Training Day #10 - June 14, 2010
2.46 miles tonight. An ugly 2.46 miles.
I really need to figure out what I’m doing on the days that I feel like a rockstar. Am I eating something specific? Am I getting more sleep the night before? Am I timing my run a certain amount of time after I eat? Am I tying my left shoe before my right? Do I blow my nose before a run?
Seriously, I don’t understand how I can run one day and not feel too bad until the end, and then another day I start out running by wheezing and feeling like I want to pass out. It makes no sense to me. Tonight was a day where it was a struggle to get through. The “new” treadmills were all taken, and I was kind of bummed, because I actually liked the one I had last time. So, I went back to the ones I’ve been using before. I wanted to change up the interval training, but I wasn’t liking any of the next level intervals. I decided to change it manually, which is something I wasn’t looking forward to.
Since I had salsa tonight, I did a quick 2 minute warm up walk instead of 5. I didn’t think to stop the treadmill and then start over to keep better track of my time. I can just run until the time hits 32 minutes, right? Nope. I completely fooled myself into thinking I had 18 minutes left, and then 14, then 10, etc. etc. when I actually had 20 minutes, and 16 minutes and 12 minutes. I was just looking at elapsed time, not remembering that 2 of those minutes were my warm up. Shit. Next time, I’ll need to start over, because my brain does not want to process much of anything while I’m running, least of all figuring out the actual time spent on a training session.
I switched up the interval training, so I walked two minutes, and then ran for 3. It wasn’t too horribly bad in the beginning, but by the end, I was heaving pretty badly. And I’m not going to lie, I was using the treadmill to prop myself up on more than one occasion. It made the running a bit easier, plus it took some of the stress off my shins.
So, yeah, it wasn’t a pretty run and definitely not the most graceful, but it has been the most prosperous. Go figure. I guess I need to be happy to finish, no matter how ugly the run itself is. Maybe one of these days I’ll run like Phoebe on Friends and see how that goes. :)
Unfortunately, the gym was void of anyone entertaining tonight. This disappoints me. While it gave me time to watch the Cardinals demolish the Mariners, it didn’t give me anything to write about. Sorry.
Side note: For the last 3 weeks I have been craving so much sugar, I'm sure to OD soon. I can’t get enough. Brownies, ice cream, cake, pie, cookies. You name it. It’s getting a bit ridiculous. I guess it’s good that I’m doing all this running or it wouldn’t be a pretty sight. But, that means that I’m only burning off the Twix bar I had at lunch rather than burning any extra calories. But, my pants are looser, so I guess I can afford to indulge a bit.
Training Day #11 - June 16, 2010
So, I’m thinking that if it wasn’t for my sister and her motivation, along with this blog, I’d probably have given up by now. Because, seriously. I’m running. Three days a week. For shits and giggles. Most days I don’t actually feel like running, but I don’t want to feel like a loser even more, so I run. I’m also finding that I’m kind of motivating myself. Each run, I want to run a teensy bit farther than the time before. I realize this is the goal, but probably this early in the process, it’d be okay to stay fairly constant, even slowing down a bit here and there. But, I always take the last 5 minutes of my session to try to eek out anything I possibly can. This resulted in me finishing 2.47 miles by the hair of my chinny chin chin tonight. Yep, that’s a whole .01 mile above Monday. Hot damn. But, hey, that’s only .03 mile from being 2.5 miles. And with having 13 weeks left to train, I’m feeling pretty darn good about it.
I continued my 2 minute walk/3 minute run tonight. It wasn’t too bad. I did fine until the last 5 minutes or so, when I was pushing myself the the breaking point. Well, except for the fact that I had to pee. Really bad. At about 10 minutes in, I realized I probably should have hit the little girl’s room after yoga. About 12 minutes in, I started thinking that I really should have gone to the bathroom. 17 minutes and I thought about hopping off to head to the bathroom, but this would have been a bad idea for two reasons: 1) gym-goers are like vultures. If you leave your treadmill for 2 seconds, you have 4 people fighting it out to take it. And 2) I didn’t want to mess up the groove I was in. 23 minutes in, and I wanted to stab myself. Finally I was done and I couldn’t clean the treadmill fast enough. I guess having a full bladder can also be a pretty big motivator to finish a run!
Tonight was a people watcher’s dream. There were so many people to gawk at, I don’t even know where to begin. First there was the husky middle-aged man in front of me in yoga who rocked the splits like a champ. I can’t even do the splits. Hell, I’ve NEVER been able to do the splits. Then there was the old guy behind me who clearly had beans for dinner, because he was lettin’ ‘em fly like there was no tomorrow. And I was none too happy when a few people were looking at me after class. It wasn’t me, fools! It was the old guy with the spastic colon! After yoga, there were the two Jersey Shore applicants lifting weights with enough product in their hair you’d think they were trying to single-handedly sop up the oil spill in the Gulf with their heads, along with wearing black wife beaters, jeans and flip flops. I know you’re just lifting weights guys, but come on....you don’t own a pair of shorts? Then, there was the girl next to me on the treadmill that kept clearing her throat like she was trying to hack up a hairball. This went on for a straight 10 minutes before she left. Come on, chica, get a lozenge or something! Go to the bathroom and hack one up if you need to! And last was the girl on the other side of me running who had on so much perfume, I think she must have made the rounds at the Macy’s perfume counter 35 times. I’ll blame her for the lung constrictions.
I think they’re all equally worthy of a moniker, but I’ll let you decide which one gets it. Any suggestions?
Training Day #12 - June 19, 2010
Ugh. Here’s some advice. Don’t try to run when you’re rockin’ the beginning of a chest cold. It sucks ass. This morning was a struggle for me. For the past 24 hours, I’ve felt a chest cold coming on, but I was still determined to run this morning. Bad idea. I struggled the entire way through it. I did mostly okay for the first 10 minutes or so, but the other 20 were brutal. I did still manage to walk 2 minutes/run for 3, but I was heaving pretty badly. I tried to push through the pain for the remaining 5 minutes, but I still only finished with 2.45 miles. Not horrible, but it wasn’t an improvement from Wednesday. And seriously, it’s the end of June, what is up with a chest cold now? Good grief.
Nothing too exciting happened at the gym today, other than the damn TV on my treadmill is somehow programmed on a timer. During my 40 or so minutes on it, the TV shut off 4 times. WTF? I couldn’t tell how to fix it, nor did I want to worry about it while working out. So, I just kept turning it back on each time. Fun stuff.
Off to pass out now.
No comments:
Post a Comment