Monthly Archives: August 2013

Mon 8/5 – 8 mi / 73:20 min
So after my first of 2 +15 hr work days to start off the week (awesome, right?!) running was just about the last in the world that I wanted to do. I had resigned to going to my apt compound’s gym (clad in my cutest of work out outfits of course) and hobbling along on a treadmill with my newly discovered (and very precious) Netflix for as long as Lincoln Lawyer lasted or until my legs/lungs/ability to give a shit gave out. Then I stepped outside. It was beautiful! Cool (70F or so), calm and dry. So, change of plans and off I went for my 8 mile run — whether it was going to kill me or not.

Miraculously I survived! I only seriously thought that I might barf up my tofu burger once and I even though I didn’t carry water, I had hydrated well enough during the day (aka: it was damn cool out so I didn’t need to bring water) that I never even really got thirsty 🙂

Tues 8/6 – rest

This is a good thing. The left shoulder is aching again (this happened during my first marathon training season and was not fun. I think the problem stems from a muscle imbalance in my back that causes the pain when the stronger muscles start pulling on my sissy weaker left shoulder. This seems to happen most/the worst at the end of long runs or during weeks with higher mileage when I get fatigued and have poor form. Booooooo! x-(  Ben-gay, stretches, push ups and paying attention to my form will have to be the Dr’s orders for the next few weeks.

Wed 8/7 – 4.1 mi / 38 min

Warmer than it has been but still felt pretty good. (This was a big surprise as I swear my running outfit shrank about 6 sizes between the last time I wore it and now! WTH? I thought for sure I’d feel like a little chorizo running through campus, but I didn’t. Now we aren’t going to get into whether or not I looked like a little chorizo…) The shoulder felt pretty good and the lungs and legs held up just fine. Yeah! 🙂

Thurs 8/8 – rest

Fri 8/9 – 8.2 mi / 78 min

Warm and humid after work run (that was supposed to be on Thursday morning, and then Thursday evening, and then Friday morning…) but  all things considered it was actually quite enjoyable. I went out north along Nassau where I’ve only ever biked before, not run. It was great! There wasn’t a proper bike/run lane most of the way, but there was enough shoulder and drivers were careful enough. The gradual down hill helped the miles tick away and the pretty houses were great for peeping admiring. I took the footpath back to town (where I ran my first +5 miler here) and the scenery was just as fun as before (minus the water obstacles and sand muck traps). The inevitable climb back up to campus at the end of the run is really a cruel trick that the geography plays on me here, but I survived. Oh! I also completed my second successful break-in-to-the-snotty-row-club-for-water-without-getting-caught mission, which was a great way to cap off the run 🙂

So I mentioned that I was having some shoulder pain a week or so ago. (I think I did, right? Well, I started having pain in my left shoulder about a week ago after a quick Friday 8 miler.) This is likely to to a combination of tight back muscles and a muscle imbalance between my beasty back and sissy pectorals. I have since consulted with my wonderfully hyper-analytical + hyper-rational (almost) Dr. DFR, and have been instructed to integrate some back stretches, push ups and core exercises into my workouts to stretch out the back (duh), beef up my pecs and improve over all core fitness. Sooooo….today was day 1 of push ups + back stretches. After the run I did 3 x 10 push ups (the real kind) spaced out by down-ward-dog style back stretches. I haven’t looked into the core exercises that I’ll integrate yet, but my guess is that it’ll include some form of horrible sit ups and planks. That will be a mission for the weekend to implement starting next week.

Sat 8/10 – 5.8 mi / 55:30 min

An early morning out and back before going to the Jersey Shore! It was nice to get up and moving while it was still cool out (~70F). The morning was beautiful and the run felt good. The legs and lungs all did well. The miles also help justify consuming coffee ice cream cones the size of my head after laying on the beach for hours. That makes sense, right?

P.S. O.M.G. My ABS hurt!! Really? 30 push ups = crazy sore abs? How soggy has my midsection gotten?!?! (rhetorical, please don’t answer.) Operation Fix Dr. Trot’s Core will begin in full force on Monday.

Sun 8/11 – rest

Feeling quite fatigued today. A combo of runs on both Friday and Saturday and then being out all day on Saturday probably didn’t help. The long run will be done on Monday instead. I really have to put a stop to this trend.

P.S. The abs still hurt. Damn it. x-(

Total mileage = 26.1

So this week was pretty good. All of the workouts felt good: no new aches or pains and no worsening of the ones that are already here. Felt strong at the end of just about every run (this is big for Dr. Trot). Both the shoulder issue and the core issue(s) do need to be dealt with ASAP though, so that will be the goal of next week – integrating some strength exercises with the running to build pec and core strength. I should also put more effort into  stretching and foam rolling, especially now as weekly mileage starts to build.

