Week 4 - Like A Rockstar!

Ah, week four. Aside from my deep chest cold and stuffy nose that forced me to breathe like an asthmatic elephant, and Jill's "amish bangs" that plagued her during this run, we are progressing quite well. See for yourself:



Week 4 Running Spuds Vlog from Cassie Hendon on Vimeo.

Visualization for Athletes (That's Us) by Jill & Cassie

We found an interesting article about how athletes (that's us) can use visualization to help them achieve their goals.  We thought we'd share it with you, and add in some of our commentary, wisdom gained over FOUR WHOLE WEEKS of running.  Our comments are in parenthesis. 

VISUALIZATION PREPARATION FOR ATHLETES

For some time, visualization in sports has been granted "weird" status by many who do not understand it (oh, WE understand it). In spite of that bias, visualization has continued to grow as a valuable tool used by nearly every Olympic and professional athlete (That's us.  We're runners.  You're not). There was also a time when people pooh-poohed the idea of using computers to analyze physical movement and train for improvement, but that is now commonplace also (My pooh poohing wasn't commonplace either, but I took the Activia challenge and it fixed that.)Whether you call it visualization, imagery, mental rehearsal, or mental practice, the idea is to place importance on improving your cognitive performance along with your physical performance.

...It is also important that we use all 5 senses in the process. When you examine the methods and even the language we use in sports, you can tell how important these senses are. A good visualization should include all your senses, even when the image is relatively short-term. Here's how they relate:


Sight - It is important to actually "see" what you will do (Cassie:  I see my tight, taut, tanned legs with no cellulite, draped in cute Nike running shorts.  I don't SEE my legs rubbing together when I run.  Nope, they DON'T do that. Jill: I visualize finally wearing a sweatband, crossing the finish line with my entire family wearing Running Spuds t-shirts and greeting me there with signs that say my name in glitter, and a Five Guys cheeseburger). Again, think of those bobsledders at the Olympics, golfers, etc.who stand and "see" what they are about to do, then go and do it. We even use the term "you have that look in your eyes", as though we can recognize when someone looks as though they are about to succeed, though we can certainly see determination or concentration or seriousness of purpose (yep, we got all that). 


Touch - What will you literally feel during the activity? (I feel sweaty.  I feel tired.  I feel like I need a nap.  And there's a brief point right before the halfway mark that I feel really angry and just wanna hit that cute running mom with her sporty jogging stroller.  How dare she pass me so arrogantly as I sit here and pant for my last breath!  Then of course that feeling passes, and I jog up next to her and say, hey, isn't it great that we're runners?)  It may be the touch of the ball/bat/club in your hands or the grass/turf under your feet. We talk about an athlete having "that feeling of power" when they are performing exceptionally(Hopefully what we don't feel is the dog poo under our shoe on the track.).


Smell - Will there be popcorn (we HOPE!!), fresh grass, rain or water, locker room odors (oh God, who forgot deodorant?), etc. in connection with your activity? ...We often hear the phrase "the sweet smell of success", even though we know that success has no actual odor (Shoot, our kind of success smells like it needs a shower afterwards!).


Sounds - There are lots of natural ones that occur in games and practices - bat hits ball, pads crash, swish of the net (swish of my swishy pants) - so it is important for us to filter the ones we enjoy into our visualizations. We say, "It sounds good to me".  (After the first initial groans of the run, we just mainly hear our asthmatic wheezing as we take the last corner and head for the car.  We hear the beautiful sound of the lady on our Couch-To-5K running app, also known by us as The Potato Masher, saying "Walk Now".) 


Tastes - In sports, these are not always the greatest things (They must be in the wrong sport.  Have they tried competitive eating?). We might taste our own sweat, blood in our mouth, acrid odors, etc. (which, by the way, can all be washed away by a post-run chocolate chip cookie), yet we recognize others as positive. We say that victory is "sweet", and that losses are "bitter".  (Wait.  Who's competing?  I thought we were doing this for charity!)
It is vitally important that when you are structuring your visualizations, you incorporate as much from your senses as possible, so the image will be as real as possible. The more real your imagery, the more successful your technique will be.

