I face a crisis. A crisis I would never have imagined six months ago. Or even three months ago. Or ever, really. But the day has come, and lo, it is a crisis.
MY GROUP PILATES CLASS IS OVER. We met for the last time tonight.
Nooooooo!!!!
I am about to dash off an e-mail to Kim and beg her for private Pilates lessons for the next 7 weeks.
Yes, I guess that makes me a little kooky.
In other news, I would like to order new feet. Anyone got a good catalog? Or should I try E-Bay? I will refrain from posting pictures because some of you may be eating, but believe me, my feet are looking pretty horrible these days. They still work just fine (and knock on wood that it stays that way), but they aren't going to win any beauty contests. I have bunions on both sides, my right big toe rubs against the second toe, which has created a giant callus on the inside of my second toe, I have another callus on the bottom of my right pinky toe that is so big it could pass for a dorsal fin, and now there is skin peeling off the bottom of both feet like it's going out of style. I suspect the liberal application of BodyGlide last weekend had something to do with it. But hey, at least I don't have any black toenails!
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Some days, you just need a kick in the pants...
I need that slug picture again, 'cause hoo boy, is it ever fitting these days. I don't know what the heck is wrong with me (although glancing at the calendar gives me an idea), but running today was something I just had to grit my teeth and endure. Like the big E on my bracelet, you know, the mantra-spawning Train-Endure-Achieve-Matter bracelet. There was a lot of enduring going on today despite the sunny skies.
I ran a route I haven't run in a while, an out-and-back, to get my 4 miles. Out-and-back may be boring, but it makes the run feel shorter because you're breaking it up into more pieces, and the whole second half, you're on the way home.
I procrastinated my way through the day (work is always a convenient excuse) and dog-walking time, and then I realized if I didn't get off my tookus and get my running shoes on, the run was not going to happen, making it three days in a row of Amanda's butt planted firmly on the couch--not acceptable with less than 7 weeks to go before the half. Not to mention the big red NOPE of fail I'd have to put on my weekly report.
So I finally pushed off around 5:30 and tried to focus on relaxing through the first mile. I was breathing a little harder than I'd like so early in a run, but hit mile 1 at 10:32. I kept waiting for my body to settle into a groove, but the whole second mile, my thoughts flailed around like the legs of a bug stuck on its back. I hit mile 2 at 21:00 flat and decided to walk for 30 seconds and see if that helped. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I recovered in just that brief amount of time, and pushed off heartened into mile 3. Finally, finally, I felt like I was hitting my stride and crossed the 3-mile mark at 31:25. I think the last mile actually felt the best, even though the last quarter-mile was all uphill. I hit my driveway (and thus mile 4) at 41:42, just in time to see my neighbor exiting his porch. I walked around and around and around his driveway while we chatted, reassuring him that I was not totally insane, but that I had to keep moving for 5 minutes before I went inside to stretch.
As always, I feel much better now that I have run. And despite how rough it felt, 41:42 over 4 miles comes out to a 10:25 pace per mile, which I am very happy with. My last mile was actually the fastest. I wonder if I'll be able to do negative splits in the half? (That means you run faster during the second half of the race than the first half.)
I'm glad to be crossing this one off with a YES! and glad I endured.
I ran a route I haven't run in a while, an out-and-back, to get my 4 miles. Out-and-back may be boring, but it makes the run feel shorter because you're breaking it up into more pieces, and the whole second half, you're on the way home.
I procrastinated my way through the day (work is always a convenient excuse) and dog-walking time, and then I realized if I didn't get off my tookus and get my running shoes on, the run was not going to happen, making it three days in a row of Amanda's butt planted firmly on the couch--not acceptable with less than 7 weeks to go before the half. Not to mention the big red NOPE of fail I'd have to put on my weekly report.
So I finally pushed off around 5:30 and tried to focus on relaxing through the first mile. I was breathing a little harder than I'd like so early in a run, but hit mile 1 at 10:32. I kept waiting for my body to settle into a groove, but the whole second mile, my thoughts flailed around like the legs of a bug stuck on its back. I hit mile 2 at 21:00 flat and decided to walk for 30 seconds and see if that helped. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I recovered in just that brief amount of time, and pushed off heartened into mile 3. Finally, finally, I felt like I was hitting my stride and crossed the 3-mile mark at 31:25. I think the last mile actually felt the best, even though the last quarter-mile was all uphill. I hit my driveway (and thus mile 4) at 41:42, just in time to see my neighbor exiting his porch. I walked around and around and around his driveway while we chatted, reassuring him that I was not totally insane, but that I had to keep moving for 5 minutes before I went inside to stretch.
As always, I feel much better now that I have run. And despite how rough it felt, 41:42 over 4 miles comes out to a 10:25 pace per mile, which I am very happy with. My last mile was actually the fastest. I wonder if I'll be able to do negative splits in the half? (That means you run faster during the second half of the race than the first half.)
I'm glad to be crossing this one off with a YES! and glad I endured.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Looking back, looking ahead W8/W7
Man, this race is really starting to loom larger in the mirror. Less than 7 weeks to go! My first double-digit run ever! And I ran 20 miles this week, also a new high!
What was I was supposed to do in Week 8? Did I do it?
- Tuesday: 4 miles YES!
- Wednesday: CROSS-TRAIN YES! Pilates class with Kim
- Thursday: 6 miles YES!
- Friday: CROSS-TRAIN YES!
- Saturday: 10 miles YES! (Wooooot!!)
- Sunday: 4 miles NOPE--severe attack of slug-itis
- Tuesday: 4 miles
- Wednesday: CROSS-TRAIN
- Thursday: 6 miles
- Friday: CROSS-TRAIN
- Saturday: 8 miles (informal group run)
- Sunday: 4 miles
"Only" 4 miles tomorrow, whoo-hoo!
This is me...
I am such a slug. Sorry I didn't post yesterday, but there wasn't much going on. I stayed up late Saturday night watching a movie and was dragging all day Sunday despite three cups of coffee at brunch. I had a chance to go to the gym with Steve and Betsy and still didn't go. I was behind on a work project, so spent a few hours catching up, and by the time I'd gone grocery shopping and walked the dogs, I was not in the mood to do anything but park on my keister. I read a book for a while. I think it's the first fiction book I've read since Christmas.Weekly review post coming later...
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Ten! Zehn! Dyesat! Diez! Dix! Dziesięć! Dieci!
Yes, folks, you read that right! I stand (well, sit, actually) before you as a person who has run TEN MILES!! *throws confetti*
A feat that would not have been possible without my good friend BodyGlide...putting that stuff on made me feel SUPER ULTRA HARDCORE. Even more so than knocking back gels.
As I mentioned last night, after I slathered BodyGlide all over my feet and various other places, a process that took a good fifteen minutes, I set my feet up for a Sock Duel--a head-to-head (or foot-to-foot, I guess I should say) competition between Balega (on the left foot) and Injinji (on the right foot). Injinjis are toe socks--they have specific slots for each toe, like gloves that go on your feet. I like them a lot, but the Balegas feel really soft and plush, so I thought I'd try one of each and see which foot felt better at the end of the run. (The TEN! MILE! RUN!)
I had my standard-issue breakfast of two scrambled eggs and half a toasted buttered bagel, but I was running a little late, so I had to pretty much gulp my last bite of food and bolt out the door.
It was the usual scene in the parking lot this morning. Coach Rob (in the red shirt and black shorts) told us about the all-important mile markers so we'd know where to turn around and filled us in on water stops. There was also a big bag of gels available, so even though I brought a few Hammer gels, I took a Hammer Espresso gel (with 50 mg of caffeine) from the bag. Since I had no caffeine at all this morning, I thought it would be a good time to see if I could handle 50 mg without any ill effects.
Everyone listened attentively while contorting themselves--the usual pre-run stuff. It was a nippy 19 degrees at the start of our run. Man, was I glad I had my heavy winter pants and top layers on.
This is Mike. Everybody say, "Hi, Mike!" I met him at the very first Group Run waaaay back at the beginning of December, and it's been a while since we've both been at a Group Run at the same time. I hoped I'd be able to run alongside him today, at least for a while. He can run 9-minute miles on the treadmill, so I wasn't sure I'd be able to keep up.
We all set out not too terribly long after the proposed start time. I turned my watch on early, so I made a note to deduct a minute or so from my final time. I started out running with my homies Angela and Lindsey, but then Ty and Coach Rob caught up with us and sped up a little, and I sped up to keep up with them.
I got a chance to learn a little more about Coach Rob as we jogged along. (Funny note: Kelli asked if he had "calf implants" because he has such well-defined calves! We all laughed. Ty said he'd been thinking about saying something similar, but feared how the remark might be taken, coming from a guy.) Coach Rob played football in college as a defensive end, and as he said, "weighed 50 pounds more than I do now, and I was 21 years old."
"Oh, I'm sure it was all muscle," I replied.
"Nope. Then after college, I got fat. I decided to do something about it and started running. That was 15 years ago."
I thought about asking about his PRs, but I figured I'd just feel slow and awestruck at whatever he said.
The first water stop was about 2 1/2 miles in. I stopped for a minute (I stopped my watch at all the water stops again--okay, so maybe I'm cheating a little, sue me) and had a Dixie cup of water, and darn if Coach Rob wasn't already 200 yards in front of me when I started running again.
I eventually managed to catch up with him as he hung with the next group in front, which included Mike! So I did finally get a chance to talk with Mike for a while as we ran. I really got into our conversation and before I knew it, there was another stone mile marker at the side of the trail. I thought it was Mile 3, but it was actually Mile 4! Whoo-hoo!
It wasn't too much longer before the next water/gel stop came up on the right-hand side, just half a mile short of the 5-mile turnaround point. I wanted to stop and do a gel, but Mike was in a groove and wanted to keep going, so I waved him on and stopped my watch, which said something around 48 minutes. (We were running 10-minute miles during the segment with Coach Rob, so whoo-hoo for that!)
Time to try the espresso gel. I felt a little winded from the fast pace (you went out too fast again, my little inner voice nagged), so the caffeine would probably provide a welcome kick. The gel tasted good (I like coffee), but the cold made it kind of thick. Coach Paul, whose legs are as long as my entire body, gave me a cool tip: he said I should put the next gel pack I wanted to use inside my glove to help warm it up, which would thin it out and make it easier to swallow.
I had taken my gloves off, but when I started running again after the rest stop, I was cold and had to put them back on again. I followed Coach Paul's advice and tucked a Banana gel inside my glove for the next stop (chocolate/coffee and banana seemed like complementary flavors, I figured).
I wasn't far past the turnaround when I saw Lindsey and Angela coming the other way. We exchanged woots and waves. Then I focused on catching back up to Mike. I saw him and another female runner in the distance waaaay down the path and reeled them in ever so slowly. I think it was close to a mile before I caught them again.
This is Rebecca, the woman running alongside Mike. She actually works for LLS and (in her words) "got suckered into doing this." For someone who got suckered, she was one heck of a runner. She pulled away from me and Mike over the last mile or two and left us in the dust. Check out the frost on the sides of her hat. She was really moving it out!
