Posts Tagged ‘headbands’

Well ok, that’s a lie, you totally can, but the smaller word is definitely included in that other big word.  And I am seeing progress…

Yesterday finished off a 68 mile week and with it, a tasty weekend of running.  Saturday was an easy 9 miler, avg. 8:29 (it’s still shocking to me to see any average under 8:45 after this stupidly hot summer).  Sunday’s Long Run wasn’t actually long since it’s the end of the training cycle, but it was a goody: 12.1 progression.

My usual progression style is to go comfortably until 4.5 mi from home, do the progression for 3.5 and then the last mile is cooldown, only because there are stoplights and intersections in that last mile, so I kind of have to do it that way.  So for a 12, I’d start the faster bit at mile 7.5.

First mile of the run, I was immediately back in slowland, 9:02, a fact I’m now totally ok with – if my body wants to start that way from here on in, so be it, it’s clear to me now that this is meaningless in the scheme of things.  Anyway, as I trundle along, I contemplate what paces to shoot for in the progression.  Still unsure of my current fitness (and that 9:02 isn’t helping) I decide low 8s to start, then whittling down to 7:40ish.

This is how it played out:

9:02, 8:42, 8:25, 8:19,

8:12 – “hmmm, a little early but it feels good”

8:00 – I come upon a young couple I had seen up ahead during my first mile but who had long disappeared, so of course I’m an asshole and have to pass the shit out of them.  I look down at the Garmin and see 7:36. “Oops, back off the pace, girl!” I shake out my arms, cool the jets.

8:00 – loony-tune park regular on bicycle approaches me talking to himself so I pretend I’m laboring to make sure he doesn’t even attempt to mess with me…then I giggle to myself immediately after he passes thinking, “Wow, I just faked that I was laboring.”

7:50 – a cute runner dude steps out of the woods, smiles at me and says “Pit stop.”  I laugh and reply, “Suspected as much”

7:35, 7:25, 7:13 – “neato, Half Pace!”

8:35 for the last 1.1mi – I stopped the watch for a few minutes to chat with my pals Lara and Jeff who had a booth at the museum for a cycling event.

Average overall pace 8:10, even with the laggardly start.  The bitch is back.

The Week Ahead
is so light!  Day off today, then Tues is 8 mi w/3 x .75mi@10k, Wed is 6, 4 w/strides Thurs, Fri off, 4 w/strides Sat. and race!  Girlfriends will be arriving from Fri-Sat, so that’ll add another layer of fun.

I find it fascinating that I’m in the final days of a training cycle that had harder workouts than my last marathon cycle and in the suckiest of weather, but somehow I’m left thinking, “Really?  That’s it?”  This is nothing like how I feel at the end of marathon cycles: tired legs, hurting feet, the constant nervousness in the pit of my stomach…just wanting it to be O.V.E.R.  But this time, I feel like I’m just getting started.

Owe it to the weather, the new weight, the fun way this cycle was constructed, proper recovery weeks and rest days, plus knowing that if I screw this one up, I get to try again in 9 weeks…I really couldn’t be happier right now.

Reflective Headbands In Stock – Safe and Cute!
I now have reflective headbands, perfect for running in the dark.  You can get them in white or black. The reflective part is a silvery grey stripe down the center, so they look cool on their own, even if you don’t need the reflective bit.  I also got a cool camo design, a zebra-esque print and a couple other additions, so check out the latest and greatest!

A Disturbing Run
I’m sitting here with fresh puncture wounds and deep scratches on my palms and knees due to a very strange set of circumstances on this morning’s run.  It was 9 easy, I was having a really nice time enjoying myself, thinking some happy crap and on the return, I take the skinny dirt trail adjacent to the bike path.

At one point, I see a dead animal laid along a cement slab on the short stone wall between the path and the river.  There are tons of flies swarming around it but I had to stop because it looked like a red fox and…

1. Back in 2008 I thought I saw what might have been 2 foxes fighting but it seemed too far-fetched and I always regretted not stopping to investigate.
2. Foxes were in a conversation I’d had with someone just yesterday…freaky
3. It was weird, laying there on that slab.

So as I verify that it is indeed a fox (wow!) it sinks in that someone has cut open this fox, pulled out its guts and lain them there next to it.  It was too neat a job to have been done by another animal and besides, what type of animal could do this?  We don’t have bears or lions here.

