I've been back on the running pony for some weeks now, slowly building mileage and making sure I don't fall off. As I keep saying, I'm not a runner, but I want to be! It's just that sometimes I'm... shall we say... less than enthusiastic about doing the work involved in becoming a runner. It would be kind of awesome if I could wake up tomorrow and be like "Hey sweetie, I'm going to join you on your thirteen mile run, and YOU'RE GOING DOWN." But no... tomorrow's going to be a mile-and-a-half slog at a searing 10:15 pace. The best consolation is the bacon waiting patiently in the fridge.
Anyway, where was I? Oh right, perspective. Jason left the house at 5:30 this morning to whip out his 11 miles before work. (Yeah. He runs more in a day than I run in a whole week. He's amazing and I love him.) I'd asked him to poke me before he left so I could get up and do my run before breakfast. So he did (well, he didn't literally poke me, because that would be rude and unboyfriendlike), and I got up after silently whining for fifteen minutes or so.
Ate a banana, drank some water, got into my running clothes (as much as running annoys me sometimes, I love the clothes), and sat on the couch. And sat on the couch. And sat on the couch. I just kept thinking, "Gotta run two miles... don't wanna. One mile away, then one mile back. Gotta, but don't wanna. Don't wanna. MAAAAAAHHHHHH"
And then I thought about the lady who lives in our subdivision. If I had to guess, I'd say she's in her mid to late 40's, and is a very dedicated runner. She's not very fast (like I'm one to talk about fast), but she's out there like clockwork, at sunrise, almost every day. And the interesting thing is that it seems like the bulk of her running is on the long oval drive at the back of our subdivision. And I thought... I don't want to run a mile away and a mile back... but I could do laps! Yes! Laps are doable today!
Whatever gets you out the door, amirite? Anyway, I'd wasted so much time whinging on the couch that it was 6:48 by the time I got out the door. That's a lot later than I like. According to my Garmin, the oval is around four tenths of a mile, so five laps would give me my two miles. I actually ran into Jason on his way home, and his smile is always a boost. So that was nice. He was in the shower by the time I got home, but I still got some breakfast cooked before he came downstairs. (I like to be helpful in the mornings. Having his breakfast ready is the least I can do.) And now I've earned the right to be a slug the rest of the day. Yay!
So there you have it. Perspective. Two miles seemed like a lot this morning. But since I was able to break it up into manageable chunks, it didn't seem like such a wall. I don't even care that it was a boring run and I didn't get to see any turtles. Boring is a minor issue when you don't want to do it anyway.
I bet I don't do laps tomorrow, though.
Showing posts with label running. Show all posts
Showing posts with label running. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Thursday, June 9, 2011
I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY
I have been so very neglectful lately. Okay, more than just lately. But work was all busy, and then I couldn't run, and work was still busy, and I started to get end-of-season-itis and work was STILL busy and then my season ended and I spent a couple weeks decompressing and I did a lot of crafting and I'm starting to run again even though it's HOT and I really don't have any excuse not to write anymore. So I'll tell you a story about a recent run.
Jason gets up very early to run before work in the summer, and I've been heading out the door around the same time (usually a bit later, since I don't put in near the mileage that he does, but still quite early). It's typically around sunrise, so I get to see a lot of wildlife that tends to hide itself away as the day heats up and the humans get out and about. I don't usually get to see any big animals like deer (although Jason once spotted a coyote on a frozen pond), but there are lots of different kinds of birds, and bunnies all over the place, and little frogs and toads when you get into the woods. And because our running trails are built along the local floodway (which is another post for another day), there are lots of ponds and creeks, which equals a startling number of turtles.
A few weeks ago Jason found a little turtle the size of a nickel, far away from water and getting dangerously dry. He carried it a quarter-mile to the pond down the trail and let it go in the mud near the edge. It soaked up some water, then swam away. That is just one small example of how awesome Jason is. There's no way the little turtle could have made it all that way on its own.
