Some serious reflection and then an ugly toe picture.

So I was all up into analyzing my running data this morning (science teacher = we love data of all kinds) on the Garmin Connect website.  Specifically, I was analyzing my first 20 mile run with yesterday's 20 miler:

Click to embiggen.  The first one is on the right.

Considering that I am no speedster, I'd say there has been a distinct improvement in my endurance.  Even though my thighs still feel like blocks of wood by mile 14, I can tell that I have better physical and mental capabilities to keep on trucking.

Comparing this data makes me realize the gains that I've made.  It makes me realize that this training really isn't about making you get to a certain distance.  It's about giving you endurance, confidence, and mental fortitude to get your ass to the finish line after abusing your body for 26.2 miles.

It's about making you stronger all over, inside and out.

Even if I don't make my goal pace of somewhere near 10:00/mile, I'll still walk (run?) away with the satisfaction that I am stronger because of all of this--the runs in sub-freezing temperatures, all of the snot frozen to my face and ice clinging to my eyelashes, all of the dogs chasing me, all of the wind rage experienced in the middle of long-runs, all of the frozen water bottles and pepper sprays up the nose.  

When I cross the finish line it will all be worth it.

But I hope this will be worth it:

I somehow rubbed the inside of that toe raw yesterday on the run, and I have a weird non-painful Achilles popping when I walk upstairs or squat (most likely due to an altered gait because of that damaged toe). Fun!  

This post is brought to you by the letter P, the color Brown, and the number 20.

I finally got a chance to do a 20 mile long run in a dog-free zone today.  I drove up to Capron, IL, to the Long Prairie Trail head so I could get my long run on.

14 miles of trail goodness.

Imagine my surprise when I got there and saw that the parking area gate was closed, and the sign below was on the gate:

That's when I got pissed off (hence the letter P that is sponsoring this post).  Capron isn't exactly right near my house, and it was already pretty late in the afternoon (1:30 thereabouts).  This meant I had to drive to nearby Caledonia, where I knew there was a parking lot along the trail that had no gate.  Screw you, budget cuts.

I got out and put on my super-sexy running/hydration backpack:

OK, so the sweat gives it away that I took this after my run, not before.  We'll have to cope with the fact that this picture is technically out of sequence.

Here's a quick review of my Camelbak hydration backpack:

It's very good.  I like it.

Here's a longer review:

It's very good; it doesn't bounce around when running, holds 2 liters of water in a bladder that is easy to empty and dry out, and has two deep front pockets that can hold all of my stuff.  On this run my stuff was as follows: 9 gel packets, sunglasses, my phone, a big can of pepper spray (more about that later), and a pair of gloves.  These filled pockets never felt bulky or in the way.  It's almost as if they designed it for maximum storage with minimum getting-in-your-way-age.  I like it.

Anyway, back to what I was wearing, which is MUCH more important:

I was very excited to be trying out one of my new Nike running shirts and the Nike running capris that I got at the outlet mall on my way back from Alabama.  I also had on my nifty blue compression sleeves because they're fun.  And compressive.

Please to excuse my thunder thighs.

After making sure my attire was appropriate and positioned correctly, I took off down the trail.  Well, I took off a few feet and then stopped to use a small restroom that looked like it had last been cleaned right before the end of the Cretaceous period and still contained all of the debris from the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs but not this little restroom.

I did not sit down, I swears.

NOW I took off down the trail, and noticed two things:

1) There were still patches (and sometimes long patches) of hardened slush/snow on the trail.  Dammit.
2) Everything was brown.  Brown brown brown brown BROWN.  April showers, let's hurry up with those May flowers, alright?

Brown brown brown.  And more brown.  And some snow.

Fortunately the snow patches cleared out after about a mile on the trail.  Then, I got to really take in the sights of the Long Prairie Trail:

Snack shop?  Freaking awesome.  Unless this is some sort of weird "Hansel & Gretel" thing. 

Boy will this be better when it's green and not brown.

Near the trail head at Capron.  That is an old tricycle around which that tree is growing.  And it's brown.

This was at the bottom of the same tree as the previous picture.  Looks like a bike with no tires.  That is brown.

The view from a rest area (there are some nice ones).  You get a lovely view of all the brown from here.

I did read the sign, but I only took this picture because the word "beaver" is on the sign.  I didn't know I lived near Beaver Creek! Yes, I am a large woman-child.

Proof that I made it to Capron.  Even the freaking buildings are brown.

But right before I made it to Capron, this greeted me on the trail:

It's a good thing I have done a few obstacle courses; I shimmied on under those branches like a pro.  The cyclists on the path were a bit stumped, though, circling endlessly in front of it and trying to figure out how to get themselves, perched atop a bike, underneath that mess.  (Hint: Get off the bike.)


On my way back towards Caledonia, I encountered a gaggle of geese on the path.  They weren't moving, not for me or for anyone.  It was THEIR trail, dammit, and I was NOT WELCOME.  Well, I had to pull out the pepper spray and start a rumble with the geese by spraying it directly in front of them (no, I DID NOT pepper spray any geese.  Stop calling the ASPCA already).  This got them off the middle of the trail, and I scooted on though the parted sea of geese.  One of them started chasing me, so I picked up the pace a bit a pepper sprayed in front of him (her?) to stop the chase.

