Winter running: Dark. Cold. Also dark!

Despite the fact that the dog bowl forecast was yelling at me to go to the gym, I disregarded it. To go to the gym, I have to:

• Pack gym bag with change of clothes, water, etc.
  
• Remember to put gym pass into gym bag
• Drive to gym
• Pay $1.00 to park the car
• Change clothes in locker room
• Go to equipment desk to be assigned to a treadmill
• Run. Feel bored and pretty much like a hamster on a hamster wheel
• Go back to locker room and change
• Slog through slush to car
• Drive home and put car away

Contrast this to what I have to do to run outside:

• Put on proper clothing
• Step outside and run

Unfortunately, I did not get around to embarking on today's scheduled three-mile run (my first midweek 3-miler, by the way!) until 4:45 PM. Sunset was at 5:06. So I got to tangle with the dark AND the cold! Two words, folks: Poor. Planning.

I couldn't wait to try out my Running Pants of Awesomeness and my Blindingly Reflective Jacket as well as the nifty running hat I got at the Fleet Feet Orgy of Spending two weeks ago. For an extra measure of safety, I added a reflective vest over my jacket, ensuring that anyone within half a mile would avert their eyes with a cry of "AAAGGHH! Runner BURNED ONTO MY RETINAS!!" The vest has been in my closet for several years, only getting dragged out for an occasional nighttime dog walk. I'm not even sure where I got it--I think maybe my parents gave it to me at some point. I just now noticed the Nike swoosh on it and did a little Googling, but can't find anything that looks like it. But man, is that sucker bright or what?

I had a great run and really enjoyed myself. Cars were few and far between, and I got to savor the sight of some kids playing on a snow-covered hill in the last light of dusk. I definitely have a tendency to speed up as I go and run each successive mile faster than the first one. Today I hit mile 1 at 11:26, mile 2 at 22:32, and mile 3.15 at 34:36. That translates to an 11:26 pace for the first mile, an 11:06 for the second mile, and a 10:30 mile pace for the last 1.15 miles.

But the very best part of coming in from a cold winter's run is the hot cocoa I enjoy as my recovery drink. (By the way, the January 2010 issue of Runner's World has this to say about chocolate milk on page 42: "Yet another happy study (this one from the U.K.) finds drinking chocolate milk between exhaustive bouts of exercise improves endurance more than a carb recovery drink. Researchers think chocolate milk has a superior ratio of fat, carbs, and protein, making it ideal for recovery.") I like to think that my hot cocoa has similar magical properties, and it is so easy to make! I'll never go back to that chemical-laced powder from a packet.

Home again, home again, jiggity jog

I'm home! I finally have good picture-uploading capabilities, so let me give you a quick recap of Christmas at my parents' house. My mom makes an absolutely killer turkey. We always have our big dinner on Christmas Eve and then eat leftovers so no one has to slave away in the kitchen on Christmas Day.

And here's the Turkey Queen herself, looking rather spry considering she just slaved over a hot turkey all day and had an emergency appendectomy three weeks before Christmas. She's tough as nails.

You may remember that my surprise Christmas gift for my mom to tell her that I was running a half-marathon for her was a mother-daughter set of matching Team in Training T-shirts. Several Kleenexes died horrible, gruesome deaths, and Mom was very touched. This is a couple days later after we've had a chance to compose ourselves.

There were several hotly-desired running-related Christmas gifts for me as well. These Mizuno Breath Thermo pants are incredible. First off, the legs weren't too long, which is a miracle! Every other pair of running pants I have tried on has dragged the ground. These size S pants are the perfect length for a vertically-challenged, short-limbed person who looks nothing at all like those lithe leggy creatures you see on the pages of Runner's World. So yay Mizuno! They are also very warm, so much so that I was sweating inside of 30 seconds when I tried them on indoors. I can't wait to take them out for a run in the toe-curling cold. I'm sure this Saturday's group run will be happy to oblige.

I now also have an honest-to-goodness running jacket! It's more silvery than it looks in this picture, but this NikeFit jacket is incredibly comfortable and has two side pockets and a sleeve pocket--in addition to being so reflective it makes you want to cover your eyes. I have a feeling I'll be wearing this at the group run as well.

And then we came home to...this. That dog bowl is positively screaming, "Go to the gym, you moron!" So I'd better get myself put together and get my two miles in!

What is WRONG with me?

