chimesblog

Maybe.

Just maybe I’m back.

And I can thank my fabulous former roommate for running a marathon last month — 20 minutes faster than she anticipated even!

What am I talking about?

For those of you who’ve forgotten, I used to love running — in fact, that was the ENTIRE purpose for this blog in the first place. It used to be called “Life plus running” and be over at blogspot.com. Then I obsessed over it and ran a marathon. Then we broke up for a while. And then running was a huge pain in the ass because I had to be strategic about it, so it became a chore instead of a beloved pastime.

But now //

// I think it’s fun again*.

And I can blame my old roommates. Both of them. One of them got married and the other came and stayed with me for the evening before the wedding. Danielle and I used to run together a lot in the 4 years we lived together. That’s how I got my start. In fact the last time I ran any significant distance with anybody was a 7 mile run right before the marathon 2 years ago with here.

What better way to get back in the saddle than by enlisting the help of a friend to make running fun again?

So we ran about a 10K. I haven’t run more than 3-4 miles in at least a month. In fact, I hadn’t run AT ALL for 2 whole weeks. And the weird part? I didn’t miss it a bit. Not ONE tiny bit. I was actually DREADING our Saturday run so much that I put it off until we absolutely had to go in order to get the rest of our stuff done before the wedding that evening.

Then it started again. That feeling. The almost giddy feeling I used to have every day knowing that when all my work was done that I got 45-60 minutes ALL TO MYSELF (and, let’s face it, 5 years ago Slipknot was there too). My time to relax. My time to think things out. My time to pound the pavement and bust out all the bad feelings I felt before I made it home and they eeked out into the rest of my life.

Sunday I RAN my errands. I had to pick up a prescription, and guess what? HyVee is on my 5K route. So I ran a 5K. THE DAY AFTER I RAN A 10K.

The thought of being injured again made me very wary of running two days in a row since the PT lady told me not to do that 2 years ago when she released me back into the wild after 3 months of physical therapy. But I’m lifting and training specific muscle groups now. I’m seeking chiropractic care once a week. I’m being SMARTER and I know my body and my limits now.

So all that being said? Yeah. I think it’s back. I ran a mile yesterday too — 2 laps backwards in fact — which makes 3 days in a row of running. Not of running significant distances like before, but the victory here is that I want to run again. It makes me happy. No more hours plugging away at boring cardio machines or workout videos. I have the option to run. Whenever I want. And most importantly I have the drive to run again.

Where am I going with this? Nowhere in particular. I haven’t set any weird crazy goals for myself — except not to get injured again and to continue to enjoy being outside running like I used to. And of course, to get some of the awesome gear associated with running.

*Sorry for the weird typography … I’ve been reading  the typography bible and I’ve been wanting to try some new things for separators.]

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It’s been a while since I’ve blogged about running, which is kind of weird because I’d been making pretty decent progress in the last week or so.

Basically, I’ve been on an “add .5 mi to what you ran last week” program for about a month — so I should be on 2.5  miles this week. However, I was going on “add 5 minutes to what you ran last week” instead since I assumed I’d be going at a 10-minute/mi pace — SO not the case.  

And, since I’m a total math genius, I decided that last week’s +5 minutes = 30 minutes because obviously 20+5=30.  Right?  

So I think Thursday I ran 30 minutes which totaled about 3 miles.  I thought, well, my leg’s cool, so I guess I’ll go with 30 this week (even though I realized my error by this point). 

Sunday I chilled out all day until the rain was eminent. I HAVE to wait until the last possible minute — it’s my forté.  So it looks as if the sky is going to dump a week’s worth of vengeance on Des Moines around 6 or so, which is when I decided to lace up and head out. 

It was a great run.  Great temperature…great mood… lots of people out…and of course: good tunes.  I’ve been digging “Are You Dead Yet?” by Children of Bodom lately since workouts are harder now that I’m not in marathon-running shape.  It’s a good mantra for me I guess.  

I managed to make it most of the way through the  30 minutes and at the end I almost hit a 7-minute mile pace for a while, but I called it quits a bit early and was .02 mi short of a 5K.  

Almost a 5K? Now that’s a respectable distance.  I feel like I’m back in the game…well, almost. 5K doesn’t cut it for me. In my old world, anything under a 10K didn’t count as running to me. Ahhh…. crazy.

I remembered why I started this blog — RUNNING.  This blog was to keep track of my runs to help me hold myself accountable for marathon training. Here I am…without having blogged about running for a while. It’s weird. Back in March when I had to quit, it was one of the hardest things I ever had to do, but now, I’m somewhat indifferent, and it’s sad.  It’s sad that something that I was so passionate about can just fizzle up and go away like that.

It’s getting late and I really need to get to bed (I feel like Doogie Houser, MD for whatever reason tonight… ah, NPH).

Here’s Sunday’s run in all it’s all-over-the-board-pace glory.

And just because I am currently listening/watching this and since NPH is my hero..

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I spent the whole weekend in Ames since it was graduation weekend and the BF FINALLY graduated. We went out Friday AND Saturday. I managed to squeeze in an hour-long run/walk yesterday while he was doing the big graduation ceremony (I didn’t go since I couldn’t sit for that long)…and we went to Applebee’s with his family for supper (mmmmmm huge ass apple walnut salad!)…and then we watched StepBrothers until super late last night. I got up early today but wasn’t very productive at all (it’s after 7 PM!!). 

