Are you my right hamstring in a compression sleeve? If not, then shut-up.

I ran 9 miles on my treadmill yesterday and woke up today with my Achilles feeling freaking awesome.  Like, no pain whatsoever awesome.  It hasn't felt this good in months.  So, in an unusual moment of workout clarity, I decided that today's workout would be low-impact and shorter than normal (I usually work out for 90 mins or so) so as to keep the good Achilles vibes a-flowing.  Thus, I whipped out Cathe's Afterburn workout again, because it is about 50 minutes long and because I still wanted to give the ol' lungs a peppy little workout without all the jumping.

So of course 15 minutes into the workout my right hammie would start whining.

This workout is very butt- and leg-intensive.  You squat a lot.  You lunge a lot.  You also do a hell of a lot of push-ups, sometimes using gliding discs to drag your body around while in a plank or to do jack push-ups.  But I like to do it at least once a week in order to build up any glute-strength I may be missing out on so as to enhance that whole running thing I do.  I have been reading about non-firing or weak glutes that may be the cause of some Achilles injuries (although mainly I think it's just my stupiditude at running too much too fast rearing its ugly head), so I've been trying to work on the ol' posterior region through this workout.

Well, I worked it alright--right into a nice little almost-injury in my right hamstring.  It's like it was protesting the 9 miles I ran yesterday AND working out today, that lazy skeletal muscle.  In another rare moment of clarity, I then realized I should go upstairs and put on my quad compression sleeves from SLS3 that were freaking pricey but have saved my quads and hammies on many an occasion.  After throwing those suckers on and continuing the workout (squat! lunge! pushups! faster!), the pain subsided, and now it doesn't even hurt at all.  Amazing things, those compression sleeves.  I know some people say they don't help, but they've never been my injured right hamstring during a Cathe Friedrich workout with a compression sleeve on.  And until they are, then I'm not listening to them.

(I tried to find a cool picture for this post, but when I searched Photopin using the word "hamstring," this photo was in the mix:

Yeah, I don't get it either.  But enjoy it while it lasts.)


photo credit: PETER9914 via photopin cc

Stupiditude

I read a lot of running blogs.  In every one of these blogs, there are pictures of the writer-runners in great running poses looking all majestic, graceful, and about to run into the arms of many, many sponsors offering them extremely lucrative endorsement deals.

I do not have any running pictures like that.  I have pictures like this:

I'm the dork in the middle.

Caught me mid-hand raise.  I'm not really floating across the finish.

End of my last leg of Ragnar TN.  About to hurl.

Again caught mid-hand raise.  It's a conspiracy, I tell you.

I have come to terms with the fact that I will never, ever be one of those runners whose pictures show nothing but grit, determination, and willingness to do whatever it takes to be the best.  I think the pictures above show I do pretty much the opposite of that, and this "opposite" is something I'm having a hard time nailing down into actual words that make sense.  I'll get back to you when I do, or when I make up some new words to describe it. ("Stupiditude" is one I'm pondering using.)

I will also never ever be the type of runner who can bust out 12-18 miles on a treadmill and feel as if they got in a "moderate workout" for the day.  Today's workout was supposed to be 10 miles, but after procrastinating all day in my office listening to the 15 mph winds whip through my uninsulated 1930s farmhouse, my brain had worked itself up into a "OMG it's going to be SO COLD in that wind I don't think I can do it unless I lose a finger or an ear" frenzy, and I had pretty much convinced myself not to run outside.  Hell, I almost didn't run at all, until I went downstairs and saw my treadmill looking all lonely and sad.

So that's when I decided to run 10 miles on the damn thing.

For the first 5 miles, all I could think of was, "This is SO MUCH BETTER than running outside.  Really."  For the next four miles, all I could think of was, "For *bleep*'s sake why did I turn the treadmill the other day so it is facing a blank wall instead of the window?" To get myself through the boredom, I started running 400m ladders, increasing the speed up to 6.0 mph every 400m and then working my way back down one-tenth of a mph at a time.  This was my way of not glancing at the miles every 3 nanoseconds and at least getting part of the run to speed the hell up so I could be done.  I also started air-guitaring to my iPod that was blaring in the background at every opportunity, began to loathe the color of the wall and fantasizing about other wall colors and textures, and began to wonder if I would sit down sobbing in the middle of my first marathon in April if I couldn't handle doing 10 miles on the treadmill.

The last mile was...nonexistent.  I found out that my treadmill automatically shuts down after 100 minutes of use and stubbornly refuses to turn on again until the motor has cooled.  Damn them, thinking of my safety and prolonged life of my treadmill.  At least I managed to get 9 miles in.

Oh, and I managed to find at least one OK racing picture:

This is the most determination you'll ever see on my running face.  Apparently the determination and focus comes out when I'm trying not to get 3rd degree burns.

Any excuse to pull out the barbell.

Since the weather outside looked like this when I wanted to go for a run:

I decided that this was a fantastic excuse to use my new barbell again.  So I pulled that sucker out and decided to do Cathe's Muscle Max workout, which I haven't done in quite some time and thus forgetting just how barbell-involved it was.  I don't really know why I stop doing workouts; I think it may be because the new ones come in all shinier and newer and hold my attention until I get injured and then I notice the older ones again.  Also, for some reason I always think my older workouts are easier, therefore I don't do them.  This is a lie my brain tells myself all the time, that pathological liar.

The workout was tough but easy at the same time.  Using the barbell definitely increased the intensity--I was busting out weights on exercises like barbell curls and barbell pullovers that I had never used before with just dumbbells.  I was breathing like a woman in labor during those barbell curls, just trying to get through them with 30 pounds on the bar. (Cathe was using 45!  I'm such a wimp.) And those pullovers...now I know how people die horrible deaths involving barbells because I was almost one of them; I barely made it through the last rep without dropping the bar on my head and/or chest.  I also grunted a lot, making the dogs bark "shut the hell up!" at me in their crazy barking dog language.

On a more positive not-thinking-about-death-involving-barbells note, I did notice that I could use the same dumbbell weights as Cathe during this go-around without feeling like any limbs were going to fall off or like my muscles would burst into flame after a few reps (yes, I'm talking about you, plie squats with a 15-lb dumbbell).  It's nice to see that I have made some strength gains since doing this workout.  I also noticed I was getting faster at changing out the weight plates on my barbell.  I'm going to start timing myself lit pit crews do in NASCAR.

