It's official! I'm an... um... something?

I'm not entirely sure what exactly is it that has become official, but running The John Theissen Children's Foundation Freaky 5K: a for-real brick-and-mortar 5K in Wantagh, NY (my old stomping grounds) sure does feel officially SOMETHING. And so in celebration I have added the giant magenta DailyMile 5K badge over there on the right side of this blog. Woo!

I totally get the appeal of races now, though I'm still roundly unsold on the "waking up at butt o clock in the morning to go make myself sweaty and tired and sore in the cold... and also a bit nauseous for that one stretch there, but hey at least I didn't actually throw up!" aspect.

It is however pretty funny to realize that the only thing that varies from my usual run experience in the above statement is the morning part. Me and the predawn hours are none too friendly, that is of course unless I'm meeting up with them from the back end.

This was an especially bad weekend for it as I helped throw a Halloween party on Friday, slept VERY late afterward, and then lived underneath (and attended) a Halloween party Saturday. I left the party early, but by six am on Sunday my body had pretty much given up on the idea of a cohesive sleep schedule.

Luckily for me my boyfriend is a walking, talking, Hey Girl meme and got up with me, made sure I was properly nourished, and then drove me out to the race; all on even less sleep than I had gotten.

We got to the race with plenty of time to spare, and then we parted ways so that he could park and I could get my bib and snazzy commemorative long sleeve tech shirt. I met up with some friends and we spent the half an hour or so before the race stretching, chatting, and wondering where my boyfriend had gotten to (McDonalds, as it turns out). Start time snuck up on us before he got back so we ended up stashing our gear in Purple's car and scootching for the start line, which I like to think provided that last necessary bit of warmup.

Here I am (in the Batman themed gear) in a pre-race photo with my friend Purple (ironically NOT the one wearing purple, she is the one dressed as a Star Trek Red Shirt) and Gigi of Running On Candy (The Motley Shues Proud Momma Bear as she put it. Her impression of the race is in this post). This was my first 5K race, Purple's first 5K where she planned on running, and Gigi's first weekend back after a foot injury.

We moseyed up to the start *mob* and I tried to find the right pace group, but before I knew it the race started. I got my Nike+ and watch going but the start was slooooooow and I didn't see where the actual line was so my personal device times and distances are pretty far off. I also completely failed to set up my running playlist so I was stuck with whatever came up on shuffle from my iPhone. Luckily it never went too off the rails, though I think I'll pass on running to Captain Beefheart or one of the slower Editors songs again if I can avoid it. 

Due to the confusion of the mob at the beginning I started out on my own. I caught sight of Gigi pretty early so I followed along behind her for a while just sort of keeping her in view. I caught up with her sometime a bit before mile one and we kept pace for a bit, but then she apparently slowed for a water stop and I lost track of her for the rest of the race. She later reported that she spent the rest of the race following my butt as it was *ahm* rather easy to find in the crowd.

I love these shorts, but I'm REALLY glad I opted for the leggings

From that point on I just sort of trucked along, tried to listen to my body, and did what I could to avoid careening wildly into others. It's pretty humbling to be struggling along and seeing eleven year olds and women with double strollers flying past you, but if this was all about ego I think I would have been out months ago. It was cool to have different scenery, people in costumes to watch, and that one family toward the end that gave me a well timed "Woo, Go Batman Wooooooo!".

The race situation had me pretty disoriented and my phone was giving me mile marker updates at some really bizarre points. I had this weird moment pretty early on where I totally lost track of how far in I was and pushed it a bit more than I should have so early, which caught up with me at the end. According to my Garmin I spent a LOT of this race paced between 9:00 and 10:00 though I had a lot of short recovery slowdowns which took my overall pace to 10:35 (chip time). On a whole I felt really good though, my legs were really happy with me and though I definitely was aware of the effort I was putting in, for the most part my stamina kept up with whatever I asked of it.

My main issue I think was in the disconnect between the course distance and the distance shown on my personal devices. My Nike+ was giving me mile marker alerts a good quarter mile early and I really wasn't sure how off my Garmin watch was reading. This was mostly an issue at the end because I knew I wanted to give a final kick but I wasn't sure when I could reasonably do that and still have enough juice left to actually get over the finish line. 

True story. My boyfriend for-real rocks the way people PRETEND Ryan Gosling rocks.

I actually think is Ryan Gosling is faintly weird looking... except for his torso, that part's pretty okay.

