Rambling on

First and foremost, I want to give a shout out to my sister Abby who's hockey team just won the Massachusetts girls Division 2 High School Ice Hockey Championship!!! Abby is an amazing junior and is one of the goalies. The ice hockey program is only 4 years old and they won states. Amazing. Abby, you rock!!!



So back to running.



For the past few weeks I've been trying to get back in to the groove but it's just not been happening. I'm not lacking motivation. I want to get out there and run. But when I do, well, it's hard to explain, but my body just feels all out of whack. I was talking about it with a couple of my siblings the other day and we were discusssing how there's all this material about training for a marathon, but not much on how to deal post marathon. You can't just stop running, but you can't keep on training as hard as before because your tanks are just empty.



So I was trying to figure out what my deal is and trying to figure out how to get back on track. My brother and I are going to be running the Oklahoma City half marathon and my SIL is doing the 5k that day as well. I want to be back on track to put in a good effort for my first half.



I've been feeling like my body just isn't working as a machine when I get out there and run. My heart and lungs feel fine every time, and I have the mental "I know I can do this" attitude, but things just feel off. I feel like I struggle the first mile and then I'm okay for a little bit and then I just have no energy left. I think about my shoes, my shorts, my food, my hair, my motivation, my stress, my job and about 2746593857 other things to try and figure out what the problem is. I've been reading my BRFs, magazines, books and whatever I can to try to get back to *that place* but when I get on the road, nothing works.



I've decided it's a mixture of things:

1. My hair was driving me crazy. May not make sense, but it was getting pretty long and it's really windy here. I usually put it back in a ponytail and it whips around and gives me a headache from all the pulling. So today I took the scissors and cut off about 6 inches. It's pretty curly, so I can't really screw it up. My head feels lighter and mentally, it helped even if it seems ridiculous! Lol!



2. I think my eating is all screwed up. I am married to someone who just doesn't cook. Well, his idea of cooking is inviting me to Burger King, but only when we have coupons! He is also a person who works a pretty physical job and so he feels like only heavy meals will get him through work. Since I don't want to cook double, I just eat what he does. I'm not a vegetarian, but I'm not a huge fan of meat and he is a true carnivore. Eats it with his hands and everything! I eat more meat than I wish I did (but I use a fork and knife.) I'm thinking I need to have a nutrition-a-thon a la Amanda coming up pretty soon and figure out how to fuel up better.



3. I have a tendency when I get in to run mode to just run. I forget about cross training and figure if I'm gonna work out, I should run. I know it's totally wrong, but somehow I can't stop it. It's an all-or-nothing thing and I know it shouldn't be. Ever since my Miguelito spotting I've been reluctant to get on the floor and do crunches (or to open my stove once it's heating up, thanks Zanne!) so my core needs a bit of work.

I've found a great yoga podcast that I'm falling in love with. It's called yogamazing and I love it. You can download it on itunes too. I'm forcing myself to do a bit every day, even if it's just a few minutes. Even that little bit helps me to feel stronger all over and it helps me feel more connected, like my machine is going to start working again.

Oh man!!! Half of my post just got deleted! Stinking outages. I was all set to hit post and now it's gone. That blows!

So now to remember what I typed.

4. I'm bored to tears with my normal running route. I wore that route out training for Disney and now I have no love for it. The dogs behind the fences don't even run up and start yipping at me because they know me along there. At least if I was on the treadmill I could watch tv or something. Geesh!

So today I woke up telling myself not to go for a run and to cross train instead. But around 5 o'clock my legs started itching to get out. Then I realized it was Thursday! What better way to kill the blah of a Thursday than to do Speedwork! Yay for speedwork! It saved me. I ran the first mile at a comfortable pace then when I turned the corner I started running at about 90% for a telephone pole and then kicked it back down to about 60% for two poles and did the next two miles that way. It was awesome! It was just what I needed to break through my blahs. I felt like the speed helped me to get realigned somehow. I paid attention to every muscle as I ran at 90% and made adjustments and then when I kicked back, it felt much better than it has been.

So now I'm hyped up on endorphins for the first time since Disney and I love running again. Happy Andi!