There are workouts you crush and workouts that crush you. I was crushed. Severely.

This one broke me mentally and physically. I was sore for days and days, which is why I felt the need to share my pain. Looking for something to challenge you? Here it is:

WOD

75 wall balls (20 lbs for men, 14 for women, thrown to 10 ft. or above)
1600 meter run (1 Mile)
50 Wall Balls
500 meter run
25 wall balls
250 meter run

 Your legs will not thank you.

Coming back to running after being forced to take a long hiatus hasn’t been easy. The reality of my current fitness and what my legs/tendons can tolerate has been hard to swallow. My injury has completely changed the way I approach running right now. Before I was aiming for negative splits on every run and would race the clock no matter what distance or speed I was supposed to be aiming for.

Now I repeat “Slow it down” and “I’m okay” over and over again over my runs. I’m constantly finding myself trying to push the pace or panicking about not being 100 percent yet. While I want to fly, for now I need to remember to “slow it down” so “I’m okay” on race day.

My family and I took a long weekend in Yountville, CA to enjoy some warmer weather. We had a great time eating incredible food and lounging by the pool. The weather was fantastic. By 9 a.m. it would be nearly 70, and I truly enjoyed the days that crept into the high 90s.

While I enjoyed the entire trip, by far my favorite part was exploring the area on foot.

On Saturday morning my mom and I ran six miles around Yountville through vineyards and along near-empty country roads. It was a blast (for me anyways). I finally felt like my old self. My legs felt pretty good and I was excited to run, even if it was a little warmer than I’m used to.

It was stunning to run next to old vines and to be so in touch with a place that is so different from my daily life.

While I came back from the run quite sweaty, an iced coffee and an “ice bath” in the pool was amazing. If only every run ended so well.

Too bad later that night my tendonitis felt the need to remind me who is really the boss (news flash, it sure isn’t me). In the face of my biggest flare-up in months, I iced religiously, took anti-inflammatories, limited my walking, and wore my running shoes for better support everywhere. It was thankfully warm enough out that for once I really didn’t mind icing. It was actually kind of a nice addition to lounging by the pool.

After my flare-up I was paranoid and upset. With less than 5 weeks until SeaWheeze, I couldn’t afford a major setback. Especially not when I’m no longer seeing a physical therapist. Thankfully it only lasted a few days and I was back to “normal” (or as close as I have been in the past three months) by Wednesday.

Now that I’m finally allowed to run a little bit, I have to be even more careful to recover properly after a run. When I don’t stretch, ice, and massage my feet and ankles flair up and threaten to sideline me all over again.

I’ve been conscious to stretch as soon as I get home and roll out my calves with a 3 inch diameter PVC pipe and a lacrosse ball. When I’m done crying, I ice bath or ice with compression socks. The biggest problem is when I run before work. It’s not normal to foam roll at work like it was at my old job, so I make do with a tennis ball and my thumbs.

I’m still running in traditional running shoes and dreaming about the days that I get to finally put on my barefoot shoes again. For now I’m trying my best to keep the tendonitis at bay so I can run my summer and fall half marathons. While I’ve learned a lot and hopefully am strengthening some weakness, I am looking forward to when I no longer have to be afraid to run/hike/have fun.

Let’s do this! I can’t wait to run the Nike Women’s Half Marathon in San Francisco again this year! Before I had finished the race last year I was already talking about how I couldn’t wait to run it in 2014.

T minus 16 weeks ’till race day! Time to get healthy and speedy. I have some hills to dominate.

During my three-month running ban, I did my best to find things that I could do that would give me a great workout without stressing my feet/ankles. I love swimming, but not being able to kick meant that my legs were slowly getting weaker. To combat it, I went on a hunt for anything that would work my legs without stressing my tendons. For a time in college I went to spinning once or twice a week, so I went out in search of a class I could casually drop in to nearby work.

