0 to 5 in 26:03

Yesterday was Day 6 of my AMRWRS and I decided to do a "tougher" workout at lunch at work. Given that my evenings are going to be sucked up by studies from now until Dec 16, I really don't have much time to do a long cardio or weights session, so I figured I'd try to burn as many calories as possible in a short amount of time. Bolstered by the fact that Sunday's 2.3 miles felt amazing even up to 7 mph and back down again, I decided to do something wacky and go for 6.0-7.5 and back down (giving me a grand total of 3 miles). I realized around the 18:00 mark that I was WELL on my way to setting a new treadmill PR. I was well into my third and final mile at that point and just decided to give it my all, so I cranked it up from 6.5 to 7.0, then 7.5, then eventually 9.0 for that last stretch. I did my best to break 26:00 but fell short by 3 whole seconds :( Next time!

The run felt absolutely amazing and I was just stunned at how far along my cardio has come since surgery. I'm better than I was BEFORE surgery. That being said, I did feel a bit of pain in my internal surgery spot that I'm keeping an eye on... but I felt good. Legs felt good, tendons felt good... this challenge has just been amazing for me. Two more 3 mile runs and I've hit 20 miles per week without even trying (which is big for me!). I thought 20 mpw was a far-away goal, but I've definitely realized it's closer than I thought!

xx

Day 4 - Making Strides

Yesterday I knew I had loads to do. I got home from Washington and was met by two rooms full of boxes that required unpacking. My boyfriend convinced me to set up the modem right away so we could talk since he's stranded in the crashpad. I had a few modem issues that eventually led to a tech support call which resolved the issue.

This challenge has been a blessing in disguise, really. Yesterday and Saturday were two days that I definitely never would've stepped foot on the treadmill if I hadn't had to do this. Yesterday I was just completely exhausted and overwhelmed, but I knew I had to go work out, so I squeezed in some time before groceries. I ended up doing 2.3 miles, starting at 6.0 and increasing to 7.0 and back down again. I had energy throughout the whole thing and by the time I finished my second mile, I was ready for a repeat! I normally would but I figured I needed to preserve my energy for this week and I really did need groceries.

Speaking of groceries... they're expensive. Especially that "first buy" for the new place. Like holy crap.

Anyway, off to sort and then out to the gym for another workout! Happy rainy Monday, folks!

Days 2 & 3

Soooo Day 2 and 3 of my AMRWRS (yes, I truly feel that this acronym will stick).

Day 2

I don't know what in the hell was up with me yesterday. I find that when I'm under a lot of pressure, I tend to just shut down and not want to do a single thing when about a billion things need to be done. Of course my mind is still thinking about it, so I'm stressed, but I'm not actually doing anything.

I essentially licked (yes, licked) an entire bag's worth of potato chips and then went to bed for 2 hours with my doggie. I didn't actually sleep, so I just lay in bed for 2 hours thinking about how I should be running and/or studying and/or packing. Ridiculous, right? In the end, I ended up getting up around 10:00 pm and going for a run. Believe it or not, the seasoning from Sweet Chili and Sour Cream chips, some homemade low fat brownie, and 24 McCain fries act as wonderful fuel. I had a very solid 3.1 mile run. I honestly could've kept going, but knowing that the movers were coming bright and early in the morning and that I had 29 consecutive days of running ahead of me, I decided not to go all out. I picked up some turkey pepperoni pizza on the way home (can't beat it.. Toppers Pizza... 131 cals/slice in a small) and snuggled into bed with my girly wirly.

Day 3

Today I moved into the new home. Knowing that my parents would insist on continuing to clean the place top to bottom and that I was really no use at assembling the transferred furniture, I just decided to skip town and see my boyfriend (true story). I had some McDonald's chicken which was sort of regrettable in the nutrition category, but made up for it with a salad at the airport.

I was planning on doing a tough run today since I knew that the hotel we were staying at in Washington had a killer gym. We took our usual nap, but some post-nap activities ate up most of my gym time. With dinner reservations at 8:30 pm in Fairfax, I literally only had enough time for my required mile. I went down and ran a relatively fast mile (0.15 mi for wu/cd added), and just did a few reps of weights before going to dinner.

Killed my stomach with Texas de Brazil. So much for the healthy eating thing :( Unfortunately, my stomach has warned me that it is just NOT ready for unhealthy food and I had a repeat episode of a terrible stomachache that I'd had last weekend in New Jersey after indulging in the sorta mother in law's cheesecake. I can literally feel the bile shooting into my stomach which is an awful and strange feeling. I guess it's very good incentive to get my shiz together for healthy eating.

Either way, that was my mile down and I've successfully completed my 3 consecutive days!

It's Fry-day, Fry-day, Gotta Get Down on Fry-Day!

