Heart grow fonder

I've decided that running, like most of my relationships, is best when we don't see each other that often.
After a 3-week hiatus, and deciding I was in winter running retirement (and I mean "retirement" in the Brett Favre sense) I was overcome with the urge to take a quick jog on Saturday. A quick jog turned into a six mile run, at sunset, along the coast. This time, I was rewarded with the sight of a massive cruise ship leaving port and slowly slicing through the water, lit up against the greyblue sky, as I rounded the back of Castle Island. Despite my burning lungs and snot-covered jacket sleeve, I stopped in my tracks and let out an instinctive laugh of pure joy. It's a weird reaction I've realized I have, but it's certainly not bad. During a good, solid, "fast" run, especially around sunset, I often find myself stopping, staring, and laughing. Ahhh, endorphins.
Interestingly enough, after three weeks of not running, I ran a faster 6-miler than I think I have run all summer. Despite a hard wind in my face, despite my face insisting on producing snot rockets even though I have a strict no-snot-rockets policy. I've realized this past year that the less I run, the better I am at it. The bike intervals are really helping my endurance and leg turnover, and the kettlebelling is really helping my leg strength. My calves are killing me, though.

If only I could find a way to stop my nose from running so much, I think I'd run through the winter.

Instead, I'm going to get back to weightlifting. If I can find a time when my little gym isn't so crowded, I'm going to start off with a 2x/week barbell program with squat, bench, deadlift, and overhead press. I'll do the 30/60/90* intervals on the bike twice a week, and possibly throw in at least one kettlebell session. After six weeks of that I'll reassess and come up with a new plan!

*30/60/90 is my new favorite cardio workout. I picked it up, of all places, in Glamour magazine and it's loosely based on some popular class at Equinox. The basic idea is that for the first ten minutes you do 30 seconds hard, 1 minute easy; the second 10 minutes you do 1 minute hard 1 minute easy; third ten minutes you do 90 seconds hard 1 minute easy. It's challenging, fun, and makes time fly by. It even makes the elliptical difficult. I love it, and every week I crank up the resistance just a little. It's fun to see how many more miles I put in for the same 40 minutes.

Plateful of pain

Just for my records - my starting weights for the following lifts.

Squat = 75lbs
Bench press = 60lbs
Deadlift = 100lbs
Press = 50lbs
Power clean = 45lbs (just trying to get the form right on this one, it's a toughie!)

Incidentally, power cleans are just about the most fun I have ever had in the gym.

After leaving the gym today, I went straight home and tried to cram in my run. My legs felt like lead. I made it just over 2 miles (instead of 5) and limped home. This is just a case of putting too much on my proverbial plate, I think. I won't run right after squats again.

Speaking of too much on my plate, I had an amazing dinner of steak tips and grilled corn and potato salad and Guinness, courtesy of my roommate. He's flying off to San Diego today for a big interview, and I just know he'll get the job, and I'll be so happy for him/so sad for me. This would make the fourth person I know in the past couple weeks who has gotten a really exciting new job in a very different locale.
The times they are a'changin.

Better now

My sunburn is peeling off and it hurrrrts. I tried putting aloe on it last night and it stung so bad I screamed and had to jump back in the shower and wash it off. If the sun ever comes out again, I am buying the highest SPF spray sunscreen I can find, because 15 just isn't going to cut it this summer.
(Merry, I think you're right about the sun poisoning. Yuck!)

Anyway, last night I did a 5-miler with 3 tempo miles in the middle. And it wasn't hard at all. Either I've been selling myself short (or slow) or I need to recalibrate the ol' Nike+. Or get a Garmin.

In other news, I'm feeling the pull of the marathon bug again. When I set the arbitrary goal of "run a marathon before my 30th birthday", I didn't realize that the reality of the situation is that I'd either have to run a fall marathon this fall or a spring/summer marathon next year. More musings on that later.

Strength training progress : 5x5 bench press @ 60lbs. Definitely switching to a straight-up 5x5 program next week.

Plans

I promised my aching hip that I would rest for an entire week after the half-marathon, and that, with much difficulty, is what I did. And you know what? It didn't kill me. I still kept up with my thrice-weekly cardiostrength workouts, but that's about it.

Since today is a new day and a new month and all that, I'm going to take this space to outline some of my summer training goals and plans!

I'm using the FIRST plan to train for theFalmouth Road Race in August. After reading about it and thinking it sounded like a really good plan for me (I get injured a lot, like to exercise mid-day but hate the treadmill, get bored easily, and like really specific workout planning) I decided to get the book. It's actually pretty good. I'm not one of those people who is ever going to qualify for Boston, but the other programs in there are good, and the stories are fun and inspiring. It even makes science interesting!
So, I am going to actually do the 5K plan for Falmouth, even though it's a 7 mile race. My justification is as follows :
a) I want to start off conservatively, instead of jumping into a new plan headfirst and getting hurt like I always do
b) Conservatively or not, the plan has me doing 7-mile midweek tempo runs several times during the program, and some speed sessions should take me close to an hour. Yikes.
c) Last year I had a pretty decent showing (for me) and I hadn't done any speedwork or run more than 5 miles at a time. If I just want to beat last year's time, this should be more than sufficient.
d) I tend to run faster and be more fit in general if I cross-train, especially weight lifting.

In addition to the running plan, I'm also following a beginner barbell strength-training plan, found here on the very informative and awesome GymJunkies.com website. I recently completed his 31 day "shred" challenge (minus most of the diet part because I don't really want to lose weight, am lazy, and love beer too much) and lost 5 or so pounds anyway. The best part though was finally getting over my fear of the weight room...at least for the most part. The second best part was having my hip-based IT band pain almost completely subside after two weeks of strength training.

So there you have it. Structured, simple, and not easy in the slightest (but not grueling enough to keep me limping all through the summer). Just the way I like it.

Tonight's run : 1 mile warmup, 2 miles tempo (@9:34/mile, or something like that), 1 mile cooldown.

Benchmarks

I have a very haphazard weight training regimen. Actually, that goes for my overall fitness in general. I don't track my weight training, running, human-sized-hamster-wheeling (elliptical), or whatever other weird stuff I do in the gym. The only way I know I've made progress is because I've outgrown all the dumbbells & the largest body bar in the aerobics studio/nautilus part of the gym. I'm too afeard to even ask if there's a grown-ups weightroom in the back, which I suspect there is. Some days, I randomly choose a weight based on what happens to be laying around on the floor. Hence, I generally don't have any clear way to measure my progress, except "I feel better", or "I can lift that now" or "I can run three miles without vomiting".
When I first started working out, I could barely do 15 crunches. I couldn't hold plank pose to save my life, and was plagued with back problems from standing around in bad shoes all day without a strong core to help balance me.
Today, I did full straight-leg lying-flat-to-sitting-up-straight situps, holding 17lbs of iron over my chest. That's my benchmark, right there.