I continued on down the trail snot-rocketing as I went (it was windy; my nose gets all mucus crazy in the wind), wiping my nose with my hand afterwards.  With my hand.  The same hand I had just used to launch puke-colored pepper spray in front of geese.

Before I knew it, my right nostril was on fire.  And the wind going up my nose felt like it was just fanning the flames.

I sucked some water from my backpack and then spat it in my hand.  I then tried to throw as much water as I could up my nose, which is hard to do when you're running with your nose on fire.  This also tends to interfere with this thing called "breathing" as you run.  But I'm glad I did it; the fire simmered down to a smolder for the next 10 minutes of the run.  And I wisely used my sleeve to wipe my nose rather than my fingers from that point forward.

Overall, it was an interesting run, and the miles kind of flew by--all 20 of them.  That's surprising, considering how straight and brown the path is, but I guess it was the newness of it all.  I felt stronger at the end of the run, having negative split it without meaning to do so.  Hate it when that happens, huh?  The foot was quiet the entire time so I could solely focus on how tired my quads were.

But, alas, that was my last 20 mile run of my training plan.  Now I have two days of cross-training, and a modified week due to the half marathon I'm running a week from today.  Any suggestions for how to modify a tempo run 2 days before a half-marathon?

Tempo shmempo-let's talk about running clothes.

I didn't want to go for my tempo run today.  Nope nope nope.  It wasn't my best run.  It wasn't my fastest run.  I considered quitting...oh...about 3 bajillion times in the first 2 miles.  I was going to stop early and head back to the house because a voice (not the crazy one) in my head told me I was still kind of tired from my speed work on Tuesday.

That voice, by the way, is a big fat liar.  My legs were fine.  And so was my foot--not a whimper out of it during the entire run.

Good thing I listened to a smaller voice, a voice that said, "Just keep going.  Don't worry about the pace on your watch.  Listen to your body and find your own comfortably hard pace.  And then finish all 6 miles of this tempo, you complete and total wimp."  (I said it was a small voice, not a nice voice.)

Finish all 6 miles I did.  It was slower than last week's tempo, but I don't care. I didn't want to do this run, but do it I did.  And I did all of it.  Today's hurdle was mental, not physical, and that's the lesson from today's run.  Oh, and also that if you eat complete and total crap for 5 days while you're in Alabama (I'm talking to YOU, Cracker Barrel in Columbia, Tennessee and Denny's Classic Diner in Tuscola, Illinois), you run like crap as well.

But you know what was the best about this run?  That I did it in a t-shirt and shorts!  Spring is finally here, dammit!

On my way back from Alabama up I-57, I stopped at a ginormous outlet mall in Tuscola, IL.  In this outlet mall there is a Nike store and an Under Armour store.

I was in female running nerd heaven.

The shorts you see in the picture are from the Nike store.  They were having a crazy good sale, and I got those shorts, a hoodie, plus what you see pictured below all for 100 smackers:

The jacket was what I was most excited about--it is a $100 jacket normally, and I snagged it for 40 bucks.  I don't care if I won't get a ton of use out of it right now, because when I need it in the fall, it will have enough freaking pockets in it to carry all my running stuff. (It has two inside pockets plus the two outside ones.)  That's one of my biggest complaints about women's running jackets.  I have news for you, jacket-makers: women need just as many pockets as the men.  We go on long runs, too, and must carry fuel.  We're not concerned with watching our girlish figures in the middle of a 20 mile run; we just want to SURVIVE and to do that we need to CARRY LOTS OF FOOD.  Or I do, anyway.

The t-shirts they had on sale 2 for $20, and the running capris were a steal at $18.00.  I had to get some new t-shirts and capris because the ones I have now I've had for a few years, and they're getting pretty rank-smelling in the first mile of a run.  I love how that stinky smell just insinuates itself into all of your running clothes after a while.  Not really.  

You just know it's time for new running clothes when your husband, who normally would not be able to smell smoke if the house were burning down around him, starts telling you how much you smell when you come back from a run.

After scoring those finds at the Nike store, I traipsed over to the UA store, where I picked up these little treasures:

That's my work bag in the upper left.  Sorry.

The sweatshirt was on sale for $25-you can't beat that for a UA sweatshirt.  The t-shirts were 2 for $25, and I had to have the blue one as soon as I saw it--I'm thinking it is going to be the one I wear for my first marathon.  Well, I'll have to have a mirror rigged up to see what it says, though, because that's the back of the t-shirt.

As you can see, this runner chick likes to shop.  I may not be fast, but I like to look good doing it.  Well, at least be comfortable doing it, anyway.  And that will be the goal for tomorrow's long run.  The training schedule calls for 18 miles, but I am going for 20 because the next weekend I have a race...and then my taper begins!  That marathon is so close I can smell it.  Well, if I'm not wearing my old running clothes, that is.  Then all I smell is my own stink.

Alabama trail running and lots of dog pictures.

I went to Alabama this week.  I ran.  I came home.

