Brutal

I’m feeling rather uncreative, thus the title.

Back to running yesterday after what felt like 3 days off but wasn’t really.  I distinctly remember a thought I had Wednesday as I walked from my car and into my chiropractor’s office.  It went something like this:  “Holy crap I hope it isn’t this windy tomorrow when I have to run.”

Now yes, I’m long since saying no to runs outdoors due to a little wind, but that doesn’t mean I can’t think wishfully!

The wind was still out there yesterday.  Very much so.  Like…. yeowch.

I managed to hold steady at 5.1 mph or about 11:52 min/mile.  I ran faster than that for a while in the beginning so that means I must have been running pretty slowly by the end.

These 50 minute runs kick my butt.

It’s just even a different mentality than my longer runs on Saturdays.  Saturday comes around and I set out at my slower pace and I really feel great.  These 50 minute runs just seem brutal.  Maybe it’s because they come at the end of the day or maybe it’s because I really am working that much harder just to go a bit faster.

Who knows?

It feels good to work my butt off though.  Real good.

Saturday is just a four mile run.  Recovery week again… which is good because I think my poor legs could use a bit of a rest.

Something New About Running (not so much, really)

Yeah, remember when I was all fed up with the running?

Well now (since I haven’t run since Monday morning) it feels like I haven’t run in forever.  This is a good thing really.  I was feeling pretty frustrated.

Something fun about running?  Listening to music!

I was over at Happily Heather After today reading her playlist which she so nicely posted and I realized how much I LOVE reading other people’s playlists.  I have strange music tastes which really don’t lend themselves to running and so what I usually do is find something upbeat, non-annoying, and grab it.

And yeah. that’s all the explanation/excuse I’m going to give you before providing you with my very own playlist.

Oh wait.  One more excuse:  I’ve been too lazy to update this since June.  Yes.  I will run 8 miles in a single go but I’m too lazy to fiddle with my playlist.  That’s how I roll.

I am definitely going to be looking for updates prior to my Nov 6th 15k!  So if you want to send me a list of what you listen to or link me to your own playlist, that would be awesome!

In other running stuffs, I’ve been feeling run-down (hahaha, pun intended) lately and feeling like I just want the Hot Chocolate run to get here already.  So caught up in the hassle of the training and feeling as though I have no time I’d forgotten my moment of inspiration which led me to ask about bumping up.  Thankfully Brandon reminded me of my moment when I thought “hey maybe I could” by posting his own moment of maybe he can.  Read about it here.

And on top of all that… I got even more inspiration with the feel good (well, right up til the end) story of Rita’s first half marathon.

All I can say is thanks guys for motivating me and reminding me of why I’m doing this crazy thing.

Also… May I have my own frog man to catch on the 6th!!!

No running here!

It occurred to me as I sat down to write this post that my blog totally shows my current obsessions.

When I wanted to go vegetarian and needed recipes and ideas, the blog was all about food and recipes and… ideas.

When I had first begun my journey and was struggling with identity issues, food issues, and with changing my lifestyle… well… the blog was about all those things.

And now that I’m running my butt off to get ready for the Hot Chocolate 15k, the blog is all about running.

Apparently I am a girl of limited brain capacity… I can only focus on one thing at a time.

I have done other stuffs though!  I also have photos to prove it!

Finally having both red lentils AND yellow split peas to make my favorite soup: Coconut Red Lentil Soup. I’ve made it with regular lentils and green split peas and, while it comes out a crazy color… it tastes just as good.  The texture is much better with the red lentils though.

Roasting up two more pie pumpkins to get some pumpkin puree. Man oh man do I love the color orange.  Autumn is my favorite time of year!  I think the orange colors are what make me love roasting these little buggers so much.

Into the new food processor you go!  I previously had one of those little mini ones which was smoking every time I made almond butter (and wasn’t getting the job done anymore to be honest) but was holding off on a larger food processor as they’re lots of money.  Found this gem for 30 bucks and figured what the heck.  Can I just say how nice it is to turn it on and walk away?  (Previously I had to hold the button down.)

Your own pumpkin puree too watery?  No problemo.  Some coffee filters and a bit of time and that excess water is bye bye bye!

I decided to turn some of the puree into pumpkin butter using Angela’s recipe. Yes, I am super messy in the kitchen.  Seriously.

