Oh, hi.

I’ve found it REALLY REALLY difficult to get back on track since my miscarriage. I have never really ever hit my stride as far as workout consistency goes (but I bet you like my running puns, huh? DO YOU? stride? track? Bueller?)

Anyway, yeah. I had a miscarriage, got really depressed, and took a raincheck on a lot of things I normally love. I just had no desire or strength to do anything, really.

I painted a little; something sort of modern with triangles and pinks, blues and yellows that I had been planning on painting for the nursery, and a painting of gladiolus. I wanted to do a flower painting sort of in memory of the baby we lost, and the gladiolus is the birthday flower for August. The baby was due August 6. Painting really helped with the pain.

I’m trying to get back into running and it’s really hard. My body is totally rebelling. It got used to sitting on the couch playing videogames and now it just wants Cheez-its. I want my clothes to fit again. Body and I… we’re in negotiations.

I’ve tried to hop on the treadmill, and for like three days, I was sticking with a beginner’s running program. Then I got my period and got really depressed again because.. I wasn’t pregnant. Fast forward to two weeks later, I decide to try the treadmill again, and it’s SO HARD. I couldn’t even run for five minutes. I was SHOCKED. It was so discouraging.

After my two minute attempt, I’m sitting on the couch crying because I’ve gotten so out of shape and my husband realizes he set the incline on the treadmill to like, 4. Of course I couldn’t run for five minutes.

One week later, I hop on, hoping I will be able to run for just five minutes. Nope. Still too hard. I ran for three minutes, a whole quarter of a mile. Woo-hoo.

Tell me this is going to get easier again.

 

 

 

 

 

IT IS SUPER COLD OUTSIDE

It’s been SUPER COLD in the northeast the last few days. Thank God we have the treadmill, or I wouldn’t be doing anything! Gary and I have been trading off time on the treadmill. I am pleased to announce I am now 10.25 / 458 miles on the way to Rivendell. It’s sort of frustrating being so slow, because I really want to get there faster! I would love to log like, 4 miles a day, but I would have to set aside like an hour and a half, and that’s just not in the time budget. Outside, changing speeds when I feel like it, I can run a 15 minute mile, but it’s way different on the treadmill. I’ve been logging more like 19- 20 minute miles, but I think it’s my own fault – I have a tough time gauging what speeds I’m capable of so I just usually hit either 2.5 mph – 3 mph for the walking bits and 4 mph for running. Awesomely enough, 4 mph used to be hard for me when I’d run on the treadmill at work, but now I can push it up to 4.5 comfortably and even 5 miles when I did a ladder workout two weeks ago. I am trying to get used to changing it up based on how I feel.

I bought a new running app – Zombies, Run! I know, I’m a little late to the game, but I really struggle with spending money on ANYTHING for my phone. I found one majorly awesome thing about it and some slightly not-so-awesome things. First, the not-so-awesome – between the bits of dialogue, there is a lot of silence where they play music from your phone. It’s not-so-awesome if you don’t have music on your phone, because then you’ve got like three minutes of complete silence. I wish there was some generic rock music track – I don’t think my old iPhone has enough space on it to put music! I believe I can plug in an iPod to the treadmill to play music, so that might be a good work-around. Also slightly inconvenient: if you’re running on a treadmill, it doesn’t keep track of your distance, even if you set it to count your paces or tell it what speed you’re running. I can enter it manually on the website, but I have to be on a computer to do it – can’t do it on my phone.

Now for the majorly awesome- while I’m listening to the dialogue, I’m not paying any attention to the time ticking slowly by on the treadmill display. I’m not waiting anxiously to see the tenths of a mile tick away slower and slower. I can just run. It’s the first time I can just run and have fun on a treadmill!

I am not sure we are still doing the fitness challenge at work – we were supposed to start a biggest loser challenge. The person organizing it sort of neglected to tell me that the buy-in changed, and one of our co-workers recently experienced an awful tragedy, so I kind of want to put any money I can toward helping them. Although I can see that everyone is making changes, sort of like that one episode of The Office where each branch was competing against the others in a weight-loss challenge… people are eating healthier, working out more… it’s unnatural.

I’m starting another six-week challenge on Nerd Fitness. My goals are: BE MORE CONSISTENT, STAY HYDRATED, WALK/RUN TO MORDOR, and FINISH WINTER PROJECTS. More on this to follow.

