Too much running, some fiddling, and animal pics

This morning I did a 10 mile treadmill run because (a) I have a treadmill and (b) it was way too freaking cold outside.

I was supposed to run a 14 mile speed session, but yesterday I decided to go fiddling about in the My Run Plan app and WHAMMO I completely screwed up my training schedule so that it was trying to train me for a marathon on 20 miles a week.  This resulted in lots of very short runs on the plan and a face that looked a lot like the one I had this morning after finishing those 10 treadmill miles.

It also resulted in a lot of swear words being directed at my phone, many of which are still hanging in the air above the couch as I write this.  I got a lot of dirty looks from female cat for this, whose delicate ears cannot handle such language.

Hyooman.  Stop swearing dammit.

I eventually fiddled about in the app the right way and got my plan somewhat back to normal, but it resulted in the 10 mile speed session I did this morning.  I was actually kind of sort of super glad I didn't have to do 14 miles of speed, as my quads, calves, and any other little leg muscle in my body was still tight from the 17 miler I did on Saturday on the hilly hills around my house.  Even after the run this morning I kept stiffening up while sitting at work and had to go take entire laps around the building (it's a big building) just to flush out all that crazy stiffness.  My legs are still pretty tight, but thankfully my supervisors are good about getting me into bed for some good sleepy-time-type recovery.

Woman.  Go to bed so you'll stop complaining.

And that's where this little runner is headed - to bed.  But you're headed for some learnings:

• I haven't hurt this badly after a long run in a very long time...I'm either undertrained or just really stupid for running in the first place.
• Life lesson: Don't go fiddling about in running training plan apps. 
• Unless fiddling is your thing, I guess--then fiddle away.
• Who's glad I don't run again until Wedneday?  This little tired runner.
• Is this post just an excuse to post pictures of my animals?  Most likely.

Tomorrow's workout: Spin.  Weights. Hoping my quads untighten by Wednesday.

Day 2, Week 1: Welcome to my day.

Welcome to my day, which contained:

1) A barbell-intensive upper body weight workout that included my very own spotter

Bicep curls aren't the same without him

2) Navigating the rest of the workout around animal obstacles while I try to get swole in my living room.

Laundry basket not included in the workout.  Or the cat tree.

3) Sitting in my office for the rest of the day working with way too many spreadsheets that had way too many little lines that eventually resulted in me wearing a headset in front of a Chromebook because I couldn't take it anymore.

Seriously--who *wouldn't* want my life?

Answer: I don't even want it some days. 



Tomorrow's workout: Some speed...for 10-11 miles.  MyRunPlan App WTF

Day 1, Week Who Knows?

Well.  I only managed 11 miles of an 18 mile run.  Again.  As you can imagine, I'm a little disgruntled about this.

Disgruntled Level: MAX

 This extreme shortening of the run was for two reasons:

1) The exhaustion from yesterday carried over into today and I didn't get going until 8:30 AM. Which meant it was getting a little toasty outside.
2) My left butt reared its ugly glute pain in mile 8 and it was all I could do to get back to the house.

I tried to do the last 7 or so on the treadmill, which is where I can unselfconsciously run without a shirt and take selfies at an angle that doesn't reveal all my copious fat rolls, but my left butt was having none of that treadmilling either.

WARNING: Snazzy visor and extremely white belly alert

So I had to seriously revise my race goals, people.  Here's the deal:

1) My new goal race is the Dallas Marathon in December.
2) Until my duathlon, I'm only running 11-15 miles on Sundays.
3) I changed the number of run days per week in the training app from 4 to 3.
4) I'm going to have to start my day and week numbering for these posts all over again.  Sorry about that for all you Type As out there.
5) It's a stupid idea to train for a long-distance duathlon and a marathon at the same time.  Really stupid.

I feel good about this decision, as I can now solely focus on my duathlon (less than 30 days away!) and then just putz my way through the Twin Cities Marathon like I normally do.  Now if I could only decide how to end this post...I think a random pic of one of my animals will do the trick.

And there you go.

Tomorrow's workout:  Upper body weights!  Abs!  Nothing involving my legs for sure!

Consistency and gratuitous animal pictures are the key.

Sometimes it's really hard to get out of bed and get my workout done in the wee hours of the AM.  He knows what I'm talking about.

