Running in March

Well, hello March!! It’s so nice to see you once again. I am super excited about this month because

1. St. Patricks Day is in March

2. I have set the goal of two runs this month. Right now they’re both 5K’s

3. I have set a goal of running more than 40 miles this month. How many exactly, I don’t know. The goal is “MORE” than 40 miles.

4. Winter is coming to an end. That means warmer days!

Getting your foot out the door is what matters. I have been reviewing what kind of runs I want to do over the next few months and I can’t figure out which one to pick! I am definitely doing the color run in April and am doing the Dash down Greenville this month on the 16th. I want to do the heels and hill half which is in May (the 5th). My mother emailed me and reminded me that my Grandmother’s birthday was in May (the 21st) and so this would be a great way to remember her. She had recently passed on in November of 2012 so this would be the first birthday she isn’t around.

Kicking off the month with a great start, I’m going to go running this morning. No set goal or time. Just going to go out and enjoy the day.

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February almost over

I started this month after only running 23 miles last month believing I should at least add a few miles this month to feel better about how badly January went! As of today (with only one day left of the month) I have 6.48 miles from doubling the milage from last month. I don’t know if I should be ashamed that I haven’t doubled my miles or if I should be proud of the miles I’ve run this month. So far, I have run almost 40 miles. This just means I have to up the ante next month! We shouldn’t forget that this month is 3 days shorter than January.

Coach Mark reminded me that it’s not the short term goals that matter in running, it’s the long term results! We need to focus on what makes us happy and keeps us going. Today I told myself I’d run at least 3 miles and I ended up doing a .78 mile warm up and then doing 5 miles in 1 hour 10 minutes. I know that’s super SLOW but I am proud of myself for finishing a long-er run of five miles. I had argued with myself in my head about whether I should keep running or go home and I had decided to go home because my water bottle was empty.

It was, in a way a good choice because I ended up feeling really tense around the same area I’ve had trouble with my right leg. At work later tonight I limped and it was not a fun event. Spending 3 hours on my feet limping around the restaurant is not my idea of an ideal recovery but I made it through. I think it might have to do with my new running shoes! Yes, I got new running shoes along with my watch so I’m all set for long runs but need to break in my new shoes.

Diet and Exercise

Part of training for any kind of race requires a lot of commitment and that includes changing your diet if you eat processed food and/or fried food. Getting healthy means staying away from bad fats and incorporating good fats within your diet. Over the past few weeks, my diet has gone down the crapper. I do prep for a restaurant called Quaker Steak and Lube. While they have salads and grilled chicken, everything else is fatty. Even their ribs.

Their ribs are slathered in butter. While ribs sound fabulous, being a good weight sounds even more fabulous. So, I went grocery shopping yesterday and bought stuff for stews, sandwiches, and so forth. With that, I can focus on eating at home and going to work not hungry. indulging doesn’t mean you eat a bad meal everyday but maybe a bad meal once a week or once every two weeks. Don’t make food a reward!

Exercising is not something difficult to incorporate within your daily routine. There is an hour here and there that you can take the time and exercise. If you don’t have an hour all at once, take the time to split down your exercising. I need to get back into that. My body is not reacting adversely to not exercising much lately but I know I need to get back on the horse. That means today, going running for as far as I can and then taking time to figure out weight-lifting and cross training. My hardest thing about cross training is understanding that just because I run doesn’t mean I can NOT cross train. I need to be lifting weights and running both to get a faster metabolism and get into shape.

This all sounds like a no-brainer but it’s much harder to put something you talk about into action.

Cross Training Heaven

On the 23rd I decided that working out was necessary but I couldn’t figure out why in the world I would want to run on the treadmill. I hate that thing. Ever since I started running outside regularly, I have come to realize how much I loathe running on the treadmill. There is only ONE reason why I don’t like it. That is, because it forces my legs to move. It is not a good feeling when your body fights against the movement.

The elliptical machine has always been my least favorite machine at the gym but for some reason that’s the first machine I jumped on. I cranked out three miles in just over 30 minutes and then jumped on the bike and rode 4 and a half miles. This was not running but I felt good with my work out. Working out is never something I regret doing, not working out is. Often I will go to the gym and jump on the treadmill and then only do a few minutes because I’m bored or I feel like I’m not accomplishing anything. When that happens I jump off and go home.

