One last schweaty run?!

Okay, so maybe the title is pure wishing, but it was so cool this morning, the roomie and I opened up the doors, aired out the house, and didn't end up with a humidity and heat induced glow! This all blew in last night, about the time Mom and I left the house to go pick up Chinese for dinner :)

Sooo maybe I run because I eat that, but it was a super special Mom weekend! Anyway, when we left, the rental car told us it was 81*. By the time I'd gotten totally lost talking to the cashier when she told me my frequent user card was only for Chinese people, gotten my food and re-started the car, it was 74. But...Um... I know a couple of Japanese people at work, but no authentic Chinese people, so how did I end up with this?! She told me it was only for students, so I explained I used to be a student at State, I just tend to lose and find these cards! It might have been the one KR gave me :P We swap fro-yo rewards cards for Chinese, win win!

 Okay, so yeah, it was typical warm and humid yesterday morning! The sun didn't come out til that last mile when we were on a tree-lined trail, and for that, I was truly thankful! We did a nice as-flat-as-Raleigh-has-to-offer 6 miles on mostly tree-lined greenways around a lake, behind/between housing and apartment complexes, and chatted about all sorts of things. For example, the main person I run with from my group is probably old enough to be my mom and she recommended Hope Springs, the Meryl Streep movie. A new person dropped down to our pace group and she's about my age, and she had good things to say about it. What?! Urgh...fine. Sooo that's what my mom and I ended up seeing yesterday, and she was thankful I would go see it with her, sparing her the humiliation of being that middle-aged woman sitting alone in a clearly-aimed-at-her movie.

 We'd been warned about this beforehand, but we saw something similar to this:

 Okay minus the striking, fake screaming or water balloon. More like this:

 Thankfully one of the faster pace groups saw a guy like this just getting warm (or cool?!) on the trail and while the participants just stopped and backed off, a fellow mentor SPRINTED back with a pep in her step saying "Copperhead COPPERHEAD in the trail!" I stopped our group there, turned around to pass on the message. I was ready to strangle a couple of runners that were like "oh, COOL!" until I realized they weren't from our training group, so if they wanted to tangle with this venomous {see, Huck! I listen} creature, more power to them- and no legal obligation to our training group!

He eventually slithered off, and you could still see the majority of his body continuing to go into the grass by the time we passed. Shudder! Totally gave our group an adrenaline rush and I'm pretty sure we dropped average pace by a few seconds even with our 30 second pause!

The group is experimenting with in-run nutrition and I'm realizing that running for 70 minutes means I need to eat twice. That last mile, I could feel my brain start to shut down, I talked even less clearly than normal (which if you know me says a LOT!) and had to seriously focus on getting through. I had a chocolate outrage Gu that had caffeine, and I really liked it. The consistency and taste were definitely chocolate icing and I wouldn't want to down one of those without water to wash it down, just to get the super intense sweetness out of my mouth. Sorry if this is TMI, but coffee makes me have to pee, so for long runs, the last thing you want to do is need to pee when you're 3 miles from the closest bathrooms, so I liked that this flavor had caffeine built in. Morning runs demand caffeine! I definitely stayed up til past midnight on that shot and a 20 minute nap!

I'm super-nerding it up this week, determined to take advantage of these cool mornings, so I have not just my work outfits laid out but my running outfits! Sports bras and non-cotton socks included :) My legs are getting tired and my right knee bugs me after long runs, so I'm taking the advice of the other mentor for my pace group and going to keep running on tired legs to build up the endurance. I'm going to use shorter runs to get my mileage, even though it might mean a 3 miler before work and another couple after. Tuesday's cross training will be some elliptical, too- "mileage" without the impact.

Off to get in some upper body strength :) What good are awesome legs if you have pudge arms?!

Here's to the next tv timeout!

-Syd

So many things

1- I SURVIVED (barely) Illinois' toughest 15k. I have the medal to prove it:

The medal is hanging around my nec.k... don't know how I have enough energy to smile

2- It was h-e-double-hockey-sticks! I don't run when its above 70 outside by choice. It was 70 at the starting line, before I had to go up this evil hill twice! I killed that hill the first time, was doing well despite an absent water stop pre-hill, even when I got lapped by...well... a lot of people! But... somewhere around that first loop near the zoo, even after going past one of my best friends who was doing a lock-in (Zoo Znooze) , the leg that pressed on the gas pedal for 13 hours a couple days before cramped up, the heat exhausted me, and the impending meet up with my dad started to suck the happy go-go-GO right outta me. I got down the happy little hill, had a spectator tell me my braid looked cute and whimpered at the sight of the hill again with no water break until I was up it and started to walk like a pro. My chest exploded and hamstring cramped up like never before as the heat and panic rushed over me to have me bawling right before mile 7. I thought about this picture:

And kept going. I knew that right after mile 7, it was down one hill, 2 miles of straight and flat at the end with my momma and sister waiting to cheer me in after they'd done the 4 mile race.

