23 April 2010

Confession of the Day

I need to confess something. I bailed on my 5km run today.

I could blame it on:
  • RAIN. I'd like to think this is valid, but I live in Vancouver and most of my training is done in relatively crappy weather. It wasn't torrential and since I would have been going on my own I couldn't even use the "I don't want to take my child out in the rain" excuse.
  • BOOTCAMP. My legs are sore. Still. It doesn't help that M likes to put his boney knees/elbows/fingers/toes/etc. into my thighs to push him self up onto my lap. I'm taking today off as a day of rest to let my quads recover from too many squats on Monday
  • LACK OF SLEEP. I went to bed too late and M got up too early. Again, this isn't a new occurrence and I should know better.
  • HOCKEY. Let's face it; it's playoff time. The Canucks game started at 7pm, M's bedtime is at 8pm (re: TV off) and I wanted to watch as much of it as possible (not just the end).

Now I'm sitting here at 11pm feeling guilty for not being more motivated. My husband actually "booed" me when I told him that I wasn't going out. That sucks. Sure, I could have gone out during the day when the weather was better, the game wasn't on and my legs really weren't feeling that bad. But that would have meant taking the buggy.

Today the idea of running just didn't do it for me.

I'm sure I'll feel it on Sunday when my legs feel like garbage after the 12km run that's scheduled. My fault? Yes. Hopefully next week will be better. At least this is just 1/2 marathon training - once the full clinic starts I'll have to be in a better frame of mind.

22 April 2010

The Week (or so) in Review

The first, best and most exciting news is that I now have real, legitimate followers. Not to discount all of my friends and family who have told me they are checking this out though. I truly appreciate everyone's support, regardless of the method, but it's a huge ego boost to see those little icons in the sidebar. It's nice to know the running community is so friendly and welcoming!

The other major event of the last week is that I started bootcamp. A friend and I were "encouraged" by another friend (you know who you are!) to join her on Monday nights at a local park for a weekly pseudo-Mum's Night Out. Little did I know that it is really a mild form of torture. I'm not sure why I expected to be eased into the class, but that's not the way it went. I will admit that it was a good workout. However, it massively kicked my butt. I could barely walk that night and it just went downhill from there. My husband, C, thought this was extremely funny and also derived great pleasure from poking me when I wasn't paying attention. He commented that he figured if he pushed me off of the bed I'd just roll around on the floor like a beetle on its' back. I would have thought this was mildly humorous if it hadn't hurt to laugh. Needless to say I missed my run on Tuesday.

I think I'll insert a little bit of a pity party here: My Wednesday (14th) stunk. I still couldn't move my legs and I had my first hill training session to contend with. There was no way I could get out of it. Thankfully it was only 3 x 400m repeats and C took our son, M's, buggy for 2 of those. The only thing I took away from that run (because, let's face it, it was kind of a garbage run for me) was that the pain in my legs receded. That was a nice surprise and a learning experience for later days.

The best day of the week had to be Thursday. Just for variety I decided it would be okay to throw a giant (for me) hill into the tempo run mix. Even with this obstacle, which I will admit I walked part of, I ran 5km in 31.20. Bootcamp must be doing something good for my legs and core! It's (I think) the fastest I've ever run that distance so I was pretty darned proud of myself. I was also happy that I finished my run before Pearl Jam finished their Backspacer album.*

Sunday saw me, C and M go out for a 10km long run. We do 10 and 1s - something else to come back to - and discovered that I should never push the buggy for the first half of a run. I'm slow for the first 20-30 minutes once I start and C expressed slightly veiled hatred for pushing for the end of the run. I guess we now know how our other long runs are going to go. We followed our run up with an 8km walk since it was a lovely, warm and sunny day.

The rest of the week has gone by fairly quickly. Bootcamp on Monday didn't cripple me quite as much (notice I said "as much" - it still hurt). I made C force me to run on Tuesday, but he was nice enough to take buggy duty for the whole 4km. Unfortunately I still struggled to keep tempo pace. The bonus was that I didn't wimp out and skip a scheduled run. Wednesday we were back to hills. I walked up the top half of the hill both times I had M, but, seeing as 33lb child + 25lb BOB = 58lbs to shove uphill, I won't feel guilty for that. I ran through the ones I did without him so that's good enough for me. I can't even feel bad about taking the shortcut home.

Today is a day off, and then back to running.

See you next week!




*At another time I might get into my love of running to 90s alternative rock - a total throwback to when I was in high school.

15 April 2010

Welcome

Let me introduce myself to those of you who aren't family and friends that have been badgered into reading this. I'm Alanna. I'm a married mum of one living in the lovely suburbs of Vancouver, B.C. and I have crazily set myself the goal of running a marathon.

There, I said it. I am planning on running a whopping 42km in October, although "running" might be stretching the truth. A good time would be nice, but isn't necessary. I think I'll just be happy with crossing the finish line of my own accord.

This blog/journal/online accounting of my journey to The Marathon (capitalized to give it the respect it deserves) is going to be my way of holding myself accountable. Please, please sign up or bookmark this site to follow my journey. You don't have to check in often (unless you are really that interested in my progress), but I figure that the more people out there who will ask me how my training is going the better.

There won't be much activity on here for a while as my marathon clinic doesn't begin until 10 June 2010. I'll post infrequently about my half marathon training (which my husband C is doing with me) and my foray into bootcamp (which he is not and makes fun of me for). I'll write more about why I thought running The Marathon would be a good goal to have - something about turning 30... I'm sure that there will be ramblings about things that seem to have very little to do about running as well as my love-hate relationship with the sport.

So, for now, this is me.

In about 6 months, I'll be a marathoner.
 

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