This post has been approve by Bailey who scuttled around my feet the entire time hoping I’d drop something.  The cat will literally eat anything as long as it falls from the sky…. this includes rocks.

I also made vegan bacon but that is a post for another day!

Very Serious Business

Chafing, that is… very serious business.

But, before I get to that.  First: the runs.

A fairly average performance on Thursday.  The weekday runs are beginning to wear on me.  I enjoyed them when they were 30 minutes.  When it moved to 40 minutes, I felt the strain.  With Monday’s 50 minute run it started to get to be a bit like “uh, this sucks” which is not how I want to feel about running.  However, I only have 3 more weeks of training and then it’s the week of the big event so I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Saturday’s run:

I have to admit to something here:  I didn’t feel as strong on this run as I usually do.  It could have been a number of things.  One, I just added cross training in this past week.  I know I should have been doing it all along but something always came up and so I haven’t.  Adding it in likely put some extra strain on my body this week and tired me out more.

Second, the temperature rose by 11 degrees while I was out.  Whenever I experience that, it just seems like my heart rate gets crazy hectic and I did battle keeping my heart rate in the specified zone for a lot of the run.

My legs may not have felt as strong as I wanted them to but I did manage to pull off some negative splits at the end which is nice.

And finally… the serious business.  I’d been wondering if I would have an experience with chafing or not.  I mean, everyone said when they started running longer than an hour is when they dealt with it.  This week’s long run took me 1 hour and 26 minutes (not including the 5 min walk at start and finish).  When I finished, I initially thought the only place I’d chafed was on my arm from the arm band of my zune.  It was so horribly painful and I ended up wearing the arm band on my forearm (rather haphazardly as I was loathe to stop to fix it).

That, however, was NOT the only place I chafed.  After I stopped running I noticed another discomfort.  When I got home and started tinkering around with stretching and then eating I noticed it also.  However, it wasn’t until I decided to shower that I knew for sure:  my butt crack chafed.

Holy hell does that hurt!

Needless to say, I went out Saturday afternoon to buy some body glide.  It’s time and I don’t intend on going out again without it.  No way.  I’m totally not going through this discomfort again if I can help it!

Sunday Link Love

Sooo, I’ve had an incredibly busy week and as such I haven’t been the best reader this week.  I do, however have a couple of links which will be relevant in my upcoming posts

1. Vegan Bacon Recipe @ No Meat Athlete I’ve posted this link before but this time it’s going to be relevant because I’m totally soaking the beans and buckwheat to make my very first batch.  I figured the 3 day weekend is the perfect opportunity to try something new.  Also, I’m dying for a BLAT sandwich and I am loathe to actually buy real bacon.  (Mind you, I’m still at the point where I’d likely eat real bacon but if I have a decent substitute… it might be bye bye bye!)

2. The 9 Spots You Must Treat to Stop Chafing @ Just Your Average Joggler With my 7 mile run I encountered chafing for the first time.  This experience will be discussed in a future post.  However, as I scanned the internet for advice on what parts to use the anti-chafing product on, I stumbled across this post and jumped for joy that someone had spelled it out for me.  Thanks!

There you have it!  You can expect a discussion about chafing and vegan bacon this week!  Wait… maybe I shouldn’t have put them in the same sentence…..

About those shoes….

Those new shoes I bought?  Awesome.

I admit to being worried prior to Monday’s run.  New shoes means a whole new list of things to worry about and possibly the reality of the shoes not being “right” for me.  Seriously, I have never agonized so much over a pair of shoes in my life.  The shoes I got married in caused me a lot less fuss.

In the end though, I think it’s a good deal.  They didn’t cause me any pain and stayed comfortable throughout my 50 minute run.

Can I just say training is an awesome thing?  And that, while gadgets like the Garmin aren’t necessary for running, they can sure help you figure things out?

It seems like such a short period of time since I bought the Garmin and started using it along with the Half Marathon training plan in Marathoning for Mortals.  And yet… I have improved my running drastically in that about of time.

I completed a 50 minute training run Monday night.

In that 50 minutes, I ran what – just a few short weeks ago- would have been my “longest run ever” at 4 miles.  Instead, I ran for 50 minutes and completed 4.25 miles.

I did those 4.25 miles at a faster pace than the 4 miles I ran just a few short weeks ago or even the 6 miles I ran this past Saturday.