WEEK THREE by Jill

Running is no joke.


Most the time I feel like I'm going to die. Which is weird, because while I'm running I feel like I'm on top of the world. This odd feeling of superiority comes over me and I feel like the most accomplished woman on the planet. Probably the same way the man on the moon felt when his feet landed. Ok maybe not the exact same feeling, but still a feeling. I try to find every excuse to work my training process into a conversation. Mostly because I enjoy the look of admiration on people's faces when I tell them I'm training for a marathon. Runners get a higher level of respect.


My new favorite thing to say is a quote from Cassie's blog: "Cause I'm a runner, and you're not."  You can use it for everything.  Runners are this unique, euphoric sub-culture of people that I desperately want to be a part of. Runners are so cool, with their awesome shoes and sweatbands. I don't have a sweat band. Or awesome shoes. I need new shoes. It's probably why my back hurts. Actually everything hurts. But it's probably because I'm a runner....and you're not.  See, it works for everything.

WEEK TWO by Cassie

This is the second week of training for the 5K.  Jill trained on Monday with a friend while I was at work, and on Tuesday, I trained by myself at the gym on the treadmill.  Today, Jill and I ran together at the lakefront. We plan on training together every Wednesday, since I'm off in the mornings that day.

Today we ran at the lakefront. (The lakefront has a major road running parallel to it, which almost the entire town uses on a daily basis.  This meant there is a huge percentage of the population of our small town that may see my jiggly butt and even jigglier front training for this race.)   For some reason, I felt a lot of pressure to dress cute for our run.  If it's gonna jiggle, it may as well do it in style, right?  I ended up changing running clothes several times until I came up with the right, semi-passible outfit.  I settled on a t-shirt that said NIKE in big, Old-English style letters.  I bought it a year or so ago, at another point when I decided to get fit but of course needed a "workout wardrobe" before I could start working out (good excuse to shop).   So when Jill came to pick me up, she looked at my shirt and said, "Nike?  Oh you must be a real runner now."  I felt dumb.  "It's like three years old, ok?" I responded, hoping that would make me sound like I wasn't trying too hard.

When we arrived at the lakefront, we did our 5 minute walking warmup, then began our pattern of alternating running for 60 seconds and walking for 90 seconds for 20 minutes.  Surprisingly, it was a lot easier.  We talked through almost the entire run, whereas we had run in heavy breathing-filled silence the week before.  I also felt less compelled to stare at the stopwatch, counting down the seconds 'til the running interval was over.  We tried to pace our run better, so that it was slower and zapped less of our energy at the beginning - I read in the training material that the focus of our training should be less about speed and more about endurance.

We made it through the run and felt really great about the accomplishment by the end.  We ended up back at my house to stretch and cool down, and Jill enjoyed some holiday peanut M&Ms (see photo) while I dreamed about how cool it would be for us to cross the finish line in coordinated cute running outfits.  Pink maybe?  No, black.  It's slimming.  (Good excuse to shop). 

WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT AFTER YOUR FIRST WEEK OF RUNNING by Cassie

So, I've completed my first week of running.

Ok, so I actually have only trained two times this week.  HOWEVER, two out of three ain't bad!  (For our training plan, click here.)

After the first day, as I sat on the couch and ate my victory cupcake with Jill, I felt great.  Sweaty, but great.  This wild sense of accomplishment, of anything-is-possible, brightened my outlook on the world and hyped me up.  Two hours later, as Jill and I sat at Five Guys Burgers, enjoying our cheese-laden beef patties on deliciously toasted buns and SHARING (!!!!) a small order of fries (we're watching our diets because of training*), she complained that her legs felt like jello, and I laughed.  I felt awesome!  Energized!  Full of la joie de vivre!

Five hours later, I stood on the platform at church in heels for a full hour-and-a-half feeling great.  Why?  Cause I'm a runner now.  And you probably aren't.

Thirty minutes after that, I wished for my death.  My legs began to freeze up.  My hips felt like someone was trying to pop my femurs out of joint.  My stomach ached (can't determine if that was the run or the Five Guys).  My arms even hurt - and all I did was swing those as I ran, and occasionally brace the girls from too much bounceage.  Apparently it's more work for my arms than I thought.  Add to that the continual flush on my cheeks that lasted from the end of the run til about, oh, 10:00 pm.  I was a hot mess.

