Plyo-huh?

The main reason I do plyometrics is because I adore the looks people give me...no, kidding, but that's always funny! 


I do plyometrics once a week and tend to do it around a park which is always nice. This is one of the rare occasions I'll run with my ipod (though I don't always do it with my ipod) and I generally enjoy this experience.


Here's my routine:

• High knees
• Butt kicks
• Squats (while walking)
• Grapevine
• Skipping
• Leaps/bounds
• Sprints

I do these for as long as I can stand -  maybe 50 meters, maybe more, maybe less. It was a lot less when I started and when I'm sore....and I do three sets of these. YAY! And I run in between each ones.

My friend Anna leads this series of plyometrics for NBR and they are killer but great:

--2 sets of 10 each:
1. Single leg hops: On one leg, 1) hop up and down; 2) hop forward and
back; 3) hop side to side.
2. Double leg bound: From a squat position with both legs, jump
forward as far as you can.
3. Alternate leg bound: In an exaggerated running motion, bound (which
looks like a combination of running and jumping) forward from one leg
to the other.
4. Squat jumps: With hands on hips in a squat position, jump straight
up as high as you can. Upon landing, lower back into a squat position
in one smooth motion and immediately jump up again.
5. Depth jumps: From a standing position on a 1-foot tall box, jump
onto the ground and land in a squat position. From this squat
position, jump straight up as high as you can.
6. Box jumps: From the ground, jump with two feet onto a 1-foot tall
box, and then immediately jump into the air and back down to the
ground.  

Naked Feet

I’ve been enjoying Vibram runs on the regular. I find my feet feel lighter, my form is vastly improved, and it requires less socks to wash. Okay, the last part is not why I wear them, but I like wearing them.

During the Burning Man 50k, I had a pair of old sneakers I was running in. At Burning Man, I generally wear a pair of sneakers that I was planning on tossing near the end of its life, and after running all week, throw them out. I planned on doing that with these shoes…until mile 12.

The shoes felt tight, and it felt like a massive blister was forming on my big toe. I wasn’t sure if there actually was one (You know how you never can tell?) but when I started altering my toe, I decided something had to be done.

I removed both my shoes and continued running in socks.

The playa surface is rather soft, most of the time, so except for two sections in Deep Playa, I was great. It felt heaps better than running in those wretched shoes (which, for the record, are in a landfill somewhere near my friend’s mom’s house in Santa Cruz where we left our garbage), though the blister slightly hurt. When I finished, I removed the sock and saw an incredibly massive and disgusting blister close to the size of my small toe attached to my big toe. Ow.  (This required the medical tent and a patient boyfriend who helped me clean and wrap it all week.)

But I ended up running about 17 or 18 miles in just socks. After, I was completely fine (except the extra toe…), no intense calf pain. I realized my Vibram runs of 11 miles this summer really helped. Basically, most runs under 10 miles or 11 miles, I’d run in Vibrams. My lunchtime runs I ran in Vibrams. This all helped prepare me to run more than half of an ultramarathon in just socks – and to have a blast while doing so.

The Hotter, The Better

I’m a summer girl, a beach girl. When it’s 98 and humid and everyone’s melting, I’m complaining a little but mostly loving it, loving my tequila lemonades, my skimpy dresses, the teeny bikinis, the long hours under the tree shelter on the trails, the walks around Brooklyn at night, the sitting on the waterfront with my best friends sneaking drinks out of Sigg water bottles…I love the heat.

But this summer, I knew that two of my races would demand expertise with heat – the  Burning Man 50k, an absolutely fun race that I direct, and the Rio del Lago 100 Miler. Both were hot – Rio del Lago was 97 with lots of miserably exposed sections and lots of dust.

I knew I needed heat training. My weekend runs were great, but I needed more training. Luckily, my boss is understanding (though she doesn’t comprehend why I do such things) and my job immensely flexible. So I’d work at home from 8am-noon, and then head out for a run for 90-120 minutes in the hot hot hot heat of the day. I’d wear sunblock, carry water, put on a visor, and go. The heat would drain me. Post run, I’d shower, eat something, and often just sit zombie-like on my futon, finishing the workday, glad my work only required me to sit and not move. The heat and humidity would drain me.

But it prepared me. As much as those runs sucked, as slow as I went in 95 degree temps, it prepared me. Rio del Lago felt ridiculously hot, yes, but I felt mostly okay. I attribute it to the heat training.

And now it’s getting cold. Autumn demands more snuggle time, long-sleeved tea shirts, and tea with pumpkin cookies post run. I’ll miss my sports bra-and-shorts-only runs…oh, yes, I will.

