January Musing and Musing and Musing...

I'm pretty sure I failed to mention one more goal I have for my running this year.  I would like to run at least 40 miles each month.  This stems from my dramatic lack of motivation last fall after I ran my half marathon.  After two amazing months of running almost 70 miles/month I took a nose dive and ran only 11 and 8 miles in November and December.  If I had only had a short term goal in place before the race ended I think I could have kept my mileage up to a decent winter level.  I chose 40 because I thought it would be doable, but that I would still have to do the runs in order to make it happen (maybe that seems a bit obvious).  As doable and obvious as that is let me tell you about how I barely made it!

I'm fresh from my last run of the month.  A solid 3 miles that I found quite impressive.  On Wednesday at Zumba I hurt my lower back.  I'm not really sure what happened.  Something funky was going on right from the start.  In the first song I had horrible quadriceps cramps.  I pounded on them and stretched them and chugged as much water as I could at our first break.  Then near the end of the class my back started getting stiff and I tried stretching to get it back up to snuff and it just got worse and worse.  I'm thinking that whatever was going on with my legs threw off my pelvis and pulled on my lower back or something which caused over stretching and then spasms.  I didn't "throw out" my back, but it was definitely very tender.  That continued yesterday and I didn't run.  I did tally up the number of miles I lacked to get me to 40.  I desperately hoped I had made it without working to hard to get there.

Nope.  I lacked 1.87 miles of getting my 40.  

I carried this knowledge with me today as my back continued to relax and feel more normal.  Tonight I even put on some Zumba music and tested out my Zumba moves to see if I think I will be "OK" to go tomorrow morning.  I think yes?

Even at 8:30 tonight I had not decided if I would push through potential pain and put in at least 1.87 on the treadmill or write-off my near-miss as a valid injury and move on.  Oh, and I wouldn't need to even tell you all about my 40 mile/month goal.  So then it wouldn't be a real goal if you all didn't know about it right?  HA!  Good try me.

I played around with Spotify tonight.  I have been listening to the Pop and Hip Hop Power Workout station on Pandora (which I highly recommend if you like that kind of thing!), but I wanted to listen to some specific songs and you can do that on Spotify as long as you play the music from a computer and not your phone.  The phone app only does stations like Pandora unless you pay $$$.  No thanks!  I plugged our laptop into our amplifier in the garage next to the treadmill and kicked out some other "power" songs of my own liking.  Really it was these songs (and Tom texting me to just go get on the treadmill and get it over with -He's having a night out) that got me out of my PJ's and onto the treadmill tonight.

Allow me to tell you about some songs I love.  Sometimes Pitbull is the thing when you are running.  Love Pitbull on the treadmill, but then there is my love of Freddie Mercury.  LOVE Freddie Mercury and the movie Highlander.  Yup, the original one with Sean Connery and Christopher Lambert.  "Who Wants to Live Forever" was my warm-up song tonight.  Yes, I fist pumped my hands into the air.  This moved into
"The Show Must Go On".  This was my "get your butt on the treadmill missy, your spine is not going to snap off your hips" song.  Yes, the show went on.  At first I was pretty stiff, but by the time I got to Genesis "Land of Confusion", which is one of my all-time favorite songs, I was pushing right along with a solid pace and only feeling slightly off.  "These are the hands we're given, use them and lets start trying to make this a place worth living in!"

I moved from there to Avicii, "Wake Me Up".  This song is such a great mix of dance beat and ballad.  I feel the tune and the words.  While I listed I see people happy and dancing in my minds eye while I run, run, run.  Then I moved into some Pitbull songs :)
 
I ran right past my 1.9 miles goal and finished my 3 mile training run.

Now I'm just hoping that my back doesn't cramp back up overnight and make Zumba in the morning an impossibility.

Yeah, January was a good month.  Cold as cold can be, but satisfying on the running front.

41.13 miles in January!

Hopefully February will bring with it challenges and great rewards. Happy Weekend everyone!  Thanks for reading!

Day 1 Marathon Training

It's already the beginning of the 18 week countdown to the Buffalo marathon!  Ran 3 miles out in the garage on the treadmill.  Pushed it on the random setting (varies the incline).  

I guess I'm not much into writing right now :P. I thought I should mark the occasion with an entry :)

Goodnight everyone! More later! :)

Here's a sweaty post-run pic.  Let's let the picture do the talking.  Thanks for reading! 

Signing up!

I've been running!  Yay!  I have some running goals this year.  I really want to run a race every month this year.  I'm happy to say that January is done!  

Let me tell you about the race...

It's a series in a small college town called the Frozen Foote.  There are 4 races and if you run 3 of the 4 you get a shirt at the end.  It's a short 4 mile race that is an out and back from St. Lawrence University along Miner St.  We missed the first one of the series in Dec. I guess we had better make it to the Feb. and March ones!  So Saturday morning was particularly gorgeous because it was warm!  45!  We dropped the boys off at my brother and SIL's house and went to the race instead of Tom pushing them in the stroller.  What a GREAT decision that turned out to be b/c it started to pour huge stinging droplets about 1/4 of a mile into the race.  Should have checked the radar... I had peeled my extra layer of running tights off and one of my shirt layers b/c I thought I would end up hot.  The rain was SO cold.  People turned back.  I kept telling myself I was tough.  I also could not stop thinking about Tom wearing a (now soaked and frozen) cotton mock turtle neck instead of a tech shirt.  

My only saving grace was my down vest and my knee-high Smartwool socks.  At least my feet were warm even though they were soaked.  I really wish I had worn my rain jacket that sat warm and dry in the car.  The race was not a pretty sight.  Thankfully we ran out into the wind and once we turned around I was much warmer.  I have not been that cold in a very very long time.  Maybe never.  My arms felt literally frozen.  

Once we were back to the car we changed into our dry clothes as best we could and went to pick up the kids.  Coffee tasted amazing.  

Really looking forward to the race next month... 

Most of my races will probably be 5Ks, but I'm signing up for a half with my niece Jacki and my Zumba instructor (and anyone else that wants to join)! We're pretty sure it will be the CNY Bread Run in Fabius NY on 9/21/14.  

Lots of running ahead. 

Thank you for reading and Happy New Year!