Like walking in & out of a shower.

My run today was pretty much like I expected - not easy and a little painful. It started sprinkling right at the beginning, then stopped, and then rained a little harder, and then totally stopped. Like my dad always would say with these summer showers, it's like walking in and out of a shower. It felt good, but dude I already sweat like a man, which makes my tshirt totally soaked, and add in the rain, it was rough. Not the best tshirt situation, but I made do.

Today's run was a lot like my runs used to be - lots of tendons burning and calves being sore. I kinda expected it since I took those days off, but geez manetti I was ready for it to be over! The last mile and a half was KILLER. My legs felt like lead - it was really hard to pick them up off the ground to keep going. Needless to say, I was really glad to be done with my run. It's a good thing tomorrow is a rest day. Hopefully the next run will work out better. As well as the long run on Saturday. :)

Oh! The new braces didn't feel much different than the old ones. Maybe the knee braces helped a little bit more, but we'll see. Either way, it was probably a good idea to get new ones.

HONK!

Oooo wee!

So for those of you who don't know, I had to take a break last week for a few days. My body was getting pretty tired of running, which equaled into flared up tendons and painful knees. In order to not completely break down, I decided to take a few days off to recover. I started back today and I was a little worried because I'm the type of person that it's really easy for my body to lose whatever kind of athletic-ness I've gained in a short period of time. This week I'm working on Week 4 in the schedule, and tomorrow will be the real test (5 miles), but today went really well! I was really proud of myself and it wasn't nearly like I thought it would be. I was expecting lots of pain and getting tired really quickly. But there wasn't a lot of that at all! Yay! Tomorrow will be interesting, but we'll see.

I finally got new ankle & knee braces today. I really wore out the ones I've got, so hopefully tomorrow's run will go just as well with the help of the new braces. I've gotten where I ice down my knees a couple times a day (they're aching right now, actually), which is good practice I think. Overall I think I'm doing pretty well. I think some time soon I'll start doing speed work since I do want to get a little faster. :)

Hopefully this week will go well and I can move on up! :) HONK!

i love nature :)

so i'm back in the game. a week or two? ago i started running again. not following a program this time. just increasing my time bit by bit, not really closely following the frequency of my runs, but i think it must average about 3 days a week. today i ran for 20 minutes straight. my knee did start to complain by the end of it... i didn't do a good job of stretching beforehand, so it makes sense. i'm still encouraged that i ran that long. whoa. i just realized i haven't been able to run that long continuously since like october i think. man. i can't believe its been that long, but go me regardless.

tonight i ran on the greenway near lauren and patrick's. i'm totally obsessed with it. its just like, trails and boardwalks through the forest and marshy kind of areas. i saw a big turtle and a mom and about 6 ducklings, a bluebird, and a cardinal on my first run there, and tonight i saw a deer!! it was so cool, just grazing through the trees. it was also raining, which was fun, but then i got nervous because it was late-ish (8:30) and it seemed a little deserted and i was scared i'd get kidnapped. so there were parts that i totally sprinted through haha. which might have not helped the knees... oops.

yeah just wanted to post an update. now i need more running clothes!

Ahh, that's good. :)

Saturday I finished up Week 3 with a whole 7 miles. It felt really good to just go out the door and run it straight through without stopping. I was pretty proud of myself. :) Granted the rest of the day my knees were PISSED at me, but still proud of what I did. :) I wasn't sure beforehand how the run would go or if I would think I needed to repeat this run or not, but I'm totally moving on to Week 4. I'm assuming I'll have to repeat that run, but we'll see.

Chapter 3 in the handy dandy book I've got said that one way to get a good run is the level of excitement about the run. Too little excitement and too much excitement equals a bad run. Well, that totally makes common sense, but the idea is to make sure that there isn't a crazy expectation of the run or else there's a chance of it not going well. Anyway, this is all common sense, but it was good to see it in writing, ya know? There's just something about advice coming from someone else instead inside my brain. Hopefully the next long run goes well - ahh!

HONK!!!

Week 3 has begun!

Today was the beginning of Week 3. We'll see after Saturday if I feel the need to repeat it or not haha. For the first half ish of the training each week starts out with 3 miles, so I'm getting pretty good at this 3 mile thing. I went to the gym today to run and totally wanted to get on the treadmill but they were all taken. So I had to go on the track. Which wouldn't be bad except that it's such a small track that you have to go around about a bajillion times in order to get a mile done. Which totally takes out anything nice or easy-ish out of the run. Just makes it redundant a whole lot faster.

I went slower than I'd like, but that's just how it went. I know that I shouldn't put a goal time on how fast I'd like each mile to go and that I should just be happy that I can do it, but I totally want my mileage time to be faster haha. Maybe it'll happen later on in the training. I'd like to get under a 13 minute mile, which I've done before, but it takes a lot for me. I'd like to be at a comfortable pace under 13 minutes haha.

Anyway, we'll see how this week's long run goes - hopefully pretty well!

HONK!

Week 2 Repeat Complete!

Today I finished up my repeat of Week 2. It was the 6 miler and it didn't go too badly. The weather was overcast and humid, but not too bad. The run started out pretty good, and that totally made me happy. It was the second half that was hard. More specifically the last mile and a half. At that point my body was pretty tired. Plus I sweat a LOT so my tshirt was far from dry haha. Usually my calves go through some pretty intense pain, but this time it was totally my butt muscles haha. Especially toward the end. All my jiggly parts hurt at some point! ;)

I went a different route this time, which was pretty good since I'm getting pretty bored with the normal routes. Overall I think my run went pretty well. I did stop a few times toward the end just because my body was really wanting to be done and back home, but it went pretty well. I'm thinking that it might've been better since my last run went so well. Maybe it's a turning point in my running? Eh, who knows. ;)

HONK!

Treadmills are funny that way.

Yesterday's run was really, really good. I went to the gym to get on the good ole treadmill for the 3 miler. The last time I went on the 'mill, it didn't go so well. So my expectations weren't very high, but I really don't like their track so I thought I'd give it a go. And man alive, it was so, I daresay, easy! I felt really good and got it done in the normal amount of time it takes me. And my legs felt really good, too. There wasn't any calf or ankle pain and it was pretty awesome. I think I'll do my short runs up there just to give me a break. I might do my 4 milers up there, but it depends on what time of day I'm up there. They like to have a time limit if it's really busy. But if it's not busy, they don't really care how long you're on the 'mill. I don't really think they enforce it, but it's just common gym courtesy really.

It just felt really good to finally have a really good run with no stops along the way. It reminded me that I really can bang out 3 miles and be okay. I don't really know what's going on in my head sometimes when I run outside, but I'm just really glad that yesterday went so well. I needed a good one to happen. :)

Saturday is the long run - 6 miles once again. I just really want it to be a good run without a lot of pain and whatnot. I'm going to run a different route, so hopefully that will make the run better. We'll see.

Till next time! HONK!