How to run a PR and whine about it

1. Train for months.

2. Race.

3. Finish.

4. Grumble about your time to anyone wh0 will listen.

Anywho, I ran my second half marathon Sunday in Eugene, Oregon. I was aiming to finish in less than two hours, and all of my training indicated that I would.

The reality, however, was a bit different. I finished in 2:07:58, significantly slower than I hoped/trained for, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed. Not so much because I missed my goal; more so because I missed my goal and I feel like the reasons for that were preventable.

I completely underestimated  how hard air travel would be on my body prior to a race. My sleep schedule was all out of whack. My nutrition was atrocious. I didn’t eat very well or nearly enough the day before the race. I had a huge, late lunch that didn’t contain enough carbs. I was so full for the rest of the day that I only managed to eat one slice of pizza before bed, which I had to force myself to do. I got to the race way later than I wanted to, and as a result, didn’t have time to putter around and wash down a gel with plenty of water before the gun went off. The hills toward the end of the race were tougher than I expected, and my lack of food didn’t make them any easier.

Here’s the breakdown:

Miles 1-3: Ok, it’s really crowded. I’m not going fast enough. I need to bust through and pick up the pace. It’s cold. My hands are cold. Oh well. Keep going. I really should’ve taken a gel. I’ll just down one at the first water station.

Miles 4-7: This feels good. I’m on pace, a little faster. I’m cruising. The course is pretty, things have opened up a bit and I can feel my hands again. Take a gel. Have some water and Gatorade. Feeling optimistic. (This is the best I feel the entire race.) On pace for a 1:58/59

Mile 8: Crap. This is a huge hill. I am a machine, I am a machine. What? I’m only halfway up the hill and feel like dying? What? This is miserable, but I will NOT walk. I’m passing tons of people who are walking. Why is this song stuck in my head? Only a little longer until I’m up this thing, then I’ll get to recover on the downhill that must surely be on the other side.

Mile 9: Phew, that’s over. Thank God there’s a downhill for me to coast on. Legs are a little tired, but that’s OK. I’ll perk back up here in a minute. Have some more Gatorade, choke down half a gel and my stomach turns. What?!! MORE HILLS?! I can do this. I can do this. On pace for 2:01/02. I can still get this.

Mile 10: Don’t walk. Don’t walk. You will hate yourself if you walk. You are only 5k away from being done, DON’T WALK. More hills. OK, you can walk through this water station to get a drink and eat some of those weird electrolyte-fruit-bite-thingies. But only for a second. MORE HILLS?!!!! Let’s do this. I can do this. Keep going.

Mile 11-12: *Hits wall.* Legs feel completely drained. I shuffling along. If I walk I will hate myself. Legs keep hurting. Maybe walking for a few seconds will make me feel better… OK, I’ll walk for a few seconds. OK, I’ll walk for a minute — maybe 2 minutes. Legs still feel like crap. I’ll run some more. Maybe a few more seconds of walking. I play this game for a while.

Mile 13: Get it together. Don’t embarrass yourself; the crowds are yelling, you can’t walk. Run the rest. It’s only another mile. It doesn’t matter how slow you are, just run it. Just finish. Cross the finish line and you can collapse and sleep all day. 2:07:58

So that’s that. I walked for the first time ever in a race. That even includes when I first started running in high school and was TERRIBLE. More than anything, I’m mad at myself for walking. It’s one of those things where when it’s happening, you feel like you’re doing your best. Then later, when you’re feeling better, you think back and say to yourself “I could’ve pushed harder. I didn’t do my best. It didn’t hurt that much.” Not a great place to be.

I’m left with this “Mission: Unaccomplished” feeling, and it’s not very fun. I realize that there are tons of people who would kill to run the time that I ran, so I don’t mean to be ungrateful or to come across as saying “this time sucks.” It’s not the time that I’m disappointed in as much as the reasons I ran that time and the feeling that I didn’t plan carefully enough. I guess it means I’ll just have to do another one! Mostly like the STL Rock ‘n Roll this fall. But what will I do until then?

