Friday Five! Snapshots of my week

Posted by hellyontherun in Running, Uncategorized and tagged with Allergies, Family, Fitness, Running, Snapshot, Workout July 11, 2014

I’m linking up again with the DC Trifecta girls Mar on the Run, You Signed Up For What!?, and Eat Pray Run, DC–this week’s theme: Fitness Snapshots

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Well, there wasn’t a whole lot happening this week in the way of running or fitness 😦

Monday I was getting my hives on on the treadmill (if you missed my last post, I had a second allergy attack while running) and my 6 mile run was cut short.

I actually felt good on this run….you know, despite the itching and swelling…

and Tuesday was spent trying to remain positive:

“Find the beauty in the storm.”

Wednesday, I went out for a rare mid-week morning run. My husband was leaving out of town for work the rest of the week so I squeezed in a 4 miler before he left. I started out tentatively but eventually found my groove and felt great the entire way. It was just what I needed to lift my spirits after what happened on Monday. I didn’t want to not run or be scared of running so I went out there and hoped for the best.

Could’ve kept going 🙂

I thought about heading to the gym yesterday for my cross training day and dropping my kids off at the gym daycare, but I worried something might happen to me and with my husband gone, I didn’t want to risk it.

So we went backpack shopping instead 🙂 My kids start daycare on Monday and I’m pretty nervous/excited/freaking out about it.

She’s ready to go!

Fridays are typically rest days but I’m planning on heading out for another short 4 miler this evening. I have 8 planned for tomorrow morning so it’ll be nice to get my legs warmed up from having rested the past few days.

And then the rest of the day and weekend will be spent getting things ready for this big guy’s birthday! Less than 2 weeks til he’s ONE ❤

I’m in denial.

My 5 Snapshots! 😀 I hope you all have a great weekend!!

What are your weekend running plans? Anyone racing?

Tell me a snapshot of your week!

Is it really possible I’m allergic to running? (Another ER visit)

Posted by hellyontherun in Running and tagged with Allergic Reaction, Allergic to Running, Allergies, Exercise Induced Anaphylaxis, Hospital Visit, Running July 9, 2014

Monday I was all set to go on my 6 miler tempo run. I had had a rather long day with my kids and was anxiously waiting for my husband to get home so I could finally ~~escape~~ run. Thankfully, he came home early and we had a quick chat on whether I should run in our neighborhood or go to the gym. The heat at 6 in the evening was awful and coupled with humidity (and hot wind), it just didn’t seem at all pleasant–so to the gym I went.

I started with an uneventful warm up and at mile 2 picked up the pace. I was sweating profusely but feeling good. If you’ve been following my running journey, then you know that I vary rarely listen to music when I run. I sometimes pull out the headphones when I’m on the treadmill though and today was one of those days. I was jamming out to a Shakira station on Pandora and in a serious running groove. When all of a sudden…..my palms starting itching.

I knew instantly what was happening. I tried to ignore it and wish it away but by the time I got to mile 4 I knew it was only going to get worse.

I was having another allergic reaction.

A million thoughts raced through my mind. What could have caused it? I’m inside for crying out loud! On a treadmill!

The first time this happened, I was running in my neighborhood and thought it could have been some flowers, trees, or bushes I’d passed. I had also eaten right before running and we all thought maybe it was that as well.

But this time, I was at the gym. I had not eaten before exercising. I wasn’t wearing anything that I wore previously. What. Could. It. Be?

I cut the run short at 4.5 miles and collected my belongings. I knew I had enough time to get home.

I called my husband on my way to let him know what was going on. We thought about whether I should head straight to the ER or go home. I decided to go home first and when my husband saw me, he said it was definitely a hospital worthy visit. I’ll spare you the head shot but my arms and legs were covered in hives.

Interestingly, I looked way worse the first time. My face was a replica of Will Smith’s allergic reaction in the movie Hitch and my entire body from head to toe was swollen and red.

But in this most recent episode, I felt much, much worse on the inside. My brain felt like it was swelling. That’s what was scaring me the most. There was just an intense pressure in my head that wouldn’t cease.

