Reboot your running

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I ended up taking a rest today to try and let my body get its act together. Hopefully an extra rest day will help me feel less tired. In the meantime, I came across this article on the Brooks Running blog. It talks about five ways to “reboot” your running resolutions. Now I didn’t actually make any resolutions related to running (or any resolutions, period), but some of these points still apply to how things have been for me lately. I think the article was specifically geared towards someone who made a resolution to start running, but it really does apply to long-time and new runners.

Funny they should mention taking a look at your eating habits, because that’s exactly what I said I needed to do yesterday. Ironically I had not come across this article before yesterday’s post. I’m definitely going to be paying more attention to what I eat and how it makes me feel in regards to my running.

 

This is the other tip out of the five that directly applies to how I’ve been feeling lately. Their advice to keep a running journal is something I already do, and have been doing since I started running in 2007. Thanks to Team in Training for staring me off right with a Runner’s World training log. I have continued to use this same log over the past 5 years and I have all of my old logs. I really enjoy going back to look at past runs and training cycles. It really gives you a good picture of what works and what doesn’t in terms of how you are training, the amount of mileage you’re doing, etc. I will probably always continue to keep a hand written running log because it works for me and I look forward to writing in them when I complete a run.

 

In addition to keeping a running log, I think it’s important to try and make at least one of your weekday runs have a specific purpose. You could make it a progressive run, do fartleks during the run, purposefully run a hilly route, or maybe run a negative split. I have a bad habit of just going out and running the same speed each day (or whatever speed I feel like that day) just to get the miles in. This is something I need to work on. I’m going to try and incorporate a run with a “specific purpose” in at least one of my three week day runs.

 

What resolutions did you make for the new year?

Do you keep a running log? If so, what type?

Do you have a habit of running just to run? Or do you make sure your runs have a specific purpose?

Stuck in a rut

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This evening I ran 3.1 miles with Barry. As we headed out the door is started sleeting and it rained/sleeted on and off throughout the run. The temperature is hovering around 35 degrees, so really not too bad outside. I never felt hot during our run, but for some reason I was as sweaty as if it was 80 degrees outside when we finished running. It was a slow run and I felt like I struggled the entire time. I need to get out of this winter slump and get some inspiration.

Penguin Wisdom

Last night’s planned hard, hilly run ended up not happening. Actually no running happened yesterday. When I got home from work something else came up so I pushed my run to tonight. Then when I got home tonight I just didn’t feel up to a 5 mile run with tough hills. I may attempt it tomorrow or I may just put it on the back burner until next week.

As far as this slump I’ve been in lately, I’ve mainly been blaming it on the weather. I have races on the schedule (one coming up next weekend!) so there’s nothing missing there as far as motivation goes. But I think there’s something else that could be contributing to this slump- my diet. I’m going to make an effort to eat healthier over the next week and see if that makes a difference. I haven’t necessarily been eating really bad lately, but I could do for a clean up in my diet. We’ll see if that helps me start feeling like I have more energy when I head out for a run. That makes me think of an ad I saw on a bus last July in Denver:

Except for me it’s going to be: Goodbye junk food. Hello better runs! This is random but there’s a story on the news right now on how they are keeping the Redwood Forest in Oregonalive by cloning trees. They had some amazing shots of the Redwood Forest… wow! I want to run there some day.

 

What do you do when you get in a running slump?

What’s the coolest place you have ever run?

Skunks and cows

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Tonight I went for a 4 mile run after work. It was 43 degrees outside so I got to run in shorts again! My quads were feeling pretty tired today, after yesterday’s faster (for me) paced run. They better get their act together because I have a hard, hilly run planned for tomorrow.

When I started my run today, I saw Mr. Boy (the jack russell that lives down the road that occasionally runs with me) out in a field running around like a maniac. I wondered what he was doing… and then I saw the skunk. Right as I ran by on the road, Mr. Boy ran up behind the skunk barking and I saw that skunk’s tail go up in the air. Poor Mr. Boy got sprayed and then there was a lot more barking and some growling. Hope he keeps his distance because he’s going to stink for awhile.

like this, but with a jack russell

A little further on during my run, I spooked a field full of dairy cows. They’re so funny when they decide they need to run as fast as they can away from the fence, just because someone goes by.

I also ran past a field that had some beef calves in it. They were all right at the fence and when I ran by, only about 3 feet from them, they took off running. There were grown cows in the field, too, that just stood there and looked at me and watched the calves go running.



The sun set with about 1/2 a mile to go and it got chilly out. I was also worried about cars being able to see me, since I didn’t wear my reflective vest today. Every time a car went by I got in the grass along the road as best I could. When I got back to our road I was worried that skunk would still be around. It was an all black skunk and with the sun down it was hard for me to see. Luckily I did not see him, and thus avoided smelling like Mr. Boy currently smells.

