Mardigras2009’s Weblog

Today was SNOW DAY. Pretty awesome. I got off of work early and carved in a little time between frolicking about and cooking for the gym …  I intended to do five miles but only did three. I have a bit of a cough, and my lungs were burning. Otherwise, the run was fine; I watched General Hospital and thought about how much I enjoy when it gets written about over at Serial Drama. There were only a few scenes with Robin, Mac, Patrick, and the baby, but they made the episode worth watching. I used to watch this soap regularly during college and loved it a lot. Now it seems kind of like a parody of itself, as if soaps aren’t parodies enough in the first place. If you know what I mean.

I might try to run five tomorrow; I don’t know. Right now I’m full of curry and peppermint brownies and hot chocolate and snowy, snowy love. We’ll see what happens.

And so it begins … the rest of the training (except for the last week) is 5 miles, 3 miles, 5 miles, and then the long run each week. 5 miles still feels a bit steep, but I’m going to forge onward.

My calves have been a bit sore since Sunday’s 7-miler. But I’ve been trying my best to stretch them over the past two days. They were definitely sore when I ran on the treadmill this afternoon, but not so much so that I had to stop. I was totally wiped out and assumed it must be almost over, and when I peeked at the distance, I’d only gone 2.7 miles and wanted to cry. But I told myself I could do it and kept going.

Somehow I made it through to the end. I caught part of an OCD episode of Oprah that literally almost made me ill all over the treadmill. I can’t say I buy into therapy for germophobes that involves them sticking their hands into public garbage hands, touching a stranger’s vomit, and then putting their hands in their mouths. WTF kind of psychiatrist WAS that? I understand that we have to confront our fears, but isn’t that a serious biohazard? Licking your fingers after they’ve touched someone else’s fly-covered vomit? It was truly disgusting. I think even Dr. Oz thought it was off the wall, but of course he was a good sport and did it, too! For the love of God. 

Today’s best running song was the theme song to The Greatest American Hero.

Today’s long run was last week’s skipped 7-miler. (Next week’s is a 10K, so instead of that, I’ll run this week’s 8-miler. All of this makes sense in my head, don’t worry.)

I’d been planning all week to run at the gym, but I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to attempt it outside. I hadn’t tried to run outside since the shin splint debacle of several weeks ago. I have been really concerned with re-injuring myself in whatever way caused that hein pain. But it was such a beautiful day outside that I decided what the hell.

I plotted out my course on the online pedometer and hit the road. It was chilly but sunny and pleasant. I felt pretty good but started to get pretty tired around mile 5. But I charged through it. It was great to see so many people out on the streets, to see the birds around the lakes, to just be outside alone with the sounds of my music rather than the loud whir of a dozen treadmills and all of the feet hitting them around me and all of the gym sweat pouring down my face. I made it through until the end, and I am tired and it was hard and my legs hurt and I’m not sure I will ever enjoy running 7 miles in a row, but my shins feel okay so far. Phew. It was a beautiful day to run outside, and I’m glad I got to do it. My boyfriend ran 18 today (!!!), which makes 7 sound like small potatoes. It sure didn’t feel like small potatoes, though.

Best song of the day: “Holiday” by Green Day. One of my favorite running songs, definitely. I hope to run next week’s long run outside also, barring any kind of shin catastrophe.

I decided to skip the short run of the week since I took a week off last week and am trying to phase back into training with three runs this week instead of four in the effort to prevent the splintering of the shins. So I ran 4.5 miles on Tuesday and 4.5 miles today and will attempt the long run tomorrow, God help me.

Today’s run felt like it lasted 4.5 hours. I watched the embarrassing episode of Inside the Actors Studio when James Lipton had Dave Chappelle interview him for two hours. Usually (not always, but usually) only the greats of acting or directing or whatever get two hours. I don’t really want to hear James Lipton talk about how “ravenous” he was for women as a dance student compared to the gay men he studied with or how he was a pimp in Paris or how he wrote epic poetry at the age of three. That is unnecessary. Dave Chappelle tried his hardest and did a good job. The whole thing just made me uncomfortable. Best Inside the Actors Studio of late — Daniel Radcliffe. I know. I couldn’t believe it either. But he was shockingly funny & charming (Radcliffe, not Lipton, obviously), and you should check it out if you can.

The good news is that my shins didn’t bother me during the run, and they feel okay now. Hallelujah! I was so empowered by running 4.5 miles that I came home and took down all the Christmas lights I strung earlier this week because I strung them up backwards like an idiot and there was no way to plug them in. Now they are twinkling outside and are making me very happy.

Best running songs of the day — it’s a tie between “Old Fashioned Wedding” from Annie Get Your Gun and “What Would Brian Boitano Do?“

Technically, this is only week 7 for me because I entirely skipped last week. But it’s week 8 on the schedule, and to minimize confusion, I’m going to go ahead and call it week 8.

I did not run for 9 consecutive days. I threw in the towel and decided to sit out all of Thanksgiving week because my shins were killing me. As in, I’d be sitting perfectly still, and shooting pains would flame through them. It was not good. It was wonderful to skip the week of training but also horrible. I slept miserably. I felt gross. I stretched every day, but I didn’t ice. I ate my way through the week: Thanksgiving food and sweets and movie popcorn (twice) and Milk Duds and bleargh. I was ready to try again today even though I was very, very nervous.

I ran 4.5 miles on the treadmill today, and while it was slow and felt eternal, as usual, it wasn’t too terribly painful. My shins feel okay right now. I am not sure if they are “healed,” but I guess I won’t know until they start killing me again. The long run of my skipped week was 7 miles, and this week it amps up to 8, which I’m going to try to do this weekend.

What I learned after six straight weeks of training and then skipping a week is that I need to do this for my mental health as much as my physical health. I hope that the week off helped my shins, but I’m glad I did it also because it reminded me of how much better I feel when exercising and how this is something I really want to stick with.

Today’s best running song was “Don’t Know Why You Stay” by the Essex Green, which I first discovered via Sweet Juniper a few years ago, and my life has been all the better for it since.