I woke up this morning, jumped out of bed and was instantly mad. How in the world am I already developing shin splints? Right now it is barely noticeable but I have done track before and I know what it feels like when they start to appear. I had barely run a total of 4 miles this week, what am I doing wrong? (If you google it, there is about 600 million things I could be doing wrong so that was helpful…not.) I still went to the gym to do my distance run before work which was 3 miles. Nothing too hard, right?
When I got to the gym I was somewhat scared to run because I don't want my shins to get any worse. Shin splints are quite literally the most miserable thing in the world to deal with. I decided to run at 6mph so it would be an easier pace and hopefully easier on my legs. I ran a total of 3.2 miles in 34 minutes (including warm up and cool down.) Not the best time in the world, but also not the worst. I stopped twice to stretch my legs out quick but overall not a bad run. I noticed that once my body was warmed up my shins did not hurt as much, which was helpful with my run.
Since I work today, tomorrow I am going to stop by the running company and talk to them about what to do. The running company is a running club/shoe store in downtown lincoln. They analyze the way you walk and run, can tell you what side of your foot you favor, can determine if you should be using any type of support, and can help (or at least try to help) with any sort of running ailment. I hope they can help me stop these stupid shin splints from developing into anything worse.
Saturday, February 28, 2015
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Day 4
Now I know that the title of my blog is somewhat contradicting to what I am working for, but if there is one thing that I am definitely NOT it is a sprinter. I have known this forever, I remember in 8th grade track wondering how in the WORLD to people sprint that fast in 100 meters? Or that fast at all? My legs just don't go like that (curse you legs.) Yes I can run but no I do not do well with running super fast which is why I decided to pair one of my least favorite things with one of my most favorite things: sprint mile training on Zumba day. So my Thursdays will consist of getting the evil bad thing over and done with before I go teach a dance party for an hour and call it a night.
I got to the Campus Rec Center about 30 minutes before I teach which gave me enough time to warm up, bust out a mile, recover, clock in and head to Zumba. During my elliptical warm up I decided to aim for an 8 minute mile, which would be running at 7.5 mph. For a lot of people that is no trouble but I usually average a 10 minute mile, so for me that is busting butt. I was excited to get going because I do not teach Zumba till 9pm, which means I have waited around all day for a workout and I can get antsy towards the end of the day if I still haven't done anything. After my warm up I jumped on a treadmill, set it to 7.5 and got going. By .20 of my mile I was ready to run slower. By .50 I was pouring sweat and breathing heavy. By .75 I was afraid of potentially vomiting. By .80 I stopped running for 10 seconds for a slight recover. After 10 seconds I got back on and was so mad that I stopped I bumped my speed to 8mph and finished my mile in 8 minutes! It was awful. And great. And horrible. And awesome, all at the same time. Then I got to teach Zumba for an hour and life was good!
At the Rec this week we have been having an event called Celebrate Every(body) week, which has been really cool. In a nutshell, it basically is promoting positive body image to college kids. I do not struggle as much with my body image today as I used to. I remember freshman year of college I was having a lot of mental issues with how I looked and what others thought of me. The beginning of my freshman year I also had no active routine and didn't know that I actually had to still keep eating vegetables even though mom was not there (sorry mom, I know better now.) To me it's crazy to think about, and others probably have not noticed, but I actually now weigh 20 pounds less than I did at Christmas my first year of college. (And I am a lot stronger, woohoo!) It took me a long time to really understand that the scale does not define me, I define me. Once I started to work out for fun and compete against me and not the numbers, it just got better and better. One other aspect that has helped tremendously with my own body image is (sorry, I am going to get sappy for a second) my awesome boyfriend who never fails to tell me how beautiful I am. It's truly great being surrounded by people who lift you up rather than tear you down.
Tomorrow is rest day. Hopefully I can stick to that…or at least just do yoga.
I got to the Campus Rec Center about 30 minutes before I teach which gave me enough time to warm up, bust out a mile, recover, clock in and head to Zumba. During my elliptical warm up I decided to aim for an 8 minute mile, which would be running at 7.5 mph. For a lot of people that is no trouble but I usually average a 10 minute mile, so for me that is busting butt. I was excited to get going because I do not teach Zumba till 9pm, which means I have waited around all day for a workout and I can get antsy towards the end of the day if I still haven't done anything. After my warm up I jumped on a treadmill, set it to 7.5 and got going. By .20 of my mile I was ready to run slower. By .50 I was pouring sweat and breathing heavy. By .75 I was afraid of potentially vomiting. By .80 I stopped running for 10 seconds for a slight recover. After 10 seconds I got back on and was so mad that I stopped I bumped my speed to 8mph and finished my mile in 8 minutes! It was awful. And great. And horrible. And awesome, all at the same time. Then I got to teach Zumba for an hour and life was good!
