training

Right Back to Where We Started From

/ Jess / 6 Comments

I have no excuse for the last 2 weeks.

Well, no running-related excuses. Just a lot of life happening around here. And while I’ve slowly worked training back into my schedule, it hasn’t been my focus. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. After all, I am more than just a runner. I’m a wife, daughter, employee, friend – and lately I’ve found that life is more about balancing those different roles than focusing on one.

However! This is a running blog, right? SO. Let’s take a look at what’s been going on in my running world lately 🙂

When I last left off, I was bouncing back from a bout of hand, foot, and mouth disease (I refuse to call it coxsackie on principle alone) and I was also nursing a tender knee. After my last post, the foot blisters eased up in time for my return to running on my birthday, July 31st!

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Full disclosure: I ran just to earn the Nike Plus badge.

My knee felt surprisingly great – the unexpected week+ off from running because of my illness gave the rest of my body the chance to heal up, and while I stayed cautious on downhills and stopping/starting, the sharp pains I had experienced the week or two earlier were nowhere to be found. Score!

Later that day, all I wanted for my birthday was new running shoes and cake, so we went to RoadRunner where I had my gait analyzed again, and discovered that all of my cross training and lifting has helped strengthen up my legs so I don’t need as much stability in my running shoes as I used to! Second score!!

IMG_6261The new babies!

And when I broke in my new Asics Gel Nimbus 16’s on Saturday, I felt like I was running on air! Don’t you just love the first run in the perfect pair of new shoes? There’s nothing like it 🙂

Later that night, I went to a Soundgarden/NIN concert with a group of friends and let me tell you – Trent Reznor is still as hot as ever, and I will fight you to the death over him.

photoI love you guys. But seriously? I will cut a bitch over those biceps.

He was my very first rock ‘n roll crush – and while I was too young to see them live when my obsession was at its peak, the nearly 20 year wait was entirely worth it. So much so, that I matched my running shorts *and* my sneakers to my music as I rocked out to some early NIN on Monday’s run:

IMG_6342I like to think Trent would be proud.

The rest of the week went by, with 3 progressive runs of 2.5; 3.1; and 3.5 to get my knees back into working order, with the goal of a long run of 5 miles on Sunday. Which I succeeded at. Just barely.

Because I set out too late in the day, it was hot. Like 90 degrees in the sun hot. I also only got about 6 hours of sleep, didn’t fuel very well, and drank just a bit too much on Friday, so my system was NOT long-run ready. But I tried a new route at the park near Rutgers, with a nice path that goes along the Raritan River, near the RU Stadium, past a little zoo, and under a couple of cool bridges. I’m all about switching up the scenery, and this did not disappoint – I will most certainly be going back there again!

photo 1I mean, come on! Look at it!

But even though it was beautiful there, I struggled. I took a lot of walk breaks to deal with the cramps and side stitches I kept developing, but I powered through until mile 4.5. I passed a field were a pretty serious soccer game had just wrapped up and slowed to a walk to deal with a new cramp. The teams and their families were all packing up and chatting near the path, when one guy nudged another as I passed, pointing and laughing at me. I had one headphone in so I could only hear snippets, but once those two laughed, the rest of the group they were with all joined in too.

And it really hurt.

I took off running at full speed and kept pushing til I hit my 5 miles, then ran right for the bathroom where I had a little moment. I can usually brush off meaningless immaturity like that, but I was at a pretty low point to begin with, and that just pushed me over the edge into a full on meltdown. My confidence as a runner was tenuous at best, especially after the run I had just shuffled through at a snail’s pace. I was feeling weak and not very prepared, and frankly the thought of running a full marathon in just over 2 months actually makes me laugh because I think it’s that ridiculous and impossible.

But I couldn’t hide in that bathroom forever, so I sniffed it all back and repeated my favorite new mantra a few times: “One run at a time”, snapped an attitude-packed selfie because I was proud of how my legs looked in my shorts (#sorrynotsorry) and headed home for a shower and a big-ass cheeseburger. Because I’m a runner and that’s what runners do. We take it one run at a time and keep moving forward.

photo 2Hi, Haters!

So how was your weekend? Tell me about it – is your training coming along nicely?

