Diary

  
If we are being all technical, I know.  Leap Day is Monday, it wasn’t Saturday.  But that doesn’t matter when you already have the bib and the medals in your hot little hand and you want to run your long run the day before Leap Day and you know you’ll be all tuckered out like crazy cakes and unable or unwilling to even run 2.29 miles on the actual Leap Day so you fudge.  Just a little.  🙂 

So, Saturday it was.  We felt like we needed to give the race importance, so we headed to a truly ‘running’ kind of environment: Greenlake.  It’s a nice, easy, flat almost three miles all the way around the lake.  There are scads of people, ducks, dogs, babies, strollers and even a little store and theater.  It has all the festive ambiance of when you’re at an actual, non- virtual race without actually being at a race, and you’re certainly surrounded by crowds so that you can dodge people a lot like you do in a race…  So we went there to run.  I stuck with Gigi while Bradley ran with Jude, and around we went.  Gigi told me recently that if I keep running with her that I’m going to get faster, and boy was she right!  I swear, every time I run with that kid I PR!  This time was no different!  I earned my best time for two miles.  😉 At the end of it, I pulled Gigi’s medal out and she felt weird so she refused to wear it.  I forced her to put it on to hand Jude his, but let’s just say that all of the screaming and hollering of encouragements to her bro, along with the medal, made her a touch self conscious.  Neither of the kids would wear the bib, I don’t blame them, but I thought it was pretty cute that the company sent them out anyhow.  Little Mr. Jude is sure impressing me with his tenacity.  He made the entire three miles without stopping, again, and then got all excited about earning the Wizard of Oz marathon medal!  Onward and upwards, I suppose!

I’ve been feeling just exhausted this week.  I don’t think I made it much past 9:30 ever, at all, once.  When I think back, I think I’ve been crashing out earlier since I started my whole step challenge.  It’s true that working out and being more active sure helps in the sack, because I’ve been crashing out and staying out for most of the night (and that has not been the case for me since motherhood became a crown I wear).  But this week that bit of exhaustion started leaking into my daytime.  I wanted to fall asleep, and did fall asleep, around 8:30 twice last week and this weekend I could barley get past 9:00 before my eyes started sliding down.  I couldn’t figure out what was up with that!  Then I took a good, hard at what I did this week and it turns out that I ran about 30 miles this week.  Thirty miles.  Granted, there’s a Zumba workout in there that added up to three miles of that, but even still: I out and out ran 27 miles at the least and 30 miles at the most.  No wonder I have been so tired!  

  

This is so me.  I get all jazzed up about ‘hitting it hard’ and taking off some weight or adding on some muscle or training for an event and in my enthusiasm I stop listening to my body and just push Push PUSH myself!  I’ve been good about doing Zumba twice a week and running 2-3 times a week, but those runs have been between 4-6 miles, usually, sometimes shorter when I don’t have the patience.  My intention was to add a long run of around nine miles into my routine, today’s run, but I think I pushed it too hard this week.  Not only am I tired, cranky and edging on anxiety/depression, I’ve also been feeling the strain in my legs and hips.  My calves have been tight like a rubber band, my thighs swollen and heavy feeling and that stress fracture or bursa sac swelling in my left hip, the one that gets irritated when I push too hard, started acting up again.  

Today I was supposed to take my long run of nine miles.  It’s hard for me not to follow through and push myself to do it, but I think I’ll be much happier all week if I give myself a little bit of recovery time.  Instead I walked the dog and played some laser tag with the family. So this week’s goals:

• Monday: kitchen miles, whatever feels good
• Tuesday: Zumba
• Wednesday: 4-6 miles depending on weather and how my hip feels
• Thursday: kitchen miles (keep it easy) unless I feel better, then I might hit the streets.  Or hula hoop.
• Friday: Zumba
• Saturday: 9 miles
• Sunday: 3 mile virtual leap day race with kids (Greenlake)