My turtle spotting was not quite so adorable. I was nearing my turn-around point on the hill near our house (which I swear is the only hill in Plainfield), when down the trail I noticed a big lump of some kind. The trail is right next to the road there, and I assumed it was roadkill. As I got closer, however, I realized--nope, not roadkill. Snapping turtle. A big one.
It was about nine inches across, just sitting smack in the middle of the path. There's a small stream of some sort that runs right under the road there, so I assume that's where it came from, but I wouldn't have expected such shallow water to provide enough food for a snapper that big. We did have a wetter-than-normal spring, though, so maybe it had just traveled.
ANYWAY. It was big, and it looked like it was headed toward the road. Not only is that path on a hill, but it also comes around a curve, so if a car came along while the turtle was crossing, it would definitely be turned into turtle hash. I'm a country kid, and I know you can't pick up a snapper. They're too aggressive and kind of scary. So I decided to squirt it in the face with my water bottle and annoy it back off the path.
It didn't like that one bit.
It went from "oh, don't mind me, I'm just a big ugly bastard hanging out here with my head in my shell" to "I AM GOING TO EAT YOUR FACE" in less than half a second. It was so fast, we might have actually time-traveled backwards a second or two. I was standing a safe distance away and I still jumped back a bit.
But my mission was accomplished; I ran into Jason on my way back (not literally) and warned him about the turtle. After he got home he said the turtle had moved back into the brush on the side of the trail.
He also wondered why it was all wet, so far from the water.
Jason gets up very early to run before work in the summer, and I've been heading out the door around the same time (usually a bit later, since I don't put in near the mileage that he does, but still quite early). It's typically around sunrise, so I get to see a lot of wildlife that tends to hide itself away as the day heats up and the humans get out and about. I don't usually get to see any big animals like deer (although Jason once spotted a coyote on a frozen pond), but there are lots of different kinds of birds, and bunnies all over the place, and little frogs and toads when you get into the woods. And because our running trails are built along the local floodway (which is another post for another day), there are lots of ponds and creeks, which equals a startling number of turtles.
A few weeks ago Jason found a little turtle the size of a nickel, far away from water and getting dangerously dry. He carried it a quarter-mile to the pond down the trail and let it go in the mud near the edge. It soaked up some water, then swam away. That is just one small example of how awesome Jason is. There's no way the little turtle could have made it all that way on its own.
My turtle spotting was not quite so adorable. I was nearing my turn-around point on the hill near our house (which I swear is the only hill in Plainfield), when down the trail I noticed a big lump of some kind. The trail is right next to the road there, and I assumed it was roadkill. As I got closer, however, I realized--nope, not roadkill. Snapping turtle. A big one.
It was about nine inches across, just sitting smack in the middle of the path. There's a small stream of some sort that runs right under the road there, so I assume that's where it came from, but I wouldn't have expected such shallow water to provide enough food for a snapper that big. We did have a wetter-than-normal spring, though, so maybe it had just traveled.
ANYWAY. It was big, and it looked like it was headed toward the road. Not only is that path on a hill, but it also comes around a curve, so if a car came along while the turtle was crossing, it would definitely be turned into turtle hash. I'm a country kid, and I know you can't pick up a snapper. They're too aggressive and kind of scary. So I decided to squirt it in the face with my water bottle and annoy it back off the path.
It didn't like that one bit.
It went from "oh, don't mind me, I'm just a big ugly bastard hanging out here with my head in my shell" to "I AM GOING TO EAT YOUR FACE" in less than half a second. It was so fast, we might have actually time-traveled backwards a second or two. I was standing a safe distance away and I still jumped back a bit.
But my mission was accomplished; I ran into Jason on my way back (not literally) and warned him about the turtle. After he got home he said the turtle had moved back into the brush on the side of the trail.
He also wondered why it was all wet, so far from the water.
Monday, February 7, 2011
In Which I Whine Like A Little Bitch
I'm injured.
Pardon me for a moment....
WAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH NO NO DAMMIT NO
That was me, throwing a temper tantrum.