It was so cold that the ends of Rebecca's pigtails got icy. Can you believe that? They actually had a thicker coating of ice while we were running, but I didn't get this shot until after we were done.
We got back to the first water stop, which was now the last, and I ate my banana gel and had some more water. I really felt the banana gel kicking in, or maybe that was the caffeine from gel #1.
On we ran, eventually sighting Coach Rob again in the distance but never really catching up to him. He was actually looking for Mike so he could ask him about the IT band problems he'd been having and came back to pick us up. By this point, I was a little sore just about everywhere between my lower back and my knees, but my sartorius muscles and my glutes were leading the charge.
"Less than half a mile to go," Coach Rob encouraged us, "and as soon as we round this curve you'll see the finish."
It was a sweet, sweet sight indeed. I had a little something left in the tank, so I picked it up for the last tenth of a mile and swung past the finish at 1:44:48. Ladies and gentlemen, that is a 10:29 pace. Over TEN FREAKIN' MILES! Man, was I ever a happy camper.
Mike couldn't hang out afterwards, so I walked him back to his car and grabbed a fistful of those pretzel rods the coaches had put out for us. Good lord, those things are tasty!!
Here's a not-blurry picture of Ty for you, who finished maybe two minutes after I did. There's definitely frost in his beard if you look closely. He had to drive off to pick up one of the runners who had not turned at a fork in the trail and was going to end up in Kentucky if he didn't catch her.
Although the Injinji foot felt good, the outside of my pinky toe felt a wee bit chafed despite the BodyGlide, so the Balega foot (left) won the Sock Duel! I was driving right by the running store on my way to Panera for a post-run snack, so I stopped in and picked up some more Balega socks.
It was a busy day--this is what my pedometer read when I got home!
A feat that would not have been possible without my good friend BodyGlide...putting that stuff on made me feel SUPER ULTRA HARDCORE. Even more so than knocking back gels.
As I mentioned last night, after I slathered BodyGlide all over my feet and various other places, a process that took a good fifteen minutes, I set my feet up for a Sock Duel--a head-to-head (or foot-to-foot, I guess I should say) competition between Balega (on the left foot) and Injinji (on the right foot). Injinjis are toe socks--they have specific slots for each toe, like gloves that go on your feet. I like them a lot, but the Balegas feel really soft and plush, so I thought I'd try one of each and see which foot felt better at the end of the run. (The TEN! MILE! RUN!)I had my standard-issue breakfast of two scrambled eggs and half a toasted buttered bagel, but I was running a little late, so I had to pretty much gulp my last bite of food and bolt out the door.
It was the usual scene in the parking lot this morning. Coach Rob (in the red shirt and black shorts) told us about the all-important mile markers so we'd know where to turn around and filled us in on water stops. There was also a big bag of gels available, so even though I brought a few Hammer gels, I took a Hammer Espresso gel (with 50 mg of caffeine) from the bag. Since I had no caffeine at all this morning, I thought it would be a good time to see if I could handle 50 mg without any ill effects.
Everyone listened attentively while contorting themselves--the usual pre-run stuff. It was a nippy 19 degrees at the start of our run. Man, was I glad I had my heavy winter pants and top layers on.
This is Mike. Everybody say, "Hi, Mike!" I met him at the very first Group Run waaaay back at the beginning of December, and it's been a while since we've both been at a Group Run at the same time. I hoped I'd be able to run alongside him today, at least for a while. He can run 9-minute miles on the treadmill, so I wasn't sure I'd be able to keep up.We all set out not too terribly long after the proposed start time. I turned my watch on early, so I made a note to deduct a minute or so from my final time. I started out running with my homies Angela and Lindsey, but then Ty and Coach Rob caught up with us and sped up a little, and I sped up to keep up with them.
I got a chance to learn a little more about Coach Rob as we jogged along. (Funny note: Kelli asked if he had "calf implants" because he has such well-defined calves! We all laughed. Ty said he'd been thinking about saying something similar, but feared how the remark might be taken, coming from a guy.) Coach Rob played football in college as a defensive end, and as he said, "weighed 50 pounds more than I do now, and I was 21 years old."
"Oh, I'm sure it was all muscle," I replied.
"Nope. Then after college, I got fat. I decided to do something about it and started running. That was 15 years ago."
I thought about asking about his PRs, but I figured I'd just feel slow and awestruck at whatever he said.
The first water stop was about 2 1/2 miles in. I stopped for a minute (I stopped my watch at all the water stops again--okay, so maybe I'm cheating a little, sue me) and had a Dixie cup of water, and darn if Coach Rob wasn't already 200 yards in front of me when I started running again.
I eventually managed to catch up with him as he hung with the next group in front, which included Mike! So I did finally get a chance to talk with Mike for a while as we ran. I really got into our conversation and before I knew it, there was another stone mile marker at the side of the trail. I thought it was Mile 3, but it was actually Mile 4! Whoo-hoo!
It wasn't too much longer before the next water/gel stop came up on the right-hand side, just half a mile short of the 5-mile turnaround point. I wanted to stop and do a gel, but Mike was in a groove and wanted to keep going, so I waved him on and stopped my watch, which said something around 48 minutes. (We were running 10-minute miles during the segment with Coach Rob, so whoo-hoo for that!)
Time to try the espresso gel. I felt a little winded from the fast pace (you went out too fast again, my little inner voice nagged), so the caffeine would probably provide a welcome kick. The gel tasted good (I like coffee), but the cold made it kind of thick. Coach Paul, whose legs are as long as my entire body, gave me a cool tip: he said I should put the next gel pack I wanted to use inside my glove to help warm it up, which would thin it out and make it easier to swallow.
I had taken my gloves off, but when I started running again after the rest stop, I was cold and had to put them back on again. I followed Coach Paul's advice and tucked a Banana gel inside my glove for the next stop (chocolate/coffee and banana seemed like complementary flavors, I figured).
I wasn't far past the turnaround when I saw Lindsey and Angela coming the other way. We exchanged woots and waves. Then I focused on catching back up to Mike. I saw him and another female runner in the distance waaaay down the path and reeled them in ever so slowly. I think it was close to a mile before I caught them again.
This is Rebecca, the woman running alongside Mike. She actually works for LLS and (in her words) "got suckered into doing this." For someone who got suckered, she was one heck of a runner. She pulled away from me and Mike over the last mile or two and left us in the dust. Check out the frost on the sides of her hat. She was really moving it out!
It was so cold that the ends of Rebecca's pigtails got icy. Can you believe that? They actually had a thicker coating of ice while we were running, but I didn't get this shot until after we were done.We got back to the first water stop, which was now the last, and I ate my banana gel and had some more water. I really felt the banana gel kicking in, or maybe that was the caffeine from gel #1.
On we ran, eventually sighting Coach Rob again in the distance but never really catching up to him. He was actually looking for Mike so he could ask him about the IT band problems he'd been having and came back to pick us up. By this point, I was a little sore just about everywhere between my lower back and my knees, but my sartorius muscles and my glutes were leading the charge.
"Less than half a mile to go," Coach Rob encouraged us, "and as soon as we round this curve you'll see the finish."
It was a sweet, sweet sight indeed. I had a little something left in the tank, so I picked it up for the last tenth of a mile and swung past the finish at 1:44:48. Ladies and gentlemen, that is a 10:29 pace. Over TEN FREAKIN' MILES! Man, was I ever a happy camper.
Mike couldn't hang out afterwards, so I walked him back to his car and grabbed a fistful of those pretzel rods the coaches had put out for us. Good lord, those things are tasty!!
Here's a not-blurry picture of Ty for you, who finished maybe two minutes after I did. There's definitely frost in his beard if you look closely. He had to drive off to pick up one of the runners who had not turned at a fork in the trail and was going to end up in Kentucky if he didn't catch her.
Although the Injinji foot felt good, the outside of my pinky toe felt a wee bit chafed despite the BodyGlide, so the Balega foot (left) won the Sock Duel! I was driving right by the running store on my way to Panera for a post-run snack, so I stopped in and picked up some more Balega socks.It was a busy day--this is what my pedometer read when I got home!
Friday, March 26, 2010
Mother Nature is awfully fickle...
After three weeks of generally gorgeous spring weather, the rain turned to snow last night, and this was the scene at dog-walking time this morning.
I haven't seen a dog bowl forecast this bad in a while!Fortunately, I didn't have to run in it or go to the gym since today was a Pilates video day. The video seems to be getting easier--I still suck at about half the exercises, but my live class with Kim on Wednesdays is actually harder than the video. Yay for progress!
I am really nervous about tomorrow's group run. We are doing 10 miles. TEN MILES. That's like 16 kilometers, isn't it? I am nervous about running out of fuel and maybe needing to make a pit stop and being cold or roasting and chafing and just plain having to walk pieces of it and having to get up CRAZY EARLY to be there at 7:15.
But the good part is that once I do it, I know I will be able to go the distance on race day. I mean, hey, a half marathon is nothing more than 10 miles plus a 5K, and a 5K is barely more than a warmup these days. (Well, okay, more than a warmup, but it's not very far.) So if I can do 10, I can certainly do 13.1.
I am going to get all my clothes and gels and pretzels and water and Clif bars laid out and cut my BodyGlide out of its packaging, 'cause I am going to be slathering that stuff on tomorrow. I've never used it so it will be another giant experiment, but I have a feeling I'll be glad I did.
OK, I got the scrambled egg pan ready to go and I even have all the utensils laid out. I have three gels and a salt packet already zipped into my pants. It is going to be COLD tomorrow (about 20 degrees when we start running, yikes!!), so I've got my heavy winter pants, two long-sleeve layers on top, and hat and gloves ready to go.
I'm also going to try a sock experiment: on the left foot, I will be wearing a Balega sock, and on the right, an Injinji toe sock. We'll see if one foot is noticeably more or less comfortable than the other one when I'm done.
Time to go to bed! The alarm is set for 5:30 AM...
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Pulling over to the side of the track...
Okay, Officer, I admit it, I was speeding. I should have noticed you behind me sooner and slowed down, but that second mile just felt so nice, and then I wanted to see if I could make it through with just one walk lap in the middle. Yes, yes, I know I was doing 5.9 in a 5.5 zone. I'm very sorry. I'm only human! I just got a little carried away!...You're letting me off with a warning? That's very kind of you, Officer. Thank you. I really appreciate that. You have a nice day too! Bye!
Whew! That was close. Good thing he's a runner too.
The track did not initially call the Indianapolis speedway to mind: it was gloomy and gray outside, but the indoor track lighting was on its lowest setting, resulting in an ambiance more appropriate for a romantic restaurant than a track. Norah Jones was crooning dreamily about love lost over the PA system and I just wanted to curl up and take a nap. Zzzzzz.
I hit mile 1 at 10:52, which was about the pace I was looking for, but then I just felt so good I sped up quite a bit on mile 2, running at least 30 seconds faster over that mile. Massive mistake. You should never burn it up on mile 2 of a six-mile run. I don't know what the heck I was thinking. I hit 20 laps, which is about 3.15 miles, at 31 minutes and change. Still too fast. I walked a lap, drank some water, and surreptitiously ate a few orange sports beans (not bad, but I think I like the lemon-lime better). The second three miles did not feel as nice as the first three. The beans seemed to kick in about halfway through Mile 4, and then I felt better for a while, but the last mile was rough. I got a cramp five laps from the end and did my mental recitation of "Train. Endure. Achieve. Matter." for a while, but the last three laps evolved into a simpler chant with each right footstrike: "I. Love. You. Mom." She is still recovering from the shingles and has been in a lot of pain--way more pain than some crummy little cramp.
