Interval 9

This morning I upped my running time to 4:36 min walk 1:30 min.  At this point I am now running 23 minutes out of 30, which is 76.6% of my planned run is actually running.  Whoo hoo!  The run generally went very well.  I looked at my stopwatch occasionally, but as usual on an increase, the last two running minutes felt like a near thing. I wasn't sucking wind and I didn't have that panicky please-stop-now! feeling.  But the last 36 seconds seemed to take forever.  I can tell that I am recovering faster from the running sections each week.

I've been running barefoot 3 times a week since mid-June, and I have yet to see someone else barefoot on the trail.  I think I recall seeing one or two other people in Vibram fivefingers, but no bare tootsies.  I had a few comments on my lack of shoes, and they were both positive.  Last week one guy told me that I "must have really tough feet".  Which is funny because I am a huge pain wienie.  I'm running barefoot because it feel much better on my feet than running in shoes.  I have some calf tightness during and after running which aggravates my preexisting plantar fasciitis but absolutely no shin splits, which were the bane of every previous attempt at running. 

All in all, the morning started out in an awesome way!
 

It's About Damn Time

As of this morning I have officially lost 30 lbs.  Whoo Hoo!  That just took me about 9 months.  The plus side to going slow is that I am working on making lasting changes to my lifestyle and habits.  The down side is I've been doing this for 9 months and I still have 50 - 70 lbs. to go.  Gah.  I have to remember to be positive and celebrate the victories.  I don't weigh more now than I did 9 months ago.  That's amazing in and of itself.

I did hit the gym this morning for my weights workout.  It went very well, although there were several moments after one exercise or another that I contemplated puking.  I think waking up late and eating cereal and milk and then immediately leaving for the gym had something to do with it.  I managed to do 3 sets of 6 reps on my Smith Machine push ups on notch 3.  I think I am a little below a 30 degree angle on notch 3.  I'll claw my way up to doing three sets of 10, and then I'll drop a notch.  Soon... soon I will be doing real push ups.  That will be cool.  I lust after Jessica Biel's shoulders and arms and I think push ups will hep me get there.

Splendiferous

Is that a kind of tree?

Splendiferous is just a made up word that I use to describe truly wonderful things.  Although, according to spell check, splendorous is a real word, so I may have to exchange my made up word for the real one.  But the real one sounds pretentious, don't you think?

Anyway, today's run was splendiferous.  5 running sprints accomplished without looking at my stopwatch.  My breathing was even, my arms relaxed, my sternum high and shoulders down.  The weather was perfect - a little overcast with a dramatically cloudy sky.  My last running bout on Tuesday was okay, but at times I questioned how much I really enjoyed running.  There were no doubts in my mind today.  Which is good, because it occurred to me that increasing my running time by 30 seconds each sprint was going to mean that as I got better at running I was going to be slowing down in my forward progression towards running 30 minutes straight.  Basically, as I dropped my number of sprints in each running session I would be increasing my running time by fewer and fewer minutes if I stuck to increasing by only 30 seconds each sprint.

The New Plan

So I just spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to figure out how to increase my running amount by 3 minutes total each interval until I hit 30 minutes running, and how to drop sprints and not increase my total expected exercise time past 36 minutes since I also have a walking warm up and cool down that drags the whole shebang out to about 60 minutes. Here is where I think I'm going from now on out:

9    4:36 min run 1:30 min walk x 5 sprints
10  5:12 min run 1:30 min walk x 5 sprints
11  6:30 min run 1:30 min walk x 4 sprints
12  7:15 min run 1 min walk x 4 sprints
13  10 min run 1 min walk x 3 sprints
14  15 min run 1 min walk x 2 sprints
15  30 min run then home to celebrate! 

This Saturday I'll be doing interval 9 and we will see how it goes.  I think interval 10 will tell me how crazy this plan is since it will be the biggest jump in sprint time I have taken so far.

Today is an Ice Cream Kind of Day or Why I Didn't Work Out

Why I Didn't Work Out This Morning (by Round Runner)

I got home from work last night and Round Hiker suggested that Little Runner had completely negated the company value of our three area rugs in the living room by grinding a variety of foods into the surface: popsicles, scrambled eggs, mac and cheese, and Oreo cookies.  Not all at once of course, but in drips and drabs and crumbs and smears for the past 18 months.  We vacuum multiple times a week and attack stains with cleaners and rags, but eventually the sheer onslaught took it tole.  Rest in peace area rugs.

