75.7

Seventy five miles and change for March.  Woo!  As a Facebook update a few weeks ago stated, I’m back in the game.

Most noteworthy thing about those 75 miles was the half marathon last weekend.  Time-wise, I would have been right in the thick of my previous recorded half mary times but I was forced to stop at mile 9 to release the extreme pressure of my shoelaces upon my sensitive little toes.  Even with the stop, I averaged 10:12 minute miles…taking the stop out, I was mostly sub-10’s.  So I am happy.

And while this may be the worst half marathon time I have on record, it is also the only half marathon that I didn’t necessarily train for.  After last October’s marathon and the ensuing laziness, I merely worked these past couple of months conditioning my body into trying to run solidly for 13 miles–that is to run it all and not walk and not wind up injured or otherwise hating life.  And I did it on this lackadaisical training schedule:

Last month of training

Did I mention though that the race, the SunTrust National Marathon and Half Marathon, ran out of cups at mile three?  Yes, a large race of 8,000+ runners did not budget enough for cups! How freaking sad is that?  I lucked out and it didn’t really affect me (at the last minute I opted to wear a water belt to basically hold my keys),  but man…any other race and I would have been pissed!  Runners were picking cups up off the ground and reusing them or chugging out of the gallon-sized jugs.  It was a mess. Also add a crappy finish area (not as bad as Marine Corps but poorly organized) and I am not sure if I’ll run this race again.  It was super convenient though and the course was fun–undulating hills and flat terrain made it easy on the legs, so we’ll see?  Maybe I am just picky because I basically plan and organize for medium to largish groups of people for a living, so I know it’s not that hard.  Maybe someone wants to hire me?

I am the winner?

So they filmed me crossing the finish line of the SunTrust National Half Marathon.  Check out the clip!

What, you didn’t see me?

Maybe that’s because I finished my half marathon oh, about 1 second ahead of the winner of the FULL marathon.

There is a little, pony tailed brunette that crosses the finish line just ahead of the marathon winner, Patrick Moulton, on the right-side of the screen. She is then shouted at to “Move to the right”. So she does. She is wearing a bright blue Under Armour t-shirt.  You can see her at about halfway through the clip when they show footage of the finish. Just before they cut back to the invterview with Moulton is the clearest shot.

13 miles? No problem!

Think there is a problem that I am going into tomorrow’s race all nonchalant-like — as if I run 13.1 miles all the time?

The truth is that the longest run I’ve had since last October is the 11 miler from two weeks ago. Yet I don’t seem to be fazed by this little fact.

Wonder if my legs will be fazed by it…

Wish me luck.

43.3

Mileage for February.

It’s a start. After not posting mileage since the marathon and not running at all for two entire months (November and December garnered a combined 10 and half miles – woo) I am back in the game. I was definitely playing the lazy card over the winter but bigger than that I just didn’t have the desire to get out there and run. Like, 0% motivation. That’s not really me.  I mean that’s what I do, I am the disciplined chick. I am not fast, but I am committed.  So without any of that there motivation, I did what normal people do. I sat around. And a funny thing happened, I started not to feel like myself. I also put on a few pounds (who knew? You don’t exercise and your body turns to flab?! Why hasn’t anyone told me this before?).  Well come January, when 30 miles went up on the board, an even funnier thing happened. I started to feel like myself again. I am going to say, it was damn hard getting back into it — even feeling off wasn’t what got me out there.  It was mainly that I had signed up for this half marathon in March and I could no longer put off training…even with this start, I am pushing things and will most likely just be able to “finish” it.  But having the race looming and having exorbitant amounts of stress piled on me throughout the month of Feb meant getting out there for a run three times a week was more of a necessity than not.

So I am officially back in it.  Half marathon is in three weeks.  I did 9 miles this morning and will do 10 next week.  If I am not dead from Boca I will run 12 the week after that and then eke out the National Half Marathon in mid-March.   There are no marathons in my plans this year. The stress of the training finally got too overwhelming. But I do plan to do a lot more races in the middle distances — 10Ks, 15Ks, and half marathons. Distance enough to keep me out there running week after week, but not so much that I start to stress about it.  Feels good being back.