The answer to that by the way is that per my Garmin I hit a 5:37 pace at roughly 2.95 miles and varied wildly between there and about 8:30 maintaining a HR of 206 until I finished (except for that one blip at 207, which I'm pretty sure is when I caught sight of my boyfriend at the finish line. Yeah, we're gross). This was rapidly followed by a good two minutes of "Yes, I know you're there my Love, but leave me alone to walk this off or I'm going to puke on you" during which I apparently forgot to turn off my devices for a bit and also missed Gigi's finish. 

Once I settled my system (and stopped my devices) we went back to the finish to wait for Gigi and Purple. Purple finished a few minutes later, and Gigi came back from the medic area with an ice pack while we were trying to figure out if she was still on the course. 

Look at us all upright and not about to puke or anything!

My Nike+ listed me as running a 28:49??? at a 9:36 pace (a total of 34:33 over 4 miles???) and my Garmin had a full 3.29 distance at 34:43 and won't let me trim off the extra bits so my averages are completely off, though it's still showing my overall pace as 10:21, even listing the average pace for my last split as 12:00.

I got my clock results from the FLRRT bus and they listed me as running a 32:53 with a 10:35 pace which was a PR for me by about 8 seconds! Gigi said later that morning that since the slips we got were clock time only she thought that may be off by about 30 seconds based on her watch. She texted me later in the evening to tell me that the chip times were up on FLRRT.com. I looked myself up on the site and found my chip results...

Sunday's run: The John Theissen Children's Foundation Freaky 5K
3.10 miles at an average of 10:35 per mile -  total time of 32:17

Which makes it a PR by nearly 45 seconds!

Sorry this post was a bit delayed, there was this hurricane thing going on and I've been a mite distracted.

Both my neighborhood and my office are without power but luckily my landlord has a generator so I'm sitting things out pretty nicely all things considered.

Bonus for you: my totally bizarre race playlist - welcome to the bizarreness that is shuffle on my phone.

Puscifer - The Rapture (Fear is a Mind Killa Mix)

Franz Ferdinand - You Could Have It So Much Better

Daft Punk - Around the World/Harder Better Faster Stronger (Alive 2007)

Editors - Life as a Ghost

Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band - Call On Me

The Doors - I Looked at You

Black Sabbath - Lord of this World

Marilyn Manson - GodEatGod

Primus - Puddin Taine

Alice In Chains - I Stay Away

Freaky5K - In the bag!

Chip Time

Clock Time

Yay another PR!

More on this later, now I'm going to go get some of the sleep I failed to get last night.

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.

Sorry, did I say that I PR'd Friday?

What I meant to say is that I PRd today!

Okay, so it was only by thirty seconds, but that's practically geological time scale for some runners.

After Friday's run I decided to see what would happen if I looked at my watch as little as humanly possible. I listened for the mile beeps and watched the distance for that last .10 mile, but I completely ignored all other sources of data beside what my body was telling me.

I felt good overall, but I was definitely pushing myself a bit harder today to get just about the same output as Friday. My first mile and a half was a bit too fast and I could really feel that for the next mile and slowed down between 1.5 and 2.5 miles to conserve some gas. Once I knew I was in the home stretch again I broke into a run to finish out, hitting 7:02 min/mi at one point near the very end!

Yes, I know, that's probably something along the lines of your "easy going marathon" pace, but I'm a beginner and I'm excited. *stamps foot*

Added bonus: not only did I finally get to try out my Batman Bondi Band for a run (that being my C25K completion gift from my amazing boyfriend), but I got to see more than one bat flying around in the early dusk!

They see me rollin'. I can't think of anyone that would be hatin', but that's beside the point.

I could feel some muscles still being creaky from Friday, and if I do run again before Sunday (I hope so!) it certainly won't be at the same pace. I'm hoping to do something fairly laid back Wednesday and rest up for Sunday's John Theissen Children's Foundation Freaky5K which will be my first official meat-space race evar.

Looking forward to getting both my Halloween and my run on at the same time with Running On Candy and our friend Purple.

Not looking forward to that 8:30am start time though.

Today's run: a 5K run plus 5 minute warmup and cooldown walks.
3.10 miles at an average of 10:39 per mile -  total time of 33:01

I was all of two seconds off of getting negative splits across the board today too :p

Splits:
       Time         Distance  Pace
1    10:55.0     1.00          10:55
2    10:56.3     1.00          10:56
3    10:19.8     1.00          10:20
4    00:50.4     0.10           8:16

Victory is even sweeter when it's a little salty

Cupcakes taste WAY better when there's a little bit of honestly earned salt on your lips.

I ran Run With Jess's Cupcake Classic virtual 5K last night.

