Sunday Sweats (on Monday) #1

If I put my weekly training recap up on Monday, can they still be Sunday Sweats ? I say yes, since it's my blog and I do what I want !

Richmond Training - Week 1

This week was my first official week of Richmond Half Marathon training.  Because, um...oops.  I decided to do a half.  Blame Alyssa.

Twenty-Nine

I turned 29 years old on Saturday.  For the first time in 4 years, I was able to travel home and spend my actual day of birth with my family and friends in the house and town I grew up in.  My heart is just so full from this weekend.

Rock N Roll Raleigh - Race Recap

Spring Race Countown

I've been absent from the blogging world for some time but I wanted to make sure I came back for Training for Tuesday !

The Richmond Recap

As I started writing this post, I'm curled up on my couch in my Richmond Finisher's blanket, with my humidifier and hot tea, in the middle of a "Friends" marathon.  Because apparently the cold from hell decided to rear its ugly head and I am currently unable to breathe through my nose.  However, I'm proud to report that I ran and finished the Richmond Half Marathon this weekend.

I'm Not Ready

I woke up on Tuesday with a sore throat and body aches. I left work early, holed myself up on the couch and binge watched Friends.  For the past 3 days, I have loaded up on Vitamin C & E, drowned myself in hot tea and honey and soup and Coldeeze.  It's Thursday, and while I don't feel worse, I don't feel like I could run a half marathon. I have a doctors appointment today because of course I have a cold or strep or the plague something.

My thoughts over the past few days:

Training Linkup: The Richmond Edition

In case you didn't get enough training talk yesterday, here's some more !

I need to be a Time Lord

I haven't written a post in HOW MANY DAYS !??! Jesus, where the hell is the time going ?! Someone get me a Tardis so I can go back and update this more often. I could have sworn I only wrote a post the other day and it wasn't THAT long ago. Le sigh. Well, since it's been forever and a day, how about some updates, yes ?

I'm Only Doing this for Donuts

I was not about to let another Training for Tuesday pass me by without getting on board !

Weekending - My Legs Hurt

I've come to the conclusion that if I could just pretend the weekdays don't happen, that I would be a much happier person.  Since that's not really an option, and I'm forced into adult responsibility and mandatory socialization, I'll just relive this past weekend to make myself feel better over my severe case of the Mondays.

World's Okayest Runner

Today marks 52 days until the Richmond Half Marathon.  It seems like a good time for a training update considering I've updated this a total of, um, zero times...

After attempting to create my own training plan after extensive google searching, my resident super runner/Fleet Feet Training program coordinator/favorite human in the whole world helped combine the 3 calendars I had into one super awesome training program...AKA he threw them out and made one that worked for me. 

(Yes, he knows I took this and that this would end up here eventually)

The general idea was that during the week I would train for time (Run for 35 min, Cross Train for 25 min, you get the idea) and that on the weekend for my long runs, I could focus on distance.  Without boring you with the sordid details of the affect of humidity on my lungs this summer, I can honestly say that my training got started last week.

Which means I really don't have too much time to start getting my miles up.  Right now I can do 5 miles for my long runs no problem.  Except I should be doing anywhere from 8-10.  I'm working on being okay with this and just focusing on doing what I need to do to make sure I'm smart and uninjured and progressing and not dying.

My biggest struggle at the moment is knowing the difference between pushing through pain to get to the next milestone and when to be smart enough to stop.  Currently I keep erring on the side of smart.  On Saturday I had this plan to do a run I've wanted to do since I laced up my shoes again: Run from my apartment to my second home favorite coffee shop, Cup A Joe.  It's 7 miles.  I was excited, I was ready, and I had it all planned out.  That whole week the weather had been phenomenal, I was running (and BREATHING!) better, I was doing hill repeats and running faster than I had been since I started trying to train in August.   Of course on this lovely Saturday that I had been looking forward to for what seemed like forever, the heat came back - FAST. Realizing I had started my adventure too late in the day, I cut my 7 mile run to 3.6 miles.

Tonight I plan on doing a 30 minute run just to get my legs moving again.  They've been hating me rather seriously since Saturday but I think I finally got all the knots out of my calves. Also, in order to avoid freaking myself out, I'm focusing on getting myself in good shape to run a 10 miler on October 24th.  Which based on where I am now, seems 100% completely accomplish-able (is that even a word ?) 

