Yeeeeees!

(Haha...how's that for bi-polar blog titles?)

So I went to my local Pacer's after work today to get my new shoes. The guy helping me had me walk barefoot and then jog slowly in order to watch my feet. He told me that my left foot turns in slightly when I run. He gave me some shoes with better arch support and they do feel a lot better on my feetsies. :D

I'm hoping that's the cause of my knee issue and that with a bit of rest, my better shoes and maybe paying a bit more attention to my gait when I run this can all be cleared up. Yay!

I'm just going to walk 2 miles today. Nice easy pace. Then lots of icing.

Hooray for new shoes!

Noooooo!

Ahh!

I went on my four mile run yesterday, and RIGHT after 3 miles a spasm of pain went through my left knee. :(

I had had a couple twinges in earlier runs. Always my left knee, but never anything bad, and it never hurt when I walked. It only happened in a few runs (not all of them) and always went away after a stride or two. I just figured I was striking the ground wrong or something.

But when it hurt this time it hurt enough that I had to stop running. After walking a bit the pain went away and I tried running again. And it happened again. :\

So I iced the knee last night. It feels fine today but I'm going to be cautious. It's a light running day thank goodness, so I'm only going to walk the two miles. After my workout I'm going to the running store and buying new running shoes. I'm also going to stop lifting lower body weights. I'm still going to try for my 5 mile run on Sunday, but if it happens again I'm going to the doctor.

I hope that it's nothing serious. After all this training I'll be very dissapointed if I can't run in my 10 miler. :(

10K

So yesterday--just a random Sunday--I ran a 10K for fun. Not even for fun, for training. Training for a race that is longer than a 10K!

It took me 1:16 to run 6 miles--factor in my warm up and cool down walks and I did more than a 10K. Afterwards my left leg was protesting a little so I took some extra time to stretch and an advil. I slept like a rock. This morning I feel much better, but I made sure to eat a banana so I'd be getting in my proper electrolytes.

Today is a rest day from cardio, but I will be lifting weights. I also want to clean up my apartment a bit. Tomorrow is a 4 mile run. I think after my 4 miles I will go ahead and buy my new running shoes. Fancy!

Then this weekend I'm hoping to get to the beach for labor day--5 mile long run there. Should be a nice relaxing weekend. :)

Pushing

Ahhh....Yesterday was tough in terms of pushing myself to work out. I kept putting it off and putting it off. Finally I dragged myself onto the treadmill (it was too dark to run outside after I got back from work) and did my workout. A little warm up--then a 2 mile walk at 1.5 incline--and then a little cool down. Some stretching, and done.

It was a very easy workout, but I think it helped a lot of my soreness.

I've got another 3.5 mile run today, Friday is a rest day, and then I think I'm going to do my long run on Saturday. Cross training Sunday. I think my long runs are better after a rest day then after a cross training day.

6 miles.

I had a weird experience last night. I was driving from my parent's house to my place. I looked at the trip odometer and decided to see how far 10 miles would take me. First I looked for the 5 mile marker, to get a sense of how far my last long run was. When you run a loop, or out and back from a starting point it really messes up your sense of distance. In a straight line 5 miles is FAR. As I kept driving and driving and the numbers turned over slowly I was really amazed at how far I was able to run. And TEN miles is twice the distance!

What's strange though is that during my training after the 4 mile long run I reached a point where I'm like: "Oh well, what's one more mile added on top of that?" When 3 miles were my long run I never thought 5 miles would be possible. Now I'm thinking 6 miles won't be that bad.

I must be out of my mind. :3

Training and Soreness

I did a 3.5 mile run yesterday. I beat my best 3.5 mile pace by 30 seconds a mile! It was tough, and I really had to push through it, but I made it.

It was a bit of a miracle that I made it out there at all. Here in DC it's been unseasonably cold the last few days. We've had a ton of cloud cover, and non-stop drizzling. It was supposed to rain and even thunderstorm in spots last night, but I checked the radar, didn't see any T-storms and headed out.

I feel all hard-core and like a "real" runner when I run in bad weather. Kind of dorky, but true. So I think that thought helped buoy me along.

For the first time though I've gotten pretty sore after a run. My back aches a little, and my butt and hips are definitely more sore. I even did an extra stretching session after my shower to try to loosen up the kinks. They're still here today although not as bad.

I've got two miles to cover today, but I think I'm going to do them according to my HRM though. Just do a "normal" work out, for 2 miles. That may mean a mix of jogging and walking. What I don't want to do is do so many hard runs where I'm always pushing myself that I burn out before the race.

So my plan is: easy workout today, mid-tempo workout tomorrow, easy cross training on Sat, and then a very easy long run on Sunday. Like a 13 minute mile pace. Sunday is 6 miles so I'm going to need to slow down just to get it done without walking.

It's really hard for me to slow down though. I'm so competitive, even with myself that if I don't constantly beat my own times I feel bad. If I slow down--even for a long run--I feel bad. I need to remember that I want my muscles to build--not eat themselves because I'm constantly pushing them.

This race has been a mixed blessing, because I certainly wouldn't be doing this much running if I didn't have the race coming up, but I also feel like I should have registered earlier, and begun training earlier. As it is I think I'm going to finish the race in more than 2 hours. Which, obviously is not terrible, but I feel like I'm really pushing myself to get there. If I had more time maybe I could have built a better base and maybe I would be having a slightly easier time adding on distance.

I don't know.

I really hope I can get through 6 miles without walking. That would be great. And I'd really feel like I had a shot at finishing 10 miles in October.

Chug chug chugging along!