I decide that was enough of a viewing and start back up running, but my thoughts are dark now, thinking of the creepy person who would do such a thing.  I should have known better than to remain on the dirt trail because on another distracted morning I fell hard there, there are too many roots and rocks that you have to pay attention to, so of course…I fell hard.  The one thing I was able to do is roll so I didn’t fall on the knee that’s been opened up 3 times, taking most of the brunt in my hands.  I’m cool though, I didn’t sprain anything and it’s only skin stuff.

Headband Giveaway!
Back to frothier matters, I wanted to announce the first GIM Headband Giveaway!  Marcia, from Running Off At The Mouth is having a giveaway for 2 free GIM Headbands of your choice.  She also wrote the most kick-ass review, so I’m pleased as punch and hope you guys check it out and enter to win.

Da Weight
I’m almost 7 weeks in from the start of my weight-loss adventure.  To show you how it’s been going, I made a handy-dandy graph that begins on July 23rd, when I started counting calories.  Body fat tracking starts a couple weeks later when I got the new scale.

With great timing, I’m able to say I am right this second at last year’s “best race weight”.  It’s 116.4 on the new scale (= 115.5 on the old scale since that one was off by a pound).

As background, I started on 1800 calories and lost a nice amount pretty quickly.  Too quickly, I thought, one week it was about 2.5lbs, which was the initial reason I had for raising it to 2000/day.  But right after the big drop, at around 118.5, it kept shifting up and down for about 3 weeks, though my calories were constant.  I think my body knew I was up to something, so staged a minor revolt.

I knew to eat more rather than less because I went through the same pattern last year, and now I’m running a bit more mileage.  Plus, the addition of the headband biz makes me less sedentary – I’m not exactly doing jumping jacks around the room or anything, but moving around a tad more.

It worked, the weight started dropping again, but it’s still an up and down thing as you can see by the jagged lines (though we’re dealing with decimals, not major swings).  As I mentioned in another post, having the fancy-ass scale appeases me while my weight shifts, since the body fat number lets me know good things are happening even when the weight doesn’t bear it out.

I imagine that unless you have a large amount to lose, you’d see a pattern like this, too, as opposed to a steady drop.  I’m lucky to have last year’s info as comparison, otherwise I might have cut calories further when the opposite was warranted.

A word on body fat
When I first got my scale, I followed Tanita’s advice and weighed myself before dinner – they say you’re most hydrated then – but I feel that I get a more consistent read in the morning since I don’t always drink the same amount throughout the day.  Also, it seems more realistic to think I’m in the higher range found in the morning’s weigh-in, rather than 14 to 12.5% pre-dinner, which is more like a bodybuilder’s numbers.  It’s irrelevant but just for truthiness’ sake.

Body fat is trending downwards: the first week averages 16.31% while the last 7 days average 15.47%.

Calorie Counting
It’s making all the difference.  When I tried to lose without counting, I was never sure if I was eating low enough or high enough and if one day the weight was up, I’d bitch at myself for being “bad” and there was always an air of of that around…a real negative vibe from one day to the next.

The wildest thing is that from the day I started counting this time, July 23rd, I haven’t had one ass-kicking moment over my weight.  Not one.  Contrast this with me bitching at myself about weight constantly from January through July this year.  I swear, at the risk of sounding all Kumbaya, by counting calories and treating it as a math equation, it literally turned the act of weight-loss from an exercise in self-disgust into an expression of empowerment.

As I touched on in an earlier post, when you count calories, all the emotion is gone.  And I mean ALL the emotion is gone.  It’s no longer a question of being “bad”, because you know what you ate, the proof is on paper and if you choose to eat more or cheaty, it’s a conscious decision, one you (ahem) weigh before making.  At least that’s how it’s worked for me.

How Do I Look?
Not much different, though a little more compact than when I was at this weight last year.  When I did this from Winter-Spring 2009, I’d just started the pushups challenge and had added a few chinups – I’ve been maintaining both ever since then.  I also spent a few months recently concentrating on core, though I’ve temporarily let that slide in favor of hip exercises (I’m a monogamous exerciser) the sides of my trunk going around to my back seem harder now.

Other than that, I don’t see much of a change in the mirror, my thighs are a little smaller but that’s about it.  I’m more sure than ever that 110-112lbs. will do me well without stepping into twig territory.

What’s It Doing For Me?
It’s making me faster.   How many seconds per pound, I’ve no idea, because it’s mixed in with a challenging training cycle.  But in the past 3 weeks or so, I’ve surprised myself by being able to do workouts that I would have assuredly struggled with…and it’s not like it got cooler,  it’s still been full-on summer.