Marathon Photos

The Nike Runners Wall - all 20,000 of them

The Course

The Elevation - Ow

The Finish

The Reward (I prefer the backside of the charm)

The front

Marathon Review – Ow

I made it to San Fran for the 2008 Nike Women’s Marathon, all in one piece and no worse for wear considering that plane trip detailed below (although I may have left SF a bit broken).

Once I got off that blasted flight, getting from SFO to Fisherman’s Wharf wasn’t too bad, I took the BART to Embarcadero and grabbed a $10 taxi to the hotel. It was late, so upon arrival I piled into bed and Lindsey and I settled on an early rise time to head to packet pick up for the race.

Since the only other marathon I’ve run is our own Marine Corps, here’s where I will compare the two. MCM = my experience with the previous two Marine Corps Marathons (2006 and 2007) and NWM = the 2008 Nike Women’s Marathon.

Expo – This is the place where you go pick up your race bib, chip timer and goodie bag. Also where many runners plan to check out the latest (or oldest if it’s on sale) in running accoutrements and branded marathon gear.

MCM – Grade C
Horrendously long lines, but friendly military volunteers. Depressing location (DC Armory). Lots of running gear for sale and on sale – pretty much anything a runner could need all under one roof. MCM logoed marathon gear for sale onsite, it’s ugly stuff but it’s there. Get’s the average grade for an average Expo, nothing really stands out here.

NWM – Grade B
Super quick bag pick-up…even though I had forgotten my bar code, I was still out the door with my bib number, chip timer and goodie bag in less than 8 minutes. Tons of cool booths – free gait analysis, free manicures, free chair massages, free flavored oxygen (so did not try this). But outside of these cool things, there wasn’t a lot going on—there was no NWM marathon clothing to buy, you could look at it (and get a coupon) but in order to buy it you had to head to Niketown, Lady Foot Locker or Macy’s. Having to make two stops and limited number of sponsor stalls keeps the “Expotique” from getting an A.

Marathon Gear – All the items with the race logo that a runner can wear to prove they endured those 26.2 miles.

MCM – Grade D-
Butt ugly. That’s all I can say about it. I’ve never purchased anything MCM, they’ve never put anything out that is remotely attractive – or if they did my preferred sizing was sold out before the race even started. Doesn’t fail because they do try, just not successfully, D for effort here.

NWM – Grade A
The Nike behemoth does apparel well and branding their marathon is no exception – shorts, shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies, jackets, hats, bags, socks in various styles and color combinations. And if you found something on their shelves that wasn’t branded NWM, they would sell you personalized screen printing on the spot for any item in the store. Loses out on an A+ for ruining two decent colors, official colors were an odd shade of hot pink (which I usually like) and an odder shade of light blue. I personally picked up a gray hoodie and a black half-zip winter running shirt – both of which I personalized with Nike I.D. (God I am a sucker).

The Start / Pre-Race – The time where a runner stands around in a crowd of thousands, checking a bag with post-race necessities and trying to stay warm and loose waiting for the gun to go off.

MCM – Grade A
Well executed, with military precision. Although very expansive, bag check was easy to find, there were tons of bathrooms and you could easily tell where to line-up for the race start. Misses the A+ for being a bit too big, runners want to save their feet!

NWM – Grade B-
Easy to find and not a sprawling mass, also since it was in Union Square there were tons of stairs and things to sit upon during the wait. But the bag drop wasn’t easy to find or figure out, but the volunteers were in force and ready to help—it was also difficult to figure out where to line up at the start and to hear the announcements. Misses out on a better grade for these difficulties and the lack of “security” keeping spectators out of the starting corrals—hell there weren’t even corrals to speak of.

Course Management/Support – From the water stops, to the volunteers staffing them, to cheerleading spectators, to medical aid stations, to the port-a-potties, everything a race organizer can do to make the race course bearable.

MCM – Grade B-
Your standard water stops and decent crowd support. Semi-frequent bathrooms meant lines which means lost time. MCM loses points for infrequent aid stations (MCM 2006 only had one station giving out pain medication and that was at mile 8!), and always being out of oranges by the time my slow ass passes the orange stop.

