Day 2, Week 9: Working out with pets in the house: (Un)helpful tips

This morning's workout was Cathe's Total Body Tri-Sets, which nearly killed me with its cornucopia of different annoying versions of push-ups.  It's a good thing I had the cat there to inspire me with all his hard work and effort, or else I never would have gotten through the workout.

Hyooman.  Chest to floor, slacker.

Hyooman push-ups...so laughable.

If you couldn't tell, I do my weight workouts in the comfort of my crappy little living room.  It's not very big, but I make it work--you have to use the space you have to get those workouts done.  I also have to make it work around four crazy animals, all of whom are under the age of two and think my workout time is play time.  So, how do you work out with young playful animals around?  Let me give you some of my helpful non-helpful tips:


Tip One: Locate the animal who has been nominated as supervisor and get into his good graces by smothering him with kisses.  That way he'll let you cheat on your push-ups later.

Tip Two:  Take selfies with the animals to put off doing all those pesky push-ups.

Tip Three: Scatter equipment about the floor to make it look like you have already worked out to fool any animal that might want to jump on you during push-ups or while doing your box jumps.

Tip Four: Never stop moving during your workout.  Someone is always waiting for you to stop long enough to demand rubs.

Hyooooman...need rubs now.  During push-ups.

Tip Five: Smiling dogs will always think you're playing during plyometrics/HiiT and try and knock you over and jump on your box step.  Never trust them when they're in your workout area.  EVER.

Dog be like "I did it once and I'll do it again lolololol"

And finally, Tip Six: Always share the joy of a good recovery.

Learnings:

• Can you tell I didn't have a lot of time to post today?  Yeah, you can tell.
• Can you also tell I hate push-ups?  I do.  I really really do.  Especially soldier push-ups.  Buh.
• It's a rare workout in the living room that is animal-free.
• It's never a good workout in the living room that ends with a cat hanging by its claws from your shoelaces.

Tomorrow's workout: Treadmill Tuesday! Lots of 1000m repeats with a 2000m thrown in just for laughs!  And tears!

Yes, I love speed work. Well, I love it after it's over.

Yesterday I cross-trained like a fiend.  16.5 miles on the bike followed by 40 minutes of upper-body weight work (lifting heavy), and then wrapped up with 10 minutes of abs/core work.

It's nice that I have the time to leisurely work out for 2 hours a day now.  Although I think I went a little too heavy on the weights, seeing as I haven't been lifting consistently for a few weeks.  My entire upper body is quite sore this morning, including my armpits.  It's the chest work that always nails me the worst.

I have to say that I am really starting to enjoy the cycling, even though yesterday we had some gloomy rainy weather through which I was pedaling.  I am still experimenting with the gears, and finally found a combo that had me cruising quite comfortably at around 17 mph.  Let me tell you that is much much much faster than I used to go on my old Target special.  The road bike has been a very nice cross-training/duathlon investment.

Because the legs were feeling good after yesterday's cross-training (active recovery?), I decided to do some speed work this morning.  I grabbed my favorite half-marathon training plan and decided to do the week one intervals (1 x 1200, 2 x 800, 4 x 400).  So, I grabbed my new spotted cow running shorts and headed outside.

Testing these babies out for Ragnar Chicago!

I love speed work.  Specifically, I love doing short intervals.  Why?  Let me count the ways:

• Running fast is fun.  Reminds me of all the impromptu races we used to "organize" in the neighborhood as a kid.
• It helps me nail down the more rapid turnover you need to do faster running. You gotta get your legs used to the rhythm of faster running.
• It challenges me to challenge myself (Does that make sense? Probably not.).  I always come out on the other side of speed work feeling triumphant, not beaten like I do sometimes with tempos.
• I feel like I run more efficiently and with better form when running faster.  Sometimes when I'm injured and do faster running, the injury starts going away rather than getting worse.  My body is weird like that.
• The return on investment is huge.  Once, when I trained for a 10K in which the training included lots of crazy speed work, I didn't run it as fast as I wanted to run it (It was freaking cold.  February in Illinois, you know).  However, about 3 weeks afterwards I ran a 5K and PRd the freaking thing with a pace that my brain thought was insane but my body now found pretty comfortable.  It takes a long time to see the benefits, but if you are doing this consistently (and safely by not sprinting on every single interval), you will see huge gains.

Now if I can only find the joy in tempo work....for my next round of marathon training, we're going to work on mixing up the longer-distance speed work.  Doing an 8.5 mile tempo every Thursday will drive me more bonkers than I already am.

On the weight front today, I was 146.2.  Down from yesterday, but I did fit nicely into a size 4 pair of shorts this morning (I have been a size 6 as of late), so I'm feeling pretty good about that.  I am also feeling good about a half marathon being held in South Bend, IN this weekend that I just signed up to run yesterday. I want to do my long run in a race atmosphere this weekend as a part of my reverse taper up to my Ragnars.  Impulsive?  Absolutely.  Crazy because I have to run a Ragnar the next week?  Quite possibly.

