Tag Archives: running

Movin’ on up, out of cotton

So after a year of running, I felt it was time to get non-cotton running pants. Yes, I know. I am awful, Morgan was nice enough to shame me for it. Thanks Morgan, I can always count on you to keep it real. But in my defense, I have been told that cotton like all women that cotton is good. It lets important parts of our bodies breathe and it’s not like I am wearing huge sweats (well unless I forgot to wash). But I figure if I wanna be a part of the club, I need to dress the part.

Soooo off to Marshall’s I went in search of the pants that would change my running life, make me 10 times faster, and make me leap tall buildings in a single bound. I scored a $24 pair, seemed nice enough and when I put them on, I felt my life changing before my eyes. Really!

On my next running day, I was so excited to wear them, I even put on a matching top and sprinting down the steps to the gym. Ok, I didn’t actually sprint, I walked but very happily.

The moment I began, I felt something I’ve never felt before. I thought surely the pants are magical and it’s magic is tingling through my body. Well, when the mist in my fantasy cleared, what really was happening was I was experiencing intense itching in my legs. And even more annoying my pants were slowly sliding off of my ass. That damned slick material. I considered the two things that could have went wrong (“did I forgot to bathe today?”, “did I buy the wrong size?’) However, I did bathe and was wearing the right size. I couldn’t explain it but I spent the next 35 minutes scratching and tugging at my lower half and I really didn’t enjoy the experience at all.

What am I missing? Did I do something wrong? Is the world mocking me for taking so long to buy real running pants? Please tell me I am not the only one who has ever had this experience.

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Hello Quads

24 Dec

So my first run in 4 months was…interesting!

Before I start my type-vomit, let me just say. I ran a total of 3 miles on a dreaded treadmill. But the only way I could convince my body to do it was to alternate three-one mile runs with strength training. So imagine me, Bgirl875, running between the hamster wheel and the weight machines over and over. I really did look like I hamster, a pear-shaped brown little thing with a lot of hair, running through this crazy obstacle course I called working out.

The running was actually easier than I thought. THE FIRST TIME. But after three sets of arms strengthening exercises on three different machines, getting back on that treadmill, was P A I N F U L. Who would have thought one mile of running could make my legs fatigue so badly? However, I held back the tears and fought through it.

The next strengthening break (I use the term break lightly) was alternating pikes on the ball, with crunches, and some random exercise I learned in my pilates days (basically strengthens the lower back while stretching the abs.) I vomited a little when I went up for my 2nd rep of ball pikes. It wasn’t pretty.

Then as I was finishing, my worst nightmare happened. Some guy came in and took over my machine. If looks could kill, he’d be a goner. But looks can’t kill, so he survived my stare attack and handed me my stuff as he jacked me for my machine. Womp Womp Womp. So I had to continue more strengthening until my friend felt bad enough for me to fork over her machine.

My last one mile stretch was brutal. I tried focusing on the TV in my friends gym. Watching JJ Evans (Good Times) intently. Paying attention to his every move. The way he enunciated the word “THELMA” was the most important thing ever, as it was all I could do to get my mind off my fatigued legs and my life flashing before my eyes. Then the second worst things that could happen, happened. The show went off. The ending credits rolled, and to COMMERCIALS.

Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like commercials in a boring gym facility are like a struggling runners nightmare. No one can really get into commercials enough to ignore the pain or the seconds ticking away ever so SLOWLY! ‘Damned Everest college. Who cares who believed in you? Get off my screen. Wait, what’s this, The Jeffersons. Fish don’t fry in the kitchen. YESSSSSSS!’ Now I just get through a couple of commercials and George and Weezy would take me home. I yelled out loud in front of the other people in the gym. “Come on! Why are there so many f-ing commercials!” And that’s all it took. On to George and his male sexual problems episode. And before I knew it, I was done.

I couldn’t bear to do the leg drills, so I settled for stretching thoroughly in hopes that I would alleviate the impending soreness I was going to feel in the next few hours. But alas.

My legs hurt sooooo much right not. So much so, that I couldn’t go back in today. But I already have a date for tomorrow. I am going to try to just run straight through to make sure I can still do it. I don’t think I’ll have too much of a problem as long as I alternate intervals to break up the 30 minutes of running in place on my hamster wheel. Clearly, it’s cold in DC and I am stuck inside. But I am running, nonetheless. Thus, I am happy!