Clearly, I have a bad case of RGAD, or Running Gear Acquisition Disorder. Even though I dislike shopping in general and am particularly bored by clothes shopping, I am clearly obsessed with shopping for running clothes and gear. Due to technical difficulties, I cannot yet post photos of the running gear I got for Christmas, but today I...went out and bought more running clothes.

It all started innocently enough. I went to the gym and did my three miles in intervals today instead of as a steady-state run, and I was actually a minute faster than yesterday! It also helped that I had some toast shortly before I left home and got a decent night's sleep last night.

After the workout, my husband and I went to a restaurant for lunch, and the whole time I sat at the table, I had a primo view of the REI store across the street. Back home, the nearest REI is almost two hours away. I tend to order stuff from them on-line and hope it will fit (it usually does, but there are exceptions), but now the store's proximity was too much to resist. I told my husband, "I'll just take a quick look around." Famous last words...

I had drooled over a long-sleeve Salomon tech shirt that had been in their Christmas catalog, but there was no way I was going to pay full price for it. Lo and behold, there it was, marked down and in my size! How could I say no? I also walked out with a pair of Brooks calf-length capris with yellow reflective markings on them (safety first!), so if the mercury ever breaks 40° again back home, I have a really comfy outfit to wear.

I'm not sure what the proper treatment for RGAD is, but I hope I figure it out soon. I do still need running gloves...

Looking back, looking ahead W21/W20

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! I got several awesome running-related items, but they will get their own post. My mother loved her Team in Training shirt, and when I told her I was running a half-marathon for her, she cried and hugged me tight, and I admit, I got a little misty-eyed myself. She was genuinely touched. I'll try and post some pictures tomorrow.

Today is the end of Week 21, and Sunday marks exactly 20 weeks until race day.

What was I was supposed to do in Week 21? Did I do it?

• Sunday: 3 miles NOPE
• Monday: strength training YES!
• Tuesday: 2 miles YES!
  
• Wednesday: 2 miles NOPE
• Thursday: 2 miles YES!
  
• Friday: strength training YES!
• Saturday: 3 miles YES!

Well, I didn't manage the perfect week like I had hoped. I was in a car all day Sunday driving down to my parents' house, and on Wednesday my calves went into screaming revolt after all the downhill running I did on Tuesday. I managed a rather paltry seven miles and two strength training sessions this week. Today's run was exceedingly lackluster--I learned the hard way that a piece of pumpkin pie and a cup of coffee three hours beforehand are NOT sufficient fuel. I was struggling by the end of the first mile. Sad but true: I got through the last third of a mile by silently chanting "E-NER-GI-ZER-BUN-NY" to the rhythm of my footfalls on my treadmill. It was pretty horrible: 3 miles in 34:46 for a cringeworthy 11:35 mile pace. I did at least manage to put some incline (1.5%) into the run to make it mildly challenging.

Here's what I'm supposed to do in Week 20:

• Sunday: 3 miles
  
• Monday: strength training
• Tuesday: 2 miles
  
• Wednesday: 3 miles (this is a mileage increase)
  
• Thursday: 2 miles
  
• Friday: strength training
• Saturday: 3 miles (group run)
  

I am looking forward to next Saturday's group run and hearing how everyone fared over Christmas.

Things went well this week on the fundraising front. I am now over the $1000 mark, thanks to some wonderful people I've known since childhood (Jody, Amanda), an agility person who is also the best dog groomer you could ever ask for--endlessly patient and sweet with my dogs (Tynya), and a translation colleague I actually taught way back when who is now a respected, in-demand professional (Klaudia). Thanks so much to all of you for your support! I hope to do better next week and fill in more green.

The Christmas spirit is alive and well...

I want to give a big shout-out to LA Fitness for keeping the Christmas spirit alive and well. After my calves rose up in revolt and the weather turned sour, I decided to go indoors and run on the treadmill to neatly avoid both hills (running downhill is a major cause of delayed onset muscle soreness, or DOMS) and wet, windy weather.

When I told the nice ladies at the desk that I was running for Team in Training to prepare for a half-marathon, they gave me a free guest pass good for the rest of my stay here. How wonderful is that?! They even offered me some Christmas cookies that another customer had brought in. (Gingerbread. Delicious!) My run was nothing to write home about, 2 miles in 22:07, but I got 'er done.

Of all the gifts to be opened up tomorrow morning, I am most excited about the Team in Training shirt I am giving my mom.

Sweet dreams, everyone, and merry Christmas to you and yours!

