Call the waaaahmbulance!

My left hamstring tendon is super tight and grumpy today so I'm taking an extra rest day.

I don't wanna.

Tarder Sauce is one of my spirit animals.

My next run in 5k to 10k is sixty minutes, the longest of the entire training. I feel confident that I can nail this run and I was actually really looking forward to it so I'm pretty annoyed at postponing. Apparently somebody slipped the Kool Aide into my recovery chocolate milk (I blame Running on Candy).

Ultimately though I'd rather take a break today than be limping for the rest of the week. Friday's run was unpleasant enough that I almost tapped out halfway through my run because my feet and lower legs were so achy. From the determination perspective I'm glad I kept going that day, but this hamstring thing has been creeping up on me for a few days and it was especially sore and tight when I woke up today, so sometimes a day off is the better part of valor. I know my head is still fully in it and that's the part that gets you there in the long run.

img source: http://www.theknee.com/knee-pain-causes/hamstring-tendon-strain/

My body has been pretty unbalanced for the last few weeks anyway. I have this sort of recurring thing since college where my body alignment goes haywire and half of my joints tell me to take a long walk off of a short pier. Apparently it has to do with a car accident I experienced as a teen. There's this sort of cascade effect where my hips unbalance and to compensate my right leg lengthens, my ribs twist and I get a giant knot under one of my shoulder blades. My range of motion goes kaput and everything hurts.

There's a pretty straight-forward stretch that fixes it all within a few days and even a small amount of regular yoga will keep it at bay but I never do them anymore because... apparently I am stupid? I don't know what stops me. There's really no excuse.

The universe is pretty much conspiring to get me to cross-train and I am very stubbornly ignoring it. The sad part is that I actually really like yoga and so far I enjoy using kettle bells so you'd think it would be a no-brainer.

So there! Take that... um... me?

We must, we must...

I've been wondering for months, what is with all the padded running bras?

I think I may have finally found my answer.

When I started running all I had in the way of sports bras were a fairly well aged three pack of Hane's cotton sports bras. These were pretty functional for yoga and belly dance practice, but as you can probably imagine not too awesome for running. The elastic had seen better days and the cotton held on to sweat like someone was gonna sell it on the black market afterward.

I replaced those early on with a pair of bras from Old Navy (this style in the colour shown and in a light purple with salmon accents) which I have been using regularly. I also bought a pair of bra core active tanks (this style but in black and grey - respectively) but for a couple of reasons I have not found them terribly useful up until, well actually today.

All of the Old Navy items came standard equipped with removable bust pads - which I promptly removed and shoved in the back of a drawer along with all of the pads I'd removed from my swimwear over the years.

source: http://www.wikihow.com/Wear-a-Bra-as-a-Male-Crossdresser

I've always been on the *ahm* petite side. Think J-Lo-esque... without the firming benefits of all the personal trainers and professional dance background and oodles of money and stylists.  While I admit I haven't always been utterly thrilled by that fact, eventually I stopped being a self conscious teenager and embraced the positive aspects of my figure. Either way I've never seen much point in artificially altering it. The American over the shoulder boulder holder industry apparently thinks we are all yearning to let loose our inner Christina Hendricks, but a) variety is the spice of life and b) I REALLY LIKE that I can wear slinky backless dresses without resorting to uncomfortable and expensive hidden scaffolding.

I got what I got and if you don't like it feel free to look elsewhere. Nyah.

That goes double for workout clothing. I try not to look too much like a schlump in any context, but by the same token amorous interest is just about the last thing I want to deal with while working out in the gym or on the street. I'm there for MY benefit so I don't see the point of advertising, much less false advertising. In truth the Old Navy stuff has about as much "padding" as the average tee shirt bra so given the compression the effect is pretty neutral, but still the idea of it bothered me. Anyway running is sweaty work, why add extra layers between me and the air?

A couple of weeks ago I found out that I had won a giveaway from For The Love Of The Run and part of the giveaway was a bra from a company called Handful. I chose their adjustable style bra in purple size XS (I typically wear a 30 or 32 band size) and received it by mail a few days later. It came with a lovely matching mesh washing bag and... matching removable bust pads! In this case the internal pockets do make a great deal of sense as they are approved as mastectomy bras but I opted to yank out the pads as with my other bras. The pads are slightly thicker than the Old Navy ones but again with the compression effects of the fabric the sum effect on my figure is pretty much nil.