Until the next update, here's a picture of the newest addition to my running shoe family:

ALSO ! I'm looking for some fun running related apparel either to wear during training or a race or just when I'm being lazy in sweatpants.  

What are your favorite running shirts ?

I'm Not Dead

Hi. Remember me ? I'm not dead [yet]. I just tend to fall off the face of social media for an extended amount of time. Especially one that requires thought and planning and effort and it's not that I don't love you guys but honestly

Story of my life for the past 2 months. Which I feel SUPER bad about and will probably apologize for over the next million blog posts.

Especially when the creation of this blog was to track my progress for a certain half marathon that, oh yeah, I KILLED in 2:14:14.

So would it be okay that even though I haven't been around in almost 2 months, I got a little braggy ? I mean, you do come here to read about me, right ?

Oh good.  Want some pictures ? Of course you do. And I just happen to have some right here:

(Finish line pic - Sweatband dude is my FAVORITE)

(YAY for this guy. I'd probably be dead if it wasn't for him)

(Let's talk about the unnecessarily GIANT finishers medal, shall we ?!)

And you'll never guess who I ran into (no not literally, she was TOTALLY done before me) ?! The super awesome Tracy !

It was one of those fun moments of "Hey ! I'm so excited to actually meet you and I smell and you're here with your family and I'm awkward and I really want coffee but high fives for awesomeness and I'm gonna go die now, kbye !" I only hope that one day I can run a sub 2:00 half like this girl. Damn !

THEN, I ran the Santa Paws 5K which was my first ever 5K last year. The course was in a different place than last year, I got lazy and hadn't run since the half and holy hills batman did that course hurt. But I still PR-ed with a 29:01 !

(Again, This guy ? Best. Ever.)

And lastly...I ran my first Turkey Trot 8K on Thanksgiving. That however, was not a fun run for me as my lungs have decided to suck A LOT. I still managed to do it in 51:58 but I walked WAY more than I wanted to.  Shout out to Big Mike for running and walking with me the whole time while I was pretty sure I was dying. [Asthma that has been dormant for about 15 years has decided to rear its ugly head again in the form of exercise induced asthma.  Currently on a steroid inhaler to kickstart my lungs so cross your fingers they stop sucking - metaphorically of course - and breathing becomes not so brutal.]

Otherwise I've just been relaxing and having awesome adventures (pictures to come once I get them all off my phone, obviously): Front row seats to a Hurricanes hockey game, fun trips to the zoo, Dracula the ballet, and lots of other fun things. I can honestly say for the first time in a VERY long time, I am so insanely happy with my life. Now if I could just get a job that doesn't make me grumpy...

What does the future have in store ? Once I can get my breathing under control, I plan on training for a TBD spring half marathon. Only this time ? NO WALKING. Now that I know I can complete one, I want to run the whole thing. And I also want to nail some PR's in the process.

I guess the only thing left is...are you guys going to hang out and see how it all unfolds ?!

Insanity.

There is no excuse for my absence other than I simply haven't been able to make blogging a priority. I just need you to know that I thought about you everyday. I didn't forget about you.  I hope you didn't forget about me !

Mostly my training has been going phenomenal with some setbacks here and there. I'm currently panicking as I realize how close my 10 miler is and then the week after that is my first ever half marathon.  Um, give me a minute, I'm freaking out again.

I need to get back to my insane work schedule, but I just wanted to make sure you knew you were still loved.  I do have some fun blog posts planned (just be patient with me) like:

• Why I became a runner
• Where I see myself in 5 years
• Obsessions (including Netflix binges !)
• Anything you've been dying to know about me :)

Until then, please enjoy a random assortment of shirts I need from lookhuman.com.  You know, for when I have infinite monies and all. 

And my two favorites (because reasons for those of you who know me)

I hope everyone has an awesome week !

It's Training Time !

If you couldn't tell from my hiatus last week, Life happened (as it tends to do) so blogging fell to a lower priority than normal.  Hopefully you didn't miss me and my crazy too much !

My head is constantly in 15 different places and usually those places aren't where I need to be at the time.  Go figure.  I left/went back into my apartment 3 times this morning because I would grab something and leave something else and have to go back and grab that.  Monday's and I are just not friends.  Add to that the fact that I will do anything and everything to procrastinate getting to work: I drag my feet at the coffee shop, check my phone a million times, find people to talk to - anything ! and I'm just as surprised as you are that I actually GET to work. So I give myself a pep talk in the car on the drive to work and I come in all ready to go and then...people.  I hate my job because the higher ups make my job WAY harder than it needs to be and completely ignore me when I tell them this or give them suggestions to fix it.  Le Sigh.