However, lest I feel a little too good about my workout accomplishments, this was the face that supervised me as I cleaned up my living room of all the scattered-about weights:

Emma is clearly not impressed.  Or right-side up.  Going to have to work harder next time.

Winter running, gloves, and snot rockets.

When I woke up today, my left Achilles felt fabulous rather than tight and sore on its lateral aspect, which is how it has usually felt for well over a month.

What better way to celebrate this joyous occasion than to go for an 8 mile run in 13 degree wind chills?  I know, that's exactly what you would have thought, too.  And you also would have thought to wear this stunning running outfit:

Neon yellow with purple running tights.  Please note dog -shaped throw-rug in the background.

You must understand that I run in the country because I live in the country--and this means I often run to the sound of guns being fired at some country critter(s), and I wear obnoxious colors to be seen not only by motorists but also by people with guns firing at country critters.  Although what with people killing elementary school children and firefighters lately, I picked up the pace a bit when I heard the guns, hoping that someone wasn't trying to use me in my bright yellow neon-ness as target practice.

But I would like to talk about one piece of running gear I have on in that picture: my gloves.  Having braved 2 winters as a runner in Illinois, I have been in constant search of a pair of winter gloves that are lightweight enough to not make me fear of losing fingers to frostbite in the later miles of any cold run, and I think I've found them.  They are Saucony Women's Ulti-Mitten gloves, which are pretty damned pricey but worth every penny.  They come with a very bright light that is USB rechargeable and have a spot on the glove to clip the light, so no need for carrying it.  But what really amazed me was that these gloves are like gloves and mittens AT THE EXACT SAME TIME.

I know, you're probably thinking, "Hey, idiot--they have made those little flippity-top gloves now for a while.  These aren't so special."  Well, I beg to vehemently disagree with you and then roll my eyes at you smugly while putting one hand on my hip.

You see, these gloves are actually full-on gloves; most of the flip-top type glove/mittens I've found have the fingertips of the gloves cut off, which makes running with them in 13 degree windchills a tad dangerous, in my opinion, unless you have hand warmers with you.  Instead of cutting the fingertips off so you can manipulate things without feeling like you're hitting puberty again, they make the tip of each index finger and thumb a flip-top in and of itself.  The mitten-part of the Ulti-Mitten then flips over the gloves; if you ever don't want to use the mitten, there is a pocket on the back of the glove into which you can tuck the mitten-sleeve-thing.

These gloves have been finger-savers along with sanity savers.  Once my fingers get cold, my inner whiny-baby starts coming out, and there's just something about thinking I may lose a finger that demotivates me on my runs.  But with these gloves, that whiny little voice sniveling about how expensive amputation would be and wondering if my insurance would cover running-related frostbite has been entirely silent, much to my pleasure.  Do my fingers get cold?  Yep.  Do they go numb and start hurting?  No.  Runs are much more enjoyable when you're not contemplating how you'll type your blog posts minus a few fingers.

Another cool feature (no cold weather running pun intended) that these gloves/mitten hybrids possess is a little strip of soft cloth on each glove that--are you ready for this--is PERFECT for wiping your nose after you let loose a snot rocket on the fly.  I produce copious amounts of snot during cold runs, and my nose sure could have used this feature on several of last winter's runs where I felt like the bottom of my nose was encased in frozen crusty-nastiness at the end of a run.  (Note: My husband thinks this feature is pretty gross.  But he likes that I don't come in the house with snot frozen to clothing and/or body parts.)

Overall, it was a nice little run I had today.  I did have to keep the pace down as to not aggravate the Achilles as much, but sometimes it's nice to have a run where you're not trying to keep some number in your head or in your feet.

Or snot in your nose instead of on your face.

Lessons my barbell taught me.

In the name of trying to keep my little Achilles injury a little one, I continued my low-impact restriction on my nonrunning days by doing Cathe Friedrich's Low Max workout as the cardio portion of today's fitness regimen.  It's a step workout with seven intervals, each of which concludes with what Cathe calls "intensity blasts" and what I call "butt and leg melters."  I only did intervals 1-4 because I just wanted a little taste of cardio today, with the main entree being weight lifting.  This is because I love me some straight-up weight work because I believe it helps your endurance as a runner, especially when you are in a trail race and you are fighting desperately to pass the woman trying desperately to pass you but you have stronger quads so you get up the damn hill first and leave her ass in the dust.  Not that I'm competitive or anything.

Plus, I needed an excuse to whip out the new barbell I got for Christmas yesterday.  The 25 mph winds today combined with the cold temps (it's like it's winter or something) also convinced me I needed to stay inside and pump a bit o' the iron.

So, after my cardio with Cathe, I did some weights with Cathe.  (I am Cathe obsessed.  Don't judge me until you've seen how many other DVDs I've tried and thought were crap.  Cathe puts out quality stuff.)  Specifically, I did her High Reps workout because a barbell was involved and I haven't done this workout very often.  It's not my ultimate favorite weight workout of hers (is there really a need to do tricep dips after you've done standing tricep extensions, kickbacks, and lying extensions?), but there's a lot of variety in the exercises that decreases the boredom factor greatly.  Plus, have I mentioned she uses a barbell during the workout?

And now, an artist's rendering of what I looked like with my barbell:

I had a shirt on.  Really.

Today's word was definitely strength.  Along with a lot of other words that this child shouldn't learn until he is much, much older and can use them in proper context and with appropriate vigor.

Now, I have never even lifted a barbell until this morning, so I'm surprised that I didn't drop it on any of my body parts during the workout to give myself a large injury to go along with the little one in my Achilles.  I found that I actually prefer it for some exercises, especially back rows and upright rows, because it was easier on my shoulders. But I realized that, as far as working out with a barbell goes, I am pretty much clueless as to what weights I should use.  And since the workout only told me what poundage of dumbbells I needed for exercises involving dumbbells and NEVER ONCE stated the weights they used on the barbell exercises, I was in trial-and-error land with a heaping side of error. Here are some of those lessons I learned from my errors:

• While doing bicep curls visions of hernias were dancing through my head so furiously that I put down the barbell and picked up some lighter dumbbells out of concern for my own safety and maintaining the integrity of my lumbar intervertebral discs.  
• I astutely ascertained that 30 lbs is (currently) too heavy to be doing all sorts of partial bicep curl reps unless I enjoy the sound of my elbows bending in the direction opposite of which they should be bending.  
• It is very easy to knock your ceiling fan out of balance with a barbell, much to the consternation of a husband who is responsible for fixing said ceiling fan while giving you the stink-eye.
• It is very easy to knock myself over with the barbell when I do not balance it on my shoulders correctly during leg exercises.
• It takes me a long time to change out weight plates.  Like, a really long time.  I have never paused a video so much in my life just to prep for the next set of exercises.  If I were scoring myself in my own classroom on this skill, I would send myself to the after school help sessions we have for mandatory remediation.
• I felt like a total badass doing lat rows.
• If I kill myself while using this barbell (highly probable), my obituary will be a hilarious read.  