Mermaid in Training

/ Jess / Leave a comment

After buying my new swimming gear a few weeks ago, I finally made the leap (dive?) and hit the pool at our local YMCA last night after work for some cross training.

So I slipped into my swimsuit and immediately had a small panic attack when I looked down at the rest of my swimming accoutrements and realized I had NO CLUE how to properly use them. I bought the swim cap, wax ear plugs, and goggles because they looked cool, but once I found myself shivering in the freezing cold locker room staring at these foreign objects on the bench before me, I panicked. Did my hair need to be wet to put the cap on? Then what was the cap for if my hair was going to get wet? Does it go over my ears? If it does, do I need the ear plugs too? Should I walk out with the goggles on or put them on in the pool?

photo 3Like I’ve said before, sometimes it really is hell inside my mind.

So after a fruitless Google search and some mild cursing for being so totally pathetic, I just decided to wing it and slapped everything on to the best of my ability. After pulling a third of my hair out by the roots trying to get the swim cap on, nearly losing the wax in my ear twice, and pinching myself hardcore with the goggle strap, I was ready to rock.

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Or at least I looked like I was ready.

It became clear that I needed to have some confidence if I was going to pull this off, so I grabbed my towel, took a deep breath, opened the door to the pool and flip flopped out to the closest bench.

I slipped into the water and pretended that it wasn’t as cold as it was. Little kids were getting swimming lessons in the far lane, for god’s sake! So I pulled my goggles down, dipped under, and kicked off… and felt myself break into the biggest smile since I crossed the finish line of my last half in April! It was amazing!

For the next half hour I did lap after lap, trying out every swimming stroke my grandma ever taught me in our backyard pool, none of which I know the proper names for. Some I’m pretty sure I even made up as I went along. But I loved it! The rest of the pool cleared out and I found myself alone in my last few laps, in my own little sound-proof world (thanks, wax earplugs), my heart beating out of my chest as I finished one lap and geared up for another.

photo 2Finally, as I glanced behind me at the clock to see how long I’d been in, the poor teenaged lifeguard who had been standing there waving at me since I couldn’t hear her finally got my attention: “I’m sorry but we have to close the pool because of the lightning storm!”

I hadn’t even noticed, but it was indeed storming badly outside, so I hopped out of the pool, toweled off, changed into dry clothes and relaxed in the locker room for a minute: I felt ike I’d worked out hard but I wasn’t sweaty and gross like after a run; I was just fresh and dry and blissed out on an endorphin high!

So overall, I’d give swimming an A++. I cannot wait to go back! How about you? Do you swim for cross training? Any triathletes (or tri’s in training) out there? Let me hear it!

3 towns, 10 miles, 1 bathroom break

/ Jess / 12 Comments

This week marked week 4 of marathon training, and it passed pretty unremarkably, until yesterday that is… let me explain:

Since it’s been a month, this was my first experience of training while PMS’ing. Which… WOW. That’s all I can really say. I don’t know whether my husband is ready to walk out or just throw a chocolate cake at me and be done with it. The combination of waking up early, being sore all the time and not eating my usual comfort foods made the holy trifecta of awful, and my hormone swings on top of everything else made it a pretty angry week.

My sucky run on Tuesday was mitigated only by the fact that I got to wear fun new Brooks “Run Happy” shorts that totally matched my shoes:

photo 12That smile? Yeah, it’s fake.

It was a hard 3 miles and my time was physically embarrassing, but it was done. So I went to bed angry. Then Wednesday I did yoga on the beach with some friends instead of running for my last “crosstraining instead of running Wednesday” and found myself doing some not-very-zen things like cursing the instructor and wishing I could be on the boardwalk eating curly fries and lobster rolls instead of getting sand where sand should not go with a bunch of granola-chomping hippies. Thankfully, the friends I did the class with were of the same mind, so things worked out.

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We call ourselves the Yoga Misfits and we’re thinking of getting jackets made.

Thursday was pretty much the worst day ever. Work was a nightmare, my hormones were raging, and I physically couldn’t bring myself to break through it and go for a run. I promised myself I’d go first thing Friday, but to keep myself from murdering someone, I instead had some chocolate cake and went to bed angry at 9:30. I considered it a public service.