It's my own damn fault, really. I know I am not a "biomechanically efficient" runner. I've got knock-knees, high arches, and every joint in my body sounds like bubble wrap. Not the happy little crackly stuff, but the big fat heavy-duty stuff that sounds like a cap gun. Seriously. I can pop the arches of my feet. Surely that is not normal. So I need to be a little more cautious than those to whom running comes as easily as breathing.
Over the last several weeks, I've been doing more running indoors. For one thing, it's been snot-freezingly, eyeball-crackingly cold, and for another, we got this little tiny ice storm last week that hasn't melted yet. (Not to mention the fact that I've been working oddball hours lately, and I generally prefer running in solitude, which is hard to come by in the heart of downtown Indy.) I do not have a treadmill readily available, so when the weather's being a bastard, I came up with the genius solution of running at work. The lobby in the theatre has a second floor mezzanine which makes a decent running track. It's quiet! There's no traffic and not many people! The carpet is all cushy underfoot! I don't have to bundle up!
The problem lies in the size of said track. 19.5 laps to a mile. That's pretty short, my friends. If I was already in good running shape, maybe it wouldn't be such a big deal. If I did a lot of balance and stability exercises, maybe it wouldn't be such a big deal.
I'm not. And I don't.
Did you know? Tight corners, and lots of them, are maybe not something you should do with any regularity when you're still building a base. And just the basest of bases, too. This week was going to be a 12-mile week. But now it's a zero-mile week, because I have developed what I suspect is peroneal tendinitis, most likely from turning corner after corner after corner during the vast majority of my runs over the last few weeks.
I am not a wuss. I can generally take my aches and pains in stride (heh), with the exception of when I'm eating and I bite my tongue or lip and make that horrible "OH THAT EFFING HURTS" face and whoever I'm eating with goes "Are you okaaaaaaay?" Yeah. No matter how much I love that person, if I'm bleeding in my mouth and swearing profusely and they say "Are you okaaaaaaay?", I want to punch them. Repeatedly. With both fists. And possibly bite them and say "Are you okaaaaaaay?" and see how they like it. The moment always passes pretty quickly, but I really wish they would just not say a damn word... ANYWAY. We were talking about my ankle.
...
What? I have really pointy teeth. Accidentally biting myself usually result in chunks of flesh going missing. It sucks, okay?
Whatever. Back to my story.
I tried running the day before yesterday. My ankle was a little tender right above the stick-out bony part on the outside, and had been for a few days, but I wasn't sure if it was a brewing running issue or just a mystery bruise (you get lots of those when you work in theatre). I was going to have to run on the mezz, again. Snore. Since I had gone through the ordeal of developing and then fighting shin splints last year, I knew that IF I was working on screwing up my ankle, running through the pain was NOT going to help. I know the wisdom of stopping as soon as pain alters your stride, and sure enough, two miles into my three-and-a-half, I was limping. Noticeably.
An hour after I stopped, my ankle was screaming. I iced it, tried wrapping it but had to take it off because even the slightest contact was agonizing, and ate a few ibuprofen. If any of that took the edge off, I can't imagine how it'd have been had I just left it alone, because it huuuuuurt. I was reduced to hopping down the steps at work on my good leg, and my boss even offered to send me home (I declined, because as I told her, it was either sit at home or sit at work, and I didn't want to admit that much defeat).
After a couple days' rest, it does feel better, although it's still sulking pretty doggedly about being so thoroughly abused the last few weeks. As I said, I only suspect it's peroneal tendinitis. I Googled my symptoms, and the all-knowing search engine pointed me to several sites that indicate exactly that. Overuse injury, often related to activities involving frequent changes in direction, like, I don't know, maybe turning 78 sharp corners in the span of one mile. I'm not going to the doctor for this (yeah, I'm one of those who tells other people to not hesitate to go to the doctor but I have to be on the brink of not caring if I live or die to go myself). I know it's not broken; there's no reason for me to have developed a stress fracture, and there's been no traumatic injury to my ankle. It's certainly a soft-tissue injury. So the only way to get a definitive diagnosis would be to get an MRI which I definitively cannot afford.