Looking over the list, I am aware that this list is nothing compared to what happened the first time I tried to use a step in a workout (a post that has yet to be written but needs to be written for the greater good).  I'm sure I'll get better with my barbell as I use it with more of my workouts.  Until then, any lessons you've learned or near-death experiences from when you tried out a new piece of workout equipment?


photo credit: theloushe via photopin cc

Nike people: I need more pockets.

It's Christmas, and I got lots of cool fitness stuff today (along with a lot of body wash/beauty products from the hubbs; I know I should be offended).  But first, a gratuitous picture of my dog on her new dog blanket Santa brought her:

And a picture of my other dog waiting with breathless anticipation for Daddy to come home on Christmas Eve:

Now that the obligatory dog pictures are out of the way, on to the fitness stuff I acquired this morning thanks to a day dedicated to a guy who you'd think would be fitter-looking if he has to haul all this stuff around (oops--no presents for me next year).

First, I received this awesome Nike Elements running jacket in screamingly blinding orange so people can see me before they hit me and/or give me the finger for running on their road.  I wore it on a six mile Christmas day "I will be eating large amounts for dinner so I need to run now" run, and was completely toasty and comfortable even while running in 23 degree weather (windchill at 16 degrees).  What I am dumbfounded by, however, is the fact the men's version of the EXACT SAME JACKET (at least I'm 99% sure it's the same jacket) which I found on the clearance rack at a large sporting goods store whose name is also a sexual innuendo has WAY more pockets-5 to be precise-to stash your phone, gels, hand warmers, 6-pack of beer, etc.  How many pockets does the women's version have?  One.  One little pocket that I shoved my phone into and struggled to zip shut. Judging by the size of some women's purses, you'd think the exact opposite is what the jacket makers at Nike would do....but no, this is not the case.  I had to stash my hand warmers in a butt pocket for my run today.  My butt was very, very warm, in case you were wondering.  Toasty buns, even.

Women's is on the left; men's version on the right.

Notice the ONE pocket on the women's, and 5--yes FIVE--pockets on the men's jacket.

Nike people:  I NEED MORE POCKETS.

So what other cool stuff did I get for Christmas?  Take a gander at this:

Your jealousy is palpable. But please note that I only received this as a gift because: a) I have been whining about wanting one for 2 years, and b) I have a shitload of Cathe Friedrich DVDs that call for a barbell.  I know that dumbbells are just as good, but I want that badass feeling of pumping iron with a barbell.  In fact, I'm pretty sure that you develop more muscle with a barbell because you look so badass.  Now I just need some 5 pound plates (this set didn't come with any) so I can be a badass in a wimpy girly kind of way.  But that's not going to stop me from busting this baby out tomorrow for cross training.  I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow, if I can lift my arms up to the keyboard afterwards.

My glutes are crybabies.

I am training for my first marathon in the spring.  This is because I am a total idiot, but that's an issue for another post.  Anyhoo, I decided to start blogging on this blog again to have it serve as a running training log of all of my workouts, so that way I can pinpoint the exact moment in time I injured myself, because I am good at injuring myself.  In fact, I should just make the point of my training to injure myself, so that way I can be successful all the time.  Everybody loves a winner!

Because of my most recent injury (an Achilles soreness that is only sore when I point my toes or sit on my heels.  I ran with it through a Ragnar, a 10K race, and a half marathon before I finally realized backing off a bit might actually make it better) I have been doing a lot of low-impact stuff.  Oh, I tried "recovering" doing high impact workouts like Cathe's Crossfire and To The Max after all those races, but my Achilles wasn't getting any better, strangely enough.  So I decided to dust off Cathe's Low Impact Series, which I hadn't done in about in a year. I honestly felt like I was totally wimping out due to the whole low-impact thing, but, as I mentioned before, I am a total idiot.

The workout I decided to do from this series was Cathe's Afterburn workout.  The description said "HiiT" on the back, which is what I really wanted to do and jump around a lot like an idiot on my injured Achilles but I couldn't, so I threw that puppy in the DVD player and got started.

After 20 minutes my glutes and hamstrings were crying real tears and hating me for continuing.

This was me making them shut up and do the rest of the workout:

Only I'm not a dude.

If you want nice glutes and hammies (plus some pretty good cardio), this is the workout for you.  If your glutes are big babies like mine, make them do it anyway.  I'm sure they'll be crying like babies all week.

Because I wanted all of my muscles in tears, I did 30 minutes of upper-body weight work afterwards and tacked on 10 minutes of abs.  My body isn't speaking to me right now.  I should be in great shape for that treadmill speed session I have planned for tomorrow!  (Remember, I'm a total idiot.)

photo credit: thedalogs via photopin cc
photo credit: Kevin McShane via photopin cc

Why?

I get asked/told the following things on a regular basis:

You can take a break from your diet just this once, can't you?
Why don't you eat normal food?
Oh, I forgot, you eat hippie food.
Why do you run all the time?  Isn't it boring?
You exercise every day; why don't you eat whatever you want?
Boy, you sure are rigid in your eating, aren't you?


I could go on and on, listing all of the things people say to me because of what I choose to eat and how I choose to exercise.  To answer all of those questions, here is why I do what I do:

And it's not just about what I look like on the outside--it's the difference on the inside, too.  You may not be able to see it, but the smile on the right is actual happiness, not a smile because someone is taking a picture.

Why do I do all my diet and exercise stuff?  Because I am happier and feel better than ever.  In 2003 I was miserable.

Why would I want to go back to miserable?

Random Fitness Ramblings

The past few weeks have been full of fantastical fitness happenings in my life.  Well, not really, but I have thought a lot about stuff that's important to me regarding fitness, recovery, and working out lately.  So, if you choose to read further, you will now be subjected to some random fitness ramblings about topics that probably only interest me.  And maybe you.  But you'll never know unless you read it, right?

