Eileen & Sean's Posterous

15
Mar 2010
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St. Patty's Day 2 Mile Walk

On Saturday Sean and I participated in the St. Patrick's Day 2 mile walk at Mission Bay Park benefiting Rady's Children's Hospital.  We went with our friend Mike from work and his wife Cassie.  It was a little overcast but it was perfect walk/run weather.  Afterwards Sean and the others enjoyed free beer at 9am from Stone Brewing Company here in San Diego.  A little early, but it was to celebrate St. Patty's Day after all.  Dominos was also giving away free pizza, but that was just taking things a little too far so we opted for breakfast afterwards at Coffee Cup in La Jolla instead.

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09
Oct 2009
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Thank you!

Well, this post is long overdue, but the past couple of months have been CRAZY! Unfortunately while we did raise over $2,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society we did not raise enough money to meet our minimum commitment with Team in Training to run the Nike Women's Half Marathon. We were going to run the Big Sur Half Marathon instead, but it is already sold out :(. Looks like we may have missed out on this season of half marathons, but we are still running and training so we will look to run one when the season kicks off again in April! Thank you so much for all of your support, your donations will really help a great cause.

Eileen & Sean

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08
Aug 2009
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Rockin' the iButt

This morning Sean and I went for another 6 mile run at Crystal Springs. The thing you don't think about when you hear mileage is how long it actually takes to run longer distances. Six miles takes us about an hour an fifteen minutes (I run really slowly), so that is a lot of time to kill. Today at about fifteen minutes I decided to bust out the iButt to keep us entertained.

Speed15_265

What is the iButt you ask? iButt = Hydration belt + iPhone + Music Playlist. I usually carry my iPhone in one of the zipper pouches on the hydration belt just in case something happens. What might happen? I don't know. But just in case. Today it was just in case we got bored I guess. I put the iPhone on speaker and we jogged along to my 80s mix. This must have been pretty funny to other people cruising by, some joggers were laughing at us as they ran by and realized my behind was busting out Tears for Fears, Depeche Mode, and Simple Minds. But it helped us get through miles 3-6.

When we finished our run, our favorite Bagpipe player was out practicing again. He was there the last morning run we did a few weeks ago. I was very confused last time and thought maybe there was a funeral or something, but Sean informed me that the guy was probably just practicing. He pointed out that no one would want their neighbor practicing the bagpipes in their neighborhood, so probably the guy comes out to Crystal Springs to practice his bagpipes in the woods. I took a stealth picture of him, and recorded a snippet of him playing the bagpipes for your listening enjoyment.

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Finally, I've included a picture of some deer we came across this morning that I took with my iPhone, as well as Cleo refusing to get up as we got ready to leave early this morning. She is so funny, she will barely make eye contact when we wake her up too early, and this morning she just put her arm over her face to keep the light out I guess ;)).

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28
Jul 2009
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8 Miles at the Stanford Dish

Well it has been a few weeks since we last posted about our running, an update is long overdue.  Sean and I have been keeping up with our training, and have been consistently running 4-6 miles every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.  Even though we have had to miss a few track nights we have gotten up early to run four miles instead to make sure we keep our endurance up.  On Saturday we accomplished our most impressive feat to date.  We ran 8 miles from a couple miles past the Alpine Road exit off 280, over the foothills to the top at the Stanford Dish, down the backside of the foothills almost to Page Mill Road at Stanford, then all the way back up the hills to the dish and back to 280.  We truly couldn't believe that we finished ourselves.  I was actually pretty psyched out for the run, I had heard that the hills were ridiculous.  As such, I was imagining some of the most treacherous climbs in San Francisco as what we would be up against.  Frankly we were told that there were two huge hills that matched those we would be running in San Francisco for Nike and then numerous rolling hills throughout the run.  Because of this, I was expecting the worst, and therefore was prepared mentally for the challenge.

The coaches said to just focus ten feet ahead up the hills rather than staring at the top.  This is certainly what got me through the climb.  I really couldn't believe it when we got to the top because I had anticipated much, much worse.  The cardiovascular endurance we have gained was very clear on Saturday.  I would have been out of breath just walking these hills a few weeks ago, and now here I was running them.  We made it to the top in about forty minutes, and began our descent back down the other side.  Imagine my surprise when I realized that the loop went downhill for a couple of miles before it looped back around and started the climb all over again to get back to the satellite dish from the backside!  Twenty minutes later we were back at the top again, only to have to run back to 280.  It took us nearly two hours to finish and by the end everything below my belly button felt like jello.  I'm not sure how Sean managed to drive home, but we felt fantastic that we had finished.