In case you don't know, the drive from where I am in Illinois (almost Wisconsin) to eastern Alabama is pretty freaking long.  You could drive straight through (about 12 hours), but I am someone who does not run on caffeine or nicotine, so when I get tired, I have to stop and spend the night.  This means that I spend one entire day driving straight down Illinois (State motto: "The longest, boringest, and brokest state and the Land of Lincoln") and stop and spend the night after I cross the border into Kentucky.  I then get up and drive for about 5.5 hours the next day, crossing 3 states and getting to eastern Alabama where my mother lives.

The challenge presented to me whilst in Alabama is this:  I still needed to get my training runs in.  Last time I was down at the mom's I was chased by all sorts of country dogs when I ran near my mom's house (they barked in a southern accent, I swear), so I wasn't in the mood to take my chances there again.  Instead I did some googling and found that there was a trail in nearby Anniston--The Chief Ladiga Trail.  Actually, the end of the trail was in Anniston, and it started at the Georgia-Alabama state line.  After scoping out its exact location with my mom one day (and enjoying the fact that there were bathrooms there!), I headed back the next day for some speed work.

There is a quaint little park at the end of the trail in memory of this man.

I was there-no lie.

I did a ladder workout, and, because I had actually taken 2 days off after my long run this week instead of one, my legs and my foot were feeling really good.  I slammed out 7 miles on the trail, and my foot only felt slightly weird afterwards.  But I did some passive stretches of my big toe and popped some naproxen and it woke up feeling like a million bucks the next day.  Speaking of the next day, I went back to the trail and did 6 easy miles.  The scenery is pretty gorgeous (very un-Illinois-like), and they have cool signs like this:

Who knew the Litterbug was a smoker.

This was about 3 miles along the trail.  There is a university here that has the "Gamecocks" as their mascot.  I'm serious.

After my workouts on the trail, I got to go back and spend time with my mom and her little dog, and, at the end of my stay, I took my mother and her dog back to Illinois with me so they could spend time visiting with my other family members.  That little dog (unfortunately named Pinky) is a good traveler, although she does tend to hog the backseat and any beds in which she sleeps with a human:

She needs an entire seat in the car.  She has two beds and a blanket back there.

I had a tempo run on the training schedule yesterday, but I didn't get to run it because I would have had to do it that 8 mile run on a treadmill, and that's just not something I can do mentally.  I was also too tired to do it when I got home (amazing how sitting driving in a car for 6.5 hours will get you all pooped).  Thus, it is on tap for this morning, where it looks like spring has finally sprung up here in northern Illinois.  I'll let you know how it goes (and what I wore since it is finally somewhat warm up here) when I get back.

My long run is the boss of me.

So I came home last night and was too tired to do my tempo run.  Plus, my foot was kind of tweaking and hurting, so I decided to get a good night's sleep and do my tempo run this morning.

The morning was as good as a morning could be around here where it is almost the end of March and there is still snow on the ground and snow is forecast for Sunday.  It was 16 degrees outside, but there was barely any wind, so the run was pretty comfy.  It still sucks that I have to wear 2 layers of clothing, but if the wind stays calm, I won't be freaking out so much about the cold temperatures.

Here's the lowdown on the run:

• My foot didn't hurt.  At all.  It doesn't hurt now, and I wore high heels all day.  It's like the faster I run, the less it hurts.  My body thinks it is perpetually opposite day.
• The 6th and final mile of the tempo run  was rough.  Really rough.  I could feel the tiredness in my legs.  I don't know if this is because of overtraining or because I wimped out so often during my tempo runs on the treadmill that my body is not trained.  Or if it's because I did 22 miles on Sunday and am still recovering.  Who knows.
• My Asics Gel Nimbus 13s are pretty damn good shoes.  I don't know why I stopped wearing them.  (Probably because I am stupid).
• My Achilles was whining again after the run; some stretching took care of it.  
• Running on dirt is much better for my knees than running on pavement.  Note to self: Find a 16+ mile route that is dirt.

Tomorrow morning I get to rise early to do a 16 mile run, and then I get to drive to Alabama to see my mother.  I have designed the itinerary so that I can get my long runs in without having to find somewhere strange to run in another state.  Like the title says, my long run is the boss of me.

At least I'll have this to keep me company on my future long runs:

I paid an obscene amount of money for this.  But I tried it on, and it fits like a glove.  I will definitely be trying this out tomorrow and letting you know how it performs for me.

I just felt like pancakes.

The foot is still not 100%.  It is having its good days and bad days.  I have been icing and ibuprofening and running only in Asics-ing and it hasn't gotten any worse.  The flexibility in the toe is much better, but there is a nagging soreness on the top of my foot directly above the arch.  I have finally figured out that I should wear dress shoes to work that do not cover that part of my foot, and I can walk pain-free all day.  Unlike last week.

Injuries suck.  But it could be worse.  I have to make sure to do enough to make it better.  So that's why I did some speed work on Tuesday and two easy 3 mile runs today on the treadmill.  Because I suck at trying to make injuries that suck get better.

But, on a brighter note, I felt like pancakes for dinner:

These are not just any pancakes--they are banana-cinnamon whole wheat pancakes.  Word.  And they were delicious.  

