Three Things Thursday - January 29

This post is coming to you live from the back corner of my apartment. My router has given up the ghost, so now the only way to get on the interwebz is hard-wiring to my cable modem. Lucky for me, I only have one cable hook-up and a very short ethernet cord, so for now I get to curl up between my lamp and entertainment center to use my laptop. I feel a bit like I'm in time out.

Faramir thinks it's the greatest. So many fun wires to play with!

But no matter what corner I'm trapped in, today is Thursday, so let's cover Three Things.

1. I forgot how many calories I need to eat during training.

During my injury, I had gradually scaled back my food consumption from ridiculous to just a lot, as my hunger levels naturally decreased. I prefer to eat something small every two hours or so to avoid getting hangry, so I still feel like I'm eating quite a bit.

When I dove back into training two weeks ago, I almost immediately started getting headaches, which would get worse as the day went on. I thought it might have to do with my new contact prescription, even though I had been wearing them already for a week. (I eventually realized I did have the wrong contact in my right eye, but that didn't seem to help any once I fixed it.)

I'm always obsessive with my water intake, so I finally decided to try eating more food. (When I had the headaches, I didn't really feel hungry, so I wasn't purposefully depriving myself.) I packed way more food for work than I thought any person needed, but after plowing through it all and feeling great at the end of the day, I realized I had found a solution.

I'm still working on getting my timing back to normal, but I'm feeling much better. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to eat a normal amount of food.

Unrelated, but this movie freaked me out so much when I was a kid.

2. I'm going bonkers without my sleep.

My next door neighbor, who is normally extremely quiet, has adopted a new habit of running her bathroom fan during the night. Her apartment is the mirror image of mine, so it basically sounds like the world is ending in my own bathroom when she does so. I think my bathroom fan vent is connected at some point to the heater vent in my bedroom, and there's just no way to sleep through the fan when it's running.

This has meant I've spent at least some time sleeping on my couch three of the last four nights. My couch is very comfy, but let's face it, I want to sleep in, you know, my actual bed. I think the worst part is she will turn it on some time in the middle of the night. While I can move myself to the couch and go back to sleep pretty quickly, I've noticed this large interruption is really affecting my sleep quality. (For example, Tuesday night I had to relocate at 1:45 AM.)

I'm getting plenty of hours (I usually tuck myself in about nine hours before I have to get up), but I'm still exhausted when my alarm goes off, and I'm pretty tired by the end of work. I hope this is just some new phase, and it passes soon.

I'm still avoiding confrontation, but the term bitch switch was too funny to pass up.

3. I have fun plans for the next few weekends!

This might seem lame and not worthy of a spot in my Three Things Thursday, but I'm a pretty lame person, so there you go. While I normally love sitting around (and running) by myself all weekend, I'm excited to have some real plans the next few weekends.

We still have quite a bit of snow on the ground (maybe 6-8 inches?), so this weekend I'm headed a bit north with some coworkers to go snow tubing. My plan is to do my long run in the morning, so I'm glad the place has a tow rope. I don't think my coworkers would appreciate dragging my back up the hill.

Then the next weekend I'll be headed down to East Lansing to meet Michael and my parents for the MSU/Illinois basketball game. I haven't followed the basketball team too closely this season (especially now that I cancelled my cable), so I'm excited to see them in person. Hopefully MSU will prevail!

And, it almost goes without saying, the weekend after that, I will be in (hopefully) warm and sunny Myrtle Beach relaxing. That might be the best one of all.

Ok, I know it won't look like this exactly, but I'm pretending!

We're supposed to get a few more inches of snow today, so I'm crossing my fingers the trail will be plowed in time for my run tonight. I would complain, but at least we aren't getting two feet!

Three Things Thursday - January 22

Another week has flown by! Having running back in my schedule is making the days go even faster, since I can't just loaf around on the couch all day every day (wouldn't that be nice, though?). I think Faramir is still adjusting to the change and wondering where I keep disappearing to. Don't worry, I've been making it up to him with lots of extra snuggles.

We have been hit with some nasty weather the last few days. It's comfortable out (mid-20s to 30s), but we keep getting just enough snow each day to keep the roads a mess. It feels silly to contemplate running inside when there's really no actual accumulation to speak of, but it's an icy, slushy sufferfest out there at the moment. Hopefully whoever is in charge of the running path will hop to it today and have it cleared for my tempo run tonight.

