3/14/2011

Training schedule says I will do: OFF

I actually did: nothing

Days to go until the marathon: 193

Miles to go until 1000: 967.86

I really intended to do yoga this morning even though technically I'm to take the day off.  I even got up when my alarm went off at 4:30 and fed my son so that he'd sleep though my workout.  But then between working all weekend, my son waking up at 12:30, and my dog loudly throwing up at 2:30 (from which I didn't fall asleep until after 3:15), I decided I just wanted to sleep for a little longer.  So no yoga today.

3/12/2011

Training schedule says I will do: 3 miles

I actually did: 2.91 miles*⁺

*3.91 using Aubree’s Bonus Mileage System with 1 bonus mile for pushing the jogging stroller.

⁺ I forgot to start my GPS watch right away, and I did the same run today that I did last week, which was 3.01 miles, so I’m pretty sure that was my real distance.  When I logged it in my 1000 mile log, I did so as 3.01 miles. 

Days to go until the marathon: 195

Miles to go until 1000: 967.86

Red Hot Chili Peppers song played during the run: Yes**

** This is a new statistical category.  Whenever a Red Hot Chili Peppers song plays on a run, I always feel like one always plays on every run which is strange, because I’m pretty sure there are only 2, maybe 3, Red Hot Chili Peppers songs on my ipod.  But I realized today that my evidence for this belief is really only anecdotal, I have no scientific proof to back it up.  So I’m going to start tracking it.

My marathon training has officially begun!!  I wasn’t technically scheduled to do this run until tomorrow, but I got off work early today (which means I got off on time, well actually it was about 15 minutes late), and it was sunny and in the 50s.  And I thought, “I could do the run now, in the sun in my capri running pants and a short sleeve shirt, or I could do it tomorrow morning at 4 am before work, on spring forward the clock day, with a headlamp and cold weather running gear.”  It didn’t really seem like a fair contest.

I was thinking today on my run about how I have spent a lot of recent run time thinking about celebrity breakups.  (Today a J Lo song played, and I started thinking about how P Diddy was the guest singer on American Idol this week, and I wondered if that was weird for her.)  When I ran in residency, I almost always spent my time thinking about patients I had seen and second guessing the medical decisions I had made.  I don’t know if the fact that now I spend my time thinking about things covered in Us Weekly rather than the New England Journal of Medicine means I am more confident in my abilities as a doctor, or if it just means I’m better at leaving work at work.  Either way, it makes me sound a bit shallow now that I’m blogging about my running thoughts! 

My son in the jogging stroller started crying with about 0.5 miles left on my run today.  I don’t know if he was getting cold or if I went over a curb a little too aggressively for his tastes.  I came around to the front of the stroller to see if he was ok, and he reached his little arms out to me, in the universal and unequivocal sign for “Mama, pick me up!”  If his sad little tear-stained face hadn’t already been enough to break my heart, that gesture certainly would’ve done it.  I kicked it into high gear for the rest of the run so I could get him home and in my arms, and actually averaged a 10 minute mile for the last half mile or so . . . that may not sound impressive, but remember I am SLOW.  My half marathon PR was just under an 11 minute mile, and I have been averaging 11.5-12 minute miles when I push the jogging stroller.  So I was pretty proud of that pace; thank you, maternal instincts!  You’ll be happy to know that he stopped crying the second we got home and I picked him up.

3/8/2011

Training schedule says I will do: N/A

I actually did: 1.94 miles* + 20 minutes aerobics (= 1 mile toward 1000 mile goal)

*I did 2.94 miles with my bonus 1 mile for pushing the jogging stroller per Aubree's Bonus Mileage System.  Since my last few runs have been sans munchkin, I definitely felt like I worked harder today; I think I earned that extra mile!!