But will I have fun crossing the finish line (no matter what my time) at the 50 yard line of the Notre Dame stadium?  You better freaking believe it.

Decisions, decisions.

I weighed myself this morning, and the scale is still stuck at 142.2 lbs.  I will spare you all another picture of my veiny feet in my bathroom that has been in a state of remodel for the past 7 years. (Yes, seven.)

Weighing myself every morning is really holding me accountable.  It is helping me make better decisions during the day.  For example:

Decision #1:  Lunch.

Today was a half day for my students, and afterwards us teachers got professionally developed for the rest of the day.  But before the development began, the school graciously served us some lunch.  It looked really good and smelled really good, but it was not on my eating manifesto.  I badly wanted to crash the lunch line, but resisted that urge, thinking of the scale this morning.  Instead, I ate the lunch I made this morning like a good little weight-loss girl.

Decision #2: Dinner.

It's Friday.  I was tempted after school to run down to my husband's office and ask him if he wanted to go shopping with me....and then go out to dinner.  But then I thought of all the crap I would eat and how I would just feel guilty when I got on the scale in the morning, and thought the better of it.  I also have a lot of food I cooked still sitting in the fridge, and I can't justify going out when it is there waiting for me in all its delicious leftover glory.

Some may find weighing yourself every day to be a bit obsessive.  I call it "smart weight management."

Anyhoo, on to the exercise portion of today's post.  I got up wanting to run, but then decided against it to give my Achilles weirdness another day to settle.  Instead, I busted out a Cathe fave of mine that I didn't do during marathon training because of the high impact nature of some of the moves: Circuit Blast.

I like this workout because the cardio is effective (hello high-impact jumping moves-o-rama) and is combined with compound weight exercises and core work to really do a nice job of hitting it all in about 45 minutes.  I had my sweat on after this workout.  Although they use a full-size step, I used a mini-step instead because that's the only step I have with that many risers.  It only became an issue on one move (wide box jumps) in the last round of exercises, and then I just do regular box jumps instead.  A box jump is a box jump is a box jump--they all burn the thighs after about 6 reps.

But tomorrow's workout has been planned for me ever since I signed up to do a duathlon next Saturday.  This is something I wanted to do last year but chickened out because I didn't know how to handle the transitions.  It's a 2 mile run, 11 mile bike, and a 2 mile run, so it looks like something I can handle if I practice a bit this week on my run days incorporating some biking as well.

And I'm going to start tomorrow with a 1 mile run, 5 mile bike, 1 mile run workout.  I'll be sure to let you all know how it goes, along with any accompanying reassessment of my sanity for even signing up for this in the first place.

Eating to be healthy? Pffffft.

This week I resumed working out.  Not full-bore training, but some easier workouts to build up into more of a training-esque schedule next week so I can start preparing for Ragnar Chicago.

Our 2012 Ragnar team--my first Ragnar ever.

I have to tell you it is totally weird not having a schedule on a piece of paper be the boss of me; after 16 weeks of being told what to do by an 8 x 11 piece of dead tree with some ink on it, I was cast adrift this week, having to actually decide for myself what workout to do.  Being made to think so much at 4 AM when I get up kind of sucks.

Anyway, I ran on Tuesday and Wednesday because the weather at 5 AM was fanFREAKINGtastic.  No wind, upper 40s/50s, and sunny because the sun is actually coming up at this time (or starting to, anyway).

These are the runs for which I have been waiting.  The runs that I daydreamed about during 20 miles in the cold wind and snow in February where I ran in 4 layers of clothing.  The runs that should have come when spring well...you know...was supposed to come.  Not that I'm bitter or anything.

I haven't been focusing on my pace at all this week and just running by what feels good.  Apparently what feels good is around a 9 minute mile, which is pretty awesome methinks after running a first marathon.  And what's weird is that these small bursts (4 or 5 miles) of faster running actually made my piriformis issues disappear this week.  However, my Achilles twanging as I go up and down steps is back with a vengeance.  I found a sore spot on my soleus that I massaged and foam rolled the snot out of this week, and it seems to be getting better.  All I know is that every time my Achilles twangs its way up the steps I want to cringe because the feeling is SO DAMN STRANGE and you never want to feel it EVER AGAIN.

Because of that strangeness, I rode the bike this morning for 10 miles. Since it was gorgeous weather again I took it outside, leaving the bike in a much higher gear than I normally do by accident (I forgot to crank it back down at the end of my last ride).  I didn't notice it until the 5th mile, and, by that time, I just decided to leave it alone and see what happened.  I think my quads may have gotten a tad bit stronger out of all that high-mileage running that is marathon training, which is good to know.

