Sunday Runday: Another race I didn't expect to do but am now

Let me tell you about the truest words ever spoken:

Let me show you proof from my run this morning:

Those are my beloved skull shorts and they're almost too big for me, sad face.

Yeah, that's me in a long sleeved tshirt to run in, hallelujah!! It was 62 degrees when I ran this morning and seeing as my ideal temperature to run is is between 50-60 I was ecstatic.

I planned to run yesterday but when the time came around I had to bail on my running friends because my legs just hurt too much from crossfit and I didn't want an injury. Then we made plans to run at 11:30 today (MUCH later than I like to run, btw. I'm a total early morning runner) but I forgot I had to be somewhere at 2 so I went on my own. I would have run at 7:30am but somehow I slept until 9:30am which is unheard of from me, I always wake up really early. It's ok though, I haven't slept that good in two months (and I'm not sure I'll ever sleep as good as I used to then) and that's just an important as a run, I guess. At least that's what I keep reading.

My plan initially was to run 6-7 miles with my friends today but I did an easy 3 on my own since I didn't have a lot of time. And I do mean an EASY 3 miles, until I saw a snake on the path that is and jumped straight in the air, screamed and flew down the path until I could inhale again.

I hate snakes.

I listened to the running playlist I made a few weeks ago finally and it'll be pretty good with some tweaking. I made it for someone who has just started running so I doubt it would affect his pace but it definitely was mine because I know the songs too well. When I get mad I run a lot faster and I had The Best of You by the Foo Fighters on repeat for a while and ran my last mile at a sub 9 (which is not my current easy pace at all). But that's why I don't like listening to music when I run anyway, I get way too caught up in it.

My legs felt really....different though. It's hard to explain. They were a little tired and tight and I had some pain behind my right knee in the first half mile but that wasn't it. They felt like they were heavier (in a good way) and had more power. Like I mentioned on Friday, I didn't run all week outside of crossfit which isn't at my normal pace or concentration to my body so it was really interesting to feel the difference. I hope that mean the 500 squats I do a day are finally helping.

In the last quarter mile I ran (literally, ha!) into the friends I was going to run with. One of them convinced me to run a race next week and by convinced he said, "I'm doing the Strathmore run next Sunday" so I said, "Oh, I'll sign up for it then". I can't help myself, FALL TIME IS RACE TIME!!! You can all keep your pumpkin spice lattes, I'm going to run as much as I can and not be a sweat drenched mess by mile 2, hooray! And I have a very special (to me) race to get ready for in October so I want to start focusing more on running and racing (I'll post about that on its own).

So I guess I'll have another race shirt to add to the stack I never wear (yes Newman, I know you want it :P) but it's a race I've never run so that will be fun. And I heard there are some killer hills, I'm getting a little hot and bothered just thinking about it.

Back to the crossfit grind tomorrow! Maybe it will finally be the day I run there and back. Maybe.

Sunday Runday: I Saw the Sign

There were two conversations between my physical therapist and I this morning that disturbed me more than the fact that he likes to push on my hip flexors so hard that I start to think that I was exaggerating the pain of that one time I ran a half marathon on a stress fracture and what it feels like to get a tattoo on your ribcage. They went something like this:

Him: You really need to start cross training and strength training.
Me: I don't understand the question, did you just say I should increase my long runs?

Him: I really don't think it's a good idea for you to wear high heels.
Me: I don't understand the question, did you just ask me to stop breathing?

I don't think English is Noah the PT's first language because I have difficulty comprehending the things he is trying to say to me. Maybe I'll ask him about his homeland on Thursday.


Yesterday was Sunday aka long run day and my plan was to run 7 miles. Well, that's a bit of a stretch, my plan was to attempt to run 7 miles. I wasn't sure how far I could go because to be completely honest I have a hard time getting through 3 miles on my own because I wuss out every time. I "run" 7 miles on my own once a week or so but there is a lot of walking involved so I usually average 12:30-13 minute miles. When I got to the lake my friend that I have been running with said that she was planning on doing 10 miles because she is one motivated lady. I, on the other hand, had eaten my weight in dinner rolls and wine at my cousin's lovely wedding the evening before so I was aiming for 7 which was the distance that our coach had mapped out for us.

Another lady I have run with on occasion joined us and we talked and ran and when we got to the water stop at mile 2 that was where we were going to split. If you can see where this story is going then brownie points to you...I decided to try 10 miles. I figured why not? So what if I had only been running 4-5 miles as my long runs? I could do it right? Of course I could! I wasn't going to chicken out in front of other people! And I didn't want to be left behind!

