Scottish Swag

Today's Workout: stretching & foam rolling all day long

Today I had to trek it up to 89th street to the NYRR office to pick up my stuff for this Saturday's Scotland Run 10K. In all honesty, I probably shouldn't be running this race because of my IT Band, but I have been looking forward to it for so long ( I signed up the day it opened!) that I can't bring myself to skip it. My goal is to run it nice and easy and hopefully I won't have too much pain (crossing my fingers). To prep myself, I'm foam rolling like I've never foam rolled before and icing on and off all day long. Super fun. Add some American Idol results into the mix and its a party! Really though, I really just wish I could just cut the IT Band out of my leg as a quick fix... damn human anatomy.

I hate you IT Band.

So today when I picked up my gear I noticed it wasn't the usual NYRR t-shirt and race bib only. There was an actual "swag bag", which I wasn't expecting at all for a smaller race. Since its a Scotland-themed event, all the items in the bag were based on... you guessed it: Scotland. Even the shirt was cuter than usual. Very nice, NYRR, very nice.

My swag.

I wish I had bought a cute Scottish hat or something when I was over in Edinburgh last May with my sister Jen. I would have had something authentic! But no, I was too cheap that day. I did, however, eat haggis at the insistence of my sister. If you don't know what that is, look here for a description. Thankfully I didn't read that before I ate it, although my haggis looked more like meatloaf than the one on Wiki. Thanks Jen for encouraging me to eat that (it actually did taste good!).

 Yep, that's haggis.

I love me some bagpipes.

On a separate note, I finally watched the makeover episode of the Biggest Loser. Those are my favorite types of episodes because they are so emotional and inspiring! I will say that I teared up like a 2 year old little girl at certain points during the show, but I'm always the first to admit that I can be over-emotional and a wee bit of a crier.

But I really love to see people get rewarded for hard work. And when I complain about those measly 5 pounds I need to lose, I just think of these contestants and how much they worked their assess off to change their lives. I mean imagine how much work it is to lose almost 100 pounds?!! What is my lazy ass complaining about? I mean, isn't this amazing....

Look at that bod! Go Kim!


Have you ever been to Scotland or tried haggis?
What shows inspire you (or get you a little teary eyed.. admit it!!)?

Musical Motivation

Today's Workout: 5 mile run at 5K pace

So I know there's a lot of controversy about running with iPods, MP3 players, a stereo if that's what you want to run with for some strange reason, or anything else that plays music. Many races ban the use of them for safety reasons, and others highly discourage them but usually let you use them still. Personally, I've never been able to completely ween myself off of using my iPod unless its a big race with entertainment or cheering to keep me occupied (in which case I try to imagine everyone is cheering for me because I'm just so awesome or because I look so good while I'm running... even though my race photos beg to differ. Hello, one eye closed).

But I have been trying to stop relying so much on music to motivate me. I know the day will come when my little pink iPod nano dies in the middle of a run and I'll be like a little kid lost at the mall. Confused and totally lost. Possibly crying. Who knows? 

 Who wouldn't be sad if they couldn't use this cute little thing?

So I started unplugging my headphones for 1-2 minute intervals during my runs. This sounds like nothing but when you're used to depending on music those 1-2 minutes feel as if you were forced to watch C-Span for 4 hours straight. With no snacks. And no ability to pause.

So this process usually doesn't bother me at the beginning of my runs. But near the end it gets incredible difficult to run in silence. To distract myself from thinking about things like how much my legs hurt or how I wish I didn't wear two hair ties, sometimes I hum songs (can't escape the music.. don't judge, there's only so much actual important things I can think about at one time. Everyone has their limit). Problem is, I'm not such a great singer (ask anyone in my family) so trying to sing songs in my head usually is more torturous than anything else. I guess I'll have to come up with some strategies to help keep me entertained, or I suppose I'll get used to it if I keep trying with my interval system. What do you think about while running music-less?

I'm definitely going to keep using music though for most of my runs, but I want to be prepared for that dreadful, sad day when I don't have any music to keep me company. I certainly don't want to dive head first into that situation because it could be disaster. And I could be that little lost kid in the mall... crying in a corner somewhere with my dead iPod.

  

 Since I do use music more often than not, I definitely need to update my list quite often or I get very, very bored with the same songs on repeat. Here's a little taste of the current, totally random selection of songs on my running playlist:

Do you run with music?

If you do, what's on your playlist?