Category: Run!

Take a Moment

I had such a plan.

And it was a good one!

Disclaimer: I received a pair of special release Knockaround sunglasses to participate in a custom campaign as part of being a BibRave Pro. Learn more about becoming a BibRave Pro (ambassador), and check out BibRave.com to review, find, and write race reviews!

Knockaround wants to talk about plogging and the planet? I’m in, sign me up! I’ve been toying with the idea of adopting a street in my town. This would just give me that last push! My mother and I were talking about a big trash pick up party- us and her tennis team- we were making plans.

Then the world went a little sideways.

While litter still drives me absolutely mad, suddenly the idea of plogging even with gloves was a little off-putting. Especially since I kind of didn’t venture outdoors except to go to work in the first weeks. Which was not good for my psyche.

Turns out I can’t just hide inside anymore, running has opened up so much more to me. You know, I was the treasurer of the hiking and environmental club in high school? Except I don’t remember any actual hiking. Hmmm. Then I graduated high school, started working full time and got lazy.

It wasn’t until I started running that I rediscovered how much I loved nature and being outside. Part of that came from the running of my first real trail race. Which was a complete accident. I swear there was nothing said about trails in the race description. Oops.

I digress.

With the change in circumstances, Knockaround decided to focus on how awesome the Earth is. And I needed the encouragement and reminder to take a moment (or few) and just take in what nature had to offer. I feel like I needed something else to focus on and just try to decompress. Which has become a lot harder these days. I’ve been sticking to my neighborhood but have been finding the beauty where it is. We could all use that right now.

Mother Nature is showing us how resilient she is right now and we need to take notes. I’ll keep taking in all the nature moments I can right now.

Of course in my favorite shades- Knockaround. And I just ordered myself another pair. You can’t have too many, right?

How are you decompressing these days?

16- Maintain

This weeks snack obsession- Cheetos. The crunchy ones.

I have mentioned I am a stress eater, right?

Actually last week was a little better. I think. A little calmer at work, a few less carbs. Anyone else eating an impressive amount of banana bread?? Runner was better and my sleep was…well, can’t win ’em all.

I can’ remember anything particular about Monday so let’s just move on to Tuesday. I headed out for a few miles after work. Still running my neighborhood but I park at another work office not far from my house. Anything to avoid my damn driveway. I kept the run short and sweet- 2 miles– it was almost 80 and everyone and their brother was out. I’ve been running variations of this route for almost 10 years; I think I saw more people on Tuesday than I had in those 10 years combined.

Wednesday was another warm day so I didn’t even try to run. Knew the weather was changing soon.

Yep, a 20 degree temp drop on Thursday meant empty roads. I headed out for an easy-ish 5k after work. Easy-ish- I am so out of shape. And even though I am skipping my driveway, I am still running more hills than in the last year or so. This run saw a few hundred elevation gain/loss. Beginning to realize running more places over the past few years actually made me lazier. Oops.

Friday was stress and I just wanted to go home and hide. So I did. I resorted to one of my comfort movies and watched Battleship for the umpteenth time.

Saturday, I ventured out for a few essentials. Then I headed out for a few miles in the early afternoon. 5 miles. Longest run since Napa Valley. Ouch. The middle miles were fairly steady but I was dragging by mile 5. The only upside is that I didn’t allow myself to stop- no breaks. It’s been a while since I did that. Ok, I did stop once for a moment but that was because I had to make a route choice when I was essentially chasing another runner. That kind of doesn’t work right now.

Sunday, I woke with a knot in the hamstring area of my left leg. Odd, never felt anything there before. I was debating if running would help or hurt when my choice was made for me. I ended up being called into work and was there until dinner. I did finally prove that I could make it to my desk phone from the other side of the building before it went to voicemail. The difference between heels and running shoes- ha!

10ish miles and 3 runs for the week. Still small but a marked improvement over previous weeks.

How was your week?

15- Anxiety

I don’t have all the answers.
We’re making it up as we go.
I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve forgotten something vitally important.
I feel like I am letting everyone down.
I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I can’t shut my brain up these past few weeks. I can barely sleep Sunday and Monday nights. I need to run more than I am, not just because I am out of shape but my brain needs the cutoff. That’s one plus to being so out of running fitness, all my brain power goes to trying not break on the run.

I told myself to run everyday after work last week, but I didn’t. On Thursday I swapped the run with venturing off for groceries after work. My hope was that Thursday evening would be better than Saturday morning. It wasn’t bad but it was errily quiet too.

As an extra boost of motivation, I signed up for a few virtual races one night while staring at the tv. One of those races was the Giants Race- Sacramento 5K. Why not?