We went out and bought a carpet remnant for the living room that looks pretty good, but then what wouldn't look better than sub-flooring?.  We had to move the entertainment center to hook up the Nintendo Wii we bought this weekend so that we can watch NetFlix streaming movies on our TV rather than on a laptop.  Once that was done we laid out the carpet and cut it down where necessary and placed the furniture.  The process was complicated by Little Runner howling upstairs in his bedroom (I'm scared! I'm hungry! I need help Mommy! ((What do you need help with?)) Getting out of here!! I'm not sleepy!  I want to come downstairs!) and Round Hiker being in a foul mood.  The carpet knife came apart, the cords got tangled, we got sweaty and I just tried to hide in plain sight.  I didn't get to sleep until 11 pm (two hours past my bedtime!) and Little Runner got me up at 4 am and 5 am.  And he refused to let me nap in peace after I fed him some breakfast - the traitor.

And that's why I decided to simplify my life and skip the gym this morning.

Today is an Ice Cream Kind of Day

When I don't get enough sleep I morph into the Creature That Ate Salt Lake.  It's not a pretty picture.  I must have gotten an okay base level of sleep because I haven't been munching uncontrollably all day long.  I've only eaten off my expectations once - I had a small cup of Haagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream.  Man, that stuff is good.  And thankfully they sell it in small 3 oz. cups so I didn't dive in to a whole pint.  I have been mocked for my unseemly affection for vanilla ice cream, but I still think a good vanilla flavor is the food of the gods.  I'm feeling pretty good about being able to limit my foodie carnage (so far) to one dinky cup of ice cream.

Running in the Rain and Running with "Boobies"

Running in the Rain

Disclaimer - it did not rain while I was running today.  There, I got that off my chest.  More about my chest later.  I've run in the rain once, and totally by accident.  I was into my run before it began to rain.  During that run I solved a mystery.  Every time I saw someone running in the rain I totally didn't get it.  Were they not smart enough to get out of the rain?  They looked miserable.  Obsession, I thought, was bad for you, and not just the perfume.  Here is the secret - it's really fun!  You get wet, and it cools you off, and the world looks all rainy and you remember what it felt like to be a kid out playing in the rain.  It's a very different sensory experience than running in sunny and dry weather, and it feels good.

Why am I talking about rain?  Because it rained last night and I went out running barefoot this morning.  The run was fine, but I definitely felt the difference in the wet pavement on my feet.  A barefoot running book I have (which will be reviewed later) stated that the three conditions that can cause blisters are heat, moisture, and friction.  It specifically noted that running in the rain for "long distances" can cause blisters due to moisture and friction.  Apparently my 3 ish miles don't constitute "long distance", or the intermittent wetness of the trail wasn't enough moisture to cause any blisters, for which I am thankful.  But in the future I will wear my vffs to run if it rained the night before.

Running with "Boobies"

This topic was a request from Shane.  First of all Shane, the proper term is tits, not boobies.  When I think of boobies, I think of this:

Blue-footed Boobies

So, running with tits.  As I did breast-feed (or rather actively pumped milk because Little Runner had what is called a "Barracuda" latch - and yes, it was a painful and that sounds) my tits got a bit bigger than they used to be.  Add on gaining 60 pounds and all the parts of me that store fat got bigger, including the tits.  I've gone from a C cup to a DD cup.  I've lost 29.2 pounds and I haven't had to drop a bra-size yet.  This tells me that I probably looked horrible 30ish pounds ago because my bras were too tight.  Since re-outfitting myself with work bras and running bras will be expensive, I am not chomping at the bit to have to do it, but sooner or later it will happen.


I have found that the Champion Jog Bra is a pretty good bra for me.  My chest doesn't move more than any other part of me does when I am running, and while the bra band is snug I can still breathe easily and the compression is not so great that I feel like I have been ironed flat.

In general, having the right clothes to go out running and feel good has been very important for me.  Some people eschew (I love that word) the high-tech fabrics that sports clothes can come in, but I wallow in the stuff.  Sweat-wicking?  Bring it on.  SPF 50 woven into the fabric?  I'm so there.  Compression and stability and all those other good things?  Yes, please!  If my butt and tits aren't bouncing too much and my legs can't start a fire because of friction and my feet are happy, I will happily continue to run.

The magic of alone time

Hit the gym this morning and had a pretty good workout.  Exercises like split squats that killed me the first week were reasonably okay today.  For reasons unknown to me it took me 1 hour 15 minutes to do my workout today instead of 1 hour.  I was chided for taking too long when I got home by Round Hiker.  I tamped down my murderous rage by reminding myself that he had been up all night watching several seasons of Weeds, and that he was probably not in his right mind.  RH is lucky I am a loving and tolerant wife! 

While I don't get much if any alone time at the end of the day, I get it when I exercise at the start of the day.  And I need that alone time to gear up for the day and recharge my sense of humor and perspective.  Without it I become crankier, and definitely imbued with a sense of grievance and persecution.  It's amazing what wonders exercise can wreak on the body and the psyche! 