Rambling #1: Compression Stuff

When I do my training runs, I have this tendency to run all my speed work too fast.  I'm talking "so fast that I got seriously injured and thoughts of stress fractures were prancing around in my frontal lobes at all times and giving me more wrinkles" fast.  In my injured state, I read a lot about what other runners were saying helped them not become injured during training (besides stop running my speed work so moronically overfast).  One of those things was compression socks/sleeves/garments.  So, having a habit of plunking down tons of cash for stuff simply because it's for running, I bought some compression socks and sleeves from various companies (CEP, PRO Compression, and SL3S) and have been wearing them during training and for running races. I have even purchased recovery socks, and--believe it or not--wear them after a race or hard workout to recover.  Below are some images of how sexy they are and remind me of when I was a kid in the 80s and we all wore our socks that high and we were the COOLEST:

Grey shorts = I look like I didn't quite make it to the bathroom during my run.  SL3S compression socks.

Recovery socks.  They feel awesome.

CEP compression socks for my first run in Ragnar.  I'm not a huge fan of these.

Half-marathoning-it in my PRO Compression socks.  I dig these.  

To put all these socks to the test, I performed a series of highly scientific experiments.  For the socks designed for running, I ran in them.  For the socks designed for recovery, I recovered in them.  From those little experiments, I used a rigorous data collection method known as "asking myself a question and then answering it."  The question asked was, "Do I hurt less during and after I use these expensive things--Yes or No?" After careful systemic analysis of the data, I have come to the conclusion that the CEP socks I have are the ones I like the least.  I experience the most pain during and after my workouts in them (maybe I need to go down a size, even though I measured my calf circumference just before buying them?).  My favorites so far are the SL3S calf sleeves and the PRO Compression socks, because I experience the least pain during and after running.  The only negative about them is that these companies need to start making them in purple or navy blue, because those are my two favorite colors in the entire universe. (Can you tell from the pics?)  The recovery socks I do like as well--I sleep in them and my legs wake up feeling all bouncy and ready for the day.  I feel it important to note at this point that the shin splints that plagued me after my last half marathon have pretty much disappeared since I have been recovering/training in these socks.  But that could also have been a result of....

Rambling #2: Ice baths.

 As I have already mentioned, I had the shin splints from hell.  This was right before I was supposed to run  Ragnar Chicago, which I thought might be a tad unpleasant with shin splints.  After coming back from an easy run with my shins screaming, I elected to try ice immersion for my shins.

This was my response face to my husband's incredulous "why is my wife sticking her leg in a bucket of ice" look.  Yeah, I can throw down the looks, yo.

Now, some say that you shouldn't do this, because you're basically stopping the recovery process, and it is from this process that you make gains in strength, speed and endurance.  Others say you should do this to aid in recovery and to help your legs feel fantastic the next day.  Because I wanted to see for myself if this whole icing thing was worth it, I again resorted to my science teacher training and designed an experiment to see if plunging body parts in ice would help them feel better the next day (as well as my nagging, annoying ankle injury that made it feel like someone was pulling up a sock that was on the inside of my skin).  Here's a run down of my experiment and my results:

Step #1: Run.  Then stop running at some point.
Step #2: Immerse body parts in ice for 10-15 minutes or however long I could stand it before I wimped out.
Step #3: Go to work and earn money for more running stuff.
Step #4: Come home and go to sleep.  Dream about buying running stuff.
Step #5: Determine how body parts plunged in ice felt the next day upon rising and stumbling down the steps half-asleep and not stepping on any sleeping dogs.
Step #6: Repeat Steps #1-5 for 3 months.

Results:  Said body parts that were immersed feel better--MUCH better.  Shin splints have not been felt for at least 4 weeks, but this could also be a result of a vacation in Alabama where the researcher's mother makes excellent Southern food that may have special healing properties.  Further experiments are warranted that involve eating copious amounts of this food.

So, according to my research, ice = body parts feel better.  As a matter of fact, I have moved up to taking full-on ice baths after running (see picture below).

Just chillin.  Dig the homemade ice cubes?

However, icing will not prevent you from doing stupid things while training, like running your speed work too fast.

Rambling #3: Cathe Friedrich never fails to make me think I'm going to die.

Cathe Friedrich is my favorite DVD-trainer-person ever.  I will gladly arm wrestle anyone who wants to argue with me on this, especially since Cathe has done quite the nice job of helping me get some upper-body strength and definition through the remnants of my former fatness.  I did two of her workouts this week that were new to me, To the Max and Pyramid Upper Body.  The former is a step workout like no other--no complicated choreography, just simple HiiT moves that will leave you a sweaty, drenched mess and needing a towel to wipe the sweat off of anything in your exercise space because it will be drenched in sweat, too.  The latter is a pure weight-lifting workout that uses simple moves but pyramids what weight you use to do them.  How effective is this workout?  Well, let me tell you all of the things I am had a hard time doing today as a result of doing that workout yesterday:

• Washing my back in the shower
• Making right turns while driving the car
• Making left turns while driving the car
• Opening the front door 
• Closing the front door
• Doing anything involving lifting my arms above the level of my shoulders
• Doing anything that involved moving my arms medially or laterally

I think I had been hitting a plateau with my weight-work (I believe it makes you a stronger runner who can endure to the end when form starts to crumble), and this workout was what my muscles needed to wake 'em up again.  Plus, I love Cathe because she doesn't just make the same old DVD with a new name on the cover. And she's not afraid to lift heavy or make workouts that make me think I will drop dead after it's over.  And she doesn't scream at you, she motivates you.  I love that woman.

Well, I appreciate it if you've made it all the way through this rambling post about ramblings. If you have any ramblings of your own that pertain to fitness or any of the contents of this post, feel free to share.  Or not.  This is a no-pressure kind of blog.

Motivation.

I really didn't want to run this morning. Every muscle fiber in my body was screaming at me to go back to sleep. I almost listened. The comfort of the bed in my mom's spare room was calling me, and I didn't relish another hot and steamy run in the wee hours of an Alabama morning.

But I got up, got dressed, and went for the run. I think sheer force of habit was what propelled me into my clothes and out the door.

A 7 mile run was what was on the training schedule. I didn't want to go 7 miles after running a 5K race yesterday. But I programmed the Garmin and took off up my mom's driveway to the street, my thighs screaming their usual beginning-of-a-run protests the entire time. I took a left onto the street, thinking there were less hills that way. I also planned on kicking it down a notch on the speed today to appease my thighs.

