I know I haven’t been blogging lately…but it’s summer and this girl is busy! During the school year, blogging is almost my excuse for not doing my homework, but during the summer I’m a free bird and I haven’t been nearly as consistent as I had been.
But here’s one of my new favorite songs, “Brave” by Sara Bareilles! Besides the fact that I love the dance moves in the video because it reminds me of myself sometimes, I love the words and the message, and the beat is great to run or workout to! It’s so positive and uplifting! Be brave to say what you wanna say, take chances, step out of your comfort zone, dance in the middle of the gym or the street or wherever you are! Be BRAVE today!
Two weekends ago was the state track meet…which means that the following week was my FAT WEEK
Fat Week is the week immediately following State in which I 1.) am required by my coach to NOT RUN and 2.) can eat whatever I want…to a certain extent. So this being my fat week, I’ve followed my instructions well. It’s kinda hard and kinda weird to not be running every day like usual, but since I only get two fat weeks per year (one after cross country and one after track) I figure I’d better take advantage of it.
My only problem is that while it feels kinda funny to be completely free to eat whatever I want and not burn it off during my fat week, by the end of the week, I don’t want to stop. During my fat week, the only exercise I did was bike a few miles. I went to grad parties and ate plenty of cupcakes and cookies and barbecue pork sandwiches. I ate Oreos and M&Ms and a delicious chocolate cake my middle school running coach made for me:) And I made slutty brownies with some girls on my team. YUM:)
So this week I tried to start up running again and am very sad at how out of shape I feel already. I ran a mile on Memorial Day, two miles on Tuesday (all of which were slow, like 9-minute miles but I still was dying anyways) and three miles today (with my friend’s super fast friend who ran way too fast for this poor girl). I feel so out of shape! I felt like I couldn’t go any faster today and we were only running three miles at slightly under 8 minutes per mile! And then I realized that I didn’t just take a week off, it was more like three. Since I’d been trying to deal with my plantar fasciitis, I’d scaled back on my running a lot more than usual in the last two weeks of track. So now I have the lovely task of getting myself re-motivated and getting back into shape. I gotta start getting ready for cross country in August and for cross country camp in two weeks. I want to stand out this year in cross country, in a good way. Not in the “Oh wow, what happened to her that made her so slow this year” kind of standing out. I want us to have an amazingly successful season again this year like we did last year. And it all starts now. Because if I can get my aerobic base as high as possible over the summer, I’ll be that much ahead of the game when the real season starts, and I can just keep going uphill from there! I’m getting so excited!
And here’s an inspirational video to remind us all to eat our salad… and to give us an ab workout! GO CORE!!
Kara Goucher is one of my biggest inspirations…and it makes me feel a teeny bit better about myself that while I couldn’t even keep up with her for 100 meters, at least she still considers me a runner!!
5 ice cubes (not needed if strawberries are frozen)
8oz canned pineapple and its juice (get the kind in 100% juice)
about 1/4 c. orange juice
I made this smoothie this morning for breakfast and it was the best smoothie I’ve ever made! And with the juice in it, I didn’t even need to add any sugar because it was naturally sweet enough. Smoothies are one of my favorite things in the summer. They’re refreshing, they’re healthy (if you don’t add too much sugar! or ice cream…), they’re easy to make, and they’re delicious! I’m looking forward to finding more yummy smoothie recipes and making up my own to share this summer!
I tried this stretch and it ACTUALLY WORKED. I was kinda surprised! I will have to keep doing it! I’ve tried other stretches and other ways of massaging my foot, but none of them really got rid of the pain like this one did! I’m excited to see if it can actually help me get better!!
I found this video on Runner’s World, and I think it sums up Plantar Fasciitis pretty well!
State Track was this past weekend, so now I’ve got a week to rest my foot up so I can get back to training for cross country and get 400 miles in this summer! My foot is getting a bit better, but it was still acting up enough at state that it messed up my stride I ran a not-so-good leg, but my team still did decently!
But my whole state meet recap will have to wait, I gotta ice up my foot and get some sleep!
My track team has a few girls who like to sing. Occasionally we try to do an acapella thing while we run, like singing “Don’t Stop Believing” like they do on Glee, or songs from Pitch Perfect, or we sing “Thrift shop.” It’s slightly embarrassing, but kinda cool! LOL But mostly it’s just one girl who sings constantly, and then she gets the song stuck in the rest of our heads so we all start singing. All the time. When we’re running, she sings. When we’re doing our dynamic stretches, she sings. When we’re getting dressed in the locker room, she sings. No matter what we’re doing. I love her. The only thing that I have a problem with is that it’s always the same song. Every. Single. Time. She’s been singing “Just Give Me a Reason” by Pink! pretty much every day since the beginning of track. I cannot stand that song anymore!! We try to think of new songs to sing and never can come up with anything! We just need to find her a new song to sing! We need to ‘Just give her a reason’ to stop singing it every single day!
So finally I decided to find some more songs that are good to run to! Maybe I can start singing one of these tomorrow at practice before my friend starts up with “Just Give Me a Reason” again!
