Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Hairstyle Changes & Running Relaxed

Hello friends!  I have many things/workouts to update on from over the past few days.  Btw, does that seem normal to have 3 prepositions in a row (on, from, over)?  Is there a rule on how many prepositions can go in a row?  Prepositions are my favorite part of speech so I always notice them.  Anyways...

First, a recap of last week's mileage (click on the links for details of each run):

Monday - 7 miles
Tuesday - 7 miles
Wednesday - 7 miles
Thursday - 3.65 miles
Friday - 7.5 miles
Saturday - 3.5 miles
Sunday - Rest
Total - 35.65 miles

Second, I realized that I have been failing on taking pictures lately.  And I will tell you why.  It's because of SnapChat.  Whenever I find interesting things to take a picture of or take silly selfies on the treadmill (not that I'd put my sweaty treadmill pictures up here for the world to see anyways), I snap them to my friends instead of take a normal picture.  So I am now resolving to take more real pictures so I will have more for the blog :)

I did just look through the photos on my phone though and found 3 I would like to share:


Each of these 3 pictures was taken within 3 weeks of each other.  My hair was so long and blonde.  Then I decided it was time to go back to brown, my natural color, but I was going to keep on growing it long.  It's much easier for running when I can nicely pull all of my hair back into a ponytail.  But then I got an offer by a friend in cosmetology school to do a hair cut on me for free.  So why not?

OK, now to the running!  Here's how the past 4 days of my 30-Day Base Building Challenge have gone:

Day 6 - 3.5 miles in 30 minutes (8:34 pace average) + 500m swimming
Day 7 - Rest
Day 8 - Rest
Day 9 - 7.5 miles in 60 minutes (8:00 pace average)

I was about to put little sad faces by the 2 days that I didn't do my challenge, but I decided that in the end, I think the rest is a good thing.  I felt awesome on today's 60 minute run!

But let's back up to Saturday.  I went to XSport with the intention of not running a full hour so that I could try my hand (body?) at swimming.  I have completed a few triathlons in my day, and I plan to write a whole post on my thoughts on doing another one this summer, but let's just say I'm not exactly a swimmer and need some major improvement.  So I got in the pool, not sure how it would go considering I have not swam since the last triathlon I did back in June.  I ended up doing a total of 500m, stopping for a short rest every 100m.  My 100m segments were: freestyle, freestyle, breaststroke, backstroke, freestyle.  It was definitely an arm workout as well as a cardio workout, so I'd like to try mixing in some swimming twice a week and I also plan to take a stroke class.

And on the 7th day, I rested.  I decided more for mental reasons that I did not want to deal with another day on the treadmill.  Another impending doom of a winter storm is heading for Chicago now and I knew I'd be on the treadmill all of this week...and who knows how much longer.  So, I decided that since it was the Super Bowl and Groundhog Day and Sunday, it was an appropriate day to rest.

Similarly, Monday was a mental health day/I don't want to go to the treadmill day in my book.  I figure I could take that day off and still get in 6 quality runs each of the remaining days this week.  So that is my plan.

Which brings us to today.  I ventured out to the gym and thought "hmm it's not that cold, I could run outside."  But then I remembered that the issue is not the temperature right now (we seem to be past this round of the polar vortex), but rather the snow and ice that still blankets the sidewalks.

On the treadmill today I was surprisingly content and relaxed the entire time.  I started at a speed of 6.7, which has been my normal starting speed lately, and I increased by .1 every time the song changed.  After I got to 6 miles (I was at a speed of 8.0 I believe), I decided to get a little crazy and increase the speed every 1/4 of a mile.  I still felt very relaxed and at ease, which was a nice little boost to my running self-confidence.  For the last 5 minutes I increased the speed each minute, ultimately ending my hour at a speed of 9.0 (6:40 pace).  I think next week I'll try working in some actual speed work to my runs.  But for now, this 8 minute/mile average run was a wonderful start to the week.

Do you change your hairstyle a lot?

Any tips on learning to swim?

2 comments:

  1. You are brave for changing to your hairstyle AND color. I typically do not change my color (I like to be lighter) but I have cut my hair and gone for the shorter (AKA below shoulder) look. My only advice on learning to swim is asking around for a good coach. I had someone give me four lessons and I now feel like a different person when I am in the water. Sooner is better too, as you don't want to develop bad technique or habits.

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  2. I notice prepositions, too! I know there's a rule that you aren't supposed to end a sentence with a preposition... so sometimes i spend an embarrassing amount of time restructuring a sentence so that it doesn't end like that :)

    I like all your hair pics- your current cut looks great! Free haircuts would scare me but it looks like your friend did a great job!!

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