This plan wasn't thoroughly thought through...

Ok, so I survived my first weekend on night shift!  Actually it really wasn't that bad.  I was fortunate enough to have someone that is incredibly nice and get along well with as my trainer.  She'll also be training me on nights for the next two weeks which makes everything go faster and not seem as rough as it could be.  The part about this whole working nights thing is that I didn't really think through my other job at Bath and Body Works.  I work their part time as well, which is great, but when I put in my availability I didn't think about needing to sleep more and get training in.  It's ok, I'm just going to have to take advantage of the fact that my gym is open 24/7 and put aside some ideas of working out with Red more.

Speaking of working out with Red, we did our 10 mile run downtown on Saturday and we both felt great!  I was a huge baby during the first maybe 3-4 miles because it was so bitterly cold!  When I ran around our neighborhood a month or so ago it was only 19 degree and I was 100x's warmer than I was running down town on Saturday.  The thing that made it so bad was the relentless bitterly cold wind by the river.  Once we got away from the river my body was able to get slightly above hypothermic and the sun came out which always helps!  We ran from Sawyer Point, into New Port, back across to Cincy by Paul Brown stadium, to the Duke energy center, migrated over to Eden Park, up near OCAS, over to Gilbert, back into town, and back to the car.  It was 10.1 miles and we both felt great when we were finishing!  We took my Osprey camelbak deal for water and it was a great idea.  The backpack fit both of us really well and kept us from having to worry about finding a working water fountain or something during our run.  It didn't bounce around and drive us crazy and fit Red's 6' tall frame and my 5' tall frame just fine.  I think the next time we do that run I'm going to try and eat more gels because we only had one, which was fine, but I'm just trying to get myself used to eating more during my training because come Ironman time I'll be eating something maybe 3 times an hour and this time I only ate once.

Once we got back from our run I showered, put my compression sleeves on, ate a great lunch, and passed out.  I worked Saturday and Sunday night so I didn't train on Sunday.  I slept as soon as I got home and then had to start getting ready and what not to work that night.  Today I had intended to go for a bike ride with Red and a couple of his friends from work because it's BEAUTIFUL outside!  It's about 50+ out and super sunny.  In order to make up for my lack of biking this afternoon, and doing nothing on Sunday, I'm hoping to go for a swim after work tonight.  I get off at 8 from job number two which means I'm hoping to be at the gym and in the pool by 9.  I think I'm only planning a 1650 but we'll see how much my body requests sleep as opposed to exercise.  :D

Working out then relaxing

Update from Wednesday!  Ok, well last I posted I wasn't certain if I was going to go to the gym or lounge about.  I decided that lifting at the gym was a much better way to spend my evening.  Well now two days later and my shoulders are still reminding me of my decision.  I decided that after working a 12 hour shift yesterday that I would listen to my shoulders and take the day off.  It also helped that Ohio decided to get the memo about it being February.  Yesterday it cooled down a lot thanks to a crazy wind that lasted all last night and the majority of today.  With that wind some snow thought it would be fun to show up and seal the deal on me staying inside and doing a whole lot of nothing.  My shoulders are still sore so swimming is temporarily out and lifting just doesn't sound like something I want to do at this precise moment.  My lifting involved:

Flat Bench: 3 x 10

Free motion fly machine: 3 x 10

Dips: 3x10

Curls: 3x10

Reverse curls: 3x10

Kettle slashers: 2x10 (per side)

100 regular crunches

50 side crunches w/leg raise (25/side)

Weighted Declined Sit Ups: 3 x 10

I'm positive that the thing that did my shoulders in was the dip machine.  It's ok, after more training and lifting I'll be breezing through this workout without a problem, at which point I'll probably be switching workouts so my muscles don't just get used to it. 

Since I haven't done anything Thursday or Friday I'm planning a 10 mile run downtown tomorrow morning with Red.  After that it will be shower, lunch, then sleep some more because tomorrow night I have my first third shift at West Chester.  I really enjoyed first shift but it takes up my ENTIRE day.  I'm looking forward to working all night then sleeping a while and training/cleaning/being productive the rest of the day.  I'm also looking at a better way to train and get better with my time management and organizing my training workouts to make myself more accountable and keep moving!

