March 2017 – shestherun

Do the Things. Run the Miles.

Recently I posted a picture to Instagram of a post-it I placed on my mirror a few months ago, with a phrase I’ve lived by for years. It reads,

“Do the things you don’t want to do, to do the things you do want to do”.

This has been on my mirror since I moved to Houston. I wanted to be more active in making my life what I wanted it to be, no longer relying on luck or chance for good things to happen.

Yesterday I struggled to start my 8 mile run. I wavered back and forth. The plan had been to run to a local run club (2.8), do mileage with them (3), and finish off the mileage on the way home, walking the difference once I reached the 8 mile mark. At 3pm I was sure I was going. By 4pm I was fading and ready to cave. I took a quick 25 minute nap, just dozing, while my thoughts nagged at me. It wasn’t even the distance that really bothered me, it was the time. For no particular reason I was in a cranky mood with negative running rampant, and I didn’t want to be alone with just my brain for that long! In the end I realized I wasn’t going to change my attitude by skipping the run, so I just did the damn thing.

“How will I feel if I go to bed and I didn’t work on (insert task) today”? This question catches all the excuses that my motivational post-it doesn’t. I can procrastinate, and put most things off till tomorrow, without dire results. When I know I let opportunities or time windows go by, I get anxious. At some point, I got sick of feeling that way, and though my way of living now is pretty intense, I go to bed every night feeling confident in the direction that I’m heading.

IN OTHER NEWS:

I ran a last minute trail 5k that was part of the San Felipe Shootout with Trail Racing over Texas this past weekend. I signed up for it at 8pm the night before the race. It was a good move. The 5k was part of a larger event, the “Shootout”, which consisted of a 5k, followed by a 10k and a ½ marathon. Many talented runners showed up, and I had to work harder to keep up. I went out too fast, but was glad I did- I saw the 10k go out, and realized that if I had held back I would have gotten caught in a cluster-fJck in the first couple hundred meters! My pace in the second and third mile suffered because of the fast first – times were: 7:39/8:18/8:09. Not bad for me on trail, it was definitely the fastest I’ve run off road up till now, but I still need to work on getting my mile times both closer together and faster within a race.

Saw the 10k heading out as I left. This is the runners waiting on people to descend a narrow passage. Thanked myself for going out in front because this would have not been fun to wait on.

I’m all about the data and the pacing. I need to rely less on my watch, though, and more on how I feel.

Trail Run & Training Progress

Much like the unstructured trail run I went on last weekend, I’m just going to start writing this blog post and see where I wind up.

Right now I’m just focusing on endurance, attitude, and form. The individual runs are relatively unstructured, allowing me to hone in on those aspects. Rather than holding a specific pace for intervals, I’m just going for an overall zone each run. Next month I will start to add in interval workouts, necessitating putting down more detail in advance, but right now I’m enjoying the process of just going for a run without performance expectations.

Last Sunday I had a trail run scheduled, but I didn’t know where I was going until that morning. I had some backup ideas in case I wasn’t divinely inspired, but I didn’t need them. I glanced at the list of trails listed in the front of the book, and picked a park to head to, not even sure which route I would take once I got there. I had selected Huntsville State Park, north of Houston. My first trail run when I moved back to Houston was near the park, and I hadn’t been back to the area since. In my head it was maybe an hour north, but I wound up driving quite a ways, over an hour and a half, listening to Hidden Brain podcasts during the drive.

I arrived at the park, was given a trail map with closed portions highlighted, and parked at the first spot I saw next to a trail head. I kinda had an idea, looking at the map, that I would run out on the Chinquapia Trail, a 6.8 mile loop around the lake, but might turn back after 3 miles because part of the loop was closed. I forgot all this. The beginning of my run was kind of confusing. If you look at the map, you’ll see that the arrow pointing north is on the diagonal. As I ran and crossed certain paths and landmarks, things weren’t jiving in my head, so I just meandered, somehow still staying on Chinquapia without really trying to.

