Long Time, No Run!

Ah, holy crap! I knew the wheels would fall off this blog sooner or later. Really, it was my wheels that had fallen off. Let’s see, what has happened lately…

Well, I:

1. Got a concussion.
2. Got an Achilles tendonitis flare-up
3. Got a kidney infection
4. Got another concussion
5. Got a really bad cold

I think that accounts for the really terrible statistics I’ve had running-wise in the past few months. I’ve been well enough to start a new program, only to get a week into it and have something happen. My weight “ballooned” up to 165 lbs a couple weeks ago before I had to give myself a mental note that I can’t eat like a runner when I’m not running. Everything still fits, but I’m just a bit… soft.

Right now I’m still battling a cold, but I am planning to start back up on Week 1 of my Stew Smith workout plan. For those who don’t know (and I’m sure I’ve mentioned this about a hundred times), Stew Smith is the #1 reason I even consider myself a “runner” today. Around 10 years ago I was a chubby kid who really liked sports but just couldn’t get the whole diet and exercise thing in sync. With a bit of help from StewSmith.com, I started to run on a treadmill every night with my dad at the local rec centre. I was obsessed with the military (I was in air cadets at the time and had this huge dream of being a fighter pilot), so I knew I had to be fit to pass my PFT. I ended up aiming for the USAF fitness requirements despite being a Canadian. Once I “beat” the required times for that, I went on to the Navy, then the Army, then the Marines, then the US Army Rangers. Before I knew it, I was running 7:30 miles.

When my training season was left dead in the water after I pushed it way too hard racing, I wanted a coach. I first tried an Ottawa coach (whose name I will withhold) who was absolutely terrible. I had little online support, my run instructions were “Run 45 min”, “Run 30 min easy, then go harder”, “Run 60 min”. This worked for about a few weeks before my injuries flared up. I get some serious tendon pain after 6 miles, so the 60-75 min runs left me hobbling home. With an ice pack on my knee, I contacted Stew. I knew he did personal training and I could never bring myself to pay for it, but his articles had helped me so much and the training program was perfect for an injury-prone klutz like me. He’s been fantastic and very patient with me as I’ve had to battle things non-stop since the summer. I’m hoping for a turnaround after this holiday season.

That’s it for the update right now. I’m back to Week 1 of my 12 week program. I took some “Before” pics and I’m hoping for some good “After”s. My goals with Stew are: sub-25:00 5K in 2013 and a sub-20:00 5K one day. It will happen!

The Other "Wall"

When I've been overtraining, I often hit "the wall", as many people do. It's a certain point where you step on the treadmill, or get on a bike, or hit the road and within a few minutes, you know it's just not going to work out. Easy things feel laboured and not in a good way. Your body is just screaming at you that it wants to lie down and rest, even if you got hours of sleep the night before. There's nothing you can do at this point. You've hit the wall.

For me, I feel like I've hit the wall on the other side of the room. The inactivity wall. The undertraining wall. It's a strange concept, but I know many people who understand this. For me, my appetite drops a lot. I assume this is due in part to me burning fewer calories and therefore my body craving fewer calories, but it feels like when I eat a meal and don't have a run to send it through the digestive system, everything just kinda hangs out and I feel full all day. I start to feel the backs of my legs go first. The once-tight hamstrings are just a little softer. My glutes get a weird burning feeling if I've been sitting down too long. I get moodier. I get more anxious. I get lazier with everything (schoolwork, cleaning up the house, etc). It's really the wrong wall for me to hit, and I feel like I finally hit it.

Last Friday, I woke up in the middle of the night with a horrible dry coughing fit. I had done a few gym sessions that week and I began to worry that I maybe overdid it (even if it was only 3 easy gym sessions). I used that as an excuse to slack for the rest of the weekend. It's obviously not slacking in the normal sense of the word as I did have a legit reason, and lungs are one of those things you don't mess with, but I feel like I'm ready to go. Tonight was the first night where I felt I should've ran, and I didn't.

I'd like to add an excerpt from a post I put on a running forum. In my downtime and being removed from my "2 more seconds til I run a sub-8:00 mile" or "I need that long run on Saturday" mindset, I was contemplating the goals of running. What do I want to get out of running? This is what it led me to:

In my downtime, I've had some time to reflect. I had a massive plan laid out for me to do my half marathon "right" the second time around and I had training days, paces, goals, etc. The half is still a little over two months away and I haven't lost all of my fitness, but I've come to terms with the fact that I probably won't run it in the time I intended to. I was thinking that even training for it, my injury-prone body may not be able to keep up with a spike in mileage now that I've lost that extra month to build up.

What my thoughts eventually led me to was why I even bother to race... why don't I just go for runs for fitness? I'm not fast, but I'm competitive -- generally with myself. I guess that's what drives me to do races. But sometimes that leads me to overtraining, injuries, etc. and, while I love my runs, the "pressure" of beating a PR or a race looming ahead can sometimes take the fun out of running and make it more of a chore than my fitness activity.

I do still plan to run my half marathon in May, but I'm wondering how I should approach the goal of racing. I have my whole life to get better, and I get very caught up in plans. My life revolves around little numbers on a calendar. Some of my best runs were when I was tracking my mileage without any set goals. I felt confident enough in that training "plan" to go out and race. I'm wondering if it would be worth just running for the sake of running, keeping a mileage goal for the week, and maybe increasing it over time, and just letting my legs do the running -- not my mind. Should I focus on one goal that maybe isn't race-related? I would like to hit the 7:00 mile mark and I've found a very good basic outline from Stew Smith - one of the people who got me into running 9 years ago - that doesn't demand a set amount of miles on certain days. It'd be a good plan.

To be honest, I find it very hard to imagine myself doing workouts without some sort of end goal. It's that fine line between keeping running and fitness as your recreational hobby that keeps you active, and a chore. I want to feel okay about it if I decide to skip a workout. I want to feel like there's no pressure to work out all the time, but at the same time, when I do work out, I feel 100x better about myself and that competitive instinct kicks in and I end up in that racing mindset yet again.

I've considered my limitations on mileage for a while now and I know that long distance probably isn't in my future. I do plan to keep my longest runs at 5-7 miles. Do I step on a treadmill every day without a plan and do what I do? Live for that day? Do I live in the past, and count up miles from days before to make sure I hit my mileage for that week? Or do I live in the future and set a goal for the week? Even if the goal is the same (hit 20 mpw every week)/

My legs need to start running so my brain stops.

