Iron G in 2015

Oh, that's why they call it 'Fit for Life'!

2012-01-13T05:35:00.000-05:00

Where was I a year ago? That's right: bummed and tubby from six months non-weight-bearing after that whole broken-legs marathon debacle.

I burned some crutch weight that November, spinning 2-3 hours a day, running most days of the week, doing boot camp and Tracy Anderson videos, all in an insane effort to win my work's "step challenge." Yeah, I swept the prizes.

Six months free fitness center was tops. But I wasn't sure about the person training program, "Get Fit for Life," that I'd won. Why did I need a fitness program? I could run. Far. Sometimes fast. And I biked o-plenty and lifted moderately heavy things. I was fit as a fiddle, right?

Wrong.

I started working with my trainer, Melissa, at One to One Fitness last January. In fact, the winter program starts the week of Jan. 16, if you're interested. She did an initial evaluation (i.e., push-ups, heart rate, weight, stair-stepping, etc.) and accepted my insane history.

First couple weeks were getting-to-know-you workouts — what could I do, what was I willing to do, how hard would I work. It didn't take Melissa long to realize that I'm more than a little crazy and want to be The Hulk, yet still feminine and without Madonna arms. Oh, and I wanted to lose 10 pounds.

Over the eight-week program, I lost eight pounds, as well as plenty of body fat and inches. Sure, my eating habits changed, my body composition improved and I felt much stronger. I was healthier. But there was much more to this program than the myriad cardio and strengthening exercises I'd take with me and totally deserving new pants.

Not a second thought was needed for me to buy a training package with Melissa once the program ended. In fact, there's nothing I've felt was a more worthy investment. Ever.

What's the big deal? Well, backstory: I'm a super-nerd. Like nerdiest to the maximus.

So, personal training works for me because a) I think correct form is important (for effectiveness and safety) and my trainer keeps me true; b) I like to push myself, but love to be pushed beyond my expectations by someone who knows how far is too far; c) I need to do exercises I hate doing, that hurt the most and that I wouldn't do if she didn't make me!

Another bonus: weekly appointments keep me on track. My life change a lot this fall and my scheduled wasn't always amenable to my regularly scheduled workouts. But I respect my trainer and my training program. Even if a few days escaped me, I'd look at the calendar and realize Tuesday was fast approaching. It was time to slough off the rust and get working again. Who wants to show up to your training appointment bloated and tired? Not me. So, I never get more than a few days off course. Without training? I could have gotten lost for months before realizing the mess I've made.

The other nerd factor: I see training appointments as test days. It's my responsibility to work hard all week to perform my best come training day. I value the expertise and support Melissa gives me. The least I can do is work hard on what she assigns and deliver results. After all: this wonderful woman puts up with me, all my self-criticism, projectile sweat and snotting.

Sure, I don't always perform my best. But she's there to help me understand why and encourage me to power on.

Then there's, well, everyone else at One to One Fitness. Remember Cheers? Well, it's kind of like that, but less beer and barstools, more smoothies and treadmills. And that hasn't always been my experience of gyms. I love that trainers and staff care enough to talk to me, share their lives as much as they ask about mine and, of course, know my name. If I go a couple days without visiting One to One, I feel like I'm ditching my friends. I miss the spirit in that place. I miss feeling happy and being healthy.

Yes, it goes even further. Having a crap time at my job last year, I had a couple offers in the corporate world for, well, about 50% more pay than I get here. There were plenty of reasons within my office, the university and a hoped-for future that kept me here.

But I'd be lying if I didn't think about One to One when making that decision. How would I make it to my training appointments with Melissa? When would I make it to One to One to workout? Could the new job give me an office right next to One to One to make my active life easier?

It's one seriously dependent relationship I have with that place. And I'm OK with that.

Silly as it sounds, my being wrong about how much I needed that "Get Fit for Life" program opened my mind about what I really know about other things I need to embrace. Like lima beans and Will Ferrell movies. (Oh, wait... not that much).

2011 was a trying year, rife with challenges — both fantastic and horribly painful — that I'm sure will pay off in the long run. No matter what happened, I was always anchored to one thing that was always fantastic. And that's the kind of thing — that staple, that assurance — that keeps you healthy all your life.

Tri, tri again... again

2011-07-25T21:49:00.001-04:00

Remember when I used to race instead of writing about how I used to race?

Yeah. Me, neither.

Well, Sunday I broke the two-year tri hiatus with a sprint at Huntington. It was the usual setup: I'd overdone one discipline and left the other two as problems for "future Gina." I've been running maybe once a week... and let's just say I've only been swimming twice — 2500 yards and 1500 yards — since December 2009. And those were both last week.

