Late to the game

Oh dear. I'm 0 for 3 on waking up at 6am to exercise. BUT - I'm still getting it done. See I *prefer* to work out in the morning so it's done and I feel good for the rest of the day, and especially if it's running because I get too hot if I run in the afternoon. But in that regard this week has been a total failure.

I have to work every day this week starting at 9am vs my usual 10am. Sunday night I didn't sleep well. My cat's drinking water fountain was low on water and the splashing woke me up at 4am and I struggled to fall asleep again. That's ok, I got out of work at 3 so I went to the gym and deadlifted/did a bunch of other back and upper body shit. Tuesday I got up like 20 minutes too late and figured I didn't have enough time to run. No problem, run at 3:30 when I get home. And it wasn't even too hot because there was a really strong wind. Today... I woke up and just felt like I'd been hit by a truck. I was SO sleepy. My hamstrings are lit up, probably from deadlifting and running. Never fear - get some extra sleep, gym at 3pm again. Hey, whatever works. I am one of those people who NEEDS sleep. Like 8-10 hours and no less. When I'm really active like this I need it even more so, and will sometimes even take naps in the afternoon. I also sleep way better and fall asleep faster when I'm active. As long as I get stuff done it doesn't matter too much, especially cause my husband is working late and won't be home anyway.

Today is legs/shoulders/chest which is brave before tomorrow's Soldierfit class where there's bound to be tons of jumping and push ups. I'm gonna destroy it today though... I'm excited to throw some weights down... but then next week I might deload a little bit

I have a problem

It's been another good yet busy week for me. A little update too - my shin isn't hurting anymore. Seems like not using an insole is the ticket. However, my calves and feet are on fire during/after a run because they're not used to doing all the work. This is temporary and I'd much rather deal with this than shin pain.

On a sort of but not really related note, for those that don't know I work at a running store and therefore have alot of shoes. Like I mean a ridiculous amount of shoes. Especially lately I've gotten alot of freebies and my husband is just like "Really??" So last week he took it upon himself to round up every shoe I have and dump them on me and take a picture.

So here we have it.

I'll try to list them all out starting from my head. About half of these were free or incredibly cheap for me

Newton Motion (3?) - future running shoes
Newton Kismet x2  - future running shoes
Reebok Nano 4.0  - lifting shoe
Mizuno Wave Inspire  - wear to work
Newton Distance 5  - future running shoes
Saucony Kinvara 5 - used mainly for Soldierfit classes
Vibram Bikila - used mainly for lifting
Newton Kismet (purple) current running shoe
Nike Free Flyknit 4.0 - everyday/work shoe
Altra Torin 2 - potential running shoe
Mizuno Prophecy (3?) - work
Saucony Peregrine 5? - trail shoe
Adidas Pure Boost X - wear to work/around town
Saucony Triumph 2 - for work
Nike Pegasus Flash 32 (men's) - wear around, especially if it's raining
Adidas Energy Boost 3 - for work/but it hurts my toes
Nike Metcon 2 - lifting shoe
Under Armor Apollo - everyday/gym/Soldierfit
I think some random Merrell casual shoes are here too
Adidas Energy Boost 2 - retired work shoe
Brooks Launch 3 - work/everyday
Nike Free Run Distance - work/everyday
Nike Vomero 10 x2 - work/everyday
Mizuno Wave Hayate - work shoe
There's another black and white Nano 4.0 in here somewhere, men's 8.5 that was given to me

And there you have it. A stupid amount of shoes. I will give some to a co worker before I move, but may also buy more for future purposes, for example an Oly lifting shoe

I am a girl and I have a shoe problem, but not like you'd think :)

It's too small

It's Monday and I'm off today, primarily to take care of some doctor stuff. I've had this mysterious pain on the left side of my chest for a few months now. I had an ultrasound and chest x ray. Breast tissue looks fine so it must be something with my sternum, so I'm waiting for the results to come back. I had my heart looked at separately and everything looked fine there. The pain isn't bad, I'm really just trying to make sure there isn't a larger problem here. I recently found out through Facebook that one of my middle school friends who is also 29 has breast cancer. Can't be too careful.

It took forever because they were trying to contact my Dr. to confirm something... so when I finally got out of there I went to the gym to do some lifting. I was feeling good because while I don't have an answer yet, we pretty much ruled out breast cancer. So I got to the gym and Sarah (manager) and Scott (instructor) were like "Come do the 12:00 class!" Uhh hmm... well today I was really just gonna lift, and I don't have my shirt. I ended up warming up on the row machine, chatting with another gym regular, busting out some deadlifts and pull ups, and then I jumped into the class. Sarah loaned me a shirt... but it was just a little too small...

Yeah, this happened. It was either this or the whole class has to do burpees because someone's not in uniform. Other than it being too short it was just tight on my shoulders.

