What a weekend and training

This was a busy weekend and it flew right by.  Highlight of the weekend...of course other than seeing Maegan be so happy saying I Do to Ahearn...running! Yes, that's right, I ran again. I knocked out 6 miles at a 10 minute pace. My ankle hurt, it felt like a constant pinching sensation but I did not once have shooting pain up the side of my leg or my shin.  I'm jonesing for some speed work but know that I need to not push too far too fast. I think I may even try to do a short 3-4 miles tonight after work. For now I'm sticking to the dreadmill because it has some play to it which helps reduce the hard impact. 

On the running note, now that I'm running, well kind of, I'm starting to think about marathon training plans. I'm going to create my own using a hybrid of a couple of different plans.  I'm going to refer to my TNT schedule from last season (abbreviated since I will not be training for 19 weeks this time), the Hal Higdon plan and Runner's World's Less is More. I think running three-four days is the most my body can handle for training. I'm definitely going to continue crosstraining as well. I cannot wait to get my orthoditics and get out there. I refuse to train for a marathon on the dreadmill!

Back to the weekend, Saturday we watched the USA vs. England World Cup game with Ryan and Claire. I decided I liked the game because there were zero commericals until the half and there was always action going on. It was kind of anti-climatic without a winner though.  After that we headed to Denver for Maegan and Ahearn's wedding. She got the same crappy weather or her wedding day that we did. Boo. But it was nice anyway. We caught up with some of my sorority sisters I hadn't seen in years!

Sunday we did an Indian cooking class. Needless to say we were stuffed when we got home!  If anyone is interested in going to the class in August, let me know! It's only $18 and you get tons of food. I bought a cook book and am ready to try making some of my own Indian food at home.

Being Still is Hard

So is waiting. Yesterday morning I had my MRI on my ankle. I haven’t ever had one before so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. All I knew was that I couldn’t have any metal below my hips which was no problem. They laid me on the bed and packed my foot in. They were also nice enough to put a blanket and headphones with XM radio on me. They said the machine was loud and they were not kidding! Man the noises it made were so loud it made the entire bed vibrate. I was totally paranoid I would ruin the pictures because they said even the slightest movement can skew them.

About 15 minutes in my legs began twitching of course. I was focusing so hard on holding still I’m pretty sure I could have made myself levitate with the same power of thought. The entire thing took about a half hour. They handed me a disk of images and sent me on my way. The orthopedic surgeon should have received them yesterday. Now I just have to wait. I tried looking at them to see if I could tell what was wrong, but of course everything looks all jacked up to me. I assume I won’t hear from the doctor until Monday afternoon sometime. I’m trying to be patient.

My ankle is sore from my PT rubbing on Wednesday. It hurt so good that it bruised me a little bit. I got all set up to meet with the owner of my PT practice. He’s going to do a gait analysis and get me fitted for custom orthotics. $200 ouch! So worth the money if they help me prevent future injuries.

I’m starting to think about my training plan for the Denver Marathon. I think I’m going to have it start 4th of July weekend. I should have my orthotics by then and with several weeks of PT under my belt, fingers crossed, I’ll be ready to run my little heart out. That is pending the MRI indicates it was only tendonitis.

I’m ready for a super busy weekend after two weeks straight of work. Tomorrow Ryan and Claire are having a party for the World Cup and my friend Maegan is getting married. It’s going to be a fun day! Sunday Josh and I are doing an Indian cooking class which is a fundraiser for LLS. I’m excited. I love love love Indian food. At least I have distractions while I’m waiting for the doc to call.

I'm 26, are you sure?

Well it’s been 26 years since my terrified parents became my mom and dad. Contray to what my mom may say, I was not a beautiful newborn.  Yeah that's me with the conehead.  Luckily it is now normally shaped and I have hair.

I cannot believe I turned 26 today. I am officially at an age that, even at 22, I thought was old. Now I’m not saying I’m old, because I mean come, 26 isn’t even close to the midpoint of my life. I just cannot believe that I'm not officially closer to 30 than I am to 20.  How did the time fly by so fast?  I swear I was just graduating from high school like five minutes ago.  Even more strange, I feel like my parents just turned 26 not that long ago. In fact, when my stepmom Liz started dating my dad Lmost 18 years ago, she was 26.  What a brave woman to take on a man that had a 8 year and 5 year old.  It's just crazy scary to think that at my age my parents had kids in elementary school. 