Alive by Krewella
#thatPower by Will I Am with Justin Bieber
Thriftshop by Mackelmore
Feel This Moment by Pitbull with Christina Aguilera
Our conference meet was on this past Monday. I was supposed to run the 4x800m, open 800m, and the 4x400m. I ended up running the 4×800 and half of the open 800, hobbling and limping the second half of the open 800m, and finding a substitute for my 4x400m.
I started out the day with a bit of pain in my arch. I’d been having mild arch problems for the past couple weeks but it went away when I ran and I didn’t think too much of it. But then I did a long run on Sunday, for an hour at a moderate pace, about 8 minute miles. My arch started hurting a bit more after that and my hips hurt a bit too, but once again, I thought I could just push through it, rub it out, and I’d be fine. But my body had other ideas.
I ran my leg of the 4×800 in 2:29, not my best but pretty darn close. I was happy enough. My team ended up finishing first and getting a team PR in 9:41, so I was even happier!
During cool down and the warmup for my second 800 though, my arch would start hurting much worse than before. I told my coach about it and she just recommended that I tried to stay off it as long as I could before my race and that I keep my regular running shoes on for as long as possible, rather than my spikes. She recommended icing it and taking advil later. I know it’s hard to tell, but in retrospect, I wish I just would have scratched that race.
I started out okay in the first hundred meters before my arch started aching…then as I started the second lap it started getting worse…and popping…and by the last 200, I couldn’t even run on my toes anymore without it popping and hurting like crap. I limped all the way down the home stretch and still managed to place 5th in 2:36.94. Not bad for being hurt, I guess. But what made it suck even more was the girl at the end who tried to be nice. I was obviously in pain and she goes, “It’s okay, everybody has a bad race sometimes.” Maybe it wasn’t intentionally mean. But I kinda wanted to slap her. That wasn’t a bad race. That was me shooting myself in the foot and still running on it. That was me get my foot eaten by a ravenous lion, bear, and shark at the same time and still finishing it out…even though I probably shouldn’t have. That was part of me dying on the track, not because of my crappy time, but because I knew that I just did something really really really bad that I shouldn’t have and that may jeopardize the rest of this season. I’ve apparently got plantar fasciitis and I just made it way worse.
I could hardly walk all night after my race or especially the this morning. As the day went by, it loosened up a bit but I was still kinda hobbling around the halls all day. I went to see my school trainer before practice and hoped that it would help to just tape it up. Nope. It made it feel a bit better when I was just walking around, but I didn’t even get a hundred meters into my warmup before I had to stop. I went back inside and ended up on the elliptical for forty minutes, then iced it and stretched until practice was over.
Plantar Fasciitis sucks. A lot. Especially this late in the season, when it’s beautiful outside and all I want to do is run, and the state qualifying meet is tomorrow and the state meet is next week already!
Hopefully ice, advil, and prayer will at least get me through the next two weeks!
As a runner, talking about pee is not taboo. My team shares bad running bathroom stories often because, hey, it happens to everyone! There’s that awkward time when you get walked in on when using a porta-potty…or when your coach almost walks in on you because you gotta go so bad that you can’t wait to use the women’s bathroom…or when you gotta go in the bushes and see another group of runners run by you and you hope they understand and that they didn’t see anything… or when you try to run into a church to use their facilities, and find yourself standing conspicuously in the doorway and the pastor invites you to join them but you can’t cuz you gotta finish your run…or when you accidentally go into the men’s side because you had to go so badly that you didn’t pay any attention to which bathroom you’re running into…I think you get the point. As runners, we all have those great bathroom stories to tell.
But your pee tells a story too. This chart or NCAA’s pee chart (here) help you read what your pee is telling you. Kinda like a palm reading. Except a pee reading. And it’s a lot more reliable. Your pee tells you how hydrated you are. If your pee is light straw-colored, you’re well hydrated and you are in a great position to perform well. But the darker it gets, the more dehydrated you are.
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Studies have shown that by the time you’re feeling thirsty, you’re already dehydrated. That means that your performance level is already decreased and you’re putting more stress on your body. You’re not doing yourself any favors by not drinking all day long, then downing a bottle or two of water between intervals. I’ve tried it. All you get is that lovely jiggling sloshing sound from your stomach while you run. It’s uncomfortable, annoying, and you still feel just as thirsty. Instead, keep a water bottle with you all day. If it’s in your hands or sitting on your desk or somewhere within reach, you’re more likely to drink more during the day. I’ll be honest – I can be really lazy sometimes. Really, who would want to get up to get a drink of water if you’re already comfy sitting on your couch?? Or if you’re at school and you’ve got a teacher in a bad mood or a test or a 2000 word essay to write and you can’t go out of the room to get a drink, then what do you do?? Or who would want to get off the computer while you’re blogging about water to go to the kitchen to get a drink?? The point is, if it’s in front of your face, you’ll remember to drink throughout the day so you don’t feel like passing out later on. And everyone, especially you (and the grouchy teacher), is happy.
