Wednesday, July 18, 2012

It must be the pictures

I'm trying to figure out why the following post has close to 3,000 views while any other post on my blog has no more than a couple hundred or so: http://trainingonempty.blogspot.com/2012/01/objectification-of-women.html
I'd love to convince myself it's the writing or the content, but if that were the case, I think this other post here would have more than 200 views:  http://trainingonempty.blogspot.com/2011/03/fear-of-intimacy.html That one was one of my more emotional and heartfelt writing endeavors. I wonder how many views this doughnut will get:


Probably not too many. I'm sure the image of three topless women holding doughnuts would attract the interest of more viewers, right? I bet at least a few people are suddenly off googling that one. A friend on facebook pointed out this interesting little tidbit that makes me realize how much women are still objectified, even in this country. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that the images in my post are what generated a ton of views.

Here's something I don't do often; I'm going to talk about my training lately. I finally got through a harder week that included a "long" run of 1 hour and 20 minutes (super slow) on the trails, two harder sessions and a bunch of easy jogging between. Actually, the harder sessions were not that hard, but I was still picking up the pace. One session was a few short hill repeats followed by 3 x 5 minutes at tempo on the bike, and the other session was 20 minutes easy tempo on the trails. Yesterday I ran up NCAR road at a good clip, but it wasn't very fast. I think I was running just under 9-minute miles or something, but I did get my heart rate up there. True, it's all uphill, but that's still on the slow side, especially for pushing it. Then I bonked and couldn't really do the rest of the workout I wanted. Instead, I did some pick-ups in slow motion at the base of the hill and called it a day. I did notice I have some fears about going hard. In the middle of the workout, I sort of got uncomfortable and had trouble pushing myself. I was struggling, and the end result was that I sort of forgot to keep up the pace. I can tell I'm out of shape too, because even after an 11-minute effort that wasn't all that fast, my tummy started grumbling at me.

In other words, I have a long, long way to go. It's hard to believe that I used to jump into mile repeats and recover so quickly. Still, I guess everyone has to start somewhere. Naturally, I'm disappointed, but I now see what fears and issues I need to address. I'm still being careful and not attempting anything like the track, which is probably a bit too honest for me at this point, but at least I know I can put some effort into uphill running. I'll have to see if the imbalance is too much for the flat, faster stuff at some point, but right now I'm OK focusing on the hills. I'm still trying to decide if jumping in a race this summer is a good or a bad idea. Obviously I need to relearn how to run hard before I do that, but it's sort of tempting.

This is weird. My spell check must be on some kind of British kick or something, because it keeps wanting me to add a U to words that don't need one: flavour, colour, endeavour... Then again, adding a U might make me sound more sophisticated. Oh la la! Oh wait, that's French. Right O. Everyone keep your hair on! I'll figure it out, and it will just be the bee's knees. I'm teaching your granny to suck eggs, right? Too much? Well, Bob's your uncle.  heh.




2 comments:

  1. I still haven't managed to figure out how to get more readership but sometimes I do think its in the photos. Hmm! If you figure it out let me know ;)

    So pleased you can do some running again sweetie. DON'T push it too hard if your body isn't ready for a race then hold back as there will be plenty more races you can do when you are strong and more than prepared.

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  2. I really do think it's the images! That combined with the right title.

    Thank you. I will be careful. I'm thinking this year my goal is to stay with what my body can manage. Funny that I'm still learning this.

    I need to catch up on reading your most recent posts! :)

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