Ramblings aside, here are three things from my week so far:

1. I've realized I have a strange relationship with work.

All the way through college, a huge part of my identity was tied to my grades and doing well in school. It didn't matter what else happened, a B on a single assignment could send me into a tailspin for days. (Not the most healthy, I'll be the first to admit).

But I'm coming to realize I sort of have an inverse relationship with work. I obviously still work hard and strive to be the best employee I can, but no matter what happens at work, I can change my mood by working out or by talking to someone I'm close with.

I noticed this when yesterday I was asked to name something I had done at work that made me proud. I would certainly say there are things I've achieved at work that make me feel accomplished, but I don't think proud is interchangeable in this case. I'm not trying to sell myself short or be self-deprecating, I honestly just don't associate pride with work.

To be clear - I do really like my job and love my team, so I'm not some miserable grouch or anything at the office. I would even say my work is fulfilling - I get to use my brain and impact the financials. But I guess that question made me reflect that I get 95% of my validation from outside work. I'm not sure if this is normal, but it's very freeing to realize my self-esteem is not directly linked to a performance judged by others anymore.

2. Runners can be surprisingly vitriolic about hair.

I have very fine hair (to the point even hair stylists can't braid it), and I keep it pretty short - so that I can keep up my zero maintenance hair routine, because ain't nobody got time for that. The only real way for me to keep my hair up while I work out is pigtails.

I realize they make me look like I'm 12, but I get mistaken for being 12 no matter what I do, so no real loss there. Sometimes I will joke about them in good fun with people I know, because I realize a grown woman wearing pigtails is a bit humorous.

This is the best picture I could find of myself from the back.

I was shocked at my first marathon when two older women (maybe in their 50s?) made some really rude comments about how "stupid" my pigtails looked when I passed them. I don't know if they thought I couldn't hear them through my headphones, but I was still taken aback. I didn't feel bad at all, I was just so surprised that the way I had styled my own hair was so offensive to two people who had never seen me before.

It was pretty interesting to me then, when Zelle posted a hair tutorial for pigtails, that the comments blew up with people talking about stupid pigtails are. (Zelle's own Facebook post even admitted they looked silly....) Yes, they're sort of juvenile, but short hair doesn't give you much to work with. I'm curious as to why people seem mortally offended by the thought someone might wear pigtails for a run. I though runners were supposed to be welcoming!

3. Weddings make me normal people go crazy.

Okay, I know I'm in the minority here, but I don't really care for weddings. (If I had my way, I would elope!) I realize I can be an event scrooge and that I'm probably biased by the way too extravagant weddings I've had to attend, as well as the holidays I've lost. (RIP, two Memorial Day weekends.)

(I've been criticized before about being too open about my hatred of weddings, but I prefer to own it rather than silently stew. If weddings are your thing, awesome, I'm not trying to burst your bubble - I just don't want to be sucked into it!)

Sometimes I think I've made progress in my wedding hatred and upgraded it to ambivalence, until something horrid occurs, and I realize I'm right back where I started. The latest is someone I know deciding to have her wedding New Year's Eve. As someone who always try to be conscientious of how others feel, I can't imagine ruining two entire holidays for hundreds of people. Maybe I have some deeper issues I should work through, but my reaction to this news was immediate and visceral, even though it doesn't directly affect me.

I realize two of these three things have nothing to do with running, but I had to get these ramblings out somehow! Hopefully I can turn in a solid tempo run later and a great long run Saturday and have more news to report Monday.

What do you do with your hair while running?
Do you ever feel proud of things you do at work? 

Three Things Thursday - January 15

My weekend always ends the same way - lamenting that it's over and I have to go to work the next day. I'm not sure why, because the week just seems to fly by! How is it already Thursday?!

There's not too much to report from the home front that's not running related. The good news is we finally got a replacement for a team member who quit at work (yay!), but HR still has not delivered his computer (boo!). On top of that, the person his job supports has yet to be replaced, so there's currently zero people taking care of that area.

Half of the new guy's job is similar to mine, so I imagine this will largely become My Problem at month end. I'm not trying to sound whiny - I honestly think it's pretty funny just because it's so absurd. (Like even the camera broke when the new person tried to get his ID badge made.)

