Four Pic Post - a July wrap-up

Pic #1:

Large dog, his tongue, and I ended our July by running an easy 6 while watching the sun rise this morning in some awesome mid-50s temps.

His tongue enjoyed that sunset.

Pic #2:

This run topped off our July total at 155 miles and some change.

I have no idea if this is good or bad.  Maybe good since I ran all those miles.

Pic #3:

My hip wasn't so bad this morning, but I was feeling some tightness toward the end of the run - which is why I did my hip and glute strengthening exercises this evening under large dog's supervision.

He's ready with toys in case I need those for my exercises.

Pic #4:

Female cat cannot believe how stupid this blog post is.  And how stupid this blog is because it has so much large dog on it, who just likes to eat her head when she least expects it.

SO MUCH STUPID EVERYWHERE

And she thinks it's stupid I included a picture of her in this post just because I needed a fourth picture.  Cats.  Sheesh.


Tomorrow's workout: 30 minute tempo - a gift from the My Run Plan gods.

Strength training makes it all better. Not really.

So my sore hip flared up yesterday and today it really hurt to sit. So of course I did some strength training this morning and it’s all better now. Kind of. 

You know you love that crazy turquoise wall. 

Anyway, here are some reasons why I think my hip liked the strength training (Cathe’s PHA 1 workout) so much:

It wasn’t running.

My legs were moving in directions other than forward. 

There was no running involved.

Sometimes I didn’t use my legs during the workout. 

Running was not something I did during the workout.

I guess what I’m trying to say here is that I *may* have to actually stop running for a week just to let it heal.I’m going to see how the next two runs this week go; if it keeps getting worse then I’m going to have to take some time off. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go quietly sob in a corner for the next hour.

Tomorrow’s workout: Easy run. WITH NO HIP SORENESS *wishfulthinkingactivated*

Well hey there. My run sucked this morning.

Well hey there. 

This morning I had a 9.5 mile run on tap in the form of some delicious 1200 meter repeats...seven of them. And this run pretty much sucked from the get-go, and even my dinosaur shorts couldn’t save it. Here’s why:

• I thought 1200s would be easy peasy compared to mile repeats but NOPE NOT TRUE they just suck 400 meters less at an 8:20 pace. My mental game was packed in a box in my closet this morning after I realized these were going to be hard.
  
• Eating red meat for both lunch and dinner yesterday made Mother Nature call about 6 times during the run, and I ended up only running 4 of the 7 repeats uninterrupted.
  
• My nose was running constantly...and having to wipe my nose so often was really pissing me off.
  
• The top of my right foot started to whine in the 3rd repeat. Sooooo annoying.
  

Well, not every run is spectacular.  My own puny win out of this workout is that I got the distance on the training plan done...and I learned red meat is a pretty crappy friend.

Tomorrow’s workout: Some cross training goodness to help me forget the hot mess of this morning’s run.

Sports bras, half marathons, hip pain, and Dr. Google.

I know I say this every time I start blogging again, but I really mean it this time:  I am going to post more regularly from now on.

Even if it's just a picture with one stupid little sentence from the deep recesses of my brain, like this pic from yesterday's 16 mile long run in the heat:

When the dog slobbers all over the front of himself during the run just as much as you sweat....


So expect a lot of what you just saw on here kids.  My sanity these days depends on having some sort of fun and creative outlet, and, unfortunately, you all are going to bear the brunt of my bad sense of humor just so I can maintain the blogging habit again.

But I do have a bit of a longer post planned for today, seeing as some recent running things have happened in my running life:

• I ran a half marathon race in a sports bra and shorts, and
• My right hip has been nagging me with soreness for the past two weeks.

The half marathon was last weekend, and of course it was on a day where we had dangerous heat.  The course had very little shade and, even though it was well-supported, I knew that trying to use the race as a tune-up half to run marathon pace just wasn't going to happen.  So I made my goal just to run my first race in a sports bra instead.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.  Really.