Well, I was right about less hills. But my plans for slowing things down was blown at about 0.75 miles out, when the dogs came.

I was running around a curve when I saw the first one, a blonde mid-size dog that was roaming in a front yard. He barked and circled, and I thought I was in the clear, seeing as he was staying in the yard. I planned on trotting right on by until I saw what he was really doing-calling his buddies. Two larger black dogs appeared, caught sight of me, and then the barking began in earnest.

I had quickly turned tail when I saw the two black buddy-dogs appear in the yard, but I still heard them barking behind me long after I thought they shouldn't be. At this point I still wasn't running very fast, just plodding along in the opposite direction of the dogs. But when I turned around to check where those dogs were, I saw that they had left the yard and were high-tailing it down the street after me. In my mind their slobbering barking faces were hell-bent on having my sweaty human flesh for breakfast.

Needless to say I had to crank up the speed. My Garmin watch has pre-programmed speed zone settings like "run" and "jog" and "slow run." I would categorize the speed with which I ran down the street in a new zone of my own design called "hauling some serious ass." I ran in this zone for a full 800 meters, until I heard the barking finally fade away.

Talk about some unexpected speed work. And some unexpected motivation. After that, I busted my butt trying to get that run done in case those dogs were roaming the highway on which I was running, trying to catch the scent of my sweaty flesh again.

Fear can sometimes be a great motivator. Not exactly ideal, but this morning it got the job done. Sometimes I'll take motivation wherever I can get it.

Cathe's CrossFire: Let the DOMS begin.

I received Cathe's latest workout videos in the mail on Monday after pre-ordering them--CrossFire and To The Max.  I was excited to receive them not just because I love me some Cathe Friedrich (I envy the woman's lats.  I know this is strange, but when you're staring at the woman throughout a workout video you tend to notice these things) but also because I really wanted more of her higher impact routines.  After suffering an ankle and hip flexor injury because I am too stupid to recover properly after running a half marathon, I have been sticking to her Low Impact Series (very awesome) for my strength and low-impact cardio needs.  However, I am one of those freaks of nature who really enjoy jumping around in the privacy of my own home to get a good workout, so I was anxiously awaiting the arrival of her new DVDs to satisfy my jumping urges all in the name of "It's a new workout and I have to try it even if I am still slightly injured because it's new and I can't let it sit there and collect dust after I paid good money for it now can I"

So, after running an 8K race on Wednesday, I decided to throw Crossfire into the player yesterday for some cross-training.  Cross-training, indeed. I feel like someone broke into my house during the night and beat me with a police baton.  Or a bassoon.  Or rebar.  Or any other object that could cause the trauma I feel in my back and legs this morning.

If you're an intermediate or advanced exerciser, the moves in this workout won't be difficult to do; they are pretty typical of Cathe higher impact workouts.  But this time she organizes them into blasts and tabatas, The main difference between the blasts and the tabatas are that the tabatas include exercises that you do for 20 seconds followed by 10 agonizingly fleeting seconds of rest (helpful countdown clock included onscreen).  While all the moves in the blasts or tabatas are very doable, I found that they were deceptively simple--I really didn't think much of the complexity of the workout until I tried to get out of bed this morning and had to ask my husband to give me a push because my lats and back were refusing to get up with me.

But that's why I love Cathe's workouts--she uses simple but effective moves that get the job done.  For example, in the Circuit Blast (the longest segment, clocking in at almost 23 minutes), the moves were simple but new--many were ones I had never seen before in the Cathe workouts I owned, like the warrior lunges or the power scissors with a jump tuck.  I appreciated that she doesn't just recycle old moves over and over again like some fitness personalities; when you buy a new workout, you get some new moves.  However, the learning curve with these new moves was small, which was very much appreciated by this exerciser with no sense of rhythm.  


Another deceptively simple segment is the Bonus Core segment.  After doing this segment, I thought I had wasted my time, since it does not include any crunches or other typical ab exercise--it only includes moves that work the entire core (which didn't feel sufficiently worked afterwards because my abs were not crying out in pain).  Unfortunately, a lot of them involve holding a plank of some kind, so your wrists take a hell of a beating (or at least mine did).  But my core region can tell you this morning that I was not wasting my time; those 9 minutes I spent were working not just my abs, but my entire back and obliques as well.

She is also creative, and manages to come up with some ideas that at first make me think, "Whaaaaaa?" and after I do them make me think, "*Bleepitybleep* I'm going to feel THAT tomorrow."  Take, for example, the Firewalker Tabata.  This is where you do all sorts of insane things with a resistance band (what Cathe calls the Firewalker band) around your legs.  You do a variety of crazy jumping and squatting moves with that band around your legs, which set all my legs muscles a-quiver by the end of the tabata.

But what really turns me on about this DVD is the premixes.  Now, all of Cathe's workouts come will uber-cool premixes you can do if you want to focus just on cardio, strength, a body region, or just are short on time, and this one is no different.  However, I think this DVD includes some really thoughtful premixes that make sense.  For example, there is a less impact premix for people like me who injure themselves frequently; there is a "CrossFire Extreme" premix for the workout crazies (as I like to affectionately call them); and there is a veritable cornucopia of timesaver premixes to stop anyone from having an excuse to get in a workout.  If there's any reason to pay that little bit more for a Cathe DVD (because they are more expensive than others), it's for the premixes alone.  The premixes allow you to buy one DVD and use it every day--but get a different workout each of those days depending on the premix you select.

If you're on the fence about getting this DVD, jump off that fence and then run to your computer to go buy it.   You can't go wrong with this simple-to-do yet versatile workout if you can handle the high impact--and if you can't, she's got a premix just for you! But if you won't listen to me, you can listen to my back and leg muscles; that is, as soon as they get back from trying to find out who broke in last night and hurt them.

Half Marathon of the Screaming Thighs

Yesterday I was in fabulous Toledo, Ohio to run the Glass City Half Marathon.  This is the second year I have paid lots and lots of tolls as I drove through Chicago (painful), trekked across northern Indiana (boring) and rambled into Ohio (lots of cops on the turnpike) to test my 13.1 mile endurance in the Glass City.

I love this race.

