Fail.

I didn’t write my recap post last night. Why? Photo money. I can’t bring myself to spend $80 on my race photos just yet. MarathonFoto, why u so expensive? Fail.

Anyway, I’m totally done recovering! Truthfully, I was just about done recovering 3 days after Chicago. I TAP DANCED three days after running. Tonight I’m kicking off my recharged drive to work out by attending my gym’s conditioning class again. Last time, this resulted in 2 days of sore muscles. Don’t care. I’m determined to a) look amazing for my part in the musical, and b) tone up so I can run faster and (hopefully!) break 2 hours in a half this spring.

In other fail news, I had originally planned on testing out a modified vegan diet (read: still okay with having milk/eggs/meat now and then) in order to get ready for my show. Yesterday was my first day of testing out the diet. It went great until I was driving home and I got the most intense craving for a steak and cheese sub. You better believe I got a small one and ate that sucker with a glass of wine. Don’t care. Delicious.

So right now I have one more race planned for 2010, and three planned for 2011 (Super Sunday, BAA 5k, Run to Remember… though none are open for registration yet). I need more, preferably in the Boston area. Travel fees are killin’ me. Suggestions?

Feeling Stronger

Every time you exercise with consistency, you get a bit stronger. That’s a given. But for the first time, I actually FELT stronger this morning.

Last night I did a track workout with extra laps to bring my distance up to 7.5 miles. A month and a half ago, after my first track workout, I was hobbling for about two days. This morning, I did an hour-long muscle conditioning class at my gym. At 5:30am. Less than 12 hours (with only about 6.5 hours of sleep) after the track. And I feel amazing, aside from a few shakes from not eating enough post-workout. Seriously, I need to eat more.

The point where I realized how much stronger I felt was at the end of the class. We finished it off with crunches, my strength training nemesis (hills are my running nemesis). I waited for the fatigue to come and… it didn’t. When I first started taking the abs class at my gym, my neck hurt from straining too hard, and I was fatigued just a few reps in. After we ended our sets my mind was like “hey woah why are we stopping, let’s do some more!” Though that may have been the hunger talking.

I also ran a 36:32 4 miler last Friday. There are some days where I feel like I can hardly pull out a decent 5K. And for whatever reason, I rocked those 4 miles. I don’t question it. I lend a little credit to the Starbucks doubleshot I consumed a half hour beforehand, but let’s ignore that and focus on the awesome.

When did you first feel your training come together and have that moment of “woah, I’m strong!”?

100

There are 100 days until the marathon. Uhhhhh wow. Tomorrow we hit the double digits of the countdown, and I have my first double digit run since March. And unlike last week, I plan on actually running the whole thing!

My legs are still pretty sore from the track on Tuesday. I think I really didn’t stretch well enough and I am so paying for it. Last night I took it easy and did strength training instead of running my club’s weekly 5K. Though I did hang out at the 5K finish line with the other volunteers and socialized for a while afterwards. I can’t wait to actually run the 5K with them!

So my strength training plan… I kind of love it. The trainer I met with broke down each major muscle group and gave me different exercises to do for each group. 2-3 times a week I do 3×10 of each exercise with 30 second rests between sets.

Upper Body
Biceps: biceps curls, hammer curls
Triceps: kickbacks, overhead extension, pulldowns
Chest: pushups, chest fly
Shoulders: overhead press, forward raises, lateral raises
Upper Back: reverse fly, bent over row

Lower Body (not many exercises here, since they’re worked out while everyday walking/running)
Quads: squats
Hamstrings: deadlifts
Glutes: walking lunges

Core
Abs: crunches, leg lifts, rotations
Lumbar/Lower Back: superman, back extension, “bird dog”

By the end of summer I am going to be so toned I can’t even

Hopefully tonight I’ll be able to do an easy 3 miles and let my legs recover. It’s an absolutely beautiful 70° day… no excuse for not running!

In other news, I picked a cucumber from my garden yesterday morning! So of course I had to have it as a snack last night. I’m officially spoiled by fresh garden produce. Nothing like it :)

Happy July!

(via tumblr)