Midweek Mashup
Happy Cinco de Mayo! My running week started off yesterday with a four mile run on May the 4th. No Star Wars costume though- as a matter of fact, even this tank top was too hot for me. I’ll be switching over entirely to cropped tanks or just a sports bra until October! Here’s some fun things I’ve come across this week. 1. This Fuel For some reason, during my last couple long runs I’ve been craving a glass of lemonade. It’s not that much of a mystery, given that I’m hot and thirsty, but not sure why lemonade specifically popped into my mind WELL. Yesterday I was on the Gu website, trying to order some cold brew coffee flavored gels, and I found this: On the website it’s described as a more liquid version of their energy gels. It’s two ounces (as opposed to one ounce for a regular gel) and comes in four flavors- coffee, orange, strawberry banana, and lemonade- obviously, I ordered the lemonade. I’m kind of mad I didn’t spring for the express shipping, because I want it for my run this weekend. Oh well… I’ll be eagerly checking the mail and of course I’ll tell you all about it when it comes! I can’t imagine it won’t be good. 2.This Book I’m currently reading Just Like You by Nick Hornby. I picked this up randomly from the library last week, and I’m enjoying it. It’s a light read, but with a couple smart threads running through it. It takes place in London during the Brexit referendum, and it’s interesting to see how the people argued over it. This quote said it all: “Lucy understood it now. The referendum was giving groups of people who didn’t like each other, or at least failed to comprehend each other, an opportunity to fight.” Aha! American politics condensed down to one perfect sentence. 3. This Podcast Running Rogue episode #232, “The Church of the Long Run” talks about how far, how fast, and how often we should be doing long runs. Particularly interesting was the brief discussion about why long runs help us become better runners.- they increase aerobic capacity, neuromuscular coordination (in other words, help us to run more efficiently) and help the body practice switching from using glucose to fat for energy. Nothing earth shattering, but some fun stuff to listen to- I always like Chris McClung. Hope everyone’s week is going well! Anyone celebrating Cinco de Mayo? – We moved our “Taco Tuesday” to today for the occasion.
Weekly Rundown- Glad That’s Over!
Happy May! To begin with, I’m very happy to share that my son Paul will be attending Baylor University in the fall! Baylor has a great music school and a trumpet teacher that he’s excited to work with. Go Bears!!! On a side note, I’m very glad my daughter is only twelve so I have six years before I have to go through that again. Enough said! Let’s move on to the week! It was a cutback week, which meant that all sorts of weird things happened, because that’s how cutback weeks seem to go for me. I’m linking up with Kim and Deborah for this Weekly Rundown. Here it is! Monday Day off, as always. I expected to feel a little sore from my long run the day before, but everything was fine. Tuesday Three mile run, and my legs felt really good. Followed this by upper body strength, focusing on pull-ups. This was the day I came to terms with my relationship to pull-ups, ha ha. Then on Tuesday afternoon I got my second Covid shot. I felt great! Until about 8 pm, when I started to feel awful… I went to bed and tossed and turned all night. I was hot, I was cold, I had to go to the bathroom, I was hungry (what?) I had a headache, my hand hurt (what???) … it was quite a night. Wednesday Obviously, a day off. Knowing I was getting my shot on Tuesday, I kept the possibility open of doing an easy run this day (ha, not quite!) or just resting. I woke up with a horrible headache, took some Tylenol and rested on the couch all day. By bedtime I felt about 80% better and decided to sleep in a little later than normal Thursday morning and see what the day would bring. Thursday Ah! Much better! I decided to do some lower body strength in the morning, including some moves I haven’t done in a while (or possibly, ever) which were recommended on this Strength Running podcast episode. Heel raises, curtsy lunges, some diagnostic exercises to see where you’re weak. It was good stuff. I don’t usually run after work, but I was feeling completely back to normal and didn’t want to go two days in a row without running. It was 88 degrees but so what? I’m a Floridian! I went out for a quick, hot, and satisfying three mile run. Friday Four mile run with some strides at the end. I think you might technically call these “surges,” because with a stride you would rest completely after each one. I incorporated these into the last mile of my run, and jogged slowly between each one until I felt fully recovered. Everything felt GREAT until in the middle of the last stride (surge) I felt a sharp twinge in my left foot. Ah…. seriously? Now what? It wasn’t so bad that I had to stop, and I did a short cooldown run to end with, but I felt it the whole time. I’ve been through so many of these moments with this foot, and I take everything seriously but I also don’t get too hysterical about things because they all pass. I did my somatic movement routine to loosen my calves, feet and low back, and put it out of my mind. Saturday The choice for this day was a short run, or lower body weights. Obviously the run would have won out pleasure-wise, but my foot hurt a bit. Even though I wasn’t planning anything long for Sunday I still wanted to have a nice run, so I skipped this run and did a lower body routine including squats and Runner’s Touch exercise. It felt good to get that done for the week! Sunday Yay!!! Even though it wasn’t a long run I was still happy to get out and do six miles. My foot felt…fine… in the context of my universe. I felt the pain, but it wasn’t sharp. It was the type of pain I’m used to ignoring until it goes away. My legs felt super heavy though. I wanted to blame it on the Covid vaccine, but then I remembered I did squats yesterday. (See this article, “Vaccine Side Effect, or Have You just Been Alive for 40 Years?” ha ha…) Cutback weeks always throw me off somehow. I’ll be glad to get back to normal, and I have a super fun adventure planned for next Sunday! Anyone go to Baylor? Have you been to Waco? – Due to Covid we didn’t get to visit, but have been watching episodes of “Fixer Upper” to catch glimpses of Waco- it looks nice! Anyone else have hot temperatures this week? – We’re fully into summer here.