You think YOUR commute sucks?

Well, this weekend was pretty much a disaster. Let's start with running news.

...

That's my news. This bronchitis is really taking its toll on me. I ran for about 4 minutes on Friday but I could feel wheezing in my chest and I knew I wasn't there yet. This isn't an average flu, and it's hard to keep that in mind when I'm in the midst of half marathon training. I've learned my lesson too many times about pushing myself when I'm not well or injured, so I immediately got off the treadmill. I went to do some weights but I think the run had me freaked out a bit and I just left. I've lost almost 7 lbs since Scotland and, while I admit my eating has been admirable in that I haven't overdone it or got into the "I'm on a break, might as well take a break from healthy eating" mindset, I know a big portion of it is muscle loss. I look killer in my jeans and tops right now, but when I sit down, I feel my butt is just a little more cushy than I remember. I'm planning on doing some light lifting and hoping it doesn't aggravate the situation. I feel stupid in running so much in Scotland when I clearly wasn't well. I think it made the bronchitis worse and is therefore making the healing worse. The fate of me and my half are up in the air at the moment. May have to shoot for a fall run, which is fine by me... I prefer summer training anyway!

Okay, so NRR:

I f***ing hate my boyfriend's job some days. Honestly. Do you know the swiss cheese theory? It's a little theory that's used in Safety & Quality and is used a lot in accident investigations. Basically, imagine you have about, oh, 10 slices of swiss cheese layered on top of each other. If you look at it from the side, you probably won't see through the holes because the chances of them lining up are extremely slim. But do this a few thousand times, and probably one of those times, all those holes will line up. This is what happened this weekend. The boyfriend has cut most ties with Dallas, but he did have to get his FAA medical there this week. Of course he left it to the last minute so it HAD to be this week. He changed his schedule so we'd have the weekend at home together (Fri-Sun) as opposed to his original (Thurs-Sat). What he didn't realize was that a snowstorm was tearing through Chicago on Thursday, and hitting Toronto/Ottawa/Montreal on Friday. Flights became a disaster. It was a crapshoot on where to go. Pretty much every city from Chicago east was affected by this system, whether it be snow, winds, rain, or all three. Cancellations galore. He decided to take the DFW-ORD-YYZ-YOW route. Long, but YYZ is a good bet to get to Ottawa. For starters, there's 15 flights a day (vs 3 from IAD and 4 from ORD), they're bigger planes, and Air Canada will fly in just about anything. Even with a few cancellations, he was likely to get on. Except for this week. Noooo, this week was one of those *dreaded* weeks for travel in Canada... it was university reading week. Of course, I should've known since it's MY Reading Week... but being a part-time student now, it's not really as significant as I still had to go to work for 9 hours/day every day during RW. The flights were a mess. On top of that, Air Canada's booking system crashed, so when he did get to YYZ, he couldn't get on the planes because he couldn't list. Gate agents were useless. Hotels were full. I squeezed him into a room for him to try on Saturday. He gets up, and every Ottawa flight for the day is full. So I suggest Montreal... and then I look outside and it's snowing/blizzarding like nothing on Earth. Crap. I can't drive to Montreal. Trains were at bad times (he'd get home at 5 pm). Okay so.... go to Newark and visit his mom instead of coming home. Newark had high winds and got a 2 hour delay. Okay so... go to Dulles and figure it out from there. He goes. As he's flying, I decide that I would take the plunge and fly to Dulles and meet him. It's a hotel and it's not home and he's frustrated and tired and I'm frustrated and tired but dammit, I am NOT going 4 weeks without my boyfriend. I booked him at a hotel and I grabbed the 7:30 pm to Dulles. Which was, of course, delayed. I didn't get in until 10:30 pm. We got dinner/drinks and relaxed. And then we realized that every flight to Montreal and Ottawa for today (Sunday) was full. Crap. So much for us sleeping in. I had to get up at 6:30 am to make an Ottawa flight and hope for a seat. Of course, delayed. I eventually hopped on a Montreal flight, took the plane to Montreal, took a bus to downtown Montreal, and took a train to Ottawa. Soooo we probably spent a combined 60 hours trying to see each other for 8 hours.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is true love right here.

Would you like tea or coughy?

So, I was really really excited to run in Scotland. Really excited. It was forecasted to be about 10C for the week, my Forerunner 210 was charged up, the hills beckoned... it was going to be a good trip.

Going to be.

My first day there, I was a bit tired from the flight, so I took a nap. It was my birthday, so we ordered in some takeaway (Indian) and I had Costa Coffee with my cousin at Tesco. A very British start to my vacation. Figured I would get up and run on Friday.

I did, and it was 2 miles of me going "shit I'm out of shape". Loads of hills, loads of heaving. In my previous post, I said I felt better later on that week. Well I did... I had ONE good day (evidently that day). I figured I'd beat whatever that sore throat thingy was, so I aimed for another run. I actually ended up running right to the gym in Rutherglen and did a bit of weights and stuff. I had run a little over 2 miles that day as well, plus weights. Remember, it's all hills so I'm reckoning it was like 3 miles.

The day after my good day, I woke up and that's when shit hit the fan. My health rapidly decreased. I went for a run that morning, and desperately made it through yet another 2 miles before I had to go for an appointment for a facial. As I was speaking to my cousin in the car, I noticed that I felt like coughing a lot. Like I had a weird tickle in my throat. Not sore, just... maybe super dry? I got some water at the spa but this weird coughing feeling didn't go away all day. Then my nose started to run. By the end of the day, I felt like total crap. Of course, that's when my cousin suggested we hit the gym.

I decided to go along... I figured maybe the outdoor running was a bit too much, so I'd run inside. The gym was mobbed and getting a treadmill was a challenge, so I figured I'd show off just how strong I was by doing some weights and calisthenics. Nothing against Scottish people, but me being a 6'0" tall girl doing 25 lb bicep curls made me the strongest/biggest person in the gym. I'm guessing the fish & chips diet isn't the best. You can tell everyone there looked really malnourished. Not fat, not thin, just... they needed a good salad and some fruit and veg. None of them looked like they chugged protein shakes after a workout. I felt pretty hardcore when I saw these guys staring at me... turns out that my Brooks split shorts were a little too "split" for them. Even though I have a liner in them (and was wearing underwear), they were actually complaining that they could see up my shorts. Ah! Mortified!! Embarrassed, I slinked away to the first available treadmill. I did a grand total of about 6 minutes when a pain in my side (from dinner perhaps?) stopped me. I stood around the gym, and I realized that I felt like total crap. I told my cousins I was running home, and I ran in the dark back to my aunt's house. When I got in, I showered, collapsed on a chair, and drank tea.