Cycling, however, has been spinning high. I'm biking at least 25 miles every day. I ride a refurbished Centurion LeMans, whose high-grade steel frame is surprisingly light and more than sturdy enough for my daily commute. Throw in a couple panniers, way too much clothes and a 17-inch MacBook Pro in the trunk, and I may as well be riding with a parachute and ankle weights (hello, Jerry Rice!). While I haven't been riding fast — some mornings are harder than others — I've been covering mileage I would have thought crazy a couple years ago.

You already know I'm going to say the biggest difference has been strength training, which I've been doing five days a week since January. But it's not all about heavy weight-lifting (while there's been plenty of that). Between working with Melissa and Ben, I've done all manner of strength and cardio training that often leaves me questioning their sanity and mine. Although I'm always grateful for it. Like two or thee days later.

What's the diff? Running: I can feel activation of different muscle groups to get this toosh moving. So much of my power came from the middle of my legs last year — and obviously, it left through the shins. Now most power and impact comes and goes higher in my leg, and when I reach fatigue, my body triggers more action from my hamstrings, glutes and some quad. I have a stronger stride now, a healthier stride. There's plenty of speed and twitch. Now I need just a smidge of mental fortitude back... to replace all the paranoia that's taken over my will.

Swimming: well, I up and swam 2500 yards like it was nothing, without so much as looking at a pool for two years. It felt fine. It probably wasn't as fast as two years ago, but I'll take it.

All this in mind, I considered Huntington my walk-through tri. It was my "cross-training-only" tri. During a year I'm trying to take it easy, I could afford (ego-wise, that is — I'm not exactly going anywhere with my racing "career") to take a test ride. So, I did.

But not without a whole slew of reservations. Which bike should I ride? Could I do the swim? What should I wear for the swim? When was the last time I ran? Have I done a brick workout this decade? Right up through the ride to Bay Village, I was questioning why and whether I should be doing this stuff again.

Then I got smacked with the magic of triathlon. The people, the energy, the bike porn. This is why I keep doing this schtuff:

Lake Erie was pristine and perfect. My friend Katie was waiting, ready and raring to rock her first duathlon. My dad, NB and his sister KB came out at 6 a.m. to cheer. And it made my morning to hang with TriSaraTops on the beach before the start (you're such a rockstar, lady!). I warmed up in perfect-temps water and was ready to go, go, go!

But then we had to wait, wait, wait.

I think blue-capped, 39-and-under ladies were the fifth wave, beach entry. Run-ins always give me nerves, mostly because last time I raced Huntington I got punched in the face so hard my goggles exploded, and I swam the quarter-mile, panicked, delicate and slow, like an old lady wearing curlers, trying not to get her hair wet. Lucky for my nerves, however, this beach start went single file, all across the shore. I took the way-inside, ran in and stayed back from kicking feet and flailing hands. No-contact start. Rawk!

I swam calm, warm-up speed to the first buoy and readied for my open-water panic moment (that's where I hit the parallel stretch and freak out). Sure, I felt strong, but I had to take a couple seconds breaststroking to calm myself. Then I tore it up.

Not that I'm in peak shape, but I felt stronger than swims of old — as if I could swim forever, even if it wasn't very fast. There was a pretty decent group of blue caps ahead of me. As I rounded the final buoy, though, I decided no one left in the water was going to beat me. So, I picked them off, one by one, until I ran out of the water in 8:33.

Not my best swim, but a great ROI, all things considered.

Then the bike. I'll start by saying I pedaled a race-PR 40:25 for 12.2 miles (18.1 mph). So, at face value, I'm pretty happy. But here's how it went down...

First, I brought the wrong helmet (big ol' Bern instead of the Specialized racer), forgot to put on my watch, didn't bring water and then, a couple minutes into the ride, my seatpost dropped all the down, so I felt like I was riding a beach cruiser! I was riding pretty hard, nevertheless, and even took out some serious sprints to set up a couple rabbits to pace me. Let's forget about the SUV that nipped my arm, driving too close at a turn, and we're thinking this is going to be one helluva a ride.

And it was. I was FLYING! We cut into the woods, where it was dark, damp and dense. Lots of questionable passing, hard-ass riding. Then I heard some catty back-and-forth about passing, get-out-of-my-way, left-left-left! This tall, super-skinny biotch was flying through the woods spitting a lot of back-and-forth with another rider. They were fast approaching my pack, when the biotch cut off the other rider hard and sent her flying. Lucky for her, she fell mostly in mud and didn't impale herself on any branches. Unlucky for her, she just bashed her head on a tree and none of the 10 riders in eyeshot were stopping.

It was a packed course, so I had to stop super fast. Well, it was wet and narrow. I started skidding and my bike spun out into the mud. I twisted my knee and kicked out the bike before I took most of the impact on my left hip and arm. Let's just say, it didn't feel great then; it feels worse now. Thankfully: minimal scraping! I got her feet out of clips and pulled the bike off her. She said she felt fine to stand up, so I gave her water, made sure she had no telltale signs of internal bleeding or head trauma, and took off to tell volunteers there had been a crash.

