tuesday newsday

Tuesday Newsday is BACK!

/ racingthestates / 7 Comments

I know you all missed Tuesday Newsdays….I’m bringing it back to life because….(drum roll please….)….I picked another marathon to train for and have begun training!!!!!!

AND, it’s going to be out of state! Woot woot! I’m also announcing something else that I might do that’s pretty crazy. But first things first:

This May, I will already have to be in Maine to serve as one of my best friend’s Maid of Honor. I’m pretty honored (no pun intended) to be chosen even if I do have a million and a half anti-marriage jokes. However, I’m super happy for this couple because I know they are going last, are perfect for each other, and are the definition of how relationships should be.

Anyway, Since I will already have to take off time from work and school, I figured I might as well take just a couple more days and do a race (…or two 😉 while I’m out there).

So, I decided to just make it a full, and my FIRST, marathon!!! There’s a few reasons I decided to pick a marathon. 1) I’m ready to just go for it! 2) For my Racing the States project, I initially didn’t care about the distance of the race; now, however, I’m really enjoying the half marathon length, and think it would be cool to have a medal from every state. Obviously, if I’m in a state for something and there’s no halfs – or fulls – available, I’ll pick something less, but like I said, I really like the idea of having a medal from each state. And 3) Around the time that I’m out there, there isn’t too many race options. The race I picked has a marathon and an 15k option…strange combo, I think. So, why not go with the full marathon!?

Alright…the crazy part…..I THINK I’m going to do another marathon the following weekend as well………….

I’ll let that sink in for a little bit  longer……………………………

Here, you can look at this pretty picture I took on a run last week while you let that info sink in.

Here's a pretty picture taken on one of my runs to look at while to take that info in

This is my regular run lake all frozen over for the winter.

I know, I know! It’s pretty insane in general to do two marathons in a week, especially for it being my first two, but here’s the crazy thought process: I’m going to be in Maine already…and there’s a few other little states nearby, right? I might as well knock of TWO States while I’m on vacation, right!? But there’s no sane combo. I’m out there the weekends of  May 18th/19th and the 25th/26th…I’ve tried every combo I could find. I’ve landed on doing a marathon in Maine the weekend before, and one in Vermont the weekend after the wedding. There’s not any good races in New Hampshire that whole week anyway!

If I chose a race in Vermont the weekend before, there wouldn’t be a good race to choose for after and vise versa (unless there’s anyone that lives out there that has more race info than I’m finding on runningintheusa.com, please let me know…half marathon distance preferred).

Here’s my justification of this insanity: 1) I’ve already gone through a majority of a training plan not that long ago. I learned what to do and not to do for the most part. 2) I have new shoes. 3) My goal is just to finish. I’m not trying to kill myself and BQ my first time out; I’m not that awesome. And 4) Call this the jealousy factor, but a friend of mine that I got into running is soon starting a marathon training plan (without taking the step to a half first) and I’m going to be pretty upset if she completes a marathon before me. That’s pretty rude thinking, huh? But I try to be an honest person, and that’s how I feel. Would something like this bother anyone else? Running is my thing out of all my friend/family/people I know, and I absolutely LOVE that I have sparked someone else’s interest in the wonderful sport, but running is the only thing I have, that I’m good at, and that’s all mine…if that makes sense. Although reason #4 is a only a small factor; I was already thinking about this marathon before this friend told me she was running one as well. (Hopefully I didn’t create too much drama with that statement, but like I said, I do like to be honest and not keep things bottled up).

Well….with that said….

Let me have it! What are your opinions??? The race I’m doing in Maine has a 15k race too…should I just shoot for the marathon the weekend after the wedding and do a small race before (and just not have a medal/half or full in that state), just so I don’t, ya know, kill myself or something?? Or just go for it!? (Side note: both races are relatively cheap for marathons..and I already have to fly out there…the only thing I might add is potentially a rental car). (Side note number two: I’m really leaning towards just going for it!)

I’ll be training for a marathon no matter what decision I make – whether it’s one or two. I starting thinking about all of this at just about 18 weeks out, so I took that as a sign to officially start training. There are a few things I’m going to do different this time, especially if I do decided to do both:

1. Count correctly. Remember how I was off by like 3 weeks last time?? Yeah, not happening again. I’ve already counted, and recounted about 500 times.

2. Foam roll more! Literally, like, every day! Especially that damn IT band (aka the Tensor Fascia Latae muscle…..yep, learned that in school!) This should hopefully prevent and knee pain and just help me my recover time in general.

3. Ice more! And stop being a pansy about it. I should start ice bathing after those long runs. We’ll see if I actually can – especially during the winter; after my foot injury a few months ago, I tried to ice bathe it, and I couldn’t even last 5 seconds. No joke. I remember in high school when I sprained my ankle, I was had to hold it in ice water for 5 minutes straight. I must have been tougher back then.

4. Massage the bottom of my feet more. By this I mean, use the ol’ tennis ball or lacrosse ball on the bottom of my feet to prevent any injuries that may arise (again). I just bought some lacrosse balls from work and tried it last night…it felt amazing!!

