running

Run For Change

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Are you going to be in the New Jersey/Pennsylvania area on Mother’s Day? Then come out to a great new 10K race that’s being held at Washington Crossing, PA on May 11th, 2014. A friend and co-worker of mine helped organize this with her sorority, and it promises to be a fantastic event for a worthy cause.

In conjunction with runBucks and Girls for a Change, Inc., the Xi Xi Chapter of Theta Nu Xi Multicultural Sorority, Inc. is elated to present you with “Run for Change” – a 10k Mother’s Day Run in Washington Crossing, PA to benefit Girls for a Change, Inc.

For more information or to register/donate, check it out online or on Facebook – and tell them you heard about them from Jess Runs Happy!

Piggies and Stairs and Long Runs, Oh My!

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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!!]

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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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Running on Island Time

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Before I begin – I apologize for my silence lately! I had a nasty sinus infection at the end of March so I had to take a full week off running (UGH). As an aside: how do people run through illness like that? I had a fever of 102 and hallucinated that I was Jennifer Lawrence in American Hustle; I couldn’t even sit up straight let alone run!

Anyway, after that, I set sail on a 7 day cruise to Florida and the Bahamas with my mama! Usually, I see vacation as my time to forget the rules and return to my natural state. Unfortunately my natural state is less “let’s get physical!” and more “screw the training plan, they’ve got free brownies 24/7 up in this bitch, it’s brownies-for-breakfast time”.

But with the half marathon looming ahead of me (18 days, eek!), I knew I had to stay active – and BOY did I! I’m proud to say that this was the most active vacation I’ve ever had – filled with running, open-water swimming, biking, rope climbing, capoeira, weight training, and LOTS of walking. No lie, in Florida we walked for 6 hours straight. We didn’t even stop to eat. I had a soft pretzel at 7pm and freaked out the pretzel cart woman with my obscene moans of relief after my first bite.

So I started my 2nd morning on the boat with a nice 5K, spread out between the fitness center and the jogging track on the ship’s top deck.

with a view like that I HAD to go on deck

with a view like that I HAD to go on deck

It was amazing – between the sun and warm air and new route, it was the most invigorating run I’ve had in months! I finished with a half hour of full-body strength training in the gym and then took the 8 flights of stairs back to our stateroom for good measure. And if you’re wondering – yes, I did have a brownie for breakfast. Life is all about balance.

That same day we toured the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and we ended up walking the equivalent of about 284 miles* (*I may be estimating). We spent 7 hours touring, and aside from the one hour bus ride we were on our feet. The. Whole. Day. The following day we were at Great Stirrup Cay in the Bahamas. I planned on doing nothing (except for drinking pina coladas on the beach), but once I got in that cool, refreshing, 15-foot deep turquoise private lagoon water? I just had to swim.

wouldn't you?

wouldn’t you?

I haven’t swam in open water in more than 2 years, but I jumped right in that water and floated, kicked, dove, frolicked, and generally played mermaid for about 3 hours. I even swam around that island you see in the center of the lagoon (the water surrounded it on all sides), stopping just once on the far side beach to give my shoulders a break.

After getting a crazy sunburn from all this beach fun (the price a mermaid must pay, I suppose), I took the next day off in Atlantis, and spent most of the day in a flowy caftan in shaded areas. It was actually kind of fun, I pretended I was a Kardashian. Not a bad way to spend a day in the Bahamas.

By our last day at sea, my sunburn had finally calmed down enough for me to put sneakers on so I started with a quick 2 miles of speedwork on the treadmill, followed by 2 hard and fast miles on the bike (in 7:40, a new bike PR!!), then ran up the 4 flights of stairs to the top deck for a session on the ropes course.

ropes course (bottom), see also "terrifying workout in gale force winds and a full body harness 17 stories above the Atlantic Ocean"

ropes course (bottom), see also “terrifying workout in gale force winds and a full body harness 17 stories above the Atlantic Ocean”

Suffice it to say that I would have been content sticking with mini-golf after my time on the ropes course, but I perservered and went to a free capoeira class instead. A bucket list item of mine, capoeira is a Brazilian martial art that combines dancing, fighting, and games. Lots of hovering, squatting, kicking, and general break-dancing. Lots of fun.

Now, full disclosure: the class was taught by a blindingly gorgeous Brazilian man who pronounced the word “since” with a long “I” (s-eye-nce), bless his heart. And while we’re sharing and feeling religious, God bless those rocky northern Atlantic currents. Because without them, I wouldn’t have been able to cap off my last day at sea with a face-full of Brazilian man-thigh when the boat zigged and we both zagged during a particularly intense sparring session. Cue the bad-ass music and “calmly walking away from a car explosion” scene:

and when I walked off the boat, it burst into flames, too.

and when I walked off the boat, it burst into flames, too.