I knew better, but I did it anyway

Got your curious up, didn't I?  Unfortunately it's nothing fun.  I went to bed with a headache.  Unlike the rest of the planet, apparently, I cannot go to sleep with a headache and wake up without one.  Noooooo.  I go to bed with a headache and I wake up in about 4-5 hours with a much worse one.  I have to take Ibuprofen (Vitamin I) and stay awake until the headache is gone or I am in for it.  But hope and laziness spring eternal and I went to bed with a headache and got up this morning at 2 am with a worse headache.  I finally got the gumption up to go downstairs and get some Ibuprofen and crawl back upstairs to lay about until I felt better.  I finally fell back asleep so of course Little Runner woke up at 4 am.  And then again at 5 am.

I got up with LR at 5 and stuffed him with a bottle and Thomas the Tank Engine on the tube and we both went back to sleep (intermittently) for about 2 hours.  At a little after 7 I finally got up for the day and ate breakfast and got underway to go run.  So I hit the trail at 8:15 instead of 6:30 am, which made a bit of a difference in temperature and brightness, but I got it done without too much horror. 

I always feel pokey when I exercise after a crap night sleep.  The two hours of in and out of sleep were good though because they should help keep me from munching non-stop today.  A really bad night sleep ending with little sleep overall leads me to graze constantly, which kind of negates the whole getting up and exercising thing.  Yay for comfy couches!

Running While Female

In my experience, girls and women are socialized to see themselves as others see them.  For me this has lead to an inability to fully inhabit my fantasies as me.  When I imagine myself in situations I find that I am trying to see myself as others see me rather than imagining what I am doing and feeling from inside of myself.

When Round Hiker walks and hikes he loves slipping into the Alpha state where he isn't very aware of anything but the trail and moving down it.  He listens to music and zones out and comes back energized and refreshed.  I get that in snatches when I run.  When I am alone my brain gets quiet and everything simplifies down to three things, breath, energy, and the sensation of my feet on the ground.  As soon as I see someone else on the trail it's like my radio station stops broadcasting what I think and feel and starts trying to figure out how the other person on the trail sees me.  Is my butt bouncing too much? Do my arms look fat?  Do they think I'm too fat to be running?  Do I look like I am having a hard time running?

Sometimes my brain swerves off and starts judging the females I'm passing. "She's too tan - skin cancer is in her future.  She needs a better running bra, Woa, she can totally beat the crap out of me!"  Much of the socialization process that teaches girls to always think about how other people see them is done by women.  One of my least favorite comments is, "That's not ladylike."  Which means that I am not conforming to someone's idea of what women should be and they feel very comfortable, nay, righteous about policing my behavior because as a female everyone (male and female) feels that they have the right to comment.  These intrusions into girls and women's experience make it clear that how other people see you is vitally important.

Today was the first time I put together the dots on my inability to inhabit my own brain when I think about the future or when I am running and see someone on the trail.  My focus is broken and these social scripts start playing where I try to anticipate what some total stranger wants of me and mentally start self-policing to see if I am violating those expectations.  Unfortunately I also start projecting my idea of what other women should be like but thankfully I don't feel the need to say any of that pointless shit.  This definitely puts a crimp in my running zen.  And it made me wonder about elite female athletes.  I wonder if they get to the heights that they do because they have superior concentration and get pulled out of their focus less.  They certainly have an incredible social spotlight put on their appearance, behavior, and personalities.  From when I was little and Martina Navratilova was criticized for being too thin and muscular and manly-looking (and a lesbian), to Serena Williams being criticized for being too big and muscular and manly on one hand and then too outrageously sexy and inappropriate in her tennis outfits.  McEnroe swears at an official and society is all, "He's such a naughty boy  - tee hee!"  Serena does it and she's fined $50,000, has to apologize (which I don't remember McEnroe doing but perhaps he did) and everyone is all "Whoa, that's unacceptable!".

I will take it as a grand personal victory when I stop caring what other people on the trail think of me.  And an even bigger one when I stop caring what other women on the trail look like or are doing as long as they aren't in my way!  I want the luxury of self-focus and self-expectation that I imagine male athletes have.  And if they don't have it, I still want it anyway.

Flexibility

My neighbor couldn't watch Little Hiker yesterday morning so I had to drop back to plan B.  I went old-school and put in a kick-boxing DVD and did a quick walk around the neighborhood.  It did the job but wasn't enthralling.  But more to the point life threw me a curve and I still managed to work out.  Yay for me!

I did get to run this morning, which was really nice.  I moved on to interval 8 which is run 4 min walk 2 x 5 repeats.  Whoo hoo!  Progress.  I only increased my running by 30 seconds overall but I decreased my number of intervals and lengthened my running segments.  It felt surprisingly good and easy to increase my running time.  I may be actually hitting that mystical place where it gets easier and easier to run.

Running (and having a kid) is changing my body in good ways.  Having Little Runner and then chronic pain and depression widened my waist and lower body considerably. Running and loosing almost 30 lbs has slimmed me down all over a bit, but particularly my butt and thighs.  For once in my life my butt and legs fit int pants before my waist does.  Strangely, this has made pants buying significantly easier.  I'll be curious to see how the weight lifting and running change my body over time.

