So far, I've been enduring my guesstimated three mile runs from my front door to the trail head in my old Adidas running shoes. You know, the ones I bought for $30 at the Adidas outlet in Tahoe on vacation. Three summers ago...
They've done me well as far as I can tell. But, as I've heard rumored around by the "23.6" marathon sticker crew, after 60 miles, one should get new shoes. And good, new running shoes cost about $100 a pop.
If I ever want to cross "Run a Marathon" off the bucket list, it's going to put me in the hole about $1,000.
Imagine training. Alright, lets say I run 30 miles a week. After two weeks, I'd have to buy new shoes. In my tight budget, I barley put $150 for "entertainment", and let me tell you dishing out 200 bones a month to run 100 miles a month doesn't sound like it fits very comfortably in my "entertainment" budget. More like a fat man on an airplane. Just saying.
But you see, I believe the problem may lie in the myth I have about shoes. I've got this vision in my head that once I get a nice pair of $100 running shoes, it'll feel like I'm running on gooshy little clouds and my lungs and knees will thank me for the great feeling of running the half mile up to the trail head to only run more hills on the trail, and then steep inclines downhill. Need I mention elevation?
Although I see the holes in this running dream, I still imagine that one day, I'll be able to run 25 miles without feeling a thing. At the moment, I log about 10 miles a week.
I guess I should explain that my knees cause all kinds of trouble. My IT band in my left leg, the gigantic tendon that runs down the outside of your thigh and connects at your knee and some two-inch muscle buried beneath your gluteus, has hated me since I started butterflying my leg in rowing. So, I gave myself a nice case of IT band syndrome.
Since I don't have a gym membership, again, due to being cheap, and don't intend on getting one anytime soon, I plan on running. A lot. This proves problematic, especially with bad shoes. And to my demise, I don't think I'm going to shake this whole "poor college-student" thing until I'm in my late twenties.
But, even though IT band sucks, and not getting treatment for it sucks even more, I really don't miss the trainers at Sacramento State. The first time this flared up, my knee was swollen up to the size of a juicy Texas grapefruit. And they did nothing. Which is typical, considering a girl threw out her back and they her the same answer they gave every rower, "Oh, just tendinitis. Ice, heat, ibuprofen to keep the swelling down."
I didn't realize tendinitis was actually a big deal until I injured myself and had to go to a physical therapist outside of Sac State and the reaction I got from him was on the opposite end of the spectrum.
Anyways, I now have a marble size bubble on the outside of my left knee where it is permanently swollen from my IT band's continuous tension on the side of my knee. Needless to say, running hurts.
But it's something I'd like to get better at as a good way of keeping up with cardio. As for core and strength conditioning, I'll stick with doing to crossfit workouts on their website that don't involve any extra weights and some exercises I've picked up from rowing.
In order to hold myself accountable to all of this, I'm keeping an exercise and diet log. It looks something like this:
And it works, when I actually fill it out. Not in a crazy anal-retentive way, but it helps me to make sure I'm eating healthy and exercising accordingly.
I'm finding that since I don't have class, practice or something else to run off to, I've got a lot more time to venture into the deep dark sea of cooking. And although I may be venturing with a broken compass and novice exploring skills, I've got a fairly young stomach and I think I can recover from whatever disastrous storm I throw on my plate.
This past week in the food world, I adventured into the meaty side of things and prepared my first meal of baby back pork ribs. I've found out through a coworker that the secret to any meat is to cook it long and slow and really low temperatures in order to maintain the moisture in the meat.
I used Stubb's BBQ sauce and marinated it for a whole day. I had company over to share in my first real meat cooking experience and had to take the meat out an hour early, but it still came out delicious. Next time, I think I will try a marinade instead of marinating it in BBQ sauce.
I made veggie soup to go along with it, which was way to easy to do. I used Bob's Red Mill Vegi Soup Mix. It's just one part soup mix to two parts water or chicken broth. I used water this time, but in order to make it more flavorful, I'd recommend using the broth.
As of late, I've been trying to buy pretty healthy, no preservatives, no partially hydrogenated soybean oil (which is just a fancy way of saying "trans-fat, and FYI: products won't put trans fat on the label, but it will have this ingredient listed...), trying to buy organic produce on products that matter such as leafy vegetables, apples, that sort of thing. And I find it ironic when eating healthy means spending more money on better quality food when it used to be that eating healthy just meant eating cheap.
But alas, a trick my Dad taught me. I've found a secret to make it easier to spend less at the store.
Most grocery stores will put on their price tags the cost of something http://www.bobsredmill.com/vegi-soup-mix.htmlAnd I usually look at those to determine what I'm going to buy. For instance, I'm pretty sure this is the first time that something organic has cost less than something heavy with MSG and preservatives.
I was in the grocery store looking for some sort of tomato soup and found a low sodium, organic tomato soup in a carton. I compared the price per ounce to a can of Campbell's Tomato Soup and found that Campbell's was five cents more an ounce than the organic brand.
And although frugality rings true in my grocery shopping as well, I'm less likely to be frugal here because it's something I am putting into my body, not putting my body through.
So, digest on my hungry friends. Until next week...