Cut to today: my muscles are still on FIRE from all the wild and crazy things I put them through in the past week, and I couldn’t be happier! So what do you think? When you’re on vacation, do you go for the brownies or the ropes course (or both)? What’s your favorite activity to do on vacation? Tell me a story 🙂

Extra, Extra! I’m RunInspired’s New Homepage Feature Story!

/ Jess / 4 Comments

Just a quick update today – and a warm welcome to anyone who has stumbled upon JessRunsHappy thanks to my exciting feature at RunInspired! I was honored when they asked me to share my weight loss and running story, and couldn’t be happier with the way it turned out. And it’s an even bigger honor to be their new homepage feature story!

Go check it out and let me know what you think. 🙂

You can also follow RUNspiration on Facebook for other features and daily motivation – check them out and happy running!

Grateful

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It’s really starting to sink in that I’m running a half marathon in a little over one month. And I can’t lie – I am terrified! 

So I’ve kicked my training into high gear, but it’s a double edged sword. I’ve incorporated a bit of cross training into every day and it’s already paying dividends. But the funny thing about training with this new knee is that I’m constantly walking the line between “is this pain from a new injury?” and “I need to train harder to make sure I don’t get injured again.” It’s a constant struggle – I sometimes take a day to rest between runs because I’m afraid of hurting my knees, but after that day off I worry that I won’t be trained enough for this race and will therefore tear my ACL again and need another year of rehab.

What can I say, sometimes it’s hell inside my head.

At times.

BUT… there are plenty of things I can do besides my training to ensure that I succeed. I can visit my orthopedist to have him take a look at both knees for good measure. I take my glucosamine every day. I skip heels at work in lieu of flat shoes that don’t tax my joints. I sleep with my knee brace on after a tough workout, to avoid twisting it in my sleep. I’ve picked up KT tape (and found that it’s a miracle!)

kt

seriously, what is this stuff made of, unicorn hide?

Tonight, I also realized the power of simply being grateful.

Let me explain: I had a 2 mile run on the training plan and got it in, even pushed the pace towards the end, but felt a few twinges in my good knee so I stopped at 2.5 miles. But instead of ending my workout there, I moved to a stationary bike and told myself to give it hell for one full mile with a level 4 difficulty. I worked it out on the bike throughout my physical therapy and remember pumping my fists in victory when I hit a 10 minute mile, so imagine my surprise when I hit a mile in 4:15!

Jazzed up from setting that new PR, I grabbed a Bosu ball and banged out a few sets of triceps dips, balance push-ups and squats then ended with a nice stretch. That’s when I realized that every little thing I do in addition to my running now is helping to prepare me for this race. I may be worried about taking a day off from running, but while I trained for my last race, I skipped cross training entirely – and paid dearly for it with a torn ACL! Now, I’m smarter. And with every extra rep, squat, and curl, I’m making myself stronger.

As I stretched I stared at my legs and felt an immense wave of gratitude wash over me. Sure, they ache and they’ve given me a lot of trouble in the past 18 months, but I am so thankful for these legs. They’ve come a long way in my 30 years, and I can’t wait to see where they take me next.

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a runner, from top to bottom

And I’m also grateful for my brain – along with those tree trunk legs, the positive thinking I cling to during my training is what’s going to truly get me across that finish line. Sometimes I get a little (okay, a lot) wrapped up in the crazy rabbit hole of negative self-talk and doubt, but all I need to do to silence that is picture myself crossing that finish line with two solid legs and a smile on my face.

So tell me: what are YOU grateful for? What have you gone through to get you where you’re at today? Whether you’re just starting or a seasoned veteran, you’ve got to be thankful for something – let’s share the love!

Change Your World

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After last night’s post about my favorite running store (and my great experience there last week), I have a quick update to share.

In my time at the store during last week’s party, I got to chatting with the fit expert and her co-worker while I was trying on my magical sneakers. One of the managers caught wind of my story and asked me to share it on camera as part of their “Change Your World” video series.

The store has asked people to share their inspirational running stories with the world in the hopes that our journies might inspire someone else to sign up for that ultra marathon, make the leap into their first 5K, or even lace up to start with. I think it’s a great idea but I can’t lie – going from being the girl that used to say I wouldn’t run unless I was being chased to having a running store manager tell me that my story is inspiring is enough to put stars in my eyes.

