I Found Out I'm Slow. And I'm Commiting to the 4.

So I did end up doing a trail run after my last post.  Well, part of the run was trail. I finally got around to running through the Crystal Bridges Museum trails.  They are so nice! And so fun! I forgot how much fun trail running is and how different it is from running on paths and sidewalks.  I feel like I could run forever on a trail.  It's like every step is a challenge- where to put your feet, step up, step over, run through- it's a blast!  I think I might try to trail run a couple times a month from here on out.

I did my first speed session last week.  Just in case our local running store, Rush Running, wasn't awesome enough as it is, they put on free speed sessions at the track every Monday.  I'm not even kidding that there are 70ish people who attend every week.  Some people are super duper fast and some people have never even ran before.  It's totally cool.  Last summer Hubs and I would trade off weeks.  Someone would do the speed workout and the other one would take little Beverly on a run in the BoB.  I haven't done a speed session in almost a year.  And it showed.  Holy cow.  We had to sprint 200m before we got into our intervals and I thought my legs were going to fall off.  Really it was my quads.  I decided that after each run from now on I'm going to do some sprints up and down my street.  I can't even believe how slow I was.  It's like my body forgot how to sprint.  Weird, but I guess it makes sense. 
I totally made one of the girls at the speed session run with me.  Or I made myself run with her, I'm not sure.  But either way it was nice to run next to someone and have them push you. She made me run more than I originally intended to and I appreciated that from her.  Even though I thought I was going to puke after the last set.  I've never puked from running before, but man I was close last Monday :)

I feel like I'm in a 3 mile funk.  All my runs are right around 3 miles.  I think it's time to up my game and Commit To The 4. I need to make all my runs at least 4 miles to get out of this funk.  And if they are less than 4 miles, they need to be fast.  Like under 9:00 fast.  (Please hold your comments- under 9:00 is fast for me right now.) I'll keep you posted on how that goes.

I'm going to sign up for my first race soon.  It's going to be the Cancer Challenge June 23 and I will be doing the 5k.  I originally thought 10k. But that was before I realized how slow I am.  So I'm going to use the 5k as a speed workout.  If my splits are under 8:30 I'll be happy.

Quit counting and just run!

I've decided to quit counting days now.  I do believe I have 3 runs under my belt since the last update.  Now let's see if I can remember anything about them....

1. This was a short 2.6ish miler.  I don't remember how I felt, but I do remember that I counted animals while I ran.  I saw a turtle.  He ducked his little head in as I ran past.  Apparently I'm intimidating.  I quit counting once I got to 9 rabbits.  Although, some of those could have been counted twice since I did and out and back run.

2. Upping the distance here with about 3.2 miles.  I was going to run by myself, but little Beverly was being high maintenance while I was getting ready so I decided to take her along with me.  We went to Orchards Park to run.  I drive past it and through it all the time and I keep wanting to run there.  It was a good decision.  There were an unbelievable amount of people at the park, which I think is super cool.  There were soccer, baseball, softball, and sand volleyball games going on all over the place.  I love seeing people outside like that.  Bev was a superstar running partner and did awesome even though it was pretty much past her bedtime before we even got out there.

3. Yesterday. 3.3 miles.  I was kinda in a hurry to get my run in.  It's amazing how quickly your days fill up when you have a flex week at work (I can work, but I don't have to work during flex weeks. It's a pretty sweet job).  Nothing fancy to report on this run. 

I'm about to go do my run for today.  I'm thinking I'll go back to Orchards Park and hit up the trails around Crystal Bridges.  My trail shoes have been sitting, waiting, dying to be ran in for about a year now. Then I'm going to pick up the kiddos from daycare all stinky and sweaty.  They're going to love me today :)

The End of The Hiatus!

Holy Hiatus!

The eccentric exercises totally worked (even though I cheated and didn't do them at the gym or as often as I was supposed to).  Today was a 1.85 mile run in 16:30 which is an 8:55 mile.  It was hard and it hurt. It was great! I was so glad to be out there.

I think I'd better sign up for a race soon to make sure a hiatus doesn't happen again.

As a reminder to my future self, here are the reasons for said hiatus:
1. knees
2. rain
3. Hubs was out of town for 3.5 days
4. there are only 24 hours in a day and sometimes that just isn't enough to accomplish everything you want to.  Especially during this crucial time when baby2 is super tiny and I just want to cherish every second of it :)

Diagnosis Without a Doctor

We have a local running store here in town that is a.m.a.z.i.n.g. Every Monday they do these speed session workouts on the track at one of the schools in town.  We try to attend as often as possible.  One of us usually does the workout and the other one has kiddos, but we always go together as a family. It's great to have a reason to be outside and hang out together. Anyway. My mom was in town and she volunteered to watch both babies while we speed sessioned it out (yay!).  I wasn't sure how my knees would hold up, but I hadn't ran since last Tuesday so I thought maybe the knees be okay since they should have been well rested.  Wrong. I couldn't do the workout so I just jogged along the outside lane of the track instead.

The owner of the running store is the one who puts on these speed sessions and comes up with the workouts and whatnot.  He asked why I was running in the outside lanes and I explained that I wasn't doing the workout because of my knees yada yada yada.  He started asking questions about where and when they hurt and immediately let me know that I had patellar tendentious and needed to do eccentric exercises to fix it.  Ummmmm.....eccentric exercises? I don't know what that means but in my head I pictured someone sporting bright pink hair, a hula skirt, tall socks from the 70s and some sweet sunglasses doing jumping jacks.  Eccentric, right? Apparently that is not what this form of "eccentric" means. My bad.  An eccentric exercise is like when you do a bicep curl but it's the part where you bring your arms down; not the part where you bring the weight up.  Or something like that. Google it.