I learned my lesson

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First things first- apparently I did not learn my lesson the first time. I left our puppy unattended in the living room this morning and she chewed up the laces on my newest pair of running shoes. I cried, and then cried some more when I found out they’ve been discontinued. Then I bought two more pairs online in my size while they’re still available (sorry Barry… better to ask for forgiveness than permission).

I HAVE learned my lesson now, and my running shoes now reside in our bedroom safely away from said puppy.

This evening I ran 3 miles after work at a 9:43 pace. This used to be my comfortably hard/typical weekday run pace, but lately it has felt a lot harder. Maybe I’m just in some kind of winter slump? I’ve got some races coming up on the calendar, so hopefully that will help. It warmed up to 39 degrees today and I got to run in shorts! Any colder and I wouldn’t have been able to wear them, but right at 40 degrees is where I can switch over to shorts.

Don’t mind the lines on my shins from my work socks.
 
Barry joined me for a little over half of the run today. He was planning on doing more than 3 miles, so he was going to run with me to my turn around point and then keep going. Shortly before we got to 1.5 miles, a white pit bull-mix dog that is usually tied was running loose and ran up to us barking, but then went back to its yard. Because of this incident, I made Barry turn around with me and run me back past that house before going off on his own, and thank goodness I did. On our way back the dog came charging from the other side of the road, barking and snarling at us with its fur up. I was scared but so glad to have Barry with me. He yelled at it (a 6′ 4″ man is a lot more intimidating than a 5′ 2″ woman) and the dog backed down and went home. That dog has been loose once before when I was running by myself and it actually chased me down the road while nipping at my arm. He looks like the dog pictured below. Don’t get me wrong, I love dogs and I don’t hold any dog to a breed stereotype. But I do not like dogs that are aggressive and chase me.
 
In other news, we enjoyed watching the Super Bowl (and the commercials) last night. I thought the Best Buy commercial was really funny and the Budweiser one with the Clydesdale was cute. Of course there was Super Bowl food, and I failed to take any pictures of it. I made nacho chip dip… which is basically refried beans, cream cheese, sour cream, salsa, taco seasoning, hot sauce, and parsley mixed together and topped with cheese. We ate it with multigrain chips, which I’m pretty sure makes it healthy right?

I also made Spicy Asian Chicken Wraps, which were my favorite thing from the dining hall (West End) when I was at Virginia Tech. My awesome sister-in-law got us a Virginia Tech cookbook for Christmas that has the recipe for this wrap in it. My Dad and sister also thoughtfully got me the same cookbook, but my sister-in-law beat them by a few days. Apparently people think I like Virginia Tech or something.

Invited the Hokie Bird to my wedding and he graciously accepted
 

Snowing again and some baking

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Today started out as a lazy Saturday. Barry and I stayed in our PJ’s until Noon and had a quiet morning watching TV (him), reading blogs on the computer (me), and baking (more on that in a minute). Finally a little after 4 o’clock we headed out for a run. We ran a little over 6 miles on the roads around our house. I felt pretty good on this run, except my back was a little sore. The weather isn’t too bad today, temperature-wise. It’s currently hovering a little over 30 degrees but there’s no wind, so actually pretty nice to run in. It was snowing throughout our run today and by the end it was sticking to the roads pretty good (we’re supposed to get about 4 inches). We had to be careful and make sure the cars coming around the curves on the road didn’t slide.

Mr. Boy also joined us for the end of our run, and escorted us down the driveway and to our backdoor. I ran inside to get my camera to try and get a picture of him, but he eluded me once again. Maybe next time…

Not a whole lot to report from yesterday. I worked all day and then Barry took me out for a date night. We went out to Olive Garden and had a nice time talking over some good food. I got the lobster cannelloni with shrimp and Barry had the three-cheese ravioli.

 

 

I’m still working on this whole photography thing, and also it still embarrasses me to take pictures of my food in a restaurant. The dishes actually looked really nice and they did a nice job on the presentation…. too bad I ruined it with my crappy photo skills.

As I mentioned, I started the day off with some baking. Recently Hungry Runner Girl included this braided bread on her blog. It looked so good, so I had to give it a try. It wasn’t too difficult to make, which is saying something for someone who was never made bread like this from scratch before. I didn’t realize there was so much waiting, though! Who knew you had to let bread rise before you baked it?? 😉 Good thing I started it this morning so it would be ready for this afternoon (part of the reason we didn’t go running until after 4). It turned out mostly looking like it’s supposed to, and it tasted really good. There’s nothing quite like fresh out of the oven warm bread.

 

This recipe will definitely be added to the recipe book for future use. The loaf on the right is plain and the one on the left is Barry’s creation. He decided to add brown sugar to the “egg wash” that you brush on the bread before baking it. Then he sprinkled a little pumpkin spice on top. It turned out really sweet and would make for a great dessert. Judging by the size of the bread I think I did a really good job of letting it rise 🙂

"I've opted for fun in this lifetime." -Jerry Garcia