Exciting Happenings

Exciting happening over here people! :)

first things first -- law school is creeping up very quickly. This is the first week where I've actually had thoughts like "oh crap, i should pack" or "maybe its time to read law school confidential and figure out how to approach his bad boy"

monday night one of my very first law school friends (who i randomly met this summer), moved into her house, and i attended a pretty big 1L meet-up at dominick's - quite possibly my favorite place for drinks in ann arbor.

the syllabi are being posted, books have been procured, and orientation starts next monday. holy crap.

these are not even all of my books. eff.

#2 thing: i have been a michigan student for 5 years now, and when it came time to order football tickets I was stuck with the dilemma of "use my 5 years of seniority to my advantage and not join the michigan law football group, for which over 75% have probably not had michigan football tickets before or join the 1L group and hope that the rumors that 1L's have badass seats was right." well i went with the latter, and these babies were delivered to me today:

yes it does say row 4

HELL YES. look for me on tv behind the endzone bitches.

#3 thing: Saturday's shopping involved me stumbling upon a new pair of shoes that I fell in love with. since my current frees are racking up the mileage, and I am staying away for the VFF's for the time being, I thought a new pair of free's wasn't a bad investment.

so while i didn't buy them in store on Saturday, I did buy them online on sunday, were shipped out of the ohio store monday, and arrived at my front door tuesday. sometimes, i do appreciate ohio (just not most of the time).

box 1

box 2

hello shoes

love love love

i'm always a sucker for livestrong, and the pink laces are just so darn cute. i'm sold.

#4 thing: i made another swimming purchase today. yes it is getting out of control, but unless i decide i really want another suit and i am done for a while. i swear.

if i want to swim intervals, i need a waterproof watch. so i bought one.

target. $30 + my 5% REDcard discount. baller.

love that it is purple, and is the ironman brand.

#5 thing: i made myself breakfast this morning (and by morning i mean 11, because i didn't drag my ass out of bed until 10) and it was AWESOME

english muffin, tomato, hard boiled egg, daiya fake mozzarella

deliciousness

#6 things: tomorrow is going to be awesome because:
i'm getting my hair cut.
my new lululemon zip up is coming in the mail
i'm going to ann arbor.

Costs of a Broken Foot

So I broke my foot last June. Running my very first half marathon. awesome huh?

So that left me out of commission for a good two months. So what's a running-obsessed girl to do? Find something else to be obsessed with.

This post is especially fitting because right now that foot is being a humongous pain in the ass and giving me crap for switching up my return to running routine.

So my running substitute? swimming. I tried biking, but its just not as fun as actually getting outside, counting out laps, breaths, and obtaining spectacular tan lines.

I have always had a "jump-headfirst" mindset when it comes to trying new things. And a "if i buy this, i will then do this" mindset.

This worked out okay in the long run when it came to a lot of my running gear (example: garmin forerunner 305 - purchased: july 2009, utilized consistently: march 2011.) but that's not necessarily the case always.

When I bought my iPod shuffle a few summers ago, I actually intended to use it for swimming! (although that swimming never actually happened)

So to start off with swimming I made a single purchase:

An awesome multi-colored swim cap for $11.

tyr kalidoscope swim cap 

So after swimming pretty consistently for 5 weeks or so, I took a trip to swimoutlet.com and placed an order.

sporti pull buoy (in pink of course)

sporti flotation belt

triswim shampoo

and finally to round out the complete swimming essentials for semi-serious business swimmers:

a kickboard.

and not just any kickboard. a $5 from target's children's swim section DORA THE FREAKING EXPLORER kickboard.

you know you're jealous. its okay. no need to confirm/deny.

I think kickboards are pretty universal in their function, and dora seems to work just fine. (i usually flip her over so that the plain blue side is on the top when i'm swimming, just to not seem like a total creepster).

So a few comments about my swimming paraphernalia.

So the swimming shampoo. I still don't know if its really necessary since I wear a swim cap, but I figure most swimmers do, and there's still this product, so I'll go with it.

I looked into this brand a while ago, was bummed to see it contained parabens (more about these icky things later), and didn't order. Then when I looked on swimoutlet.com it specifically said paraben free and i was all over that.

When it came in the mail i look at the ingredients to see this:

but wait -- what's this?

WTF TRISWIM? what is it??

So I made a phone call to them this morning, and they're checking with the chemists.  I will keep you updated.