I always read about runners eating tons of pancakes for some reason, so I thought I'd join the pancake club. OK, not really--I was just too lazy to cook anything that involved more than 3 steps.  Plus, I got to use our griddle, which is a snap to clean and makes pancakes all golden-brown and delicious.  This is unlike my frying pan, which turns pancakes into solid bricks of glue that will never, EVER come off the bottom of my pan again.  

Also, I had pancakes because I just felt like pancakes.  Pancakes are good.  

Plus, pancakes fit into my eating manifesto, which I have been following pretty well.  I have been better about eating real veggies and cutting out some of my snack-happiness.  However, I did eat potato chips the other night, but they were jalapeno potato chips--the most awesome chips in the entire known universe, and they literally jumped into my mouth before I could stop them.  I'm really just a victim here.

Speaking of being victimized, I have a tempo run in the morning.  Let's see if 6 miles of 10K pace running can make my foot feel better.

Irish people: Today was your day.

Today was my day. I am Irish.

I don't drink so the way I celebrate is by running a race.  I think my ancestors would tar and feather me for that if they knew.  But they're dead, and, if they were here, they'd probably be dead drunk, too (har!).

Because my husband wimped out and refused to come (it was 24 degrees outside and windy when we started the race), I had no official race photographer.  Below are the best I could do on my own:

Yes, I am in the bathroom.  That's where the mirrors are.  And some awesome smells.

Pro Compression Shamrock Socks completed my outfit.

I forgot to wear my tie.  I was a little upset, especially since it cost me a whole dollar at Target.

The race was cold and windy.  No matter what direction we ran, the wind was in our faces.  I planned on taking this race a little easy what with my foot still not at 100%, so my goal for the race was to practice my negative splits.  I wanted to end up at around 8 minutes per mile, so my first split was at about 8:28.  I was pacing a dude for the first 1.5 miles that was doing that pace who kept clearing his throat every 3 nanoseconds, so I started to pull away just to save what was left of my sanity.  After that, I busted out an 8:11 2nd mile, and, thanks to the fact that 0.6 miles of the 3rd mile is all downhill to the finish, I managed a 7:51 as I crossed the finish line.

Because this was not my best performance (a 25:32; last year I pulled off a 24:17) and there were about 600 people at this race, I didn't expect to place.  I just went inside the building to get warm, scope out the post-race food (bread, cole slaw and donuts.....?), and find a place to stretch and pee (not in the same spot).  I stuck around as the raffle began, but I really wanted to leave because I had 19 more miles to do--technically, I was supposed to do a 22 mile run according to my training schedule.  And leave I almost did, until they hung up the results and I saw that I had taken 1st place in my age group.  Not too shabby.

After collecting my medal, I scrambled home, threw on my hydration backpack, and took off for my 19-mile run.  My foot whined off and on for the entire run, and it was the worst in mile 11.  But, for a 19 mile run, I had some pretty good splits (for me, anyway):

The main event that happened during this run was: people.  There were people out EVERYWHERE.  People walking their dogs unleashed, people trying to find their lost doberman, people trying to find the nearest exit to I-90...it was a pretty steady parade of people in the middle of my run.   Some of these people decided to be all friendly and try and talk to me.  However, during a run, I'm not really interested in talking or stopping--I am interested in running.  It's like how I drive my husband complete and total batshit by never answering my phone on a run.  This is because the phone is there for me to call SOMEONE ELSE, not to answer it and have a chit-chat while trying to make it through mile 15.  I just want to run, dammit, and run uninterrupted.

But some of these people I met on the run were driving cars and stopping to talk to me.  Now, I don't know about you, but when I am a female and running alone (which is often), I don't like it when people stop their cars, get out of their cars, and then try and walk up to me.  I tend to back away and get out my pepper spray, which causes them to look very concerned.  All I know is that if they grab my backpack, they can probably get me to their car before my uncoordinated ass unbuckles the clasps on the front of my body, so I don't want these car-driving-getting-out-of-cars people anywhere near me.  At least the last 5 miles of the run were people-free; it left me some time to concentrate on my foot and obsess over whether I was getting a stress fracture or had a synovial cyst of some kind along the length of my extensor tendon.

Speaking of the foot, it's a little sore now; I iced it immediately afterwards and took some ibuprofen.  And then I went to Red Robin and had a pretty damn good burger at my husband's nephew's birthday party.  Hey, I know how to eat for recovery baby, and recover is what I intend to do tomorrow with my cross-training day.  I'll let you know what I choose to do to screw up my foot further for cross-training in tomorrow's post.

Mushroom burgers: Meh. New shoes: Any excuse will do.

I'm still doing well on my new "eating real food more of the time" eating plan.  I came home last night fully expecting to eat another chicken breast, but when I opened the package the distinct smell of potential food poisoning met my nostrils.   So I ahd to throw them out and find an alternative.

I scoped out what was in the fridge and freezer, and came across some mushroom burger-thingies that I had bought because a) I love mushrooms and b) I love burgers.  They are only 110 calories a burger, so I thought I would cook me up one of 'em and chow down.  I dressed it up by putting it on a whole wheat bagel for some carbage and adding jalapenos and salsa for bonus flavorings.

It looked edible. 

It was only meh.  Next time I'll try a turkey burger instead.

