Can I call myself "hard core" now?

Today's Team in Training group run was brought to you by a four-letter word: SNOW. Mounds and mounds of the white stuff greeted me everywhere, including on the unplowed entry road to the park. (I uttered several other four-letter words as I came crawling up the road in first gear: "I drove all this *%&#^ way to run in this *%&#^# mess? Are you $%*#ing me?")

It was very nice to look at, but I doubted it was going to be as nice to run in.

Fortunately, several of my favorite teammates were there to commiserate with, including Lindsey and Angie!
Snow-covered cattails and conifers

And of course, we cannot forget Melissa, who had been up late hosting a dinner party the night before and reported she needed a good 14-mile run to "run off my hangover." (Sangria is a cruel mistress.) I hereby nominate Melissa for Best Dressed Team in Training Member. She looks better in her stylin' running outfits than I do in formalwear.
Coach Rob told us that the plow had only managed to uncover three miles of trail, so everyone would just have to run "only" six miles today. (Six was what my schedule called for, so I was not bothered in the slightest.) Melissa was very upset and wanted to go the full 14, and luckily for her, Coach Paul pulled in just then and confirmed the plow had made it that far. (Say it with me: Runners. Are. Masochists!)

There were also about a dozen people there with Coach Kevin and the Summer Team (we are the Spring Team) for their very first group run. We are about halfway through our schedule now--time flies when you're on the run!

We pushed off around 8:15 and took it slow for the first few minutes--muscles take longer to warm up in cold weather. I wished I hadn't had to leave my camera behind at the parking lot as we jogged with views of pristine, untouched snow under a canopy of white-veined branches in every direction. Lindsey, Angela, and I soon found ourselves bringing up the rear of the runners' group, but we were too busy keeping our footing in the now-packed, now-shifting snow underfoot to care. ("It's like running on a beach," panted Lindsey at one point, and yes, it was. Only there was a distressing shortage of cabana boys and umbrella-topped drinks, and none of us were in bikinis.)

We'd only gone a little over a mile when my stomach started growling. Oh, great. I had forgotten to put the nuts in my steel cut oats, and I skipped the scrambled eggs I ate before previous group runs. Apparently I was not going to be able to get away with it today. It had only been a little over two hours since I'd finished my breakfast, and darn if I wasn't hungry again. I seem to do better with a little more protein in my breakfast. (Or maybe I should get myself checked for tapeworms...)

On and on we went, my stomach embarrassing me all the way. Lindsey and I both kept looking at our watches and wondering why we weren't at the turnaround point yet. We finally got there at about 39 minutes into the run. Either the snow really slowed us down, or we were really coasting at the beginning, or both! A big cooler filled with water, sports drinks, and energy gels awaited us. I was in desperate straits, fueling-wise, and I knew the moment had come. It was time to step up and become "hard core."

I was going to have to eat a gel.

The very thought made my toes curl, but running three miles back to the parking lot on an empty stomach was not an option. It was time to earn my "diehard crazy masochist runner" card and eat an energy gel. Yes, those gels, the ones people have referred to as "like eating cake frosting" or less charitably as "Have you ever had a sinus infection? That's the consistency they have." Eric and Melissa (not Stylin' Melissa, this Melissa) were there attempting to throw back some gels themselves. The looks on their faces were not encouraging. "Don't smell it," Melissa warned us before adding thoughtfully, "And the consistency's like snot." Eeeeewww!!!

I poured myself a cup of water, steeled myself, and reached down into the cooler like I was going into a lobster tank. This is what I fished out: One Power Bar vanilla-flavored gel. 110 calories and 27 grams of carbohydrate packed into a teensy little foil pack. Would it be my doom or my salvation? Only one way to find out...

I went for an "avoid the taste" strategy, squirting a little into my mouth an instant before taking a nice swallow of water. It worked, and I just noticed a sort-of-vanilla flavor rather than the apocalypse I had expected. Heartened, I repeated this maneuver several times. I did taste a bit more of it at the end, and you know what? It wasn't terrible. The consistency wasn't as thick as I had imagined it would be, and the stuff reminded me ever so slightly of vanilla yogurt, which I like. Not delicious, but not gag-inducing either.

So yay, I survived ingesting my first gel! Now to see whether it would shut my stomach up and let me run for a while in peace. After taking our sweet time at the water station (we were all a little freaked out by the gels, to be honest) and stretching some tight muscles, we started the return trip to our cars.

More of the path had been plowed, so the running got a little easier until we caught up to the plow and saw why he was making such slow progress--he kept getting stuck trying to push enormous mountains of snow along in front of him. We ran by him on the road as he spun his wheels a few times trying to push a pile of snow taller than we were.

The run back seemed to take longer even though I was sure we were moving faster. I forgot to turn my watch off at the water stop, so my chrono display was basically useless. "We've been running for an HOUR?!" I shrieked in frustration. "No," Lindsey yelled back, "only 51 minutes!" (She had turned her watch off at the water stop. Yay!)

We eventually saw Eric and Melissa ahead of us in the distance and resolved to reel them in if we could. (It gave us something to do besides wonder if we had been sucked into a wrinkle in the space-time continuum and were in fact traversing an endless snowy Moebius strip.) To top it off, my stomach started grumbling again somewhere after we hit mile 5. Apparently I have the metabolism of a 250-pound runner. I did eventually catch up to them just before our turnoff popped up in the distance like land after a three-month ocean voyage. "There's our road!!" I yelled gleefully back to Lindsey and Angie. "We turn there!"

At that point, all thoughts of decorum and finishing as a group, we are a team, blah blah blah flew straight out of my head. I just wanted this long, long run to be over, and I picked it up and passed Melissa, heading down the turnoff to the parking lot at the back and the big can of pretzel rods handily left on Coach Rob's trunk for us to dig into.

My watch said 1:24:15 when I hit the button, but I suspect my actual time (minus the water/gel stop) was more like 1:15:00. Lindsey came in not too far behind me, and her watch said 1:16:15. Gmaps pedometer says we actually covered 6.09 miles. 6.09 miles in 1:15:00 is a 12:19 pace per mile. So yeah, we ran S-L-O-W in the S-N-O-W, but at least it we got it in the books.

The best way to make anything taste delicious, I am certain, is to eat it at the end of a six-mile run. Those pretzel rods were divine! Lindsey and Angie and I walked and drank water and ate pretzels to cool down, and then I dutifully grabbed my exercise mat and lay down under the covered picnic shelter to do my stretches.

I swore in shock at how much it hurt when I picked up my right leg for the first stretch. With gritted teeth, I reminded myself to breathe and relax as I looked at the birds' nests and cobwebs dotting the timbers under the ceiling. The picnic table benches worked nicely for the hamstring stretches, but I had to use the ladies' room for my IT band stretch so I could brace myself against a wall without slipping on the snow.

After a Sunday Group Run, nothing beats Sunday brunch at my favorite little local place. Today there was a yummy egg casserole with spinach, mushrooms, onions, cheese and sour cream. A most excellent recovery meal!

A very brief drive-by post...

