I'm mixing it up

I have an addictive personality.  I think this is derived from my desperate desire for routine.

My entire day has been routinized.  Lucy and I are incredibly in sync because she can pretty much predict my every move.  When my 5:15 alarm goes off, she stays in bed, knowing she won't have to actually get up until my teeth have been brushed, face washed, and I've gotten dressed for our morning walk (in that order).

I posted this on Facebook earlier this morning, but it's so
adorable I had to make another use of it.  She was none
too enthused to get up this morning after I returned from
my bathroom routines. 

After that, we walk for exactly 30 minutes on the exact same route each morning.  I listen to an audiobook as we do this.  When we get home, she gets breakfast (if this isn't done IMMEDIATELY upon walking in the door, she will whine at me pathetically until it happens).  Then I put make up on, get dressed for work, eat breakfast while reading email/facebook/blogs, make coffee and gather lunch items for the day (typically the same lunch items each day), give Lucy a treat, and head out the door.

Every morning progresses in this exact manner.  The only exception being sometimes the alarm goes off at 5:00 instead of 5:15 when I have an early meeting.  Otherwise, just the same.

That's a lie.  Sometimes I'll put my orange in my lunch bag before I put creamer in my coffee.  But that only happens when I'm feeling spicy.

So it should be no surprise to know that I have an addictive personality.  When something sneaks its way into my routinized life, and I enjoy it, I quickly decide that it needs to happen regularly and frequently.  Luckily, up until this point, I've managed to maintain addictions to mostly healthy things (aside from 5 years of smoking through late high school/college--sorry mom and dad, finally admitting that one out loud).

My addictive, routine-based life is one of the biggest reasons why running works for me.  I can run every day if I want to.  I can take the same routes through my neighborhoods.  I can run at the same time, at a speed that works for me.  When I started running, I stuck with it because I made it routine.  And once it becomes routine for me, it isn't going away very easily unless there is a substantial, legitimate reason to make a change (i.e. I quit smoking the day I started student teaching...just couldn't justifiably wrap my brain around the idea of a smoking teacher.  I haven't smoked a single cigarette since that day 8.5 years ago).  

I am addicted to running.  There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it.  (Irrelevant side note: 7 years of teaching first grade boys means I can't say "buts" without snickering.)   I'm running 3 races in March alone, I'm already training for my 5th marathon, less than a month after completing the Goofy Challenge, and I'm on a Ragnar Northwest Passage Relay team for July.  This kind of schedule is not normal.  It is the result of an addiction.  I acknowledge this.  My name is Tessa and I'm a running addict.

In the past 5 years, I've done little else exercise-wise besides running.  I had a month-long phase of hot yoga a couple years ago.  Last summer I was pretty good at integrating biking and swimming (cause that's what my friends were doing).  Other than that, running is pretty much it.

So, this marathon training season, I am setting a new goal.  I am officially trying to mix it up a bit.  This marathon season is going to be about trying new things.  Trying new fueling routines (or at least sticking consistently to the new fueling that worked for Goofy)  Trying to push the speed.  Trying new shoes (eek! scared for this one).  Maybe investing in a new water belt.  Not running with Erica every team run (she left me to become a coach or whatever...now I have to find someone new to do some speedy running with on Saturdays and Tuesdays while she selfishly helps others).  

Also, for legitimate reasons, I would like to regularly break into the mold of cross training.  Running gives me super strong legs and a strong lower back.  But my arms are flimsy.  My abs could use a little help.  And my flexibility, which used to be not half bad, has been reduced to an inability to remotely come close to touching my toes.  

There are a couple of ways I'm working on this:

Yoga.  I recently discovered a completely awesome new-to-me iPhone/iPad app called Yoga Studio, which I learned about from another lady blogger who reviewed it quite nicely.  I've decided that instead of a 40 minute easy recovery run on Sundays, I will from here on out be doing yoga with my yoga studio app.  Two weeks in, I've been successful with this.  I started with the 30 minute combination class, and this is more than enough to challenge my strength and flexibility right now.  It will take many years before I will look anything like I'm supposed to in a Standing Forward Bend.  Nowhere close on that one.  

If you can do this, I applaud you.  I cannot.

And my current favorite is Child's Pose:  

I could easily fall asleep in this position.

My only complaint about yoga right now is the dog that makes it impossible to relax in Corpse Pose--or any other pose for that matter.  It's very difficult to "empty your mind" when you are being licked in the face with enthusiasm.  Lucy and I are going to have a long chat before I begin yoga-ing next Sunday.

Boot Camp.  In reality, I've been doing "boot camp" on Monday afternoons all year.  But before winter break, "boot camp" was me and my teacher running clubbers doing some strengthening that we made up as we went along each afternoon.  Now, Boot Camp is being run by our P.E. teacher.  It is much harder.  In a good way.  I first did Boot Camp this way 2 weeks ago and was sore for almost a week.  My legs hurt so bad that I took a couple days off running, and my slight soreness after the Goofy Challenge paled in comparison to the state my body was left in after these 40 minutes of strengthening.  I've now done Boot Camp 3 times (the 3rd being today) and I'm learning to love to hate it.  It hurts, it's hard, and it sucks.  But it's working muscles that I forgot existed.  There are even muscles in my legs that I didn't know were hiding away in there.  I can already feel myself getting stronger.  I'm happy and proud of myself to for doing something different and challenging.  And I also know that this will help me get stronger in my running too.  So bonus for that.

To most of you, those two slight changes may seem minor.  But they are huge changes in my addicted-to-running life.  And I am going to be all the healthier and stronger in my running because of them.

I have high hopes for marathon number 5.  I have a set time goal in mind (sub 4 hour), which scares the crap out of me.  The actual goal itself doesn't scare me so much as the act of setting such a distinct goal.  In the past, I've had vague goals: "Run faster than last time," "Be stronger when you want to walk."  Vague goals can pretty easily be accomplished (although I've come to find that the satisfaction level may not be as high).  With distinct goals, however, can come distinct failures.

So by working harder, changing the routine, creating a few new positive addictions, I'm hoping to make that goal seem a little less scary.  Right now is the time to build up confidence in my body and it's ability to do what I want to ask of it.  I don't think setting these new routines and mixing things up will be too difficult.  I've already gotten a good start.

The bigger challenge will be training my mind to be ok with running fast when I'm too tired to want to go on.  But we'll cross that bridge when we begin to see it.

For now, my personal brownie point count is pretty high.  I pat myself on the back for that.