My current ‘training plan’ involves making sure I’m doing the 3 key runs per week. Currently, I’m not really going by book speeds (because my paces right now are pretty pathetic) but the important thing is that I’m doing intervals, a tempo run and a long run.

So yesterday I did my interval run. I initially intended to do 6×800, but the first interval, I was made it .35miles  at an 8:06 pace before I had to stop because  I felt like I was going to vomit. I walked for about 2.5 minutes, drank some water and caught my breath. The rest of my intervals I did 4×400. For all but the last one, I started with my pace at 8 flat and for the last .5 miles of the run, I would steadily increase my pace to about 7:45or 7:35. The last interval I started at a 7:56 pace, and when I increased the pace at the end I got to 7:16.

I hate being so slow. And on short distances too! I should be running at least a 7:16 pace in my 5k, not my400s. (And only the last part of the interval at that!)

But I guess I’m building up? I don’t know. It’s just so frustrating because I had the speed/endurance, and I lost it. Not because of something I did (or didn’t do) by choice, but from being injured. I don’t like not having control of it. That’s when stuff like this happens.

As far as pain goes, I had stitches, definitely. Not the worst ever, but still a hindrance. My knee was mostly just a twinge or an after thought. The main times I would notice it hurting are whenever I slowed down to start a rest interval. My calves were a little tight, but I wasn’t wearing the calf sleeves, so that could be why. They’re not super sore today or anything.

Wore my arm sleeves for the first time and I LOVE them. Physical benefits aside, mentally they’re great because they make me feel like a pro. It’s kind of the same effect any of my specialized running gear has when I wear it at the gym.

Today (early afternoon, ideally) I’m doing lifting and swimming.

In two weeks time I’ll be much better about it. And I’ll have my own coach! =)

Until then, I’ll try not to suck at logging my runs. No promises.

Not the best run tonight, but I’ve got a lot of things going though my mind right now as a result.  I think I need to change something. Maybe I need to stop running inside. Or maybe I just need to start all over. And it kills me to even think about it. That all my progress I’ve made in the past years is in vain.  But something’s just not right with how I’m running. And I can’t put my finger on it.  So maybe I start from scratch. Go back to running in the VFFs, and build up my foot strength again. I don’t know. I’ve just never been at such a loss of what to do. I usually have an inkling of an idea of what direction I should go.

And maybe the thing that kills me the most, is I think I’m going to have to do some construction on my stride. That’s such a hit to my pride, but if I want to excel as a runner, I need to be open to fixing things. I guess. I don’t know. I love how I run. It makes me feel powerful and strong.

Tomorrow I plan on spending lots of time at the gym, swimming, lifting, and maybe biking. I also want to look into adding more leg stuff to my workout routine, but I need to find exercises that fit my lifting style (aka not muscle isolation,) which has proven difficult so far.  And the other thing I WILL do is my PT. I keep saying it, that I need to do it, but I’m not. And I can’t let that be the case anymore.

THE END

On to things running-related….

I just read Scott Dunlap’s latest post from ‘A Trail Runner’s Blog’ and it made me miss sprinting. I think, once I move, I really want to get back into track too. I mean, I should be able to do that and distance training too, right?

So for 2010, that gives me Marathons, Triathlons, and getting back into sprints. Then in 2011 I’ll work on 50 milers, and 2012 I’ll work on 100 milers. And probably some other things.

About 3 miles in, I started feeling like my right leg muscles were working differently than my left leg muscles. By 5 miles I was definitely feeling some knee discomfort, and by 7 miles it was hurting pretty bad. I normally would have stopped once it started actually hurting. (Like Bill  used so say, “Discomfort is ok to run with, Pain is not.” But at the same time, I also knew how important it was mentally for me to get in this long run. I somehow managed to eek out 2 more excruciating miles, but when I got to 9, I was about a split second away from bursting into tears from the pain, so I stopped. Soaked in an ice bath for ten minutes when I got home, but the pain persisted most of the night. Right now it’s not really bothering me except for when I bend it, and going up or down stairs hurts pretty bad.