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So keep a bottle of water on you. And look at your pee. Are you doing a good job and staying hydrated? Or do you need to make a stop by the drinking fountain before you go about your day? DO WHAT YOUR PEE SAYS. You will thank yourself later.
I ran at the Drake Relays yesterday in the 4×8 and it was amazing! The whole experience was incredible, with so much competition between so many talented athletes all weekend. Thursday afternoon my friend ran the 3000m and ran a great race, despite what she thinks. I am so proud of her! Friday was another intense day, with people from my school running in several more events. That night, we also got to watch the women’s 1500 with world-class athletes including Jenny Simpson, Morgan Uceny, Shannon Rowbury, Sheila Reid, and the 16-year-old Mary Cain. I want to be like them! Jenny Simpson won in 4:03, and broke the Drake record. If only I could be that fast and make it look so effortless! Mary Cain got 6th in a time of 4:10.7. She’s as old as I am and she runs over a minute faster than I do! I don’t even think I could keep up with her for 200m without falling behind!
The women’s 1500 at the bell lap – Simpson is leading, followed by Reid, Grace, Rowbury, Anderson, and Cain.
After Simpson won, she got to do a victory lap. We were sitting in the first row so I got to go up and high-five her! My friend who qualified in the 1500 wanted her autograph but was too shy to go ask for it. I offered to, so I GOT TO TALK TO JENNY SIMPSON!!!!! SO EXCITING!!!!!!!! Our conversation went something like this:
Me: Can you sign this please?
Simpson: Sure!
Other people: Can you sign this?
Simpson (to me): Can I use your pen?
Me: Go ahead!
Simpson (after signing more autographs): Is this somebody’s pen?
Me: It’s mine!
So basically it was a good start and we’re probably gonna be best friends sometime. A girl can wish can’t she??
Saturday morning was our 4×8. I was kinda disappointed that we had to run early Saturday so we couldn’t just get it over with sooner and we had to wake up early, but hey, I can’t complain, I just thankful that we got to go and run! Plus, the weather was gorgeous and it couldn’t have been any better. It was the nicest meet we’ve had all season. It wasn’t too hot or too cold, and there was hardly any wind.
We warmed up a bit, did our dynamic stretching, ran a few strides. My coach wanted us to get in some longer buildups and strides (like 200m) but we couldn’t find room. Looking back, I wonder if it would have helped to do longer buildups instead of just doing more 50m ones. They took us out to the track and wait for it to be our turn to run. Just standing out there on the edge of the blue oval got my adrenaline pumping and the butterflies in my stomach again. I’d been nervous all morning and had hardly been able to eat, and it only got worse as the time for us to run got nearer. Finally, we were told to line up and take our sweats off. Since we’d qualified in the 16th out of 16, we were in the very outside lane of the second waterfall. They ran all of us together in one heat. The gun went off. Our first leg girl is our fastest 800m runner, so she got to the front of the pack and took a decent lead. She ran a 2:20 split; not a 2:17 like she’d wanted, but still good enough to start us in first place. As she came down the last stretch, I was so nervous. I knew I wasn’t as fast as the other second leg girls and that many of them would pass me. But I kept my head up and kept the lead for the first 300 meters. After that, several girls caught up and began passing me one by one. I did my best to keep up, but I couldn’t compete. I held on for as long as I could and I’m happy that I didn’t let myself get too discouraged about getting passed. But as I finished the last 100 meters, where I would normally kick it in and speed up, all I was worried about was finding my 3rd place girl. The girls running ahead of me were all spread out across the track, and I didn’t know where to go. And good hand-offs are so important! When I successfully handed off my baton our third leg girl, I was disappointed in myself. I thought I had run slowly since I didn’t feel like collapsing at the end. I cheered on our 3rd leg girl, who ran a season PR by 7 seconds and an all-time PR by one second in 2:23. Our last girl ran in 2:32, which wasn’t her best. She felt so bad about it at the end and we tried to cheer her up. It could’ve happened to any of us. I still felt bad about my race, but when I went to talk to my coach, she said I’d run a 2:28!! A PR!!! It was only a second faster than I’d run last Thursday, but it was much better than I’d thought I ran! I’d had no reason to be upset with myself after all! Our team took 13th out of 16 in a time of 9:45. We can only hope to keep improving through the last few weeks of the season!
I ran a not-so-good leg, but my team still did decently!
But mostly it’s just one girl who sings constantly, and then she gets the song stuck in the rest of our heads so we all start singing. All the time. When we’re running, she sings. When we’re doing our dynamic stretches, she sings. When we’re getting dressed in the locker room, she sings. No matter what we’re doing. I love her. The only thing that I have a problem with is that it’s always the same song. Every. Single. Time. She’s been singing “Just Give Me a Reason” by Pink! pretty much every day since the beginning of track. I cannot stand that song anymore!! We try to think of new songs to sing and never can come up with anything! We just need to find her a new song to sing! We need to ‘Just give her a reason’ to stop singing it every single day!