It worked, because Friday morning I turned a corner. I churned out 3 faster miles and rocked out to some “We Didn’t Start the Fire” and even had a woman drive by and applaud me (her kid in the car seat behind her was clapping too)! That gave me some good motivation to rock my long run, so I plotted a course that took me through 3 nearby towns, went to bed early Saturday, woke up early Sunday and had hubby drive me 10 miles out to begin my first double-digit run on this training schedule!

It was overcast and actually kind of cool out, which was a very nice change from the 85 degrees I’ve been running in the past few weeks. However, it was still humid as hell. And so I was drenched by about mile 2, which I discovered when I stopped for an emergency bathroom break:

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When will I learn and not pick light colored shorts?

Even despite the beautiful view, the good pacing, and a solid fueling plan, I had soaked clean through my shorts, thus rendering null and void any cool points I had accumulated up til then.

I kept at it though and felt OK til about mile 6. Glancing at my watch, I realized I’d been running for more than an hour so I took a break and grabbed some water from my belt to wash down some Sport Beans. That’s where the day took a turn.

The bottle I carried my water in had been stored in the cabinet I keep all of my scented candles in, too. And it also gets very hot there. Thanks to osmosis, the various candle scents had permeated the plastic of my little handheld Nathan water bottle, making my water taste like every damn Yankee Candle I ever owned.

inVAGKCJhnwwxWhich tastes like exactly what you think it does.

After taking my first horrible gulp of funk-water, I gagged on the side of the road and panicked: I still had at least 2 more miles to the Quick Check I had planned on getting water from, and these Sport Beans had turned my mouth into a foul pasty desert!! But I sucked it up (literally), swished some nasty candle-water around my mouth to keep it hydrated, and walk/jogged the next 2 miles to get fresh water.

When I arrived at Quick Check, I downed a bottle of water so fast I gave myself a brain freeze, then walked back outside to find that it was POURING! So I took it as a sign and waited, stretching for a good 5 minutes while the rain subsided. Once it cleared, I set out again and thought “2 more miles! You can do 2 more miles, that’s nothing!” and sure enough, I did! I wanted to quit a few times, but I found that this 10 miler was much better than the 10 miler I did while training for my last half. Then, I wanted to give up at 8 and had to walk almost the entire last 2 miles. But yesterday I pushed through, found a few new songs on my running playlist and made it all the way to my parents’ house at mile 10.00, where I promptly collapsed in a heap of hair and sweat.

photo 4…so much sweat.

So while I was a little frustrated with how much I had to walk after the candle-water incident, I’m pretty proud of my final push. It was a strong finish to an otherwise so-so run, and I’ll take it!

However, last night while basking in my post-long-run bliss and updating my training diary, I discovered that I’d read it wrong: as it turns out, I was only supposed to do 9 miles yesterday. 10 is next week’s long run. So that means I have to do this all over again.

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Excuse me while I go sit in the corner and rock back and forth, crying and laughing uncontrollably.

How did your week go? Any training milestones you’re proud of? Have you ever read your training calendar wrong and screwed yourself? Please tell me I’m not the only one!

I’m typing with my mind…

/ Jess / 1 Comment

…because my arms are too sore to lift to the keyboard.

ImageNo, but seriously.

Thanks to that boot camp class yesterday morning, I am officially in the worst shape of my life, pain-wise.

ImageLiterally EVERYWHERE. Even in places I didn’t know had muscles.

The grunts of pain that I let out when trying to sit in the bathroom are most certainly going to get me a bad reputation in the office. And I actually screamed when I shifted my car into park this morning.

I went for a 3 miler this morning because the schedule told me. My body, on the other hand, wanted no part of this nonsense. Especially at 95% humidity outside! But I woke up at 6am, barely got a sports bra on without crying, walked for 1.25 and ran for .75, then tried my best to finish that last mile only walking a bit. I was surprised to find that running temporarily helped the soreness! Starting and stopping both hurt like a bitch and my max speed was somewhere around 5.5mph, but dammit, I did it.

BUT – I’m still sore. I thought flushing that lactic acid out with a shakeout run would do the trick, but now I’m hobbling around my office and people are looking at me funny and it’s not cool.