But enough about food; I have a burning question that needs some answering: How I can run 7 miles (5 at 10K pace) on a foot with tendinitis and have it feel freaking fabulous the next day?

Every time I get an injury, it seems that running more is usually the answer to making it feel better.  I will never understand this.

Of course, it may have to do with the fact that I discovered that it may have been my shoes doing the damage.  So, because I have two X chromosomes, I turned this injury into an excuse to go shoe shopping.  Because I ran pain-free in my Asics on Thursday night, I decided to go after another pair of Asics.  I purchased the Gel Cumulus-14s, which I had eyeballed a few months ago but never purchased.  But a close runner-up was the Brooks Glycerin--oh man, were those some nice-feeling shoes.  But they still put a little pressure on my extensor tendon that hurt, so I wisely opted out of getting them.  But I will be keeping them in mind for a future purchase.

So now that I have my new pair of shoes and the weather isn't all rainy and nasty like it was yesterday....

...I think I will try and go for my long run that is scheduled for today.  22 miles.  My plan is to go for all 22, but stop and turn around if I feel any pain in that tendon; I may even do a walk/run approach if the pain gets too bad.  But right now it feels perfectly normal, and hopefully the new shoes I bought can keep it that way.

Also, I plan on doing this run on the Long Prairie Trail, a place a coworker recommended to me because I am tired of being chased by people's dogs.  I am excited about running in a new place, but more excited that my foot stopped hurting and that I can resume my training.

Hopefully this run won't screw up that plan.  I'll let you know how it goes later.

I'm injured, so I ran three times this week.

Yep, I'm still broken.  This foot is just not being very cooperative, and I am sure that my co-workers are pretty tired of hearing me moaning about it and the crazy things I'm doing to try and make it all magically better.

In fact, my foot has some angry little piggies on it.

My first piggie is the one that is angriest.  It has taken over the littliest piggie's primary duty of going "wee wee wee" although it's doing it out of pain instead of going all the way home.

So what do I do even though this thing hasn't healed completely?  Run three days in a row.  I am a freaking genius.

• Run #1: Speed work on the treadmill.  I actually had some semblance of sanity and didn't do the mile repeats that were on the schedule.  Instead, I did 10 one-minute sprints with a 2 minute recovery.  Foot was feeling good, looking good.  Definitely not as angry.
• Run #2: 6 mile easy run.  This run hurt the worst.  It didn't really hurt, actually--I just felt a definite weirdness across the top of my foot in the 5th mile that translated itself into a wondrous day of pain while walking all day today.  I'm chalking this up to the fact that I am stupid and didn't loosen my laces in the right spot for that tendon to flex.
• Run #3: Tempo Run.  The schedule said to do a 6 mile tempo, but, because I suddenly remembered I was injured at the end, I only did 5 miles at tempo.  The reason I suddenly remembered was because my foot felt GREAT.  Almost as if it weren't injured. My little piggies were singing my praises (well, all except the one that has a nasty corn on one side).

So what did I do differently in this last run?  Actually LOOSEN MY LACES so there wasn't so much pressure on top of my foot.  But the other thing I did was (and this is pretty radical for yours truly) was WEAR DIFFERENT SHOES.

Lately I have been running in my Mizunos and Nikes, but this foot pain finally forced me out of my comfortable running shoe habits.  I dug out my pair of Asics Gel Nimbus 13s, which are shoes I haven't worn since a half-marathon I ran in August.  I slipped the shoe on my injured foot, and it felt different.  It felt good. The pain diminished, especially after I loosened the laces in the front of the shoe rather than towards the heel.

I then slipped one of my Mizunos on my injured foot...and the pain was back.  I noticed that there seems to be a part of the tongue of that shoe that was pressing on the tendon of my first metatarsal (where all the joyous pain is) which, after many many long runs in them, finally forced my extensor tendon to cry uncle and start being a huge pain in my ass.  But that's merely a hypothesis at this point, a hypothesis that, at the moment, I am not willing to test repeatedly and get my research peer reviewed so I can publish that baby and become science famous yet not be able to run or walk properly.

It was just nice to have a good run.  And a fast run, at that.  It's also nice that I have really been sticking to my little eating manifesto, eating real food and real veggies and cooking those real food and real veggies and not shoving bad eatin' down my throat the minute I see its badness in the house.  And I feel the better for it.  Week one of this is in the books; let's see if I can make this a permanent lifestyle change.

And speaking of the fact that I can't think of a nice segue into this paragraph, I have a 22-mile run on the schedule for Saturday.  I am going to try and run that distance, but I will do it much more slowly than I would have before this nagging injury of mine.  I am also going to switch that run to Sunday, because I have a 5K that day in honor of St. Patty's Day (I am Irish; I am required to run a race.  And then go drinking.) that day, and want to combine the mileage. So that means I get two days of cross-training until my next run.

That little piggie better get better by Sunday if he knows what's good for him.  Or her, I guess.



photo credit: asparagus_hunter via photopin cc

I came home, I cooked, I didn't die.

I told you all yesterday I was serious about losing this weight.  Day 1 of my serious weight-loss regime went pretty well, if I do say so myself and despite the fact that 99.9999% of all Day 1s of weight loss usually go well (as compared to Days 5 or 6).