It absolutely amazes me.  Really.  I’m just in a state of awe at how far I’ve come with my running.

The run wasn’t without complications though.  My IT bands felt tight after a couple of miles and while they didn’t get as tight as my left one did during my Saturday run, it is distressing nonetheless.  The tightness in my IT bands forced me to slow my pace and even walk once.  It just got to an uncomfortable sensation and I thought to myself “I am not going to push through this, I am going to walk it off.”

As I walked, they relaxed again and I had about 5 minutes left to my run (after roughly 2 minutes of walking) and so I finished it out with a varying pace.

Not the most glorious ending to the run but I am trying to listen to my body.  When I think back to the C25K program that I started and how wonderful I felt after having run for 20 minutes straight and how much I struggled to run those 20 minutes… These 50 minutes feel like a miracle.

My body is truly doing some amazing stuff and it’s absolutely wonderful!

Hey, I put some new shoes on..

I asked for advice.

I analyzed.

I tried on about a bazillion pairs.

I agonized.

I took forever.

But finally……..

I PICKED SOME NEW RUNNING SHOES!

I have never really agonized so much over a shoe purchase in my entire life.  Nor I have I ever really paid attention to how a pair of shoes fit my feet before.  I mean, seriously, I’m a woman… women wear all sorts of impractical shoes for the sake of looking good.  I am in no way used to analyzing how something feels past “do I think I can stand on this for 2 hours at a time?”

I’ve been for a walk in them and I must say they feel awesome.  The heel is all cushy and the toe rolls forward so nicely; there’s plenty of traction and I feel so supported.

I absolutely cannot wait to run in them.

I’m hoping they’ll clear up some of the issues I’m having with my longer distances.  Only time will tell!

Six Mile Saturday

Mmmhmm.  That’s right. Six miles Saturday, that’s what I did.

It’s more than a little silly how anxious/eager I am to go run those longer distances.  Saturday morning found me up at 5:30 am (actually 4:45 but I made myself stay in bed) and waiting for the sun to rise.

I really wanted to nail those six miles.  I wanted to show them who the boss is and I wanted to show myself I’m going to be capable of that 15k come November 6th.

The sun finally rises, it’s 7 am and I fire up the Garmin to load up the six mile run and……I must have forgotten to turn it off because it gives me a low battery warning.

Well crap.

So I plug it in to charge and figure I’ll give it a good hour to charge and then it’ll be more than ready for my run.  I checked my Zune and it told me I pretty much had a full charge so I didn’t bother plugging it in.

Weather check revealed it to be somewhere around 41 degrees and it “feels like” 35 degrees.  Ouch.

Oh.  And windy.  It was windy.  So windy I was reminded of the days when wind like that would have meant no running.  Not anymore.  No way!

Overall, I felt disappointed as I was running for how slow I was moving.  The wind was brutal though and I would say I fought some aspect of the wind 3/4 of the time with 1/4 of that being head on and oh-so-tough!

And the other thing?  My Zune is a liar.  After 1.25 miles, the thing ran out of batteries.  Incredibly frustrating as I checked it!  I should have just plugged the damn thing in when I plugged in the Garmin but I didn’t want to clutter up the table with all those cords.

I essentially ran for an hour with nothing but the sound of my breath and the wind.  Honestly, the music pumps me up quite a bit so I missed it, but with the wind how it was, I couldn’t have run any faster and kept my heart rate in the targeted zone for my long run.  (Obviously I ignore the heart rate zone on the last mile.)

I felt my left IT band tighten about 3 miles in and I wasn’t sure what to do.  I adjusted my stride and tried to stretch it out a bit but it remained tight and stiffened up in the afternoon after the run.

The main thing I’m feeling now that I’m running farther and longer is that I need some official running shoes.  Yeah.  I’m an idiot and I am not running with “real” shoes.  When I started the C25K program I just used whatever shoes I had lying around.  When I finished it, I bought some newer shoes but not official running shoes.  (My philosophy is not to buy anything until I’m really certain it won’t be something I buy only to never use.)

Well, I never really felt as though I needed to upgrade…. until now.  I can feel it in the distance.  The shoes I have just aren’t adequate.  I’ll be going shopping.

But seriously?  I ran 6 miles!