I ran on the indoor track again today, but was quite the speed demon, covering 4.06 miles in 41:32 for a 10:14 pace per mile!

I have to get to bed because we are scheduled to have a Team in Training Group Run in the morning. I will hopefully be running six miles with my teammates. It is still snowing, so the drive up might be a little interesting, but almost all of it will be on the interstate, so that is some comfort.

I'll give you a detailed report on how it all went down!

Promises worth keeping

A few simple promises form the backbone of the whole Team in Training concept. When all of the promises are kept, everything works and everyone ends up happy. However, if any of them are broken, the whole thing goes sour faster than milk left out on the porch in July.

Those promises are more or less as follows:

1. The person signing up for Team in Training will raise money for blood cancer research.
2. The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society will use that money responsibly to fund research and help patients.
3. Team in Training will provide a support system to help the participant raise money and train safely for the race.
4. The participant will do the best possible job of training so that he/she can successfully complete the race.
   

The best ideas are often very simple ones. Four promises between three different parties are the engine that makes Team in Training work.

I can't do much about #2, but my own research would seem to indicate that promise is being kept. Promise #3 is being kept. The Team in Training group's informed and helpful responses to my questions about long-run fueling proved that my coaches and teammates are an extremely valuable resource.

Promise #1 has been kept, thanks to at least 80 people (yes, 80, I counted!) out there who generously donated in response to a letter from me, or entered their dogs in my agility fun run last weekend, or bought raffle tickets and donated raffle prizes. When the donation meter finally catches up with everything I've sent in, it should read $3,563.69. That includes the final total of $1,713.19 raised from all sources from last weekend's agility fundraiser and an additional $35.00 check I just received.

So it's not so much that I kept promise #1--all of you out there banded together and delivered it to me, a package full of caring generosity tied with a ribbon of compassion and handed down the line from one person to the next like water on a bucket brigade, until it was full to overflowing and placed gently in my arms. Along the way, you told me about your colleagues, your parents, your grandmas, your sisters and brothers, your husbands and wives who battled blood cancer and won, or fought bravely and lost, and now I carry all their names and stories entwined with my own. All of them, and all of you, run with me now.

The final promise is mine and mine alone. I must keep the promise that made me embark on this journey in the first place--a promise to my mother, to all of you, and to everyone you honor and remember: to gift the absolute best that my body, mind, and spirit can deliver over 13.1 miles of pavement in salute on a misty May morning. Make no mistake, that is precisely what it is: a salute, and one I am proud to give. I must do justice to your kindness, your generosity, and your faith in me and my cause by making sure I toe the starting line just 78 days from now. I must train as intelligently and diligently as possible, for as John Bingham so helpfully points out, you cannot make it to the finish line unless you first make it to the starting line. True enough.

To get to the starting line, I have to take the best possible care of myself, for there are at least 80 of you who now own a piece of me. Some good examples of what that means:

• No more working until midnight.
  
• No more weekend agility after March 7.
  
• No staying up late playing around on Facebook or the Internet.
• Eating as much fuel as possible and as little junk as possible.
• Listening carefully to my body and being prepared to cut back or skip a workout if I am excessively fatigued or achy, or if I am sick or injured.
• Putting my full attention and concentration into every workout. No half-assed phoning it in.
• Eating and drinking for optimal fueling before, during, and after each workout. (I so broke that promise yesterday! Sorry.)
• Managing my time properly so I never have to skip a workout because I can't fit it into my schedule.
• Doing all stretches prescribed by my osteopath each and every day and icing any problem spots as necessary.
• Getting professional help pronto if I have a problem that does not resolve quickly.

You came through for me. Now it is my turn to come through for you.

Ten rules to live by, 78 days to go...and one promise to keep.

Running on empty

I made a really, really big mistake today. See if you can figure out where the mistake is as I describe my morning.

I had a nice healthy bowl of steel cut oats with blueberries, pecans, cinnamon and sugar for breakfast, drank my water and took my vitamins, and walked the dogs for an hour and ten minutes. Upon returning, I showered and changed and gathered up my workout clothes. I even checked to make sure I had my lap counter and my heart rate monitor and a borrowed picture frame I needed to return to Betsy in my gym bag. She came to pick me up just before ten, and off we went to the gym together. I did NOT forget my running shoes like I did the day of the six-miler last week, yay! I changed into my workout garb, clipped my pedometer to my waist, hooked up my heart rate monitor, and grabbed my water bottle to go upstairs to the track. The schedule called for four miles today, which is my new "base" distance (Four is the new three! Whoo!). It's a lot less intimidating after having run six last Friday. On this track, 4 miles is 25.6 laps. I just round it up to 26.

I was a little sore from the Pilates class last night (I had a bad spot off to the side and I couldn't see very well, and I was tired from working until midnight Tuesday night), so I walked my warmup laps very mindfully, doing a preflight check to make sure all my parts were in good enough order to run. I even noted that there was an open elliptical machine if needed.

And then I hit the start button on my watch and launched slowly into my first mile. I was literally pushing the button on the lap counter to mark lap 1 when it happened. The mistake made itself known...

My stomach growled.

Oh, [censored unprintable], I forgot to eat a snack after my shower!! Steel cut oats are a great breakfast, but I ate them at 7:30. Walking the dogs probably burned most of the calories I got from them. And here it was three hours later, and I was JUST starting my run, and my stomach said very clearly, "Look, bub, this is your first flash of that 'low fuel' light on your dash here. Stop now and no one will get hurt."

I was torn as to what to do about it. The gym has a snack bar, so I could have just stopped and gotten a smoothie, waited 20 minutes or so for it to digest a little, and started over. But I came up in Betsy's car, so she'd have to wait that much longer for me to be done. I didn't want to keep her there all day because of my oversight.

So I decided to run the first two miles. Then I could walk a lap, drink some water, and see how I felt. Then I could do the last two, or--wait! I remembered that I had a bag of peanut M&Ms in my gym bag. If I couldn't hang on, I could always go back to the locker room and devour a handful or two of M&Ms. One of my running buddies had said something about them having the right ratio of carbs to protein for glycogen replenishment or something like that. Plus they're crazy tasty.

I felt a little better just knowing that little yellow bag was there for me if I really needed it and returned to my running, making sure to keep a nice easy pace. Whoever was in charge of the music was on an 80s binge, playing "Manic Monday," "Shake It Up," "Talking in Your Sleep," "Everybody Wants to Rule the World," and "Footloose." They even threw on some Michael Jackson. Good times, good times. Of course, most of the students working there weren't even born when those songs came out. I'm dating myself again.

I hit mile 2 at just over 21 minutes (What the heck?!? I was barely moving!!) and slowed to walk and drink. The water did help a little, but then I could feel it sloshing around in my stomach since there was nothing else to keep it company. I decided to try and get through mile 3, and then stop and walk another lap if I had to.

So much of running is bargaining with yourself, especially when conditions are less than ideal: you're crazed with hunger, or tired, or running into a 20-mph headwind. Holding it all together when you're starting to come unglued is exactly what people mean when they talk about mental toughness.