At the Rec this week we have been having an event called Celebrate Every(body) week, which has been really cool. In a nutshell, it basically is promoting positive body image to college kids. I do not struggle as much with my body image today as I used to. I remember freshman year of college I was having a lot of mental issues with how I looked and what others thought of me. The beginning of my freshman year I also had no active routine and didn't know that I actually had to still keep eating vegetables even though mom was not there (sorry mom, I know better now.) To me it's crazy to think about, and others probably have not noticed, but I actually now weigh 20 pounds less than I did at Christmas my first year of college. (And I am a lot stronger, woohoo!) It took me a long time to really understand that the scale does not define me, I define me. Once I started to work out for fun and compete against me and not the numbers, it just got better and better. One other aspect that has helped tremendously with my own body image is (sorry, I am going to get sappy for a second) my awesome boyfriend who never fails to tell me how beautiful I am. It's truly great being surrounded by people who lift you up rather than tear you down.
Tomorrow is rest day. Hopefully I can stick to that…or at least just do yoga.
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
Day 3
Today was a day where I really wanted to skip everything that was life and stay at home. It was snowing outside and gross (yesterday it was 50 and beautiful) plus before my scheduled gym time I ate probably 8 mini cupcakes from Hippies birthday. My entire upper body was sore from my work yesterday and sitting sounded a whole lot easier than doing. The sugar from the cupcakes was making me feel sluggish and not excited about going to boot camp, but I did anyway knowing that I would feel better afterwards.
Which is not a lie, I did feel better after my workout. But during it it was hard. Really hard. I blame those damn cupcakes (they were really good, just not good an hour or so before the gym.) On Wednesdays, my absolute favorite bootcamp instructor teaches class at 3:30 so that made it better. She is just the right amount of fun, motivating, and funny. For anyone who doesn't know what bootcamp is, it is a total body one hour workout that you do at your own pace but still in a group fitness setting. So in an hour you do both cardio and strength exercises back and forth. I couldn't tell you everything we did in class today, but one thing that I remember was towards the end we did a leg circuit which consisted of basically 7 or 8 leg strengthening moves with weight that you would do 20 reps of one exercise and move on to the next one at your own pace until you completed the list. Once you completed the list, you would start back at the top and keep going through this cycle until the allotted amount of time was complete. I thought ok, this is fairly simple no big deal and when time began I started my round. After a few minutes, the instructor decided it would be fun to hold up a sign that said Burpees and shouted that it was now burpee time. So you had to stop where you were in the circuit and do burpees until she put the sign down. I silently cursed the instructor in my head the entire burpee time because I don't like surprises, especially in my workout. Then she put the sign down and we continued, but before I finished one circuit she held the sign up two more times only with 'squat jumps' and 'star jacks' written on the board (which wasn't as bad because I was expecting this now.)
I always feel better after the gym but somedays getting there seems so difficult. I can't wait for it to finally get warmer outside and stay warmer so I can run more outside. I probably won't always make a post for Wednesday's because Wednesday will be my bootcamp days and there's not really a lot to say about them except for that they are usually a good workout.
Which is not a lie, I did feel better after my workout. But during it it was hard. Really hard. I blame those damn cupcakes (they were really good, just not good an hour or so before the gym.) On Wednesdays, my absolute favorite bootcamp instructor teaches class at 3:30 so that made it better. She is just the right amount of fun, motivating, and funny. For anyone who doesn't know what bootcamp is, it is a total body one hour workout that you do at your own pace but still in a group fitness setting. So in an hour you do both cardio and strength exercises back and forth. I couldn't tell you everything we did in class today, but one thing that I remember was towards the end we did a leg circuit which consisted of basically 7 or 8 leg strengthening moves with weight that you would do 20 reps of one exercise and move on to the next one at your own pace until you completed the list. Once you completed the list, you would start back at the top and keep going through this cycle until the allotted amount of time was complete. I thought ok, this is fairly simple no big deal and when time began I started my round. After a few minutes, the instructor decided it would be fun to hold up a sign that said Burpees and shouted that it was now burpee time. So you had to stop where you were in the circuit and do burpees until she put the sign down. I silently cursed the instructor in my head the entire burpee time because I don't like surprises, especially in my workout. Then she put the sign down and we continued, but before I finished one circuit she held the sign up two more times only with 'squat jumps' and 'star jacks' written on the board (which wasn't as bad because I was expecting this now.)
I always feel better after the gym but somedays getting there seems so difficult. I can't wait for it to finally get warmer outside and stay warmer so I can run more outside. I probably won't always make a post for Wednesday's because Wednesday will be my bootcamp days and there's not really a lot to say about them except for that they are usually a good workout.
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Day 2
When I woke up this morning my legs were a little sore. Not to the point of painful, just to where I was aware of them. My past running routines have usually been intervals (walk, jog, run) so my body is not necessarily used to locking in at one set pace and running.
Today my plan called for 30 minutes of SS. I am used to strength conditioning though so I did my usual 60 minute workout. For warm up i did 10 minutes on the elliptical while practicing different running breathing techniques. Last night I was reading more on running and having a breathing pattern seemed to help many people (I have known about this before but have not put it much into practice.) The best pattern for me would either be 2:2 or 3:3 (take two steps breathe in through nose, take two steps breath out through mouth and 3:3 is doing three steps). I worked most body regions from the waist up to balance out what I did yesterday, so bis, tris, shoulders, chest and abs. After my workout I took a little more time to stretch out my legs and arms than I usually do. It is so easy to forget to slow down after a work out and to take the time to stretch.
