Incline Work

Who had the bright idea of all this treadmill incline work?  Because, let me tell you, that person needs a smack upside the head! Oh, wait - that was me! Yeah. I'm an idiot. Anyhoo, I've worked up to 4-5% incline now. It still stinks.  I know it works, though, as evidenced by my recent excursion through the very hilly backroads of Strawberry Plains, Tennessee.

Melissa and I are four weeks into Body for Life, and we can definitely tell a difference.  There are little muscles peaking out here and there!  I love feeling strong and fit again. We'll probably do two cycles of the program (24 weeks total) and see where we are at that point.  Well, I'll do 24 weeks and drag Melissa kicking and screaming along with me! The weights are not her fave - she's a cardio girl.

Oh, and I have a little problem. My clothes don't fit any more. Yep, it's true.  I wear scrubs most of the time at work, and those can be baggy and nobody cares, but we have a faculty conference next week and I am scrambling to find appropriate clothes that fit. The petite departments around here contain clothes that look like my grandmother OR my teenage nieces should be wearing them.  As much as I love those gals, their clothes are not suitable for me at this stage of the game.

I know, I know - half the people in the world would love to have my problem. I'm not whining - at least not much!  But I leave for the conference in a week and the pickings are pretty slim in the wardrobe department.  Anybody know a good tailor?

Commenting Difficulties

Well, for some reason I am having trouble leaving comments on some of your blogs.  If you are on my blogroll and you didn't get a comment from me this evening, it was not for lack of trying! I'll try again later in the week.  Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

When You Run With A Cold...

You shouldn't be surprised if you wake up the next day and the cold is worse.  I started coughing right at the finish line of the half marathon and have been coughing ever since.  But it's going to be 55 or 60 degrees outside today, so I may have no choice but to get out and do a slow recovery run in all that warm sunshine! Hey, it's therapeutic, right? (Cough, cough, hack hack!) Hope you're getting some warm sunshine wherever you are today!

A NEW PR!!!

Well, I just finished the Strawberry Plains Half Marathon, and I PR'd it! By about 14 minutes! My time was 2:15:10 for 13.18 miles (by Garmin - official results will be ~2 minutes slower because I paused Mr. Garmin for my potty break). It did take a little bit to get going again after the stop, but if I hadn't stopped heaven knows what would have happened.  There aren't many leaves on the bushes this time of year, if you know what I mean! 

Now, to be honest, when I was running in the late 90's and early 00's, I probably had faster runs than this.  I was in the Army, and I was pretty fit, and I know my times were faster because my two-mile PT test was always under 17 minutes.  Which is not blazingly fast, by any means, but it is a respectable pace.  However, I never really kept track of times back then. I just ran.  So, it's probably a PR solely because I didn't record the faster runs in those days.

However, it's a definite PR for the me of today, and that's really what matters, isn't it? Here are the splits:

1	00:09:44	1.00	09:44
2	00:09:28	1.00	09:29
3	00:09:34	1.00	09:34
4	00:10:02	1.00	10:03
5	00:09:45	1.00	09:45
6	00:09:55	1.00	09:55
7	00:10:41	1.00	10:42
8	00:10:22	1.00	10:22
9	00:10:26	1.00	10:26
10	00:10:30	1.00	10:30
11	00:11:01	1.00	11:01
12	00:10:31	1.00	10:31
13	00:11:14	1.00	11:15
14	00:01:48	0.18	10:11

Mile 7 was a GU break and right at mile 10 was a potty break, so mile 11 was a little slow - I had to get into my running stride again.  Mile 13 was slower simply because I'd been pushing it, and by that point I was just about pegged out.  That was okay, though - you know you've had a good run when you really think you might throw up at the finish line.  Presumably it's a great run if you DO throw up at the finish line, but that hasn't happened to me recently! 

The course was gorgeous - through lots of farmland and by a winding river - but it was very hilly.  This is East Tennessee, and one thing we have here in abundance is hills. However, since I've been doing a crapload a lot of hill training, the hills weren't so bad.  I didn't walk any of them, although plenty of people did. The big one was right around mile 7 - it seemed to go on forever! But I just kept plugging away, and that strategy worked.

Overall, I am pleased with my race today and I think this is evidence that my treadmill training strategy (which sucks, if I haven't mentioned that already) is at least effective.  I think I'll keep it up for another few weeks and then see what happens.

I just want to give a shout out here to all the folks who volunteer for races - my husband, my son and my son's fiancee all got up this morning and went to the race with me as volunteers.  About 90 people worked hard over two days so that some 700 others could enjoy a nice race on a gorgeous day.  Hug a volunteer, people!

Dreadmill Work

It's winter, and I work long hours.  That means that the bulk of my weekly runs are on the treadmill, because I leave home when it's dark outside and get home after dark in the evening.  And I was getting to the point where I actually preferred the treadmill to a run outside. You're in a sad state, my friends, if you'd rather run on the treadmill than out in the fresh air - at least if the external temperature is over 35 degrees fahrenheit!

You may remember, too, that I want to get faster.  Running the same treadmill run every week will maintain my fitness baseline, but I won't see any improvement.  So, I did a little research and came across this little gem: Treadmill Effort Chart. And I realized that running on the treadmill without an incline is easier than running outside.  I preferred the treadmill because it was easier than running outside - my innate lazy nature was coming out! I had to nip that in the bud.

So, for the last month I've been doing my treadmill runs on an incline for as long as I can stand it.  I can hold a 3% incline at a 10:00 - 10:30 pace for 35 minutes now, and I expect to increase that to 45 minutes over the next month.  It sucks. Massively. But I am getting stronger and more fit, and I hope I'll see some good results when I get back out on the road again this spring.

I have a half-marathon this weekend, but it's going to be cold so I don't think it will be a true test of my training.  I think I'm going to have to wait until March or April to see if there's any benefit to all this incline running.  I hope there is, because I'd hate to waste all this misery!

Turning a Corner

If you've ever been really fit, and then let it lapse (for way longer than you meant to!) and then regained that fitness, you know what the title of this post is about.  There's a point in your training that you know you're on your way back. You just feel it - your clothes fit differently and your muscles have a different tone and you even move differently.

I've reached that point this week.  Now, I'm not going to tell you that I consider myself "fit" right now - I still have a ways to go before I'll be satisfied.  But I've turned a corner, and fit is just down the block! I can see it! I know I can get there from here! Up to now I wasn't so sure - I was beginning to think that letting my fitness go for anesthesia school had been a grave mistake, because it has been much more difficult to regain this time. If you're over 40, think very carefully before you put your fitness on a back burner! The rebound at this age is not much fun.

If you've let your fitness lapse and you despair of ever regaining it, hang in there and keep training.  If you hit a plateau, shake things up with some new moves.  Do something completely different from your usual routine: find a workout buddy with a different routine, or take a spin class, or borrow a new DVD, or hire a trainer for a session or two. Most importantly, keep moving!

The Groundhog Lied

Thank you, Google!

I think the groundhog lied - we're expecting snow tonight, and more cold and snow next week.  My Seasonal Affective Disorder is in full swing, and it feels like all I do is sleep and eat and work and exercise.  Which is an improvement, because usually in the winter all I do is sleep and eat and work. Lather, rinse, repeat, ad nauseum, until I wake up in the spring.  I'm sure I was a bear in another life!

But General Beauregard Lee didn't see his shadow, and we're supposed to have an early spring.  All I can say is, it can't come soon enough! Have a great weekend, everyone!