Oh well.  Such is life and it pays the bills for now.  Just needed to get that off my chest before diving into fun updates about half marathon training !

After an obnoxious phone call last week, I'm more determined than ever about my half marathon.  Not that I wasn't before, but hearing that I can't or won't finish this half marathon or the assumption that I keep joking about "actually doing this", my focus kicked into overdrive and I'm more pumped and determined than ever.  And yes, all of the work I've been doing has been so I could run a half marathon, but it's that time where I look at City of Oaks being 12 weeks away and having a very real goal with an end in sight.  That being said, last week was my first official week of half-marathon training !

Normally all of my runs are around 3 miles because honestly I've never pushed myself out of my comfort zone to try and run more for fear of not being able to do it and also for fear of hurting myself.  Last Monday I challenged myself to run the whole 3 miles-no walking.  I've been doing run-walk intervals to keep an eye on my IT bands and also because the weather was torture and I didn't want to die.  Now that the weather is no longer a suffocating blanket of humidity and my lungs can actually breathe air without being on fire, I decided why not ?!  I totally did a victory dance when I got back to my car. Not only did I run the whole time, but I was pretty consistent ! 

(The cabbage patch happened.  Not even gonna lie.)

I cross trained on Wednesday, went back to interval training on Thursday, and had my PT on Friday. I was thinking about doing my long run on Satursday, but I usually try not to run on the same day I go see Jessica and she works on my legs, because when she worked on them after the Raleigh's Finest 5K, I could barely walk (let alone run) for 4 days.  Which meant that Sunday was my first long run ! My "coach" had me run for 45 minutes and I decided on 4:1 intervals so my brain could process the math easier.  

May I present to you, for the first time since I wiped the slate clean back in June, my first official long run:

Makeover & New Goals !

As if you couldn't already tell my blog underwent an AMAZING makeover.  The biggest thanks in the world to Natalie over at Revel And Design. You wouldn't be looking at the awesomeness you see before you without her.

That being said, I'm going to work on updating some things this week and making this EVEN BETTER !  I've been reading some things in other blogs and also hearing it from people directly about putting yourself in a niche with your blog.

So I'll be working on making this a little more well-rounded.  I think it's important to include more than just my training plan and accomplishments because I think everything will just get real old, real fast.  Mostly because I've realized that training for the half marathon is intertwined in my life a lot more than I let on.  I'll give you a minute to digest the fact that you will actually get to know me a little more than just how slow/fast I ran on any given day.

Are you still with me ? Good. For now I'm going to stick to what I've been doing until I can get enough things set up, pictures together, ideas formulated and executed, etc.

Now that you know my goals for ole bloggy here, let's talk about my running goals. First, a little recap from the past 2 days:

Sunday:
Time: 35:12.7
Dist: 3.50 mi
Avg. Pace: 10:04/mi
(Creative Loop around my apartment)

Monday:
Time: 30:12.0
Dist: 3.04 mi
Avg. Pace: 9:56/mi
(Hibernian run-less hilly route I found)

These times are INCLUDING walk breaks. So I started looking at my runs and my average pace and attempted to do math.  When that didn't work, I used the internet, and confirmed that I run about a 10:00/mi.  My goal for the City of Oaks Half Marathon is a 9:00/mi.  I have 4 months. That's more math that my brain doesn't feel like doing, but it seems like I can make it a reality. I just have to push myself and focus.  And to do that, I made myself a little bet.

Tonight I'm going to run 3.5 miles.  If my average pace comes out below 9:56, then I'm going to run a 5K on Saturday to give myself a timed race.  If I don't average below 9:56, then I'll keep working and look for one again in a week or two.  I still plan on signing up for Raleigh's Finest 5K in July, but I want to have little races here and there to track my progress in a way.  I just really want a starting point, a place to go "Okay, this is where I started, where I need to push from and what I can compare myself to at the end." I feel like this is the best way to get over all the negative energy in my head and start focusing on not comparing myself to other runners.  Cross your fingers for me ! I'll be following the advice of RuPaul, "Good luck ! And...

Thank you for reading !

Get Set...

IT'S OFFICIAL ! 

Today, I signed up for the Raleigh City Of Oaks Half Marathon.

