Four-mile training run
January 10, 2016 § Leave a comment
The week went pretty well. Earlier in half training, I’d had a lot of trouble with my left foot going numb while I was running. So I got some new grandpa shoes and started wearing compression support under my socks and I haven’t had any problems at all. The girl at the running store modified the laces on my new shoes, too, and it has made a lot of difference. Good thing I got over feeling like I needed to look cute while I’m running — yes, I got over that a long time ago.
I made but one resolution for the new year, and I actually made it late last year: Don’t pay to lose weight. I knew that wouldn’t include the nutritional supplements and amino acids that I love and use every day. I was thinking more along the lines of Weight Watchers and Dietbet. And then I joined a month-long Dietbet. So, good job Meghan!
I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how much I should eat. I use MyFitnessPal and it defaults to 1200 calories. But that’s not enough for me. And when I started adding mileage to my running, I put on a lot of weight in a short amount of time. I had my daily calories set at 1500, plus I ate back whatever my heart-rate monitor said I burned off running. And a person who weighs as much as I do can burn some calories running three miles. So I started to wonder if maybe that wasn’t such a terrific idea.
If you ever want to know what to do, ask the Internet. And the Internet will be firmly divided on ANY issue you’re dealing with. So I spent the past week trying out the TDEE -20% method.
TDEE is your daily total energy expenditure, a number determined by your age, height, weight, and activity level. When figuring my TDEE, I chose one level lower than my actual activity level. I sit at a desk all day and run during my lunch hour every day and have a long run on Saturdays. So I’m getting a good workout every day, but I also just sit around and breathe most of the time.
I calculated my TDEE on a website called IIFYM.com. My TDEE ended up being 2,053 calories and I subtracted 20 percent for an aggressive weight loss. That gave me 1,643 calories. I ended up eating about 1,700 calories a day all week and that seemed like enough.
But then Friday I woke up feeling off. Just kind of loopy and my stomach felt touchy. I felt like I was hungry, but I also felt like eating much would make me sick. Luckily, I get off at noon on Fridays, so I stopped by the store and picked up a few things for dinner and went home to rest. I had planned to do my run that afternoon, but I just never felt well enough to do it. And I didn’t want to feel worse on Saturday and have to miss the group run. So I ended up taking the day off on Friday.
Justin and I went to bed early so I could rest and just watch TV. He was eating a snack, so I got up and got one, too. A big old fattening snack. And I immediately felt better. Like a million percent better. My head cleared, my stomach unclenched and I felt so good I drifted off to sleep by 9 o’clock. I wasn’t sick! I was hungry! Wow!
I got up early on Saturday and had two pieces of toast with butter and honey before I left for the run. It was raining, but it was supposed to snow, too. I hesitated at the door — the weather was just miserable and the house was so cozy.
We had four miles on the schedule. By the time Coach finished his discussion on form, the room (packed with 300 people) was hot and I was sweating in my carefully chosen layers. It was raining when we took off, but before long it was snowing big, fat snowflakes.
I was running intervals (half-mile run, then a brief walk to check my heart rate) with Bridget and Alisha. Then another woman caught up to us and said she had been way, way behind us but didn’t want to be alone. Her name is Ruby and she’s never run before. She stayed with us the rest of the time and I know it was kind of difficult for her.
I was keeping an eye on our mileage with my watch and trying to make sure Ruby was feeling OK. Every so often I would tell everyone where we were. And at 2.9 miles, I told Ruby if she could just run a little bit further, she will have run a 5K. And she was in. After we hit 3.1, she still felt good and we kept running.
And this is why I love being part of a training group. It’s not just about me. Ruby said she wouldn’t have been able to do it on her own. I know she could have, but I also know the mental block. I could tell she was so proud.
She did end up walking some more while I ran ahead with a super sweet volunteer named Amelia. When we finished, Amelia went inside and got three cups of water while I waited for Ruby to come in. Then we had a big celebration in the snow on the parking lot at the Downtown Activity Center.