I ran with the new bra last Sunday and didn't notice anything in particular about it, except that it's cut a bit lower than the Old Navy ones so in warmer settings I'll probably layer it with higher cut tank tops in the interest of modesty. I'm so swaddled in layers for outside runs at this point I can't say one way or another how good the sweat wicking and drying properties are until I get a chance to try it out at the gym. The colour is however LOVELY.

I did notice a funny thing earlier this week. I did my first run at the gym Tuesday wearing one of my Old Navy bras and I don't know if the bra has sprung, if I've lost that much weight, or if I was just feeling self-conscious enough to notice for the first time; but either way I'm glad those bras have a lot of coverage because the effects were positively... seismic. I can't say as I've ever cared about what my boobs were doing while I run, but I was AWFULLY aware of it then.

It occurred to me that the only way to salvage the situation without buying more bras may actually be to put all of the padding back in and hope it provides a bit more structure to keep things in place!

Structure overkill? source: http://organicarmor.com/

I've experimented with running padding-in for the last two runs, but to be honest I think running outside is too distracting (and swaddled) to compare properly so I think my next treadmill run will tell me more of what I need to know.

What about you?
Do you care one way or another about padding in your sport specific structure garments?
If you have a favorite sports bra brand; is it padded and do you think the padding adds to the function of the bra? 

Saturday's run - 5k to 10k wk1 d2 -street run
2 miles over 23 minutes at an average pace of 11:33

5 minutes warm up/cool down
10 minutes of running at an "easy conversational pace"
3 minutes "tempo" run (challenging but not exhausting pace)
10 minutes of running at an "easy conversational pace"

I aimed for 12:00 as the easy pace and 10:00 for the challenging pace and pretty much hit it, though I was keeping closer to 11:30 for the second set of 10 minutes. I think I could have even pushed that 10:00 a bit more but I'm not going to sweat it for now.

The run overall felt pretty good, however I did have to do a very sudden stop to avoid a car that apparently wasn't terribly interested in stopping at a stop sign, and that torqued my outer right shin a bit. It was fairly tight throughout the run but calmed down shortly after I finished.

Sunday's run - 5k to 10k wk1 d3 -street run
2.48 miles over 30 minutes at an average pace of 12:75 minutes warm up/cool down
30 minutes of running at an "easy conversational pace"

Again I aimed for 12:00 and did not have ANY trouble keeping my pace that slow since my right calf was still pissed from the hard stop I made Saturday. By the time the endorphins had kicked in enough to ignore the discomfort in the muscle I was already kind of gassed out and it was dark enough for me to full on collide with the end of a large invisible tree branch sticking out of a refuse pile. Based on the initial impact marks I expect a spectacular bruise by morning.

I think this might have actually been my first time running two days back to back. I'll have to check back through my past runs.

Interesting side note: my boyfriend decided to take a walk at the same time as I was running but due to the lateness of the hour (running was a very last minute decision) he ended up pretty much keeping up with me the whole way to make sure I was safe. He doesn't normally run so he was wearing his usual dark wash jeans, dark jacket, black gloves, and black stocking cap.

Apparently no one in my neighborhood thinks anything of a small woman out in fluorescent orange running gear being followed at about 20 to 50 feet by a man in all black, so that's good to know!

Push it real good!

I think maybe I pushed it a little too good?

Salt n Pepa got nothing on Jillian Michaels!!!

Friday afternoon I went back to Retro Fitness to test out the gym by taking advantage of their free personal trainer session offer. I figured that would give me the best overview of the place and make it a little less awkward to be running around looking like a spaz.

Garrett and I started with a rough overview: my diet, experience, interests, goals, body fat % (I think it was 24% which is apparently the upper end of "fit"?) and a very general idea of how they structure their programs. He pretty much went out of a binder on this part which was admittedly not terribly impressive but I suppose they can't all be Bob Harper.

We got going with a few minutes warmup on the elliptical and then moved on to body weight exercises in their TRX Training area. This basically worked out to doing immensely awkward movements while holding onto a pair of wall mounted straps. Oh, and sweating a whole lot. This is the sort of thing I think most people are going to want to do with some sort of live instruction as the body mechanics are not terribly intuitive. Looking like a spaz achievement: UNLOCKED!