I kept the pace slow (ran it in 2:18...a very slow race for me), but not just because of the heat--I was also running slow because my right hip capsule has been sore for weeks.  And by "sore" I mean "a deep pain would happen trying to hold the gas pedal down while driving" type of soreness.  A soreness whereby I was testing daily to see if it was really a stress fracture in my femur level of soreness.  A soreness where sitting down in a regular position on the couch was painful.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that my hip was really really sore.  And it was very concerning.

But of course I kept running on it, and then complained about my hip being sore.  I finally did what any other normal runner would do to see if could get some relief from the discomfort--do some research on Google. (What, did you think I was going to go to a doctor? Crazy talk.) After exhaustive and extensive research on the internet and a lot of jamming my thumb into various parts of my hip and glutes to see where it hurt the most, I diagnosed myself with a pain in the piriformis caused by weak hip and glute muscles.  This made sense to me, especially since during my last marathon training cycle I did absolutely no lower body strengthening whatsoever.  It seems that the muscles in my glutes and hips responsible for motions other than forward propulsion got all weak and stuff and then all of a sudden it's hurting to drive a car.

Since I made my own expert diagnosis using Dr. Google and my thumb, I have been trying to strengthen those weak glutes and hips with these exercises from Strength Running:

And by doing these plyometric workouts from Cathe because they involve a lot of squatting and lateral hip exercises: High Intensity Interval Training, Plyo HiiT 2, and Crossfire.

Are they working?  Well, remember that 16 mile run I did yesterday?  My hip didn't bother me once.  And while it was a little sore when I woke up today, I am happy to report that I can sit, walk, and drive a car normally.

Now if only I can get that nagging pain on the top of my right foot to go away.  So, if you'll excuse me, I have to go consult Dr. Google again.  Until that time, enjoy the non-learning learnings meant to summarize this post but really are just a list of nonsensical random thoughts I couldn't find a way to coherently put into the post above:

• I do really mean it this time - a pic a day at least on this blog.  Contain your excitement, kids.
• Feeling like someone is grabbing the top of your femur and squeezing while you're driving is a weird feeling.  Very weird.
• Cathe's workouts are full of jumping, and jumping is fun, ergo plyometrics is fun. 
• I'm glad my hip didn't bother me yesterday on my run because then I could really focus on just how miserable I was in the heat and how much my bra was chafing.  Good times.

Upcoming workouts: More plyo and some weights today, and a crazy amount of 1200s for tomorrow's speed session on the 'mill.  Even more good times.

Saying Goodbye to Sticky Shirts

In my last post, I talked about my running and eating goals.  But I have other goals as well, like having my husband earn enough money so I can just run and exercise and sleep all day; buy all the puppies, and finally getting around to finishing that Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time game I started in 2002.  While all of those goals are heavily idealistic, there is one running-related goal I would like to accomplish before I ruin my knees like everyone says I will with all this running I do: run a race in just a sports bra and shorts.

And socks and shoes too...duh.

Why the serious look in that pic above?  Because I am dead serious about accomplishing this goal, even though I have a waist that was built for Mom jeans rather than for sexy low-rise ones.  This is something I have this strange compunction to do to make myself feel more comfortable in my own skin--getting more comfortable in my skin by showing more skin, with a huge emphasis on the comfortable.  I wish I could say this goal of mine was part of a greater plan to inspire other women to take back all of the shame we're made to feel about our bodies if they're a different shape and/or size from what's considered beautiful....but really this is just about my comfort during a run.  Really.  I'm just really really tired of having sweaty shirts stick to me and outline the contours of my belly fat rolls.  I mean, c'mon--I'd rather just people see those rolls in all their super not-tan-ultra-white-blinding glory than have a shirt stick to me for the 20 out of the 26.2 miles of a marathon.

I know you're jealous of my arm tan gradient.