I was listening to Real Radio Scotland at work (as usual) and one of the contests being held at the moment is sponsored by a potato company. I've been craving potatoes ever since I heard the commercial, so I made some of my delicious McCain fries. They look and nearly taste the same as McDonald's fries but without the extra grease (which is good... my stomach isn't 100% after surgery still) and waaaay fewer calories. I believe for 54 fries it's around 150-200 calories? It's amazing. When you count how many fries half a plate is, it still doesn't even get close to 54 so I'm well pleased that my fry craving can easily be satisfied! This is also another reason my boyfriend can't wait to move in... I can make fries, burgers, chicken parmesan, buffalo chicken burgers, wings, etc. "healthy" meals all under 500 calories. Really, I give all of my credit to President's Choice and their amazing Blue Menu options. I don't know what I'd do if I had to move to the States and give up PC products :( Instead of me raiding the US border to go shopping, I'd be raiding the Canadian one and coming back with a trunk full of frozen meals.

Anyway, for running-related stuff...

Yesterday was Day 1 of Anne's Modification of the Runner's World Run Streak (or AMRWRS, if you will). I managed to pump out a quick 3.0 mile run before heading off to Boston Pizza to do some studying (run was followed up with a spinach salad w/ grilled chicken and sundried tomato vinaigrette. Mmm). Since I don't have such rigid time constraints tonight as it's a Friday, I'm planning for a 0.5 -1.0 mile warm-up, then an upper body weight session, followed by 30 min on the elliptical and another 1.0 mile cooldown. I'm hoping to print out a slideshow or two from my 3rd year geography class that I've been ignoring since September in favour for a first year law class (seriously... I lose my perspective sometimes) and study on the elliptical like the "good" ol' days of ATC training.

Back to non-running stuff...

Our house is nearly ready! Movers are coming tomorrow to finally move my crap from my parents' house. It's going to be an emotional day. I have lived on my own before, but when I moved to Toronto, I had a furnished apartment as I was literally day-to-day with ATC training and didn't want to buy a bunch of stuff for an apartment that I may potentially be moving out of before the stuff is even delivered! My boyfriend and I's place is going to be 100% our stuff. It's scary, good, scary good, good scary.... and expensive. Hopefully by next week everything has settled and I can start being normal... just in time to study for exams! At least I'm basically half a mile from my gym!

xx

Streak!

"We're going streaking!!!!"

Runner's World Run Streak that is.

To be honest, I'm not die-hard about the cause... the thing started the day after Thanksgiving (or thereabouts) and is supposed to be a mile a day until NYE. Given that I'm Canadian and don't actually HAVE a Thanksgiving in November (and that I've only run Sunday and Tuesday this week), I've decided to do a December streak. The same goal (1 mile/day for the month), but just 31 days. It doesn't seem like that much and it's obviously not... I sometimes run more miles in one session than I do of a week of one milers, but I'm suspecting that the "off" days that I would normally take will become more challenging. My aim is to use running as my warm-up/cool-down to other workouts during that day. A half mile x2 before/after a weights or x-training session will fit the bill nicely. Expect a daily report!

I was hoping to get some form of workout in today, but I've been battling a headache for the past 2ish days which I'm going to attribute to the low pressure system that's hanging over Ontario right now. It seemed to start up yesterday morning and got bad as the rain got heavier. Of course I'm just grasping for ideas here, but it's an interesting correlation. I think it may also be related to some neck tension I've had lately. Massage scheduled for tomorrow during my workday break, so hopefully that resolves the issue.

Turkey Trot

First and foremost, Happy Thanksgiving to all of my American friends, family, and readers :)

I'm in New Jersey again (like I have been for the past 3 Thanksgivings) and since doing a 5K here went so well last time, I decided to sign up for another race. Half of me wanted to do it since it was a good opportunity to get a final race of the season in, and the other half of me just needed SOMETHING to train for after surgery. I'm glad I did!

I PRed with a time of 28:11, beating my old time of 28:52!

The race course was relatively flat with a bit of a downhill in some parts (and no uphill, which was nice!) but lacked any sort of mile markers or timers so I felt like I was running the race a bit blind. My only way of really knowing how well I was doing was based off of my iPod. I created my playlist with a final time of 33:00 (I had stuck an extra "fast" song in there in case I wasn't feeling one of the other ones) and, after skipping a song, got onto my last song. I knew I had about 4 minutes if I wanted to run sub-30:00 (which was really my goal for this race because it was so close to my surgery). The final song came on as I turned the corner onto the street where the race started so I started pushing it as the song grew. I eventually broke out into a full-out sprint only to realize... "Wait a second, why are people running past the finish line? That IS the finish line, right? Right? Oh crap"... The end of the course wasn't where we first started out. In fact, I had maybe another 0.15 miles left. Not far, but far enough to make you feel like you want to die after you've given it your final push. A few people blew by me on their final push but me and this other guy ahead just did our best to finish as we'd both made the same mistake. As I crossed the finish line, a few other people made similar remarks. Hopefully next year they get that fixed (and add clocks/mile markers along the way while they're at it!).