Duo Workouts!

Gary and I have been taking a lot of time to get our house together. So far, we’ve made some minor changes around the house; new locks, new faucet, new bathroom light etc, and we’re getting the hang of the trash & recycling schedule, which I equate with being awesome at home ownership… although we don’t actually have a ladder, so the gutters are full of leaves. Gutters: “OM NOM NOM LEAVES”

We’ve painted some swatches on the walls to see how we like them. We haven’t gotten much farther than that.

There are several areas of the house that have become the depository for stuff we don’t know what to do with yet. The living room, kitchen & bathroom look pretty good (I think this is because we spend the most time in these rooms so we’re more anxious to make them look the way we want. Also, laziness.)

Last Monday I went for a run… before work. Yes, I went for a MORNING RUN. This is totally not my style, but now I live close enough to work that I can go for a quick run an hour before work and not be late!

I also ran on Sunday, which was my 30th birthday. Other than that, I haven’t run since my 5K. I took it easy on Sunday with a 1 min run/1 min walk for about twenty minutes. I drove down to the canal to run because it was flat and I wouldn’t encounter cars. While walking down my driveway I see a runner actually running on my road. I can’t tell if she’s insane or awesome. It does make me feel better about possibly running on the road. Also, she was wearing all black, which I know is crazy. My mom bought me hi-vis gloves for my birthday, so I know I’ll be better off then Maybe-Crazy-Running-Lady. I also chased a deer down the canal on my birthday run, which is my favorite thing that’s ever happened on a run so far.

We set up our weights and workout machines in the den in the basement and tonight we got a chance to come downstairs and work out together. I’m trying to incorporate more strength training into my routine for the winter with barbells and dumbells. Gary switched back and forth between the stationary bike and elliptical. I hopped on the elliptical first but could only muster about 3 minutes. Seriously, that thing separates the kittens from the cats. (our gender-neutral version of that one about the men and the boys, being separated and whatnot.)

Running but not Blogging

Things have been a little hectic lately. My father-in-law is in the hospital, so we’re anxiously awaiting news everyday. Waiting and worrying are exhausting. Last night, I got home, Skyped with my friend Claire, played some videogames, ate dinner, and was in bed (no joke) by like 7 PM. and I’m still exhausted this morning. 

I have been sticking with the running portions of the plan I’ve been using – Running on Tuesday/Thursday & then long runs on the weekend. Last weekend it was just too hot to run two miles, so my husband and I walked it. Better than nothing! The cross-training days are sort of not my priority right now – I just don’t have the energy, and there are too many other projects! 

“What kind of other projects?” You might be asking. So the very first 5K I ever ran was last October, the Seaside 5K in Ocean City, MD. It’s a 10 mile & 5K race, and since it’s so close to Halloween, they encourage you to wear costumes. Last year, I wore a Miskatonic University T-Shirt (the fictional university created by H.P. Lovecraft, a pretty famous horror writer, who if you’ve never heard of him, you’re dead to me. Just kidding! But seriously, love him.) This year, I want to wear a costume. I signed up with Lauren, the same friend who ran the race with me last time. She might do the 10 mile but I am sticking with the 5K… and so is my husband! Gary signed up to do the 5K race with me! And now I begin to plan the costumes…. I have a few ideas, it just depends on how into it everyone else is. I’m also trying to convince my Aunt Kara to run with us. My parents are also coming for the weekend (just like last time) so we’ll all hang out at the beach and get fries and doughnuts after the race and relax. Now… do I want to be Princess Leia or a Rockford Peach?

I am also doing The Color Run next Saturday! I have heard that there are so many people, you can’t really run, so I’m not really training for anything. I’m going with my friend Kim and her sister, and we are The Rainbow Sprites! We’re making tutus this Sunday. I’m kind of really excited about it. Maybe I’m more excited about the tutu than the run itself. Must remember to pack a change of clothes, or a tarp for the car. 

Slow Start to Juneathon

My husband and I are on a mini-vacation this week. We went to a bed and breakfast in Maryland and spent a lot of time relaxing! Our first B&B, by the way, and we were the only ones there because it was so early in the season. We had the whole place to ourselves! I highly recommend this place: The Mansion Inn in Snow Hill, MD. It’s beautiful and quiet and they really make you feel like you’re guests in their home. As soon as we got there, they offered us a drink from their piano bar- we were allowed to borrow bikes and kayaks. We went for a ten mile bike ride on Friday- mostly flat terrain but some tougher sections! Beautiful scenery, cruising right alongside the bay. Yesterday was the only day we got any sunshine, so we took it as an opportunity to jump in… I mean slowly ease into the cold water of the bay. Then we went to my cousin’s graduation party and spent some time at my aunt’s.

