Sorry it took so long to blog my shamrock run experience. I was waiting for the event photographers to post the photos. I literally was checking their website hourly and when they posted their photos at 3pm on Friday last week, I was online snagging them.
I wanted to post my bedtime regime... just cause.
Every night, when getting ready for bed, I do the normal taking out my contacts, wash my face, brush my teeth.... etc. Btw, I brush my teeth while balancing on one foot (I switch feet between morning and evening tooth brushings) to strengthen my ankles.
Then comes the second stage of getting ready for bed. I put on my jammies, climb onto my bed, and pull out my ankle weight: a pouch thing with slots for up to ten 1 lbs bars that I can add or remove, which velcros snuggly around my ankle. Currently my ankle weight has 3 bars inserted. The unused bars are in an ominous pile in my living room under a table.
I lay down and do my quad-strengthening leg lifts for my knee (for my old patello-femoral syndrome). 10 reps, each holding for 5 seconds, in four different positions. I then move the ankle weight to my other leg and repeat. I listen to the second hand of the clock, count to myself, and just get em done. This takes about 10 minutes.
Then I strap my night splint onto my left leg (for my plantar fasciitis). It's a big honkin plastic boot thing.
Once splinted, I then stretch on my bed, sitting with my legs as far out to either side as I can manage, and leaning forward trying to keep my back straight, my legs straight, my feet flexed, and my toes and knees pointed at the ceiling, and I try to relax all my leg muscles and sink into the stretch. I've tied a strap to my bed frame so that I can pull myself forward with constant pressure to make the stretch more efficient. While I'm doing this stretch, I've taken to reading. I'm currently on book 1 of the Death Gate Cycle. I open the big hard cover book on the bed infront of me and read. I have no idea how long I keep this up for, normally I read about a chapter. It's nice getting a little reading in every night.
This stretch is specifically for my hamstrings (I believe my tight hamstrings were the root cause of my plantar fasciitis). I know keeping my legs straight and in front of me and leaning forward would be a more valuable hamstring stretch, but that stretch has NEVER agreed with my physiology, even when I was a dancer back before puberty. I've decided to work on my hamstring flexibility with a stretch I know that my body can manage. Doing my stretch HAS been able to increased my straight on toe touch flexibility without being terribly uncomfortable, so why not?
Once I feel the stretch has been nice and good and long, I then put the book away and go to sleep. This has been my night routine for the last couple of months. The things we do for fitness, eh? I'm a total freak. It's probably good I don't have a roommate or boyfriend. hee
So, in other news, the Race for the Roses Send-Off Party is tonight.
It's a potluck where we first receive a bag of goodies, including our race day jersey (in trade-marked TNT Purple), tickets to the pre-race pasta party and post-race victory party, and a couple other little useful items like SPF15 chapstick. The coaches, staff, captains, and mentors then go through a list of good-to-know things for preparing for the event in 2 weeks: like get more sleep than normal if you can, and what to expect on race-day morning.
Then we eat. :)
Two of my mentees have let me know they can't make it, so I'll be grabbing their baggies for them.
Oh, and as it turns out, Rebecca DID recommit!!! I left her a voice message asking her, and I wrote a little message to my staffer Lindsay asking her in my mentor report, and since no one got back to me I assumed Rebecca was out... but she was never taken off of the roster, so I asked Lindsay again and she told me that Rebecca DID recommit! OH! I had taken her off my weekly email last week! Ooops, my bad. I added her back in. Still have yet to meet her, but it looks like she miraculously raised $600 for TNT in 1 week, and met her fund-raising minimum JUST in time to not get charged the balance on her credit card.
I suspect a parent bailed her out actually.
Heh, maybe I'll meet Rebecca tonight at the Send-Off party? Who knows?
Oh, and I'm bringing shrimp cocktail as my potluck offering. Mmmmm...
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2 comments:
That's quite a routine. I'm so lazy I can't even floss before bed. At least I brush my teeth for the full two minutes.
Also, OMG, the Death Gate Cycle is AWESOME. One time when I had a week to kill I read one book a day through the whole series. (I know, a week to kill sounds extreme. I was bored at the end of a winter break, and wanted to see a boy, so I really did have a week to kill.)
I do normally brush my teeth longer than I did when you were here. Honest. I was just being shy about my weird habits. heh.
And yeah, liking the Death Gate Cycle so far. I inherited the full series in hardback from my brother years ago, and I'm finally cracking them open.
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