hey folks. I am curious: does anyone read this? I have had a few comments, but if you’re out there, let me know. I would love to have an idea if there are more than 2 people reading this
Today’s run, (which is supposed to be a Thursday run) went okay.

I did 45 minutes of hills in the neighborhood: I am embarrassed by the low mileage, but there were some pretty substantial hills.

As much as ChiRunning has helped me learn how to run, I am still battling with the uphills. I LOVE running down hills, as I think most people do. I want to learn to like the uphills, but I have a mental block because I get frustrated at my perceived speed. Obviously gear 2 on flats is going to be different than gear 2 on uphills, but I still get irked by it.

I went out about 10 am, and it was below 40 degrees F. Pretty chilly, but I had cleared out my nose sufficiently so I wouldn’t be a mucus machine, and I lathered up my lips with chapstick. The run from Wednesday taught me that in cold weather, I need to protect my little face!

You can take a look at the course and the kind of elevation. It’s nothing too snazzy, but Asheville is quite hilly. So steep little hills up and down again and then a couple of long up and down hills. On the down I tried to get into gear 3 and on the up tried to just keep a good pace. The last really hilly run I did was a Thursday lunch run up near the Grove Park Inn, and I was going at an ant’s pace then up the hills. I tried not to do that today, but it wasn’t as easily done.

My heart rate was very variable. I was so so so grateful on the downhills after the seemingly never-ending uphills, and I could tell my heart was grateful too. On the uphills I peaked at about 184 bpm, and on the downs got down to 165 on some. Quite variable, and I am not sure that’s a good thing. My brain was okay, it wasn’t saying, “Oh, Lizzie, for heaven’s sake just stop and walk a little bit.” It was more like “Yeah, I know this is uncomfortable and it stinks, but it’s almost over and you can get up it, just go.”

I didn’t power through the hills, but instead just adjusted. I made sure I kept moving instead of stopping to walk or standing, even if that meant slowing down to ~ gear 1 some of the time on the uphills.

I felt a little bit leaden today in my legs. Not sure if it’s because I didn’t have the right food last night (lots of cheese, crackers, wine, grapes and olives) but I need to figure that out sooner rather than later. I think my body will be grateful come race day to have the right nutrition running through my system.

I had a hard time today focusing. I think that’s what hurt my speed. Really, 4.5 miles in 45 minutes? I guess it’s not that bad, but gosh it seems short. I was trying to focus on my arm swing, on keeping my heel lift good, and on letting my hips rotate as much as possible on the downhills.

I felt really great after the uphills as I started on the downhills. Of course, that seems obvious, but my heart rate and PRE adjusted immediately, which hasn’t always been the case. On the downhills, I didn’t feel like I had the best pelvic rotation, but I had my core engaged and my head forward to keep my lean downhill. That felt good, but the pelvis could have had a little more movement.

On the uphills, I did the sideways 11 o’clock/1 o’clock hill running sometimes. I felt a little silly because it was on short hills, but they really are steep and I wanted to make sure I kept moving.

Anyway, I would say over all it was probably around a 6 run, not great, but I was glad to finish. And I am not sore, which is a joy. I stretched after I got back, and then we got in the car for a few hours, and even after all that sitting, I still feel good and not too stiff. That’s a great feeling too.

Focuses were arm swing (which I was lazy about on the uphills and probably shouldn’t have been), pelvic rotation (I need to work on this a lot more)… that’s about it. I took chapstick in case my lips turned to sand paper, but I was lucky and it didn’t happen. WHEW. My nose dripped a lot, which I didn’t realize until I get home… yuck.

Danny is careful when he explains speed workouts to me: “Don’t think speed, just think length and looseness and being relaxed…”

That said:

I went down to Carrier Park because it’s flat and today’s run is supposed to be accelerations on flats on pavement. Since the run I am doing is on pavement, I need to think about starting to train on that surface.

Started off nice and easy in 1st gear after doing my Body Looseners. I have found that I start doing a body scan at the beginning of every run just to make sure that I am in the right place with my form and adjust if anything is off. Some days it’s easier said than done, but overall, it’s becoming much easier to identify my own body.