And even if I did get a professional diagnosis, what then? Either I'm told to STOP RUNNING FOREVER because OMG HUMANS WERE NOT DESIGNED TO DO SUCH A PHYSICALLY CHALLENGING ACTIVITY YOU ARE GOING TO DESTROY EVERY BONE BELOW YOUR PELVIS AND BE CRIPPLED IN FIVE YEARS or I'll be prescribed rest, ice, NSAIDs, and probably some mild stretching and strengthening exercises, all of which is just plain old common sense that I can figure out for myself. If the doctor had a magic wand that would fix it on contact, then sure! I'd go (as long as my insurance covered it). But he doesn't, so I will rest. Ice it. Take NSAIDs, just enough to dull the edge so I can go about my daily activities and get plenty of sleep. And when it stops hurting I will stretch, strengthen, and ease back into running, hopefully in a couple weeks or less.
Sigh.
LESSON LEARNED, ankle. Lesson learned. I'll cut you a deal. I won't make you run on the mezz anymore, if you stop being a little bitch.
Pardon me for a moment....
WAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH NO NO DAMMIT NO
That was me, throwing a temper tantrum.
It's my own damn fault, really. I know I am not a "biomechanically efficient" runner. I've got knock-knees, high arches, and every joint in my body sounds like bubble wrap. Not the happy little crackly stuff, but the big fat heavy-duty stuff that sounds like a cap gun. Seriously. I can pop the arches of my feet. Surely that is not normal. So I need to be a little more cautious than those to whom running comes as easily as breathing.
Over the last several weeks, I've been doing more running indoors. For one thing, it's been snot-freezingly, eyeball-crackingly cold, and for another, we got this little tiny ice storm last week that hasn't melted yet. (Not to mention the fact that I've been working oddball hours lately, and I generally prefer running in solitude, which is hard to come by in the heart of downtown Indy.) I do not have a treadmill readily available, so when the weather's being a bastard, I came up with the genius solution of running at work. The lobby in the theatre has a second floor mezzanine which makes a decent running track. It's quiet! There's no traffic and not many people! The carpet is all cushy underfoot! I don't have to bundle up!
The problem lies in the size of said track. 19.5 laps to a mile. That's pretty short, my friends. If I was already in good running shape, maybe it wouldn't be such a big deal. If I did a lot of balance and stability exercises, maybe it wouldn't be such a big deal.
I'm not. And I don't.
Did you know? Tight corners, and lots of them, are maybe not something you should do with any regularity when you're still building a base. And just the basest of bases, too. This week was going to be a 12-mile week. But now it's a zero-mile week, because I have developed what I suspect is peroneal tendinitis, most likely from turning corner after corner after corner during the vast majority of my runs over the last few weeks.
I am not a wuss. I can generally take my aches and pains in stride (heh), with the exception of when I'm eating and I bite my tongue or lip and make that horrible "OH THAT EFFING HURTS" face and whoever I'm eating with goes "Are you okaaaaaaay?" Yeah. No matter how much I love that person, if I'm bleeding in my mouth and swearing profusely and they say "Are you okaaaaaaay?", I want to punch them. Repeatedly. With both fists. And possibly bite them and say "Are you okaaaaaaay?" and see how they like it. The moment always passes pretty quickly, but I really wish they would just not say a damn word... ANYWAY. We were talking about my ankle.
...
What? I have really pointy teeth. Accidentally biting myself usually result in chunks of flesh going missing. It sucks, okay?
Whatever. Back to my story.
I tried running the day before yesterday. My ankle was a little tender right above the stick-out bony part on the outside, and had been for a few days, but I wasn't sure if it was a brewing running issue or just a mystery bruise (you get lots of those when you work in theatre). I was going to have to run on the mezz, again. Snore. Since I had gone through the ordeal of developing and then fighting shin splints last year, I knew that IF I was working on screwing up my ankle, running through the pain was NOT going to help. I know the wisdom of stopping as soon as pain alters your stride, and sure enough, two miles into my three-and-a-half, I was limping. Noticeably.