And I finished. I covered 6.09 miles in 1:02:40 for a 10:17 pace. (I seem to be running at that pace quite a bit lately!) That includes the lap I walked in the middle. Woot woot woot!
I had steel cut oats for breakfast, followed by a Clif bar half an hour before I started running, but I think the eggs and bagel is still the best initial breakfast. I guess I just like protein. There is some protein in the steel cut oats and the nuts I sprinkle on top, but not as much as in the eggs.
Up next: Pilates with Michelle in front of my TV tomorrow, and then ten miles on Saturday! I will make sure I run a lot slower so I don't crash and burn over that long distance.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Exercise never fails...
...to take me to my happy place, or at least to a happier place than I was before. Even the Mayo Clinic agrees that exercise is a definite mood-booster.
Today just didn't go well. I wasn't very productive and couldn't seem to make any headway on several items on my to-do list.
But, thankfully, I have Pilates class Wednesday nights. Things started looking up when I saw the first daffodils blooming outside the building and just got better from there.
We did a new move today called the banana split. You lie on your side with your shoulders, hips, and knees stacked on top of each other, and you put your arms above your head like you're a ballerina and lift both feet off the ground so you take on a vaguely curled-up shape, like a banana. The split part is this: maintaining your arms and legs in position, you roll so you're on your back, and then roll onto your other side. Then you go back. All the while you're trying to maintain the banana shape. It is HARD.
I still felt great when I left class, like someone had pushed a big reset button and I could just start the day over again. Unfortunately, I spent the entire bleepin' evening in the kitchen, but at least I will have a nice fresh batch of steel cut oats to enjoy for breakfast and a delicious roast for dinner tomorrow.
The weather forecast looks lousy, so I will have to do my 6 miles at the gym tomorrow. Hello, indoor track!
Today just didn't go well. I wasn't very productive and couldn't seem to make any headway on several items on my to-do list.
But, thankfully, I have Pilates class Wednesday nights. Things started looking up when I saw the first daffodils blooming outside the building and just got better from there.
We did a new move today called the banana split. You lie on your side with your shoulders, hips, and knees stacked on top of each other, and you put your arms above your head like you're a ballerina and lift both feet off the ground so you take on a vaguely curled-up shape, like a banana. The split part is this: maintaining your arms and legs in position, you roll so you're on your back, and then roll onto your other side. Then you go back. All the while you're trying to maintain the banana shape. It is HARD.
I still felt great when I left class, like someone had pushed a big reset button and I could just start the day over again. Unfortunately, I spent the entire bleepin' evening in the kitchen, but at least I will have a nice fresh batch of steel cut oats to enjoy for breakfast and a delicious roast for dinner tomorrow.
The weather forecast looks lousy, so I will have to do my 6 miles at the gym tomorrow. Hello, indoor track!
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Rawr! (Also: METS demystified!)
This week is getting off to an awesome start. After resting yesterday (serious resting--there was even a nap in there!), I was ready to kick off the training week with a fab four-miler today. The weather was kind of yucky--40°, light rain, and some wind, about the same conditions I had for my race last weekend--so Betsy and I went to the gym. It wasn't very busy, so I hopped on a treadmill in the hopes I could get all four miles in without getting booted off. (There's a 30-minute time limit, but it's enforced only when it gets busy.)
After warming up and gradually increasing the pace, I settled in at 5.8 mph (10:19 pace per mile) for the first two miles. To my delight, it felt pretty easy and my heart rate was staying relatively low, so I decided to kick it up to 6.0 mph (10:00 pace) for a mile and see how it felt. It actually felt great. Yes, I was doing some work, but I was able to keep a relaxed stride and hit a nice groove at that pace. I distinctly remember breathing hard trying to maintain 5.3 mph on the treadmill less than three months ago, so today felt particularly sweet. I kept up the 6.0 mph pace for two whole miles!! My heart rate hit 171 at one point, but my anaerobic threshold must be going up because I honestly didn't feel like I was working that hard. Seeing some payoff from all the hours I've been putting in is so, SO sweet!! I finished 4 miles (including the initial warmup) in 43:16 for a 10:49 pace.
My treadmill puts up some statistics while I'm running, and one of them has always mystified me--in the right-hand corner, it has a number called "METS." When I am working hard, this number is 9-10 or slightly higher. I think it was 10.19 while I was running my ten-minute miles. Every time I get on and see that number, I think, "What is that?" followed by "That would be a good subject for a blog post!" And then I promptly forget about it by the time I get home.
But no more! Today I'm going to tell you what METS are (other than a baseball team, of course). METS stands for "metabolic equivalent of task." It is supposed to be a measure of how strenuous something is compared to your resting metabolic rate (RMR). Sitting quietly is by definition equal to your RMR, so sitting around like a lump has a METS of 1.0. (By the way, RMR is defined by a consumption of oxygen equal to 3.5 ml O2·kg-1·min-1.) An activity that doubles your metabolic rate from your RMR, like walking very, very slowly, would have a METS of 2.0. Running twelve-minute miles has a METS of about 8.0. So an activity with a METS of 10.19, like my fast running today, means that I am consuming ten times the oxygen I would normally use at rest. So for me, running at 6.0 mph is ten times as strenuous as sitting around like a lump.
Wow, that makes me feel even more badass.
Here's a nice article about METs that includes a calculation for figuring your target METS rate:
After warming up and gradually increasing the pace, I settled in at 5.8 mph (10:19 pace per mile) for the first two miles. To my delight, it felt pretty easy and my heart rate was staying relatively low, so I decided to kick it up to 6.0 mph (10:00 pace) for a mile and see how it felt. It actually felt great. Yes, I was doing some work, but I was able to keep a relaxed stride and hit a nice groove at that pace. I distinctly remember breathing hard trying to maintain 5.3 mph on the treadmill less than three months ago, so today felt particularly sweet. I kept up the 6.0 mph pace for two whole miles!! My heart rate hit 171 at one point, but my anaerobic threshold must be going up because I honestly didn't feel like I was working that hard. Seeing some payoff from all the hours I've been putting in is so, SO sweet!! I finished 4 miles (including the initial warmup) in 43:16 for a 10:49 pace.
My treadmill puts up some statistics while I'm running, and one of them has always mystified me--in the right-hand corner, it has a number called "METS." When I am working hard, this number is 9-10 or slightly higher. I think it was 10.19 while I was running my ten-minute miles. Every time I get on and see that number, I think, "What is that?" followed by "That would be a good subject for a blog post!" And then I promptly forget about it by the time I get home.
But no more! Today I'm going to tell you what METS are (other than a baseball team, of course). METS stands for "metabolic equivalent of task." It is supposed to be a measure of how strenuous something is compared to your resting metabolic rate (RMR). Sitting quietly is by definition equal to your RMR, so sitting around like a lump has a METS of 1.0. (By the way, RMR is defined by a consumption of oxygen equal to 3.5 ml O2·kg-1·min-1.) An activity that doubles your metabolic rate from your RMR, like walking very, very slowly, would have a METS of 2.0. Running twelve-minute miles has a METS of about 8.0. So an activity with a METS of 10.19, like my fast running today, means that I am consuming ten times the oxygen I would normally use at rest. So for me, running at 6.0 mph is ten times as strenuous as sitting around like a lump.
Wow, that makes me feel even more badass.
Here's a nice article about METs that includes a calculation for figuring your target METS rate:
- For women, MET level = 14.7 - (0.13 x your age in years)
- For men, MET level = 14.7 - (0.11 x your age in years)
Monday, March 22, 2010
Looking back, looking ahead W9/W8
Oh my goodness, both the weeks in review are in the single digits now! We've just wrapped up Week 9, and this is Week 8. Hold me, Internets!
I also did my first eight-miler ever yesterday with four of my TNT teammates. It went surprisingly well. My medial right knee spoke up a little during the last mile, but on the whole, I felt good. We ran a very sedate 11:52 pace per mile, finishing the distance in 1:35:00 flat, but hey, we got 'er done. I also tried some Hammer brand gels and was surprised at how good they were. I had a Tropical, which has 25 mg of caffeine, and a Banana that actually tasted like banana (first ingredient: banana puree), and I also swiped a taste of someone else's Raspberry--wow, really good. I even liked the lemon-lime Sports Beans I tried, which was a pleasant surprise since I don't even like jelly beans.
After the run, we all stuffed ourselves with delicious food from the local bakery and drank several gallons of coffee. Good times, good times...
And now for the report card: What was I was supposed to do in Week 9? Did I do it?- Tuesday: 4 miles YES!
- Wednesday: CROSS-TRAIN YES! Pilates class with Sabatino
- Thursday: 6 miles YES!
- Friday: CROSS-TRAIN YES!
- Saturday: 4 miles NOPE--my right hamstring was really hurting so I iced it 3x instead
- Sunday: 8 miles YES! (Wooooot!!)
What's my schedule for Week 8?
- Tuesday: 4 miles
- Wednesday: CROSS-TRAIN
- Thursday: 6 miles
- Friday: CROSS-TRAIN
- Saturday: 10 miles (Group Run)
- Sunday: 4 miles
OK, it's late. Have to get my beauty rest!
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Happy Run-iversary!
It was a Saturday afternoon, and my husband and I had appointments at the hair salon: him first, then me. The day was sunny and warm and full of promise, and while my husband got his hair cut, I changed my life.
I went running for the very first time one year ago today. I had a brand new heart rate monitor strapped to my chest and a 29-minute heart-rate-based interval workout printed on a piece of paper in my pocket, and there was a swanky subdivision sprawled out behind the hair salon that begged exploration.
I spent more time walking than running, I am certain. I couldn't run for 30 seconds without my heart rate hitting the stratosphere. So I'd walk until the number went down to where it was supposed to be, then run until it was too high again (20-30 seconds).
I just retraced my route on Gmaps pedometer. In 29 minutes, guess how far I went?
1.7 miles.
Yup, that's it. 1.7 miles in 29 minutes. That's a 17:03 pace per mile, a dismal failure by any sort of speed-based standard.
But I didn't feel like a failure at all. I felt hugely successful because I had kept my heart rate at the figure the little piece of paper told me to keep it at. I felt great. In my on-line workout log, I wrote, "First interval workout--was so busy concentrating on heart rate and timing that I barely noticed the actual exercise part! Was winded but not exhausted at end."
And that's the other key to my success, I believe: "Was winded but not exhausted at end." I was tired, but not gasping for air or praying for death. I had successfully hit the heart rate numbers on the piece of paper, and I felt like I had gotten a workout, but not killed myself doing so.
I was off and running. Literally.
Three weeks later, I wrote this entry in my training log: "I ran up to the outdoor track in the sleet. I think I'm addicted, LOL! The track felt really nice on my feet. I will probably go up there again."
I ran on that track no fewer than fifty times over the next eight months.