NWM – A
I am hesitant to say they could have done anything better, ridiculously cheerful volunteers and amazingly organized water stops. There were tons of food stations; Luna Moons, Luna and Cliff bars, oranges (yes!), bananas, Ghiradelli chocolate. An organized coat check at mile 2.5 so you could shed any warming gear and actually get it back – brilliant! Also had tons of bathrooms which means hardly any lines, if any and thusly minimal time wasted. Only thing keeping it from an A+ is that MCM edges out in the community involvement category—I would have been excited to see some marching bands, more cheerleaders and such.

Post-Race – The post-race starts at the finish line and can take you through a myriad of expo-like stalls, food and aid stations and the like.

MCM – F
I HATE the finish line at MCM. It is for this reason I will never run another MCM ever in my lifetime. A runner has just spent the last few hours giving their all to the pavement and just after you step across that finish line you come to a screeching halt. Do you know how miserable it is to stop in your tracks after you have been pounding along for that length of time? It’s horrendous. To top it off, you are not only stopped but you are corralled with your fellow runners like cattle. The second most horrendous thing to stopping abruptly is doing it and having to touch other hot and sweaty runners because you can’t move anywhere. Bag pick up is pretty easy if I remember correctly, but I was so miserable from the finish that I won’t award any points for this.

NWM – A
Ok so you are trying to sprint in the last few steps and just as you cross the finish line there are rows of cute guys in tuxedos (firemen I hear), holding silver platters, with Tiffany boxes stacked atop them. The young men say, “Congratulations, please take one”. So you do in a sort of surreal way, but you can’t stop because if you do your legs will fall off, so you keep walking and then run into a cheerful volunteer who quickly bends over and snips the timing chip off your shoe. There is water every where, so you drink some and move along. You’ve barely stopped moving at all, and as you continue to walk along, albeit slowly, you run into a tent where they give you a shirt, even offering to hold it up to your stinking body to see if the size is right. With your gifts in hand, you keep trucking along to wide open spaces where there are a plethora of carbs to choose from. At this point, you’ve either grabbed some carbs or you haven’t (me) and you walk along in a bit of a daze and some nice volunteer looks at your race bib and ushers you down a corridor of buses where another volunteer looks at you with a smile and says “Box 3 4007” and all of a sudden you are handed your bag of post-race necessities and well, now you are done. Ahhhh. NWM misses the A+ for the really long line to get on the shuttle bus back downtown, but that is all.

Now you may have noticed that I haven’t mentioned the actual race at all. That is because I don’t know how to grade them. MCM was a fine race although I am very bitter and angry over last year’s course change that made runners run past the finish line at the very end of the race, turn around in Rosslyn and then finish at Iwo Jima—absolutely cruel. Runners say that Haines Point and the 14^th street bridge are mental killers on the course and they are right, but I think every race will have that and you just have to suck it up and get over it.

NWM was a fine race too, although it was ridiculously hard. The hills were killer. Ridiculouslyhardkillerowhurtylegsowwwwwww. Not living there meant the whole course was a surprise and boy did my legs (and my time) pay the price. NWM also had it’s mental killers, a trip around Lake Merced that was incredibly boring and yucky in addition to any of the nine or so hills that will beat your legs into a pulp. So it was hard, but I liked it. I had a horrible finishing time but I felt great mentally the whole race and my feet didn’t hurt at all (which I actually find a bit odd).

So it seems that NWM wins out as the better race in my eyes. Basically it boils down to the fact that I would probably do Nike again and I won’t ever step foot on the Marine Corps course again (that damn finish!).

All in all I am so glad I had the experience of traveling for a marathon, I am certain I want to do one again (if only to get a better time on the books and possibly travel somewhere new!) though it won’t be next year. I have already decided that I can’t juggle work and training and a social life next summer—so there will be no marathon for 2009. I plan to run a bunch of half marathons instead, I’ve already signed up for the National Half-Marathon in March and may even try to hit a couple before then. It’s funny, I had such a hard time mentally this season with the training (I am sure some of that was due to the stress of trying to find time to train) but running that race (even though I did so horribly) made me so happy I just want to go out there and do it again. Maybe 2010.