At this point, it was so hard to breathe and I could hear myself struggling to inhale and exhale. My other cold/flu symptoms were full blown at this point. I eventually went to bed and nearly cried myself to sleep... I just wanted to go home and was not looking to the 12 hour ordeal I had to go through the next day.

The flight was probably one of, if not the worst, flight of my life. I had breakfast at the airport (porridge, toast, and tea... naturally) and grabbed a bag of Walker's Sweet Thai Chili Sensations crisps, as well as a stack of trashy mags. I regretted not bringing my Air Transat blow-up pillow and blanket. I was a bit disappointed that my 20 min conversation with the flight crew did not result in me getting another goodie bag. This was the one flight I needed it. A little boy had taken my window seat and I just didn't care. The aisle was a better idea anyway.. more legroom and it turned out that later in the flight I needed it. As soon as we departed, I closed my eyes and fell asleep for an hour. I woke up to food being served and realized that the thought of food made me puke. I passed it up (for like, the first time ever). I tried to get through some of my trashy mags, then tried a lecture... I couldn't focus and my whole body felt in agony. 2 hours to go in the flight, and I started to go to the lav. Numerous times. So sick. :( Good thing I got that aisle seat.

When we landed in Toronto, I headed for customs and nearly died walking there. At this point, my voice was completely gone, I could barely breathe, my nose was red raw from the 50 Air Transat napkins I used as tissues, and I felt like death warmed up. I choked down a small caesar salad while waiting for my Ottawa flight. I was hungry but food itself just turned me off. I was lucky enough to have a row to myself on the WestJet flight and I sat there in agony praying the plane would land sooner. I grabbed a Booster Juice and headed straight to the doctor's.

After all that, it turns out I had rather severe bronchitis and have been relegated to using an inhaler and am on antibiotics. At this point in time (nearly a week later), I'm still sniffly, and I went into a coughing fit last night. I reckon it'll be another 2-3 days before I can hit the treadmill. Weight was 160 on the dot when I landed, and it's creeped up to 162 now. I doubt the week will have a major effect on me, but I emotionally need the gym. As much as I dread runs some days, my life feels so empty without them.

Will have to reassess the running plan when I get better. I'm aiming for 3-5 mile runs during the week, and a specified long run on the weekends.

Oh, and I'm NEVER going to Scotland in the winter again. Scotland's weather and viruses have defeated me 7 of the last 8 visits. We're through.

Sickly Scottish Strides

How's all that for alliteration, eh?

I travelled to Scotland for my cousin's wedding on Thursday (wedding was Saturday). I had intended on loads of hill running as I was really looking forward to using my new GPS watch (Garmin Forerunner 210XT), but my Scottish tradition set in... I woke up on Friday morning with yet ANOTHER sore throat. Thankfully, it didn't progress into much else (usually the sore throat is a precursor to a full blown flu). I snuck in a run on Friday... a very slow 2.5 miles. I was feeling rundown and it didn't get much better on Saturday. My plans for a pre-wedding run were scrapped.

Today I woke up 10 times better... it was likely because the sun was out for the first time since I landed. I am almost 100% convinced the flu symptoms are due to the weather. I'm literally allergic to Scottish weather. I started a long run but I ended up running by the local gym, so I went in to inquire about coming in for the next few days. They said it'd be 5.10 (pounds, can't find the symbol) so I ran the half mile back to the house to get money, then back to the gym. I was so excited to do a weights session... full body, too! It was quick, but I got it done. I did about 2.5 miles of running again, plus the weights. It's been an easy week to say the least. Luckily things still fit and I'm doing my best to eat healthy.

Going back home on Thursday!!

xx Anne

Easy Run

I am happy to say that this post will be a very positive post!

First things first... Last week, as I was griping about, my tendon pretty much decided to rebel and emancipate itself from my ankle. It took a bit of rest and I had to convince it that it was better off helping me out instead of going rogue, and it seemed to listen. On Friday, I went for a nice 3 mile run at lunch, keeping a beautiful chilled pace (6.0-6.5 throughout). It actually did feel "easy".

After Friday's run, I decided to go to Ogdensburg to pick up stuff that I had shipped to the UPS Store. I was super stoked to pick things up... I had ordered two pairs of Saucony split shorts, my Garmin Forerunner 210, and my boyfriend's GoPro camera (early V-Day gift). After cursing the skating rink of a parking lot, I hobbled into the store and picked up the items for the low price of $15 (considering the $200 I saved shipping to the store). After slipping and sliding my way back to the car, I realized that there was a shady little sports store beside the UPS Store called Olympia Sports. On the hunt for a good pair of running pants to bring to Scotland, I figured it was worth a gander. The lake effect snow had already been coming down a bit in Ogdensburg and I was not a fan of the idea of trekking down a one-lane hilly state route to I81 and through the treacherous snow, just to get a Dick's Sporting Goods. I went inside and took a look at their shoe collection. While not as extensive as other stores (and with an obvious focus on "flashy" Nikes that the homies would love), I did notice about 4 pairs of Saucony shoes. I know I sound like I'm a brand loyalist by always making a bee-line for their products, but for some reason, they just seem to fit me the best, whether it be shoes or shorts. For the record, I have owned New Balances and Asics as well.

Anyway, I took a look at some of the supports of the shoes and noticed most of them were more stability shoes than anything else. Then I saw it. The one neutral shoe. It wasn't the Echelon or any others that I had tried on at the Ottawa Running Room. It looked slightly wider than the Echelon (one major issue I have with my current shoes is that they feel too narrow through certain spots), so I figured it was worth a shot. The shady little sports store even had a 10.5 Men's. I tried them on and felt it was just too good to be true. No way could these fit. I've battled for nearly a year trying to find a good replacement to my current shoes and you're telling me that the sketchy Ogdensburg store has the one pair that fits? I even put my orthotics in just to be sure. I had found my match. Riding on a high from the shoes (and the fact they were $70!!!), I went on a bit of a sports binge. It felt like this little store had EVERYTHING. I bought a pair of Champion running pants, 3 pairs of new socks, a pair of Adidas track pants, and an Adidas sweater. I am so excited to use my new gear in Scotland! I feel completely decked out now... clothes, shoes, and my Garmin (I have yet to test it still).