I got up and worked out with some Jari Love this morning (Get Ripped & Chiseled) but skipped the lower body stuff because my hammies and quads were sore from yesterday's Supercuts extravaganza.  But my real workout was eating real food today.  And a little less of it than normal.  I just wish I didn't eat breakfast at 4:00 A.M. and then not have lunch until 11:45 A.M.; it tends to cause me to get a little snack-happy before lunch.

Anyhoo, I ate real carrots with my lunch, and came home and cooked dinner for myself.  This dinner consisted of:

• a banana
• half a sweet potato with a bit of butter and cinnamon
• a home-made chicken and cheese and salsa and jalapeno on a white wheat wrap thingie quesadilla:

There's stuff in it.  Really.

The quesadilla idea came from the fact that I was going to make a wrap but then put a little too much stuff in it and I realized there was absolutely no way I was going to be able to close the wrap.  So ta-da!  A quesadilla was born.  And then eaten.  Nom nom nom.

What's crazy was that it took all of 15 minutes tops to prepare all that food.  No more "I don't have time to cook" drivel out of me from now on.  Instead of saying that, I'll use that time to teach my husband the proper way to say "quesadilla." (He pronounces it "kay-suh-dill-uh."  The neanderthal.)

I'm hoping this good eatin' is going to help my tendinitis heal itself all up.  It felt pretty good today; the naproxen is really helping it out, I think.  I successfully walked around barefoot for 10 minutes without feeling it.

It gave me hope.  Enough hope that I am going to attempt to return to training tomorrow.  We'll see what happens.

I'm serious. I'm not teasing. I will lose this weight.

Today's workout, kiddos, was Cathe's Supercuts plus her Core #2 workout that is on the same DVD.  I'm still resting my foot from the tendinitis issue I've been having, but this morning I found where I hid my naproxen, so it's been feeling GOOD all day. But my workouts and stupid injury are not really the focus of my blog ramblings this time.

You see, I know it's a little late for New Year's resolutions, but I am resolved to lose 20 pounds.

I'm serious--I'm not teasing.

My colleague and I shot a video together at work to teach students how to draw Bohr diagrams, and boy do I hate the way I look.  I mean I really hate the way I look.  Specifically, I hate the way my gut hangs out.  I could lie to myself and say those are just my humongous abs of steel that can kill someone with a single contraction, but I've been lying to myself about my weight for about a year now. It's time to face reality.

Of course, I am training for a marathon, so my weight-loss goal is going to be a little tricky to carry out.  When I am running an 18-22 mile run, I can easily take in a buttload of calories.  And my body is going to need some calories to recover.  So, in order to successfully train for my marathon and lose some poundage (which should make me faster, too, when I don't have so much weight to haul around during speed work), I have decided to do the following:

• Eat real food.  I have been shoveling down the processed food when I know better.  Time to swap out the V8s for real veggies.  Speaking of veggies....
• Eat more veggies.  Overeating carrots is not the same as overeating Quaker Popped rice cakes that are coated with cheesy salty goodness.  Although you do tend to spend a tad more time in the bathroom when you overeat carrots.
• Stop with the sugar addiction.  Like the Quaker Popped rice snacks, I can't have any type of candy in the house, or I inhale it in a matter of minutes.  
• Cook my own dinner.  No more eating things that came out of a box.  Time to get off my lazy arse and take 10 minutes to cook up a chicken breast at night.
• Stop the "Oh, well, I just ran 20 miles I can go pig out at my favorite restaurant and I'm allowed to do it because _________________" crap and eat at home.  That weird old mentality I had towards food is creeping back, the one where I get all excited about eating crappy food at restaurants and can justify eating said crappy food in my brain with all sorts of ridiculous reasons. It shall be evicted--hopefully permanently.

These are all small changes, but I'm hoping they add up to big changes in my weight so I can be lighter, fitter, healthier and maybe just a little faster.

I ran today, and it felt good.

Well, it felt good until about the 5th mile.  Then I started to notice that my foot was still broken.  But only a little bit.

I wasn't stupid enough to think I could do the long run that was scheduled for today (18 miles), so I settled on 6 miles as a nice compromise.  And 6 slow miles.  But the top of my foot was still all sore whenever it got into a shoe, so I did a bit of Googling and decided to lace up the old shoes like this:

I wanted to avoid putting the laces over the part of my foot that hurt.  I also chose a shoe that is a stability shoe rather then my normal neutral shoes. And away to the treadmill I went.

Like I said, I didn't feel it until the 5th mile, where it started to become a bit more noticeable.  All those days off from running this week were probably a good thing.  But afterwards, I made sure to do this:

That water, for the record, was *BLEEP*ing cold.  And my foot was noticeably more sore afterwards, and I can't really lift my big toe very well.  It's amazing how much you don't realize how much you actually do that while running.

I also broke down and took some ibuprofen after the icing extravaganza, and it's feeling pretty good right now.  I wish I could find the naproxen I was prescribed once for a neuroma--if I do, I'll be popping those babies for sure.

