running

Running Naked

| cheriarmour

I’m engaged! Wooo!  (My mom already asked me if we’ve set a date and we’ve been engaged for literally 8 minutes).

Onto the stuff! Aside from your sports bra, I feel like your GPS watch can be one of the most important tools you have.  It tracks pace, distance, and all that good stuff that become paramount during marathon training.  I actually cried when I got mine as a gift last birthday because I was so overjoyed to, one, be in possession of such a tool, and 2, have gotten it for free (that ish’s spensive, y’all!)

So I think I told you guys, the wristband on my Garmin 610 had fouled up back before I ran the marathon in March, and Garmin sent me a little replacement kit, no problem, just in time for my marathon.  So imagine my surprise when I looked down at my wrist before Zumba last week, and the wristband was starting to pull away from the watch again?!  I called Garmin, sat on hold for 10 years, and explained to them what was going on.  I love the watch, but this just won’t work.

Garmin 610

“Maybe you have a thin wrist.”

Dude. I love my Garmin, but the techies over there should have figured out by now that runners, a lot of us, are thin-wristed little birdies.  But, all of that aside, they agreed to send me a refurbed watch sometime soon.  So over the next week or so, I’ll be “running naked,” training by mapping out my distances ahead of time, and running without any true indication of pace.  That’s okay, I think it’s dangerous to get totally locked in to staring at your watch, but I miss it dearly.  I’ll be on the lookout for the mailman every day til that watch shows up!

I fell in love at the gym.

| cheriarmour

Ready for a bombshell?  Your favorite running/lifestyle/healthy-living blog can also add to the lineup, a wedding prep blog.

Cause…I got engaged on Friday.

I am engaged.  I am getting married!  I am.  Getting married!

It sounds so weird to say. (And don’t worry ladies, I’ll put some ring pics up for you to drool over in a bit).

So.  I fell in love at the gym.  My fiancé (oh my gosh I have one of those), used to teach cycling.  I used to hear his 90’s rap music floating down the hallway from his class room.  Who is that?  Gotta be some young black guy, listening to all that music I love.  When in actuality, it was an Engineering student who worked in the fitness suite as well.  Who happened to be a white guy.  I wonder if he thinks I’m cute?  Nah.  No way.  I teach Zumba, he teaches cycling, we could never make this work. 

Fast forward to a beer date we were on as friends.  The cute guy from cycling asks me on a date.  One date, and I was a smitten kitten.  Two dates, and I was thinking about our future.  3.5 dates?  And I was in love.  So in addition to running, running safety, apparel, race prep, charity work, 2.5 years after I met the cutie who played 90s rap in his cycling class, my blog will feature a little bit of wedding fun.  I am so excited!  Stay tuned for some sick-ass wedding/running/toning/Pinterest posts.  We’re getting married!

ring

Week 1 of Marathon Training.

| cheriarmour

So, I started training for the Greensboro Marathon this week.  I’m about 17 weeks out, so the mileage is totally manageable, but the “training” has been fraught with tragedy.

Got it, Kim.

But I caught some sort of stomach bug and have been queasy since last weekend, a little dehydrated, and it’s made these short, humid, hilly little runs a little challenging.  I’ve done them.  But it’s been hard.  So that little bit of doubt starts to creep in.  If I can’t even get through 5 miles without vomiting, how will I do 26.2?!

Chill, Cherisse.  You’ve done one of these before.  You have the stomach flu.  And you’ll be better when you replace your fluids and electrolytes.

Let the marathon madness begin!

My week in pitchurs (that’s how it sounds when people down here say it!)

| cheriarmour

This week, my first week back at home in Raleigh, has been a whirlwind of working, teaching Zumba classes, adding new songs to my lineup, job things, and trying to reset my life here in Raleigh. Honestly, it was hard to leave my mom last Saturday morning, and I wish I didn’t have to. But she’s improving, and I can’t hang around my parents’ house forever, right?  So my week in a few pitchurs.

Marathon 1

The Greensboro Marathon.  Oh guess who’s doing their second marathon in October?  If you guessed Sydney Poitier, you guessed wrong.  ME!  I am doing the Greensboro Marathon October 26th, after I searched both high and low for a race I could do (within financial reason) this fall!  The race starts in Elon (which obviously, I’m obsessed with because I went there, duh,), and ends in downtown Greensboro.  I’m hoping for a little bit prettier weather than the marathon I did last spring, and I’m better prepped for how boring life will get around mile 17.  I can do this!  Hang in there for marathon posts, I’m sure there will be a TON.

Marathon 3Zucchini Fire.  It’s zucchini season in good ol’ NC, and I’ve come into possession of several humongous zucchini weanies. I had to find a way to cook them. And what other way than grating them into some zucchini bread? Well, me being the domestic goddess that I am, I overfilled my bread pans, and they leaked into the oven, where they started a fire in my kitchen. Not kidding. I was literally using my lungs to put it out in a desperate effort to save my bread. The bread was saved, and I only had to spend like 89 hours scrubbing the oven out with a piece of steel wool. #Winning.

Marathon 2

Headstand victory.  My yoga teacher, the young little Emily Wallace down at Indigo Hot Yoga, let us play around with a few headstands today, and instructed us, step-by-step, on how to get up into one.  I got up, and was able to stay up for a few seconds.  Do I need more work? Yes.  Do I need to get a little more consistent in my practice to continue to see progress, and to continue being a Bendy Wendy, even when I train for this marathon?  Absolutely.  But it felt good, and it took my mind off of serious stuff to be able to work out my core and stay up in a headstand for a while.