Oof.

3- I didn't run much after that. Serious amounts of pain. I even put this Biofreeze gel on my leg to try to numb it, and omg it got numbed and I smelled like mint and couldn't feel my leg the rest of the day.

4- The next time I ran? I was in Savannah, GA at a $42/night hotel with one of my best friends from high school, on the treadmill in the gym. I turned on tv, enjoyed The Mentalist, checked out my form while I ran, and tried to get in some speed work. I'd only waited about 20 minutes after eating this AMAZING $7.50 low country boil so when I was upping the speed (to 7.0 mph!! and BEYOND) I slowed down when I started tasting the shrimp, crab, sausage, corn and 'taters again. Had a GREAT time doing the HIIT though!

5- I've decided my goal for the month of July while it decides to stay in the triple digits outside in the BLAZING humidity is to do at least 1 unassisted pullup by the time August comes around. Huck has a pullup bar in the hall of his kitchen/living room, so I have a plan... if I can't run outside, I shall become a beast!

6- For the awesome new job (yes yes, official job offer paperwork came in a couple weeks ago! WOOO), I had to get a physical. The doctor told me that people like me keep him from being busy. I compared the results of my cholesterol from 3 years ago, when I would go to work, sit down, come home, sit down, go to sleep, repeat. My total cholesterol has gone down by 1 point, but the triglycerides, HDL and LDL all tell the story of a much healthier and active person :) As a scientist, its nice to see proof in fancy numbers like that.

7- Other proof that I'm doing something right? When I went home, my mom had tons of my high school stuff for me to go through, since she would be putting the house up for sale a couple days after I left (it sold in 40 hours, no joke). Out of curiosity, I tried on my junior year prom dress. At 25, the dress that 17 year old me wore doesn't fit... because its too loose! My senior year prom dress?! Even worse! At least the junior year one has just an inch or 2 of fabric that you can grab here and there. Because of the cut of the senior year one, it just doesn't fit at all! It doesn't help that I don't gain fat in the most...um.. desirable?! places for a girl, but even the back is loose enough to hold a 6 pack :)

Ok... I promise more updates! Life should settle down here shortly and you'll get to hear about pullup progress :)

Here's to the Next TV timeout!

-Syd

...so THAT's why!

I learned why the SmartCoach plan had me running every other day at that pace and that I definitely need to make Tempo runs my b**** the reaaaalllllly fun way Tuesday night! Huck and I met up at one of my favorite route spots where the houses are HUGE, partially on a greenway around a lake and sort of idyllic for our 10:30 first "warm up" mile. My shins were SCREAMING at me as we went down the hill from where we parked our cars, but I figured it would be fine once it leveled out.

Well, sort of. I had a mini freak out when we didn't know whether to go straight or turn around the lake, and once my "go! go! go!" focus gets messed up, its pretty darn hard to tune out the feeling of being lost while your shins hurt and now your knee hurts and TADA your surprise for THIS run is your hamstrings are tightening up while you're pushing pace. While literally saying "something generically motivating", Huck got to watch the side of me saying "yeah, see! go go! you've got this! tune out the pain, focus, you've only got 2 more miles left at this pace and then a super easy mile cool down!" try to take down the "expletive EXpLETIvE this HURTS!" side.

Unfortunately, the answer was solved by salt water, namely the tears that started streaming down my face as we kept running, finally knowing the route. We walked around a bit, looked at houses that we will probably never be able to afford and their lovely gardens, and plotted what to do. I finally let Huck convince me to do p90X plyometrics workout, which has lots of jumping around since "even though you might hate Tony Horton, he really does just want the best for you, and there's lots of low impact modifications you can do" according to the boy. We walked back to our cars, played on a swing set, got leftover Easter candy at CVS, and then conqured p90x- and I only did modifications for the very last set of stuff.