After my body was warmed up, I moved into 2nd gear and stayed there for 15 minutes. I noticed, because the sun was going down, that my shadow showed a pretty darn good heel lift. I imagine the shadow somewhat exaggerated my actual foot height and lift, but it felt good, so I was happy with that.

For the accelerations, I have two tips if you are going to try to do this workout series:

1) Make sure your watch or heart rate monitor has a minute countdown that you are familiar with and USE IT 2) and if you have an open flat place that’s paved where you don’t have to make a million loops, go there instead.

Carrier Park is great for loops, but 1/2 of it is wood chips for the covering and I wanted to stay off it, so I looked like a crazy hampster running back and forth, but that’s okay. I don’t think I’ll be able to do that forever, though.

So anyway, the accelearations started off pretty well. I was to do 4 accelerations in 3 min increments with 1 min jog breaks. The first two sets of accelerations were okay, and I was focusing on the first two minutes being of a nice, good form gear 2. I was working a lot with my arm swing today to make sure my cadence was up… No metronome today. With my arm swing, I was working with my heel lift and always keeping my lean so that my feet are always landing behind my center of body. So: arm swing, heel lift and nice lean.

During the last minute of each acceleration, I gently moved into gear 3. The idea with these for my training is that I can increase speed without effort. What that means for me is to watch my heart rate a little bit and check in: once I engage gear 3, does my heart rate peak or does it hover around where it started? This process of maintaining a faster speed for a longer distance sort of freaks me out, I have to admit. Gear 3 feels a little scary to me, and at the end of the third and fourth accelerations, I was VERY glad to do a nice jog.

I don’t think, looking back now, that I was really loose and relaxed. The dichotomy in ChiRunning of getting faster but relaxing more is still a hard one for my body to embrace. In the yoga class last weekend, the lady talked a lot about effort and surrender. It’s an interesting pair of words to consider in ChiRunning, too.

If I were able to get my hip swing a little better, I might have felt a little more relaxed. There were moments of relaxation, but going into gear 3 still manifests in a faster heart rate (about 10 bpm increase) and increased PRE right now.

After the last acceleration, I did the 1 minute jog, and then attempted to run 10 more minutes at a pretty quick pace: I bumped back up to gear 2 pretty quickly, and I think instead of easing gradually (or in Danny’s words, “Settling in”) into gear 3, I shot my heart up too quickly, and it was (or my brain was afraid of doing that for very long) not good for the duration of a sustained speed.

I ran in gear three for about 6.5 minutes, and then I backed off to a jog for a little bit, and then went to gear 2 for a couple more minutes. I didn’t run a full mile (or about 10 minutes) in gear three, but I ran for quite awhile in 3rd gear.

Here are my observations:

• Should have increased into gear 3 more gradually
• By increasing too quickly, my brain got a little flustered, and then I think my body tightened
• I didn’t feel as fluid as I had during the accelerations (even though those weren’t easy!)
• I DID notice a few times, where I really felt like the road was just pulling me along
• I need to not focus on my breath right now. Sounds crazy, but if I just breathe the way that my body regulates, I do better. Sometimes I try to breathe out longer to try to slow my breathing down, but then I get a little hysterical.
• I still felt I had a good arm swing and heel lift, but the problem was my hips and keeping my spine loose. I think I was very stiff which made for a difficult form.
• I don’t have the brain to push myself into or beyond physical pain. Good or bad, my first inclination is to give up. I don’t like that about myself, but it’s something to note and consider as I progress in ChiRunning. ChiRunning, blessedly, gives me the opportunity to apply skills that I didn’t know I had to change a potentially ‘rough’ situation for me, into a pleasant and manageable one.

I didn’t feel bad at the end of my run, or beat myself up for not ‘totally finishing’. I am actually really excited that I will have the long runs on Sundays still, but that my weekly runs are sticking around the same time. It’s amazing that I can now consider a 45 minute run a short one. That’s incredible!

Scale: 6/7… I apparently have allergies. For any of you who suffer from them, you have a compassionate ear. GOSH how annoying. My lips/nose were so dry on the run I thought I would crack, and then towards the end, I got that slobbery-dog feeling I get when I run at faster speeds. The slobbering dog syndrome is something I would like to banish from my repertoire, and all the more reason to get my cardio ability Up Up Up.

