Ok, so if any of you were standing right next to me right now, I’d probably be talking about 500 words per  minute. Yep, adrenaline still flowing from track practice, can you tell?!

And you’re probably wondering how the three items mentioned above are related.  I can tell you, not at all!

Let’s talk food:  So, Oreo Enablers (and I think you all know who you are), I have a very important question, so I hope you are all reading this. Are mini Oreo Cakesters the same as an Oreo? They have chocolate and a cremey filling, but they are more like a “cake,” a la Little Debbie.  The mini cakesters come in 100 calorie packs. Would that be violating my oath to not eat any Oreos until my half at the end of June?  At any rate, there is no way I am giving up all chocolate until then. I can’t even go a day without some form of its goodness. 

Oreo Cakesters, by The Impulsive Buy, flickr.com

I think someone should stand at the finish line of the half-marathon at the end of June, with a HUGE package of Oreos. That could work for motivation!! 

Sex Lube: Yep, you read that right. Sex lube, as one of my coworkers calls it.  She is new to running, and was telling me she always gets blisters between her toes when she runs or works out. So, her thought was to use K-Y jelly between her toes.  When she said it to me, I looked at her like “Come again?  You want to use sex lube between your toes?  They’re going to get aroused or something on your workout?!” (This girl totally cracks me up with her questions sometimes.)  I was like, “um, they make something called Body Glide, it sells for $7 or $8 at Marathon Sports right up the street!”  I think she thought it would be too expensive, but hello?! Can you imagine that sticky mess of K-Y between your toes?! 

And now, I realize I might have just taken this blog to new lows… And I can only imagine the weird spam this blog is going to get now… 

Running Bras: Ok, I’m on a quest to find one that fits properly and actually doesn’t chaff.  I’m fine with the uniboob look as long as it otherwise does the trick. WhenI was in Marathon Sports after my 12 miler that resulted in major chaffage/hickey-looking kind of spot on my neck that burned like a bitch whenever sweat rolled into it during the 2 90+ degree days last week, I tried on a few. Inside their dressing rooms, they have conveniently placed some signs that tell you if a bra fits you properly or not. Shows cleavage in front or on the side? Too small. That accounts for about almost all of my bras, I now realize. Could be that they’ve shrunk, or just that I never bought the right size. 

Anyhow, the options that they had for me to try kinda made me laugh. One was a zip-up-the-front option, that made me think “you must be joking” when I tried on the one for a Size  C person. As Lis pointed out last week whenwe got together, that one is clearly made for guys. Um, yeah… Others included underwire.  Really? Underwire? And EXTRA padding?  Really?  I want to look padded while running?  Has anyone ever worn an underwire that is TRULY comfortable through multiple uses, let alone exercise?? Somehow, I think not. 

So, this weekend I bought one by Moving Comfort, in a size medium. Supposed to fit a 34C-36D person. Does anyone else the difference in those two sizes?! GOOD LORD.  When I first put it on tonight, well, let’s just say I found yet another use for the Anti-Monkey Butt powder (which is essentially talc and some other kind of powder) and leave it at that.  I wore it to track, which was in very humid weather since we had some lamo thunderstorms this afternoon, and well, um, it’s kinda supportive, but there is movement from side to side. Weird thing is I felt the movement more when I took my shirt off (was kind of serving as a towel anyway), than when I threw it back on after just one lap.  I’m going to give it a few more tries and see if it gets any better. Hopefully after one or two runs through the washer, it might also soften up a bit. 

Track practice – I say, bring on the humidity, I can take it! 

Yeah, I know, big talk from an asthmatic. 

Occasionally, they change things up at our practices and give people some freedom to run according to how they are feeling that night. Tonight, everyone had the option to do either 800s or 400s, in any combination, as long as they ran a total of 3-4 miles for the speed portion of the evening.  I stuck with 400s the whole evening, because to be honest, I just wanted to run FAST after what I felt was totally abyssmal this past Sunday. 

The twist: we had to give an estimate of our time for each segment and we had to run without watches. They literally gathered up our watches, and we were supposed to run based on feel.  If you needed a recovery lap, you could tell the coach you’d run a slower pace, but then you really needed to try to hit it.  

I did find (don’t think it was cheating…smirk) that I could count to myself on the straightaways and then do the same thing on the curves, to see if I was speeding up or slowing down. Anyway, long story short, I did the first one at 2 minutes just to see how my legs felt after Sunday, and yesterday’s strength/cross-training, and honestly, I was able to talk with no problem to the two guys running with me.  I only did one other lap over 2, and that was what I used as a recovery lap from the one before it. My second and third ones were about 1:55 and 1:53, and after that I wanted them all to be faster. I would say 1:46 as my guess and do 1:43, and then found that in the range of about 1:44-1:47 was my comfort zone. Two of my 400s, including my last (!!) were 1:38. 

Mom, I know you’re mathematically challenged. (And yes, I see you shaking your head, asking “Me?” with that wide-open look you get when you know you’ve been figured out.)  That equates to about a 6:32 minute mile pace, so about as fast as Jamie runs his marathons.  So yep, I can run with him for the first quarter mile, then fall over, and let him run the rest of the way at about that pace, or a bit slower.  

Yeah, it’s still kind of sick when I think about how fast my brother is. 

What this tells me is that I definitely did not run on Sunday to the best of my abilities.  I have really got to work  on the mental toughness side of things. So, Thursday morning, my plan is to do hill work. I found a hill this afternoon that is aboutt .3 miles  long, and I’m going to charge it  as my boss advised, at least 5 times. I’m fine with downhill running, thanks to my brother, but the uphill part is where I need to build confidence. I’ll take a picture of the hill and post it if there’s a way to give it justice, because it’s a hill where you can feel the difference in your car shifting as you drive up it. 

Saturday my plan is to get up even earlier than normal and try to be down near the June race course by around 6:15/6:30 and get going on a 12 miler again. (The rest of the course is flat, so I know I can handle that.)  So much of that course is really pretty, I have to focus on that and not the hills that seem endless!