The funniest (scariest?) part of the run is that when you get to the start of the trail you have to go through a gate.  The sign on the gate states, "This is a mountain lion habitat".  Hmmmmmm.....  Check out the view of Silicon Valley including Stanford's Hoover Observation Tower.  It was a bit hazy, but you get some perspective on how far up the hills we ran.  

 

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10
Jul 2009
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Going to the Los Altos Arts & Wine Festival This Weekend?

Stop by Jamba Juice for a yummy fruit smoothie and tell them Team in Training sent you:

 

Jamba_juice_tnt_flyer

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10
Jul 2009
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Enjoy a refreshing Jamba Juice and Help Cure Cancer!

Hello friends!

This weekend is the 30th Annual Los Altos Arts & Wine Festival in downtown Los Altos.  There will be food, wine, art, and live music all day Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 6pm, what's not to like?!  With all of the fun in the sun this weekend, we are sure people are going to be thirsty.  That's why we've partnered with Jamba Juice Downtown Los Altos to hold a fundraiser benefiting The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.  How can you help?

***  All you have to do is enjoy a refreshing Jamba Juice this weekend from the Downtown Los Altos Jamba Juice and 20% of your purchase will be donated to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society ***

Simply mention the Team in Training (TNT) fundraiser at the register and the wonderful folks at Jamba Juice will do the rest.  You get to enjoy a nutritious fruit smoothie and help a great cause at the same time.  Bring your friends and family, they will want to help too!  I've attached both a photo and a flyer with more information.  You can show the folks at Jamba Juice the photo version of the flyer from your mobile phone, give them a printed version of the pdf flyer, or just tell them you are there for the Team in Training fundraiser.  That's it!

Sean and I will be roaming around the Arts & Wine festival both days handing out flyers, so come find us and say hello.  Thank you in advance for your support, this will help us get that much closer to our goal of raising $5,000 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society by July 15th!

Jamba Juice Downtown Los Altos
275 Main Street (Between 2nd & 3rd)
Los Altos, CA 94022
650.559.8929 Phone

Jamba_juice_tnt_flyer

 

Click here to download:
Jamba Juice Flyer 4.pdf (305 KB)
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07
Jul 2009
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What did you do tonight from 6:30pm-8pm?

I don't know about you, but this is what we were up to tonight for track.  For each of these drills, we had to do the drill listed below down the track straightaways, and "recover" by jogging around the turns:

• Heel and toe walking - We look like a bunch of ducks, but apparently these prevent shin splints
• Low skips and high skips - I sing the Smurfs theme song in my head
• Butt kicks and high knees - Their words, not mine
• Side steps and grapevines - I thought I was a good dancer until I tried the grapevines on the track...
• Lunges and sprints - Like we said last week, it really is a recovery when you get to job after lunges
• Repeat!!!

Tonight definitely felt much better than last week.  We are absolutely getting stronger each week.  And this is hard for us to believe too, but it actually gets easier as the night goes on.  In the beginning everything feels stiff and sore and it is hard to breath.  It is counterintuitive but it seems as though it takes about a mile, or in the case of track night four drills or laps, to feel warmed up.  Once I get into the groove the running is much less painful.

I've included some photos from track night two weeks ago.  You can see Sean on the right hand side get regulated by Coach Terry on his form, and more documentation of my beet red face - shocker.  Yet more documentation in a photo from our Half Moon Bay run a few weeks ago.  Sean and Angela managed to look fantastic somehow, this was taken at about mile four.

 

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02
Jul 2009
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Nothing like a cold ice bath

Tonight we went back to Crystal Springs for another 6 mile run. We are planning on relaxing on Saturday for the 4th, so we wanted to get our long run out of the way so we can just go for a "short" 4 mile run on Saturday. Let me tell you, it was much harder running six miles with just the two of us instead of a whole horde of motivated runners along side you. I must say tonight was fairly brutal. Sean made the mistake of not eating an hour before we ran, and I made the opposite mistake of eating a little too much. Usually we have a bowl of cereal or something, but I hadn't eaten since noon and I didnt want to run on an empty stomach so I had a granola bar and a sandwich. Plus I felt like I hadn't drank enough today so I had a half bottle of water or something on the way to San Mateo. Bad idea. I actually felt ok from an endurance perspective for most of the run, but my stomach was not feeling the best from all the food and water sloshing around. Sean on the other hand was living off the Gu because he was feeling a bit shaky about three miles in. He said all he could think about was cheeseburgers. Hee hee.

