I Heart Trail Running

This past weekend I did back to back runs on the trails.

Saturday I ran 7 miles and Sunday I ran 8.



Wore Blue to the hills

My paces were slow and I walked a lot of the uphills.

Especially on Sunday because my legs were sore from the previous day. But I loved being out there.

There is just something different about being out on the trail, overlooking Boise.

There was a section of the trail where I was all alone for a little while.

No mountain bikers or other runners in site. To know your are so close to the city yet it seems so far away at the same time. I love it.

It was also fun to get to break in my new trail shoes and get them dirty!



Pretty clean shoes, dirty fun shoes!



After Saturday's trail run we all had some lunch then walked over to Camel's Back park and tried running up the big hill.

Hill repeats anyone?

Yea we couldn't run up it but it we did make it to the top and had some fun before heading back down.



Climed to the top with my son (in purple) and my nephew. You can see Dash chasing them up the hill



Midway down Dash decided he was done and laid down in the shade and wouldn't move.



Dash resting in the shade refusing to go back down.

Literally wouldn't move for anything! I actually had to carry him down haha.

This is his happy face

After Sunday's run all I was focusing on was some one on one time with the Tiger Tail. (It is similar to The Stick). After trying it out at the Seattle Rock n Roll expo I knew I wanted one. I ordered one and it finally came in last week and I have been loving it!



I Heart Happy Muscles



I used it to work out some knots in my left calf that I didn't even really feel before until I was rolling over it with the Tiger Tail. The next day I had some major soreness but now my calf feels great! The past few months I have had some posterior shin splints in my left leg and my last few runs I haven't felt the shin splints at all! I have been so thankful for my pain free runs and it couldn't come as a better time as I am ready to start increasing my weekly mileage in preparation for my next big race. But more on that soon :) 

Can't wait to get out to the trails this weekend and enjoy some of natures beauty. 

Registered for a race and shin splints

I'm officially signed up for the Seattle Rock n Roll Marathon!

On leap day there was an great deal for Rock and Roll events, $29 off. I had to register for Seattle RnR!

If I could only choose one race to run a year this would be the race. Not because I love the course, cause this year they changed it so I really have no idea what to expect, or because I kind of feel like Washington is my home even though I only lived there for 3 years (yes I miss it there but I do love Idaho). I would choose Seattle RnR because of Wear Blue Run to Remember. It's more than just another race I get to add to my list or medal I get to hang up. Every step means something. Every step honors a Soldier that is no longer here with us. Every step puts a name to a face so that we may never forget. Every step honors the service and sacrifice of the American Military.

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I am hoping I didn't register for this race prematurely. If anything I can always drop down to the half but I would rather run the full and drop my spring marathon. I'm hoping that won't be necessary though.

I did get in 3 runs last week. A 3 miles on Tuesday (outside), 3 miles on Thursday (treadmill) and 8 miles on Sunday (outside). On my Tuesday run I felt a little bit of soreness, but it would go away and then come back. It wasn't painful to the point that I needed to stop or anything. I iced and compressed and took the next day off to see if it felt any different. Honestly I didn't really feel much but just a slight soreness going up and down stairs, same on Thursday.

On Friday I decided to do some cross training so I spinned for 30 minutes then did around 20 min of walking lunges with 12 lbs weights, squats with 12 lbs weights, 15 lb kettle bell swings. Then I did 10 minutes of stretching/foam rolling. When I woke up Saturday my whole lower body was SORE!! My butt was even sore! I decided to wait to do a longish run on Sunday which worked out perfect cause Cambry text me that day to see if I wanted to get together for a short run. And it was also 60 degrees!!! A beautiful and welcome changed from the cold weather we have been having.

View of downtown Boise

Cambry and I met at the Train Depot and ran to downtown Boise and back which was exactly 3 miles. We just talked and enjoyed the sun. I did feel soreness in my shin when we first started out and we stopped and stretched at the lights. At about mile 2 I didn't feel much soreness anymore.
After she left I went down to the greenbelt and ran 5 more miles. I would only feel soreness in my shin after I would stop and start running again. I did wear my compressing socks (with a running skirt, yay for skirt season!!) and I also wore some k-tape.

I'm not sure if the compression socks or k-tape helped but today the only time I feel any soreness is up and down stairs. I did take today off but tomorrow will try another run on the treadmill and see how it goes.
As of now I am just trying to figure out how to jump into training. If all my runs this week go ok I will attempt a double digit run this weekend.

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Here's another picture from my 8 mile run yesterday.

There was a photo session going on but I had to get a pic of the depot :)

Hope you have a great week!

Five days

That's five full days that I've taken off from running if you count today.

Shin hurt the day after my 1.2 mile run/walk last Wednesday. I've been icing, stretching and wearing my compression socks hoping that it helps. I also have been massaging the calf muscle, the doctor I work for showed me some massage techniques to help the muscle so it's not so tight.

I actually took 4 full days off from working out too. I had a whopping 6 miles total mileage last week. Sad :(

Marathon training is supposed to start tomorrow with 8 miles. Yea that's not going to happen but I am going to attempt a run tomorrow. Somewhere between 3-5 miles.