Long Runs...

Time to up the mileage for Rio del Lago....that's going to be a rather interesting race as I'm running the Burning Man Ultramarathon (50k) just ten days before, and I'm spending a week and a half on the playa at Burning Man, running around, wearing crazy costumes, inhaling dust, drinking lots of mojitos at DeMentha, biking insurmountable distances in sand, dancing, having fun...so yeah, should be an interesting race.


Saturday I headed out to Long Island's Greenbelt Trail. If you take the LIRR to Massapequa, get out and run east along the train lines behind the train tracks (further away from Sunrise Highway), you'll see an entrance. After running on the bike path for a bit, you take a very unmarked left in between some water and hit the Greenbelt Trail, marked with white blazes. When I tried to find the dirt trail (pavement sucks!), this snotty runner was like, "I guess I can give you directions. I've been running an hour and fifty minutes, I'm almost done." I wanted to be like, "That's cute, I'm running 35 miles today." But I didn't.


The trail is very up and down, and I'd tell you not to run it right now - there is one section where there were just swarms of gnats following me. It pushed me to run faster than normal b/c I had all those disgusting gnats flying in between my sunglasses, down my throat - they had perseverance, I'll give them that. However, I tripped trying to escape a swarm and pulled a muscle in my butt.


The next day I headed to Rockefeller State Park, only running three hours with a slight pain in my butt on the uphills. The pace was easy and I was feeling sleepy.


I'm hoping to do some quality runs over the next few days - tomorrow I'm aiming for a good 22+ miles, Friday I'm going to take off or do 15, depending on how I feel, Saturday run a few hours in the city with Iliana, Sunday four hours on the trails with Iliana. So I'm building my mileage back up.


Due to my rather less than ideal taper time with the 50k and Burning Man, I'm planning on a more hardcore taper so I need to up the mileage while I can. Next Saturday, I'm hoping for long, long, long, as long as I can possibly go...join me if you dare/care.

Thinking Big

"You cannot get what you don't go after."

--Ray K.

Umstead 100 Miler. Just the very thought sends my mind someplace else...to those well-groomed carriage trails, to last year's race, to that seemingly torturous hill after the second main aid station (the one where I clutched my stomach after learning my limit of M&Ms, and where I had a woman stop her race to help offer me Tums...), to how I do not plan on spending time inside the lodge, to how I want to PR, to how strong I need to run to do this.

I haven't had the best training, I know. Backpacking seemed to take a priority over long runs (Hello, beach! Hello, surfboard! Hello, rum! Hello, awesome new friends! Hello, Cacao Shaman! Goodbyes all around!), and while in Central America, though I did run 1-2 hours nearly every day, I still didn't get in my usual amount of long runs. The weather back home was so miserable that instead of laughing around Bear Mountain, Rockefeller, and Minnewaska, I probably would've been slogging miles in paved Central Park with the dreaded iPod.

But - more than anything else - I have the desire. The want. The burn inside. Ray K. told me we could do 18 hours - I don't know if this is possible. My sister wants me to run as fast as possible ("If you finish before 11 o'clock, we can still get a table at this restaurant!" "The quicker you run, the more time you'll have to eat."), my mom is sad I plan on spending less time at aid stations, and others doubt if I can do it. I'm not sure.

When yr crew has a spread, grabbing what you need is easier.

But I'm still going to TRY.

But if I have a good day - and I'm planning on having a good day, that's what I marked my calendar for! - I can run strong and fast and well and have fun. I hope to stay with Tony and Ray in 10 minute miles for the first 50 miles. I'll have to learn to get in and out of aid stations quicker - have Lissy and my mom prep water bottles for me, and give me my extra bottle of coconut water, my savior, and whatever delicious snacks I'm desiring of. I'll have to plan my drop bags out a little better than I have previously.

Prepping drop bags cluelessly before my first 100miler

Next week - I'm serious - sleep. Lots of it. Lots of carbs, good food. Just a little running, to keep the legs in motion - but getting lots of rest. I'll cut out caffeine (Makes that 5 hour energy shot kick me into gear a little stronger!). I'll stretch. I'll make my sister promise to force me into an ice bath (and she can be fierce, so I know she'll make me do it).

And victory...I want to taste it. I want it so bad. I need to go after it in order to get it.

and the training for the umstead 100 miler continues...

I have to get more serious about things. I've been trying to make sure I do my strength training at least twice a week, preferably three times. I went to yoga tonight - I haven't been in forever and need to be more mindful about my stretching. I'll keep up with my cross-training, upping my mileage smartly, and training through glycogen depletion.

I'm excited and nervous and loving (and sometimes hating) the process.