Sunday, April 27, 2008

The bit of something called life

I'm still trying to figure out where the month of April's gone. It's been quite a whirl wind, so much has happened in such a short span of time I'm wondering if it's all been real. My month started off with a trip to Virginia to go to a baby shower for a close friend of mine. I came home and my work schedule has changed-a good change more hours. I also started to increase my mileage ten-fold once my body healed up. Add another baby shower, some planning for a bridal shower designing the invitations, extra childcare duty, my official 1st meet of the season in a debut race and one meet in Providence. Ah yes and lets not forget the ever lasting search (since Feb) for a roommate in the mix. Wow my head is spinning just typing this and I'm sure that there's more I'm forgetting to mention. The good news is I'm not too run down from this schedule, my mileage is where is should be, my cash flow is looking nice, and most importantly I found a good roommate. PHEW! Crazy part about this is it's not looking like I'm slowing down too much soon, if anything my schedule's becoming fuller. But I must admit I love it!
Now back to the ever so popular running thing I do. I forwent Penn Relays this year which was a bummer but I think a wise decision for a couple reasons. I did end up going to Brown earlier today for another stab at the steeple. I PRed by 40 sec which was awesome. I was hoping to cut under 12min but I'll take what I get. I realized that it's not a race that I will train wholly for (3000m is just too long) so I will start to transition back to my 800m with a possibility of playing with the 400m intermediate hurdles. I sure do enjoy hurdling over things. All's well that ends well --for now at least.
Here's a link to the looooonnnggg video (12 min) of mine and my teammate's steeple chase at Brown taped by another teammate http://blip.tv/file/880018

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Getting my feet wet

Yay I made my debut in the steeple chase today. Had to start my outdoor season with a bang since I wasn't able to race in the first meet, been on the DL for a couple of weeks and needed to redeem my indoor season. What better way than to start with a race I've never raced before along with a distance I've never raced before. To add boot I hadn't practiced hurdles in quite some years so I only had 2 practices before hand, as well as I'd been taking it very easy for the past couple of weeks for being broken. Adding all of those factors together I did pretty okay. I mean I didn't have a outlandishly amazing debut time like my teammate who ran with me, but I finished well for my prevailing circumstances. I learned a bit more about the race, ran pain-free, and had fun. And really that's all that counts. I've left myself plenty of room for improvement as the season continues and I begin to get back on the track.

Congrats Ms V for your victorious debut race today!! Can't wait to take on Brown...I'll be in better shape to keep up with you so we can dominate! Go GBTC SC!

Thursday, April 10, 2008

It's a mystery but it's history

I am happy to say that I am officially gluteally pain free. I had been taking it easy for the past couple of weeks, doing strictly mileage-no track intervals and stretching like a mad man. I still had remnants of the "injury" (I'm still unsure if it was really an injury) but it wasn't near as uncomfortable than when I first started feeling the pain. After a 2 week pause from training with the team, I finally had a Tuesday off (I had also been working during practice days) and went to practice. It happen to be a hill workout. I was a bit shaky on how the muscles were going to react but I decided to go for it and see how I fared. The first one was blah, the next felt okay, by the 3rd one I didn't feel a thing. Continuously through number 10, I didn't feel any pain whatsoever. I did worry a bit thinking it might have just been endorphins kicking in so I knew I'd have to wait and see. Wed morning I woke up-nothing. All the rest of the day-nada. This morning and afternoon-zilch. NO PAIN!! It wasn't the endorphins. Don't ask me what it was because I haven't a clue. I don't know if my stride going up the hill stretched out the muscles and that's all that was needed in the first place or what it was. At this point it doesn't matter all that matters is I can go back to my normal training regimen.

Thursday, April 3, 2008

I'll take Quotes for 1000

"Time is a created thing. To say 'I don't have time,' is like saying, 'I don't want to.'" -Lao-Tzu

Okay I have a slight obsession with my thoughts of the day/quotes. The thing is whenever I need an uplift or just reflection on what's going on in the moment, I open the email that says 'Real Simple Daily Thought' and there stands a almost seemingly perfect reply. Kinda bizarre but a very lovely surprise to say the least.Time is always a virtued entity for myself since I'm always doing something at every given moment. I work multiple jobs, I run (a lot), and I try to keep a somewhat balanced social life. Last week I had a coworker ask me where I found the time to run since I worked so much. My reply was that If you truly enjoy doing something you find the time. Funny thing is my favorite and most used excuse for the things that I really have no interest in at the moment is not having the time. Hmm maybe I should rethink that excuse and find another. Haha.