Category Archives: training

Stretch or Become a Tight@$$ Like Me

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Okay I’m going to have to try and keep this one short today. Why? Procrastination. Yup, I’m the queen of it, but I will say I NEVER miss a deadline and in fact with work type things I tend to be early. I also say I work the best under pressure, I guess forced productivity and all. But this time I’ve procrastinated in getting the whole Father’s Day things in order and two days after that is my bro’s birthday so I’ve got to get cracking on things.

Let’s see, so for today I did an easy run after yesterday’s harder workout. Came out to be a little over 8 miles, and again I’d like to note how that whole easy day term gets thrown around way too loosely. Trust me that first mile was a symphony of cracks and pops, and it felt like it. Then, not gonna lie, I was counting down the minutes of those last three miles! But get er done. Finished with core/abs and stick a fork in me.



I am also notoriously tight. Not a tight@$$ I’d like to note, although my adductor has been a beast lately and it’s really tight way up north so maybe I am. At any rate I’m HORRIBLE at keeping up with the whole stretching. I know I’m paying for it, I feel it, and running in fact makes you tighter. So I need to start getting better and forcing myself to do it.

It seems everyone has their own personal views on stretching: when to do it, how to do it, what kind to do it. I will say this:

DON’T stretch cold muscles. You’ll tear something, you always see people doing their little quad stretch before going out for a run, that’s actually not a good idea. Stretch after your run/workout or at least once you’ve warmed up and already been moving.

DO hold static stretches long enough. Fun fact of the day: for a static stretch (one that you just hold a pose) to be effective at all it has to be held at least 20 seconds. So just reaching down to your toes for 15 seconds isn’t gonna give you anything, sadly there’s no ‘A’ for effort there. Guilty for that one. 🙁

DON’T be a weenie like me and avoid doing it because you’re already inflexible, you don’t like stretching to begin with, it’s uncomfortable and you suck at it.

DO dynamic stretching. Actually I like this kind a little more because you’re ‘doing’ something with the stretching. These are the kinds of stretches that work on range of motion/flexibility through the stretch; think leg swings, torso twists, donkey kicks, the like. These are the ones that you look like a dork doing but are really good for you. Oh the price we pay in the name of health and fitness.



So let’s have a little stretching line-up that might possibly help motivate me to get my tight butt a little less tight:

* Forward leg swings: Stand to the side and hold onto a wall or post for balance. Now swing your left leg in front of you and then back behind you in a swinging motion. Aim to reach your leg higher in front of you and further behind you the more swings you do. Work into getting more of a stretch. Do a set of 10-15 and don’t forget the other leg. (Check yo I did this one today.)

* Lateral leg swings: Again steady yourself with your hands on a wall or post but this time you’ll face the wall. Swing your left leg across your body this time, first across your body and to the right,then back to the left side in a big sweeping motion. You want to feel the stretch in your legs but also in your glutes and work on opening up your hips. Again work on getting your leg higher with each swing. Do a set of 10-15 on both legs.

* Torso circles AKA ‘the creeper’: Put your hands on your hips and do a full circle with your hips. Make that circle wide peeps, look like a total creeper, but you want to really work on that range of motion. Do 10 hip circles clockwise then 10 counter-clockwise.

* Donkey kicks: Get on your hands and knees (Charlie Sheen really enjoys this one), take your left leg and tuck it in close to your tummy then keep it bent at the knee and lift it back and up towards the ceiling. Repeat 10-15 times then do the same with the other leg. A nice little bonus is it works your glutes a little bit too.



* Butterfly (static stretch): I think we all did this in gym, sit on that butt of steel you have, place the soles of your feet together and try to get those quads as close to the floor as possible. If you saw me there would be about three feet between the floor and my knees, sad picture.

* Straddle reach (static stretch): Pull the mind outta the gutter here. Sitting down you’re just going to spread your legs and reach towards your left foot, hold, then reach to the right foot and hold.

