Day Sixteen

Miles: 8
Time: 1:10:23
Pace: 8:48
Splits: 8:34, 9:10, 8:55, 8:56, 8:46, 8:47, 8:28, 8:45

Pretty decent run this morning. Headed out around 9:15 on a route my dad and I haven't ran in pretty much a year. It was a good route, not too many hills, but the one in the second mile is "Death Hill" and it kicked my butt. :P It was a nice run though, in a neighborhood we basically never run in, so it was cool. It was around 40 degrees, but a constant 10 mph wind for the first half, then it was at our back for the last half.

It went really well the first 4-5 miles. You can't tell from my splits (which were surprisingly even the last 6 miles!) but my knee was killing me. The hills were horrible. There was one short one in the fifth mile and in the second to last mile was an uphill followed by Death Hill going downhill. The last 3 miles were pain but I got through it OK, as the splits say so. :)

I really want to figure out this knee. It's still kind of sore, but it isn't swollen anymore. I iced it when I got home and I've been chilling all day, but I still have to work 6 hours tonight. :( Working 6 hours a day the last two days probably hasn't helped either, and is probably some of the reason my legs are sore. They were tired even when I woke up this morning.

ARGH MY KNEE. SAD FACES GALORE.

But my right ankle tendon thing didn't bug me today. :D

Day Fifteen

Miles: 4
Time: 33:27
Pace: 8:22
Splits: 7:59, 8:18, 8:41, 8:30

(Note: The third split is so slow because I had to run over icy spots twice, and stopped for 10 seconds to tighten my shoe so my leg wasn't so hurty.)

COLD WEATHER ARRRRRGH!!!!!! I never know what to wear! It is 30 degrees. So I wear a thin, but insulating running jacket over a running t-shirt and a sports bra. Shorts over leggings. My ankle-height socks. SHOES. A hat. Gloves. The gloves come off around 1.2 miles. My arms start to get hot around 2 miles. I get home and I'm sweaty and gross because it is hot inside. I don't want to go out in just, like, a t-shirt and shorts/leggings (my legs were fine the whole run) because then I just look crazy. But my hands and arms get so freaking HOT! And they felt really heavy the last couple of runs, too. I've been taking vitamins, maybe I need to add something else in. :(

But I DO need to start eating more bananers (and probably drinking more water). My left quad/knee and my right ankle tendon thing were really tight the whole run, except the first mile. It is really, really annoying. I am glad that I've been running with my dad the last couple days or else I would chicken out of my 4 milers and run 3 instead. :( 4 mile runs just suck necause that is when my random aches peak, and then they go away after 4-5 miles. Yuck.

8 miles tomorrow; I get to pick the route. Excitement!

Day Fourteen

Miles: 4
Time: 32:33
Pace: 8:20
Splits: 7:57, 8:20, 8:30, 8:32

COLD. THIS RUN WAS FREEZING COLD. (And this update is seriously late.) Went out with my dad around 8 in the morning... to fresh 20-30 mph winds and a regular air temp of 35 degrees. COLD COLD COLD.

Other than that, it was ok. My knee started to get tight, and a tendon in my right shin/ankle was tight, but neither stayed long or hurt very bad. It was a really hilly run the middle 2 miles. The last one, my knee was still kind of tight, so I wasn't too motivated. And most of it was against the wind, so I was frozen. :P

But Thanksgiving was great. We headed to my grandparents' and had a delicious feast. It was well worth the running effort in the morning.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, EVERYONE!


**PS: Does anyone know why I would be getting weird muscle spasm-y things in the tendon coming up from my right ankle to about halfway up my shin/calf? It's very uncomfortable and hurts for about 2-5 seconds, then goes away. What is UP!?

Day Thirteen

Miles: 3
Time: 23:13
Pace: 7:44
Splits: Don't know, Garmin flipped out

Good run, despite the rain. As soon as I got to the end of the street, it started pouring. And the rain was COLD as it is unseasonably warm, but yet chilly, at 50 degrees. And then I realized my Garmin was freaking out. Apparently, it reset to factory settings. So it was showing me my "virtual partner" stats... not my time/distance/pace. And then after 2 miles I realized that it wasn't popping up my mile splits. So I fixed that in my settings and set off... only to have my watch beep "Lap Error" to me every FOUR SECONDS for the rest of my run.