There were a few places, but the one that really stood out was SoulCycle Palo Alto. One of my friends is an instructor in a New York studio, and her constant excitement and love for it is what made me try it (not to mention the discount for your first time). I’m one of those people that thrives on good music for a tough workout, so I felt fairly confident after looking for a teacher that the class I chose would be a good fit.

When I got there I was a little nervous. They had thankfully reserved a bike for me in the back, but it was up to me to choose hand weights (wait what?) and get all set up. As everyone started piling in, the bikes started to feel really close together (which they were), but once the instructor turned off the lights and lit the candles at the front of the room, it was easy to forget you were surrounded by over 50 really sweaty people.

I knew going into it that the concept of SoulCycle is a bit like mixing a dance club with a brutal spinning workout, but I wasn’t prepared for how loud it would be or for the special pseudo-dance moves we were supposed to do on the bike (I don’t think my out of sync flailing was what they were looking for).

I was fairly blown away by how clean and functional the space was. I have never seen such clean bathrooms/ changing areas. The clean freak in me was ecstatic to watch the bikes being cleaned at the end of the class. The lockers also had really cool digital keypads that allow you to enter your own code. Too bad I forgot what locker was mine and spent about five minutes trying to break into other people’s lockers before I finally asked for help and they had to open two people’s lockers before we finally found my stuff.

Overall I had a good time. It was nice to do something different and not feel like I was completely unable to do anything fun. It does have a bit of a cultish vibe, but no more than your average CrossFit box or yoga studio. If it was significantly cheaper I would probably go more frequently, but for now I think it will remain something I do every once in a while to mix things up.

Top two images via SFGate.

Everyone seems to have an opinion about what it means to be a woman (or a man), and after reading Talayna Fortunato’s blog post about dealing with comments from her ex-boyfriend about not being feminine enough, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Growing up I went to a school where girls had to wear skirts and you were an outcast if you liked to play sports at recess. I walked around with a nearly constant skinned knee from playing basketball or soccer on cement in a skirt. I learned not to care what other people thought of me, and if they didn’t understand why I loved sports so much, then I didn’t want to be friends with them anyways.

Years later I feel like the world has similar pressures. I’m tired of all of the magazines in the grocery store telling me I need to lose weight or dress a certain way. I don’t think I can listen to another person say that women shouldn’t lift heavy weights because they will get bulky. It kills me to hear my friends complain that their arms or legs are too muscular or to see the posts on Pinterests on how to get a “thigh gap.”

In an interview with Vogue, Annie Thorisdottir said –

She wants to inspire women, especially young girls, to focus more on what their bodies can do than on how they look. “I’m not preaching that everyone should try to become a CrossFit champion,” she says. “But I want to show them that training can give them more confidence—and that being strong is beautiful.”

It’s time we all do the same.

I can be a badass and a woman without being “butch” or “unfeminine.” I wear dresses to work and tear my hands busting out muscle-ups at the gym after. I have callouses on top of callouses. My hands aren’t soft as silk, and the bruises on my legs mark my PRs, my mistakes, and the times I kept going even after I wanted to stop. I don’t own a single pair of heals, but I have shoes for every athletic occasion. I don’t wear makeup because I don’t see the point in sweating it off every day, and my hair is almost always in a ponytail so I’m ready to go for a run or head to the gym. That doesn’t make me less of a woman.

If styling your hair or dressing a certain way makes you feel good about yourself, do it! Who cares what other people think? It’s time to be ourselves and stand up for what it really means to be a man or a woman.

Watch out world, I’m making a comeback. For the first time in three months, I was allowed to run*.

*Full disclaimer: I was allowed to run/walk .8 miles at a 50 percent effort (also known as so slow you are pretty sure you could still walk).

If all goes well, I will continue with a run/walk program for a few weeks while I very slowly build my milage.

Fingers crossed my tendons decide to finally cooperate. Only 11 weeks until my half marathon!