Today I had planned to run for my first day of Juneathon, but didn’t have time between visiting family and driving home. This morning we walked around quite a bit at a flea market and then at the zoo. I did a quick yoga session when we got home, so Juneathon: Day 1 is done! Not as strong or aggressive a start as I’d have liked, but there’s always tomorrow for the run.

Running in Memorial Day Heat

I went out for a mid-morning run yesterday because we had the day off for Memorial day. I slept in longer than normal because we got home late from a fun light-show at a mansion in New York: Lightscapes! (Pictures at the bottom).

As soon as I walked out the door, I felt a wave of heat… at 10:30 in the morning… and I suddenly dreaded the oncoming summer. I was not built for heat. I’m not sure how long I will last! I ran my tried and true speed intervals, 2 minutes walking or jogging, 30 seconds hard running. Towards the end of the workout, in the fifth and sixth interval, I really noticed my 30 seconds dragging down under race pace. I did a mile in 15:11 and had to head home because I was going to pass out. I got home and just laid down on the floor. My face was on fire! I really want to keep pushing myself but the heat isn’t making it very easy – it wasn’t this hot last summer, was it?

I would say I could save intervals for the treadmill, but there’s no air conditioning in the gym (genius!), so I think I’m going to have to plan my runs for either much earlier or much later in the day.

I’m hoping to get my speed interval miles down into the 14 min/mile range soon. I was hoping my regular miles would be down into the 15-16 min/mile range but they’re still up in the 17 min/mile range, and I flop back and forth between being ok with that and not being ok with that. Sometimes I feel so unhappy with my lack of progress that I wonder why I ever became a runner and maybe I should just quit, and then I go back and think, well, I like running, and at least I’m getting out there and doing something. Hmph. Of course, as soon as I post this, I’ll go out for a really great run and I’ll feel dumb for writing this sad trombone post. (Waaaah waaah…..)

I am going to run again tonight, maybe a slower run. I don’t typically go out for more than a half hour on a weekday because there’s so much going on, but maybe I should try to run for longer.

Hey, I finished my crunch challenge – they got a lot easier as the days went on, but I’m not sure how useful they are in the long run. I am about halfway through my squat challenge – today was 105 squats. I split them up into 3 sets of 40, 30, and 35 squats.

and now, Lightscapes:

   

 

 

The Story of Bug

This is the story of Bug, who ate four feet of yarn on Thursday and ruined everyone’s Easter weekend. Bug is our nickname for our cat, Zooey. She is lucky she’s adorable and fluffy and semi-sweet because otherwise, I’d kill her.

She did eat yarn on Thursday. Quite a bit of yarn, in fact. About four feet. How in the world did she fit it all in that little furry body? The stupidity of our pets when it comes to eating inanimate objects will never cease to amaze me.

I had been planning a hike with my friend Carrie on Saturday, so I stayed home all Friday and monitored the Bug to see if she’d either puke it up or poop it out. Apologies in advance, because I know that medical stuff kind of grosses people out (not me so much, obviously) but I won’t get too detailed with the gross bits – if you’re not interested in reading about our adventures in the animal digestive tract, skip to the next post to read about my hike (and subsequent tick bite and trip to the emergency room!)

So obviously some of the yarn didn’t fit in there because she puked up about five inches of yarn on Saturday (while I was eating lunch with my friend after our hike). My husband took her to the vet and they did an x-ray. Thankfully, they didn’t see any obstruction (obstructions caused by strings and ribbons and yarn are called a linear foreign body). The doc said she didn’t see anything concerning at all on the x-ray, but they could tell she had poop inside her (isn’t that interesting? you can see poop on an x-ray), so they gave her some fluids and a high-fiber diet to try to push it all out. I rushed home, found some gloves, and started going through her litter box. Yes, it’s icky, but I had to check in her poop for yarn to track how much came out. I found two six inch lengths of yarn in the litter box on Saturday. We were supposed to go to my in-laws for Easter dinner, but I wanted to stay with Bug just in case she threw up again (which she did… no yarn though) or in case she pooped yarn and it got stuck on the way out (which has happened before).  So I stayed with her all day on Sunday, and I took a half day on Monday, because she just … she wasn’t herself, and hadn’t pooped in two days & it seemed like a long time. It was probably just because she’d thrown up so much and didn’t have a lot in her stomach. Finally on Monday morning… we had poop with yarn in it! 30 inches of yarn. 30 INCHES OF YARN. She feels much better now and is totally back to her old tricks. and we have learned another lesson about how crafty our cat is, because that yarn was inside a drawer in the bedroom, and I can’t be sure that she didn’t open it herself.

