Archive | Crazy People Training (A.K.A. Marathon Training) RSS feed for this section

Taking It Easy

29 May

I’ve been doing a lot of ‘taking it easy’ since the marathon. I’ve been  sleeping in, staying up late, eating cupcakes and drinking whatever I want to drink without worrying about how much it will hydrate me.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcake from Sweet Traditions in Winter Park. OMG.

It’s been nice fantastical.

But nonetheless, I’m getting restless. And there’s that issue where I recently split my pants. I took this as a direct sign from God that my ‘taking it easy’ time is over, and I need to start sweating stat.

But, of course, I need to ease in, and not push my IT band too much, or I’ll digress in my progress. By progress, I mean that I was able to go both up and down the stairs like a normal person at work today. Except for that little hop skip at the end where I decided that bending my leg was no fun. I’m going to miss my pirate peg leg.

Yesterday around noon I jumped on my stationary cycle and rode for 40 minutes. I chose to do a ‘random’ workout, which changes the level of intensity on me every couple of minutes. I almost punched the bike in the face a couple of times, coincidently when it went up to level 9.

I was able to ignore how much time I would be on the bad intervals or see that I had a bad interval coming up because my screen was blocked:

Say “hello” to my little friend.

That little buddy is my Nook. I finally finished up Bringing Up Bebe (Good: I learned a lot, but sometimes that doesn’t equate to being a page turner), and moved on to Gregor the Overlander (now this is a page turner). Around this time the rain started to fall hard around me and I couldn’t help but think I would rather be curled up on the couch reading this book. And then a level 9 interval kicked in, and I cursed. I like the Nook because it rests easily on my reading ledge and even though it has a touch screen, I can also opt to press the page over buttons to the side of the screen. This comes in handy when you’re as sweaty as I was yesterday.

And just like that, I was done:

3 warm-up + 40 min of random intervals + 3 cool-down

I headed into the kitchen, had a light lunch, waited for it to digest, then headed back out to the Florida room for workout #2: yoga. I picked this 73-minute class because it focused on the hamstrings. I think it worked because I was sore this morning!

This morning I woke up early and did a 30-minute random interval ride. Things were a bit rougher because I was a little (ahem) saddle sore. I had to keep readjusting to redistribute the pain.

3 min warm-up + 30 min random intervals + 3 min cool-down

After I jumped off the bike I could tell that my IT band was a little agitated. So I did a quick core workout then spent about 20 minutes  stretching every part of my legs.

It felt good to sweat.

Here’s the rest of my work-out for the week (sadly there’s no running included):

  • WED: Strength (hips/glutes) followed by a good long stretch and some brutal rolling of the legs
  • THU: Ride for 30 minutes on the ol’ stationary bike followed by strength (arms)
  • FRI: Easy yoga or rest (depending on how Happy Hour goes Thursday night)
  • SAT/SUN: Get one good yoga sesh in

With my training schedule I didn’t really plan many workouts because I am always so wiped from all of the running. This will be a nice change to have to plan ahead. Let’s see how well I do at sticking to the plan!

Do you plan your workouts out in advance? How well do you stick to the plan?

Tags: , , , ,

Post-Run (or Just Anytime) Poses

24 May

The Lululemon blog recently posted these great five post-run poses for running recovery:

Source

Check out the post for the how-to specifics. I can’t wait to do these stretches on my quest to heal my IT band. My doc suggested I work on stretching all of my leg muscles, not just my IT band. These poses seem to cover the hole gamut!

On a related note, I did my first exercise last night since the marathon that broke me I survived two and a half weeks ago. I busted out the ol’ stationary bike and did 40 minutes of easy riding while I caught up on my latest issue of Women’s Health. Then I moved on to this short 26-minute yoga practice. It felt so good to be moving! As for balancing, I couldn’t balance for the life of me. I looked like a drunk sailor trying to do yoga. I blame it on the IT band.

I miss running. I wonder if it misses me.