It's flat, well-run, has plenty of port-a-johns, a great atmosphere, has no confusion about where to go on the course whatsoever, and is an overall beautiful run.  It's also freaking huge, with 2500 people in the half-marathon alone (they also have a 5-person marathon relay and a full marathon), which means I am free from worrying if that woman who just passed me looked like she could be in my age group.  I know I have no chance in hell for any kind of award, so I can just focus on the goal I came with instead of constantly worrying about what everyone else is doing around me.  (I never know why I worry so much about the people that pass me early in a race, anyway; I usually see them again at the end.)

But I am primarily in love with this race because it was my very first half-marathon ever, running in it a year ago.

During that race 365 days ago, I was determined just to have fun, relax, and finish without looking like a complete moron.  So, of course, I started out way too fast for my level of fitness at the time, and ended up with tight screaming thighs by the time I hit the water station at mile 7. ("Screaming Thighs" would be a good name for a band.)  I walked through all of the water stations after that, having a hard time getting going again each time. I eventually had to stop and stretch a few times in mile 10, and began to become very frustrated at my throbbing right toe, wondering if it would ever shut the hell up even though it was my fault for wearing a brand new pair of shoes I had never ever run in before that day.  After my toe starting expressing its displeasure with me, other body parts began to chime in, asking me what the hell I was doing up there making them run for this long dammit.

 But I was still in good spirits, and when I hit the 12th mile marker I started screaming like a crazy woman (because, up until that moment, I hadn't ever run more than 11 miles), mainly shouting "ONE MORE MILE!"  These utterances officially ruined my goal of finishing without looking like a complete moron.  They also earned me some very dirty looks from everyone running around me, who all looked as if they were going to stop, sit down, and start crying if anyone standing still on the side of the road told them one more time "GOOD JOB! ALMOST THERE!"  It was there that I learned that not everyone is jubilant when they near the end of a half marathon.

But I didn't care.  I was happy.  I was excited.  I just paid for the privilege of running 13.1 miles on streets and paths I could run on any other day for free.  But on any other day I wouldn't have received a medal, a mug, or the joy of crossing a finish line and collapsing in a heap afterwards in the middle of the University of Toledo stadium, totally satisfied with a time of 2:12:37.

This year I came to this half with a very different goal in mind.

You see, I've run a lot more since that first half marathon--four more half marathons, to be exact.  And I struggled to run each one in under 2 hours--which I finally did in November of 2011, coming in with a time of 1:57:48.

I needed to know that the first sub-2 hour time wasn't just a fluke. I needed to know I could do it again.

I had put in the time and the training for this year's Glass City Half Marathon, but I found my brain second-guessing my body's capabilities as I plowed my way through the starting line pack of people, meandering my way back towards the 9:00 pace sign.  My goal pace was 8:50, but I was beginning to get scared.  What if I couldn't run that pace for 13 miles?  What if the shin splints that had been plaguing me all week flared up with a vengeance?  What if the slight injury to the ball of my right foot came back to haunt me (caused by stupidly wearing crazy dress shoes to work the week before my half)?  "What if" after "what if" ran through my head as I stood there freezing my ass off in my compression shorts and knee-socks and obnoxiously-patterned purple running shirt, not having had time to do any warm up because I was too busy doing nothing standing in line for the port-a-john.

Then I thought, "Well, what if you freaking NAIL IT?"  At that moment, the gun went off.

The miles flew by this time.  This is probably because I already knew the course, and also probably due to the Garmin Forerunner 305 on my wrist--which I looked at every 3.5 nanoseconds.  I'm surprised I stayed on the course seeing as I barely looked at it most of the time. This describes pretty much what happened every 5 minutes during this race: "Run run run What pace am I at? *checkwatch* I better slow the BLEEP down run run run What pace am I at? *checkwatch* Damn I REALLY have to slow down run run run How many more miles? *checkwatch* Seriously, legs, let's slow down now....."

I was constantly surprised to see that my pace was not 8:50.  It kept hovering at about 8:30.  I willed myself to slow down, but my legs were, as usual, having none of that "slowing down" crap.  I'm glad for that, seeing that when my watch alerted me that I had indeed run 13.1 miles, my time was 1:52:40.  (The course was long at 13.35 miles; my official time was 1:53:47.)  I also realized that my thighs were screaming again, but at least they remained quiet until the end of the race this time around.

But I had freaking nailed it.  Those thighs could scream all they wanted to now.

New Workouts!

I don't know about all you fitness-y people out there, but every once in a while I have to buy some new DVD workouts.  I started my weight-loss adventure using workout DVDs, and they suit my need of "I don't want to go to the gym and show off my extra loose skin from weight loss to multiple strangers." I do stick with the ones I own for quite some time; however, when I start talking right along with the video after having memorized every single word, it's time for a change, baby.

Now, I know some people are all up into the "I refuse to buy these new-fangled fitness DVD workouts because I have Netflix/ExerciseTV/I am really really cheap frugal/I have this gym membership that I purchased but have never used" but I have this compulsive need to own my workout DVDs.  Why?  Because I like to keep my workout DVD family in a constant state of growth, purging the ones I have outgrown (Jillian Michaels, any Tae-Bo workout, and my old Leslie Sansone walking workouts, to name a few victims of my purges) on occasion to make room for my shiny new additions. And because I like to keep the ones I do like forever and ever, amen.  And because I don't own a DVR.

The new additions to my little digital family this time were two Cathe Friedrich DVDs.  Now, I love me some Cathe Friedrich.  I wouldn't call myself a full-blown "Cathlete," but the woman knows what she's doing.  I can honestly say that she has toned me in places that I never thought would ever be toned again; even my husband noticed that I was developing these things called "muscles" in my arms and thighs, and this is a man (whom I love very much) who has a hard time noticing more obvious things, like where the dirty laundry goes (not on the floor) or the fact that I have just finished cleaning the bathroom and he probably shouldn't throw water all over the mirror and get all his little beard trimmings on every flat surface imaginable in the room.

Anyway, back to my new Cathe workouts.  The woman is not afraid to lift heavy, and that's what I like about the two new workouts I did of hers last week (conveniently located on one DVD): Boot Camp + Muscle Endurance.  As a runner, I like to pump some iron at least twice a week, because I believe to be a stronger runner you need strong muscles, especially to power up hills and to maintain proper upper body form when you're tired.  I also like to do weights because I have a thing for lifting weights.  I am woman, hear me lift these two really heavy dumbbells and roar.  If weights are your thing too, then these two workouts are a good investment.

