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Sunday, July 24, 2011

Long Runs

I figured I was in fairly good shape when I started my half marathon training.  And I think I was kind of right.  I can run 3 miles, no problem.  Four?  Doable, but I'm breathing pretty hard by the end of it.  Five?  Haven't quite made it there yet.

The biggest problem right now?  The heat wave!  It's already approaching 90 degrees before 8 am, and the humidity is insane.  You remember that expression, "it's not the heat, it's the humidity!"  Well, I'm pretty sure that was written about Chicago.  Even though it's rare that the actual temperature will be in the triple digits, the humidity is always like, a million percent.  And that's why running outside in July/August is awful.

So I've been running on the treadmill at the gym.

I hate treadmills.  Always have.

Jules = not so happy.

I would much rather be running outside, but I seriously have no intention of waking up at 4:30 am just so I can run in weather that won't kill me.  And since I hate running on the treadmill, it's been a little harder to make myself run and a little easier to find excuses.  Such as planning my neighbors' going away party.  Or just plain catching up on sleep.

I recently bought a one-piece swimsuit (basically a swim team practice suit), goggles and a swim cap so I can do laps at the gym.  I figure I'll do the 45-minute lunchtime spin class, then rinse off and hit the pool for some laps.

I went on Thursday and swam for 30 mins.  Not bad, considering I'd just done a spin class AND I've never gone to a pool with the intention of swimming laps.  Well, except for one summer on the country club swim team when I was five.  But that doesn't count, it was almost two decades ago.  Yikes.

But I'm looking forward to getting back into the pool and working on my aqua stamina!  I just wish I had someone to sort of coach me on my swimming, you know, observe my form and give me pointers, or straight up work with me to improve my strokes.

If you live around Chicago and want to do that for me, let me know!!

Thursday, July 14, 2011

How To: Combat Chafing

As I said in my last post, chafing is a problem for me.  My dad-- who (in his prime) used to run, row, sail, cross-country ski and more-- suggested I just rub some Vaseline on my skin.  I usually think he's nuts, so I went ahead and bought some compression shorts from Nike.

These are the ones I bought, about $25-$30 but they fit really well

Well I don't feel like washing those 4 times a week, so I thought I'd try the Vaseline trick on my shorter runs and see if it helped at all.

Good ol' fashioned petroleum jelly

Turns out, it does!  I had no problems on my 3-milers later last week and on Tuesday, or on my 4-miler this morning  :)  I'm still going to wear my compression shorts for my longer runs-- and definitely for the half marathon-- but it's nice to know there's another option that requires less laundry!

Friday, July 8, 2011

New Plan: Half Marathon!

So back in March, I was disappointed to learn that registration for the 2011 Chicago Marathon had reached maximum participants.  Last year's 5K was waaaay too fun for me to not run another race, but I knew I had to aim for a longer distance in order to really challenge myself.  After a quick survey of my friends on Facebook, I learned that several people were already registered for the half in September- and I decided to go ahead and register, too!  I found two 10 week HM training programs (one is from Runner's World magazine!) and am almost done with week 1 :)

As an experiment, I decided to see just how bad it really would be to run at lunchtime on Tuesday.  And I learned exactly why you either run early morning or late evening: 86 degrees with a TON of humidity and lots of sun made for a miserable half hour.  Yuck.  Never again.

Yesterday I ran around 8:15am.  It was partly cloudy, about 76 degrees and much less humid.  It was a GREAT run except for one thing: my thighs were chafing something fierce!  I'm slightly knock-kneed, so chafing is pretty much unavoidable.

I'm the one on the left - my thighs touch by default
It's super frustrating, because my knees, ankles and lungs were handling the 3-miler just fine, but my legs were objecting painfully.  I still have a Nike giftcard from Christmas so I'm going to the outlet mall this afternoon to see if I can find some compression/lycra shorts so they'll stay in place even if my running shorts ride up!

I'm also going to see if the Nike outlet has any competition-style swimsuits.  My gym has a pool so I'd love to swim laps or take the "aqua fit" class as part of my cross-training, but the only swimwear I have are bikinis.  We'll see if the Nike outlet has what I need or if I'll have to look elsewhere!

My best motivation for morning runs is to set out my shorts, tank, sports bra and socks before I go to bed- what do you do to get up and go?