I think I want to get back to my “roots” and do some 5ks. See what my speed is like after all these years. I’ve never raced a 10k, so those will be on the menu, too. Keep my fitness up while also taking a break from training for a half.

The EXCELLENT news is that there’s nothing major wrong with my back. I got into a great sports doc the Wednesday before. He popped my SI joint back into place and really worked me over to loosen up my hips and hamstrings. He slapped some kinseo tape on my back for support, and I was good for the race. So that’s a huge relief. I managed to make it through training without injuring myself, which is also awesome. AND, I have almost a solid year of consistent, significant mileage under my belt. Which means my base is strong and I’m ready for some harder runs.

So that’s what up. To quote Kid Cudi:

“The end is never the end. A new challenge awaits. A test no man could be prepared for. A new hell he must conquer and destroy. A new level of growth he must confront himself. The machine in the ghost within. This is the journey of the man on the moon.”

Trying not to freak

My race is a week away, and my back is killing me.

I’m trying not to worry about it, but it’s hard.

It’s particularly hard, because what I’m experiencing feels naggingly similar to the back injury I had in high school that ended my running “career” my senior year. Only this time, it’s on the right side of my back and not the left.

I’ve been training for this thing since January, with the goal of breaking 2 hours. Before this nonsense with my back started a few weeks ago, I was confident that I’d achieve my goal and probably even surpass it. Now I’m not sure if I’ll even be able to run the whole thing. It’ll be completely dependent on whether my back wants to cooperate.

I’ve been trying to take it easy and stretch a lot. I smell like an old man because I’ve been incessantly applying muscle rub. I have myself on a steady diet of NSAIDs, and I’ve been sleeping a lot more.

I ran once last week. A measly 6 miles. That’s it. I did a solid 9-miler the week before, so I’m not too worried about the training aspect, I guess. I wanted to get 10 miles in last week, but that’s not wise at this point.

I just wish that this would’ve started AFTER my race. Waaah, waaah, waaah.

At any rate, I have the name of a good doctor to call tomorrow morning. Even though I probably won’t be able to get in before my trip, at least I’ll have an appointment set. Mostly, I just want to have fun and not be a grumpy, uncomfortable mess.

Now, time to stop whining and start planning!

A running belt that doesn’t bounce!

I would really like a Garmin watch for when I run. A lot. But they are a million dollars (OK, several hundred), so I’ve been experimenting with alternatives.

I have an HTC Evo (an Android phone) and downloaded Runkeeper Pro, a cool app that will track your route via GPS and give you splits. You can also program interval workouts, etc. It works really well and seems accurate enough for my purposes. The problem is that most of my running shorts don’t have pockets, and I hate, HATE carrying things in my hands when I run. Everything gets sweaty and it makes me feel imbalanced (more so than usual). Also, I’m always dropping things.

Enter the Nathan Shadow Pak:

Oh, hello.

Don’t be fooled by its small size. The storage compartment is made of sturdy, stretchy mesh. I was easily able to fit my phone in it and could’ve smashed some gels in there, too. The waist band is adjustable and elastic, and there are reflective details on the belt for running in low light. There’s also a little slot with an ID card, which is handy.

I ran a little more than 6 miles yesterday, and this sucker never bounced. Not once. Even better? I didn’t have to wear it so tightly that it cut off circulation to my lower extremities. Once I put it on and adjusted it, I forgot it was there. It settled nicely into the small of my back and stayed put. It’s not bulky or cumbersome, and I think it looks cool… considering it’s basically a glorified fanny pack.

The best thing, though, is the material the little pouch is made of. My phone fit in it nicely, but let’s say I only wanted to carry a couple of gels. In other packs I’ve used, there would be too much slack and it’d end up bouncing. With this one, you can tighten up the straps and the mesh pulls snug over whatever is in the pocket. So no bouncing! It’s awesome.