An hour after I stopped, my ankle was screaming. I iced it, tried wrapping it but had to take it off because even the slightest contact was agonizing, and ate a few ibuprofen. If any of that took the edge off, I can't imagine how it'd have been had I just left it alone, because it huuuuuurt. I was reduced to hopping down the steps at work on my good leg, and my boss even offered to send me home (I declined, because as I told her, it was either sit at home or sit at work, and I didn't want to admit that much defeat).
After a couple days' rest, it does feel better, although it's still sulking pretty doggedly about being so thoroughly abused the last few weeks. As I said, I only suspect it's peroneal tendinitis. I Googled my symptoms, and the all-knowing search engine pointed me to several sites that indicate exactly that. Overuse injury, often related to activities involving frequent changes in direction, like, I don't know, maybe turning 78 sharp corners in the span of one mile. I'm not going to the doctor for this (yeah, I'm one of those who tells other people to not hesitate to go to the doctor but I have to be on the brink of not caring if I live or die to go myself). I know it's not broken; there's no reason for me to have developed a stress fracture, and there's been no traumatic injury to my ankle. It's certainly a soft-tissue injury. So the only way to get a definitive diagnosis would be to get an MRI which I definitively cannot afford.
And even if I did get a professional diagnosis, what then? Either I'm told to STOP RUNNING FOREVER because OMG HUMANS WERE NOT DESIGNED TO DO SUCH A PHYSICALLY CHALLENGING ACTIVITY YOU ARE GOING TO DESTROY EVERY BONE BELOW YOUR PELVIS AND BE CRIPPLED IN FIVE YEARS or I'll be prescribed rest, ice, NSAIDs, and probably some mild stretching and strengthening exercises, all of which is just plain old common sense that I can figure out for myself. If the doctor had a magic wand that would fix it on contact, then sure! I'd go (as long as my insurance covered it). But he doesn't, so I will rest. Ice it. Take NSAIDs, just enough to dull the edge so I can go about my daily activities and get plenty of sleep. And when it stops hurting I will stretch, strengthen, and ease back into running, hopefully in a couple weeks or less.
Sigh.
LESSON LEARNED, ankle. Lesson learned. I'll cut you a deal. I won't make you run on the mezz anymore, if you stop being a little bitch.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Inspiration, Persuasion, or Bribery: Whatever it Takes
Yesterday was a long-run day for me. It was scheduled for Saturday, but even with my love of cold-weather running, I do have my limits. A sub-zero wind chill is one of them. Sunday was going to be marginally warmer and rather less breezy, so Jason and I opted to reschedule both our runs and go see a movie instead.
(Season of the Witch. Good-not-great.)
Sunday morning dawned bright and beautiful, and Jason headed out cheerfully enough for his seventeen-miler. I, however, could not get off my butt. I had to finish my coffee. Then I had to eat a banana. Then some ibuprofen for the weather headache I woke up with. Then I had to look at lolcats. Anything I could think of to avoid pulling on my running shoes, I did. But I HAD to run. I'd already put it off one day, and I know exactly what happens if I put off things for more than a day--they run away. They run away from me, like a beagle after a bunny, and they don't come back easily if at all.
It got down to my drop-dead time; if I didn't get out the door right.that.minute, I was not going to have time to shower and scarf down some food before having to leave for work at noon. I heaved my still-headachey and now slightly-queasy tuchus out of my computer chair and dug some clean running clothes out of the dryer. (I don't know why I was slightly queasy, as I am in possession of, if not an iron stomach, certainly an aluminum one. I suspect the imminence of failure for the day was squicking out my subconcious.) I promised myself that if I still felt like crap after half a mile, I could turn around.
