Archive for January, 2010
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No more snow, please
That’s the view of Grant’s Trail on Saturday morning. I don’t like running in the snow. But I did it anyway. There was pretty much no choice because I couldn’t run later in the day, couldn’t run tomorrow, and there was a dusting of 1″-2″ or so. I broke out the yaktrax that I had previously forgotten about, and packed a little stubbornness for my 13 mile run today.
The stubbornness was put to good use. The result was a much slower run than usual (45 sec/min slower), so it took longer and it felt harder. Seriously, it needs to stop snowing on the weekends. So far this is the 3rd or 4th weekend in marathon training that has been affected by snowfall and I’m sick of it. (I would be a terrible Canadian/New Englander/etc. This is Missouri!) Hopefully February will be kinder to me.
The evidence:
Sloooow splits. But the good news is that this time I did not throw up afterwards. Yay.
And in other good news, I had a great swim on Friday. Although I have no trouble running for miles on end, swimming laps in succession eluded me. Until Friday. The key? Relaxing, and not kicking like I’m getting my diaper changed. Kicking really takes it out of you; I have to constantly remind myself to let my legs just relax. But once I relaxed my legs, laps seemed so much easier. Hopefully I can get even better.
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Hi, I eat mush
I decided to document what I eat for a day. I guess I have been inspired by food blogs I read. Although I know I could never become a full-fledged food blogger myself, I thought for a day it would be neat to try.
First of all, it is a real pain to remember to photograph what I eat, and time-consuming. So, food bloggers have my respect. Second, I realized that everything I had eaten today was in mush-form. I like crunch, so I’m not sure why that happened. Third, food blogging swayed me from having red meat twice in a day. Interesting.
So, breakfast was gross looking pumpkin banana oatmeal mush:
Then, without thinking of blogging, I ate a piece of naan. Then I took a picture of my friend Robin’s piece (and she was my hand model):
For lunch I had a meatloaf sandwich and salad. Mark’s mom sent us home with her meatloaf on Sunday.
And, after my run (10-20 w/u, 5 X (2 min @ 8:15 /2min ez), 10 c/d), I had an orange:
The iphone is not very good at taking pictures in a moving vehicle. (I was a passenger!) And finally, I had leftover turkey chili soup and a ciabatta roll:
Aaaand, I think that ends my adventure with food blogging. It took longer to write this than it took to edit my article for the Levison Group (www.levisongroup.com). Partially because I rely on my husband Mark to edit it…
My run today was great & surprisingly easy. I had a lofty goal to work on organizing the basement tonight. It’s cold down there! Wish me luck.
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I received a request to write more *ahem* personal things on my blog. Ok, not a request exactly. The comment was “Oh, I was excited to read your blog until I learned it was just about running.” I suppose I could stand to be more personal in my posts!
Today I took a rest day. Honestly, my legs are really feeling yesterdays run and are quite sore. I definitely did not stretch enough afterwards. Right now, I’m at home petsitting my dog Ada while Mark is at a professional nerd function. Ada is doing her classic routine: beg to go out, beg to come back in almost immediately, and repeat.
<– As cute as she is, I am not amused.I’m also baking some yukon gold potatoes because they were on their last legs. Little known fact, but I was vegan for about 4 months (during a longer vegetarian phase) and my favorite thing to eat was sliced red potatoes with A1 sauce. It’s odd but awesome, and I think I might relive those days in a few moments.
I went back to eating meat although I rarely crave it and so don’t think to eat it often. A meal doesn’t have to have meat for it to be satisfying to me. This doesn’t jive that well with Mark’s protein-focused P90x diet, but I am trying. Last night I made turkey chili … and damn, if I don’t say so myself, it was good.
Tomorrow morning I am hoping to do a run with Ada. It should help get the crazy out of her. Tomorrow afternoon is out for a workout because I have an eye appointment and swimming lesson. I think we are going to learn how to do flip turns. I don’t usually have the energy to turn around and do a second lap — I need a breather, but knowing how to do a flip turn will be useful once that happens.
