I'm Baaaack!

So after 1-1/2 yrs approx. I am back on this blog. For the lone one or two people that might have been reading - HI! Hope all is well!   For all my friends - you never even knew I HAD this blog lol. Welcome!

To pick up from late August of 2009 . . . I continued to run after seeing an ART therapist. Fixed myself up for the most part and ran my first marathon in October 2010. Loved it. Had a recurring pain after that point that I could not seem to shake. Took a big break - 3 months to be exact. Went back to my guy . . . he told me to stop being a dumbass - I did NOT have an injury, I just had weak glute muscles - "get in the gym!" he said. Damn!! Couldn't I please, pretty please, have an injury??

That was January 2011 . . . it is now April. Ask me how many times I went to the gym? How many squats I have done? How many lunges? Hmmm . . . I'm hearing silence. That's right!  a big fat 0 - zero, nada, not a one! So do I still have the pain you ask? I can hear your surprise right now when I say: "Why YES! I do have that pain. Isn't that great!??"  I just spent 3 MORE months procrastinating . . . Well, that is over.

It all starts with today. Today I start eating properly (more to come on that - that's a biggy for most people to wrap their heads around). Today I do a body scan that will tell me more than I ever wanted to know about my body composition and more (like my mirror isn't good enough??) So over the next couple of days I will come up with a plan for my muscles. Hmpf . . .

The best part is that I won't be doing it alone. I have a whole posse following along with me . . . right ladies?!? I know you want to . . . come on . . . deep down . . .

One more week down

I ran 20km thru the trails on Saturday a.m. Felt ok, nothing great, nothing awful. But later . . . wow I was beat. My legs were not too happy with me. Sore Sunday and Monday too. But I also had baseball Friday night and Sunday night, so sprinting the bases might have helped out with that. . .

I had decided to run Tuesday morning, just a little run to get things moving again. But when the time came for me to get up - I kept coming up with reasons why I couldn't. First of all the sun is coming up later again which means at 6 a.m. it still is not light out. So I feel like I can't run that early because it's "dark" and I'm going to get attacked. Oh come on! What am I - crazy!? For those that know me - don't answer that! It was rhetorical. Another reason is that I must need the rest since I didn't get up right away - my body was telling me something. (Nope, that was just my lazy brain trying to trick me.) Another reason is that I needed to wake the hubby up to make sure he didn't miss the train to work . . . uhmmm nope, I'd be home in enough time.

In the end I got my butt out of bed and went for a 4 km run. 6:15 a.m. sun was just coming up and it was definitely light enough outside. I decided even 6 a.m. would be light enough. So I don't have that excuse for right now. But I still wonder how I'm going to run when it's dark out. I guess the issue is that I'm alone. Lots of times in the winter I've run at night, but always with other people.

Wednesday - no run.

Thursday - 6:30 a.m. run - 4 km again. I'd like to go longer and probably should be going longer but getting up early seems to be a problem right now. Maybe I just really do need a rest. I have been using this as a "rest" week. Lighter mileage then going to ramp back up next week.

25km race is October 3. So trying to figure out how these last 4 weeks of training should go. Boggles the mind all the options.

Tonight I'm doing 12km minimum. See how I'm feeling. I'm doing it alone - my running partner is out of town. I want to check out a few trails leading off our regular loop, so we'll see how much extra that tacks on.

Rest tomorrow and then run Sunday.

Have a good weekend all!

Definitely a problem

Blogging is not natural for me . . . luckily I don't have to worry about others waiting for me to post things - ahahaha!

Maybe one day . . .

So just briefly - everything seems to be going smoothly - knock on wood. Friday night finished an 18km training run on the trails. My IT band feels good. Stretching and icing (when I remember) just to be safe. Bought "The Stick", use it regularly, like it. Still want to go for a full sports massage soon, sometime in September. Body is really tight - hamstrings and calves tight, tight, tight.

No time to continue today . . . at work and they seem to want me to do work here? go figure.

So maybe I'm not so good at this after all . . .

It's been a month basically. Writing a blog seems to be a hard habit for me to start.

