There's a Cat in the Bathtub...

Indeed, there is a cat in the bathtub. My cat is awesome and the most lovey, snuggly cat ever. He is such a lap-cat and sweetheart that sometimes it hurts my heart just to leave the apartment. However, I must to go to work, or grocery shop, or go for a run/to the gym and live life...

The boy named Filbert aka "Bubbies"

Speaking of leaving the house to go for a run, I did promise to give an update about my half marathon training. Last week, I started off on Thursday with yoga and then Friday I went for a 60 minute run. First, yoga was relaxing; I think it would have been slightly more relaxing in a yoga studio where there are less distractions, like my cat who thinks that the yoga mat is his and tries to lay on my torso when I am doing backbends. However, I felt all limber and bendy afterwards until Friday, when my hamstrings felt like over-adjusted violin strings, ready to snap! I must remember to stretch before and after workouts. That is one of my downfalls; I think I can do any workout and my muscles won't retaliate. I tend not to stretch and then I am overly tight the next time I want to do a workout, which does not lend to having the best workout.

That being said, on Friday I woke up with tight hamstrings and a day of thunderstorms. This did not enthuse me to leave the house, but I headed to the gym (thank goodness I hadn't cancelled my membership yet haha) and ran on the treadmill. I dislike running on a treadmill because I become bored out of my mind and I do not enjoy watching TV while running. I feel as though it rots my brain and also, I tend to veer to the side where the TV is and that can causes treadmill accidents. : )

Anyway, I followed my new training plan which does not go by mileage, but by minutes. I ran for 60 minutes on the treadmill, which actually went better than I thought. I slowed down to a walk about 30 minutes in for only two minutes to sip some Gatorade and then continued to run until 52 minutes in. Then I slowed my jogging and finally walked for 5 more minutes for a cool down at the end. For my first training run, I was able to run 50 out of the 60 minutes, which made me feel proud. I enjoyed running for the time rather than the distance because I felt I was able to go by my own pace rather than struggling to keep up with a certain pace per mile. It turns out, I run about a 10 minute/mile at the moment. Nothing to be super excited about, I would like to get it back down to an 8.5 minute/mile, but for now I will work slow and steady!

This past week, I struggled to get out of the house in the morning before my night shifts and complete my trainings. I did not even get a chance to do my cross-training on Thursday, which is a day off for me. Friday I did complete my 60 minute run,  but this time I went to a local park and ran on trails. Some were paved, like sidewalks, but then I also ran through a wooded trail for part of the run. The struggle for me here was trying to figure out how far I should run out before I turn around. Once I get more comfortable with my pace, I should be able to measure that better and not have to be distracted thinking about when to turn around and head back the way I came.

The park where I run - there's a lovely, large lake

One way that I will get help with this is practice, the other may be in the form of an App... On Friday, I used the app called Nike Plus Running, which is AWESOME. If you already plan on running with your phone on you, which I always recommend, NOT so that you can take a phone call, but so that you are safe in case of an emergency, this app is really cool. It allows you to shuffle your music, whether you want to shuffle a certain playlist or all of your music on your phone; you don't have to run to music, but it is an available feature that I enjoyed. During your run, it lets you know your mile markers; so when you reach mile one, it tells you, as well as your time and your average min/mile. I found this motivating and I was glad it told me when each mile happened. Apparently, you can set it to tell you at more frequent markers as well, such as every quarter-mile, but I think that would just psych me out of the run psychologically.

During my trail run on Friday, I realized that my biggest barrier is definitely my mind. In order for me to have an amazing run, I need to get out of my head. Since this past Friday was my first day on a new trail, I am very aware of everything around me, people, cars, my surroundings. This is normal for me when at a new location; however, it was frustrating because I was more focused on my surroundings than on the actual run and I found myself dragging my feet about a half an hour into the run. I was unsure whether this was due to my legs, my breathing or my brain at first so I did some minor tests: first, I tried to take deeper, longer breaths and that worked fine. Then, I tried some sprints to see if it was my legs that were tired, but I was able to lengthen my stride and put some more bounce in my step. The meaning? I was psyching myself out; my brain was telling my body it was tired, but in fact, my body was fine. My biggest running block ... is mental.

This is my biggest struggle. Mentally psyching myself up for a run, whether it is a training day or not. Of course, you can condition the body, the lungs and likewise, you can condition your brain. Did you know it takes about 30 days for a new habit to form? That means that if I am consistent for 30 days, I can make running a positive habit for me to fall back on and my mind will stop psyching me out. However, I need to be consistent. My hope is that through writing in this blog and talking to my friends who are also training at the moment for the same race, I will hold myself accountable for this training and actually follow through. What will come out of that? I will be a runner again... and there is no greater reward than that!