While I'd lost a few minutes, I rode pretty pissed for a few miles, livid that only one person in a very amateur triathlon would stop for a very serious crash. Good bye, faith in humanity! God forbid you miss out on an age group medal while someone lay dying. Grr.

By bike's end it was just plain hot outside. I reported the accident, changed shoes, finally slugged down some water and took it easy for 5K. Note to self: brick workouts will be helpful in the future. Most of the run was pretty shady, running out and back on an all-purpose Metroparks trail. It was way awesome to see Katie wrapping up the back end of her 5K, catching sight of Sara and even seeing where the cycling rabbits were. I finished with some uphill kick (thanks, Ben, for those 10% grade quarter-mile sprints!) in 26:26 (8:32 pace) for a total time of 1:22:52. Hear me roar.

Katie and I celebrated the wonder that is racing (and the wonderfulness that is Lake Erie) with a post-race swim, plenty of cookies and plenty of good intentions for next-race preparation. Lessons learned: pack better, run more and bring water. At least I don't need to remind myself to have fun.

Next up: Greater Cleveland Triathlon, probably Olympic distance. I was pretty gung-ho about Rev3 70.3 in September before this race, but the jury's stepped out. They should be back after GCT.

It's that time of year... again.

2011-04-04T15:58:00.000-04:00

You know, that time of year I look at the number of weeks left until Hermes, until Cleveland and say, 'aw, crap.'

Since January I've been working with a trainer at the fitness center on campus (Some catch-up: I ended up winning that step challenge, whose prizes included an eight-week fitness program, six months gym membership and a surprisingly not awkward lunch with my team and some university senior VPs. I'd been loving bootcamp for three months until my work schedule just didn't have room for it. Just in time: the fitness program, an eight-week personal-training deal focused on strength building and weight loss, kicked off in January. I lost my crutch weight — I'm keeping most of it off from week to week — and couldn't remember how I'd existed before working with Melissa. Not only can I do pull-ups and like a gazillion push-ups, I feel better, stronger, fitter overall.) and doing most of my training in the wee a.m. hours or during lunch.

While my cardio is very sound and strength way up, I can't say I've done the volume of running I'd typically do training for any race — particularly a half. But here I am: April 4, and I've been running 1-2 times a week. I've actually felt very comfortable on the 2-3 long runs I've done over the past month or so. More recently, I've started doing intervals and sprints. Part of me is very surprised how well I've been able to run (very relatively speaking here!) without much training. If nothing else, it's definitely made me a believer in serious strength training! It does leave me wondering what to expect for my races, however.

On one hand, I'm very determined to lay low this year: I'd like to give my bones plenty of time to get stronger, my muscles time and training to develop and protect my bones. The idea of stress my bones too much stresses me out. And it's not like my racing career is going anywhere. I'm very average. I'm very OK with that. Sure, I'd like to improve in the long run, but not at the cost of walking.

On the other hand, I feel like I have a whole different kind of fitness now. This time last year, I was in my best racing shape yet (I'm still proud of my 7:40 pace in the Hermes 10-miler!). Looking back at my training schedule, however, I know that I wasn't really running as much as you'd think. There's a reason I got hurt — I wasn't doing the work. Now I'm doing the work, just in a different way. It's less about miles; it's more holistic. Which begs the question: how much was an improvement in fitness last year and how much was an improvement in my mental game?

Part of me feels compelled to see how well I can race now. The other part knows I've lost far too much mental fortitude. I don't have the ability [right now] to ignore the burn, the pain of pushing myself beyond my thresholds. In fact, I still get flashbacks to bone pain when I run with a certain cadence. I don't hurt; I'm not injured. In my bones, that is. I'm just a big mental wuss.

Nevertheless, I registered for the Cleveland Half next month. NB's running his first too! I'm so eager for him to experience his first distance race that I keep forgetting I'm running it too (no, we're not running together).

Part of me wants to put this low-mileage, high-strength training to the test. Seriously: how fast can I go? While I can't expect a PR out of this race, I'm interested to see what I'm made of... now.

Another part of me, meanwhile, wants to jog it and enjoy every step of being able to run 13.1 miles a year after I broke myself running 26.2.

A final part of me, the fiercely competitive with no one but myself part, wants to race balls out, as if last year never happened. But I'm happy with whom I've become out of all that leg-breaking stuff. I am stronger. I'm happier. I enjoy running and fitness more. Maybe that doesn't translate to faster. Maybe I need to assess what success means to me this time around.

Whatever happens, I just want to be worrying about all these things next year around this time.

Weeks 4-6: Smarten up by being dumb.

