My first "Hashing"

1-27-13

Yesterday marked my first "hashing" experience.  My friend, Steph, invited me and it was a first time for us both.  For those of you unfamiliar with Hashing, here's what I got to experience:

First, the email invitation tells you the day, time, and place of the event, as well as the theme.  For this hash, the theme was "Snow Fairies and Snow Men":

 Steph and I opted for tutu's and glitter that was thrown all over our clothes.  Other runners had on fairy wings, and some guys had on top hats.

Once all the runners arrived at Glastonbury High School, we were given chalk and whistles, and the leaders of the run explained the rules.  The leaders (or "Hares" as they call them) are given a 15 min head start and their job is to lay out the route of the run for the following runners.  The Hares place arrows on the sidewalk with chalk to let us know the proper route to run.  The twist comes when there are intersections of roads, then the Hares put down a big circle with two arrows pointing down two different paths.  At this time, the following runners would split up to see which path is right.  One to two hundred feet down the path the words "OFF OFF" or "ON ON" will be on the sidewalk to let the runners know if they made the proper decision (obviously "OFF OFF" indicating the wrong path and "ON ON" indicating the right path).  The runners on the "ON ON" path would blow their whistles to let the other runners know to turn around, and then someone will mark the circle at the intersection to show the later runners which direction to go.

So, the Hares took off and began to lay down the route (about 5 miles) for us following runners, as we scrambled to find warm places to wait (luckily the high school was unlocked and we knew someone with a car at the school).  After 15 mins, the rest of the pack took off and worked well as a group to figure out the path to take....until we all missed a turn....and ran up a REALLY big hill....which we weren't supposed to run.

Luckily, Steph knew the person in charge of the "Near the Beer" station (a place, about 1-2 miles from the finish, where we "fuel up" on some alcoholic concoction and take a breather), and called him up to figure out where he was.  He was in the opposite direction of where we ran to, so we all turned around and ran down the REALLY big hill we weren't supposed to run and found our way to the Near the Beer station.  While we were there, I checked my MapMyRun app and we made an approximately 2 mile detour from the proper path!

Once refueled on Bailey's-spiked hot chocolate, we continued our run down beautiful Main St Glastonbury and finished at The Diamond pub.  The Hashing group received a discount "Happy Hour" menu for apps and beer (I went with a Guinness since I'm a self-proclaimed beer snob and believe that Guinness has recovery properties post-workout...that would be my PhD dissertation if I could use beer in a study, apparently that is not allowed) .  We all enjoyed nachos, sweet potato fries, and wings, and Steph and I received our "First Hash Straws" which we had to drink our beers with:

Overall, this was an experience.  It was cold, slightly disorganized, and did I mention cold??? But it was a great way to get a run in.  This experience has opened my eyes to non-competitive group running as way to break up my running routine.  I feel that as I get into the longer distances of my training, that I will need to group support to help me achieve my goal. 

Thank you, Steph, for inviting me, and thank you to all the fellow Hashers for my making my first Hash one to remember.

Baby, it's cold outside!

1-24-13

As tempting as it was to see, physiologically, what my body could do to keep itself warm while exerting myself with exercise, I opted to complete the past 2 running sessions inside on a treadmill.  I can honestly say that treadmill running is not as much fun as running outside.  I don't think I push myself as much as I could if I ran outside, and staring out a window onto a parking lot gets boring real fast.  Since the first workout felt easy to me, I've started to mess around with the walk/run intervals, challenging myself to run for a longer time than what I was supposed to do.

Similar to the first day, I paired my running with weight training.  I had the opportunity to utilize the gym at my school, so I was able to load up on the weights and challenge myself.  While the workouts have been great, the DOMS (delayed-onset muscle soreness) has not been fun.  It's bad enough that I wake up to both of hips, knees, ankles, and all my toes cracking as a descend down the stairs, but add tightness/soreness at the origins and insertions of most of my muscles and I look like I need to be in a nursing home.  I swear, my joints have aged more than rest of me.

To deal with this soreness, I've been following a strict regimen of icing my knee, static stretching, Advil, water, and foam rolling.  For those of you who have not heard of foam rolling, it is quite possibly the best and worst thing in the world all rolled (ha! get it...rolled..roller...he he) into one.  The premise is to sandwich your muscle between your bone (immovable object) and a dense foam roll (immovable object).  As you slide your body on top of the foam roll, your muscle is essentially "flattened out" like a pancake, helping to realign your muscle fibers and decrease the presence and size of "knots" in your muscle.  It takes awhile to get used to this torture, but it can be a great post-exercise/sore muscle tool to help alleviate the pain.

I have been invited to join a local "Hashing" group this weekend.  The running event is 5 miles long, and ends at a local bar for some much-needed post-run beer.  I have never heard of this before, so I am excited to see what it's all about.  I will posting my experience this weekend, along with some pictures (apparently dressing up in costume is customary...).

Here's a little country to keep you (and me!) motivated:

"That's the only way I know
Don't stop till everything's gone
Straight ahead never turn round
Don't back up, don't back down
Full throttle wide open
You get tired, you don't show it
Dig a little deeper when you think you can't dig no more
That's the only way I know" - Jason Aldean

Day One and Done!