A fun idea that others have done is when training or just running for fun, they dedicate their run to something. Usually I hear this concept a lot more in yoga but it is also done for running. On my running days I decided that on most runs (not necessarily every single one) I will dedicate my efforts to either a person, an idea, an emotion, whatever is on my mind that day. Whenever something seems difficult, I can redirect my mind to what I dedicated todays run to and hopefully that will help me reach my goal.
Today my plan called for 30 minutes of SS. I am used to strength conditioning though so I did my usual 60 minute workout. For warm up i did 10 minutes on the elliptical while practicing different running breathing techniques. Last night I was reading more on running and having a breathing pattern seemed to help many people (I have known about this before but have not put it much into practice.) The best pattern for me would either be 2:2 or 3:3 (take two steps breathe in through nose, take two steps breath out through mouth and 3:3 is doing three steps). I worked most body regions from the waist up to balance out what I did yesterday, so bis, tris, shoulders, chest and abs. After my workout I took a little more time to stretch out my legs and arms than I usually do. It is so easy to forget to slow down after a work out and to take the time to stretch.
A fun idea that others have done is when training or just running for fun, they dedicate their run to something. Usually I hear this concept a lot more in yoga but it is also done for running. On my running days I decided that on most runs (not necessarily every single one) I will dedicate my efforts to either a person, an idea, an emotion, whatever is on my mind that day. Whenever something seems difficult, I can redirect my mind to what I dedicated todays run to and hopefully that will help me reach my goal.
Monday, February 23, 2015
Day 1
Today it started. I began training for my first half marathon! I couldn't be more excited for this opportunity and I am so excited to see how this turns out. Yesterday I was thinking about how far I have come in my fitness these past two years. I like to keep challenging myself because it is to easy to fall into an exercise rut where you get bored and lose enthusiasm. I went from not working out (ever) to now I am a group fitness instructor (Zumba is my fav). I love taking boot camp classes, I enjoy boxing, running, cycling, and the most surprising to me is lifting. I used to hate weights and now I love them! I never considered myself a runner. When I think of a runner I think of someone who has the endurance of an ox and can run for six hours straight. While I can run for thirty minutes and not think much of it, I have never really pushed myself for those long distances because I always thought there is no way I can do that.
Yesterday the thought of running a marathon came across my mind. I thought about it, and knowing that you have to walk before you run, I decided that I was going to challenge myself in a way that I never have before and aim to run a half marathon. Not knowing much about this area of fitness and training, I looked everywhere I could online for different plans, tips, training techniques, and so on till I settled on a 16 week preparation plan I found. Still skeptical of this idea in general, my next search was a race date. Figuring that I could travel to another state for something like this, I searched for Half Marathon Races 2015. I found a list that showed every race in the nation for the year and looked for a time 16 weeks from today. I was absolutely STUNNED that in exactly 16 weeks there was a half marathon in Kearney, NE, which is the area I grew up in. I knew then that God had planned for me to do this.
My plan is fairly simple and still allows for me to go to boot camp, strength train, and teach Zumba. My main running days will be Monday, Thursday and Saturday. Today, being week one, I had to run a distance of 2 miles and then SS (Strength Train and Stretch) for 20 minutes. I ran my 2 miles at 6.5mph and including my warm up and cool down finished in 22 minutes. The run was fairly simple, towards the end I became a bit tired because I haven't ran in awhile but I was still ready to lift afterwards. I lifted legs and back after my run and called it day. Day one is complete and I am feeling good about myself!
Yesterday the thought of running a marathon came across my mind. I thought about it, and knowing that you have to walk before you run, I decided that I was going to challenge myself in a way that I never have before and aim to run a half marathon. Not knowing much about this area of fitness and training, I looked everywhere I could online for different plans, tips, training techniques, and so on till I settled on a 16 week preparation plan I found. Still skeptical of this idea in general, my next search was a race date. Figuring that I could travel to another state for something like this, I searched for Half Marathon Races 2015. I found a list that showed every race in the nation for the year and looked for a time 16 weeks from today. I was absolutely STUNNED that in exactly 16 weeks there was a half marathon in Kearney, NE, which is the area I grew up in. I knew then that God had planned for me to do this.
My plan is fairly simple and still allows for me to go to boot camp, strength train, and teach Zumba. My main running days will be Monday, Thursday and Saturday. Today, being week one, I had to run a distance of 2 miles and then SS (Strength Train and Stretch) for 20 minutes. I ran my 2 miles at 6.5mph and including my warm up and cool down finished in 22 minutes. The run was fairly simple, towards the end I became a bit tired because I haven't ran in awhile but I was still ready to lift afterwards. I lifted legs and back after my run and called it day. Day one is complete and I am feeling good about myself!
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