See how effortless they look? Now imagine THE EXACT OPPOSITE.

After that we bounced between a few machines sort of whirlwind style. My favorite was the assisted pull up machine because a) I miss being able to do pull ups b) I had to really climb to get on to it (I'm five foot two) and c) I had to climb off three times for him to adjust the counterbalance to be lighter because I was stuck on top of the arc like the small kid on the see saw.

I was very sweaty and felt terrible that I did not have the opportunity to wipe the equipment off as we were going through. Proper hydration is so overrated. I have a towel ready for next time though (actually I had it ready for that time, not sure why he suggested I leave it with the rest of my stuff). I feel this was an excellent object lesson in wiping off machines before I begin.

We finished up by doing intervals on an elliptical and I got to show the trainer how whacked out my heart rate is!

During the intake we were talking about intervals on the cardio machines and he said something like "you would do say a minute at an easy pace and then maybe a minute at a hard pace, aiming for say a heart rate of 150..." at which point I laughed. He looked at me quizzically and said "I'm a hummingbird, my heart rate runs fast". He asked how my blood pressure was (insanely low, for the record) and said "well as long as you don't have that in combination with high blood pressure it shouldn't be too bad".

Fast forward back to the actual intervals, I'm chugging away and he's standing off to the side so that he can reach the controls but isn't really watching the readouts too closely. He ups the difficulty and I'm going at a pretty good clip, sweating and expending effort but not feeling too badly (still conversant but a bit out of breath) and I look at the HR readout which reads 195. I point it out and he blinks at it a few times and says "I... I don't even know what my body would be doing... wow".

The trainer session was neat and I'm glad I did it, but in the "pitch" part of the session at the end I found  that their cheapest deal is the Black Friday special which involves a mandatory full year signup with a minimum of ONE SESSION A WEEK.

The DISCOUNTED price of $20 a session comes to just over a grand with fees (keeping in mind that membership for the entire rest of the gym is only $240) and the internet indicates that their trainer sessions are even harder to cancel than their memberships.  

Overall it was pretty enjoyable though I feel bad that the trainer went so deep into my potential training possibilities pretty much entirely for nothing.

The next morning my legs were doing surprisingly well (a bit of quad soreness but not terrible) but my upper body was PISSED. I got to do everything T-Rex style for about three days because my arms pretty much refused to do anything useful.

http://www.604republic.com/prod/epic_duel_t_shirt

My left biceps was so tight I couldn't straighten my arm for most of the weekend. I feel good now but after Sunday's run I actually got stuck getting out of a new blinding orange mesh jacket (Low light visibility issues you say? Solved!) to the point of requiring assistance. Removing my sports bra for showering involved many curses, a couple of popped stitch noises, and possibly bending space very slightly.

Regardless of what my upper body felt about physical activities I ended up running Sunday and decided about a mile into it that I would keep things easy pace-wise but aim for 3.5 miles instead of my usual 3.1. This made it my longest non-stop run ever.

3.5 miles at an average of 11:05 per mile -  total time of 38:48, max pace of 5:24 (???)
Avg HR of 193bpm

Overall I felt good and while my pace was sort of all over from minute to minute, my splits were extremely consistent. My quads were still a touch sore to start but I think running actually helped work a lot of that soreness out. The inside of my right foot was complainy for a bit but otherwise it felt great!

I'll be doing gym sign-up tomorrow, though ironically I'll probably do a road run since I have the day off. I plan on testing out a new Handful Adjustable bra I won in a giveaway from For The Love of the Run (I've only tried it on standing still so right now all I can really say about it is "SHINY PURPLE!" and "ooh, bonus matching mesh laundry bag!").

I've decided to hold off on the half marathon training for a bit and will be doing some sort of 5k to 10k training program in the meantime, but I haven't decided which yet.

I'm leaning toward getting the same brand of app I used for C25K, but I'm not sure how well it will work on the treadmill.

It's never lupus!

The good news is I finally figured out what was going on with my ankle a few weeks ago.

The bad news is I figured it out because it started happening again after Monday's run.

