Signs of Fall

“It’s SO cold,” I lamented to my running buddy this morning. I had debated throwing a sweatshirt on. I ended up deciding against it as the temperature has been running in the mid 80s this past week.  One of the perks of living in the Bay Area is the Indian summer that extends summer into September/October. While I’m basking in 90 degree weather, there are still signs that make me face the reality that Fall is actually here.

The tell tale signs of fall are the shorter days. My running buddy and I were forced to move our morning run back by 15 minutes. We showed up last week to run in pitch black. I snapped the photo above during our run. When I was training for my marathon last year, I’d religiously check the sun rise time to figure out the earliest possible time I could start my run. I figured out I could start about 15-20 minutes before the set sunrise time. The sad thing about fall is having to start my runs later due to the later sunrise (but I also count this as a positive thing, since I get a little more snuggle time with my pillow!).

Today, we ran our 4 miler 15 minutes later. It’s amazing what a difference 15 minutes makes. Starting 15 minutes earlier allowed us to finish early enough to miss the craziness of the morning commute/moms driving their kids to school traffic. An extra 15 minutes makes my strength training/abs/stretching post-run routine and shower a lot less rushed. An extra 15 minutes also gave me enough time to have a bizarre dream about running a marathon, and a Disney marathon at that, on a whim 🙂 Yes, my running addiction is even consuming my dream life now.

There’s no denying it. Fall is here.

Running leggings and sweatshirts, I’m coming for you!

 

I (will) eat hills for breakfast

My husband and I signed up for the San Francisco Rock n Roll Half Marathon next March. We made sure to register before the price increase! No procrastination here (for once)! My husband also was pleased to see that this race has a pretty generous refund policy which includes  injury, illness, and unexpected travel delays. Brownie points to the race directors at the Rock n Roll, I like how you think.

I am a big fan of the Rock n Roll series. I’ve raced in the half marathon in San Jose and full marathon in San Diego. The races are always well organized, high energy and really fun to be a part of. I believe the San Francisco location has only been around for 2-3 years. Last year, I was interested in signing up but one tiny little thing stood in my way.

Actually make that three 300 foot gargantuan things.

The hills are alive with the sound of San Francisco. Call me a baby, but I avoid hills like the plague. And even though it’s always one of those things that I know I should do, I just can never bring myself to add hill training to my workouts.

So. Much. Pain.

But there is that old saying, no pain, no gain right and by signing up for this half marathon I will HAVE to train hills. Hill training conjures up feelings of anxiety and dread. I will have to remind myself that this was a voluntary assignment. I have no one to blame but myself.

Speaking of The Hills, I can’t think of a better way to accentuate a post on hill training than with some gifs from my friends Lauren, Whitney and Audrina. Let’s be honest, life is better with a little Lauren Conrad thrown into it. My not so guilty reality TV pleasure will precisely illustrate all of my current feels:

To answer the question, why am I doing this?

I guess I am sort of a glutton for punishment

To inspire myself during my inevitable hill workouts:

What I hope to look like after hill workouts:

What I’ll actually look like:

Okay hills, let’s go.

Disneyland Half Marathon Weekend: 10K Recap

This recap is quite late. I would apologize, but I’m sure my race recaps will never be on time.

To kick off the Disneyland Half Marathon weekend, my fellow Dumbo Double Dare compadres (my husband and good friend), woke up at 3:30am to run the 10k. The ONLY reason in life to wake up at 3:30am is for Disney races. Disney races start SOOOO early in the morning. I know they want to start early so that the race doesn’t interfere too much with their normal park operating hours, but this is the only race I’ve ran where I feel like I should be going to bed at the time I’m waking up.

Since we were crashing at a friends place in Irvine, we wanted to make sure we had plenty of time to drive there, park and find the corrals. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the parking situation was quite easy and the walk from the parking structure to the corrals was just mere minutes. It felt much longer and more complicated at Disneyworld, but maybe it’s due to the fact that Disneyland is my “home turf”. I guess being an annual pass holder for several years is good for something. We arrived with plenty of time to spare. We hung out in the runner’s area and took advantage of the extra time to take some photos. For the 10K, my friends and I had a “monstrously” awesome group costume idea…

CAUTION. MONSTERS ON THE SCARE FLOOR. Don’t worry, we only scare because we care. Mike Wazowski, Sully and Boo comin’ atchya from the Disneyland 10k. The guys’ costumes were fun to make. I picked up some felt at a craft store and went to town. So excited that I was  finally able to use my rudimentary sewing skills! I loved how they turned out. I made my husband (Sully) attach a blue fluffy tail to the back of his shirt as well. My Boo outfit was easy to throw together. Good thing I love pink and purple, I didn’t even need to buy anything!

