September 06, 2013

Bloody nipples

Today's run was MUCH better than yesterday's. It's been pretty cool outside the past couple of mornings, and today it was only 50 degrees! I was thrilled. My feet were still a little sore from yesterday, but I knew they'd be fine once I started running. I made sure to wear my new shoes today!

After I took the kids to the bus stop, I headed out on my run. I wasn't sure how far I was going to go or what pace I was going to run. I had six miles at an easy pace (10:00-10:40/mi) on the schedule, but considering yesterday's run got all screwed up, I thought I might try for nine miles at marathon pace (8:58). I wanted to see how I felt before I decided.

I didn't want to be a slave to my Garmin by constantly checking my pace, so I just ran at what felt a little harder than comfortable. I decided to look at my pace only when my Garmin beeped at the end of each mile. After mile one, I saw I'd run it in 8:31, so I knew I'd be fine doing a marathon pace run today instead of an easy pace. I still wasn't sure if I'd do six or nine miles, though.

I felt really good! My feet felt a million times better than yesterday, thanks to the new shoes. I ran an out-and-back along a busy road, which usually keeps my mind occupied (and the time goes by faster). Once I hit mile three, I decided to keep going. At mile 4.5, I turned around and headed home. I was surprised at how fast the miles were going by, and I was holding a sub-9:00 pace easily.

About a mile from home, there was a man running toward me, so I said "Good morning!" as we passed each other. He looked at me kind of strangely, but I didn't think much about it. When I got home, I sat on the porch for a few minutes, drinking my water and checking out my splits. When I stood up to go back in the house, I caught my reflection in the storm door. Words can't describe...


My first thought was, "Ohmygod, are my nipples bleeding?!" because I've seen men at races with bloody nipples. It's actually pretty common, and they even make nipple protection that people can buy at running stores. But sports bras are tight, so it rarely happens to women, and it's certainly never happened to me.

Then the realization hit me: I was wearing a brand new pink sports bra under my yellow top. The dye had bled through from all the sweat. I looked like I had just murdered someone with an axe.

I was SO embarrassed for a moment. I wanted to run back down the road and find the guy who thought I was a weirdo, and tell him that I wasn't bloody, I just like to wear pink bras. But that probably screams "lunatic" even more than he already suspected. So I just shrugged it off, and posted a pic on Instagram ;)

I was thrilled with how great my run was!


So I celebrated with a really yummy, indulgent breakfast--a non-peanut butter version of a Fluffernutter. I toasted two low-fat waffles and spread them with Justin's Chocolate Hazelnut Butter and marshmallow fluff, and turned them into a sandwich.


It was 9 PointsPlus, which actually isn't bad at all, and it was really filling. I like this sandwich with peanut butter better, but since I'm not eating peanut butter until the marathon, this had to do. It was still delicious!

I downloaded an app on my phone that calculates calories burned by heart rate (the name of it is a very clever "Calories Burned by Heart Rate"). I've been frustrated with my Garmin recently, because I know that the calorie burn is much too low, even though the heart rate is correct. I wasn't sure how accurate this app would be, but for 99 cents, I decided to give it a try. It takes into account your age, weight, minutes exercised, and average heart rate. So I put in today's numbers:


Of course I can't know whether this is super accurate, but it seems correct to me! That's about 88 calories burned per mile, which seems much more accurate than my Garmin's latest readings of 60-something per mile. I also don't think it's too high, like some of the calorie calculators out there (the one on my treadmill is always WAY too high; it probably would have read about 1600 for today's run).

Tomorrow is an easy 6 miler, and then Sunday is my second (of three) 16-miler. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to run it outside--Jerry's taking my dad's brother to the Lion's game, and I'm not sure if the kids are going to church with my mom or not. I really hope I don't have to run it on the treadmill... that would be a LONG 16-miles!

17 comments:

  1. 16 miles on a treadmill? That would be awful! I don't mind the treadmill but that's way too many miles on one. Hope you can run outside!

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  2. I'm sitting here in a hotel where the wifi is only in the lobby area laughing my head off and being stared at by the other people here!!
    So, did the pink come out of the yellow top?

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  3. That's hilarious about the Olof bleeding through. I had the same thing happen to me recently, except it was pink underwear bleeding through my white running skirt. Even with black compression shorts I was streaked. :)

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  4. I am sitting here, laughing my ass off (which I needed because I just finished watching a scary movie). Thanks for the laugh...hope you can get your cute yellow top clean!

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  5. Your shirt kind of looks like there's a heart on it. That waffle looks delicious I'm cutting weight right now and that pic is making my mouth water. Great blog, hope your feet gets better.

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  6. Oh lord. I had a pink sports bra (from Target) that bled through my shirt FIVE times. I kept trying to make it stop through washing in hot, soaking in Oxiclean, etc., but it never worked. I had to throw out the bra in the end.

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  7. I just laughed out loud and scared my dog awake, hahaha!

    So glad that your run was much better today!

    I use too many exclamation points when I'm tired! :)

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  8. OH, that is too too funny!! I've had that happen before too - but not quite that bad!

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  9. as someone who has done twenty milers on the treadmill before (it gets too icy here in Michigan in February) some tips: COVER the time counter, if you can point your treadmill either at some form of entertainment and watch tv/movies or point at a window so you can people watch and "pretend you are outside" , still set up a stand with music or a dvd : it works best if you mentally can get out of the boredom and just remember: those runs on the treadmill lead to marathon success when you are solo running through the middle of nowhere wanting to stop or slow down :)

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  10. Haha! That's awesome! Maybe he just thought you were wearing a tie dyed shirt! Also I can't wait to hear what kind of search terms you get out of that post title! LOL.

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  11. LOL! I literally LOL'd at that. I can imagine that you looked pretty scary to that poor man you ran past! :D

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  12. ROFLMBO!!! It totally looks like you did just murder someone with an axe! That's one of my fav funny running stories ever :)

    Nice job on your run and pace!!

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  13. I've had bloody nips. The worst part is the shower afterwards. That stings even more than the embarrassment of discovering the bleeding in the locker room mirror after walking through half the gym!

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  14. Ummm, the EXACT same thing happened to me last weekend with a yellow tank and pink sports bra. Is that an MTA sport tank from Meijer? And was it a pink champion sport bra from target? That was the the combo that did me in on my 16 miler. I ended up throwing the tank away. It was only $2 on clearance and I had gotten lots of wears out of it.

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  15. OMG, that pic and the story about the guy who saw you have me DYING!! Thanks for the laugh!

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  16. I went back and read this after you linked it last week and OMG, it's so so hilarious!! Exercise is really embarrassing when you think about it, right?

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  17. AnonymousJuly 06, 2015

    dude im gonna go puke for real

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