Week 4

This has been a pesky little cold, refusing to go down without a fight, which pretty much sabotaged my week 4 of training. Even though I work for a hospital, I really don't like going to the doctor. However, after a week of sniffles, sneezing, and coughing, I may give in and go today.

The weather was so nice yesterday that I went on my first run in 8 days. I didn't want to push myself too much, so I just did a little over 3 miles with a decent pace of 9.05.

I'm going to take a break today, and then do my long run of 8 miles tomorrow. I'm hoping to do it in the park, but with it being Easter, I'm afraid it'll be super crowded.

Happy Easter tomorrow!

Running Meditation

I've been out of commission for a few days because I got a cold. I could feel it coming on Friday night when my throat started to hurt. By the time I woke up on Saturday, it was full blown sickness. Not fun. Because of that I missed my long run of 7 miles this past weekend. I'm disappointed that I didn't get to do it, but I'm going to continue on with week 4 of my training.

I didn't go to work yesterday or today because I didn't want to spread my cold. Unfortunately I work in close quarters with 4 other people, so it seems like our colds are always being passed around. Being at home so much was fun at first, but now I'm starting to go stir crazy, and to top it off, it's been raining straight for the past 2 days.

Colds are a tricky illness because for the most part, they're all in your head. The congestion, itchy eyes, sore throat; it's all upstairs, leaving my body feeling mostly ok. I've been wandering around the apartment in search for something to do. I've finished a couple of magazines (one from June 2009!) and tried doing some weight training with my kettle bell, all to still end up restless. My inability to be still is even more apparent on days like today. I went over to my bookshelf to find a book to read, even though I'm currently reading like 6 at a time. What's interesting is that almost all of my books have little bookmarks in them at random places throughout, mostly at the beginning, because I very rarely ever finish a book that I've started in one sitting. I'll read it, put it back, and pick it back up again a few months later.

I think this inability to do one thing at a time is why running has been so challenging for me. When I'm out by myself, I have no choice but to continue the run. Even if I were to choose to stop running, I'd still have to get myself home...by running. Running forces me to focus on how I'm feeling during the run, focus on my thoughts, focus on my goals. Maybe I can turn this constant mind racing into some sort of running meditation.
It's a really nice change for me, and I hope that with my continued training, I can apply this approach to meditation during my other day to day activities.

Now if only the rain would ease up a bit so I could get out of this apartment!

Food Revolution

Tonight's post is dedicated to the new show, Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. I just finished the first episode and am getting ready to start the second one. I love it. Jamie is visiting different towns in the US and looking at the foods that our families are eating and what is being served to kids at school. What you eat that you think is chicken is probably not really chicken, or as the show points out, may not even really be mashed potatoes. Take a look at some of the ingredients in the food that you eat. The general rule of thumb is that if you can't pronounce it, you probably shouldn't consume it.

I've been fixated on nutrition and whole eating since I gave up meat almost 3 years ago. Ever since then I've read countless books on the effects of the standard American diet on our bodies. It's amazing to learn about what is in some of the foods that our FDA has approved and recommends. If you feel sick constantly or have chronic pain, take a look at your diet. Mine has improved quite a bit over the past few years, since cutting out all meat products and milk and replacing with whole fruits and vegetables, whole grains, beans and nuts.

I'll get off my soap box now, but I suggest you check out the show. It comes on Fridays on ABC at 8. Here's a link to the website. Check it out.
http://abc.go.com/shows/jamie-olivers-food-revolution

I love hockey

I didn't do my 4 mile run yesterday because (there's always a good reason, right?) Ryan and I decided to get tickets to the NY Rangers hockey game. I just discovered hockey this year and I love it. I live in an overly sports saturated household. They are always on and I almost always never care to watch. But hockey...hockey is a whole other story.

Reason why I love hockey:
- It's super fast paced, which meshes well with my undiagnosed ADD. I'm unable to sit still and not do anything else. Even right now I'm watching a DVR'd episode of Survivor and typing this.

-There aren't many rules, and the rules they do have are pretty self explanatory. It's not like football where it takes like 8 hours to run a few feet. It's not constantly stop and go.

