Pure Dread

Update: I did indeed bang out 4 miles on the treadmill during lunch. And then was confronted with an open lab of cadavers as I was walking back to the office. GAG! The horrors of working in a medical environment when you are totally grossed out by the inside of the human body.

Do you ever just dread a run? For days on end? I needed to bang out 4 miles on Sunday. However, with feet of snow blanketing Philadelphia and making many of the sidewalks treacherous, I knew an outdoor run wasn’t happening. A friend recently ruined her knee after hitting a bad patch of ice, so I know that risking an injury for one run flat out isn’t worth it.

So that left me with waiting until Monday for my 4-miler. Now here is where it gets annoyingly complicated. My car is snowed in on the street—it’s going nowhere. Not a problem—I can take the subway to the work shuttle and ride that in. Both of these options are less fun when you are saddled with all your workout gear, your lunch, your work bag and your coffee. 

I also need to do this run during lunch because the scramble for a treadmill after 5 p.m. is not doable when I must rely on public transportation. I almost got left on Friday night after my workout!

I am just not in the mood for a lunchtime run. My motivation is sorely lacking.

Outdoor Bliss

Oh my gosh, I ran outside! Yes, you read that correctly. It only took me, oh, 24 days into the new year to run outside. However, it was a group run so I still haven’t broken out the Garmin. I try to go electronics-free when I run with others. It was a balmy 37 degrees during our evening run. Our meeting point was about a half-mile from my apartment, so I got in a nice warm up then and a cool-down on the way home. So all in all it was a little over 4 miles of running.

And I kinda forgot running outside can be hard. I had trouble catching my breath a few times and my throat felt too dry and cold to swallow a few times. But I am so glad I finally broke out of the gym.

However, as you may have heard, Philadelphia was by a pretty intense snowstorm, so we’ve got about 16 inches of the white stuff on the ground plus 3 inches of ice that won’t come off the sidewalks or roads. So my Friday night will consist of 3 miles on the ‘mill and 30 minutes of bike riding.

Happy Weekend!

Wussing Out

I must start this blog entry with a confession: I didn’t run outside this weekend. The wind and cold were too biting in Philadelphia to will me to complete my four miles outside. (The Garmin is still in his box, unused.)

On the upside, I drove into work to use the gym and it was wonderfully deserted! I kept an 11:30/mile pace for all 4 miles. I know that isn’t sounding very quick, but it’s my comfortable pace. I’d have no problem running the entire half marathon at that pace either. Speaking of, I’ve got to stop putting off my registration before the price gets any higher. I think I’m going to run the race in my hometown of Pittsburgh. The downside of this is that I will have to sit in a car for 5 hours after completing the race. However, I don’t have too many qualms about taking a sick day that Monday if my legs are stiff/ready to fall off.

I may finally break out of my indoor running rut tomorrow evening. It’s going to be a balmy 37 degrees! However, we might get more snow after that. Ah, how I love living in the Northeast.

Week of Half Training Almost Done!

I've been remarkably disciplined this first week of training! I didn't miss one workout. Usually I am easily convinced to go to happy hour or to dinner instead of slogging out a run on the treadmill, but I have done all workouts, including cross-training and I "stretched and strengthened" as Hal Higdon instructed me to do on Monday. I generally read things like that as "rest, " so this is quite a feat.

All I have left on tap this week is a cross training session, which I am doing after work today, and a 4-miler with a group on Sunday. It's going to be bitterly cold--the high is something insane like 22 degrees and the low is 7. I plan to motivate myself with bar food and beer during the Steelers/Jets game that evening. Have I mentioned my fiance is a Jets fan? It's a tense household. I also pointed out that one of our cats is black and gold so we've outnumbered him as fans.

How cute is Koi? OK so technically she's more orange than gold, but use your imagination.

Oh, the Choices of a Runner!

Tonight I had originally planned to do a 3-mile group run. However, this morning we had a wintry mix that almost landed me on my butt the minute I stepped outside my door. It’s mostly changed over to rain, but temperature is hovering a little over freezing, which is making me more and more inclined to hit the treadmill.