So I didn't have mile splits. And I was annoyed most of the run. I was soaking wet and freezing... but I still felt good. Both my shins were sore for about half a mile, then felt fine. It was a nice change. :) I am just glad I wasn't going more than 3 miles, or else I am SURE I'd have chafed.

I wanted to throw my Garmin at the ground by the time I got home, given it's strange behavior and constant beeping, but I didn't want to rip my legs off and give them a beating... so I think today's run was basically a success. :)

Day Twelve

Miles: 4
Time: 32:48
Pace: 8:12
Splits: 7:57, 8:18, 8:19, 8:12

Today, two very unusual things happened on my run.
1. I ended up running with no socks on! I accidently put on the shitty pair of socks that always fall down my feet. A quarter mile into the run, both socks had slipped off my heels and down into my shoes, so I stopped at a bench and took them off. I tucked them in my shorts and was on my way. It felt kind of weird, but kind of nice. My feet got a nice breeze... they got pelted by residual sand in my shoes... my shoes probably smell more like feet... but it was so much better than wearing falling-off socks!

2. NOTHING HURT! I was really, really surprised. I don't know if it is because I ran sockless or because I took ibuprofen 10 minutes before I headed out the door (mostly to try to delay my knee getting swollen, which helped on my 8 miler last week). But my right shin didn't hurt and my knee didn't hurt and nothing got uncomfortably tight! It was awesome. Let's hope it continues!

This was actually a really good run. I stopped, like... three times, though. Once was to take my socks off, though, another was at a traffic light, but the other time was so I could adjust my hat so it wouldn't fly off. At a traffic light, though, I put water on my left quad and that made it feel really nice (it was starting to get tight, but not uncomfortably so). Just another good reason for carrying my own water with me. :P

But really, the weather was great (cloudy, 48 degrees, breezy). And I can tell it is getting wintery. I walked by my running clothes, which I hung on my armoire doors at the dorm, and they smelled like winter-sweat. Really bad. I should most definitely wash that stuff ASAP so my roomies don't kill me.

I AM SO EXCITED FOR WINTER RUNNING! Sidenote: I put a bunch of running stuff on my Christmas list last night. :D

PS: I just noticed that my splits were pretty even. I started out slower than usual, but the last 3 miles were pretty consistent. Maybe that helped my legs, too. :)

Day Eleven

Miles: 4
Time: 31:30
Pace: 7:52
Splits: 7:31, 7:48, 8:05, 8:02

I have decided that 4 mile runs are my least favorite runs ever.
They are too long to just hurry and get through, but they are too short to have all my aches and pains go away. Usually, that happens around 4-5 miles into a run. So 4 miles is like treating myself to a half hour of discomfort.

That said, today's run wasn't too bad. My right shin bugged be basically the whole time, but it was only 45 degrees out and I wore shorts, so my legs were cold and comfortable. I had to stop a bunch of times because my shin felt so weird and once because I thought it hurt because I tied my shoe too loose (that wasn't the case).

I really wanna know why my legs do this. They feel all weird and weak and achy and crappy for, like, 4 miles, and then it just goes away. (And then my knee gets swollen and hurty for the rest of the run.) I have no idea why they do it, but it is very bothersome. Any ideas?

Ugh.... short week next week, so 4 miles again tomorrow. Yuck. :/

Day Ten

Miles: 0
Time: --
Pace: --
Splits: --

I was going to shift all my runs and then run Wed-Sunday, buuuuut I took today off. Because I need to get in th habit of taking Fridays off. And because my knee felt tight going up and down the stairs and I should rest it.

And because I really just wanted to relax for tonight. Watched Juno with Ali, watching So you think you can dance with Ali and Emily, will be attending a passion party later tonight, and getting TONS of sleep tonight. :D

Day Nine

Miles: 6
Time: 48:46
Pace: 8:07
Splits: 7:33, 8:12, 8:26, 8:13, 8:15, 8:03

I have no idea how that first mile ended up being so much faster than the rest of my miles. Oops. So much for consistent mile splits... :/

I mapped out my run about 15 minutes before I left, and decided I wanted to go down to the trail to get to the other side of the river and run around down there a bit. I got to Czech Village and went out past there. I've never been down there before (for anything) so it was fun to look around. I managed to map a quarter-mile long hill into my route though... so double oops. (It was soon remedied by a nice downhill about a tenth of a mile afterwards.) At the bottom of the hill, these two old people waved me over and asked me if I knew where the fire that morning had been. I said I didn't know there had been a fire (after asking what they had said about four times because I suck at hearing/they had about five teeth between the two of them). Then they left and I continued on.

