You must be lost

I finished! I mean, I didn't have any doubt that I would finish, but I got a PR and despite the hill in the last half mile, I was still able to sprint the last .2 miles of the race to the finish. I guess having some slight to moderate hills in my training in about the same place is a good thing.

They didn't allow headphones, so I was a little concerned about pacing without music. But I met up with smileypv and we stayed together pretty well and talked through the whole race. It's been a long time since we've seen each other, so we had a lot of catching up to do. In fact, I bet people around us were pretty pissed off, because we were pretty loud and jovial and were kind of in the back of the middle of the pack where the women who are really struggling to get through it are.

Jennifer was a little disappointed in her time, but I think her slightly faster speed helped pull me through a little quicker than I could have done on my own. I just hope I didn't drag her down too much.

Now, I'm ready to go for another run, like RIGHT NOW! And, I'm ready to keep training and try to get my time down a bit. When's the next race? :)

ETA: Stats, for my reference: time was 38:15, which is down from 43:15 from my first race and down from my training PR of 39:45. I was 20th in my division (of 22) and 129th of 171 finishers.

I'm currently in Week 5 of 5k training... again. The surprising thing when I started back after 10 MONTHS OFF *kicks self* was that I hadn't lost too much of my stamina or distance. I mean, the first week was hard and I had lost about a half mile, but I was still able to run 2 miles without stopping and without feeling the need to hurl after. I've been running in the evenings because it's just too damn hot the rest of the time. Also, I'm not too keen on pushing a jogging stroller anymore now that my passenger weighs over 35 lbs. So, Chris and I take turns at night. Sometimes he's able to squeeze in his run before dinner. But I go after, usually after putting Jonah to bed.

As of last week I had worked my way up to running 2.75 miles and feeling really good about it. I'm kind of sick of pussyfooting around to build up to a 5k distance, so I decided to just go for it last night and see how it felt. It was hard, but doable and I think I'm going to hang out at this distance this week, then push it up to 3.5 miles next week and go from there. My aim is to get up to running 4 miles per day 5 days per week and sustain that for a while, working on getting my time down and such. So far, I've only managed to squeak out 3 nights per week, but it's definitely better than nothing.

There's a race in Huntsville on July 17th that I want to run. It's only a $10 registration and it's at UAH, right around the corner from my in-laws. It's a Twilight 5k (NO, not that Twilight, the time of day. I don't think I could handle 3.2 miles of body glitter and Hot Topic merch). smileypv is running in it and I thought it would be fun to do a race together. Plus, it was the perfect timing to reach a goal, without any lag time for slacking.

So, that's one positive thing to balance out all the negative I have a tendency to post here. More to come...

I know a lot of people don't make them because they never keep them. The fact that I never keep them, however, doesn't mean a lot to me. I've got to have very specific goals to have a direction to head in. Otherwise I just feel like I'm floating. Every year around this time, usually for several weeks, I put a lot of thought into figuring out where I want to go this year. Since I'm a multifaceted kind of person, I typically set specific goals in each area of interest.

( Exercise )

( Home Organization )

As has been mentioned, I got in some yoga last week. It hurt later, but I was glad I did it and will continue to try to fit in an hour or two a week. Unfortunately, since my mother-in-law came up on Saturday and I decided Sunday needed to be spent weeding and cleaning up the front bed, I didn't get my runs in on two gorgeous weekend days. It's really hard to get weekend runs in. So, that means I only ran twice last week. So much for catching up on what I missed the week before. This week I'm on schedule at least. But, here's last week:

Monday - rest
Tuesday - 2.25 mile straight run without stroller; 2.8 miles total in 35.19 mins
Wednesday - rest
Thursday - 2.5 mile straight run without stroller; 3.14 miles total in 40:55 mins
Friday - 1 hour of yoga
Saturday - rest
Sunday - rest

Mileage Totals:
Week - 12.22
Month - 22.88
Year - 110.43

No, I'm not giving up already, I promise. I just forgot to post it.

Monday - 2 mile straight run w/stroller; 2.53 miles in 34:51 mins
Tuesday - 2 mile straight run w/o stroller; 2.53 miles in 33:19 mins
Wednesday - rest
Thursday - 2 mile straight run w/stroller; 2.53 miles in ~34 mins
Friday - unintentional rest (got busy in the garden and never got around to running)
Saturday - rest
Sunday - hungover

Mileage Totals:
Week - 7.59
Month - June = 5.06 July = 2.53
Year - 90.08

And even after all that telling people the $20 registration for the Halloween 5k ended on June 30th, well, I forgot to freakin' register. D'OH! So, $25 registration ends July 31st and let's try this again.

Increasing distance this week for the first time in. . . forever. I'm just taking a gulp and doing it and not over thinking it or second guessing if I'm ready or not. Did it yesterday and today, actually. Added a quarter mile to make my runs 2.25 miles now (or at least for the rest of the week). I'll try to up the distance again next week because, well, that's what my plan wants me to do and I'm going to try to stick to it. Also, instead of bouncing back and forth between 2.25 mile runs and 2 mile runs like the plan says to do, I'm just making the increase and sticking with it. At this point, I don't really see the point in bouncing back to 2 miles and it might even be detrimental. Also, also, I'm going to stop trying to run 5 days a week (not that I was succeeding at that anyway). I'm cutting back to 4 (again, not that it's really cutting back since that's the most I've run so far this year). On my running rest days, I'm going to do an hour of yoga. I really need some cross training and I simply do not have the time to workout for 2 hours a day. I can pull an hour though, so with 3 days of yoga and 4 days of running, we'll see how that does for me.

