Every Wish That We Put Into Motion.... (comments welcome!)

[Herding_Cats]

Managed to motivate yesterday for another run. It was threatening to rain all afternoon but it never managed to push far enough north to get us, so it just sprinkled lightly for a few minutes and that was it. DD took a loooong and and after she woke up she was agreeable to sit in the stroller. I decided to go in my 2.5mi direction and if she was doing well when I got back to the turn where I could keep going or be about 0.3mi from home I would decide if I wanted to do more or call it a win. We ended up completing 4mi.

I somehow forgot how much harder it is to run with a stroller. It’s soooooo much harder. The whole route is very gentle rolls so while it’s not a lot of elevation change, it seems like I’m almost always running a little bit uphill or downhill and when that is magnified by a stroller.....ugh. I was pretty happy that I had taken the time to set up intervals on my phone before I started, and did 60/60 for most of the run. I don’t like how often I have to change paces with 30/30, especially dealing with the stroller momentum, but even with the intervals I did end up walking from 2.25mi to 3mi on my route.

DD did great.
My splits were 14:22, 14:22, 14:50, and 14:38 for a total of 58:21. I managed to keep mostly in zone 3 for heart rate as well.

DS1 has As in all of his exam classes today so he doesn’t have to take an exam, so I’m going to try to get out the door for a run before lunch today. DS2 has basketball from 3-5 or 6 tonight and DS3 has a baseball game from 6-8 or 830.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Posting today because tomorrow I'm going to spend most of my day in the car, or be containing DD while we wait for her brothers. (Last day/Half day of school, followed by our traditional [Moomers] ice cream for lunch. Then killing some time/getting real food before DS1&2 go to summer basketball for 2-3hours. Then bringing them home and THEN taking DS2 to a party. I'm trying to not think about how much it's going to cost me in gas.)

Morning run. Shocking! I'm usually an afternoon runner....somewhere between 1 and 3 most of the time because of when nap time falls, so the fact that I was out the door at 10:30 this morning felt a little odd. DS1 was home so he watched DD while I was gone. I decided that since I'm not getting a run in tomorrow that I would make today a slightly harder day on purpose. I set my intervals for 60/30, and tried a new "170bpm" playlist from Spotify (yeah, that was a fail since the tempos were NOT all 170 after about the first 4 songs.) Avg pace was 12:09, 3 miles total in 36:31.

Mile one felt pretty good (it usually does), but I was getting a little nervous about the higher tempo and how that was going to feel in 15min. 12:05 (which was around Marathon tempo last year.)

Mile two was more work. The tempos on the playlist got all over the place, and my tendency is to run to the beat, so this was REALLY difficult since it was either too slow or impossibly fast (>200) to be able to have footfalls on the beat and the half beat. I was annoyed. And this was the "rolling" section of road" and I did walk through a run interval when I saw my heartrate get over 180. 12:25.

Mile 3. I was determined to get back to my first mile pace so I concentrated on that. It helps that this mile feels like it has more downhill, but idk if it actually does. 11:58, so goal accomplished?

What I noticed: my ankle was noticeable the whole time, but not ever enough that I thought I should stop. My heart rate was pretty high a few times (my watch says I spent almost 7:30 in my peak HR zone of >172) but I wasn't gasping for air. Possibly thanks to the frequent walk breaks?

 

[Herding_Cats]

Run number 4 of my "week" (since I start my weeks on Mondays for training.) Woo Hoo! Feels good to be back out getting in time on my feet on a [hopefully] regular basis again. To shake things up, DH went on my run with me this morning. He still needed to complete his EE 5k from the SS races, so he warned me that it would be "slow and ugly" but he would go with me. I was in charge of the pacing and since neither of us are in shape from a cardio standpoint right now, we opted to do easy 60/30 intervals. I was hoping to pull back on the pace and be in the mid 13s but that didn't end up happening. Mile 1 was 12:53, Mile 2 was 12:52, and Mile 3 was 12:48. I think that's about the most consistent splits I've ever run, and I was NOT keeping an eye on my watch to try to hit any marks (except to slow us down at around 0.5mi in when we were looking at 12:35 pace.) I'm hoping I can convince him to run with me on the weekend and maybe a couple of times during the week now that his schedule has slowed down a TINY bit.

We are headed on a 4-day camping "trip" to a campground about a 20min drive from home at the end of the week. Staying on-track with food will probably be a challenge just because there are so many snack items available all the time. And margaritas. And smores. I have stuck to what MFP is telling me to eat as far as calories go for the entire week, and I'm hoping to have some sort of payoff from it. Running during camping shouldn't be too big a deal, although I need to pick a different road than I used last year because it's basically uphill the entire time and I'm not ready for that.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Weight loss for the week. 0.6lb. Not terrible considering I had several days where I was supposed to (and did!) eat something like 2300 calories. NO WONDER my other food plan didn't work for me! 1400 instead of 2300? Yeah. My body wasn't a fan of that.

