I'm beginning to realize that the term Stress Fracture has multiple meanings:
1. Stress from over training fractures bones in your body
2. Stress from not being able to train due to stress fractures fractures your mental being!!
So as I mentioned before, I got stress fractures in my left foot back at the beginning of August. I went to the orthopedic doctor who charged me $400 for 30 seconds of his time. Since I didn't feel like spending another half of a paycheck for the doctor to tell me that 6 weeks had passed so my fractures should be healed, I decided the take the boot off myself...well maybe after 4 weeks instead of 6. I walked around on it, it didn't hurt. I ran a few miles, it didn't hurt. So I started up on a novice half marathon training plan and enrolled in boot camp classes twice a week.
Well it has been 3 weeks since I took the boot off and 1 week since I officially took the boot off. And the pain is coming back. WAH! I tried to stop the pain for getting worse so I went out out and bought new running shoes. Now I didn't NEED running shoes but the logic in my head went something like this...
1. I trained for a half marathon on an accelerated schedule last year wearing Nike running shoes and didn't get any stress fractures.
2. I kept training in said Nikes after my half marathons earlier this year with no issues with my feet.
3. I bought a new pair of Mizunos and started a marathon training plan (not really adding a lot of miles at all, in fact doing more cross training to avoid over training on my feetsies) and got stress fractures within 4 weeks of starting
SO I went back to my running store and explained that I thought my shoes contributed to my stress fractures, they agreed that this could be possible so they sold me a brand new pair of Nikes and inserts for a whopping $140. I figured $140 was nothing compared to the Dr bill of having to go back.
I got to the gym all excited to run a few miles in my new shoes to test them out. I made it a whole quarter of a mile before BOTH feet started screaming "OWWWW! YOU'RE HURTING ME!!!!" Sucks...
So now I'm worried that I've killed both of my feet and I'm going to have to go back to the Dr and actually follow up and be a good girl and delay training another 6-8 weeks and look totally stupid for being the girl who trained so much that she has to wear walking boots on both feet. The only good thing that can come from this is getting front row parking in our mile long parking lot at work...
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Marathon
Third post of the night, woo hoo! I hope it took you a few days to get caught up so you won't be disappointed when it takes me a week or so to update this again...so if you haven't read the other 2 posts yet, stop after this one and come back tomorrow (all of the posts kind of stand on their own and you can read them out of order...)
So, this one will be short and sweet (sorry!) but thought provoking on your end...
I won't make my goal of running a marathon before I turn 27 (I really only gave myself a week of slack between when I planned to run it and my 27th birthday...oops) but that doesn't mean I won't run a marathon soon! I need to find another one to train for.
Any one have any suggestions? My only requirements are:
1. It has to be at least 24 weeks from now. Most training plans are at least 18 weeks and assume you are running 8-9 miles on your long runs...I'm not there yet!
2. It has to be fun
3. It has to be affordable
Suggest away! :)
So, this one will be short and sweet (sorry!) but thought provoking on your end...
I won't make my goal of running a marathon before I turn 27 (I really only gave myself a week of slack between when I planned to run it and my 27th birthday...oops) but that doesn't mean I won't run a marathon soon! I need to find another one to train for.
Any one have any suggestions? My only requirements are:
1. It has to be at least 24 weeks from now. Most training plans are at least 18 weeks and assume you are running 8-9 miles on your long runs...I'm not there yet!
2. It has to be fun
3. It has to be affordable
Suggest away! :)
My (not so) Secret Shame
Since I haven't been running the past few weeks I needed something to fill my free time. After I got bored biking at the gym I turned to the next logical option for someone who can't exercise...I started baking (again). I justified spending time in the kitchen by telling myself that I was making all of these goodies to sell at work to help fundraise for the 5k. I ended up earning $52 from all of my hard work and probably consuming about 10,000 extra calories over the course of 6 weeks (not including all of the ice cream I ate).