Topography 101

Forgive me for stating the obvious, but holy moley, Atlanta is HILLY! There is practically no level ground here at all--you're constantly going up and down. At past Christmas visits, I walked my dog(s) without ever giving the terrain much thought, but now that I am running here, I have a whole new respect for the landscape. After missing my 3-miler on Sunday (I was in a car for 12 hours, which is kind of an impediment to getting your run in), I was eager to get out for my 2-miler on Tuesday. The weather was fantastic--blue skies and temperatures near 60--so I was able to run in just a short-sleeve tech shirt and shorts. I put on my latest new shoes, a pair of Asics GT-2150s with insoles bought during the feeding frenzy on Saturday, and took them out for their maiden run around my parents' subdivision (helpfully mapped out in advance with gmaps pedometer).

The run felt--well, pretty rough, actually. (No fault of the shoes, they felt great.) I ran a lackluster 11:27 pace and was breathing a bit harder than I care to on a "conversational" run.

But the real fun came when I got up this morning:
Me: All right, let's get up and get this day star--
Calves: Ow! PAAAAIIIIN! Owie owie owww!
Me: What are you two whining about?
Calves: You live in a place where people go skiing on a 300-foot-high hill, and then you run us up and down, like, FIVE of those things in half an hour? What were you THINKING?
Me: It was a 2-miler, for God's sake! We spent almost as much time warming up and cooling down as we did running!
Calves: We weren't ready! We really would have appreciated you asking us first...
Me: All right, all right, I'm sorry. Now cut it out with the pain already!
Calves: No way, bub! We are ON STRIKE. Better treatment of calves everywhere! No more abuse!
Me: You can't do that! We have to do another 2-miler today! I can't run with no calf muscles!
Calves: Watch us! Oooooooww! Just for that, we're going to complain every time you go up or down the stairs.
Me: Oh, sure, you talk a good game, but I forget you'll have forgotten all about it by this afternoon...

But they didn't. My calves are still hurting quite a bit. So I didn't run my 2 miles today. It just didn't seem wise. However, even I have to run/walk, I WILL get my 2 miles in tomorrow. *shakes fist* So there, calves!

I hate having to sneak around...

Sorry for the delay in posting, but I am visiting my mom and dad, and I have to wait until my mom's not around to get on the computer. She is at (what else?) a doctor's appointment this morning. I've kept this secret for almost three weeks and I don't want to blow it now, not so close to Christmas. The last present she unwraps on Christmas Day will be a t-shirt with the Team in Training logo that says, "If you think training for a marathon is hard, try chemo." And then I will tell her everything. I hope she thinks it's a good present.


Here's the intrepid group that came out for last Saturday's group run, our third. I'm in the front row with the pink top and purple pants, and that's Coach Rob on the end next to me. To everyone's relief, the trail was blissfully ice-free. There was just a decorative dusting of snow, like a giant hand had sifted powdered sugar onto the landscape. It was chilly but quite pretty, and the air was calm, so it was a very pleasant run. I ran the three miles in about 36 minutes, so I was once again not very speedy, but hey, there are almost five months left until the race. I think the really important thing is to stay healthy.

This is Melissa, the third person who was at the sign-up meeting I went to at the beginning of the month. In addition to being ridiculously photogenic, she just started running in July and is aiming for the full marathon. You go, Melissa!

Runners coming back to the bridge marking the end of our run...

There's Coach Rob again (he must have legs of iron, because I thought it was way too cold to run in shorts!), and on his right is Stori, who's training for a triathlon! Rock on, Stori!

After the run, we all went over to Fleet Feet in Northfield for a shoe fitting clinic and a talk about winter layering techniques. This is the store's owner. I really should have written his name down, but I didn't and now I can't remember it. I'm still very new to this whole blogging thing...

Naturally, most of us practically melted our credit cards in the ensuing shopping frenzy. Here's Melissa with all of her goodies.

I did not escape unscathed either and gave my credit card a real workout. My husband has started calling me Imelda. But I really did need the running hat!

Looking back, looking ahead W22/W21

This week's review post is a little early because I'm going to be traveling. Hopefully I won't jinx myself by assuming now that I will successfully complete the group run tomorrow.

Tomorrow is the end of Week 22, and Sunday marks exactly 21 weeks until race day.

What was I was supposed to do in Week 22? Did I do it?

• Sunday: 3 miles YES!
• Monday: strength training YES!
• Tuesday: 2 miles YES!
  
• Wednesday: 2 miles YES!
• Thursday: 2 miles YES!
  
• Friday: strength training YES!
• Saturday: 3 miles YES, hopefully!