It was mostly cloudy outside, probably about two miles of my run were sunny-ish though. It was around 50 degrees with a slight breeze. It was pretty much perfect for running. It kept my legs cold (ran in shorts today... my leggings were bugging me yesterday) but my arms got hot in a long-sleeve tech shirt. I didn't even need a cold weather hat today, which was nice.

I had to stop about 5 times, though. Twice because my shin was bugging me (it stopped bugging around 3 miles, though, and that was good) but the rest were all traffic-related stops... which were just annoying. I felt really good today; my knee didn't even really bug me. It started to get tight around 5.3 miles, but then didn't get worse the rest of the last leg of the run. That made me pretty happy. (I iced my knee anyway... now it is red and frozen.)

See my route on my arm!

Day Eight

Miles: 4
Time: 33:10
Pace: 8:16
Splits: 8:02, 8:21, 8:24, 8:19

This is coming to ya'll a day late, because all my runs are pushed back a day. Instead of running Tues-Thurs, resting Friday and running Sat-Sun, I am running straight Wed-Sun. My monthly monster (which only comes every 3 months realy, thanks to magic pills) arrived with a vengeance and I spent Monday and Tuesday curled up with a heating pad, barely able to motivate myself to do homework, let alone run (I hardly even wanted to move to go get dinner!). I felt a lot better today, though, so I got myself out the door.

It was cloudy. It was misting. It was gross and cold, but it was good for running. My left knee started to tighten up the last half mile, so I just kept going without pause. My right shin felt really weird (across it, which I hate) like it just had a big weak spot in the middle. It went away after 3.5 or so miles, which is then when my knee started to get tight... ugh. I had to stop a few times (once for a train!) which was disheartening.

Not the greatest run, but oh well. Still paced okay, and not in any real pain. The trainers weren't there when I got back, though, so I couldn't ice my knee, which kind of sucked. So I took a 30 minute shower instead. :)

6 miles tomorrow! I need to find a good route that'll keep me going... running by the streets usually helps, but the streets around campus have stop lights that usually hold me up at nearly every corner. So I will have to be quite clever...

Day Seven

Miles: 8
Time: 1:09:45
Pace: 8:43
Splits: 8:18, 8:26, 9:17, 8:40, 8:30, 8:47, 9:09, 8:36

So, I stayed over at my house last night because I had to work until 8 pm, then again at noon, so I figured it would be simplest for me to wake up and run at home with my dad. I got out of bed, checked the weather... and it was 32 degrees. I facepalmed, as I only had a long-sleeved tech shirt, an underarmor tech-cotton t-shirt and shorts. So I borrowed a fleece headband from my dad and we headed out at 8:15.

Surprisingly, I warmed up pretty fast. About a mile or mile-and-a-half in, my hands were warm and I rolled up my sleeves a bit. My legs numbed up from the cold, which was nice. My ears were warm but my cheeks were frozen. It definitely felt like winter running... and I loved it. :)

I think you can tell where the big hill was in this route. Mile 3, you might ask? DING DING DING! My dad dragged me up about a mile and a half of hills and I totally made him walk for about 5-10 seconds with me because my leg felt like it was about to cramp up, it was so tight.

It was nice running around in my general neighborhood again, on a route I already knew. Familiar territory, but we ran in the fancy neighborhoods and that is always a good distraction. We missed a little leg of it, though, and had to make up about half a mile at the end. There were lots of hills, but I got better with them after the first big one. I would much rather run up hills (generally speaking) than down them... much less pain involved in the knee area.

But around 5.5 miles, my left knee just started killing. I could feel that it was swollen all around it (below, outside, above) and it hurt across the top of my kneecap too. Around 6.5 miles, I just wanted to stop... so that mile was pretty slow. I made it home and sat down in the living room to ice it (not that it really needed it, as my legs were still so cold from being outside). Then I took a shower, and my legs feel okay now, just tired from running 8 hilly miles.

This week as SO MUCH BETTER than last week, even with the knee pain. My pace was pretty consistent and I felt so much better through the whole thing. We only stopped once, and that was the 5-10 second walk. I think that pacing under 9:00 is no problem, so hopefully I can keep it up when I get into the really heavy mileage early next year. Out of 10 stars, I would give this one probably... 7.5-8. Without the screaming knee, it would have been really great.