-The players are generally pretty hot. Have you seen Erik Christensen? Or Sean Avery?

- They fight. How crazy is that? At my first hockey game I was shocked that this was not only allowed, but encouraged. Crazy!

Since I didn't run last night, I did it tonight. Not too bad. I'm getting more comfortable with it. I'm going to have to try to fit in my 3 mile run tomorrow.

One last note- GO CATS!!!

A Little Running Advice

Remember when your mom warned you not to swim until 30 minutes after you ate? Well that should apply to running too.
I thought an hour would be sufficient time to wait after enjoying leftover homemade vegetable enchiladas before running. I was grossly mistaken.
It all started well and good. I set my Nike app to a 5K and headed towards the park. About 2K into it (how far is that anyways?), the feeling hit. I won't go into detail about what the feeling was, but it wasn't a good one. I found myself on the far side of the park praying for a pedicab to pull up next to me and peddle me home. You know I had to feel bad to actually want a pedicab.
I had no choice but to start walking, so I did for about .5K. I started feeling a little better so I gave running a try again. Then pain. Then a little bit of running. Then lots of pain. I ended up walking almost the entire remaining 2 miles.
Lesson learned. Eat light or just don't do it.

Powersong

This weekend was my 6 mile run. I'm still in week 2 of my training so that it finishes exactly in time with race day. I finally took the time to sync all of my music from my old iPhone to my new one. Not having to run to Lifehouse's depressing ballads anymore is a plus. I made what I think is a pretty kick-butt workout mix. I think I've always been pretty good at making awesome mixes like road trip mixes and spring break mixes. I think I even gave Ryan a mixed CD when we first started dating, which I'm pretty sure he loves. Here are some of the songs that I added:

-Womanizer- Britney Spears (actually any Britney will do)
-Just Dance- Lady Gaga (most Gaga will do too)
-Shake It- Metrostation
-Tik Tok- Kesha

The Nike app lets you choose a Powersong. This is a song that you push to play whenever you feel like death is imminent and nothing will get you going other than that one song. So what did I pick? The Glee anthem, Single Ladies by Beyonce. It's just so catchy. And every time that I hear it I think about that hilarious episode of Glee and the football players. So good.

Anyways, the Nike app also has this great feature where you can set a custom distance for your run, and then it will tell you at every mile interval how far you've gone and how much further you've got to go. Sure beats pulling the iPhone out every 5 minutes to check my distance!

Since my run was a little longer this weekend, I decided to try a new route. I ended up by the Reservoir in Central Park. It's so beautiful there, and about 5 degrees cooler since you're right on the water. The loop around has got to be like 8 miles or something and I wasn't about to attempt that this weekend, so I went for about 2 miles and then looped back out.

On a final note, I set my personal best pace at an 8:12 minute average mile. While out in the park, I was even passing people. I should mention that these people were walking, but that's not the point. The point is that I wasn't walking, so basically I rock.

Got any song suggestions to add to my playlist? Mine are getting a little tired, but since I don't listen to the radio, I don't ever hear new music.

Weakling

This is an early morning post. These will not happen often. I happen to be up this early and coherent already because I have a work thing in which I'm forced to go to earlier than my usual time. This makes me want to send a hate note to Daylight Savings Time. I had been doing better lately because the sun was actually up when my alarm ripped me from sleep. No such luck this morning. Do you know how much more difficult that made it for me to get up? Yeah, not a pretty picture. My mind has been taxed with all of the mental motivation I've been putting it through: C'mon mind, let's finish these miles, it'll be fun. Or, don't eat that extra bite of delicious chocolate, let's eat a carrot. See how exhausting that can be? Not much left to motivate me to get out of bed.

Yesterday I had 4 miles to run, in which I ran 3.75. I slacked off on the remaining 1/4 mile because I could feel something not so right in my ankle. Ugh. It's feeling better today. I'm going to look into some strength training exercises for it.

Basically what I think my lower body is continuing to tell me is that it's super weak. I guess I need to work on that.

I have 3 miles to run tonight and then woohoo, one day off until my long run Saturday!