You know I love obstacle and mud runs. But am I ready for the Reebok Spartan Race?  Mmm, probably not.  But it’s been added to my to-do in 2014 list!

Not sure what a Spartan Race is all about? It’s about finding out just how far you can push yourself – and about smiling as you cross the finish line. Well, that’s my goal anyway.

How about you, are you ready?

If you’re in or around Tampa, Florida here’s a great way to test yourself if you aren’t sure or to help prepare yourself if you plan on running it. Doing anything this Saturday morning? How about doing a Reebok Spartan Workout with the #1 MMA Welterweight Contender Johny “Bigg Rigg” Hendricks?  It’s free to the first 300 people to register!  You can register here.

I’m tempted to go just so that if they do it again I can see how much I can improve between now and then!

If you ARE in Tampa, here’s another cool thing.  February 15th we’re going to have “the most unique Spartan event” –  the Special Ops Spartan Sprint Medal which includes a special finishers medal unique to this race!

Whether you’re in Florida or not, here’s a chance to win your way into any 2014 Spartan Race in the continental US. The people at Reebok Spartan Race would like to give you a code for a free race entry or you can go here to get a code for 15% off a registration!  If you aren’t sure if there is a race coming to your area you can check here.

All you have to do to enter is leave me a comment letting me know if the Spartan Race will help motivate you to reach your goals for 2014. You get an additional entry for liking Spartan Race’s Facebook page and leaving me a comment letting me know that you did so below, I’d appreciate it if you’d leave them a message letting them know that Kinda Zennish sent you!

A random winner will be chose Monday the 13th and announced here Tuesday.  Good luck!

This year I haven’t set any particular goals or resolutions yet.  I’ve had two things circling round in my mind – I think I’ll set a goal of running 500 miles this year and it would really alleviate the whole single mom stressing over the holidays thing if I started putting away money for the holidays now.

As luck would have it I somehow came across a blog post on Just call me B! giving me the perfect way to tie these two goals together.  Pay myself a dollar for every mile that I run.  500 miles in a year equates to about $10 a week, not an amount I’ll miss but an amount that will be very helpful come Christmas!  As I’m not the most crafty person in  the world I’ll spare you a picture of my empty but clean pasta jar with the lid glued on.  I mean miles for money jar.  Whatever.

Anyways, I have not just one but 2 motivators to run my 500 miles this year because I also signed up for Run This Year 2014.  It’s a running community committed to run 2,014 miles, or 2,014 Kilometers in 2014.  When I first read about it I thought interesting, but ya, NO.  I can’t run 2,014 miles in a year – I’m lucky to hit 3 miles on my long runs!  But they also have a third choice, Get Your Own Goal.  Perfect!

500 miles here I come, and I have both a group of equally determined runners AND a promise of a Christmas actually pre-paid to motivate me to get there.  Win and win.

Do you track your miles run, miles biked, pounds lifted or something similar per year?  What’s your goal for 2014?

With the year wrapping up everyone is creating lists of this and that to sum up 2013.  Top 10 this, worst 10 that, they’re everywhere and actually I have fun reading them.  But there are a couple in particular that really caught my attention.

I read 2 or 3 that were different lists of the ‘craziest workout trends’ of 2013.  I read about something called prancercise, which I’ve never heard of but people I asked about it have. I read about exercising wearing a gas mask to limit your oxygen while working out, I guess to mimic high altitude, I’m not really sure. There was also more common things like hot yoga, naked yoga (um, no), aerial yoga (I’d break my neck), and paddle-board yoga, which I would so try. I would fall a lot and it wouldn’t be all that peaceful,  but it would be so much fun who cares?

But what was the one thing in common on all the lists I read?  Mud runs!  I so protest!  I can’t argue that they aren’t a phase, because I can’t see the future and they may very well be. I hope not, but who knows. But I can say that I don’t go to a mud run to get a work out, I work out to be able to do mud runs!

My first mud run was Mud Crusade.  I had so much fun that as soon as we finished I wanted to go back and do it again. It was the perfect first run because it wasn’t overly easy but it wasn’t wicked hard either, I was able to do everything though some of it was a struggle.  Perfect.

I actually ran it on accident.  I had toyed with the idea of doing a mud run but I knew I wasn’t really tough enough for something like that.  I saw the advertisement for Mud Crusade and told my boyfriend it was too bad that I wasn’t ready yet because that one was right up the road from me. He misheard me and said sure, he’d do it with me.  Um, what?   He doesn’t even run.  So we both signed up and have been hooked since.  And to this day we both argue that our first run was the other person’s idea.  Take my word for it, it was his.