I play all sorts of games to keep my mind off food during mile 3: I count each time my right foot hits the ground for a whole lap. I mentally sing along with the 80's music. ("Billie Jean is...NOT my lover...ooh! She's just a girl...") I chant the words on the Team in Training bracelet flopping around on my left wrist, a purple rubber doohickey the LLS office gave me in early January that I have worn ever since: "Train. Endure. Achieve. Matter." (See? It spells TEAM. Isn't that cute? Also corny, but it helps when things get tough.) "Train. Endure. Achieve. Matter." Again and again in rhythm with my footfalls: "Train. Endure. Achieve. Matter."

At the top of every lap, I run past a clock. I watch the time pass and try to figure out what lap I might be on, but I don't want to open my right hand and look at the lap counter because the number might be really low, and then I will be crushed. So it becomes another game: "I bet I'm not at 20 yet. I'll keep going. Don't want to look yet." And another lap. "No, not yet." The next time around, I think, "Okay, I'll look the next time I pass by. 20 would be good, and 21 would be even better." And then when I open my hand, a smug grin at the "21" on the display. Yay!

Only five more laps to go, and this I can handle like a countdown. Train. Endure. Achieve. Matter. Keep going. Never mind that you're afraid to look down at your stomach for fear you'll see a giant black hole there. Is this what Ripley felt like in "Alien"? It feels like there's no there there.

Click. Four laps to go.

I imagine Kim saying "Pull your navel back toward your spine!" and think how easy that is now since there is NOTHING BETWEEN MY NAVEL AND MY SPINE BUT A GIANT BLACK HOLE OH FOR THE LOVE OF PETE I AM STARVING!

Click. Two down, three to go.

There is a horde of students standing in the entrance area. Looks like a class group. Uh-oh, soon the track will be overrun and I will have to weave in and out of heavy traffic to finish and why did they have to come now?? Couldn't they have just waited another five minutes? Can't they see there is a very glucose-deprived runner trying to finish off her four miles here?!?

Click. Just two more laps and those M&Ms will be mine!!

I am speeding up even though I know I shouldn't because I just want this to be OVER already and I can practically taste the colorful candy coatings going crunch, crunch and the chocolate melting and the peanuts meeting their maker against my molars and THERE ARE THREE STUDENTS RUNNING ABREAST ACROSS MY LANE AND BOTH OF THE ADJACENT LANES and they are loping along in slow motion and yakking with each other and there is nowhere for me to go and I might be forced to kill them. "ON YOUR LEFT!" I bark in a manner designed to make them jump, and they do, and I swing to the very outside of Lane 4 and sweep right on by their candy asses. (Boy, am I cranky. Don't mess with me two laps before the end of a four-miler on an empty stomach.)

Click. Last lap, last lap! Victory and M&Ms are within reach! Just get around this track one more time and you are done! I can feel that I am red in the face at this point, but I don't care about anything any more except finishing, so I push myself around and cross the line already lunging for my water bottle. Despite my hunger-addled state, I still did 4.06 miles (that's the extra .4 lap in there) in a very respectable 43:15 for a 10:39 pace per mile. It seems sub-11-minute miles are the new normal.

Good time, but God, what an ugly run. Now I know what running on empty feels like. Those last two miles were really not fun. Isn't it ironic that this happens to me the very day after I write this long convoluted post about fueling? I suppose this was a good reminder of the utterly basic, very simple Rule #1 of fueling: EAT SOMETHING BEFORE YOU RUN, STUPID.

That whooshing sound you hear is my head spinning

I mentioned the other day that my runs are getting long enough that I need to start investigating sports gels and drinks for on-the-go refueling. I've never even tasted a sports gel, so my knowledge in this area is non-existent. I innocently asked for help on such matters on the Team in Training list I'm on, and wow, there is so much to think about!

On a short run, you sip a little water, maybe, and that's it. But on a long run, you have all of the following to worry about:
1) Hydration - yes, sipping some water (but not too much!) will take care of this, but there's also
2) Glucose/carb replenishment - after an extended period of time (I've seen everything from 45 minutes to 90 minutes mentioned), your body runs out of readily-accessible carbs to fuel your run with, so you have to swallow some fast-acting, easily-digestible carbs to keep your engine running smoothly.
3) Electrolyte/sodium replenishment - sweating will deplete you of key minerals and substances and make you more vulnerable to muscle cramping, so to combat this, you need to throw some electrolytes into the mix. Furthermore, if you drink too much water and lose too much salt during the course of the race, you can experience a life-threatening condition called hyponatremia when sodium levels in the blood get too low.

So you have three components to balance, and to make it more interesting, if you wash your energy gel down with some sports drink, the combined amount of glucose will most likely give you the trots. Just what you need in the middle of a race! And many sports drinks and gels don't have enough sodium to replenish what you've lost, either, so now you also have to remember to take a mini-packet of salt or two, like the ones you see at fast-food joints, and eat that at some point. On the other hand, some products do have added electrolytes, such as Clif Shot Bloks.

Then you have to decide what brand or brands of products you want to use. The Cleveland marathon is using Powerade as the official drink and Hammer as the official gel. Of course, there is only ONE gel station along the half-marathon route, and it is just past mile 8. I don't think I'm going to make it that far without outside assistance, so I might as well just bring my own carb products and ignore the gel station at the race. Some people can't or won't use gels because of the texture or what they do to the person's GI tract. They've been compared to cake frosting. I don't like cake frosting.

I think I need my own personal fueler to run with me, because I have no idea how I am going to juggle all of this stuff.

Waving goodbye to another distance...

Today was my last three-mile run for quite a while. I won't have another one until May 9, Mother's Day, one week before the race.

I went on the treadmill, something else I won't be able to do much more of. The gym limits you to 30 minutes on the gerbil wheel when they're busy, which they often are. Too bad I didn't get to know the gerbil wheel better--it has all sorts of little programs on it, and I decided to spice things up by trying one today. I picked "Random," told the machine how much I weighed, dialed in a time (35 minutes), and then it requested an effort level. I randomly picked "7" without knowing what that meant, and the gerbil wheel started up. The top third of the display showed the elevation it would use for each increment (it put 20 increments in 35 minutes!), and the middle third had a bar graph with the speeds it would use for each one. All I could tell was that the top one looked to be over 7 MPH, which seemed way too fast, but I figured I could probably slow the speed manually if I needed to. The bottom third had a heart rate graph.

The workout really kept me on my toes! The display blinked with the new speed and elevation numbers it was switching to for 2-3 seconds, and then boom, it adjusted. Most of the increments were not hard for me to keep up with, but about 12 minutes in, there was an increment at 7.4 MPH (that's an 8:06 mile pace!!), and I punched it down to 7.1 and ran for dear life. I was grateful for the nice pokey 4.6 and 4.2 increments after that. The peak increment was around #12, and it was programmed for 8.1 mph! I didn't even let it switch on before I was mashing on the "lower speed" button. I got one more dose of high-speed adventure at increment 18, which was another 7.4 mph increment. This time I managed to run it without lowering the speed! It only lasted 60-90 seconds, but I felt very accomplished that I was able to get all the way through it.