Last week's goals were:

3 runs, sticking to the calorie counts *all week*, and figuring out where I can shoehorn some lifting into my life.

--3 runs? Check. Did 4!
--Sticking to calorie counts all week? Check!
--Figuring out where to fit in lifting? Still a work in progress. Our schedule is still so messy, and I'd like to find my rhythm with the running before I add in something else. That seems like a better plan than trying to do everything at once. I know there's a cross training day in the higdon plan, and if I do something like an 80DO total body core it'll get my HR up and work a lot of things in an hour, so I'm leaning a little bit that way at this point.

Last week 2 weeks left to get back in the groove before higdon novice 1 2 HM plan. I can count. And I decided to go for the N2 plan after I looked at the N1 plan and decided that I want to try a little more mileage (unless my PT says no to that idea on Thursday.)


Goals:
4 runs. Stick to the calorie counts (thinking of capping them at 2200/day if it tells me to have more than that.) SLOW DOWN and get back into my EB pace and not LR/MT pace. Do one run at continuous pace instead of intervals.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Yesterday: 3mi. Sort of attempted to do continuous, but pulled the plug on that idea during the first uphill. No regrets. Took walk breaks as I needed them, no structure and focused on trying to slow way down. Avg pace ended up being 13:58, avg HR . AND I only spend 25% of my run above my aerobic HR zone, so more improvement there with the slowing down.

Today: 4mi. I had only planned to do 3, but I was still feeling really good at 2.5 when I would usually make the turn and head back home. Also I have PT tomorrow, so I'm not sure if I'll have time to fit a run in, so I figured I should do a little "extra" today. 60/30 intervals. 13:42 avg pace. 147 avg HR and down to 22% above aerobic zone. I saw a doe and 2 tiny fawns cross the road around 2.75mi, and then found a 2ft puff adder in my driveway when I got home. Snakes. GROSS.

Things got kind of weird last night when the varsity basketball coach called DH and asked him to resign because they "aren't on the same page" (which goes back to where there was a disagreement about something during the season regarding our oldest, and it's a long story.) He was going to coach for one more season (so he could coach DS2) and then be done with it because he lost all respect for the varsity and JV coaches in March. Being done with them is kind of a relief, but now we just worry about our kids being targeted. It'll be a weird season. DH filled out the stuff to get started on getting certified to referee. Which means he's going to start needing to do regular cardio to get in shape for the season. When parents figure out what happened it's going to be interesting because DH is one of the most well-liked coaches (by parents and players) in our school.

 

[DopeyBadger]

Things got kind of weird last night when the varsity basketball coach called DH and asked him to resign because they "aren't on the same page" (which goes back to where there was a disagreement about something during the season regarding our oldest, and it's a long story.) He was going to coach for one more season (so he could coach DS2) and then be done with it because he lost all respect for the varsity and JV coaches in March. Being done with them is kind of a relief, but now we just worry about our kids being targeted. It'll be a weird season. DH filled out the stuff to get started on getting certified to referee. Which means he's going to start needing to do regular cardio to get in shape for the season. When parents figure out what happened it's going to be interesting because DH is one of the most well-liked coaches (by parents and players) in our school.

That stinks!

 

[azrivest]

Hope it works out for your kids...

 

[Herding_Cats]

Reporting back from PT.

I don't have an official diagnosis yet (that I know of.) I have hypermobility in my ankles in one direction (like if you were to roll it and have an outside ankle sprain.) He usually likes to see more flexibility in his runners for their calves (if you put you foot on an incline and did a calf stretch) than I have.

He recommended some inserts and cautioned that I was NOT to use them in shoes that I would do lateral movements in because it would have a likelihood of rolling and/or spraining my ankles. Not for trail running, etc. They were half the price through amazon and will be here on Friday. He seemed pretty confident that if alignment is heavily contributing, if not being solely responsible for my issue, that more support for my feet will make a big difference quickly. He thinks that I'm missing some support for my foot/arch, and that when i walk my Achilles alignment is getting messed up and that's what causing the swelling and pain there. He did also say that it's "more concerning" with how low the placement of the swelling is and that it get's worse after I'm warmed up instead of being bad to start with and then lessening once I'm warmed up. So that's what I know about that.

It's already 90 today so I'm probably not going to be getting a run in and that's OK.

Also, I "interviewed" to possibly be a pie maker at a local restaurant 4 days a week for the summer. We are friends with the owners so I basically just have to decide if I want the job or not.

 

[striker1064]

I also have very limited flexibility in my ankles thanks to heel spurs in my Achilles tendons. Thankfully no risk of a rupture, but I also have to use supportive insoles in all my shoes (I use Superfeet). I've had PT and my orthopedic tell me there's no overstretching, so keep stretching. I also do daily calf and hip strengthening exercises. It... mostly helps.