First, I spent most of my morning putting together a 5K training plan for one of my BFFs, Adria. I convinced her to run a 5K with me in September or October and she’s up for it. Updates on that will follow.  I’m finishing up the program and will be hopefully sending it to her tonight so she can start on it.

Secondly — the obvious — I spent most of my afternoon moving my blog (formerly runningchimes.wordpress.com) here and doing a quickie design that will suffice for now until I get time to do a real design and redo my portfolio. I’ve been paying $10 a month for this domain, I might as well get SOME use out of it!

Finally, I spent a lot of the evening listing some things on my etsy store, re-figuring some prices and retagging some items. I’ve got quite a bit of design up. My store got some traffic the other day when I posted that black prom dress that I’ve decided I’ll never be able to squeeze into.

Unrelated: I had decided not to work out today, but then re-decided that I should. AND if I do, I get to eat the ice cream that I have in the freezer. Don’t worry — it’s just a single serving. I plan to do a half hour of biking since I haven’t biked for a while and then some strength training and stretches. Maybe 45 minutes of biking. We’ll see. I plan to go at 8 PM. That’s later than usual, but I’ve got a new rule: something is better than nothing!  I have a hard time working out late, but I figure biking easy for 30 minutes is better than sitting on my ass for 30 more minutes. 

Anyway, that is all. I shall be posting more crafty stuff hopefully and more running stuff. I need to take some photos of my crafts and post them here, facebook and on etsy. Also, I’m going to probably start using the nike+ again this week since I can run 1 mile consecutively. I’d like to know what my pace is…just for s&g’s.

Finally: Shout out to PerpetualSpiral (whose real name I don’t know…which I feel bad b/c she’s pretty awesome) — fellow craftster and twitterer.  She’s always got some kind words and praise for me!  Yay for tweeps that I’ve never met in real life.

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I rock.

Although I don’t know if I could ever re-run this time or recreate it in any way shape or form, but I did it.

Hit the treadmill hard today with intentions of at least shaving some time off the 25:50whatever I previously held as a 5K PR. Cranked it up cuz another somewhat-elite runner was running next to me (and he didn’t have headphones…probably a real elite runner).

Here’s where it gets tricky though.  I put the incline at 0.  Yeah. totally cheating.  So now I’ve got to see if I can do this OUTSIDE where it counts, but there’s too much ice/snow on the ground right now to think about speed. Plus, treadmills are good for keeping track of speed and pacework, so I figure I’ll get some use out of them…hell, I’m putting a 10th of each paycheck into a savings account to BUY my own treadmill by this time next year (i hope anyway).

Also, it got kinda sketchy towards the end. I was rocking and hauling ass until the last 1K…then I got a major major MAAAAJOR case of painful gas (which I get when I do speedwork, which is why I’m NOT a short-distance runner — mostly out of respect for other people). I wasn’t about to stop on account of that.  I decided that the guy next to me who was the only one in the place NOT wearing headphones could deal with it — he was obviously a runner… he would understand.  I let ‘er rip.  Fortunately for him it was just the loud kind of fart, not the smelly kind.

Anyway, I got one of my goals for 2009 covered. I’m going to keep trying to break that and try to break it outside of course. I should sign up for a 5k to see what I can do in a race setting. I’m excited now!

thank you, Alexi Laiho, for being so hot and rocking at guitar. You pushed me through ANOTHER speedwork workout.

oh, and for anybody who’s interested, I’ve been listening to Children of the Bodom, In Flames and Dethklok during these runs.  I’m hoping to add more COB and some Death and Amon Amarth to the speed collection.  Also, Alexi Laiho is the lead guitarist of COB, in case you were wondering. He’s pretty talented and probably the  best looking guy in the entire genre of metal (unless you consider NIN to be metal…which I don’t, but if you do, Trent Reznor wins).

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yay. finally got that last workout to load.

i rock.

which totally reminds me — on Saturday I ran down Grand Ave. and went past a car with a hilarious license plate: MANIROK. (man i rock)

MANIROK’s entire front end was smashed in…like the owner rammed it aimlessly into a pole. MANILAUGHED.

anyway… today’s run= 2 PRs.  Mile time and 5K time. Probably not the fastest mile I’ve ran in my life, but the fastest since I’ve gotten the Nike+.

Also, I’d set a goal to run 5 times at under 9:35/mi pace in a month.  I’m well ahead of that goal, which I was not anticipating.

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today I had an amazingly short but awesome run — set 2 PRs: 8:06/mi and 26:03/5k.

— but —

NIKE PLUS DECIDED NOT TO RECORD THIS INFO!!!  It’s on my iPod, but the workout data from today decided for whatever reason that it did not want to send to nikeplus.com. GRR.

the last two weeks I’ve been watching my average pace per mile on nikeplus.com go from a sad 10:45ish to a little less embarrassing 10:25ish.  Mind you, the 10:45/mi pace was built up over nearly 300 miles and the amount of miles I’ve ran in the past two weeks barely add up to 30, let alone 300.

a month ago i didn’t think i could hit a 9:00 mile.  now i’m running those regularly for 5mi< runs. the most i’ve run since the marathon tho is 6 miles, which is sad, but i’ve got an injury, so i’ll deal with it so i can keep running for years rather than months.

anyway. annoyed. i was pretty proud of those times even tho they’re seriously slow compared to most people and nike+ apparently agreed. grr.

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