The workout ended at 35 minutes and dropped me just short of 3 miles (2.96!), but I figure the 0.04 miles weren't that big a deal. I mean, hey, I ran an 8:06 pace without falling off the gerbil wheel, whoo-hoo!

Tomorrow: more adventures with Kim, the Real Live Pilates Instructor!

Looking back, looking ahead W13/W12

Welcome to the Amazing Fundraiser Edition of (the amazingly late) Looking Back, Looking Ahead!

The wonderful Virgil and Rebecca of PawPrintsLife had such good sales this weekend that they donated $75.00, bringing the total money raised this weekend up to $1,688.19! Thank you to everyone who bought some of their outstanding action photographs (I got some terrific shots myself!). This brings my total fundraising for the season up to an amazing $3,503.69! That's over $3500 to help find the next new drug or help the next patient who can't afford his medication co-pays, all thanks to the wonderful people who have been steadily donating since December! Thank you so very much!

What was I was supposed to do in Week 13? Did I do it?

• Sunday: 3 miles OR cross-train (Pilates) OR REST, depending on how I feel YES, I actually ran 3.27 miles after coming home from the dog show!
  
• Monday: CROSS-TRAIN OR run 3 miles OR REST YES! I did Pilates
  
• Tuesday: 3 miles YES, but I "ran" the three miles on the elliptical, so that's more like cross-training
  
• Wednesday: CROSS-TRAIN YES! Pilates class with Kim
  
• Thursday: 4 miles YES! Ran outside
  
• Friday: 6 miles YES!! *fist pump*
• Saturday: REST (YES, but again, not very restful!)
  

Is it cheating to give myself all those options and then fill it in in green? I still covered 16.27 miles last week, so that ain't bad. And the six-mile run went well, but I am going to have to start looking at gel options and sports drinks, 'cause I think I was just about at my limit of what water could do for me.

Here's the schedule for Week 12. No show this weekend, thank goodness! That makes things a little simpler!

• Sunday: 3 miles NOPE (too busy with fundraiser, too little sleep, felt like I'd been beaten with a tire iron)
• Monday: REST YES! (LOL!)
• Tuesday: 3 miles
• Wednesday: CROSS-TRAIN
  
• Thursday: 4 miles
  
• Friday: CROSS-TRAIN
  
• Saturday: 6 miles (or I could do 4, and do 6 on Sunday at the Group Run)

Okay, time to hit the hay and get some rest! Thanks again to everyone who made this weekend so amazing!

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

This is the money that I raised from my fundraiser. A lot of the bills are ones, but that's quite an impressive stack, isn't it?

Today was another day and another chance to be flabbergasted by the kindness and generosity of everyone at the dog show. Not once, but TWICE, people wrote checks to LLS to pay for small items, handed them to me, and walked away. In each instance, the amount on the check was orders of magnitude more than what they were ostensibly paying for. I offered both of them fistfuls of raffle tickets, but neither one of them took me up on it. To the fabulous parties in question, I salute you and your classy MAGNIFICENT low-key generosity. Thank you!

We drew for the 50/50 raffle first. The lucky winner got $80 in cash!

Next, we drew for the eight raffle prizes. I actually got to pull the winning tickets, which I thoroughly enjoyed. The winners all seemed delighted with their prizes and I got many compliments on the cool stuff. The purple double jump attracted the most attention, and strangely enough, Jean, the woman from Three Jacks Bakery whose table I shared all weekend, won the jump!

Today's fun run also lived up to its name. We had about 40 dogs running again. We had one dog who took one tunnel and then decided that attacking his owner's feet was much more fun than running through tunnels. There was another dog who actually backed up through a tunnel with his head still facing his handler that had us howling with laughter. We also had someone who had never competed before turn in a beautiful run to make the finals! My friend Steve's dog Shelby turned in excellent runs in both the first round and the finals to win the whole shebang with a smokin' time of 25.70!

And then I staggered home to count up all the money. I am thrilled beyond words to say that our two-day total from all sources EXCEPT the photographer's and the dog treat vendor's contributions is...


(Isn't this exciting?)




(Are you holding your breath?)




(Are you starting to get annoyed with me? Okay, I'll tell you...)






ONE THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED THIRTEEN DOLLARS AND NINETEEN CENTS!!!! ($1,613.19)



I am swaying on my feet so I desperately need to go to bed, but I just feel so much awe and gratitude and wonder and euphoria that I might actually burst of happiness if I weren't so exhausted. Thank you so much to every single one of you who bought raffle tickets, signed up for the fun run, helped sell 50/50 raffle tickets (Niki!), made and/or donated raffle prizes (Steve, Betsy, Tynya, Kathy), agreed to donate a portion of your proceeds (PawPrintsLife, Three Jacks Dog Bakery), and told other people about the event (Jan, Megan, and several others). My heartfelt thanks also go out to our wonderful Fun Run judge Jan Niblock and Swarm president Shane McConnell for letting me do this thing in the first place.

I apologize if I'm forgetting anyone. I can barely type at this point. You are all fantastic human beings, and I am so grateful for your enthusiastic support.

I'll try to be a bit more coherent tomorrow.

Fundraiser update with pictures!

Day 1 of the fundraiser went incredibly, nay, jaw-droppingly well. Seriously, it went crying-happy-tears-and-aglow-at-the-goodness-of-everyone-I-am-fortunate-enough-to-know well. I just finished tallying the numbers. I re-did them three times because I was sure I had made a mistake.

But before the big reveal...pictures! I went to the club last night to set everything up and actually remembered my camera!

The scene of the fundraiser: an otherwise non-descript former commercial/industrial building. Now: a place where dogs and their adoring humans zoom around agility courses at supersonic speeds! (Well, okay, sometimes not so supersonic, but that's the ideal.)

I had two tables. This is a smaller table near the entrance door. The banner I picked up from the LLS office looks great against the purple tablecloth and black velvet curtain panel!

On the left side of this smaller table are the box to put in 50/50 raffle tickets, a coffee can with the TNT and LLS logos printed on them for random cash donations, and a business card holder with my TNT cards in them. They tell when I'm racing, why I'm racing, and where to go on-line to make a donation.

On the right side of the table are the olive green (leukemia), blue (myeloma), and gold (lymphoma) ribbons I made a few weeks back, each pinned into a black velvety curtain panel. There's a picture of me and my mom in TNT shirts in the middle. At the beginning of the show this morning, I announced all of the LLS fundraising stuff that was going on and asked people to please take and wear a ribbon to honor or remember friends and family who were in treatment or who had succumbed to blood cancers. I saw a lot of ribbons being worn today and heard a lot of stories that had me blinking back tears.

Above the table, I hung information about the raffle tickets, and all the nifty stuff people could win just for helping out a good cause.

This is the raffle table. There are eight certificates on the table describing the items. (The big purple thing is an agility obstacle called a double jump.) The bits of red you see in front are the tickets that people have put in for each specific item.