And that right there is the entire reason I signed up for this half marathon training group, because I will always push myself a lot harder if there are other people around than if I am alone. And it turns out that I ran the 10 miles just fine. It was pretty slow, probably 11minute miles but so what? That means that more than a month before my race I am basically ready to run it and that makes me extremely happy. I wasn't even sore at all this morning (until Noah the PT beat the snot out of me so I came home and took a nap because everything hurt) which, combined with the fact that I have been running 4-6 miles with no issues for the last few weeks, means something awesome: my base is finally back! After a long summer of taking things slow and building it up I finally have a decent base and that, my friends, makes me ecstatic. To be able to run 10 miles with no real issues is exactly what I have spent the last 3 months trying to get to. I could cry with happiness.

And since I can't leave this post without a picture, here's the only thing that could make me even more ecstatic: seeing my babysitter, aka my other mom, and her husband at my cousins wedding. I don't get to see them nearly as often as I would like and I love them even more than I love running.

Sunday Runday...on a Monday

The unthinkable happened about an hour ago: I broke one of my favorite Nalgene bottles. In my previous life (aka before veterinary medicine sucked me into its clutches) I went to college with the goal of becoming a paleontology professor which meant I took a lot of geology classes. Geology classes, in case you were unaware, are best done outside actually looking at rocks so unless you had a Nalgene bottle for field work you didn't have any geo street cred. Of course being 18-22 year old kids we spent a lot of time hurling our bottles off of things to see if we could get them to break because they are supposedly unbreakable. Mine alone got chucked off the side of a landfill in Niagara Falls during my Environmental Geology class, it went into a mining pit at Gore Mountain during my Problems in Earth History class, it took a trip off the bank of Kashong creek during my Paleontology class and let's not even talk about what happened during my Limnology and Structural Geology classes. And guess what? It never once broke! But today I was carrying my #2 favorite bottle from the Grand Canyon when I dropped it on the way to the kitchen while it was half full which resulted in a huge leaking crack along the bottom. It turns out that hardwood accomplished what granite could not and I'm pretty sad about it. Heartbroken, really.

That was a long paragraph about my Nalgene bottle, you truly don't know my love for them and I am down to two in my fridge when I usually have 4-5. Sad day.

Yesterday was Sunday which means LSD day for my half marathon training group. LSD is not as trippy as it sounds, it stands for Long Slow Distance which is where you work on increasing the distance you run instead of the speed. When I got to the lake to meet with my training group the marathon training group was there too and no one mentioned how far my group was supposed to go. I waited for a while and decided that since I hadn't run much from injuring my foot last weekend I would just run four miles and call it a day. I set off alone so that I wouldn't be too far behind the group and did the first two miles. Mile 2 is where the water station is located at a road intersection and I decided that I didn't want to turn around because I didn't see anyone else doubling back and I didn't want to look like a weenie. I'm sure I looked like a lost puppy for a while turning in circles for a while because I still didn't know where we were supposed to go until I saw someone from my group to follow, hooray!

I ended up using her as my pacer because she was going about my speed and I really wanted to see how far I could push myself to run. I've been wussing out a lot on my own (the day before I did 3.5 miles but walked probably a mile of it) and the whole reason I joined this group is because I knew it would force me to push myself. I ended up running the entire five miles that was the scheduled run and even ran the hill at the end that I hate that goes back into the park! Small victory! I even forced myself to talk to a lady running behind me and she was a total inspiration, she has MS but is training for a half anyway and I felt like a total jerk because I was convinced I couldn't make myself run 4 miles and there she was plugging along. We made plans to run together again on Tuesday since we are about the same speed so I'm excited to go tomorrow. I have given myself the task of talking to one new person a week because in social situations where I don't know anyone I am typically very shy so this week was successful! Last week was too, actually. Not that I remember anyone's name because I am awful at names but baby steps, right?

As for my foot it wasn't very happy. At around mile 3 I started getting a massive cramp across the whole top right where my foot meets my ankle every 15-20 steps. It would hurt so bad I would actually jump up off it and shake it until it would ease up a little and the last 2 miles went like that. I'm sure it was entertaining to watch the crazy girl shaking her foot and wincing. I don't know for sure what I injured but it's something that's pretty ticked at me so I am icing it every night and sleeping with it elevated. It's still technicolored too although that is finally fading.

This post was extremely boring, even to me, so here are some underpants that I want and if they weren't $65 they would be mine. Maybe Santa will bring them because I NEED them! (Yes, I am planning for Christmas already).

You can buy them here!