Today's class was interesting. The first station was a mini obstacle course. He had plyo boxes with pvc pipes set into them, 2 different heights. The higher obstacle was to be low crawled under, the lower one was jumped over. 2 sets of these, then some agility ladder stuff, and bear crawl back to the beginning. Then sled pushes. I love sled pushes, but after about 3 of them they start to suck the energy out of you. Third station was with dumbbells - push up, renegade row, into a thruster. Then we had some overhead ball slams coupled with ball leg raises. Last station was another killer - kettlebell swings with Romanian deadlifts. There were other cardio and core drills mixed in there too. I think the sled push was the toughest thing today, as much as I love pushing heavy stuff, and as decent as I am at it, it just totally drains me. Still, I was able to keep the momentum going today and performed really well in my opinion.

I have quite a busy week coming up so it's going to be alot of early morning runs and gym sessions. Bring it on..

Endurance

Last week I was active 6 days out of the week!

This week started off rocky with the time change, Monday I woke up and it was already 7, too late to go to the gym and get to work on time. But come to think of it, that's the first time I have missed the gym in awhile, so I don't feel bad.

I had alot of time this morning so I did a class at Soldierfit. And it was one of those times where it was made just for me.

After a bunch of warm up stuff, the stations went something like this


20 Sledgehammer slams on the tire

20 Medicine ball slams from overhead

20 Wall balls
20 Wall ball slams, fast paced

1 Prowler push across the room

10 Leg raises with the ball

10 Kettlebell swings

Agility ladder, then 20 jumping jacks with the battle ropes

AMRAP in 10 minutes


I did every station twice, just finished up my last set of jacks when he called time. I blew this out of the freaking water. Didn't stop to take a break and I was actually overtaking some of the others. In fact I'm pretty sure I did the most reps. When I was at the kettlebell station I used a 25lb bell and the instructor was like "You're crushing those kettlebells, use the 35 next time" Which I totally could, I did the 25 so I didn't totally exhaust myself

Then we did some ab stuff which I'm terrible at and had to take breaks... I just  can't do tons of crunches non stop. But then it was back for round 2. This time I did 1.5 rounds of the whole circuit. 35 lb kettlebell this time, get all the gas out of the tank. I took a few momentary pauses during the second phase but kept those at a minimum.

This was a good day. I'm definitely a creature of endurance. I may not be good at jumping, agility, or quick movements, but I am good at doing work for long periods of time and not quitting.

Running - problem solving

The saga continues as I try to figure out what's at the root of this pain I've been having in my right shin. And I think I'm making some progress.

I largely attribute this pain to getting back into running consistently after some time off. I have the same shoe nearly a year ago when I was running 10-15 miles a week and even ran a half marathon in it with virtually no problems.

But wait, last summer I got my insoles and started using them in my shoe...

I had used them sparingly over the last 6 months, then in Jan/Feb I started running 2-3 x a week on the treadmill, and am now running outside. At first I thought they were working well enough, I even noticed I feel less overpronation when I wear them. But now that this pain is creeping up it led me to consider.. could it be my insoles?

I think the answer is a partial yes. Today I ran 3 miles without my insoles and noticed a difference right away. No shin pain until the very end of my run, which allowed me to run faster and complete the same run in a 10:24 pace vs a 10:38 pace 2 days ago. My heart rate was in the aerobic zone instead of the "easy" zone. My efficiency improved (180 cadence, higher leg swing, lower rate of impact) and I overall felt "lighter" on my feet. Without my insoles it was like the pain shifted over to my right calf, probably because my feet had to work harder to absorb the impact and stabilize my ankles. Calf pain I can deal with, for 2 years I've had a chronic knot on that side and I know it's cause that is my weaker ankle.

So yeah, I'm pretty sure that is what's going on. I have tried for a year to use the insoles we sell at my work, my first pair was made wrong and caused achilles pain in both sides which was totally new to me, and it looks like the second pair just isn't gonna work either. I make and sell insoles every day and almost every day we get returns. I find that they work for some people but not others. Every day I have people telling me how the insoles got rid of their knee/heel/etc pain and allowed them to run again... then I get some people who say they didn't notice a difference, and then some people who actually had more pain after using them. Sadly I seem to fall into that last group. Maybe part of it is me being a mid to forefoot striker, and coming down directly on that plastic plate is stressing my shins and arches? Our insoles aren't even that hard compared to something like Superfeet or orthotics. I dunno. I'm just glad I'm getting somewhere with this. Now I figure I just keep my mileage low yet consistent, and in time it'll work itself out.

Altra Torin 2.0

A few weeks ago we had an Altra clinic at my work. The rep came in to talk about all the Altra shoes and tell us why they're different. I have wanted to try them for myself for awhile and I know several people who run in them and swear by them. 