The goal for the next few weeks is to not tear the hell out of any more of my body parts so I can actually run a Ragnar without some injury nagging me.  Well, that's my exercise goal.  My eating goal is to be down at least 4 pounds by Ragnar Chicago, which is on June 7th-8th this year.  This morning's weigh-in wasn't in line with that goal:

Plywood = My house is being remodeled.  Still.  After 7 years.

But it was only 0.2 lbs gained.  That was probably higher because:

a) I went to bed at 10:00 PM instead of 7:30.  It has been bandied about that lack of sleep causes weight gain, and that may be more true of the long term than one night.  However, thinking back to when I used to weigh myself regularly in the past, after a night of shortened sleep I always came in at a slightly higher poundage.  So I'm not really worried about this.

b) It's a normal fluctuation for some other silly reason.

I know it wasn't because of my eating over the past few days, because I have really been sticking to the ol' eating manifesto.  This may all be in my head, but I have been feeling pretty good these last few days--better than I did when eating crap.  If eating like this is what's putting more pep in my workouts, then I think I have the motivation I need to keep going.  

Because who cares about that whole "eating real food because it makes you healthy" crap anyway, huh?

Outside, I Miss Running In You.

Got up today fully expecting to do my ladder workout on the treadmill, especially since the winds were so strong they were rattling all of the old windows in my house.  It is treadmill Tuesday, after all, people!  Let's get that treadmill a-rollin'!  All aboard the Treadmill Tuesday Train!

I did get on the train, but had to get off at a very early stop, unfortunately.  After about 0.75 miles I realized I was not going to have time to run a 400, 800, 1200, 1600, and then work my way back down that ladder and be able to get to work on time.  Damn myself for getting up too late.

I'm a bit of a perfectionist about my speed work days; I just like to do an entire speed work workout rather than cut it short. And this is a workout I've never actually done before.  It was a challenge to be conquered, and I wanted to conquer the entire thing at once.  So I decided to come home after work and run it on the treadmill when I would have the luxury of time.

And then I checked the weather forecast for this afternoon just as I was about to leave my place of employment.  I about jumped out of my pants (don't worry; no one was around to see it) when I saw that the temperature would be hovering deliciously near the 30s and there would be basically no wind.

"I CAN RUN OUTSIDE!!" I exclaimed in my classroom to absolutely no one, much like a teacher who desperately needs a break.  Or years of therapy.

And run outside I did.  This is what the sun was doing when I pulled into my driveway:

I knew I'd have to strap on the headlamp and get all gussied up in my reflective gear since the sun was sinking fast, but I didn't care.  I knew I would only have to wear two-ONLY TWO-layers of clothing.  I was all aglow with running excitement.

Still glowing, I trucked outside and ran that ladder.  It only took an hour, and I managed to piss off every damn dog along the way, leaving a wave barking in my wake that sounded much like off-kilter barking metronomes as I ran away from them as quickly as I could.  I don't think they were barking at me; I think they were barking at the headlamp.  ("Hey--what is that glowing thing bobbing up and down out there?  And where is that heavy breathing coming from?  We should bark like crazy at it.")

But enduring the barking and having my pepper spray at the ready several times was worth it.  The weather was perfect.  I was running at speeds that I would break down in a mental pile of goo about if I were doing them on the treadmill.  In the dark you can only see the moving circle of your headlamp (and the errant zombie lying in the cornfield.  I'm sure one of those shadows in the cornfield is a zombie), and you don't see the hills or the scenery or anything else--you can just focus on the run.

I conquered the workout.  I just hope the weather holds for Thursday so I can conquer that 8.5 mile tempo run on the training schedule this week (unlike last week).

Damn you, kinetic theory.

Today's workout: 6 slow slow miles on the treadmill.

Well, technically, I ran slower at first, and then less and less slow over those 6 miles.  I like to practice my negative splits, you see.  Even at low speeds.  Must be safer that way.

I have no idea what happened at the start.  My Garmin keeps autopausing while I'm still in motion.

After those 800s and this slow slow run, I wore my support pantyhose to work today.  Just in case you didn't know, "support" means "you must put them on as if they were sausage casing because they are really low-grade compression garments sold as beauty aids."  I don't know if they work, but my legs feel pretty good right now.

This morning, however, was a different story.  My legs were still pretty tired from the 800s I did the night before when I got home from work.  In fact, I didn't want to run on the treadmill at all this morning.  It was nice enough outside that I could have run on the streets, except for that whole "the roads are all covered in slippery ice and snow" thing.  So the treadmill I hopped upon, looking forward to the fact that I could run my 8.5 mile tempo outside the next morning, because it was supposed to get warm enough to melt all that nasty ice and snow off the roads.