Saturday night was my early V-Day dinner with the boyfriend. Since I'm leaving for Scotland tomorrow, we unfortunately miss my birthday and Valentine's Day. I had a long day trying to non-rev (fly standby) my way to Harrisburg. The flights were not too bad loads-wise, but I had to go via Chicago, meaning that it was going to take me about 9 hours just to get there (and an addition 1.5 hours before the boyfriend met me in Harrisburg). I could've driven faster! Luckily I had loads of lectures to do for school, so I got something accomplished. For some reason, I don't raelly recognize that even though it's a Friday night, if I have to be up at 7:00 am the following day, I need to go to bed early. I stayed up until 2:00 am because "it was a weekend", meaning I got around 4.5-5 hours of sleep. Boo. I caught a nap on a flight for about 20 minutes, but I was really starting to drag. By the time we arrived at our uber-sketch Holiday Inn at around 7:00 pm, I was ready to crash, not run. Luckily, I had just given my boyfriend his GoPro and he was in no mood to nap after getting his toy, so it meant I basically had to go for a run. The hotel was inundated with Hispanic people there for some sort of conference, so of course all the teenagers were at the gym having a hang out and messing about. I managed to get on a treadmill that faced outside so I could tune them out. The reflection of myself in the window was sort of inspiring (it was at an angle where I could see my full stride, which spurred me to run a bit harder), so I kept up a very nice interval run for a little over 2.5 miles, before time constraints made me quit. I lunged down the hall (literally doing lunges) back to my room to squeeze the last few bits of the workout in. I eventually ruined it all (and then some) by eating at The Melting Pot... but it was soooo worth it.

Plan is to perhaps run tonight (but maybe just make it a weights/x-training day), and do a combined run/x-training day tomorrow before my flight to Toronto. Since I have around 8 hours to kill before my wake-up and my flight departure to Scotland on Wednesday, I'm going to have that be my random long run day.

My biggest debate right now is whether or not I should bring my new shoes and risk having them be a bit sore (they're not broken in), or take my older shoes and risk my ankle getting sore. Leaning towards the older ones, but I guess we shall see.

Anne

A Break from Running (11 Randoms)

A break from running and a visit from Mr Blog Chain Letter.

The Rules:
Post these rules
You must post 11 random things about yourself
Answer the questions set for you in their post
Create 11 new questions for the people you tag to answer
Go to their blog and tell them you've tagged them
No stuff in the tagging section about you are tagged if you are reading this. You legitimately have to tag 11 people!

Eleven Random Things about me:

1. I love the view from my office window. I look out over runway 14/32 of the Ottawa Intl Airport. I always watch for the United Express planes that come in and try to guess loads.

2. I have worked 3 different jobs within the same company in the past year. Being a perpetual trainee sucks!

3. I always eat sweets by breaking off pieces (muffins, brownies, cookies), rather than taking a bite.

4. Until I was about 18, I would buy Old Spice deodorant and shower gel. I thought smelling like a guy would make me hit the gym harder.

5. I was never a major coffee drinker until I started air traffic control training. Now, if I have to be at work before 9 am, I crave coffee (but still only have 1-2 cups/day).

6. I'm a really bad cook.. but have an incredible ability to find the healthiest treasures in supermarkets, and sometimes combine them (ex. PC Blue Menu chicken fillets + low sodium marinara + skim mozza and parm = 350 calorie chicken parmigiana). I have a hard time eating "healthy". My BF and I are really two morbidly obese people in athletic bodies.

7. I can't eat iceberg lettuce, green olives, souvlaki, roasted garlic potatoes, or creamy garlic dressing anymore after catching the Norwalk virus twice and having to puke up all those food items.

8. 90% of my playlists on my iPod are running or exercise-related (ex. Cardio, Sprint Days, Intervals, Outdoor jogging). The oher 10% are relationship-related (Boyfriend, Angry Breakup, and Mellow Breakup).

9. I've always been the youngest person in my workplace. The only time I'm not is when summer students come in. And then it's back to being the youngest (by about 7 years).

10. Even though we live an ocean apart, I usually see my Scottish cousins a minimum of twice a year (for 2-3 weeks at a time).

11. I'm about to buy my first home.

Questions for Me

1&2) What did you want to be when you grew up, and are you that now?
It always changed... meteorologist was a big one for a while.. but it always tended to go back to aviation. I wanted to mainly be either a pilot or a "navigator" (modern-day ATC). I would say yes, since I did train as a controller... and I have a very in-depth aviation job now. I will hopefully get another chance to go back and train as an enroute controller.

3) What is your favorite month of the year?
For some reason, I really like May. It can be cold and rainy sometimes, but you have the excitement of the summer coming up (and Victoria Day weekend).

4) What quote would you want people to remember you by?
I'm not sure... I don't really have any special quotes. Some sort of variation of "break the rules" or "don't take no for an answer". This does not apply to crime, however. Be law-abiding rulebreakers.

5) Sweet or savory?
I really can't deny that I have a horrible sweet tooth.

6) Do you like to celebrate your birthday or do you keep it quiet?
I celebrate by getting the same birthday cake from Loblaws that I've gotten for over 20 years now. If the opportunity to celebrate presents itself (like this year), then I'll go out, but generally it's just chill.

7) Where is one place you’d dying to visit?
I really want to visit the Canary Islands. Some of the Mediterranean islands as well (Malta, Sardinia, Crete)

8) Right or left side of the bed?
I usually sleep on the left side when my boyfriend is home, but if we're staying at a hotel or elsewhere, it's really interchangeable.

9) Dark, milk, or white chocolate?
Anything but white chocolate, really.

10) Name one thing on your bucket list.
I really want another chance to check out.

Running out of Luck

After last Friday's massage, my ankle went down the shitter and really hasn't been right since. I became extremely aware that I run on the outside of my foot (especially on the right side), which prompted me to get on my podiatrist about getting those orthotics adjusted. My running has taken a bit of a hit as a result of the extreme tendon pain. Saturday's long run was a struggle through 5 miles. I made it through the last mile by attempting to run it sub-8:00 (I ran it in 8:06). I had to take 2 days off from running as opposed to just the one rest day. Yesterday I only managed to do about 2.5 miles (one mile was 7:58 though... amazing!). Tonight's plan is elliptical and weights... no running.