But I also have realized that I haven’t run outside since sometime in December and the Garmin I got for Christmas hasn’t left his box—except to charge. 

Eek! The decisions! Run indoors where it’s hot and dry and I have to compete for a treadmill or possibly freeze outside but have company running.

Run and Chew Gum at the Same Time?

This week my running has been pathetic at best. I was supposed to begin training for a half marathon Jan. 3. I was sick that week, so then it became Jan. 10. It snowed this week and my treadmill at home (which had been working for 2 weeks) had issues again so I’ve logged 3 miles this week and that’s it.

Tonight, I will be making my first return trip to the work gym after my last oh-so-pleasant experience. Hopefully more people are interested in happy hour than workout hour since it’s a Friday night. I’m also going to try something new today while running. There is a woman at the gym who runs for hours on the treadmill (no idea how she both mentally and physically does that) and I always notice she has a pack of gum with her. Then I read on KIMpossible’s blog that she uses gum as a thirst-quencher and as a way to control her breathing. So tonight, my pack of Trident and I will give this a whirl. Hopefully, I don't choke.

Half Marathon Training Begins

Today marks my first official day in half-marathon training! I'm excited, nervous and exhausted just thinking about it. I'm kinda training in an odd way. I don't plan on running a half until May (the Northeast is not kind to runners in the winter), but I will finish my training around the end of March. I plan to just keep building the mileage in the middle and then taper off at the end of April. So many of the training plans I looked at have you never actually completing 13 miles until race day. I know that I want to have run 13 miles at least once before race day. It helps me mentally feel that I can complete the race knowing I've done the distance before. For example, when I trained for the 10-k in the fall, I ran more than 9 miles so I knew that 6 miles was attainable. I don't think I'll take it to that extreme for the half, but I'd like to run 14-15 miles before race day.

I still have not taken my Garmin out for a run! Lots of snow and temps below 30 have kept me on the 'mill.

Hope your winter running is going well!

Treadmill Stalking and Sexism

Since the word “complain” is in my blog title, I feel totally justified in using this entire entry to bitch. Specifically to bitch about gym etiquette. I work for a university and use the same gym as the students. Now, this is the medical school, so we don’t get the fancy gym the main campus gets. We get a small room that gets really hot with windows that can’t be opened. But it’s free, so I’ll take it.

Now on Tuesday, I know I need to get my butt to that gym by 5:05 because of two things:

1.       School is back in session (How I loved the emptiness of the gym during their winter break.)

2.       People are still keeping with their new year’s resolutions for about 2 more weeks.

I manage to snag a treadmill. Score! Two other people are running. One guy and one girl. The other treadmill is supposedly broken, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it may have just gotten accidentally unplugged. I had a treadmill, so I didn’t care enough to investigate.

I’m 2 minutes into my run when a middle-aged man comes in and asks the girl next to me if she’s almost done. She says she still has a few more miles. He then turns to me.  I point to the glaring red 2 minutes on my treadmill and say I just started. He then informs me that he “really needs to get this run in.” Umm, isn’t that why everyone is at the gym in the first place? Please note this man does NOT ask the guy when he will be finished. This annoys me.

About halfway through my run, I hit pause to grab a drink of water at the fountain (I had forgotten my water bottle that day). This guy proceeds to follow me to the fountain to ask if I’m done. I tell him sorry, not yet, just getting some water.

I finish up my run and some other guy accosts me as I’m getting paper towel to wipe down the machine and asks if I’m done. I say yep, and leave the guys to duke it out for the ‘mill.

I guess what really bugs me about this is that it felt to me that this middle-aged ‘mill stalker felt that his run was somehow more important than my run and that it was OK to insinuate that two women running should hurry up but it was totally legit for the guy to run as long as he wanted.

Whew. OK, that was quite a rant. I should really channel my rage into my runs. I’d be hitting an 8-minute mile for sure!