Coordinating is hell

Round Hiker got his name because he loves to hike, which usually involves camping.  I'm a good hiker but I want a hot shower in the morning and a living environment that I don't have to unpack and pack up within 72 hours.  With a Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday running schedule it becomes hard for RH to take off for three days to go camping.  If my neighbor can't take Little Runner at 6:30 am then I am doomed to not run.  Since February I've only missed one running day.  *sigh*  The joys of parenthood - you just can't leave a 3 year old home alone without facing some charges should anyone find out.

On the plus side I had a great gym day today.  I dropped a notch down on the Smith machine for doing my push ups.  I can't do regular push ups (yet!) and I am using the bar on the Smith machine to slowly work my way down to the ground while doing push ups.



I'm on the third notch from the bottom, where the last notch would put the bar flush with the floor.  I did 2 sets of 5 today.  Whoo hoo!  When I can do sets of 10 I will drop it down another notch.  I try to increase my rep range by 2 each set each workout, so in a few weeks I hope to be doing floor push ups.  That will be awesome!

One Week

One week is the length of time it took my body to recover from the four day food orgy of a family reunion in terms of weight, sleeping, and exercise routine.  That's down two days from the recovery time for the 6 day Seattle vacation and orgy of food and fun.  This is a good trend!

Had a great run this morning.  The weather was perfect (69 degrees and sunny) the air was clearish for Utah, and I remembered to use my albuterol inhaler before I took off for my trot.  Since interval 7 went so well I'm planning on shifting to interval 8 (run 4 min, walk 2:30 min X 5).  This will only increase my total running time by 30 seconds but will begin to eliminate some of my walking intervals and help me lengthen my running intervals without increasing my exercise time overall.

Back to the gym!

Finally!  I made it to the gym this morning.  It was a great workout and I sweat (sweated? swat? sweat just doesn't look right for the past tense) like a basketball star.  The thing I really like about the first stage of the Female Body Breakthrough workout is that it has some good exercises for balancing your left and right side.  I'm very right-hand dominant and that tends to make me right side dominant in physical strength and balance.  Doing single-leg dead lifts (no weight), side to side lunges, and walking lunges really make the difference in my left and right side apparent - and hopefully less so over time.  I finished off the workout with a 2,000 step barefoot walk in the park.  The weather was lovely - perfect temperature and blue, blue sky with ribbons of puffy clouds.  I guess now it's on to the work day. 

Eat the World

I feel like the creature that ate Salt Lake.  I haven't, but boy have I wanted to.  Today is my rest day, and man am I in an eat the world mood. I've been munchy-nibbley all day.  Smoked almonds, shredded coconut, chocolate chips, toast, scrambled eggs, popsicles, and I don't know what-all else.  Nothing to horrible excess, nothing too gasptastic - but a small steady stream pretty much constantly.  I guess it's back to food journaling tomorrow.  There is nothing like writing everything down to curb my eating. 

Company

This morning's run was the first time I ever ran with someone else.  And like all other situations where I suddenly have an audience, things went wrong.  We got to the point where it was time to start running and I realized that I left my stopwatch in the car. So we went back to get it.  The upside of that is that my step total for this session is 8,300, or about 4 miles.  Yay for walking more!  I was also more focused on chatting with Adriana (Hi Adriana!) than watching the path in front of my feet, so I stepped on more tiny pebbles than normal.  Riding high from my last run I decided not to use my albuterol before the run.  Bad move.  I wasn't sucking wind but I was huffing more than my ego liked.  Gah.

Running with someone else has some challenges.  I don't slip into my alpha state trance and it's hard to resist the pull of another's pace and stride.  None of this are the fault of the other runner but a measure of my inexperience.  If I ever want to compete in a race I will need to be able to run my run without getting derailed by other people.  It was fun to have company and push myself to stay up with a taller, lighter partner.  Round Hiker (my husband) isn't interested in running, so it is very enjoyable to have someone to talk to about running who has some interest.

All in all, this was a good run - minor problems did not stop us from getting out and having a good session and enjoying the lovely morning.  Job accomplished.   

Responding to injury

When I get hurt I want chocolate.  Reprogramming my comfort food response is a long-running effort for me that is still in the beginning stages.  I've basically decided that I'll give pain a day of eating what it wants, then it's back to actively trying to eat a well balanced diet.  Yesterday I had a dermatologist checkup and had two biopsies taken for possible skin cancer.  Since I am prone to it, I get checked every 6 months.  And every six months my doctor whittles on me and I whine.  So yesterday I had a chocolate chip latte from Starbucks right after I got stitched up.  And a piece of lemon tart.  And a few random pieces of chocolate through the day, and an awesome burger with bacon and avocado slices from Salt City Burger company, my restaurant obsession.  I have a frequent eater's account with them.  Every 11th burger is free.  Yummmmm.  But today it's back to thinking clearly about my food and health goals and actively working to achieve them.