I bought some medals for a virtual race for my kids that they are going to earn next Sunday.  I always run but I think they might like a little extra motivation in the way of virtual race medals to spur on their interest in running.  It gives them a sense of accomplishment and it’s fun to run for bling sometimes!  I figure whatever motivates…  I think I earned the Race to Oz medal this week with my 30 miles!  I’m not usually one for medals, but to commemorate my most miles ran in a training week is worthwhile, I think.  😉

Side note: because I’m a big dork I have to go on just a little more about Macklemore and the game I play when I listen to him.  Right now I’m obsessed with the song Downtown.  I looooove it.  No- I mean I luuuuurve it.  It’s just so much and the pure excess is like witnessing a flash mob or something.  But anyways…  When I’m doing my kitchen laps with Macklemore I choose a part or two of his song to change up my steps to.  For example: in Downtown, whenever there’s cowbell I do a double-timed step or I get my knees up high.  I call them knee-highs but I’m not sure what they really are called.  When he has his posse rapping with him I do lunges while I walk and whenever the Downtowwwwwn! Part is being sung I have to have my arms in the air.  Plus I have to lip-synch and dance all sassy style as much as possible because the song just calls for it.  Anyhow, that’s just one more way I mix it up while I’m cruising along.  People always ask me how do I run that circle for so long, but I like it.  It has a lot to do with wanting to dance and listen to my music loudly and having access to headphones.  Fortunately my family, both as a child and now, is completely used to my antics and it’s not at all unusual to see me strutting around the house lip-synching and dancing to my heart’s content.  I think they’re all just glad I don’t belt it out loud anymore!

(I always remember this one night when I was about ten years old, sitting on the stationary cycle, listening to Neil Diamond on some headphones and I just couldn’t keep the song in my heart any longer.  My family had to let me know that I would get booted off the bike if I couldn’t keep quiet about Sweet Caroline.  I didn’t last on the bike much longer.  Who could?😋)

  
That sky!  I was on my way home from work yesterday and didn’t really want to run, but I knew I had this little 12 year old grasshopper girl at home in her running tights waiting for me, and I saw that sky!  One of the side effects of being a runner person is that you always have the perfect excuse to go outside and run around in the pretty weather sometimes.  Last night was like that.  Gorgeous.  My running partner was disappointed to have to stop after just under three miles, but they were hard miles yesterday.  I worked out hard earlier this week and man-oh-man I felt all of those miles in every step.  Gigi was cute because she became my coach, telling me that over time she could push me a bit and she was certain that I’d grow into a much faster runner.  I told her I’m in it for the distance more and we ended up having a pretty fun conversation about speed and distance and which we like better.  She said she wants to run really fast for a really long time.  She said she wants to run marathons when she grows up- even ultra matathons…  I told her I could for sure follow her up to a half marathon, but it’s amazing that her little balloon is already starting to tug away from our family bunch.  For the other races I’ll have to be cheering her on at the finish line.  

I’ve recently realized that one of the current, primary reasons I love running is because I’ve engaged with music again in a very deep way.  That doesn’t mean that I am listening to deep music, oh no, well, sometimes, but I am listening to it again like a teenager.  Remember when you were a kid and you would listen to music so deeply that you would be able to sing some of the lyrics the second time through because you paid such close attention?  And then after you’d follow it up by scouring the liner notes for lyrics and clues?  It’s like that again.  Where I repeat songs over and over, back up good parts to relisten and learn it so next time I might be able to sing along…  It’s like that again.  I first woke up to hip hop in Zumba. At first I was a little resistant, but the one that finally got me was Pitbull’s Baddest Girl in Town.  I thought it was this little cute Spanish song and had no idea it was Pitbull until my friend Jessica pointed it out to me.  Then I dove deep into his catalogue and amassed a solid collection and loved it.  I still love it.  But there comes a time when talking about lust, money and big, bouncy booties has me questioning the morals I want to impart to my kids.  Seriously, nothing sounds as foul as when you turn on your car and Pitbull starts barking lyrics at your daughter about…  Well…  Google him and you’ll get it.  That said, I still think he has a place in my phone.  In my ear.  On my run…  But…  My new love: Macklemore.  Holy cow.  I thought he was like the Dj Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince or something, but that man raps about things.  Important things like money and fashion and marriage equality…  Funny stuff too, but my runs are seriously motivated right now by being able to listen to more and more Macklemore.  I want to run for a loooong time, just so I can process him.  I never thought I’d listen to rap.  But here I am and what a great place to be!  Macklemore!  What great motivation to run!  