So, without further ado, I present to you what happens when you give me free green beer and combine my favorite holiday with my favorite hobby, then put me in front of a camera:

I do wish I’d taken the bobble ears off. But other than that, I regret nothing 😉

Give a girl the right shoes…

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…and she can rule the world!

just ask Kelly.

just ask Kelly.

I’m a firm believer in being professionally fitted for sneakers. It’s gotten to the point where I won’t even consider buying running shoes without having a professional help me find just the right kicks for where I am in my training.

Have you ever been to one of these places? I can only speak about my store (Road Runner Sports), but the process is similar everywhere: you meet with an expert who talks to you about your running habits (what are you training for, how many miles do you run a week, pavement or treadmill, paper or plastic, Giants or Jets, etc). They have you run on a treadmill barefoot and film it, then analyze your gait to find you just the right sneaker, all for free.

my papa getting his treadmill time at our last father/daughter fitting

So last week, with the final 5 weeks of my training staring me in the face – and my local store hosting its annual St. Patrick’s Day party! – it was a no brainer that I was heading in for the perfect sneakers to end my training and carry me over the finish of my half marathon at the end of next month!

you know the way to this Irish runner’s heart…

I enjoyed some free green beer in my new “Kiss me I’m a runner” mug while I waited for my turn on the treadmill, and had a good time talking with other runners at the party. I got called up and chatted with my expert about my goals, did my quick filmed jog on the treadmill, and got my “diagnosis”. No big surprises there: I put more weight on my right side to compensate for my left knee and I pronate (my ankles roll out when I run). Also I have SUPER high arches – no lie, at my first fitting the expert called all of his coworkers over to demonstrate how he could slide a pencil between the top & bottom of my foot where my arch completely missed the ground. Which was super confidence-building.

But anyway – it was finally time for my sneaker recommendations! Cue the heavenly music and angels bearing boxes of Sauconys and Nikes as I go into full-on Sex & the City fantasy mode. New Balance, Brooks, Mizuno, Asics, Pearl Izumi – you name it, I tried it on!

Carrie Bradshaw ain’t got nothin’ on me.

This is always my favorite part of the sneaker-buying process: it’s the one time in my life where I truly feel like a celebrity. I sit comfortably and give myself foot rubs and leg massages with the store’s foam roller and sprinter stick while the shoe runner brings out pair after pair of colorful kicks for me to try on. Every time they open up a new box I turn into Cinderella, oohing and aahing over the fun colors and gushing about the different features this shoe offers over the others, just waiting for the perfect fit. I even take a sprint around the store to test out the last 3-4 pairs, finally narrowing it down to my perfect, ultimate pair:

I may love them more than a human child.

I may love them more than a human child.

Brook’s Transcends.

They are *the* best. They cradle my ankle and help my alignment, but give me enough cushioning so that my knees don’t even hurt after 4 hilly miles. I don’t remember runs this smooth even before my knee surgery! I’ve never run in Brooks before, but just under 8 miles into this pair and I can already tell that this is the beginning of a loooong and beautiful relationship.

So tell me about your favorite running shoes! Have you ever been professionally fitted? What’s your perfect pair at the moment? Come on: Let’s get some shoes.

Training Post-ACL Reconstruction

/ Jess / 4 Comments

I used to run through my aches and pains and told myself it made me a tougher runner. It turns out I was injuring myself even more. With each mile I logged, the tiny tears in my left ACL grew and grew, leaving me vulnerable to the nearly-full tear I experienced at Mile 12 of the Atlantic City Half Marathon in October 2012.

The resulting surgery and therapy -and the 9 months off from running while it healed- gave me the chance to work with orthopedists and physical therapists to learn all about my body and how to take care of it. They introduced me to an arsenal of tools to help keep my knee, and the rest of my joints, healthy and happy through the miles:

tools of the trade

disclaimer: I’m not a doctor or expert, but these are all magic.

TENS Unit: This was a gift from the running gods, let me tell you. When I started physical therapy after my surgery, my therapist put the pads on my thigh to stimulate the muscles and basically bring them to life again. I was given my own machine for use at home (thank you, health insurance!!), and was shown how to use it for pain management too. It was magic – there were still the usual post-surgery pains, but I could move around the house a lot easier while the pads were on and “buzzing”. Eventually the TENS became a part of my every day routine – 20 minutes on the bad knee at the end of the day to relax and revive the muscles, with ice & a quick massage. Now, 13 months after the surgery, I still use these puppies on my bad knee after a tough run or long day on my feet – hell, I even use it on my good knee too, to ease the usual overuse pains it’s developed with the extra pressure it had to take on while the bad knee healed. It’s like a little package of magic, and I don’t know what I’d do without it!

