Yesterday: 5 mile (easy) run
Instead of doing 800m intervals yesterday like I had planned, I went with what my Runners World Training App on my phone advised, which was an easy 5 miles. Since I lost my watch a long time ago and am too lazy and too cheap to buy a new one, I've been using the timer on my IPOD Shuffle which is a little difficult to use for keeping an accurate time. So, I clocked in my time somewhere around 42 minutes which wasn't bad since I am very out of shape!
I was probably the last runner to track my runs with my car...
Also, I discovered a great tool to track mileage on a website called runningmap.com where you can actually route your own runs and save them to pull up later as well as share it with other people around your community! This is WAY better than what I used to do, which was drive around in my car tracking the speedometer.
A second recent discovery of mine that I thought I'd share is an amazing anti-chafe stick that I smother all over the arch in my right foot because I am prone to get the biggest and ugliest blisters there. I'm talking, every time I start to increase my mileage this nasty thing shows up, spreads throughout the majority of my arch and hurts enough to keep me from running for days because its just too painful - even after popping it! - gross.
When I was visiting my mom, a wonderful lady at Run On recommended this as I was perusing the many different types of socks that are made to keep your feet in running form and I am so thankful she did because my blisters are finally starting to heal!
Speaking of socks, I'm not one to go out and buy all the latest, fanciest running equipment because, first of all, I'm too broke. Second of all, I am somewhat of a minimalist when it comes to my running. I mean, its nice and all to have a sleek looking dry fit tee and all the fun little running gadgets, but when I ran cross country in high school I was running in Soffe shorts, homemade t-shirts that read the classic running quotes, and NO music! Every once in awhile I try to run without the ol' IPOD to revisit days passed but its very rare. I can't resist having some good Lady GAGA and GirlTalk tunes blasting into my ear to keep my pace up.
A couple of running supplements that I've tried
I'll even tell you my funny story of the first time I tried Gu.
yep, this stuff.
I was running my first marathon and had never tried Gu, never even heard of it! I'm telling you, I'm a minimalist. When I got somewhere into mile 17 or 18 I came across a water station and was looking for a snack. They where handing this stuff out and so, while running, I ripped off the tops and squirted this bad boy into my mouth.... Oh no... I thought that maybe I had grabbed the wrong thing and just ate Vasoline! My mind went to thinking, "how horrible! I've come all this way to potentially be poisoned by Vasoline!" Turns out it was just a really icky flavor. So moral of the story there is to maybe read the package before eating - or maybe not test out new things mid-race.
It takes me awhile to learn from my mistakes though. During the half-marathon I did recently, my good friend and long distance running partner (her name is Virginia and she's in some of the running pics from my last post) had these fun little things:
She handed me a few to try out so I stuffed them into my little key pocket in my running shorts to "boost energy" throughout the run. Since I was out of shape for this half, I thought "I need all the energy boosts I can get!", so I waited until mile 5 and popped one in when I realized that it is very difficult to breathe and chew at the same time. The result was me choking while running and that's never fun. I guess the people at Gu and their idea to make it with a Vasoline-like consistency have something going there.
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