Three months after Day 1, my rocket had definitely left the pad: "I did it I did it I did it I did it I did it!!!! I ran 3.0889 miles (so we'll call it 3.1, and thus a 5K) in 35:00 flat! It was pretty horrible and uncomfortable at the end but I DID IT!! I was running 5 minutes on, 1 minute or so off, and it definitely got harder after I crossed the 2-mile mark. That's an 11:16 pace. Over 3 miles. WOO-HOO!"
Four months after I wrote that entry, I ran in a local 5K race and completed the distance in an amazing (for me) 30:03. Five minutes faster.
I also lost 12 pounds in 6 months. My migraine headaches decreased drastically in both frequency and severity. My skin looked better. I slept better. I felt better.
It is no exaggeration to say that running has changed my life.
I am grateful now that I decided to start running when I did--eight months before my mother's lymphoma boorishly barged in uninvited, the world's rudest, nastiest, most obnoxious and unwelcome houseguest.
I was ready to take on the challenge of running a half-marathon for her, and now I stand a mere 55 days away from the event. I have gotten to know some wonderful people, experienced the kindness and generosity of dozens of others who supported my fundraising efforts with amounts large and small, public and anonymous, and achieved things I never would have believed possible a year ago.
This is all thanks to running.
I'll close with a picture. This picture is of my right foot coming down to hit the finish line at the five-mile race I ran last Saturday, up and down hills in the cold and wet. The race I ran at an "easy pace," finishing in a fantastic (for me) 51:25.
Amanda, you've come a long way, baby. You're a runner now.
I went running for the very first time one year ago today. I had a brand new heart rate monitor strapped to my chest and a 29-minute heart-rate-based interval workout printed on a piece of paper in my pocket, and there was a swanky subdivision sprawled out behind the hair salon that begged exploration.
I spent more time walking than running, I am certain. I couldn't run for 30 seconds without my heart rate hitting the stratosphere. So I'd walk until the number went down to where it was supposed to be, then run until it was too high again (20-30 seconds).
I just retraced my route on Gmaps pedometer. In 29 minutes, guess how far I went?
1.7 miles.
Yup, that's it. 1.7 miles in 29 minutes. That's a 17:03 pace per mile, a dismal failure by any sort of speed-based standard.
But I didn't feel like a failure at all. I felt hugely successful because I had kept my heart rate at the figure the little piece of paper told me to keep it at. I felt great. In my on-line workout log, I wrote, "First interval workout--was so busy concentrating on heart rate and timing that I barely noticed the actual exercise part! Was winded but not exhausted at end."
And that's the other key to my success, I believe: "Was winded but not exhausted at end." I was tired, but not gasping for air or praying for death. I had successfully hit the heart rate numbers on the piece of paper, and I felt like I had gotten a workout, but not killed myself doing so.
I was off and running. Literally.
Three weeks later, I wrote this entry in my training log: "I ran up to the outdoor track in the sleet. I think I'm addicted, LOL! The track felt really nice on my feet. I will probably go up there again."
I ran on that track no fewer than fifty times over the next eight months.
Three months after Day 1, my rocket had definitely left the pad: "I did it I did it I did it I did it I did it!!!! I ran 3.0889 miles (so we'll call it 3.1, and thus a 5K) in 35:00 flat! It was pretty horrible and uncomfortable at the end but I DID IT!! I was running 5 minutes on, 1 minute or so off, and it definitely got harder after I crossed the 2-mile mark. That's an 11:16 pace. Over 3 miles. WOO-HOO!"
Four months after I wrote that entry, I ran in a local 5K race and completed the distance in an amazing (for me) 30:03. Five minutes faster.
I also lost 12 pounds in 6 months. My migraine headaches decreased drastically in both frequency and severity. My skin looked better. I slept better. I felt better.
It is no exaggeration to say that running has changed my life.
I am grateful now that I decided to start running when I did--eight months before my mother's lymphoma boorishly barged in uninvited, the world's rudest, nastiest, most obnoxious and unwelcome houseguest.
I was ready to take on the challenge of running a half-marathon for her, and now I stand a mere 55 days away from the event. I have gotten to know some wonderful people, experienced the kindness and generosity of dozens of others who supported my fundraising efforts with amounts large and small, public and anonymous, and achieved things I never would have believed possible a year ago.
This is all thanks to running.
I'll close with a picture. This picture is of my right foot coming down to hit the finish line at the five-mile race I ran last Saturday, up and down hills in the cold and wet. The race I ran at an "easy pace," finishing in a fantastic (for me) 51:25.
Amanda, you've come a long way, baby. You're a runner now.
Bowling to beat blood cancers!
The joint was already jumping when we walked in at about 9:00 on Friday night to attend my teammates' bowling fundraiser. Carie, Angela, and Lindsey joined forces to put on a really great event. That's Carie in the pink shirt with the French braid.
Lindsey and Angela were both wearing Team in Training gear. Angela's shirt is adorable!
Of course, no fundraiser is complete without a raffle, and the baskets at this one were really nice! Ticket sales were brisk.
The bowling ball I decided to use looked like a dog had chewed on it. It certainly made it easy to pick out!
You may not recognize these lovely ladies in "civvies" (i.e., not running gear), but our lane partners were my TNT teammates Brittany and Liz (yes indeed, the Liz of Liz's Loop!). Bowling shoes are truly the height of fashion.
Soon it was time to bowl in a format called Scotch Doubles. Liz winds up...
...and delivers!
Brittany hopes the lucky hot pink ball will help her knock down the last two pins for a spare! (Yes, she did it!)
The Scotch Doubles format also called on us to do some weird things in most of the frames. In this one, the challenge was "Throw the ball through your partner's legs." That's my husband looking down the lane to see how I did. (It wasn't a gutter ball. Yay!)
Liz expertly threw the hot pink ball through Brittany's legs to pick up another spare.
Liz and Brittany are much, much better bowlers than my husband and I. Liz seems to be the most talented one in our group!
There was also a 50/50 raffle. Lindsey went from lane to lane selling tickets. I bought some, but luck evaded me.
Liz and Brittany cleaned our clocks again in the third game. They decided they didn't want to play the fourth game, so they left it to me and my husband. For the last game, my husband was "RA" and I was "LB."
Definitive proof that I am only the second-worst bowler in the world!We had a great time, although we are frankly too darn old to be staying up until 1:00 AM. The fundraiser was a huge success, raising $2200 in one night!! Way to go, Carie, Lindsey, and Angela!
OH INTERNET I LOVE YOU NEVER LEAVE ME AGAIN!! *kiss* *kiss* *kiss*
To my complete shock and horror, I went to get on-line midday yesterday only to see the dreaded Yellow Triangle of Doom on my Internet connectivity: no Internet connection. No Ethernet connection. Nothing. Nada. Niente!
As a grown woman and rational human being, I stayed calm. For about ten seconds.
"SCHATZ!" I yelled to my husband. "Fix my Internet! Please!!"
He fiddled for a while. Zip. No Internet.
I reset the router, the modem, shut down and fired up the computer a few times. Bupkus.
That's when I got truly desperate and fished out my last cable Internet bill to look for a number to call. "Customer Care" and a number was listed in tiny little print down in one corner. I hate it when they call themselves "Customer Care." It usually implies the opposite.
"Hello, and good afternoon," a cheery female voice answered after the fourth ring.
"Hi!!" I said, "I have a--"
"I have the telephone number listed for this account as xxx-xxx-xxxx," the automated voice pressed on, "is that right?"
"Yes, but I want to talk to a--"
"I'm sorry, I didn't understand you. Is the number listed for this account correct?"
Oh, God. Resistance is futile. "Yes."
Automated Cheery Chick took me through a simple troubleshooting sequence that I had already tried, but she said I had to hang up and try it and call back. I suspected I was just going to be told to do the same thing over and over again, but when I called back, Automated Cheery Chick surprised me. "I see here that you called recently about a service problem. Are you calling about the same problem now?"
"YES."
"Okay, let me transfer you to our technical support."
And that was it--I actually got a human being on the line named Erica. She tried to send signals to my modem to tell it to get off its lazy non-operating butt and hook me up with my beloved Internet. The modem was having none of it. I even hooked everything up to a second modem and she tried again.
"Still offline," Erica sighed. "I can send someone out tomorrow. Would that be all right?"
Yowza! That sounded great to my withdrawal-stricken little brain.
"He'll be there between 2:00 and 4:00," she said, "and he'll call to let you know he's on his way." Excellent! This actually sounded like customer service.
I suffered last night like a junkie coming off heroin. No Facebook updates! No e-mail! No reading Lindsey's blog to find out how much money she made from her fundraiser! No weather updates! Nothing! AAAAAAGGGH! I had to call my dad at 7:00 this morning to get a weather report so I'd know how to dress for my run.
And this afternoon, things went exactly as Erica had promised: Bill called at 1:56 PM to say he was coming, pulled into my driveway at 10 after 2, and had the problem fixed by a quarter to three. (Apparently my neighborhood is changing frequencies or something, and my modem and router both had to be reset to the new frequency. Bill fiddled around at the telephone pole and on the side of my house for quite a while.)
So now my dearest Internet and I are together again! I missed it so. It KILLED me that I couldn't post to this blog yesterday. I hope that I won't have any more service outages.
Anyway, now that we are up and running again, I am going to play catch-up with my posts: I will write what I wanted to post yesterday and post it with yesterday's date, and then I will write today's post, and then I'll be all caught up. Whew!
INTERNETS I LOVE YOU. DON'T EVER LEAVE ME AGAIN!! *hugs Interwebs tight*
As a grown woman and rational human being, I stayed calm. For about ten seconds.
"SCHATZ!" I yelled to my husband. "Fix my Internet! Please!!"
He fiddled for a while. Zip. No Internet.
I reset the router, the modem, shut down and fired up the computer a few times. Bupkus.
That's when I got truly desperate and fished out my last cable Internet bill to look for a number to call. "Customer Care" and a number was listed in tiny little print down in one corner. I hate it when they call themselves "Customer Care." It usually implies the opposite.
"Hello, and good afternoon," a cheery female voice answered after the fourth ring.
"Hi!!" I said, "I have a--"
"I have the telephone number listed for this account as xxx-xxx-xxxx," the automated voice pressed on, "is that right?"
"Yes, but I want to talk to a--"
"I'm sorry, I didn't understand you. Is the number listed for this account correct?"
Oh, God. Resistance is futile. "Yes."
Automated Cheery Chick took me through a simple troubleshooting sequence that I had already tried, but she said I had to hang up and try it and call back. I suspected I was just going to be told to do the same thing over and over again, but when I called back, Automated Cheery Chick surprised me. "I see here that you called recently about a service problem. Are you calling about the same problem now?"
"YES."
"Okay, let me transfer you to our technical support."
And that was it--I actually got a human being on the line named Erica. She tried to send signals to my modem to tell it to get off its lazy non-operating butt and hook me up with my beloved Internet. The modem was having none of it. I even hooked everything up to a second modem and she tried again.
"Still offline," Erica sighed. "I can send someone out tomorrow. Would that be all right?"
Yowza! That sounded great to my withdrawal-stricken little brain.