Since I had a biopsy taken from the back of each arm I decided to ditch weightlifting in favor of giving Little Runner a bath and generally tidying up the place.  I bustled about and manged to get in a few thousand steps before work even without a focused workout.  I'll walk a mile in the building at lunch time and perhaps again later in the day.  Saturday will be a running day, Sunday rest day, and then back to lifting on Monday.

It's easy to get into a mindset that nothing should get in the way of your workouts, but life happens.  Road trips happen, doctor visits happen, and generally getting sick and feeling punky happen.  In the past one slip off the perfect path would derail me for months.  That all or nothing mentality was very damaging to my mental health and my physical health goals because I was either good or bad.  And if I was bad, I was going to be very bad.  Now I'm just me - and maybe I have good days and bad days, but since tomorrow is another day I am never off the path to my goals.

And then a miracle occurred!

So yesterday was mostly a wash.  I didn't weight lift because I had an 8 am appointment.  I did walk to Rite Aid to pick up a prescription for Little Runner with a round trip tally of something like 6,000 steps.  But I sort of tanked the weight loss efficacy by buying a pack of Red Vines and eating them on the way home - but man were they good!  If you are going to eat crap you darn well better actually enjoy it while you are doing it.

This morning I got off to a late start because Little Runner decided to get up at 4 am instead of 5 am. *sigh*  I got him some breakfast and put Thomas the Tank Engine on TV and fell asleep on the couch until 6:30 am.  I didn't get to the park to run until about 7:10 am.  But the weather was nice and reasonably cool so my late start did not screw the run up.

I decided to up my running time from 3 minutes to 3 minutes 30 seconds + 2 minutes walking for 6 intervals.  In the past, every time I increased my running time I spent the last 30 seconds sucking wind and praying for the "you can walk now" beep from my stopwatch.  Not today! I was surprised every time the walk beep went off.  I could have kept running and I was not praying for it to end!  A miracle occurred!  I am actually getting better at running.  My fantasy of running a marathon doesn't seem as implausible now as it did when I was gasping for breath after every 30 second running sprint.  Progress is amazingly motivating.  I now have to restrain myself from increasing my running time on Saturday morning.  I need to stay at this new interval time for at least 3 sessions so that I can make progress without injury.  But I feel like dancing a cha cha every time I think about how much easier running is getting for me.  And I think I could do a few minutes of the cha cha without sucking wind!

My feet follow my breath

I love the word Capri.  It sounds like a drink, and always makes me think of Audry Hepburn.  It's also Round Runner's best friend.  I'm so short that most exercise pants are too long and not feasibly hemmed, and most exercise shorts are either too short (hello thigh chafe) or so tight they make me feel like I am in a sausage casing.  I found great pair of capris at REI on clearance and I love them.  I  found that Nordstrom.com had them on sale 1/2 off, so I ordered 4 more pair.  My current bestest running capris in the whole world are Nike Dri-FIT Be Bold women's capris.  I hate the name.  They have several lines like Be Strong, and Be Fast, and Be True - because women are so limited we can only be one thing at a time!  Regardless of the ridiculous name, the pants fit and have just enough compression to reduce bubble butt bounce (bbb) and the fabric is so smooth that it seems to eliminate leg friction, so I am one happy runner.

Buoyed by my spectacular running pants I eagerly shuffled off to run this morning.  I love how Utah is still relatively cool in the mornings (55 - 75 degrees F) even in July.  I run along the Jordan River Parkway Trail which has a cooler micro-clime on the parts close to the river.  I did it barefoot and it felt great after my last run in shoes.  I'll have to see how my submerged left forefoot blister seems on Saturday - if it's visible I'll wear my shoes and grumble.

The other two pieces of running gear that I use and love are my metronome and my stopwatch.  I've read that the best running tempo is 180 beats per minute and tried to use my metronome to synchronize my feet and that seemed to work okay but I would loose the beat quite often.  I decided to slow the metronome down to 60 beats per minute and sync my feet with 1/3 the number of beats, and accidentally found what works for me.  I sync my breathing to the metronome - in on one beep and out on the next on a 60 beat setting so that I am breathing 30 times a minute, or one breath every two seconds.  I have found that as long as my breathing is rhythmic and stable my feet follow my breath.  That was the breakthrough for me in June that has made running vastly more enjoyable and even easier.  Focusing on my breath reminds me of Yoga, and makes running feel like meditation.  I'm calmer and happier when I finish than when I began. 

I use a dual timer stopwatch to tack my running time and my walking time.  I hit start once and don't reset the stopwatch until I have completed all of my intervals for the running session.  It's a little tough to keep my breath synced with the metronome when the 4 countdown beeps for my timer are going off to tell me its time to start or stop running, but that is a momentary problem that smooths out as soon as I transition to running or walking.