Banana the Grouch

Heading to San Francisco I had a nagging feeling of dread. Dread over the race. Am I ready? Will I forget to pack something? What was I thinking when I settled on this race with all of its hills? Why didn’t I do more hill training? Dread over traveling. Why didn’t I book direct again? Have I ever been to the Philly airport, I mean do I even have enough time to change planes during the layover? Shit, how do I even get from the San Fran airport to the friggin hotel?

Some things went encouragingly well. Best buddy, Buggie, gave me a ride to DCA. Getting a ride is always nice—gives one a sense of being missed, loved. But the airport was packed and the counter lines inside were atrocious, not much better were the more expensive sky cap lines outside. Waiting and standing in line puts me on edge and makes me fidgety and cranky. I didn’t want to be cranky, but the dread and the cranky went well together so there I was, trying to force smiles to security agents and TSA personnel so as not to make a complete ass of myself.

Had just enough time, due to a delay, to grab some grub and a bottle of water. Just as i was paying an urgent overhead message made me hurry from California Tortilla to the gate. Realized at that moment that I’ve never flown out of gate 35A. Gate 35A is downstairs and when urged to go down the escalators after giving up my boarding pass, there was another line—and no plane. No, apparently when flying to Philly one must take a bus onto the tarmac to a turboprop jet. So we stood in line, and stood in line some more and some more for good measure I guess. Finally we were allowed to board a very crowded airport shuttle, just so that we could wait again—this time for a plane to move out of our way. Have I mentioned yet how much I hate waiting? Yeah. So at least it was a quick flight, like quicker than a shuttle to New York…so my spirits lifted a bit. But trying to find out where I was supposed to be upon landing quickly dampened them. There were no available agents to help direct passengers; the first departure board I stopped at didn’t even have my flight on it. When I found it finally, it said “SFO GATE B9”. Since I was in terminal F, I guessed that was far. I stumbled across a place where they were boarding people onto another one of those airport shuttles, I asked where they were going and a man with earplugs in his ears said, “BCD” which sounded more like “Ehbeashheeshday”. I got on and hoped for the best. Wasn’t too long before they let us off, and as I made my way down through the terminals I finally found Gate B and they wound through the terminal for a good long time before I get to B9. The jetway is totally crammed, so I hang back (why stand in unnecessary lines when I hate them, ya know?). The gate agents then start calling peoples names up to the counter, so I move up since it seems like they are closing the flight. I am standing right there, hanging back a bit but there, ready to give them my boarding pass. I step up just as she finishes with this one woman and instead of taking my boarding pass the agent follows behind the woman to and closes the door to the jetway. !!! Uh, hello, I need to get on that flight? The other gate agent tells me that I missed it. I protest, I am here! There is the plane! We belong together! She ignores me.

After a long period of waiting (fun!), I find out that they bumped me 30 minutes ago—not really caring that I was actually in the airport making my way from a connecting flight. I did get a travel voucher out of it, but still. I have never been bumped! My annoyance was eased when she got me on the next (oversold) flight out, just an hour later and of course that free ticket. Still trying not to embrace my grumpiness, I make due and knock out some work and figure out how to get to the hotel once I land. The plane ends up being late, of course, but I stay in the gate area and make sure I get on as soon as humanly possible. I am in the last row of the airplane, in the middle seat, flying for the next 5.5 hours. Joy. My seatmate on the aisle turns out to be a grossly oversized man missing many basic manners. Manners such as closing his mouth when chewing, and not knowing to keep his fat ass arm off the arm rest (I am in the middle!), and not picking his crap up off the floor when others are trying to get in/out of the row so now thusly we are tripping onto our faces just trying to get to the damn bathroom.

It’s 9pm at home right now, I still have 45 freaking minutes on this plane and I don’t know if I can stay sane for all of them. The dread has turned to frustration that is slowly seeping into anger. This is supposed to be a fun trip—yay Cali, yay marathon, yay running partner Lindsey who is already there (bitch), yay two days off of work. Ugh. I hope it gets better.