Back in the saddle:

Since my long run on Sunday was technically the last day of the 10 week training, I wasn’t sure what the next steps were.

Danny and I spoke this morning, and here is the verdict for the next set of training (# of weeks TBD): Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday runs like before, but with an optional Fun Run on Fridays. The Friday Run can be a hike or a bike or a swim, something sort of like cross training.

The workouts look like this:

Tuesday: 15 minutes of warm up in gear 1/to gear 2. Then 4 x 3 min accelerations with 1 minute jog breaks. Then settle in for ~ 10 min/1 mile in gear 3. (I’ll detail in the next post what I actually did run.) The focus is on smoothness and opening. I need to work on leaning and keeping my hip swing open. The idea during the next round of training is Speed Without Effort. Note: These runs are best done on the flats.

Thursday: Hilly run. 45 min - 1 hr. Try to work on my hills technique. The hills can be all up and then all down or undulating, though lots of up and downs will help me practice more. Because Houston isn’t hilly, this run is designed to work my cardio capability. On the downhills, my goal is to try to get up to gear 3 and then keep gear 3 momentum up the first part of the hill as long as I can go without over-doing it. Once the momentum is over, drop to gear 2 until the end of that uphill. Need to try to keep a good pace up the hills to work my precious heart.

Sunday: LSD, start with 1 hr 30 mins for the next week or two, and the up it about 10-15 minutes. Danny suggested I do this really gentle check-in with my body to see what I think I can do. So next week, run 1.30 and stop. Then the next week, run 1.30 and ask my body if I think I could do another 5-10 minutes and then go ahead and do it. The best thing he said about it is, “Sometimes your mind tells your body you’re done, but your body could keep going.”

Today was my first 10 run.

Not ten miles (though close), but 10 on the infamous scale. Really, it was incredible. I think the mapmyrun.com version isn’t quite as much distance as I ran, but it might be my happiness/ego getting in the way. I was supposed to do 1:45 hrs, but only did 1:33 (”only” … ?)

Here is the run. It really was awesome. The weather here today was perfect: cold in the AM and lovely by the afternoon. My Mom is in town visiting, so we decided Bent Creek would be a great place for her to walk/bird and for me to run. I knew that Bent Creek loop didn’t go so well for me the last time we did it (Sept 7th). Actually, the last run there was more or less horrible, but I was excited and ready to tackle today’s run.

Before I get into the details of the run, I want to make a few statements:
1) I didn’t do the Thursday run (which would have been rescheduled for Friday anyway) because I didn’t feel like it and because I was sleepy and achy and because it was pouring rain. I didn’t want to deal with the rain or with running on a treadmill. Really, I wondered if I could write that on this blog, to all of you readers, that I just didn’t want to run… but there it is. I gave myself the permission to take care of myself, to body sense and listen to what my body was asking me to do. Sometimes I get into these funks where I try to tell myself I don’t want to go run or exercise or grocery shop or something just ‘because’, when really I am being lazy. You’d think I’d be able to play reverse mind games and just get out there, but no… Sometimes it’s nice to just be lazy.
2) Ivan and I went to a Hatha Yoga class on Saturday. It was my attempt at some physical activity, it was at a good time of day, it was what we wanted to do with our afternoon before Mom arrived. So we went, and it was lovely. Ivan’s first real experience at a yoga class, and it was wonderful. Aided by a calm teacher and yoga props, the class was 90 minutes and sufficiently exhausted my muscles. I woke up this morning realizing I was kinda sore (isn’t yoga supposed to be Chi anyway? You can’t really do ChiYoga. Can you? Can I ever do an intense and enjoyable yoga class without getting sore?). It was a healthy kind, where I could feel my muscles and remember that I have some.
3) I ate a huge breakfast of coffee, water and pumpkin-bread french toast at Sunny Point Cafe. It’s about a mile from my house, so we decided we’d just walk there this morning, and we bundled up and by the time we arrived, were warmed enough to sit outside in the 55 degree weather, not even in the sunshine. Lovely breakfast and I was wanting some carbohydrates to get my sugar and energy up for the run. I drank a LOT of water.