Different parts of my legs hurt last night as we saw Daniel Tosh, and now my cheeks and abs hurt sooo much from laughing, but it was totally worth it. Trying to conquer Lake Johnson with its 3 evil hills this afternoon. Thankfully this run is "easy" and it shall be treated as such, darnit!

Here's to the next TV timeout!

-Syd

Randoms

>> Yes, I totally woke up at 4:30am, made scones and drank Earl Gray tea to celebrate while watching the wedding, so my mind is frazzled! With this in mind...more LISTS!

>> The usual Wednesday night run/walk was cancelled due to the threat of tonadoes, the same line that killed over 200 people, so I totally get the worry for our safety!

>>The roomie and Lucy are BACK so I no longer have an empty house. I never realized how much of a difference another person and a tiiiiny little dog make in how a house feels!

>>I totally liked Catherine's dress- very classic, elegant, total homage to Grace Kelly, and I oddly loved the pleats in it. Can't wait to see what other dresses she changes into tonight!

>> Oh, and that tiara? and those earrings?! Amazing "borrowed" and "new"! 

>> Watching this totally makes me want to have a grand formal church wedding. If only I had millionaire parents and a prince...

>>Eep, sorry. RUNNING! Err yeah...

>> Did I mention the scones? So flippin' good, but that's what real butter and cream do for ya!

>>Alright alright, no running Wednesday, so I went to Thursday night's "Social Run" where one of my ladies always says there's nobody to run intervals with her. Alas, no lady, all people wanting to run intervals!!!

>>I love Fleet Feet, mainly because I know people and they're chill and when you look like a tired runner, they're really nice to you :)

>>Last night, was running 3/1 intervals with the runs at 9:30 pace, not bad considering I was doing 10min miles when I was last running consistently. And then... about 1 mile in, my side just flared up with the worst lactic acid cramp I've felt in all my running time. So. Not. Cool. 

>> I turned around, walked back, ran a little bit. Not a happy camper :/

>>Back to the loving Fleet Feet, my friend L that works there told me it was totally okay for me to do stuff with the walk groups for NoBo the next two weeks as I try to give my knee a legit rest. When I do get back to running, I might have to rebuild strength and endurance, but at least it won't be with a constant nagging injury that makes even a simple walk to the mailbox after a run seem dangerous. 

>>Final thing. There's a few Food Lions around where I live, and I usually try to avoid them all like the plague. Yes, its an NC based company, but they seem to me to have cruddy selection, not-cheap store brands (I rarely buy the name brand), and every single one I've been in has this scuzzy feel. Because there's so many, they get referred to as "The really ghetto one close to the house that you don't go to after dark" (there was a shooting there), "super scary one by work" in a shopping center I also try to generally avoid and finally, "campus Food Lion" which is what I stopped in to last night to buy the final 2 ingredients for this morning's scones. Keep in mind, this picture is from the *least* sketchy of the Food Lions...

Why yes, I'd like to buy my chicken and fish in Hefty bags packaged at this store!

Here's to the next TV timeout!

-Syd

Feet-eeps!

So KR and I went on a walk  last night. The brief "spring" is officially over in Raleigh, and as part of my usual transition to the heat and humidity (THAT WILL ONLY GET WORSE!!!), I have this time of hating everything the winter required. Namely? Socks. If I had barefoot shoes, I would've worn them last night. Instead? I picked my "kicks" that I wear quite a bit during the summer without socks. When my heels started to blister up, despite the fact that it was a mile home on sidewalk, off came the shoes!... and I realized that the calluses I used to get as a kid running around barefoot were sorely lacking :/

Want to know just where the blisters on my feet are now?! Apparently, this is a long term problem, found in the socks I grabbed to wear to Gladiator training tonight (funny story about that when its closer!).

So those holes in my socks are currently stupidly sore spots on the pads of my feet. And yes, pads. I'm part cat ;)

I had some fun running last week, with a verrry special running buddy- my MOM! We did her Couch to 5k program in beeeautiful Charleston, SC. We did the historical stuff, Ft. Sumter (you know why that matters, right?!), saw a rainbow after a storm that flooded the formerly-marshed-below-sea-level downtown, and drove across a bridge that made my mom come super close to hyperventilating. There was tons of walking, lots of yummy eating, and much enjoyment of Southern-ness :)

I also brought along mi madre to the no-bo group on Saturday. We're up to 4/2 run/walk intervals, and we did 12:50 minute miles over the 2.25 miles, faster than Mom's usual pace! During our Charleston exploration, much talking about running ensued, and we talked about pushing your pace- you can't get faster unless you try it sometime! I am quite proud of her :)

Off to bed to rest my hurting feet, but I think I just let in a bug :/ Please don't let it freak out in my room tonight while I'm home alone!!!