PawPrintsLife was there doing their amazing action photography (you can see a shot of a Sheltie coming over a jump on the monitor), and they graciously agreed to donate a portion of this weekend's proceeds to LLS! Thank you so much, Virgil and Rebecca!

This is Jean and her Jack Russell Terrier Maddie of Three Jacks Dog Bakery. They sell fantastically yummy organic dog treats, and she too agreed to donate part of the proceeds from every bag of treats sold this weekend to LLS! Thank you, Jean! She also let me sit at her table to sell my raffle tickets and even sold some for me while I wasn't there. (The massive red roll of tickets = the "cool stuff" raffle tickets.)

So, back to the happy-tears-inducing stuff. I had a lot of people sign up today to do the tunnel run. We had 41 dogs participating, and only 28 of them signed up in advance, meaning we got 13 day-of-show signups! The fun run absolutely lived up to its name. I was the timer, so I got to see each and every run. What a treat! One team included a not-quite-three-year-old boy helping the handler direct the dog around the course. It was just adorable!! The fastest dogs all completed the 12-tunnel course in less than 37 seconds. The final round for the top 5 dogs had me holding my breath--very exciting! A wonderful red-and-white border collie named Kakoe won with a time of 28 seconds and change. His handler got a $25 gift certificate to Clean Run for his efforts.

I also sold a staggering number of raffle tickets. My price list showed how many tickets you could get for $5, $10, etc., up to 20 tickets for $25. Imagine my surprise when a woman came up to me and said, "How many tickets could I get for $50?" (Answer: 50.) She bought them, too. I sure hope she wins something!

Drum roll, please: the total amount I have made so far from fun run entries (all advance entries and all day-of-show entries, which also includes many new entries for tomorrow), raffle tickets (both the "cool stuff" and the 50/50 raffles), and the coffee can donations (but NOT including any amounts from the agility photographers or Three Jacks Dog Bakery) is...








$1,067.00!!!!!

I just can't describe my amazement and gratitude at raising over $1,000 for blood cancer research in essentially one day!! So many people gave so generously and went out of their way to help me however they possibly could. I'm endlessly thankful to everyone who made this happen and humbled by the power of many people each throwing their weight behind me and saying, "You go, girl. We've got your back."

"Thank you" seems like such a small and inadequate response. I'm having trouble coming up with something that sufficiently conveys what I'm feeling. Maybe "OMG THANK YOU ALL AND YOUR BEAUTIFUL SOULS FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART EEEEEEEEEE!!!! YOU STEAMROLL ME WITH YOUR GOODNESS AND I ADORE YOU" is somewhere in the neighborhood. Sort of. Marginally. Still a bit tepid. I'm just a blubbering mess now and need to go find some more Kleenex.

And maybe get some sleep. Day 2 is tomorrow!

Six miles and fundraising excitement!

I am so tired I can barely keep my eyes open. This is going to be a short one, folks.

The weather was wonderful today--sunny and above 32 degrees, but it was still a bit too breezy for my liking. So off I went to the gym to run my six miles, only to discover I'd forgotten my running shoes! (I ran outside yesterday and forgot to put them in my gym bag afterward. Oops!) I had to go home and get them and come back again.

Six miles is 38.4 laps around the track, but I just rounded up and ran 39 laps, with a walk/drink lap at lap 13 and lap 26. After I pushed off again from the second walk lap, I felt sorta creaky and stiff. Everything loosened up eventually, but I was a bit alarmed. I ran 6.09 miles (the .09 is from the extra 6/10 of a lap!) in 66:23 for a 10:54 pace! It blows me away that I ran 6 sub-11-minute miles in a row. My heart rate was at about 175 when I finished, which is definitely too high, but now I don't have to run for three days! I already did the runs scheduled for the weekend and Monday is a rest day--I think I have that right.

After lunch, Betsy and I did something very odd in preparation for this weekend's fundraiser: we washed an agility tunnel. These suckers are quite heavy, about 20' long and about 24" around, and people sometimes take them to a car wash to wash them. We washed ours in Betsy's garage and also got the garage floor nice and clean in the process.

Then it was time to hurry home, do a little actual work (oh yeah, that thing that pays for the running shoes and gear), walk the dogs, and tie up a bunch of little fundraiser-related details.

Tonight I went to the building where the fundraiser will be to set everything up. I have two beautiful tables: a raffle table and a ribbon/donation table. I took lots of pictures, but I am just too darn tired to upload them right now.

Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to provide a more detailed report.

A dog's breakfast of a post wherein I just throw it all out there.

Wednesday morning, it dawned on me that I still had approximately 12,000 details to take care of before my big fundraiser this weekend. I basically called off work and went to get a little mermaid help before embarking on some serious List-Making Action. So! MANY! THINGS! The list got very long, and I went home determined to cross some stuff off.

I set up an Excel spreadsheet for everyone entered with their e-mail addresses, what days they were entered, dog's names, how much money I had received from them, etc. I have 27 dogs entered on Saturday and 28 on Sunday and have received a little over $400 in entry fees. A few more people might enter on the day of the run.

After that was done, I turned my attention to the raffle scene. I am having TWO different raffles: one is a 50/50 raffle, and the other is a traditional "Ooh, neat shiny gift certificates and stuff!" raffle. I needed two different colors of tickets and found this handy raffle kit at OfficeMax. (Seriously, a raffle kit? Who knew such a thing existed?)

It has two ticket rolls inside and a little box with a slot in the top where you can put the tickets in!

And there's even a little cardboard thingie you stick in the top to show people what the heck the slot is for! The finished (partial) product:

The day got away from me, and soon it was time to finally meet the mysterious Kim and take a Pilates class from her Wednesday night. Much to everyone's delight, class was not canceled! I asked if I could take her picture for the blog, and she let me, though she thought it was kind of weird. But luckily for her, it didn't turn out very well, so I'm not going to post it.

Kim was great and I liked the class a lot. I was expecting slower movements, with more emphasis on control and good position, but the hour flew by because I was simply so busy doing stuff. If I hadn't done the Pilates video a few times prior to this class, I would have had a much harder time keeping up with the moves.

At the end of the class, she said to the whole room (though I felt it was very much meant for me, the newbie), "Make sure you drink plenty of water tonight. It'll cut down on the soreness tomorrow."

After class, I went over to Steve and Betsy's to do (what else?) more fundraising prep. We printed out TNT and LLS logos to put on a coffee can (oops, no picture, sorry) and cut a slit in the lid. The coffee can will be for random cash that people might feel like throwing in there. I'm going to encourage people to make bets with each other. :-) Then we (well, 99% Steve and 1% me) built a double jump, which I also don't have a picture of yet because I stupidly forgot to bring my camera. You'll see it later, though, never fear. It's PURPLE. It is truly awesome.

And then it was 11 PM and I realized there was going to be no blog entry. I fell into bed at midnight.

