Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Runner's Rambles

This is basically going to be an outpouring of my thoughts during my run today. I started off thinking of motivation for people getting started with a new active lifestyle and motivation for myself. Then my thoughts floated to smells...yeah. Then I let the pain creep in, and lastly I thought about how a song I hate but heard on the radio this morning was stuck in my head, floating in and out subconsciously until I noticed it. I will put subtitles to allow people to skip to the parts they want to read.

Training Ideas
I had this idea today of a way that I could have started my training in turning myself into a runner. Although, I admit that it is still hard for me to think of myself as "a runner." The first sort of theory I came up with was that any person really should be able to jog for at least 1 minute. I love the show The Biggest Loser, and even the contestants on the show can jog a minute when they first arrive on the ranch. So no matter how out of shape you are, you do it. I think it would be cool to start at the first of the month (any month), and do one minute for the date of that day. If it is the 5th, you run five minutes. I know that this would be a bit of a challenge for some people considering it would be an increase of a minute every day, which is really quite a bit. When a person starts running, it is also important to remember that you shouldn't over tax your body, so I wouldn't recommend running more than 4 days a week.

I also had the idea for people who want to start pushing themselves to do more interval training during longer runs. Take the day of the week like before, and then push harder for five minutes and then a slower jog for five and repeat. I am not sure how great it would work, but it worked for me today. I did it a little bit differently though. I pushed hard for 13 minutes, and then I slowed it down to a power walk for a minute because today was my first run this week. So tomorrow, I would push for 14 minutes, and then I would power walk for two minutes because that would be the 2nd run of the week. I think you get the idea.

Smells
Smells can be quite the distraction on a run. I can vividly remember how cruel it was to head out on an evening summer run when my neighbors were grilling steaks. And sometimes, it seemed like everyone in town was grilling steaks, while I had chomped down a bowl of cold cereal that evening. Today was a different type of smell distraction. Today the temperature got into the 80's where I live. I LOVE warm weather, but this being the first "hot" day this year, I found myself contemplating whether or not I would be able to look up the trash pick up schedule for the whole town. I would like to find a way to avoid running past everyone's smelly trashcan that is sitting on the street attracting flies that have their attentions averted by a sweaty runner they can follow...annoyingly.

PAIN...without love
I. Hate. Shin. Splints. I have been over this before. Read my post entitled, "Take it Easy."

Stupid Song
I also hate kitschy pop music. I had a stupid song floating in and out of my head during the whole run today, and every time I consciously noted that it was there I was like, "Ughh, why? Why is that song in my head?" In that way that you are singing along to a song on the radio and then realize what you are doing, and then you change the station because you hate the song, and you are relieved that there was on one in the car with you to witness the atrocity that just took place. When I got home from my run, I happened to see a link to an NPR story about why songs get stuck in your head. I am going to provide the link below.





1 comment:

  1. I HATE smelling things I want while running... it's so obnoxious! :( (although, it's double weird for me.. because meat being grilled always smells delicious while I'm running, and I never ever ever crave it any other time!)

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