Today's run felt easy - it's time for me to up my game and move on to the next interval - running for 3 minutes 30 seconds and walking for 2 minutes for a total session time of 33 minutes.  I expect that my calves will feel tight the day after I up my interval intensity and that tightness won't go away until about the 3rd time I run at this new interval pace. 

Old dog - New Trick

I strapped on my vffs this morning and got out of the house (which is very nice and I totally have house envy.  It's not nice to plot your parent's death so that you can inherit their house) for my regular Saturday run. I'm usually running at or a bit below 4700 feet and today I was at about 5600 feet.  I usually run/walk about 6500 steps in a session, and today I did about 7500 steps because my dad lives on a hill that has a loooong (1300 steps) steep gravel driveway.  That was an interesting way to warm my feet up for the run.  I hit the road and begin my sprint intervals.  The road was hillier than what I usually run both in terms of altitude and length up and down the hill.

I forgot to take my albuterol before I ran, but my breathing was okay, even on the long climbs.  Ultimately I did 5 out of the 6 sprint intervals because on the 6th sprint while going long downhill my right forefoot felt "funny".  It didn't exactly hurt, and it didn't necessarily feel like anything was wrong, but it definitely felt different that anything I have felt running, so I decided not to continue running just to be safe.  I walked the rest of the way home and took my shoes off and ate breakfast.  It's after lunch and both of my feet feel fine.  I consider my decision to walk the rest of the way home and skip the last sprint to be an excellent one.  The last time I tried to walk through something feeling "funny" in my left forefoot I ended up lame for a month due to an overuse injury.  I put this run in the win column.

There was a really loud cow that mooed as I passed her both ways.  It took me a while to figure out what that strange noise was - it  has been about 20 years since I heard a real cow moo.  There was also a loud bird in a field tweeting away as I passed.  I've never heard that particular bird species before.  It had a very white belly and under wing and a dusty brown topcoat.  The countryside was fairly quiet except for those two animals.  I love how running gets me out to see things up close that I miss while passing by in a car.  You get to know a place differently when you run there.

Blister Report

I guess the blister is still there.  I can't see it anymore, but it was very visible yesterday, although clearly a few layers deeper than I usually get blisters.  To be on the safe side my next few runs will be with my vffs on.

Today the family and I will be traveling to visit my dad and step-mother in Colorado.  Tonight menu is roast beef, corn on the cob and roasted potatoes.  Yummm.  I have no idea what delights are in store for Saturday, but then Sunday breakfast will be the famed quiche with bacon and my dad's amazing sausage gravy (cooked for about 50 people!). Life is good.

Fangirls

Today was my second barefoot run.  I had finished my first interval and was 35 seconds away from my second when a cyclist slowed down next to me and asked if I had read Born to Run.  We spent about 5 minutes squeeing over the book and comparing efforts to run barefoot.  She was biking because she overdid her second barefoot run and had several blisters and a blood blister.  Yow!  It was fun to compare notes and have that visual recognition and kinship with someone.  Other than librarians (we are an odd lot) the only other group I've had that sort of instant affinity for are ex-pats in Japan.  I taught English in Japan from 1994 - 1997 and since foreigners were fairly recognizable, it was easy to seek out fellow 'gaijin' and find an instant rapport with someone.

While no one said anything to me on my first run, I had three commenters on my lack of footwear today.  Bike chick, a dog walker (don't stub your toe!), and another dog walker (doesn't that hurt your feet?).  Yes, I'm running barefoot because I'm stupid/into pain/ignorant of the availability of footwear.  Take your pick.  Duh.  Of course, I now have a small blister on my left forefoot (about 2/3 the size of a dime).  It's not big, and it's several layers deep so I'm not worried about it popping, but this means that I will definitely be wearing my vffs on my run on Saturday.  I'll be visiting my dad and stepmother in Colorado, so it's just as well that I will be shod - I have no idea what the roads are like and if there will be sidewalks or not. 

All in all, today's run was great.  My breathing was awesome and my speed was pretty much as usual - slow!  But I got it done and feel physically great and that little psych perk-me-up that says I did what no one expects me to do, and all before 8 am!

Diet does not equal calorie restriction

Tell me I can't have something, that it's bad for me, and I crave it.  Perhaps it's my suppressed rebellious adolescent mentality surfacing (I was shockingly tame as a teenager).  Historically, as soon as I even thought about dieting, I'd crave pizza or french fries, or any number of other foods that being on a diet means that you can't have.  The only way I can be on a diet is to not be on a diet.  I now use the word diet to mean what nutritionists mean -  the totality of what I eat.  My husband says I have the palate of a 5 year old because I'm not at all fond of vegetables, but I am working on that.  The fact that I have lost 28 lbs so far (yay!) is proof that hating vegetables is no barrier to achieving health goals.