2010-11-22T15:48:00.001-05:00

So, you know about my biggest issue — you know, the "eh, screw it!" problem. It has powered the weighty rollercoaster I've been riding since I was... 15, maybe.

"Eh, screw it!" is that heartbreaking (but frequently delicious) moment when for whatever reason I overindulge myself into the guilt sweats. It used to be a Thursday-night tradition that would last all the way to Sunday night. But this week, I finally had a break.

See, I was retaining some serious water last week. Even though I was getting in some incredible workouts, eating way right and feeling fab, I stepped on the scale Thursday morning to see... 129.0. (Insert expletives here.)

I was crushed! All that work for nothing. Sure, I knew it was a bad week for weigh-ins, but I was hoping for the best. And hope, it turns out, isn't a weightless thing. That and fem cycles weight a ton.

So, I stood at that crossroads: all that sacrifice and hardwork... and I gained two pounds: do I throw in the towel and be happy with my big butt? Or do I accept that not every week will deliver a weigh-in victory?

Thursday wasn't so bad. I made test-batch #1 of candied jalapeno-gingersnap bread pudding (it's for Thanksgiving), and only ate slightly more than I should have. But it wasn't a wasted diet day. Then something snapped on Friday. I don't even remember when it started or how it happened. I do remember there being a lot of chocolate, plenty of cookie cake, even more plenty of cookie cake frosting, too many bowls of Cinnamon Life, Crunch bars, 100 Grand bars... and that icky, icky feeling. You don't get more "eh, screw it!" than that.

It may have just been crazy-lady must-have-chocolate emotions. Exhaustion. Whatever. The difference between this moment and pretty much every other "eh, screw it!" weekend, however, was that I cut it super short.

I woke up early on Saturday, got eating right from the start. I cut way back in a healthy way on my calories that day (still maxed the protein), drank oodles of water and tea, and completed a challenging day of workouts and housework. Same for Sunday. While I realized all wouldn't be saved by two days of super-behaving, I hoped I'd at least not go up on the Monday-morning weigh-in.

Efforts rewarded.

When last I wasn't retaining too much water, I weighed in at 127.4. This morning I was 126.2. So, I'm just a tad behind on my pound-a-week quest, and more than five pounds down from the starting line. I'll take it!

But "eh, screw it!" faces a seriously challenge this week: Thanksgiving 2010. Not only am I eating the family dinner, I'm cooking it too.

My bootcamp trainer does a great job of passing on useful diet/fitness info. One of the recent articles was about preparing yourself for the big holiday dinner, avoiding a bulge battle and gearing up to not overdo it. Sure it sounds a little bit crazy, but admitting you have a problem is the first step. Step #2 is doing something about it.

So, here my now: I will break into the 125's by Thursday morning weigh-in and not weigh more on Monday morning.

Dear Thanksgiving,

You will not defeat me this year. You are delicious. But you are my bitch.

Cheers!
GP

Week three: Let me hold that water for you.

2010-11-11T09:13:00.001-05:00

Step challenge reports were due at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, and I was really pumped to turn in 571,504 steps for my team-of-five! The goal is 70,000 steps per person per week; my team averaged 114,300.

You'll be happy to know I didn't do all the steps for them. They're just awesome.

What was I responsible for? 204,611. It averages to 29,230/day, which I'd like to take up to 30,000/day this week. While it's easy to pick up 35-40K steps on boot camps days when I cycle for 45-60 minutes in the morning, boot camp for an hour and then run for another 30-45 minutes, less intense days are harder to step up.

I tried to even out my "rest" days with a pretty intense weekend: close to four hours cycling, plenty of dance cardio, circuit training and aerobics. On Friday I decided to aim for a 100K weekend — 50,000 steps each day — but I only eeked out about 82K.

The 100K killer was my tight right calf. I'm done taking chances, so I laid off running for the weekend, which would have surely put me over the 100K line. Another weekend is here, and another shot at 100K.

The problem with 100K, however, is it takes so much time. While I'm used to devoting plenty of time to fitness, 100K might be taking a little more of it than I'm able to give right now. Thanksgiving is fast approaching — I have rooms to prime and paint, curtains to hang and mantels to perfect. At least plenty of those activities have step conversions, so it won't be a total wash.

What also hasn't been a total wash is the weight-loss plan. I'd pie-in-the-sky dreamed the step challenge would magically melt away pounds, but turns out I still like pie and foods that purposely melt.

Actually, the diet hasn't been that bad: I had my trainer analyze my nutrition log — yes, I included the sweet binges that I've cut back on ubermuch — and the usual suspect (protein) wasn't appearing in enough of the scenes. I had thought that 50g of protein were sufficient for me; he suggests 60-100g per day for my activity level. Makes sense.