Over the past month I have slowly declined in my running and this is for no obvious reason. I believe that a lot of the stress I’ve been dealing with over the past two weeks have really screwed up my ability to focus on exercising and getting on top of things. I feel bad that Coach Mark has put his time and effort into me and I’m not panning out to the best I can. Today is a new day. I am going to put my mind into follow last week’s schedule and get my butt moving again. Those 7 miles last sunday never happend and there is no reason why! Shame on me. Instead of sitting around and being bummed out with my running or lack thereof; I have decided I’m just going to see how much I can get done this week and  work my way back up!

Nike Plus Watch

My biggest aggravation with running outside is that I have to carry my phone with me everywhere just so I could get my milage and time. Finally yesterday I decided to go and look at watches and decided on a Nike Plus watch. It’s a very simple watch and will make do until I figure out how much running I’m going to do. When I have a routine set, I’ll be getting a fancy watch. My thoughts are geared towards the Sunnto Ambit watch but it’s a whopping 500 dollars!

The Nike Plus watch connects to Nike Plus. It’ll be interesting to see how that works! I already had the tracker for my shoes but I still had to have my phone with me. I took the watch out for a quick spin last night (.75 mile) and at first it took a good while to connect with the GPS system. That wasn’t fun, standing around and waiting when I was all ready to go. Once it connected, it performed pretty well. Connected with the system and tracked my run really well. I had set it to recognize .25 miles as a lap. This gave me a high school track feel to my run.

This is the most exciting thing that has happend to me this week when it comes to running.

Eating Before Your Run

Food is a very important tool for your body especially since it is the gasoline to keep it going. Everybody has their own preference on when to eat and if they want to eat before running or after. The only thing that’s not up for discussion is keeping your body hydrated properly and eating regularly.

With that said, I have run both on a full stomach and an empty stomach. Based on my experience, I prefer running and then eating rather than vice versa. It’s much easier on my stomach and I’m more focused on what I’m doing rather than trying to find a bathroom. It’s either that or feeling nauseated while trying to run. Food feels very heavy to me and it’s never a good feeling when I’m trying to run with food in my stomach.

The most important thing is to feel energized and able to carry yourself through any run that you have planned out. Eating a big mac and fries along with a large coke is not the most ideal pre-running meal because of all the grease and c r a p you’re putting in your body. I’ve always believed that runners should worship their bodies and eat good food. Food is your fuel, you want to be sure to put the right fuel in your body to help break down and build up cells.

Great Runs Make People Happy

Today is Monday which means:

Monday – Run easy for 20 minutes.  Try to breathe in through your nose as you run and out through your mouth.  Let those breaths in each be viewed as giving you more power and strength.  Let each breath in and out relax your shoulder, necks, and arms more each breath.

I decided that since I was having trouble with my shins while running in my other shoes, I would try to run in my Vibram 5 Fingers. I have had these shoes for well over two years but I have not run in them very much and have always tried running in tennis shoes. I have to say, I was really impressed with my performance tonight even though I ran an average of 13:04.

I started out not worrying about how far I would run but telling myself this is to be a 20 minute run. What a world of a difference it makes thinking about time rather than distance. No pressure in performing a particular way but rather focusing on getting those minutes in. Sure, I didn’t run three miles but I did run 1.6 miles and nonstop too! I spent the whole time pretty much keeping the same pace throughout the run.

Using Map My Run app, I tracked my run as I usually do and just stuck my phone in my sweater and ran. Being Deaf, I can’t really enjoy music as much as other people which makes running a bit difficult sometimes. I was really concerned about my stamina and how I would feel, after all I did run five miles this morning too.

Finishing this run was the best feeling I could ever imagine having! Feeling great that I kept my pace and didn’t feel any pain in the normal areas. (I did start to have slight pressure in my lower back.) Looking forward to tomorrow!! I definitely need to look into getting a watch that can track my miles too. That will eliminate my need for my phone but I want to make sure the watch I get will be worth the money.

Training for a Half Marathon – Week 2 Running Schedule

I finished my first few days with Mark’s training schedule. So far, so good!! I have been given a official distance I am training for and it is a Half Marathon! So exciting isn’t it 🙂 This week will be fun and I promise myself I’m not going to torture myself again by making my runs at 1 or 2 in the morning. (That, and the husband was not too happy when he found out I was running in the dark.)