When I started the run I was excited. I am sure that helped me feel good about the entire thing, but I was really excited — for how beautiful the weather was, that my Mom would get to enjoy the WNC mountains, that I was going to rock my run. I took music again for this run (gasp…). Really, I mean, come on, how was I going to spend that long on a loop/out n back run with just the sound of my own breath? (Smile). I know that might sound silly to some of you crazy long distance runners, but that’s a long time for me to be in my own head.

I left my Mom at our meeting place with iPod in one hand and water bottle in the other. I figured I ought to take some water with me, so I took it about 3/4 mile up the road with me and stashed it in the leaves. When I started the run, I didn’t have any music, and I stayed that way until 50 minutes into the run (I have to congratulate myself, because I didn’t think I’d go that long without music if I had it with me). I started the run basically just smiling and happy. I have been asked to be a little clearer with the focuses of my runs, and perhaps I have been a little vague about my actual brain activity on these runs… so, just to set the record straight, the only things I focused with on this run were:

a) ankles up (the woodchips and pebbly terrain were just begging for me to trip, so I kept my ankles up). I didn’t think about it, I just did it. They just went up. There were only a few times that my feet scuffed, and they were when I was tired and when I was going up hill. I was very clear about that.
b) I thought about maintaining a good cadence. I didn’t bring the metronome. How crazy would it be to have the metronome beeping along and have some music on…? Ha, the thought is funny: I’d be like a crazy person truly beating to the sound of my own drum: 87 beats per minute for a little while and then WHAM 95 … slow, back to 67, then 87… oh, wait now I am at 95!..
No, it wasn’t like that at all. I actually felt that my cadence was good. I wasn’t thinking anything except ‘quick, quick, quick’…
c) breath. I didn’t think too much about it except when I started to get short of it or when i got a little twinge of a side ache. Then I focucsed on breathing OUT.

Sometimes in today’s run, I focused on keeping my arms going from elbow to wrist, elbow to wrist, over and over again and quickly, sometimes later in the run if I felt tired, I used my arms to set my perceived quick cadence.

It seems so long ago, (only like 7 hours) but what I do remember is that there were quite a few people on the trail, and I didn’t ever let that bother me, I kept smiling. I was so excited to be able to run almost 10 miles and enjoy it. It’s like I just told myself (even days ago) that today’s run would be awesome and that I could do it… and I did! Thank god for Michael Jackson. Just when I hit the biggest hill at about mile 6, (not really a hill, but it felt like it) “Beat It” came on and then, blessedly, “Speed Demon” immediately after that. Isn’t that hilarious?

When Danny first gave me the workout schedule, I looked, of course, straight to the last workout to see what I was expected to accomplish. The last run time for the LSD was 1:45. I thought ‘Pashaw, yeah right. Is he crazy?’ I mean, obviously I would have to run at least  that long in the race, but I really didn’t know that I’d be able to get there (only 9 minutes short) within 10 weeks.

[isn't it so appropriate that today's run, my "last" run of the 10 week schedule turned out to be a '10' run?]

Anyway: I am trying to stay focused when I am writing this to really tell you how it was, how great it was.

I tagged this as ‘almost euphoric’ for a reason, and now I am having a hard time chronicling how I made it, or how it just was awesome.

I felt fast, I felt in form, I felt happy, I felt grateful, I felt like I was doing something for myself and I was being a successful do-it-for-yourself-girl. I was so happy to not have speed work or to have a particular ‘agenda’.

I am sore now, which is okay, but I know it’s from the yoga. I had a little bit of knee ache that started around the :45 min mark and lasted through the run, but as soon as I walked it out afterward, it was gone.

I am in disbelief that I ran 1:45 hrs today, without injury, without pain, without tears. I did run 1:45 hrs today, with grace, with happiness and with fun.

Folks, if I can do this, you can do this. I work for this company, for heaven’s sake, and I am just as amazed and grateful as any of you. This is the good stuff. It’s called LSD for a reason.

No, i wasn’t clobbered by a big slobbering dog today at the track: I was the slobbering dog.

