Who Likes Short Shorts?
I like short shorts??? Apparently so. This has come as a complete revelation. If you know me you would know that I do not do short. Not shorts, not skirts, nothing. My thighs never see the light of day. So this has taken me by surprise. I’ve been a dedicated wearer of pants/tights since starting running last May. Super hot summer heat – wore my lululemon pants. Fall/winter – tights were the way to go. I’d obviously gotten over/come to terms with the whole jiggly back-end issue. But I’d never felt good in shorts. I’m fairly certain that the last time I wore gym shorts was when I had gym class; 1998, when I was still in high school.
I decided that I would buy a pair of capris to see how it was running in shorter pants. Unfortunately I didn’t quite get the principles of compression and found out on the day of my long run that they were too big. They sure would have been nice that unseasonably warm morning, but I’m kind of grateful that I didn’t wear them. I discovered that even capris will be too much this summer and that shorts were going to have to become my friends. After trying on several pairs here are the two I bought:
I’ve got to say that while I love the Under Armour shorts, and they are super comfy for running, the Nike’s are going to be my at-home exercise shorts. They aren’t true compression, just snug, so they failed miserably for my 5km tempo run. Thankfully I remembered to use my Body Glide! If I had wanted shorts that short I would have bought the bun-hugger Under Armour 2″ Compression Short. To anyone who happened to see me on that run – I apologize and I hope you didn’t laugh and/or cringe when you saw me… I’m not big, but it still wasn’t too pretty. I have a lot of squats and lunges to go before I’ll wear them out to run again.
I Did It…
On Friday I registered C and I for our half marathon*. It’s not that this is my first race – that was in February – but there is something that seems to happen when a race is paid for. I have to say that this simple task makes it much more “real”. It’s no longer intangible. It’s no longer a maybe. I went from thinking “Sure, I’ll be running on 27 June” to “(Oh crap) I’ll be running on 27 June.” Not much of a difference there, but many of you (and especially if you are a runner) know what I mean. Now there is something to PLAN for. Not that I haven’t been planning already – I’m halfway through my training program and, let me tell you, I haven’t been doing hill repeats for fun.
But now I have to think of other things:
- SHOES: Will my running shoes hold out until after the race? In reality, probably not. I have a 3 week overlap with my marathon clinic so I’ll have a lot of extra mileage on them. They are already well broken in and I’m pretty sure that the next 9 weeks of training just might kill them or my knees if they go. I’d love for them to last a little longer since my work, a large Canadian sporting goods retailer, will be carrying my shoes in my size (finally), but they aren’t coming in until August.
- FUELING: I need to make sure all the things I like to eat/drink like me in return. So far so good with GU (mmm, mint chocolate) and Ultima lemonade. I just recently found out that cheap Zellers arrowroot cookies love me immediately before a run. Not hugely healthy, but great for shorter runs. Now to find something that loves me prior to my long runs as right now I have to eat 2+ hours before going out.
- WATER: Seems simple, but I really have to work on this. And by “this” I mean actually drinking plain water. I hate it. C makes fun of me for it, but I can’t stand the non-taste of water. I think it’s boring and it does a great disservice to my already miniscule bladder. However, I have to get on top of this since my run is in the summer and so is all my marathon training. I’d have to be pretty dumb not to learn to love water.
- BABYSITTING: Both C and I will be running the half so we’ll have to find somewhere for M to go. We have awesome family and friends who are usually more than willing to offer to help us. However, this one might mean doing something BIG in return. Here’s why: the race starts at 7am. The organizers suggest being there about 1 hour prior for parking, etc. and it’s a 45 minute drive there. You do the math as to how early that is! To any of our regular, reliable babysitters: we’ll talk (or beg; or grovel; or do a drop and run). Addendum: My wonderful sister-in-law emailed me on facebook right after I posted this and kindly offered to either take M overnight or come to our house really early! THANK YOU!!! I’m pretty sure that one of these days I’ll have her 2 kids dropped on my doorstep and I won’t see her and my brother-in-law for a week…
So this is what I’ve been thinking about this week. As for what I’ve been doing I’ve had a pretty productive 9 days. Two really good long runs (12km and 14km) have bookended my week. Bootcamp was great and didn’t hurt me this time around although the rain never let up once during the whole hour. My other runs this week were on pace and I felt great for not slacking off.
All in all it’s been a pretty decent start to the month.
*Originally I was going to register for the marathon too in order to save a few bucks due to the incoming, and much loathed, HST (harmonized sales tax), but that went by the wayside since it meant adding another couple hundred dollars to the credit card.
Confession of the Day
I need to confess something. I bailed on my 5km run today.
I could blame it on:
- RAIN. I’d like to think this is valid, but I live in Vancouver and most of my training is done in relatively crappy weather. It wasn’t torrential and since I would have been going on my own I couldn’t even use the “I don’t want to take my child out in the rain” excuse.