Mom..stop waking me up when you get out of bed.

But getting up early and doing my workout before I go to work is a habit that I formed way back in 2004/5, and that consistency has helped me not only lose weight but also train for those little marathons and duathlons that I do.  In fact, I would say that consistency is key in helping you reach any of your fitness and/or weight loss goals.  But consistency in what, exactly?  Well...

Consistency in eating.

You have to consistently eat real, good-for-you food in order to lose weight and just be healthy in general.  I have had to learn this about 53 times, but I think it's finally starting to sink in, as you can see from my newly-found motivation to food prep like crazy these days:

Chicken Salsa Verde for lunch - FIESTA IN MY MOUTH

Consistency in getting those workouts done anyway you can.

I'm a lucky person that happens to own her own treadmill and a spin bike, so if I can't run or ride outside I have an alternative.  But when I didn't have those things, I still tried to get some workout in (usually a workout DVD) so I could at least say I burned some calories and did my workout duty for the day - and so I could keep up the habit of working out.  I don't know about you, but if I stop working out for 2 or more days, my brain starts thinking that's a permanent thing.


Consistency in post-workout selfies.

If a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, did it really happen?  If a workout is done and no selfie taken, did the workout really happen?  These are just the same question with different words, people.

Dog-verified post-workout selfie.

Consistency in rest and recovery.

In case you don't know what "rest" or "recovery" looks like, here's a good example.

If you don't ever recover or get enough rest, your body won't heal and then your workouts and races will begin to suck.  And sucking is to be avoided at all costs. 

Consistency in sucking it up, buttercup.

You have to do the workouts you don't want to do.  For me, these workouts are anything that includes the words "mile" and "repeats."  You have to do these workouts because those are the workouts that are usually good for your growth, development, and helping you fine tune your mental "suck it up, buttercup"edness.

Consistency in helping others see they can do it too.

One reason I started this blog was to help me maintain consistency by writing all sorts of facetious garbage on it.  In other words, I started it for myself.  But others have unexpectedly and sometimes weirdly gained inspiration from all this facetious garbage, helping them see that they can do it too.  While I'm always supportive of anyone on a journey to better fitness and weight loss, I think sometimes we have to make that support more intentional.  For example, writing a post about consistency and actually including helpful suggestions rather than just silly things that sometimes include gratuitous pictures of animals. 

Consistency in including pictures of your animals in your blog posts.

Ooops how did these gratuitous pictures of animals get here?!? 

Consistency in ending your posts with stupid non-educational learnings:

• Just in case you were wondering, I did my workouts for the past two days: a bike ride and some mile repeats this morning.
• I had to so suck it up, buttercup, to get those mile repeats done this morning.  Buh.
• Along with a duty to support others in their fitness goals, I feel it is my duty to share pictures of my animals.
• Seriously, consistency is the key.  Although I wish I could workout once or twice, eat a few sprigs of broccoli, get a fantastic body, and then move on my with my life.

Tomorrow's workout: 5 mile easy run.

This post begins with speed work and ends with rainbows and awesomeness.

This morning's speed work was WAY better than last week's joke of a speed workout. I had a weird little ladder workout on the schedule - a 1000m, a 2000m, then 2 more 1000m repeats.  Not really a ladder; more of a speed bump, if you think about it...and if you even think about those sorts of things.

I also think about purple running shorts.  A lot.

Anyway, the workout was better because, even though my nose still kept running every 400 meters or so, I remembered I had this little cloth wipe-thingie that attaches to your thumb so you could wipe and blow your nose while you run.  If it wasn't totally gross right now I'd take a picture and show you what it looks like.

The other reason this speed workout was better was because I trucked through that 2000m repeat like a champ.  This is mainly because I divided it up into smaller 400m chunks in my mind and blasted some of my fave songs the entire time.  But I didn't go into the workout thinking I was going to make it; after all, I struggled my way through some measly 1200m repeats the week before until the struggle bus pretty much ran over me.  You see, I have this nasty habit of thinking I can't do things, and then I just go out and freaking do them, surprising myself.  And then go back to thinking I can't do those things.

What can I say; it's a gift.