I am absolutely positive that doing mud runs is what finally got me hooked on and loving running.  Not that running isn’t great and all, but if I get to run through a playground, well, you can’t beat that!  I will say that I haven’t done any of the runs that have a ton of electricity you have to run through (though I did crawl under slightly electric wire once or twice) or jump from roof height or anything like that.  It’s just not for me but more power to those that do.

But I’m curious.  Are mud runs ‘crazy workouts’ or just a phase?  What do you think? And either way, is there anyone out there that has done one and didn’t want to immediately go back and do another?

I think not.

About a week and a half ago I decided to take a week or two off running because I was having a problem with the bottom of my feet hurting.  I figured it was partly because my shoes I wear all the time are crazy uncomfortable even though they’re almost flat sandals, and partly because when I ran with my kids for their Couch to 5K I was jumping and fooling around instead of thinking about my running – not my brightest but not my dumbest moment ever.

Unfortunately although it has got better it hasn’t totally gone away, and I’ve found that just going hiking with the dogs made it worse, it isn’t just the running. Great.  So what to do?  Once again I got used to running 3 miles and then got derailed. Not by much and not for long but still. There are people who start running and then do a marathon that year, so why am I still not even running a 10K? I’m not motivated enough, not dedicated enough, most of the time I think I just don’t care enough to push through things to do better.  Except that if I didn’t care I wouldn’t be so frustrated about the whole thing.

This is the first year that I’ve run with any kind of consistency but I’m still not anywhere near where I want to be.  I don’t have grand plans for a marathon or even a half but I would like to at least work my way up to a 10K and I would like to somehow learn to push myself at least a little instead of backing off as soon as something looks like it might be getting hard.

Tonight I wasn’t feeling good physically OR mentally but I felt like going for a short run.  I didn’t want to run barefoot because I didn’t feel up to paying attention to what I was doing – where I was stepping, how my form was, or anything else. So for the first time this year I put on my old running shoes, put in both earphones to blast some metal and went out for a very short, very not paying attention to anything run.  Good thing I didn’t run across any snakes because I wouldn’t have seen it until it bit me. Not something I would make a habit of but it was kind of nice. Of course I started off way to fast and immediately tired myself out, but whatever. It was one of those nights.

You know the funny thing?  My boyfriend got me a book on barefoot running for Christmas that I’ve been reading. And as a result on my first shoe-ed run of the year I figured out a major piece of my barefoot running form that I’ve been doing wrong. The book mentioned the fact that part of running lightly is not picking your feet up higher than you need to – therefore coming down lighter on your feet. I already knew that but it seems I hadn’t thought about it in a while.  I realized that while I’ve been concentrating on cadence, bending my knees and lifting my feet I’ve been over exaggerating that lift and almost been running like I was doing a high knee exercise.  Not really to that extent, but I’ve definitely gotten in the habit of picking my feet up much higher than I used to while concentrating on the other parts of my form. Somehow or another ignoring my running form made me realize a major piece that I’ve been doing wrong.  Kind of funny really.

Anyways I still don’t know exactly what to think about my running.  I feel like I need a goal or some kind of plan but I don’t know what I want to do.  Run further? Just run stronger? Run more often? Definitely more often but that doesn’t sounds like a very exciting goal.

Do you have any running goals for 2014? How did you decide what you want to do?

I have never been big on making New Year’s resolutions. I fully support resolutions made by anyone else, I just rarely make them myself.  It’s kind of like most of my sisters clothes. They look great, I really like them.  Um, no I don’t want to wear them, I meant they look great on YOU.

But I would like to improve a lot of things this year.  What to do?

First I went and signed up for the #Just1Thing Challenge Kat at Katrina Elle is hosting.  To be honest I’m not certain if you’re supposed to pick one thing to work on weekly, monthly, or  maybe even daily mini challenge but whatever way it goes I’m in.  What’s 1 thing?  Easy-peasy.

Next thing is to decide what I’d like to improve, but first I wanted to think of the things I did in 2013 that I’m most happy about.  I didn’t realize what a good year I’d had until I started thinking about it, I highly recommend you do the same!

1) New job

I got a new job that allows me to drive about 40 minutes each way instead of an hour and a half.  You can imaging the difference all that extra time makes!  My kids have been on their own for weeknight dinners for years, now we can actually eat together like a family. Definitely my biggest win this year!

2) Still running

I’ve been running off and on for a couple of years, but this is the first year that I’ve actually run steady the entire year, no month or two taken off.  I still don’t always run 3 days a week but I do know now that I won’t be quitting running any time soon.

