Oh What Fun, It is to Run

Dashing through the snow


In my Brooks shoes colored gray


Over the hills we go


Huffing all the way. (Huff huff huff)


iPod earbuds ring


Making spirits bright


What fun it is to run and sing


A running song tonight.

Oh blister hells, Oh crap, I fell!
 Chafing all the way!


Oh what fun 
it is to run and sing
 in Brooks shoes colored gray, Hey!


Ankle swells, God I smell,
 Sweating all the way!


Oh what joy it is to run 
in my Brooks shoes colored gray

A day or two ago,
 I took my trainers for a ride


And soon The Usain Bolt
 was striding by my side


The guy was lean and lank


Fortuned seemed his lot


We got into a heated race


And I? – I lost upshot.

Oh blister hells, Oh crap, I fell! 
Chafing all the way!


Oh what fun 
it is to run and sing in 
Brooks shoes colored gray, Hey!


Ankle swells, God I smell,
 Sweating all the way!


Oh what joy it is to run
 in my Brooks shoes colored gray

A day of two ago


The story I must tell


I went out on a run


And on my butt I fell;


A guy was running by


Was too hot – must be gay


He laughed at me, a-sprawling lie


But quickly ran away

Oh blister hells, Oh crap, I fell! 
Chafing all the way!


Oh what fun 
it is to run and sing
 in Brooks shoes colored gray, Hey!


Ankle swells, God I smell, 
Sweating all the way!


Oh what joy it is to run
 in my Brooks shoes colored gray

Now the temps are low


Go it while you can


Take it nice and slow


And sing this running jam


If you’re still quite cold


It’s warmer when you speed


Pick up that pace and hold


And crack you'll take the lead

Oh blister hells, Oh crap, I fell!
 Chafing all the way!


Oh what fun 
it is to run and sing 
in Brooks shoes colored gray, Hey!


Ankle swells, God I smell,
 Sweating all the way!


Oh what joy it is to run 
in my Brooks shoes colored gray

Oh what joy it is to run
 in my Brooks shoes colored gray

Boston Week Three Miles: 21 (Cross-training:  1.5 hours of pool running and 3 yoga sessions)

This Week's Beer Choice:  Anchor Brewing's Our Special Ale 2013 (A Christmas Ale)

Just Don’t Google It

They say Google is decreasing our cognitive ability to recall information – If you don’t remember Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stoopid?” just Google it.  Lately, though, I have fallen victim to another kind of Google danger – paranoia brought on by sports injury search results.

It all started innocently enough – I wanted to find some information on how long it takes a sprained ankle to heal.  The problem is that every horror story of any kind of injury, medical mishap, surgery gone wrong, you name it, is on the Internet and Google has an uncanny ability to find those stories and place them at the top of your results page.

Before I knew it, I was reading about people who were never able to run again, and runners who thought they had a sprained ankle but it turned out to be a stress fracture or some other more serious injury. 

Like a medical student who turns in to a hypochondriac and thinks she has every disease in the book, I started fearing that I fit the symptoms of every ankle horror story out there.  Before I knew it, I was on the phone scheduling an appointment with a sports chiropractor (I read one girl’s post who said that she only wished she had seen her chiropractor sooner.)

But before my scheduled appointment with the chiropractor, I went to see a nurse at the CVS Minute Clinic first.  You see, when I got a bad cold last week, I also starting Googling my “sore throat, runny nose, and ear pressure” symptoms.  Convinced by my research the I had a double ear infection, I paid the full price of a visit to the nurse on my high-deductible plan, just to find out that I all I needed was an over-the-counter decongestant. 

Maybe the worst-case scenario isn’t always the most likely.  Maybe I’m not dying.  And maybe I’m going to be just fine if I don’t freak out about every sign of discomfort and every scary story on the Internet. 

With this glass-half-full approach, I took my cold diagnosis (or rather lack of an infection diagnosis) as a sign that maybe I have been overly sensitive to my healing ankle – or at least these past few weeks I have.  And while I will always believe that it is better to give an injury more time to recover rather than not enough, I have decided to slowly get back a few miles under my eager legs.  I can certainly tell that my right ankle is weaker, but I am happy to say that so far my short, easy runs have been pain-free.

Things don’t always go as expected and when we have an injury, or a heartbreak, or even just a bad day, we sometimes don’t bounce back as quickly as we would like.  But worrying about it rarely helps.  Instead, do your strengthening exercises and hope for the best, and definitely think twice before Googling it.

Boston Week Two Miles: 10 (And about 2 hours of pool running)

This Week's Beer Choice:  NoDa Brewing Company's Santa Baby

Here We Go Again

In addition to this past week being the first week in the busy, holiday month of December, it was also the first week of Boston 2014 training.  I am using the same training plan as I did with the Marine Corps Marathon – a plan created by coach Brad Hudson and published in his book Run Faster from the 5K to the Marathon.