Happy Running!

Ohio has missed the memo, but I'm ok with it!

So, currently living and training in Ohio hasn't been too terrible!  Last year we had a couple feet of snow, freezing wind, and constant cold temperatures for the majority of December - March.  This year I think Ohio is making up for last year and decided that it's tired of snow and cold weather just like the rest of us.  Today it was gorgeous outside, enough so that when I went on a nice 5 mile run with Red I only needed to wear shorts and a tshirt really.  I wore a really light long sleeve shirt over the t-shirt just because the wind was really chilly, after the first mile I had my sleeves rolled up and considered taking it off.  My only complaint for this run was that my left calf just could not decide if it wanted to be tight and seize up or if it would just relax and enjoy the run.  I noticed when I ran with longer strides that it chilled out and went with the program better than when I had shorter strides.  I also got to thinking that my nutrition, though Monday was sorely lacking, still needs a slight revamp.  I just realized that it's been forever since I ate bananas on a regular basis.  I know when I ate at least one banana every day I felt better, more awake, and never had an issue with cramping.  I think it's time to get back to that.  Another thing that I've been toying with is the idea of a "gluten free" diet.  I have no idea how I would pull that off because I LOVE pasta and bread, but it may be worth a look.  I may see if I can possibly cut back on the whole gluten idea of my food but we'll see how well that works.  I've read that a lot of people feel better and athletes say that they recover faster after intense workouts when they follow a gluten free, or gluten light, diet.  I may give it a shot.

On another note I'm sitting here on my couch attempting to decide if I want to work out again and lift or swim tonight...or I could go run some errands and relax the rest of the evening.  I know, I know, I know....I need to just relax and enjoy the evening.  But to me working out is kind of a relaxing method.  Gah!  To be lazy and relax for the evening or to work out and then relax for the evening.  Hmmm....I'll let you know what I decide.

The way things are looking right now, I may just gather up my pup and head out for a walk.  It's nice enough for just a light jacket and my Zoey loves to be outside.  May be the best of both worlds without having a lot of effort involved.  Plus this will get Zo outside.  I really want to get her back in shape so she can do trail running with me this spring and summer! :D

Nutrition and self encouragement

The weather today was beautiful!  Nice and sunny, very little wind, kind of chilly, but overall not bad at all.  I went through the first 8 miles without a hitch, no pain, not tired, nothing.  Then around mile 8.5 I hit my own training wall and suddenly became my own cheerleader.  In my head I was telling myself that I could do it, almost done, great job, keep moving, anything that was positive was going through my head.  As soon as I hit mile 9 I was VERY excited because that meant that I only had 1 more mile, and that mile became my strongest motivator!  By the time I was done with my run I was talking out loud and telling myself to keep moving for that last half mile because silly me, I decided that I would run my route in such a way that I would end UP hill.  In hind sight that wasn't one of my smarter moves, but at the same time it was a really good idea because I was forced to push myself forward and upward and was very very happy when I finished.  I was incredibly happy because for this 10 miles I ended up averaging a 9:30 mile overall.  It's amazing what a difference not breaking my body at my old job, and a nice pair of new shoes can make!  Two weeks ago my legs hated me and my feet were falling apart at my mile 6.  Today I was simply tired.  

Now onto my issue with nutrition.  I really need to work on it.  I had a good breakfast around 9:00am, then missed lunch because I was waiting to see if I would be called in to my other job at Bath and Body Works.  I was so excited that I didn't have to go to work that I completely forgot about lunch and got ready for my run. I intended to run 10 miles, and succeeded, but I neglected to think about the fact that I only ate about 350 calories for breakfast meaning to eat more before heading to work.  Weeellll...that didn't work.  I ended up burning roughly 700-800 calories during my run and only ate one gel at mile 5.5 which equates to about 70 calories consumed during my run.  That is a TERRIBLE idea. I didn't feel too bad during the run, but I have a feeling that is why I was getting so tired at the end and also why I feel like junk right now.  After my run I was about -300 calories for the day, or more.  Bad idea.  I had a "shaka" after my run, it's carnation instant breakfast mixed with soy milk for about 200 calories, then a shower and now I'm trying to get more calories because I still feel bleh.  I had an Oikos greek yogurt, and now I'm working on a bagel with Nutella.  I'm starting to feel a bit better but still kind of meh.  I have got to work on my nutrition.  Other than that today was a great success!  

