Renovating Kaeti

After taking almost a full week off of running (there was an attempted run last Wednesday, but it’s best we don’t even talk about it), I went out last night feeling recharged and ready to go.

The pros: It was my first run in over a month with no pain. I felt comfortable. Gave me a chance to clear my head after a weird week.

The cons: I was dehydrated. It was short. Right calf started hurting about an hour after the run, and is still sore today.

This is like the injury that wouldn’t leave. It has hunkered down in my calf, and just when I think it’s better, I wake up feeling like my leg is attached to my body with a bungee cord. I’ve stretched, stretched some more, done my calf raises, taken a week off running and even cried bitter, bitter tears taken time to reflect on any sloppy running habits. Still, nothing seems to help, which leaves me to conclude that I have one of these conditions:

• Some sort of flesh-eating bacteria is noshing on my leg muscles in a very localized and persistent way
• One leg has recently grown longer or shorter than the other, creating all sorts of muscle imbalances and corresponding calf strains
• Or, I have a severe sleepwalking disorder and whilst roaming at night I spend a lot of time wearing high heels.*

In the highly unlikely case that it’s actually something I didn’t mention above, I’m going to keep trucking along slowly and surely. Following Matt Fitzgerald’s advice in Back in the Game, I’m going to work diligently to rehab this nagging pain before it becomes a chronic nuisance. As he says:

Your injury is not fully healed when the pain goes away. The healing process is truly complete only when the affected muscle or joint is back to full strength, but this may never happen if you don’t actively work on strengthening it.

While I’m at it, here are some sources to check out if you’re interested in avoiding injury, recovering from injury or injuring others:

• Active Recovery by Kara Douglass Thom
• An Ounce of Prevention (Cool Running)
• Injury tips and articles at Runners Lounge
• Some riveting charts and graphs at the Virtual Sports Injury Clinic

If you don’t already know (and own one), Garmin is a company that makes these nifty sports watches/computers equipped with GPS and many other fantastic features. While I honestly believe that you can get a great workout sans all the gadgets that are hawked these days, there are many reasons I’m thinking about making the investment. Here are just a few (feel free to add to the list)¹:

• It tracks your pace, heart rate, route, blood alcohol level, etc.
• It can read minds.
• It cooks dinner and does laundry. Generally very helpful with household chores.
• It knows why bad things happen to good people, among other of life’s greatest questions.
• When you get tired it runs for you.
• Nuclear disarmament function.
• Street cred.
• A Garmin will always love you back.

Perhaps I’ll reward myself after finishing the race on Saturday. Do any of you have tips or suggestions for my Garmin and me²? Is it worth the hefty price tag?

I spent way too many hours trying to find research on exercise motivation today. Specifically, how goals and a little competition can help fuel a person’s fitness endeavors. Le sigh. Sometimes, no matter how much of an Internet detective I think I am, Google just can’t give me what I need.

But, there’s a silver lining. My search-engine failure gave me the idea for today’s Friday Favorites! So without further ado, Here’s a list of some of the motivators that keep me going, and help me push past inertia:

1. New workout clothes or shoes. This normally wouldn’t be No. 1 on my list of motivators, but it’s on my mind because all the running and sporting-goods stores are clearing out last year’s clothes to make room for the new season, and we all know that means sales! Having new threads always gives me a boost, especially when I know that I only paid a small fraction of what those Mizuno running capris normally cost.
2. Putting on workout clothes. When I first started running, one of my friends gave me an invaluable piece of advice about getting my butt out the door on a daily basis. When I come home from a long day, tired and cranky and craving chocolate more than a run, the very first thing I do is put on my running clothes. Once I have my clothes and shoes on, I usually think, “Well I’m dressed, so I may as well…” Seriously, this has worked more times than I can count.
3. Community support. When my running program started ambling a bit, I jumped online and joined a running clinic through the Running Room. Having the built-in support of a running club has helped me keep my training on track. And while the real-life running partners have been amazing, I also love the help and support that comes with online running forums and blogs (see links on the right).
4. A little friendly competition. Whether it’s the person running next to me at the gym, or the person I’ve just got to pass before the finish line, a little competition will definitely give me an extra push. I especially like competing against my own times. The key here is to not get too carried away, and to make sure you’re not forgetting fitness for the fleeting pleasure of total domination. Ahem.
5. Booking an event. Once you get that race registration in, there’s no turning back (well, I guess there could be, but then you’d be a total wimp going back on an important commitment to yourself). My first event? The 100 percent Irish for a Day 5K on March 15. I hope this means there’ll be beer afterward. Which brings me to No. 6…
6. Beer. No, I’m only kidding. But it is Friday, which means I’m off to go embrace my adopted Irish heritage pursue a lifestyle of health and happiness!

In all seriousness, I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend and stays motivated — even in this oh-so-dreary month of February.

If you’re new to my blog, welcome! You can read more about me here or in my first post “Does This Blog Make Me Look Fat?“

It’s amazing how running inside spoils your legs. I ran outside on Saturday and Sunday this weekend, and I am definitely feeling it today.