Days to go until the marathon: 199

Miles to go until 1000: 970.87

I wasn't planning on running today (which is why I also did aerobics), but it was sunny and in the mid 30s, so I felt like I had to get out there.  The best part of the run, other than the great weather, was that I felt like my ipod had a brain and a sense of humor.  It shuffled from Metro Station's "Shake It" to AC/DC's "You Shook Me".  That cracked me up.  I'm obviously easily amused.  (Of course, the song after that was New Kids on the Block "Step by Step"; I'm not sure how that fits.)  It also seemed that my ipod could read my mind, as I was starting to get tired pushing the stroller when suddenly AC/DC said "She was a fast machine, she kept her motor clean, she was the best damn woman that I've ever seen . . ." so of course I couldn't slow down.  Good job, ipod.

3/7/2011

Training schedule says I will do: N/A

I actually did: yoga, 25 min (= 2 miles towards 1000 mile goal)

Days to go until the marathon: 200

Miles to go until 1000: 973.81

So I think my plan to force myself to do yoga enough so that I enjoy it is working, I actually really, really liked this workout.  I did an on demand workout from my cable company, and it was a lot of good stretching for a runner with a little core work thrown in.  It was great!

This morning I stepped on the scale, and noticed that I have gained 2 pounds since this whole blog experiment started.  To be fair, this adventure is about getting back into shape, not about losing weight, since I actually already weigh the same or a little less than I did before I got pregnant (thank you, breastfeeding), but the weight is distributed in a way that is, let's just say, less than flattering, and I'd like to change that.  But upward is definitely not the direction in which I wanted my poundage to trend.  Let's hope for a better number next week . . .  

3/5/2011

Training schedule says I will do: N/A

I actually did: 3.01 miles

Days to go until the marathon: 202

Miles to go until 1000: 975.81

I felt GREAT about my run today.  I was only cold for like the first half mile, and I never felt like I struggled.  It was almost like I was the old, pre-baby me.  It was great!  Oh, and I wore my new polartec running tights, and they totally rock.

Today's run was very thought-provoking, and not just about celebrity break-ups, although I did spend a little time thinking about Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz (sniff).  It all started when Beyonce's "Single Ladies" played on my ipod.  (By the way, I'm pretty sure that's the first time it has played during a run, but it now might be up there in my top 10 favorite running songs.)  I was thinking about my best friend Aubree, and how she wanted her bachelorette party to be called her "he liked it, so he put a ring on it" party.  That got me to thinking about friendship in general.  My husband recently took a 1-month plus hiatus from Facebook because he said it creates false friendships.  I think he's not wrong; since I pretty much don't decline a Facebook friend request from anyone, I have "friends" who I only vaguely remember from high school, and I am pretty sure I wouldn't know them if I saw them on the street.  Those are false friends, I agree.  But I also think Facebook is about more than that.  There are, of course, my good friends on there, with whom I would interact even without any kind of social media.  But then there are a whole group of in between people; people who were in my lives for a short period of time (sorority sisters or someone with whom I did a project in 10th grade English).  These people had left my lives, and I was ok with that, but now that they are back via Facebook, I really enjoy that too.  I wouldn't call that false.  


And furthermore, I think false friendships exist outside Facebook too.  I can think of examples of people who I call friends, but with whom I haven't spoken in I don't even know how long.  If someone were to ask me about them, I could give a fuzzy outline of what their lives are like (Oh, Sally*?  Yeah, she lives in Michigan and has 3 daughters.  She works as a nurse and her husband is named Garth*.  *Sally and Garth don't exist.  Ok, they might, but I don't know them), but that's about it.  All of these people get a yearly Christmas card from me (it pretty much takes an act of Congress to get taken off my Christmas card list), and with some I exchange yearly birthday cards (some have stopped remembering my birthday altogether, and for them I just ignore their birthdays, because I am petty like that.  But I do then feel guilty about "forgetting" their birthday for the next week).  All of these people were very important to me at some stage in my life, but that stage has passed.  It is likely that if we ever found ourselves living in the same town again, we'd be good friends again, although maybe they (or I) have changed so much in the years since we've been good friends, that that's not even true.  I don't know.  But in their current form, are these friendships any more real than the Facebook friends I have?  I know, heavy for a Saturday morning, huh?