Tags: ,

Shiny New Running Outfit

2 May

There are only four days until the Flying Pig Marathon and my emotions are everywhere. One minute I’m excited, and the other I’m so nervous because of this IT band issue. Excited is currently winning out and I think it’s because of this:

My new Lululemon marathon top

Yuppers, I got myself the Lululemon no limits tank in hot, hot pink for marathon day. I ran my first marathon in a no limits tank (in a different color) and had absolutely zero issues with chafing or the shirt riding up so I think I’m safe running in the same top without having actually taken it for a long test run. I will, however, wash the shirt so I don’t bleed hot pink (though that may be cool). I think the color is perfect for Flying Pig, don’t you think?

A couple of weeks ago I got the crops in the photo. They are the run: a marathon crop, also from Lululemon. I’ve done a couple of runs in them (one long run and one short) and they were great: the bottoms of the legs didn’t ride up and the top is higher wasted and didn’t ride down. And they passed the very-important-for-all-tights-bend-over test (when I bend over the pant does NOT get transparent). Perfect!

On a side note, it will be toasty on Sunday:

Expected weather for 2012 Flying Pig Marathon

However, I can’t run in shorts. My lovely Spanish thighs engulf shorts and I end up chafing and pulling my shorts down all run. So that’s why I’m usually in tights (unless it’s my Lululemon running skirt that I can use for anything shorter than 10 miles). It’s a good thing that my shirt opens up on the sides for some fresh air. 🙂

Yesterday I read this post by Meghann of Meals and Miles and it made me chuckle. I am in complete agreement with her when she wrote “I’m a big believer that a big race deserves a new outfit, sorta like a big date requires a new dress – am I wrong?” Nope, not wrong at all.

If you’re running your first half or full marathon, I would recommend you buy your new outfit a month before your race and wear it during a shorter long run. If it passes the test (no chafing, riding up, etc.) then wear it for your longest run. It’s amazing how a few miles can alter the wear of your running outfit. For example, I have a singlet that I wore in different colors for all three of my half marathons without any problems. However, when I wore one of them for an 18-mile run, I was surprised to see severe chafing on the inside of my arms. It was so bad I was bleeding! Needless to say, those are now restricted to runs 13 miles or shorter.

I consider this running outfit quite the splurge, but I’ve worked hard the last four months (and seven months before that training for Disney) and I like that I’m at a place where I can reward my hard work with a splurge like this. In my future I’ll have kids and a home to worry about and these days will be long gone. I’ll enjoy it while I can!

What do you do for your race-day running attire? 


Yesterday morning I went for a 3-mile walk with Emily, one of my group leaders. She’s running Flying Pig with me so it was nice to catch up and do some race day strategizing. Afterwards I rushed home to start my day with some yoga. I took it easy with this Yoga Vibes class, focusing on the outer hip and IT band.

Four days until the Flying Pig Marathon!

Tags: , , , , ,

Dance Marathon

29 Apr

Saturday morning I ran ten miles. According to my right IT band, that was about four miles too many.

I woke up at the awful hour of 4:30 AM, tossed on my running clothes and headed to the kitchen for a quick pre-run breakfast. Due to a lack of planning, here’s what I ended up with:

The Real Breakfast of Champions

Breakfast pretty much went like this: one bite of banana followed with a lick of peanut butter from a spoon and repeat. I learned this nasty (yet delicious) habit from my gluten-sensitive boyfriend, who gave up bread late last year. The fortune cookie was not a part of my breakfast, rather it was remnants of my pre-run dinner, chicken lo mein.

Our group was extra small this week (there were only three of us). We took off on a 10-mile loop.

Less than five miles into the run, I started to feel that familiar IT band nagging me. Around mile six I tightened the straps on my knee (I had two IT straps on one leg). That surprisingly relieved the pain for a mile or two. I managed to make it the entire 10 miles, but not without wondering how in the world I could do another 16.2 miles like that.

Here are the stats from our run:

  • Distance: 10 miles
  • Time: 02:10:13
  • Avg Pace: 13:01/mile

I’m going to stick to strength training and yoga for taper this week and rest my leg. I’m also going to ice my leg three times a day, and foam roll my legs and hips twice a day. In fact, I’m icing as I type. My leg is mighty chilly.

Healing feels like a full-time job sometimes. Let’s hope this does the trick, or I may have to reconsider switching to the half marathon, which I really don’t want to do.