How I seem on the outside to everyone :

Internally and to a few people who have the misfortune privilege of knowing the real me:

Please excuse me while I try and keep myself from freaking out at the fact that I only have 4 months to be super awesome train.  Also, I need to figure out how to harness this in order to run faster.

Normal posts will resume tomorrow.  I hope everyone had a great weekend !

Labels

I've been thinking a lot about when a "runner" becomes a runner. For those of you who don't know, I'm a philosopher (not just at heart, I actually have my BA in Philosophy) and plan on being a college professor when I decide to grow up,

(Yes, I just did this. And I spelled it right without spell check. Self-five.)

so I spend a lot of time thinking about things. Remind me not to blog when I spiral into my existential crisis moments...they're not pretty.  But I digress.

The reason I bring up philosophy is because last night a comment was made and I'm still laughing over it.  "We discovered a waterfall ! It didn't exist until then !" Granted, it was said to get a laugh out of me but it seems kind of relevant to what I've been thinking about lately.

I always have and probably always will refer to myself as a dancer.  I started at age 4 and only stopped 5 years ago because I decided not to pursue it professionally.  It's how I explain why I stand differently and sit down differently and why it takes effort for me to stick my butt out when doing squats.  Usually when I say "It's because I'm a dancer," it just makes sense.  So it's very weird to me that people have started calling me a runner.  I think in the past 2 weeks I've heard, "Oh, are you a runner ?" so many times and I don't know what to say !  I usually respond with, "I'm a beginner" or "Oh, I guess, but I haven't been doing it that long" or "Oh, I've only run a 5K".  I then usually feel compelled to tell them that I'm training for a half marathon and it just gets awkward.

I consider most, if not all my friends "runners". I mean experienced runners too, with a laundry list of amazing accomplishments.  Then there's me. NO WAY would I call myself a runner around them because I honestly feel so inferior to them, it's ridiculous. Okay, that sounds really dumb to say, but it's the truth.  So I started thinking about why I consider them "runners" and why I'm off in some lable-less limbo waiting for something to happen so I can say "Yeah, I'm a runner."

I don't like to think about runners in terms of how many miles they've ran or how long they've been running.  There are so many different levels of experience but just because someone has been running for 5 years versus 10 years doesn't mean one is a runner and one isn't. Also, running is a form of exercise, and you can absolutely run without being what I classify in my head as a "runner".  Which is why I always seem a little iffy about calling myself a runner.  Does that make sense ?

Let's start simple.  They've got all the gear.  I can't tell you how many conversations I've listened to about compression socks & shorts, singlets, K Tape, foam rollers, gels and shoes.  And the laundry. Meghan made a comment one day about how she has "normal clothes" and "running clothes" and how often she does laundry.  I guess I kinda laughed about that this morning when I had to make a new drawer for my running clothes when I was putting laundry away.  I get a little obsessive about making sure I separate my shorts and shirts and tanks and socks from my normal clothes so it's easier to find when I need them...well okay, so I fall into that category.  I mean, I just made a post Monday about all the fun goodies I got. Not to mention how many times I mention rolling with The Stick. Alright, alright...

In my mind a runner is someone who has a running goal.  There's a point to getting up everyday and lacing up your shoes and putting one foot in front of the other.  I hear people talk constantly about their next race or time goal or PR they're look at.  And they have this because they've already run a race so they have something to compare it to. Okay, okay, I get that I can fall into this category because I ran a 5K and I want to run one in July and run it in under 29 min and ideally I would love to run my half in November in around 2 hours.  Well, moving on.

I think the biggest thing for me is that a runner is someone who doesn't give up and just keeps pushing and pushing to reach that goal.  To see all my friends out there day in and day out prepping themselves for Rock N Roll or Boston or all these other races just inspires me.  I hear all their stories and see their progress and I keep pushing myself constantly so that I can get better and run faster and longer and cross the finish line at City of Oaks and feel like all my work paid off. Um...

Guys ? I think I'm a runner.

I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't call myself a runner after looking at those reasons and definitions.  Yes, there is still a part of me that feels like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop so that I can have some sort of validation.  I may not be a seasoned runner like everyone I can't seem to stop comparing myself to (I'll work on it, I swear) but I think the only way I'm going to get there is if I start realizing that I'm already the very thing I've been trying to become.

[EDIT: I almost didn't publish this. I honestly almost hit delete. But I think it's important.]

I realize this one went kind of long and a little personal, so thanks for bearing with me and thanks for reading !