The other thing I really thought about on my run was how much I like being a 30-something wife, mom, etc.  I like it for the obvious reasons (I love my husband and kid), but I also like it because I am comfortable with who I am in a way I haven't ever been before.  I recently moved back to my hometown.  This was done mainly so that my son could be around his grandparents, and so that we could raise him in a smaller place than our beloved adopted home of Portland.  As much as I felt (feel) that moving was the right thing to do for my son, I was also a little nervous, because whenever I would come back to visit in the 15 years I was away, part of me would turn into the insecure 16-year-old I once had been.  I was worried that that would happen when I moved back, which would somehow hinder my abilities as a doctor.  Thankfully, neither of these things has happened, and it took the following to make me realize it.  The background here is that I love to sing.  I do so without any vocal talent whatsoever, and I am ok with that.  When I was in high school (i.e. the aforementioned insecure 16-year-old), I would NEVER sing in my car when I was alone, for fear that someone might see me and think I looked stupid.  Today on my run, I heard not one but two songs that I just had to sing out loud (Quarterflash's "Harden my Heart" and Taylor Swift's "You Belong to Me".  Don't judge.), so I did, and I didn't care who saw or heard me.  I don't know if that is necessarily a good thing (mostly for passersby who had the misfortune of hearing me), but I'm ok with it anyway.

3/3/2011

Training schedule says I will do: N/A

I actually did: "yoga" (ok, really just a long stretching routine), 15 minutes

Days to go until the marathon: 204

Miles to go until 1000: 978.82

I did do some yoga poses, so I'm going to give myself credit for getting my yoga in this week, although mostly I was stretching to relieve soreness from the tough workout I did on Tuesday!  I am not counting this as mileage toward 1000.   

My marathon training schedule begins in a little over a week.  I'm a little nervous for the weekday runs, since I haven't exactly been successful at getting myself up in the morning to work out before work, even with all the pressure of my blog (and its 2 followers)! :)  I have always been better when I've got a training schedule to follow, so I hope that will be true in this case as well.  Now if I could just get my son to sleep through the night so that I could sleep through the night . . .

3/1/2011

Training schedule says I will do: N/A

I actually did: 0.87 miles walking* + Melt It Off cardio burn & sculpt and sizzlin' abs, 50 minutes (= 4 miles towards 1000 mile goal)

*If I use Aubree's bonus system, I walked 2.87 miles.  I get 1 extra mile for walking when I didn't intend to be (this morning my garage door was frozen shut, so I walked part way to work before I could get a hold of my mom to come pick me up) and I am giving myself 1 extra mile for the weather.  Technically per the official bonus mileage system guide, I only get 1/2 mile extra for a temperature less than 20 degrees.  But this morning when I was walking, it was 1 degree, and -19 with the windchill factor, so I decided that I should get an extra 1/2 mile for 20 to 0 degrees, and another 1/2 mile for 0 to -20 degrees.  I'm sure Aubree won't mind.

Days to go until the marathon: 206

Miles to go until 1000: 978.82 (I did not count any of the walking toward the 1000 mile goal)

Melt It Off is a workout video system created by Mitch Gaylord.  I discovered these videos on an infomercial.  I can be persuaded to buy just about anything from an infomercial, so I actually had to make myself stop buying workout videos from them (I think every workout video I own was purchased from an infomerical), but this one I got as a Christmas gift which I think is an acceptable loophole.

I have had a special place in my heart for Mitch Gaylord since the 1984 summer Olympics, during which he was on the men's gymnastics team.  These were the first Olympics I remember, and I fell in love with them watching them that summer.  I still LOVE the Olympics, thanks to Mitch and team.


The workout was broken into legs, arms, and then I did the additional ab workout.  The legs part was pretty tough . . . lots of lunges and squats and I think will be good for knee strength for running.  The arms part wasn't too bad.  I'll wait until tomorrow to see if I'm sore before I pass any final judgment.  The ab workout was KILLER.  I really struggled with it, and realized about halfway through that it was the first time I'd really done an ab workout since my c-section.  I am out of shape!  Luckily, I employed the Christmas gift loophole to also get the Bender Ball video for Christmas, so hopefully between these two, and all the other infomercial-propagated ab workouts I own, I can toughen up a bit.