Starting over

It seems like I've been plagued with injuries all year.  My mileage has suffered greatly and so has my motivation and health in general.  I've been having some issues with my Achilles tendon being really stiff and causing me some pain and with that lack of running my cardio has suffered.  When the achilles was finally starting to feel better I started to add some mileage back. I had the naive notion that I'd still be able to go out and run the mileage I had before without much difficulty.  Boy was I wrong.  It's hard not to feel discouraged when you look back at being able to run 13 miles with no problem to not being able to run 3 without walking a little.  I'm learning to cut myself some slack.  If I push myself too hard to get back to where I was before I'll just end up injured again and the rest of my running goals would have to wait.  Now, I'm trying to be patient with my recovery and my health so I can stay healthy and reach all of those goals.  I want to run a full marathon in 2013, which means that I need to slowly start building my mileage back up.  The one that I want to run is not until September of 2013 so I do have some time to get my body ready.  The best part is that I have a boyfriend that is supportive of my health goals and that will continue to motivate and encourage me to work toward them.

So, I'm starting over.  I'm not going to worry about what has come before now, I'm only going to focus on where I'm going and what I need to do to get there. I'll get there.

First long run of the year

I haven't done many group runs since I started running, partly because there weren't that many close to me and partly because I was worried that I would slow the group down.  The answer to that?  Sole Sports opened up a store at 59th and Union Hills that is 10 minutes from my house, door to door.  I've been to two of them so far.  The first one on December 24th, where there were just two of us plus the group run leader.  Today it was just myself and the run leader.  On the 24th I was self conscious because I hadn't put in many miles since my Half Marathon so I knew my pace would be slow, but the group didn't seem to mind.  They were very incouraging, even though my pace was just over 11 minutes per mile.  I kept begging them to leave me behind, because we all knew that at the pace they were capable of running they would catch up with me on the way back, not to mention pass me. They wouldn't.  I hesitated going back to run with them again, but this morning dragged myself from my warm bed and headed over to the store.  I was at first concerned because I didn't see anyone in the store so thought they had already left, but nope, there was Jeff coming up from the back of the store.  I think we were both happy to see eachother since both of us really wanted to run this morning. (If no one had shown up, he would have had to stay at the store and not been able to go running)  The first mile was 10:45 and I asked him to keep me right about there since I wanted to improve on my last long run.  Apparently my legs had other ideas, because Jeff said that I controlled the pace keeping us at 10:30 and under finishing the last two miles in 10:20 and 10:18.  What a great run!  I learned a lot about the new guy from Sole Sports, and I learned that with proper nutrition and a consistent training plan I'm capable of more than I thought.  Can't wait for the next one. :)

Happy Running!

New opportunities

So I think I'm finally over the back to back sinus infections and the IT band / knee issues.  At least I hope I am.  I've been eating better lately, cutting back on soda and started a weight loss challenge on www.active.com   My arms are still store from yesterdays workout and all it was was 2X 10 pushups, sit ups, shoulder presses, front shoulder press, bird dogs, and planks.  I guess that means I've got some work to do.  My run tonight was good as well.  I had a meal replacement smoothy for dinner with some added protein and that really held me over for the run.  I of course followed my run with some Accelerade.  I've got big plans coming up involving my health as well as my running since the two pretty much go hand in hand.  Sevrine and I are running a 5k on the 18th as well as the Midnight Madness 3 miler on New Year's Eve.  I love my kid!  How awesome is it that a 6 year old is actually excited to go run a race with me at midnight!?  Her big goal is that she wants to run the Disney Princess Half Marathon together.  I told her though that I wouldn't let her run it until she turned twelve.  Such a fun goal to have though!  Well, off to bed!  Happy Running!

11/11/11 - A good day to start fresh

Very few people know that 11 is my lucky number, or rather, my lucky number twice. :)  So, what better day to start fresh with my training and set some new goals than the one day that is nothing but my lucky number, and also happens to be Veteran's Day, another day that is special to me and my family.

As you know from my previous post that I am learning more about VO2 Max training and using my heart rate as a training indicator. From what I'm reading, I'm really intrigued, and very anxious to see how it will work and if I'll have similar results as others that swear by Daniels' Running Formula.

I plan on running today using his theory, but will not start the plan until Monday.  I know that it will be a challenge to run at a slower pace than I'm used to since I am so time/pace driven, but need to give the plan a shot.  It wants you to start at that slower pace to build a good base for more improvement later.  I think it also has something to do with burning fat and sugar. With the pace that I've been training at lately I'm burning more sugar than fat and will fatigue faster than if I were training my body to burn fat.  So, starting out slow will help me to be able to run longer and eventually as I improve that pace will come up without pushing me into that sugar burning level.  At least that's my understanding of it.  I may need more clarification or perhaps the cliff's notes version. :)

I will try and post my progress here, but we all know I get side-tracked and frequently forget to update this.  Happy Running!

