Showing posts with label morning running. Show all posts
Showing posts with label morning running. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Peace Out Morning + Yoga Update

Dear Morning Running,

I hear by give my official resignation. The heat is gone, and quite frankly my bed is now much more enticing than you are. It was a good run (punny!). I'm sure I'll see you again next summer.


xoxo,
Jerbear


As you may recall, back when I attempted and became a morning runner, I did it primarily to keep from melting into a puddle during after work runs/getting abducted running late-late at night. Now that it's in the 40's when 5:30-6 am rolls around, I figure I can throw in the towel. Plus, after work time will always be my favorite time to work out. I think 6 years of post-school practice will do that to a gal. I love running off my work day stress. And it's a great time to people watch.


In an update on the yoga challenge, I have yoga'd every day except for 3. I've found that the most enjoyable days are the ones that I set aside a good chunk of time rather than cramming in a short 15 minute session to "get it over with." Shocker, I know.



Last night was no different. After blogging, I went home to eat a couple of lemon poppy seed muffins that I baked post-run. Um YUM! And had plenty of time until Taylor would be back from softball. I found a new series that I haven't tried because it's 35 minutes long, and I usually don't have that long to work with. I did a YogAmazing Summer Flow series. It kicked my butt. Whoa! BUT, I did finally succeed in being able to do Crow Pose (aka Crane Pose). Seriously, after 3+ years of doing yoga (off and on, of course) I've never been able to do this pose.

Of course, Taylor walked in while I was doing the final stretching and meditative portion (savasana). Side note: Since this is the only part he ever sees me do, he's convinced that that's all yoga is. When I commented that my arms and shoulders are getting more defined, and I think yoga is the cause, he actually asked me how stretching was causing me to get buff. Turd.

Anyway, after I was done, I wanted to show off the new sweet pose that I could do, so I showed him a couple of times and CLEARLY he was impressed. Competitive beast that he also is, he decided to give it a try. First time he fell, second time I gave him some pointers and, shocker, he got up. Granted he was only up for a few seconds, but still. Hmph. I also showed him some harder parts of the series that I did/struggled with, and I think he finally has a grasp on how difficult yoga can be. Hopefully he's intrigued enough to try it with me sometime. :)

I've been searching for a yoga studio in town, and have a couple of promising prospects. There's a studio downtown that offers free classes this Friday, so I might check one out after work. It is considered an Intermediate class though, so I might call and see what Intermediate consists of, because embarrassing the heck out of myself will probably cause me to NEVER go back. Also, our new health insurance at work has a couple of gyms with deals of $20 off monthly membership if you attend 4x/month. One of them is an AMAZING gym, with pool, basketball courts, tons of fitness classes, etc. etc., which would be about $45/month. They offer 3 free trials for potential members, so I figure I can try some classes out there too.

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Also, I'm getting my hairs did tonight! Whoo. I'm pretty excited. I went more blonde this summer, and it's starting to look trash-tastic all grown out and such, so I'm going back to dark and beautiful. :) Perhaps I'll have some pics to share with you manana. More likely, I will forget to take any, and then will be forced to take some post-6 miles in the morning. Sweaty=sexy. :)

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Day 5: Legs, you are lucky you decided to be quick today!!

So.  Effing.  Tired.  Seriously.  I need to learn to go to bed earlier on Monday night so the whole rest of my week isn't spent playing "catch up."  Grr.  When the alarm went off this morning at 4:30 am, I told Taylor I was going to sleep until he left for work (usually 5:15-5:20 when I'm heading out also to run).  Since I had SO MUCH TIME after my run yesterday, I figured I had 45 min. to spare.  Oh glorious 45 minutes.  You were amazing.  When I finally got up, I was grumbling that I did not want to go run.  Sweet sweet loverboy said, "It'll be nice and cool after work...why don't you just go back to bed and run later?"  Mmmm....blissful idea my love.  Guarenteed though, if I decided to do that, I would spend the next 2 hours tossing and turning, and then it'd magically be 90 degrees with 90% humidity at 5pm.  PLUS, it's only Day 5.  I can't quit on day 5.  I just need to pretend that running later is NOT an option until this morning crap becomes habit.  Because very very soon, running later in the day won't be an option.

