Learning to Recover with Ace & Tj? Hell Yeah!

I was looking forward to a nice and easy recovery run today.  I was trashed after yesterday’s workout and other than mall walking with the kids and my mommy, I laid my lazy butt on the couch most of the day and watched cartoons (and of course multiple episodes of ‘The Office’- Rob and I have become a bit obsessed, plus I am a huge Mindy Kaling fan!).

My appetite still isn’t quite back, and when that happens I eat crappy.  Its easier to down chocolate, trail mix and gluten free rice chex when you’re not hungry than to eat loads of green stuff (which I normally do).  My mom also brought in some delish cocoa dusted almonds that I annihilated despite my lack of hunger, so I’m sure that I at least got some calories in me, regardless of their nutritional quality.

Today was easy peasy.  I am working with a coach, which is wonderful, but this seemed ultra slow and boring to me.  I guess that’s the purpose of a recovery run, and I’m realizing I never really used to recover on recovery runs.  I had to do these on the treadmill early this morning, listening to Ace & TJ talk about random things like what makes you say “Hell yeah?!” (Wanna watch reruns of the Office?  Hell yeah!).  Most of the talk show centered around guys tweeting in “yoga pants on campus”.  Haha.  Yeah.  Sooo, that’s what I did for an hour and forty minutes.  That and read “Get Rock Hard Abs” (or something of the sort) in Men’s Fitness Magazine, which lasted approximately .7 miles, and I rendered it useless, throwing it in the floor beside me.

I warmed up the first .5 mile with incline walk then jog.  I used to think these kind of runs were useless… but am learning to go easy on the easy days and really hard on the hard days.  No more of this one speed stuff day in and day out.

Progression Run & Nostalgia

It doesn’t seem like that long ago that this picture was taken, but its been almost five years!  The thing is, I believe I can be just as good, if not better than I was when I was competing on the collegiate level.   I know that sounds largely over confident and probably unrealistic, but I’ve matured in not only my knowledge of how to train, but also I am a lot better at taking care of myself.  I’ve realized through the years of doing endurance sports that taking a more holistic approach to competing is the only way I can achieve my goals, and be a happy, healthy person.  My running is important to me, but it means nothing if I cannot be a calm, mindful mother, loving wife and present friend, daughter, etc.  I know I need to practice recovering well, resting, self massage, deep breathing, meditation and positive affirmations.  I can’t run myself in the ground like I used to and be successful, and I know this. I am admitting this:  I overworked myself in the name of athletics. I deprived myself of health, of happiness and friendships trying to achieve a place among the crowds. I tried to achieve some imaginary name, or title, thinking it would make me better, but it didn’t.  Today I run for myself, to be better than yesterday, to be fitter, faster… not thinner, sexier or to impress others.  I run to challenge myself.

Today’s run was an 8 mile progression run from hell.  The last 2 miles really hurt, especially at 5 a.m. in the morning.  It took me 1.5 or so to get warmed up!

WU:

1.4 miles, started out walking pace the gradually increased to 8 min/mile pace

mile 1: 8 min mile pace

mile 2: 7:45 pace

mile 3: 7:40

mile 4: 7:35

mile 5: 7:25

mile 6: 7:14

mile 7: 7:04, 6:58

mile 8: 6:48-6:20

CD:

~1 mile 10 min mile pace

Then jumped in the car to shower and be ready for the kiddos!  I feel weird this morning, no appetite after the effort.  I love to eat, so not have an appetite kinda bites (pun intended).

My mother is visiting today, so I’m excited to share my Ella with her and enjoy a day of play at the mall kids’ center, and for once, some adult interaction ;-D

Easy Peasey Lemon Squeezey

I am a little surprised how fresh I am feeling today, and how energetic I am after running my 12 miles this morning.  Tbey felt super long- I think I looked at the distance counter every .2 miles and calculated just how long I had left in minutes…tick tock, tick tock.  I also worry about the time limit for the gym kids care… did I take too long getting upstairs and warming up?  Are they going to come get me any moment now?  I have a fear of being THAT mom who leaves her child in kids care over the time limit.  Everyone knows THOSE kinds of moms get talked about by the staff… I can hear their critical voices, shamefully expressing their sincere concern about the well-being of my child.  Okay, so its probably not that big of a deal, but these are the insane, nonsensical, and quite imaginary scenes I make up in my head while the .2 miles keep creeping by.

I wanted to increase my speed because it felt really comfortable, but I guess that is the whole point of Maffetone training.  Gonna keep at it like this for awhile and see where I end up!

Warm up:

10 minutes incline walking til HR at 155ish

Run:

12 mins @ 7:53-8 min mile pace (mostly at 8 min mile)

@ 8 min mile pace I can keep my MAF HR of 154 pretty easily.  It did start creeping up towards the very end.

CD:

I slowed my run the last .5 mile or so and walked a bit afterwards, did some short drills to actively stretch

I am definitely leaning up.  I lifted a lot during my cardio break and put on some fat plus a lot of muscle. I am happy that my arms are shaping up pretty well with the fat loss.  It’s going slow, which is my goal, but I’m definitely coming along!

Hot dog look at those guns!

Treadmill Run

I was motivated to get running today, and after feeding EK breakfast, cleaning the floors and downing some joe, I was surprised my motivation was still there!  Some days are definitely better than others, and at the moment I am experimenting with when/what time I do my runs.  Most of my runs are done on the treadmill, well, because I have a 16 month old little girl and it sucks pushing a jogging stroller (even more so than treadmill running).  I used to abhor the treadmill, but after taking a break from running I kinda enjoy the simplicity of it and being able to set a pace and stick to it without thought.  I used to also not warm-up, but have been reading a lot of Maffetone’s training advice and am incorporating a warm-up and cool-down to each run.  This actually adds a good 20-30 minutes to my routine, but at this point I’m looking for every possible way to prevent injury.  I used to be the kinda person who would jump into a run at a 6:50 pace, run 7 miles and then get in the car to drive  home. Ouch- not anymore.  Anywho- my run:

Warm- up:

15 minutes incline walking

kept increasing the incline and pace until my HR was up to about 155bpm

Run:

8 miles

First 2 miles at 8 min mile pace, 5K @ 7:00-7:24, 5 miles at 8-8:24 pace

CD:

5 minutes incline walking