Ice: Even on the coldest days, I’ll ice up after a run if I’ve felt any little pinches or pops during my run. It’s a simple way to calm down any inflammation I may have, whether it’s because of a hilly run or a humid day (thanks to the surgery, I’m one of those people whose knees swell in even a tiny bit of humidity).

Glucosamine Chondroitin: AKA Osteo-Bi-Flex or any of the popular Glucosamine tablets you can find in the pharmacy. These are expensive, but I take them every day because I can feel an obvious difference if I don’t! My orthopedist didn’t want to do surgery immediately. Instead, he gave me these pills for 6 weeks, had me do daily strengthening exercises, and let the swelling go down. In my case, surgery turned out to still be necessary, but I’m convinced that these pills (along with the strengthening exercises that I still do to this day) helped me get stronger and made it possible for me to bounce back from surgery as quickly as I did.

Now, here’s the key: these are just tools. They only work if I put in the hard work and *train* with them! Strength training has been a HUGE part of the recovery process for me, as we determined it was the lack of training that got me here in the first place! I neglected to build up my leg muscles and only focused on mileage while I trained for my race, and that (combined with my family history of weak knees) spelled disaster for me at Mile 12.

Now that I know how to take care of and listen to my body, training post-ACL reconstruction is a lot of work, but it’s not impossible. If you’ve had an injury, how do you cope with it in your training? Have you ever used a TENS unit? What are your thoughts on glucosamine? Tell me all about it in the comments!

(Not) Running in Vegas

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Forgive my absence in the past week or so – I spent the first week of March at a big conference in Las Vegas and kind of fell off the grid. I had all intentions of lacing up and setting out for a run on the strip each morning, breathing in the fresh spring air and snapping gorgeous pictures, then ending my day with some blogging from my desk at the Venetian, overlooking the strip while glamorously sipping wine and watching the sun set over the mountains in the distance.

the view

seriously, it would have been great.

But, it turns out that 12+ hour days on my feet left me basically dead to the world when I wasn’t on the expo hall floor. This was a big, stressful event to coordinate (being my company’s event coordinator, I take it pretty seriously), so I ended up focusing much more on the job than myself the entire week. The only “me time” I managed to carve out was in the ridiculously over-sized bathtub in my suite at the end of each day, soaking in hot water to ease the muscles in my aching feet, legs, knees, and back to make the next day bearable.

tao

and also dinner with the team at Tao one night. because, well, TAO.

Long story short, I ended up not running for the entire week. 8 days, to be exact. And I had some serious doubts about being able to pick it back up from where I left off before Vegas, too. Especially with the crazy jet lag I had to work through all day Friday when I got home. Seriously, that stuff is no joke!

I had some major runner doubts. You know them well: those niggling little thoughts that creep up on you and chip away at your confidence as a runner each time they loop through your brain. You’re going to fail at your half marathon next month. All this time off, you’re not even a real runner. You don’t even have the urge to run, clearly you’re a poser. Just go down to the casino and eat your weight in chocolate souffle like you want to, go on.

So imagine my surprise when I woke up yesterday morning and wanted nothing more in the world than to run. Just flat out hit the pavement and breathe in the air and take in the sights of my town at my own leisurely pace as everyone prepared for our annual St. Patrick’s Day parade. And I did exactly that – for over 3 nonstop miles I cruised around my streets and waved at other runners as we passed by each other, so happy to run on streets and sidewalks that were just three days prior covered in 3 inches of unmeltable permafrost.

one happy runner!

The sun felt so nice – too nice for how I dressed actually. I had been dying to try out a new running jacket I got on clearance at RoadRunner Sports last month but it ended up being too hot so I had to wear it around my waist for most of my run! The only thing stopping me from going any farther was my knee, which was still a little angry at me for the crazy torture I had put it through in the past week.

This run ended up being one of my favorite runs in recent memory. Maybe it was the weather, maybe it was all the parade prep going on around me, or maybe in running, just like in love, absence really does make the heart grow fonder. All I know is that runs like yesterday’s remind me why I love running so much, and renew my sense of gratitude for the gift of running.

So how was your weekend run? Did you fight through a few tough miles, soak up the sunshine, take on a new distance, compete in a race? I want to hear all about it, tell me a story in the comments!