Saaaaaaaaad panda.

The better news is I know why it's happening now and hopefully how to stop it.

The day is redeemed!

I woke up Tuesday morning and realized that my right foot hurt again, the same way it had about a month ago after the creeper run. This time however I paid a bit more attention to where it actually hurt and realized that the pain was coming from lower then I had previously thought, it was really more in my heel than in my ankle. The main source of the discomfort was on the area inside of my right foot, a bit in front of the Achilles tendon. There was also a more dull sort of ache along the bottom of my foot radiating out from my heel across the arch. It was annoying in general, but it was worst when I had been off of it for a while.

Google is second only to Dr House in medical diagnosis science as we all know, and so I consulted the "medical experts".

Leaving aside the dubious wisdom of self-diagnosis via totally random and essentially anonymous people ranked in order of supposed importance by a for-profit company; site after site points me at plantar fasciitis and this actually does make sense. It didn't start bothering me until I had stopped having problems with shin splints and consequently stopped obsessively stretching my feet, calves, and shins all the time.

I spent Tuesday night and Wednesday daytime carefully stretching my foot and rolling on a Foot Rubz massage ball (get one if you like wearing high heels, you will thank me) and by Wednesday evening my foot was feeling happy again so I decided to run. My weekend is packed between two Halloween parties, my first brick and mortar 5K, a planned evening at Coney Island, and a Frankenstorm so I decided to "take it easy" and run without any sort of specific goal in mind.

This was probably good since I headed out of the gate WAY too fast and then had to stop abruptly right before the end of mile one to keep from getting chased by a particularly sassy terrier. I'm pretty sure it was inside of one of those invisible fence things but I wasn't about to take any chances. Once I had casually strolled out of range of the dog's immediate attention I ran the rest at a more reasonable pace and satisfied myself with having simply run (which really was surprisingly satisfying).

image from http://crossfithoodriver.com

Wednesday's run: a 5K run plus 5 minute warmup and cooldown walks.
3.10 miles at an average of 11:46 per mile -  total time of 36:30

The data on my Nike+ is crapping the bed, it has three separate days listed as my fasted 1K, including a day I didn't actually run.

No plan survives contact with enemy

I went out for a run just now.

It was too late, Garmin batteries too dead, and I was too cold, too headachey, too hungry, too tired, too shin splintey, and too stiff.... and I didn't care enough about ANY of that to stop me for one second.

Until I got about two blocks in and my left knee went:

"SERIOUSLY WOMAN? Are you an idiot? Do you need it in sky writing? GO HOME!!!"

(Knees are a touch overly fond of all caps I think.)

So in case anyone was wondering, the knees are apparently running the show here.

I will say though, catching that bit of sunset was TOTALLY worth it. I'm very sorry I didn't get a picture.

Technical difficulties - Please run by.

Wednesday's run was not the most awesome time I've ever had, I wouldn't call it bad exactly, but some technical difficulties made the evening noticeably more challenging than usual.

I had a couple of loose goals in mind when I set out and I was surprised to find at the end that I managed to hit them!

I can't think of anyone but Patton Oswalt when I see this kid.

Now that I've finished C25k I don't have any specific goal with running in mind beyond "not kill or embarrass myself overmuch at the upcoming Freaky5K". I am not looking to torture myself particularly and I'm nowhere near what one might consider "competitive" physical condition, so my main aim at this point is to find the point where things are challenging rather than punishing, and to start pushing that point back as far and often as I reasonably can.

I'd like to start doing that with heart rate training, but clearly my calculated heart rate is not appropriate for me or I would be pretty much keeling over from exhaustion every time I run. According to my Garmin I'm consistently averaging just about 100% of my max calculated HR, which should mean I'm completely 100% exhausting myself at the top edge of my output... for 35 minutes at a time? Don't think so.

A max HR test pretty much involves repeatedly pushing yourself as hard as you can and recording the highest HR. Doing that on a grumpy ankle is probably not the best plan, so a more personalized measurement is going to have to wait for happier joints. I figure hill work will probably be a good way to work that out.

