1.5 mile test, take 2

For the last nine weeks I have been diligently completing my Lifestyle Logbook for my KPE class. I have to be honest, at times it has been a struggle, it just requires too much information (the time I eat, a list of foods that I eat, food groups, servings, waking heart rate, hours of sleep, activity, duration of activity, heart rate while doing activity, the weather, notes, and overall mood…TMI). So now it is time to put this baby to bed with graphs, charts, summaries, but not before reassessing my overall fitness, including my 1.5 mile test.

Six laps around the track should really not be an issue for a runner such as myself, but sometimes I have been known to put a bit of pressure on myself, today was one of those occasions, as was January 20th (the original 1.5 mile test). After Body Camp I changed into my fastest running outfit (running tights and what I like to call my speed skater top, it is tight and has one of those hoods like the Olympic speed skaters wear, all very cute, all very Lululemon) and drove to the track. Half way there I realized that I had forgotten my mp3 player, there was also a break in the rain, I love my tunes, not a fan of the rain, wanted to beat my time from January, the dilemma…I went with no rain and no tunes, I hoped that I wouldn’t regret it.

My track of choice is at a high school and as luck would have it, several PE classes were also using the track for frisbee football, sitting down and chatting, backpack storage, and there were a few new to walking (not kidding, daycare field trip, I mean track trip) as well. I started my warm-up on the inside lane, it only took a couple of laps of extremely close passes and the fierce look in my eyes (practicing once again for my cover shot on Runners World) before I had claimed my obvious ownership of the inside lane. I stopped for a quick slurp of water, reset my chrono, and I was off. I kept my pace fairly consistent, I knew what I had to do and how it would feel. The only lap that I struggled on was lap four which could have been because I had to dodge the frisbee and three or four slow moving players, come on, what the hell people! I pushed right to the end running so fast that one of my pony tails fell out, that must have been a omen or something because that has never happened before.

So how did I do…I bettered my previous time by 24 seconds (translates into slightly over a 3% improvement) which isn’t bad considering that I have shortened up my long runs since running my 1/2 marathon in March and might be slightly heavier (blaming Easter). Did I miss my music…absolutely!

Sweating out the stress

Sometimes I get stressed out. Today has been one of those days, and I have the three (possibly four, too early to tell) stress zits to prove it. Instead of carrying the weight of my world on my shoulders, I decided to channel it into weight vest (like a 40lbs) and take it for a run.

We all handle stress differently, some hit the fridge, others hit the bottle, some use retail therapy, I run. I credit stress making for making me a better runner, nothing like doing speed work and hills when you are pissed off, the thought almost makes me giddy. So today, me and figurative ‘weight vest’ hit the road. It didn’t take long for me to start forgetting about minor procedures that sound more like heart surgery, lifestyle logbooks, mortgage size car servicing bills, reinventing the wheel, gong shows, final exams, editors, peanuts, two functions this weekend and nothing to wear…By the end of song two it was all gone, it was now just me, my running glasses, the long sleeve that I shouldn’t have worn and my tunes.

Although my mp3 player is on shuffle, and there are over 100 songs to shuffle, there is a certain hill on my route where it seems like every time I climb it “Wanna Make a Memory” plays. You know when you hear a song and it reminds you of something? When I hear that song it even reminds me of that hill, it’s weird. Anyway, climbing the hill and what a surprise “Wanna Make a Memory” is the next song. It’s ok, I do enjoy the song, as well as Jon Bon Jovi, I think out of all rock stars, even movie stars, he has aged the best (sorry, Tommy, you might not have aged as well, but you will always be #1 to me), and that boy has lived. So climbing the hill, Jon singing to me, oh I am listening (might even be singing the melody to him while he writes a couple lines), we are making mem-or-ies…our moment is rudely interrupted when some d-bag driving a large diesel truck turns the corner a little too wide and too fast while talking on his cell, it’s not good enough that he almost ran me over, but he stepped on the gas just at the precise moment he passed me, so I inhaled his disgusting diesel exhaust. What the hell? Here I am handling my stress in a healthy way, I may as well have taken up smoking instead for the next two years with all of that crap I just ingested. If this had happened at the beginning of my run I would have probably thrown my water bottle at his truck, but with my new found inner peace I let it go, calm blue waters, no hairy eyeball, no wag of the finger. The moment was interrupted but not ruined. Jon and I finished the song, I don’t even remember what came next, it didn’t matter, my world was back in balance.

I finished my run, calmly walked up my driveway, stretched and returned to my reality feeling a whole lot better than I did before I left.