"He'll be there between 2:00 and 4:00," she said, "and he'll call to let you know he's on his way." Excellent! This actually sounded like customer service.
I suffered last night like a junkie coming off heroin. No Facebook updates! No e-mail! No reading Lindsey's blog to find out how much money she made from her fundraiser! No weather updates! Nothing! AAAAAAGGGH! I had to call my dad at 7:00 this morning to get a weather report so I'd know how to dress for my run.
And this afternoon, things went exactly as Erica had promised: Bill called at 1:56 PM to say he was coming, pulled into my driveway at 10 after 2, and had the problem fixed by a quarter to three. (Apparently my neighborhood is changing frequencies or something, and my modem and router both had to be reset to the new frequency. Bill fiddled around at the telephone pole and on the side of my house for quite a while.)
So now my dearest Internet and I are together again! I missed it so. It KILLED me that I couldn't post to this blog yesterday. I hope that I won't have any more service outages.
Anyway, now that we are up and running again, I am going to play catch-up with my posts: I will write what I wanted to post yesterday and post it with yesterday's date, and then I will write today's post, and then I'll be all caught up. Whew!
INTERNETS I LOVE YOU. DON'T EVER LEAVE ME AGAIN!! *hugs Interwebs tight*
Friday, March 19, 2010
Spring--it's not just a rumor!
I sat sun-kissed on the patio this afternoon, writing thank-you notes and e-mails to everyone I could who helped with the dog agility fundraiser last month, and felt grateful to know so many wonderful, kind, generous human beings. I am lucky.
Taking this shot yesterday is one reason why I didn't get around to making an entry. One of those guys who goes door-to-door trying to get people to change natural gas suppliers was at the house where I took this picture, and he followed me all the way home and blathered at me until I signed his stupid agreement just to make him go away. I wasted half an hour last night and another half-hour this morning promptly undoing it.Running also proved to be an extraordinary challenge yesterday. I had 6 miles on the schedule, and my plan was to do Liz's Loop (as I now think of it) twice. It's 3.1 miles around each time, so you end up with a 10K and a rest stop at the midpoint. Pretty perfect--or it would have been if there had been any parking meters available. Noooooo! I didn't get to the meter area until a little after 11:00. You can pretty much forget snagging one of these spots after 9:00 on a weekday, but I didn't think of that until it was too late.
My next thought was to drive out to a section of the rail trail and do segments back and forth, orbiting my car the way the Earth orbits the sun, but nooooooooo! They've just started rebuilding the bridge on the main road to get there. I also didn't remember that until I was on top of it. Grrrrrrr!
I dithered a bit before deciding I would thread my way around the closed bridge and get to the rail trail a different way, but then inspiration finally whapped me upside the head. I entered a 5K race last October close to my home, and I could just run that course! I knew the path well and I knew it was exactly 5K, so I could just run it twice. It was a loop course, so I would get my nice midpoint stop. Yay, my brain finally came up with something useful!
The funny thing is that the 5K course starts and ends at my gym, so I'd be parking in their parking lot even though I had no intention of going inside--not when it was nearly 60 degrees and sunny.
Thrilled to finally have a workable plan, I drove to the gym, parked the car, took one last swig of water, and even found the start line from the race still painted across the road. I finally launched into my run just before noon, nearly an hour after I left home.
The good news was that I didn't feel like I was working as hard as I did during the race, which was 5 months ago. I kept an easier pace than I did then, since I certainly wasn't racing, but the sun started to feel warm and I wished I'd worn shorts instead of capri-length tights after the first mile. I hit the 2.5 K halfway marker at exactly 16:00 (I raced it in 15:00 flat) and finished the 5K in exactly 32:00 (race time was 30:03). Talk about even! The second half has some pretty good uphill action, although the hills aren't all that steep.
The bad news was that the Elvis bagel I had eaten at about 10:00 was down to fumes by mile 2 and my stomach started growling. I hate that feeling that you're running out of fuel and your stomach is turning into a gaping void of emptiness. It certainly doesn't help your running, either. I was suffering almost as much as I was during the race by the time I hit the 5K finish line.
I stopped my watch and tore into the Clif Shot Bloks I had brought for mid-run fueling. I could tell I really needed them because they tasted better than they did last time. They are just too time-consuming, though--I timed it, and it took 3 minutes for me to chew and swallow 3 blocks (equal to 100 calories, which is about what you get from one gel) with water and get enough of the residue off my teeth that it wasn't distracting.
Somewhere during that torturous mile 3, I had another epiphany (two in one day! I know!). Since Liz's Loop is just that--a loop--you should be able to begin from any point on the loop and still cover 3.1 miles if you run all the way back around to the same point, right? And it just so happens that the gym is on Liz's Loop. So instead of running my 5K course AGAIN (bo-ring!), I could do Liz's Loop for my second 5K. Cool, no?
I pushed off for the second 5K adventure listening closely to my gut for signs of unhappiness with the shot bloks I'd just downed. My stomach did hurt briefly about half a mile in, but then everything settled and I was fine. I felt a definite perk-up and relief that I was not going to "bonk" completely (i.e., that feeling that you have to stop and fall down because you're totally out of fuel/energy). Just coming close to it as I did in the first 5K is a pretty nasty feeling.
The only problem with tackling Liz's Loop from this novel starting point was that The Giant Hill (scroll down for pictures of it) came at about Mile 5 instead of Mile 1. Believe me, those 4 miles make a big difference. I managed to run the first and second parts of it, but the really super-steep part just did me in. I had to walk for about 90 seconds. However, there was almost no uphill running after that at all, so the last mile felt pretty good. I arrived back at my car expecting my second 5K to be much slower than my first, but surprise--despite walking up the hill, I still ran miles 4-6 in 31:53! This gave me a total time of 1:03:53 for the 10K, which works out to a 10:17 pace per mile, equal to my pace at last weekend's five-mile race! To be fair, I should mention that I stopped for about five minutes at the midpoint, and that I stopped and started the watch at stoplights three times. I just didn't feel like stressing out about the stoplights. So I got a few extra mini-rest breaks in there.
Tonight, my husband and I are off to my teammate Lindsey's fundraiser! She and Angela and Carie are teaming up to do a Scotch Doubles bowling fundraiser. It sounds like a ton of fun!
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
A long neck--more than just a bottle...
All for one and one for all!Pilates class today was OMG so different! And not in a bad way, either. The man brandishing the green mat is Sabatino, our sub today (Kim had to be elsewhere), and he is the head of a dance troupe.
He really had us focus on careful form and counted a lot of things off in eight-counts the way dancers do. He also didn't hesitate to lay hands on us to correct our position. Since there were only three of us there today, we got lots of individual attention.
Sabatino also knows a lot about anatomy and mentioned some very useful things to think about--like that the body has five curves (neck, lower back, back of the knee, heel, and arch of the foot) and five opposing surfaces that must lengthen every time one of the curves contracts: the throat (and sternum to some degree), the abdomen/core, the front of the knee, the shin, and the top of the foot.
Also, he kept telling all of us to have a "long neck." By keeping your neck tall, you hold your head up straight instead of dipping it forward, which in turn makes your shoulders and sternum crumble inward. So a tall neck means an assertive, open stance and a better-aligned spine. He actually stuck his fingers behind my ears and applied some upward pressure so I'd feel what he meant.
I also finally learned the name for the muscles on the inside of my thighs that are still a little sore after Saturday's race. They are called the sartorius muscles. Sabatino showed me some stretches to try to loosen them up a bit.
At the end of the class, he had each of us walk around the room a few times, and then walk away toward a wall and then back up toward him and our classmates. I went first, so I was the guinea pig. He and the other ladies watched my gait and noted what they were observing. I was told I had a nice arm swing and good rhythm between my arms and legs, but that my right foot winged out more when I walked backward, indicating my right hip is probably stronger than the other one. He also said my clavicle wasn't perfectly level and that my right shoulder seemed lower than my left one. Clearly, he said, I was carrying some tension in the right side of my neck and shoulder. I spent the day mouse-clicking the heck out of a PowerPoint file I was working on (with my right hand), so it was no wonder that side was tense! I was quite impressed that he was able to observe so much. When it was my turn to observe the other two ladies, Sabatino pointed out a bunch of interesting things about them, too.
I like Kim a lot, but Sabatino was really interesting. I'm glad I got to experience his particular brand of Pilates today.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
How to actually attend your buddy's fundraiser this time!
You may recall a post last month entitled "How NOT to attend your buddy's fundraiser" about my teammate Renee. She was having an event close to my house, and it sounded fun, so I thought I should go. Things went wildly, horribly wrong and I ended up nursing a beer and watching Pirates of the Caribbean instead.
However, last night offered a chance for redemption. She and her lovely husband Brad were having another fundraiser and I was bound and determined to make it to this one! As a companion piece to the earlier post, I give you "How to actually manage to attend your buddy's fundraiser in 5 easy steps."
1. Put the right time on the calendar. It's amazing what this one simple thing can do for you!
2. Don't get your car stuck on the hill next to the driveway. This is much easier to avoid when there is NO SNOW on the ground!
3. Notice that your wallet is rather anemic and stop by an ATM to get some funds. After all, if you have no money to spend, Renee and Brad can't get their percentage!
4. Hmm, you're also a little low on gas. Even though it's not a lengthy drive, better safe than sorry. Fill up the tank.
5a. Note with delight that there is more than ONE LANE to get in and out of the event site! No backing up hundreds of feet and getting a giant crick in your neck! No white-knuckled frying of eggs with your tongue!
5b. Also, there is plenty of parking! Parking galore! Parking as far as the eye can see!
Ta-da! Look, I made it! I actually got to see Renee and Brad in person! They're a little backlit, but still an adorable couple nonetheless!
This is much better than drinking a beer in front of the TV. And you can never have too many wings!
Renee also got in on the fun with this St. Paddy's Punch. I didn't try any, but I hear it tasted wonderful.
Brad fuels up for his next walk with a Dubliner--an awe-inducing pile of bread, roast beef, mushrooms, gravy, cheese, and mashed potatoes. Carbo-loading has never been so delicious!
Renee's mom was also there, but was camera-shy, and her son also came and ate dinner but left before I got there. The fundraiser was that Brad and Renee got 20% of the receipts from 5-8 PM, which is why I ordered the largest possible platter of wings. My husband and I ate some more of them tonight, and there will be some for lunch tomorrow, and... Renee and Brad were very close to their fundraising goal and hoping last night would put them over the top. Good luck, guys, and I hope you made it!
In running news, today I ran 4 miles at the outdoor track, a place I have not been to in three months! There was a track team practice while I was there, but one of the coaches said I could run my laps anyway. It probably helped that I was wearing my Team in Training tech shirt.
I wanted to go to the track so I wouldn't have to run any hills. I'm still kind of sore from the weekend and would really like to feel normal again. The outdoor track is a regulation-size track, so I "only" had to run 16 laps in total. I ran my first mile in 10:22, way too fast, especially for the first mile, and then proceeded to run the exact same pace for mile 2--another 10:22! Then I made myself walk a lap before running 7 more laps to get up to 4 miles. I felt pretty wrung out by the time I was done, but it was "hot" (56 degrees! I wore shorts and short sleeves outdoors for the first time this year!) and I hadn't brought any water because I didn't want to get stuck carrying it around if I wasn't allowed on the track. My watch said 43:10 when I was done, which comes out to a 10:48 pace per mile, even including the quarter mile I walked.