The first workout, Boot Camp, was a pretty good workout.  It consists of eight "fitness cycles," as Cathe calls them, each one starting with some cardio and then moving on to upper- and lower-body weight work, and ending with some core work. (It also consists of the cheesiest background I have EVER seen.  2002 must have been a bad year for workout DVD sets, I guess.)  I loved the weight-work--it was challenging and effective.  The core work consisted of moves that I have never experienced before.  Laying a heavy medicine ball on your side while doing side plank lifts?  Awesome.  However, the cardio left me wanting....specifically, it left me wanting her not to do a few really cool moves, have some extra cardio time, and then fill the rest of that time with jumping up and down.  I had had enough of jumping up and down after the 5th cycle.  However, the weight and core portions of each cycle are so solid that it won't stop me from doing the workout again--it'll just stop me from doing any superfluous jumping during the cardio.

The second workout on the DVD, Muscle Endurance, was nothing but 65 minutes of pure muscle-shaking goodness.  It has the same awful set at the Boot Camp workout, but you won't notice that during the workout--you'll be too busy trying to make it to the end of each exercise (as long as you're using a weight that challenges you).  The back of the DVD says that it is a high-rep, total body workout, and I would agree with that--the amount of reps she does is challenging.  However, there are a lot of leg presses in this workout (so much so that one of the pre-mixes consists of just leg presses.  Really?); I could have done with some more variation there.  The core work is also very similar to what was done in the Boot Camp DVD, so I guess I'm lucky I liked it in the first place--because I did most of it again later in the week.  But those are minor annoyances, this is a DVD I will be reaching for when I want to do some serious weight work.

What I love about these workouts (indeed, any of Cathe's workouts) is that they come with pre-mixes: shorter versions of the workout that you can do that focus on different aspects or muscle groups.  For example, the Muscle Endurance DVD comes with upper and lower body premixes (along with that leg press premix for all you masochists out there), which just play those parts of the workout.  For me, these are awesome, especially on days when I'm weight-training the day after a long run and I want to leave my legs alone because they need their rest.

For both of these workouts, you'll need a high step (Cathe calls it a mini-step), a barbell, some dumbbells, and a medicine ball (they use an 8-lb one in both workouts). But you don't really need a barbell--you can do all of those moves with dumbbells, which is what I do.  I don't own a barbell because a) I don't have room to store a barbell anywhere in my very small 1930s farm house, and b) I am afraid my husband will come downstairs one morning to find that I have crushed some body part of mine with it, because I am not very coordinated.  (I'll post later about various stupid workout injuries I have inflicted upon myself.)

Overall, these DVDs are worth the time and money.  Cathe's workouts tend to be on the expensive side, but  if you buy them from Amazon rather than off Cathe's website, you won't be gouged on shipping (every time I try and order something off Cathe's website, they only have UPS Ground as an option.  I get pissed off at this).

And I know these workouts have settled in nicely to my little workout DVD family.

Don't race when you're sick.

I ran a 10-mile race this morning.  It was the Arny Johnson 10 mile race they have out at Harlem High School every year. It's a nice race, and for a good cause--all proceeds go towards the Rockford Area Habitat for Humanity.  This has been a prime motivating factor for me doing this race, especially when I want to wimp out of going anywhere near it after waking up.  The 10-mile course goes through Rock Cut State Park ("The largest state park in northern Illinois"), and looks like a big ol' lasso:

This course is gorgeous and green and full of allergens this time of year.  It also has hills straight from the depths of hell.

There was a slight chill to the air, the wind wasn't too bad, someone told me my purple running tights were freaking awesome (thanks, lady in the bathroom!), and there were lots of runners there whom I had seen before so I knew that about 75% of them were going to kick my ass in this race.  I think they have all been running for about 3 billion years, so they have some experience on me (June will mark my 2-year running anniversary), so I knew better than to expect any medals or age-group awards.

But that didn't really matter to me.  This wasn't my goal race, the half-marathon race for which I had been training. I vowed to take it easy, have fun, get some good hill-training in, and beat my time from last year (1:31:59).  I wanted to run my own race, and not get trapped in that mental "holy cow she just passed me she looks like she's in my age group I will catch up with her or I will die trying" trap I always tumble down into, causing much internal grief, anguish and dirty looks at volunteers standing perfectly still on the side of the road telling me to "JUST KEEP GOING" by mile 7.  (Don't get me wrong--I love all of the volunteers, especially after there weren't enough at my last race and I missed the last turn towards the finish line.  But when you get in that bad mental running place, you get a little cranky.)

But I wanted to take it easy primarily because I have had this crazy lung-thing going on this week.  By "crazy lung-thing" I mean that my lungs have trying to convince me that they are sick, but I have not been listening to them.  I do not believe them.  I can't believe them, because my half marathon is two weeks away and I'm not listening to such whiny talk from my own internal organs.  And besides, they haven't been sick in over two years; there's just NO WAY they could be experiencing technical difficulties.

Well. (Or "WeeEEEElllllll..." as my mother would say in her southern drawl.)  Let me just tell you about the race.

First off, the idea that I was going to "take it easy" went right out the window in the first mile because I'm a total moron. I was zipping along down the path towards the hills from hell at a much faster pace than I should have been.  And, I don't know about you, but whatever pace my feet find at the start is the race is the pace my feet fall into for the entire race, not matter how long it is.  That is because, really, after the gun goes off, my feet are really in charge.  My brain is just along for the ride.

So, by the 5th mile, my feet were taking me up and down the hills from hell.  This is where my lungs started to whimper a bit.  My feet told them to shut the hell up they were trying to race down here, dammit.

By mile 7, my lungs started to get louder--literally and figuratively.  My feet tried to ignore my lungs, clad in their Ryka-neon-goodness, but by mile 9 their sounds overpowered even the brightest yellow neon hue of my awesome running shoes.  Specifically, those sounds were *WhEEEEEeeEeEeeze*  and *hackwheezehack*  It sounded like I was a 2 pack-a-day smoker again masquerading as a runner.  Other runners were turning to stare at me in that last mile (being able to hear me OVER their headphones) with looks that said, "Geez, lady--if you're going to run a race, lay off the cigs for a while, willya?"

My feet never did slow down.  But my lungs finally got a word in edgewise as I was running down the very long finish-line chute, when a runner I had been admiring during the hills of hell for her hill-tackling strategies passed me in the last 30 feet, and my lungs didn't have any more oomph to even attempt to overtake her.