Day Six

Miles: 3
Time: 24:02
Pace: 8:00
Splits: 7:53, 8:12, 7:57

I woke up this morning, it was sunny. The sun woke me up, to be honest. However, when I went out to run half an hour later, it was cloudy. Weather, you are lame.

Pretty decent run. I picked a bad route and it was really start-stop. I had to wait for traffic about every 3-4 blocks. :( I didn't feel like I'd worked very hard by the end of my run. It was disappointing. Had some weird leg ouchies the first half mile or so, but they completely went away (except my ankle, but I stretched it out at a traffic light and now it feels fine). I don't think my knee is swollen today, so that's good. The 45 degree weather probably helped.

Now off to watch Glee, eat breakfast, take a shower, do homework and go to work. Busy day today! Excited for 8 miles with my dad tomorrow; I can tell that it's going to go way better than my 7 miler last Sunday!

Day Five

Miles: 4
Time: 32:00
Pace: 8:00
Splits: 7:48, 8:08, 7:59, 8:03

Such a good run today! Nothing hurt in weird places, my knee didn't feel like it was the size of an orange when I got done and I managed to pace really well (and very consistent, if I do say so myself)! Defiitely an improvement from earlier this week. I only made 3 stops and they were ALL for traffic, none were personal, whiny stops. I think the chillier weather helped, too; kept my legs cool (though at one traffic stop I dabbed them with water from my waterbottle, and that was helpful, too).

I am icing my right shin and left knee, however, for good measure. I accidently added an extra .25 into my run because I thought I'd be short. So I walked from the corner I got to 4 miles on back onto campus and decided to get ice because those places felt pretty iffy. Now, however, they are just freezing cold because my legs aren't numb yet!

Hopefully, Saturday and Sunday's runs go as well as this one (though not nearly as fast!). My legs are starting to shape up again... the wear and tear of cross country seems to be fading away. :)

Though I did walk by my XC team on my way to the athletic training office to get ice... it was awkward, to say the least. My coach was a little cold and sarcastic (like, "Why are you running? I thought you were taking a couple of weeks off!" I only ever told her one week). Oh well. I do feel bad that I won't be able to make it to their last meet on Saturday. They run at 11, but the meet is an hour away and I work at 2, and I have to run 3 miles that morning. :/

Day Four

Miles: 5
Time: 41:01
Pace: 8:11
Splits: 7:59, 8:01, 8:24, 8:16, 8:17

This run felt so much better than the last few runs! :D Hallelujah!

The weather was absolutely gorgeous again today. Probably between 60 and 65. Sunny. Just fantastic for running and feeling good. Can November just be like this every year?

The first couple miles felt really good. I had pains that would come and go every half mile or so. But that's pretty typical for me to have moving, phantom pains like that. The next mile was pretty slow, and I'm not really sure why. The last two ended up being really even and pretty quick and I was pretty surprised. I did have to stop about 3 times, though because my shoe was hating on me and once because of traffic. (Those aren't counted in my time, though, because my dad says I'm a cheater that way.)

I'm icing my left knee right now, which I feel will be a regular thing for a while. It was visibly swollen again when I got back and it felt tight above my knee. I don't know what the issue is, but this should prevent it from getting worse and hopefully make it go away.

I am totally relishing in this weather, though. This is such a nice break from how November usually starts. It's beautiful outside! I am not looking forward to having to pile on layers of cold gear in a few weeks. Ugh. But as for now, I am going to go do tons of reading for the week outside while it's beautiful and pray for gorgeous weather again for my run tomorrow!

Day Three

Miles: 4 3
Time: 23:49
Pace: 7:56
Splits: 7:53, 8:01, 7:53

I have a disease! It is called mobile leg pain. Saturday, it was my knee. Sunday, it was my knee/quad/hip. Today, it was my right calf/knee. Whaaaat is going on!? I cut my run short by a mile, but I don't feel like there's anything else I can do because my legs are just going to be sore somewhere else tomorrow. I think it's probably just because my legs are still recovering from the stresses I put them through during the last month of cross country, but it's really frustrating. I don't feel like I can actually do anything for them because they never hurt in the same place twice.