So, there you have it! You may be thinking I’m crazy (I’m curious what my Mom will say!). After I hear what people say, I’ll announce the races I plan on doing later this week. Let me know what you all think. I THINK two marathons is doable, with the right mind set and training efficiently. After all, I am in Personal Training school…what better training and information can you get!?

you actually give money?

Tuesdays Newsday – Whoops, I skipped one.

/ racingthestates / 12 Comments

Whoops I skipped a week….

Last week was…..let’s just say, not my week. It wasn’t fun. I don’t want to be super elusive about it, but I also don’t want to say much about it either. Let’s just go with: last week was that moment in a chick flick that you get sad and feel sorry for the main character, but you know that, since it’s a movie, something good is going to happen soon and you’re sure there’s a happy ending. Yeah, I like leaving it at that. I’m a pretty resilient person and don’t dwell long at all.

The GOOD part of last week was that I started school!!! Ladies and gentlemen, in about six months of time, I will be a certified personal trainer. Yep yep! It’s only been a week, and I’ve already learned a lot.

I was on the fence, rocking back and forth for a long time, and finally, Sunday before classes started, I decided to just go with it. Seem’s pretty ridiculous when you think about it: signing up for a program the day it starts, but it was a big decision. If you know me at all, I hate make decisions, especially big ones. Never mind trying to get me to decide where to eat. I’m a worrier, and I ponder every possible outcome. Fortunately, every possible outcome I could think of with starting this program turned out well! So, I was able to bring both feet to one side of the fence.

But making a last minute decision did put me behind on figuring out how I was actually going to pay for all this school, but, meh, it’s only money, I’ll figure it out….hopefully.

Classes are good so far; I’ve already learned a lot! I also have a friend that I met up at CSU in the program with me, so that’s comforting and nice to know someone and be in the exact same boat (school, job, and finances wise). And at least I’ll have a study buddy! Everyone else in the program is really nice, and there’s only one or two annoying “know-it-alls” that take up way to much of my class time asking questions/stating their options -> If you’re already a trainer…why are you wasting my time – sit down and listen, please!

Anyway, I hope things are starting to settle down, I’m still looking for a second part time job to make finances work, but I’m sure something will come along. I do enjoy my job at Dick’s. Who would have thought I’d be fantastic at selling shoes!? Especially someone like me who has a foot phobia (hint: I use a lot of hand sanitizer; more than I did in the vet tech world!). It’s actually more fun than I thought it would be, even if it doesn’t pay too incredibly well.

Let’s see…I covered relationships, school, work….oh yeah…the theme of my blog: Running! Oh man, guys, I’m still having a hard time motivating myself to run. I went for a 4 mile run last week. It felt fantastic, but it just wasn’t enough to strike up my running fever. I think I need to pick a race to train for. And new shoes (do you know how hard it is to work with beautiful running shoes!?! Every time I work I’m like, “i want this and that and this one and that one…it’s awful). So, whether it’s the next marathon I decided to try for or just a half marathon before, I need a race to motivate me to run right now. I haven’t had the mindset lately to search for races, though. I definitely have a huge “to do” list in general.

I’ll leave you with this fun picture; one of the benefits of working in shoes is once a product campaign is over, I get to go home with cool paraphernalia:

pure cadence shoes

I want these shoes sooooo bad! But now the poster hangs on my wall!

Tuesday Newsday – 7/23

/ racingthestates / 9 Comments

I have some GREAT news for this Tuesday Newsday!!!

1. Guess what!?! I. QUIT. MY. JOB. That’s right!!! You’ve probably seen me write multiple times about how much I hated my job, well, after a few borderline sexual harassment comments, a night of yelling and cussing, I did what I have never done before, and I walked out on my job – without two weeks notice. At first I was freaking out and I didn’t want my family or anyone else to think I’m stupid for not having a back up plan, but after explaining what went down, everyone was glad I got out of there. My mom even saying, “That man is out of control!”  I could write 5+ long blog posts about things I didn’t like, things my old boss would say, the horrible way that business was run and managed…but this blog is about running, so I wont get into that. All you guys need to know is that that man was not just a horrible boss, but a negative, rude person and on top of him in general, the weird night hours and not ever knowing what time I would be getting off in a given night, the clientele, and the influence of the day clinic we rented out was really taking a tole of my physical and emotional health. 

2. News number two: I GOT A NEW JOB! Yeah, the same week – because I’m awesome like that! I really lucked out! I knew I was already planning on putting my two weeks notice in, so I had an interview already lined up last week. After the crazy comments said to me, two weeks notice became two seconds notice, and I went into my interview with the notion that I HAD to get it. I interviewed on Wednesday, came in for a working interview on Thursday, started my NEW job on Friday. The owner told me that she really liked my energy and thought I would get along really well there. So far, so good! I do like it there (even though, I don’t want to count my chickens before they hatch), and everyone seems really nice. It is still is a veterinary clinic, but they actually specialize half in the holistic/chinese medicine kinda of things (aka, treating with herbs first to attack the underlying problem rather than the symptoms) which is really interesting to learn that side of veterinary medicine. The only problem I have with this new place is they listen to country music. BLEH!