The Good:
I decided that my main run goal for Wednesday was to keep as close to 12:00/mile as I could. Since my average pace was apparently 11:55 I appear to have rather soundly nailed that one. My secondary goal was to see if I could get negative splits again, or at least not terribly positive ones (since I was trying to hit a specific overall pace I wasn't too overly concerned about that) and very much to my surprise I managed that too! I averaged 12:08, 12:06, 11:45, and 9:40 (respectively) for each "lap" of the 3.1 miles (broken up by mile).

I can feel that I'm getting more consistent with my breathing and making a point to count footfalls during each breath not only does a LOT toward keeping me aware of how I'm pacing myself but it also satisfies a bit of my minor OCD tendencies. This provides an awfully handy mental distraction from the less pleasant things my body is telling me about what it feels like to breathe that intensely for that long

The Bad:
My attempt to solve the wandering belt problem backfired on me in a couple of ways. I tried out an active Old Navy bra core tank top I've had for a while so I could put the belt on over something smooth. The top is a bit overly long and fits everywhere but on my hips so it had a tendency to crawl up on me (especially when I first started running and it was a bit tighter everywhere), so I usually just go with a sports bra and a large trapeze shaped tank top. I have about five of these tops and I like that they are very open at the top, and loose enough to camouflage any muffin top and/or cans of mace I happen to have strapped to my hips.

I folded up the bottom of the active tank, fitted the belt to my waist, tossed on the rest of my usual gear, and went out. I was going pretty good until about 1.5 miles in, when I realized that there was a stinging pain occurring in the top of my left arm, right up by my armpit. I think the underarm area of the active tank to must come up higher and tighter than my usual bra and so my skin was squished out in what must have been an insanely sexy show of armpit cleavage, which was then rubbing against the flesh that was squishing out above my armband. I was approaching one of the higher traffic areas of my run so I had to wait it out until I was in a place safe enough to loosen my armband. I am noticing more of these little raw spots from various seams and buckles, so I suspect it's time to suck it up and cough over the cash for some Body Glide. Luckily I caught it before I really rubbed the skin off, but it's still a bit raw.

Once I started running the majority of my body was shockingly happy in the cool weather, but I apparently vent heat from the belly like a Care Bear because having something tight around my torso was driving me MAD. This tank (actually I have two, but that's not important right now) might be a good layering piece when it starts getting cold, but for now I'm going stick with my old setup and find another belt fix. At the very worst there's always safety pins.

This is a 100% accurate portrayal of my experience, note especially the expressions of horror.

The Ugly:
My ankle was doing pretty ok, but my left knee got pretty pissed and is still grumping especially on down staircases. It was never bad enough to stop me or change my stride, but I was awfully close a few times. I think I will switch back to wearing a brace for a while, though I'd like to see if a patella strap will do the job. I don't know if I was just under rested - but my legs were definitely tired and kind of fighting me the whole time and that is very unusual for me. Occasional joint tweaks aside my legs are typically among the the last things I notice while running.

Who knows, maybe keeping my pace more reasonable meant I felt "well" enough to notice more about what my legs have been feeling all along? Somehow I doubt it though.Whatever it was I came home and effectively shut down for a while, my brain is usually scrambled for a bit after running, but I think the only thing that kept me awake after my shower was a DIRE need to go to the laundromat and acquire foods (mmmm chicken bacon ranch pizza, I did NOT need to find out how tasty that stuff is). I know I say this constantly, but I really need to sleep more (says the woman typing the blog at one in the morning).

I wish this was a 100% accurate portrayal of the rest of my evening.

We will not even get into why I ended up getting out of bed at one in the morning yesterday to bathe a part of the kitten in the above picture (a good sense of smell can be both a blessing and a curse, and I'll leave it at that) ...and again at three in the morning to chase him away from my suddenly growling other cat, who was attempting to sleep behind my knees. It's a good thing he's both gorgeous and insanely affectionate.

******
My Wednesday run: a 5K run plus 5 minute warmup and cooldown walks.
Negative splits throughout
3.1 miles at an average of 11:55 per mile -  total time of 37.02 max pace of 8:34

These hips don't lie... flat

I didn't takes official weights or measurements when I started running as I did not have any specific goals, but I have lost about seven pounds and the better part of a pant size off of my hips and waist.

While I'm not ready to enter any bikini competitions yet, I have noticed both a considerable reduction in my abdominal squishitude and a definite upward mobility in my gluteal regions. While this is AWESOME when it comes to my wardrobe it has made using my running utility belt pretty much intolerable.