I think I came in 4th in my age group. I'm not 100% sure what the age group WAS but there were enough people around my age ahead of me that even with various possibilities, I likely still didn't get a prize. Boo. But, with such a good time improvement, I know that I'll be able to maybe shave about a minute or two off by next year. It gives me something to work towards. Another big plus from this race was that I was (I think) running negative splits. My last 2 miles felt a lot faster than the first mile or so and I knew my legs were going pretty quick in the last stretch. I also passed a bunch of people so... either I was running faster, or they started out too fast. Either way, it felt good.

My boyfriend got a good picture of me nearing the finish line. I wasn't looking for them and at this point in the race, I was actually about to die. I pain shooting up all over my stomach and I was pretty much on the verge of collapsing, but I look semi-put together. I'm really glad that he and my sort of mother-in-law came out... they had to hang out in the cold while I was running on Thanksgiving morning... that's a big deal! Though, I did kind of want to punch him when I crossed the finish line after my not-so-big-finish (it was a big finish about 0.15 miles back where I THOUGHT the finish line was) and he said, "Well, you didn't win!". Thaaaanks Captain Obvious! Hopefully at this time next year, he's running with me (and we'll have run a few 5Ks by then together!).

Time for a nice diner breakfast, a nap, then Thanksgiving fun! Enjoy everyone! xox

Requiem for a Run

I was able to sneak my 3.5 mile tough run in at lunch today, so I'm well pleased with that. I didn't time it unfortunately, but it must have been around 28:00. I warmed up/cooled down with 0.25 mi at 4.0 mph so that was factored into my total time of 32:00 (or something). I wasn't majorly concerned with time. Actually, my biggest concern of today's run was music.

My boyfriend has always said to me that I amaze him because I am ridiculously influenced by myself. That sounds a bit strange but I'm one of those people who will absolutely do something if I say I will do it. I can also turn into a major failure with a few doubtful thoughts as well. Music and running have gone hand-in-hand with me and I have had some amazing runs almost entirely because of the music I was listening to. I mentioned in one post about running in Dallas and having "Everything" by Lifehouse playing as I was running side-by-side with my shadow through the parched grass. "Everything" is pretty much the opposite of what you'd want in a running song, but it got me into this crazy mindset that made me feel amazing and for those 5 minutes or so, I felt invincible. For my 5K, I want to be able to perform my best, and music plays a huge role.

In my last 5K, I made a hasty playlist about 20 minutes before the race of a bunch of high-energy songs. They worked well enough, but I find sometimes with my high energy songs that it just becomes too much. I almost tend to zone out and the effect becomes negated. It's like going into a casino and being intrigued by all the noise and flashing lights... it's great and gets you pumped at first, but then after a while you get fatigued, bored, and lose motivation.

I began testing the waters today to see what song combinations would work well for the race. My goal is to run negative splits, so I opted for "Rapture" by Lio as my opening song. The song itself almost runs for 9 minutes, so it gets my first mile out of the way at a steady pace that isn't too fast and won't make me start off like a bat out of hell. The hardest mile for me during any run is mile 2. You don't have the excitement from the beginning of the workout and you haven't traveled enough distance to feel like you've accomplished anything, so I'm trying to beat the mile 2 blues with a few high-energy songs. "All Fired Up" by The Saturdays has been working well for me, as has "Jumpstart" by These Kids Wear Crowns. I also like "Bury Your Head" by Saosin (it's always my first song in a sprint session). "Long Way Down" by the Goo Goo Dolls has a perfect cadence, and "Ruby" by the Kaiser Chiefs makes my run happy. I won't get to run to all of those, but probably at least three of the five will bring me to my final half mile.

For my final half mile or so, I picked the most RANDOM song today. I was running to the usual cardio playlist when I was getting to that bored/almost-there stage and wanted to really push myself. I was running at 6.7 mph which is a fast pace for me considering I've only been able to REALLY run for the past 3-4 weeks. I had joked to my boyfriend that him and his mom need to play the theme from Chariots of Fire as I cross the finish line before, which led me to think about the one song that I've always found strangely epic: the theme from Requiem for a Dream (Lux Aeterna). I put it on my iPod years ago and I always smile when it comes on at work... it makes making maps really intense. So, in my final half mile, I ran to some very epic violins. The climax of the song hit with about 0.1 miles left, so I just kept running past the finish line (of my treadmill). I upped the speed to 7.5 and held the cadence for another quarter mile.

I've found my finish line song.

(Oh and people were complaining I don't have enough pics on my blog so here's me lifting weights yesterday... I thought I looked tank-y but I think it's just cause I have big boobs).