Yay, I love all that green! All I have to do is make it through the group run and I will be batting .1000 this week. It was hard on me, though, even though the mileage is still low. I've never run three days in a row before.

Here's what I'm supposed to do in Week 21:

• Sunday: 3 miles
  
• Monday: strength training
• Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday: 2 miles each day
• Friday: strength training
• Saturday: 3 miles
  

There is no group run next week because of the holiday. I hope I can still stay on track. I definitely enjoy the social aspect of Team in Training.

Things went very well this week on the fundraising front, although I found out that the "anonymous donor" I thought I had was not so anonymous--it was me! I had to pay a 50.00 registration fee when I signed up for Team in Training, and that money was credited to my fundraising account. There was actually some sort of glitch and it was credited twice, so my fundraising meter is wrong. It is 50.00 higher than it should be. I'll have to contact the office to get that fixed. I had a number of "dog people" and work colleagues contribute this week, and several people also wrote me wonderful comments, which I really appreciated. Thank you so much for your support, Caroline, Chris, Neil, Eva, Carmen, Ruth, Rina, Melissa, Angela (a fellow TnTer!), and Jess. You are all fantastic! I will hustle on your behalf this coming week to make sure I can fill in all "YES!" answers in my next weekly wrap-up post!

Your two secret weapons: Toasty Indoor Gym and Positive Peer Pressure

In addition to Fleeing to the Warm Toasty Indoor Gym, the #1 secret weapon to make sure you get your runs in, there is also secret weapon #2, Positive Peer Pressure. If you talk to one of your teammates and say, "Hey, let's meet at the trailhead tomorrow at 2:00," you had BETTER be at the trailhead at 2:00!

This is how I got to spend a lovely afternoon with Renee. Renee is, for lack of a better word, awesome. She had foot surgery a year ago and couldn't walk for months, and now she's training to walk a half-marathon. (Or a full marathon. It could go either way.) She's also smart and funny. I desperately wanted to take her picture for the blog, but she wouldn't let me, so no Renee for you. And I have horrific hat hair in the picture she took of me, so I'm not posting it.

Since Renee's a walker and I'm a runner, I had to sort of run off ahead of her and then double back to her a few times. It worked out reasonably well, and we both got our miles in before making a beeline for the lovely bakery nearby, where I proceeded to do another incredibly bizarre thing that never even would have occurred to me in my pre-running days. I had a bright blue yoga mat with me, and I matter-of-factly unrolled it on the floor of the bakery (with a little help from the owner's three year-old nephew) and did my stretching exercises. Renee said later she should have taken a picture of me doing THAT.

Dog Bowl Forecasting

Who needs weather.com and all those fancy weather satellites? My trusty dog water bowl on my patio can tell me whether I should run outside or flee indoors. (Note: This is not their only bowl. They have one inside, too, but the dogs seem to prefer this one.) The forecast indicated by this particular bowl configuration is "iffy, you might want to go to the gym." How do I know this?

1. There is ice on the bowl, indicating temperatures are below freezing. However, the ice is not that thick, maybe a half inch, so it's between 20° and 30° F. The hole in the ice is only there because there's a spigot that drip-drip-drips into it (no matter how hard I try to get it all the way off, I can't--blame me when the world runs out of potable water resources).
2. There is a definite shadow cast by the bowl, indicating sunny or mostly sunny skies.
3. The ice is evenly distributed around the bowl, not thicker on one side than the other, and it is not slopping over one edge of the bowl more than the other edge (which would indicate strong winds).

So put that all together, and you get "It's cold, but not so cold you'd reject the very thought of running outside. The sun is shining, which is nice, and it's not incredibly windy." Really a toss-up in terms of running outside or not.

I ended up deciding to run inside mostly because I ran yesterday and I'm running again tomorrow, and because I knew I'd have to spend two hours in a barely-heated building at a dog seminar tonight. I think I might have braved the outdoors if it hadn't been for the two-hour freeze-your-butt-off-fest that I knew was coming. (Good seminar, though. Worth the cold.)

I wore my awesome Team in Training tech shirt for the first time at the gym and expected to get some approving looks, maybe even a thumbs-up or two, but I got nuthin'. Zip. Apparently people can't get on a treadmill without their iPods these days. They don't talk, unless they're talking on a cell phone to someone (a girl down the row was doing this and wow, was it annoying), and they don't look anywhere except dead straight ahead. Like iPod-wearing zombies.