* Quad flamingos (static stretch): Stand up and grab your left foot with your right hand. Lots of people do this one but hold their left foot with their left hand, but you can get a little bit better stretch if you do it with your right hand and with your leg across your bum. So try it that way if you please. 🙂 And don’t forget your other leg.

* Calf on a wall (static stretch): Stand again facing the wall, place your hands there for support and then with your legs a few feet away from the wall. Keep your left leg straight and the heel of your foot planted flat on the floor and hold. Now bend at the knee with your heel still flat on the floor. You’ll feel this in a slightly lower spot, your calf is made up of two muscles: the gastrocnemius and the soleus. The straight leg stretches the gastrocnemius the bent knee the soleus. Don’t forget your other leg. (Couldn’t resist putting this picture up, could this chick be in a dorkier ensemble? Makes me look fashion forward.)

Wow, okay so much for a shorter post, sorry. Got carried away. That said, also remember that for all those static stretches you’ve got to put in your due time, longer than 20 seconds. 😉 I know, I’m a lazy bum when it comes to stretching and will skimp out if I get a chance. I wish I were like the people who really dig on all this and are complete yogi masters but alas, I’m just a runnerchick with a tight @$$.

On to trying to figure out these gifts and cards that are in order…wish me luck! What are you all getting your pops and grandpops for Father’s Day? I’ll share what I come up with even though you really may not care all that much! Mwahahaha!!!

1) Do you live close to your dad/grandfather and plan on visiting come Sunday?

No, but I wish. 🙁

2) Do you find stretching one of the banes of your existence like me? Do you also kick yourself in the butt every time you get a soreness or niggling injury BECAUSE you skimp on stretching like me?

3) What shoes are you currently rocking in?

Nike Structure Triax baby! Have been a fan forever, BUT not gonna lie they did a major overhaul on them a few years ago and they’ve never been the same. I say that in a negative light. PS- I happened to run into one of the guys behind the overhaul and he gave me the reasoning behind it all, maybe I’ll say more about that in a later post. BUT, I made sure to tell him that I, for one, was not a fan and that I wasn’t the only one who thought so. I’m pretty sure I intimidated the heck out of him. 😉

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Random Seinfeld Conspiracy and Cross-training Workouts

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So I kept seeing this commercial and something about it has been bugging me. This has been going on for days! You know that feeling when you recognize someone but you don’t know exactly from where? Well, this also happens to me when I recognize an actor on TV, not the big name actors though. I’m talking about the ones who have the one time appearances on a show, they sort of drift around in the background of the usual sitcoms like the leftovers passed from one table to the next.

I have this funny little game that I play. I’m obsessed with both Seinfeld and Disney Channel shows. Well, I swear there is an odd connection between the two because lots of Seinfeld characters have made the D-Channel circuit. Who? Well I’ll name a few of my favorite sightings. Larry David himself (my favorite LD character on Seinfeld was of course the man in the cape) made an appearance in a Hannah Montana episode where he was a father trying to get a table at an exclusive restaurant. He gets bumped by HM. Estelle Costanza’s been in a few different D-Channel shows but was an irate old lady on Sonny With a Chance. J Peterman showed up on Wizards of Waverly Place to play Captain Jim Bob Sherwood. There’s others but I’m getting way off on a tangent here.

Well the same thing of obscure recollection was bugging me about this random commercial I kept on TV. It’s with a family sitting in front of the TV wondering what to eat and then this awkward looking lady walks in from their kitchen touting the words of some new frozen food thing. I seriously spent forever looking for the dang commercial online and of course now that I’m obsessed with it it’s not on TV. I think it was for some kind of stuffed popper bun, but the woman selling the product, THIS lady was the one I swore I had seen in something else but I couldn’t quite place where. It was driving me crazy…ya, I’m the kind of person where stupid things like this will seriously bug me.

Last night it came to me! I thought I must have seen her in some other kind of commercial or cameo but no…I SWEAR I used to see this lady in my old gym!! Now, like you I thought there was no way it was the same lady, ya it’s not like it’s a huge role or anything and it was probably filmed somewhere else. But, she’s got a pretty distinct face and way about her. I’m convinced it’s the same lady; she was really nice by the way. Those popper things look gross, but power to her!!