So what "things" am I talking about?  Well, besides the 2000m repeat from this morning, here are some other things I never thought I could do but then busted out, both running and non-running related:

• Stand up and present in front of others.  I used to take Fs for presentations in high school rather than get up and look like a fool in front of a class.  Little did I know that would be my primary job for 17 years in my own classroom - and that I would even make presentations in front of entire school districts.
• Run 3 miles at once.  Before my first 5k, I had never run three miles straight.
• Run a full marathon.  Believe it or not, I never thought I could run a full marathon, and didn't even think I could do it at the starting line of that first 26.2 since I had never run that far in training.
• Own cats.  I was seriously NOT a cat person at all until these two little ferals showed up on my porch befriending large dog and then asking to come in the house because they might freeze to death during the winter and they were just too cute to become kitten-cicles.

Resistance was futile.

• Run a 4:10 marathon.  That's my marathon PR, and I didn't think I was going to make it after I completely broke down for a few minutes at mile 23.  But I gathered myself and managed to get to the finish line just in time.
• Complete a triathlon--specifically that whole "swim" part of a triathlon.  I don't know if you call what I did "swimming," but I got the job done and didn't drown.  Win-win.
• Get married.  I never pictured me hitched to a guy, but boy is the hubbs thankful I relented on that one.  Well, he is on the days I'm not yelling at him to stop talking to me while I'm on the treadmill.
• Run marathons just for fun.  Some may consider that sick and wrong, but it's what I do these days.
• And finally...I never thought I could obtain my own run recovery cat who demands recovery rubs when I finish my treadmill sessions.

Gimme da rubs hyooman...only way you can
recover properly I swears.

And there you have it--the short list of my "didn't think I could dos but went and did thems." You just never know what you can do until you try, which I guess is the main learning of this post.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go cue a rainbow.


And while I'm doing that, here are some lesser learnings:

• How awesome are those purple running shorts?
• Super awesome, that's how awesome.
• Those cats were awesomely cute as kittens, you have to admit.
• Looking back on that list, I've done some pretty awesome things.
• Now it would be awesome if I could remember that I did them the next time I think I can't do something.
• It would also be awesome to end this post with a pic of the dogs:

Enough facetious blogging garbage - it's play time.

Tomorrow's workout:  Cathe's PHA workout.  Good times.

A lazy short post about a not-so-lazy 13 mile treadmill run.

Hubbs has canceled all outdoor running for me as long as it's below zero.

He is so unreasonable; he acts like it's all chaos out there just because it's cold.

But it's not.  It's just an increased risk of a little frostbite.  Hubbs always overreacts.

Anyway, since I couldn't go outside and run and I had a ton to do today, I decided to get up at my normal wakeup time and get those miles in on the treadmill at 5-ish AM. 

5 AM SUCKERS.  Only I'm really the sucker.

The animals were a little weirded out.

You're going running instead of playing with us at 4 AM
and waking up Dad?

Weirdo Hyooman.  Go back to bed.  It's Saturday.

But I didn't let freaked out animals stop me from getting my first long run done on the training plan.  My strategy was the same as last weekend - do one easy mile followed by 2 faster miles.  That way my brain can split the workout into smaller chunks (4, to be precise for this morning with a mile easy as a cool down) so it can fool itself into running in place for 2 hours without realizing that's what it's doing.  It worked well, especially since I popped in a good movie (Hidden Figures) to watch during the run.

Afterwards, I was pretty impressed with myself-not only for making it through all the miles, but getting up that early on a Saturday and, you know, not farting around for hours before actually doing the run.  Although full disclosure:  I promised myself Starbucks if I finished all 13 miles.  And I always keep my promises.

I was so impressed with myself about this run that I let Squiggy (our female judgy cat from the picture above) know I had done all 13 miles:

The big one-THREE baby

But she was busy and couldn't be bothered.

Learnings?  Yeah, here are a few:

• It was a busy day of running and errands and working on my new house, so a few pictures and sentences are all you get today.
• I was impressed that I did that entire run-and I only had to stop two times for pit stops.
• I had to re-take my "one-three" picture after I realized I was really making a "three-one" for everyone instead.
• Squiggy needs a lot of rest because, after all, she has to deal with this stupid human all day.

Tomorrow's workout: Upper body weight-lifting goodness!