I think I will follow my training schedule and do cross training for the next two days, and see about picking up some speed work on the treadmill starting on Tuesday.  Maybe some biking, maybe some weights...but for sure taking it easy on this foot.  I want to be ready for my first 22 miler a week from today.

I'm still broken.

I'm broken.  This tendinitis has me not running for the week.  It still hurts, and I am seriously reconsidering my marathon goal.  I'm considering bumping it down from a 10:00/mile pace goal to a "show up at the starting line and finish" goal.

We'll see.  In the mean time, this week I have been resting, cross-training, and doing things at work like this:

Oxygen and I are PISSED OFF at this whole injury thing.

At least the weather has been crappy enough so I am not missing any good outside running.  The dogs, however, are thoroughly enjoying making snow puppy angels as well as getting all the good snow snacking they can handle:

All this snow got dumped on us on Tuesday, the day I was supposed to do a track ladder speed workout.  Yeah, that didn't happen.  Wednesday I ended up taking the day off.  I meant to go do some stationary biking, but couldn't fit it in after I realized I had a massage that night (massages take priority over pretty much everything in my life, except the hubbs and the dogs).  My wonderful massage therapist worked on the top of my foot, but I think she overdid it--I woke up today hurting.

And, because I was in pain, I did something incredibly stupid--I wore some tight dress shoes to work.  I was in these shoes for all of an hour before the pain got too much.  I switched out of them into some sneakers, which complemented my dress pants and blazer quite nicely.  I sat in my office most of the day with ice on my foot, making videos and scoring my students' blogs.

I know.  My work life is an exciting breathless crazy whirlwind.  I'll give you a moment to let your head stop spinning.

After that stimulating day, I then changed and traipsed down the hallway to the fitness center, where I managed to get my butt onto a stationary bike in-between all the wrestlers and track stars in there doing their conditioning work.  And there my butt stayed for about 80 more minutes, whereby I did 25 miles on the "random hills" setting, dripping in sweat most of the time because I didn't realize the damn bike had a fan on it and worrying that I was going to catch some scary high school superbug bacterium that might be lingering on the handlebars and kill me within days surrounded by men in hazmat suits.  (I made like a doctor in the bathroom afterwards and scrubbed up to my elbows.  I'm a tad germophobic these days.)

On a brighter note, I registered for the Twin Cities Marathon in October, and got the goody bag I ordered along with it in the mail yesterday:

The bag is super nice.

I also purchased some new-fangled shoelaces that are really just tiny bungee cords masquerading as shoelaces and have fancy clips.  They're called Yankz! and the wonderful people who run the company out in Atlanta, Georgia were absolutely awesome about the fact that I put the wrong zip code for my billing address and forgot to put in my different shipping address and, despite my efforts to the contrary, shipped it successfully to me.

I bought two pairs (one purple, one white reflective) and, although they look pretty complicated to install, they were really easy to get on my shoes.  They are supposed to be more flexible when you're running (please to remember that I am injured because my laces were tied too tightly) and let your laces flex with your foot.  I put them on my favorite pair of shoes, and they really are comfortable, and your shoes stay snugly on your feet.  Not too bad for something that runs between $7.00-$8.00 a pair.

So, in sum, I'm still broken, but I'm not giving up hope.  My foot is feeling pretty good now after that biking session.  Tomorrow is upper-body weights, and Saturday....the schedule says an 18 mile pace run.  I'd like to do that long run, but I may have to do it more slowly than pace.  We'll have to evaluate this whole foot injury situation Saturday morning.

All bummed out, part 2

My foot isn't getting any better.  I'm all bummed out again.

When I got up, it wasn't too bad until I tried walking around the house, where the pain on the top of my foot began to get gradually worse the longer I was on my feet.  Later on I tried to run on the treadmill..  I ran for a few minutes at 4.0 mph, and the tendon on my first metatarsal didn't feel so bad.  I then ran for about a minute at 6.0 mph.  It hurt a little bit worse, but not too badly.

And then I stopped running, and the pain really started.  And then I had to face reality and, in the words of Jim Collins, confront the brutal facts (yet never give up hope)  Here are those facts:

• My foot really freaking hurts.  Right across the dorsal side, and it is hard to pull my big toe up towards my shin.  But it doesn't hurt while I'm just sitting around, and the hurt goes away with massage, so I'm pretty sure it's not a stress fracture.
• Activities that involve me moving my feet along the ground make it hurt worse.  This includes the cross-training I did today (did Cathe's low-impact workout Afterburn), which pretty much served to make my foot a white-hot ball of pain.  I did try biking on my stationary bike, but the resistance on it is broken, so I'm not getting much of a workout on it.  But I am pain-free while biking.
• I probably won't be able to run for the rest of the week.  This means skipping this week's workouts entirely, which is what has me bummed the most--all because I didn't loosen my damn laces.
• I'm going to ice this thing with some serious regularity.  I blasted my foot with ice-cold water for 5 minutes after my shower today, and it seems a little better.  Ice will be my constant companion for the next few days.
• Massage makes it better.  I was reading (we'll see if it gets me in trouble this time) about friction massage for this type of tendinitis, and it does seem to help, especially if I ice it afterwards.  I'll try anything at this point.

My current plan is to deal with the injury and still make it to the starting line for my marathon.  I would definitely rather give up my time goal just to be able to run it pain-free.