 

[Herding_Cats]

The insoles are in my mailbox, but we are camping, so I won’t get to try them until tomorrow.
On Friday morning SIL and I went for a run. Did 4mi of 60/30 intervals. Ended up being too fast for my easy pace, but SIL is a lot faster than I am (it doesn’t take much.) Avg pace was 12:34, and I managed to be able to pretty much talk through the whole run (minus a stretch where it was uphill.) Avg hr was 156, which is only 3bpm above my aerobic zone so I’m happy with that for just getting back into running.

Had another session of PT where I did eccentric stair heel drops, then some massage, some sort of scraping thingy, ice, and then KT tape. My ankle hasn’t bothered my once since all of that, which is pretty great.

I picked his brain a little bit on shoes (he’s a former college runner, has done 18 marathons, etc.) So basically a very knowledgeable guy. I asked him about what sort of methodologies he uses for his training and he said it’s probably some sort of mix of Daniels type stuff and Canova. (@DopeyBadger) he really likes that canova focuses on the metabolic (fat-adapted) side of things and that he has a very specific stage for marathon training. Thought it was a fun coincidence.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Weekly wrap up:

Goals:
4 runs. Stick to the calorie counts (thinking of capping them at 2200/day if it tells me to have more than that.) SLOW DOWN and get back into my EB pace and not LR/MT pace. Do one run at continuous pace instead of intervals.

4 runs? I managed to get in 3 runs. Monday, Tuesday, and Friday. Did lots of walking over the weekend since we were camping, but only 3 actual runs.

Calorie counts? I think so? Camping made it tough, and I may have had too much margarita on Friday night (but I had made sure to leave extra calories for that.)

Slowing down: I guess? Friday's run was too fast, but the other 2 were fine. I definitely tend to run faster when I'm running with someone else (because they're always faster than me and I'm trying to not slow them down and/or catch up to them!)

Continuous run: No. And honestly, I'm considering scrapping continuous running and only doing Galloway-style intervals. Definitely still in the mulling stage for that idea, but I'm thinking pretty hard on it at this point.

Weight loss: lost another 1.6 last week, so I'm currently down 2.2 pounds overall. This is great motivation to stick to what I've been doing.

I decided to give being a pie-maker a try, so that'll start on Friday. The hours aren't quite as early as I was hoping for, so fingers crossed DD can handle me being gone and she isn't too much of a handful for DS1 and 2. It looks, on paper, like the days they need me to work will fit in almost perfectly with the Higdon plan. The days I work at always 3mi runs (or cross training) during the week, and my long run and paced run days day are ones that I don't work. So I'm hopeful that I'll be able to stick to it. Taking this job also means that I won't be running in the July 4th firecracker race, which is probably a good thing since it has a huge hill.

Whatever vudu magic my PT did with this K tape is amazing. I didn't realize how much I had come to expect my leg to hurt/be tight until we got home from camping and I got out of the car and braced myself to limp into the house (because that's pretty much what always happened for the last few months) and then......didn't need to limp. So that's been great.

Goals for this week: 4 runs, sticking to the calorie counts, attempt to fit in a cross training/lifting workout day for bonus points.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Should have gotten out the door earlier to run today, but Dottie for Running had a pre-order/restock that I wanted to check out, and by the time I got around to getting ready to leave I didn't have time to get my run in AND be back in time to refresh the page to [hopefully] buy something. I ended up not ordering because I don't love any of the choices this time around. So I got out the door at around 12:30 when T+D was up to around 136 and ended the run with it at around 143. Yaaaay. Wore the new insoles suggested by my PT. They definitely felt different, but not BAD different, so we will see how that goes. I attempted to get DS1 to go with my since he tried to go for a run on Friday (after being cleared by his orthopedist on Thursday) and he didn't even make it a mile before he was having pain and came back to the campsite. I feel like run/walk would be a gentler approach for him to get back into things, but I'm just his mom and clearly I don't know ANYTHING, and he has 349 excuses for why he can't even go try. So yeah. That's how THAT'S going. (He's terrible at differentiating between something taking a lot of effort, being uncomfortable, and being in pain. And that run going badly is going to be a major mental obstacle for him now.)

Run breakdown: 60/30 intervals, 4mi, 13:51avg pace, 144 avg HR. I got progressively slower for each mile. I'm sure poor sleep over the weekend, not-the-best dinner choice last night, and the heat all contributed. But the good news is that I was firmly in my EB pace zone for the whole run. Mile 1 was 13:25 (and felt pretty darn good!), mile 2 was 13:54 (the hilly part), mile 3 was 13:53 (when I'm normally faster because of the downhill), and mile 4 was 14:13 (as I walked through a few of my run intervals because my HR was getting into the 150s and low 160s a couple of times.) No limpy/painful flares with the ankle. Did have a few steps around mile 3 where my ankle felt really weak, but then it passed.