Basically their concept is zero drop shoes (not to be confused with BAREFOOT or MINIMAL shoes) that still offer decent cushion and protection from the ground, yet allow you to run in a more natural form. Altra feels that the traditional running shoe is so built up with heel cushioning that it forces the heel to strike first, which is not a natural pattern and therefore could lead to injury. So in the quest to help people with their injuries they created shoes with an even platform from heel to toe (zero drop) and a more foot shaped toe box to help the toes spread out naturally during a run. All of this sounds right up my alley, so when I got these babies I was super excited

The Torin 2.0! 

I love the color!

... And my cat who was super curious about this shoe box. 

So the Torin - a highly cushioned shoe, which normally I shy away from but when I compared it to the Intuition I found I liked the feel of the Torin better. It seemed softer. I considered getting the Provision which is their stability model for overpronators like me, but my store doesn't sell it and the rep only had an 8.5 to try on which was way too small, so I couldn't really get an idea of the shoe. The rep said I should be fine in the Torin. Altra doesn't believe in stability in the traditional sense, as they don't do medial posting and put their stability in the forefoot because the toes should provide stability when they land. 

Anyway - this morning I tested them and here are my thoughts

This shoe felt great. It's really light. There's alot of cushion, perhaps more than I'm used to, but this is good news for distance runners/anyone who needs cushion. Yet I could feel my lower leg muscles working as is customary with a zero drop shoe. Now, I do have some problems at the moment. I took some time off from running and am now running 2-3 times a week and trying to increase mileage slowly. I'm experiencing some shin pain particularly on my right side, which is pretty new to me and I attribute it to my body getting used to running again. I had no issues for the past year in the same shoes, but then after I took a break and came back I suddenly have pain. So everything kind of hurts right now, but in this shoe I continued to have pain. I even had some pain in my arch which never bothers me during my run, although it can feel sore after a run sometimes. I also had issues with the fit of my left shoe, my heel was sliding around all over the place. Already laced it to prevent heel slippage. I could wear a thicker sock but I think it will still be an issue that would prevent me from using these shoes on longer runs, it's just way too distracting. I wanna use these shoes for shorter distances. They feel really good and the toe box isn't constricting like so many other shoes out there. One of my left toes did hit the end of the shoe but that may be a matter of my toenails being a little long at the moment. But I definitely couldn't go down in size because of this. I ended up in a 9.5, which is possibly too short but too big for my tiny ass heels. 

I wanted this shoe to be perfect for me. And it's so close... but there's just a couple issues with the fit that might not make it work for long distances. I'm going to keep testing it and try to fix the fit, and once my body adjusts to running again hopefully I can really get a better feel for these shoes. This is just the first of many runs with my Torin :)

When simply DOING it is your best effort

Ufff...

I'm beyond tired. My SOUL is tired

Today I was struggling to get off the couch and it hit me.... I'm doing way too many things at the same time and I may need to back off a little. I have read about overtraining and burning out. Right now I feel like my body is trying to tell me to chill for a minute

Lifting heavy after 2 months off
Running 2-3 times a week after 6 months off/not being consistent
Building running mileage
Doing Soldierfit at least once a week, some of which is a whole new type of training for me
That leaves 1 rest day, but this week it's gonna have to be 2. I just can't

This is Tuesday and it's my day off, so it's my long run day. Right now "long" is 5 miles. I dunno what happened today, but it just was not a good run at all. I was so tired. Everything from the knees down just hurt. I felt like I was exerting myself way harder than I actually was. None of the songs that came on were what I wanted to listen to at the moment, like I didn't get that "pick me up" song to energize my spirit. The upside was the weather was gorgeous. Sunny, 50 degrees, running in shorts. Still, that was the worst run I have had in awhile. As I approached the turn around point I told myself I was only gonna do 4 today. Wait... 4.5, that's a compromise. No. I'm doing all 5 today. I didn't suffer through this to turn back a measly half mile from my goal. Really, what's another half mile? So at that point I stopped listening to myself and just made my legs keep moving forward. Hit the turn around point, fate is sealed it's gonna be 5. I wanted to stop and walk so bad. I just had absolutely no energy. Must have been a combination of being tired from other forms of training/getting used to running again/possibly not eating enough yesterday and this morning. Thank god I brought a GU with me, it quite possibly saved my run. And this run was so damned SLOW, my pace was 11:30! I haven't seen those numbers in a LONG time.

But... I did what I set out to do without compromise. And some days, that's all you can ask for. Sometimes due to whatever circumstances, simply getting something DONE is your maximum effort. And that's ok. I know there were forces holding me back, and I know I'm capable of better.

Sometimes I think back to 2 years ago and wonder why I'm not as fast as I was back then. I'm heavier now, back then I was nothing but a runner and had developed that type of body. I am a weightlifter now too, and as a result I am heavier. But, with time and work I can still be faster. I am also out of practice. Back then I ran more and was able to focus solely on it. Now I have so much going on that running isn't my #1 priority, so of course I won't be as fast. With any luck I will at least get a little better now that I'm training consistently again.

So yes, I think I will rest tomorrow and then if I feel alright I may sprint on Sunday. Sleep is gonna be magic tonight!