Happy Belated Thanksgiving!
I hope every one had a lovely holiday. I did. Lots of food, family and fun. The best part of holidays now is that my kids are not the babies anymore, which means I get to smother the baby nieces and nephews. They steal my heart. I have to admit, with three kids so close in age and lots of infant years back to back with infants that were less than “easy”, I went through a phase after my third where I really didn’t want too much of anything to do with babies. I got through that phase quickly and now I am quite smitten when a newborn/toddler < 2 years old is around. Hand over the baby.
Like this little beauty
Can’t get enough
There were two other little ones around, but my little nephew was a very busy body trying to steal nana’s cane and empty out the pantry and his itty bitty baby sister was sleeping.
So, my thanksgiving was quite thankful and happy thanks to all of the little munchkins running around
We also get to celebrate a birthday every year right around (sometimes on) thanksgiving. My little middle turned 6 on the 26th.
She’s my sassy little spitfire and made sure we celebrated all week long. My girl.
She was my Christmas baby (due Christmas day), turned thanksgiving baby thanks to my run in with melanoma. She had to come out early so that I could have surgery.
{we like her. a lot}
So, every thanksgiving, I’m a little extra thankful that 6 years later, I do not have melanoma and instead have a lovely little healthy happy family. There’s a lot to be thankful for.
I did not, nor do I ever run a race on Thanksgiving. Despite the holiday being probably one of the biggest racing days of the year, I just have no desire. It probably has something to do with the fact that I’ve usually just run a marathon and the idea of racing does not appeal to me. Or, I would rather run my normal 8 – 10 miles on empty, quiet roads, than a 5k with thousands of other people. This thanksgiving, I had a little workout planned anyway, so that got me moving with a little bit of speed.
I can safely say I am back on the road and settling back into training mode
This is week three for me back to running consistently and I might just get up into the high 60′s with mileage. I ran high 50′s the past two weeks, so a 60+ mile week is feeling good.
I’ve had two nice little workouts, a fast finish run and a handful of other runs where I felt like normal again. Those fast paces feel pretty foreign after a solid 5 weeks of no speed and minimal speedwork before that leading up to the marathon.
So, what have I been doing to keep things on the up and up and not the down and out?
1. Stretching and Rolling
Do it and do it often. Don’t wait until things start to hurt or feel tight. Stretch. Make time for it. Because you just don’t know what’s going on with those muscles and it’s best to keep them limber. Using a foam/trigger point roller/massage stick is almost like putting money in your pocket and is the next best thing to a massage, in my mind. It’s painful, but so worth it.
2. Hydrating
I think this was a big reason it took me so long for things to get back to normal. Don’t underestimate the importance of water. Water keeps those joints and ligaments lubricated and moving nicely. When they are dehydrated, they are not moving so comfortably and the risk of injury really increases. I was and am super busy with our new business and was not making time to drink the amount of water that I am usually so good about drinking. I am usually a rockstar hydrator – water bottle with me at all times. In the couple weeks after we opened the store I was running around like crazy and my hydration dropped off the map —> enter knee issues out of the blue. I’m back on it and making time to drink lots of water —> enter feeling back to normal. With that comes a lot of bathroom trips. no one has time for that, but I have less time to be injured and not running. That is good for no one.
3. Sleep
I get up early to run. So, I try to get to bed early {which means I am so out of the loop on any and all TV shows…the only one I keep up on is The Walking Dead, and I am failing miserably at that} I also try to not get up SO early at least one or two mornings a week. A great way to make it feel like 6am is sleeping in is to get up at 4:30am on the other mornings. Sleep is so important. It keeps hormones and things in balance as well as the obvious – recovery, restoration and rejuvenation.
4. Strength/Core
They’re back! And they make a big difference in maintaining a healthy strong running body. I took quite a break from all core and strength work after the marathon. I learned they kind of go hand in hand for me….I’m much more motivated to do the strength and core work when I am actually running consistently, even moreso when I am actually training for something. When I took a solid week off from running with the angry IT band, I did a little more strength work. I prefer to spend time doing that as a running replacement than some other kind of cardio, but the stepmill is a beast of a workout if you can’t run. I’ll probably talk more about the core and strength work in another post because I think it impacted my marathon in a really positive way this time around. It’s a great supplement to running; a necessary supplement if you want to increase your chances of running strong and staying injury free.
5. Easing back into workouts
I did not jump back in full throttle. I am still easing back in to workouts. My first “workout” was a nice little progression run in the middle of an 8 miler.
I did a 2 mile warmup, 4 miles progressively faster, with the goal of getting down to 6 minute pace (OMG!!! That seems IMPOSSIBLE right now), and 2 mile cool down
The middle miles:
6:43, 6:40, 6:16, 5:57
That was the first sub 6 min pace since the marathon
My Thanksgiving day workout was a new to me workout and I looked at it like, oh, piece. of. cake. I can do this silly little thing.
Don’t EVER say that about a workout. It’s never a piece of cake
15 x 1 minute hard/1 minute easy with the hard minute goal pace in 5:30′s
It was just long. BUT, a minute is just a minute and I told myself, I can do anything for a minute, and I did. But it was still long. 15 of anything is long.
It got me to 10.5 miles @ 6:55 average with my hard minutes at an average pace of 5:23. It was a nicer workout than 400′s. I was thankful for that. It’s a start back to finding speed. I was also thankful when it was done. because my legs didn’t quite remember what that kind of speed felt like and it was a RUDE awakening. They are awake now.
Taking my time getting back into the workouts, and it’s nice. I’m acclimating back to running and training with some effort and speed nice and slow. The hard ones will be here soon. I got the schedule. They are coming.
That’s the deal for now. Winter has arrived here in New England and the cold running is TOUGH. We’ve had a few days in the upper teens already. It is time to start bundling up, and toughening up. Nothing easy about getting out of the house early, in the cold and dark.
What is your favorite temperature to run in?
I know there are some crazies who love the winter running. I’m the crazy that misses the sweaty hot summer running.
What is your favorite cold weather running gear?
I can’t stand when my fingers and ears are cold. Must wear a headband.
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