Sunday, October 11, 2009

Welcome back to the road, Jill

22 degrees and a light dusting of snow on the ground wasn't going to detain me, it was d-day, day to get back on the road running. I've been practically crawling out of my skin to do so this week ....though I will admit, it was kinda nice not to adhere to any sort of schedule and just do whatever. Unfortunately, whatever meant sheer laziness along with a higher than normal consumption of foods that are not particularly beneficial to my training. Or my waistline. I was doing okay weight-wise for a few days post-race but it's all caught up to me a week later.......
Time to get back on track.
Okay, can I just say a quick side note...Halloween is evil. Not in the sense of the holiday, per se, I have always loved the fun of the holiday - heck, I even always hand-made my kids' costumes each year when they were little (yea, call me the domestic goddess!). No, I'm not talking the adorable costumes and the spooky decorations....I'm talking the SUGAR! Where there is an entire isle dedicated to a holiday that is fill with miniature-sized bags of candy, you know you are in trouble. You think you can eat one or two cuz I mean, really, there's so small they can't possibly hurt you. But one just never suffices and before you know it, you'd pounced on about 10 of them. Major guilt!

So enough of that....until the actual event and even then, I'm going to have to pull every ounce of willpower to not indulge too much because I ...... am..... back.....to......training.

I've signed up for the Tucson Marathon. December 13th. More on that and why and whatnot later but it's late and I need to talk briefly about my short 3.58 mile jaunt this morning.

I got so wrapped up watching the Chicago marathon this morning online via Universal Sports and the marathon website, repetitively hitting "update" in the right hand corner, that I got a late start to my run this morning. Plus, I was dealing with some overnight-in-19-degrees camping issues with Brendan (that child can certainly test my patience!). btw, a huge congrats to Jeff and Jay of the Prostates running group; Jeff ran his 5th Chicago and ran a 3:14 to BQ and Jay ran his first marathon ever with a 3:50. Alan from the RW blog ran well, too....I enjoyed watching you guys!!

I wonder if the anticipation of getting out there to do the one thing you love so much because it's the one thing that can heal your insides yet haven't been able to for a week, can get you so pumped that it can actually cause some sort of let-down when you actually get out there finally to do it. I don't know...but I didn't feel that great. My left hamstring felt tight from the first step and my glutes just ached while running. I also think I took off a tad too fast....you know, the adrenaline rush of that first run back and all. I pulled myself back after a mile and ended running 3.58 miles in an average of 8:56. That number is actually higher; at the turn around point, I stopped for a minute and re-adjusted my shoelace and then started back up slowly. I'm also feeling some minor annoyance in my right heal.

So I'm heating my left hamstring and finding a tennis ball to roll on my heal. I'll continue to stretch and I am certain my bod just needs another week to recovery so will take the week training smart.

Yesterday, my boys ran a very cold 2-mile race that their school puts on as a fundraiser. We woke up to very cold temperatures and snow yet I didn't even give them the option of not doing the race. Rain, wind,, sun, sleet or snow...just like the mailman, the Parkers push on! We got there way too early for this tiny race and ended up inside the clubhouse warming up; I think my toes are still thawing from standing outside. The sad part was that what normally is about a 300 person race turned out to be about 40 people and thus, I'm sure the band didn't make any money on this little event. Most likely even lost money. The also bummer side to this was that had I run it, at least run it having not just run Portland the weekend before, I easily could have won the women's division. And you know what the prize I handed over to the 15:45 place finisher??? An iPod shuffle. Gold. I mean, sheeeeeeeesh!!!

5:30 a.m. work out tomorrow morning; got my plan for the week; will eat right. Welcome back to the road, Jill!


Brendan and Ryan and their October 10th snowy 2 mile run



Ketty, Becky (my hair Goddess miracle worker), Ann; start of the 2 mile band run