3) No more hip pain

This is also huge for me.  My hips used to hurt almost all the time, and after a long car ride I could sometimes barely get out of the car. Talk about feeling old!  It also had a lot to do with the inconsistent running – running made it worse.  I started running barefoot and it made all of the difference in the world. Now days the only time my hips ever hurt is when a bout of ulcerative colitis is coming on and then all my joints hurt so whatever.

4) Started Barefoot running

I already mentioned why I got started but running barefoot and becoming a part of the online community has done a lot towards improving my running form (not perfected but much improved).  It’s also just a lot of fun I’m really happy I started and stuck with it in spite of some critics. I even did a barefoot mud run in December!

5) Living without regret (still working on this one)

I’ve never had much of a problem with telling people close to me when they were pissing me off.  But when it comes to telling them anything that sounds remotely like I care it was never an appropriate time.  Letting people know you care feels kind of like an open invitation for them to know they can hurt you.  Jaded much? I know, and it’s dumb.  Now is the right time.  I changed my thinking to what if something happened to me and I never told people how important they are to me?  Now I make a point of telling my kids how great they are at every opportunity, bragging about their successes in front of them to other people, and telling the other people in my life how I feel about them – even if it’s not because they pissed me off.  (I still tell them that too)

6) Pointing out the positive

Last one, promise.  It bothers me that most people will complain when something is wrong but we are much less likely to speak up when something is right.  I started making a point this year of pointing out the good. So if it’s true I’ll go up and tell the person singing at the bar that they have an incredible voice, tell the waitress what a great job she’s doing or to be sure and tell the cook the food was wonderful, or stop a stranger to tell them they look great in that shirt.  Corny?  Yep. But it never fails to get a smile from both of us.

Oh yeah, plus I started a (now overgrown) garden, have been blogging more constantly, and Mia and the rats joined us! I can think of a lot of little things but I’ll spare you.

So now it’s time to look forward to 2014.  I have no idea yet what my goals will be or how the year will go but looking back I’m feeling pretty positive.

What great things did you do in 2013?

Ever promise to do something without actually thinking about what it would actually entail? Me too!  I’m just guessing everyone has because it makes me feel better about me.

Unfortunately I believe that people who don’t keep their word are horrible, horrible people (unless they’re saying they won’t cheat at pool) so here I am.

I told my mom and my younger two that if they did the Couch to 5k I’d do it with them.  Sounds reasonable, right? But how do I keep up MY running if I’m also running with them? Granted I’m nothing like a serious runner anyways, but still.  I like to keep up my inflated view of my being a runner and running 1 minute at a time just doesn’t fit the bill.

c25k (Photo credit: jbj)

So I figured out a way for it to benefit all of us.   I run/walk with them but during the run I set my metronome to 180 and keep up with it while lifting my knees up to as close to waist high as I can and guess what?  The end of that one minute can’t come soon enough. This week it’s thrown my off my schedule but starting the next run I’ll  run by myself afterwards just to make sure I’m keeping up the couple of miles I usually run.

I’m not sure how this is going to work as they move through the program but I’m sure it’ll be interesting and I’m sure I’m not going to be the one to say no!  Maybe this is the kick I need to finally start running further than a 5K? Only time will tell….

Did you start running with the Couch to 5K? Have you ever tried to influence others to get up and start running (or doing something else fun off the couch)?

Last night’s run was a bit of an adventure.  Nothing at all happened, but still.

Here’s the thing.  You should know that I’m a huge horror story fan.  Zombies, werewolves, I love it all but real life horror stuff.  So you can see why I was disturbed when I moved from Arizona where it monsoons for like a week a year and is dry as can be the rest of the time to Florida where apparently this sort of thing is normal:

I mean come on! I can almost hear the balloons rubbing against each other and that damn clown’s eyes peaking out.  (If you haven’t read IT then get to it then come back and you’ll totally get it!) When I first started running at night here I would actually make a point of not looking at them.  Would you like to know the worst of it?  There’s never just one.  That’s right, where there’s one on one side of the street there is also one on the other side of the street.   So any self respecting person obviously has to run dead center down the road to avoid the evil things.

Also, when you run past a storm drain it seems that at least 70% of the time a frog/toad/who-knows-what has to jump down into the water just as you run past, scaring the living daylights out of you.

Anyways, back to my run last night. Obviously it involved storm drains.

So, I ran a bit and then I ran past a particular storm drain and dang if it didn’t sound like 3 men were talking down there.  Now I know perfectly well that it was a few toads or frogs down there, but that didn’t stop the creepiness one bit.  Knowledge is power and all, but so is superstition and watching too may scary movies.