So tell me – What’s your tried and true anti-muscle-soreness remedy? I know foam rolling is the usual post-run soreness thing, but seriously how am I supposed to foam roll my triceps and my neck? Because pretty much everything from my eyebrows to my ankles are in pain. Do you have a go-to pain reliever or home remedy? Share your wisdom in the comments please – because I don’t know how much longer I can stand this!

From 2 Legs to 2 Wheels

/ Jess / 5 Comments

So back in 2011, I got a bike. Specifically, a good friend gifted me the bike as a wedding present. And it was one of the best gifts I’ve ever gotten!

I still remember unpacking that thing a few weeks after we got back from our honeymoon and putting it together with my own damn hands. I was so excited! I was going to finally get back in the saddle after almost 10 years, and I was going to jump right in! Well, once I figured out why the brakes weren’t working and if I could get the tires to stay inflated. Then winter came. I promised myself I would get back into it after the snow finally cleared out. Then we moved. OK, I’d get it all fixed up and hit the road once we were all moved into the new house. Then I figured I’d wait until after the AC Half Marathon. And then I tore my ACL and lost 15 months to rehab.

SO. Fast forward to this past weekend when I found myself laid up with a surprise ear infection the same day that my good “virtual” friend (and Mermaid Club founder) Helena completed the Ironman Texas Triathlon. I was inspired, to say the least! Since I’ve managed to incorporate cycling into the last 3 months of my training, and have found that I REALLY like it, I finally called my papa – AKA the Bike Doctor – and he swung by to give my pretty girl Maggie a tune up. 

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Yeah, that’s the bike’s name, so what?

A quick 20 minutes of tightening and oiling, and I was ready to hit the road! So the next morning, when I woke up feeling much better (thank you, modern medicine), I threw the bike in the back of the Honda and we went for our inaugural ride!

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Selfie time with Maggie!

I set out to ride on feeling, just to see how far I could get. I even found that I could use my Garmin for biking – score! And after one mile-long lap, I felt so good that I took the turn out of the park and went exploring. My knee felt great and I was having a good time, and before I knew it I had done 3.5 miles! I started to feel it in my legs after taking a few small hills, but I kept going and told myself to push for 5 solid miles as hard as I could go.

So push I did, and I completely surprised myself when I finished all 5 miles at a little over 6:10/mile pace! 

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happy biker

Needless to say – I’m hooked! I can’t wait to incorporate biking into my fitness plans, especially when I start getting into the thick of my marathon training and need to give my legs some good cross training. I’m already planning out new routes to test my limits now that I’ve transitioned from 2 legs to 2 wheels!

Tell me: if you’re a runner, do you bike too? What are your other favorite cross-training exercises? Give me some other ideas, I’ve gone exercise-crazy and I’ll try anything next! 

Piggies and Stairs and Long Runs, Oh My!

/ Jess / Leave a comment

What an active weekend I had! I like to think the buildup to Boston inspired me 😉

Let’s start with Saturday. A beautiful sunny warm spring day, I met up with a new friend for a virtual 5K down at the local park. We registered for this thing back in January, mainly because it’s a race that encourages the consumption of donuts, and you also get a fun pig nose to wear for ridiculous pictures afterwards. It was a win-win!

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Wow did we have more fun than expected.

We jogged and walked (this being my friend’s first 5K) and had a nice workout in the process – I managed a 8:30 pace for the last quarter mile and surprised even myself! So after we finished and posed for some hysterical pictures, we headed to Dunkin for our celebratory glazed with sprinkles (and iced coffee, of course), then strolled around town for a bit. My adventurous friend spotted the South Amboy train station steps and suggested we tackle them Rocky-style, and who was I to say no? My knee was feeling nice and strong thanks to the last month of serious training, so I went for it! 

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I blame my delusions on the donut-related sugar high.

In hindsight, I probably should have passed on the steps given my plans to run 10 miles the next day. I used to do stairs all the time, pre-surgery. But they’re a special kind of hell – one that I haven’t really experienced in over 18 months.

So I woke up feeling fine and set out for my last long training run and also my longest post-ACL surgery run! Immediately the wind became an issue, but I stuck it out – until mile 7.5. That’s when I hit the wall pretty hard, and briefly considered asking an elderly man sharing the path at the park with me for a ride on his Jazzy.

