Week 8: Finally, another weekend off!

I am in love with the rain.  The way it smells, the way it ushers in spring, and the way it tends to cancel softball games and give me an unexpected weekend off.  It's all great.  Not to mention that running in the rain is one of my favorite things ever.  And on Saturday, I got to spend an hour and ten minutes in the glorious drizzle as I tackled my eight mile run.  All in all, this was a great week for my goal setting project, and for my general well being.  Except for the part where my Michigan State Spartans fell to UConn in the tournament, but that's a different story...

The positive from this week: pretty much everything.  I ate well, I got to see my parents, I drank lots of water, and I got all kinds of relaxation time on Saturday and Sunday.  I even got my parents to take part in some of my workouts this week, which always makes for a good day.  I've tried ever since high school to get my mom to take better care of her health, so anytime I can talk her into going for a walk makes me a happy daughter.  On Friday, I had them meet me down at the wood chip trail (I ran there, they drove...I pick my battles), and they walked while I ran a couple laps.  One of my long term goals is to set a good example of health and wellness for my family, so days like these make me feel like I'm chipping away at that objective.  

The negative from this week: UConn basketball and broken washing machines.  And that's pretty much it.

Until next week!

Week 7: Recovery

I'm so thankful for this past week and weekend.  It was my recovery week, and I needed it in so many ways.  First of all, I've been nursing a pesky soleus/achilles tendon strain which has made running a bit of a bear.  So the decreased mileage was a huge help.  Second, I was finally able to stabilize my food and water intake after the binge that was spring break.  And third, my fiancee and I (and our dogs) were reunited after about eight weeks of not seeing each other (they can be seen in my profile picture).  His visit, and the endless cuddles I got from our furballs, were absolutely soul-healing.  I had no idea how much I missed them until they were here, and now they are all I want.

There were some adjustments made to my training schedule due to the fiancee visit and my injury. Obviously, because the dude was here, I felt that every free minute needed to be devoted to them.  I felt guilty going on runs when I could have been spending quality time with them.  However, it was nice to have my running partner back, our German shepherd mix named Copper.  Back in Michigan, she would run with me every day.  She even knows which shoes are my running shoes and if she sees me pick them up, she gets all kinds of excited.  When I sit down to put them on, she lays between my feet and whatever surface I'm sitting on so I won't forget her.  It felt so good to run with her again.  I only had to tackle 15 miles this week, with one day of cross training, one rest day, and one recovery day. But even then, I had to walk a couple of those miles because my calf was just too tight.  Thankfully, I have the knowledge and the means to treat this injury (one of the instances I'm so happy that all my time is spent in an athletic training facility).

My food this week was delicious.  Last night I even made some cookies (two bananas, 1 cup quick oats, dark chocolate chips baked at 350 for 15 minutes), and they turned out really good.  I also tried some greek yogurt fruit dip (6 oz plain greek yogurt, 1 tbsp peanut butter, 1 tbsp honey,  1/4 tsp vanilla extract) and that was even better than the cookies!  And as much as I hate being in the kitchen, it did feel kinda good to be back at the cooking thing.

But anyway, now that I am rested both physically and spiritually, I'm ready to get back at it this week!
Until next time...

Weeks 5 and 6: Spring Break

The past couple weeks have been a blur.  My softballers and I left on the 6th for an 11 day road trip as our "spring break."  Thankfully, due to weather, they didn't have to play all 11 games that were scheduled.  As an athletic trainer, that many games in that many days was a nightmare, especially since being on the road means managing injuries with only my two hands.  But anyway, as far as my training goes, I did a lot better than anticipated.  Bouncing from hotel to hotel and state to state wasn't exactly the best for my training schedule, but I did an exceptional job at adjusting.  I even got some really great runs in in some unexpected places.  In Columbia, South Carolina, the coaches found a park on one of our days off, so I got to run 4 miles along a beautiful lake and do some cross training on the shore with some of my athletes.  Back by the hotel, I explored a little (after consulting the hotel staff about safety and such) and found another sweet little park with a running trail encircling a small pond.  Those two workouts were definitely the highlights of my spring break.  However, I did have a couple failures as well.