But I feel more prepared for it this time. No running for two weeks. Strengthening exercises every single day. I’m going to keep up with my weight lifting, but do three times a week instead of two, and I’m going to add another cardio in addition to swimming. I do a couple, just to mix it up. I’d really like to try and get in some rowing, because I hear lots of good things about that. I’m also going to have to stop sitting Indian Style…again. I’m not worried about losing any endurance this time around though. I’ve done alot of research, and if you keep your body active the right ways, you can go 2-3 months before you start losing muscle and stamina, and I’m only going two weeks. And actually, given my workout plan, I should be on track to continue to build more muscle and stamina during those two weeks. I’ll be a machine.

It is kind of weird that the intense pain came out of nowhere. It felt like the last run I did before going to the doctor back in October, which was the worst the pain had been. But I’m looking forward with this. I dealt with it and had my dwelling/freak out right after the run, and then I moved on. (Does it show that I’ve been researching how to deal with defeat the past couple months? I’d say I’m improving with that!) The other thing is, when I start back up, I’m definitely going to try and do at least one workout outside, maybe 2. For now, I like doing intervals on the dreadmill. But I think I’ll do Tempos outside, and for Long Runs I’ll see how the weather is.

Other than that, the run went really well. I used the Gu Chomps as my energy source, eating 5 after the first 4 miles and 3 after 8 miles. My side stitches were still there, but not as bad as they’d been recently, so that’s good. I’ve been making an effort to carry my water bottle with me wherever I go, to stay super hydrated, and I think that’s part of it.

I went to the Kenwood location of my gym for the first time.It’s about the same distance away as Deerfield, maybe a little quicker because it doesn’t have all the traffic,  but I LOVED it. It’s so shiny and new and open. So many machines! I wish they would have been able to build a pool at that location. But I think I’ll use that location for most of my non-pool workouts from now on.

I’ve been doing a lot of research, and listening to a lot of the elites on twitter lately, and it looks like I’ll be trying out a vegetarian or pescetarian diet for two months starting in about a week. Since I eat so little meat now, I’m not sure how much of a difference it will make over all. I do know it’ll be a weird first couple of weeks though. after two months, if I’m not noticing much of a difference I’ll switch back to my regular diet, but I guess it’s worth it to give it a try!

Somewhere along the way, my sleep schedule got off. I think it was shortly before Christmas. It may have started when I started getting that stomach bug. I’m not sure. But somehow my sleep schedule got way off track. At first it was just sleeping in a little later, which is fine. Yay extra sleep! But then it became falling asleep later. And now it’s taking me forever to fall asleep.  And not until late either.

For as long as I can remember, it’s always taken me a long time to fall asleep. Longer than most people. When I get my body in a routine, this gets a little better. Rarely can I fall asleep instantly, but it doesn’t take me a horrifically long amount of time. So I want to get back to that. I think there are a couple things I need to do to get back on my sleep schedule.

- Create a sleep debt. It’s not really a good thing to be in the habit of, but in order to acclimate my body to going to bed earlier, I’m going to have to make my body want the sleep more.

- Get in a routine. I used to have one, and now it’s completely out the door. So I’m calling it now. Every night I’ll get into my PJ’s and drink sleepy time tea. then 30 minutes before my desired ‘bed time’ I’m going to stop any stimulating activities (Computer, TV, etc.) and read for 30 minutes. When it’s my ‘bed time’, book closed, lights out and Pandora on. I’m debating if I should start using my sleep mask again. I’ll try that tonight if I remember and update if I do it.

- No alcohol before bed. Alcohol sometimes makes me feel sleepy, but the stuff I’m reading from my research is saying no alcohol before bed, so until I can get back to normal, I’m going to say no alcohol in the 2 hour window leading up to my bed time

- No caffeine. At all. Caffeine’s effects can stay in your system up to 12 hours. While I’ve never really been strongly affected by caffeine, I’m not taking any chances. So until I’m back on schedule, decaf coffee and teas it is.

- Wake up before 9, no matter what. This kind of goes along with creating a sleep debt. I want to find some way to keep track of my wake up time. Maybe an early morning tweet or something. That way people can call me out on it if I don’t do it.Going along with this is making sure I take my meds right when I wake up, and not hitting the snooze on my alarm. That’s going to be tough.

- No naps. This one makes me sad. Again, when I’m back on schedule, I can take naps again, but until then, not allowed.