Race Highlights:

• Almost the entire 10K was in Disneyland and California Adventures! It made for a very interesting and magical run. I thought it was cool getting to run in the “backstage” areas of Disney like where they store the huge floats.
• I ran the race with my husband and our friend. I had a good corral placement the highest of the three of us and was planning on taking advantage of it. But last minute, I decided to start in the same corral as my husband. My husband wanted to save his energy for the half marathon the next day, so we employed the Galloway run walk method and would run 1 minute and walk another minute. Our friend started in a corral that was further back, but he was able to catch up to us once we got inside California Adventure. It was tons of fun running as a group. We made sure to stop to take pictures, be silly and really enjoy the race.
• The 10K was Lilo & Stitch themed, (World of) color me surprised. I had no idea til we got there. It was fun to see so many people dressed up as Lilo and the Elvis music blasting along the course.
• Dressing up in costumes! For the Walt Disney World Marathon weekend I felt vastly unprepared. I remember showing up to the corrals and had a bit of a FOMO (fear of missing out) moment. Why was I the only one not dressed up? Why are people so creative? Why did I not plan a costume??? Dressing up to run in Disney races should be mandatory. It was fun coming up with a costume idea for our group, creating the costumes and then prancing around Disneyland in the costumes. As we were getting out of our car in the morning, two runners came up to us and were squealing about Sully’s tail. When they realized that we were the Monster Inc. crew, they were beside themselves with happiness.
• Best Costume Award was for this guy dressed up as Kronk with Isma strapped to his back (see photo below). Seriously? Is this real life? I love this costume because it is not your typical Disney costume. Some people I know have never even seen the Emperor’s New Groove (I know, they lead sad, strange little lives). We were in the same corral as this guy. I could not stop staring. Amazing, amazing, amazing. Even more impressive, he finished the entire 10k in this get up. Hero.

Overall it was a fun race, as most Disney races are. One thing I was disappointed in was the lack of characters on the course. There were plenty of Elvis photo ops, but very few characters. Not going to lie, I was a little sad as that was something I was looking forward to. Now, onto the photos!

Better Together

A quick snap on my 4 mile run this morning.

This morning I had a 6:30am meeting. SIX-THIRTY AM. SIX-THIRTY! Oh the life of a high school sports coach. 6:30am is apparently the only time that high school coaches can meet.

As I drove back home, I had already made my mind up that I wasn’t going to run. I like to run as soon as I get up, if I wait too long I get too hungry. I decided it was going to be a “cross training day” which actually translates to a no workout day.

I opened the door to find my husband sitting on the floor tying his shoe laces.

If he can do it, I can do it.

I quickly changed to running clothes and we began our run together. My husband wanted to run two miles, so I ran the first mile with him. A half mile into the run, I decided I was going to run four. After one mile, we parted ways and he turned around and ran back home and I continued for a few more miles. The photo above was snapped on my run. As we were running, we were talking about how both of us wanted to be lazy today, but we knew that we would feel better and actually have more energy if we went out for a run.

The past two weeks I’ve been lacking in motivation for anything fitness related. But there’s one thing that gets me out the door every time: running with friends. I used to hate running with other people. I was self conscious about how slow I was. I hated feeling the pressure of keeping up with someone and felt to embarrassed to ask people to take walking breaks. While I’m not completely over this, I do enjoy running with people more than I used to. I run with people who are about my size (and that’s fun size aka short) and/or have a similar pace as me.

Running with friends has been an awesome way to keep me accountable for actually running, especially when I don’t have the race motivation factor. If I know someone else is waiting for me, I can’t lie in bed aimlessly scrolling through my facebook newsfeed.

This week I plan on running three times, and I have a running buddy for each day.