Hope you all are enjoying your runs!

An anonymous black girl who loves running and hates commercials!

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Run, Fatty!

23 Dec

Do you know that when you stop running, your quads turn into a big fattening block of cheese? And not the low fat, light or soy based healthy stuff. The Good Ol’ Grade A Gub’ment Cheese! It’s not a pretty picture, but just in case you need a visual, here ya go.

OK, Wait! Will you still love me in the morning?

Promise!

Pinky Swear?

Ok, here it goes…

Gosh, I miss running!

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Run Aborted

19 Jun

So do you guys remember a post I did a while ago about fears of running outdoors? Well, apparently, someone in running heaven has decided I’ve reached that point in my journey where I MUST face all of my running fears NOW!

Two weeks ago, I had my first near miss with a car. UGHHHHHH! DC DRIVERS!

And, today, as I’m running on vacation in Connecticut…incident NUMBER TWO!

When I left the house, my aunt made a joke to the effect of “don’t call me to come pick you up”. I giggled and headed out. Within the first half mile, I realize I forgot to bring my pepper spray. I immediately got nervous because even though this is a really nice neighborhood, I haven’t seen ONE person running since arriving yesterday. I take for granted how many people run in DC. Because even though I DON’T really run alone, I know that if I did, there would be tons of people out there to make me feel safe. Apparently Connecticans haven’t seen the running light. So I felt kind of uneasy but decided to continue. However, I only put one of my earphones as a precaution.

First thing noted…damn it, there are a LOT of hills in CT, which might explain why no one runs there. Second, my leg has retreated back to that weird pain on the top of my foot, which I haven’t felt since I got off that dreaded treadmill. Not sure why it’s starting to act up again…ugh.

I knew it’d be a quick run. Literally, just needed to get out there to justify the cherry pie I was going to be eating for dessert. Is that snickering, I hear? Plus, I am a punk and yeah, not getting lost in an area I don’t know well. So was thinking 2-3 miles at most.

Anywhooooooo…as I was heading back, about .5 miles from the house , I saw the HORROR…

OK, this isn’t EXACTLY what I saw…not even close. More like…

but…times TWO, and without an owner in sight. I considered if I could just run in place until the owner came out to get their big s$$ dogs! Then, I considered if there was another route to get back to the house…but I thought, it’d be much worst to get lost (in the approaching dark) than to risk getting mauled by a pair of boxers. So I decided to just stop running and cry call my aunt to come pick me up.

It’s 2 hours later, and they are still joking about it. And if that wasn’t bad enough…it was discovered that the boxers were enclosed in an invisible fence. So had I kept going I would have been safe. Instead, I stopped short and sweated out the only workout clothes that I packed, for a 1.5 mile run waste of time.

Womp…womp…womp!

An anonymous black girl who despises unattended dogs, especially when they ruin my runs

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On the road to recovery…

17 Jun

I got up this morning, and fought my way out of bed and to the park to join my group run. I hadn’t seen my run dawgs in about 2 weeks and I was sure I was getting my butt kicked. As a result, I spent 25 minutes hoping it would thunderstorm. It NEVER did!

I won’t go into a long sordid story about how I was partnered with a newbie runner that fed me her dust for 3 miles straight, or how my obliques and lower abs felt like Satan was taking a smoke break on them. The short version is, it was difficult!!! I did a little over 3 miles in 28:45 minutes, then at the command of my body, switched to intervals for 1.5 miles (alternating sprints 150 meters/walk 100 meters) for a total miles 4.55 in 47 minutes/average pace 10:23.

I can live with that! I also went to Ballet tonight. Jeez!!! The preparation for this new job is KILLING my body. However, it’ll all make sense when I step in to teach my first class. Those students have NO idea what’s coming their way.

In other news, my favorite trainer, Miss Angel Stone AKA my girl crush, is having a great discussion on her blog, Fit and Hungry, about why African-American women don’t statistically exercise as much as their fairer skinned counter parts. The discussion has stemmed from an interview she did on the founders of BlackGirlsRun. It’s a cool post. So when you get a chance mosey on over there and chime in. Then come back here and play with me, Ok?!

