Blame it all on my roots.....

**********Just realized today (10/20/14) that I never actually hit PUBLISH on Saturday.  Whoops!  Columbus Nationwide Children's Hospital half-marathon recap to come later today!***********

I showed up in boots....oh wait, we're not on a Garth Brooks fan site.

My work life has been exceptionally busy since my last post. The days were long and exhausting and the last thing I wanted to do when I got home was hop on the computer and write something!  Hers a quick recap of my training........

I SURVIVED

I missed only one long run (my second eleven miler, which was the week after peaking at twelve miles) and a handful of shorter ones here and there towards the end. I missed the short runs because I was getting done at work too late. I don't like running around my neighborhood after dark because only about one quarter of the streets are actually lit!  The Heritage Rail Trail is my go-to spot for running since it's so close but since I don't have a headlamp (and don't plan on getting one) my options become a bit limited once the sun sets. The treadmill and I have an icy relationship, so I try to avoid hanging out with that machine at the gym.  The missed long run was due to my right calf saying "I just wanted to be a jerk one more time!"  I've been stretching and rolling and using The Stick on a regular basis but I definitely didn't do it the week following that 12-miler. And for that, I paid. Got two miles in and realized that my calf was getting worse. So I turned around and went home!

I did find that changing my shoes was actually quite helpful as well. I really liked my Nike Zoom Structure 17+. They were comfortable, colorful, and felt good on my feet. I decided to try on a pair of Nike Lunar Glides when I was at my favorite running store and they were having a sidewalk sale. I'd been seeing and hearing wonderful things about those and the Pegasus and really wanted to try them on. One of the girls working said that for my feet, the Pegasus wouldn't be enough support, so on a whim I grabbed the Lunar Glides from a box under the table marked "Womens Size 7.5". I put them on my feet and actually said out loud "I'm not supposed to like you!!"  Since the Lunar Glides were a return because whoever bought them didn't like them, that meant I got those babies at a nice discount!

Tomorrow is race day, and I'm excited.  I have three goals in mind.  So long as I meet or beat one of those, I will be very pleased with myself!

Make it stop!

Dear legs - particularly calves,

PLEASE STOP BEING WEIRD.  Seriously.

Thanks,

Corinne

Sooooo my calves have been giving me issues almost non-stop since I hopped back on the training bandwagon.  The first two miles are torture.  Usually my left calf is fine after about a quarter of a mile, sometimes more.  But the right one?  It hates me.  That one takes about 2 miles to finally loosen enough that I can comfortably run. 

 Disclaimer - those are not my legs.  I'm not that hairy.

Each week my times have gotten progressively slower on my longer runs as my right calf continues to give me grief, and this past Saturday was no exception.  I felt defeated with that 13:58 average.  Yeah sure it's still a minute faster than high school but I still felt (and feel) terrible about it.  I didn't enjoy that 8-miler.  I was hoping that Monday would be a return to normalcy, with the first two miles being more walking than running and the last two miles being at a good near-tempo.  But oooooh no no NO my right calf had other things in mind.  My splits were awful.  I was nearly one and a half minutes slower than I was during my long run two days before!

Was I over-thinking things?  Stressed out to the point that exercise just was not going to help me at all?  I have no clue.  But I came home after that run and cried.  I was so disappointed in myself.  Normally I have the mentality "A 14-minute mile is the same as a 7-minute mile, all that matters is that you did it!" but I just couldn't get myself to believe that mantra on Monday.  That calf is just causing me so much grief!

I think part of it may be not enough stretching before and after runs.  My right left definitely felt tighter than my left on Monday, which makes sense since that's my dominant side/leg.  I've been looking up all sorts of calf stretches and exercises and am going to try to make it to the gym for vinyasa yoga classes.  I'm looking to set a real PR on October 19th!  I've got six weeks to figure something out.

More training recaps!

I may have to start setting reminders about posting so that I don't forget all the little random thoughts I have!

Monday 8/25 - Four miles.  It was in the high 90s with 100% humidity so I chose to take this one inside at my gym.  I go home for lunch every single day and grabbed everything I would need....except for my running shoes.  I ended up doing 4 miles at a decent pace for me (13:15/mile) on a treadmill in the totally wrong shoes.  My feet hated me!

Wednesday 8/27 - Hill sprints for one mile.  Pretty sure I did not do a full mile.  I had a volleyball game at 7:15 that kind of messed up everything and ended up doing these in front of my gym, where there is a huge hill that's just a monster to climb.  I only ran about 1/4 of the way up the hill because it goes on FOREVER.

Saturday 8/30 - Seven miles.  The weather was slightly cooler than it had been on previous long runs but it was still toasty.  My calves did their usual "hahahaha, you think you're gonna move faster than a snail?!" for the first two miles.  Once I got the kinks worked out and finally got moving, this went better.  Still in the slow poke range but it was officially the farthest I have ever run while training.

Monday 9/1 - 3.5 miles in some really hazy, humid weather.  I decided to try a new route since I had the day off and drove up north about half an hour to start at Olentangy Parklands (plus I could swing by Road Runner on my way back home!).  I used to ride my bike on this trail as a kid and LOVED IT because it was super close to my house.  As an adult, on Labor Day, I was laboring!  Those little bitty hills that take you ten steps to go up?  NO FUN.  But hey I got some salted caramel GU afterwards.