It was one of those days where the more I ran, the more I felt like I could keep running. I had started out telling Alisha that I would never be one of these people who ran negative splits. And then I ran negative splits!
Tomorrow night I’m going to my first speed session. Coach said you could skip the regular workout on the schedule on days you came to speed workouts. I got really excited. And then really scared about what kind of torture he’s going to put me through.
Training, a DFL and a PR
January 2, 2016 § Leave a comment
Half training is going surprisingly well. I’ve made peace with being slow, and I’ve even gotten a little faster with no real effort other than Coach’s prescribed consistency and patience.
I’ve also used Jeff Galloway’s run-walk-run method in my recent training. I’ll have to admit, at first I thought taking walk breaks during longer runs was what I shouldn’t be doing. And then I shaved 3 minutes off my two-mile run from one day to the next, even with 30-second walk breaks at half-mile intervals.
It wasn’t really too difficult to stay on track over Christmas, even though the group run the day after was cancelled. Some volunteers showed up in case anyone wanted to get the day’s run in with a group, but I couldn’t go because we left first thing for Justin’s parents’ house. I’d modified my schedule a little bit to make sure I didn’t miss too much on mileage.
A couple of weeks before Christmas, Lauren asked me if I wanted to do a 10K on New Year’s Day. It was basically a free race, but you could make a donation to a local school’s cross country program. I wasn’t sure about doing a 10K, but I finally said what the hell and registered.
The race was put on by a couple in the next town. Like, literally at their house. And the house was open for everyone, and it had like 5 or 6 bathrooms. And they made blackeyed peas and cornbread for everyone — runners and spectators — in keeping with our Southern tradition for good luck. But I loathe blackeyed peas, so maybe being in the race will count for me. It was really just amazing that this couple pulled this off with 300 or more runners, right in the middle of their neighborhood.
I knew with so few people running (and so many of them were ultra-elite runners) that I could very well finish last. DFL. Especially doing the 10K distance. I really didn’t want to be last. But! Someone has to be last. Even more than not being last, I didn’t want to give up. So I didn’t.
Yesterday morning as I got ready for the race, I gave myself two goals: Finish. And finish in 2 hours.
I did finish. And I had the sweepers with me for the last 2.5 miles. We talked and laughed and they gave me encouragement because I was only trailing behind another group by less than .1 mile or so. The route was out and back, so the hill we’d coasted down on the way out was a real bitch coming back in.
My parents had never come to see me run before, and I sent my mom a text at mile 4.22 to tell them I was dead last and not to come. But they were already headed that way. I ran past them up the hill toward the finish line yelling, “I am NOT going to puke!” and finished my first official 10K at 1:37:18. So, yeah, I killed my time goal at least!
Then we all went to my brother’s burrito restaurant and quickly replenished our calorie deficit.
We had a 3-mile group run this morning, but it pretty much had to be a recovery run for me. I ran with the volunteer I met the first week, Alisha, and met a new girl named Bridget. She told me right away that she didn’t think she was ready for 3 miles, so she was going to run one mile out and go back. I told her I was slower today because of yesterday, and we talked some about Jeff Galloway. She said she wonders sometimes if she should’ve signed up for the group training and for the half marathon. And I told her there are more than 100 people on a wait list hoping we will quit, so we just are not going to quit. And she ended up running most of the 3 miles with me and Alisha.
Tomorrow is a rest day. Sweet, blessed rest day. Sometimes I get antsy on rest days, but I am so looking forward to the break!
Frosty 5K and half training
December 13, 2015 § Leave a comment
It was cold the morning of the Frosty 5K on Dec. 5, which you’d think could go without saying. But I’ve had to turn on the air in the house all week! But more on that later.
On Jan. 1, I ran a commitment 5K and then Justin and I pretty much immediately got into the car and drove almost 4 hours to my parents’ house. I have never been so sore in all my life as I was the day after that. I had to go out and buy a foam roller. I guess after running a few miles and then sitting for so long in the car, I just got really tight. I was miserable, but after I got rehydrated and spent some time with the foam roller, I felt a lot better. And I hadn’t had anything like that happen since.