Last night I burned my frozen chicken thighs, which irritated the piss out of me.  I didn't feel like having a salad, or going out to eat, or pretty much anything else, so I cooked a frozen California Pizza Kitchen thin-crust pepperoni pizza.  I ended up eating the whole thing, which was ridiculous because it was about 1,000 calories and didn't taste that good but I was watching a great movie and wanted to munch.  So my total for yesterday was about 3,000 calories - a bit past my goal of 2100.  And it's not the end of the world.

One beyond my goal meal/day/week does not mean that I have 'fallen off the wagon'.  There is no wagon, there is no 'bad'.  Vacations to Seattle will happen.  Family reunions will happen (oooooh - Quiche Lorraine and sausage gravy here I come!)  Life will happen.  Getting in touch with the idea that there are "sometimes" foods (thank you Sesame Street!) and making sure that they are sometimes rather than always seems to be helping me.  I can have that cookie/cupcake/hot pretzel - just not every day.  Knowing that I can have the tasty foods I want helps me keep them in perspective.

My Running Plan

So I'm a bit more than chubby, have asthma, and am 38 years old.  After going too fast with the Couch to 5K program I decided to radically modify the plan for my personal particulars. Here it is:

interval    run       walk    repeat
1          30 sec    3 min    8 times
2            1 min    3 min    7 times
3       1:30 min    3 min    6 times
4            2 min    3 min    6 times
5    2:30 min    2:30 min    6 times
6            3 min    2 min     6 times
7         3:30 min    2 min    6 times
8         4 min    2:30 min    5 times
9    4:30 min    2:30 min    5 times
10      5 min    2:30  min    4 times
11  5:30 min    2:30 min    4 times
13    6:30 min        2 min    4 times
14         7 min        3 min    3 times
15   7:30 min    2:30 min    3 times
16          8 min      2 min    3 times
17       8:30 min    2 min    3 times
18            9 min    1 min    3 times
19         10 min     1 min    3 times
20          15 min    1 min    2 times
21         30 min    0 min     1 time

Each interval may last from 1-2 weeks depending on how well my breathing adapts to the plan.  On the first three sessions of an interval I use my Albuteral inhaler, and if I can do the fourth session without my inhaler and without feeling like I'm sucking wind badly, I can move on to the next interval.  If I am traveling, I stick with my current interval until I am back home.  I don't want to overextend myself and be in a lame position when I have less control over my routines.  So this plan can expand from 21 weeks to 42 (or more) as necessary.  Which, you may note, is far longer than the 9 weeks that Couch to 5K maps out (although, to be fair, they also say that you can spend more time at each step as necessary).

As of today I am in the second week of interval 6 - and will be traveling over the upcoming weekend, so I will spend more than 2 weeks at interval 6.  Which is fine with me.  I'm spending more than 1/2 of my running sessions actually running, which is totally awesome and I feel great and look better than I have in several years.

I've got the shoes, now what?

Finally I got my shoes.  I bought them from Wasatch Running Center.  At the time they were the only place I could find Vibram fivefingers (henceforth to be called vffs).  Now I see them many places, including REI.  I mention REI only because they have a super awesome return policy, so if you try them and don't like them, you can bring them back for a refund.  My vffs felt fairly weird to start with - they are a bit of a pain in the butt to get on, at least initially.  You have to shove your forefoot in and then press down and wiggle your toes into the toe-pockets and then yank on the heel loop to pry the back up over your heel.  For the first few minutes they feel strange as the fabric of the toe-pockets forces your toes to splay slightly.  The only toe that really notices this splaying is my pinky toe, which is far more used to being smooshed into a shoe than pushed out by one.

Finally shod for "barefoot" running (I crack me up) I headed off to the gym to run on the rubberized track using the Couch to 5K plan, which is designed to get you from couch-potato to running 5 km in 9 weeks.  I definitely found that my aerobic capacity was crap and that running even 30 second sprints was taxing.  But I persevered.  It felt great to have a goal and a plan and to be actively working on it.  I felt acutely embarrassed by my sucking wind every time I did a running sprint, and for the 90 seconds following that I still couldn't control my breathing, but after each "running" session I felt a great sense of accomplishment.  And then I hit week 3.

I was running and something felt odd in my left forefoot.  I tried to shake it off, and then I decided to see if it went away while running.  While the strange feeling never fully went away it did recede quite a bit while I was running.  Later that day I went to an event at the South Towne Expo center, which has acres of hard concrete flooring and I was cursing myself for running that morning.  I looked it up online and found out that I have the dreaded "top of the foot" pain that runners can get, called Metatarsalgia.  I had a soreness like a stone bruise over the metatarsals of my left foot except for my big toe.  It was bad enough a week later that I went into the doctor's office to make sure that I didn't have a hairline fracture in my foot.  Which, thankfully, I did not.  But here I was, all hot to trot (again with the self-craking up) and that was expressly off the menu. Gah.  So I did the sensible thing for once in my life and pretty much laid off all exercise activity for a month.  A MONTH.  And my foot still hurt a little, but not badly and it didn't get worse during the day or early in the morning.  So I cautiously decided to get back to work.  