Here's to the Next TV timeout!

-Syd

Home Alone!

This is usually the time that I'd slap on some aftershave and SCREEEEam, but instead, I show you Lucy's "snuggle" position and 

"srsly...why must you WAKE ME?!" position :)

The Roomie is off on a grand adventure, so, in my mass boredom, I shall tell you what I've done :) And yes, I have a boyfriend, but he's stinging over his team losing a game they had and withering away in the lab. Be kind on Fred, I gave him some news this week that's enough to make lots of people bust out the Home Alone "SCREEEEAM" :/

Anyway, I decided to test my endurance by running both Friday and Saturday. Both were supposed to be "fast" days, but I think only Friday really was. I did a nice 2 miles in 20 minutes. I ran fast, but also took walk breaks every now and then. Realizing that I a) really need to hydrate through the day and avoid the awful dry mouth and b) I need to figure out how to better fuel myself up. I eat pretty healthy, awful Target gnocchi-in-a-pack from tonight notwithstanding, but I feel like my tank is on empty wayyyy too often/soon!

I did my 3 miles today at the evil trail where I last rolled my ankle. I ran with C, the sheepdog owner, and if she wanted me to talk, I had to walk! The hills on that trail are eeeevil. So steep that going downhill is awful because you have to hold back or prepare to lose your footing and tumble down the paved trail. 

My web searching of the day also confirmed what I was fearing/hoping would go away if I ignored it- I definitely have shin splints. Much worse on my dominant (right) leg, and it hurts after, for a while, and on the inside, so at least its not ITBS. It comes from upping mileage/time/hills too quickly. I need to keep running and getting faster, especially given a very defined goal that's in the near future, so I might just cut out the evil hills for a bit, focus on getting fast on the flats while upping the distance.

Back to my awesome Saturday night, home alone :) Might even go to bed EARLY! Yes...this is the life of a 20-something with a boyfriend :D

Here's to the next TV timeout!

-Syd

Ankle update :)

While I showed you pictures of my awesome knee the other day, I thought I'd let you see the catalyst injury. Really, I was sitting here with my legs up and crossed at the ankles when I realized my left ankle was BURNING UP! Guess all the little cells are in there, repairing away, right?! :) A girl can dream, at least!

Comparison of injured and standard:

Swollen...

Normal. Aww, I miss that ankle bone on the left side!

I've felt great the past couple days, mainly because I took lots of ibproufen! Thursday night was a dinner with potential employers, but I'd definitely been told it was a cocktail reception, which conjured up images of lots of standing and mingling in my mind! My cute little $10 flats from Target came in handy, though, because I got to show off a flash of HOT PINK argyle socks that went with my gray pants and pink sweater :) 

The big test came Friday morning when I wore a skirt suit to the formal interviews. I tested out the outfit with my hose to see how much of the bruise you could see (not noticeable!) and which shoes to wear. I didn't want to wear flats, but I didn't want to be in heels too scandalous, and trust me, I have some KILLER heels! My original game plan was the low black slingbacks, but the strap cut PERFECTLY across the swollen ankle area. I had a newly purchased ($13, thank you Ann Taylor LOFT!) dark purple top and so I decided to be a bit daring fashion wise and wear higher heels, but more coverage, less ankle annoyance and in the same area of the color spectrum as the top under my suit jacket. 

With more of the ibproufen, taken at doses approved by the Roomie, MD , walking from interview room to interview room, up and down stairs, was no big :) I switched back into the aforementioned Target flats for a site tour, and life was great! The great rapport (I HOPE!) with the interviewers probably made me feel a bit invincible, too ;) 

Today has been a medication free day. I had a sneaking suspicion my horrid tummy ache yesterday wasn't nerves but ibproufen, so I wanted a day free of that pain. Walking around is definitely doable, just a bit of discomfort here and there, but nothing I can't handle. I think I might put the ice pack back on the ankle, since my instructions say to do it once a day.

Here's to (playing at!) the next TV timeout!

-Syd