I'm not giving up hope.  Not yet.

For every running triumph, there is a huge vortex of suck.

In every life, a little rain must fall.  For every yin, there is a yang.  For me, for every good run, a little bad form must fall.  For every running triumph, there is a huge vortex of suck.

Yesterday I proved to myself that I could run my long runs at race pace.  After that run, one of the tendons in my foot proved that it could be a huge pain in the ass.  As I write this, I am trying to keep an ice pack on the top of my right foot.  After Googling frantically last night, hopping up and down on my foot about 12,000 times, and bending my foot and toes every which way (some of them in ways I'm sure they're not meant to go), I , Dr. Engelbrecht, have made the following diagnosis:

Tendinitis.  (Huge vortex of suck here.)  The prescription?  Rest and stop my moronic self from lacing my shoes too tightly.

I am currently addicted to wearing Mizuno Wave Rider 16s.  I just got a second pair (red) after my first purple pair, I am convinced, has help ease my Achilles suffering.

Yesterday's run was only the second time I have worn these beauties, having tried them out on a speed session earlier last week (these are some very very light shoes).  It was on that day that I realized my laces were a bit snug on my left foot, but I didn't loosen them.

And I didn't loosen them yesterday before my 16 mile run either.  So, kiddos, it's now time for a little lesson from the teacher:

Tight shoe + 16 mile run faster than you've ever run it before = Ooooh girl your tendons are in TROUBLE.

I'm just glad it's not a stress fracture.  To make sure it doesn't become one, I think I may end up cancelling my treadmill session for tomorrow and cross training one more day, especially since the pain was worse when I got up and walked around on it all day. Speaking of cross training, I am trying to make sure I get in weights plus more cardio on those days so I can get the best of both worlds and increase my training volume, as the boys from Run Less, Run faster say.  That means today's Cathextravaganza DVD choice was Athletic Training, a workout I haven't done in a long time.

I forgot how much the cardio portion at the beginning kicks my sweet patootie.  You start with about 20 minutes of low-impact cardio using a step--very simple moves, but very effective.  I felt like I was gargling my heart at the end of that section.  After that, she uses light weights (5-8 lbs), some resistance bands, a firewalker band, and a gliding disc to work all your major muscle groups.  It's a nice workout for the day after a long run because it doesn't kill you, but still gets your heart a-pumpin'.

And I may end up doing the same tomorrow if this tendon thing doesn't clear up.  We shall see what some ice and a good night's sleep can do.

16 mile long run: sulking, pit bulls, and proving to myself that I can run my marathon pace.

I was all bummed out earlier, thinking that I wasn't going to make my goal pace for my first marathon.  As I started my 16 mile long run (in almost perfect weather, by the way--I ran the last 6 miles without any gloves on, which made me perversely happy), I was trapped in a funk that made my first few miles junk.  Plodding along, I thought I was never ever going to run at race pace.  Ever.  Even the sunny day and perfect weather couldn't cheer me up.  Run run run, sulk sulk sulk.

And then the pit bull chased me.

Normally this dog is behind a fence, but the front gate was open and, as soon as it saw me, it came after me with a vengeance.  I'm serious: it was out to get me, and it was gaining ground on me so fast I was deciding which leg I was going to let it bite when it got to me.  (I pulled my best pace of the run while running away screaming from the thing--a 5:30 min/mile.)  Thankfully, the owners were outside and had good control of the dog; as soon as they spoke, the dog stopped. After I caught my breath, they apologized and promised it would be secure on my return trip past their house.  And it was.  I like it when people do what they say they're going to do.

I kept on trucking down the road, not really sulking anymore, but getting pissed off with myself.  Why did I think I couldn't do it?  Why did I think I couldn't ever truly do a pace run?  Do I release some sort of dog-chasing pheromone?

So, I decided that after the warm-up the pit bull provided me, I was going to pick up the pace and see what I could do.  You can see exactly what I did below:

It's obvious that in the first few miles I was all drowning in my "I'll never run my target marathon pace" sorrows.  And then you can see, right after mile 5, I started to speed up.  By mile 8, I was trucking.  My brain said to slow down--and I did--for the next two miles.  But after that I really wanted to see if I could do it--run at my projected race pace until the end of the run.

And I did.  Those splits from mile 8 onwards may not mean much to you, but they mean the world to me.  It's just the confidence booster I needed to get out of my downward mental spiral.

Now I know I can do it.  So that's what I'm going to do from here on out.

Because I know you want to hear more about the other highlights of my run, I have created a visually appealing breakdown of the major events of the run for your eyeballs.  Please direct said eyeballs to the graph below:

As you can see, peeing was a major event during this run.  Why is it that I can pee 3 bajillion times before I head out, but within the first 3 miles my bladder starts giving me crap (well, urine)?  At least today I had some semblance of privacy out on my country roads.  And I have no idea why my pace was all ziggity-zaggity there after mile 14; all I remember at that point was just trying to keep moving to maintain pace until I got home.

So now I've proved to myself that I can run at my goal pace in a long run.  Now to work on making my cross-training more aerobic without giving up my weight-lifting time.  More on that tomorrow.