Month: December 2011

Welcome to the floor. I’ll be here all day.

Remember when I ran a marathon less than a month ago? Nah, me neither.

Today, FOUR MILES put me on the floor.

I ran with CrossFit Tony again and we both had trouble — him with his knee, me with my lungs and stomach. Looking at the numbers, it was a decent run, but we both felt like crap while running. Neither of us had run since our great 6-miler last Friday.

I’m gonna chalk it up to three things:

1. The six vaccines I received on Tuesday completely wiped me out yesterday, and I may not be back to 100% yet.
2. Margaritas last night. Enough said.
3. I’ve been super-lazy during this holiday season and have lost a good amount of fitness.

Two out of three are completely my fault, so I’m not trying to make excuses. I just miss being able to run far and fast and feel awesome while doing it.

Today I’ll create a fake January training plan for a nonexistent race to get my butt back in gear. Feel free to taunt me if I don’t stick to it!

I feel like Reluctant and/or Brenna will just jump at the chance…

A beautiful little video about running and the power of the human spirit. Makes me want to run.

My arms still hurt from yesterday’s vaccines, and it’s windy and raining like hell outside. I may have written this blog post from my cozy bed:

On Vaccines, Health Risks and Overcoming Fear

Shh. Don’t tell anyone.

This was my morning.

That’s SIX travel shots, people! And I’m not even done! I go back in a week for two more, then again in three weeks for three more.

Luckily, they gave me apple juice. It was delicious. I will resume running when my arms no longer feel like lead due to multiple viruses coursing through them (or something — I’m not a doctor).

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! For more travel-like stuff, check out:

What Santa Brought This Traveler

In it, I reveal which U.S. President Secretary of the Treasury* I have a massive crush on. Hint: The hot one.

*Thanks, Robb. Never was very good with history!

I’ve secretly been afraid that my best running days were behind me thanks to my stupid foot and lackluster post-marathon runs.

But this morning, I had a FANTASTIC run! I met a new running buddy, Tony, at the CrossFit event I went to at Meg’s box last weekend, and we pushed each other during an awesome six-miler.

Tony said he hadn’t run in a month and a half, and I haven’t run farther than five miles (which kind of sucked) since Las Vegas, so this run was quite an achievement for both of us.

We also had a great chat and I think formed the instant friendship that I’ve felt with everyone I run with. Love that.

My lungs were DONE at the end, but my foot felt fine throughout! My preemptive icing yesterday did the trick. My knees and foot are feeling it a little right now, though, so it’s definitely time to ice again.

There is nothing like a good run, people! NOTHING!!!

My foot hurt pretty significantly after Monday’s 5-miler and it was NOT COOL. Some rest and ice seemed to cure it, but still… I’m not down with this insubordinate foot.

I might’ve jumped into new shoes too quickly, so I brought back my marathon shoes for today’s run. It was like coming home.

These shoes have taken me far, baby. We’ve done beautiful things together.

I also brought back a favorite marathon-training workout: Run one mile to the gym, lift weights, run one mile home. I did this more in the summertime when it wasn’t so cold out, but today is a freakin’ beautiful, sunny December day in Seattle, and the running portion was glorious.

Weird things happen when you run, turn off your watch, then run again. Hmm.

The gym was fairly empty and it was nice to hit the weights again. I’ve definitely lost some strength and had to use 12.5-lb weights for moves I used to be able to do with 15, but I can get that back with a little effort.

I’ll be needing some strength to lug around my travel backpack and do adventure-like things in New Zealand and Australia beginning in February — when it will be SUMMER down there, thank God — so I hope to hit the gym 3x a week until my membership runs out in mid-January.

Now I’m off to preemptively ice my foot and dream of summertime in the South Pacific…

More details here. But, basically:

New Zealand

Australia

Thailand

Laos

Vietnam

Cambodia

Portland, Oregon

ICELAND

I don’t really know where to go after Iceland. But watch that video. Does it even matter?