But if this does inspire you to throw off the shackles of sticky running clothing and society's obsession with unrealistic body images for women, then I'm totally down with that.  I know I was inspired to do this by other runners who aren't afraid to be seen in their own skin...and I decided it was more than time for me to ditch this body image hang-up.  (And not have shirts stick to me...buh)

Anyway, when will this sports bra-and-shorts-only race take place?  Well, I have a tune-up half marathon scheduled in the middle of July in a nearby town...and since it will be, you know, July in Illinois, it's going to be hot.  So I thought that might be a good goal race to bare my belly to the world in all its sweaty glory.  Will I be glad I stepped outside of my comfort zone and got this goal accomplished? Of course.  Will I be free of sticky running shirts?  Yep.  Will I be afraid to look at my race pics afterwards?  You betcha.  But I'll probably be too busy worrying about my race time to even remember I have no shirt on.

But remember the learnings?  Here they are:

• I know everyone was probably worried about this, but I will most definitely blog after that tune-up race.
• And yes, I will include race pics.  That actually show me running, and not other people.
• You know what sucks about having a Mom jeans waist?  Any running shorts you have on pulled up to your natural waist makes it look like your shorts are trying to also be a sports bra.
• FYI--just having a Mom jeans waist sucks in general.
• I'm going to apologize right now for the blindingly white belly you're going to see in those race pics so I don't forget to do it later.

Upcoming workouts: Tempo runs and speed at paces way faster than what I think they should be...more on those later.

Well, now what?

I had been trying to beat my marathon PR for 5 years, and I just did that at the end of April.  I'd been wanting to lose those 10+ pounds I keep gaining back, and I managed to lose 14 pounds with the help of Medifast.

So now what?  (Besides frame that finish line photo where I PRd the crap out of that marathon...)

That's the question I've been bouncing around for the last few weeks, with a number of ideas bouncing back in response.  After careful consideration (translation: when I remembered to think about it during a long run or right before I fell asleep at night), I think I've nailed down some brand-spanking new goals to work towards regarding my running and my eating and other areas of my life.  Since I know everyone out there is breathless with anticipation, I'll share those shiny new goals below:

1) Run the 2019 Twin Cities Marathon and snag a PR for the course.  My PR for the Twin Cities course is a 4:17 and some change, so the goal is to beat that.  I would love to set a goal of under 4 based on my 4:04 time from Glass City, but I've run Twin Cities many times, and I know how brutal the hills can be on the back half.  This means I'm not foolish enough to try and go under 4 on a course where the hills make people cry their way towards the finish line, but that would be kind of awesome if it magically happened.  What's more realistic and just as ambitious is for me to snag between a 4:05 and a 4:10 on that course, which is what I'm shooting for.  I'll save that under 4 goal for a flatter, spring marathon.

2) Add spicy long runs to the training schedule.  I'm still going to use the My Run Plan app for training, but the cramps, leg fatigue, and general craziness I experienced at mile 21 at the Glass City Marathon made me think I need to practice more running at pace on tired legs.  That's why I'm going to spice up my long runs every few weeks or so with some miles at race pace, probably the middle or end miles.  Because why not run faster when you're already running 20 or so miles?  Piece o' cake.

3) Fix that little nutrition issue I experienced during that marathon of mine.  Slamming into the wall at mile 21 wasn't very fun, kids, so I've got to do something about it--especially with my tendency to do that "run too fast" thing all the time during races.  So, I'm going to add in more gels and some of those cool mini-bananas after mile 13 of all of my long runs and see how that goes.  Those mini-bananas, by the way, are cool because they are sufficiently portable in a running shorts pocket--FYI.

4) Lose 7 more pounds.  Like I've said before, it's amazing how fueling your body properly leads to awesome training runs and PRs...and how when you lose weight doing that you get faster not having to lug those extra pounds around.  Seven pounds lighter still puts me well within a normal weight range for my height, and is sure to put me within range of a nice Twin Cities course PR.

5) Stop tripping over large dog when he runs in front of me.  This one might be a bit of a stretch.