Speaking of gyms, in perusing blogs and such, the whole cross training issue came up. Running of course is my top pick of exercise/cardio but let’s face it, it’s really hard on the body. Inevitably we ALL wind up with stupid injuries that force us to resort to some kind of cross-training. The usual round-up are the bike, elliptical, and swimming. I’ll tell you, after my whole car accident and spending what felt like an ETERNITY on the elliptical, it got to the point where looking at the d*** thing almost made me physically ill. When I finally got to move up to the treadmill I almost wanted to burn that elliptical! Juuuust kidding.

But in reality that elliptical is awesome. If I had to pick my favorite cross-training activity it would be that…it feels the most like running to me. Though, not gonna lie, it does get boring. So to help pass the time, and also get the most out of the workout, intervals are perfect. Here’s a pyramid style interval workout; the harder effort times vary which is good because it works both your endurance but also strength/power because on the shorter bouts you really want to push it and go nearly all out for that interval. Tell yourself that ya, it hurts but it’s almost over! 😉

**Start with a warm-up of 5-10 minutes

* 1 minute- Hard effort; try to get your RPM’s really up there, think sprinting

* 1 minute- Easy recovery

* 2 minutes- Hard effort

* 2 minutes- Easy recovery

* 3 minutes- Hard effort

* 3 minutes- Easy recovery

* 2 minutes- Hard effort

* 2 minutes- Easy recovery

* 1 minute- Hard effort

* 1 minute- Easy recovery

* 2 minutes- Hard effort

* 2 minutes- Easy recovery

* 3 minutes- Hard effort

* 3 minutes- Easy recovery

* 1 minute- Hard effort

**Finish with a cool-down

Okay, so the hard portion of the workout comes out to be a total of 29 minutes. Obviously you’ll be going ‘faster’ for the shorter intervals just like you would running a 300/400 meter repeats on the track versus the longer interval times. Think of those like a 600/800 meter repeat. Take the easy minutes as just that…easy and allow yourself to regroup and recover. Because tension levels and inclines vary between machines I can’t give an exact guideline there but on the one I use I tend to put the incline at around 6-7 and the tension there too. What I also do is for the harder portions I’ll set the tension higher, 7, and scale it down to 5-6 for the recovery minutes. For me I like to feel like my turnover is similar to that of running and getting that faster rather than upping the tension to a level where my turnover just feels to slow…if that makes any sense.

You don’t have to do this on the elliptical, you can do the same layout on any kind of machine or even if you’re aqua-jogging in the pool. Just go harder in there like you’re trying to run faster. The goal is just to get that heart rate up! That said, cross-training isn’t only for when you’re injured but a great supplement to your running. So now that I’m able to run again I’m happy I didn’t burn the elliptical. 😉

Side note, that cartoon up top with the man on the elliptical was another one from the Gym Offenders Caught series. He’s the guy plugged into his iPod and belting out the lyrics like nobody’s business. I’m all for listening to music to get you pumped but do you need to sing so loud we all have to listen to your music selection?

Today for me I did an easy 8 and change. Pedestal core routine and abs. I’m thinking that’s it for now, but I hope you all are having a great Tuesday!

1) Favorite Seinfeld character? If you don’t like the show then we’ll have to send the Soup Nazi out after you. Just kidding. 🙂

2) Have you ever met an actor or actress? They can be quasi-famous too, or not even all that famous. I’m adding my gym lady poppers peddler to my list! hehe.

3) What’s your favorite crosstraining activity?

Mine’s the elliptical, but it looks like some people have resorted to just switching shoes. 😉


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Negative Splits Rule or it Might Get Ug-LY

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Up and at ’em early today. Got up and put in my easy 8 and change on the tread this morning. Sundays kind of stink TV wise so it was Nick at Nite (bleeding over into Nick Early Morn would be more correct) and Family Matters was on. I’ve never been a huge Urkel fan myself, and when he was on TGIF I put up with the half hour block but looked forward to the Full Houses and Step-by-Steps on later.