Until the Frosty 5K. Like I said, it was cold, but not miserably cold. Just cold like it should be in December. After the race, I came home and showered and then Justin and I spent the day running errands and shopping. I felt pretty good until we got in the car to head home and I said my legs felt like lead.
As the afternoon and evening wore on, though, I knew I was starting to feel like I’d felt after the race in January. So I started drinking tons of water and getting my BCAAs, stretching, and I even finally took a soak in warm water and Epsom salts.
I was trying to tell Justin how I was feeling, because I wasn’t sore. I ached. “Like the flu,” I said. And then he said that maybe I was getting sick after being in a big crowd at the race and with “all those snot rockets.” And I had to laugh because the last full mile was a mine field of spit on the road.
Because I’ve only ever felt that bad after a cold run — and I admit I didn’t bother to stretch or to drink as much water because I didn’t feel thirsty — I think I’ve learned my lesson about stretching after a cold run. I don’t know if anyone else has had that happen? But it’s the only thing I can think of. And I know better than to not get enough water. Just because I don’t feel thirsty doesn’t mean I don’t need it.
So before bed on Saturday night, I took four Advocare Nighttime Recovery and I felt much better on Sunday. I had a little soreness in my glutes, so I took another round Sunday night and was good as new for my week of half-marathon training.
I did all my training runs during the week, except Friday. Friday was my office party and I helped out with that, so it was one of the really rare instances that I just couldn’t get my run in.
And the training group met for the first time yesterday morning. They take 250 people for the 15-week program, but this year it filled up in 48 hours. So the organizers decided to open it to 50 more people. They told us yesterday that there are 100 people on the waiting list, too. That’s a lot of people wanting to run!
Yesterday’s group run was just a mile, but it was hot and humid! I’d left the house at 6:20 yesterday morning wearing a light jacket, and it was sweaty by the time I took it off when I got out of the car.
So there were 300 runners, 40 volunteers, a handful of coaches, a physical therapist, a massage therapist and city employees at the group meeting yesterday. It was kind of amazing. I kept looking around at all those people and wondering who would become my friend.
I didn’t have to think about it too long because once we went out to run, a volunteer named Alisha ran with me. Knowing how I get about “my” volunteer, I’m not going to want to give her up next week. I’ll need her to make sure I don’t quit!
I made up Friday’s half mile (plus some) this morning with Lauren and my new friend Elizabeth, who lives just a couple of blocks over from me and has already said she’s not going to let me slack off on my running. It was supposed to be a rest day, but I rested on Friday.
We ran a mile, slow and low, and finished just in time for me to get home before it started absolutely pouring rain.
I haven’t done a durn thing since I got home. I haven’t even taken a shower yet, I just put on clean pajamas.
So here’s the recap of my week.
Half-marathon official
December 5, 2015 § Leave a comment
Well. I was gone for a while. But I was running a lot and wishing for the time to sit down and write. I finished the second round of the 5k group training, which was fun and rewarding and amazing, just like I knew it would be. I met new people, reconnected with people I already knew and got to push myself a little bit, too.
When the limited-space half-marathon training group opened on Labor Day, I signed right on up.
And then I was like, “Why’d I do that?”
Then I gained 8 pounds, kept running, did a trail run (never again), took it easy for a while and then got frustrated with myself. I went looking for motivation and inspiration — Thank GOD for the Internet — and found it by the boat load.
I spent last week getting my eating reined in and starting my half marathon training. It officially started on Wednesday and the first couple of weeks is easy, so I’m making it not easy for me. The first three days were half-mile runs. So I ran those half miles until I thought I would die. And then I didn’t die and I was like, “Huh. I didn’t die. How about that.”
Because there’s always a race series 5k the first weekend of December, which is after half training starts, our first official group run is a week from today.
I had one mile on today’s training schedule. Done. Plus 2.1.