On I ran, right down the middle of the street.  A little while further I was coming up on yet another storm drain and I started to hear a little dog barking.  A very hollow, echoing little dog bark.  I stopped in front of the drain and tried to look down it, wondering if that is what I really hear at the last drain  (brave, I know).  That wasn’t scary, that was a dog stuck down there!  So I stood in front of the drain and started dialing my dad’s number to have him come on over.  He is part of the neighborhood watch so he’s the perfect person to call. Why yes I am in my forty’s and why yes I did call him when I found roaches in my car.  I never claimed maturity you know.

As I was calling him I took a couple of steps back and realized something.  The hollow echoing dog barking was coming from the garage of the house behind the drain.

You have no idea how glad I am that I realized that before the phone started ringing!  The rest of my run was dead center down the road, in the direction of home, and very difficult due to the fact that I couldn’t stop laughing at myself.  This is what happens when I run without my headphones.  Never again!

Do you run at night?  If so do you find that every once in a blue moon it’s creepy even though most nights it’s great?   I do, tell me I’m not the only one!

I mentioned a while back that my increase in running was causing me to have some pain on the tops of my feet. It wasn’t just the increase in running though, I’ve had it before and it just seems kind of random.  One major point of running barefoot is to listen to your body tell you when you need to change something, so I cut back a little bit on my running and left it at that for a bit.

Stacey over at ArtSnark’s Artifacts mentioned that she was curious enough to Google what would cause that.  Geez.  Why didn’t I think of that?  I Google everything else! So I did too.

My results were actually pretty funny.  The number one cause of top of the foot pain is running in shoes that are too tight.  The number one suggestion to combat it is to loosen your shoes.  Um, that just isn’t going to work for me.  Another suggestion was to stop running for a while.  Seriously?  I wasn’t injured I just had a wee bit of pain.

Finally I gave up on Google (don’t usually have to do that!) and went straight to the Running Barefoot site and did a search there. I found a good article on foot pain after barefoot running in general and specifically what can cause top of the foot pain. Basically the article says top of the foot pain after barefoot running can be caused by ‘pushing off’ with your foot as you run.

Hey, I don’t do that!  So to prove it I had my son take a video of me running on the treadmill so I could see exactly how my feet did or did not push off.

Damn it, they did.

This whole taking pictures and videos of myself to check out my form is really a bit of a bummer.  But also a learning experience so I started concentrating on lifting my legs when I run instead of pushing off the ground.  It’s one of the two hardest parts of running with good form (for me) and they are, of course related. The second is cadence which will always be a work in progress.

So according to the article and many other sources of barefoot running knowledge the trick is “Instead of pushing off, begin lifting your foot BEFORE it lands.”  Not just this, but also lifting your entire foot, forefoot first, instead of rolling your foot up heel first like it seems that I very much do. This is not something that comes natural to me and it is not anything like easy for me to even completely comprehend.  I try to do it and I feel like I am prancing like a kid pretending to be a pony.  Plus I start moving my feet much, much quicker (as I think you are supposed to actually) and then I am tired 2 minutes later.

So this one is a bit more of a challenge for me than running with bent knees. I think it’s something that will take me awhile to really get, but I believe that running form is probably something that you have to check back in on along the way no matter how long you have been running so that’s alright.

But guess what. Although I don’t think about lifting my legs all the time nor do I think about lifting forefoot first too often it seems I’ve been thinking about it enough.  Because I no longer have any pain on the top of my feet at all.  It took a good week or two of practicing the forefoot bit but it worked!

Do you ever think about how you are touching the ground when you run? Do you push your legs into the ground with each stride or do you try to lift your feet with each step?  Do you think it even matters?

The more I study and try to practice good running form the more I’m becoming a believer!

My youngest son has been toying with the idea of running  for a while, probably since he started middle school last year.  He runs on the track in gym and periodically he just gets the bug and wants to run with me. Although this urge to run keeps coming back it never lasts long, and that’s partly my fault for not encouraging him as much as I should.

Last year I told the kids we’d probably do The Color Run but it was in December and with the holidays and all we just never did it.  This year?

This year The Color Run is going to hit Clearwater January 26th, totally do-able!  Even my (also middle school) daughter who has little if any interest in running is excited about running this one.  I’m going to do my best to convince them both that they want to start the Couch to 5K soon to get ready for it.  But if they don’t it doesn’t matter a bit, this run is all about having fun.  Which of course is the best reason to do anything.

“We call The Color Run the ‘happiest 5K on the planet’ because our events bring together friends and family in a unique, healthy, and fun environment,” said Travis Snyder, founder of The Color Run. “Our only rules are that people wear white and prepare to be covered in color at the finish!”