*Disclaimer: Betty Crocker didn't pay me anything for my opinion, but I wouldn't be upset if they sent me some sweet baking goodies ;-)
I keep a photo album on Facebook to keep track of all of my Baking Adventures so a fellow blogger suggested that I turn this blog into a hybrid running/baking blog. My first baking adventure recap on this blog will be FUN da-middles cupcakes. Ok so these aren't homemade but they are a new product I discovered at the grocery store last week.
Luckily a close friend of mine had a birthday last week (I really couldn't force anymore baked goods on my coworkers last week) so I had an excuse to try them. They were soo much fun! Everyone has seen a filled cupcake, but most of the time you can see where the cupcake has been holed out after it was baked to make room for the filling. These things were like cupcake shaped Twinkies and super easy to make!
Here's a few pictures I took throughout the baking process:
You bake them with the filling inside! The uncooked filling tastes a lot like marshmallow fluff so maybe I'll try my own with fluff one day...
You can't even tell they have filling inside! And no need to frost!
(PS I added sprinkles in the batter to make them more festive)
Ok, so I need to work on centering the filling a little better...
They were pretty tasty and could hold their own without frosting so I didn't frost them...but I'd like to try to make my own, maybe from scratch, and see if frosting would make them better. Anyone have a birthday coming up??
Just for fun, check out this awesome birthday candle! On top of an awesome birthday cake I made earlier this year...ok I'll show you why the birthday cake was so awesome.
It was a checkerboard cake!!
Race Recap: Pelham Old Home Day 5k
HELLO Friends!
The last time I blogged was a few months ago. And coincidentally it was to solicit donations for the Pelham Old Home Day 5k benefiting the Nashua Special Olympics. The race was yesterday! So I figured I had to provide you with at least a race recap.
But first let me explain why I've been missing for 2 months. Right after my last post I ran a lot, biked a lot, hiked a lot, and then ran some more. And then I went to run race #8 of the summer trail series I was participating in, my second week in the big girl 5 mile race! About a half a mile into the race my foot started bothering me. But being stupid, I kept running. Half way into the race (when I was as far as I was going to get from the finish line, with no phone) the nagging pain turned into an unbearable pain. So I hobbled back to my car and drove to the ER (a costly mistake with my new health insurance! Apparently just looking at an ER costs $1000). My work week was going to be really busy and I didn't have time to take off to go to the Dr so I wanted to get it taken care of ASAP and outside of work hours to avoid further injury. They X-rayed, came back with a diagnoses of "sprained foot" and gave me a prescription for some ridiculous painkillers (which I didn't fill!) and a pair of crutches with instructions to go to my real Dr if the pain didn't go away after 2 days on the crutches.
Obviously the pain didn't go away and the crutches left me trying to find creative new ways to maneuver around the office (warning to all hard core runners out there, don't neglect your upper body, you'll regret it if you ever need crutches!). Rather than adding to my growing Dr bill, I skipped my Dr and found someone who knows bones. The dude walked in and without even talking to me told me it was stress fractures and charged me $400 for his time and a fancy Aircast. Which limited my exercise options for a few weeks. I took this opportunity to throw myself into 80 hour work weeks to forget about the fact that I couldn't run (and to pay off those stupid Dr's!). That pretty much catches up to this weekend.
I decided to take the cast off a few weeks ago to slowly work my way back into running. I started just walking around to make sure the pain was gone and I slowly started adding running in over the past 2 weeks. The big test was yesterday, with the 5k. Kind of fitting that this was my first post injury run. Last year this race got me hooked on running and this year it reminded me why I love running (because I had started to forget the past few weeks!). I finished in 28:45, which was 40 seconds faster than last year. I had been doing better with my speed but obviously I lost a lot of that recently. I also had really bad stomach cramps throughout pretty much the entire race.