I went back to counting calories with MyFitnessPal on Monday. I ran Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
My starting weight on Monday was 210. I weighed in this morning at 208.5. Then I ran a 5k and ate a cheeseburger for lunch. Winning.
A long silence and a long run
March 29, 2015 § Leave a comment
Well! So much has happened since I last had a spare minute to write. Keeping up with my training here was my priority, but one that kept being shuffled to the bottom of the deck.
I just checked the date of my previous entry: March 5. My longtime friend’s husband died suddenly that day. I was offered a job — the one with the second interview I wrote about — on March 11. I had to pass a pre-employment drug screen, which I did first thing the next day. That weekend, March 13, I had to go out of town for my friend’s husband’s funeral. I couldn’t start my job until the drug-test results were back, so I got back from Little Rock on Sunday evening.
That Monday morning, I was in the middle of what I hoped would be a 5.5-mile run when I got a call from the office to say, of course, my drug test was good and I could start work the following morning. HOWEVER. They would need me to go to the Little Rock office for training Wednesday morning. So I worked all day March 17 and drove back to Little Rock that night. I was there Wednesday and Thursday. And I had to be back in our local office Friday morning. It was a whirlwind to say the least.
During all of that, my running suffered. I didn’t want to get too far off track, so I joined a gym close to the office. I ran every day during lunch last week, only taking Friday off.
Friday was packet pickup for the half marathon. Because I was doing the relay, I really only had about 6.5 miles to do. But I was doing the first leg and I didn’t want to be so slow that my teammate didn’t have time to finish. But you can only worry about it so much.
I had to be in the corral by 6:45, so Justin dropped me off around 6:20 yesterday morning, about two blocks away from the start line. I was worried about being there early and needing to pee a thousand times, so I didn’t drink more than a swallow before we left the house. Don’t be like me, friends. Justin had packed some drinks for me (what a guy!), so I was able to get a swig of Powerade before he dropped me off. I ended up in line at the porta potty anyway.
Then it was time to line up — I went as far to the back as I could. The sun wasn’t really up yet and it was drizzling. The gun went off at exactly 7 a.m. and we took off. The route went down a hill and up a hill before turning right, and when I was going downhill and saw the other runners — an absolute sea of them — I started crying.
Not even six months ago, I showed up for my first training run for the 5k. We ran two minutes that night. Two minutes, that’s all. My heart rate shot up to 210, I got a side stitch, and it still ranks as #1 on my list of Worst Runs Ever. Six months ago, running two minutes was a long time and it was difficult. And yet there I was yesterday, right in the middle of a half marathon.
Before the race started, I posted a picture of the start line on Facebook. “It’s kind of amazing I made it this far.”
I made it to the start line of a half marathon. The rest would be a piece of cake.
I’d told Lauren I was shooting for 6.5 miles in 95 minutes. I could see Lauren and Justin waiting for me at the relay exchange when I was still about a quarter-mile away. We all started cheering. Lauren came out to cross my finish line with me, which was her starting line, and she was off. I finished in 99 minutes. Slow, maybe. But definitely happy.
I knew I would need to do a little bit of a recovery run today, but I was so sore I couldn’t even imagine it. I finally just made myself go outside and run a little. And no wonder a recovery run is a thing! I walked mostly, but it really helped ease some of that stiffness, especially in my glutes.
So the next race is a 5k and the one after that is a 2-mile run. It’s funny how doable and EASY that seems now.
Challenge Day 11
March 5, 2015 § Leave a comment
Today was the end of my cleanse! I lost about 3.5 pounds, which is just fine for 10 days. Especially 10 days worth of rotten weather.