Today Mark has sent me a new schedule which I’m very excited about. (You can see, i’m pretty pumped up!) 

Monday – Run easy for 20 minutes.  Try to breathe in through your nose as you run and out through your mouth.  Let those breaths in each be viewed as giving you more power and strength.  Let each breath in and out relax your shoulder, necks, and arms more each breath.

Tuesday – Cross train for 30-45 minutes or run easy for 30 minutes.

Wednesday – 10 minutes of easy jogging to warmup.  20 minute fartlek.  I want you to alternate running fast (don’t grind and grit your teeth, run fast not “hard”) and running easy.  Just go as fast as you can as long as you can and then go easy until you are ready to go again.  5 minute cooldown at the end.

Thursday –  Cross train for 30-45 minutes or run easy for 30 minutes or day off.

Friday – Progression run.  Start off easy and run very easy the first ten minutes and then gradually pick up the pace for 15 minutes, staying relaxed and just letting your legs gradually go faster.  Try to run the last 30 seconds all out.

Saturday – Cross train for 30 minutes or take today off.

Sunday – Long run.  7 miles.  The pace does not matter.  Just run by feel.  Start off very easy and try to gradually pick up the pace.  

 

The oddest thing happend. When I looked at Sunday to see how far my long run would be, I got giddy and excited! Each week my milage increases, my longest run will become longer and longer. Here is to a successful week of training! 

Running and Shin Splits

Good morning everybody! I definitely beat myself up last night with that run! It feels great to know that I completed my 5 miles but in result of not doing it at a normal time of the day, I am exhausted. Probably also because I didn’t get in bed until 4 in the morning and am waking up with my lips being really chapped and painful.

My body is and is not reacting to this run. How do I feel right now? Do I think I can get up and go on another run. Yes I can if I keep in mind my posture and focus on improving my breathing techniques. I’ve plastered all over this blog about my hacking cough. That is mainly (I think) because I’m not able to breathe in the fashion that I need to. Maybe it’s my stuffy nose that’s doing some of this!

Last night there was a post I saw and really wanted to share with y’all today just in case you don’t read this blog. The blog is called, “Run Free Forever” and there was a really good post about shin splits. I didn’t think I should re-invent the wheel especially when there’s one that talks about the very things I think needs to be pointed out. When you have an issue with shin splits, you might have been trying to avoid them. But now the question is, what do you do about it???

– Stretches that help focus on that part of your leg

– Wearing correct shoes

– Drills (something I don’t know much about)

– Increasing your milage too quickly, you should increase no more than 10 percent a week.

Check out the full post at Run Free Forever!

5 miles Result…

Once again things got hetic but tonight I was determined to get my 5 miles done. I didn’t care if it was midnight when I started, I did start. Running 1.55 miles on the treadmill was the first wave before I started getting nauseated and needed to take a bathroom break. That I did… then I headed back out. This time I decided I’m not going to torture myself any further with the treadmill, after all my legs were starting to react to the force of movement.

I have noticed I prefer moving at my own pace regardless of how fast that is. I don’t like being forced to run a particular speed. And gosh darn, it gets so HOT in my gym. I started sweating up a storm inside, I headed out hoping that the cool air would help me be less sweaty. But first, this required me to charge my phone to a percentage beyond 4 percent charged.

Got my phone charged to a measly 20 percent and went out running. I had originally planned on running the remaining miles split between the gym and the road but ended up running my full 3.45 (actually ran 3.58) remaining miles out on the road.

For time (pace) I did my 3.58 miles in 50.46 and the 1.55 miles in 20:39 That means I ran 5.13 miles in 1 hour 10 minutes and 85 seconds.

While my pace ended up being pretty slow (13.48 per mile) I have to give myself credit for running in heavy wind and at night. I am definitely not a night runner which means I don’t get my best pace at night. Night races are probably going to be fun but I have to remember this for the future and keep my thoughts on completing my runs not worrying about my pace.

How do I feel? My shins really hurt when I was running on the treadmill but running outside and doing it at my own pace, I really pulled it off pretty well and didn’t have much trouble. My pace was a bit slower outside however I do feel like it was much more controlled and I felt much better doing it.