Last week a friend sent me a link to the video below. Not long afterwards, I tried to dance walk across 17-92 on our way to get coffee. However, I stopped when my co-workers shunned me. I’m now considering dance walking (or running) all 26.2 miles of the Flying Pig Marathon.

Tags: , , ,

A Letter to My IT Band

29 Apr

Dear IT Band,

I ask you to please quit playing games with my heart. One day (Thursday) we’re all buddy buddy and I think we’re getting along just fine and we might just have a beautiful friendship after all and then two days later (Saturday) you’re being a bitch again.

I prefer the good ol’ days when we used to run the streets in glee. When together we would conquer our mileage, one step at a time. The days when we would skip off into the sunset laughing. Where did those days go? How do we go back to that?

I hope that we can work out whatever it is that is causing this tension between us. I miss us.

Best Regards,

Hemarie

Tags: ,

Running and Squats and Stretches… Oh My!

24 Apr

After some thought, and talking it out with the people around me (or them coaxing it out of me), I think there are two major things that could be contributing to my IT band problems in my left leg:

  • Need new shoes
  • Lack of strength training

Recently I did get new shoes, but since my current NB Minimus shoes were still feeling good, I decided to wait until after the marathon to switch over to the new pair. I’m not sure that I have any good reasoning beyond that… as I honestly don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe I was afraid that since the new pair was a slightly different style (the new ones are the trail version while my old ones are the road version) I could injure myself switching so close to Flying Pig. And when I say the old pair were still feeling good, what I mean is that it usually takes me a while to realize that the pain I’m suffering from might just mean it’s time for new shoes. Here I was worried about hurting myself with the new shoes when I’m hurting with the current shoes!

So this morning I tossed on the new shoes:

I also wore long tights and a long sleeved shirt… and gloves. Yes, gloves. That’s right… my body no longer remembers living in New York and I’m officially a Florida girl that wears long sleeves and gloves when the weather drops to this (in April in Florida nonetheless):

The run went well. There were only three of us this morning and we ran four miles at an easy pace. While I felt the familiar twinge of my IT band in my right leg, it wasn’t so bad that I was in pain or limping for that matter.

Here are the stats for this AM’s run:

  • Distance: 4.06 miles
  • Time: 50:21.45
  • Avg Pace: 12:24/mile

Afterwards I came home and addressed problem #2: lack of strength training. I think I dropped my minimalist strength training plan that was working so well when I started up with yoga, thinking that was working the same muscles in a similar fashion and could just substitute yoga in. I think I was wrong, and need to be doing both, so back to squats, lunges, planks and push-ups I went! I tossed in some one-legged squats for good measure and finished up with some serious stretching of these hips of mine.

By the way, did you know you could download the Maxwell squeal on Geico’s website? Oh yeah. I totally just downloaded it.

Off I go to get my Tuesday on. Only 12 more days until the Flying Pig Marathon! Wee wee weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

Tags: , , , , ,

Gettin’ My Run/Yoga On

21 Apr

Sweatin’ pretty… I’ve been doing a lot of it lately. Special thanks to this lovely summer-time Florida weather and a big shout out to yoga.

Yesterday I woke up just before the sun rose to set up for yoga in our Florida room. It was dark, and perfect for getting focused.

Don’t worry, the sun rose in time for all the good stuff.

I was feeling great and super focused… until the wonderful aroma of brewing coffee wafted towards me. After that, all I could think about was getting my hands on a cup of joe. Mental note: Ask my boo to hold off on the coffee brewing until I’m done.

This morning I woke up late, so breakfast was just a banana and some peanut butter. I walked outside and was happy to see that it hadn’t started to rain like my weather app was forecasting. In fact, it never did rain. But the day has looked pretty ominous, like we’re on the verge of a storm.

My first run back started off well. It was muggy, but a good breeze kept us from being too hot.

Around mile seven I felt that good ol’ familiar IT band twinge in my right knee, so decided to run back to the car before running became painful. One of my group leaders, Sue, was out riding her bike as support so she rode it in with me.