I struggled the past week to fit in that extra protein without a ton of calories. Sure, you can throw in some balsamic grilled chicken breast, but how many times can you eat that? I made a pretty decent salmon salad and figured other ways to add animal to my diet.

The problem is I've been really content with what I've been eating the past few weeks (and I don't really like animal). Plus, it's been effective for my weight-loss plan. So, I'm going to try adding a sunny-side-up egg atop my morning oatmeal, continue eating my daily protein bar and gnaw on a chicken breasts in lieu of an afternoon snack.

All that food adjustment, however, through the pound-a-weight off a bit. My Monday weigh-in was higher, per usual. And this morning I weighed in at 127.4 — 0.2 pound off last week.

According to my scale and how I feel, I know I'm retaining plenty of water, despite how much water I drink every day. So, I'm going to hope for the best next weigh-in. Just bad time of the month to be weighing myself, I suppose.

Perhaps by next week I will have given all that water back, stayed on diet track and entered the realm of 126 — a place I haven't visited in quite some time. I welcome you dear random number. I welcome you with open arms.

Week two: three parties, one holiday and a C+ performance

2010-11-02T12:48:00.001-04:00

The 10,000 Step Challenge couldn't have arrived at a better time: three parties, plus trick-or-treating over three days. How's that for a holiday test scenario?

But first, the rest of the week!

Well, boot camp finally broke me. And all it really took was a bad night's sleep.

By Monday I was still sore from the previous week's boot camp and at-home exercises. I definitely pushed my upper body and core more than necessary outside of boot camp, and I paid for it that first day. Top that with no sleep all weekend, and I wasn't looking great.

The circuit was a rough go as it was, and in the final 10 seconds of knee-in planks at the end of a 10:00 ab sequence, I just had to hold plank and pray for the end. I survived, but felt a little wussy.

You know how they say missing just a little sleep goes a long way? They're not lying. While I picked up some decent hours into Tuesday, I was still operating on a deficit. The same into Wednesday. In fact, when I loped into boot camp on Wednesday, I knew it wouldn't be pretty. It wasn't.

Let's just say in the middle of suspended push-ups (with feet in suspended straps, alternate knee-in and push up), I had to break — even from holding a steady plank. It always bugs me when people just give up on an exercise, but that was me last week. I just had nothing left.

I survived that session, nevertheless, and tried to catch up on my zzz's the rest of the week. And by Friday, I was on a better track. I hit the road with a running gang on Friday night — DH, E-Speed, NB and I covered about 4 miles over 10 intervals. It was my first really chilly run, but was a nice warm-up to the rest of the weekends workouts and parties.

We went straight from the run to party #2 (#1 was earlier that day), wear I arrived dressed as Forrest, Forrest Gump.

I knew ahead of time this week would be filled with temptations and over-eating obstacles. We took my co-worker out to lunch on Thursday and three parties in store for the weekend, and then candy all over the place on Halloween. Just look at a small portion of the spread from the daytime work party:

My approach: avoid the sweets/carbs and use a small dish. So, at work I used a small cup for all my food. Typically, I fill a plate with everything at once, scarf and go back for more until my stomach tears and I sweat with guilt. With the cup, I just took one thing at a time, ate and tried a little of something else. It worked really well, and I ate plenty of a deelish broccoli salad and my own butternut squash soup.

The problem came when I helped with cleanup. I hate throwing away food and found myself just popping extras in my mouth. Bad, bad girl! It wasn't too awful. The three pieces of pizza at party #2 later that night, however, were a little excessive. Even if I did skip the cookies. For the most part.

Saturday started with the second annual Halloween run in the Metroparks. Jen and Sara took me on my longest no-break run yet, and it couldn't have felt better. Prior to this soft-ground 5-miler, I'd only run one mile sans breaks. They were terrific company and support on the go. It was super, too, to spend a very sensible breakfast (two sunny-side eggs with wheat toast and green tea) with the speedy ladies.

That 5-miler wouldn't make up for the slightly more indulgent Saturday party #3. I did manage to avoid most sweets (seriously: there were cupcakes there, and I only had one small swipe of frosting off one of Neil's) — I grabbed a couple cookies to eat with some baked apples. It was the uber-fresh pumpernickel bread that did me in. And the spinach dip. Then the spicy guacamole that showed up a little later. So, the carb-ditch didn't exactly pan out at #3. I get a D+ there.

But where do I get an A-? Halloween. I walked to the store Sunday afternoon and picked up $30 of candy, including a bag of Dove dark chocolate for home. I had one Dove on the walk home and one much later that night. I handed out all the candy, and ate none myself — even when I was sitting by myself waiting for the rush to happen. Not one.