I drove myself to the hospital (my kids were already in bed) and was checked in pretty quickly despite the Emergency Room being extremely crowded. I was given steroids and Benedryl and they worked almost immediately. The swelling went down, the itching stopped, and my head felt a lot better.

But I was still with no answers. No idea what could have caused it. I plan on seeing an allergist (I foolishly didn’t see one the first time) in the hopes we can find some clues. In the meantime, I have to continue running with my EPI pen and make sure I respond quick to the symptoms. At least I know when it’s happening.

I just hate that I have no idea what triggers it.

I don’t want to run in fear. I don’t want my husband to stress out whenever I leave for a run. I don’t want to stop running.

Exercise Induced Anaphylaxis—bah humbug!!

Thanks for listening and letting me vent. ❤

–Doesn’t being allergic to running sound awful??

–Tell me something positive that’s been happening in your running world 🙂

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Week(end) Recap

Posted by hellyontherun in Marathon, Running, Uncategorized and tagged with Fun Run, Humidity, Marathon Training, Marine Corps Marathon, Running, Weekend Recap July 7, 2014

I had written last week how I’d given myself a marathon training pre-season before I get down to business. Well, business has arrived and today is my first official day of training!! Woohoo!! I have 6 miles on the agenda and we’ll see how they go.

Last week was a busy week with preparation for the holiday on Friday (Independence Day here in the States) but I still managed to get quite a few runs in–

On Monday, my pre-season schedule had me running 4 miles, one warm-up, two tempo, and one cool down. Despite once again venturing out in 106 degree heat, it went far better than the previous Monday as my splits went like this:

Mile 1-9:21
Mile 2-8:44
Mile 3-8:41
Mile 4-8:53

The last cool down mile was a little too fast but I had begun Lebronning (cramping) and just wanted to get the run over with. I was happy to see that I was keeping my splits consistent again as it’s something I’ve been trying really hard to work on.

Tuesday according to my plan is a cross training day and I know this is where I might be cheating with Run Less, Run Faster. Tuesdays are group runs with my running group and I really like meeting up with them. It’ll be hard to give this day up to a day in the gym as I’d much rather hang out with them–I’m thinking if I did an easy-less than 4 miles-run followed up with the bike or something that it might work.

So the plan was to do some easy running but I ended up running and chatting with a girl who’s pretty fast. You can tell that I couldn’t keep up as my splits looked liked the hot mess that I was

Mile 1-9:06
Mile 2-9:17
Mile 3-9:27
Mile 4-9:47

Another what I was I thinking….

Wednesday was speed work at the track but like previous session, there wasn’t much speed happening. Unless you count me trying to eat my ice pop as fast as I could before it melted lol! Anyway, three miles done.

Cross training as planned for Thursday but because I knew I’d be running the following day for the holiday (Fridays are typically rest days) I made Thursday my day of rest.

Friday we were all up bright and early for a fun 5k with my run club. They had a splash mob-bish run planned so it was going to be some wet and wild fun!

Little did I know that the wet would really be sweat from the humidity going on that morning–holy cow!

This was at 6:50 in the morning!

The race itself was really fun as my running group always finds unique ways to make these get togethers interesting. We were told to arrive on time as the race would be chip timed and we needed to pick them up early before the race started.

My race chip 😀

We all do these in fun so it wasn’t a competitive 5k. I kept a decent pace (although difficult because I could really feel the humidity!) and finished in 28:45 (9:01/mile).

I had an 8 mile long run planned for Saturday and I was up at crazy 0’clock to get started. The humidity had carried over at at 5 in the morning and we were running in 82 degrees weather with 51% humidity. It was pretty awful and I could feel it the entire way. Luckily my plan’s long run pace was manageable and I stuck to it the entrée way: 8 miles (9:50/mile). I was actually really excited about this as I hadn’t run this far in a while (not counting the 27k trail run).

Working up some nice leg sweat.

Sunday was rest day with stretching and foam rolling.

Overall, a very productive week at just over 22 miles. I’m looking forward to the official first day of training today 🙂 16 weeks til Marine Corps Marathon!!

I’m Jesse Spano excited about this!!!

–How was your running week?

–Did you run/race this weekend?

–Get my Jesse Spano reference? 🙂