When I first started using the belt I could sort of cinch it down tight low across my hips and trust in the awesome power of my muffin top to hold it down in place while I ran.

September 25th was the first time I ran 5k all the way through and not incidentally, the first time I got a friction burn from a piece of my gear. The belt popped up over my hips to settle around my waist and I quickly forgot about it... until I hit the shower and the confusing burning sensation started.

No, not THAT kinda confusing burning sensation. Get your mind out of the gutter, sheesh!
I got a small friction burn on my back from the belt which I couldn't see until the next day. I'm pretty brain dead for a while after running so I just couldn't make the connection.

I didn't think much of it at the time, but I realized today that it's been a pretty much continuous fight with this thing during every run since that day. It doesn't matter how tight I cinch it or how often I yank it down, it starts slipping upward within seconds of starting to run which gets distracting to the point of near danger when you consider the busy roads. It's a minor miracle I haven't fallen flat on my face or been run over by an inattentive SUV driver as it is. Not for lack of their trying though, driveways are fun!

I've tried turning it around to the front, making it tighter, making it looser, putting it directly around my waist, putting my shorts on over it... and yet nothing seems to work any better.

Why do you vex me so?

I've actually gotten to the point that I'm considering breaking out my belly dance costuming skills and either installing snaps (or some other place holder) on all of my shorts, making it into a solid fitted belt, or constructing a fitted belt from scratch to serve the same purpose. I'm loathe to just buy a new one as a) I have one, duh b) there are so many other pieces of gear I want to buy and c) my vet bills are through the roof lately (stupid cat).

Incidentally, my solution for this evening at least was to make a batch of chocolate chip cookies.
Take that disappearing muffin top!

How do you carry your keys/mace/Batarang/running essentials?

Do you have gear mobility problems?

Any recommendations for design tweaks?

******
My run today: a 5K run plus 5 minute warmup and cooldown walks. Negative splits throughout!
3.14 miles at an average of 11:35 per mile -  total time of 36.24

My Garmin claims that this is my fastest 5K so far, though my Nike+ thinks this was the 25th.

My ankle has been pretty good since Saturday so I figured as long as I was mindful of what my body was telling me it was worth it to try a run. I was aware of it a few times but it was never painful and at no point did I feel I was changing my movements to favor it at all (which is my hard line "stop running and go home" determiner). I definitely did not have as much of the mile two doldrums either, though I do still have the most problems maintaining an even pace then. While I certainly wasn't sprinting to finish I was still able to speed up considerably at the end and spent most of the last half mile between 8:00 and 10:00 per mile.

Not only did I do really well in terms of running, but I managed to get my heels to touch the ground in Downward Dog during my warmup stretches. This is the first time I've been able to do that in years! I am a bit stiff overall in my lower legs now (especially my right shin, which is a bit achy in a shin-splint-ish way) so I feel like I probably need to step up my cooldown stretches a bit.

Ankle? What ankle? I don't see an ankle here.

My ankle was finally starting to feel better yesterday. I had full natural motion and no stiffness... and then the swelling started.

I think I re-tweaked it playing with my boss's puppy, Belle. She's about nine weeks old and VERY energetic, so when he brings her to work we take turns walking her and trying to tire her out a bit.

Can you blame me? This picture is pretty much to scale by the way. She's a peanut.

Apparently I romped around in the fall leaves one too many times and I must have twisted something the wrong way. I looked down at my ankle at some point in the afternoon and realized that all signs of my Achilles tendon had disappeared without so much as an abracadabra.

Swollen AND ashy! Clearly the embodiment of sexiness. You have to admit though that I do ROCK an aqua nail polish.

This sounds like a job for R.I.C.E. right?

Great idea, but hard to implement when your boyfriend is going to be a groomsman at his sister's 5:30 wedding and you have so little time after work to get ready that you have had to borrow a friend's spare key to avoid putting on makeup in a restaurant bathroom. My wardrobe (and more importantly, shoes) had been packed the night before and going home (twenty minutes each way in the very best of traffic) for footwear substitutions was not an option.

On the bright side I no longer had to worry about whether there was going to be any good dancing music!