Despite my minor soreness, though, it was great to get back to the lake. Running outside is so much more rewarding than putting in 40 minutes on the treadmill. In Minnesota, the runners who stay outside for the winter are part of a special, secret club (well, not really secret, because we’re the ones that always garner a lot of scornful comments like “Are those people crazy or something??”). We’re the proud few who trudge around the lake in ice, snow, sleet and 40-below wind chills (my eyes actually froze shut the other week). There are a lot of understanding smiles and knowing nods exchanged when crossing paths with other winter runners. It’s all very . . . heartwarming.

At least, it usually is. During my running clinic on Saturday, we were making our way around the lake and came up to a man running so slow that he was barely picking his feet off the ground. I’m no speed-demon myself, and we were clocking somewhere around a 12-minute-mile pace, so you can imagine just how slow he was going. Now all of this is fine and good, and I’m the first one to proselytize about the importance of doing everything at your individual level. So we passed him, gave him a friendly nod (which was not returned) and kept trudging along.

Then, with no warning, he comes barreling between my running partner and I, sending us scattering. And despite almost knocking us to the ground, he offers no acknowledgement whatsoever. Once he is about 10 meters ahead of us on the path, he resumes his snail’s pace forcing us to pass him again. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Eventually, my friend looked over to me and said, “You know, he just doesn’t want to get passed by a couple of girls!” She was dead on. It’s like we were offending his prescribed world order: one where the girls finish last, and certainly don’t pass him — no matter how painfully slow he may be running. I believe this is what Vanilla at Half-Fast refers to as “getting chicked.” All in all, it made for an amusing (though somewhat awkward) run.

Anyway, this display of ego got me to thinking about how preconceived notions can hinder us in our many life pursuits. I talked about this idea a bit in this post — how definitions we carry around about ourselves can be awfully outdated and inaccurate (for example, thinking “I could never be an athlete,” when, in fact, you most definitely can be one). (A quick aside: There’s a great story coming up in our May issue about this exact topic.)

I think it was my preconceived notions about the fitness world and Those Who Are Fit that made me so reticent to the idea of exercise. I mean, how could there possibly be a place for my birthin’ hips in a sea of hard bodies rocking the spandex lifestyle? (Yes, apparently I based my preconceived notions on Bally commericals and my perennial favorite, Jane Fonda’s Complete Workout video.)

Right now the current preconceived notion I am fighting against is: There is no way on God’s green earth that I could ever — EVER — do a triathlon. But encouragement to sign up for my first sprint-distance tri is coming from all arenas of my life (and I mean all — even my financial planner is a triathlete). It’s got me thinking and weighing my options. And then dismissing the idea outright because it’s completely ridiculous, only to find it nagging at me again a few days later. But then I think that maybe I should focus on running this year. On the other hand, I’ve always been a multitasker, and this would give my training some much-needed variety. And round and round the indecision goes.

Any opinions or advice would be ever so appreciated!

I’ve never thought of myself as an athlete. I mean, you take one look at me and it’s obvious that I’m the “bookish” type. In addition to being a four-eyes, I spend my time doing ridiculously nerdy things: reading, the arts, (easy) crossword puzzles, attending Star Trek theme parties (just kidding about that last one).

The sports that I love (i.e., baseball, baseball and baseball) are much better when I’m observing them rather than actually playing them. While I certainly could do serious damage if someone handed me a bat, it most likely would be a result of it slipping out of my hands during a swing and knocking someone unconscious. Hypothetical situation, of course.

My point is that I’ve never identified with the jocks. They were the elite, the untouchables. Somehow I’d missed the memo (or the genes) allowing some to effortlessly join teams, squads and scrums. Even when I played basketball in junior high, I didn’t identify myself as an athlete. And I carried this outdated definition of myself around with me all the way through college.

Then, last summer, something shifted. I stumbled (literally) into running. It started with 15 seconds here and there, usually followed by about 15 minutes of recovery — trust me, it was not a pretty sight. But I reminded myself over and over again that I was already doing more than some 60 percent of Americans, and that something was better than nothing. So I kept going.

Day after day, I put on my running shoes, read everything I could get my hands on, customized a training program, and started to learn the lingo (fartlek? Seriously?).

After about three months of wheezing through intervals around Lake of the Isles in Minneapolis, I started to fall in love with running. If I didn’t run, it felt like something was missing from my day. I was able to run further, with a lower heart rate, than I’d ever gone before.

And I started to get annoyed when people (usually my mother) asked how “jogging” was going. Could you be more patronizing? I’d usually bite my tongue and respond “Running is great.” (John Bingham wrote a great column about the distinction in Runner’s World a few months back.) This minor (you might argue silly) irritation clued me into something, though: Somehow, mystery of all mysteries, I had become an athlete.

Now, I’m training for my first 5K, and rest assured I’ll bore you with the details as that progresses. Through this all, I’ve found that taking ownership of my sport keeps me moving toward my goals. What a huge difference it makes to declare that I am, in fact, a runner — no matter what my mom may call it (love you Mom!).