Short update- Nothing exciting

22.15 (I think) miles last week, which is pretty good. That includes mosey and dog-walking miles.
After the 7.5 on Monday and the 5.5 on Tuesday, I was in a lot of pain for a while. I really can't run like that 2 days in a row.

But I did finally buy some compression sleeves, which I LOVE. ♥♥♥♥♥
They're not super-tight, but they just feel like I'm being squeezed. They were only $9 each at the sports basement (favorite store!) and they're thick neoprene, not the fancy sock-like ones. I'll wait to spend the $40 pm those.

So, after all the pain, I waited until Saturday to try and run again on the treadmill. As I would say in the twitterverse- #fail. I started out in my sleeves, but that was a hot, tranny mess. (© Christian Siriano, God bless him.) I think that they re-aligned everything in a not good way, my knees started hurting, ankles felt weird, so I took them off.

I tried a couple bursts of running, but it just felt like I was slamming my shins, so I stuck to walking. I thought I was going pretty quickly, but my time didn't end up being that hot. Oh, well.

Yesterday was a great run/walk/torture. Though Thomas wasn't there, 4 of us met up where he told us to and walked over to the track at SSU. Good lord. We started walking and thinking, "Where IS this track? How far are we from campus? Why did we park all the way over here?" Once we made it onto campus, we asked people where the track was, and consistently got, "Oh, gosh. It's way over on the other side of campus." So we trekked, thinking it was obviously going to be by the other sports fields, but no. Asked again, and were shown a map and pointed in the correct direction. Here's what we did. The track is over in the bottom left corner of the map. We started out going north, then west all the way down to Petaluma Hill road. The way back was the southern route.



This track? Was not new and shiny. Old, faded, cracked and curling in some parts. But it's still better than pavement. Clearly, SSU no longer has a football or track team.

So, we just ran 1/2 mile on the track, then we proceeded to do some exercises. We did some lunges in all directions (in one spot), then we did suicide sprints across the field (short way). Ugh. I was not happy about those. Then abs- bicycle crunches, then regular lunges across the field, grapevine back. We were going to do one more lap around the track, but some were concerned about it getting dark. I don't mind being out at night when we're on main roads with lights.

So, we went a different way out, hoping that the road we were parked on hit the road we were taking. It did!

As usual, my body took its sweet time warming up. Even though I had walked 2 miles during the day, I still didn't feel good and ready to roll until we were on our way back to the car. I was full of energy and kind of hyper and jogged a lot on the way back. Why, oh why, does it take my body so long?

So...7.33 miles yesterday total. Good start to the week. I need to ride my bike today, though it appears that time is a-wasting. Maybe I'll hit the gym after church.

Tomorrow I'm visiting the sports massage therapist to talk about my shin splints. Hopefully, we can work out something cheap that will help. Then- more track. This time with Thomas, and at the track with stairs. GAH! Pray for me.

Not enthusiastic

Today: 5.25 miles + whatever I did on the stairs and lunges. It's too hot for this crap. Sore back from yesterday makes me wonder if I did crunches wrong, but I really don't think so. Maybe it's just been too freaking long.

Tomorrow will be cross-training. I'm thinking bike @ gym.

eta just checked mapmyrun & I actually did 5.58 miles, plus stairs. every little bit counts!

Goals and stuff!

So, I have been registered for the Big Sur Half Marathon partially against my will. Well, there was coercion involved, but I'm glad. The price I pay is that I must train with my other friends under the tutelage of the completely insane Thomas S.

Last week, two of us went to the track to do our assigned workout from Thomas (One he invented whole cloth. It bears no resemblance to other training programs I've seen. Oh well.) So, we did a mile at the track, ran 3 sets of stairs, and ran another mile. Not too bad. Other people can run more than I can, so I believe the goal was to warm-up jog the first mile and bat-out-of-hell the last one. We mostly walked the first one and halved the second one. We walked on the straight parts and ran to nausea on the curves. The stairs weren't that bad at all. It's not a big area, and my knees didn't hurt. Though I disliked pushing so hard, I was glad to do it. And I'll do it again. Twice this week. Argh.

So, yes. Tomorrow is track and so is Thursday. It's good to do speed work, and I know it will help me. I also know that I'm sore right now, so I don't totally look forward to tomorrow. Pray for me.

Today, I finally signed up with http://www.mapmyrun.com and I'm so glad I did! It is so fantastically easy to use. And I know that I did 7.44 miles today and an approximation of my calories burned. I'm going to use it to keep track of my miles, especially for the good of my shoes. I need to be more on top of when they're running out.

I walked to the library with the old dog, which was barely a workout, but thanks to the new info, I know it was 1.77 miles. Then I went to the gym to do abs & obey Thomas & do an hour's run on the treadmill. This was slightly less wonderful. I had thought that I was all warmed up from the mosey with the dog, but I guess I wasn't. I started out running at 4.6 for 10 minutes on the treadmill thinking that life was sweet. I walked a bit and stretched a bit after that, but by 17 minutes I had to stop because my left calf was in a world of pain. Disappointed, I got of the machine and went to stretch and use the foam roller. After stretching for a while, there was actually a treadmill open, so I hopped back on to give it another try.

This was one of those incline-friendly treadmills with the serious ramp & the handles on top. I really like how smoothly they run and how easy it is to change speeds, etc. The main problem? That freaking emergency stop magnet. It's not a flat disc that takes a tug to come off, it's a freaking fishing bobber that you can practically blow on and it falls off & your workout stops. Argh. So, it was an already fragmented workout from the pain break, and then I knocked that stupid thing of TWO TIMES!!! Argh. So, today's numbers really are estimates. All things could be higher- more miles, but also a little more time. Running, listening, & adding don't always work at the same time. Next time will be better.

Then I walked the big dog with my friend and her tiny dog, and that was about 1.2 miles. On the treadmill, I think I was around 4.4 miles in an hour.

On the website, there was a section where I could put in a goal for myself, so I put in that I wanted to lose 10 lbs in 30 days. Then, at the gym, there was a board where we could put up our goals, so there I put 15lbs by Nov 15th- race day. I believe that I will do this- small goals, work scheduled. It will be good.

Blergh. Ow.

I did a run/walk today. Me & the dog & some tunes. Thought it would be fine. Maybe it wasn't wise. At first, heart rate was fantastic, but then it caught on to what I was doing. It was never horrible, but didn't like me a lot, possibly because it was hearing the whining from my leg. The leg that is in pretty bad pain, but I can't ice it because I iced it for too long yesterday (on bare skin) and gave myself frostnip. Sheesh. And? My time was pretty bad. I think I'll rest & maybe bike for the rest of the week.