Signing Up For A Half In Three Weeks Means I Should Maybe Do A Long Run

I went for my first long run in probably two months last night. Thank God for my friend, Lara, otherwise I might not ever make it out running at all. She's immune to my whining, sniffling and complaining. I'm pretty good at all three of those things, so kudos to her. Also kudos to me, cuz I really wasn't feeling like leaving the sweet cocoon I made on my couch. There was a Law & Order SVU marathon on and everything. Yesterday, I signed up for the Rock 'n' Roll Arizona Half in three weeks, so maybe a run longer than 4 miles is in order, especially considering I've only got a week before I should be tapering.

I met Lara late in the afternoon and went for an 8 mile jaunt. The first 3 miles sucked. Like sucked a lot. I really need to always run longer than 3 or 4 miles because I can't seem to get into a groove until about mile 5. I suppose that's a good thing, considering I'm a distance runner, but wow. I spend those first few miles hating running, hating myself and pretty much hating life in general. I don't know that I'll ever be good at the 5K distance.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not really good at any distance. I'm slow even by the standards of slow runners. But I stop hating the world around mile 4 or 5, so I guess I'm meant to run distance.

In fact, when I was training with Susan Loken (the nicest lady ever and the fastest runner I know), our Team Chances coach for the 2012 NYC Marathon that never happened, she said to me, "the marathon is your distance." Something about slow twitch muscles versus fast twitch muscles. Apparently I'm a slow twitch kinda gal.

That's probably more true for the half marathon distance, but the idea of labeling myself as a runner at all, let alone a marathoner, still makes me laugh. Like I pulled one over on the world and tricked everyone into believing I'm a runner. Haha, world! Jokes on you!

I don't even mean that in a self snarking way. It just takes me by surprise sometimes that I'm an actual runner. Especially considering that my love of sitting far outweighs my love of moving. But I like going to races. They're like horse shows only everyone gets a prize and I don't stress out over them. Win, win!

Anyway, we did 8 miles. There was plenty of walking, but when we ran, we kept a pretty quick pace for me. Not for Lara, but it was speedy for me. And there was a nice sunset.

For the rest of the night, my glutes and lower back were killing me. It hurt bad enough that I actually got up a couple of times during the night to do pigeon pose yoga stretch.

(source)

Now, I'm not really into yoga. I totally should be because I can get myself all wound up and tight like a champ. But it's never appealed to me at all. Until I start hurting. Then I'm all over it. I need to add stretching to my list of resolutions for the new year.

The pigeon pose is a form of self torture that could get a prisoner to spill their guts. It hurts and feels terrible and I can barely do it. But I have to admit it works. I'm finding that a lot of joint ailments can be relieved by various stretches. Once I had some serious pain in what felt like a joint in my foot. I started stretching my calves a ton and it went away.

Oh and by the way? I look nothing like the woman in the picture when I do stretch. My hips are way too tight. I look more like I tripped and fell and now I'm stuck that way. Nobody wants to see that shit. That's another reason I don't go to yoga- I look ridiculous. I've also found that sitting cross legged really helps my hips.

Does anyone else have any amazing stretches for tight hips?

This is post is brought to you from me and my writing staff.