Well, GUESS WHAT. I didn't feel like crap after a half a mile. In fact, I felt pretty darn good--which is exactly what I knew would happen. I kept running, spiraling around my subdivision because my regular path was frozen over. One mile, two miles, three miles--and I was done with my run, just like that. My headache was gone (from the run or from the ibuprofen, I neither know nor care), my stomach had settled into its usual happy, gurgling, burping state, and my legs felt light and alive. In fact, my third mile was my fastest since last spring, and I didn't feel like I was really working all that hard.
What I'm getting at is that, no matter how much you love running and want to succeed at it, there will be days when you really couldn't care less if your ass grows into your couch cushions. Maybe it's hot. Maybe it's raining. Maybe it's cold. Maybe you only have two hours to spare and you want to spend that time looking at lolcats. Whatever your hang-up, the prospect of slipping into your shoes looks as daunting as the slopes of Kilimanjaro.
There will be days when you don't care how hard you suck, as long as you can do it in front of the TV.
But!!! There are ways to crush those thoughts! Everyone has their own methods of dealing with those days. Maybe you're trying to lose weight, and you visualize what you might look like when you reach your goal weight. Maybe you know you'll be pissed at yourself in the future, looking back at that gaping hole in your records (that one works for Jason). Maybe you're aiming to beat your marathon PR, and you think about those numbers on the time clock as you sail across the finish line like a goddamn Rocky Balboa.
Visualizing rarely works for me. My brain just goes, "You're right, that WOULD suck to punk out and end up penciling in a zero for the day. Here, have a brownie." I need something more tangible.
Apologies for the crap sound quality, but it's STEVE EFFING PERRY, live in concert. He looks psychotic. I love him.
(Season of the Witch. Good-not-great.)
Sunday morning dawned bright and beautiful, and Jason headed out cheerfully enough for his seventeen-miler. I, however, could not get off my butt. I had to finish my coffee. Then I had to eat a banana. Then some ibuprofen for the weather headache I woke up with. Then I had to look at lolcats. Anything I could think of to avoid pulling on my running shoes, I did. But I HAD to run. I'd already put it off one day, and I know exactly what happens if I put off things for more than a day--they run away. They run away from me, like a beagle after a bunny, and they don't come back easily if at all.
It got down to my drop-dead time; if I didn't get out the door right.that.minute, I was not going to have time to shower and scarf down some food before having to leave for work at noon. I heaved my still-headachey and now slightly-queasy tuchus out of my computer chair and dug some clean running clothes out of the dryer. (I don't know why I was slightly queasy, as I am in possession of, if not an iron stomach, certainly an aluminum one. I suspect the imminence of failure for the day was squicking out my subconcious.) I promised myself that if I still felt like crap after half a mile, I could turn around.
Well, GUESS WHAT. I didn't feel like crap after a half a mile. In fact, I felt pretty darn good--which is exactly what I knew would happen. I kept running, spiraling around my subdivision because my regular path was frozen over. One mile, two miles, three miles--and I was done with my run, just like that. My headache was gone (from the run or from the ibuprofen, I neither know nor care), my stomach had settled into its usual happy, gurgling, burping state, and my legs felt light and alive. In fact, my third mile was my fastest since last spring, and I didn't feel like I was really working all that hard.
What I'm getting at is that, no matter how much you love running and want to succeed at it, there will be days when you really couldn't care less if your ass grows into your couch cushions. Maybe it's hot. Maybe it's raining. Maybe it's cold. Maybe you only have two hours to spare and you want to spend that time looking at lolcats. Whatever your hang-up, the prospect of slipping into your shoes looks as daunting as the slopes of Kilimanjaro.
There will be days when you don't care how hard you suck, as long as you can do it in front of the TV.
But!!! There are ways to crush those thoughts! Everyone has their own methods of dealing with those days. Maybe you're trying to lose weight, and you visualize what you might look like when you reach your goal weight. Maybe you know you'll be pissed at yourself in the future, looking back at that gaping hole in your records (that one works for Jason). Maybe you're aiming to beat your marathon PR, and you think about those numbers on the time clock as you sail across the finish line like a goddamn Rocky Balboa.
