Stretching, Drinking Water, Taking It Slow

As I have been increasing (vastly) the amount which I run I have also had in the back of my mind that I need to figure out a good warm-up/cool down regiment for stretching my muscles.  I have done a lot of yoga in the past and I LOVE it but I haven't done it since this spring.  I decided to consult one of my favorite youtube channels, EkhartYoga, which offers free and easy to follow yoga classes.  I have used Ester Ekhart's videos since the very beginning of my ventures in to yoga along with attending classes at my University.  She does a great job teaching the basics of yoga!

Anywho, here is the sequence I used after I ran yesterday to cool down my muscles.  It is a relatively easy sequence which is where I went wrong.  As someone who is used to doing yoga and being able to stretch pretty far I tried to push myself to attain my normal level or flexibility.  This was a mistake and long story short I have the sore hamstring to prove it.  I don't want to turn something small in to a major injury (at least not THIS early in the process) so I decided to take it easy for the time being and though I had planned on running again today, I will just be doing some yoga and bringing dog for a nice long walk.  Oh also, drinking LOTS of water.

I did thoroughly enjoy my "sleeping in" today... until 8:30.  Then dog demanded my full attention.  Oh well!

Day Seven: Running Can Be a Pain In The Neck, Apparently

Today was day four of the couch-5k program, which is day 1 of week 2 of training. I upped my running/walking times from 60 seconds of running and 90 seconds of walking to 90 seconds of running and 2 minutes of walking. It wasn't so bad and it helped that I had a buddy along. I roped my neighbor in to running with me, and while he is not normally a runner he admitted that the pace of the c25k program was manageable. Maybe I'll have a buddy for the 5k I run in October!

Now for the serious item of business. I am going to spread the word about my blog more so that I may get input for other runners, both amateur like myself and more experienced. My first concern that arose today is muscle tightness and pain in my neck after I run. This came up today for the first time, but I would not be surprised if it came up more often and became more of an issue for me because I have always had problems with tightness in my neck and shoulders ESPECIALLY when I get stressed.

So what do you do to prevent this? Is there anything I can do before or during my run to prevent this from happening? I took two ibuprofen when I got back to my apartment and the pain and tightness has subsided. I'm not sure if that is because of the painkillers (it took about 15 minutes for the feeling to go away) or just that my body relaxed, but I'm assuming if it was the latter I will soon have bigger issues when my body decides it is sick of relaxing after a run and my neck becomes knot city.

All in all, I feel great after today's run and dog wasn't QUITE as much of a little jerk. Yay for dog.

Day Six: "But I Dun WANNA Run!" -Pepper

So today is 6 days since I started training, which is to say the third day of my couch-5k program. I truly did not want to run today. Neither did Pepper. I got over it and was out running by 7am, once again dragging the dog slightly behind me, only far enough to be annoying.

I really pushed myself to walk and run faster today. I kept to the program of power walking 5 minutes, then alternating running 60 seconds and walking 90 but in the 25 minutes of the program I made it farther than I ever have before. It felt nice, but it also sucked because the faster I run the harder it is to drag the dog.

Speaking of dogs, People of Duluth, LEASH YOUR F%@#ING DOGS! At 7:30 as I was running on a narrow path by the creek (there are shrubs to one side and a steep drop in to thorns followed by rocks followed by a creek) and I saw I giant black dog --I think a lab/great dane mix, from his shape and size, so huge-- assaulting a smaller brown and white dog as black dog's owner apologized to brown and white dog's owner for his behavior. Then giant black dog sees Pepper. A little known fact about Pepper, she is PETRIFIED of big dogs and dogs with high energy levels. This was her worst nightmare. Big black dog charged at Pepper and Pepper cowered in fear and snarled at big black dog, who honestly was just a huge lommix who wanted a friend. Owner of big black dog once again apologized and I said, "that's fine. My dog is horrified of big dogs," to which she apologized and responded, "I didn't think there would be anyone here at 7am. LADY IT GETS HOT! IF PEOPLE WANT TO RUN IT IS 7AM OR HEAT STROKE! And I think the real point here is, you are in a park in the middle of a city with a population of nearly 300,000. Leash your damn dog unless you KNOW he is not a giant hyper sack of stupid. (Nothing against giant hyper sacks of stupid. They are some of the best dogs, but LEASH THEM!)

I think as I progress in the program I will stop bringing Pepper along. She really slows me down, and besides, no harm if I also have to walk her once/day. What is wrong with exercising twice?

That didn't have quite as much to do with my progress as it should have.