The only downside I can see is that because the pocket is mesh, this wouldn’t be great to wear in the rain. My solution would be to put anything that can’t get wet into a Ziploc bag before packing it in the belt.

It comes in a variety of colors, but I chose green, of course. I got mine for $20 at my favorite running store, Big River Running. Definitely check them out if you live in the St. Louis area. If you aren’t lucky enough to live in the Lou, you can snag one on Amazon here.

This is the perfect way to carry essentials on your run, bike, hike, whatever. I would actually use this to carry stuff in any situation where I would be walking around for a long time and didn’t want to haul a purse (zoo, amusement parks, fairs, etc.), but I make questionable fashion choices sometimes.

Oh, and I ran 9:06 splits :)

Protect yourself

I’m a fair-skinned redhead, but I have the good luck to not sunburn easily. Even so, I wear SPF 30 on my face every single day, and SPF 50 on my face and body every time I run. EVERY TIME. Doesn’t matter if it’s sunny, cold, warm, raining, cloudy, etc. It takes an extra 2 minutes, and I let it soak in while I eat my pre-run banana and peanut butter toast. That extra 2 minutes is nothing compared to the 10 years it’ll take off my appearance over time and the reduced risk of skin cancer it provides. If you’re not taking care of your skin, you’re not taking care of your body, even if you eat right and exercise. So lotion up!

No, I don't spring for Clinique sunscreen. I use the cheap Target stuff, and it works like a charm.

Not jealous

I hate warm, humid weather. Ideally, it would always be 45 to 60 degrees.

As a result, I’m not jealous of my friends running in the Go! St. Louis Half/Marathon. The weather would be a nightmare for me:

UGH.

Though I’m not running in the race this weekend, I do need to run 9-10 miles at some point, hopefully tomorrow. I’m not looking forward to it, but it’ll pay off May 1 when I run in Oregon. If the weather is anything like the averages say it will probably be, I’ll be a happy camper.

High in the 60s, low in the 40s? Yes, please.

Ballet, and other adventures

I did pretty well on my pledge to NOT run. And NOT blog, apparently. Ho hum.

I finally got my foot situation under control after a trip to a good podiatrist. The kind people at Big River Running hooked me up with a recommendation. He had me sorted out in less than a week, after months of failed self-treatment. Guess that’s why those people go to med school for a bajillion years.

I’m currently training for the Eugene Half Marathon (May 1) and I’m very excited. I guess you can’t really be given a race as a gift, but for Christmas, Dan signed me up for the race and is “letting” me fly out there to run and visit my brother, who lives in Eugene. It will be my second half and my first trip to the Pacific Northwest. I’M EXCITED, especially since Dan and I never really go anywhere. My goal is to run the sucker in less than 2 hours. So far, my training gives me confidence that I’ll be able to do that.

In other news, I’m taking an adult beginner ballet class through STL community college. I originally signed up to take the class over the summer, but had to drop out because of my surgery, etc., so one of my BFFs and I are taking it now. We don’t have any real experience with ballet. We were both ballet flunkies in our toddler days. The class meets for an hour once a week and we’re three weeks in. It’s been challenging and fun so far. It’s definitely a nice departure from running. Our instructor focuses a lot on form and correcting the body’s imbalances and strength disparities, which is great for preventing running injuries, or really any kind of injury. I see myself taking this course multiple times.

After my race in May, I’m not sure what I want to do. I’d definitely like to do another significant race in the fall, perhaps the STL Rock ‘n Roll. Depending on how the half goes, I could see myself training for a full in the fall. I guess it will just depend on whether I’m healthy and where I am mentally – and if Dan can stand to have me devote that much time to training :)

What are your racing plans/athletic goals for the year?

A pledge to NOT run.

Nearly three weeks after my half, my foot is still giving me trouble. I’ve done a couple of short runs to test it out, and the results were less than pleasing.