This was my favorite trail run so far in Texas, and I will be back. The ground is great, with technical stuff to maneuver, like roots and rocks. The path winds, it’s never fully single track but really fun to navigate all the same. I got so lost in my enjoyment of running this trail that I forgot to turn back at my 3 mile mark, and when I got to the closed off portion of the trail, realized I could still make a loop (see map below), but I’d be adding 2 miles to my run. Oh, well- if I was feeling tired or sore I could walk. A big portion of this training phase is not overdoing it- I want to get to interval training energized and ready to work hard. I had only planned on running 16 miles total for the week, and 5.5 for the day, but wound up running that last two making my total mileage for the week 17.7 with the day’s run being a total of 7.2. I called the run before reaching my car, deciding I’d tacked on enough extra mileage, and walked about another ¾ of a mile to finally get back to my car.

I had my first fall since breaking my ankle in 2015! I’m excited because I came up without a scratch and more importantly without any muscle or tendon injury. This was super exciting. The fall itself was surreal, I tripped over a root, and time froze as I wondered whether I was going to be able to find my footing or go down. I went down, and didn’t fight it. This is the way I typically fell in the past, not trying some awkward footing last minute to save myself a little scratching or bruising. I did try to stop the fall when I had the ankle break, and I hope that lesson to just let the fall happen sticks forever.

Finally, last month I decided to pull back on the intensity of my training, while still progressing with distance, and this month I’m seeing positive results. My average pace is dropping, I’m recovering faster, and focusing on form has led to me running faster even though it feels like I’m putting in less effort.

Lesson:

Evaluate where you are and where you want to be. Create a plan that makes sense to take you there. Harder doesn’t always mean better, but smarter usually does!

One of the benefits of having a plan is that I never wonder if I should go for a run. Its right there in front of me, the next step I need to take to be the kind of runner I want to be.

The route I ran is marked in Blue. There was a little more steady incline on the back end (Green Route/Triple C Trail), otherwise little hills throughout. A really FUN RUN!

Here Comes the Airplane Mode!

To bring or not to bring the phone on your run? One day, I wound up putting it on airplane mode a mile in because the damn thing would not stop buzzing. Texts & app notifications were zooming in one after the other, and after the 5^th notification I started getting irritated, so I cut the line. Since that day, I have been putting it on airplane mode before I even start my run, or leaving it home completely when I’m just in my neighborhood.

My current goal is a sub 22 5k, and I’ve structured my fitness training to a few runs a week, so I need to focus on what I’m doing in them. On my current runs, I don’t want my attention to wander too far from my feet. I was recently videotaped running, and my form needs work. That requires concentration. I have a habit of letting my mind wander when workouts get tough, and as a side effect, I slow down. Again, my full attention is needed for the task at hand, which is bringing myself to the pace and form that I want to eventually stick. That’s what training is- it’s practicing until you don’t have to practice anymore. When you get to your goal, you can relax or set a new one. That being said, sometimes I’ll allow, maybe even encourage, my mind to wander while I run, to take a detour wherever it wants. This is usually a part of my trail runs, and honestly not a big part, because when I don’t pay attention, I fall. It happened just today, and I’ll write about it in another piece about my run in Huntsville State Park, TX.

Leaving my phone off or at home allows me the space to meditate, without distractions taking me places I don’t really need to go at the moment. I found I like leaving my phone off so much on my runs, that I’ve started deliberately turning it to airplane mode at home as well. So far there have been no emergencies that called for me to save the day, and I haven’t missed any opportunities from diverting digital signals away from me. I hit the plane, and think, “I’m good, you guys can go on without me, and I’ll catch up to you later”.

Wouldn’t you want to give this your full attention, too?

Of course, I like to have my phone with me to take pictures for this blog and my Instagram account, but it has become a level of obnoxious to bring with me. I have tried various methods:

Belkin arm-band (from Target)
- Pro: it’s a well-made brand that I’ve never had to replace for wear and tear, only phone models, for years
- Con: the size of my iPhone 7 against the relative thinness of the arm band feels uncomfortable- think “floppy”
Nathan water bottle (REI)
- Pro: I love this product as a water vestibule, but…
- Con: the phone barely fits, really have to wrestle it in.
expandable-mesh waist pouches
- Con: they don’t rank high for comfort for me, and they can move around a lot.

So my question for anyone reading this is- Being that I still like to have my phone on me for emergencies, does anyone know of arm-band that fits iPhone 7 and sits securely on runs? Or is there some other type of phone carrying device I haven’t thought of or mentioned above? Thanks and

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