120.0

Double the mileage from July?  Wow.  I would be worried but I feel good and strong and I stuck to the prescribed plan of action (missing just one run and not adding any extra mileage for the entire month).  However, I am finding that I am not mentally in it.  Most of my runs feel great, but mentally I don’t really look forward to them.  For the most part I get over it within the first quarter mile and things are good, but on the longer ones the lack of mental toughness means that come mile 14, 15, 16, 17 and on I start to get lazy and more willing to take a walk break (or completely come unglued like my 18-miler on Sunday).  In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter.  But if I want to run a good marathon (and hopefully do better than my last two outings) I need to find some steely resolve somewhere.  Anyone know where I can pick some of that up?

September isn’t going to be any easier, with a somewhat insane travel schedule on the horizon and two 20-milers that are due before the actual race, I am a little scared for how I am going to stay on track. Keep on keeping on I guess?

Sometime in the semi near future I will post pictures of my new kitchen floor that went in almost a month ago.

On an unrelated note does anyone else think Brian Williams looks like Guy Smiley? I mean, it bothers me.  Well I guess it’s not so much the resemblance that bothers me but rather his cartoonish eyebrows.

60.3

Sixty miles for July.  Measly by normal training standards, but ok for me considering I was coming off an injury at the beginning of the month.  This training season is going to be ridiculously conservative taking into consideration the calf issues I developed in June.  I suppose that’s ok.  Just let me run a good race, finish and get that Tiffany necklace!

I am having trouble motivating myself to do anything other than run, i.e. I haven’t been cross training at all.  I know this is what I need to do in order to stay healthy, but I can’t seem to get myself to do it.  I’ve cross trained a grand total of 4 times this month.  I didn’t miss a run, but I didn’t go to yoga and I didn’t lift a damned thing either.  Not sure what my issue is.  Last year this time, I would have cross trained four times in one week…and loved it. Ugh.

I am feeling good on all of my runs though. I’ve dropped down to three to four times a week so as not to over train and I am actually ENJOYING my tempo runs.  Usually I hate them as it requires you to run at a pace that is slightly faster than you are comfortable with, ie mildly painful.  However with my lower mileage, I am finding myself looking forward to them.  I doubt much will come from it, meaning I don’t think I will get faster or anything but I do hope they are going to help me feel somewhat comfortable out on the varrying elevations of San Francisco during the race.

Although I think my newest obsession will help on that front too.  Once a week I’ve taken to adding the stairs behind the Lincoln Memorial that go down to Rock Creek Parkway to my 3 mile easy run.  It kicks ass and I love the throbby way my quads feel afterward.

There is a 12-miler this Saturday, longest one for me of the season. I tried hitting twelve last month and that’s when my calf started acting up, so fingers crossed…

35.3

I am late in posting and low in mileage.

Thirty-five and change miles for June.  Not a good total for the official start month of marathon training.

Two things happened:

1.  Travel. I had a trip to the UK for work early in the month, but I had a plan–short, but frequent runs while I was away. I was even going to treadmill it if I had to.  Many, many things went wrong with this trip, to say the least.  The sum of these things resulted in 12+ hour days and complete mental and physical exhaustion.  So there was no running, at all, that week.

2.  Ouchy.  Two weeks ago I was out for a long run, a 12-miler on the Custis trail that was eventually headed to Upton Hill.  So basically straight up for 6 miles.  Well my calf only lasted 3.5 before I got the first hint of the stabby pains that have coincided with past calf injuries.  Trying to be smart and avoid a real injury, I stopped, tried to stretch it out (to no avail) and decided it was in my best interest to turn around and walk home.  I took a couple of days off, iced and such but two days later I could only get a mile in before the stabby stabby came back.

So, having been through the drill before, I took two weeks off to let the muscle fibers reweave themselves–hence sucky June mileage.  Now I don’t know what to do to get back on track with training. It’s obvious my body won’t let me overdo it, but mentally this is going to be hard. I’ve never been injured during training before.

I hit a decent four miles this evening w/o any pain so I think my self-prescribed time off was a good thing.  Now all I need is a plan.