Macklemore>Pitbull

Today I had a reader pose the question to me about my training and how I go about it…  Wow.  That’s a long story!  Here goes…

When I started running I did it just so I would push myself.  I had always admired runners and thought it looked like a pretty inexpensive sport to partake in.  Once I got going a little and started sampling different exercises, I realized that I would ‘dumb down’ most exercise opportunities until I wasn’t breaking a sweat or breathing hard, but running is always running.  No matter what, no matter how slow you go, you always have that little skip/hop in there that gets your heart pounding and lungs breathing deeply.  Then, once I saw the calorie burn that a 270 pound woman gets from running for ten minutes I was sold!  I decided that I needed to go longer and farther distances to maximize my calorie burn, and that’s how I was born a distance runner.  I don’t care much about speed.  As long as I’m under 12 minute miles, I feel solid, but if I can get farther than six miles I’m impressed!

  
I’ve never followed a plan.  My running has always been intuitive.  In the beginning, like four years ago when I just first started, I would run almost every day.  I might take a day off a week, but I ran or rode my stationary cycle for at least 20 minutes per day.  20 minutes was really pushing it for me then, too.  Don’t worry if you don’t have endurance yet; over time it will come if you just stick to the plan.  

Your plan.  And what is your plan?  Your plan should be one that makes sense, isn’t intimidating and works for you.  I needed to work out daily otherwise I worried that I would fall off the wagon.  That one day off would turn into two days off and so on and so forth.  I didn’t want to break my stride and stagnate so I just kept moving.  When I first started, I looked at some training plans but they all looked intense.  They started out with running a whole minute or quarter mile, walk for too short of a time, then repeat.  Erm, nope.  That was not going to work for me.  At all.  I was so out of shape.  So inflexible.  I had no muscle tone.  I decided that, like Katie from Runs For Cookies, 30 seconds of running the first day followed by 29 minutes and 30 seconds of walking sounded right.  The next day I ran for a minute and walked for 29.  Each day I added a little more and a little more until one day I just kind of wondered if I could run a mile.  I did.  It was a huge moment for me; such a victory!  It took me less than two months to build up the stamina and confidence to go from hardly being able to run 30 seconds to being able to run a whole mile without stopping!!  From there I knew I was unstoppable.

   

 I registered for my first 5k that was to be in July or August of that year.  I trained my butt off, running mile after single mile, sometimes two miles, but the three miler remained a huge challenge!  It was my opus!  I made it to three miles a time or two, but when I finally did my first official 5k it was hard on me!  I was worn out, tired, exhausted but exhilarated.  I felt so empowered that I was able to run that far.  

  
If you’re like me, distance becomes addictive.  If you’re like me, once you discover that you’re capable of an impossible task you chase it even harder.  I realized that running distances is impressive to me, so I set out to impress myself by running even farther.  At the end of that summer I had managed to run my furthest distance of right around six miles.  When I told a friend that, she said that I needed to sign up for a half marathon, then…  Ha ha!  I added and added little increments day by day until one day I met the goal and then I just let it all be.  After my 5k and 6 mile challenge I stepped back into a more passive running role.  I started running two miles since it took me around 20 minutes to complete just to get my workout in and calories burned…  But I got bored.  Without the races, without the challenges I started to lose interest in running.  It became a job, and a boring one at that!   I love the online comic The Oatmeal and the author, Matthew Inman, is a Washingtonion so last spring when he advertised a race locally I got all jazzed up and rushed over to sign up, only to find it was limited to 10k, 1/2 marathon and full marathon.  Yipes.  But with the carrot of an actual blerch, couches at the aid stations, chocolate cake and mystical purple drink dangled in front of me I decided to take the leap and take on the 10k.  It wasn’t too bad.  Then a friend posted about running a half marathon six weeks later, and after someone had once told me that if I ran six miles I could run 13.2, I drank the koolaid and signed up without thinking.  What can I say?  I was riding high on my six mile victory!   