1-20-13

Today marked the first running day of my adventure.  As I mentioned before, the 5K distance is the first one I will tackle, and I decided to follow a couch-to-5K running program to start off.  Since the first day was pretty easy (20 mins of run/walk intervals: 60s/90s), I decided to pair this up with a total body strength workout.  I am following the workout program from my favorite workout book: The New Rules of Lifting for Women by Lou Schuler.  The workouts are designed by Alwyn Cosgrove, a pretty big name in the fitness world along with his wife, Rachel Cosgrove (she writes for Women's Health magazine).  The lifting plan starts off relatively easy, just like the couch-to-5K, so I thought it wouldn't be too taxing to mesh the two together. 

I started my workout on a stationary bike, completing an easy 5 minutes for a warm up.  Then I performed some dynamic stretches: sumo squat to stands (one of my absolute favorites), lateral lunges, back lunges with twists, and inchworms (another one of my favorites).  Now time to lift.  What I like most about this particular workout plan is that I can do all of the moves in my basement with some modifications.  First, I did 2 sets of squats holding a kettle bell.  The kettle bell was light (25ish pounds) so I focused on form and performed deep squats.  Next were 2 sets of pushups supersetted (I think I just made up that word...) with seated rows.  Since I don't have a cable machine, I substituted TRX rows.  (If you haven't experienced a TRX, please do!  You use your own body weight as resistance and it provides you with a whole body workout)  Last was 2 sets of step ups supersetted with ball knee tucks.

Now came the run.  As I said before, I HATE to run in cold weather, but today I lucked out with temperatures in the 40s, sunshine, and few gusty winds.  I dressed the part, despite such a short running time and low intensity level, complete with running tights, a long-sleeved running shirt (complete with thumb holes to keep, I guess, the palms of hands warm?), bungee cord-like shoe laces in my Brooks running shoes, a cute ear warmer/headband, and of course all my electronics: Polar heart rate monitor strap and watch, iPhone with Lifeproof case, and iPhone arm band.  I felt like I should be some veteran marathoner with all my garb on, but I guess that helped me get into the zone for my first run of the season.

During my 5 min walk to get moving, I got my music started, fired up my MapMyRun app, and set the stopwatch function on my watch.  I was pumped and ready to rumble!  The intervals were easy for me, and I thought, "maybe I could have started a few weeks into this couch-to-5K program".  But, I didn't want to get discouraged on this adventure and start off too quickly or too hard and end up hurting myself.  For those of you who don't know, I have had a total of 7 surgeries on my right knee, 6 of them during a 2 year span.  My fear is to re-injure this knee, so I told myself that these easier workouts are better for me than diving in too quickly.  Plus, the run/walk intervals gave me time to work on my posture and foot strike, as well as learning my new terrain: snow banks, sand, ice, mud, more sand, etc. 

During my last run/walk interval, I decided to forgo the walking portion, and continue to run until I hit the 20 min running mark.  This snowballed into a series of challenges: run to the next street, run down that street and turn around, run back to the street I was originally going to turn onto, etc.  I ran maybe 4 more minutes than I should have, but it was a great 4 mins.  It solidified why I want to do this challenge: I forgot how much I liked to run, and how much I liked to push myself. 

I have to say this was a very promising and great way to start my running adventure of 2013.  I am icing my knee now (as I will do after every run since it gets so angry with me!), and I'm planning a yoga day tomorrow to help stretch out these muscles.

Feel free to share your fitness adventures with me...or favorites songs to work out to....or motivational sayings/mantras... :-) 

Here's mine for today: "If you can dream it, you can do it." Walt Disney

Welcome!

1-19-13

I started 2013 like any other year, with a list of resolutions to better myself.  Many are personal and geared toward graduate school work, but just like many other people, I included "exercise more and more consistently" on my list.  Being an exercise physiology graduate student and former personal trainer, the last resolution should be a no-brainer, but like many people I need a plan to stay on track.  So, I decided to set a goal of running a half marathon for 2013.

The half marathon I will run is the ING Hartford Half Marathon in October.  Now, October is a long way away and I want my resolution to include consistency in my work outs and exercise, so I decided to add two 5K races and two 10K races to my running goals for the year.

This bring us to my blog.  When I was a personal trainer, accountability was a motivating factor for many of my clients.  Knowing that you have someone watching over you, pushing you to do more than you could, and inspiring you to push harder motivated my clients to work hard and achieve their goals.  It's one thing for me to say that I'm going to do all these races, but putting it on paper (or, I guess, in this case, a blog) will keep me on track and motivate me to continue on my goal.  Plus, I have the opportunity to share my experience with others and, hopefully, be able to motivate others to set their own fitness goals.

The first races for me this year will be two 5K's in March: Max's O'Hartford on March 17th and Sandy Hook Run for the Families on March 23rd.  To prepare for this distance I will be following a couch to 5K running plan from coolrunnings.com.  It starts off easy, which works great for me because I HATE running in cold weather and I haven't ran since October.  My first day is tomorrow and the forecast predicts a high of 44 with gusty winds....thank goodness I only have to run for 20 minutes!  Check back tomorrow to see if I made it.

Here are a few words that I try to live each day by: "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams; Live the life you've imagined" Henry David Thoreau.  Thanks for reading about my journey and I look forward sharing more and hearing from you!