Let's see, also, I think I'm going to rework my route for a little while. I'm feeling some soreness in my leg again (no popping anymore though) and I'm starting to think it's from a certain section of my route. It's usually fine until I get to this point where the pavement is sloped and it puts a little extra strain on my right leg. If I alternate and do that section backwards, the wear might be a little more even on my body. Also hoping the yoga will help to stretch and strengthen that out a bit. Another reason to change it up is that now at the very end of my run, I've got an incline. It's somewhat gradual, but enough to wear me out and make me hurt right at the end. I'm thinking if I cover the neighborhood in more like a figure 8 sort of pattern, I'll get the hills out of the way when I'm still fairly fresh (first mile or so) and then I can also do that uneven section with the left foot for a while. Win, win!

Also in the win, win department, I believe I made an idle wish to start running again and to start making jewelry again in the month of June. By the skin of my teeth, I did both in the last week or so of the month. That's procrastination for you.

Well, I went running today for the first time in 8.5 weeks.

The good news: I can still do two miles without hurting too bad. Breathing was actually easy. Never got a catch in my side and no burning in the lungs or heaving. The heat and humidity are good for something, at least for me. I don't think I've gained much weight in the past two months that I've been off the wagon. I feel like I have, but the scale says otherwise. I may have started to lose a bit of muscle. Which means I'm probably going to be couple of pounds heavier tomorrow, because, well, that's just how it seems to work with me. I think because of how I lost the weight I managed to lose before, it's stayed off more easily. That gives me hope for weight maintenance in the future.

The bad news: I've lost a couple of minutes of time (overall, still not timing individual miles) and my legs are very tight even after extra long warm up/cool down and stretching. I'm anticipating it taking a good week or so to get the kinks worked back out again. Then, of course, my yoga DVD should be here so I'll start doing that and cause all sorts of new kinks for a while. This was kind of the last straw. I'm feeling aches and pains again that were around before I started running (knees, that pesky ankle thingy though it's not as bad as it was, lower back, shoulders, etc.). I'm also just generally feeling unhealthy, what with no exercise paired with things like bacon wrapped smoked pork loins and homemade sausage and such.

I'm really going to try to get back on this. I feel like my life would get back to normal just by changing this one aspect. Also, I don't know why I wasn't running when I was in full time contemplative mode. Half an hour, 5 times a week to be alone with my thoughts. Why didn't that make perfect sense? And the weather was so nice then, aside from tons and tons of rain.

So, here goes. I've missed all the early summer races I wanted to run because, well, I wasn't running. Here's what I'm pondering now (because I'm just the sort of person that has to have a deadline of some sort to procrastinate against):

Sept. 12th - Broken Wheel Festival 5k in Nolensville (just because it gives us an excuse to go to Nolensville and therefore go eat at Martin's Barbecue after the race, thereby undoing all the good work I will have done that morning by running a 5k, heh).

Sept. 26th - Shelby Bottoms Boogie 15k/5k

Oct. 10th - Germantown 5K Bier Run (no link yet)

Oct. 17th - I Run for the Party Halloween 5k

Oct/Nov ??? - Superhero 5k in Asheville, NC (they still have their Ninja 5k info up from May so no info yet).

Not saying I'm going to run all of these, they're just the ones I'm looking into. If I can do 5 days at 2 miles a day next week, that will basically be week 1 of the 5k plan I was doing before.

In addition to this, of course I'm going to start using the yoga DVD as soon as I get it. It's the show I used to do when we had satellite, but since we no longer have satellite, I spent $15 on his DVD. It's Kurt Johnsen's Yoga for Life, if anyone is interested. Also, I'm going to start doing push-ups and sit-ups again. Just a few at first, like maybe ten of each per day. I just noticed that I was getting a lot more toned with a lot less mileage when I was doing some calisthenics along with the aerobic exercise.

Ass kicking and cheerleading are welcome.

I've only run three days in the past three weeks. I still have not lost any endurance (hanging in there with two mile runs still) and my times are improving (though I'm still not up to PRs again). For the first time since early February, I had two miles under 11 mins today. Just barely under (10:53 and 10:49) but under. I'm amazed at how shaving 1-2 minutes off my total time has me burning an extra 100 calories over the course of my run. Anyway, I'm not here to talk about this week yet and I'm going to refrain from making any projections or setting any goals. I'm just going to try to get through the week, one day at a time and see where it takes me. Here's my measly 3 runs for the past two weeks (omitting noting the rest days because it's not resting when you just dick around and don't run):

Week 10:
Wed (3/11) - 2 mile straight run (w/ stroller); 2.53 miles in 31:54; 1st mile 12:01, 2nd mile 11:15

Mileage Totals:
Week - 2.53
Month - 10.12
Year - 59.72

Week 11:
Thurs (3/19) - 2 mile straight run; 2.53 miles in 31:15; 1st mile 11:49, 2nd mile 11:12
Fri (3/20) - 2 mile straight run (w/ stroller); 2.53 miles in 30:53; 1st mile 11:24, 2nd mile 10:53

Mileage Totals:
Week - 5.06
Month - 15:18
Year - 64.78

The ankle weirdness comes and goes. The more I run, the less problem I have. It no longer feels like my ankle rolling. It now feels like a probably weak muscle in my leg above my ankle giving way on occasion and causing a slight pulling feeling in my leg. I'm really going to try hard this week to make myself do some yoga, even if it's just an hour. If that and more running doesn't help get rid of it, I'll think about seeing an orthopedic physician for a diagnosis and consult my physical therapist neighbor for some strength training I can do to fix it.