Sunday was a generally good day on the diet front, and I just crossed my fingers that I hadn't done too much damage. Plus, I ran a pretty consistently paced 5.25 miles @ 9:00 pace on Sunday (well, last mile was 8:13... but that was fun) and walked quite a bit scoping out Halloween scenes in the neighborhood after candy ran dry.

Whenever I have one party — let alone three! — I wake up on Monday morning and weigh 133-something. That's the norm. That's my party weight. That's my upper threshold. I don't ever want to pass 133, and I was kind of hoping not to touch it again. But I knew the trends. I knew what I had done.

So, I step on the scale in Monday's dark morning: 129.4. Not too, too bad!

I realize it's almost a full pound more than last week, but it could have been much worse (and often has been worse). So, I'll take it. Sure, some of it's water weight, bloating, sugar lumps. It still looks like 127 will have to wait for next week. I give myself a C+ for handling these holidays, and plan to tweak my approach for at least an A- Thanksgiving.

At least I have thousands of steps to help me along the way.

Make that 33,000 steps, chump.

2010-11-02T12:07:00.000-04:00

The 10,000 Step Challenge at work kicked off on Monday. After adding up my weekly activities, I decided to aim for an average 20,000 steps each day. Some days are bound to be steppier than others; twice the minimum for fitness seems pretty sane.

Monday, however, was totally insane!

I've been cycling 5-6 days a week since September and building up from 10 measly minutes at first to 45 Monday morning. My goal is at least an hour cycling each day, filled with plenty of intervals and high-tension that will get me set for spring.

It will also get me set for the step challenge! Great thing is that other exercises count too, and I'm using a conversion chart to get credit for my extra activities. So, 45 minutes of cycling? About 9,000 "steps" (45:00 x 200 steps/min).

Now that's the way to step off on the right foot!

Unfortunately, I forgot to bring home my pedometer, so I missed the 1,000 or so steps I would have accrued getting into work. But I walked and worked out enough during the day, I think it'll just be a wash (remind me I said that when my team loses by less than 1,000 steps!).

Sixty minutes of fitness boot camp right after work racked up 10,680 steps (60:00 x 178 steps/min for circuit training), even though six-minutes circuits involving pushing a 35-lb plate across the floor, wall sits and rowing burpies with 20-pound weights seems worth more to me than the morning pedaling!

Then I ran with E-Speed and DH when I came and walked back to their house for some pretty great steps. My pedometer read for the day was 13,000.

Grand total: 32,680 steps.

I figure with the missed a.m. steps I would have hit 33,000, which will be my new active-day goal. Two of my teammates came in with 12,000 and 19,000, so I think we're on solid ground. Go, Team Awesome!

10,000 steps

2010-10-26T10:40:00.002-04:00

Rumor has it that it takes 10,000 steps (or the effort behind it) to keep Americans healthy. I think it's roughly five miles. And it's the number I'm looking forward to outdoing every day for the month of November.

Why, oh, why?

Because it's a challenge. No, literally: it's a challenge. My department at work is taking on another department to see who's fittest. We're making teams, reporting every day and seeing who steps the most for all of November.

I don't think I need to tell you how glad I am the crutches are gone!

One of the best parts of my office is that we're 20+ hyper-competitive people all in one place. Honestly, I can't point to a single person and say, "s/he is a slacker." That's why we hyper kick butt on a daily basis. And there are no tubs, at all. What's more is we all get along. We have really great leadership, and no one's so insecure in his/her job that they need to overcompensate. I think it might be one of the first times in the history of offices that this has happened. In my life, at least.

So, why am I so concerned about having randomly pulled teams? Yes, the competitive weenie is rearing her wildly untamed head. But I don't want to end up on a team with people who will neutralize my ability to win. I guess I'm just afraid of begrudging someone who doesn't step up for this challenge. Maybe I'll just have to become a good motivator. Maybe I'll have to realize it's just a silly workplace competition.

Funny thing is the prizes aren't extraordinarily fab. The winning team of the winning department gets lunch with some senior VPs I don't know (I'm not sure that's a reward). The team with most steps picks up a six-month membership to the local fitness center. At least all people over 10,000 steps per day get one-month free memberships.

Bottom line: i just want our department to win. It's good PR! And we need it.

While we are currently a department of butt-kickers, we're still plagued by a legacy of bad news and service from slackers past. What better way to win people over than to pile-drive them and drop elbows in a fitness contest?

I was relieved to hear that the 10,000 Steps Challenge wasn't just about steps and walking. It's an overall fitness contest. So, all my walking, cycling, swimming, circuit and strength training, running, yoga and dance count toward my totals.

Conversions for non-step activities are done by minute equivalencies. Circuit training, for instance, equals 178 steps per minute. I do a minimum two hours of circuit/strength training each week, so I picked up 21,360 steps. If I run about four hours over the course of the week, it's approximately 48,000 steps or 200 steps per minute. And at least an hour's worth of yoga each week = 600 steps, or 100 steps per minute.

