Back into Back to Back Running

Date: October 28, 2014

Author: astottler

Happy midway-through-the-week! How are you all doing? I’m not doing so great. I feel like someone lunched me in the stomach after that last baseball game….Let’s hope we can rally for game 7! The worst part is I have a midterm right through the end of the game…I’m going to be a mess.

There’s a topic I’m thinking about writing, but that’s for another day. I thought I’d go over some workouts as of late! Let’s take it back about a week, shall we?

Wednesday: 5 mile run. Supposed to be 6 but I was running late! Whoops.

Thursday: 45 minute Soul Cycle class. It kills me that I have no way of going to spin regularly. Once the World Series is over, I should be able to fit more spinning in, at least on my own.

Friday: Track workout! It has been months and months and months since my last one. I started out with my favorite-10x400m. I didn’t kill myself on the pace or anything, but I have a lot of work to do! I followed that up with 200 sit ups because I never do abs. Whoops.

Saturday: Rest!

Sunday: 6 mile run. Longest run post-injury-induced running break! It was pretty uneventful, but my pace was a little bit better! I’m loving this fall weather too. I want to make 6 miles my standard distance for now. I found a perfect turnaround point, so I don’t have to always run with my watch, which is more relaxing.

Monday: 4 mile run. Nothing crazy, just the basic campus loop. This was a big deal though because this is the first time I’ve done back to back runs. It only worked because I took really good care of my feet on Sunday-ice and Advil, plus my night braces! Those things help so much!

Also-Crossfit. We worked on push press and pull ups for the strength portion. The WOD was a 20 minute AMRAP of the follow:

400m run (I wore my running shoes instead of Crossfit shoes and my feet thanked me)

20 wall balls

10 burpees

I finished 4 rounds plus a run, and my hips are feeling it today! One thing I will say though-as much as I hate burpees, all the workouts we’ve done lately have been…50 burpees. Straight. So 10 feels like a breeze!

Tuesday: Morning Crossfit. I love the morning classes but with the cold weather rapidly approaching, my morning days are numbered. I’m not about lifting weights in 29 degrees. Ugh.

For strength, we did power cleans. We did sets of 2, every minute on the minute for 10 minutes, and added 5# every minute. I started at 80 with the goal of working up to 120….yeah there’s definitely something wrong with my math there! I ended up failing fantastically on the second rep at 125# and totally wiping out. Fun fact-if you fall over backwards on your butt on an Olympic lifting platform with enough force, you slide pretty far. I felt ridiculous, but I’m pretty sure no one saw me totally fall.

The WOD was much less eventful!

5 rds:

350 m row(yeah, weird number)

6 thrusters

8 hang power cleans

10 burpees

I ended up using 75#. I tried to use 65, but was promptly told to add weight. Whoops.

And that just about wraps it up! Have a great Wednesday!

Reasons to Back Out of a Race

Date: October 8, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys!

Today’s post is going to be a bit different. Since I missed my race last weekend and am 100% happy with the decision, I thought I’d post on some of the reasons why it might make sense to back out of a race.

1. You are injured. This was the reason I backed out. While I MAY have been able to tough it out, it simply wasn’t worth it, and running has felt 100% better.

2. You risk serious injury. This can apply to a lot of things. I was worried that with my limpy gait, I was going to get a secondary injury, or even a stress fracture. This could even apply to poor running conditions. If your race is on a muddy trail during a rainstorm and you are prone to slipping, it might make sense to back out.

3. Extreme weather, especially if you aren’t trained in it. If you trained in 60 degree weather all season and then show up to 100 degree temps on race day, it might make sense to rethink whether or not the race would be safe.

4. You are sick. While sometimes you can push through an illness, a lot of times it isn’t worth it to tough out a miserable race, leaving you more ill than before.

5. Life gets in the way. Maybe it’s a family thing, maybe it’s a huge opportunity. While training for a race may be a big part of life, it isn’t all of life. Sometimes it needs to take a backseat.

Have you ever skipped a race? Why?

First Run Back

Date: October 7, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Wednesday!

First things first….YAYYYYY WE WON! NLCS HERE WE COME! #evenyearmagic

SO excited. Such a crazy and stressful game. The playoffs are seriously like a 5 unit class too, in terms of time commitment! Worth it.

Second things second. I ran for the first time on Monday! I did 3 miles with a friend, and it felt good. I was so amazed by how much better my feet felt. And it wasn’t crazy hard like I was sort of expecting, although I definitely wasn’t going fast. I was actually pretty sore from it though! Monday night I started to feel some soreness in my inner thighs, and then this morning my calves were sore. Crazy.

Fitness-wise, I did a 45 minute spin session Tuesday morning pretty early because I had an early morning dental appointment. I was supposed to go to Crossfit Tuesday night-it looked like such a fun one! But then I didn’t want to miss the game so I skipped it. Still bummed but oh well. I’ll go tomorrow. I’ve slacked off a bit on my workouts as of late, so I should get back into that more soon.

Foodwise, I finally managed to capture a picture of the pumpkin muffins my roommate made. They were amazing. She added a brown sugar/butter/cinnamon swirl too. Crazy good.

I got a Trader Joe’s salad to try. It had persimmons! Overall, it was good but very vinegar-y.

I went to the dining hall a couple of times Tuesday, which I almost never do (twice in a row that is).

Lunch was Mediterranean. It was just ok. The falafel was pretty hard. But there were roasted carrots, and they were totally amazing.

I wasn’t super hungry for dinner thanks to a cheese and crackers snack beforehand, but I had some good things. Roasted carrots, spanakopita, and a barley stuffed mushroom. I was excited to see the avocado. While I’m certainly not complaining about having avocado, I felt it could have been used better-this was a strange thing to put it on!