This morning, I decided to run my four miles outside, as I told you earlier. Boy, was THAT a mistake. You know those old Daffy Duck or Bugs Bunny cartoons where the hero's getting chased by something, passes a huge fan, and whips it around to blow on their pursuer, and the pursuer is literally blown away? Yeah, it was kind of like that. From mile 2.5 to about mile 3.5, I swear I had a 15-20 mph wind whacking me right in the face. What really ticked me off was when it changed direction after I turned a corner so it could harass me some more. And I was running too fast, but it was COLD and I wanted to get warm, and my heart rate went too high, and it felt pretty lousy (no surprise given my lack of sleep) -- just one of those bad runs you try and get through while wondering if you'd be better off cutting it short. Despite all that, I ran 4 miles in 43:45 for a 10:56 pace.

This afternoon, I went out to get the last of the supplies I'll need for my fundraiser. The outing included a trip to the LLS office to pick up banners for the front of my raffle tables. I bought plastic purple tablecloths to go with them.

Tonight was more frantic work on details for this weekend. Stress makes for an exceptionally messy desk (I was working on the yellow sheets here):
I also made little certificates for the "cool stuff" raffle prizes that I can just tape to the raffle table. They're in page protectors so they don't get messed up.

The box at the left corner of the picture is the "Throw everything in that you want to be sure and take with you" box. It's getting pretty full.

Tomorrow I am scheduled to run SIX MILES! After today's wind debacle, there's no way I'm doing it outside. Six miles on the track is, um, 38.4 laps. I'd better make sure I have my lap counter with me!

More soon!

Sorry I didn't post yesterday--I was out working on raffle stuff for my big fundraiser this weekend until after 11 last night!

There's this weird bright light in the sky, and a few little patches have turned from their usual gray to this odd blue color! I am going to go run my 4 miles outside, whoo-hoo!

Walking through deep snow can be hazardous to your health

It is STILL snowing here. Can't someone please make it stop?!

The dogs and I trudged out this morning, me in my snow pants and boots and hat and hood and layers and yada yada yada, and did a good hour around town. We can pick our way through most areas or walk in the street where there aren't many cars, but there are still occasional stretches where we are forced into the deep snow. It is really bad now because underneath all the new snow is really, really bumpy old snow that has been stepped in and frozen and melted and frozen again. The fresh fluffy powder on top is like the layer of leaves over a bear trap. Your foot goes down and it's anybody's guess as to what's going to happen. Sometimes your ankles end up doing bizarre and unusual things.

Suffice it to say that my right hamstring was not happy with me after my leg slid around more than I intended while in one of these patches. I was also surprisingly sore from yesterday's pretzeling at the osteopath. And I had a big project I needed to finish for work today, so that and the snow and the hamstring all combined to make me put off my workout (which we all know by now is NEVER a good idea, and yet I still can't always follow my own advice).

I finally went to the gym around 6:30 and felt a little fragile just walking my warmup laps around the track. An elliptical machine opened up and I made a snap decision and jumped on it. A lower-impact workout seemed like a good idea, but I got my heart rate up and definitely felt the effort. What's really cool is that the elliptical will measure distance, so you can "run" 3 miles on the elliptical. What's even cooler is that you can crank out a pace per mile that you could never match if you actually had to run it!! In 30 minutes, I covered 3.16 miles for a 9:30 pace per mile. I didn't run that fast in the 5K race I ran in October! I knew it was basically BS, but I was still tickled by it.

Tomorrow is another chance to hopefully finally meet this Kim person and take a live Pilates class. At this point, who knows if we'll get snowed out again?

More fun with osteopathy, part 3

Since I ran yesterday, I contented myself with Pilates and stretching this morning before going to the osteopath. I mentioned my knee issues from last week and she adjusted and poked and straightened and gave me four more new exercises to do. At this rate, stretching is going to be my new part-time job! The new exercises are an IT band one, two glute exercises, and something for the hip adductors. However, she said it was nice to move away from the original sciatica-type issues I first saw her about and switch to more of an athletic/performance focus. The original problem is not totally gone, but it is greatly improved.

Additional pluses included my resting heart rate of 60 (!) and telling the resident working with the doctor about my running and seeing how impressed she was. There was an athlete's swagger in my voice as I talked to her that I've never heard before.

That's a first...

While driving home from the dog show around lunchtime, I felt how tense and strained I was and thought, "Boy, I could really use a run right now."

(I should note that the dog show was not the source of 95% of the stress--it was the drive down there that completely wigged me out! I spun out on the ice while trying to brake on a hill. No one was hurt and my car did not bump anything or anyone, but it was very scary! I was still shaking ten minutes later when I pulled into the show site.)

I certainly never would have had that thought a year ago: Reduce stress and fatigue by going for a run. But I did today, and lo and behold, it was a balmy 27 degrees outside (albeit with a wind chill of 17), so not only did I go for a run, I ran outside. I was richly rewarded for my efforts: as I came around a corner near mile 3, the setting sun filled the sky with a gauzy orange glow before fading to the subdued pinks and purples of dusk in winter.

And even though I was really trying for an "easy" pace, I still covered 3.27 miles in 35:07 for a 10:44 pace per mile. I must actually be getting faster.

Looking back, looking ahead W14/W13

Today is the end of Week 14, and tomorrow, Valentine's Day, is exactly 13 weeks until race day. (AAAAGGHH!)

What was I was supposed to do in Week 14? Did I do it?

• Sunday: 3 miles (I did 4.5, yay!)
• Monday: CROSS-TRAIN YES!
• Tuesday: 3 miles YES!
• Wednesday: CROSS-TRAIN for 30 minutes NOPE (class was snowed out and I was too stinkin' lazy to do the Pilates DVD)
  
• Thursday: 4 miles YES!
  
• Friday: 5 miles YES!! *fist pump*
  
• Saturday: REST (YES, but it was not very restful. I am dead on my feet after 12 hours at the dog show)
  

I am still so excited that I managed to go 5 miles, and do 16.5 total miles this week, the most so far!

Unfortunately, next weekend is also going to be completely messed up because that is my fundraiser weekend. I have to be at the dog show both days, and I would be willing to bet money right now that I will be too tired to run after everything I will have to do for the fundraiser. Here's another modified schedule that should work:

• Sunday: 3 miles OR cross-train (Pilates) OR REST, depending on how I feel (I am at the dog show in the morning, but hope to be home around lunchtime)
  
• Monday: CROSS-TRAIN OR run 3 miles OR REST (depending on what I actually do on Sunday)
  
• Tuesday: 3 miles
  
• Wednesday: CROSS-TRAIN
  
• Thursday: 4 miles
  
• Friday: 6 miles (yikes!)
  
• Saturday: REST (I am at the dog show all day, so I won't be able to run anyway)

I am also thrilled that my knee is behaving and I don't want to ruin that, so tomorrow and/or Monday may not be as activity-filled as I would like.

As you know, my fundraising has been something to cry happy tears over this week. First, on Monday, another one of my neighbors, Heidi, made a donation, finally budging the meter after 2 weeks at a standstill. (Thank you, Heidi!) And then yesterday Anonymous blew the lid off with his/her fantabulous contribution. I'm still just completely blown away by Anonymous' incredible generosity. THANK YOU, ANONYMOUS! You rock.