3. Anyway, in the near future, I’d like to split Tuesday Newsday into partly an accountability post for myself. When I start marathon training, part of Tuesdays will be to go over the last weeks training and see how I did and what I can improve on.

4.  So here goes the accountability: I wrote a couple weeks ago that I wanted to start weight training again. Well, that has barely happened, and by barely, I mean, I lifted once, with my household weights. Due to the busy-ness and stressfulness of the last two weeks (I was also house sitting through all the crazy job stuff), I haven’t had a chance to physically go to the gym. I really have noticed I feel a lot more weak than I have, and I’d like to get my muscle tone back. After starting the new job, I found a 24 hour fitness right on the way home from the new clinic which is PERFECT in more ways than one (I can now avoid the ex’s gym lol). So, my goal for this week is to go to the gym and lift today after work and Thursday.

5. Another goal I have is to stretch more!! Preferably twice a day, but let’s just start with once a day to get into the habit. I usually stretch after running, though sometime its half-assed. I’ve done pretty well this last week and taken a good chunk of time to stretch after running, but on the few days I don’t run, I haven’t been stretching which I think needs to change. My muscles feel really tight lately, and to improve my running and prepare for marathon training I think I need to get in this habit.

6. The Wild West Relay is in a week and a half! I’m getting kinda nervous! I chose the second highest amount of running out of the whole group – am I insane!?  I’ll have to do a pre-race review for this and talk all about it.

However, last but not least I would like to mention one last thing:

Seeing as I am from Colorado, I’d like to take a second to say that my heart and my thoughts go out to the victims and their families that were involved in the Aurora Theater Shooting. When I heard this news, it made me really sad. I can’t even imagine what was going through people’s minds that were there. It’s too close to home for me and just brings back memories of me being in the 6th grade, hearing the news about the Columbine tragedy, a school in my school district. The whole incident last Friday just is so horrifying. I can’t even imagine!

Tuesday Newsday

/ racingthestates / 8 Comments

I’ve decided that I need a little more motivation to keep me on track. A lot of my fellow bloggers that I follow have a day once a week that they dedicate to their progress. I think I can stay true to having a regular day, and I hope no one else has the same quirky title as Tuesday Newsday, cause it kinda rhymes…

That’s right, I’m going to dedicate Tuesdays to update you all on my running goals, other fitness related goals, progress reports, upcoming races or ideas for races, and other running related items whether you like it or not. Hopefully this will give me motivation to run and give me a chance to reflect on my progress. So here’s my first Tuesday Newsday:

1. My next race with be in a week and half about in…ALASKA!!! I’m really excited for this trip. I leave on Saturday! I’ve never been to Alaska, and I have a good friend that lives there and had planned to visit him when he originally decided to move. Since he’s moved, I’ve taken on this project and decided to kill three birds with one stone: See Alaska, visit him, and run a race! I am participating in the Jingle in July 5K! I’ll have a pre-race review scheduled to post while I’m on vacation.

2. Other than that, I don’t have any other races planned yet, other than one for sure but WAY down the road, see #3. I have a few jotted down on my calendar as potential, I just have to work out the logistics and see if I can go.

3. I have decided that I WILL be doing the Vegas Strip at Night Marathon on Dec. 2nd. It will be my first marathon! I’m really excited to start training for it (and in the future, Tuesday Newsday will include Marathon Training Updates) but training wont start until about mid August. I’ve been doing A LOT of reading on marathon training…any other advice is greatly appreciated/desperately needed.

4. I think I have found my motivation to run again and got in a few good runs recently. However, it has been EXCRUCIATINGLY hot! About 100+ for the last week! Here’s the sucky part: I work at night, ~7pm, which cuts out evening running; and in case you didn’t think about it, if I work that late, I get off really late – thus to get in a decent nights sleep, it’s already WAY too hot to run outside by the time I’m awake. Over the weekend, I did get a night run in; right as the sun was setting, and even though it was a beautiful sight, It was also sad because I could see one of the 8 fires burning in CO.

The Estes Park Fire

5. This week, running will either be on hold (not from lack of motivation) but due to the heat and my schedule. I will be really busy packing, working and house sitting. I think to get my running in, I may try to run at my gym AFTER I get off work, IF I get off at a reasonable hour.

6. Lastly, I have a funny story. I was going through old boxes at my Mom’s house, and found a bunch of stuff from high school. My senior year in high school, I quit volleyball and joined cross country mid season. My coaches were cool enough to keep a nice spread sheet of our race times, and I kept them all these years. I found out that my old PR from high school was 25:15. My newest PR was set a few months ago at 24:39. I was pretty excited to find out that I am faster than I was in high school! Hopefully I’m only getting EVEN faster!