Wednesday 9/3 - Hills for five miles. Again, volleyball game kind of got in the way.  Game was at 9:15.  I have to run Friday AND Saturday this week.  Sooooo I chose to go to Antrim Park (2.75 miles south of Olentangy Parklands) before volleyball.  I was supposed to do one mile easy, two miles uphill, and two miles downhill.  I live in Columbus where such hills don't really exist so I just did five miles that was a nice mixture of up and down.  My legs are feeling it today!  Mostly successful run, but again, those first two miles were nearly the death of me.

I need to figure out what the heck is up with my calves for those first two miles.  EVERY SINGLE RUN starts off like that.  It slows me down immensely.  I end up walking probably 75% of those first couple miles and it just saddens me.  Once the tightness is gone, it's great!  I gain speed and feel good and rarely add walk breaks!  It's just depressing to be SO EXCITED to run and then almost immediately be saying "What have I gotten myself into?!"  I've tried dynamic stretches, compression sleeves (which tend to make it worse sadly), and strengthening exercises while at work but it's not helping.  Next on my list of tricks to try is The Stick.  I got mine a week ago and I'm smitten.  Hoping that helps.  Taking a Good Form Running clinic at FrontRunner in Upper Arlington after work today so also think that may help.  I'll definitely be asking the awesome employees there for any tips and tricks.

I'm not dead!!!!

So....where did I disappear to?  Nowhere really.  I just got busy with life and wasn't doing anything worthwhile around the house to make this little house/DIY blog seem interesting.  My life has seemed rather dull to me and I don't think I'm THAT funny so yeah.  I just never got around to updating anything and here we are, 582 days later, with a brand new update!

In those 582 days, I've run two half marathons, gained an indecent amount of weight despite all that running, stopped and started a bunch of little projects around the house and in my life, and just generally putzed around.  I've painted and re-painted rooms.  I've installed a new faucet and a new garbage disposal.  I've injured myself doing silly things.  I've read a lot of books, watched a lot of movies, gotten rid of cable, become very good at napping, and continue to really suck at cooking.

If you're reading this, you're probably wondering, why the heck are you back?  It's all Salt's fault.  As in, the famous Salt from Run Salt Run, whom I've been following online for quite some time.  Turns out, we even lived in the same apartment complex back in Baltimore, MD for a number of years and never even knew it!  So sometimes I get a little stalker-y on her posts......but thankfully she doesn't hate me for it!  Anywho, Salt aka Lauren, is a really awesome lady, and reading her posts for the past year or so have finally caught up with me.  I've finally been inspired to write about something.  And that something is.....if you haven't figured this out yet just wait for it....RUNNING!

Yes, running.  That sport that sometimes makes you go "what's wrong with that person?!"  I ran two half-marathons in 2013, the Capital City half marathon in May and the Columbus Nationwide Children's Hospital half marathon in October.  Between the two, I enjoyed the Nationwide race a lot more.  I felt it was better organized, I enjoyed the expo so much I went twice, and I really preferred the route and the amount of people I saw out there supporting us crazy runners.  At the Cap City, my time was terrible.  I didn't really prepare that much and just kind of winged it (such a bad bad BAD idea), finishing in a little over three hours.  But hey, I finished it, right?  Wrong.  I was mad at myself for my performance and convinced my mom to pay for my entry into the race in October.  I promised myself I would genuinely train this time around, and I did.....for about six weeks, off and on.  I think my longest run was 5 miles.  Again, BAD idea but this time I was a little more physically fit overall so it wasn't as bad.  Still bad of course.  So even though I shaved 15+ minutes off my finish time, I was still mad at myself.  I KNEW I could run faster than 13:58/mile because when I did actually train, I was running 12-minute miles.  I sat down and thought long and hard about where I'd gone wrong (besides not actually, you know, training).  I realized that my pacing sucked.  I was starting out much too slow and staying too slow.  My form sucked.  My breathing was all wrong.  If I was going to do it again, I was going to do it right.

I started working on my general overall fitness a few weeks later.  I compared the Cap City and the Nationwide runs and decided that I'd prefer to wait for the Nationwide for all the reasons listed above.  I dragged out signing up and waited until the race was at full price AND less than 500 spots available, but I signed up!  I had been training for a couple weeks at that point, so might as well sign up, right?  Sure! 

Well.....then I got horribly sick for two solid weeks.  I couldn't even walk up the stairs to my bedroom without nearly passing out.  So no gym, no running, NOTHING for two weeks.  UGH.  I wanted to crawl under a rock.  The good news is, I got back on track at the tail end of week five of my training plan.  If you're going to miss out on your training for an extended period of time, do it towards the beginning!!!  Sure, my body hated me on that first long run of four miles after two full weeks of no physical activity at all, but I've done worse (obviously) and didn't die.

This means now, you shall be blessed with multiple posts each week, detailing my running adventures, along with whatever else I feel like sharing.  So enjoy!  And hello to any new people!

PS - New blog title ideas are much appreciated :)