Finished up with abs and core work and on with the day! Yesterday I noted how there are tons of races going on now that summer’s here; for some these are their first races and for others it’s their bizzillionth. Newer runners often ask for tips before their first races, or perhaps they’ve raced shorter distances but are now signing up for the longer ones. I think one of the biggest lessons that most of us have learned the hard way is this: DO NOT GO OUT TOO FAST!!

Sorry, didn’t mean to yell that one, but trust me on this because it’s a very easy trap to fall into but paying for that fast start later in the race gets ug-LY!! I used to think that if I went out faster and under pace in the beginning of a race (or even workouts) then I’d be setting myself a nice little ‘cushion’ so that if I happened to slow down later I’d still be able to hit my target time. That sounds pretty logical, doesn’t it? Well, the body isn’t always logical as any PMS’ing woman can tell you.

When you’re running, or working out in general, the body burns glycogen as it’s prime fuel source. Physiologically the body burns glycogen more efficiently if you gradually work into a faster, more intense effort and not the other way around. And it doesn’t make just a little bit of difference, but a lot. The amount of time you go out too fast in the beginning could leave you slowing down 2-3 times that amount in the later miles. That means that should you go out even just 10 seconds too fast in the first mile, you could be paying for that with 20-30 seconds/mile by the end. And trust me, those seconds will feel WAY longer than the time on your watch indicates…lol.

That’s why negative splits rule. Negative splitting just means that you get faster as the race/workout progresses. Not a complicated theory but it’s tough to hold yourself back and not get swept up in the excitement of race day. But you want to go into a race with a goal pace and race plan in mind and then stick to it.

Finding your goal pace is pretty easy to do based off of your workouts for most races. But it’s trickier come marathons only because you don’t typically run the full 26.2 miles in regular training like you would a 5k or 10k. For a marathon you can of course get a good idea based off of your long runs but there’s also a track workout you can do to give you a fair approximation.

Marathon goal prediction workout as Perfected by the Running Coach Legend Mr. Bart Yasso:

Do a warm-up and then head to the track for 10×800 meter repeats. Do a recovery jog lap between each repeat and make sure to take your recovery easy before starting the next one. Once you’re done with all 10, take your average time and whatever it is in minutes:seconds will translate into your marathon prediction time in hours:minutes. So if Bob ran his repeats in 3 minutes and 30 seconds, his predicted marathon time will be 3 hours and 30 minutes. From there you can figure out his mile pace should be 8:01. (PS-don’t forget your cool-down! hehe) This workout is fittingly dubbed Yasso 800’s.

Going out too fast for your capabilities in the beginning of ANY race can suck, it’s just that it’s a lot ‘easier’ to gut out the rest of a 5k than some of the longer races. In the case of a marathon you might not even be able to finish. So that’s my spiel on negative splitting. 🙂 Oh, one more thing real fast, other factors that can make you slow down more and feel even worse should you go out too fast are heat and elevation. So keep that in mind too, if you aren’t used to running at elevation you might want to go out even more conservative at the start.



All this marathon talk reminds me that if you happened to read about the drunk driving accident I happened to see and wrote about, I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s tragic that these accidents are so common. My friend, Kara Goucher, lost her father because of a drunk driver and is an avid supporter of MADD. (For anyone who doesn’t know who she is, you should because she’s a kick@$$ distance star, she’s one of the leading US distance gals. She rules the track and the marathon…so that was my line of thinking to get here…lol) Well, she created a design that is featured on both a card and shirt and if you order one 100% of the proceeds benefit MADD. So I wanted to share those links!

Okay, so I think that’s it for now! I’m off to the store to restock and then we’ll see. 🙂

1) Worst story of going out too fast in a race or workout?