What does this have to do with running? Well, this is the reason I didn’t go running all weekend. I actually put my squat challenge on hold as well, just because I was really so worried about the cat. I have been keeping up with the handstand challenge, and I am almost able to do a 45-second plank!

 

Running Timelessly

I have definitely gotten my money’s worth out of my AAA membership this year (and my husband’s) because I wound up on the side of the road with a flat tire on my way home from book club tonight. Ugh. The auto shop where they towed my car is within walking distance of my house, so I figured they’d fix it up in the morning and I could be on my way to work. Not quite – they opened at 7:30, couldn’t check my car out until 10:30, and I didn’t get my car back until the afternoon, because I didn’t know the car was ready until a few hours after it was done; the shop called my husband at work to tell him the car was ready, instead of my cell phone, even though I told them to call me and not him. Come on, guys. Get it together.

So I didn’t run today because I wanted to be home when they called that my car was ready. I did paint my nails and catch up on some reading, woohoo. I feel kind of annoyed that I had to take a day off from work and I couldn’t enjoy it because I was sitting around here waiting for a phone call that wasn’t coming. GRR.

I did get to enjoy the weather when I walked over to the shop to pick up my car, then I headed straight to the pharmacy to pick up my allergy medication because I had gone a few days without it, and my sinuses were going to explode. Allergies are evil.  Mainly, I’m allergic to cats, which is hopelessly ironic because I’ve been surrounded by cats my whole life – I grew up with two cats, and we’ve had our Zooey for about 4 years now. I was working at an animal hospital about two years ago, and when I quit there and started a new job sans animals, it was like someone flicked a switch and suddenly: incredible sinus pain and pressure, runny nose, sneezing every fifteen minutes, itchy red eyes, that awful itchy sharp feeling inside my nose that makes me want to punch myself in the face. Went straight home, feeling cranky. Drowsiness is a side effect of the allergy meds, and it hit me in full force – I napped until my husband got home from the gym with dinner. I ate my salad and sandwich and sort of lazed about until 8:30 when I decided to go running.

It was full dark but I was going to stick to the sidewalks in my complex, and for being damn close to Trenton, it’s really not a bad area. I decided to try this Timeless Challenge, no plan, just run based on feel, walk breaks when I need them, you know. It was the first time I ever ran at night and it was kind of awesome. It’s so quiet and beautiful outside – even the grass seemed greener in the lamplight. and the weather was so fantastic. Barely a chill. I made it a short run because, although my allergy symptoms are just about gone now, the sinuses were still acting up and I was getting sort of halfway between lightheaded and headache-y.

I didn’t pay attention to my watch for the first bit of my run, and it did seem like I ran better. I was able to focus more on what was going on in my own head.  I ran freely with the wind in my hair. *brushes hair out of eyes and keeps running* Walk breaks were just long enough to recover some energy and give me the oomph for my next burst of speed. Somehow I need to hide my watch somewhere other than my wrist because I am too tempted to keep checking it, and it is just too distracting. I need to like, wrap it around the strap of my sports bra or something. Hey, that’s not a bad idea.

5K this weekend!

 

Couch to 5K, Week 6 – all done!

I was planning to run the day after my slow recovery run. I try to mix up the runs so I don’t do the same thing twice in a row – intervals and higher intensity runs are once a week, just like long runs. I round out the week with a few runs of whatever is next in the Couch to 5K. I had already done the speed intervals earlier in the week so it was time for another C25K run – 22 minutes, no walking. so… another long, slow run. So much for mixing it up!