So I'm supposed to do lots of reps (like 50) on the quad machine at the gym with minimal weight and go really really slowly on the 'eccentric' part of the lifting. I don't know if I worded any of that correctly but I know what I'm trying to say and that's what counts :)  I haven't had a chance to do the eccentric exercises yet but I'm sure by the end of the week I will.  And then cured (hopefully)!!

**Side note about Rush Running (our local store).
Running stores and runners and workouts put on by running stores for runners can be super intimidating for people who are not runners or not in shape.  But that is so not the case here in Bentonville!  I don't think I've ever seen or heard of a more welcoming place for runners of all abilities.  And by all abilities I mean even people who aren't runners at all.  I just wanted to let you know how cool it is to have a place and a group of people who truly are judgement free, welcoming, and above all else, encouraging of everyone! It blows my mind in the best way possible.

Unforseen Demotivators

Saturday April 21

At what point in time do you stop saying "my knees hurt" and start saying "I have a knee injury"? I haven't had anything that I would consider a legit injury before, so I'm not sure. I think running again probably isn't going to happen any time soon and that makes me really sad. 
I forsee a knee doctor appointment in my future. I don't really want to go because I'm afraid their answers will be predictable, not very helpful, and super expensive. "Well Mrs. Patrick, your knees hurt because you had two kids super close together and your joints are still recovering.  Take some ibuprofen, drink plenty of water, and rest for a while. That will be $1500.  Please pay at the front desk".

I suppose I better start thinking about other work out-ly things to do. Maybe kickboxing.  Maybe pilates. Maybe P90X. Decisions, decisions. 

Day 6 Tuesday April 17

So remember how my Watch is a dirty liar and tells me I ran really far when I really didn't?? Well, it heard me. Watch decided to go in the opposite direction today.  And remember how my last run was on a treadmill and uneventful? Also opposite today. And yes, I would like some cheese with the following whine.

Let me begin by saying that my knees still hurt.  A whole lot. Even when I'm not running.  Which makes running very unfun. It also makes me look really silly for the first 10 minutes of the run while I try to figure out my stride with shooting pain going through my knees. It's not that I care that I look silly; I really don't  give a damn.  It's more that "my stride" is not my stride when my knees hurt like that.  Its like wearing someone else's clothes or driving someone's else's car.... it just doesn't feel right.

It took until 18 minutes into the run before my knees went from shooting pain to an aching pain that I could live with.  At 20 minutes I started to feel the effects of the run (of course).  I really don't like being out of shape.  And I really don't like being reminded of that a meager 20 minutes into a run.

I checked my pace a couple times on Watch throughout the run. I knew I wasn't running fast.  I wanted distance, not fastance. That's right, fastance. I made up a word, I think. But I didn't think I was going that slow. Like 12:00 per mile slow. I found that information very depressing and just figured my knees must really be affecting my running more than I was willing to admit to myself.

When I knew I was reasonably close (half a mile-ish) to my house, I decided to sneak a peak at how far Watch said I had run.  Mentally I had logged about 8 miles (it was a tough run), but I thought realistically it was probably closer to 3.25.  Nope.  2.6.  Let me say it again.  TWO point SIX! And you know how long my watch said I'd been running for? About 34 minutes.  I tried to figure out how "fast" I was apparently running and gave up once I realized that it was slower than 11 minutes a mile.  Ridiculous.

Belive it or not, I could keep going on and on about this run, its few ups and many downs, and how it was an overall mental beating (I was going to say something way more vulgar than "mental beating" but decided to take the high road. However I will not take the high enough road to not let people know that I'm thinking of a way worse choice of words, even if I didn't type it).  But I'll spare you and just get to the point.

I used two different run-mapping websites once I got home to check my run. There was no way it was only 3.12 miles in 37:42. I was right.  It was 3.8 miles.  THREE point EIGHT.  Which works out to be way faster than 12:00 miles.  Stupid watch.

I'm super stoked that I ran that far.  My goal was 4 but I knew I'd be lucky to get 3 with the way my knees were hurting. So 3.8 is awesome! I am just not super stoked that I'm still fighting the accuracy battle with my watch. So here's the score: Watch 2, Eileen 1.  Even though I just complained a ton, I still ran farther than I thought which means I'm awesomer than I thought which means I won today.

Day 6 Sunday April 14

Nothing fancy to report here.  Just a good ol' run on the treadmill.  3 miles. Very slow.  Lots of knee pain. I blame it on the weather.  Does anyone else's joints hurt like crazy when it's rainy outside? This only started happening to me after I ran the 2003 Chicago marathon.  Stupid marathons..... who runs those? Oh yeah, crazy people.

The hubs and I had a nice sit down conversation about the races we want to do this year. Better start saving now; these entry fees are adding up quick! Who would have thought you'd need to budget for races?? 

Here's my list so far (in no particular order):
1. The Cancer Challenge in June.  I'm shooting to run the 10k but I'm fine with a 5k too.
2. The Chili Pepper in October.  Hubs did this cross country 10k last year and I was so jealous that I couldn't participate.  So we'll both be doing it this year.
3. One of those crazy obstacle course 5ks.  I'm throwing around the idea of doing a Tough Mudder next year..... we'll see. 12 miles of obstacles is asking a lot.....better start with a 5k.
4. Run for the Grapes.  I did this one last year when I was newly preggo. I ran with a stroller and a friend and it was a blast!