Friends for the win!

Running on Fumes

6:00am
BEEP BEEP BEEP

6:15am
BEEP BEEP BEEP

6:30am
BEEP BEEP BEEP 

After the third alarm, I finally just turned the alarm off.

8:30am
Still lying in bed debating on whether it’s worth it to go running. I had a Gollum and Smeagol type of conversation in my head.

“It’s so late. Might as well just stay in bed a little bit longer.”

“But today was supposed to be your long run, you’re so lazy. Why didn’t you just get up when the alarm went off?”

“It’s been a busy couple of weeks, you deserve to just take it easy.”

“You’ll feel so much better after the run, you always do.”

And back and forth it went. I even googled “Running when you’re exhausted” to see if I could justify taking the day off.

I finally threw on my running shoes and forced myself out for a run. Even when I don’t want to run, I usually get into the groove after the first mile. Today was not a usually sort of day. I struggled through three miles. Took some walk breaks. Pretty much hated the entire run. My eyes were so tired and heavy, I felt like it was an effort just to keep them open. I kept thinking about a iced chai latte, which would be my reward if I finished this run.

Most days, I really love running. Today I wished I would’ve just stayed in bed.

Even Disney princesses have those mornings every once in a while.

I think it’s time to sign up for another run to give me that extra motivational boost!

Confessions of A Yoga Noob

After my last blog post, I had some very helpful suggestions from Pscapp and Kristin to try yoga as a possible remedy to my ITBS struggles. I’m willing to try anything if there’s a slight possibility I’ll be able to run pain free.

My experience with yoga is limited to just classes of Bikram Yoga. The first class was a double date. Is there really a better place for a double date than a place where you will sweat out enough liquid to solve California’s drought problem? No, there isn’t. An hour and a half of hot yoga is no joke. I have never sweat that much in my entire life. It was like my skin was just one giant faucet. 

After my first two classes I never went back as the bikram in my area is a little pricey. But with the recommendations to try yoga, I wanted to give it another chance. Life is a tad busy at the moment with work at its busiest season with work events galore and coaching a high school gymnastics team, so going and paying for a class is out of the question. So where do you turn? YouTube!

My most favorite ab workout is on there, why not stream a yoga video?

I quickly realized that I know nothing about yoga and spent a few minutes doing a quick google search about the different types of yoga.

I attempted this power yoga video from Bryan Jones. It was only 30 minutes, which was perfect for my Tuesday morning. I think I may need something shorter, like 15 minutes, but not sure if I’ll get the benefits I’m looking for with a shorter time. It was a good workout, I even started to sweat a bit. One thing I know for sure, running has made my muscles so tight. As a former gymnast, my body and muscles were quite flexible. I’ve noticed that the more that I run, the tighter my muscles become. I held the downward dog position and my muscles screamed at me. Conclusion: I need to stretch more.

Even though yoga may not be my thing, I’m going to keep at it for a while. I’m going to commit to two-three days a week for at least 15 minutes for two months.

The IT Band Saga

This is how I feel about my current IT band issues:

That’s right, IT band syndrome wizard angst.

I was happily closing the chapter on the ITBS chapter of my running life, but much to my displeasure the chapter is dragging on and on. Actually it’s not even a chapter any more, it’s 5,000 page novel. Some may even call it a saga. You know the type of book that is so long that they turn it into a two part movie (but let’s be real here, two part movies is an easy peasy way for Hollywood to make double the money off of you).

I’ve been going to a physical therapist  for my ITBS. He has been using the graston technique, a metal bar that grinds into your tissues. I grit my teeth and use all of my will power not to kick him in the face as he digs that little metal stick into my leg. The old saying “no pain no gain” rings true, because as much pain as it causes during my sessions, it has been surprisingly effective in healing my ITBS. I was able to go back to four days a week of running, I added street running back into the routine, I took less walking breaks. The pain I had dealt with the past year was magically gone.

Or so I thought…

The week before the Disneyland half marathon, my ITBS started flaring up again and it wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t just the small pain that you can run through. It was a crippling possibly doing permanent damage type of pain. I made an emergency appointment right before the half marathon with my physical therapist. I believe that helped me get through the race without too much pain.