I was pretty sore after I was done and made sure to stretch thoroughly when I got home. I didn't do my stretching yesterday since it was my rest day. Big mistake. I won't do that again.
However, last night offered a chance for redemption. She and her lovely husband Brad were having another fundraiser and I was bound and determined to make it to this one! As a companion piece to the earlier post, I give you "How to actually manage to attend your buddy's fundraiser in 5 easy steps."
1. Put the right time on the calendar. It's amazing what this one simple thing can do for you!
2. Don't get your car stuck on the hill next to the driveway. This is much easier to avoid when there is NO SNOW on the ground!
3. Notice that your wallet is rather anemic and stop by an ATM to get some funds. After all, if you have no money to spend, Renee and Brad can't get their percentage!
4. Hmm, you're also a little low on gas. Even though it's not a lengthy drive, better safe than sorry. Fill up the tank.
5a. Note with delight that there is more than ONE LANE to get in and out of the event site! No backing up hundreds of feet and getting a giant crick in your neck! No white-knuckled frying of eggs with your tongue!
5b. Also, there is plenty of parking! Parking galore! Parking as far as the eye can see!
Ta-da! Look, I made it! I actually got to see Renee and Brad in person! They're a little backlit, but still an adorable couple nonetheless!
This is much better than drinking a beer in front of the TV. And you can never have too many wings!
Renee also got in on the fun with this St. Paddy's Punch. I didn't try any, but I hear it tasted wonderful.
Brad fuels up for his next walk with a Dubliner--an awe-inducing pile of bread, roast beef, mushrooms, gravy, cheese, and mashed potatoes. Carbo-loading has never been so delicious!Renee's mom was also there, but was camera-shy, and her son also came and ate dinner but left before I got there. The fundraiser was that Brad and Renee got 20% of the receipts from 5-8 PM, which is why I ordered the largest possible platter of wings. My husband and I ate some more of them tonight, and there will be some for lunch tomorrow, and... Renee and Brad were very close to their fundraising goal and hoping last night would put them over the top. Good luck, guys, and I hope you made it!
In running news, today I ran 4 miles at the outdoor track, a place I have not been to in three months! There was a track team practice while I was there, but one of the coaches said I could run my laps anyway. It probably helped that I was wearing my Team in Training tech shirt.
I wanted to go to the track so I wouldn't have to run any hills. I'm still kind of sore from the weekend and would really like to feel normal again. The outdoor track is a regulation-size track, so I "only" had to run 16 laps in total. I ran my first mile in 10:22, way too fast, especially for the first mile, and then proceeded to run the exact same pace for mile 2--another 10:22! Then I made myself walk a lap before running 7 more laps to get up to 4 miles. I felt pretty wrung out by the time I was done, but it was "hot" (56 degrees! I wore shorts and short sleeves outdoors for the first time this year!) and I hadn't brought any water because I didn't want to get stuck carrying it around if I wasn't allowed on the track. My watch said 43:10 when I was done, which comes out to a 10:48 pace per mile, even including the quarter mile I walked.
I was pretty sore after I was done and made sure to stretch thoroughly when I got home. I didn't do my stretching yesterday since it was my rest day. Big mistake. I won't do that again.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Looking back, looking ahead W10/W9
Holy cow, we're in Week 9! It seems like just yesterday we were in Week 22.I still owe a bunch of people thank-yous from the fundraiser last month. Sorry for being so slow to cover everyone, but I hope to wrap that up this week.
What was I was supposed to do in Week 10? Did I do it?
- Tuesday: 4 miles YES!
- Wednesday: CROSS-TRAIN YES! Pilates class with Kim
- Thursday: 4 miles YES! (Although I did 2 miles on the elliptical, so I cheated a little)
- Friday: CROSS-TRAIN YES!
- Saturday: 6 miles Just about--I did the five-mile race!
- Sunday: 4 miles YES! (Although I was very slow and very sore)
What's my schedule for Week 9?
- Tuesday: 4 miles
- Wednesday: CROSS-TRAIN
- Thursday: 6 miles (yikes!)
- Friday: CROSS-TRAIN
- Saturday: 8 miles (double yikes!)
- Sunday: 4 miles
See you tomorrow!
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Run, Eat, Sleep
Run, eat, sleep. Do I even do anything else any more? Oh, wait, I guess I also blog about running, eating and sleeping. I really enjoyed the race yesterday and I still can't believe how easy that 10:17 pace felt, but thanks to Daylight Savings Time kicking in, 6:00 came reeeeeally early this morning.
Having gotten at least some sleep, it was time to get out of bed and run, no, wait, I mean eat. I was too flippin' tired to manage breakfast at home and I really needed a coffee jumpstart today (despite all the bad stuff I just wrote about caffeine before exercise), so off I went to Bob Evans. If you eat at the counter, you can get in and out of there in about 20 minutes, which is all the time I had.
I was still a bit late getting to the trailhead, and I pulled in to see a big circle of runners listening intently to Coach Rob. In yet another fun twist on the "How many ways can you cancel a group run?" game, we soon learned that this one was being canceled because the trail along the river--the one we were supposed to run on--was flooded. And after I dragged my tired butt out of bed and actually managed to get there! Grf! Apparently the water had come up a lot just within the last few hours, so there wasn't enough time to warn us while we were still at home.
This left us in a bit of a quandary, as we were literally all dressed up with no place to run.
Lindsey, Angela, Brittany, and Elizabeth all managed to get their tired Daylight-Savings-ravaged butts up to the trailhead too! (And Lindsey ran the five-mile race yesterday just like I did. Yay, Lindsey!) We discussed possible running options for a while before going with Coach Rob's recommendation, namely to run on the trail heading west, away from the river. We weren't sure about mileage, but figured we could just run 35 minutes out and 35 minutes back to get our six miles. Lindsey and I both started our watches, and off we went.
The first few tenths were nice, winding past a meadow and over a bridge that was safely out of reach of the raging river water. THEN, however, things got ugly. The trail went up. And up. And up. And up some more. And holy cow, still more up?
"This is worse than the race course yesterday!" Lindsey panted.
"Owwww," I agreed. "Let's walk."
The giant hill brought out every half-hidden ache and complaint from the race. Oddly enough, the outsides of my quads hurt the most. But we ran more than we walked up that gigantic, seemingly endless hill, and when we finally crested it at a bunch of picnic shelters, I suddenly recognized where we were: I'd had a couple of picnics for work here.
We kept running down to where the trail ended at a major roadway. Markers along the side helpfully told us we'd covered 2 miles from where we'd started. I'm not going to tell you what my watch said because it was embarrassing.
We stretched a bit, drank a little water, and pondered how to get the other 2 miles in that we needed to make six (just going back would only give us 4). In the end, Liz just started jogging off and we all followed her--too tired to attempt independent thought--and she went straight back to the parking lot.
By the time I made it back to my car, I was incredibly sore and didn't want to go another step. This is when I decided four miles was perfectly okay, and I did an extra mile yesterday, so I was really only one mile "behind." Liz decided to do another out-and-back to get eight miles, but I just went to get my mat out of the trunk so I could stretch. Except there was no mat because I'd forgotten it at home. D'oh!
Fortunately, Cathy gave me a mat and towel, and I once again ducked under a picnic shelter to get on a dry surface and do my stretches. They hurt. A lot. But I would have locked up completely if I hadn't done them and I felt much better afterward. She and another team member named Kate proposed going for a post-run snack, so Lindsey, Angela, Brittany, Cathy, Kate, and I all piled into our cars and went to Panera. Having run, it was now time to...EAT, of course.
I tried a strawberry smoothie. It was actually very tasty and probably an excellent glycogen-replacement option, with 59 grams of carbohydrates, 260 calories, and only 1.5 grams of fat. And it came with a nice purple Team-in-Training-color straw!
Look, a shot of runners doing something other than standing around in a parking lot somewhere! That's Cathy, Kate, and Angela on the left and Brittany, moi, and Lindsey on the right.
The six of us ate and chatted for an hour or so before I realized my husband was still waiting at home for me so we could...you guessed it...go out and eat brunch! I had gingerbread pancakes, so I'm sure my carb stores were full to overflowing after that!
After going grocery shopping (because you have to have food in the house if you want to eat anything at home), I was so tired I had to...
...yup, SLEEP. My original thought had been to finish up a work project and then take my dog to agility class, but I just didn't have the wherewithal to drive an hour each way and then run around with my dog for an hour. So after calling the instructor to let her know I wasn't coming, I curled up and had a nice nap on the couch.
And then it was time to walk the dogs, which isn't quite running--more of a brisk walk. And then I was hungry, so I had a snack when I got back and then sat down at the computer to get my project done.
Which was followed by cooking and eating dinner (very healthy--fish, couscous, and broccoli), finishing my project and sending it off, and then checking in with you guys.
I am absolutely whipped. I have run, and I have eaten, so it must be time to go SLEEP again. Good night!
Having gotten at least some sleep, it was time to get out of bed and run, no, wait, I mean eat. I was too flippin' tired to manage breakfast at home and I really needed a coffee jumpstart today (despite all the bad stuff I just wrote about caffeine before exercise), so off I went to Bob Evans. If you eat at the counter, you can get in and out of there in about 20 minutes, which is all the time I had.
I was still a bit late getting to the trailhead, and I pulled in to see a big circle of runners listening intently to Coach Rob. In yet another fun twist on the "How many ways can you cancel a group run?" game, we soon learned that this one was being canceled because the trail along the river--the one we were supposed to run on--was flooded. And after I dragged my tired butt out of bed and actually managed to get there! Grf! Apparently the water had come up a lot just within the last few hours, so there wasn't enough time to warn us while we were still at home.
This left us in a bit of a quandary, as we were literally all dressed up with no place to run.
Lindsey, Angela, Brittany, and Elizabeth all managed to get their tired Daylight-Savings-ravaged butts up to the trailhead too! (And Lindsey ran the five-mile race yesterday just like I did. Yay, Lindsey!) We discussed possible running options for a while before going with Coach Rob's recommendation, namely to run on the trail heading west, away from the river. We weren't sure about mileage, but figured we could just run 35 minutes out and 35 minutes back to get our six miles. Lindsey and I both started our watches, and off we went.The first few tenths were nice, winding past a meadow and over a bridge that was safely out of reach of the raging river water. THEN, however, things got ugly. The trail went up. And up. And up. And up some more. And holy cow, still more up?
"This is worse than the race course yesterday!" Lindsey panted.
"Owwww," I agreed. "Let's walk."
The giant hill brought out every half-hidden ache and complaint from the race. Oddly enough, the outsides of my quads hurt the most. But we ran more than we walked up that gigantic, seemingly endless hill, and when we finally crested it at a bunch of picnic shelters, I suddenly recognized where we were: I'd had a couple of picnics for work here.
We kept running down to where the trail ended at a major roadway. Markers along the side helpfully told us we'd covered 2 miles from where we'd started. I'm not going to tell you what my watch said because it was embarrassing.