Can we say “whew”?  What a friggin week!

A fail-tale…

| cheriarmour

So yesterday, I almost considered skipping out on a day of my one-mile streak because I was kinda tired, and it was raining sort of hard.

One of those summer storms in North Carolina.  But the thought of making it to the end of the streak (where you run a mile a day, every day between Memorial Day and the 4th of July, making for 39 consecutive days of running), and having skipped today over a dumb little reason made me feel bad.  And I dragged myself up to trot the one mile (after I’d taught a Zumba class).

Turnt up the iPod.  Blurred Lines.  Actually model-strutted a few steps.  Looked around.  Practiced my dance moves, should one of my friends play it at their wedding.

I swiped my finger across my Garmin 610.  And waited for the satellites to load.  ::vibrate:: they’re loaded!

Started Blurred Lines again.  Robin Thicke, you so sexy.

And off I went.  “This isn’t so bad!  You’re good!  This feels so good!”  Trotted around the corner of Peace Street.  Happened to glance down as Robin told me to “Shake ya rump!” and my GPS was off.  Because I hadn’t pressed start.  Fail.  Fail. Fail.

Oh well.  At least I got up and did it.  I’ll remember to press the start button next time.

 

#runnerprobs, part 2

| cheriarmour

Okay.  I know I’m a little dramatic.  And darker-skinned than some of you.   But this bee sting I suffered the other day while running freaking sucks!

Bee

 

It’s itchy. I ran today, and it stings.  And the only time it feels good is when I’m in the shower and my high-pressured water thingie runs over it.  To all my peeps out there, experienced in this sort of runner’s tragedy, what the HECK do I do to make this thing stop itching, and to turn my collarbone back to the delicious shade of latte with skim it’s supposed to be? I’m desperate here!

Sportwash, you save lives.

| cheriarmour

You guys were around last week when I left my Sportwash in Raleigh, right?  And how I washed my workout clothes in regular detergent,h and almost died when the smell of my freshly washed clothes (they wasn’t so fresh), hit me?

So I got back to Raleigh yesterday, and hit the ground running (hee hee).  If you’ve never been out here, the weather here is kind of nuts.  It gets pretty hot here, it’s the summer, but the real killer is the humidity in the summer months.  It storms, sometimes once a day, and the product is oppressive, heavy heat, that will have you soaking wet by the end of a run.  Headaches and hotheadedness are super common, unless you’re conscious of it and take care to hydrate throughout the day.

It’s funny, because when I go to Pennsylvania to visit my camp family in the summer, it can be like 89 degrees, and bone dry, and everyone’s all “It’s gonna be a hot one!  Make sure you keep that water bottle full.”  And I’m like bundled in my winter finest.

But I digress.

Your clothes are soaked.  And they smell horrid, especially at the end of these humid runs.  Enter Penguin Sportwash.

Sport Wash

 

If any of you go to the store and buy Tide Sport, I promise, I will scream.  That stuff just has a bunch of Febreze in it, and the Febreze just sits on your stank like…I can’t even describe the horror.  You need this.  It’s biodegradable.  It’s scentless.  I hear it gets blood out.  Idk.  I try not to bleed on my workout clothes, but whatever.  So you can order this stuff off Amazon, and sometimes you can find it in a few running or sporting specialty shops.  Bottom line, it will have you smelling like an athlete at the start of the race, rather than at the end.  Try it, and tell me what you think.

#Runnerprobs

| cheriarmour

I hear Facebook is hashtagging it now, so let’s so how the title of this post holds up.

Bee Sting

Look closely at my collarbone. See that little area of irritation? That, my dear runner friends is a runnerprob I’d never encountered.

LeeAnn Rimes, that sassy little minx, was playing on the iPod, and I must’ve run directly into the little sucker, because all of a sudden, I was hit, and I had to run home with my collarbone stinging because sweat kept dripping into it.  Whew!  Drama.  Folks, the moral of the story is, carry your Epipen around, you never know when you’ll be hit with dat beestang.

Disgusting things that happen to you when you run.

| cheriarmour

Still at my parents’.  And being home has afforded me the opportunity to take care of my mom, but also to work out a ton, and run a lot.  Like.  To the point where I have become so sexy, that my Raleigh friends are gonna be all “Whaaaaa” when I roll up in my Lancer. 

So I’m running yesterday.  And I really’d hit my groove.  Cruising down this hilly country road.  About  a mile-and-a-half from home.  And it hits me.  

Evidently, there’s a some sort of *ahem* poo treatment plant hidden behind the hills of gorgeous Weddington.  It’s pretty steamy out here, and I guess it, like, cooked the smell.  Because midway through my run, I literally doubled over, and had to feebly cover my nose with a finger as the smell of steamed poop assaulted me.  So much for the thrilling, reflective, country run I was going to blog about.  

Then I go to wash all my stanky clothes I’ve built up from the last week.  Pull them out after they were washed.  Did the sniff test.  And they still stank.  Pretty girls don’t smell too pretty, right Tyra?  (10 points for anyone who can name the Top Model candidate who said that).  And I left my Sport Wash back in Raleigh, so I had to fashion some out of white vinegar, and Wisk.  Ugh.  Good luck to me.  Running is not for the faint of heart.