I headed out for my virtual race on Saturday afternoon. It was nice and sunny, and I figured why not? Even for a virtual race, I went way too fast out of the gate and flamed out hard by the end. I knew I was out of shape and this just kind of proved it ha! It took me 36 minutes to run a 5k! My PR is like 10 minutes faster, ha! Once I added in the warm up, I was just under for 4 miles for the day. Oh and I broke the cardinal rule of “race” day- wore something new. Oh the chafe!

I meant to run on Sunday. It was cold and cloudy and kind of perfect. But that also made it perfect to laze around under a blanket and watch tv. Can you guess which one won?

So this week, I have a new goal… try to get my head on straight. Everything else will fall in line right?

How was your week?

14- Destructo

If you’ve been around this blog for awhile, you may have cottoned on to my proclivity for inflicting injury upon myself.

For crying out loud, my last 2 concussions were self inflicted (albeit accidentally). Oh and let’s not forget the time I gave myself second degree burns with ice packs. Actually I did forget- thanks Timehop for that memory.

And yet, even I am baffled on how I broke myself this time. By making the bed and sneezing. Even writing it makes me feel like an idiot. 🤷‍♀️🤦‍♀️

I admit that changing the sheets on my bed is not the easiest- it’s up against two walls with a headboard but come on?!

So my body was contorted into a odd position messing with the fitted sheet. I felt a sneeze coming on but tried to hold it in for some reason. Not only did it not work, I felt an immediate sharp pain along my left side, heard a pop and I hit the floor. I have a pretty damn good pain tolerance but this…. Any movement made me want to scream, I damn near cried.

Once I managed to get myself off the ground, I made it to the bed and was pretty much prone for all of Saturday afternoon/ evening. Sunday, I made it to the chair but it’s not much better. However I did make it though Sunday without meds. Saturday was not the same. I had more OTC pain pills than ever before. My neurologist would be so proud- well sort of, she gets frustrated with me that I don’t use my stronger migraine meds when I have a bad one. I don’t like pain pills. So the fact that I took multiple days how bad it hurt.

So yeah, that’s how my week ended- how about the beginning?

Monday was good and I got in a short run after work. I don’t want to drive places to run but I don’t want to just run my driveway, so I stopped at another work office about a mile from my house, parked and ran the neighborhood that way. I was not prepared for the sudden temp jump to over 70 though. Wow.

Wednesday through Friday kind of snowballed. I had my running gear at work but we have had some of the busiest days ever. Even though our hours are shorter, we stayed longer.

Saturday rolled around and thankfully I didn’t have to go to a store so I slept in and headed out for an early afternoon run. Wasn’t a bad 5k even if my stomach cramped in a bad way a little past mile 2 and I walked it home.

Then thanks to my destructo self, it was all downhill from there.

And while I was lying in bed not moving, I decided to finally cave and sign up for Disney+ except it won’t play on my tv! Grrr.

At least it poured all day Sunday so I didn’t feel pissed I wasn’t out for a short run.

So how was your week? Anyone else disaster prone?

13- Keeping On

And we gotta keep moving on, or trying to.

Last week was a full week of work and every time I think I have things handled, the rules changed again. Half of the building is closed and hours are shortened. I am rolling with it the best I can and trying to put the best foot forward for my coworkers. Speaking of foot- I found out we can wear sneakers! It’s the little things. Except I am still wearing my skirts and dresses so not sure how that would look. Ha! Also have to find the funny when I can or I may lose my mind.

The weather was cold and crappy last week so staying inside wasn’t that tough. We had hail and heavy rain which caused chaos on the roads, like always but at least there were fewer cars out, right?

I was pretty lazy Monday and Tuesday but forced myself on the bike on Wednesday after work. I had actually been super soar in my shins after Sunday’s ride on the bike. I jokingly posted on Twitter that I felt like I’d given myself shin splints. Apparently that is actually a thing, who knew?

What I didn’t mention on Twitter was that I had been riding the bike barefoot. Yeah…. So for this 30 minutes, I was in new running shoes and compression socks. I also adjusted the seat and pedals. So much better.

Then back to being lazy on Thursday and Friday. Can I blame the rain?

On Saturday I ventured out for supplies. You know I always wondered if I would save money by eating out less and eating at home more. Nope. Put that test to bed.

Then I ventured out for my first run in weeks. I felt torn about it but it was also kind of great. I did one loop of my block for 2.2ish miles. Yeah, it’s a big loop. And I gained over 200 ft. Yeah, there’s a reason I drive across town often to run. I kind of felt like me again.

I think Sunday’s are going to be nap days because what else is there? Haha.

So 2 workouts out of 7 days. Yeah, I should probably work on that.

How was your week?