What they don't tell you about this "running" thing is that it hurts.  Who would think your own body could turn against you this way?  Laying in bed that night, the relief of being off my feet was the best feeling ever!  But when I woke up the next morning, I felt just as crappy as the previous day.  Maybe worse.  But you know what the crazy thing is?  By the end of the day, I was excited about training the next morning!  I was actually anxious to get up early and head to the gym and do it again.  Weird huh?

I hope this keeps up.  For some reason, I'm motivated.  Because motivation for me is rare and unpredictable, I've learned to hop on the motivation wagon whenever it decides to drive by and ride it for all it's worth.  So that's what I'm going to do!

*Trust me, this is a big deal.  If you know Jillian or me, you know that we're not really food sharers.

WEEK ONE by Jill

Today I began training for a marathon.  [Insert triumphant sigh and far off wistful look of pride].  Fine.  It’s not a marathon.  It’s a 5K.  But it sounds so prestigious to say you’re training for a marathon.

Ok. Let’s take a few steps back to how this all began, in a text message conversation:

Cassie:  Jill!  Let's train for and run the Disney Princess 5K in March!!

Jill:  Ok.  Let me finish my cheese fries first!  Seriously though, if you will, I will.  

Cassie:  It would be so great to set a goal and achieve something physically.  We only have to keep a 16-minute mile pace for the whole 5K.  

Jill:  Wait!!!  How long is that?

Turns out, a 5K is 3.1 miles.  So how do you start training for something like this?   Well, Cassie is no dummy.  She googled it, of course.  And we found "How to Go From Couch Potato to Marathon (oops, I mean 5k) Runner in 9 Weeks."  And she didn’t just forward the article.  No- she printed in out.  And brought it with her.  To the gym (which we immediately decided to leave since there weren’t two treadmills together).  So we took our couch potato behinds and our papers, complete with the 9-week strategy and the instructions for the 5 minute stretching process, to the lakefront.  Real runners run outside.  But we still looked for the closest parking spot to the trail. 

So here we are, at the lakefront.  We prepare to stretch.  We trade wall stretches for lean-up-against-the-mini-van stretches and read thoroughly through each stretch, moving our bodies accordingly.  We opt out of the ground stretches because people walk their dogs here, too.  And then we start.  The plan is to walk for 90 seconds, then to run for 60 seconds.  The first sequence begins.  We are feeling good.  We are walking, talking, joking.  Then Cass says, "Okay, in 5 seconds we've got to run."  Please.  The only time I run is to the bathroom, after 2 cups of coffee and a Diet Coke.  In fact, I've never run.  I despise aerobic activity.  I tried to get out of it, but she wouldn’t hear of it.  And so we run.

We are running.  And it feels good!  I don’t feel like I’m going to die.  However, my legs are itching uncontrollably.  I’m trying to scratch them while I'm running so I don’t mess up the sequence and look like a complete fool.  Her legs weren’t itching.  So being the 21st century cosmopolitan woman I am, I whip out my iPhone mid-run and google "itchy legs."  And we are still walking.  Cassie almost steps in dog poo.  Old men are passing me.  Svelte women who do this all the time are giving me the “Oh you poor thing” glance.  And google tells me that itchy legs while running are a result of activity after really long periods of inactivity.  And basically it says you have shocked the blood vessels in the muscles you are working.  So not only was I saying I don’t wanna run, but so were my thighs!

A couple more sequences go by and we are at the 1½ mile mark.  And things aren’t as easy.  Breathing is heavier.  Now my legs, arms, back, and abdomen are itching, since all those muscles have been inactive for so long too.  Sweat is rolling down my body and we haven’t cracked a joke in several minutes.  I want to quit completely but Cassie holds strong! She wants to keep going so we do, all the way back to the car.  Two miles and 30 minutes later, we had completed Day 1 of training.  We felt so accomplished! 

And we rewarded ourselves by sitting on the couch and eating a chocolate cupcake.