It doesn’t hurt when I’m actually running, but when I’m sitting around or walking, there’s a constant, searing pain in the bottom of my right foot, right where the arch turns into the ball. My achilles also feels tight, as does the tendon along the bottom of my big toe. The pain isn’t crippling by any means, but it’s really uncomfortable and highly annoying. I’ve been icing, stretching and massaging everything, which seems to help some. If anyone has a clue what this could be or how I should treat it, feel free to share.

So, in an odd commitment, I’m pledging to NOT run until Nov. 1.

I won’t be using the elliptical, either. Nothing that requires me to stand on my feet. I’m going to hit the weights really hard and use the stationary bike. Ideally, I’d be able to aqua jog or swim laps, but I don’t have easy access to a pool. My goal is to get this foot healthy ASAP so I can run some good races this winter and decide if I want to do the Go! St. Louis marathon in April.

Weirdly, making a goal to not run for such a long time is probably going to be more difficult for me than training for the half I did. I get so impatient, and I really don’t want to lose the endurance and fitness I worked so hard to achieve. I’d also rather not put any of the weight I lost back on. However, a short time off now will prevent me from taking a long, long time off later.

Eleven days of no running, here we go!

13.1 and DONE.

Sunday finally came, and with it, the Lewis & Clark Half Marathon.

It was early. I don’t really do early.

My job as a copy editor and designer at a newspaper keeps me up late. I typically work 3 p.m. to midnight, give or take, so I’m not exactly a morning person. I try to be in bed by 2 a.m. on most days, and waking up before 10 a.m. is an accomplishment for me. Obviously, dragging my butt out of bed at 4:30 a.m. is not an easy task. I’m more likely to stay up that late.

I got home from work on Friday around 1 a.m. Dan and I stayed up till 2:30 or so, then went to bed. We woke up at 7:30 Saturday morning and tried to keep ourselves occupied so we wouldn’t fall back asleep. After running errands in preparation for the race and having a delicious pasta dinner with another friend who also ran the race, Dan and I called it quits and went to bed around 9. By the time my alarm went off at 4:30, I was actually pretty ready to go. Dan, on the other hand, was not.

I managed to snap a quick photo of Dan before he could stop me. I didn’t bother even asking him to take a picture of me, as I already knew I was treading on thin ice :)

"I slept great. Let's go run 13.1 miles. It'll be fun!"

"How dare you take a picture of me. It's still dark out. Whose idea was this, anyway?"

We got to the start pretty early and thus had the pleasure of loitering around in the freezing cold for about an hour. That wasn’t fun. Also, there were still stars in the sky. Things warmed up once the sun started to rise around 7.

We lined up at the 11-min/mile pace marker. The gun went off, but we didn’t get to cross the starting line until about 10 minutes after that, there were so many people — 8,000, assuming the race’s site wasn’t lying.

Dan and I started the race together. We made a brief pit stop at the first drink station. Thanks to the cold and all the waiting around, we both had to pee. Luckily, there wasn’t a line and we only lost about 2 minutes. We ran the first 4 miles or so together at an 11-min pace. After that, he started taking walking breaks, and I kept on running. You can read his account of the race here.

The weather was really gorgeous, once I got my body moving. I started the race in the outfit seen above, plus some old knee socks I cut the toes out of and pulled over my arms. A coworker gave me that brilliant suggestion. I took them off when I warmed up about 4 miles in and tucked them into my waist band. They proved to be invaluable when I needed to blow my nose. Convenient and functional, albeit not particularly fashionable.

I had Gu before the race, and again at 5 miles and 9 miles. That was about perfect. I drank or swished a few sips of water and Gatorade at each aid station. I felt great the entire time.

I didn’t listen to music. I just took in the scenery and thought about each step, how great the weather was, how happy I felt, how funny someone’s T-shirt was, etc. The first 8 miles or so breezed by. Then I was at the point in the race where I was entering new territory.

My longest training run was 9 miles. I was supposed to do a 10-miler, but decided not to because my foot had been bothering me. After I passed the 9-mile mark, I didn’t have the ease of mind that I did during the beginning of the race, because I hadn’t gone farther than that during training.