Skipped the track yesterday cause work had me at the office till too late… if I had gone I would have been running in the dark, which I don’t want to do…

So, I decided to head to the track today right after work. I was a little unsure of how the workout was going to go: a full 3 days from the longest run ever… and well, I have to say that it went only ‘okay’.

I had the track to myself, which was very nice, and it was quite chilly when I got to the track. I had on shorts and a tshirt, but the sun was about eye level and going down. I think perhaps my muscles weren’t quite warm enough, and I should have worn more layers and shed them as I warmed up. Lesson learned.

I did the 15 minute warm up like always for these accelerations and then transitioned in the ’speed play’… I am trying not to think of speed as actual speed, but instead just getting bigger and longer. The accelerations today, that I sort of set for myself were supposed to be (ideally) 6×800 m with 200 m jog breaks. Within each of the 800s I was to run one lap in gear two, and then begin thinking about getting longer and leaning more, but not really starting to speed up until the last 300 m. I think it was a good intention, but my heart wasn’t in it today.

I got through three of the accelerations, and was going to stop after 4 (and do 6 next week) but I got a hitch in my front right rib/upper abdominal muscle that was absolutely debilitating. I managed to finish the last acceleration and tried to jog it out, but I had to stop and walk. I admit I even shed a few tears of frustration as I walked with my arms over my head trying to breathe OUT as much as possible and relax. I was so irritated that I couldn’t even finish a shortened version of my intended workout, that my muscles seemed cold and unwilling to cooperate, and then being plagued with a yell-inducing wrench of muscle. Like I said, my heart just wasn’t in it, my head was in other places, and so I stopped with the accelerations and finished the workout with a 15 min run in gear 2.

Amazingly, my wrenching muscle subsided so that I could run the last laps with some normalcy. I actually felt really good. I could tell that my quads were stretching a bit and that I had probably tweaked them because a) I wasn’t warm when I started and b) I wasn’t body sensing my maximum capacity, but I finished the last 15 even though I wanted to stop short of it. I took some time to stretch out at the track and then got in the car and went home. Did a leg drain when I got here, but knew right away that my right quad was too far gone to prevent soreness.

—

A few observations:

When I started I was going in gear 1 to warm up. I was trying to pay attention to keeping my head down, chin up, ankles up, knees down. I experimented a bit with what it felt like to push my legs/ankles behind my body VS letting them just float up. I could tell immediately when I visualized them floating that I got into a more circular motion. I was really trying for a mid foot strike, and I think I need another video analysis to see where I am because although I wasn’t really hurting today at all, it just felt a bit off to begin with.

I realized after my 1st acceleration, while I was in jog-mode, that the slobbering dog syndrome seems to always happen when I am at the track (and has created a less-than-savory opinion of track workouts unfortunately). I know that the idea of the workouts is to get my body to be able to sustain form at a faster speeds for longer times. But I don’t really care about that right now. I might when I get whooped in Houston by Richard, my running cohort, who’s in his early 60’s, but today, I did’t care about speed. I just wanted to enjoy the running. Anyway, enough of my whining, but it was a good realization today that I am actually enjoying running! I just like to run at my own pace, as dictated by what my body tells me, rather than what is on the running menu.

All that said, I had my trusty metronome with me today and was practicing staying at a certain cadence. When I was warming up, it was right around 89, which is pretty high for me, cause I’m on the taller side… as I got into the run a little more, my cadence dropped to around 87 and stayed there, even through the accelerations, and even at the end after my little breakdown. This is a very good sign, folks. A Very Good Sign. That means, that even after fatigue, speed, slowing, etc, my body was still able to maintain form and turnover quickly enough. Maybe the high circular ankle visualization helped?

To anyone who has suffered from side aches: I feel for you. I also am desperate for a solution. I don’t get them every time I run, but often enough, that I need to figure out what is going on. Danny told me that often right side cramps that are above the belly and behind the ribs are likely your liver sac getting jostled around. This jostling is created by jumping-bean kind of running, so try to smooth out your motion to prevent a lot of up and down. If you want, you can take your right hand, and find the tender spot in your upper ribs where the liver sac attaches, and massage it. That usually works. If any of you has any other suggestions or solutions, please let me know!

Scale: 6. Need to stretch, need to keep my muscles warm before and after the workout, need to really probably do workouts at the track with Danny or someone.