All they had left was "wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeZE*

For all my body parts arguing, hills from hell, and people staring at me and my wheezes, I did manage to beat my time from last year by about 4 minutes, and came in 7th in my age group.  I even ran the entire course this year--last year the hills around mile 6 got me, and it took a friendly runner with some kind words to get me out of my "WHY ARE THESE HILLS SO MEAN i'm going to cry now" mental rut.

I also managed to lose my voice entirely, which my husband considers a "win" for the day.  But my fingers still work, hence this blog post.  I'll force him to read it later as the price for his sarcasm.

I AM INVINCIBLE NEENER NEENER.

I bought this advanced 10K training plan off Runner's World.  I bought it to help me gain some speed before my next round of half-marathon training begins.  I can't stand buying that kind of stuff, because, for 20 bucks, I got some words on a screen in a neat little calendar-planner thing that has more features than I'll ever use.  Maybe I'm a little old school with my whole "I plunked down electronic cash via an online transaction so I want something tangible in return" attitude, but I really get annoyed paying for that kind of stuff.

But I did it anyway. Because they had already lured me in with one of their free (and awesome) intermediate half-marathon training plans.  That plan helped me realize my running dream of a sub-2-hour finish in my last half-marathon, and I came in at my goal pace right on the dot. (After re-reading this, it makes it seem like this plan made that half-marathon easy.  It wasn't.  There was a lot of shameless mental begging with any god who would listen to keep my numb legs moving in the last 2 miles.)

But my mistake, you see, lies not in the fact that I paid hard-earned electronic money for this plan.  Did you notice the word "advanced" next to the word "10K" in the first sentence?  Yeah.  That mistake.

Maybe I was still on the high from my half marathon (which was Thanksgiving weekend) when I purchased this plan, but after I put it in the little planner thingie to which my 20 bucks also gave me access to (although you must pay MORE to schedule workouts ahead of time.  REALLY?), I took a good hard look at it.  Here's pretty much my thoughts while giving it a once-over:  "Easy runs...uh-huh....some long runs....awesome....2 days of speedwork a week, mostly intervals.....bring it......a few rest days.....Cool.  I just ran a half-marathon in under 2 hours and I CAN DO ANYTHING I AM INVINCIBLE NEENER NEENER."

I started the plan today (well, technically it started yesterday with a rest day), which began with some intervals. Feast your eyes if you will upon what it says to do today:

2 x 1200 meters at race pace
2 x 800 meters at race pace
4 x 400 meters at race pace
6 x 100-meter strides
After a warmup, run each interval at your 10-K goal pace. After the intervals, do strides.

My 10K goal pace isn't something crazy insane like 5 minutes/mile, but it's tough for me.  Tough enough that, when I hopped on the treadmill to do these intervals, reality set in.  While the warm-up was all rainbows and unicorns, the first 1200 repeat had me in serious doubts about this workout.

Maybe I wasn't as "advanced" as I thought if I wanted to sit down on the treadmill belt so it would carry me to the ground instead of having to expend any more of my own ATP to do that.

The only thing I could think of to do in order to finish was to cover up the little 400 m rectangle of evil in the treadmill display with some post-its that happened to already be on it from my half-marathon training.  I had to bury the pain under paper. I couldn't bear to watch that little hellish rectangle light up square by square by square in painful running-workout slow-motion.  I would only allow myself to look at the miles, so that way in order to know when each interval ended my mind had to be occupied with math (it takes me a long time to do math.  Even simple math).

There's nothing like a few 1200 m or 800 m repeats to make you beg to do 400s.

I finished the workout in 90 minutes.  My hammies were screaming and my left Achilles is whining and I have iced lots of body parts this evening, but I made it.

But I am no longer invincible.  Neener neener.

So I got this stationary bike thing.

So I got this stationary bike thing for Christmas.  A NordicTrack one, the GX2.0.  Nothing screams "I love you" or celebrates Jesus' birth quite like a stationary bike.

I didn't ask for one, but my husband, knowing how much I love to alternate biking with running when the weather is nice for about 3 seconds per year here in Illinois, got me a stationary bike so I can still do this during the winter.  Last year he got me a treadmill so I can run in the winter as well.

I can now not only run to nowhere, I can bike to nowhere as well.  I was actually perversely excited about this.

We put it next to the treadmill in my itty-bitty workout "room," so now my treadmill has someone to talk to and doesn't have to stare out the back window at the empty farm field through the sheers all the time.  I am sure they will become good friends.

BFFs!

After we let those two get acquainted, I hopped on the bike to grab a workout.  It was quiet.  Too quiet.  I don't know what I was expecting, but I wasn't expecting "quiet."  This thing is an EXERCISE MACHINE, dammit.  It was EXPENSIVE.  It should make lots of stationary bike noise to match the tremendous amount of calories I was burning.  It should groan along with my grunts to tell any person or escaped farm animal that happened to be walking through the empty field behind my house that we are WORKING OUT and we are SERIOUS about it.

Instead I pedaled quietly along.  Pedal, pedal, pedal.  Quiet, quiet, quiet.  I thought I heard the treadmill chuckle softly.  Or maybe it was just one of my dogs snoring away somewhere.

I decided to try one of the pre-programmed interval workouts on the bike.  I chose a speed-interval one over a resistance one, because I am a masochist and am starting a 10K training plan soon and didn't want to wear out my legs for all of the speed intervals I would be doing.  It kept bouncing me between the mind-boggling speeds of 13 mph and 14 mph, and playing with the resistance as well.  But it wasn't anything too tough.

Pedal, pedal, pedal, quiet, quiet, quiet.  Ho-hum.  Kinda easy.  How anticlimactic.  I feared the bike would have little to say to my loud and noisy treadmill.

That is, until I had pedaled for about 20 minutes. I looked down and several rogue beads of sweat landed on my shirt after they rolled off my brow.  They joined a few thousand other ones that already there.

It seems I was getting a workout.  My heart rate was at about 160 when I gripped the silvery heart-rate-measuring thingies on the bike.  Quiet but effective, this stationary bike was.  It was all action and little talk.  I can respect that in a piece of workout equipment.

I have been using the bike on days where I do weight work, and it's a great low-impact cardio workout that's easy on this runner's knees.  Maybe it will give me the courage to sign up for that triathlon I've been thinking about doing for the past 2 years or so.

Or maybe it will make the treadmill jealous.  I guess we'll see soon enough.