Hair Care Follow Up

I did it! I relaxed my hair myself.

It was easier than I was afraid of, but definitely held some challenges.  I started with the front of my hair, which made it more difficult to see what I was doing.

In addition to doing it myself, I did 2 things differently than we had been doing with my relaxers.  The first was to oil the shaft of my hair to protect already relaxed hair from being processed again. The second was to add a mid-relaxer protein treatment. On the advice of a youtube video (because where else do you learn things?) I used the conditioner included with the relaxer kit before the neutralizing shampoo, and then used another deep conditioner at the end.

In the initial aftermath, I noticed less breakage during blow drying.  After blow drying, my hair was a bit dry, but (possibly in my imagination) not as dry as usual. I will continue to experiment with conditioning treatments.

A Very Hair-y Subject

Not a very original title, I know.

I'm 39 years old, and I've been relaxing my hair since I was about 6. Obviously, that initial decision wasn't mine, but I made the decision to continue doing it. I've contemplated going natural before, and I decided against it. But this isn't a post about that.

This post is about the fact that tonight, after 30+ years, I'm going to actually relax my hair myself for the first time.

For the past couple of years, my roommate has been doing it, and she's still going to be there tonight to help me out.  After all this time, I obviously know what the process is, but having never done it, I don't know things like how long it will physically take me to get through my hair or how to manage through sections of my hair that I can't see (though I suspect that will be similar to flat-ironing the hair on the back of my head.)

I watched a few YouTube videos (which I will link to later) and picked up some additional tips, as well as created a shopping list of additional supplies for next time.

I'm slightly nervous, but feeling very empowered.  WIsh me luck!

Running updates

So far in 2014, I've completed 5 5Ks.

January 1, I did the first at a pace of 17 minutes/mile. I walked the entire thing, so I felt good about that. I know that many races have cut-off times of 16 min/mile (or less) so that gave me a good starting point.

March 1, I did a race that I ended up hating.  The terrain was rough, it was really hilly, and it was pretty disorganized. I'm glad I completed it, but my pace was over 18 min/mile.

April 5, I had a great run and was most proud of how well I fueled myself for it. I broke 16 min/mile and felt fantastic. I mean, I totally crashed & went back to bed that afternoon, but it felt fantastic up until then.

May 3, my pace was just over 16 min/mile.  I didn't fuel quite enough, so I ran out of steam with a little over a half mile to go.

May 10, I did something resembling actual running! I broke 15 minutes/mile! The course was almost perfectly flat, so that helped.   But overall, I could feel the progress from the last couple races.

I'm planning a 4-miler for the end of this month, but I'm giving up on the 10K for June.  I just haven't been training any distance. 

I'm still planning on the 8K in August, so that's my next challenge.