But this wall wasn’t like any other wall I’ve hit before – this wall was more like quicksand. In the past, my lungs would give up on me first, resulting in stitches in my side and constant stopping. But yesterday, it was all in my legs and hips. They wouldn’t turn over! My lungs felt absolutely fine, but my legs felt almost numb when I was running, and ached and throbbed when I stopped to walk for a drink. I alternated between walking and running the last 1.5 or so just to test my limits and see what I could do – and that pain was shocking! I kept at it though, and remembered that I’m only racing myself here. Time isn’t important, it’s getting the mileage in. So I kept at it. And at mile 9.4 I saw the best graffiti ever:

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Thanks, running path.

That gave me the push I needed to finish mile #10 and put my final long run in the books. I stretched and foam rolled, and later (after gorging myself on Easter deliciousness at my mother-in-law’s), I iced and used my TENS unit too. It wasn’t until about 9pm that I realized WHY I was so pained in the last half of my run – those damn stairs!!

So now I know: do not run up and down a flight of double stairs 6-8 times the day before a long run. Lesson learned.

What are some of the lessons you’ve learned (maybe the hard way) in your running? Let me hear it!

 

One More Week [Alternatively: AAAHH!!]

/ Jess / Leave a comment

So it’s come to my attention that I’m just over exactly 7 days away from my half marathon.

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I’m fine, why do you ask?

But really, I’m kind of freaking out. I came back from vacation and have been hitting it HARD for the past 8 days:

  • 5.4 miles with hills
  • Rest
  • 60 mins. of cross training with strength work and biking
  • 2 miles of speedwork
  • Rest
  • 6.5 miles at race pace
  • 3 miles of speedwork
  • 50 minutes of cross training

Why am I freaking out, you ask? Well, see, a half marathon is 13.1 miles. And the most I’ve done so far is 6.5. That’s just over half of the distance I need to cover in a week.

Sure, I could blame traveling and vacation and that nasty 9-day fever/cough on my lack of real mileage, but let’s face it: I have no one to blame but myself. And since we’re all friends here, I’m gonna keep it real right now and be honest: I am fucking pissed at myself. This is an issue that I have not just with my running, but with life in general.

Here’s how it goes down: I set a goal for myself. A big, lofty goal that I think would be awesome to accomplish, like “be a professional person at work” or “run another half marathon after blowing out my knee in the last one I ran”. Whee for goal setting!

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Do! All! The Things!

I get really excited! For about 2-3 weeks, all I focus on is this goal. I wear high heels to work every day. I schedule meetings. I create a training plan and follow it rigorously. It’s all I can talk about. “I’m going to really turn it around this time! I’m going to banish all doubt from my performance as a professional at work/run this half marathon/fill in the blank with lofty goal here!”

Then, something happens. Maybe I get sick. Maybe I have to travel for work, or something family-related pops up. Whatever it is, it always sidetracks me from my “PLAN with a capital P”. I stop wearing the heels. I forget to run because I’m too stressed or busy or whatever. And before I know it, a week or two or even three has gone by, and I’m right back to pre-goal Jess. Only now, that Plan with a capital P is now in shambles and whatever goal I’ve set for myself is STILL looming. And it’s immobilizing. Plus I’ve got the sweet taste of failure in my mouth.

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Turns out, failure tastes like chocolate and potato chips and insomnia and Twizzlers all mixed together, did you know that?

So that’s about where I’m at right now. Sure, I haven’t completely FAILED with a capital F. I’ve still got a week. I’m training. I’m not giving up. I’m focusing on finishing this thing with a smile, and if that means I have to walk half of it and finish 3 hours after they close the course to avoid injury, then so be it.

But I’m not as trained as I’d like to be, and I know that I’ve never actually successfully run an entire half marathon yet, due to either the course being shortened or blowing out my knee a mile before the finish. So even though I’m going into this thinking, “Hey, 3rd time’s a charm!”, a tiny, self-hating part of me sees me bonking at mile 9 and just saying f*ck it and paying the cop at the end of the pack of runners $50 to give me a ride to the finish on the back of his motorcycle.
So all I can do is keep training, keep picturing myself crossing that finish line, running, and happy. That’s the best I can hope for I guess. Right?
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