Since we ran the race in Hickory yesterday, we decided to stay in Morganton instead of going back to Asheville (click here to see the locations of these towns if you wish). I had a hard time deciding if/when I was going to run today, but once I got my clothes on and figured an approximate route, I did much better.

I ran up near Lake James in a neighborhood called Southpointe. It’s a pretty underdeveloped area, so there’s hardly ever traffic, and I saw a family of four deer while I was there (it wasn’t even feeding time, it was more like 12 noon!)

Here is the route. It’s a lot of out and backs which I am generally not crazy about, but it was okay. It was quite hilly, and so my pace was just over 10 min/mile, which is actually pretty good. It wasn’t too hot or too cold, and I didn’t really sweat as much as I normally do. I forgot to wear my heart rate monitor, but did bring my watch and was able to time myself. About 8.3 miles in 1 hr 26 minutes. I am quite happy with the results of my run.

I woke up a little sore from yesterday’s run, and from not properly stretching out. My quads and calves are sore, which indicates to me that at times I was pushing too much up the hills (calves) and probably opened up a little too much on the downhills (pulled quads.)

But today, I took it easy, and (gasp!) ran with music… I know Danny isn’t a fan of using music, but I just didn’t have the brain today to go out by myself and do a bunch of random loops by myself. So the music really did help me, and based on my time, it seems like it actually had little effect on my speed. I listened to techno-style (downtempo) and Latino salsa music, both of which have pretty fast regular beats.

About 1 mile into the run, I made a decision that with every step of today’s run, I was going to do my best to make sure that EVERY step of my run was so good that nothing in my body hurt…

I was actually able to create that, much to my surprise. My right hip flexor is still a little sore from yesterday, and I am due for a good stretch/massage. Other than a little twingy hip flexor, I really didn’t have any major complaints. I just kept going at an easy pace and didn’t force myself or berate myself or congratulate myself. I just kept going until my time was up. It was hilly, and so when the uphills came, I tried to keep my leg stride small and behind my body, and get my armswing really exaggerated, up in the hill and pumping up, relaxing down. I never felt that my heart rate really got too high, and on the downhills, I tried to keep leaning, making sure I kept my core engaged and didn’t collapse.

Wow. I kept marveling at the fact that at 45 minutes I was only halfway finished and that I felt totally fine. My PRE was quite low all the way today, and I think I can contribute it to a) the music, b) the weather, and c) ChiRunning
This was the longest amount of time AND distance I have ever run in my life in one session. (I did an Outward Bound relay race several years ago, but I didnt do any legs longer than 6 miles!)

Totally incredible, I feel like I am really reaching the goal that I will be able to successfully complete the Houston 1/2… Who knows, maybe I can even have fun doing it!

Scale: 9

We did a nice little 5K run today to benefit the local chapter of the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

My grandmother passed away in 2003, after a long 5 year battle with breast cancer. I ran today in her honor.

It was a good run, a bit hillier than I anticipated, and much colder! We thought the race started at 8.30, but the 5K wasn’t until 10, so it was a lot of standing around, which was fine, except for the fact that Ivan and I both had only shorts and a tshirt on, and it was pretty chilly (around 55-60) until we began running. It was a good turnout, and despite the crowds, I didn’t get ’switched’!

We both ran faster than normal, but it was a good ‘learning’ experience in terms of race jitters and really not getting caught up in the flow of everyone else. I went out pretty fast and about mile 1 I realized it. I kept going, but back off a little. The downhills were fun: I passed everyone, and then all those same people passed me on the uphills. If I ever want to win a race, I hope the finish line is after a downhill
I forgot to start my watch right when we took off (novice!) and by the time I remembered, it was probably 2 minutes into the race. That said, and with a time buffer, we both finished the race in under 27 minutes, which I figured was pretty darn good and definitely way faster than I would feel comfortable running for 13 miles. Good thing to learn now. Maybe after doing some tempo runs later on before my January race, I’ll beable to train my body to run at a faster tempo, but for now, I think it’s best to try to take it easy!

No aches or pains while running, other than a shortness of breath around mile 1 and again around mile 2.