2nd thing: the floatation belt.

Yes, I'm going to water jog. Reading Cris's blog about her return to run post metatarsal fracture has pretty much solidified my interest in aqua jogging. so, once I'm back at school and at the school pool, I'm going to start it up. I'm a little too embarrassed to pull it out at the dearborn pool. lame lame. I will, of course, keep you all apprised of how it works out.

Training Log - August 7-August 13

I've decided to track my training here, just so I have a more thorough record of my training than my dailymile account.

Training Log - August 7 - August 13


Sunday
Run in the arb. 3.01 miles total running/walking. 1.25 running.
This run felt good - it was so nice to be back in familiar favorite running territory. Aside from the mosquito attack that left me with 5 or 6 bites, it was perfect.


Monday
Rest day.


Tuesday
Another rest day. Planned on getting in a run tuesday night, but the perfect weather forecast for Wed. morning mad me put it off and pull a two-a-day.



Wednesday

4.45 miles running/walking. 1.5 running
This was a park/middle school run/walk, which again, felt good. I'm just honestly so happy to be out there running again, even if its at a painstakingly slow pace.

1600 m swim at the pool.
an easy mile at the pool to shakeout the muscles. did some laps with the kick board for the first time, which went well.

Thursday
Jillian Michaels workout dvd - Banish Fat, Boost Metabolism.
50 minutes of J. Michaels cardio which kicked my ass.

Friday
yoga at lululemon ann arbor showroom.

2000m swim at the pool.
breakdown: 20 laps breast,
8 laps kick board flutter kick, 2 laps buoy arm isolation
10 laps free
10 laps breast
10 laps free
10 laps breast
4 laps kickboard, 6 laps buoy arm isolation
10 laps free

Last week I made the swimming plunge and bought some things from swimoutlet.com. seriously, i have a problem. Included in this purchase was a buoy for arm isolation, and a flotation belt for water jogging, as well as a shampoo which I have a serious rant about, but thats coming later. My kickboard is from target's children's swim section. You'll see this in my all-swimming post coming later this week.

Anyway, these purchases made me feel like a serious business swimmer, and I actually really enjoy using them. Plus, more reasons for me to continue shopping (although everything I've bought for swimming has been super reasonably priced. unlike $200 garmins, and $100 running shoes, and $20 tempos x9038204832)

This felt good at the time, but once I got home, I was SO SORE. I don't know if it was the jillian, yoga, swimming, or all of the above in combination (gotta love synergy!), but i definitely half-napped before I went to see the glee movie that night (which was PHENOMINAL btw. my glee love is out of control. my only complaint? not enough songs!)

Saturday
3.89 miles run/walk. 1.50 running.

Another day spent running in .75 intervals. but guess what? This is the last one. It's 1 mile+ from here on out, and I am so excited.

PR-crushing half marathon in 63 days, get ready for me.

 

sweaty varieties

Wednesday morning I went out for another easy walk/run combo. I upped my "running-without-stopping" distance to .75 miles (we're getting crazy over here), and just went out there and got it done.

I brought my camera along for fun, and snapped a few pictures throughout the run.

AM temps were perfect for this baby, by the way. Under 70 to start out with. perfect!

track/park entrance

pool! where i do all my oh so fun 2000m swims!

good morning world!

Post run, I came back home and decided to take the pup for a quick walk around the neighborhood to up my walking time.

hi sadie!

 I then proceeded to wear this outfit to target and sports authority, because I knew I was planning on swimming later in the day and didn't want to shower, swim, and then shower again. All about efficiency people!

also made my favorite smoothie of late - choco sun warrior, soy milk, raspberries, banana.

I did 1500m in the pool later on Wednesday, and then called it a day.

pool again!

Yesterday I attempted to swim as well, but found that there was some event going on at the pool where they removed the lane markers and there was a TON of small children. nope, not dealing with that. 

So i went to on demand and had a date with ms. jillian michaels.

For this being a "at home cardio" work out, I am pretty damn sore this morning. damn you jillian michaels. Had to do a few modifications with this one - was not doing mountain climbers with my healing foot, tyvm. but for the most part I kept up, pushed hard, and felt like I got a super serious work out. AWESOME.

And now I'm off to lululemon yoga!

what have you done to sweat lately?

Running Again!

So I'm running again.

and it feels SO GOOD.