In terms of life, besides watching baseball and going to class, the other night I went to a recruitment event that consisted of roasting marshmallows, which was a ton of fun. I inhaled a ton of smoke and left smelling like a forest fire, but it was worth it!

But for now, there is lots of CS in my future!

How do you like your marshmallow?

I’m a golden brown type of person but I definitely lit mine on fire on accident!

Return to Running

Date: October 5, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Well folks, for months and months I was planning on running a half marathon this morning. That very much did not happen. However, I’m SO glad I made the decision not to run. And the fact that it’s been about 95 degrees lately here and the race was in San Jose and not SF, which is much hotter. I’m so glad I didn’t run because had I run, I wouldn’t be able to walk right now. Or tomorrow, and possibly not for the next week. I wouldn’t be running for a while, and that’s still assuming I didn’t injure myself in a more serious manner (I was worried I was going to give myself stress fractures from limp-running so strangely).

Instead, here I am, capable of walking. I’m making my triumphant return to running tomorrow morning after 2 weeks off. I swear, it’s like I have completely different feet. My plantar fasciitis is still there, and it still has its ups and downs, but my feet feel better than they did in months.

I also rediscovered my love of spinning during this time. I think I spun 10 times in the past two weeks? It was awesome. I didn’t make it to much spin this past summer due to schedule issues.

So that’s what things have been like on the workout front lately, plus Crossfit of course. Friday’s workout was pausing back squats for the strength-it’s amazing how much harder these are than regular squats! To do a pausing back squat, count 2 seconds at the bottom. I used a weight that would have been insanely light for regular squats and it still left me sore! The conditioning portion was a bit brutal as well. What could be better than starting your Friday night with 90 wall balls? *I have no clue if I’m being sarcastic here or not.”

3 rds:

200m run (This was short and my feet felt good so I did this run)

100m Farmers carry

10 man makers

30 wall balls

[Man makers are performed with two dumbbells. One push up (on dumbbells), one row with each arm, and then a thruster with the dumbbells.]

In terms of food, meals have been sort of hit or miss lately.

HIT:

Yogurt bowl with mashed banana and cocoa powder, topped with sunbutter.

MISS:

The fact that the above yogurt bowl turned into brunch because I had lab through lunch. Or lunch could be the food I scarfed down immediately before dinner. Take your pick.

HIT:

These persimmons are amazing. I love my roommate.

MISS:

Dining hall dinner-the lentils were pretty salty. The kabocha was good though!

HIT:

Coffee from my favorite coffeeshop. A cappuccino.

MISS:

The above cappuccino was quite the trek across campus. At least biking back was easier caffeinated.

HIT:

Going to a different dining hall for breakfast and finding that they actually had edible eggs.

MISS:

Being too nervous to get up or move during the Giant’s game on Friday and instead scarfing down a bowl of egg whites and spinach before my afternoon class.

HIT:

Dining hall brunches have been good lately. Yesterday’s had butternut squash ravioli which was amazing, and a cinnamon roll that was good.

(Note: I try to stick to one “treat” during brunch.)

And then Sunday’s brunch which was banana chocolate chip pancakes and huevos rancheros.

Although I wasn’t a fan of the sides (vinegary kale and bulgar pilaf) for that one.

MISS:

Once again, I was glued to the Giant’s game through dinner so dinner consisted of pumpkin muffins my roommate made (amazing, by the way), egg whites, and cheese and crackers. It is what it is.

On that note, did anyone watch Saturday’s Giant’s game?? 18 innings! Insane. What a fantastic game (if you’re a Giant’s fan). Although I will admit, I stopped watching around the 15th inning because I decided it was time to move on with my life!

What are some of your “hits and misses” as of late?

DNS

Date: September 19, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Did not start.

Those are words no runner wants to see. But, I’ve decided to not run my next race-Rock n Roll San Jose-on October 4. Ever since my half about 2 weeks ago, my plantar fasciitis has been flaring worse than ever. After the race, I couldn’t walk for 2 days. I can’t go through day to day life without pain, and my training runs since the race I’ve gutted out. With my plantar fasciitis in the past, running wasn’t too much of a problem, but now it’s become extremely painful. Even worse is that the outside of my bad foot/ankle has started hurting as well.

In top of that, on my long run I felt totally undertrained. I was going to go into the race undertrained and with bad feet-I can’t even imagine what the aftermath of this race would be like.

And then I realized-why? Why would I torture myself to run this race? It’s not the race I trained for all summer-that one is over. (And I’m grateful I was able to explore DC on foot in the process.) I’m not getting paid to do this. No one is forcing me-I’m not a pro-runner. I think as a blogger it’s easy to get caught up in the hype of racing and the seriousness of the process.

So I’m actually doing the smart thing and taking a DNS. I’m bummed about this, but I would be even more bummed by slogging through painful runs leading up to race day, and the pain that would follow, not to mention the risk of a more serious or permanent injury.

The fact that I’m having trouble dragging myself out to run now because I’m lazy (my normal reason) but because I can’t stand the thought of pain is a sign that I need to take a step back. This foot issue was something I could deal with before, but it’s worse than it’s ever been and it’s time for a break. Starting Saturday, I am going to take 2 complete weeks off from running. By forgoing the race, in the day I would have raced I may be able to run pain free again. Worth it.

So expect to see lots of rowing and spinning in the next couple of week! In addition, I will be doing lots of icing, stretching, and rolling. I have comfortable shoes and inserts of every walk of life now. I also got a night brace that I tried for the first time last night, and it seemed to help quite a bit! It basically just keeps my foot in a flexed position so that it is not so stiff when I wake up.

So, that’s where I am right now! Here’s to 2 weeks of rest!

Have you ever had to back out of a race? Do you have any tips for plantar fasciitis?