I finally had to ask a woman just hopping on a treadmill to get photographic proof of yours truly working out in her fabulous new shirt. ("Sure, as long as you're not going to ask me for money," she agreed.) The picture's a little funky, but it's better than nothing.

I'm a multitasking machine!

Making the time to get your runs in is possibly the most important part of the whole Team in Training experience. Not getting your miles in during the training period means you explode spectacularly and publicly on the course come race day. It's still very early in our training schedule, so we run 2 miles three days a week and 3 miles on both weekend days. That's a pretty manageable 12 miles a week, but still, you have to carve out time to run five days out of seven. (I do strength training the other two days, so I am doing something every day. It's tiring.)

One of the several dozen things on my to-do list today was getting an oil change, so I drove down to the shop in my running clothes and explained myself to the bemused guy at the counter: "If it looks like you can get me in quickly, I'll run a loop so I end up back here. But if you think it'll be a while, I'll just run home."

"It'll be a while," he finally managed to say, so I started my stopwatch and set out for home. It was a nasty day, gray and raw and windy and spitting, and I felt weighed down by the rain jacket and rain pants, but I ran a 2.1 mile route I measured on gmaps pedometer in 24:09 for an 11:30 pace. So I got the run in AND got my oil changed, whoo-hoo!

I just have to extol the virtues of gmaps pedometer for a second. I LOVE this site! You type your zip code in the "jump to" box, and it zooms right in to your town. Then you can draw a route, and it will tell you how long each segment is and how long the total distance is. You can play around with various segments, loops, or whatever until you get a route that is the distance you want to run. You can even save routes and call them back up later. And it's all free! Who needs a $400 Garmin when you have this?

"But fundraising starts with fun!"

Well, yes, I suppose it does, but it's no coincidence that Team in Training provides its runners and walkers with lots of materials on...fundraising. The topic makes a lot of people go weak in the knees.

Even though my motivation to beat the ^$%#$$ out of leukemia and lymphoma is very strong and very personal, it does require--well, asking people for money. And yes, I struggled with that while I was drafting my first fundraising letter. I have always found the sell-to-your-friends-and-neighbors business model (e.g., Avon, Amway, Tupperware, Pampered Chef, Partylite, etc.) a little questionable. I mean, honestly, aren't you just exploiting your contacts to make them buy something from you? Now take that one step further. Granted, donating to a charity to fund research grants and hopefully save people's lives is a far cry from buying a peppermint-scented candle you don't really want, but the principle is just similar enough that it makes me a little uncomfortable. I think I would die on the spot if I were forced to take one of those cold-calling sales jobs. Just the thought of it makes me feel queasy.

If any one of the thirty-seven people I wrote to tonight is upset, I hereby apologize to you.

"Runners are masochists." Discuss.

What a difference a day makes! This was the view out of the car this morning as we drove oh-so-gingerly on icy roads to the site of this morning's group run in Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Scaredy cat that I am, I posted to the Team in Training group last night saying, "Uh, guys? Rain's no biggie, but freezing rain in the forecast sounds like an excellent way to wrap your car around a tree. Might we cancel?"

This morning rolled around, and there was no cancellation since it was "just rain" falling. The tricky part was that the ground was still very cold from our recent Arctic blast, so the stuff instantly froze on street signs, trees, and most importantly, THE ROAD.

However, Annie, our intrepid driver this morning, was undaunted. Well, she was mildly daunted, but she drove slowly and carefully and managed not to give us a close-up view of any ditches or tree bark. We were actually the first ones there and wondered if there had been a late cancellation we hadn't heard about before others started trickling in. It was a small but mighty group this morning, with almost as many coaches as runners and walkers.

Things didn't get off to a good start when one of our team members fell just as we were getting on the path. She seemed okay, but holy moley, the trail was really a mess. The middle of the path was barely passable and very, very icy. Annie and I picked our way along the side and walked/tiptoed as much as we ran. The cold rain splatted steadily and very loudly on my hood, and my shoes were either slipping around or splooshing through puddles for most of the time we were on the trail. There were several bridges, all of which were very slick--we didn't even try to run across them. And I was somewhat overdressed, so I was pretty uncomfortable on the way back. (Technical note to self: Adding rain pants and rain jacket means you should drop to one layer on the bottom and two light ones on the top. Switch out the heavy pink zip-up for the lighter Marmot zip-up instead.) About the only good thing I can say is that it wasn't windy. 30+ MPH wind gusts really would have been the icing on the cake.