I also got four more entries for my agility fun run this week, bringing the total up to about 18 dogs on both Saturday and Sunday. I was hoping for 30 dogs, so I'm still a bit short there, but 18 is a good start.

This has certainly been a memorable week for me. Here's hoping next week is just as full of wonderful moments!

OMG NEWS FLASH!!

I just got an incredibly--no, make that unbelievably--generous donation from an anonymous benefactor to put me over the top on my fundraising!! I have now met my fundraising minimum of $1,700 with room to spare.

I think I can make it to $2,000. Doesn't that sound like a nice round number? I'm going to bump my goal up to reflect this, but this wonderful donor is the one who has taken the millstone from around my neck, who is making it possible for me to focus more on my training and less on hitting up everyone in the known universe for money. I can't tell you how much that means to me. Sheesh, I'm tearing up just thinking about it.

Anonymous, I swear to you I was not given your name, but when I read your message, I heard it in your voice and knew it was you. I'll try not to blow your cover, but I can't guarantee I won't cry all over you the next time I see you. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

God, what an unbelievable day. I am so freakin' lucky.

*runs off to get a Kleenex*

FIVE MILES!

I did it!! For the first time in my entire life, I ran five miles today. Five miles is a long way--32 laps around the indoor track at the gym, to be exact. I was really, really happy I got that lap counter a few months ago, because there was no way I was going to be able to count 32 laps in my head without mucking it up. ("Umm, lessee, was that lap 24 or lap 42?")

I've been anxious about this run for a while. I had done a few runs in the 4-mile range before signing up for Team in Training, but never a five-miler, and considering how many workouts I've skipped lately and my recent right-knee creakiness, I wasn't sure how five miles would feel. My left knee was a little creaky while walking the dogs this morning, but I thought, "Well, time to put up or shut up," and called Betsy, my sometime workout partner, to come get me before I talked myself out of running. And ate a whole bagel with blackberry jam to make sure there were plenty of carbs in my system.

I wore my Team in Training tech shirt to remind myself why I'm doing this, and whom should I see when I get to the track? My lovely neighbors, Walt and Nancy, the nice people who mailed me a donation all the way from Florida! They were walking while I was running, and that gave me a welcome boost. I certainly didn't want to look like some lazy excuse-making slouch in front of them!

Since this was my first attempt at the distance and I wanted to keep my knee from acting up, I decided to walk a lap after running ten laps, or not quite 2 miles. I drank some water during my walk lap and launched into my second ten laps. After the second walk lap (lap 22), everything seemed okay, so I went ahead and pushed through to the end, though I was definitely starting to fade on those last five laps. I wasn't wearing my heart rate monitor, which is just as well--I suspect I would have been mortified at the reading there at the end. I still finished with a big grin.

And then I looked at my watch.
Oh. My. GAWD! EEEEEEEEEEEEEE!! I mean, on the one hand, BAD BAD BAD BAD AMANDA, because your long run is supposed to be a SLOW run, but holy frijoles, I never thought I could run that fast over that long a distance! WOW! That's a 10:29 pace per mile. Just to remind you, the fastest pace I ran yesterday was 12:00 per mile.

I couldn't wait to show Betsy my watch ("Look! Look! I KICKED this run's ASS!"), and we went and had some nice Greek food to celebrate. I got a hummus wrap and naughtily splurged on fries and a Coke WHICH I TOTALLY EARNED THANK YOU VERY MUCH! Seriously, I cannot even remember the last time I had French fries.

I will continue to float up here on this ALL-CAPS CLOUD OF HAPPINESS until...umm...next Friday. When I have to do six miles. Which I have also never done before. *gulp*

How NOT to attend your buddy's fundraiser

My Team in Training teammate Renee (with whom I had the pleasure of sharing a two-miler back in December) was holding a fundraiser last night only 15 minutes from my house. How could I not go, right? I was all set to go support her and booze it up for a good cause. However, despite my best efforts, I never actually made it there. Read on--I'm going to show you how NOT to attend your teammate's fundraiser in 5 easy steps!

1. Put the wrong time for the fundraiser on your calendar. It started at 6:00. How I managed to put 6:30 on my wall calendar may always remain a mystery. (I suspect simple boneheadedness on the part of yours truly.)

2. Experience hair-raising technical problems with a large file you are desperately trying to send out over the Interwebs. Make sure this delays you so that it is already 6:30 as you hurry to your car and get in.

3. Perhaps because you're running late and in a hurry, back the car crooked down your driveway--so crooked that you slide right off the driveway and strand yourself on the slope between your yard and your neighbor's. (The driveway is completely to the right of the car in the picture above.) Spend half an hour cursing your idiocy at the top of your lungs with language that would fry an egg while frantically shoveling the car free.

4. Finally, get on the road that will take you most of the way to the fundraiser. Thirty seconds later, come to a complete halt and admire the brake lights stretching out ahead of you, punctuated by the flashing blue lights of multiple police cars. Spend fifteen minutes crawling toward and through an intersection dotted with wrecked cars.

5. As the time approaches 7:30, pull into the picturesque one-lane drive that extends back into the forest and to the parking lot of the hall where the fundraiser is being held. Wonder why the cars ahead of you are just stopped. C'mon, charitable boozing awaits! Watch glum-faced man approach your driver's side door and roll down window. Listen to man tell you that there is not a shred of parking left anywhere and the lot is full to overflowing. Apparently there is not even room enough to turn around. Which means--yup, you guessed it, you now get to BACK UP several hundred feet up a VERY NARROW SNOWY ROAD WITH HUGE DROP-OFFS ON BOTH SIDES!! Yay! Roll up window, shift into reverse, fry some more eggs with your tongue, and begin the torturous white-knuckle process of extricating yourself from this mess. Boy, if you didn't need a drink before, you certainly do now!!

Upon reaching home, swear you will never leave the house again. Attempt to salvage evening with beer, pretzels, and Johnny Depp.

I win I win I win I win I win!

Though I was slower than molasses and took 2-minute walk breaks every ten minutes, I managed to cover 4 miles today on the gerbil wheel without my knee acting up. It thought about making a fuss around the 40-minute mark, but I was able to finish feeling okay in a truly ridiculous 52:32.

Now to see whether I can cover 5 miles tomorrow.

Much more to follow, including 5 easy ways to screw up going to someone's fundraiser...

That sucking sound you hear is me...

I braved the miserable road conditions to drive to my Pilates class this afternoon only to find out it was cancelled! So of course I whistled all the way back home and popped in my Pilates DVD, right?

Um, no, not so much. And now it's almost time to go to bed and I'm dead tired and not even remotely in the mood to hang with Michelle and do quirkily named exercises like The Saw and The Corkscrew. (Seriously, who comes up with these goofy names?) I'll just have to mark this as an unplanned rest day. Another red NOPE on my schedule. Sigh.