But it was all worth it in the end. I had fun hanging out with the Special Olympics Athletes who were participating in the race. I was surprised how many remembered me from last year! I ended up getting 2nd place in the volunteer fundraising category which came with a $25 gift certificate to the local running store, woot!
So that should get you all caught up to today. Hopefully I'll be better with this blog now that I'm running but only time will tell...
The last time I blogged was a few months ago. And coincidentally it was to solicit donations for the Pelham Old Home Day 5k benefiting the Nashua Special Olympics. The race was yesterday! So I figured I had to provide you with at least a race recap.
But first let me explain why I've been missing for 2 months. Right after my last post I ran a lot, biked a lot, hiked a lot, and then ran some more. And then I went to run race #8 of the summer trail series I was participating in, my second week in the big girl 5 mile race! About a half a mile into the race my foot started bothering me. But being stupid, I kept running. Half way into the race (when I was as far as I was going to get from the finish line, with no phone) the nagging pain turned into an unbearable pain. So I hobbled back to my car and drove to the ER (a costly mistake with my new health insurance! Apparently just looking at an ER costs $1000). My work week was going to be really busy and I didn't have time to take off to go to the Dr so I wanted to get it taken care of ASAP and outside of work hours to avoid further injury. They X-rayed, came back with a diagnoses of "sprained foot" and gave me a prescription for some ridiculous painkillers (which I didn't fill!) and a pair of crutches with instructions to go to my real Dr if the pain didn't go away after 2 days on the crutches.
Obviously the pain didn't go away and the crutches left me trying to find creative new ways to maneuver around the office (warning to all hard core runners out there, don't neglect your upper body, you'll regret it if you ever need crutches!). Rather than adding to my growing Dr bill, I skipped my Dr and found someone who knows bones. The dude walked in and without even talking to me told me it was stress fractures and charged me $400 for his time and a fancy Aircast. Which limited my exercise options for a few weeks. I took this opportunity to throw myself into 80 hour work weeks to forget about the fact that I couldn't run (and to pay off those stupid Dr's!). That pretty much catches up to this weekend.
I decided to take the cast off a few weeks ago to slowly work my way back into running. I started just walking around to make sure the pain was gone and I slowly started adding running in over the past 2 weeks. The big test was yesterday, with the 5k. Kind of fitting that this was my first post injury run. Last year this race got me hooked on running and this year it reminded me why I love running (because I had started to forget the past few weeks!). I finished in 28:45, which was 40 seconds faster than last year. I had been doing better with my speed but obviously I lost a lot of that recently. I also had really bad stomach cramps throughout pretty much the entire race.
But it was all worth it in the end. I had fun hanging out with the Special Olympics Athletes who were participating in the race. I was surprised how many remembered me from last year! I ended up getting 2nd place in the volunteer fundraising category which came with a $25 gift certificate to the local running store, woot!
So that should get you all caught up to today. Hopefully I'll be better with this blog now that I'm running but only time will tell...
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Pelham Old Homes Day 5k Fundraising
Hello loyal followers! I know it's been awhile since I've posted. I owe you guys a bunch of race reviews and at least 1 post about my progress towards the big day. But I wanted to put up a quick post about something that means a lot to me.
I've mentioned before how I was never really super athletic as a kid and it took me until my senior year in college to figure out that I needed to get my butt in gear and change my life. But it wasn't until last year that I got into running. My intern forced me onto the treadmill a few times last summer and I still wasn't super thrilled about running but I did it when she was around at the gym. I kept up with other things at the gym but I never really went more than a mile or two on the treadmill and I never ran the whole time. Then in the fall a friend of mine who volunteers with the Special Olympics e-mailed me asking for a donation for a 5k she was running to fundraise for the Special Olympics.
I've always liked the Special Olympics and what they do so I decided to not only donate but to register to run as well. To practice I ran 3.1 miles on a treadmill the week before and managed to survive without stopping to walk. Unfortunately I had only run a few races before and that was quite a few years ago and in all of those races I got tired early on and ended up walking most of the race. I really had no idea what to expect or how long it would take me to run this race.
