Poppies Will Put Them To Sleep. Sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep

So yesterday (Friday) I did something I NEVER do.  I ignored my alarm and slept for an extra hour.  Rather than go to the gym and get some lifting in.  Who am I?!  Seriously. And there was nothing poppy induced about my sleep either 😉

Clearly my mind and body wanted the extra rest (GO CELTICS! WHOO HOO! <— equals why I was up so late Thursday night) but it’s not like I even feel more rested or anything at the moment.  My brain was all foggy all morning.  Not so good when you have mountains of studying to do.

The extra weird thing is that I don’t feel guilty about it.  Not that I should.  Like I’ve said (and practically preached) before: sleep = good and NECESSARY to life.  But in the past not sticking to a regimented schedule has left me feeling all lost and…well bad.  I’m semi-regretting my decision only because I know that a good lifting session would have woken me up but oh well.  Nothing I can do now and I was productive on other sorts of things that morning.  You know the little things that add up to lots to do.

Can you tell that despite not feeling really guilty I’m still justifying? Hahahaha.  Work in progress I guess 😉

But I still got some studying in as well as those other things.  The strange thing is with my studying (and thanks for all the positive thoughts with it) is that, as time goes on and I get further and further into the course, the more I actually look forward to studying.  Well maybe not the studying in and of itself but I’m loving that I feel *in control* of the situation. There’s something just so satisfying about obtaining mastery on a topic.  While I don’t profess to be know everything (and to be honest even when I was taking the pre-med courses I definitely didn’t know anything either) the cobwebs are being lifted.

Maybe that’s why I decided to go for an actual long run on Friday rather than split it up like I have been doing.  Or maybe it’s the weather.  It was rainy the past few days and bam: the sun + 60* = great running weather.  Whatever the reason I figured that a long run would be what was going down.

And it was a semi-success. I kept thinking to myself how crazy I was to attempt a 12 miler with the longest run I’ve done in the past few weeks being 8.   I also was thinking how *long* 12 miles seemed.  I think that even though last week I ran so many miles over the course of 7 days it really didn’t feel like that much because each run was short.  So I guess I wasn’t really worried about physically finishing the run as mentally holding on.  Interestingly enough that wasn’t the way it worked.

I kept an 8:35 pace through the first 11 miles and it felt great (compare to the 9:10+ that I tended to average during marathon training!).  The sun was darting in and out of the clouds, the weather was cool but not cold.  The conditions were damn near perfect.  And not only was the pace really good but the miles just rolled by and before I knew it I was at mile 8 (which was the end of route 1 — for a lot of my long runs I combine routes) and about to start the “second half” of my run.  So mentally I was in the game.

But during the last mile my left knee started really bugging me.  Almost like tendinitis pain but I think it’s linked to a tight quad and hammy in the left leg as those muscles were getting sore and extra tight during that last mile.  I’m sure it’s nothing serious (and despite the leg getting all tight my overall pace for the 12 miles was still 8:37.  Not too shabby).  Nothing that ice, ibuprofen and stretching can’t cure (all of which I did right after the run).  As well as making a much larger effort too keep overall mileage down.  Last week was insane and I let it get that way because I was “just doing short runs”.  Clearly they add up and there’s a cumulative effect.

That said, I don’t want to blame the mileage entirely as I know sleeping patterns, eating patterns and stress patterns all play a role too and they’ve been, well, let’s just say studying the past few days has really taken precedent.  Plus I know now that jumping straight into 12 miles without having done anything serious in terms of distance might not be the greatest choice.  10% rule what?

The rest of Friday was basically study study study.  You know my life. I did get to watch Sherlock Holmes with my sister, and using the numbering system that would be K3.  I saw it on opening day but Robert Downey Jr is HOT.

And because studying is a full time job I was doing my flashcards.  I view them like strength training in terms of my studying “training cycle”. You know: full lengths and other types of my practice tests = endurance work (I mean the test is 5.5 hours long). And rapid fire discreet questions and my flashcards are like speedwork/strength.

But anyway I digress.  Studying is going to be what today is too.  Maybe a run (or two) but we’ll see how the knee feels.  It was a little cranky Friday night after sitting down for so long but the stretching really helped and it’s totally not feeling as irritable as yesterday.  I’ll likely call up my massage therapist and try to schedule a session in next week too.

Check out these giveaways: One, Two, Three, Four.  All from Mel because she’s awesome 🙂