I was pretty happy with my pace though. I know it stayed so fast because I had to stop a few times because I was worried about my calf cramping, but it felt good to see a sub-8:00 pace on my watch the whole time.

Five miles tomorrow. I'm anxious to see how that goes/where my legs hurt next time.

Day 2

Miles: 7

Time: 1:02:34

Pace: 8:56

Splits: 8:32, 8:53, 9:10, 8:43, 9:12, 9:14, 8:50

A pretty decent run, but my legs didn't seem to want me to run at all. I started out and my shin under my knee felt really weak and weird, but that went away (thank God). Around my left knee and my left quad/hip got really tight the last 2.5 or so miles, though, and that kind of ruined it for me. It didn't hurt, really, but it made me feel slow and miserable.

But we started off from next to my dorm and went off campus and to Bever Ave, which is a really cool street (though, we found, mostly all a slight incline). There are HUGE, beautiful houses down there and it's a really cute neighborhood to run through. Then we went through Bever Park... where I accidently had thrown in a HUGE HILL at mile 3 when I mapped the route. My dad and I go to the top and we could hardly breathe. I apologized profusely. I'd totally forgotten that park had a hill, and it kicked my ass.

Most of then run after that was flat, though, just a little bit of hills around another college in the area that we ran around. My leg was all tight and bothersome, but I tried not to whine about it. It is just troublesome because that leg never gave me problems during all of cross country season. But it might just be because I took the last week off, so it's just out of practice.

Either way, we still managed to pace under 9 minute miles and we got back to campus at 7 miles on the dot (even though we accidently took two detours and had to make up where to go next to get back on track). I still have all the streets written (in Sharpie) on my arm:

Out of ten stars, I'd give this run about a 7.5. It could have been better, physical-body wise, but it didn't feel like a long run. But the scenery was nice, generally speaking, and the weather was AMAZING. Probably right around 55-60 degrees. Is this seriously November?!

Day 1

Miles: 3

Time: 25:01

Pace: 8:20

Splits: 7:58, 8:28, 8:33

First day back in a week, so my legs were a little out of it. The first mile I was super ready to go. My legs were excited to be hitting the road again, but by the second mile my legs were acting up and saying, "Wait! What are we doing? We don't remember this!" The side of my right calf felt really weird, a little like it did a week ago when I decided I need to take a week off to heal. So I iced it, as well as my left knee, because that knee is just weird and tempermental.

All in all, it was a good run. It is GORGEOUS outside. It is the 7th of November and it is over 60 degrees already. This is Eastern Iowa I'm talking about! This is crazy weather! Two weeks ago, I was bundled up awaiting snow! This was a nice change; I even had to run without a shirt on because I got hot. This is going to be an awesome weekend for running/being outside. Last one for months, I'm sure!

I'm really looking forward to my 7 miler with my dad tomorrow. Hopefully my legs behave themselves because today was way harder than it was meant to be.

Goal for before the marathon: Learn to go out at an EASY PACE and run MORE UNIFORM MILE TIMES.

Welcome!

So this is my running blog. I like writing up stuff about my runs, but people on my Livejournal, on the whole, don't care too much. And I really like Blogger.

A little background on me, as a runner:
I ran cross country my sophomore and junior years of high school. I hated it. But somehow, I thought that I wanted to run a half marathon. So I trained from March-September of 2008 and ran the Quad Cities half marathon with my dad at the end of September, with a time of 2:18:22.. And then I was hooked. I ran the Walt Disney World half marathon (again, with my dad) in January 2009 with a time of 2:06:45. And then in April of 2009, I ran the horribly rainy St Louis half marathon, this time all by myself, with a time of 1:59:19. And then I got a case of bronchitis that took months to finally heal.

Then I ran cross country my first semester of college. It was a fun team, and it definitely whipped me back up into shape... maybe even better shape that I had been in my year of half marathons. But my personal lack of control over what I was running drove me crazy. I ended my season two weeks early, opting not to be an alternate (I was slow by cross country standards anyway, and my bitter, negative attidue wasn't going to help them at all). And I prepared to run the marathon schedule my dad and I had come up with.

I took a full week off between conference championships and the first day of my marathon training. And this gets you to where I am at the moment: recovering from legs that have been abused and overused, ready to get going on my own schedule, excited for a marathon that is still seven months away and willing to share her pains and pleasures of running with the world.