Still learning

I completed my second Half Marathon on Sunday after recovering only 3 weeks ago from Bronchitis.  Needless to say, my performance was not what I was hoping for, but under the circumstances was better than I could have asked for.  My game plan was to try and stay with the 2:15 pace group for as long as I could and hope that I could still beat my original finish time of 2:27:51.  At the 9 mile mark my legs started to give me some real problems and I tried to stretch as best I could and keep going.  This was when I finially lost the pace group.  I only fell off my pace by about 40 seconds per mile.  It felt so much slower than it was strangely.  My legs after the race went into full rebellion and completely stiffened up with my right knee giving me some real problems.  It is still tender.  I haven't run since the race, but I did swim a few laps in the gym pool last night.  The legs are feeling a little better today, but I'm not sure if they're good enough to run on.  I will have to see how I feel in the morning. 

I had a good conversation with a fellow athlete at the gym about VO2 training which has me thinking and curious enough to by the book Flash recommended by Jack Daniels.  It's something to keep me busy while I'm letting my knee heal, and so far has some really interesting information.  I plan to start training using my Heart Rate Monitor to try and build some endurance before I start trying to increase speed again.  From what I've read, this will prevent me from over-training and the injuries that come with it.

I'll try and update this more often so I can document the progress.  Happy Running!

Half Marathon Training - Why am I doing this? v.03

There are some days that I just don't want to get up and run, but because I'm signed up for something I grudgingly get out of bed and lace up my shoes anyway.  There were a couple of days like that this week, and ironically I've had my best runs since I started training for my second Half Marathon.  This week I had a good track workout and was a little bit worried about how my legs were going to feel for the next few days.  I did feel a little tight after the track workout, but nothing I couldn't work through or just ignore.

Wednesday and Thursday were nice 4 mile runs with a 6 mile run on Friday.  The pace on Friday wasn't quite what I wished it would be, but I felt pretty good about it.  This morning's long run was awesome.  I left a little bit later than I wanted because of a lingering headache, but I went anyway at about 6:30am.  The first mile and a half were a little bit stiff, but after that I started to loosen up and it got a little easier.  I wanted to keep my pace around 10:30 per mile, but wasn't sure I'd be able to maintain it for 8 miles.  It was an incredibly pleasant surprise to see that not only could I keep that pace, but even drop the pace for the last 2 miles.  Legs are a little stiff again, but tomorrow is a rest day so I will be doing a lot of yoga and using the foam roller to get me ready for this week's track workout and consecutive runs.  Today is one of the first days that I feel like I'll be ready for the Half Marathon.  I don't know that I'll be able to finish in 2 hours, but I have no doubt that my PR for this distance will be huge.

Half Marathon Training - Why am I doing this? v.02

There are moments when you finally realize that all the work you’re doing is paying off in some way, whether it’s a change in the way you look, feel or both. In this case it’s a little of both. I’ve been attending track workouts for six weeks now and instead of feeling stiff and sore for days after I felt only minimal soreness on my run this morning. During the previous weeks I would dread my Wednesday morning run because it hurt and my legs were tired, but today was different. There was a small amount of muscle fatigue, but nothing that had me walking instead of running or cutting my run short as I’ve done previous Wednesdays.

The workout this week consisted of twelve 200M intervals with a 400M recovery jog (or in my case, walk) in between. Six weeks ago when I started, my fastest split/interval was 58 seconds for 200M; this week, my fastest split was 53 seconds, which I did twice in the series. My splits were 57, 56, 56, 54, 53, 55, 54, 55, 54, 54, 54, 54, and 53. After that first workout I was exhausted and sore enough that it affected my subsequent runs for an entire week. I’m amazed at how good I feel just six weeks later. The workouts are getting consistently more difficult and my mileage is increasing each week as I’m able to do more. I love being able to see progress even if minimal.

Along with the changes in strength and endurance, there are also some physical changes. I’ve been getting leaner with the increased mileage. There is obviously still work to do, but there is finally progress that I can measure.

I’ve been doing more reading lately with regard to over-use and other running related injuries and found that some muscle pain I’ve been having should be easily remedied with yoga practice and the resulting increased flexibility.  We'll see how I feel during tomorrow's run after doing 30 minutes of Yoga tonight.

All in all, I'm pleased with my progress so far, but have so much further to go.  One step at a time I guess.  Happy Running!