Friday, January 22, 2016

B2B Training Week 6 of 18 - Quieting the Voices

So here's what I've discovered on the running front this week...

1. I am embracing my fair weather running. Winter running basically sucks. I own all the crap to go out and battle the elements but decided I'd rather run around the hamster track or treadmill in my comfy T-shirt and shorts. I'm no less of a runner for running indoors and I can go head to head with any woman my age in time or distance. So there!

My driveway today


2. My friend Trena's secret to running forever. I seriously think the girl can run forever, and, she listens to podcasts. I finally figured out how to download them off the internet and get them on an MP3 player (I'm the girl that can barely operate my cell phone so this is HUGE). I started listening to them while I run on the hamster track or treadmill.

3. I can now run on the treadmill without worrying about falling off AND operate my MP3 player at the same time.

4. I'm in shape to run two marathons in 6 days. I'm not writing out a training plan. I'm going to continue running by feel.

Sunday (1/17) - Zero miles. Rest day from the 20 I ran the day before. It was the rare day this month that I had white space on my calendar. No work. No kid's stuff. No running. The green line is for my husband being out of town. I did my deal shopping and laid around the house.

embracing the white space
 
as compared to this...
 


Monday (1/18) - 7 miles. Kid's were out of school for Martin Luther King Day and it was 6 degrees outside when I tried to start my car at 9 am to go out for brunch. Car finally started and we drove downtown to eat. After rolling myself home I did 7 easy miles on the hamster track before taking G to dance.

I had to go run this (and more) off!

Tuesday (1/19) - Zero miles. Not what I had planned. I got up at 4:30 am to go to work. Have I ever told you that I'm NOT A MORNING PERSON! Work took off with a screaming start. My scribe told me that I saw 10 patients the first hour I was there and that the doc she had worked with the day before had seen 16 all day. Yup. Crap magnet like day as usual. I stayed an hour over and was so tired I could barely drive home. I finally finally got home and went straight to bed. Plan had been to run 3 miles but forget it! Hubs woke me up at 7 pm to watch the IU basketball game. I stayed up long enough to see IU thump Illinois 103 - 69 and watch former team manager/walk-on Jackson Tharp get into the game before falling back asleep.

Wednesday (1/20) - 7 miles. Got my run in on the hamster track in the morning then went to work in the afternoon.

Thursday (1/21) - 7 miles. Spent the day cleaning my office/craft room (which is still a work in progress) then ran on the treadmill at the Y while G was in dance class.

Lord help me cause this is just the tip of the iceberg!


Friday (1/22) - 17 miles. I had four podcasts loaded on my MP3 player and was ready to go 20. My issue with running lately has been the time suck. I've discovered that an hour a day isn't bad but any longer, then I'm worrying about all the other things I need to get done that day or other things that I could be doing. Or, I just get BORED. Then I start listening to all the voices in my head that tell me "you need to do this, and this, and this today still..." and I can't get into my run anymore and feel the need to do something else. There have been so many times I wished there was something else to do while I was running so I could multi-task - like checking my email. Past an hour I can't seem to enjoy the run for what it is. The voices take over. Then I discovered podcasts. Now I can do something else while I run and listen to some pretty interesting stuff, and the time and miles fly by. Just listen to the podcast and push the other voices out of my head. Admittedly I've had to give some of the voices a pretty hard shove from time to time but now I'm thinking "listen to the podcast, listen to the podcast." (Can that be a mantra?) It has worked wonderfully this week for the base miles that I'm currently logging. Miles where pace doesn't matter and I'm simply putting down the distance.

Anyhoos, I was mentally set to do 20 today. I felt well rested. Maybe I just wanted to say that I ran another 20 six days after my last 20. Then, at mile 17 I felt a little niggle of fatigue start acting up in my left hamstring. That was enough to let common sense take over and stop. I know that no coach in their right mind would have their recreational marathoner run a long run of 20 in Week 5 AND Week 6 of their training plan. (Ok, so maybe that's why I don't have or want a coach.) I realized at that moment though that I was capable of running another 3 miles but it wasn't necessary. So I stopped. I'm in shape to run two marathons in 6 days. Now it's a matter of staying healthy and fine tuning things... and I have 12 more weeks to do it.

Saturday (1/23) - Zero miles. I have to get up at 4 freakin' 30 again to go to work so it will be another "rest" day from running.

Week 6 - 38 miles
Pretty happy with how things went down.

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