I've just described pretty miserable conditions, right? Conditions that no sane person would go out and run in, right? Well, there are a shocking number of patently insane people out there, because in the 39 minutes we were oh-so-slowly covering the three miles in the training schedule (just as bad as last week, but we were trying not to sprain anything!), we saw at least a dozen runners on this slip-n-slide trail who were not Team in Training people. Just folks out for a run. Seriously crazy folks.

When we got back to the parking lot, the coaches were standing there in the cold, steady rain, talking to each other like it was 60° and sunny, just completely oblivious. We came back from the restrooms a few minutes later, and they were still there. Same position, just chatting, still unfazed. And even as we drove off, they stood rooted to the spot like their own little grove of trees. Ample proof that dyed-in-the-wool runners have a certain masochistic streak, if you ask me.

After this cold, bleary, surviving-is-the-best-you-can-hope-for run, I went and had pancakes. And these were no ordinary pancakes, no sir: these were fresh-off-the-griddle gingerbread pancakes with lemon curd topping.

Words fail to convey how incredibly delicious they were!

Looking back, looking ahead W23/W22

I'll try to make this a weekly feature--looking back at the week that was, and looking forward to what's coming up next week.

Runner's training schedules measure weeks as a countdown toward the race that you are training for. The Cleveland Half Marathon is Sunday, May 16th, so tomorrow is exactly 22 weeks until the race. That means this week was Week 23, and the week staring tomorrow will be Week 22. The training schedule actually started with Week 25, but I hadn't signed up at that point. I pretty much missed the first two weeks of the training schedule.

What was I was supposed to do in Week 23? Did I do it?

• Sunday: 3 miles NOPE
• Monday: strength training NOPE
• Tuesday: 2 miles YES!
  
• Wednesday, Thursday, Friday: doesn't count, resting on doctor's orders
• Saturday: 3 miles YES!

Wheeee, I ran a total of 5 whole miles! Somebody just shoot me now.

Here's what I'm supposed to do in Week 22:

• Sunday: 3 miles (group run)
• Monday: strength training
• Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday: 2 miles each day
• Friday: strength training
• Saturday: 3 miles (group run)

Clearly, I have my work cut out for me. I certainly hope to run more than 5 miles this week.

On the fundraising front, things are getting off to a decent start. I had three wonderful colleagues all contribute this week, which means a lot to me. Thank you so much for your support, Jill, Susanne, and Dorothee.

I have a list of 80 people to send messages to over the course of the coming week, and I am organizing a fundraising event that will likely be held in February. More details on that as they become available.

I have to get up at 6 for the group run in the morning, so TTFN!

New shoes and blue skies

Say hello to the new shoes, same as the old shoes. They are also Mizuno Wave Inspire 5s, but are blue and white instead of purple and yellow. I was just happy I could still get them. Who knew that running shoes are like cars? New models roll out every December and instantly render the old ones obsolete. If you want Wave Inspires now, you have to suck it up and get the Wave Inspire 6s. I got these last month and they were waiting patiently in their box for a lovely day like today to make their debut.

And look at that beautiful blue sky! The weather today was oodles better than it has been, and I was finally free to run again after my osteopath visit on Tuesday. I stupidly decided I would drive up to the track so I could get all of my mileage in on the nice soft track surface (it's about 3/4 of a mile from my house). I quickly discovered how to make a 35-minute workout take over an hour:

• Hit every light red. There's a light pretty much every block.
• When you're almost there, realize you don't have your wallet. No driver's license, no money to maybe buy a parking permit.
• Go home and retrieve wallet. Continue to hit every light red.
• Finally reach parking lot next to track. Discover that there are no spaces for visitors or any kind of temporary permits. Only long-term permits are allowed. You don't have one, of course.
• Contemplate going home and walking back. It might be faster.
• Go down the road to the ice skating rink. Discover that they have 3-hour parking for 50 cents. Saved! Park car in any old spot.
  
• Buy permit from machine. Go back to car and realize you are crazy far away from the track over here.
• Move car.
• Get out of car and walk to track.
• Realize you forgot to put permit on car dash.
• Walk back to car. Place permit in required location.
• Walk back to track and swear you will never drive up here again.
  

I guess you can say I didn't skimp on the warmup! I ran 3 miles in 32:45 and kept my heart rate pretty low, but was surprised that I was breathing as hard as I was. That's the price you pay for not running for a few days. Time to roll up my sleeves and get to work.