Bare minimum extra activities minus general daily steps puts me around 17,000 steps. I'm hoping my general walking will push me to my goal of 20,000. And worry not: I fully intend to do all of this without breaking myself. Just a few hearts.

Week one redone.

2010-10-24T22:07:00.001-04:00

No, you weren't the only one sick of the tubby talk. I can't promise it's over. I can believe the worst has passed. (Knock on wood.)

And now for something mildly different.

It had been 10 days since I ran when I hit the road on Saturday. A couple weeks ago I felt a sharp pain in my shin during some cardio. And, well, I hate crutches, so i dropped the impact and took to the bike.

I also took to fitness boot camp.

If you dropped by my tweets last week, you caught that boot camp day one didn't blow mind as imagined. Sure, I had some slight soreness two days later, but I was looking for a royal butt whooping. On the plus side, I discovered that I wasn't remotely as out of shape as I feared. Four months off wasn't a strike out.

Day two was a little more intense, and I can still feel the soreness in my inner arms. It starts with 30 minutes of an intense circuit/interval model, followed by 30 minutes of plyometrics and ab work. Yoga, it turns out, does make you a fitness all-star. I'm grateful, though, for the extra work on my back muscles, which I've neglected since spring.

While it's only been two days, I feel more in touch with my muscular structure. My larger muscle groups definitely feel worked and some of the middle groups have burned as well.

I've tried to maintain a miniature version of Tracy Anderson mat work going at home to continue toning and getting in touch with my smaller muscle groups. I really dig Tracy Anderson and think this break for boot camp will make my heart (and butt) grow fonder.

Saturday, however, was the first time I had run since the sharp shin pain and since the start of boot camp. Would I have lost too much fitness? Would the pain return?

No and no.

I ran a warm up mile straight (sans walk breaks) around 9:30/mile and didn't want to die. Not even a little bit. Then I turned up the heat.

After 1:30 walk break, I continued with 2:10 run, 1:30 walk for about 4.5 miles. My muscles were happily loose and warmed up, so the 7:33-7:58 pace for those 2:10 segments felt just right. Typically I wouldn't have pushed that tempo, but I was so deadset on not checking pace (and getting discouraged) that I just ran with it. And run I did.

I followed up with stretching and light massage. The only quirk was tight hamstrings when I cooled down—probably a product of last-man-standing split lunges last Wednesday.

We didn't push it so hard today when NB and I ran 3.25 in 2:20/1:30 intervals around 8:30-9:00 pace. It was my first two-in-a-row since spring. We'll see on Monday—during boot camp, probably—how my body reacts.

I also biked intervals today for 30 minutes and will try to catch some pedaling in the morning before work.

It's like my own little last-G-standing sequence. And I'll be standing on the scale Monday morning for the Week one's results.

UPDATE: Monday weigh-in read 128.6, which is a little lower than expected. Was I chock full of water last week? Did I lose too much water this weekend? Three pounds in one week seems a bit much (well, I'll still take it). This is where the late-week weigh-in comes in handy. But I have to manage my expectations. See, I'm wary of accepting lower-than-expected weigh-ins because they jerk my expectations... and set me up for a setback weigh-in later, which will lead to a "screw it" moment. Perhaps I can find a way to be banned from the train.

I know certain things.

2010-10-20T07:17:00.000-04:00

When I was 15, I recognized something out loud: I know that I know nothing; I know I have plenty to learn.

Sure, it may sound simple, maybe silly. Profound or not, it was a big step for a teenager. And it's that wisdom that has helped me learn a lot over the years. Granted, one of those things was not stop running when your legs are broken, but I digress...

You think I babble too much about fitness and losing weight? Well, step inside my head. Whole new world in here. The hardest part about fitness, race-training and weight loss is that I know what I'm doing. I know what I'm talking about. I know how to achieve what I want to achieve. I just don't do it. Not necessarily that I won't do it. I just don't.

What's even more difficult is that I can see myself not doing what I need to do before I commit my sins. So, I'm in full power to stop myself, stay on track and meet my goals. But, again, I just don't. It goes back to the "eh, screw it" problem. I take one piece of chocolate and, eh, screw it! I have 17. We could go on about addictive eating, but I think it's more than that. As in: my head's way more screwy than an addictive eating disorder.

See: I don't eat compulsively. I don't necessarily eat when I'm angry or bored or happy or sad. I eat normally and then hit on something really good and BAM: screw it! It's an excuse. I eat something really tasty, and instead of enjoying it in moderation, I give myself an excuse to overindulge.

Now, this wouldn't be a problem if it happened over the holidays. Or even just special occasions. No, no. To me Tuesday is a special occasion. So is Wednesday morning. Wednesday at 2 p.m. Wednesday at 2:15 p.m. You get it.

