What Will Tomorrow Bring

Today's Pain is tomorrow's Gain.

My mantra during my long run. Although life has been getting in the way of training; too much homework, too much work-work, too much of not enough good stuff.  You know the drill, I set upon myself to go out this past glorious Sunday and get a nice solid 3 hr run in.  

So you think, heck the girl does this all the time, what's the difference?!  Well the difference is, just because a person is trained to withstand a 3 hr run doesn't mean their body will want to do a 3 hr run!!!  Lol!  

I am not sure where the breakdown happen but I am thinking it was somewhere between the tribal dance and run happy songs.  

I went from cheerful glee to wanting to throw myself down on the pavement.  I get that.  I have to get through that.... but I just couldn't figure out why my heart-rate monitor kept reminding me that I was too high... to high for what?  Surely ain't too high in happiness!!!!   JEEZ.. heart rate too high.. 

And so I decided the best thing to do was to cut the 3 hrs to 2-1/2hrs and finish at 15 miles.  

Could it have been the unseasonable warm temps that I wasn't adjusted to yet?  Or the lack of adequate water? Was it the challenging hills? Or my psycho semantic panic attack about having to do a fast marathon in less than three weeks..??

I am sure, it was a combination of all of the above, the half hour walk to get home cleared my head to remind myself.  

I do this because I LOVE to do this.  

I LOVE TO RUN... 

I run because I want to run.  Whether or not I make a fast marathon in three weeks, I know I will finish that marathon and smile doing it!  

Cycle Cycle & more Cycle

So as you all know.. or maybe you all kind of know.  I went for my Cycling Certification last Saturday.  WELL… let me tell you when I get something in my head, I really should just get it out!!!.. LOL...  I have always loved cycling and have a bike trainer at home that I trained for triathlons on and well I kind of thought it would be a really great idea to… I don’t know.. add cycling instructor to my resume… ?!

NOW before you all go laughing because of how much is already on my plate, there is a good reason I am thinking this will benefit me. 

(1) I will be able to teach something I love. 

(2) I can train and stay in shape while “playing”.

(3) I could do it part time and make a little extra cash.

SO let’s go back to Saturday the day of the certification seminar.  The morning was all lecture followed by a nice hour lunch, a 2 hour practical where we would pick a song and be tested on our ability to lead a class and then an hour to take the 100 question multiple choice/matching/fill in the blank and part essay test.

SCREECHING TO A HALT… that’s what happen when my tired arsh body who btw was up the night before doing homework.. WHO SAID WHAT???!!!! .... about picking out a song to do what?!!!

I guess in my little mind of minds I thought that they would teach us how to lead a class .. not TEST us first.  I was petrified.  I didn’t think I could do it.  I mean I wasn’t even sure I had any music on my phone, let alone ACTUALLY SPIN AND TALK!  So after the initial panic and stuffing myself at lunch with a breakfast sandwich, cinnamon scone and coffee.. DON’T JUDGE!  LOL...  I prepared myself to die.

I am not normally nervous to be in front of people but to actually do something of unique intelligence like talk and pedal and try and teach something I wasn’t sure how to do WELL… Thankfully we had a fairly large class with about 30 people.. and I was third to last.

I don’t remember much of anything ... other than smiling… and he said I passed. I guess that out of body experience should be helpful in these situations.  Now I just have to wait for the results of my exam portion, which they said could be a week or so to grade….

Feeling fairly exhausted both mentally and physically (from cycling for two hours prior to my portion of the practical), and just having no brain cells left after an hour test, I found my self at home contemplating how the hell I was going to do a long run the next day for my marathon training. 

SO this happened… and

Then I couldn’t walk for two days.. well couldn’t walk well.  So what better way to recover than going to a cycling class… Happy Cycling.. or NOT.

Here I am with my friend Barb who is a trainer for CycleBar… I took her class today and it was awesome.  I hope one day that I may be as good as she is!

I think there might be a lesson here.. not sure though... give me a minute... I am sure I will figure it out...

BODYPUMP 100

What do runners do to try and build up their core??  Of course they do, they take a Bodypump class.. and of course they take the class on the day there is a huge launch party, because hey there could be free gifts!!  

And of course why would we look at actually WHAT Bodypump was prior to attending the class??!  That would just be silly, right?!

So yes.  I convinced my running buddy Denise to join me during this awesome sounding Bodypump event going on at my local gym this past Saturday.

BUT Let's back up a few weeks. About three weeks ago I started on a strength training program that I myself just whipped up in my fantastic mind of minds and the goal was to build my upper body strength, my core strength and flexibility and become a faster runner!  YES!

WELL, like most everything I do... I almost always OVERDO... it's just a given and so for three weeks along with my running training plan for my spring marathon, I have incorporated 3-4 day sessions of strength training per week.  

The plan was to become FAST and FIT.  And so I was feeling quite confident that when I saw this Bodypump class that I would be able to attend with minimal pain.  I mean I am in shape and I have been lifting!

WELL ... I don't think I can brush my teeth or raise my arms to eat anymore as I am unable to functionally use my arms...  LOL!  

As an overachiever and quite naive about the whole Bodypump experience I just picked up the bar with weights that was near me.  Not really taking into account that after an hour class these "little weights" would magnify. 

30 minutes into this awesome class I had to look over to see and HOPE that my running buddy was ALSO suffering great suffers... and YES... we were.. the ultra running gals were experiencing complete arm fatigue!!!

OF course after the class was over I firmly found out that we were using weights that were much too heavy for resistance training for an hour program for beginners... 

OUR overachieving fall.  LOL!! BTW I CANNOT wait until the next class... that is the most fun I have had using weights since well.. since forever.

Now for the recovery......