"I go for walks [Runs] late at night to stare at the moon, and sometimes to cry to it about my hurts and worries, so that it's light may somehow heal my soul."
So I promise, of course, that I'm done with all of that posting about grad school. Back to running!
This week I conquered new weekly mileage PR at 65.5 miles....mostly long runs with a side of intervals sprinkled in. IN FACT, though you may or may not believe it I'm not even tired, my muscles aren't even sore which is surprising to be sure. The tiredness speaks more to how little I sleep as opposed to how much I run.
It was midterms week in graduate school land (as you all know-refer to my crazy last post) so not only did I run a lot, but in fact I ran at a lot of odd times. For instance, on Thursday I had a 3 hour midterm at night, I had to study in the morning and work all day. Instead of running that day, I went went at 12:01-1:00AM the night before. That was the first midnight run. And it was so great that I did it again. Running at midnight is convenient, and frees up the days in which you would otherwise have to run twice. There's something about midnight runs thats calming, spiritual even. The whole world is asleep except for you. It's like you have the whole place to yourself.
There is absolutely a time where I would have thought going running at midnight was absolutely ludicrous, but now that I've tried it I almost wish that I could do at least half my runs at midnight. As I'm on spring break this week I had at first thought that I wouldn't have to do midnight runs, now I'm thinking it's going to free me up for all midnight runs. I know that maybe it sounds scary, but please grab yourself a can of pepper spray and stare at the moon for 8 miles. Your soul will thank you.
Additionally, during mileage bump weeks all of your food will disappear! As you may or may not know (depending how new you are to this blog) I am the poster child of overtly healthy eating. I've been known to consider lettuce a full meal, an orange good enough for dinner (Absolutely NOT what I'd recommend for nutrition. More on this at a later date.) But this week, this week, I craved everything from oreos to eggs to lettuce and back again to chocolate. I bought a lot of Easter candy for my graduate school class to munch on during a 2-hour presentation I had. Those poor little chocolate bunnies never stood a chance against my 2-a-day runs, my tummy rumbling at 1am after I finished the afore mentioned midnight runs. Gone was my Easter candy, my cheese, and obviously...peanut butter. An embarrassingly large amount of peanut butter if you will.
While running at an area indoor track during the colder, crappier days of this week I received quite a few odd pick-up lines (because, uhh who WOULDN'T want to hit on the sweaty girl running 10 miles in circles?) (note sarcasm). The worst of which included "So, I see you run a lot" the best of which included "It's like your eyes just said 'chase me'". ( I had no idea my eyes were so competitive.) It's always baffled me why men seem to find running attractive. If we're being honest here, I am NOT attractive when I run. Especially when I run and spit at the same time.
I've also been doing a lot of yoga in order to try to compensate for all of this running. Because, even though I feel good now...a month from now 70 miles a week may get a bit rough if I don't start stretching. My favorite yoga workouts includes doing hip-openers at 4am. It is absolutely my advice that ALL runners do hip openers. Between yoga and foam rolling I'm positive that all running injuries can be prevented.
One last thing. As you may or not know, I broke my foot some time ago....my heel bone to be exact. So since starting to run again I've gone from being a classic, chronic heel-striker to an almost-but-not-quite perfect mid-foot strike. And so all miles since the end of this past summer have been in minimalist shoes. (a.k.a. barefoot shoes) I just moved into a complete zero-drop and am working into being in them for at least 30% of the weeks running. Another thing that I've been working on during all of these long miles.
It was a strange week for sure, but a successful one...and quite some time since I was this happy. Happiness credit to both endorphins and Easter candy.
Happy Trails everyone! :)
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