I’ve been sticking to the running schedule I made for myself and yesterday was my mid-week rest day. I usually rest on weekends, too, and I was so surprised how good I felt during my Monday-morning run. I have my runs structured as intervals. The run time will increase by one minute every few days, but the walk time stays one minute. Today I skipped my first walk breaks and just ran for 18 minutes. Of course I can run for 18 minutes, and more, but I like the walk breaks because I get so thirsty! And I have a hard time on the treadmill flipping my water bottle open and getting a drink while I’m moving too quickly. And to that end, I’m trying to decide if I should take my CamelBak to the race. I know there are water stations, but my CamelBak is so small and compact that it doesn’t really hinder me. I’ve never been able to finish the water in it, either, so it holds more than enough. But I’ll probably wait to see what the forecast is for March 28 before I get too worried about it.
March 28!
I had a job interview on Friday. I gave myself just enough time to get ready, even though the interview was late in the day. Then, when I was wandering around the house in my underwear, I caught a glimpse of the front sidewalk through the dining-room window. It looked like someone had covered it in rock salt and I could not figure it out. The weather man had said we could get snow flurries but nothing serious until later in the weekend.
Huh.
When I finally made it to the interview, the woman I was supposed to meet with was hurrying out of the office on her way back to the central part of the state because it was snowing bloody murder. I interviewed with the office manager, who was just a hoot. She was so nice and so easy to talk to. I showed her my portfolio of work, though, and she admitted she didn’t have a clue about what made any of that kind of thing good or bad. She said there would be a second round of interviews and they would let me know “either way.” I left feeling good about the conversation I had with the office manager, but I still felt kind of upset that I didn’t get to speak with the woman who was supposed to interview me.
It took me almost two hours to get home, and I slid off the road twice. It snowed and snowed and snowed all night and all the next day. Then it started to melt off just in time for me to grab some groceries before the ice and snow hit.
While all that was going on, I got an email for a second interview! The woman said the office manager was really impressed with me during my interview and, weather permitting, a small team would travel up from Little Rock to meet with me on Friday. I don’t see how that is going to happen, but I’ve got to prepare for it anyway. She told me to bring any letters of recommendation I had — which was zero — with me to the interview. So I spent yesterday afternoon hitting up friends, old bosses, and anyone I could think of for letters. I’ve gotten three and I’m surprised that people feel so warmly about me. I know I shouldn’t be.
Anyway, every school district in the state is closed today. That’s the weather situation we’re in. Hopefully everything will work out and I can have my interview in the morning. Then I’ve got a 54-minute run on the schedule I need to get to!
Challenge Days 3&4
February 26, 2015 § Leave a comment
It’s all part of the fun not to weigh yourself until the first phase of the challenge — the 10-day cleanse — is over and you’re starting the Day 11. I may have had a small peek today. That’s all I’m going to say about it. Well, I’ll also say I’m pleased and I’ll stay off the scale now until Day 11.
So for the first three mornings, you have a fiber drink. This is the undoing of a lot of people on the challenge. The drink can thicken big time if you don’t drink it right away. And it’s not all that tasty in the first place. Amber told me to get the peaches and cream fiber drink for my first challenge. Citrus is the other option and, because I don’t like drinking sweet stuff (except sweet tea!), I had to go with the citrus. And it was gross. I still managed, but I went with the peaches and cream after that and it is much better. I have a Spark when I wake up, and then I have my fiber drink with breakfast. But you get a break from the fiber drink on days 4-8 (I think) and you just take a probiotic in the morning. So no fiber drink today!
I wrote out my training schedule for the few weeks left before the half marathon relay. I decided to give myself a rest day during the week and do runs Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. My goal for rest days is to still get in a minimum of one mile, either walking or running, to stay current with my Power of One running club. I had 48 minutes on the schedule this morning, so I did a cool-down walk for 6 minutes when I finished. It was actually pretty easy! It was time for a morning snack when I finished. I love having a way to pass the time between meals and snacks!
So, remember when I said I was turned down for that job because they said they had found more qualified candidates? I wanted to respond to the email, but I didn’t. That was Tuesday. Then yesterday, on Wednesday, the exact same person who said I wasn’t qualified enough to work for the company, sent me an email with the password for the company’s main email address! She sent it late in the afternoon and I didn’t see it until after 5 p.m. I sent her an email back saying I couldn’t imagine why she would send me that kind of information. I haven’t heard back, but now I know what it takes to be qualified to work there. Even a less qualified person than I could have done some major damage with that kind of information. Lucky for her and her continued employment with the company, I’m not vindictive. Too much.