I can get behind that! Except for I don’t actually own anything white due to spaghetti sauce and salsa, so I’ll have to rectify that.

Do you want in? Um, they say it’s the happiest 5K on the planet, of course you do!  On top of all the fun you also get t-shirt, headband, tattoo, and a color packet when you go to pick up your race bib.You can use the code Color5Off for a $5 discount to sign up for a run in any city and if you sign up as part of a team of 4 or more you get an additional $5 off per person. Sweet!  Just don’t forget to use the code when you register, they won’t apply it after the fact.

Another cool thing is kids 5 and under get to participate for free!  Of course they don’t get the swag but who cares? If they need the t-shirt you can get them one here!  I have a 4 year old nephew who’s favorite thing in the world (besides fighting monsters of course) is racing people around the neighborhood. I am hoping he can come with me, he’d have a blast!  Just don’t forget that 5k = 3.1 miles so if you bring a wee one be prepared to get an extra arm workout if you need to do some carrying!

You can check out The Color Run’s site for more information and to sign up.

Disclosure: I have received two free race entries in exchange for posting about The Color Run.

I ran the Dirty Girl mud run in Tampa Saturday at 8am. That meant I had to be somewhere an hour from my house around 7am, translate to I had to get up really early on a weekend and it was my own idea.  Geez, sometimes even I wonder about me. I don’t think I’ve ever signed up for a run before 10 am because well, it would be before 10am. But check out the payoff.  It was beautiful and foggy when we got there.  Sadly the fog lifted quickly but Little Everglades Ranch is always beautiful.

It seems that Tampa is a saner place than it’s reputation, the early run wasn’t very crowded. Even if it had been it wouldn’t have mattered because they had the sign in process and everything set up really well. This is the first mud run I’ve ever done where I didn’t have to wait to spray the mud off AND there was actually enough water pressure to rinse off.  Nice!

I had originally planned on running this one by myself but I ended up running with a couple of fellow Tampa Bay Bloggers members.  This isn’t one of those races where the obstacles are so difficult you need to run with a team so everyone can help each other, but I had way more fun than I would have running by myself!

I was excited about this race because it is the first obstacle run I’ve done barefoot.  I stashed some running shoes in my backpack in case it wasn’t allowed but the few comments I got were all positive.  I knew Little Everglades Ranch would be a good place to try it though the run did start with a gravel road, I ran beside it in the grass.

Also, this pond is full of pointy rocks on the bottom, that was fun.

The only part I was really worried about was the rope net – I was afraid it would hurt and it did.  Of course I had to pause for a picture at the top just to prove that I had actually done it.

I realized I’m starting to like the walls that you can climb (without a rope), I think because going over the top used to be so scary and now it doesn’t bother me. Any and all progress makes me happy!  Oh, and yes it seems there was a bit of muddy water on my camera lens and also the waterproof camera bag I had it in slipped to the side so several of my pics had a lovely black ring on one side or the other. Someday I’ll have to invest in an actual waterproof camera, but today is not that day.

A fun thing about these mud runs that aren’t crazy hard is you seem to get much, much muddier.  There was a mud pit where you had to crawl under a net to get through, there was just no other way and also some long tubes to crawl through full of nice, dark coffee colored water to go through. I can’t pretend I wasn’t thinking of water moccasins crawling through there. You can’t tell in the pictures because I was wearing black but my clothes  were soaked in thick muddy water. It required quite a bit of scrubbing to get clean afterwards!  There IS a reason they call it the Dirty Girl mud run.

I can’t think of anything I didn’t like about this run.  The parking was close, the organization was stellar and the run itself was a lot of fun.  I would have liked more obstacles but I think that about every run, I love the obstacles!  There was even the mandatory complimentary ice cold beer afterwards (yes, I know it wasn’t even 10 am yet.  don’t judge). I was a little bummed they gave out necklaces instead of the usual medal, but this is a lot more wearable and it IS a women’s run so it fits.  And on that note, my also mandatory showing off of the bling.

After the run I did a couple errands and then headed out to Riverview to visit some friends.  They took us to Sakura for saki and sushi.  I like sushi OK but there are usually maybe 2 vegetarian choices so it’s not my favorite.  I had the AAC roll (asparagus, avocado and cucumber) which was the same ingredients as usual but honestly better than I’d had before and also sweet potato rolls.  These were outstanding!  I also had a seafood salad that was pretty good, it was oddly florescent though which made me wonder why. I also tried saki for the first time. I can’t say it was my favorite. It wasn’t horrible or wonderful, it just was.  I know there are lots of different kinds so I’ll have to try it again.

All in all a pretty great day; Sunday I did as little as possible and enjoyed that as well!