I showed up on race day with my Everything bagel and iced tea from Dunkin Donuts (something that has now become a race day tradition for me), registered, and lined up for the race. A few of my friends were running and since I had no idea what this race had in store for me I decided that as long as I could keep them in view I was doing ok. While waiting for the race to start I made a few friends with the Special Olympics athletes. I even ran a good part of the race with one of them before he sprinted ahead of me and left me behind in his dust.
Given that I had no idea how fast I was running or should be running I decided to count the number of songs it took me to run a mile. That way I'd have some idea of how far I was from the finish line (in terms of number of songs...). I chugged along for the rest of the race and I even passed one of my friends who had slowed down towards the end. I would have slowed down to finish it with her but I feared that if I lost the momentum of running I wouldn't make it across the finish line.
I remember reaching the 3.0 mile marker and being able to see the clock ahead and that it was still under 30 minutes. I mustered all of my remaining energy and ran as fast as I could so I could beat that 30 min mark. And I did, I finished the race in 29:25!
After that I was hooked on races and running. A few days later I saw a commercial on TV for the Space Coast Marathon and Half Marathon (clearly a sign from above, why else would I see a relatively small FL race advertised in the Northeast?!) and I set a new goal for myself, to finish a half marathon. A goal I accomplished just a few months later. Would I have gotten addicted to running without this race? Probably eventually. But since this was the race that got me hooked I decided that this year I wanted to give a little more back to the race that has started me down a new road in life.
I know that most people fundraise for marathons or other major events. I am training to run a marathon later this year but this race means so much more to me and I really like the cause. Special Olympics gives so many kids the opportunity to do things they probably never thought they could accomplish. And it was this race that gave me the opportunity to realize that I could be a runner, something I never thought I could accomplish.
I would greatly appreciate it if you would take a moment to consider donating this wonderful cause.
Here is the link to my fundraising page: http://www.active.com/donate/2011POHD5k/carolynandrews
PS I know donating to yourself is kinda cheesy but if you raise $30 you get free admission into the race so I figured I'd put some money towards my fundraising because I didn't pay anything to enter the race.
I've mentioned before how I was never really super athletic as a kid and it took me until my senior year in college to figure out that I needed to get my butt in gear and change my life. But it wasn't until last year that I got into running. My intern forced me onto the treadmill a few times last summer and I still wasn't super thrilled about running but I did it when she was around at the gym. I kept up with other things at the gym but I never really went more than a mile or two on the treadmill and I never ran the whole time. Then in the fall a friend of mine who volunteers with the Special Olympics e-mailed me asking for a donation for a 5k she was running to fundraise for the Special Olympics.
I've always liked the Special Olympics and what they do so I decided to not only donate but to register to run as well. To practice I ran 3.1 miles on a treadmill the week before and managed to survive without stopping to walk. Unfortunately I had only run a few races before and that was quite a few years ago and in all of those races I got tired early on and ended up walking most of the race. I really had no idea what to expect or how long it would take me to run this race.
I showed up on race day with my Everything bagel and iced tea from Dunkin Donuts (something that has now become a race day tradition for me), registered, and lined up for the race. A few of my friends were running and since I had no idea what this race had in store for me I decided that as long as I could keep them in view I was doing ok. While waiting for the race to start I made a few friends with the Special Olympics athletes. I even ran a good part of the race with one of them before he sprinted ahead of me and left me behind in his dust.
Given that I had no idea how fast I was running or should be running I decided to count the number of songs it took me to run a mile. That way I'd have some idea of how far I was from the finish line (in terms of number of songs...). I chugged along for the rest of the race and I even passed one of my friends who had slowed down towards the end. I would have slowed down to finish it with her but I feared that if I lost the momentum of running I wouldn't make it across the finish line.