The brighter tomorrow
February 19, 2015 § Leave a comment
All day yesterday my husband and I had to carry one of our dogs outside to pee. My husband tried to help her walk by putting a towel around her middle and lifting her up enough that she wouldn’t have to use the back leg she was staying off of. That didn’t work, she was just confused. So I had to put her leash on her so she would know to try to walk while Justin held her up.
It took both of us, and it took several minutes to get her outside to pee and then several more to get her into her bed in our bedroom. And I realized that was no way for any of us to live. I couldn’t carry a dog outside 10 times a day, and what would happen when I go back to work? So I went to bed probably having a little bit of an anxiety attack. Not surprisingly, I was exhausted and fell asleep right away.
I woke up around 12:45, though, when the dog just casually got off her bed, strolled out of our room and through the living room and let herself out the dog door.
I jumped up and ran to the back door to make sure she wouldn’t get stranded outside or fall down and hurt herself worse. But by the time I got to the back door, she was done and on her way back inside. She was a little wobbly on that back leg, but she got back to our bedroom and into her bed like it was no big deal.
This morning, she was a little slow getting up. But when she did wake up, she went outside and then came right back into our bedroom. Because I’m a total pushover, I let her eat breakfast in our bedroom. Now she’s curled up on the couch with a blanket I just washed and took out of the dryer for her. WHO KNOWS? I hope she will feel better.
Needless to say, the day already felt like a success. I swept the kitchen and living room before I started some laundry and got dressed to run. I decided to go with the end of week two of Jenny Hadfield’s walk/run 10K training program. The workout is 7 reps of run 5 minutes, walk 1 minute. It was easy until the last round, and even that wasn’t too bad. I just had a little side stitch. I was watching “Freaks and Geeks” on Netflix and when I hit the 42-minute mark, which was quittin’ time, my episode still had about 18 minutes. So I decided to walk 20 more minutes to get to an even hour.
I feel amazing now. I vacuumed the house, showered, cooked my lunch … I need to make a grocery trip, but I can’t decide if I want to do that today.
Before I start my cleanse on Monday, I want to have some of my favorite cleanse snacks and foods in the house. One thing I love to do is to make “fruit roll-ups.” I like to blend fruit, herbs, and veggies. In my food dehydrator, I can make two or three batches at a time.
I also like to make “awesomesauce,” which is basically orange-ginger pear butter. Think applesauce, but so much better. I grind my own cinnamon sticks and grate the ginger and the recipe I created is delicious without a drop of sugar. I have a bag of blood oranges, too, so I am thinking about what I can do with those.
The weather is supposed to turn bad again tomorrow — not that it is too great right now — and the grocery stores will be crazy if I wait too much longer.
The bad day
February 18, 2015 § Leave a comment
I treated yesterday as a rest day in that I didn’t run at all, but I did get in a 2.75-mile walk on the treadmill.
I decided to train on a modified schedule I found at Jenny Hadfield’s web site. Today I was going to start either at the end of week 2 of her 10K run/walk training program or at the beginning of the third week. I still think those runs will be easy for me while also pushing me.
But before I could do anything, I had a job interview this morning. My interview had been scheduled for Monday afternoon. The weather has been just so stupid here all winter. It’s been bitterly, devastatingly cold without a drop of snow. A week later, we’re all running around in short sleeves. Rinse and repeat all winter long. But Sunday night we got our famous layer cake of ice and snow. So the recruiter called Monday morning and told me they didn’t want me to come in because the roads were too bad. So the interview was rescheduled for this morning.
I went out yesterday afternoon and cleared off my car and tried to clear the sidewalk. I finally got it cleaned up after dinner and then, lo! It started to snow again!
My interview was at 9, so I still had to be ready to leave the house no later than 8. I was only going 8 miles in a straight line, but I didn’t want to be late. So I was stressed out about that.