Threads – running, skirts, shorty socks and Mizunos (Wave Creation 11s for the trails AND the Wave Elixer 6s) for the roads

Any favorite core exercises to share? 

Any favorite stretches that make a huge difference for you?

Mon 7/29 – 5.1 mi / 46 min
A cool (75F), dark after school run. Felt very good, especially after a +10 hr Monday in the effing lab…and the 11 miler with friends on Saturday…and the delinquent behavior fantastic family BBQ that ensued on Saturday night. The cooler temp made such a difference but this was in fact partially offset by the damn dark (more on this later, stay tuned). I’d also like to think that I’m actually kind of getting into the grove of running again. I’ve had a few of these delightful surprised lately where I feel like I kind of know what I’m doing. 🙂 I hope it continues, at least for a while.
Now, back to the damn dark NJ streets. It is unbelievable how somewhere that is seemingly made up entirely of sprawling suburbia doesn’t see the need to install street laps along sidewalks, running trials, etc… Am I actually in Detroit where we actually can’t afford street lights, light bulbs or the electricity to power them even if we had them? Let me give you a hint…NO we re not!!! While I try to wrap my head around the situation, I have to go buy a new headlamp (mine started out as a cheap little find at Target, and ended as one of the few casualties of the move) and whatever other goodies I can come up with 🙂 My one and only blinks light is awesome (thanks Andi) but I need more than that out here. Check back for the debriefing of Operation: luminance Dr. Trot

Tues 7/30 – 4 mi / 38 min

77F and 56% humidity felt great. The run was good, especially considering

1. It was at the end of a 12 hr lab day
2. Yesterday’s late and quick run
3. The entire bag of popcorn I inhaled approximately 5 min before I went out
4. My general laziness
5. The ~0.75 mi hill at the very end (god has a sense of humor…not necessaraly one that I get, mind you…)

I survived my popcorn burps (TMI?) and the hill, I even passed two people 🙂 Again, I somehow managed to feel like running hard (relative definition) regardless of my overwhelming desire to curl up in David’s snuggy and watch endless Big Bang Theory up until I went out the door

Wed 7/31 – rest

If rest = 15 hr lab day (1 of 2 this week), then yeah, today was a rest day.  

Thurs 8/1 – rest

Fri 8/2 – 8.45 mi / 76 min

Awesome early run. It was cool and foggy and very Lord of the Rings to start with and then ended as the beginning of a beautiful warm sunny day. 70F and low humidity. I learned of some new little loops to include in my near-work runs and managed to hang on and run hard (again, relative definition please) through out.

Sat 8/3 – 5 mi / 46:25 min

So I drove down to DC on Friday night to visit my buddies Dr. Allison and Sir Jack.

Sir Jack

Based on past experiences I was very excited for the visit but unconvinced that I was going to have good running. Once and for all, Saturday morning convinced me! I took off from Dr. A’s right out onto a trail that runs along the Potomac and followed that first up into a wooded area (in which I almost literally ran into a deer!) and then back just along the river in the opposite direction. The trail was great, the scenery was fun throughout and there was a nice volume of runners, walkers, bikers, dogs, babies, etc… to meet along the way.

cross – 10 mi bike / a while

In addition to my run, Dr.  A and I also put down a few miles on a bike ride along the trail to Mt. Vernon. This totally reaffirmed my new-found appreciation for DC and it’s catering to outdoor enthusiasts. We biked along the trail to Mt. Vernon down as far as Old Town Alexandria (which, P.S., is adorable). We got some sandwiches for lunch from a sweet little cafe in the downtown, ate them by the marina and then biked back home (which seemed way shorter than the ride out; why is that always the case?!) The weather was still beautiful and there was plenty of trial for everyone without it feeling like you were off in the middle of nowhere.

Sun 8/4 – cross – 10 mi bike / a while

To wrap up my visit (and to try to counter act a fraction of the Ethiopian food and/or ice cream that I gorged myself on Saturday night) we went on another bike ride up to Lady Bird Johnson Park and back.

Vegetarian Sampler II @ Ethiopic = AMAZING!

The trail was definitely not my favorite in this direction. The trail itself was still nice, there were just a shitload of runners, walkers, baby strollers, dogs, rollerbladers and uni-cyclists. Ok, maybe not so many of that last one, but you get the point. It was still very nice to get out and get the legs turning over though. After the last few days of running and running + biking, they were pretty tight waking up.

Total mileage = 22.6 mi

So this week was the first cut-back week (less of a long run scheduled for Sunday) but the long run got pushed back to Monday so those miles were lost entirely, making it more cut back than I would have preferred. Of course the trip to DC was well worth it, a weekend with friends and +20 miles of biking is always a good weekend and the trotting miles will still get done eventually.

Threads – running, skirts, shorty socks and Mizunos (Wave Creation 11s for the trails AND the Wave Elixer 6s) for the roads