To boldly go where I have not gone before…

Well, halfway boldly anyway.

There are so many days when I wish I had attitude.  The magnificent “I am fan-freaking-tastic and you know it” attitude I see so many people wear.  I mean, I may have acquired a bit of swagger when I’m in my comfort zone and I am generally more confident over all, but when it comes to doing something new/different/remotely scary.  Oh no.  I do NOT have swagger or attitude.

Enter the new capris I bought on sale. It’s beyond time for me to find some bottoms which do not bunch, rub or chafe me when I run.  As I increase my mileage, I’m finding out the various reasons people invest in stuff like this.

This does NOT make it any easier for me to wear stuff like this in public.  It’s not as though you can hide anything in these.  There are no pockets in back designed to make your butt look smaller and while the fabric seems amazingly forgiving when it comes to not showing any dimples which shouldn’t be there… I’m still pretty sure wearing these greatly increased the visibility of my “jiggle factor.”

But oh, the running.  The running in them was great.  They breathe.  They don’t bunch.  I’m not constantly pulling them down.  They didn’t rub on me in uncomfortable ways.  In short, they were absolutely fantastic! (Even if I did have to check my reflection in the mirror a zillion times before I left the house.)

The running I’m not as thrilled with.  I can list the excuse of it being windy (very windy, actually) and in all honesty the kind of windy which would have made me forget the run altogether in my less dedicated (read: didn’t have a 15k coming up) days.

My pace has slowed a bit.  I’m not getting the 5.1 or 5.2 averages I was a couple of weeks ago and I feel a bit as though I lost my stride.  Literally.  My stride is different than it was back then (or so it feels) and I’m wondering how this Saturday’s 6 miles is going to go.  It could be just what I need to get back into the groove, or I could find out I’m going to have to get some work to get that old stride back.

This is the first week of me doing the 40 minute runs during the week instead of the 30 minute runs.  My first week of this was home to those two horrible runs where I went about 15 minutes.  It’s a bit sad really because next week I jump up to 50 minutes on Monday, and stick with 40 minutes on Thursday but the following week it’s 50 and 50.

I’ll likely do ok.  I’m keeping my heart rate high during these runs and managing to get it done so another 10 minutes shouldn’t absolutely kill me (heh, that’s what I said about jumping to 40 minutes).  Besides, I see where this is all going and it really makes good sense.  By the time that 15k rolls around, I may actually be decently ready for it.  And wouldn’t that be a shocker?

🙂

Where is the ice cream?

You might remember me proclaiming I’m quitting ice cream a while back.

Wondering how I’m doing on that?

For the most part, really good.  The beginning was rough.  I still had ice cream here and my thoughts reminded me of what I said to myself when I attempted  to quit smoking ages ago…”Well, I’ll finish after this pack is gone, no sense in wasting money.”

And so it became “I’ll finish when this ice cream is gone, no sense in wasting money.”

The thing is, the real moment which matters isn’t at home, it’s at the grocery store.  Being able to NOT put the ice cream into my cart is all that matters.  If I don’t have ice cream at home, then I won’t eat it very often.

So I didn’t buy any.  I instead chose a mango sorbet which is lovely and which doesn’t cause me to enter some sort of eating contest mode where I shove as much into my mouth as possible.  The sorbet took the edge off, but it wasn’t ice cream and boy oh boy did my body know it!

I swear to you I went through a sort of withdrawal.  I didn’t get the shakes, but I certainly went through a period where my mind tried to convince me I NEEDED it.

And then one day I just forgot about it.  Magically.  I even forgot to eat the mango sorbet.  I even forgot to walk longingly past the ice creams in the grocery store.  I forgot to replenish my  mango sorbet.

All this has happened in the past three weeks and I’m quite pleased with the progress.  I have eaten ice cream while out (a scoop comes free with my meal at a restaurant I frequent nearby which is literally the best deal around, soup, salad and a meal and ice cream for like 6 bucks.  I eat the soup and salad and box up the meal for the next night…. anyway).  I ate that scoop and it was ok.  I didn’t have any more ice cream available to me so it wasn’t a major issue, but I did crave more and that tells me ice cream at home is likely a no-no for the foreseeable future.

I will always wonder what it is about ice cream that makes my body go crazy with cravings, but I’m totally going to work at maintaining a distant (but loving) relationship with the stuff.