Last week I took one of our dogs to a new vet about a chronic skin condition that her old vet basically kept putting a bandaid on. The new vet gave us a daily oral medication to use for 60 days and advised me to take our dog off her thyroid medication.
This morning, though, the dog wasn’t walking. She was favoring one leg, but she was also acting like she couldn’t use her other three legs. She is kind of a nut job anyway and is nervous about walking on our wood floors, especially when she has to step off the rug onto the wood. She is worried about falling down, so then she usually does because she tries too hard not to and gets her legs all tangled up. Anyway, I wondered if she wasn’t having muscle issues from being off her thyroid medication. She peed all over the hallway, which is unusual for her.
Of course, all of this started happening around 7:30 and I was mopping the hallway in my underwear. I did finally get in my car a few minutes before 8 and by 8:30, I was only about 1.5 miles from my house. The roads were not bad. They were patchy, of course, but they were definitely passable. But the major roadway I had to take to my interview was a parking lot. I had to cut through a neighborhood and take a different route. When I got to my interview, the woman I was meeting was at the reception desk asking if I had checked in yet. To say that I was already super irritated by my morning so far is an understatement. But I tried to put on a good face for my interview.
The company I interviewed with is massive. Their interviews are different than other interviews I’ve had in that they don’t talk to you about your knowledge about a job or your work experience. They ask questions from a script and you have to provide specific examples of a time you dealt with something similar in the past.
I knew this going into it, but I didn’t know what the questions would be. I hope I didn’t seem like a deer in the headlights. I did find out that I do have a lot of knowledge to bring to the position although it’s from “the other side” of certain processes. I also had no way of knowing how I did.
My husband took the dog to the vet while I was gone. I tried to call him when I left my interview, but he didn’t answer. So that made me worry and that made me more irritated.
They finally got home — the dog had gotten a shot and a refill of her thyroid medication. She weighs about 60 pounds and we are having to carry her outside to pee. Tomorrow my husband works all day and then has class until 10 pm. On the one hand, it’s a good thing I can be home with the dog tomorrow. But on the other hand, I can’t even think about dealing with it all on my own tomorrow. Maybe I won’t start out overwhelmed in the morning and things will look a little better.
Anyway, it was early afternoon when I knew I wouldn’t be running today. It’s the one thing I’m at peace with right now. Tomorrow, though, it’s back on. I can’t let Lauren down for the half marathon and I also think skipping my workout today certainly didn’t help me not have this headache.
Next Monday I am starting my third 24-Day Challenge, so hopefully I’ll get to write a little about that process and how I manage during the cleanse.
It’s official
February 16, 2015 § Leave a comment
Lauren and I registered for the half marathon relay last night. There’s no going back. There’s 39 days to prepare. And I’m going to, I am going to get off my butt and run on the treadmill. Here in just a minute.
The route doesn’t seem so bad. But 6.5 miles is a long way. I told Lauren last night I’m excited and terrified. I dream about running. When I am not running, and haven’t run yet any given day, I feel anxious about running. I want to, but will I? And yes, I always do.
I have no idea how to train. My 5k training was all based on time. Should my 6.5-mile training be based on miles? Should I alternate between time and distance? I just don’t know! And with several inches of snow and ice on the ground today, I won’t be meeting up with Lauren and the baby for our morning runs. So I’ve got to motivate myself these next few days.
It’s so weird that I ran outside yesterday in blinding sunshine and then an hour later it was dark and gray. I am so thankful for my treadmill — and for Netflix! I know my coach would tell me to run outside today, but I so don’t want to run in wet shoes.
The past several weeks I have relied on this blog post from Runs for Cookies. Get it over with seems like such an obvious concept, but reading Katie’s post was like the light bulb going off over my head. Want to run 6.5 miles without stopping? OK. Do it. Get it over with! So it’s off to the treadmill for me and then on to a snow-day job interview later this afternoon.
Last Place Runner 