I hardly trained.  I managed to squeeze in an eight mile run, once, and two six-seven mile runs, but that was it.  I was ill-prepared but had a lot of confidence and moxie!  I was doing it!  And I did!  I limped across the finish line with blisters on my feet and swollen, stiff thigh muscles.  But what I took from that was that there is always more left in my tank until there isn’t.  I can run 13 miles in a row without stopping, with very little training under my belt.  I like knowing that.  I’m capable.  This weekend I ran quite a lot and I feel like it’s something I can and should sustain with the race schedule I have coming up.  I’ve signed up for a lot of 15k’s!  

  So, to answer the question of my training schedule, my answer is that I’m not too good at a training schedule!  But I do have loose ideas…  This week:

• Sunday: 10K/6.2mi (Better half race)
• Monday: 5K/3.4mi (in my kitchen😂)
• Tuesday: 8.8mi (neighborhood run)
• Wednesday: 10,000 steps/rest day
• Thursday: 5K with Gigi
• Friday: Zumba
• Saturday/Sunday: planning on 9 miles one day, six miles the other day depending

My goal these days, I suppose, is to run 2-3 times per week with distances of 3-6 miles runs plus one longer (7-10 miles) run per week.  Add to that my Zumba Wednesdays and Fridays and I have a whole workout week planned.  You see, what I realized after running the half is that running 13 miles is hard.  Running ten miles that dat, though, was doable, so running nine miles (15k) is comparable to that.  Six miles (10k) is fun, now.  Three miles is a dash.  In comparison to where I was when I started, I think my self-prescribed training plan worked pretty well…   I recently read an article that was talking up the 5k as an awesome run that people bypass on their way to distances of glory.  It makes sense to me in a big way and I decided to let longer distance goals go, for now.  I do appreciate the shorter distance and, right now, I don’t have time to train properly for a half marathon…  But I do wonder what my future holds and how far I will end up running in my lifetime.

There are times as a runner when I’m going along and it’s just getting it done.  It’s a workout that I’ve promised myself I’d get in and I plod along, step after step, until I’ve met my goal for the day and I head home.

Sometimes I hate it.  Passionately.  I negotiate with myself the entire time about when I can stop and how far I have to go, brokering deals for smaller loops that will bring me home sooner…  

Then there are the weekends like this one.  This weekend I’m a powerful athlete who is in training.  I can’t wipe the smile off my face.  I’m so proud!

I’m an athlete who felt her power in those final three miles of the Better Half when she kicked it out and ran harder the rest of the way to the finish line.  I found a different kind of belief in myself and what I can do.  I saw it with my own eyes and felt it in my own body.

This weekend I learned that six miles is a fun distance for me now.  Fun.  The phrase ‘fun run’ seemed like an oxymoron for years to me, but now?  Oh running, how do I love thee?  Let me compare you to a summer’s day…  And if six miles is fun, I need to push farther to train.  I’m strong, now.  I can do this.

