Run and Plank

Simple: 4.5 mile run followed by seven minute plank series plus one minute downward dog plus one minute child's pose, all while listening to the Brain Science Podcast about "Secret Lives of the Brain"... Not really sure what it said, but I had a nice time.

Monday Circuit!

That's not something I saw today, or even this year, but I like it and thought it would be less boring than these words.

While Dr. non was running three miles and doing core work, I stayed in the backyard with the bad cats and did two sets of 25 of each of these:
burpees, mountain climbers, box jumps
(with bands) bicep curls, upright rows, chest pulls
v-sit with rotation with weights
scissor jacks, jumping jacks, side kicks, squat turns (180 degrees)
(with bands) standing rows, overhead triceps lower ab crunches, upper ab crunches, lower and upper ab crunches
(with light weights) crosses, hooks, jabs, cuts frogs supermans

I hope Slamma was sitting around or having a nice swim.

Girl Interrupted

Here's a gratuitous photo just in case words are too hard to look at.

Sunday's always a great day to work out twice, and the weather was perfect for it. I ran an unknown route and therefore for an unknown distance. I made a couple of stops for water and one at Body n Sole, where I learned that it's not likely I can replace the Newtons for anything less than full price. Sad but a reason to stop paying the power bill or some other luxury. Once home I goofed around, putting various pets outside and then back in, pretending to get myself clean, pretending to clean small parts of the house. But eventually I did one handweights set (not more than one because dinner was ready) with the usual stuff: shoulder raises in three positions, that plie thing with two weight positions, tricep extensions, balance lunges, squat jumps with shoulder lifts, two things I'm forgetting, and 200 ab crunches. Monday will be better.

I no longer believe the weather forecast

According to the weather channel app on my iPhone, it was supposed to be "72 degrees and mostly cloudy" this morning.  yeah right!

It felt like a thousand degrees and 100% humidity at 7am.  It is never good when you are dripping with sweat while you are still waiting for the GPS watch to catch a satellite!  I think I sweat off half my sunscreen before the first mile.  By the way, would someone please remind WS that even if she doesn't "like the feel of sunscreen on my legs" she still needs to wear it, her legs are not immune to skin cancer.

So, after treating WS like a 3 year old child and forcibly applying the sunscreen to her legs, we set out for a 10 mile run.  This is the shortest run we will do until week 14 when we start our taper.  Although it was both hot and humid, it turns out there actually was a light breeze.  We didn't notice it for the first five miles because it was pretty much at our backs the whole time.  however, at mile 5 we stopped for water and power gel and turned back around to head home.  It was a mercifully cool breeze and it helped blow the dripping sweat off of us!  The run felt pretty good.

When I got home I had a gatorade and a protein shake.  I took a short ice bath, which felt INCREDIBLE!  Now I am clean and rested.  I am confused by the sport of "Olympic Trampoline" (which is what I am watching as I type this).  While I certainly don't doubt the athleticism of these olympians, I wonder if in the years to come we will also see olympic hula hoop and pogo stick????

A Very Strange Sky

Well, the sunset looked pretty normal, but the rest of the sky was so dark, even pitching some mini-electrical fits, that a sillyhead might have started to expect rain. Not me though! I ran and ran, listening to The Other Brain, had a glass of water at Mom's, and then ran some more in total darkness down an unfamiliar sidewalk. But I did not fall. (My best guess is 6.5 miles, and I didn't bother with any abwork.)

Setbacks and Resets

I have been having pain in my right foot for quite some time now. As one of my best friends says if I state my pain is between a 4-5 it's really a 7-8. It started out as a nagging pain in my right foot, gradually it moved up my foot into my ankle and eventually my knee. Over the past month it got worse every week. Finally I accepted the inevitable and went to the doctor. My arch had a huge bump on it. I researched this online and it turns out it was a navicular bone. Basically an extra bone in the arch of my foot. Its very common among women however is aggravated by very athletic women who run or skate or do high intensity workouts. What happened is that it has gotten very inflamed, which in turn has caused stress on the tendon that runs from your foot to your knee. If I was to continue without treatment I would destroy that tendon which would be a problem because it's one of the main ones in your legs. So..the doc decided steroids and rest in an air cast would be best to give that tendon a rest and the inflammation around the bone the time to heal. She thinks in 2 weeks I can be back on skates again with some orthodontic inserts. If not we may be looking at surgery. Either way I know my body needs rest so I am listening. She said I could still lift weights with the upper body and swim for endurance workouts so that's what I'll be doing. It is, however, frustrating to know that this is caused from being 'healthy'. Still...I wouldn't trade in my perfect blood pressure, 2 sizes droped in clothing, or low cholestrol for a 'normal' foot.

Sweet Jeebus it is HOT outside!

Have I mentioned that marathon training has officially begun?  Well, actually, it "officially" began 4 weeks ago.  The training schedule has us ("us" being me and WS--who is the only other person I know crazy enough to embark on this adventure) running 4 days a week, cross training 2 days a week and taking one day off to rest.

Oh, and for those of you new to the blog (or don't gmail chat with me all day long) the adventure is a marathon in Australia in November!

Every running day also has a specific purpose.  Monday is cadence work, Tuesdays speedwork, Wednesdays hillwork and Saturdays are long runs.  Today is Wednesday.  That means hills.  You may have noticed that here in Chambana, we don't have hills.  So, we ran the parking garage in downtown Champaign.  We started with a 20 min "warm up."  Turns out that when it is 90+ degrees outside, the warm up very quickly turns into a "damn hot" up!  It was actually a relief to run the parking garage because we were in the shade.  Other than having to dodge a few cars, it was actually not bad.  We ran to the top of the garage and back down twice.  Then we did a cool down run back to my house.  Again, the term "cool down" takes on a new meaning when you actually end up hotter than you were during the workout.  I was sweating something awful by the end of the workout and my quads were angry with me, but it felt good!

after that, I ate my body weight in my mom's Indian cookin' and that felt good too!!!!