While most marathon training plans are around 16 weeks long, Hudson’s plan is 20 weeks.  During MCM training, I was glad the plan was so long because the first month gave me a good fitness base for training.  However, the plan may be too long for Boston given that I just completed a long training streak leading up to the 38^th MCM that was held on October 27^th.  At least – it gives me comfort to think that the plan may be too long given that the first week of training was less than desirable.

For starters, I am still running in the pool rather than on the pavement.  I am doing my best to mimic the workouts in my training schedule while in the water.   For example, instead of six easy miles with two eight-second hill sprints, I aqua jogged for about 55 minutes with two eight-second “sprints” where I tried to turn my legs over as quickly as I could against the resistance of the water.

I had solid runs in the not-so-solid pool on Sunday, Tuesday (Monday was rest day – aka Yoga Day), Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.  I had planned to do a long, easy aqua jog on Saturday and a short, easy one on Sunday, but a cold that I had been fighting off all week finally took me down Friday night.

When you can’t run and you can’t even swim because you feel like your head is already filled with water, add in a few pieces of cake or a holiday treat, and it doesn’t take long before you feel lazier than your eight-year old golden retriever.

The holidays are always a hard time to stay fit – partly because there are so many yummy temptations out there but also partly because it tends to be a busy time of year and often a workout is the first thing that goes when we don’t have time for everything.  And I know more than anyone that when you don’t get your exercise, it is harder to say “No” to that decadent dessert – We forget so quickly how hard we worked for our current fitness.

I thought 20 weeks may be too long or rather December 1^st may have been too soon to get back in to marathon training, but I also knew that without real running and with all the tasty goodies of the season, I needed a plan to keep me on track and away from the dessert bar. 

Boston Week One Miles: None (A little over 6 hours of pool running)

This Week's Beer Choice - Scratch That - Drink Choice:  Cold Medicine (You know I really feel bad when I don't run and I don't drink beer)

“While Visions of Sugar-plums Danced in Their Heads” – Clement Clark Moore

I must have been around age seven or so when I decided that I was going to become an Olympic swimmer specializing in my favorite stroke from the neighborhood, summer swim team – the breaststroke. 

Never mind that with a small frame and scrawny little legs and arms, I was not built to be a swimmer.  I was a kid, and I had no clue that it takes a 6’ 1”, 165-pound body like that of Missy Franklin to dive in to an Olympic pool.  I just believed that if I trained every day that I would make it there. 

So, I got up each morning and hit the pool early to get in my Olympic training.  I am not sure how long I kept up the daily laps, but it was long enough to earn an end-of-swim season paper plate award that stated something along the lines of “Paula Pridgen, 2000 Olympics Gold Medalist in 100M Breaststroke.”

While during a recent aqua jog at the local aquatic center, this memory came to mind.  Hopefully the lifeguards weren’t watching me too closely or else they probably thought it was strange when I randomly gave a little laugh.  It humored me that here I was at age 27, probably 20 years after I thought I was going to become an Olympic swimmer, and I am back in the pool training again but in hopes of making it to the Olympic Marathon Trials.

Because of my still-healing sprained ankle, I have been spending several days a week at the pool aqua jogging alongside local kids participating in swim team practice.  Watching the youths, I am reminded a lot of my childhood spent in the pool all summer long.  By the time August rolled around, my blonde hair would have turned green from all the chlorine, but I didn’t care.

On My Dad's Back During a 4th of July Pool Game

Maybe it should seem a little silly to be a grown woman and still spending so much time at the pool.  Or maybe it is silly to think just because I am all grown up by most standards, I am supposed to give up on dreams and let go of the fun in life.

In my undergrad Organizational Behavior class at UNC’s Kenan Flagler Business School, I learned that children are sometimes the best problem solvers.  Why?  Because they don’t mind trying a whole bunch of different things and they don’t mind failing.  While adults would waste time sitting around strategizing the best way to solve the puzzle, kids just try one thing after another until they succeed, often doing so long before the adults.

As adults, our values and priorities change.  Instead of letting our imaginations run wild, we promote thinking reasonably and rationally.  Instead of taking chances, we minimize risks.  Instead of running, we walk. 

And as any kid knows, the adults aren’t always right.  While failure is always a possibility, success is never a possibility unless you try.

This holiday season as little ones’ dreams are filled with flying Santas, elves, winter wonderlands, and far-away magical places (I’m still waiting on my ticket to Hogwarts.), I am giving myself permission to occasionally take a break from all the grown-up responsibilities of this month and allow myself to experience the joy and excitement of this time with boundless possibilities, as if I were still seven years old.

Weekly Miles:  One Again….Along with 3.5 hours of aqua jogging. 

This Week’s Beer Choice: Stone Brewing Co.'s Oaked Arrogant Bastard Ale  (Being a grown-up has its perks)