New Gym

I broke down and decided to get a new gym membership. I hadn't been to the Y in months and cancelled that membership, but my buddy Daisy has started working downtown and lunch runs with her, Salty, and LP have become more frequent. I don't mind the occasional "sink shower" but 3 or 4 lunch runs a week and it gets old. I added another weekly morning run downtown with one of my TNT peeps so I decided it was time to find a gym and a shower close to the office.

I splurged and went with the more expensive gym. Membership is month to month and there are a lot of great classes as well as nice new treadmills with fancy personal TV screens, nice locker room, and a 25 meter pool to boot. On top of that they have free coffee/tea and fruits in the morning as well as a hot tub and sauna and at least one freebie night a week where you can grab a pasta dinner or beverages etc. If my raise hadn't come at just the right time I probably would have gone the frugal route but hey a girl has to treat herself sometimes.

I went yesterday to try out a hard bodies class with Daisy before committing to a membership. It was a long day for me with an easy 35 minute run in the morning and a medium effort 50 minute run in the evening. I'm getting used to the double runs but was interested to see how I would handle throwing a fitness class into the mix. The class was great working all the muscle groups. My best description is a good rotation of regular free weights but done aerobic style with music with some yoga ball exercises, and stepping stairs to work your quads. I'm a sissy and grabbed the lightest weights I could find ranging from 3-8 lbs. The instructor and Daisy had some much heavier weights but as I am primarily a runner I'm not too worried about building big arm muscles. I'd just like to keep the ones I have lean and try to create some sort of under arm muscle to take away my dreaded under arm flab. I think I'll stick with the low end weights until this becomes a routine thing.

Well I survived the class but today I have deemed the class sore bodies instead of hard bodies. Holy cow am I a wreck! Muscles I didn't even know I had are sore, as a runner you think your legs are hard core, but I guess this girls legs can learn some new tricks. I'll definitely be passing on the class next Thursday as I'd be afraid of being sore still for the marathon. The hardest exercises for me seemed to be the sustained squats and these crunches where your legs scissored the yoga ball (one on top one on bottom ball resting on your shin) and you lifted your legs and torso, Ouch! I am glad they offer a class like this as I should be doing more lunges and squats and core strengthening to avoid injuries. This will be a great way for me to tap into those without it feeling like a chore.

Evening run I got out with Rootsrunner to talk pacing. I'm feeling more confident about the race and have some ideas to make my group fun. I am just so excited about the whole affair. It will be so interesting to be in such a large race consisting primarily of women.

This morning I did a light treadmill run with Daisy and then a brief swim. It was nice to get back in the water even if my upper body was a wreck. This weekend I am hoping for two 10 milers to round out another week at 50 miles even. Still haven't gotten up to 60 like I wanted but I have been above 40 pretty consistently and I am already 200+ miles over last years total so I am sure I will be ready for JFK regardless. Next week I'll do a mini taper to be rested and ready for San Francisco.

Side Stitch Alert

Had to head to the Y last night instead of my group run. I've decided BW is right and when its under 20 I should be inside. The place was packed. There was one treadmill open and it was one of the ones I don't get along with. I swear the damn thing goes faster than the other treadmills. I hopped on and started and sure enough 6 mph felt like 7 mph. Luckily one minute in a guy jumped off one of the treadmills that feels closer to normal effort so I quick ran across the room and hopped on.

I warmed up for one mile easy then started into my tempo run, only to be greeted by the worst side stitch ever. We are talking searing pain. That hasn't happened to me in a long time. I tried the breathing tricks I knew and it made it worse. I tried clamping my hand tightly over the pain, but running 7:30 pace with your hand clamped to your side isn't real easy.

I finally ramped down the pace thinking I would have to forget the workout, but after a half mile easy the pain subsided and I finished out the rest of my planned tempo run.

What a pain though! I hope that was just a fluke, although it still is a bit sore this morning. I can't recall what exactly causes a side stitch. I missed breakfast yesterday and lunch was light so maybe I just didn't have enough nutrition?

I broke down and wore the mp3 player for the run. I am not sure if it helped at all. Time still dragged and I swear they turned on a heater directly above me during my second tempo mile. I felt like I was trapped in a furnace. Somewhere during my 2nd tempo mile my towel came flying off the handle and rolled under my feet on the treadmill. Thankfully I avoided tripping and falling and the towel just shot off the end of the treadmill. I didn't stop and go get it out of embarrassment but it would have been useful with all the sweating going on. Some warning flashed across the treadmill screen but I didn't catch it. I think it thought I had an additional person on there.

Every mile dragged last night but somehow I suffered through it. I kept reminding myself that if it wasn't hard it wasn't helping.

Here's the stats: (FIRST called for 1 mile warm up, 4 miles at 7:19, and 1 mile cool down) Since I seem to put in more effort on the treadmill for any given pace I modified that to run between 7:19 and 7:35 pace. Start the first mile at 7:35 and work my way down to 7:19.

one mile warm up 9:51.23
800 m 3:48.85 (side stitch)
800 m easy 4:53.08
800 m 3:47.64
1 mile 7:29.82
1 mile 7:24.67
1 mile 7:19.12
800 meter cool down 4:48.48