Toddle-Loo (I don’t think I’ve ever wrote that out, and am sure it’s not spelled right, but you get the point! If not, it’s synonymous with Laters! )

An anonymous black girl who despises having abs that look much stronger than they really are ={

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Ouchie!

14 Jun

Is it possible to break an abdominal muscle? Wait! Are you laughing? Stop it! This is serious bidness…

Last Wednesday I went to the gym with a friend. We did about 30 mins of cardio (running on a treadmill, my favorite thing in the whole world…NOT!!!) When I got to my thirty minutes, of running in place in pure HEAT (WHY IS IT SO HOT IN GYMS) I was ready to jump off that damned torture device. She decided to move to 30 more minutes on the elliptical, so I headed for weightlifting. Started on the legs. I did the usual machines, though all the machines in her gym are souped up versions, I guess to justify the $90 a month membership fee. Then headed downstairs to work on arms and abs. Actually, I don’t really do much in the way of abs at a gym, as I work on abs everyday. But today decided to try the incline bench. 3 sets of 15 sit-ups on about a 45 degree incline. Actually wasn’t that hard…so I moved on and started arms.

They had these machines, I think they were called “Rock-Its” or something like that. They really didn’t feel to be working much but I thought it was super cool that as I worked, the machine moved. So I kept doing it, trying to go faster and faster. It was sooooo fun and reminded me of a ride at an amusement park. When I realized that I was having way too much fun and was doing virtually no work, I moved to working on my pecs and triceps. This, as usual, hurt.

Anyway, my friend finally came downstairs and asked me to help her with ab work. I totally stole some exercises with the ball from my sessions with my trainer. However, I hadn’t done some of that stuff in a while, so there’s a good possibility I didn’t do it right and even though I felt NOTHING while I was working with her, the next day my abs were SCREAMING! Actually, first it started in my chest that night. Any of you that have had kids know what it feels like when I say the soreness “felt like my milk was coming in”. For those that don’t know, trust me, it hurt like HELL!

The, next day, I went to class and tried to do my ab workout and stopped dead in my tracks. I couldn’t do ONE crunch. My students were looking at me in sheer disbelief. Very embarrassing when you are requesting your students to do 48 crunches and you can’t do one. Now one might say, “sounds like to got a good workout.” However, the fact that 4 days later, I still can’t sit up without rolling on my side…probably NOT so good! It literally feels like I’ve had a c-section. And even though, I don’t know what that feels like, I’m sure this is how it’d feel. Needless to say, I’ve gotten very little exercise since. Tried to convince myself to get up on Saturday and go running. Then realized that I rely a lot on my core when I run and I just didn’t feel the need to experience that pain. Tomorrow, I’m supposed to go to spinning…and am afraid, I might die.

Has anyone ever experienced this? And, more importantly, what do I do to make it better?

I want my mommy, NOW!!!!

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Where in the World is BGirl875?

26 May

It’s been exactly 12 days since my last post, and I have so much to tell you all.

First, even though you haven’t heard much from me, I HAVE been running. I’ve done a few morning runs with KT and my usual group runs, of which I am growing SUPER bored. I’m at the point where I just put my headphones on from the start in hopes that the same old route will feel different with a different soundtrack. But alas… (more…)

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Introducing…Stedman

28 Apr

Hey Oprah, I have a Stedman too!

My “Lil Steddy” is slim, dark and handsome, oh and slightly bulky in all the right places. He runs with me, helping me along the way. Today he yelled at me for going too fast/slow. Yep, he know what I want and need and keeps me right on target. I’m in love! (more…)

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There’s a new G in town

24 Apr

So yesterday I headed out for my first run with the New Garmin. Yep, I got a Garmin, I got a Garmin. I’m EXCITED, can you tell? Well, I can’t really say new, it’s new-sed, as I bought it from a guy on Craig’s list who referred to pants as trousers. Needless to say I was super stoked to try it out. I usually do one run per week with the group since that’s all I can handle with all the talking they prefer to do. But this week, I had to go back. When I woke up in the morning, my knees literally jumped out of their sockets and said “Oh hell no!” Apparently, they weren’t excited about the impending 4.5 mile run. We made a compromise, we would get a short run in, just so I could play with the Garmin, but cut it short if needed. (more…)