I went to see him this week again and asked him what the reason could be for the flare up. Everything was going so well. I just didn’t understand. His answer? “It’s just an overuse injury, so things like this will just happen.”

So you’re telling me even though I come here weekly, spend an hour and a half in your office each visit, shell out $100 a session, let you dig a metal bar into my leg, do my strength exercises at home, that this issue will continue to just flare up every once in a while?

Great news. I’m thrilled. In keeping with the Harry Potter themed gifs this post. This thoroughly portrays my enthusiasm:

I guess it’s back to my own remedy of not running on consecutive days, sticking to softer surfaces and keeping up with my foam rolling and hip/leg strengthening exercises. I’ll continue going to the PT but a little less regularly as I’ve been paying out of pocket.

And the saga continues…

The Weekend Haul

It really is all about the bling. A weekend of running summed up with medals. Thank you Disneyland Half Marathon weekend!

Recap post to follow.

Half Way There!

What would we do without nifty apps and websites? My detail oriented/OCD nature is so very thankful for apps like MapMyRun. They email me every week with my weekly workout summary. I just received an email from them for my Mid-Year check up! We are now more than half way into 2014 folks.

Here is my “greatness at a glance” (oh the positivity that comes with this app, it’s almost better than a real life friend!).

 

My favorite stat is how all the hours I’ve logged running cumulate into DAYS. DAYS! I’ve spent a holiday weekend running, so great.

This little reminder made me think about the goals I had set at the beginning of the year. I just looked up my 2014 Runsolutions and here’s an update on my progress so far:

1. Run three half marathons
On my way to this one. I ran one in May. I’m signed up for another one in August. Just need to register for one more in the Fall!

2. Run 800-900 miles
If I keep up the weekly mileage I’ll hit 800 no problem. Honestly, I wish I could get to 1,000. But with my knee still acting up, I’m only letting myself run three days a week and it’s hard to log more than 20 miles running only three days a week.

3. Run FASTER
I have not incorporated speed work into my runs, but I have been getting faster. My average time is somewhere between 10:00-10:30 mile depending on the day. I think last year my average was 11:00. Definitely progress!

4. Set a half-marathon PR
CHECK! CHECK! CHECK! The half marathon I ran in May I ran in 2:10:35, which works out to about a 9:58 mile. Not only did I sent a PR, I blew my last PR out of the water by ELEVEN minutes! I even ended up having to walk a few portions of the race towards the end because of my knee. Quite proud of this one!

5. Cross and strength train
Crickets. Crickets. Ehem. Wake up call.

6. Kick the IT Band Pain to the Curb
I wish I could say this one was taken care of. I’m still struggling with some knee pain. I’ve limited my running to three days a week and I’ve only been running on the trail. I I stick to that regimen, it does’t flare up like it used to. I’ve also been using the video below to strengthen the muscles around the IT band (hey look at that, I guess goal #5 hasn’t completely been forgotten!).

 

Foot Injury Update #1

Rest. [noun]

1. the refreshing quiet or repose of sleep: a good night’s rest.
2. refreshing ease or inactivity after exertion or labor: to allow an hour for rest.
3. relief or freedom, especially from anything that wearies, troubles, or disturbs.
4. a period or interval of inactivity, repose, solitude, or tranquillity: to go away for a rest.

I’ve never been very good at rest. Case in point, I pushed through a four mile run this morning. There was no pain for the first mile. Then a small pain started aggravating my foot, which turned into more of a sharp pain by the end of the run. I figured that after three days of full rest I would be able to handle a normal run. Wrong.

I really dislike resting. It makes me feel lazy and while I know it’s unjustifiable I start worrying about my fitness levels dropping. Resting makes me want to run even more.

But for now, I need rest. Real rest. My foot is in some serious pain. I feel the pain in almost every step I take. It’s so strange, it came out of nowhere!

Self-diagnosis is not going very well. I was thinking it could be a stress fracture, but I don’t think I’m in enough pain for that. It’s not sensitive to touch, only when I walk on it. Soft tissue damage maybe? I should probably go to the doctor (my issues with doctors is worse than with resting), but I’ll wait it out for one more week and see if it can heal with just some good old fashioned rest.

One positive, I can sleep in tomorrow. Done.