I've been injured for 2 weeks.  Not a running injury per se . . . but a softball injury to my FOOT! Which makes it a little difficult to run. Decided to use my foot instead of glove to stop the ball . . . not always the best decision.

So I haven't run in 2 weeks. I did a 4 km "fast walk" on Saturday, foot was pretty sore later that day so I decided to rest it a little more. I ran for the first time last night - 3km. I felt like I was lumbering, heavy, no rhythm. It was weird. But my cardio felt fine. Foot seems ok.  A little sore in the arch today but nothing major.  I have softball tomorrow night and a 5km race on Sunday a.m.

I'm going to tape up my foot. I checked out a few websites and for now, have decided that's the best way to go. I'll test it out tonight and see how much tape I can waste trying to get it to feel right.

And  .  . .  using my glove only for stopping and catching the ball. Really need to think before I do things sometimes. The goal is to have fun not get hurt!

Hopefully I'll remember to keep you up to date!

6 a.m. comes waaayyy too early!

Well, I was scheduled to run this a.m. but when I woke up I realized there was no way I was getting out of bed. Man, was I tired. I hate having to work . . . If I didn't have to go to work, I'd be able to run at a normal time of the morning like say 8 or 9 a.m. or whenever I wanted!

I think not being able to get up this a.m. was a result of not sleeping AT ALL on Saturday night. Major case of insomnia . . . after my race at 6:30 that night. Wondered if it had anything to do with the race?? I went to bed at midnight, tossed and turned, got up around 2 a.m. and caught up on shows on my PVR for almost 4 hours. Decided I should try and sleep . . . that lasted for about 1 hour. Got up, got coffee, went down to cheer on my fellow runners during the Mississauga Marathon. Napped a couple times during the day for an hour each.

Weird eh?! 

Oh well . . . I'll still be running at 6:00  . . . it will just be P.M. not A.M.

I love racing

Ok so it wasn't the distance I originally intended to do . . . but it was a PB.

I was scheduled to do the Mississauga Half Marathon but due to IT band injury that doesn't seem to want to go away, I dropped down to the 10km. I was a little disappointed originally but got over that. Decided I would do my best but not to the point of hurting myself. There was no point in healing my injury, dropping down to the 10km and then pushing so hard that I re-injured myself.

The worst part of the Mississauga 10km is the first 3ish kms of hills, so I wanted to make sure I took my time on those, so I kept it slower. By the 5km mat/time I realized I was behind my intended time and was going to have to push it for the 2nd half. So push it I did. I ran hard, I took no breaks  . . . only slowed down through one water station for a few gulps, was going along at a great pace and then we hit the penninsula . . . narrow path that fits 2-3 people max and I got stuck. Arrgghh . . . it was frustrating. I couldn't get around for 3/4's of this path. So then once I did, I hit the ground even harder trying to make up for lost time. Not the best move, even as I was doing it, I kept telling myself - take it easy, leave something for the end . . . So as I rounded the little "bay" and headed towards the finish I was pushing really, really hard. Kept checking my garmin knowing I had only 1-2 minutes and I would miss my goal of under 1 hour.

For the first time ever in a race, I actually felt like I assume one would feel if they had to puke from exertion. I have never gone that hard. I now know what that feels like. I did drop my pace just a little because I was afraid I wouldn't make the finish which was only a few hundred metres away at this point.

And before I knew it I had crossed the finish line - garmin read 59:40. Woohoo! Slowed down, caught my breath and did a mental systems check - all good. Felt good, stretched a bit while I waited for my friend. It was a good race. 

We didn't bother to wait around in the line up for food. Figured we would stop at Tim's since that's where we were parked. The walk to the van was good. Legs felt good. Much better than trying to walk that long walk after the half marathon - lol.

So when I got home and checked my chip time on line, I found out it was actually 59:16. Very happy with this time. And as always, my thoughts are . . . . wonder how much faster I'll do my next 10km . . . "when there's no hills" or "when I'm fully healed" or "when I've trained properly", etc, etc.

I'm sure we all do that . . .

Oops

So . . . I seem to have been gone for quite some time . . .

Still running, still doing laser therapy - in fact I think I'm cured (for now).

Went to appointment last night and the left IT band is all good. The right one is a little sore but no pain unless it's being pushed on.