The Hungry Caterpillar

Yesterday I got these delivered to me at work. I had ordered them about a week ago and was glad that they finally arrived. I really just wanted to try them out and give them a shot. I had been reading about the benefits of compression gear and figured that it wouldn't hurt just to try it. I also thought that they could be really good to wear on the airplane to Atlanta before the half-marathon to try to avoid some of that puffiness that comes along with flying.

So, naturally, once I got them, I pulled them on at work. Of course, I just happened to be wearing a skirt and tights yesterday, so I just wore them over my tights and kept my legs planted firmly under my desk so that I wouldn't appear too weird. I'm not sure I really noticed anything while at work, but I tried them again after work while I was just lounging around and being lazy watching TV and I will say that they improved my leg circulation by about 100%. I didn't wear them to bed (I took them off right before), but I think it was the first time that I didn't have cold feet when we went to bed. Normally I just plant them on Drew to warm them up, but that wasn't even necessary this time. I'm sure he'll be wanting me to wear these every evening!

My plan for today was pretty similar to another night not so long ago. I was going to run to the New York Road Runner (NYRR) office in order to pick up my race number and t-shirt for the 5K Race that I'm doing on Sunday. The actual plan for today was supposed to be 7 miles plus 5 GP. So, I left work, headed home and changed clothes. By this point, I was really hungry, but I knew I needed to get myself out the door as soon as possible in order to get to the NYRR office before they closed at 7:00, so I didn't take the time to eat anything. I figured that since I had a big afternoon snack (Kind bar crumbled up into Chobani yogurt) of around 350 calories, I'd be totally fine.

Tonight the weather was about 39 when I left the apartment and I wore the exact same thing that I wore on Tuesday when I went running: capris, thin long-sleeved shirt, windbreaker. Both times I ended up taking my hat and gloves along with me, just in case, and both times I ended up keeping them in my pockets. Better safe than sorry, I guess.

I had planned on taking the inserts for my shoes, but decided that I'd just tough it out with just the orthotics and my shoes and see what happens. I figured that if something went wrong, I could always walk and if I didn't have the inserts, I'd probably be less likely to want to stop and fidget with my shoes. Turns out that I was totally correct on this as my shoes were totally fine the whole time. I think I've figured out what to do with these new ones. Whew!

I ran to the NYRR office and picked up my race number and D-Tag for my shoe, but they only had L or XL t-shirts available. Since I don't know anyone who normally wears size L t-shirts, I decided to skip that part. The guy told me that I could come back tomorrow or before the race to see if they had some smalls in stock then. A bit of a bummer as it was actually a really pretty teal color. Oh well.

The bad thing was that when I was picking up my number, my tummy was really rumbling. I was starving already. I wasn't sure how in the heck I was going to make it through the route I had planned for tonight. I was thinking a lot about the book Born to Run while I was running tonight. Although I'm still not quite done, the end portion of the book is really interesting to me - about barefoot running as well as how humans were designed to run for survival and hunting. Somehow that just made me feel better about running longer distances in general. If I'm designed to do it, I must be able to do it, right?

After I left NYRR, I had planned on running around the top of the reservoir before heading back south. There was no one on the path, which was really really weird to me. Normally there are at least a handful of people. Of course, once I started running, I realized that it was probably because the path was filled with huge puddles that took up the entire path. I must have looked like a crazy person running from one side of the path to the other, jumping up on the ledge and so on in order to avoid a step in a puddle. Luckily, there was no one around to actually see me!

I decided that I could get myself to the bottom of the park, but that I just couldn't stomach the idea of going around the Lower Loop again as I had planned (in order to get my 7 miles in). When I got to the bottom of the park, I talked myself into doing the pick-ups because that would only be a small amount of running that I would have to do. When I first started, I talked myself into doing 4 pick-ups (which would be 1 mile in total). My plan was to run 1/8 mile and then walk back to where I had started as recovery. Each pick-up took about 3:00 (~1:00 running and 2:00 walking).

Once I had done three pick-ups, I talked myself into doing three more (so I'd be doing 1.50 miles instead of just 1.00). I realized that it'd only be three more minutes of actual running and I figured I could handle that. Of course, every time that I was walking back to the start, I just kept getting hungrier and hungrier. While I was running (and walking) all I could think about was what was I going to eat when I got home? Our fridge is pretty low on supplies (and even on a good day there aren't a lot of options) but I remembered that there was a little bit of cheese left and I was just totally fixated on that for the majority of my pick-ups.

When I was done, I was so excited to run home so that I could get something to eat. Normally I feel like walking home (even if I do in fact run), but today I actually wanted to run. Of course, I had some sort of curse on the way back because I think I got stuck at every single red light that there was on the way, but I made it eventually.

In all, I ended up doing 7.25 miles total and burning almost as many calories as I had eaten in the day. No wonder I was hungry! So, now I'm currently eating some cheese, drinking some muscle milk and compressing my calves. My plan for the weekend is to deviate slightly from the original plan (shocking, isn't it?) and to do my 12 mile run on Saturday and do the 5K race on Sunday. The weather is actually supposed to be decently warm this weekend and sunny too, so hopefully it'll be a great weekend for running!

Run To NYRR
Time: 25:59
Distance: 2.50 miles
Pace: 10:23/mile
Calories: 328
Maximum HR: 186
Average HR: 173

Run To S
Time: 24:53
Distance: 2.45 miles
Pace: 10:09/mile
Calories: 319
Maximum HR: 182
Average HR: 175

Pick-Ups
Time: 18:20
Distance: 1.50 miles
Pace: 12:13/mile
Calories: 202
Maximum HR: 183
Average HR: 160

Run Home
Time: 19:24
Distance: 0.80 miles
Pace: 11:24/mile
Calories: 104
Maximum HR: 176
Average HR: 162