6) Add lower-body strength training to my plan.  I did absolutely no lower-body weight training during that last training cycle, and I felt the difference in strength between the front and back of my legs during the race thanks to all the treadmill running I did.  So the plan this time around is on Fridays (a cross-training day) to add in workouts that build leg strength using body weight exercises only...I'm a little cautious about using heavy weights for leg exercises because I fear aggravating my old left butt injury again.  Hopefully this will even out the huge strength imbalance and my legs can feel tired all at once during my next marathon.

You can tell I'm so excited about this goal.

7) For crying out loud already get enough sleep each night.  It's no fun (and very stupid) running 12 miles of speed after waking up exhausted because you spent yet another night staying up too late worrying about work stuff.  So I have decided (very smartly) to get my butt into bed at the same time every night so I can wake up and run way too many miles before work.  I know I've promised this before, but this time I mean it I swears.  Really.  Going to get into bed early and sleep like a spoiled formerly feral kitten I once knew.

So, you know...just a few goals for this next training cycle.  And by "few" I mean "overachieving at everything, even goal setting."  And now I will overachieve at listing ridiculous statements I call "learnings" but are nothing of the sort:

• I did frame that finish line pic, BTW.  In case you were RUNdering (get it? get it? I crack myself up.)
• I'm not lying about those crazy back-half hills on the Twin Cities course.  There's one at mile 21 that caused me to invent swear words one year because none of the existing ones really fit.
• Having my butt get tired before my quads during a race was a weird feeling.  Weird.
• I'm usually more excited about squats than the pic in the post lets on...but not by much.
• If only we all could sleep the sleep of formerly feral kitties who took over my house and my bed.

Upcoming workouts and stuff:  I start some serious speed and tempo workouts next week...I promise I will blog more about this running abuse than I did during the last training cycle.

Glass City Marathon Recap: I didn't come here to quit.

Because my life lately has been nothing but races and travel and work and very little sleep, I have not had time to sit down and blog about every excruciating detail of my goal marathon two weekends ago...until now, that is.

marathons woop woop!

I ran the Glass City Marathon on April 28th as my goal spring marathon. You can read all about my progress to this race in my previous posts, so I'll spare you all of the gruesome and tedious training details here.  But I will say this - I came into this race having a) done every single workout on the training plan the way it was written, b) eaten food with real nutrition in it the whole time, c) lost 14 pounds during training, d) a strange confidence about hitting my goal time (anything under a 4:10, with a 4:05 being a best-case scenario), a confidence which I haven't had in a LONG time, and e) kick-ass dinosaur shorts (see pic above).

The week leading up to race day, I was in this weird anxious/confident/omg am I really going to do this 26 miles is a loooong way mood, which lasted the entire 5-hour drive to Toledo and into the wee hours of the morning before the race.  Thankfully I was staying with awesome friends who put me up over the weekend, and spending time with them the night before helped keep my mind off how anxious-excited I was.

The morning of the race I woke up at 3:30 AM so I could do all the usual pre-race stuff: coffee, breakfast, worry, body-glide most of my body, almost forget my race bib on the way out the door, and hope mother nature would call before I left for the start line.  The last task eluded me, so I got to the race site extra early so I could jog a mile to see what shook out.  The mile jog worked, and after hanging up with mother nature I got to sit around and be nervous for about 30 minutes.

The best anxious-excited-worried-didn't get enough sleep-face EVER

In case you're wondering, I did wear that shirt to remind myself not to let any excuses get in the way of my goal...and because I haven't been able to properly fit into it in a long time, so it was a nice reminder of all the weight-loss work I'd put in over the last few months.  (Plus I didn't want a huge baggy shirt flippity-flapping against me for 4 hours.)

By this time you're probably wondering if I ever actually made it to the start line.  Well, I did, and I was so focused I didn't even snap any start line pics.  Or any pics during the race, for that matter, and when that happens, kids, you KNOW I'm in serious racing mode. Speaking of the racing, let's walk through this race of mine, but let's do it by the miles.