Awesome Team in Training swag

Maybe it's not such a bad thing I can't run right now. When I got back from my (very brief) walk with the dogs this evening, the temperature was 15°F and the wind chill was -2°. Yowza! The temperature itself isn't all that bad, but factor in the 20+ MPH wind gusts, and it gets ugly real quick.

So I am here to distract you (and myself, non-running slug that I am as I wait for my osteopathic concrete to set) with shiny Team in Training swag pictures!

Seriously, they have really cool swag. I mean, I knew I was signing up to give leukemia and lymphoma a massive kick in the gut, but who knew I would do it in such style? Or that I love purple and teal, 80s color combination though it might be?

We started getting showered with swag the second we walked in for the sign-up meeting:

This is a pace card. It has minute-per-mile paces in the first column on the left, various distances across the top, and finish times in the middle sections. According to the card, if I run 13.1 miles at an 11:30 pace, I will finish in 2:30:52. I'd really like to go a bit faster than that if possible. But I'd have to run 9-minute miles to break two hours--and that ain't happening.


This is incredibly useful swag, especially now that the mercury has taken a dive. It's chapstick for those dried, chapped lips you are likely to be getting during your winter runs. Good start, but where's my Team in Training ski mask?

Once I signed all the paperwork and officially joined Team in Training, it was time to get to work customizing my fundraising page. I took several hours I didn't really have the next day to do it, and lo and behold, I got more swag for my efforts--my very own stick of Body Glide! Until now, I had only read about it on the Runner's World forums! I'm not in any hurry to take it out of its packaging, though--it can stay in there until we're doing much longer runs. Our long runs are only 3 miles at the moment, but that will change soon enough.


On the morning of our first group run (exactly two days after I signed up), we got another small but useful piece of swag. This is a shoe ID. It's sort of a luggage tag, only you're the suitcase it's going on. You fill in your personal info on the inside, loop the ID through the shoelaces on your running shoes, and snap it closed. Then if you keel over or get hit by some idiot driver on a cell phone while you're running, the rescue squad can find out who you are and who they should contact to find out if you have insurance. (OK, OK, just kidding about the insurance part.)


But the coolest piece of swag yet is definitely this tech shirt. It's beautiful. Too bad I won't be able to wear it outdoors for the next four months unless I want to come back with skin the same color as the shirt. It will be awesome to wear at the gym, though.


I can almost hear the Miami Vice theme music. Seriously, though, I do like the logo and both of these colors. The front is actually pretty low key compared to...


...the back!! When I'm on the treadmill at the gym, people will be able to see I'm with Team in Training while they're cruising around the parking lot looking for a spot.

Well, that's all of the swag we've gotten so far--but I hear there is more available as a reward for attending at least 7 of the first 9 group runs. Woot! I can't wait to see what useful cool purple-and-teal thing is up next.

Fun with ostepathy!

I can now say that I have visited an osteopath--and wow, let me just say there was never a dull moment. I've had some hip and leg pain that needed addressing, and I was hoping a simple mechanical fix might be in the offing. I was not disappointed. I had to bend over from the waist, get on the table and bring my knees up, flip over and back again several times, push against hands or shoulders or do whatever resistance thing I was supposed to do while the doctor and a medical student in training fiddled with my hip and pelvis--it was positively action-packed! Apparently the right side of my pelvis was out of whack, so they attempted to bring it back into line. It does feel better--although I was warned that adjustments are like concrete and need time to set. I am supposed to take three days off. That means I can't run again until Saturday! Augggh! But I suppose it's better to miss a few days now than get to the point where I can't run at all later.

I did get in today's run before I went to the osteopath, running 2 miles in 20:40.

Already feeling very antsy about being out of commission for a few days.

OK, so maybe running through that cold wasn't my best idea ever...

I've had a pretty bad cold for almost a week. However, I didn't want it to get in the way of my training, and as Coach Jenny over at Runner's World says, if your symptoms are above the neck, then it's usually okay to run.

So I ran Tuesday. It went okay and I actually felt better after the run. Ditto for Thursday. Friday night into Saturday, I slept very badly and probably woke half the neighborhood with my coughing. I'm thinking maybe the group run yesterday wasn't my best idea ever.

The official LLS Team in Training schedule calls for a 3-mile run today--and here I am already bagging a run. (Boy, that didn't take long.) I spent most of the day at a dog show and then had an hour-long dog class in an extremely cold building and then slogged home and spent over an hour cooking dinner. I feel bad, but I suppose I should just try and feel human.