These issues have forced me to take a step back and look at my running goals. I've registered for the half and I do plan to do it (unless I'm very injured), but I just don't think I'm a distance runner. I'm not built that way. I actually love long runs outside and I still plan to do a few, but every physio/massage therapist/doctor has remarked that my tendons are too long and the fact that one has already been injured just makes the possibility of never running again that much more plausible.

So I've re-vamped my running philosophy... I feel good from 3-5 miles. Sometimes 6 or 7 if I'm outside. Any more miles regularly and the tendon starts to hurt. For me, the 3 mile runs just aren't long enough time-wise... so I've decided that I will be doing a bit of everything for my workouts now. 30 min run/30 min elliptical, row, bike, spin, yoga, etc. Last week I had a crazy workout... 3 miles, then 1.5 hrs of yoga. It's time to branch out. In terms of running, I plan to keep doing it, but with a focus on speed improvements, rather tha5n distance. I'm hoping through time and training, that 5Ks turn into 10Ks and I have a bit of variety with distances and races. But I can do hills, trails, sprints, long runs. There's loads to look forward to. And another 50 years of future running is more than 26.2 miles and giving it up for injuries.

Desserted

Okay, so quite a few updates... here goes!

Wednesday:

Wednesday called for 3 miles pace and a hot yoga session with Tony Greco. If you don't know Tony Greco (and you won't unless you live in Ottawa or pay very, very close attention to personal trainers in People magazine... he was the trainer of she-who-shall-not-be-named), he's a personal trainer who started a chain of gyms in Ottawa and is famous for conditioning pro-athletes, mainly members of the Ottawa Senators and a few other Sens traitors who married country singer whores. Sorry, I don't know where that came from. Anyway, he was doing a hot yoga seminar on Wednesday at the newly opened yoga studio in Centretown/Little Italy. It was $20 (most yoga drop-in fees around here are $15-16), which included mat rental, towel rental, a t-shirt, and a Fuze juice at the end. It was actually shockingly worth the price... Greco's is notorious for charging a fortune.

So, I show up and right away I should've put two and two together: the studio was in Centretown and it was Greco's. It's not quite Westboro or New Edinburgh on the hipster scale, but it's up there. There were certainly way more yoga aficionados than I expected. Decked out in their lululemon gear and being all stretchy. Damn them. And of course, the Greco's part... well, Greco's just attracts the elitists. When the class is actually taught by Tony Greco himself? Yeah, it's way elite.

I start noticing some minor Ottawa celebrities trickling in. Someone from a local news channel. Pierre Poilievre also showed up. He was the MPP for Ottawa South (which includes Barrhaven) at one point and is now an MP (Member of Parliament) in the House of Commons. Sort of like a Senator, to those US blog readers. Very odd doing hot yoga with a government official. What's even odder is that he's not French.

So you go in this room and it was like, a billion degrees. I noticed it was hard to breathe from the start. The class was crowded which I think took away some of the positive effects, but it made it harder for Tony to pick me out as being the class moron/inflexible non-hipster scum. He added a bit of cardio to this session, which is just absolutely ridiculous. The room is 100F (literally)... I don't need to go for a run in that with 30 other sweaty people. Pushups galore. Sit-ups. My toes started cramping from this downward dog thing. My hamstrings were tight as anything. I loved the sweat dripping off me though and feeling my muscles really stretch. Somewhere in the midst of all this, I realize that he looks and sounds exactly like Ronnie from Jersey Shore and therefore I just can't take him seriously anymore.

Tony...

"I want you to just focus... breathe deeply... relax"

The class began to wind down and Tony starts saying that we're going to meditate (aka lay on our backs and fall asleep) for 10 minutes. So I start chilling and he starts saying "Listen to the sound of my voice". I'm about to lose it. He's got this strange Italian mobster/Staten Island/Jersey Shore/guido accent that I just can't pinpoint, but either way, the relaxing pretty much ended at that point.

All in all, I'd do hot yoga again. I'll probably try it in Barrhaven since it's a little closer to home, but it was worth the experience.

Oh, and I did the 3 mile pace run too.

Thursday:

Today I'd volunteered to sub on my supervisor's ball hockey team in the Ottawa Sport & Social Club (OSSC). I've been meaning to join it - particularly the dodgeball league - but keep missing the deadlines. It was another 3 mile run today, but I figured I would just do the ball hockey and take it easy. We played for an hour and it was relatively intense, despite the small gym. The problem with playing ball hockey in a rec league in Canada is that the rec players really aren't rec players. I'm really, really awful at ball hockey. Especially non-contact ball hockey. Hip checking is all I have! There are people in that league who grew up playing hockey... probably 90% of the people playing either currently play hockey, or once did. It's just a Canadian thing. I unfortunately suck. Oh well, it was a workout.

On the way back from the school that we played at, I decided to stop in at Snap and crank out my 3 miles while watching the NHL All Star Fantasy Draft. Midway through the miles, I then decided that it would be a good night for a leg workout. Why I thought that was a good idea, I have no clue. Either way, I did squats, lunges, hip ab/adductor stuff, calf raises, and some other crap until my legs screamed at me to quit the torture. I obliged. My whole body is a wreck now after working out 6 days straight. A good wreck. But a wreck.

Lastly, I've held you all to the end of this to explain the title of the post. In a previous entry, I'd written that I thought I was eating well, until I realized how many desserts I actually eat in a day. Not a lot of desserts, or pick portions, but a Timbit here, half a cookie there, a bit of muffin, a sliver of cake. I love my sweets. Well, I realized that those little bits here and there are adding unneeded calories and sugar to an otherwise healthy diet. Until at least my cousin's wedding (and except for perhaps a small slice of birthday cake), I've given up desserts. The only thing I've eaten resembling a dessert is a frozen yogurt pop that's 90 calories and 7g of sugar. Given that a Nature Valley bar has more calories and sugar than that, I'm letting it pass the test.

But that's it! No more work muffins or splitting desserts with family/friends. It's over!!! I WILL TRIUMPH!

Flopping Like a Fish

Let me give you a back story to Anne and Swimming. I used to be a competitive swimmer and water polo player... and I hated running. I would do sports like soccer and basketball, but really despised any drill that involved loads of running. With waterpolo, I cranked out laps like there was no tomorrow. We basically did just a ton of freestyle (head up and normal) so I got fast enough to be competitive in that stroke and I got picked up by a local competitive swim team (in addition to the water polo team I played for). I dreamed of being an Olympic swimmer until I was stopped dead in my tracks... at age 14, I was required to swim a minimum of 6 times a week. Given that the practices were in the morning or evening (you could pick them), I figured this wasn't so bad. By the time I was 16 though, I was required to do a minimum of 10-12 practices a week. 2 hours of swimming per practice, morning and night. Forget it. I quit competitive swimming and my water polo days also drew to a close when I started getting bruised bones and emerged from the water bleeding from various places after a shift. No fun. I basically gave up swimming altogether after the competitiveness ruined the sport for me... the nail was in the coffin when I tore my peroneal in 2007 and the motion of flutterkick was agony.

