TriGirl14

I am really happy to be finished with my travels. This summer we are going to one less out of state tournament, thank goodness. My time spent in Chicago was similar to my workouts in Oregon. A lot of time spent running. I actually completed my long run in Chicago..and the longest run in my life. I ran for 2hrs and 40 min. Half of that time was spent outside, until I realized it was a bit too dark to be out by myself. Then straight to the tred for the rest of it. My legs are a bit tired from all the running I have done the last two weeks, but hopefully I will recover soon.

Today I woke up after nearly 12 hours of sleep and had to rush to practice. We practiced then went over to Subaru to get my headlight changed, which then of course turned into a much more expensive outing. Which included a new battery cable, headlight and front brakes. GREAT FUN! Then we went to the gym and lifted. Today was a change up in my lifting to add some heavier stuff. Oddly enough without having lifted more than 20's on each side for bench in the last 4 or 5 months..I was up to 40's on each side today, on my third set. Not sure how I don't lose an extreme amount of strength since I don't do anything heavy..and I only lift twice a week, at most. After I finished lifting P was still lifting, since he takes FOREVER! Instead of waiting or wasting time on the ellip or tred like usual, I decided to run home. It was quite hot out still and I had no idea how far I was going, but thought it was a better use of my time.

I have decided that stress is definitely added to my running and working out in general when it requires a process...almost like pavlov's response. When I am at home and go for a run, Stella even knows the usual process. It includes: Drinking some water, putting on "running" shorts (as opposed to bball shorts), changing orthotics into "running" shoes (as opposed to nice running shoes), putting on my road id, the ipod, and then finally putting on the heart rate monitor. This last piece of equipment may be my new least favorite thing. BHRM time (before heart rate monitor) my running felt aerobic and I ran quite fast. I even placed high in long distance and medium distant races. However, AHRM I am now a slow runner. Yes, I understand that racing for upwards of 12hrs requires aerobic running, but good lord, how slow do I have to go?? If I could run for 13 miles anaerobically and be fast, maybe I should just do that..instead of my plod onward.

Anyway, I strayed from my point. Today's run (beneficial or not, who knows) consisted of none of my stress from pavlovs response. Instead it was a spur of the moment decision, with my bball shorts on, no ipod and best of all no HRM! I did however use my timer on my watch to make sure I ran a good amount of time (1hr30min or so). While out running I realized how nice it was to be free of looking down to make sure my heart was in the right zone. Instead I ran with how I felt, no constraints. It was actually a pretty good run. In the end I ran about 8.22 miles at about a 9 min pace (yes, excrutiatingly slow still) but without all the strings attached. I may do more of these run's from the gym, maybe even without my timer, now that I know the distance.