Week two recap

I'm officially into week two of training. Yeah! So far it's been fairly easy to keep up with my truncated training plan. It's also staying light until around 7PM here, so it has been easy to get in my runs after work. However, soon the daylight will be gone by the time I get home from work, and that means I'll have to run in the early AM or in the dark PM. Mike has graciously volunteered to be my training partner when the days are too dark to run alone. I see a headlamp in my future.

Today was my long run for the week - seven miles! For my weekly long runs, I've been going to a local state park that has a five mile loop. It's very close to our home which makes it an easy drive. The park is a beautiful rainforest-like environment with huge trees and sweeping views of the Puget Sound. It makes for some amazing runs in complete peace and quiet. In the mornings, it is closed off to traffic until 1PM which makes it an ideal place to run without being scared of cars. Although, some cyclists sound like cars picking up speed when they are flying down the hill, so it's always best to be alert. It's a great park for hiking as well. It has well over five miles of trails throughout, however, I've yet to run the trails. I'm keeping to the streets until I'm confident I won't roll my ankle or trip on a tree branch because I'm distracted by a caterpillar. All very real concerns considering this morning I saw a caterpillar while running, and immediately stopped, grabbed a leaf, and helped it to the side of the road, all whilst yelling, "It's so cute!" and having no care who was running/biking past me. So...you can see my dilemma.

Free to run anywhere on these empty roads.

Scenic overlook.

For my weekly runs I've been running around our neighborhood. We live less than a mile from the Sound, so it makes for really great running scenery. Doesn't hurt that the neighborhood in general is super gorgeous, but once you start running in fog and drizzle, the scenery sure makes you forget how annoying the rain can be. The smell of the Sound is also kind of relaxing. It reminds me of when I was living on the bay in Maine. It definitely smells fishy, but in the mornings with the fog in the bay and wind coming off of the water, it just feels like everything in the world is right.

The Puget Sound

Today's run felt great, and I'm hoping I can keep up the positivity with these workouts. I'm really keeping an eye on my IT band, just to make sure I'm not overdoing it. After every run, I'm foam rolling (lifesaver!) and stretching. So far, that has been key. I also started my physical therapy exercises again to keep my glute/quads in check. The last thing I want is to get lazy with it, and hurt myself again. This is a great video outlining a basic IT band rehab routine, and it's very similar to what I do. Gotta keep those glutes strong, and running all of these hills won't hurt either!

Speaking of hills, I'm going to try and remember to get a picture of the hills this city has. It's insane. Remember when I said I run to the Sound, well it's all downhill and wonderful, until you have to turn around and come home. Completely uphill. From small hills to gigantic, steep monsters. Like I said, I'm sure it's great for my glutes, but every time I'm talking myself through these hills because I feel like I'm going to just drop. San Fran ain't got nothin' on Tacoma.

Week three schedule looks like: cross train, 3-mile, 5-mile, 3-mile, rest, 5-mile, cross train. Seems easy enough.

Let's hope it continues to be injury free!

Hello runner.

I began running before my senior year of high school. I used it to help keep me in shape, and really began to enjoy it. It became a time when I could de-stress and let my mind wander. I did my fair share of 5k's and 10k's in college, but in the Summer of 2008, I decided to dream big and register for The Omaha Marathon. This particular marathon is one of the hilliest marathons in the U.S. - which I did not know about until I was at the starting line and the lady next to me said, "This is your first marathon?! Why did you pick this one? It's all hills!". And the award for the 'Most influential speech before you run 26.2 miles for the first time in your life' goes to....the lady standing next to me at the starting line! It didn't change the fact that I trained for 3.5 months in the humid summer heat, prepared as much as I could, and felt completely ready for race day. And yes, I completed the marathon in the Fall of 2008.

After the hill-tastic Omaha Marathon, I ran two half-marathons, multiple smaller races, and continued running in my free time. After starting optometry school in the fall of 2010, I realized that my free time was becoming a thing of the past, and I decided to put off another marathon until after boards. I wanted to run The Philadelphia Marathon. Well, Nike's minimalistic shoes are not for everyone, and I learned that the hard way. I dealt with almost two years of iliotibial (IT) band syndrome and pain from those damn shoes. *Pro tip: Always get fit at a running specialty store when wanting to transition to a new shoe. Especially if you have magnificent ballerina arches like me.* I wish I would have taken my advice. After almost six months of physical therapy to get me back on my feet, I could run around a track four times. Four. And with that, Philadelphia was obviously off the table.

Since then, I've been slowly increasing mileage, but never surpassing five miles because I've been so scared I'll injure my leg again. Anyone who's ever been benched from running for any time at all can feel my anxiety. I did not want to go through that healing process ever again.

So basically, I had no training plan since 2010, and I finally started to miss it.

Fast forward to now. I'm done with school. Working at the residency of my dreams. Living in the most beautiful part of the United States. So, I woke up last week and decided it was about time I made another running goal. I figured I might as well go big or go home, and decided to tackle another marathon. I mean, it's the perfect time to get back to running, winter is right around the corner!... Okay, so maybe it's not the greatest time, but I can't control what my brain wants! Besides, I'm used to real winters. Sorry, but the people that live on this coastal side of the U.S. do not understand what -60 degrees Fahrenheit feels like. I think everyone in California would just cease to exist if they experienced 30 seconds of real cold and 32 inches of snow at the same time. I'm not gonna lie, I 'farmer's almanac'd' the weather in the Pacific Northwest, and the coldest predicted for this winter? 19 degrees Fahrenheit. Psssh. Piece. Of. Cake. And, in the words of the great Russell Wilson, "Why not (me)?".

So here it goes. I'm on track to complete a four month training course in mid-January. Good thing the marathon I want to run is at the end of November.

Here's to a truncated training program and injury free running!