September 27, 2016

One year without injury

Being sick is so frustrating! What started as a sore throat for a few days turned into some serious sinus congestion. Now, instead of a very hoarse voice, I just sound like I'm talking while plugging my nose. I've also been coughing quite a bit.

Poor Noah is still having symptoms from his virus, and stayed home from school today because he was coughing so much. When my kids were little, there was one year that they were both constantly sick with bronchitis. If it wasn't one of them, it was the other. Noah's even turned into walking pneumonia. I had to give them breathing treatments several times a day, and stock up on Mucinex.

I never realized how awful bronchitis was until I got it that same year (all three of us were sick at the same time). I would have coughing fits that were so violent I thought I would literally cough up a lung.

I remember going to the grocery store, completely exhausted and emotional from dealing with everyone being sick, and I saw my friend at the store. She said, "Hey, how are you?" like a normal greeting; and I just burst into tears in the middle of the store. Thankfully, we haven't had anything like that happen since ;)

I hate not being able to taste anything right now! I feel physically hungry, but absolutely nothing sounds good to me (not even ice cream!). And then when I do eat, it's totally unsatisfying because I can't even taste it. It would be very sad to permanently lose my sense of taste! Hopefully, I'll kick this cold soon, and then go another few years before getting sick again.

Anyways, enough about that! I just don't have anything to write about, because I haven't done much since being sick. I did realize that it was September 27 today--which may not mean anything to anyone else, but this was my final "rest day" last year due to my stress fracture. I took six weeks off of running to let it finally heal. I wasn't totally inactive during that time, though--I took walks, bike rides, and used a stair stepper to get some exercise.


Then, on September 28, I ran 2 miles. I was thrilled that my stress fracture had finally healed (after about 10 months, on and off!). I only ran 2-3 miles at a time all through October and November. In December, I started heart rate training, which made a world of difference in how I felt about running (I used to dread it, because I was doing my easy runs too fast; when I keep my heart rate in the correct zone, though, I actually really enjoy it!).

I trained all winter and spring for a 10K in April, hoping to PR with 49:22 or better. I trained differently than I ever had before--I was doing most of my runs VERY slowly, and then once or twice a week, I was running VERY hard for intervals or other speed work. I didn't do any middle-ground running. It was the hardest I'd ever trained, and when I ran my 10K, it all paid off! I crossed the finish line in 49:03, and I was thrilled that I actually accomplished that goal.

Anyway, as of today, I have been injury-free for a whole year! I haven't been running much the last couple of months (maybe 10-12 miles a week or so), and I'm okay with that. Summer running isn't much fun, because it's so hot! I had planned to do my whole Summer Running Checklist, but I admit, I didn't. I finished probably about half the items on the list.

However, I think that taking time off of running (or at least dialing back the mileage a lot) works well for me. It gets me fired up to start training hard for something. Right now, I'm working on dropping the summer weight that I picked up (hopefully, I'll be back at goal by Thanksgiving or so) and then I'll be ready to train like a beast for the Indy 500 Festival Mini Marathon starting in February.

For training, I think I'll probably do something similar to last year--just running 2-3 milers for a little while, and then this winter, build up the mileage. I'm going to create a "Your Best Half-Marathon" plan (soon) so that I can use that to train for Indy. It will be very similar to the 10K plan I wrote, just with higher mileage. I'm looking forward to it!

9 comments:

  1. Hi Katie! I just wanted to tell you I just watched Fat to Finish Line on Netflix. Amazing! You all are a true inspiration. I look forward to following your journey. Thank you for putting yourself out there.

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  2. I got a (seemingly) normal cold in April, and my sense of smell never came back. It still hasn't, and my sense of taste was affected, but not to the extent that I can't taste anything. It just changed a little. It sucks to not be able to smell a lot of stuff though, and I can't cook or clean without supervision now because I can't smell stuff burning and I can't tell when I'm using too many chemicals and need to open a window cleaning. (Figured that out the hard way and got a nasty chemical burn.)

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  3. Yay for being injury free!! Praying for healing for you and your sweet boy! :)
    And I totally agree that bronchitis is THE worst. Proud of you, as always!

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  4. My husband and I watched the movie together--we both loved it!

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  5. My husband and I watched From Fat to Finish Line on Netflix this last weekend. It was really interesting to have read your review of the Ragnar and then to see it. So much fun!

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  6. I'm currently researching ways to prep for PR-ing my 5K time after this marathon is over. Do you have any tips/tricks or training plans to really PR a 5K?

    I've never focused on pace before, but I want to start getting faster and faster... now that I've trained for distance.

    Pointfivekorean.com

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    Replies
    1. Follow up -- I found your "Run your best 5K" plan! Is there a way to tweak it from 8 weeks to 6 weeks?

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  7. I hope you start feeling better soon!

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