 

[lookingforsunshine]

I ended up not ordering because I don't love any of the choices this time around.

I got the Rainbow Connected World skirt! I hope it will look good with my Girls on the Run shirt.
I wish the bow for the Ariel one was red.

 

[Herding_Cats]

I got the Rainbow Connected World skirt! I hope it will look good with my Girls on the Run shirt.
I wish the bow for the Ariel one was red.

That rainbow Epcot skirt is really pretty for sure!

I’m pretty sure the bow on the Ariel skirt is more red than the peachy color they show in the pic (based on other pics I’ve seen of that skirt.) There’s another person who makes shirts that look a LOT like the Dottie skirts just with no bow that is doing a stocking on the 24th so I might see if anything is still available when I’m on my lunch break. She appears to do a lot more solids/monochromatic skirts for her ready made inventory.

What I really need to do is decide on one more long-distance consume so I k ow what kind of skirt to be looking for. I’m pretty sure in DH and my 5/10k costumes, and I’m working on a figment costume, but I need one more for either the half or the full.

 

[azrivest]

I got the Rainbow Connected World skirt! I hope it will look good with my Girls on the Run shirt.
I wish the bow for the Ariel one was red.

I got the Ariel one I'll let you know...

 

[lookingforsunshine]

I love how there are so many small businesses who make cool Disney costumes, but it also creates stress-- like, I don't want to be buying my costumes right now (especially because I am losing weight and am concerned about future sizing), but I also feel like if I don't buy it when I can, there's a chance I won't be able to since these businesses often sell out quickly, etc.

 

[Herding_Cats]

I love how there are so many small businesses who make cool Disney costumes, but it also creates stress-- like, I don't want to be buying my costumes right now (especially because I am losing weight and am concerned about future sizing), but I also feel like if I don't buy it when I can, there's a chance I won't be able to since these businesses often sell out quickly, etc.

SAME!!! I should still be in the same approximate size range for bottoms, but I really want to be done with trying to LOSE before I start the actual training in September, and just try to maintain (and not gain 15 pounds like I did last year.) I'm already about to buy a size smaller dress than I started with for the 5k because the one I have is just going to be too big. I'm also trying to spread out the cost of race costumes over the next several months so I don't feel terrible dropping a couple hundred dollars on stuff for me and DH.

I got the lavender dottie last year before demand went bonkers, and honestly, I think mine got cut funny because the un-stretched size is right, but the "fully stretched" size isn't; it should stretch more according to everything I've read. It's like they put a small skirt on a M waist elastic. IDK.

 

[lookingforsunshine]

I'm already about to buy a size smaller dress than I started with for the 5k because the one I have is just going to be too big. I'm also trying to spread out the cost of race costumes over the next several months so I don't feel terrible dropping a couple hundred dollars on stuff for me and DH.

It's good that we are reaching our weight loss goals, though! I'm trying to remember that I can take things to the tailor if needed-- it should be easier to make something smaller than to make it bigger, right?

And yes-- I agree with you about trying to spread out the cost of everything. I just booked my Princess hotel, too-- it feels like everything comes all at once!

Sorry about the Dottie skirt. That's unfortunate.

 

[WillRunForPizza]

How is it running in them? I do like the rainbow/Epcot one, but I'm not sure how I'd feel about it after 26.2 miles...

 

[Herding_Cats]

How is it running in them? I do like the rainbow/Epcot one, but I'm not sure how I'd feel about it after 26.2 miles...

I'm also asking myself that question about what I'm going to wear for the full. What do I want to deal with for what will be 6-7hrs of running? I don't know the answer to that question for myself yet.

Figuring out running in something with tulle is very much a personal/bodyshape thing. It just doesn't work for some people. The GOOD news is that dottie skirts have good re-sale value if it doesn't work for you. I did a few test runs (I ran in a DIY tutu and a dottie skirt during MW2022) with my skirts to figure out length and how high or low I would need to wear the skirt AND (probably the most important and) what I needed to wear underneath it to prevent chafing or some my thighs eating the skirt. I definitely needed to wear them higher than I had anticipated to keep the tulle from bunching between my legs.


I wore capri leggings under my dottie skirt because it was a little "chilly" that morning (half marathon), but I also had a pair of shorts that matched the skirt I could have worn. And I wore shorts (same shorts, different color) under the DIY tutu (for the full). I like the IAB 5in pocket shorts because the length is enough for me to not have major chafing AND my phone fits and stays in the pocket. I didn't want to deal with fishing my phone into and out of my SPI belt for all of the pics I took during the race.