I can't wait to go to bed so this day can be over. Tomorrow is a new chance to get it right and rock the casbah.

Running in a group--a whole different animal!

Until now, I have almost never run with anyone else. Everyone I know (my husband, Emily, Steve...) runs faster than I do, so running has always been a solitary pursuit for me. Which is fine--I have very vivid memories of running through town one foggy chilly dawn a few weeks ago. The white holiday lights strung in the trees glowed softly through the mist for me and me alone, and my footsteps and breathing were the only sounds in the world. It was haunting and beautiful, something I never would have experienced if I hadn't taken up running.

Today's group run was a wholly different experience, but just as nice as running in my own little mist-cloaked bubble. The group-ness of the experience started with the drive. One of the other women who was at my sign-up meeting lives just a mile or two from my house, so yesterday I boldly e-mailed her to suggest that we could carpool to the starting point. She gratefully accepted, so I found myself squinting through the blackness trying to make out house numbers at oh-dark-thirty this morning.

Annie is very nice, a college student studying nursing. She's new to the whole running thing, but she walked a half marathon last year, so she has some chops. We chatted easily the whole way up, a little nervous about the cold weather and navigating into a city neither of us knows very well. We saw one of those big roadside time/temp displays shortly before we arrived proclaiming it was 21°. "That's gotta be way off," I said hastily, and she just nodded hopefully.

The easiest way to find a group of runners, other than the telltale stretching moves that look just plain peculiar in any other context, is to look at their shoes. Many pairs were blindingly bright and shiny, as if they'd come straight out of the box, and all looked well cared for. There were about 30 of us standing there on the sidewalk under a frigid overcast sky in Cleveland ready to rumble, shifting from leg to leg in some mixture of anxiety, enthusiasm, and a desire not to freeze to death.

Ty, an LLS staff member, made a few announcements, and then we said hi to Coach Rob, one of our running coaches. Coach Rob is a big guy, the kind you might start to cross the street to avoid until you see his friendly face. He's like a German Shepherd with an eternally wagging tail. I would have taken my camera, but I didn't want to run with it, and I wasn't sure it would stand up to the cold. I'll try and add some pictures to later posts.

Just as we launched into our first-ever group run, Melissa fell in beside me. She was the third one at my sign-up meeting and said she would come this morning. I am impressed that all three of us actually showed up. She lives close by, so she was able to just walk over from her place (lucky woman!). The whole run, whether you were currently actively chatting or not, you couldn't help but hear little snippets of conversation--people introducing themselves, talking about running, why they joined Team in Training, and throwing in biographical tidbits. You felt like you were part of something bigger than just you and your feet: you were in a pack, a group breathed into life by something meaningful.

Running in the city was also a new experience for me. There were curbs to hop, a patch of ice or two to carefully run around, and stupid red lights that held us up for 30 seconds or better at a time. Once we had to run around a person camped out on the sidewalk. Melissa courteously said good morning to him.

I talked a bit with one other runner while we were out there, a guy named Mike. (Mike: "I work in the check service department..." Me, enthusiastically: "Wow, you speak Czech?! That is so cool!") He hasn't been running for long, but may go all the way and do the full marathon. You have to admire a guy who really goes for the gusto.

We certainly weren't breaking any land speed records--I finished the 3.15 mile run in 39 minutes and change. (I blame the stoplights.) Much to my delight, Annie came around the corner just a few minutes behind me, beaming that she had managed to run the whole way, with Melissa beside her. Everyone who finished earlier clapped for the people coming in behind them. It was just plain nice.

I think I like this group running thing.

And so it begins...

Last night, I signed my life away.

Well, I signed some of it away. Smallish pieces that I can afford to give, that I want to give. I signed up to run a half-marathon for Pemle, my mom, who has lymphoma. She's been fighting lymphoma since 1995. She's been in remission three times.

And now lymphoma is after her. Again. She was diagnosed last month. If lymphoma had a human form I would lure it into a dark alley and go after it with a machete.

But I can't do that, so I am running a half-marathon for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Team in Training instead. I started running about nine months ago and have exactly one 5K (30:03) under my belt, so training could be...uh...interesting. I've never run more than 4.5 miles straight, and yet just a few months from now, I will cover three times that distance and hopefully not break anything in the process. The first group run is tomorrow. Team in Training sure doesn't waste any time!

Wish me luck. I'll check back in tomorrow and let you know how the group run goes. Banzaaaaai!

P.S. Please visit my official LLS Team in Training fundraising page and throw me a little coin if you're so inclined!