- BOOTCAMP. My legs are sore. Still. It doesn’t help that M likes to put his boney knees/elbows/fingers/toes/etc. into my thighs to push him self up onto my lap. I’m taking today off as a day of rest to let my quads recover from too many squats on Monday
- LACK OF SLEEP. I went to bed too late and M got up too early. Again, this isn’t a new occurrence and I should know better.
- HOCKEY. Let’s face it; it’s playoff time. The Canucks game started at 7pm, M’s bedtime is at 8pm (re: TV off) and I wanted to watch as much of it as possible (not just the end).
Now I’m sitting here at 11pm feeling guilty for not being more motivated. My husband actually “booed” me when I told him that I wasn’t going out. That sucks. Sure, I could have gone out during the day when the weather was better, the game wasn’t on and my legs really weren’t feeling that bad. But that would have meant taking the buggy.
Today the idea of running just didn’t do it for me.
I’m sure I’ll feel it on Sunday when my legs feel like garbage after the 12km run that’s scheduled. My fault? Yes. Hopefully next week will be better. At least this is just 1/2 marathon training – once the full clinic starts I’ll have to be in a better frame of mind.
The Week (or so) in Review
The first, best and most exciting news is that I now have real, legitimate followers. Not to discount all of my friends and family who have told me they are checking this out though. I truly appreciate everyone’s support, regardless of the method, but it’s a huge ego boost to see those little icons in the sidebar. It’s nice to know the running community is so friendly and welcoming!
The other major event of the last week is that I started bootcamp. A friend and I were “encouraged” by another friend (you know who you are!) to join her on Monday nights at a local park for a weekly pseudo-Mum’s Night Out. Little did I know that it is really a mild form of torture. I’m not sure why I expected to be eased into the class, but that’s not the way it went. I will admit that it was a good workout. However, it massively kicked my butt. I could barely walk that night and it just went downhill from there. My husband, C, thought this was extremely funny and also derived great pleasure from poking me when I wasn’t paying attention. He commented that he figured if he pushed me off of the bed I’d just roll around on the floor like a beetle on its’ back. I would have thought this was mildly humorous if it hadn’t hurt to laugh. Needless to say I missed my run on Tuesday.
I think I’ll insert a little bit of a pity party here: My Wednesday (14th) stunk. I still couldn’t move my legs and I had my first hill training session to contend with. There was no way I could get out of it. Thankfully it was only 3 x 400m repeats and C took our son, M’s, buggy for 2 of those. The only thing I took away from that run (because, let’s face it, it was kind of a garbage run for me) was that the pain in my legs receded. That was a nice surprise and a learning experience for later days.
The best day of the week had to be Thursday. Just for variety I decided it would be okay to throw a giant (for me) hill into the tempo run mix. Even with this obstacle, which I will admit I walked part of, I ran 5km in 31.20. Bootcamp must be doing something good for my legs and core! It’s (I think) the fastest I’ve ever run that distance so I was pretty darned proud of myself. I was also happy that I finished my run before Pearl Jam finished their Backspacer album.*
Sunday saw me, C and M go out for a 10km long run. We do 10 and 1s – something else to come back to – and discovered that I should never push the buggy for the first half of a run. I’m slow for the first 20-30 minutes once I start and C expressed slightly veiled hatred for pushing for the end of the run. I guess we now know how our other long runs are going to go. We followed our run up with an 8km walk since it was a lovely, warm and sunny day.
The rest of the week has gone by fairly quickly. Bootcamp on Monday didn’t cripple me quite as much (notice I said “as much” – it still hurt). I made C force me to run on Tuesday, but he was nice enough to take buggy duty for the whole 4km. Unfortunately I still struggled to keep tempo pace. The bonus was that I didn’t wimp out and skip a scheduled run. Wednesday we were back to hills. I walked up the top half of the hill both times I had M, but, seeing as 33lb child + 25lb BOB = 58lbs to shove uphill, I won’t feel guilty for that. I ran through the ones I did without him so that’s good enough for me. I can’t even feel bad about taking the shortcut home.
Today is a day off, and then back to running.
See you next week!
*At another time I might get into my love of running to 90s alternative rock – a total throwback to when I was in high school.
Welcome
There, I said it. I am planning on running a whopping 42km in October, although “running” might be stretching the truth. A good time would be nice, but isn’t necessary. I think I’ll just be happy with crossing the finish line of my own accord.
This blog/journal/online accounting of my journey to The Marathon (capitalized to give it the respect it deserves) is going to be my way of holding myself accountable. Please, please sign up or bookmark this site to follow my journey. You don’t have to check in often (unless you are really that interested in my progress), but I figure that the more people out there who will ask me how my training is going the better.
There won’t be much activity on here for a while as my marathon clinic doesn’t begin until 10 June 2010. I’ll post infrequently about my half marathon training (which my husband C is doing with me) and my foray into bootcamp (which he is not and makes fun of me for). I’ll write more about why I thought running The Marathon would be a good goal to have – something about turning 30… I’m sure that there will be ramblings about things that seem to have very little to do about running as well as my love-hate relationship with the sport.
So, for now, this is me.
In about 6 months, I’ll be a marathoner.
Love My Runners 