Sue was riding her bike because she’s running a 12-hour ultra tonight. You gotta love her. To me, she has the perfect combination of wit, smartass, intelligence and crazy. Yes… crazy. You have to be crazy to want to run 12 hours through the night. Occasionally I have crazy moments where I tell Sue I’ll run an ultra with her one day. One day I hope that crazy sticks long enough for me to actually do it.

After the run we had some breakfast then me and fellow runner Erica headed off to meet up with Carolina from Peas in a Blog, who invited me to a donation-only yoga class being offered on Rollins campus by the Rollins Yoga Club. They were raising money for Water Project, a non-profit organization that builds wells and provides clean water to under-privileged villages. Full Circle Yoga instructor Rob Hefele led the outdoor class.

I loved yoga on the grass. It was perfect with Earth Day being tomorrow.

Nature's Yoga Studio

Yoga outdoors

Rob moved us through a series of positions and moves that kept my muscles guessing and stretching. The flow was faster than I’m generally used to, but loved it! And every time we would love over our shoulder to the “back of the class” this is what we saw:

Rollins Campus

Beautiful!

Technically, for the first half of the class we saw the Rollins lacrosse team pulling weights and doing sprints and such, but they eventually cleared the field for a more peaceful experience.

Note to self – when doing yoga outside please remember the following:

  • A towel to lay yoga mat on so that it doesn’t get too wet if the grass is dewy.
  • Don’t take shoes off until you are stepped fully on the mat. Otherwise you will have to wipe your feet off with your dirty socks because you forgot a towel too.

After winning a spa raffle (what??? I never win anything) and a jaunt down Park Ave. back to our cars, I was ready for a shower. Freshly clean and belly full, I’ve spent the last several hours icing and compressing my poor leg.

On my next run, I’m going to run with my new NB Minimus shoes. What if all of this is just a sign that I should’ve already done the switch, rather than waiting until after Flying Pig Marathon? Eek!

In Sue’s words, “Won’t you feel stupid if you went through all this pain and you just needed new shoes?” Why yes, Sue, yes I would. Let’s hope that’s the problem and I’m back to running strong in no time. 🙂

Do you have any special plans for Earth Day tomorrow?

It crept up on me again this year and it’s going to be rainy all day. I’m blank on ideas.

Tags: , , ,

Testing the Waters

18 Apr

Okay, so I know that I said that I wasn’t going to do any running this week in efforts of healing my IT band, but I couldn’t stop myself from taking the ol’ legs out for a test spin Monday night.

I was riding my yoga high when Donnie came home from work and said that he was going to run one mile. Yes, that’s correct. ONE mile. He is currently coming back from an almost-stress fracture in his foot and is starting on his long road back to recovery … one quarter of a mile at a time.

Wanting to be the ever supportive girlfriend and feeling good from my yoga, I volunteered to go with him. I brought along our pug, Tank to make sure we didn’t go further than that. Pugs aren’t exactly runners, but this one is always looking to run some laps in.

We didn’t run far, and my legs were feeling tip top. However, I’m going to stick to my plan and do yoga instead of my run tomorrow just to make sure. And it looked like we wore Tank out. He was napping soon after we returned.

Yesterday morning, I woke up and did another yoga class from YogaVibes.com in the Yoga for Runners series. This time I took the class appropriately named Yoga for Runners. Like the day before, I set up shop in the Florida room and it was perfect. Our Florida room has two of the four walls covered with windows so you almost feel like you’re outside. And as I was doing my breathing, the sun was rising and the birds were chirping. It was amazing.

I went to work feeling completely relaxed. At one point we had a meeting where my boss brought up something that normally gets me stirred up. But yesterday I just sat and smiled and said “I did yoga this morning. You’re not going to get me riled up today. ” Ha!

How’s your week going so far?

Tags: , ,

Online Yoga

16 Apr

Since I had to recently alter my Flying Pig Marathon training plan and take a week off from running in order to do some healing on my IT band, I decided to fill my run time with yoga. Particularly yoga that focuses on stretching my hips and IT band.