Scale: 8

it’s Friday, not Thursday, and even though I was supposed to do a 60 min form run, I only ran for 25 minutes:

Ivan and I are running in a 5k tomorrrow, and even though it’s not a big deal, I didn’t want to overdo it and then also have my long run on Sunday, so:

Went early this morning around my house. It rained last night so it was super muggy and I was sweaty. Had a nice little run around my neighborhood, focusing on form as much as possible, trying to enjoy myself and not be too critical. (looking at this map makes me laugh out loud, sort of ridiculous!)

I felt a little bit like I used to when I was in college and forced myself to run: sort of like I was trying to run up a vertical wall. I don’t know how to explain it, but moments of today’s run, I just didn’t want to be running… but, unlike my college runs, I didn’t stop and walk, I just kept going. Kept focusing and telling myself that a coffee and shower were soon approaching and that I would feel better about my day having finished this run… I was right.

Nothing major to report… sorry.

Scale: 6

so it’s a day late but hardly a dollar short.

It’s been freakishly warm here the last couple days and yesterday was no exception… and since you all know how much i relish running in warm weather, i decided to forego the track workout yesterday and went this morning instead…

6.30 came early and i couldn’t really go to the track until closer to 7.15 anyway cause it’s hardly light until then… the days are much shorter already these days! it was 48 degrees F when I got in my car this morning. BRRRR.

The track was eerily vacant and lots of low-slung fog traced the track and it was kind of strange running through that this morning; it was getting lighter with the sun rising, but the moon was still on the skyline and casting a glow over the trees. Nice.

My workout today was targeted as: 15 min warmup, 6×600m accelerations with 200 m jog breaks, then 15 min gear 2 or so… Danny was very clear with me that on these accelerations, I was to think BIG and not fast while doing the accelerations. I know what he meant because I sometimes start that darn power running mentality when I get going into the higher gears. Today I was to focus simply on getting BIGGER: bigger lean, bigger core, bigger stride, bigger relaxation.

The first 15 of the run was good, i tried to stay in gear 1 and relax as much as possible. I felt a little stiff which was strange cause I really worked my body looseners today.  I really focused on keeping my chin down (why is this so hard for me?!) and tried to get my ankles high-ish for a midfoot strike. I did that little heel-hit-calf exercise to practice… the 15 minutes when pretty quickly, and I did 5 laps within that time frame. I shed some layers and then started on the acceleration intervals.

Apparently, I have been doing them sort of incorrectly. I thought I was supposed to go from gear 1 up to gear 4 incrementally throughout each acceleration… Danny informed me on Monday I was doing it all wrong! I needed to start in gear 2 and stay there for awhile and THEN kick it to gear 3 for awhile, only slipping (falling) into gear 4 just at the end, maybe several yards or more, but not any distance.

Well, okay then. So today, when I was finished with my warm up, I decided to start my accelerations with the knee-bending exercise, (which, for any of you who have attended a workshop, know what it is and how great it is…) and started very easily into gear 2. Being aware that I had 6 intervals to do instead of 4 and ALSO at a longer distance (Wait, Danny, aren’t I breaking the rules by changed TWO variables?! ;)) Anyway, I did the first three accelerations with a fair amount of ease, simply jogging back to the ’start’ for 1/2 lap after each interval. The 4th was a little more difficult and my body was feeling stiff still and my right side decided to cramp… wasn’t the liver-sack-bouncing kind of pain, but lower in my abdomen/intestines. OUCH. After the 4th, I decided to walk the 1/2 lap to get my guts to relax, which basically worked, miracle!

The last two intervals were good, and I think I probably looked a little funky cause I was still ‘protecting’ from getting a cramp again, but really trying to image my one-legged posture stances over and over again: nice long neck with no wrinkles, y’chi flowing from my eyes, mid-foot landing, high ankles and a quick step that would create a health lean, opening my leg stride BEHIND me instead of in front. A lot to think about all at once, but I just went from the top down over and over again on the remaining to intervals and VOILA they were over. That whole interval process took 30 minutes. I didn’t feel to breathless, I actually felt okay. I had a little moment of feeling disconnected from my legs, but it very well could have been the 50 degree weather~!