I’m niggle-free.  Completely.  Got nothing hurting, nagging or bugging (aside from today’s puncture wounds).  Seems like I had an assortment of little things all year until now.  Not saying this is the weight-loss, but it’s timed interestingly, at the peak of my cycle when I’d expect more of that, not less.

As far as fitness predictions, I remain cautious but have a sense that I’m a hair’s breadth away from last year’s PR season and am confident the final few lbs. will see me surpassing it.

I am beginning to dream again.

Another 65 mile week in the books and I’m really pleased with how good I feel physically (and mentally, for that matter).  I had a day off today, first in two weeks, and while I enjoyed it and made a crapload of headbands, I didn’t feel as though I needed the day off, which is heartening.

Moving backwards in time…

Last Friday’s tempo was swell: 9 w/ 3mi@Half, 2min rec, 2mi at 10k.  Wore my HR monitor for the first time in many weeks and was happy with the outcome.  An easy 9 on Saturday and on Sunday, 16 into the trails.  That was a cool run because I was dragging at the start but on the way back, managed to hit paces I rarely run in easy runs anymore.

My Facebook friends know that for 2 miles, I was followed by some spitting, hocking, wheezing guy, then when I got to my half-way point and turned, the guy said “Oh no, you were giving me great paces!”.   It made me laugh, but I’ve never been happier to separate myself from another runner as I did then.  I so wanted to say “Good luck with those allergies” but didn’t bother.

On a more fun note, I passed 3 groups of XC runners (I guess they’re XC?  Is any college type group of runners a group of XC runners?  Is there such a thing as a group of track runners?  But then I guess they’d be on a track.  I have no idea about these most elementary running things) – anyway…one set of guys, two sets of girls.

The girls were pretty cool, looking way fierce, and one group was led by a definite Alpha, she was very tall and telling a story while everyone was laughing.  When I passed them on the return, they’d all become silent as the heat of the morning and their effort had obviously made a dent.  I was surprised when the Alpha said “good morning” as they passed, usually those groups keep to themselves.

I like the way I can peek into these alternate universes that I’d never noticed before, understand what people are doing even though we have so many years between us.  It’s funny because I know that to many, I must look like an old hand at this running thing, but half the time, I still feel like an interloper or someone playing being a runner.  Not that I mind really, it doesn’t affect my enjoyment at all, but I wonder what it’ll take to feel permanently ensconced.  Maybe it has to do with starting so late that I’ll always feel like I’m borrowing somebody’s sport.  Then again, I’m a transient in life, so maybe it’s just my M.O.

Anyway, got back from the run and spent the rest of the day making a Facebook page for GIMheadbands and bugging my friends to “Like” it.  Big hugs to those who did, especially the men…that’s pure support right there.

Super big hugs to those who’ve bought some already.  I got the testimonials/customer photo page working, so don’t be shy, send me a photo of you rocking a headband, I want to see many lovely faces up there soon!!

And now, time to chill out, got an early morning tomorrow with quite a hard workout: 5 x 1.25mi @10k pace, 3-4 minute recoveries.  Hmmm…given the choice, do you think I’ll take 3 or 4 minute recoveries?  What is that 3 even doing there?  Making me feel guilty because I sure as hell will be doing 4.  Once a slacker, always a slacker.

Back to running speak, this past week yielded 65 miles with some satisfying workouts.

On Tuesday, I had 10mi w/ 5x1K @ 5K pace – 90sec rec’s, though the original schedule was 2x(5x1k@10k – 1min rec’s). I changed it because A) first and foremost, it was 80 degrees and the dewpoint equation was 149, so I wasn’t going to do 10 of anything much less 1ks and B) I remember that workout as the hardest one when I was training for Philly, and since I’m not marathon training anymore, I reserve the right to balk at such things. :-)  So I shortened it but sped it up.

My other workout was a tempo on Friday: 9mi w/6@Half pace, which went well albeit with an adjusted target pace for 79 degrees.  No heart rate to compare since I haven’t worn the strap in weeks, so I’m trusting it was the right effort.

Lastly on the quality front was a 17-miler in the trails yesterday.  Happily, it didn’t follow a tempo day, as my recent LRs have due to weather switch-ups.  Because of that, my legs were feeling good but it was humid as hell so it was still a slow one.  It rained through a large part of it which was wonderful except for the one shoe squeaking for about 14 miles.