Miles 1-5:

I started the race with the 4:10 pacer (a 9:33 pace), and the original plan was to stick with him until the half and then leave him in the dust and do a 9:20 to the end of the race.  I hung with him until a little after mile 3, where of course mother nature had to call and say "hi" again because I obviously had one too many cups of coffee that morning.  After leaving the port-a-john (and thankfully not having to wait in line forever to use it), I kicked it into high gear to try and catch back up to him.  I told myself not to overdo it, but I ended up running mile 4 in around 8:36 (zoinks!) and mile 5 in around a 9:05.  I wondered briefly if I would regret this later on in the race--and now you'll have to read onwards to see if that was the case, so ha ha fooled you guys into reading more of my brain drool.


Miles 6-9:

This is where pacer guy became super-duper annoying.  Now, I appreciate pacers immensely, don't get me wrong - they helped me run my entire first marathon without walking once.  However, when you're trying to run a steady 9:33 pace and pacer guy keeps randomly speeding up and slowing down several times within a mile, I tend to get a tad irked.  So, to spare my mental state for the race, pacer guy had to be ditched in mile 9.  And by "ditched" I mean "Now I am free to run too fast all by myself wheeeeee"


Miles 10-17:

I was feeling pretty darn awesome during these miles, running between 9:10 and 8:50 pace for all those miles.  I paced another woman from miles 10-14, and at mile 11 I ditched the throw-away long-sleeved shirt I was wearing...not because it was getting to warm for it, but because I knew a race photographer was coming up and I wanted my bib (that was attached to my "Excuses Suck" shirt) visible.  And boy did that race photographer capture my arm raise in all of its weird, race-hugging glory.

But by mile 17 I was noticing something...I was getting tired, which is to be expected.  Part of the reason you do long runs is to help you learn how to run through this kind of tired.  However, I was noticing that my hammies and glutes were feeling pretty fatigued, and I thought it was pretty darn weird for just the backs of my legs to get tired.  This was just a prelude of things to come....


Miles 18-24:

In mile 18 the backs of my legs were more noticeably fatigued, and then in mile 19 I ran up the only major hill in the race.  This hill was more of a struggle than I wanted it to be, but I pressed onwards, trying to think about things that would motivate me to just keep going: thinking about all the training I'd put in, all of the veggies I had grudgingly eaten in the name of performance, and sometimes bribing myself by promising myself new running shoes or a new puppy if I kept running.

And then in mile 20 I noticed that the fronts of my legs were now super tired, joining the backs in one big "hey woman what are you DOING up there to us" chorus.

I made it to mile 21, where they were handing out gels.  I grabbed one, shoved it in my pocket, and an overwhelming fatigue crashed over me.

I had hit the wall.  Hard.  I had never really crashed into the wall this hard before, but I'm pretty sure it's because I trained for a 9:20 pace, not a between 9:10 and 8:50 pace.  And even though I had been slamming down a gel every 3 miles, it apparently wasn't enough to keep me from the great big bonk.

I started walking.  I was pissed off.  I was tired.  I was bummed.

And then I thought, "I didn't come here to quit."

That thought made me sit mentally upright. Damn straight I didn't freaking didn't come here to quit.  I couldn't quit.  I worked just too damn hard to get here and I was doing amazing with my pace--so amazing, in fact, that the race app kept whispering seductively yet robotically in my earbuds that I was on track to finish in 4:02.  So I took a little inventory of how I was feeling and decided that there was no way in hell was I going to give up on my goal to finish under 4:10--I was just going to slow WAY down for the next few miles...but I was going to keep on going.

I didn't come here to quit.  Damn freaking straight.