First of all, oh sweet goodness, THE FOOD.  I ate so much food.  It was terribly hard to control my food intake when we ate out for every meal, and my tab was covered by EKU.  Don't get me wrong, I usually ordered from the lighter side of the menu, but being surrounded by division one athletes at meal time is a terrible thing.  When in Rome, right?  Well, that mentality really bit me in the rear, and I put on five pounds as a result.  And seeing as my poor body was not used to that kind of fueling, I got to spend the week feeling all kinds of bloated.  Needless to say, I can't wait to get back to my woodland creature diet so my body can find normalcy again.

The second failure was by far the most disappointing.  This past Saturday, 3/15/14, I was supposed to go for my long run of 7.5 miles.  However, we were staying in Antioch, TN, which doesn't have many places to run that would be all that safe and cuddly past a certain time, and there was no way on earth I could get amped up for an hour on the treadmill.  So I didn't do it.  Instead, I visited with a new friend I had made that day, an athletic trainer from Tennessee State University.  We had a great time, and I really needed some laughs and relaxation, so I refuse to say that day was a complete failure.  But I was just so looking forward to kicking that day's ass.  You see, Saturday was the two year anniversary of my "strokebrain," which is a fun little nickname I have assigned to a terrifying time in my life.  At age 22, I had a stroke.  In the midst of it, while I could neither speak nor move the right side of my body, my sweet and amiable doctors told me that, with a minimum of three months of physical therapy, I had a 30% chance of regaining full function of my right side.  That was right after they told me that they were going to push the clot-busting drug called TPA, and if they were wrong about me having a stroke, I would most likely die.  So that's the motivation behind all of this 1/2 marathon stuff.  Basically, I want to be my own little success story.  Which is why my failure on Saturday hit me so hard.  I wanted to celebrate that day with a 7.5 mile run because it would have signified my new, healthier life.  But I can't dwell on it, so I'll just have to attack this week's training with a little more fervor.

This upcoming week is week four of my official training, and therefore it is a rest week.  Each run is only supposed to be three miles, withe the exception of Saturday's long run.  I'm thinking that I'll pick it up to four miles a day though, to make up for last Saturday, and because my three mile route here in Richmond is starting to get a little stale.  I did a pretty good job staying hydrated over spring break, so I'll just have to maintain that this week, but I don't really foresee myself cutting back on the coffee very much.  I don't exactly get a day off during season, so I need something to keep me awake, and I'm certainly not going to turn to crack.  So I'm left with coffee.  Sorry, goals.

So there you have it.  The highlights and lowlight of my past couple weeks.  Until next time!

Week 4: Motivation

Holy goodness, it's March already!

This was the first week of my official half marathon training, and I did a great job!  I am totally patting myself on the back right now.  I did have to switch a couple days around to adjust for my schedule, but I got every workout done.  So here are the positives: I increased my mileage to 20.2 miles, ate better quality food (minus the wings and beer on Friday), stuck to my training schedule, and found a vital motivator.  The negatives: I didn't drink enough water, and while I have been eating better quality food, apparently it's still too much hassle for me to actually cook meals.

My biggest accomplishment this week was the six mile run on Saturday.  I had planned on getting up early and running before leaving with the softballers for the UK tournament.  However, as I have said before, morning workouts are not my forte.  So I snoozed right through my alarms with the thought that I would get the miles in after we returned from Lexington.  Naturally, a couple of the games went into extra innings, which meant our last game of the day started two hours behind schedule.  We didn't roll back in to Richmond until about 9:30pm, and I was a little bit wary of running that late knowing it would take me about an hour to finish my run.  So I let Pandora, that wonderful internet radio goddess, decide my fate.  As Bruno Mars's song "Young, Wild Girls" started playing, I realized just how crucial music is going to be to my training.  That one silly but catchy song was enough to push me out the door for six miles, even after putting in a 12 hour day on my feet.  And the subsequent songs were enough to keep me going at a 8:28 minute/mile pace the entire time!  So there's a new little tool I have for those days I'm just not feeling all that motivated.

As a reward for my excellent week, I made myself some whole wheat pancakes with dark chocolate chips and peanut butter for breakfast this morning...oh my.  They were delicious, but they were also the only meal I cooked for myself all week.  The rest of my food intake consisted of cereal, Greek yogurt and granola, sandwiches, lots of fruit, and salads.  All in all, it was a pretty great week!