Visualizing rarely works for me. My brain just goes, "You're right, that WOULD suck to punk out and end up penciling in a zero for the day. Here, have a brownie." I need something more tangible.
- Running clothes. I admit it, I am a superficial twit--when I look good, I feel good. I may be a mediocre runner, but my wardrobe is fantastic. No billowing sweatpants or tent-sized t-shirts for me. My tops are tight, my pants are tighter, and the modern tech fabrics keep me as comfortable as possible. I wear bright colors, like hot pink, lime green, and electric blue; they make me happy and they make me visible--very important on a dazzlingly sunny day when there's a blanket of blinding snow on everything. I have learned how to layer just the right amount to keep warm, and I have a variety of clothes and accessories for all types of weather. There is no external excuse for me missing a run, with the exception of dangerous conditions: bad footing, lightning, blizzards, extreme cold (and by "extreme" I mean "near-instantaneous frostbite on exposed skin," not "oh noes, it's below freezing").
- My Garmin. It has set me free. Before this blessed gift from Jason, I was limited to mapping out a predetermined route on Google Maps, zooming in close to pick out a bush or tree or driveway to use as a turn-around point. It's a sketchy method at best, and most of the time I ended up on a boring out-and-back course because I didn't feel like mapping out an entire loop. And if my route turned out to be flooded, or under construction, or otherwise obstructed, I had two options: venture off into unknown distances and hope I remembered it when I got home so I could map it out, or turn around and short myself. Now, with the tiny computer machine strapped to my wrist, I can just run. It beeps cheerfully every time I turn over a mile, and I find I spend a lot less time looking at my watch. Running has become more of a leisure activity and less of a chore, now that the rigidity of maps has been eliminated.
- Okay, so this isn't exactly tangible, but it is a rule that I never, ever break: on the days I am scheduled to run, I MUST do at least a half-mile. If, at the end of that half-mile, I still don't wanna do it, I can turn around and run home. That way, I've still run one mile, and I can say I tried. The thing is, though--and this is universally true--if it's a purely mental reason for not wanting to run, once you get out there, you'll find that you're really okay and you can keep going. Now, if you're injured or sick, that may not be the case. I figure if you reach that point and you're still not feeling it, you probably shouldn't be running anyway. Take a rest day, go ahead and plant your butt on the couch with some tea and soup, and try again tomorrow.
- If all else fails, find something that spurs you forward. Maybe it's a picture of those kickass shoes you'll treat yourself with when you've lost fifteen pounds. Maybe you still have a pair of your skinny jeans in the closet, and you want to zip them up again, even if they're ten years out of date and the public will never see them. OR MAYBE YOU COULD LOOK AT THIS...
Apologies for the crap sound quality, but it's STEVE EFFING PERRY, live in concert. He looks psychotic. I love him.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Best day of the year so far.
Ah, the first run of a new year. It's always a good feeling. Blowing out the holiday cobwebs, sweating off the cookies, hacking up the lung butter from the cold your nieces and/or nephews gave you for Christmas.
Here on the Indiana flapjack, it gets pretty cold in the winter. It's not Minnesota or North Dakota, but it's a good deal colder than most people like. We had a particularly cold December, not getting above freezing for pretty much the entire month. But it's okay. I honestly don't mind running in the cold. In fact... I kind of like it.
Even if it does give me hives.
Yeah. Cold weather gives me hives. Even with my thermal tights and three tops on, I came back with itchy, red, bumpy patches all over my thighs, butt, and belly. (I'm not giving you any numbers, but I will tell you that that is a significant amount of geography.) IT'S A REAL MEDICAL CONDITION, OKAY? It even has a scientific name, look: cold urticaria. Fancy, huh. Most of the time it's just a mild annoyance, although there have been times (usually after a bike ride, since it generates an artificial wind chill) when I've had to eat a handful of antihistamines, jump in a scalding-hot shower, put on two pairs of sweatpants and huddle under a down comforter for an hour before I can stop shivering.