Fast forward to 2012 and I'm back in the pool. I can't remember the last time I went to Walter Baker for the purpose of actually doing a lane swim, but it must've been a while ago because they've managed to renovate the renovations. Unfortunately the one massive downside to being the only sports complex in Barrhaven (Sportsplex doesn't really count since it's outside of Barrhaven's borders) for the better part of 40 years is that over those 40 years, Barrhaven has gotten HUGE. The pool was jam packed. I remember adult swims being a lot quieter. To be fair, there was an Aquafit class on until 8:30 pm and the deep pool was being taken up by synchronized swimmers. Even the shallow pool was closed because they were short on lifeguards. So maybe it was a bit of a skewed evening, but it was busy nonetheless. I took a glance up to the exercise room that overlooks the pool area. I ran my first real mile up there. It was a bit of a touching moment, really.

I started in the "fast" lane. I figured I probably still had it in me. At the risk of sounding racist, there were a lot of slow-moving Asians there, so the slow/medium lanes were out anyway. I figured a 2000m swim would be doable in 45 minutes. I did about 2 laps before huffing and puffing and feeling a huge burn in my arms. Am I really this out of shape? But I run 26:00 5Ks! This can't be! I was like a 200 lb whale when I swam before. I guess whales are good swimmers, after all...

I swam for about 30 minutes, alternating different strokes. The 400m IM plan went out the window. I just did whatever I could struggle through. It was humiliating. I got lapped by a bald fat guy. I gave in at about 8:40 pm. I'd had it. I started making my way to the changeroom and then took a glance at the now-free portion of the pool that the Aquafit people had been using. Maybe I could go for a run...

I sometimes do shallow water running when I'm at WBSC, but since the shallow pool was closed, it hadn't crossed my mind to try it elsewhere. It went well, for about the first 10 metres. The 25m pool at WBSC starts shallow for the first 10 metres (about 3-4 ft), and then steadily drops to about 7ft midway through the pool, then in the last 4-5 metres, it rises back to a depth of around 4 ft. In my 10 metres of 7 ft water, I basically looked like a dying fish. I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I don't do deep water running and it sure as hell sounded a lot easier than it was! I could only do what felt something like a cross between kicking and running. I wasn't quite sure what the point of it was, but dammit, it was better than nothing. I completed about 6 laps of this, which was a really big feat because it took a solid 2 minutes to get across the pool. I could see the lifeguard eyeing me, unsure if I was a distressed non-swimmer, or just a moron. I assured him it was the latter.

I tip-toed (NB: bring flip flops) back to the changerooms after my little session. I'm still questioning whether or not I got a true cross-training night in. I did do about 40 minutes of activity, and I've always found it hard to gauge whether or not I'm having a tough workout in a pool because you can't really tell if you're sweating, so I'll call it a mediocre win. I have higher hopes of tomorrow hot power/hot yoga/hot pilates/hot martial arts session with one of the Senators trainers in Little Italy. I may give the swimming thing a go again, but will perhaps try the Sportsplex (though, Walter Baker has always been "my place"). I figure there are so many cross training activities for me to try that I might have to keep swimming a non-regular thing. I just wasn't "feeling it" the way I used to. I'm a bit disappointed that the fire wasn't re-ignited.

Up on the docket tomorrow is a 3 mile pace run, as per Week 2-2, plus the aforementioned 1.5 hours of death. I don't even know how to dress for yoga. This is going to be a spectacle and a half...

Aw, Shoe-t

I suppose this will be a positive and negative blog post. I’ll start with the good…

I completed Week 3 (aka Week 2-1) of half marathon training this week, and I’m steadily on schedule to complete Week 4 (2-2). The current schedule is working out just fine so far. I did an extra x-train day yesterday (Sunday), which was a scheduled rest day, but it was just an upper body workout with no cardio, so it shouldn’t have a negative impact on running. In fact, the only thing that seems to be negatively impacting my running is my diet. I’ve had far too many “cheat days”. I was hardcore frustrated a few nights ago that I really just felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere in this “shaping up” process. I’ve lost about 5 lbs over the course of a year (and really, that was only triggered by getting an organ removed). I thought I was doing everything possible to lose weight – after all, I eat healthy ALL the time… right? I noticed last week that in one day, I had 4 desserts. If you know me, you know I enjoy a good smorgasbord vs. one big piece of something, so it was half a cookie from a guy in the office, half a muffin, a small slice of (rich) cake, and a few pieces of chocolate. I’ve also had an insatiable onion ring craving, so even 10 of those is a massive setback. My mileage has barely increased right now… I’m probably burning an extra 500 calories/week at most and just can’t afford to have 4 desserts in one day… even if they’re little ones! I’m hoping to become a bit more aware of my eating, especially with my cousin’s wedding 2 weeks away. One massive advantage of going to Scotland for a wedding is hill running! I think that might offset some of the wedding cake.

On to the negatives… the shoes. As I mentioned in a previous post, I bought a new pair of Saucony Progrid Echelons last week. They’re the exact same as the ones I currently own, so I figured they wouldn’t have any issues. I took them for a spin on my long run on Saturday and was shocked to feel that my left foot felt like it was halfway over the sole of the shoes, spilling out into the narrow arch area. Basically, the inner wall of the shoe was supporting my arch (rather than the shoe). I hadn’t realized that over a year, I’d broken in my shoes to the point that I was running on the inside of it, and not the actual shoe. I also became hyper-aware of the outer part of my right foot (where the pinky toe is) was pressing against the side of the shoe. I realized that this just wasn’t going to fly and I either needed a wide, or a different shoe. Unfortunately the Running Room doesn’t carry wides in 10.5 mens in the Echelon. The guy at the store suggested I bring them back and try out a New Balance one (which I think I tried and didn’t like last year) and an Asics one. If there’s still no luck in there, then they’ll order me a wide.