Miles 22-24 were slow.  Like 10:30-ish to 11-ish slow, even though I thought I was running so much faster.  But I kept telling myself I was moving in a forward direction, and that was OK--I wasn't giving up.  Just altering the plan, that's all.  The plan got altered even further when just before mile 23 my left calf began to cramp and seize, and that's when I started 30 second walks until the cramp subsided a bit, and then I would start shuffling along again.  At mile 23 I sucked down a gel, which according to the original plan was a mile early.  But with the calf cramps setting in, I thought it would be a good idea to get some sort of nutrients into me.  At this point a gel couldn't hurt, right?


Miles 25-26.2:

Turns out that nope, that gel definitely couldn't hurt--it allowed me to run miles 25 and 26 at a much faster clip (9:46 and 9:16, to be exact).  My calf was still cramping and I was still talking mini-walk breaks, but I was picking up speed and getting closer and closer to that finish line.  About half a mile before the finish I had a major cramp in my left calf and had to stop and walk for a full minute before it calmed down enough for me to start running again.  But after that I sailed toward the finish line, legs aching but determined to get there, stupid calf cramps and all.

After all, I didn't come here to quit.  I came here to achieve my goal of running under a 4:10, and that's what I did, walking and calf cramping and gritting my teeth to cross the finish line in 4:04:18.

Here's me not quitting.  And finishing.

Remember that I said earlier that a 4:05 would have been a best-case scenario...and here I was with a 4:04 and some change.  I thought I would be more emotional at seeing this shiny new PR after crossing the finish line since I've been trying to PR for 5 years, but my glucose-deprived brain could only think, "Gee, I guess paying $64 bucks for that training plan app was worth it after all."

Yep.  That's my brain for you.  *sigh*

My brain also almost forgot to ring the PR bell on the way to the car, but thankfully it remembered and asked very nice but total strangers to take her picture doing it.

Ring-a-ding-ding time for a PR

My left calf celebrated that PR by cramping so severely after I got in the car that I was pretty much immobilized for a solid 5 minutes with my mouth wide open in a silent scream. Good times.  Why do I do this again? (For the bling.  Duh.)

Anyway, on the way home I started getting a little bummed about the last part of the race with all the walking and the cramping and the slowing down.  But I had to remind myself that I didn't quit, and I got a PR I wouldn't have even thought possible when I started training all the way back in January.  In fact, when comparing my marathon in December (BMW Dallas) and Glass City, the improvement in fitness and performance is pretty damn obvious.

Going from an almost 5:15 to a 4:04 in 5 months needs to be celebrated, not frowned upon just because of a few bad miles at the end of the race.  I think sometimes we runners get so caught up in what went wrong that we forget to celebrate what went exceedingly right.  Or we get busy planning for the next race, already thinking about how we can get an even better time without stopping to think about how crazy good the time is that we just got.  And we don't stop and think about how crazy good it is that we had the strength, discipline, and courage to try and run 26.2 (!!) miles as fast as we could in the first place.

Instead of the usual stupid nonsensical learnings I spew forth at the end of a post, I'm going to leave my real and true learnings from this marathon experience as a reminder to me for future races..and as a list for anyone else who finds anything they could use to help them train for their next race.  Enjoy.

• Run all the runs.  Skipping workouts won't get you to your goal. (Unless you're injured...then skip away until you're healed.)
• Food is fuel. Choose food for the way it will feed your body so that next half marathon you have to run before work will be a breeze instead of something you just "get through."
• The lighter you are, the faster you'll be.  I'm pretty sure losing 14 pounds had a huge part to play in that shiny new PR.
• A "let's see if I can do this" mindset gets you much farther than a "I don't know if I can do this" mindset when it comes to looking at the crazy workouts the training plan cooks up for you.
• Dinosaur shorts.  Get some.
• Consistency--and just keep showing up--is the key to success.
• You don't train for a race just to show up and quit.  Ever.

So what's the next race?  Well, now that I live in the land of hills and coyote packs that collectively howl at 3 AM, it will be to PR at Twin Cities...I'm aiming to take down my course PR of 4:17.  Stay tuned, kids.