So after locking my keys in my car (I got them back in less then five minutes but it involved running up and down a set of steps about three times and a lot of adrenaline), and a lightning fast wardrobe change and makeup job... I still missed the ceremony by about ten minutes due to a combination of holiday weekend traffic and GPS fail. *sigh*

I danced the requisite "join the couple for their first dance" swaying in place, and then sat as much as possible after that... but still ended up looking like someone had sculpted my calf out of dough by the end of the night.

I hate hounds-tooth and pointy toes, and yet I LOVE these shoes! Go figure.

The bright side is that my ankle never did hurt, though just below the back of my knee was a bit tender and also a touch swollen. I got some ice on my ankle the minute I got home and after a long night of sleep with it elevated it is mostly back to normal.

I am going to continue with R.I.C.E. protocol along with anti-inflammatories for a couple of days as I really need to be back on my feet in full fighting form ASAP.

Click image for more of Ray Villafane's pumpkin sculpting awesomeness

I am tentatively hoping to be back to running Monday as I have TWO virtual 5ks next week (The Cupcake Classic and The Great Pumpkin Race) and my first for-real 5K on the 28th (John Theissen Children's Foundation Freaky 5K).

That's not even taking into account the requisite pumpkin picking, haunted houses, and general pre-Halloween awesomeness of the season.Limited mobility is not an option.

This is what I get for mentioning my strong ankles

My right ankle is not exactly painful, but still very stiff in the aftermath of yesterdays run. It's like if I could just find *turn* the *twist* right *flex* way *pout* to stretch the muscles just on the inside of my Achilles Tendon I'd be set. I still can't find my arnica so I suppose I should  probably slap an ice pack on it for a bit.

I must have stepped or turned on it wrong while I was freaked out about the creeper SUV yesterday since I was fine when I headed out and yet twingey when I finally got my focus back on my run. So perhaps it's good that I don't really have time to get out and run more this weekend.

Tomorrow I'll be walking around a local fair all day with my Mom for her birthday and Sunday I'll be hitting some Long Island wineries as a bachelorette party for my boyfriend's sister, so the entirety of my daylight hours (I assure you, early mornings don't count) are spoken for.

As if I didn't have enough problems being graceful.
Seriously, how come I never trip over things while holding WHITE wine?

September Blog Challenge Day 28 - Have you ever done a home workout video? If so, which ones are your favourite?

Home workout videos were my main form of exercise for a while so I have several go-to videos.

The most enduring one for me has been Yoga Shakti by Shiva Rea. The pacing is great, the setting is breathtaking and inspirational, and it is probably the most functionally flexible workout setup I've ever seen. The DVD is actually made up of an array of mini sections which can be mixed and matched at your whim, or played through on a number of preset paths. Many of the poses are also broken down into levels of intensity, so a single workout can still grow with you over time.

I do wish it was easier to figure out how long a constructed workout will take. There is a second DVD packaged with it which I also remember having some nifty stuff on it, especially in the Techniques section, which gave me information on attention and placement that I feel has subtly but permanently altered the way I approach yoga.

You can almost feel the heat of the sun while watching this video

Tribal Fusion Belly Dance Yoga Isolations and Drills: A Practice Companion with Rachel Brice

A pleasantly stripped down bellydance DVD aimed at drilling some of the core dance movements with a yoga-centric warm up and cool down routine. This DVD offers three workout options differentiated by length (15, 30, or 45 minutes) and a performance at the end.

I really like that it's made up of pure movement drills instead of the usual "learn this combo" setup and the dialogue and sound-scaping is somehow especially pleasant. I have her sequel videos but have not poked at them enough to really comment.

Bellydance for Beginners with Suhaila: Fitness Fusion (Buns, Jazz, Pilates, Yoga) - Honorable Mention

A four volume set that is I think is mislabeled as "beginners" but which still offers plenty to the newcomer. A little more "classic workout DVD" than the other two, but still offering up that bellydance flavor with one or more performances featured on each DVD.

Suhaila's workouts are VERY glute driven and her glutes are pretty famous all on their own. She feels that glutes are the core of belly dance and has developed her own style around that idea.

Seriously, it's like they're sentient

 

Clearly there is something to this glute idea as she is AMAZING.