I'm going to give this another go

Sooo… it’s been about a month since I posted anything. I let the business of June take over… and honestly, when I’m not running I just feel like there’s nothing much to talk about. When I type that out I realize how silly that sounds, I mean, who wants to read about running all the time? I will do my best to switch things up ;)




I have some new things to talk about today though… well, sort of



I’m running again which is amazing and also not so amazing. I worked really hard during the 6 weeks I was not running to maintain my cardio capacity and continue to strengthen my legs. I generally did 4-6 miles daily on the elliptical. I had no idea if this would help me maintain my speed and distance but I did it anyway. Now I’m running again and I’ve definitely lost some speed. I’m running 1:00-1:30 minutes slower per mile and I feel really winded. I haven’t run more than 5 miles yet and I’m not sure what my limit is. I don’t want to push it though, it would be no fun to end up right back where I started with another stress fracture.



Since it’s really hot and humid in Florida and I seem to have lost the ability to wake up super early to get my run in while it’s at least a little cooler I haven’t done any running on my normal routes. I’ve run on the treadmill a bit but that’s not really a great indicator. I’ve never been good at running on a treadmill.



Last week I was on vacation and ran 5 miles on the beach two days in a row. The first day I wore my vibrums. After reading Born to Run I’ve been reinspired to give the vibrums another try – anything to stay running! Of course the following day I could hardly walk (anyone who has tried vibrums knows what I mean). My calves were really sore and cramping. So of course I got out and ran another 5 miles. Um, ouch! I wore my normal shoes this time. I was pleased with my running both of the days even though I was going slower than I had pre-injury. I still don’t think those runs were great indicators of where I’m really at though because I was running on soft sand with a lot of wind blowing against me. These could be excuses and I may really be a lot slower now, it’s just hard to tell exactly where I’m at.



The following day my calves were REALLY sore and crampy. So then I spent the entire day in the car. Perfect prescription for sore muscles… NOT. I stretched at every rest stop and walked but I don’t know how much that really helped. Every time I hopped out of the car I could hardly walk again.



Then I took a day off and the following day ran 5 miles – 2 on the treadmill, 3 later in the day at a nice slow recovery pace with Rachel. The day after that we did stadiums for the first time in forever. I had to stop multiple times to stretch my calves.



The soreness has continued to get better each day but I’m still feeling crampy today. I’m no professional but from what I’ve gathered it’s good to still move and use sore muscles. I may be overdoing things though.



Oh goodness, obviously my best at “switching it up” is not very good.



I could go on and talk about other things but then this post would get really long and you would probably want to stop reading it. Before I end this I do have one other topic I’d like to talk about briefly.



While I was on vacation I was determined to stay active and get in some good exercise. Unfortunately I was not entirely successful. Generally I wake up really early and get exercise in first thing. I think my wake up early ability is broken though . I just couldn’t seem to get myself out of bed early. Then I’d have breakfast with everyone and stay and chat for a long time and by the time that was done it just felt too late to do anything. All of my planned early runs in the gorgeous cool PA weather failed. I did a few P90X videos, took a few walks (my walking partner never wanted to walk) and did some other mini workouts everyday in my room but in general my activity decreased a lot. I don’t mind so much but honestly I have a hard time enjoying vacation when I just sit around and eat more than I usually do. So I wanted to know what you all do on vacation. Do you try to stay active and eat healthy or do you give yourself a total vacation? Being vegan makes it easier for me to stay healthy when I’m on vacation because I have a good excuse if something that is prepared is not healthy (loaded with cheese/butter – oh, sorry, I don’t eat dairy products). However, now my family tries to make foods that I can have. I really appreciate this, I know they do it because they love me and want to make me happy but often what they prepare is basically vegan junk food and I have to eat it. One meal, fine but when they make a huge dish then I have to eat it until it’s gone. Am I the only one who deals with this and am I crazy for wishing I could just bring/prepare my own foods while visiting relatives?