The only real body issue we've been experiencing since we've started running are some aches and pains in our knees. Usually we feel much better once we warm up a bit a mile or so in, but I think because we have upped our mileage and had a pretty intense track workout on Tuesday we hadn't recovered fully. Our TNT mentor Patricia mentioned that taking a cold ice water bath for 15 minutes after you run helps, so I decided to follow her advice. My muscles were burning and I felt really stiff, so I filled up the tub with about six inches of water, added a tray of ice cubes and jumped in. Whooo weee! She also made the suggestion of making some tea and keeping a a sweatshirt on to keep warm. I followed that advice as well, as she was right that after a minute or two you go numb anyway. I could feel the heat radiating out of my legs. So far while my muscles feel a bit stiff I must say that my knees aren't bothering me right now.

The one thing I have to say is that while the runs vary from easy to challenging, there hasn't been a single time where Sean and I finished our run and felt really fantastic afterwards for completing our goal. At times it was truly mind over matter to just keep going tonight, but we did it. As we were stretching it felt really exhilarating that we had gotten through it, and it definitely feels less intimidating for next time. Also, it is really clear that we are building endurance. The first two miles flew by, and four miles felt like no big thing. Go Team Zimm!

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30
Jun 2009
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Tired is When You Look Forward to Jogging!

Sounds weird, right? Well, I would normally think the same thing, but tonight was different. Tonight was our Tuesday "track night" at Stanford. For the past two weeks we've spent tuesdays learning about stretching, strengthening our "core" and then running a few laps around the track (6 to be exact). Ok, I'm not saying that working our "core" was an easy task (just read our blog post from a couple tuesdays back ;) But, maybe it became a little routine. We can't have that now, right? Those are to be done on our own, in between the workouts. Tonight... we ran. First it's "high knees" through the straight-away, then jog around the corner, only to do butt-kicks through the next straight-away. You made it? Now "skip" through the straight-away, jog, "high-skip" the next straight-away, jog... How about some lunges down the straight-away this time... SLOWLY (this is not a race, mind you!) All I remember is this went on for exactly 1 hour and 25 minutes straight! (would have been 30 minutes but I found a way to jog right off the track and into a bathroom. Not sure anyone noticed, except maybe Eileen, but she doesn't count, right?) 

At the end of the night I found that the 6 miles we did this past weekend was for real. I mean, we may not have run 6 miles around the track tonight, but it was the same hour and 20 minutes that that took in comparison, and tonight, the jogging was the easy part! Lunges, side-steps, grapevines, butt-kicks, twisted sisters?... whatever came our way, we always had just normal jogging to look forward to. Suddenly it became all too clear: THEY WANT TO PUSH YOU ON THE STRAIGHT-AWAYS SO YOU LOOK AT JOGGING AS THE EASY PART! HAHA I get it. These coaches are smart. Thanks for the lesson. Next thing we know, 13.1 miles will be nothing. I may be looking forward to a good shower right now, but I'm thinking 8 miles could be a little easier than I originally thought, by next week. We'll see! 

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29
Jun 2009
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Half Moon Bay Ocean Run

On Saturday Sean and I headed up to Half Moon Bay for another coach-led run.  I was in a really grouchy mood after having gotten up at 6am to get to Half Moon Bay by 7:30am.  I was dreading the run, other than the promise of gorgeous views, because we were slated to run six miles.  I have never run more than four miles in my life so I was terrified, particularly since running "just" four miles has still been a challenge lately.  We started our run at Pillar Point, and proceeded to run south along the coast.  Not too far into the run we ended up catching up with Angela, our TNT running buddy from our first long run.  The three of us kept each other motivated the entire distance, it is so amazing how much easier it is to run when you have good company.  We definitely pushed each other at points where it would have been easy to give up if I was on my own.  I was keeping track of the time, as we have been running at 4/1 intervals.  In other words, we run for four minutes and then walk for one minute for the entire distance.  One of our TNT mentors told us that they had run an entire half marathon and then ran/walked another one and their time was only different by two minutes even though she used the 4/1 strategy on the second half marathon.  She attributed this to the fact that she had more energy to run faster by taking short breaks every five minutes.  Having said this, I can definitively tell you that the farther you run the shorter those 1 minute walk breaks feel!

At one one point I looked down at my watch and was dumbfounded by the fact that we had been running for AN HOUR!  A whole hour!  I really thought I was seeing things, I couldn't believe I had ran for over an hour.  Twenty minutes later the three of us crossed back over the starting line, in true shock and awe that we had completed a six mile run.  None of the three of us had ever accomplished this, and I can't describe how happy and proud of ourselves we were.  We took a few photos, but the photos just don't do Half Moon Bay justice.  When we arrived in the morning the fog was so thick you could barely see the waves lapping up on the beach.  By the time we finished the run the sun was coming out and the fog was clearing way for blue skies.  I can't wait to go back and run in Half Moon Bay again!

 

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