My mid-twenties, yes Josh I’m still in my mid-twenties, have been awesome so far:

Age 24-Married my lobster
Age 25-Ran my first marathon and went on an amazing trip to Italy
Age 26-????-We'll see what the year brings.

What I do know is that I’m just a super lucky girl woman. I have wonderful friends and family. I even have wonderful coworkers, case in point, Lisa who brought me this delicious and super cute cake for my birthday. (Thank you one last time!) Nothing better than the smell of cake in the morning when you arrive to your cubicle.

This year is going to be great I know it! How could it not be? I’m happy, healthy (well almost), I have a job, a house, a wonderful, loving husband and dog. Bonus-I get to go on another fabulous European adventure to Paris and London in September, two races already scheduled (hopefully I’ll be able to do them), and all sorts of surprises that are going to pop up. Yeah, it’s going to be good. ;-)

Thanks for all the love and support!

Josh took me out for an amazing dinner at this tiny little restaurant called Praha.  It was one of the best meals I've had in a long time.  I had the Pepper Steak "Galleria". So delicious and beautifully presented. I should have taken a picture but felt silly. Excellent birthday!

P.S. I scheduled my MRI today. I know I wasn't going to do it, but I tried to run again last night...no dice.  It hurt bad.  I have PT on Wednesday and I'm going to order custom orthodics.  MRI is scheduled for first thing on Thursday morning...booo.

Bikram Challenge: Complete

Well my month of Bikram is over. I totally slacked last weekend with Friday being my only class for the entire weekend. Oh well. I did 22 or 23 classes, I can’t remember. Not bad for a newbie.

Thoughts on Bikram:

-It is hot! No, kidding right. But some days when I walked in the room the heat was like a punch in the face and I’d start to sweat instantly. The more people that were there the hotter it was. On days when I was tired after work, I almost always started to drift off to sleep while waiting for class to start. The heat was like a nice warm blanket.

-I’ve never sweat so much.

-I’m not flexible at 5 am.

-Balance, balance. The standing series of poses is an hour long. They were my favorite of the entire class. They really helped me with my balance, leg and core strength.

-I could hear my heart. Some days more than others but there were times that I would lay on the floor for savasna and could feel and hear my heart pounding. I wouldn’t say it kept my heart rate up the entire 90 minutes, but it got it up from time to time which leads to more calorie burning.

-My ankle hates some of the floor poses. Though yoga had no blunt impact to make my ankle hurt, one pose in particular made the pain flare right up every time. I had to do a modified pose to avoid the pain.

-It’s very repetitive. Bikram developed his practice so that one pose lead to the next. That means every day we did the same 26 poses, in the same order. Though it was nice to do the same poses and see improvements each time, it got kind of old. I began to learn which poses I didn’t like and began to dread them when I knew they were coming up next.

Body Changes:

No major body changes. My weight continued to have its normal fluctuations of 2-4 pounds. I do think that my leg muscles have gotten stronger as well as my shoulders and abs. I’m still not seeing a six-pack but I’ll settle for a flat stomach. The changes in my measurements were pretty small, nothing worth publishing really.

To Continue or Not to Continue:

At this point I’m taking a break. I’m heading to Tampa for several days and have a really busy June. So I thought I’d wait to use my discount until the end of June or July. I think that I’ll continue with the practice on occasion but it will not be my primary form of exercise. I think the longer I do it, the more benefits I’ll see. Plus I do like the people at the studio.

I’m considering trying out some other forms of yoga in the mean time on a drop in basis.

So there is it, a super brief review of my month.

I Ran!!!

That's right, I ignored advice of the doctor and my own better judgement and ran.  I smiled the entire time too!  Friday afternoon I was heading to the gym before yoga and decided you know what I should try it out.  The first few steps on the treadmill sent shooting pain up my calf but once I got in my groove I was ok.  I ran an easy four miles before I decided I should not push myself right out of the gate.

Time: 40 minutes    Distance: 4 miles    Avg. Pace: 10 min/miles

Not too shabby considering I haven't run in more than a month.  Now, several days later I'm still hurting though. My ankle hurts every time I walk.  I've made the executive decision to skip the MRI and just start intensive physical therapy.  I didn't really like the orthopedic surgeon at all and I don't really feel the need to work with him or spend money on the MRI if he thinks it's just tendonitis. 

Hopefully I can get into PT before I leave for Tampa on Saturday afternoon so we can get this show on the road.  My month of yoga also ended this weekend....it did not go out with a bang but more on that later.