Once I get back in a normal sleeping routine, I can continue with my work on trying to sleep on my back. I definitely thing a lot of my soreness and pain is coming from my current sleeping positions.

Had a good hard run today. It was another one of those days where I just didn’t feel motivated to run. It’s not that I *didn’t* want to run, I just had nothing making me *do( want to run…if that makes sense. But those are the days were you just have to say “yeah, and…?” and then get up and do it anyway. It gets a lot easier when you’re used to just doing it anyway.

On my last interval at the very end, I upped my pace by .4 mph and increase my incline on the treadmill to 2.5, and the thing is, I felt better. It felt more natural, and easier, and I felt stronger. so I ran an extra .05 miles, just because I liked it so much. It’s the weirdest thing, because my run today was pretty hard due to side stitches. But I toughed through it. and at the end, I really felt like I could keep on going at that pace, but I wanted to save my energy. I have no idea why it felt that way. But maybe that’s a good thing.

In terms of aches and pains, just a tiny bit from my knee at the very beginning. No back pain that I remember. And the stitches I already mentioned.

But now I feel fantastic. Yay endorphins. It feels good to be back on track.

On Friday,  maaaaaybe I’ll do my tempo run outside. It just six miles, so we’ll see how big of a baby I am. And if I’m able to run during the day.

After a lack of sleep and not eating smart to prepare for a run, I bumped yesterday’s long run to today. About 25 minutes into the run My side stitches were really sharp and I had to stop. I walked for 5 more minutes as a cool down, but it didn’t help much. I hopped on a bike for ten minutes so I could at least get 30+minutes of cardio.

My plan was to go back to the gym tonight and try the run again, but now I seem to be snowed in. That’s just dumb. snow ruins everything. I feel ready for the long run now too, which really sucks.  At this point in time, I’m trying to figure out what I should do that’s best for my body that strays the least from my plan.  I could try the long run again tomorrow, or I could just skip this one and start over with either lift/swim or my intervals tomorrow. I’d really rather not skip this long run, but that would only leave 4 days between long runs, and I think I’d have to do two days of back to back running in order to fit in my intervals and tempo.

I have no idea what to do.

In other news, I’m going to put this in writing so that I feel more obligated to do it… I think I’m going to try and do at least one run outside per week. Which will suck, because it’s cold and snowy, and I hate it. But the treadmill is nothing like running outside, even when I use an incline, so in the end, it will be better for me.

Marathon training starts a week from today, I think I may push my 5k back by one week, in order to get a more accurate time.

Looking back, I’m really proud of myself. To think that about a month ago I just started running again, and now I’m doing ten milers, it really gives me a sense of accomplishment. Not to mention my body feels so much stronger. And I can feel it in my legs when I run. I’m using more muscles, and those muscle are much more powerful than they were.

I was pretty worried about the run today. For whatever reason, even though I was tired, I couldn’t fall asleep until about 5:30 this morning. I got up around 9, but went back to bed until about 11. Considering the fact that I was also getting a sore throat (and my tonsils were swelling again) and that I’m STILL not over this stomach bug (although I definitely feel like I’m close to the end with it), I’m really happy with myself for still going through with the run.

My knee was only bothering me a bit towards the last mile or two, and it wasn’t very bad. It’s not hurting afterwards yet either. In general, my lower right back has been acting up again, sometimes it feels like somethings pinched. but for the most part my back was fine, just every now and then it would be sore.

And, as always, the side stitches were a bitch. =/

I think I’ve become hooked on the mass recovery drinks. Which is unfortunate, because I can’t really afford them and they taste icky. But they seem to be working really well. I’m rarely sore the next day, and I can tell a difference in my muscle growth. My arms actually look a little muscular now!!! It’s amazing!

Running during the Bengals games is one f the best ideas I’ve had. It really makes the time fly, and I’m multi tasking!! I’m hoping that by the time football season is over it will be a little warmer outside, so I can do my long runs outside again.

Two more weeks until marathon training officially begins!!!

Interval run today. 10×400. Felt pretty good. On the 9th interval, my knee starting hurting a bit and it kept up for the remainder of my run.  Because of this I only did a 5 minute cool down as opposed to a ten minute cool down.

I know I keep saying it, but it’s true; I can feel my body getting back where it used to be and it’s such a fantastic feeling.