After a quick “best online yoga videos” search, I came across this article on Livestrong.com. The ‘yoga for athletes’ series on YogaVibes.com caught my eye and I went to check it out. After seeing that they have a free 15-day trial, I realized how perfect this would be for me. With only 20 days left before my 2nd marathon, this would be perfect to tie me over.

And if I don’t cancel my membership at the end of 15 days, I will start being charged $20 per month. That’s not too shabby considering I’m currently paying $15 per class. This would allow me to do more than one yoga class each week!

This afternoon I opted for a 72-minute outer hip and IT band focused vinyasa flow class in the Yoga for Athletes series. It was just what I needed!

I took my computer out to our Florida room and set it on a small table a couple of feet ahead of my yoga mat.

Here’s a screenshot of what the video looked like full screen:

Outer Hip and IT Band class from Sage Rountree's Yoga for Athletes Series on YogaVibes.com

The teacher, Sage Rountree, was great! I liked that she was a runner that started yoga for it’s benefits to long distance runners. She did a great job of explaining and showing poses and a couple of times she corrected posture for someone in the class and I realized I needed to correct my posture too. It almost felt like I was in the room with them!

My hips and IT band feel amazing and I’m currently ridin’ that yoga high.

As the days progress, I’ll let you know how I enjoy additional classes in the Yoga for Athletes series.

Have you ever taken an online yoga class? Which one? How did you like it (or not)?

Tags: , , ,

Making Decisions

14 Apr

When training for a marathon (or half) you come across a lot of decisions you have to make. Sometimes there’s the small decisions like “What should I eat for dinner the night before a long training run?” or “Which flavor energy gel should I buy?” Then there’s the bigger decisions … the ones that can make or break your race day run.

Currently I’m dealing with the latter.

After last week’s failed 20-mile run, I knew I might be in trouble. Usually when my IT band starts hurting towards the end of a long run, I’m okay after some ice and a few hours. But this was “I just ran a marathon” pain, yet I had only run 12 miles. It hurt to walk on the beach the next day. It hurt to roll and stretch my right leg. It just hurt.

Tuesday morning I woke up for a 4-mile run in the morning. The first thing I did was stretch and immediately knew I wasn’t ready. I texted my group and went back to bed.

Wednesday night I went to yoga for a Hatha class. It felt like my instructor knew what I needed, and every muscle in my legs and hips were stretched. I felt amazing!

Thursday I woke up for a morning run and again stretched. I thought I was ready, and met my group for a 5-mile run. Three miles in, I felt that old familiar twinge and as we were nearing our ending point (a conveniently chosen Starbucks), I started to feel sharp pain. If you’re wondering why I didn’t walk it in as soon as I felt any pain, it’s because I was on a schedule. Not only did I have to go into work early that day, but I also had to pick up bagels for a friend’s birthday. If I walked it in, I would be late.

As that run was ending, I knew a second attempt at running 20 miles wasn’t going to happen today. I made the hard decision of skipping this morning’s training run.

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard the advice “It’s better to run undertrained and injury-free on race day than trained and injured,” and how many more times I’ve actually told fellow runners that.   Oh, how that’s easier said than done.

Not unfamiliar to IT band issues (I’ve blogged about my pains here and here and here and here and here), I know two things:

  1. The irritation might not go away before my marathon. It’s only three weeks away.
  2. But if I’m diligent with my icing, Advil-taking, stretching, rolling and strength training, I may delay the IT band irritation and limit how many miles I run in pain.

So I’ve made two decisions:

  1. No running for one week. That means I didn’t run this morning, and Tuesday and Thursday are out as well. I will do yoga, stretch, roll and strength train in it’s place.  On Saturday I may join my group for a short run.
  2. I am still running the Flying Pig Marathon!

Mind over matter. Who cares if I can’t run today? Who cares that my longest run this training season was just over 18 miles and it will have been over a month before race day?

I can let myself (easily) go down a road of self doubt or I can focus on the positive. I choose the latter. Before my right IT band acted up I had two great runs!

And I hope it makes all the difference on race day. Weeeeeeeeeeee!

Have you gone into a race undertrained and healthy and/or trained and injured? Tell me about your experience in the comments.

I could stand to be reassured that I’m not alone. 😉

Tags: , , ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →