Running Chick

Man, I have the worst time coming up with witty, creative titles for my posts. “Running and Yoga”. How lame. I should just write a little program that randomly creates a title and I’ll use that. Probably would be better than what I could come up with.

Anyhooters, I’m running again.  I’m taking things very slowly right now because I don’t want to overdo it and annoy my legs. So, I’m trying to go between one & two miles a few times each week. Last week, I think I ended up with just under five miles. This week, I’ll go a bit farther, and a bit farther than that the following week. You get the picture.

There are good and bad points to this approach. I do like that my runs are short so I’m not outside for long when it’s cold. I like that I can be out & back in less than 30 minutes, heck maybe even less than 20 minutes, and my clothes don’t get all stanky from sweat because I’m barely breaking one.

But I don’t like that my legs barely feel like they’ve loosened up before my run is over and unless I haul-ass, I hardly feel like I’m doing anything for my cardiovascular system. Also, it’s annoying to pile on all my running gear for only 15 minutes of use. Hopefully by the end of the month I’ll have worked myself up to three miles, which somehow my brain has defined as an real run, and I’ll be happier.

I’ve been reading a lot about running injuries and how lots of them come about from having a weak core, so I started some core training last week:

I hemmed and hawed over whether I should get this dvd because, while Jillian’s workouts are pretty intense, I can’t stand her harping about how I should be gurgling my heart or how my heart should be ready to shoot out of my throat. Girl, please. No I shouldn’t.

Anyway, I signed up for Amazon on Demand on the Roku and got a $5 credit which made this video around $4, so I went for it.  Her program is designed to be done five days/week, but I tend to get bored & lose interest when I do the same thing over & over again so I’m going to shoot for three times/week. I figure it’s better than nothing. And yes, it is intense. And it’s not just my abs that are getting worked, it’s arms & shoulders from all the planks and legs from all sorts of squats & lunges. I feel like I got a good all-over workout when I’m finished.

I also started doing yoga pretty regularly. Here’s one of my regular sessions, Candlelight Yoga with Sara Ivanhoe:

I get this one off of Netflix and it’s a really good for relaxation and light stretching. At the end of this session, I just want to go & take a nap.

Finally, and this is turning out to be my go-to yoga/stretching video, I do Yoga for Runners with Erica Schnike. I got mine from Sport Skool Yoga on the Roku and I couldn’t find any pictures or details about it. But, this is probably the best all-around dvd that I have for stretching. I don’t know the names of all the different poses that she goes through, but they really seem to target all the areas in my legs & hips that are tight. Of course there are a couple of nutty poses that leave me wondering what they’re supposed to be doing, but they’re few and far between.  I do this session right after I get back from a run so I’m nice & warmed up and it feels really good. If I’m feeling ambitious one day, maybe I’ll document all the poses here.

Namaste, people.

My blag, it was getting a little old looking. Bags under the eyes, crows feet, wrinkles. So, I did what any self-respecting Real Housewife of Beverly Hills would do and gave it a little refresher. It got yanked and plucked, pulled and tucked and presto! It’s looking renewed and refreshed.  Hopefully it won’t show up on Awful Plastic Surgery.

I didn’t intend to spend my two week vacation working on the blog, but that’s pretty much what happened. I have no idea how many hours it took, and quite frankly, I don’t want to know. Let’s just call it a butt load and be done with it.

Anyway, just a quick fly-over. There’s some new stuff in the sidebar - weather info, random images from my gallery, posts by category, quick search and a few new pages dedicated to my photography, exercise gear and favorite links. Hope you like it, but if you don’t you’re going to have to live with it. This was way too much work for me to do more than once every two years.

Wow, it’s the last day of 2010 already. Where did the year go?

I was looking back through my blog posts to put my recap together when it because pretty clear that this year was pretty much about Simon. I’d say probably 85% of my posts were about his latest crisis or an update on his health. The last eight months of his life were an emotional rollercoaster for me.  When I left work in the morning, I worried about him all day long. When I’d come home, either from work or being out, I worried that I was going to come home to find him dead. I think that was my biggest fear, coming home (or coming downstairs in the morning) and finding out that he’d died alone.  I don’t think I could have ever forgiven myself if that happened. I’ve known people who have simply dropped their pets of at the vet clinic to be euthanized, which I really don’t understand.  I realize that there are probably circumstances in which that is the only option for the owner, but it’s something I could never do. Simon’s well-being was my responsibility from the day I got him, and it was my responsibility to see that when it was his time, it was done with compassion and love and no suffering on his part.  I made the call to the vet (as incoherent as I probably sounded), I signed the papers, and I was holding him when he died. It was really heartbreaking but I know I made the right decision.

Even though it’s been over a month, I am clearly still grieving for him. I think about him every day and he frequently shows up in my dreams - in the strangest places, too. Last night I dreamt I was on a boat, and he was there with me. The night before, I was out hiking with a backpack on, took it off & opened it, and out he popped. One night last week, I was wrapping presents and he kept on trying to eat the red ribbon I was using. It’s a little bit strange, but I guess as long as I don’t start seeing him when I’m awake, I won’t make an appointment with the psychiatrist just yet.

Moving right along (*puts box of tissues away*), the rest of my 2010 was spent trying to get my running injury/injuries under control. The custom orthotics, which were supposed to solve all of my problems, actually caused me more issues than they solved. After going back to the podiatrist four (or maybe it was five?) times, he finally decided that he couldn’t help me and sent me to specialized therapy. Thanks, pal. I did see improvement after a month or two of myofascial release therapy, and it was enough to get me back running again. But as is typical of me, I went crazy with the running and started to teeter on re-injuring myself, so I decided to back off and rest for a week or two. Well, that turned into two months and I’m just now starting to get back into the swing of things with a few short runs this week and a training plan which will start in February.

This really has nothing to do with 2010, other than I purchased them during the last few weeks of the year, but I got new shoes, the Brooks Cascadia 5.  Everybody together now, “Ooo, pretty.”

I’ve always done my winter running in my road shoes and YakTrax, but this year I wanted to try shoes that were designed to be in the snow, mud and slop, so I went with bonafide trail shoes. So far, I really like them. They do really well in loose snow both up & down hill. I imagine hard packed snow will be a problem, so I am planning to put screws in the bottom of them for extra traction.

Well, enjoy the last day of 2010. See you next year!