#winning at Doing Stuff, Running

One of my greatest pleasures in life is crossing things off my to-do list. Particularly things that have been on there for WAY too long. This week I sort of went on a to-do list binge, knocking out random tasks like it's my job. (I suppose it *is* kind of my job as a functioning human...)

1) Medals. In general I don't get all that excited about race medals & mine have spent most of their lives on a hook in the back of my closet & I have never felt compelled to do much else with them. On the other hand, I've placed in a few races where I've gotten things other than medals that I liked and wanted to keep but never really knew what to do with, and when I don't know what to do with something, it usually ends up cluttering up my desk, which makes me crazy. I can't stand clutter.

Then a few months back I ran across a men's tie rack that had both a shelf as well as a bunch of pegs, and it occurred to me that that would be a great way to organize my race schwag. The OCD part of me found the idea of gathering all of one type of thing together in one place in a well-organized manner *extremely* appealing, & after many many months on the to-do list, last week I finally found a rack like the one I'd seen originally and ordered it, got it Friday afternoon, and voilà:

Hanging every medal I have seemed a bit excessive, so I decided to only hang medals I've actually won and my three full marathon finisher medals, which are all ones I can honestly say I feel like I worked hard to earn & don't feel weird about displaying.

2) Sho-dan certificate. Ever since I got it (over four months ago), my black belt certificate has been sitting on top of a bookshelf in my room. I've been meaning to frame it, but it's kind of an odd size and shape, which means it's not the kind of thing you can just eyeball a frame for. Plus, getting a frame means, like, going to a place where they sell, like, frames & stuff. Don't ask me why this is hard.

In any case, on Friday, after hanging the medals, this got done too:

3) Shoe recycling. OMG I HAVE BEEN SO SICK OF LOOKING AT THIS PILE OF OLD SHOES. Again, they've been sitting in the corner taking up space for MONTHS. On Saturday, off to the Sports Basement recycling bin they went:

4) Thrift shop. I try to purge my closet of stuff I don't like or don't wear anymore every April or May. It turns out I was kind of preoccupied this last April/May, so this didn't actually happen until this past week. Off to the Buffalo Exchange went two bags of clothes!

I can't tell you how good it feels to look into my closet / dresser and know that I will *actually* wear everything in it. (Again, if I have a nemesis in life, it's clutter.)

5) Blood tests. I've been putting this off. I always put this off. I took Thursday morning off to see my hip doctor, though, & just decided I might as well get it done while I had the time & was close to the lab. The only downside was that this was mid-morning and I hadn't had anything to eat or drink for maybe twelve hours, so my blood was not incredibly cooperative at first. After a pint of water and a few more sticks, things finally got moving, and I spent the rest of the morning rocking the Gauze Cuffs of Glory on both sides, which was super glamorous. Thankfully I have *the* world's best phlebotomists, who have never once left a mark or sore spot.

No picture. You're welcome.

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In other news, #doubledigitweeks continue.

Grand Total: 16 miles

* 13 easy
* 3 tempo

Monday:

Lunch time yoga + p.m. karate.

Tuesday:

4 easy. Track workout scheduled, but I felt straight-up terrible on Tuesday & had also just gotten the stink eye from my sports doc re: speed work, so I didn't feel too bad about just running some easy miles (which sucked, for the record).

Wednesday:

Wednesday was an epic fail. My goal was 1) swim in the a.m., 2) lunch time yoga, & 3) karate, but I ended up feeling terrible from the time I woke up, opting for an extra hour of sleep, getting pulled into a lunch time meeting & missing yoga, & then continuing to feel so awful that I left work early & went straight to bed. #fail (but probably a necessary one)

Thursday:

a.m. strength session (mostly continuing to work on my Olympic lifting) + p.m. 4 easy.

Friday:

3 tempo / 1 cool down. Schedule called for 1.5 warm up, 2 @ marathon pace, 3:00 jog, 1 @ half marathon pace, & 1.5 cool down, but since I didn't want to go over four & my "easy" pace these days has been right around marathon pace anyway, I decided to just start running & maybe skip the warm up mile. Ultimately I ended up with 7:55 / 7:52 / 1:00 walk / 7:15 / 8:14. A little faster than intended but still much better than last Friday's.

Saturday:

Strength work only. Plan called for 5 easy, but I was already at 11 miles for the week & planning on trying for five on Sunday, which would already mean a nearly 20% increase in mileage over the previous week. Also my hip was feeling sore, so I did a bunch of pull-ups, push-ups, crunches, planks, & clam shells & called it good.

Sunday:

5 easy. In keeping with the Sunday "long" run tradition, I set a new post-M2B distance record & managed to keep my hamstrings & glutes engaged the whole time. For the most part my hip felt good, though as my posterior muscles started to tire I could hear it snarling, "Don't you *DARE* wimp out." (As we learned last week, firing the glutes & hamstrings properly protects the hip flexors from over-recruitment.) I finished this run feeling pretty good but also like I'd pushed the endurance of my posterior chain about as far as it can really handle right now, so I'm glad I didn't try to go any farther. I also tried to work on getting more forward lean on this run, which is easy during speed / tempo work but much harder when I'm just trying to run at an easy, casual pace. When I get it right, though, it makes the glute / hamstring engagement OMG sooooo much easier.

So almost, like, a real week of running, eh? :)