We stretched a bit, drank a little water, and pondered how to get the other 2 miles in that we needed to make six (just going back would only give us 4). In the end, Liz just started jogging off and we all followed her--too tired to attempt independent thought--and she went straight back to the parking lot.
By the time I made it back to my car, I was incredibly sore and didn't want to go another step. This is when I decided four miles was perfectly okay, and I did an extra mile yesterday, so I was really only one mile "behind." Liz decided to do another out-and-back to get eight miles, but I just went to get my mat out of the trunk so I could stretch. Except there was no mat because I'd forgotten it at home. D'oh!
Fortunately, Cathy gave me a mat and towel, and I once again ducked under a picnic shelter to get on a dry surface and do my stretches. They hurt. A lot. But I would have locked up completely if I hadn't done them and I felt much better afterward. She and another team member named Kate proposed going for a post-run snack, so Lindsey, Angela, Brittany, Cathy, Kate, and I all piled into our cars and went to Panera. Having run, it was now time to...EAT, of course.
I tried a strawberry smoothie. It was actually very tasty and probably an excellent glycogen-replacement option, with 59 grams of carbohydrates, 260 calories, and only 1.5 grams of fat. And it came with a nice purple Team-in-Training-color straw!
Look, a shot of runners doing something other than standing around in a parking lot somewhere! That's Cathy, Kate, and Angela on the left and Brittany, moi, and Lindsey on the right.The six of us ate and chatted for an hour or so before I realized my husband was still waiting at home for me so we could...you guessed it...go out and eat brunch! I had gingerbread pancakes, so I'm sure my carb stores were full to overflowing after that!
After going grocery shopping (because you have to have food in the house if you want to eat anything at home), I was so tired I had to...
...yup, SLEEP. My original thought had been to finish up a work project and then take my dog to agility class, but I just didn't have the wherewithal to drive an hour each way and then run around with my dog for an hour. So after calling the instructor to let her know I wasn't coming, I curled up and had a nice nap on the couch.
And then it was time to walk the dogs, which isn't quite running--more of a brisk walk. And then I was hungry, so I had a snack when I got back and then sat down at the computer to get my project done.
Which was followed by cooking and eating dinner (very healthy--fish, couscous, and broccoli), finishing my project and sending it off, and then checking in with you guys.
I am absolutely whipped. I have run, and I have eaten, so it must be time to go SLEEP again. Good night!
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Race Report! (Hint: Woooooooot!!!)
The executive summary: I'm back from my five-mile race! I survived! I neither injured myself nor came in last! AND I had fun!! Woot woot woot!
The play-by-play: I woke up well before the alarm went off, a tradition I seem to be carrying over from dog agility shows to race mornings.I finally gave up tossing and turning and rubbing my head (headache again, yick) and got up half an hour earlier than scheduled. The first order of business was to take an Excedrin and check the weather forecast to see if fate was going to goose me again like it did yesterday. The weather report said it was 52° and that the rain was not going to start in earnest until later in the morning. That gave me hope. Then it took me nearly an hour just to shower and dress and get my contacts in. (Hopefully I'll get better at putting in and taking out my contacts before too much longer. Right now I'm just hilariously pathetic.)
I ate scrambled eggs and half a buttered bagel for breakfast and made myself an Elvis bagel to take to the race. One last check of the weather showed that the temperature had dropped to 42° with a wind chill of 35° at the race site. Oh, great. Nothing to do now but laugh, I guess. I loaded the car and headed out at 7:45. It was just "spitting" when I left the house, but the rain picked up about 15 minutes into the drive. It kept toying with me, slacking off for a while only to splat down harder later--but it never even got close to frog-strangling level. On impulse, I pulled into a parking lot a few blocks from the race site where other runners seemed to be congregating. It was too far to schlep my duffel bag, so I left it and all of its contents (most notably my camera) in the trunk. All I had with me were my Elvis bagel and water, my keys, my gel, and my running gloves.
A cold rain was falling, and the wind was helpfully blowing it sideways. I immediately followed John Bingham's advice: "And this next sentence is the most important sentence in the entire book: When you get to the race site, immediately get into a portable-toilet line. I'm not kidding. Do not stop to talk. Do not look around for friends. Make a direct line for the portable toilets." There were 8 port-a-johns and about 50 people already in line for them. While in line, I heard a lengthy discourse about sports bras and an important fact I had not thought about--this was a "hilly" course, at least by Midwestern standards. Uh-oh.
I still had almost an hour before the race started even after standing in the potty line, so I nosed about looking for someplace to get out of the wind. Fortunately, the race-day registration tables were inside a gym on the top floor of a dilapidated school building, so I went up there and sat on some mats in one corner.
The scene was intense. It reminded me of All-State choir auditions. People all around me were twisting, kicking, bending, stretching their calves against the wall, pinning and re-pinning their race numbers, and making final adjustments to their iPods. Twitchy, twitchy people, and we were still nowhere near our start time. I just watched it all play out while I nibbled on my bagel and sipped my water. Half an hour before race time, I figured I'd better quit eating and hey, why not kill some more time in the potty line? Even after that, I still had twenty minutes left to go. I finally went down to the general start line area where people were milling about only to see the sun desperately trying to break through the heavy clouds. It was still drizzling, but it seemed less bone-chillingly cold than before. Yay!
A bagpipe player began playing to tell us to line up. The start line was on a downhill, and the line of people waiting to run stretched up the hill and around a sharp corner even further uphill. This race was orders of magnitude bigger than my last one. I lined up most of the way back to the corner. I was maybe halfway back, but I guess I was still too far forward. I chatted a bit with a woman who had lined up next to me, and she was going for roughly the same pace I was, so I didn't feel out of place.
And then a whole herd of cowbells rang out to start the race and we were off! Holy moley, it was like the running of the bulls or something. People took off down that hill like a shot. The road was full of potholes and required considerable attention to navigate without losing an ankle in the process. I drifted toward the right and tried to remind myself to start slow. We went into the first turn, people passing me in hordes, and there were even runners leaping around parked cars and dashing down sidewalks trying to get an advantage. Massive puddles covered the next turn (onto Hemlock Avenue, yikes!) and the next, and trying not to end up with squishy feet also took up considerable brain hard drive space. A few minutes later, we had to cross a rust-red metal bridge over the canal, and the metal lattice grid offered rather slippery footing. After another turn, about when I was starting to wonder if I had missed Mile 1, there it was. "11:44!" the kid yelled out as I passed, and the woman next to me expressed violent displeasure. "That's gun time, not chip time," I reminded her, and showed her my watch: 11:24. Hey, every 20 seconds helps.
The chatter died down as we got to the course's first uphill, crossed another longer, higher bridge over the river, and turned left. There were people ahead of me as far as the eye could see. As I was still going over the bridge, I saw a guy proudly carrying a Marine Corps flag past the turn, red banner flapping in the wind. Maybe I got bib number 478 to denote how many people passed me in that first mile!
After the turn, we had a great view of the skyscrapers downtown, the fog shrouding their tops in gray. "Nice view," I commented to the guy next to me, "but it'd be even nicer if the sun were out." However, it was not raining very hard at all at that point, and I was even thinking about taking off my gloves. The course went past some churned-up vacant land (apparently a future casino site, according to one conversation I overheard) and then offered a view of a beautiful stone firehouse that had to be a hundred years old.
And suddenly we saw a tall man in white come streaking down the other side of the road--the leader, and we hadn't even hit mile 2 yet! WOW! We hoi polloi all clapped and cheered for him as he went by, and for the next 5 guys or so behind him. We saw about 15 or 20 more guys before we saw the first woman, and another big cheer went up for her and the next 5 or 10 women behind her.
We crossed Mile 2 just after we saw the first woman: "21:41!" the kid yelled out. Wow, I had clearly picked it up from Mile 1. I took my gloves off and zipped them into a pocket where they stayed for the rest of the race. On we went, the course turning uphill again, and I got passed by three women wearing shamrock deelyboppers on their heads, shamrock scarves, green poufy skirts, and knee-high green-and-white striped socks. Quite the outfit! I liked the socks the best.
We turned right onto a side street, and there was the water station. I pulled my gel pack out and opened it while I was still running, collected a glass of water, and went off to the side to walk while I ate the gel and drank the water. I figured it was more important to get the water in me than shave a few more seconds off my time. The gel was kind of gross--too thick and not very tasty. I did my best to taste as little of it as possible. My watch said 30:03 when I started running again.
Around the next corner was the Animal Protective League (I've always wondered where it was! Now I know.) and the Mile 3 marker. I don't remember the split the kid yelled out as I went by, but it was definitely in the acceptable range. We kept on going up the hill to the stoplight, where we got to turn left and go downhill at last! Now we were the ones on the way back, and the fact that there were still people on the outbound leg (to be fair, a lot of them were walkers, and I even saw one guy using a walker) meant that I would not be last! Whoo-hoo! I even passed some people on this stretch. Not a ton, mind you, but I finally got in on the passing action.
I was running strongly and felt really good, not struggling at all. I still felt pretty conversational, even. So although the gel did not score high on the palatability scale, it provided perfectly good fueling. I passed Mile Marker 4 with a confused kid yelling "41:05! I mean, 42:07!" "I liked 41 better!" one lady yelled back with a laugh. Then she turned to her partner and said, "Let's do a ten-minute mile and finish in 52 minutes! We can do it!" The two of them then started fartleking from telephone pole to telephone pole. Pretty funny stuff!
As my section of the pack turned right to go over another bridge, we all had to move over to let an ambulance through. Hopefully it wasn't for one of us. I passed a few more people going over the bridge, and then one or two more going down the hill into the next turn. "Good job," one woman said very nicely to me as I passed her. What a kind thing to say! I thanked her equally warmly.
I think the moment that will really stay with me from this race, though, is coming around the next turn and down the hill toward the same rust-red bridge over the canal we crossed early on. I realized that I was almost done, that I had maybe a half mile to go and I was rockin' it. I passed a man who had parked his car on the side there just to cheer on the racers. "Good job! Well done! Way to go!" he said to all of us running by, and his kids in the car waved and smiled at us. Just past where he had parked, there was an Irish pub, and on the sidewalk in front of it was an elderly man with gleaming white hair and moustaches, standing there playing the bagpipes in full Scottish dress. The sound echoed and bounced off the bottom of the overpass just ahead and wrapped us in song.
A big, sloppy, stupid grin plastered itself on my face right then and there and stayed put for the rest of the race. I unzipped my jacket as I crossed the bridge to make sure my bib number was visible, ran straight for two more blocks, and made the last turn. The final two blocks were a steep uphill to the finish. There were people on the sidelines cheering, and then I saw the red glow of the clocks on either side of the street.
Oops. I broke my promise. The clocks said something like "51:25", and there was no way I was just going to stop and walk so I could come in over 52:00. No way. So I kept up my effort, feeling a bit winded as the hill got steeper, but then I saw the race photographer, gave him an even bigger grin, and hauled ass over that finish line and stopped my watch.