Hydration was crazy: I refilled my 12oz. handheld 3 times plus long slurps from each fountain.  So I figure I had about 60 oz while on the road and still needed a couple large glasses once I got home.  Which makes this next bit somewhat ironic…

Giving Up The Bottle
They added a new fountain on my loop which happens to fall at a key point on my runs, so aside from trail runs, I haven’t carried a handheld all summer – a fact I’ve come to adore.  But it hasn’t escaped my mind that I need to address this since I have a Half coming up.

As most of you know, I always do Halfs and Fulls with a handheld, thanks to that first hospital incident a couple years ago.  I’ve yet to feel confident about doing water stops efficiently so it’s been easier mentally to carry my own.  But the fountains have spoiled me rotten so I’ve asked my friend Lara to help me practice in a couple weeks – she’ll stand outside my apartment building with a raincoat and galoshes while I soak both of us until I get it right.

Btw, I know how to fold the cup and all, it’s really more of me respecting the time it takes to get the fluid down, which’ll probably have me walking through the stops.   The good thing is that since I’ve already demoted the Distance Run from a goal race to a race race, I can afford to forfeit clock time if need be (not that I should lose a great deal, but hydration must be the priority).  So with this as a practice race, November’s Half should go swimmingly.

Headband Talk
Thanks to everyone who took a look and especially those who purchased and also shared the link via Facebook or email.  That was so sweet of you kids, I couldn’t believe it.  I’m really excited about the biz and have already had a couple opportunities come my way.  Between invites to do a blog giveaway and the Pittsburgh Marathon Expo, I’m already dreaming ahead of myself.  So this week’s task is to make a Facebook page and start promoting.  In fact, if any of you guys have some promotional ideas, please let me know.

Aside from that, the wide velvet came in, so 1.5″ headbands are ready, as are solid colors.  It took all my will, and I mean ALL my will, not to go to the fabric store this weekend.  I had forgotten what a drug that is, all those gorgeous bolts of potential just begging you to take them home.  But I already have a crapload of materials, so I’ll wait a week…or 3 or 4 days anyway.

OK, that’s it for blather, I’m off for a 6 with 6×30/60 hillettes.  The weather is finally calming down this week so I can sleep and run later.  Woohoo!!  Have a good one, folks.

I’ve been MIA for a few days and if you follow me on Facebook or Runners World, you know why – the Blue Hovel is now my own personal sweatshop.  Yep, I’ve gone into the headband business.

How Did This Happen?
It’s no secret I ordered a headband online a couple weeks ago and found from it that velvet is fabulous for keeping a hair accessory in place.   I soon made a similar headband (because that one was way expensive) and posted a pic on Facebook saying, “hmmm…thinking about selling these things” and got a bunch of replies saying “go for it”, so I have.

I admit to having a long, sleepless night where I wondered if I was being a shit for copying someone’s exclusive business model.  But the next day I did an extensive search and found 5 different sources selling the exact same headbands as well as tons of tutorials on how to make them, which puts me in the clear.

Making It My Own
Initially, I did like everybody else and bought a bunch of ribbon, but the ribbon market is limited  which is why everyone’s making the same stuff, there’s only a finite pool of patterns to choose from.  So I thought about how I could differentiate myself and after a lot of trial and error…I found it.

Instead of focusing on pre-made ribbon, I’m setting my sights on fabrics: mainly cottons, some brocades and even a beautiful faux leather that I couldn’t resist.  Going this route opens a world of color and patterns that nobody else offers.  I’ve spent days and nights experimenting with different methods, materials, interfacings, even threads to figure out the best way to do this that won’t drive me bananas because it’s certainly more labor intensive than using pre-made ribbon.  I’ve also been wear-testing the different concoctions on each of my runs for the past week and am thrilled with the results.

At the moment, I’ve still got quite a few ribbon headbands in the shop since I ordered the stuff, might as well sell it, but I plan on replenishing only a few while I extend the fabric offerings.  I’ll be using grosgrain for solids though, which I’m getting in next week.  I’m also waiting for an order of wider velvet so I’ll have 1.5″ headbands starting next week, too.

There ya have it:  The Blue Hovel  has become a textile-laden fire trap, my neighbors will want to kill me for the sewing machine that is soon to be a constant soundtrack and hopefully, I’ll make a little dosh.  Oh, if you happen to meet any half-blind children in Third World countries, let me know, I may need a few slaves soon.

Later, gators!