Playing catch up...

Sat - Gym - Pool 50 mins
Sun - Pool 45 mins - 3min Elliptical - Yoga
Mon - Gym - Run 2mi

The current downpour outside has inspired me to not leave the apartment all day, except perchance to run out to the grocery store so i can cook dinner tonight. It's rare to take a day and just sit and read and watch movies and pretty much just hang out. I figured I'd take this time to catch up a little on the good ole blog.

Sunday was my third day in a row of swimming, and I def was feeling pretty beat. Part of it may have been the fact that I was up till ONE in the morning both friday and saturday. I know. I'm so proud. The swim was just one of those workouts where you're like, okay, I showed up, I'm gonna do this, but it ain't gonna be pretty.

Decided to go back to Yoga with Lyndsey later that evening. Rocked a solid 3 min on the elliptical as a warm up and then bounced off to Yoga class. This is my third class now, and I bought a mat, so i figure that makes me pretty committed. Once you buy the gear there's no turning back. Maybe I'll even get cool Yoga clothes like Lyndsey that have weird lettering that no one can read.

So I guess that brings us to today. It's absolutely pouring out right now, and unfortunately I didn't beat the rain on my run. It wasn't as bad as it is now, but it was def windy with consistent moisture coming from the sky. I was pretty soaked by the time I was done and as I trudged back into the gym the guy behind the desk looks at me in shock. "Did you run in the rain???" "Uh, yes." "Wow, that's CRAZY!" It cracks me up how used to good weather we are. When I was back east, more often than not my run was either when it was below freezing, snowing, raining, slushing, or just plain miserable out. The worst day in San Diego just can't even compare. And I'm a pretty big wimp when it comes to weather.

Pes didn't feel great, which was surprising to me after almost a full week of no running. Gonna ice and stretch today and see how it feels. The cold rainy weather might not have been the best for it, in retrospect, and its possible things just tightened up and never really got a chance to loosen.

Since I didn't post this weekend, here's a late Happy Valentines Day to everyone. I always find it to be a funny holiday. Single girls hate it, girls in relationships pretend to hate it, and I'm pretty sure you'll be hard pressed to find a guy anywhere who really cares one way or the other. But as I was walking into a movie chatting with my mom on saturday, I couldn't help but to reflect on all the wonderful people I have in my life, and it was just nice to think about those people on a day that is supposed to be a celebration of love. I consider myself pretty lucky to have such amazing friends, and while its sad that so many are spread out all over the country, it's still wonderful to know they are there, just a phone call away. So Happy V-day to all of you and thanks for being a part of my life.

Ok, that's enough mush for now.

Feelin' kinda hardcore today.

Gym

Run - 2.5

Swim - 40 mins (6x100, 2x150)

Today I made up for the laziness of yesterday by working out for more consecutive time than I have in god knows how long.

I hit up the gym first thing this morning and worked through my routine. Runners World had an article this month that was essentially written for me. It was on pelvic strength and how runners tend to just do leg exercises when we really should be strengthening other parts of our bodies that might not get the attention needed just through running. The article also had some points on how to deal with injury that really helped me to read. That magazine has sometimes made me sad when it would have articles on how to stay motivated in training when all i wanted to do was run enough that I would have trouble motivating! It was nice to read an article that felt so on point with where I'm at in my running life. 

I ran twenty minutes on the injury trail today and things continued to feel quite solid. I'll admit to a slight amount of weakness creeping in, but off and on, and frankly it didn't feel like a warning weakness ("hey! it's going to start hurting soon.") but rather my body getting stronger ("hey, your not completely better but we're getting there.") And yes, my pes anserinus does speak to me (for those curious, any reference ever made to "knee" is actually referring to the "pes anserinus" which is not the knee at all).

During my run I ran into Fern, Mark, and Craig while they were running. That's one thing I love about the Encinitas-Del Mar span is that its like this little community, and if I don't run into someone at the gym I'll probably see them running along 101.  It was also nice to see some of my runner friends while I was actually running, instead of always just talking about running.  I am slowly going to prove to my friends that I am indeed a runner, despite my past gimpy status. 

So then, just to be uber hardcore, I hit up the pool to bust out some quick 100s before meeting up with my mom and grandma for breakfast. The weather is being stupid, so I didn't want to not be able to swim tomorrow due to the weather and go 5 days without hitting up the pool. It was a good swim day overall. I fell into a rhythm and even managed to do some 150s and feel that some 200s tomorrow are def doable. I did have two slight panic attacks. When I was sharing a lane with some guy who was way faster than me I realized two things: First, I'm going to have to learn to swim fast. I know that's a ways away but still, right now I'm essentially a jogger planning on racing a 5K. Second, I'm going to have to deal with other people. The dude kept splashing me (ok that was officially the most retarded complaint ever from someone who was in a pool) and it kinda threw me off. I realized I'm going to have people splashing me, grabbing at me, knocking in to me, and god knows what else.  I better learn to deal. 

So that was my hardcore workout for the day. Now I've managed to plop myself in my super comfy papasan chair with a book and coffee in order to reenergize myself.  I'm sure I'll get up eventually...

Recap: Day Off x 2

Took two days off to really bring the inflammation down since last time things flared up that worked pretty well. It's been getting progressively better over the last 48 hours so I'm feeling good about running tomorrow.  Gonna hit up 4 miles tomorrow before easing back into the 5 milers.

So yesterday I was a guest speaker for a running group. A friend of mine coaches a team and his guest speaker wasn't able to make it at the last minute, so the poor runners got me instead. As I strolled in one guy asked if I was a professional runner.  Uh, no I responded. But I was really good in High School. You could practically hear Bruce Springsteen crooning Glory Days in the background. 

Seriously though it was actually a good time. It was fun to talk about running and share my experiences with racing and strategy. Jim kept throwing some thought provoking questions at me, and it got me thinking how important running has been to me outside of the actual running part. Some of the closest people in my life I've met through running. I think there's a special bond between runners...a certain OCD obsessive passion that you've got to be a part of to really understand. So much of how I think about things and go through life has been dictated by my experiences with running, which isn't surprising considering its been such a dominate part of my life for so long now (at one point Jim pointed out that I've been running for half my life. wow. true.). And now I've met more runners here in SD and its been so wonderful to have friends that share that passion.  

So, in conclusion. Runners are good. 

Migraine: My doctor asked me to keep track of my migraines to see if there was any sort of trigger. Figure I'll never actually keep a log so I'll just record them here. Maybe if there's a correlation with running this will help track it. Migraine today at 10:45 A.M. Was uber stressed last week and this week have been feeling much more relaxed, so possibly attributable to coming down from being a stress ball.  Possibly dehydrated. Nothing abnormal in the coffee consumption (high, as always). Had medication but took longer for vision to return. No headache or naseau thanks to promptness of meds. Aurora was different than normal. Less shimmery and more just blocked vision, like certain parts of my field of vision just weren't transmitting the images to my brain. Time since last migraine - I think it's been almost 2 months.