Been a while since I've updated here hasn't it? But not because I've been doing poorly. In fact things are swimming along quite nicely! My 26th birthday was Aug 11th and I did my first 5 mile training run that morning! I went to my parent's beach house for the weekend, and actually woke up early to go on my run Sat morning. Still, I overindulged at my party (and with cake and chinese the next week) so I'm holding steady at 150.

I think some of that is water weight though as I'm supposed to start my period in a couple days. So after that's all over I'm hoping I'll be back at 147.

This weekend I've got a 6 mile training run to go on. Eee! My longest run yet. I'm really really hoping I can run the whole thing. I think around 7 miles I might need to take a couple walking breaks, but we shall see. If I do 6 miles, I will be very excited. :)

I'm thinking about going dry until my race. The problem is that I've got 2 weddings in the middle and it will be difficult to pull that off. We shall see. I'm going to have to be really careful in order to plan in my long runs as well. It's so hard when long runs are on the weekend--but when I'm not traveling that really is the best time. Argh.

Bad Day

Ahhh! After doing so well all weekend today is awful! I wanted to get up early this morning to run, but I was so tired I just hit the alarm and turned it off. I don't even remember doing it!

So now because it's so disgusting out and there's a heat advisory and it's like 100 degrees I'm going to have to run my 3 miles on the treadmill. Ahhh!

AND I missed breakfast. So I had a pretty good lunch--a mango salsa wrap with avocado. But I ate the chips it came with. Still not terrible for 700 calories.

BUT THEN we had leftover cookies and I just couldn't resist. I had one whole chocolate chunk cookie and half of a brownie. Now I'm at 1370 for the day. Aaaiieee! So...only like 200 calories for dinner. And I'm going to a concert tonight. I don't even know if I'm going to have time for dinner. But I don't want to drink beer for dinner either.

Oh Allison. You were doing so well. Get back on track!

Week 2

Well, it's week 2 of my 10 week-10 miler training. (Also I think I miscounted and am missing a week somewhere. I'll have to look for it later.)

Yesterday was one of the toughest runs of my life. 4 miles, and something like 52 minutes. My heart rate monitor says I burned 760 calories (But only 23% of that was fat. Huh.) Not sure I believe that, but based on feeling alone I might.

I consciously tried to hydrate and eat filling carbs before I went out for my run. Part of the problem I'm sure was the 90 degree weather. But when I hit the third mile I was done. I dragged myself through that fourth mile but I just didn't want to give up. I really wanted to finish the fourth mile running to prove to myself that I could do it. My pace was ridiculously slow that last mile. But I did finish. And I did run (trudge) the whole way.

This Saturday I have to run 5 miles as my long run. Five! I'm already doubting that I'll be able to run the entire way. I'll have to see what happens after my weekday runs. If I'm feeling strong after Thursday I may attempt it--if not I may run the first three miles, walk half a mile, run half a mile, and repeat. For the next couple weeks though 5 miles is the most I need to run, so that will help. The fifth week though I have to run 4 miles as my regular workout! Eep!

Also I will be at the beach this weekend celebrating my birthday. :) So I'm going to have to plan in exactly when these long runs will occur. I'm thinking I may try it Saturday morning because I have a feeling Saturday will be the late night out drinking.

So, a number of challenges ahead, but hopefully I'll be able to face them. On the weight loss front I've lost a bit of weight which is good, and some fat. Surprisingly, although I'm excited to lose weight, at the moment it's all about running and whether or not I'm going to make this 10 miler. The weight is just kind of icing on the cake.

Mmm...cake. :D

Yikes

So, already a tricky week for me. I missed Wednesday's run because I had an engagement party to go to. Yesterday's run was TERRIBLE. I didn't lose much time off of Tuesday's time, but it was VERY hot, I didn't fuel up properly, and I didn't drink enough water. This resulted in my DRAGGING my tired butt up and down the trail to get my 3 miles in. Awful.

Tonight is supposed to be a rest night, and I'm going out to a going-away party for someone in DC. And I wanted to pick up a couple dresses at the mall. (I am running low on cute dresses.) BUT because I didn't work out Wednesday my training is all messed up. I was thinking I could walk 2 miles tonight, but that would mean doing cardio on Saturday and then doing my long run on Sunday. So no rest before my long run.

And next weekend I'm going to the beach for my birthday and it's going to be very difficult to get my long run in especially considering I'll probably be up late at a bar or on the beach. Plus any drinking I do will mess my long run up. Ahh...

I need to plan.

Making Plans

I'm good at making plans, but not always so good at following through. The idea was to get up this morning to run 2 miles. I knew I had something after work tonight so I was trying to shoehorn in as much as I could.

Of course I went to sleep late last night (1 am) and was in no mood to get up at 6:30 this morning. So I slept in and missed my run AND didn't have time to pack lunch. So I bought half a sandwich and soup at Au Bon Pain. Almost a full days worth of salt and 700 calories! And tonight I'm going to a happy hour AND a place that serves delicious Mexian food and margaritas by the pitcher.

I was going to try and just go to the happy hour and miss the dinner, but I'm getting the idea from the higher ups that that is not a good plan. So now I'm going to have to not drink at happy hour, and try to navigate the land mine that is one of the coolest Mexican restaurants in DC.

No nachos at the table. One "on the rocks" margarita. (I checked--they have less calories than the frozen ones.) Order Chicken Fajitas. One tortilla, one scoop of sour cream. No guacamole, no beans (have no idea how they cook them--but probably with lard), half cup of rice.

Get a to go box and take the rest home for lunch tomorrow.

Then when I get home 2 miles.

Hopefully I can stick with THIS plan.