Here’s my major dilemma:
I had orthotics prescribed to me a few months ago. I tried them out and the left one is definitely just way too strong. I gave up and just continued running in my neutral shoes with only inserts akin to Smart Feet in my shoes. My peroneal injury has gotten WAY better since I stopped running with orthotics (I had older orthotics that I ran in up until 2010). I get “creaky” here and there (sometimes tight calves or glutes), but I haven’t had a nagging injury that’s put me out of commission in almost 2 years.

Do I get my orthotics fixed and THEN buy a new pair of shoes? Or, do I just give up on getting orthotics that work (it’s taken 5+ years to find anything and nothing’s been successful), and maybe look at more supportive shoes?

I’m going to give the orthotics one last try since they felt “almost” right. If there’s no dice, it’s time to retry stabilizing shoes!

Anne

Bringing It

Tomorrow's long run will be the conclusion of Week 2-1. I can't believe how quickly training is progressing. With all this treadmill running, I'm actually really looking forward to March (or April... hopefully March) and getting back out on the roads. I'm hoping by then I will also be the proud owner of a Garmin Forerunner 305, but it's getting tougher to find a decently priced one. The cheapest I'm seeing north of the border is $250, and south of the border it's $199. Rumour has it that Costco is selling them for $150, but I don't have a membership so I'll have to see if someone is willing to go for me before it's too late.

Made a few purchases recently in terms of workout gear. The biggest was a new pair of Saucony ProGrid Echelon 2s. These are the same ones I've been running in for a good 1.5-2 years and, while they're not quite perfect in terms of foot shape, they've kept my injury rate going on a steady decline. I didn't realize just how badly I needed a new pair until I took a look at the treads on my shoes and compared them to the new pair at the store. Eesh.



My second "major" purchase was two more pairs of the Saucony Ignite split shorts. Split shorts are hit-and-miss with runners, particularly females. They're very short and they expose right up to your liner line mid-stride. I love them because they give me a lot of freedom of motion and don't bunch up in the front like other styles do, but they're not great if you're self-conscious about showing a little too much leg. I really only consider these a major purchase because I had to ship them to Ogdensburg, NY. I literally could not find one Canadian retailer who carried them through the winter (Running Room had them, but only in the summer), and every US store I tried refused to ship to Canada. So, it's a great deal, but I do need to drive 45 minutes to get there. Still, they were nearly $40 when I bought my pair in-store, and they were $19.99 each this time around, so even with a bit of gas money and the bridge toll, I'm still getting my savings in!



Ta-ta for now!

Anne

Frozen

The good thing about going to work for 5:00 am is that by 6:00 am, you only have 6 hours to go (I'm working through "lunch" to get the heck out of here before this snowstorm gets any worse). I'm conflicted about these days where I have to drop the SO off at the airport to catch his 6:00 am flight. On one hand, it gets me done early, there's no traffic, and my siesta time starts when people are taking their lunch breaks... on the other hand, I'm freezing, my eyes are droopy, and my muscles feel like they've been working on overdrive and it's a hassle to even walk across the room... It's not even the 4:00 am wakeup that bothers me... it's the fact that we're 2-for-2 on attending Ottawa Senators games the night before one of these 4:00 am days... Last night we both resolved to spending one entire day at the house with zero plans. Well, zero plans except for my long run.

I shockingly nearly stayed on schedule this weekend. I kicked my long run over to Sunday instead of Saturday, which left me in fear that the rest of the week wouldn't work but it seems to be unfolding nicely. I likely won't be able to do the Sat/Sun flip for long runs as time progresses (without really messing up stuff), as I had to run 4 miles Sun ("long" run), 3 miles yesterday, x-train today, 3 miles tempo tomorrow, 3 miles on Thursday. Luckily today is my x-training day, so it will be elliptical at, like, 1 mph. After a very, very long nap.

Already onto Week 2-1... yikes. Last week's mileage total was a fairly decent 13 miles (if you include Sunday as "last week"). This week will be 14 miles, plus a tempo run.. but I always end up running at near-tempo pace when I'm doing 3 milers. They're too short for me to get into that zoned out frame of mind, so I just want them over ASAP, which always makes me run them too fast. Yesterday I ran about a 29:00 3 miles and that was my slowest all week, and that was 90% due to the fact I had just run a long run the day before, and my work gym has no fans or air circulation, and had 8-9 people in it (it's not very large in the first place). It was a good 25-30C with a humidex factor in there I'm sure.

Anne x

Truffle Shuffle

So, I'm on Week 1-2 of Hal Higdon's Novice II plan. Thanks to my inability to go to bed on time, I had to slightly shuffle my schedule this week so as not to run on 5 hours of sleep.

Tuesday was a 3 miler at lunch. Laboured, kinda shitty. Resolved to attempting to wear orthotics on the next run.

Tonight (Thursday) was another 3 miler (I have one more 3, then 4 on Sat or Sun). It went far better than Tuesday's run. I ran about two thirds of a mile in my orthotics before having to switch to my regular insoles. Some muscles/tendons/whatever were tight in my left ankle, but tight as in "never been used". I'm wondering if it's an issue with the orthotics, or just my feet finally getting the support they need and my stride changing. Either way, I plan to try out the orthotics again, but probably just use them for a warm-up/cool-down session before weights, or at the end of a run. The fatigue in those rarely used muscles nagged me for the rest of the 3 miles. I finished strong though, with my remaining 2.3 miles (after I stopped to switch insoles) clocking in at 20:41.

It looks like I'll be hitting up Staples for some more calendars. I was a bit presumptuous and, in my excitement of registered for the Ottawa HM, wrote out my ENTIRE running plan on a calendar. Little did I know that only a week into training, I wanted to change my program.

Right now, it looks like this:

Sunday: Cross Train
Monday: Rest

Tuesday: 3 miles (all weeks)
Wednesday: 3-5 miles tempo
Thursday: 3-4 miles
Friday: Rest

Saturday: LSR (4-12 miles)

I'm not the biggest fan of running 3 days in a row when I'm only running 4 days a week. I'm injury prone and I think that the 3 days straight, with a tempo run right in the middle, is just asking for fatigue/overtraining. I'm doing a bit of a shuffle, so my weeks will look like this:
Sunday: Rest
Monday: 3 miles
Tuesday: Cross Train
Wednesday: 3-5 miles tempo
Thursday: 3-4 miles
Friday: Rest

Saturday: LSR

Very similar, same mileage, but makes more sense for me. Sundays are generally a hectic travel day for me so they end up being my "rest by default" day. I would like to start doing some swimming for cross-training, but the adult swims I want to go to are on Tuesdays, so it seemed to just match up well. The only thing would be if I was to have to do my LSR on a Sunday, it would screw up the rest of the week, but I think I'd just do a switcheroo, as long as I fit the run in somehow.