I remember reaching the 3.0 mile marker and being able to see the clock ahead and that it was still under 30 minutes. I mustered all of my remaining energy and ran as fast as I could so I could beat that 30 min mark. And I did, I finished the race in 29:25!
After that I was hooked on races and running. A few days later I saw a commercial on TV for the Space Coast Marathon and Half Marathon (clearly a sign from above, why else would I see a relatively small FL race advertised in the Northeast?!) and I set a new goal for myself, to finish a half marathon. A goal I accomplished just a few months later. Would I have gotten addicted to running without this race? Probably eventually. But since this was the race that got me hooked I decided that this year I wanted to give a little more back to the race that has started me down a new road in life.
I know that most people fundraise for marathons or other major events. I am training to run a marathon later this year but this race means so much more to me and I really like the cause. Special Olympics gives so many kids the opportunity to do things they probably never thought they could accomplish. And it was this race that gave me the opportunity to realize that I could be a runner, something I never thought I could accomplish.
I would greatly appreciate it if you would take a moment to consider donating this wonderful cause.
Here is the link to my fundraising page: http://www.active.com/donate/2011POHD5k/carolynandrews
PS I know donating to yourself is kinda cheesy but if you raise $30 you get free admission into the race so I figured I'd put some money towards my fundraising because I didn't pay anything to enter the race.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Mines Falls Trail Series 4 of 12
4 words: I FINALLY DID IT!!!
27:25
I was determined to get finish in under 28 minutes and to beat that 9 min/mile pace before the first half of the series was over. I felt it in my bones all day long. I knew today was the day despite the fact that I ran a 10k race yesterday. I just knew it.
It was super hot today but running in the woods was actually pretty cool...there were a few cool breezes I ran into. I hydrated all day so I could skip the water stop today. I knew today was the day! I beat my goal with 1 race left in the first half of the series. I'm tempted to switch to the 5 mile a week early to give me time to set a goal for that and possibly beat it by the end of the summer!
If I had any moisture left in my body when I finished I may have actually shed a tear. Unfortunately, I was a sweaty mess and worried about keeling over from running my little heart out (almost literally)!
Ohh and I went to the rock climbing gym after my race. I passed the belay test (I know...not a huge deal but exciting for me) and I raced up a few walls to burn off the energy from the excitement of the race! Much better than my initial lesson on Saturday!
27:25
I was determined to get finish in under 28 minutes and to beat that 9 min/mile pace before the first half of the series was over. I felt it in my bones all day long. I knew today was the day despite the fact that I ran a 10k race yesterday. I just knew it.
It was super hot today but running in the woods was actually pretty cool...there were a few cool breezes I ran into. I hydrated all day so I could skip the water stop today. I knew today was the day! I beat my goal with 1 race left in the first half of the series. I'm tempted to switch to the 5 mile a week early to give me time to set a goal for that and possibly beat it by the end of the summer!
If I had any moisture left in my body when I finished I may have actually shed a tear. Unfortunately, I was a sweaty mess and worried about keeling over from running my little heart out (almost literally)!
Ohh and I went to the rock climbing gym after my race. I passed the belay test (I know...not a huge deal but exciting for me) and I raced up a few walls to burn off the energy from the excitement of the race! Much better than my initial lesson on Saturday!
BAA 10k
Busy busy weekend! Swimming on Saturday morning, rock climbing Saturday night, a 10k race Sunday morning, brunch with some friends, and then sleeping for the rest of the day (well maybe not the rest of the day...I did get a chance to hang out with a friend and her baby boy and another friend who just moved after a fantabulous nap).
Soo...big race! The Boston Athletic Association decided that a marathon, half marathon, and 5k weren't enough opportunities to parade the world's best runners around Boston so they organized a 10k this year! Thinking it will probably be the closest I'll ever get the Boston Marathon and all of it's glory, I signed up and I made a friend from work sign up with me. I should have known trouble was coming when 2 days before the race my friend told me that I'd probably need to drive to the race because he might be still drunk/hungover from a pub crawl he signed up for the night before the race...