I learned something today, ironically while I was taking a self-initiated interruption at work courtesy of theshubox:
. . . deskbound workers typically only spend 11 minutes on any one task before being interrupted — and the interruptions are self-initiated more than half the time (facebook much?). furthermore, one study of microsoft employees showed that after an interruption, workers took an average of at least 15 minutes to return to the initial task. woah.
Wow, that explains a lot.
I hate being interrupted at work — and it definitely feels like interruptions take on a life of their own sometimes. But I also tend to interrupt myself at work too! -
Technical and Physical Difficulties
Grant's Trail, where I run
This morning I was scheduled to run 12 miles @ 10:30 pace. I had left the house and was about a mile away when I realized I had forgotten my headphones for my ipod. I don’t know about you, but I don’t always run with my ipod — but definitely feel like I need it for longer runs. A couple of hours of silence is a bit too much for me. But then I got to the trail, stepped out, and pressed play – and all I got was a black screen! My ipod had no batteries, apparently. So I decided I would just have to deal.
I encountered a few other problems on my run. I had drank a little the night before and I woke up thirsty and tiiiiired. I only had a banana because I didn’t want to upset my stomach since I didn’t have much time to digest. I thought I had sufficiently hydrated before my run, but I started fantasizing about drinking from puddles after about 3 miles. I stopped and did get water (and not from a puddle), however, about an hour after my run was over I was sick to my stomach and threw up. Ugh. From what I have read, the perfect storm of dehydration and low blood sugar probably caused my sickness.
Here is the data:
This week’s workouts went like this:
Monday: 3 mile easy run
Tuesday: swim practice
Friday: tempo run
Saturday: swim & elliptical
Sunday: long run
This coming week’s plan is:
Monday: cross-train
Tuesday: 10-20 w/u, 5 X (2 min @ 8:15 /2min ez), 10 c/d
Wednesday: cross train
Thursday:1 mi EZ, 7 mi @ 9:15
Friday: cross train
Saturday: 13 miles @ 10:00
I’m glad I looked at this just now. That is the first long mid-week run of this plan! (Long = I might have to rethink my morning wake up time…)
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Fitting it all in
For Christmas, my mother in law got me a gift certificate to a local gym where I could get adult swim lessons. I’ve been to two classes so far out of the six total. I’m a pretty terrible swimmer. In a lot of ways, it is the opposite of running. Instead of being vertical, you’re horizontal; instead of propelling yourself forward with mainly your legs, you’re using your arms and legs; instead of being on land, you’re in water; instead of being able to breathe at any moment, you have to coordinate taking in air. By far, my least favorite part of swimming is the apparent unavailability of oxygen. I run with my mouth open most of the time. I love the ability to take a deep breath, at whatever moment I wish. Swimming, therefore, is tortuous. And also, pretty scary.Although I can run for hours on end, when I began swimming classes, I could not complete even one full lap — and I was definitely apprehensive about getting in the water period. The first class, I learned that I was taking my head completely out of water to breathe — and it was definitely messing up my rhythm. I learned better form and I was able to swim a lap, but I was breathing after every two strokes — I was practically dying of air. (I like to breathe!) Yesterday, I learned that the reason I was needing to breathe so much was because I was killing myself in the water. My teacher told lectured me to relax. Instantly, I was able to complete four strokes before coming for air.
The dramatic improvement I’ve had in two lessons has been fantastic. I wonder where I’ll be after four more classes?
A lot of people may know that I have long struggled with fitting running into my day. I work between 7-4:30 during the day, and pretty often I am wiped after a day’s work and not feeling up to a workout or life ends up getting in the way somehow. I would like to spend a good portion of my afternoons working on career-related things. So I am once again going to try to work out in the mornings. It’s tough since it’s so cold out, but it is important that I do it to fit it all in.
P.s. If you have a comment or criticism on the layout/appearance of the blog, please let me know. I want to get some feedback!
About Me
My name is Michelle and I like to write about running, food, and fitness in general. Check out my About Michelle section for more!