Anne

Taking a Breather...

Hopefully this isn't a sign of things to come, but I'm already slacking on my first week of half marathon training. To be fair, I did complete all of my runs except the long run (probably to Hal Higdon's chagrin). I had a very good plan of attending tonight's Senators game and then hitting the gym afterwards with my cousin. The game ended at 7:45 pm, so going for a 9:00ish workout wasn't completely out of the question. Unfortunately, it seems the Philadelphia Flyers make me sick. Literally. For those of you who don't know my NHL history, the first time I went to a Senators game, it was against the Flyers back in the 90s. We lost 5-0 and I got sick from the Coke/food from the game on the bus ride home. Tonight the score was MUCH more in our favour (6-4 Senators), but I did spent the majority of the bus ride home being nauseous and it took about an hour for the nausea to finally subside once I did get home. Luckily I started my training early and this was Week 1 after all, with the long run being only 4 miles, so it wasn't a major hit. I get to repeat Week 1 again this week and it seems like the schedule works fairly well for it. The in-laws are coming to town, so I feel that 4 mile run will happen (possibly with a one-hour weight session, one-hour yoga, and 2-hour spin to follow... hey, gotta train for my marathon).

Expect more updates from me this week. It's "back to school" (or back to video-on-demand) for me, so of course that means more blog updates and generally web time-wasting going on.

Anne

It's On

I’m doing it! The Ottawa Half Marathon.

While at work yesterday, I was checking out some Hal Higdon plans and realized, hey he has a Novice II plan! I was a bit nervous about jumping into the half marathon because the Intermediate program was a bit too much for me (and my ankle), but the novice was just toooo novice. This one is perfect… the mileage for most of the week ranges between 3 and 5 miles per run, excluding the long run (which starts at 4 miles in the first week and goes up to 12 miles in the last week). It’s a 12-week program, but because the race is in May and I have a busted ankle, I’ve decided to turn it into a 22-week program. I’m repeating each week (Week 1-1, 1-2, 2-1, 2-2), so I can build up my mileage relatively slowly. I think the training only peaks at 25 mpw anyway so it’s not an intense program, but this scheduling seems to work perfectly. The scheduled “5K race day” actually falls on March 17 this year… St Patrick’s Day! There will definitely be a race that day! I’m excited.

I’m all paid up and Week 1-1 was officially this week! It’s going to be amazing. Very excited and plan to keep everyone posted on each day of training! Given the fact that my half race time in 2007 (on a very fresh tendon injury) was 3:30something, the fact that I plan to beat my old time by over an hour is awesome. I look forward to taking my training to the next level and look even more forward to documenting the results!

They’ve changed the course since the last time I ran it, so I’m interested to see how this goes. I’m slightly disappointed as the canal route was great. For those who don’t know Ottawa, the canal is absolutely gorgeous, and even more beautiful in May during the Tulip Festival. The new route takes us through hipster town (Westboro) and over to the dingy Quebec side. Running across the bridges might be kind of interesting, though. Not sure why they had to change the route… I do recall though that the last half course involved going up a set of stairs (from the road that runs along the canal up onto a bridge) and doing a loop through an NCC parking lot. Here’s the course map:

Anne

The Wall

Yesterday was going to be a 4 mile song interval session at the gym with 6.0-6.5-7.0 intervals. Unfortunately, by the 2^nd mile, my legs were just dragging. I pumped out 3 miles (which was all I could do time-wise as I had a dinner date with my cousin and had to get home and shower before the restaurant actually closed). The whole session was a bit discouraging as I had attempted a run on Sunday as well, and my legs were just not working then either (though, that was after Saturday’s long run). Some changes are required…

• In terms of running, I’ve resolved to vary each run and put it under a specific category. LSR (long, slow run), easy, normal intervals, hard intervals/sprints, tempo. I may not get to run 5 times/week and use up all the categories, but I’ve figured that in order to improve and also not tire myself out, there needs to be some framework around which I build my workouts.
• Cross training. I honestly have a very difficult time trying to force myself to cross train, but at least once a week, I do want to step on the elliptical. Even if I warm up or cool down on the treadmill (or do a 30 min/30 min split between the machines), I need to train muscles that aren’t being used while I run. I’m on the hunt for a spin class.

I’m looking into Greco Lean & Fit for strength training. I’m worried that the whole program will be a massive money suck, but I did notice that kettlebell programs are offered, which would be pretty cool. For those non-Ottawans, Greco’s started out in Barrhaven (and I have a few friends who started with the original karate class – at the time, the owner, Tony Greco, mainly did martial arts). Greco’s has expanded to a few locations in Ottawa, but Tony is most known for training the Ottawa Senators for their off-ice workouts, and most notably, my ex-future husband, Mike Fisher. I’m super jealous of the friends that got to hang out with him at the gym. Either way, the location is right by our house and offers 6:00-6:45 am classes that I could take en route to work in the morning (also has 3:00 pm classes that I can’t imagine will be full).

Just hoping the classes aren’t TOO full with all those New Years Resolutioners…

And in race news…

1. Perth Kilt Run. I’m almost 100% certain that the BF and I will be running the Perth Kilt Run this year (http://www.perthkiltrun.ca/). It’s 5 miles, which is a good distance to train for (shorter than a 10K, but a bit longer than a 5K), and it supports an MS charity, which is near and dear to the BF’s family.

2. Ottawa Race Weekend. The ½ Marathon and 10K are open right now (both sell out fairly quickly every year). I’m certain I will be running one of them, but hesitant to pick one and then regret it later. I would really like to run the half and I know I’ll kill my old time by at least an hour (3:30 half marathon… yay for 200 lb, out-of-shape Anne who decided to run a half marathon after not running for 1-2 years and doing a 2 mile “training run” the day before the race and thinking it was a “good idea”). At the same time, I am a bit very injury prone, and while I feel comfortable running a beginner-to-intermediate running plan and preparing for the race, I’m worried that the increase in mileage may result in some ankle failure. Also, I prefer evening races and the 10K takes place Saturday night vs. Sunday morning for the half. Guess we will have to see!

Planning on a legs and core session at lunch today, then an “easy” 4 miler after work. Tomorrow will be a cross-training day.

Anne