It was powerful to feel myself speeding up in the last turns, not getting tired, not getting out of breath, not feeling my lungs burn, and in the final miles of the course passing a number people.  I don’t really care about the competition, I care because it shows me that I’m not worse than the other runners.  I’m in league with them- we are all present -faster, slower, same paced- I belong, there, too.  (Ok, I’m not going to lie.  I felt a little super heroic and amazing when I was actually passing people during the last mile- I couldn’t believe I had it in me!  But I squish those competitive feelings down and try not to let them influence me beyond just having a little private puppy wiggle to myself. 😉)

And it’s amazing what setting a personal record can do for you.  I’ve been just high as a kite since running on Sunday.  That PR and that solid, good, healthy run has my sails full and I’m ready for the short week ahead…  Not only that, but I was aching to do it again.  Run.  Run.  Run.  

Realizing that I enjoyed the run so much because I had the right level of training made me realize how much fun my 15k’s will be as long as I train for them.  I loved the Better Half because I was ready for it.  It didn’t hurt at the end because leading up to it I was running six miles here and there like it wasn’t any big thing.  9.3 miles- or close to it- needs to be something I’m shooting for more often, and today was my day to take my first crack at it.

All day yesterday I wanted it. I got a 3.5 kitchen run in after 8:PM, but I made a date for 90 minutes this morning to be set aside for a long run. I was itching for it.  I headed out at 10:00 with the intent to just run three times around my extra large loop and see where I ended up, mileage-wise, at the end…  

Well, I did it!  Almost nine miles!  Today marks my longest run ever that is not an official race!  And the early morning weigh-in of 191.6 was just the icing on the cake!  What a great day!  In 1.6 pounds I’ll officially be able to claim 150 pounds lost.  Isn’t that just crazy?!  And come March 6, I think I’ll be totally ready to run the 15k!  I loved this weekend!

  

 I have two victories to share that happened during this long weekend.  The first of which is a total scale victory: I’m back to my all-time, full-grown-adult, low weight of 193.6!  I touched 193 for about 15 seconds last spring then bounced right back up to hover around 200 pounds for a bajillion weeks (it felt like it, anyhow).  Making sure to get my 10,000 steps per day is really paying off.  I’m finding that I can eat a lot more to sustain my weight and scaling back my calories to lose a little bit of weight isn’t nearly as hard when I’m moving this much.  Part of those steps is almost always an aerobic workout, too, so I’m getting it seriously done this year.  The habit of moving is pretty ingrained, at this point, and it appears to be paying off in both inches and pounds off, not to mention how great I’m feeling.  I don’t think I’ve ever felt this healthy!  

The second is a total non-scale victory…  When I was looking for my girl scout sash for my Russell costume I was digging through trunks and boxes of my old clothes when I came across this dress.  The last time I wore it was when I was seventeen years old to my senior tea, hence the odd, formal picture with my parents and grandfather, circa 1991.  I know, the flowers on the dress are dated and the fabric smelled like mothballs and I will probably never ever wear it again, but it fit well enough that I was able to wear it out on my date with Jude on Saturday night to the mother-son Valentine ball!  I haven’t worn a dress with a full skirt and fitted bodice like that since I wore my wedding dress!  It was so much fun to swirl around the dance floor with Gigi (Bradley was a bit sick and Jude preffered kicking the balloons to dancing with his mama).  We had the best time.  It was mostly very little girls dressed as Ana and Elsa with their daddies there so we just had a really good time kicking our heels up and dancing our hearts out without a care as to what the others might think!  I may have been channeling my inner 17 year old…  

After my great race yesterday I came home and ate the entire box of chocolates one of my students gave to me.  Relax, it was three pieces.  😋 Today I ate a little bit more sugar than I would like, but I also ran 3.5 miles in my kitchen.  They don’t cancel one another out, but I’m planning to go for eight miles (I have lots of new music) or so outside tomorrow so I’ll burn it out then.  I realized that six miles didn’t seem like too big of a deal yesterday because I’m fairly used to practicing that distance.  If I can run eight or nine miles 2-3 times between now and March 6th, the Hot Chocolate 15K shouldn’t be that big of a killer at the end.  Isn’t it funny how it’s true what people say?  Training pays off.  Who woulda thought??  Ha ha!  Wish me luck!