Speaking of, I'm not sure HOW it's still cool.  It's June.  Usually I'm sweating my booty off.  This morning, I was cold.  Brr.  I haven't worn shorts on a run since.... umm.... pre-morning running?  It's summer for goodness sakes.

Blabber blabber blabber, on with the run.  I had a 40 minute tempo run to do.  Started off shivering and took the first mile eeeeeeeasy at 9:45.  Stopped to stretch out my sleeping muscles.  

My tempo miles I wanted to run 8:20-8:30 mm, giving myself a lil leeway because of the headwind for the first tempo mile.  First tempo run mile 8:41.  Lame.  I swear every time I looked at my Garmin it said 8:00 pace.  Apparently that wasn't the case.

Tempo mile #2 8:19, technically a fail, but average the two together and boom, 8:30, perfection.  :)  I decided if I could do mile 3 under 8:30 I could use the last 1/2 mile-ish for a cool down instead of continued tempo.  That's the motivation the leggos needed 7:56.

I finished the .55 cool down in 4:56 for a pace of 9:02.  Overall warm up/cool down pace was 9:31.  Average pace for tempo miles (3) was 8:18.

During my cool down, I was doing some reflection as to why my splits were so off.  I think it might have something to do with my warm up.  I try to start off slow to actually warm up my legs, but I think it's hard for my legs to gauge the difference from 9:45-10 mm to 8:20-8:30.  After that first tempo mile, I always seem to hit at my pace or even below it, I always just struggle with that first one.  Hopefully I'll remember this gem of insight on my next tempo.  :)

Softball tonight and saying good bye to Tay as he leaves for Chi-town insanely early tomorrow morning for his bro's bachelor party.  Jealous.  Not of the bach party, but I love me some Chi-town.  :D

Ooooh.....stay tuned for an upcoming race announcement....EEEEEEE!

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Day 1: Morning Runner

Today marks day 1 of my two week trial at becoming a morning runner. I was formulating a pro's and con's list as I was running, so that's what I'm going to share with you (what I can remember anyway.)
  • It was beautiful out. Cool, breezy and sun just starting to rise. +1
  • I didn't feel tired when I woke up. Usually I'm up from 4:30-5:20am when Taylor is not-so-quietly getting ready for work, so it was nice not to have to try to fall back asleep after that. +1
  • My legs, were dead. 900 lbs. a piece at least. This is probably 15% from running in the morning and 85% from running a long run on hills just slightly more than 24 hours ago. -2
  • I got to hog the whole bike trail. No running on the right shoulder (which slants downward slightly hurting my ankles, hips, and pretty much everything on my right side), constantly staying out of the way of speedy bikers. I only saw 2 out on my run, and just hogged away otherwise. +2
  • Less bugs. Bugs eaten: 0. Bugs snorted: 0. Bug bites: 1. SUCCESS! +1
The rest of these relate more to getting up early and not so much the actual run part, but should be taken into consideration none the less:
  • I had time to eat a nice healthy breakfast post run. +1
  • Saved by the Bell was on during my after run stretching. +1
  • I now have more time to hang out with the Boy after work, since I don't have to run, stretch, shower, etc. +2
+7 points. Not bad.

Today was good, but we'll see how sucky mcsuckerson I feel as the day goes on and I'm running on 5 hours of sleep. Ya I didn't exactly get to bed at the time I was envisioning, whoops! Tomorrow I'm thinking about running to my gym to do my speed/interval workout, and then running home. It's a good distance for a warm-up/cool-down.
The best part of this morning running business is that I only have to do it Tuesday-Thursday since Mondays & Fridays are my days off from running. Whoo!!
Edited to include run details:
Apparently in my half asleep post run state I forgot to include details of my run, so here they are. 3 miles in 28:05 for an avg. pace of 9:23.
1. 9:36
2. 9:28
3. 9:01