I didn’t do the whole five minute warmup walk – I totally forgot. I was walking around, waiting for my GPS watch to find me in the world, and then it chirped that it was ready! and I was so excited that I hit start and ran. So around minute 11 when the bottom of my foot started to hurt, I figured my poor warmup might be to blame… also I’ve sort of fallen behind with my foot stretches. I paused for a little bit to stretch and then picked it up again. I’m surprised at how easy the run was overall. I ran at a comfortably hard pace – a little faster than my normal “slow run” pace, so it didn’t seem too easy at the time but within a few minutes of finishing, I had my breath back and my legs weren’t sore.  According to my GPS watch, my pace was similar to other Couch to 5K runs. Well, this is good news at least – I can keep up my normal pace on a longer run.

I think I’m going to start going out for much longer runs soon – I am looking forward to coming home and saying, “I ran three miles today!”. Having warmer weather won’t hurt, either! The rest of the C25K is all long runs, and I admit that I will miss the running/walking a little. I’ll probably be done with the whole thing before May . Oh dear, what will I do then?

and on the nutrition front: I’ve been using the MyFitnessPal app for iPhone, and I like it much better than the computer version. It’s so much faster and I like that it can add your food just by taking a picture of the UPC code. It’s been sort of helping me figure out my meals this week. It’s a little scary to realize how many calories are in some of our meals – like, we think we’re doing so good but when I actually calculate it… yikes! At the suggestion of a friend, I tried Yoplait Greek yogurt and am totally hooked.  I’m trying to eat salad and drink water every day sort of as diet filler but it’s taking some getting used to. Another friend suggested meals based on lima beans… sorry, but I don’t think I can go that far. When I was a kid, my parents never made me eat any vegetables that they didn’t like, so I was never forced to eat lima beans. (Thanks, Mom!)

So what’s your favorite veggie? For me, it’s green beans – I could seriously eat them with dinner every night.  Least favorite veggie? Out of the ones I’ll actually eat, it’s broccoli. Broccoli and me, we’re working on our relationship, but it’s not easy.

When You Can’t Find the Words

My husband has told me I am spending too much time online.

About 15% of the time I spend starting at my computer screen is what I would consider unnecessary – reading about celebrities and drama or cute kittens and puppies, stuff that really doesn’t matter to me in the long run. Wait, who am I kidding? Cute kittens and puppies always matter. Drama, not so much. I should leave that to TNT.

The rest of my online time breaks down like this:

Scrolling through Facebook & Twitter timelines to see what’s going on in the lives of people I don’t talk to regularly & sharing my witty observations with the world, or gently stalking cool people I don’t actually know & trying to figure out how to comment so they’ll think I’m cool too: 15%.

Awesome Stuff: Youtube vlogs, Vlogbrothers, Tumblr, learning interesting things about science & culture, reading articles by people who are saying important cultural and economic things: 20%.

Half my time is spent doing something running-related. Probably more than half my time, actually. When I get back from a run, I immediately load up the info from my Forerunner and then spend a lot of time analyzing and wondering why I’m not faster and why I can’t run for longer than half an hour without really bringing my average speed way down, and thinking that maybe it’s because I get bored too quickly running in circles at my apartment complex or maybe I’m not training right or maybe I’m training too much or not enough, but wait, there’s kind of been some progress since I started tracking everything, MAYBE IF I SQUINT, so I shouldn’t feel too bad because at least the miles are piling up. Lots of analysis. and maybe a little self doubt. And then I go straight to the blogosphere to catch up on what other people are doing and be in awe of their abilities and then feel a little bad for not being able to run faster or longer and then I say, “Screw that, I’m awesome.” and then I go to write a blog while my run is still fresh in my mind, my mind which is clearer thanks to my run.

Then I sit there.

and stare at the screen.

The New Post page with the empty white box.

My head is bombarded with thousands of words and feelings, and I spend the majority of my internet time trying to filter through all the words and put them in some kind of order that makes sense while trying to ignore the distractions of TV and noise and people trying to talk to me and the rage I feel when the phone rings and concentration is ripped away from me. The words I want are floating just above me, and I don’t know why it’s so hard to pin down the right ones.

So my husband, feeling ignored, has challenged me to write a five minute blog every day. It usually takes me over an hour to write, research, erase, rewrite, & publish what amounts to less than one 8 1/2″ x 11″ page of blog, which is kind of crazy, because I’m not here to win any awards.

Discounting this post (which took me over two hours to write), let’s try this five minute blog thing.