My knee seems fine, but I haven't been running on it, of course. I'm scheduled to do four miles tomorrow. I think I'm going to try a run/walk pattern on the indoor track--walk every 6th lap or so to ease the burden a little. Marathoning for Mortals says I should take three days off, but geez Louise, if I do that I can write the whole darn week off right now. I figure I can always cut the run short if it starts bothering me. Two or three miles is still more than none.

This is where training for a specific event becomes stressful. If I weren't trying to stay on track for a specific race date, I could just go, "Hmm, knee hurts, bummer." I could take a week or ten days off and then slowly get back into it, but I don't think I can afford to sit out a whole week at this point. Of course, if I turn a minor problem into a major one by continuing to run on it, I'm really toast, but I don't know what else to do. I'll just see what happens tomorrow and take it from there.

I guess my knees only had a 100-mile warranty on them...

I have returned from the gym. I am safe and warm at my computer while the snow flies outside (it's coming down very steadily--we may end up with 6-10 inches of new snow after all), but I am not happy. I was doing my easy three miles on the treadmill, poking along at 5.2 mph and a 1.0 incline, when suddenly, just before the three-mile mark, my right knee started to hurt in the same place it did on Sunday. I stopped the run at 3 miles and cooled down, and it quit hurting the second I stopped running, but this is no longer a one-off thing I can just shrug off. Once is an anomaly, twice is something more.

I am IRKED. IRKED, people! Off to go research knee pain on the Internet.

Snow shoveling counts as cross-training, right?

Yes indeedy folks, we are under ANOTHER Winter Storm Warning starting tomorrow at noon. Translation: we're going to get dumped on. Again. Although I have a sneaking suspicion that THIS storm is going to give us the 3-6 inches they were predicting for last weekend's storm that actually gave us 15. They are forecasting 6-10 at the moment. Blech.

To make sure I get tomorrow's workout in before the storm, I am getting up early so I can get to the gym a half-hour to an hour earlier than usual so I can get home before the accursed white stuff starts flying again. I am a little sore from yesterday, so I am sorta looking forward to a nice easy three-miler on the gerbil wheel.

Michelle and I hooked up for a nice little Pilates session this morning. My form is still horrible, but maybe a shade less horrible than when I first started.

I am supposed to have my live Pilates class with Kim on Wednesday...assuming it doesn't get snowed out. *shakes fist at sky*

A longer respite between storms would have been nice.

Looking back, looking ahead W15/W14

Yesterday was the end of Week 15, and today is exactly 14 weeks until race day. (AAAAGGHH!)

What was I was supposed to do in Week 15? Did I do it?

• Sunday: 3 miles Almost. (I did 2.5)
  
• Monday: REST YES! (Heh.)
  
• Tuesday: 3 miles YES!
• Wednesday: CROSS-TRAIN for 30 minutes NOPE (felt sick)
  
• Thursday: 3 miles YES! (outdoors, yay!)
  
• Friday: CROSS-TRAIN for 30 minutes YES! (strength training)
  
• Saturday: 3 miles NOPE (ran out of gas)
  

I am trying to be smart about listening to my body rather than slavishly following some schedule to the letter no matter what, and unfortunately, this resulted in things not happening this week. I only ran just under 9 miles this week. I hope that won't come back to bite me in the butt 14 weeks from now.

I have to fiddle around with the training schedule for Week 14 because I am going to a dog show next weekend. I hate to muck around with things, but I think this schedule will work:

• Sunday: 3 miles (I did 4.5, yay!)
  
• Monday: CROSS-TRAIN
  
• Tuesday: 3 miles
  
• Wednesday: CROSS-TRAIN for 30 minutes
  
• Thursday: 4 miles
  
• Friday: 5 miles
  
• Saturday: REST (I am at the dog show all day, so I won't be able to run anyway)

I may be an idiot for running 4 miles on Thursday immediately followed by 5 on Friday, but hopefully I can manage it. The mileage has to go up eventually, and there's only one way to find out if I'm ready--as the Nike commercials would say, just do it. Weekly mileage will be 16.5 if I make it all the way through, which is more than I've been running, but not ridiculously so.

I got a few more entries for my agility fundraiser this week, although the grand total is still pretty low. I'm hoping everyone is waiting until the last minute to send in their forms. Either that, or I'm going to look like a world-class moron.

I hope I'm not too sore tomorrow. Good night!

At last, a Group Run that didn't get cancelled!

The group stretches and warms up prior to setting out in nippy temperatures this morning.

Our last two Group Runs got canceled--one for ice, and one for ridiculously cold temperatures. It wasn't exactly balmy this morning, but we finally managed to pull one off. A roadside thermometer on the way up said it was 15 degrees. I dressed in full regalia: lightweight long johns under my running pants, long-sleeve base layer shirt, quarter-zip midlayer, and jacket, along with hat and gloves. I was okay but never exactly toasty warm on this run, so it looks like 15° or so is the bottom end of my outdoor running comfort zone. (Not exactly hardcore, am I? But hey, at least Coach Rob didn't come to this one in shorts!)

The marathoners and half-marathoners are running different mileage now, so we are getting strung out further and further apart. Gone are the days when the walkers and runners ran 3 miles together in a tight little knot. At the beginning of the session, we went around and gave our names, what event we're running, and how many miles we wanted to go today. I was one of four wusses covering only four miles. (Actually, it should have been three, but since I didn't run yesterday's four-miler, this seemed like a good shot to make it up.) Several runners were doing eight or "trying for eight but maybe I'll only do six." We also had a winter season half-marathoner on her taper, doing 4 easy miles before she leaves for the Bi-Lo Marathon and Half Marathon in Myrtle Beach on Thursday. Needless to say, we were all jealous!

We eventually pushed off and ran on clear-ish paved trails. I say clear-ish because the trail still had a light dusting of snow and a little slush in one or two spots, but the footing was generally good and no one worried too much about slipping and falling.

As we passed the 1.5 mile mark, I called out to Coach Rob (the only one with a Garmin!), "Hey, don't forget to call two miles so I know when to turn around!" It eventually became clear that he intended to do no such thing, and on and on we ran. I resolved I was going to turn around when my watch hit 25:00 no matter what, only to finally see Coach Paul standing and waiting to tell the three of us who came jogging up, "This is about two and a quarter right here."

This is how my 4-miler turned into a four-and-a-half miler. I made it back to my car in 49:12, which works out to a 10:56 pace per mile. I was pleased as punch to be running sub-11-minute miles outdoors over this (slightly) longer distance, although the medial side of my right knee started hurting a bit during the last mile.

This is Eric and Melissa. They are siblings-in-law, actually, and they are running in both honor and memory of several family members. Isn't that a cool thing to do with your in-laws? I ran with them for a while, but then my knee was bothering me and I sped up so I could get to the end and stop!

I don't know why the heck my camera didn't focus, but this is Ty. He's a musician and his band just performed as an LLS fundraiser. If this photo had been in proper focus, you'd see the ice on his beard. He did 5 miles in under an hour today. Rock on, Ty!

After a Group Run, a runner's thoughts inevitably turn to food. This is the lip-smackin'-good plate of New Orleans Grillades and Grits I had at brunch.