Despite that, I ran and felt strong for the remainder of the race. Once I hit 10 miles, I realized that 5k was all that stood between me and the finish line. 5k? I could do that in my sleep (I told myself).

When I hit 11 miles, I thought of the rest of the race as the cooldown… a cooldown in which you run faster than you did during the first part of the race. I crossed the finish line with an official time of 2:12:08, significantly better than my goal of sub-2:30. I didn’t take a single walking break.

It felt wonderful.

It’s crazy to think that at the end of May, Dan and I were waiting to get my test results back after doctors discovered a 10-inch mass on my right ovary. In mid-June, I had significant surgery to remove the benign mass and was in the hospital for 2 days and out of work for four weeks. I didn’t get the OK from my doctor to resume exercise until the end of July. I started training for this at the beginning of August. It’s amazing to think of how far I’ve come since then. The whole experience has been rewarding and fulfilling, and I’m so thankful God gave the opportunity and ability to do it.

Now, to find the next race!

My bling from the Lewis & Clark half.

Taper time!

Sorry for the lack of posts; Work last week was insane mode, and the last thing I felt like doing after staring at a computer screen for 10 hours was writing a post. So here I am to update!

It is taper time. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t relieved.

It feels so good to relax!

Before my 9-miler a week or so ago, I started experiencing some soreness in the bottom of my right foot. It doesn’t hurt when I’m running, but after I did my 9 miles, it was really sore for several days. Because of that, I opted to forgo my last long run, a 10-miler, and do a few shorter ones instead with plenty of rest and ice between outings. I also realized that in my daily life, I don’t wear very supportive shoes. I’m a Converse and ballet flats kind of gal. That + running a lot = very sore foot. So I picked up a pair of these:

These make my feet happy! The Nike Eclipse II

I’ve had my eye on these babies for months, and I finally got a pair. I’ve had them for about a week and have been wearing them pretty much nonstop, even around the house. My foot already feels about 100 times better, even after running a few miles earlier in the week.

This week, I’ve been kicking back, staying hydrated and thinking about what I’ll wear on the big day. The weather is supposed to be superb: Partly cloudy, high of 60 low of 39.

Last night I had a dream about running the race. The weather was beautiful, and a ton of my teammates from my cross country team just so happened to be running it as well. I could smell the fall leaves and hear them crunching under my feet. I could feel my legs and feet traveling smoothly and with ease. My breathing was easy and clear. I felt great. When I crossed the finish line, the clock read 2:17:00. I haven’t publicly set a time goal, but 2:17 would be alright with me.

All in all, I feel prepared. Now if only Sunday morning would hurry up and get here!

The wine at the finish line

Yesterday I was thinking about rewards. More specifically, yesterday during my 9 miles through the park, I was thinking about the wine I was going to drink later that night.

My glorious reward

I’ve talked about motivation before. What compels you to sweat it out, make healthy choices and run the extra mile when you feel like you can’t take another step.

You really can’t talk about motivation without mentioning rewards. Signing up for a race and finishing it or meeting your time goal isn’t enough for everyone. Neither is losing a few pounds. Sometimes, you need a reward that offers instant gratification, especially if your goal is something that’s going to take a significant amount of time to accomplish, like finishing a marathon or losing 20 lbs.

Indulging in rich food and drink is my reward. That doesn’t mean that I go out and eat a huge slice of cake and wash it down with a candy bar and an order of fries every night. I only do that on occasion. But I do allow myself reasonable indulgences during the days or weeks that I put in my mileage: four two glasses of wine here, a bowl of ice cream or piece of fried chicken there.

My husband prefers monetary and time rewards, I think. For instance, he’d allow himself to buy a new Blu-Ray or an extra hour or so of playing video games. Although on our run together over the weekend, he kept talking about the steak we were going to grill. But who can resist steak?

As I was finishing up my run for the day, it dawned on me: Though I love all the benefits I get from running, in the short term, I run for the wine at the finish line.

How do you reward yourself?