My first run out was of course on august first (did you really expect anything less?). After a long day at work, I headed out around 8:30 for an easy walk/run combo.

In middle school I ran track, mostly because at that age it was a social thing to play sports with your friends (high school sports are just too competitive for the semi-athletically challenged like myself). Our middle school track was (and still is) pretty sad, so our warm up was always 2 laps around the fence - aka the football and soccer fields. Somehow the fence works out to be almost exactly half a mile. So that's what I did.

And guess what? ZERO PAIN. running felt good, I kept it slow, half a mile at a time, and I rocked it.

rocking the hot pink compression socks, tempos, and skinnyrunner tee!

Run #2 happened Friday morning. I was out of town Tuesday and Wednesday night, so zero runs then, and I had plans come up for Thursday night, so it was a swimming day (the summer heat limiting my runs to early AM or right before sunset is a bummer), but Friday morning I was up early to go for run #2.

Run #2 was great as well. I realized I could use the lap function on my garmin to get splits for running and walking, and ran a teensy bit faster to see how it would go. Same setup as monday: walk .5, run .5, but friday's run ended with .25 on sidewalk - something I hadn't done yet.



Although there's a little discomfort in my foot occasionally, I think for the most part I'm good. Tonight? Run in the arb. This girl cannot wait.

I have an extremely tenative training plan for the rest of august, to get me to the point where I can run the detroit free press half on october 16.

I have no set days of the week for this training events, and I'm just kind of seeing how it goes.
My swimming is limited to Wed-Sat for the month, but everything else I'm pretty flexible with.



Also contemplating the incorporation of water jogging into this baby. Kind of scary right?

I'm also contemplating how I can increase my swimming -- because I'm seriously falling in love. It may lose some of its appeal once I'm indoor swimming, and incorporating it into my class schedule, but we'll see!

Just Keep Swimming!

So I think I've finally found my running substitute. and unsurprisingly, it is the other sport I've ever competed in (keep in mind this is in middle school, and I'm pretty sure for both sports I was never actually a top competitor, at all).

Could you guess that it's swimming?

actual pool that i swim in, see those lanes??

On Wednesday, I bought my pool tag for the summer (flat rate for unlimited pool access = totally worth it), gathered the swim cap and goggles, and put on the speedo one-pieced that I bought two years ago when I told myself I was going to swim and probably never actually wore. 

First things first.

Swimming is hard. Definitely not as easy to hop right back into as running, but I guess what can I expect 9 years after doing it with any sort of consistency. 

But being in the water was great. Really moving and getting my heart rate up was great. Feeling like I was doing something seriously good for me was great.

I alternated between breast stroke and freestyle. I used to be a badass at backstroke, but I'm scared that with my sorely out of practice arms, I would run into the lanemarkers over and over again, and I didn't want to embarrass myself yet. also have yet to attempt the flip turns, but I'll do it soon.

Today there was part of a swim team there doing some drills, so there was a large glowing digital stopwatch. I used it to time my lengths and found that my 25m free is about 25 seconds, and my 25m breaststroke is about 33. which I'm pretty happy with.

Random things of note:

- I can feel myself using muscles in my foot that haven't been worked in a month. I LOVE IT.

- I seriously need to get my hands on some serious waterproof sunscreen if I want to be without some very sexy tan lines.

- Any hardscore swimmer's out there know if I should invest in some anti-chlorine shampoo even if I always use a swim cap?

- $3 goggles from tj maxx are pretty damn good at keeping out water and allowing me to see all the nasty things at the bottom of the pool.

- Fingers crossed that this will build up my calves again. I was so proud of them when I was running, and lately I've been a little disappointed. 

- At the pool you apparently need to be 18 to swim in lanes. When I was there on Wednesday, I of course am asked to confirm that I am 18. GOOD LORD. do I really look that young??
- The foam roller is totally necessary for swimming as well as running. After these past two swims, I've had weird soreness in my neck (maybe from breathing during freestyle??) as well as random cramping in my calf, which i've had off and on since the fracture. Regardless, I will be foam rolling like a champ today.


I think the addictive personality is shining through on this one. Pool-going has happened Wednesday, yesterday, and will for sure happen today. It's similar to the running thing where as soon as the clothes are on (or the suit in this case), I will go.

So happy I found a sweat-once-a-day activity that I love again!

Do you enjoy swimming? Would you ever consider doing it as a form of cardio?