On to tomorrow!

Surf City Half Marathon 2012

So I just ran the Surf City Half Marathon Sunday morning.  I was super excited about the fact that I was in California, the sun was shining, and it was above 50 degrees.  Not to mention the fact that we were going to be running next to the ocean nearly the entire 13.1 miles.  All of this sounds wonderful and fantastic but I made a couple of serious errors in my race.  First off I raced in shoes that I’ve trained and worked in  since August and second off, probably my more critical mistake, I set the pace.  Setting the pace SHOULDN’T be a problem but considering the fact that I suck at running at a constant pace for more than a couple of miles, this was a very, very bad idea.   Actually, I think my entire poor decision began with the fact that when I did my training runs on my own I only ran 6.75 miles at my max.  If I want to pace myself for an entire race I need to get my body used to me creating the pace for the entire distance instead of only half of it.  I ran with my fiancé, Andrew, and he is virtually a human metronome.  When I ask him to run at a 10min pace he does it without thinking about it and can hold it for miles.  If I ask for 10:30, 9:30, 9:00 pace he can do it.  Our mistake at that point was I asked for a ten minute pace and then told him that I felt great and he let me set the pace at 9:00 for miles 2,3,4,5 and 6.  That was a terrible decision.  Not only was I nearly spent because I went too fast for half of the race but my legs also hated me because the shoes I was wearing were far too old to be running a half marathon in and expecting a decent race time.  My legs were tired and sore, my feet had (have) blisters like crazy, and to top it all off I was dehydrated.

 Yep.  Fantastic.  I still managed to finish in 2:12 which isn’t terrible but considering the fact that we were at the half way point in less than an hour that doesn’t make me feel so great.  It was kind of funny because around mile 7 Red (Andrew) was making fun of me and getting kind of annoyed because I was insisting on stopping at every single water stop for the remainder of the race.  Normally I’ll go every other water stop, but I apparently had not hydrated enough the day before and had stopped sweating.  He didn’t believe me because he was still pouring sweat, but my arms, face, neck, entire body was bone dry.  I had him rub my forehead to see it was so dry and that was all of the proof he needed to agree I needed to stop at every water stop.  We found his mom on the side of the course around mile 11 and she thankfully had a full bottle of water that we downed while walking next to her.  I realized that I only had 2 miles left to run but at that point I didn’t care, I hurt, I was tired, and I was incredibly thirsty.  Once I finished the bottle of water and walked a little bit I felt 100% better.  Red was laughing because he asked if I was feeling better since I was running at an 8:45 pace, like I said, pacing is not my forte.  We finished the half running strong and I’m positive that we could have ran faster but considering my beginning mistakes we ended up where we did.  I have been running distance races for nearly 4 years now and I made almost every beginner mistake you can make on that race.  All I needed to add to the race was to try something during the race that I’ve never tried before and thank goodness I didn’t add that to my list. 

For my next race, which technically is in April but I’m mostly concerned with May, I plan on changing a few things.  Time out, the reason I’m not really counting April is 1) it is a Tough Mudder where time doesn’t really matter and 2) I just started a new job and I’m not really positive that I can make it to the race due to my new schedule.  Time in.  My new attack plan is to start training longer distances on my own, find more ways to keep water in me such as carrying a water bottle EVERY WHERE, drinking more of those instant drinks that come in a pouch to flavor the water, and just trying to keep track of how much I drink.  I will also do a better job of keeping track of the miles on my shoes before I run another race in shoes that are far past their prime.  The problem with the shoe part is that these shoes had to stay clean since I wore them to work in a hospital and to train in so they didn’t show their wear and tear as bad.  Not to mention the fact that they are grey so they don’t show dirt very well.  I kept putting off shoes because they are expensive, but I should have learned from that years ago when I ended up with 3 partially torn tendons after a marathon.  I have a few other goals that I want to achieve this year as well.  I want to get better at my nutrition in general and also be more consistent in my lifting that I want to add to my regimen.  Well I’m about to land so I have to put my computer away.  Here’s to the start of another week of training and enjoying life!