I've also realized what a small world it is. I live in a relatively small town (about 40,000 people), but I somehow sit next to someone I went to high school with, and the new guy is someone I worked with at my internship (at a completely different company). It gets crazier because my high school had 6200 people, so I actually know very few people that went there with me. (I didn't sit by a single person I knew at graduation.) My internship was also at one of that firm's smaller offices, so it's also quite the happenstance that I know our new team member. I certainly don't go out of my way to burn bridges, but every day is now a reminder never to do that.

I know, none of that is related to the actual topic of my blog - but it was just so funny and strange I had to share! Anyway, let's talk about three other things.

1. I'm back to running!

I did do six miles, I just don't have my watch calibrated correctly.

I'm so so so excited about this one. So excited, in fact, that it should be all three things on this list. After three weeks of rest, my peroneal tendonitis seemed to be pretty well healed. Walking and climbing stairs were no longer painful, and I could do a pretty intense self-massage without pain. (Before, any pressure was practically unbearable.)

I also did some yoga on Monday since I couldn't make it to the pool, and I could sit in hero's pose pain-free. (Okay, that's a lie, I can only do it for about a minute because my quads are so tight, but before, my bodyweight put so much pressure on my tendons that I almost cried trying to do the pose.)

It was super cold Tuesday after work - I think maybe the actual air temperature was about 5? - so I decided to hit the indoor track instead, for an easy six miles. There were some minor aches and pains in my soft tissue from disuse, but everything eventually evaporated (how's that for alliteration!) as I continued. The track has a concrete surface and is 12 laps to a mile, so I'm writing off the little bit of tenderness I had Wednesday to that.

It was a bit sad to note that my legs were tired when I finished and I had some soreness yesterday morning. I know my running ability will come back quickly, but it's at such odds with my self-identity. I'm a marathon runner, damnit, six easy miles shouldn't hurt!

2. I've adjusted my goal for Myrtle Beach.

My original goal was to run a 4:30, but I think that's a little bit out of reach at this point, with one more full week of training before taper starts. (This training cycle flew by!) I know the fitness I built is still in there, and I don't want to sell myself short out of fear, so my new goal is 4:45. I think this strikes a fair balance.

This would still be an 11 minute PR, plus there will be a 4:45 pace group. I edited the last few weeks of my training plan based on this pace, and I started getting really excited about running again! I wasn't not excited before, I just had a more challenging goal, which took a lot more mental energy to wrap my head around. We'll have to see how my tempo run goes later today, but these paces at least sound very doable. I'm not even freaking out about my long run any more!

I will admit making this adjustment was still pretty hard for me, even though I know it's the right thing to do. I've realized I get caught up in reading other running blogs and seeing how fast others can do marathons, and then self-imposed a lot of pressure to get to that level. I don't think I was consciously aware of this - I never feel bad about the paces I run in training, and I don't feel particularly jealous of faster runners. I want to emulate their success, sure, but I wasn't constantly thinking, "oh, I have to be as fast as them or I suck."

But I guess somewhere in the bowels of my Type A mind, my subconscious grabbed the wheel and went full speed ahead to injury land. I'm hoping to truly learn my lesson this time around. When I pick my next marathon time goal, I want to have a real reason why - "because I should be able to run that fast" does not count!

3. It is really freaking cold.

I'm trying really hard not to complain too much about this winter (but clearly failing), since November and December were so mild. However, yesterday was a little much: it was -17 (air temp, not even real feel) when I got up for work. My coworker had her condo at 65 degrees, and all her pipes still completely froze.

We also came in to find our coworker from Texas sitting in her winter jacket, hood up, with a scarf wrapped all around her head. I think she sat that way for at least another hour. (Just to be clear - we all poke fun at her about this, but she laughs about it too. I don't want any of this to come across as mean! She got to win her battles in the summer, when she'd comfortably wear jackets in 90 degree weather.)

It does lead to interesting cross-cultural discussions, ie the Texan thought putting your heat at 65 to sleep was far too cold. I polled my chiro from Florida, and he concurred. We also had to explain what a scraper was (and why she needed one), because her initial reaction was that scraping a car sounded like a bad thing. She now jokes she should start a Youtube channel to document learning about winter. I think it could honestly go viral because she is so genuine and funny.

The good news is the weather forecast is calling for a high of 40 on Saturday! I can't wait to hit the road with my favorite podcast again for a long run!

Have you ever experienced the small world effect?
What temperature do you consider to be absurdly cold?