51:30. No way!! Woot woot woot woot! I felt elated. What a great race! I didn't kill myself, my body parts mostly kept quiet (my right inner thigh said hello shortly after mile 2, and the inside of my right knee made a brief cameo around mile 4, but they both shut up pretty quickly), and the rain had mostly held off! It got colder and heavier just before the finish, but with a finish like that, who cares?
I grabbed some pizza, an apple, and a bottle of water and went back to the upstairs gym to get out of the weather and stretch. And wouldn't you know it--the other half of my Elvis bagel was still there! Bonus!
I am still floating on air. This race went about as well as it possibly could have at this stage of my training. And the official results are already posted (Wow!). My official chip time? 51:25!! That's a 10:17 pace per mile! I placed 90th in my age group out of 154 people and 1635th overall out of 2153 people who actually finished the race. So not only was I not last, I beat about 25% of the field. Yes, folks, I am inching my way toward midpack status! Whoo-hoo!!
My only regret is that I didn't see Kelli's text message. She's my Team in Training mentor, and she and Lindsey offered to meet up with me and go up to the race together. I would have loved to have been not so alone in that giant crush of people, but I didn't see her message until I got back to my car after the race. Sorry, Kelli! But she and Lindsey did well, and my other Team in Training buddy Melissa ran the race too despite battling plantar fasciitis. Her time was great considering her injury! Hope you feel better soon, Melissa!
I can't wait to brag at tomorrow's group run!
The play-by-play: I woke up well before the alarm went off, a tradition I seem to be carrying over from dog agility shows to race mornings.I finally gave up tossing and turning and rubbing my head (headache again, yick) and got up half an hour earlier than scheduled. The first order of business was to take an Excedrin and check the weather forecast to see if fate was going to goose me again like it did yesterday. The weather report said it was 52° and that the rain was not going to start in earnest until later in the morning. That gave me hope. Then it took me nearly an hour just to shower and dress and get my contacts in. (Hopefully I'll get better at putting in and taking out my contacts before too much longer. Right now I'm just hilariously pathetic.)
I ate scrambled eggs and half a buttered bagel for breakfast and made myself an Elvis bagel to take to the race. One last check of the weather showed that the temperature had dropped to 42° with a wind chill of 35° at the race site. Oh, great. Nothing to do now but laugh, I guess. I loaded the car and headed out at 7:45. It was just "spitting" when I left the house, but the rain picked up about 15 minutes into the drive. It kept toying with me, slacking off for a while only to splat down harder later--but it never even got close to frog-strangling level. On impulse, I pulled into a parking lot a few blocks from the race site where other runners seemed to be congregating. It was too far to schlep my duffel bag, so I left it and all of its contents (most notably my camera) in the trunk. All I had with me were my Elvis bagel and water, my keys, my gel, and my running gloves.
A cold rain was falling, and the wind was helpfully blowing it sideways. I immediately followed John Bingham's advice: "And this next sentence is the most important sentence in the entire book: When you get to the race site, immediately get into a portable-toilet line. I'm not kidding. Do not stop to talk. Do not look around for friends. Make a direct line for the portable toilets." There were 8 port-a-johns and about 50 people already in line for them. While in line, I heard a lengthy discourse about sports bras and an important fact I had not thought about--this was a "hilly" course, at least by Midwestern standards. Uh-oh.
I still had almost an hour before the race started even after standing in the potty line, so I nosed about looking for someplace to get out of the wind. Fortunately, the race-day registration tables were inside a gym on the top floor of a dilapidated school building, so I went up there and sat on some mats in one corner.
The scene was intense. It reminded me of All-State choir auditions. People all around me were twisting, kicking, bending, stretching their calves against the wall, pinning and re-pinning their race numbers, and making final adjustments to their iPods. Twitchy, twitchy people, and we were still nowhere near our start time. I just watched it all play out while I nibbled on my bagel and sipped my water. Half an hour before race time, I figured I'd better quit eating and hey, why not kill some more time in the potty line? Even after that, I still had twenty minutes left to go. I finally went down to the general start line area where people were milling about only to see the sun desperately trying to break through the heavy clouds. It was still drizzling, but it seemed less bone-chillingly cold than before. Yay!
A bagpipe player began playing to tell us to line up. The start line was on a downhill, and the line of people waiting to run stretched up the hill and around a sharp corner even further uphill. This race was orders of magnitude bigger than my last one. I lined up most of the way back to the corner. I was maybe halfway back, but I guess I was still too far forward. I chatted a bit with a woman who had lined up next to me, and she was going for roughly the same pace I was, so I didn't feel out of place.
And then a whole herd of cowbells rang out to start the race and we were off! Holy moley, it was like the running of the bulls or something. People took off down that hill like a shot. The road was full of potholes and required considerable attention to navigate without losing an ankle in the process. I drifted toward the right and tried to remind myself to start slow. We went into the first turn, people passing me in hordes, and there were even runners leaping around parked cars and dashing down sidewalks trying to get an advantage. Massive puddles covered the next turn (onto Hemlock Avenue, yikes!) and the next, and trying not to end up with squishy feet also took up considerable brain hard drive space. A few minutes later, we had to cross a rust-red metal bridge over the canal, and the metal lattice grid offered rather slippery footing. After another turn, about when I was starting to wonder if I had missed Mile 1, there it was. "11:44!" the kid yelled out as I passed, and the woman next to me expressed violent displeasure. "That's gun time, not chip time," I reminded her, and showed her my watch: 11:24. Hey, every 20 seconds helps.
The chatter died down as we got to the course's first uphill, crossed another longer, higher bridge over the river, and turned left. There were people ahead of me as far as the eye could see. As I was still going over the bridge, I saw a guy proudly carrying a Marine Corps flag past the turn, red banner flapping in the wind. Maybe I got bib number 478 to denote how many people passed me in that first mile!
After the turn, we had a great view of the skyscrapers downtown, the fog shrouding their tops in gray. "Nice view," I commented to the guy next to me, "but it'd be even nicer if the sun were out." However, it was not raining very hard at all at that point, and I was even thinking about taking off my gloves. The course went past some churned-up vacant land (apparently a future casino site, according to one conversation I overheard) and then offered a view of a beautiful stone firehouse that had to be a hundred years old.
And suddenly we saw a tall man in white come streaking down the other side of the road--the leader, and we hadn't even hit mile 2 yet! WOW! We hoi polloi all clapped and cheered for him as he went by, and for the next 5 guys or so behind him. We saw about 15 or 20 more guys before we saw the first woman, and another big cheer went up for her and the next 5 or 10 women behind her.
We crossed Mile 2 just after we saw the first woman: "21:41!" the kid yelled out. Wow, I had clearly picked it up from Mile 1. I took my gloves off and zipped them into a pocket where they stayed for the rest of the race. On we went, the course turning uphill again, and I got passed by three women wearing shamrock deelyboppers on their heads, shamrock scarves, green poufy skirts, and knee-high green-and-white striped socks. Quite the outfit! I liked the socks the best.
We turned right onto a side street, and there was the water station. I pulled my gel pack out and opened it while I was still running, collected a glass of water, and went off to the side to walk while I ate the gel and drank the water. I figured it was more important to get the water in me than shave a few more seconds off my time. The gel was kind of gross--too thick and not very tasty. I did my best to taste as little of it as possible. My watch said 30:03 when I started running again.
Around the next corner was the Animal Protective League (I've always wondered where it was! Now I know.) and the Mile 3 marker. I don't remember the split the kid yelled out as I went by, but it was definitely in the acceptable range. We kept on going up the hill to the stoplight, where we got to turn left and go downhill at last! Now we were the ones on the way back, and the fact that there were still people on the outbound leg (to be fair, a lot of them were walkers, and I even saw one guy using a walker) meant that I would not be last! Whoo-hoo! I even passed some people on this stretch. Not a ton, mind you, but I finally got in on the passing action.
I was running strongly and felt really good, not struggling at all. I still felt pretty conversational, even. So although the gel did not score high on the palatability scale, it provided perfectly good fueling. I passed Mile Marker 4 with a confused kid yelling "41:05! I mean, 42:07!" "I liked 41 better!" one lady yelled back with a laugh. Then she turned to her partner and said, "Let's do a ten-minute mile and finish in 52 minutes! We can do it!" The two of them then started fartleking from telephone pole to telephone pole. Pretty funny stuff!
As my section of the pack turned right to go over another bridge, we all had to move over to let an ambulance through. Hopefully it wasn't for one of us. I passed a few more people going over the bridge, and then one or two more going down the hill into the next turn. "Good job," one woman said very nicely to me as I passed her. What a kind thing to say! I thanked her equally warmly.
I think the moment that will really stay with me from this race, though, is coming around the next turn and down the hill toward the same rust-red bridge over the canal we crossed early on. I realized that I was almost done, that I had maybe a half mile to go and I was rockin' it. I passed a man who had parked his car on the side there just to cheer on the racers. "Good job! Well done! Way to go!" he said to all of us running by, and his kids in the car waved and smiled at us. Just past where he had parked, there was an Irish pub, and on the sidewalk in front of it was an elderly man with gleaming white hair and moustaches, standing there playing the bagpipes in full Scottish dress. The sound echoed and bounced off the bottom of the overpass just ahead and wrapped us in song.
A big, sloppy, stupid grin plastered itself on my face right then and there and stayed put for the rest of the race. I unzipped my jacket as I crossed the bridge to make sure my bib number was visible, ran straight for two more blocks, and made the last turn. The final two blocks were a steep uphill to the finish. There were people on the sidelines cheering, and then I saw the red glow of the clocks on either side of the street.
Oops. I broke my promise. The clocks said something like "51:25", and there was no way I was just going to stop and walk so I could come in over 52:00. No way. So I kept up my effort, feeling a bit winded as the hill got steeper, but then I saw the race photographer, gave him an even bigger grin, and hauled ass over that finish line and stopped my watch.
51:30. No way!! Woot woot woot woot! I felt elated. What a great race! I didn't kill myself, my body parts mostly kept quiet (my right inner thigh said hello shortly after mile 2, and the inside of my right knee made a brief cameo around mile 4, but they both shut up pretty quickly), and the rain had mostly held off! It got colder and heavier just before the finish, but with a finish like that, who cares?
I grabbed some pizza, an apple, and a bottle of water and went back to the upstairs gym to get out of the weather and stretch. And wouldn't you know it--the other half of my Elvis bagel was still there! Bonus!
I am still floating on air. This race went about as well as it possibly could have at this stage of my training. And the official results are already posted (Wow!). My official chip time? 51:25!! That's a 10:17 pace per mile! I placed 90th in my age group out of 154 people and 1635th overall out of 2153 people who actually finished the race. So not only was I not last, I beat about 25% of the field. Yes, folks, I am inching my way toward midpack status! Whoo-hoo!!
My only regret is that I didn't see Kelli's text message. She's my Team in Training mentor, and she and Lindsey offered to meet up with me and go up to the race together. I would have loved to have been not so alone in that giant crush of people, but I didn't see her message until I got back to my car after the race. Sorry, Kelli! But she and Lindsey did well, and my other Team in Training buddy Melissa ran the race too despite battling plantar fasciitis. Her time was great considering her injury! Hope you feel better soon, Melissa!
I can't wait to brag at tomorrow's group run!
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