I started back with weightlifting one day and then resting the next to see what my foot would do.  After a week of that I alternated weightlifting and then brisk walking on the indoor track with my vffs on.  After a week of that I went back to weightlifting then running then weightlifting 6 days a week.  All told it took me about 6 weeks just to get back to doing my running program.  And even then I decided to be cautious and back up to the beginning and start over and slow down - again, an unusually smart move on my part, considering that I am so impatient.  But then again, I am also very very pain avoidant. 

How to proceed?

My husband calls me a terrier because I am persistent to the point of obsession.  This can be a good quality (to him) when my goal is one that suits him, and an annoying quality when it doesn't.  I'm also impatient like a toddler on crack.  Having read Born to Run and ruminated over my disastrous bouts of shin splints in the past, I decided to try the barefoot running style.  I say style rather than outright barefoot running because I wanted to run at my local gym and they require "athletic shoes" to be worn everywhere inside except the pool.  Gah.  So I decided to try the Vibram fivefingers shoes.  Of course, everyone and their dog wanted these shoes at the time I decided I MUST HAVE THEM NOW.  Which, in oversold retail time equaled waiting 6 WEEKS!  For someone as impatient I was, that was an eternity.  Without any particular guidance to follow, I decided to do my aerobics tapes barefooted in preparation for the glorious day when I finally got my shoes.  The cognitive issues involved in the preceding sentence are dizzying.

Well after I have started my barefoot running style training I find that the best prep training is to do as much as you can barefoot.  Your feet are used to being limited in motion and flexibility by shoes, and it pays to spend a lot of time exploring your daily activities without shoes for several weeks before trying to run barefoot.  So I was right on task with my barefoot 10 Minute Solution solution. As an aside, I was surprised to find that I really like some of the 10 Minute Solution DVDs.  I avoided them for years because I just couldn't get into something that promised results in 10 minutes a day.  Well, duh, there are 5 10 minutes sessions on each video, so you can do however much you have time for.  Reading for comprehension is something librarians like I should be able to do, but I guess I have to chalk that up to my general impatience.

Inspiration to Run

Have you ever done something that was perfectly fine, but because it was part of some fad or craze you are embarrassed to admit it?  Yeah, me too.  Here's some of my list:

I had one preppy outfit in 5th grade that made me feel special.
I wore an asymmetrical haircut in high school.
I met my husband online (ICQ chat)
I read Born to Run by Christopher McDougall and dreamed of winning a marathon.

I listed to Born to Run on CD on my way to and from work for about 3 weeks.  It is a fascinating story that interweaves history, science, races, and the dangers of living near the modern drug trade.  I listened raptly to McDougall's description of the personalities and abilities of ultra-marathoners (people who run 50 - 100+ mile races) and to the history and science behind barefoot running.  I had visions of becoming a far different person than I am now - of running impossible distances and generally becoming a running bad-ass.  It is a testament to McDougall's writing that I was inspired to overcome my past experiences with running to try it again with a new appreciation for the role of running in human history and the culture of running. 

What does a runner look like?

When you think of runners, what kinds of images come to mind?  For me that's the long and lean Olympic athletes, the ridiculously fit people on the covers of fitness magazines, and the numerous real-life running enthusiasts I have encountered on trails, roads and sidewalks most of my life.  When I look at runners, and I look at myself, I am forced to acknowledge the truth - I don't look like them.  I am short and round and working on that.  Not much I can do about the short part; at 38 I think I'm as tall as I'm going to get at 5'3".  From here on out my only height change will be to shrink.  So it's the round part I'm working on, and have been working on most of my life.  And will probably be working on the rest of it, truth be told.

Who gets to call themselves a runner?  Like many other activities in life, I think people self-identify if they are runners.  In the past I definitely was NOT a runner.  I don't think anyone ever asked me if I was a runner, but had they done so I would have hastily said, "Oh NO.  I don't run."  The whole thought was exhausting and painful.  I made a few feeble attempts to run in grad school with a friend of mine.  I was slow, sweaty, and shin-splinty.  The pain was enough to deter me after one or two sessions.  I crossed running off my list of enjoyable activities and went onward with other activities (or not, as much of my couch-potato life has shown).

But all of that has changed, and now I do consider myself a runner - just not a very good one yet.  But I'm getting there, which is a great surprise and pleasure for me to contemplate.

So this is what I looked like at about 237 pounds and several months before I got some things sorted out and was able to consistently work out again.  It was several more months before I was inspired to begin running.  I'll post update photos along the way.  The adorable cutie next to me is my son.