Still, I'd rather run in the cold and deal with hives than run in the heat and pass out in a puddle of vomit. I don't deal well with heat at all, which is a problem, because while we have cold winters, we also have sweltering hot and humid summers! Yay! (Grr.) I figure I can always pile on more clothes to run in the cold (these tights are a new favorite, thank you Jason!), but there is a physical (and legal) limit to how much I can strip off to run in the heat.
Even NASA agrees with me--spacemen can walk on the moon. Not the sun. Also! Submarines can take you far below the surface of the ocean, into the frigid depths! Show me the machine that can take you down into the roiling, magma-filled plumbing of an active volcano. Show me that machine. Cold can be conquered. Heat must just be tolerated, and sometimes it wins.
Anyway. It was a brisk and breezy (the weather, not me) 5 miles, but they were the first miles of a new year, so I am well pleased with them. I saw a good number of other people--runners and dog-walkers and older couples out for a stroll in the relatively mild weather. We have a surprisingly extensive network of asphalt trails in our little town, and it's always encouraging to see others out using them. (Traffic = maintenance = a really good place to enjoy the outdoors = more traffic = more demand = an ever-expanding web of places to run, bike, and walk. Genius, faultless math!)
I also saw a couple teenagers walking away from one of the playgrounds, adjusting their clothes. To which I say, good for them. Better today in the light of sobriety than last night after a little too much vodka-spiked grape Kool-Ade, right?
Came home, took care of my hives, took care of my screaming hunger, took care of a blog entry, and now I shall take care of sitting on the couch. Oh happy new year!
Here on the Indiana flapjack, it gets pretty cold in the winter. It's not Minnesota or North Dakota, but it's a good deal colder than most people like. We had a particularly cold December, not getting above freezing for pretty much the entire month. But it's okay. I honestly don't mind running in the cold. In fact... I kind of like it.
Even if it does give me hives.
Yeah. Cold weather gives me hives. Even with my thermal tights and three tops on, I came back with itchy, red, bumpy patches all over my thighs, butt, and belly. (I'm not giving you any numbers, but I will tell you that that is a significant amount of geography.) IT'S A REAL MEDICAL CONDITION, OKAY? It even has a scientific name, look: cold urticaria. Fancy, huh. Most of the time it's just a mild annoyance, although there have been times (usually after a bike ride, since it generates an artificial wind chill) when I've had to eat a handful of antihistamines, jump in a scalding-hot shower, put on two pairs of sweatpants and huddle under a down comforter for an hour before I can stop shivering.
Still, I'd rather run in the cold and deal with hives than run in the heat and pass out in a puddle of vomit. I don't deal well with heat at all, which is a problem, because while we have cold winters, we also have sweltering hot and humid summers! Yay! (Grr.) I figure I can always pile on more clothes to run in the cold (these tights are a new favorite, thank you Jason!), but there is a physical (and legal) limit to how much I can strip off to run in the heat.
Even NASA agrees with me--spacemen can walk on the moon. Not the sun. Also! Submarines can take you far below the surface of the ocean, into the frigid depths! Show me the machine that can take you down into the roiling, magma-filled plumbing of an active volcano. Show me that machine. Cold can be conquered. Heat must just be tolerated, and sometimes it wins.
Anyway. It was a brisk and breezy (the weather, not me) 5 miles, but they were the first miles of a new year, so I am well pleased with them. I saw a good number of other people--runners and dog-walkers and older couples out for a stroll in the relatively mild weather. We have a surprisingly extensive network of asphalt trails in our little town, and it's always encouraging to see others out using them. (Traffic = maintenance = a really good place to enjoy the outdoors = more traffic = more demand = an ever-expanding web of places to run, bike, and walk. Genius, faultless math!)
I also saw a couple teenagers walking away from one of the playgrounds, adjusting their clothes. To which I say, good for them. Better today in the light of sobriety than last night after a little too much vodka-spiked grape Kool-Ade, right?
Came home, took care of my hives, took care of my screaming hunger, took care of a blog entry, and now I shall take care of sitting on the couch. Oh happy new year!
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