Except for the fact we are forecast to get a freezing rain/sleet mix starting at 1 AM.  Damn you, kinetic theory.

Guess I better go in search of all my mental toughness again for that tempo run.  I better go after the bits under the couch and behind the toilet just to make sure I am prepared.

Treadmill Tempo Run Fail

I woke up dreading my run today.  Mainly it was because I was up late last night blogging all sorts of blogariffic things on all my blogs, and the late was made later by the fact that I teach a grad class on Wednesday nights.

I need to learn to make better blogging choices.

Anyway, I woke up very tired and very cold.  The wind was howling, the temperature was in the teens, and there was no way I could run a tempo run in sub-zero wind chills.  Or, at least that's what the hubbs mumbled to me when my alarm went off at 4 AM.  It's very cold here in Illinois right now, in case you didn't know:

Even my puppies are feeling the cold, and they're built for it (partly genetics, partly too much blubber):

This morning I had to gather up all my courage--even the stray bits under the bed and in the back corner of the linen closet--to go downstairs and do a 4 mile tempo on the treadmill.

You probably already know I can barely handle running 1000m repeats on the thing, so you can imagine the state I was in when I started running 4 miles at my tempo speed.  Outside, I can run a 4-mile tempo without much thought. The treadmill, however, is a much different and completely sad, pathetic story:

First 800m: "This isn't so bad.  At least I have some good TV on the trusty old ID channel."
Next 800m: "This is starting to suck."
Next 800m: "Maybe I should kick the speed down a notch.  If I were a total wimp."
Next 800m: "ZOMG I'LL NEVER MAKE IT I SUCK I WILL TOTALLY FAIL AT THIS MARATHON."

In case you were counting, I barely made it to the half-way point of this tempo.  After that, I had to break it up into 800 m repeats just to get through the workout.  What's extremely sad is that the last part is no exaggeration; I was mentally cracking by the second mile.  I really need to mentally toughen the you-know-what-bad-word-to-which-I-am-referring up.  So, to punish myself, I shall be doing more tempos on the treadmill until my inner whiny baby learns to put a cork in it.  It's kind of like self-flagellation, only with a treadmill.  I think.

Monday Ramblings

I began my morning by ever-so-gracefully slipping in my driveway on the sheet of ice that had formed overnight and landing right on my ass.  Good thing I have worked long and hard at putting extra padding back there; I don't even have a bruise.  Yet.  That'll teach me to wear fashionable boots with an almost nonexistent coefficient of friction instead of practical ones.  Since ice tends to melt when it hits warm ass molecules (I know this because I am a science teacher), that meant that any ice clinging to my ass thereby underwent a change of state and transformed itself into liquid H2O which wet my pants and backside thoroughly.  I got to drive to work with a wet ass.

Good thing this happened after I did Cathe's Supercuts workout (DEEElicious!), or I would really have been in trouble.  This is the third time I've done it, and I must say I am in pretty heavy serious like with it. Compound moves that make my heart rate skyrocket and that crazy core at the end....mmmm mmmm.  Now if I can only convince her that I really am committed (she keeps asking me, dammit, every time I do the workout), it would be a perfect workout.

Now, it's probably obvious I love me some cross training, mainly because it mixes up my workout week and staves off boredom.  But I also like it because I really believe it helps you train injury-free (if you're doing it right, that is.  I've done it wrong before and only got more injured.  Let's just say you shouldn't do high-impact workouts on your cross-training days-just because it's not running doesn't mean you should do it).  And my marathon training plan (which I am bitter about purchasing but glad that I have) provides two cross-training days after my long runs on Saturday.  This isn't something I ever had in a training plan before, and I dig it.  I'm thinking this has been allowing my legs to heal before smacking them around with more running abuse each week.

Why do I think this?  Because I have been the proud owner of an Achilles injury since September.  And, even after running 18 miles on Saturday, all is quiet on the Achilles front.  In fact, it feels 95% normal--and I am hitting a weekly mileage I have never ever seen before.  I guess I just got all jacked up in my old training schedules that never gave me two days off from running in a row; being a novice runner, I just assumed that wasn't what was done.  I got all mentally trapped in the boxes of those schedules I never realized I should have just given myself two days off if my body needed it, breaking free from the schedule shackles I had imposed upon myself.

Whoa.  It got all serious for a second.  Let's lighten it up:

That's better.

Anyhoo, after a pretty craptastic day today (at least I had no meetings), this came in the mail for me:

Calf sleeves.  And they're purple, people--my lucky racing color. Plus they are from Pro Compression, a neat little company whose products would make excellent Christmas gifts for the runner(s) in your life.  Just sayin'. Can't wait to try them out tomorrow morning when I'm running mile repeats in the dark.

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.

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

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.