Staying true to his word, he was quite possibly still drunk when I finally got him out of bed and quite the entertainment on the way to the race. Good thing I planned lots of time to get there and get settled because in addition to being drunk (and still wearing the clothes from last night when he got in my car), he also left his race number at home so we had to take care of that. Luckily the BAA was super cool about it and made the switch in a few seconds. We got our super cool shirts and checked his bag o clothes and lined up for the race!
They sent the wheelchairs off first. Three minutes later they sent off the elite runners (these dudes didn't even have numbers on their bibs, they had their names!). Four minutes after that the first of the slow pokes were set off. And as my group was lining up to go they made an announcement that the lead runner had reached the 1 mile mark and was on track to finish the race in 28 minutes! I can't even run a 5k that fast!
We finally got to start and I quickly left my friend in the dust. I had forgotten my GPS watch so I had no idea how fast I was running. I settled into a pace that felt ok and sustainable. Did I mention that the weather was pretty crappy?! It wasn't insanely hot but I'm pretty sure I was in some kind of humidity vortex that was 200% humidity yet the air was still accepting moisture and sucking every ounce of water from my body! I hit mile 1 and doused myself in a cup of water and downed 1 cup. Sadly I didn't look at the time when I started the race so I had no idea how long it had taken me to run the first mile...all I knew was that it was 17:30 after the beginning of the race...Aaaand then around mile 1.4 I started hearing the crowd in front of me cheering and then I saw the lead cop car...WTF! HOW WAS THIS DUDE ALREADY ALMOST DONE WITH THE FLIPPING RACE?! Slightly demotivated, I kept pushing on....
By mile 2 I wanted to rip my clothes off...I was dying in the outfit I decided to wear...I guess I know how to plan better for humidity now? Probably not...I'll probably make the same mistake at least 10 more times. In the first mile the race when under an underpass and I remember thinking "crap, I'm going to have to go uphill towards the end of the race!" In mile 2 the race when through BU...I saw 1 bridge ahead and dealt with it thinking that I'd only had to run up 1 bridge and hoping the turn around was at the top. Boy was I ever wrong...I got to the top of the bridge only to see the crowd ahead climbing another! I stumbled through to the turn around checking my time and trying to do the mental math to figure out how fast I was running each mile after mile 1...I thought it was somewhere around the 9.5 min/mile which was my goal for the race so I was happy. But by the turn around I was starting to fall apart and I tried to slow down a little.
After the turn around I searched the crowd for my friend for about half a mile but couldn't find him...and then I saw the freaking sweeper bus! Demotivator #2, seeing the sweeper not too far behind you! Luckily my iPod could feel my pain and put on some motivating music as I pushed through those two stupid bridges. At least I was on my way back!!! Despite the fact that I was "trying to hold back" my mile splits weren't really getting any longer...whatever, as long as I finish the race without walking. Mile 6 was pretty difficult. Luckily, the race directors saw this coming and threw in an extra water station towards the end. 4 cups of water on my head later (I'm surprised my headphones still worked after this race with all of the water I was dumping on me) I was rounding the corner to the finish line. In my twisted mental math I figured as long as I finished in under 1:07:00 I probably ran the whole race in under an hour...but I had no idea what my real time was.
Slightly worried I waited for my friend for about 20 minutes but he finally showed up at our meeting spot. I guess drunk running isn't as glamorous as it sounds. To quote him...."By mile 2 I could smell the whiskey oozing out of me...by mile 4 I realized I was sober."
Overall it was a fun morning. I met up with some friends after for a quick brunch before heading back home for a shower and a nap.
Oh and my overall time was 58:38! 9:27 pace!! And somewhat amazingly my 5k splits were only 4 seconds off from one another. Yay for being able to self pace!
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