Countdown to Freedom!
I did it! I got my second Moderna shot! Yes, it made me sick for 24 hours. No, I didn’t care. I took Tylenol and spent the day resting. Now I’m back to normal and looking forward to May 11, which is two weeks after the shot. From that day forward I will be doing this: In short, I’m going to consider myself immune and stop worrying about Covid. Yes, I know I could still get it and die. And I know other people will still get it, and some of them will unfortunately die. But I’ve done my part. I’m going to treat it like any other horrible and extremely unlikely thing that could happen, like being killed in a car accident. That’s a possibility every day and yet I get in my car anyway, taking normal precautions like wearing my seatbelt and not looking at my phone, and I don’t focus on the risk. So May 11th is my “Freedom Day.” Funny thing- when the pharmacist was getting ready to give me the shot he said “I have to be careful- you don’t have much muscle here. I don’t want to hit the bone.” Seriously, dude? I’ve been working out! I wanted to retort “Yeah, well try not to give me Covid Arm like you did last time,” but I suddenly focused on that last part- he could hit the bone? That sounds painful… GAAAH! *teensy prick* At first I though maybe he did it wrong and would have to re-do it, because I felt almost nothing. But nope- it was done! He told me I could take Tylenol OR ibuprofen if I needed to, filled out my card, and sent me on my way. Hooray! I know not everyone has the same experience as me- do you feel like you’ll be able to stop worrying about Covid now, or are you still concerned? I hope everyone who wants to has had the opportunity to get the shot! It feels good, right?
Yes, But Do You REALLY Care?
One day my son was telling a story about something going on with a friend that was concerning him, and my daughter said, “But do you really care?” “Of course I care!” My son said indignantly. My daughter said, “Yes, but you know how sometimes you’re supposed to care about something, and you try to care, but you just can’t make yourself actually care?” Er… yes. I suppose I do know that feeling. Lately I’ve been re-examining my life, with the intent to either filter out the things I don’t really care about, or go all-in on the ones I do. Let’s start with a small one. 1. Unassisted pull-ups. For years now I’ve been talking about how I want to do unassisted pull-ups (even one would be nice.) Sometimes I’ll work at it consistently, sometimes I get frustrated and quit, and sometimes I get distracted and do something else instead. Lately I’ve been doing my assisted pull-ups once a week, while thinking “If I want to eventually be able to do these unassisted, I need to do them more often!” Well, guess what. I don’t really care. If I did, I would be working much harder at it. Vaguely wishing for something, and really putting in the hard work to accomplish it are two different things. I do care about strength training because I know it helps my running, but whether I do unassisted pull-ups or use a band for the rest of my life won’t make that much of a difference to me. 2. Becoming a faster runner. Care! This one falls in the “really care” category. Over the last couple years my running has slowed to a plod. I’m not a naturally fast runner, but if I work at it I can be competitive in my age group. Races are much more fun that way. But another thing that’s been bugging me lately is my form- every time I look at a video (and I’ve been taking videos frequently) I notice some pretty bad things. One of the things I can do for my form is to incorporate some faster paces into my runs. Plus…running fast is just fun. 3. Qualifying for the Boston Marathon This one surprised me. I ran my first marathon in my 20s, and ever since then have dreamed of running Boston. Various things have gotten in the way- kids, injuries… now that I’ve aged up a few times (ahem) the BQ is actually a possibility… and while I would still like to get it, I can’t say that I really care. Don’t get me wrong- I kind of care. I would like to run more marathons, and a BQ will certainly be a time goal at some point. And if I did qualify, and get in, I’m sure I would want to run it (although I have no idea how I would train for Boston, living in the flattest place on the face of this earth.) But once again, vaguely wishing is not the same thing as taking concrete steps towards a goal- i.e. hiring a coach, making a schedule, maybe even making a long-term plan. Since I’m not doing those things I have to admit to myself that I don’t really care. 4. Completing an ultramarathon. Well, here goes. I’ve been fascinated by ultramarathons for years. At one point I had a 50k picked out and was planning to run it. One problem- I had recently gotten married and at the age of 36 was trying to get pregnant. I was getting my period, but it was very erratic and month after month went by with no luck. Finally my biological clock ticked louder than my ultra clock, and I decided to skip the ultra and skip long runs for one month. The next month I got pregnant. The years went by and it started to seem ridiculous to plan for an ultra, when I couldn’t even train for a regular marathon without getting injured. Then I heard the Jason Fitzgerald podcast with Dean Karnazes. Jason asked Dean what advice he had for people wanting to get into ultrarunning, and Dean said “If you have the notion, you have to do it.” Dean and Jason agreed that no one has ever finished an ultra and regretted it- but you will regret it if you never try. So… this one is back in the “really, really care” category. That means doing some research, truly getting to the bottom of my injury problems, and doing whatever needs to be done. Hopefully that won’t involve unassisted pull-ups, or I’ll have to go back and amend point #1. Is there anything you feel like you’re supposed to care about, but don’t really care? Who’s done an ultra? Do you have any desire to do one?