Funny thing is when you can't run is when you want to run the most. Fingers crossed for no shin pain during or after the run and then I can modify my training plan from there to ease back into some mileage.

And here's a picture that has nothing to do with running but I just thought was cute...

My dogs Dash and Lilly...

Best Friends

Catching Up

Lets play catch up with bullet points!

• Thanks everyone for your comments on my last post about switching marathons. I have decided to go ahead and run the Lake Lowell Half Marathon on May 5th and run the Famous Idaho Potato Marathon on May 19th. I think it was just a better choice for me. This also means I get to meet and run with these two ladies (here & here) at the Lake Lowell Half :) This also pushed marathon training back 2 weeks.

• My strength training has been going awesome. I've been doing about 2-3 strength training workouts a week. I am still using Jamie Eason's Live Fit Trainer. I don't follow every workout to a T but I have seen lot of strength improvement. Arms, back & chest are the area I've been working on most. I want to look good in those tank tops this summer! This past Saturday I did some kettle bell swings while Gene did some heavy rope wave exercise. We take turns usually doing 30 seconds. I always start sucking towards the end and can barely get the wave to go to the end of the rope.  Then we did some tire flips. Man that thing was heavy! I did a few of them before we called it a day.

• My mileage has been low these past two weeks. Part of it is cause I've been a little lazy in the running department (not the best thing since marathon training starts soon). I haven't had the motivation to get outside so my runs have mostly been on the treadmill. The other part is cause I've been experiencing some lower leg pain on my left leg. On Monday I did a 5 mile hill workout on the treadmill. I started at .5 incline for a mile warm up then did quarter mile repeats where I increased the incline from 4, 4.5, 5, 5.5,  then back down to 5, 4.5, 4 with a flat cool down. It made the 5 miles go by pretty quick. After the workout I felt a little bit of soreness on my lower left leg. I've felt this off and now for a few runs. But yesterday, the day after the hill workout, I could actually feel more pain than the day before. And it hurt more when I went up and down stairs. This obviously freaked me out and I was thinking the worst so I turned to the internet for answers, cause you know that's the easiest way to self diagnose yourself. I found that pain I was experiencing was just like posterior shin splints. I've never had shin splints so this wasn't the first thing that popped into my head. In fact I always thought shin splints were only on the front of the leg (Anterior Shin Splints). I found this picture that shows exactly where my pain is (Posterior Shin).

I tried some of the stretches that work the calf muscles that are tight (Gastrocnemius and Soleus) and I definitely feel the tightness. I also did some icing and wore my compression socks yesterday, which I read the compression can help. I did do some slow running today after my strength training. I did a walk warm up with some slow running then a walk cool down for a total of 1.2 miles. I could feel the pain, or more like soreness, at the beginning of the run and I could feel myself wanting to change my stride to compensate for soreness. Towards the middle of the run it started to fade and my stride was feeling more natural. I did some stretching after the run. I wore my compression socks again today and it actually doesn't feel as sore as yesterday. I can feel the tightness going up and down the stairs but not the way it felt yesterday.

 I read that hill training and speed training can cause it as well as outworn shoes. I think the hill workout I did caused the pain to become more apparent instead of just a light soreness I had been feeling the past few weeks. And also wearing my shoes longer than I should have and that may be were why I was feeling the soreness off and on for the past few weeks. I did get 2 new pairs of shoes recently and had a new pair on when I did the hill workout.

 For now I will wear my compression socks, ice, stretch and take it easy on the running this week and see how it goes :/ I have some K-tape at home and I also have access to it at work that I was thinking about trying to see if it helped any.

• On Monday I also registered for the Race to Robie Creek Half Marathon. This race sold out in 9 min and 49 seconds. What makes this race so special you ask? Well it's dubbed the "toughest race in the Northwest" and apparently there are 2100 people who are crazy enough to want to run it and I was one of them. I still am not sure what I got myself into. But this is one of the biggest races in Idaho and I have to try it at least once. You can read the course description HERE.  It starts at Fort Boise (elevation 2725′), 8.5 miles up Rocky Canyon and over Aldape Summit (elevation 4797′), to a 13.1 mile finish at Robie Creek campground (elevation 3065′). Translation: You run up hill for 8.5 miles, followed by a steep downhill till mile 12 where it finally flattens out. Should be fun right? 

I was pretty surprised I got in. I had been going back and forth on if I wanted to run it or not. When it was registration time at 12pm on Monday I logged in at about 12:05 and filled out all my info then hit submit and waited till my transaction processed 3 minutes later and I got my confirmation that it went thru fine. When I logged back onto facebook I read the race had already sold out so I just barely made. I was surprised by the amount of people that were pissed off they didn't get in and were complaining about the registration process. They use Active which is what a lot races use but if you have that many people wanting to register for a race at the same time there is bound to be problems and servers crashing. Guess it pays to have fast internet :)  They do have a second chance lottery drawing and from what I've been reading there's always people selling their bibs as it gets closer to the race. They have a theme every year and this year it's Samurai Sailtoad... I have a few costume ideas floating around in my head :)

Have you ever had shin splints?

Any recommendations on what I should do to improve?