right?

The past two weeks have been our Olympics at work - I shared my plank results in the last entry. Today was the 2nd to last event - the "Triathlon". Yeah it's not REALLY a triathlon, not even close. The only thing related is that it has running in it. 3 people from the team pick one of the 3 events, Mile Run, 25 Burpees, 100 Jump Rope - and the combined time from start to finish is the teams score.  I took the Mile Run because a month ago in our anniversary HIIT warmup I ran around our block in 6:33 and thought I could do it faster on a flat course.

So this morning for some reason I was REALLY nervous about this mile race. There are only 5 teams in this Olympics... so there were only 4 people other than me! Almost all of the fastest runners, the hardcore runners, marathoners, triathletes, crossfitters, etc were represented in this group of 5. For some reason the whole thing brought up memories and doubts WAY back from Jr. High.

So anyway, we lined up, started, and I took off in the lead - setting a very fast pace which I kept pretty steadily for the first quarter mile, then asthma or SOMETHING kicked in and I fell back a bit, allowing the verrrrry fast CrazyCrossfitter (who I expected to win but wanted to try to beat him!) to pass me. I held onto 2nd for the rest of the race even though I let 1st place get even more ahead of me.

I finished the race SECOND place in 6:07 - but since it was closer to 1.1 miles... my one mile pace was FIVE FORTY ONE!!!! CrazyCrossfitter ended up beating me by 30 seconds!  He kept a FAST pace the full time! He told me he didn't think he'd be able to keep my pace at the beginning - but then I faded so he didn't have to! He usually beats me in the Crossfit workouts too so I don't feel too bad. He's an amazing guy. Motivation!

The air has been HORRIBLE lately due to fires and inversion - so all 5 of the runners (not one of us was over 7 minutes for the mile - fast group!) had breathing issues afterwards. I'm still dealing with severe allergies right now! (Essential Oils and Neti Pots are helping - not essential oils IN the neti pot though... I'm not that crazy!)

Our burpees guy ("MatTime" Micah, who is also my BJJ instructor) did great and handed off to our jump roper. Our original jump roper had a sick daughter, so she had to stay home today. We had to have one of our other two girls fill in, and only Ajax was in today and she had to scrounge up some suitable attire for jumproping! Ajax is AWESOME, but she's not so fast at jump roping. I'm glad she could help us do the event. We ended up with 4th place, which is consistent with all our other finishes! SO close.

Speaking of 4th place finishes, the 'Sit and Reach' contest that I thought I'd be fairly competitive in with all the yoga I do was held on Tuesday. I tied for 4th at 24". Doh!

OKAY. So back up to the rest of the week that didn't get covered:
Monday morning great yoga class at work. That night we ran with UltraMarathonBro (Matt... not sold on this nickname yet!) and "ITthisisleesha" (Alicia always answers her phone like that - but I'll have to come up with a better nickname sometime!) UMBro and I decided to take the Shepherd Creek trail up to see where it goes - looks nice now and we were only a few miles (ha ha ha 'only a few miles') from Francis Peak. We went not even TWO times as far as I ran today, in NINE times the time! Pretty rough uphill. But I think that's why I can run that flat ground so fast now. It was nice and dark when we turned around which made for fun downhill trailin', but we had to get back since it was a school night for my kidlets.
Took some pictures of the nasty air, it was better up high than it was today down low for sure!

Boy... My wife is SO LUCKY to be married to such a handsome man!

You can't even see Lagoon Amusement park that isn't far!

Nasty Air!

Tuesday had BJJ, but unfortunately ShoulderMuscles our camera guy (who also won the sit and reach with an impressive 27" stretch!) wasn't there with his camera. We did some sweeps from the guard some of which I'd learned before. 3 people in the class, MatTime, me, and VeganBossB (my first boss in my first job where I still work - whoa that was ten years ago!). He's significantly bigger than me, so that makes some of the stuff fun, but it is not as big a deal now that I've been going for a while and have more experience. When I first started, the size was more of an obstacle, but now that I am starting (still VERY BEGINNING) to understand technique (Barely!) it makes a difference, and that's awesome!

We did Sit-up Sweep, Sit-up Sweep to Kimura, Sit-Up Sweep to Take the Back. Then we did Scissor Sweep, Wing Sweep, Scissor Sweep to Leg Hook and Scissor Sweep to Knee Push. On the Wing Sweep Brian easily winged me up and over (wheee flying!) right onto my back on something hard...
His own thumb! Yow! He dislocated it and FreeSpirit (yoga teacher/trainer) is now mad at me (somewhat jokingly, I hope!) because he is one of the participants in their test boot camp program. Hey HE threw ME! 

Also been getting a LOT better on that left-side hitch that was happening in my muscle-ups. Still have a little work but it is almost gone! Yay!

Wednesday (Arr International Talk Like a Pirate Day!) I rebounded basketballs for free-throw shooters for the competition (I was supposed to do that but did soccer instead since somebody forgot to show up the soccer day) and an awesomely tough hour of yoga with FreeSpirit. Wednesday classes are always more difficult for me because it is AFTER lunch. I think I mentioned this before. Even though our team didn't eat out this week (Busy busy busy China Oracle Implementation!) I had a delicious bacon wrapped chicken thigh and slice of delicious roast beef and salad for lunch before yoga. SO good.

Supposedly Yoga is best if practiced on a stomach that has been empty for a few hours other than a glass of water about an hour before.

And now we are caught up!

Tomorrow I'm looking forward to Yoga and Climbing in the morning and Crossfit in the afternoon! I also need to pick up my Dirty Dash packets - because it's Fall Dirty Dash time on Saturday!
Awesome!!!