Day Three: An Invigorating Walk/Run

I set my alarm today for 6am. I worked at 10am and I wanted to be able to stay on track with the couch-5K program. Of course when I say I "wanted" to I mean my brain had 1,001 excuses why I should not run this morning. Seriously, all day yesterday, all night last night, and as I laid in bed and hit the snooze button (only for 20 minutes though!) I had tons of reasons why I could/should skip today's work out. All the while that forceful She-Titan inside of me was saying, "if I cannot get up and got for a 25 minute walk/run there is absolutely no way I will ever succeed at a half marathon."

I got up. I ran. It was actually quite a lovely walk/run. I went on the hiking path where Pepper and I walk almost every day. It was nice to get such a wide variety of terrain with the pavement of the street, the dirt path, the rocky areas, and lots of up and down hill spots of varying steepness.

I am still on week one of the couch-5k program so I am starting with a 5 minute power walk and then alternating running for 60 seconds and walking for 90 for twenty minutes. It is quite easy for me and I considered skipping ahead in the program, but I checked on the website and it specifically said that you should NOT skip ahead even if the beginning exercises seem easy. For now I can just say that I enjoyed my walk/run very much this morning and I am glad I went so early cause it is HOT now.

Day One: Couch-5K, Why Eating Is Good

So I actually managed to get up at 7am today without hitting snooze. By 7:30 I was outside and ready to run/walk (per the couch-5k program). I figured it was no big deal, I've run a mile no problem (like 5 months ago. whatever.). I didn't eat breakfast first because I think I remember hearing something about how if you eat breakfast first you're probably going to vomit or die or something.

My first observation was that this is probably going to be more of a challenge for my lazy-sack-o-crap dog. I dragged her for the 5 minute power walk, and when I started running? Fugettaboutit! She looked at me like I was trying to kill her and walked decidedly just slow enough so that it was like I was dragging a ball and chain. She is now passed out on the arm chair. I think she might be dead. (Actually, I just checked and apparently she is just a lazy ass. I asked if she wanted a treat and all of a sudden the torture of exercise that I had put her through was magically forgotten!)

So I got through the walk/run easily enough. I think I did better than a lot of other people I have read about doing their first time, though I did kind of want to punch things near the end. As this is Duluth, I live in the hillside area, and you cannot avoid the hills, I decided to take advantage of my possition and practice running up and down hills. That was an ok idea, but I think I would have had a much easier time had I not done that. Infact, I have failed to mention that that mile I ran was on an indoor track. No hills. Not even a bump.

I got home alive and dog had perked up a bit by that time. I went inside, took a cool shower (I just dyed some of my hair purple, so I'm being very careful to keep that color on there!) and I shaved. Then as I got out of the shower a feeling came over me. "I will almost certainly die now," I said to myself. I felt like I was going to vomit all over the world. I sat on the floor next to the toilet and made some weird faces, but I did not throw up. I just sat. And I felt bad for myself. And I considered telling my siblings that I couldn't run because it might make my shunt malfunction (Shunt= a tube that drains spinal fluid from my brain to my tummy cause I have a benign tumor that blocks said fluid from draining on its own. It is kind of vitally important). I didn't know what I had done wrong or what was happening, and then I realized I had still not eaten breakfast. I clawed my way up the wall to a standing position and got a glass of water. Then I realized that I didn't want my hair to dry all wonky so I went to blowdry it in my half-dead state (priorities). When my hair was all dry and not at all styled like anything that looks like anything I made a smoothie, and of man am I ever enjoying the hell out of this smoothie right now.

Lesson learned today: Eat breakfast after I run, not when I feel like I might die.
Also: Make Dog suck less.

A New Challenge

It is about midnight, the night before my first day of preparing for my next big adventure. I want to keep a blog as I train for Duluth's Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon (otherwise commonly known as the "Grandma's Half Marathon").

Yes, I, who can run a mile but I feel like I might die afterwards, will be running 13.1 miles on Saturday June 22, 2013. Of course, I will not be alone. This whole thing came about when I presented the random idea to my sister Molly who immediately said no but eventually reconsidered. Molly likes to take down as many people as possible when she is suffering (hehe) so she extended the invitation to my other two sisters and my brother. One of my sisters will be having a baby via C-section this winter so she was a definite no, but the other two siblings agreed!

I don't know when I'll make this blog public, but I really really want to be consistent in writing here so I can track my progress as I train. I will start with training for a 5k and this winter I will begin half-marathon training. I will keep track of my progress as best as I can here and eventually i will make it look all nice and maybe share it with some people. I figure if I share it with people failure will be public and therefore I will avoid said failure.

I'll think of some stats to share with my updates tomorrow. For now, I need to get to bed! Good night, internet!