Instead of doing 15 minutes after, I did 1 mile which took 10 minutes, which was faster than my original warm up, and that is a good thing. Means I didn’t over do it on the accelerations, and I KNOW I was still in form on the last mile of ‘just running’ because I didn’t have a single ache or pain and I felt glorious.

Sure some of it was the high from the accelerations, but I managed to keep it up for the duration of the last mile…

At the end I stopped and drank lots of water and walked and stretched. The track was still quite empty, and although cool, the sun was up and the moon had slipped behind the trees. I looked around while stretching, and to my amazement, the mist in the air wasn’t from ‘nature’, but the steam billowing off ME!.

Scale: 7

I decided that for my Thursday ‘form’ run, I would go at lunch today. Ivan looked at me this morning and said, “Do you know how lucky you are that you get to wear your running clothes to work?!” Yes, I said, I do know how lucky I am, but see, I am taking a whole bag of other clothes to change into after my run… cause I can shower at work too! He smirked.

So my run today was to be a 55 min form run. I didn’t quite know what to expect from my body on today’s run because my last run, the track episode on Tuesday, turned out to be a bit of a disaster (isn’t that ’switching’ tip wonderful? have you tried it? it works!)… I started off slowly and didn’t really know were I was going to go, but decided that maybe I ought to just go without thinking. I headed up towards the Grove Park Inn which is known for how beautiful it is, and the neighborhoods around there are quite plush. I figured if nothing else, I’d be distracted by huge mansions and fancy cars and nice lawns. I was pretty much right, but the run turned out to be a huge success.

On mapmyruns.com, I have included the route I ran, and you can check out the elevation. I know it doesn’t look like a ton, but really, the whole run was basically a huge hill. Uphill for 35 minutes and downhill for 20, nice loop so I didn’t have to do an out-and-back.

After the Instructor Training last week, I got to practice running hills more, and also teaching how to run hills. I finally just understand how much I have to use my arms to really make the uphills so much easier. I have always REALLY disliked running hills, and was really probably one of the major reasons I never ran them. I always felt like my heart my come out of my mouth, or worse, I would expire, right there on the side of the road. “Poor young lady, thought she could run, turns out she was incredibly inefficient on hills”, that’s what the paper heading would say…

But really, the run was glorious. I took it very easy for the first warm up, which was basically a false flat for a mile and then the uphills really started. It was the middle of the day and surprisingly, there was little traffic where I was running. It was on a very nicely paved black top and the leaves are all starting to change, so it was so amazing, with the left-over rain from yesterday still falling down the trees…

I was really focusing on keeping my head up, chin down, legs limp or as relaxed as possible (but not scuffing the ground) and really swinging those arms. Part way up the hill, (which was really windy and I’ave never been up there, so I had know idea what to expect) I really finally let go. I just totally relaxed and while I don’t think anything changed to the observer’s eye, I think my PRE really dropped and I just felt light. I must have really been leaning and letting gravity do the work. It was GREAT.

On the downhill, I was careful at the beginning because I didn’t want to overdo it, and fall on my face… But the hill just kept going down down down down. It was kind of incredible, but partway through, I realized that I had biked a section of the road earlier in the summer with my friend Rachel (I remembered that the biking was WAY more difficult than the running was today)… Anyway, I really managed to just open up at the end of the run and let it all go. I was going really fast but not really doing anything. I was keeping my arms swing back, trying to get my ankle lift up so that I didn’t land on my heel, really trying to reduce the impact on my leg (my muscle in the right leg started to talk to me partway through the downhill) and I eventually got into a pace that my body really liked. I think I was probably approaching anaerobic, which isn’t the point of this run, so I backed off, but I kind of wish I hadn’t, because I had a hard time keeping on after that.

I finally found my way back to familiar ground, and walked about the last 1/2 mile back to the office, but i was running at about a 10 min pace with what I felt was good form.

I would say over-all, probably an 8-9 run on scale.

[note: i was walking downtown tonight after dinner back to my car. Asheville is very hilly and i was passing this family group of visitors and one of the ladies said, "it's much easier if you lean into the hills!" I almost turned around to say something, but just kept leaning into the hill myself. I passed them. Then I smiled and thought, "you bet!"]