Hi! While I despise the phrase “In Case You Missed It” with the fire of a thousand suns (it reminds me of my days as a writer at a political trade magazine where I would get all-caps subject lines of IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: CANDIDATE SHAKES GRANDMAS’ HANDS IN SMALLEST TOWN EVER or equally inane things), I did want to give a little shout-out over here to my own side project.
I want to help you make your blog awesome! As a social media professional and blogging dork, I’ve served as an informal consultant to my blogger friends for quite some time, and after getting lots of inquiries lately, I decided to make it formal.
So, if you want to make your blog awesome, click on over to makeyourblogawesome.com. (I’m actually really surprised that domain wasn’t taken.) I probably won’t talk about that much on here, but I will be putting up a nice button in my sidebar so you can easily find this again if you’d like to. I’ve always considered my Twitter part professional/part blog/part dumb stuff I say/part dog pictures, so if you do want to learn more social media stuff for free and you’re not already following me…do so.
—
On to the running stuff!
The first week of marathon training is always fun for me. It’s all shiny and new, and I’m excited. I usually find the next month pretty boring as it’s a lot of base building, and your long runs don’t yet feel like they’re marathon-training runs. They’re just long. But because I want so badly to do sub-4 this year, Jess is whipping me into shape early with longer runs, higher mileage and speedwork earlier.
She also has more faith in me than I do myself, so this week, she’s been trying to not assign paces, because she thinks that I can run faster than I think I can. Monday’s run was a 4-mile easy run with strides at the end, but today’s run was …
I don’t know why they scare me so much, but they do. I’d never actually done them before today. I was supposed to do them just before the D.C. Half. Oops! They just so happened to not happen. I was supposed to do them yesterday, and I ended up not running at all because I didn’t want to/was scared to do them. (I realize that now. Yesterday, I just made excuses. Fail.)
If you’re not familiar with mile repeats, you typically warm up for a mile or two, and then run a mile at a pretty balls-to-the-wall pace, recover for a bit and then repeat. According to this Runner’s World article, you get the same benefits of a tempo but with less fatigue because of the recovery.
Sweet.
On my specific plan was: 1.5 mile warmup, 3 mile repeats with 3-minute recovery and a mile cooldown.
FINE, JESS, I’LL DO IT.
I motivated myself by putting on one of my favorite shoes – the speedy AND gorgeous New Balance 1600s.
Of course, I waited until I basically couldn’t wait any more to go tonight and left around 7. I hoped that would mean at least it’d be cooler, but not much. I shuffled over to the West Side (my warmups have been really slow lately), ran an extra half-mile…and…go time.
I took off for that first mile and tried so hard not to look at my watch.
7:26
WOO REST INTERVAL.
Every day I’m shufflin’…
Oh, another one of these?
I ran another half mile and then turned around so I could get home without having to walk too much.
8:02.
OMG REST INTERVAL, I LOVE YOU.
Crap, ANOTHER ONE? Okay, it’s the last one.
7:52.
The last one was really hard. I struggled the entire time to get even a decent breath in. My legs were exhausted. At around .6 miles, I thought, “eh, I can just stop here.”
But that wouldn’t make me any stronger, right?
What workout do you hate?
I love mile repeats and hate 800s! I’m proud of you for doing them!
@Jess: Beats having to tell you I didn’t 🙂
I hate strides. Don’t know why. They hurt, they scare me, they make me think I can’t finish my workout. Lol.
I hate tempo running!
Congratulations on growing your passion into a business! You’re going to do great!
I’ve actually never really done mile repeats, either! But they’re on my plan now, so I’m channeling you for that workout. Go time!
I don’t love mile repeats, but I think I hate tempo runs the most. I always feel like I’m going to die by the end.
Apparently everyone hates tempo runs as much as I do! I know they’re good for me when I’m doing them, but I just end up counting down the miles and tenths of miles and they drag on. Good job with the mile repeats!
You have no idea how excited I am that you started a website devoted to helping bloggers. I just started a blog a few weeks ago (after over a year of putting it off) and I am thrilled to be a part of something amazing. But, I definitely need help. It’s hard to figure out what to do! thank you 🙂
Miles and tempo runs are certainly some of the most mentally challenging workouts in my opinion! Luckily that also means they give you the mental toughness you’ll need to run sub-4 in your marathon. Loving the blog-help website! I just started my own blog, and might have to take you up on the help 🙂
I’m with you, I hate mile repeats more than anything else (with a ladder with a 1600 at the top coming in a very close second). I dread them so much mentally that my legs just say screw it sometimes. They haven’t killed me yet but man do I hate them.
Thanks for letting me know via twitter that you’d explain on the blog what a “mile repeat was” and I’m bummed its just as hard as I thought it was!
Also, I may be interested in blog-awesomeness help…someday. I kind of want to wait until I really know what I want before I start paying people for things, if that makes sense?
I was terrified just reading about your mile repeats. I’ve just recently (as in the past 2 weeks) started adding speed work to my routine and it all scares me. I don’t HATE any of it (yet) but I have a feeling that is coming 🙂
I used to love mile repeats. Then I discovered 800s and mile repeats are now a personal hell. In fact, it must be about 6mths since I actually ran a mile repeat workout, that is how much I hate them. They make me want to cry, throw-up, and then die in quick succession.
I hate them runs, I hate recovery runs and track work outs…. So boring, i rather sleep.
I used to hate mile repeats, but they’ve become a staple for me since I live in a ton with the same distance between streets N/S and E/W. It makes it really easy for me to time a mile since I know that the same number of blocks is almost always a mile.
Speed training workouts are brutual! Especially now that it is summer. Good for you for toughing it out! 🙂
What other workouts do you recommend to increase speed? Running my first half in October and am struggling to get my mile times faster!
I am not good at speedwork but I KNOW I need to do them to get faster, stronger and more confident in my ability!
Congrats on the new business! It’s a very cool site.
@Nicole: <3 Thanks!
The new website sounds awesome and so helpful! Would you ever consider writing a post on how you balance your own business, blog, fitness, social life, volunteering, and all the other things you do–oh yea, AND a full time job in social media?! I would love to hear your tips on managing it all since you are an inspiration to many women out there!