My warmup stretching was complicated by my inability to find safety pins, I left late, my left knee felt kind of crappy, the roads were covered in wet leaves, and I had plans for the evening I was a bit afraid of missing. Two blocks out, (watching the sky go dark rather rapidly) I felt kind of like a marionette with tangled strings and very nearly turned around to go home.

5K later I had finished what I think may be the best run I've ever done.

It had rained all day and I figured (incorrectly) that the overcast conditions might give me a little more daytime. I think I made up something about the sunset refracting through the cloud cover (something like that anyway) to justify it to myself but by fifteen minutes in it was DARK.

My knee was protesting a bit for the first mile and it took some time to get my coordination, but otherwise my legs felt good. No protests from my ankles or shins at any point, even after turning my right ankle a bit stepping on a hidden stick. I couldn't see my watch very well and didn't want to look away from the road more than I had to so I paced pretty much entirely by feel. I knew I was pushing my pace a bit but it felt good so I went with it. While I was definitely pushing myself the whole time I think I am developing a good feel for when I need to back off a bit and I never felt like I was killing myself. I think the four days I took off really helped out with the fatigue I've been feeling the last few weeks.

It was full on night time by the end which had be a bit freaked out between general safety concerns and footing. I really feel like I could have pushed the last half mile far more, but at that point I was on a busier street with fewer streetlights and with the wet leaves I didn't want to chance stepping wrong and ending my illustrious running career.

I walked a few blocks to cool down, headed inside to stretch, and that's when I saw this...

I beat my PR by just under three minutes!!!

Friday's run: a 5K run plus 5 minute warmup and cooldown walks. Negative splits throughout!
3.11 miles at an average of 10:47 per mile -  total time of 33:34

Splits:
mile 1 - 11:26
mile 2 - 10:42
mile 3 - 10:21
that last little bit - 1:04 (pace of 9:37)

Lessons of the day: 

Night running is rather pleasant aside from that "constant fear of imminent death" part.

The fact that I felt this much better after four days off leads me to believe that I'm probably over-training, I need to figure out how to address this.

Listening to your body works, who woulda thunk it!
Getting better is still happening, if I continue doing this the right way I may not be half bad at some point.
Victory is sweet indeed, but sometimes you can help it along with some vanilla cupcake and a healthy slathering of lemon curd.

Achievement unlocked: shiny pink medal!

image via http://www.runwithjess.com

In lieu of personal content

Here's a video of a pretty man doing pretty things in a pretty place in a decidedly fit manner.

Happy Hump day!

Video: Primal Movement
Equinox's newest program Animal Flow brings training back to basics. Watch creator Mike Fitch unleash the beast within.

Okay, turns out I lie, so here's a little bit of personal content.

I don't know that I'd call this a "new" system as this similar sort of free-flowing animalistic workout/warmup has been in my you tube favorites list since something like 2008.
The featured video is however pretty as heck (at least when that guy goes it, I don't know that I would do it the same justice)  and a combination of a lot of things I have had interest in for a number of years (running, Parkour, yoga, shirtless men with tattoos), so I'll let that "new" thing slide as advertising hyperbole since this is an ad promo.

I had a brief interest with Parkour around 2008ish which abruptly ended when I totally blew my knees out by running in the wrong shoes. I suppose you could also say that I had some interest in it as a teen, but it was called "juvenile delinquency" back then.

I kind of like the idea of trying it out again, but my upper body strength is approximately nil so it wouldn't be an immediate thing. I will say that every time I get too creeped out while running I am glad that those fence-hopping, cutting through someone's back-yard at speed memories from my teens are there for me, and I feel like beefing up those skills wouldn't be the worst idea.

From Qblog by Equinox via  Greatest.com's Links We Love

This shift in biomechanical thought is evident in Animal Flow: A new system of fluid, fundamental movements that combines Parkour, break dancing, gymnastics, free running and circus arts, and was born out of creator Mike Fitch's fatigue of free weights. “There were years when I was lifting a ton of weights, and it was too much on my joints — I felt inflamed all the time,” says Fitch, “So I decided to see how my body would change if I explored purely body weight disciplines. I noticed that there was a common theme: Animal movements, or the quadrupedal movements, and that really resonated with me.”
Fitch combined these animalistic movements with his own understanding of traditional biomechanics (he started his career as an Equinox trainer), in an attempt to optimize ancient primal forms for the modern exerciser. The result: a freestyle flow that works through multiple planes of motion. “It connects all of our stabilization systems and creates synergies throughout the body,” says Fitch.