Too many times to count, but I think the most embarrassing was at a really big cross-country meet that I hoped to do really well in. My whole family was there, coaches, and let’s face it plenty of other people who I hoped to ‘look good’ in front of, and I totally bombed. That was one painful and humiliating last mile!

2) Favorite track/running type workout?

I already said tempo’s and long runs, but for intervals I like mile and 800 repeats.

3) What are you up to this fine Sunday?


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Raise the Red, White, and Blue…And the Contradiction of ‘Easy Days’

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Happy Memorial Day!! Okay, it’s a little late in the day but I can still yell it out there! 🙂 Hope you’re all enjoying the holiday, maybe getting a little BBQ action, a little pool party, some nice food grubbing. If you are getting some nice sunshine I reserve the right to be a little jealous. It’s not as cold as it’s been the past few days and it’s not raining (yet) but it’s definitely not what I would consider ‘lay by the pool and bust out the grill’ type of weather.

There’s a pool here at my apartment complex but there is no freaking way you’d catch me diving in right now. I think some kids are, but I’m a total weenie and still complain getting into an indoor pool that’s heated. I have issues with being cold. Plus I’m not a big waterbaby to begin with.

Moving on…definitely had one of those ‘just get through this’ runs today and was a trooper and busted out my core/abs routine before sticking a fork in myself. I knew if I didn’t do it right after no way I’d be motivated to do it later. Then, bring on lounge lizard mode! At least I was prepared for it, it’s kind of funny to think of the word ‘easy day’ because in training it usually follows a harder workout day and even though it’s at a slower pace it inevitably winds up feeling tough because of the effort of the day before. Haha.

So you just know what’s coming, get in the token miles, and make sure you keep it at a recovery pace. But it still sometimes becomes a mind over matter issue. How I get through it is to usually tell myself to just make it to ‘X’ amount of miles (usually for me it’s 4) and I tell myself that if I really feel like sh** I can cut out early. But usually once I hit that mark I figure I’m already here, let’s just finish out what was in the training plan. All about lying to yourself at the beginning to get out the door. 😉

Just one more mile…or one more half mile. This is what I tell myself as I’m going along. “Eh, what’s one more mile? Just make it to that mark.” Running outside, we all have our usual routes and I’d have little check points or landmarks that I’d know were coming, “Just make it to that big random clocktower in the middle of suburbia with the stained glass.” That was on one of my routes, that clock was massive and so out of place, but once I got to the clock I knew I was about half-way done. I’d have others, one that was just over a mile from my house and I knew that usually no matter how junky I was feeling I could make it home once I hit that point.

Zone out. For easy days, usually your body can run on auto-pilot, it’s kind of funny how you can mentally zone out sometimes and, “Wow! Two miles just few by!” Usually it’s because I’ve got some song stuck in my head (blast that Bieber! Hehe) or this can happen a lot if you’re running with a partner.

Still, you also need to pay attention if you’re constantly feeling rundown or crappy because that can be a sign that you’re just overtraining, going too fast on your easy days, and maybe need to back off. That’s where keeping a training log can really come in handy. Go back and look that baby over, have you recently increased your mileage a lot? Also check to see if you’re hitting your harder workouts as you’d like to. If you’re not, then reassess and again make sure that your easy days aren’t being run too hard. Doing that can blur your training program into a whole gray blob, the distinction between the hard/easy days gets harder to distinguish and the workouts that you actually CARE about pace-wise start to suffer.

I’ll follow up on this post about getting through workouts that aren’t going your way and races where the second the gun goes off you know it’s gonna be a battle of wills. We all have them. Also, The Hungry Runner Girl wrote a really good post on a similar topic about mentally battling back after a crummy workout/race. You can’t let those less than stellar performances keep you from coming back because we ALL have them and those bad days are what make those good days all the sweeter. 🙂

1) How do you keep on plugging through a crummy run or workout?

2) Are you a total waterbaby or a weenie in the pool like me?

3) Favorite food at a BBQ?

My mom and grandma (we actually call her Po-Po, long story) makes this dessert call chocolate junk cake…yummy stuff!


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