Can I control myself? Absolutely. Do I? Absolutely not.

Monday was Day 1 of boot camp. It was fine. I learned that the average person is mind-blowingly out of shape. I was relieved to find that, somehow, I'm not!

It was a good 30-minute circuit session, followed by another 30 minutes of burpees (a.k.a. sun salutations for wimps) and other plyometrics. I broke a tiny mist of sweat while other people were wheezing and breaking quarter way through. I'm not patting myself on the back. I'm just being flabbergasted. Yes, I pushed myself. Yes, I tried hard. It's just that I've been going fast, hard and furious for four years. So, even in my bad shape, I guess I'm not so bad. (Insert sigh of relief.)

My personal trainer for the month told me I'd probably feel some soreness in my abs, legs, triceps and back. Good for me it was just my back, which has need some strength attention. Check!

The other thing PT helps with is nutrition. He asked that I log my nutrition for 2-3 days. He's going to examine and let me know what I'm doing right or wrong, what I should add or subtract, what else I need to do.

I laughed to myself when he said he'd help me with nutrition. For long stretches over the past four years, I've logged my food. You'd be surprised to hear that I'm actually an impeccable eater. About 98 percent of the time, I'm uber healthy and balanced. A recent blood exam showed I was super healthy on all my levels.

It's just that other two percent of the time—when I'm scarfing cupcake dozens, eating my dough than baking cookies, trying out new frostings, loving the whole jar of dark chocolate almond butter with NB's caramel over apples—that makes my butt huge. So, I laughed because if you look at my food log, the problem areas wouldn't jump out more if they were written in red marker. Here's how I imagine the conversation going:

PT: "So, GP, I see that you maintain a healthy balance of low-carb, high lean protein and low fat mini meals throughout the day. But what's with this 17 pieces of chocolate on Tuesday afternoon? Or the quart-sized bowl of guacamole and... how many chips? And what about these four gourmet-sized cupcakes on Sunday? Seriously?"

GP: (sheepish grin) "Want a slice of cake?"

I'm not sure if knowing what to do and not doing it is better or worse than knowing nothing at all. It certainly doesn't help my attitude when some other know-it-all tries to tell me to "just start exercising" or "just eat this way." I know. I just don't.

All this recent following a method or joining boot camp is really just my way of getting someone else to tell my things I already know... in the hope that I'll listen and do it. It's no secret that I aim to please. I've had goody-goody A-student syndrome all my life. Perhaps that need (or the threat of shame—I respond well to that too) to please or to be held accountable will break down something in my head. Even better: in my actions.

All that not knowing I knew about when I was 15 has helped me get where I am today. Too bad I didn't I wanted to lose 15 pounds back then. If I'd lost a pound a year starting then, I'd be done by now. And I'd have to blog and something more mundane than weight loss, like... nevermind.

Weight loss re-redux.

2010-10-18T06:31:00.000-04:00

Last night's post was a little bit more whiny than I like to be. My first thought was to delete it, but sometimes it helps to keep remembrances of stupidity past.

For the final last time I'm starting this weight train again. Seriously. No, no... more serious than the last time I was serious about being serious about it being the last last time. Hold me to it!

Each time I start over I feel that the week's weight-loss sins were less bad than the week before. Sometimes it's just falling into a party of the too-good chef. Sometimes it's feeling like they might never make ganache this good for the rest of time. Sometimes it's waking up on Sunday morning, feeling light, healthy and on track, like you've lost five pounds, only to find you've actually gained two to three.

Yep, that last one was yesterday.

Talking to Monica today helped me re-get my head on straight. I told her about yesterday's weigh-in (132) and the "eh, screw it!" trip to the cupcake shop that ensued. Not that I want other people to have my habits, but it made me feel like less of a weight-loss failure when she said she shared my screw-it experience. It's nice when other people do the things you think are a little kooky. Like talking to yourself. Or posting way too much about yourself online.

We also decided that we'd both be fine if we could just grow upward a few inches. Something tells me I'd be cool with the daily caloric needs of a 5'8 girl. Maybe even a 6'0 guy. This 5'nothin' gig is the pits!

So, last night, after I finished at least half the jar of dark chocolate-almond butter my dad gave me and the tub of caramel I picked up for NB, I decided that this was it. The it of the it of the it. No more screw-it binges. Even if the scale doesn't agree with all the food I haven't been eating. I just have to stick with the plan.

And as chance would have it: boot camp starts today!

Long story short: I signed up for Cleveland Fitness Boot Camp because of a discount. It couldn't have come at a better time. One hour, three days a week. I'm really looking forward to someone kicking my ass. Three times a week.

Not that I can't kick my own ass. Another thing Monica and I discussed was our ability to exercise our butts off... without our butts going anywhere. It irks me to itches when someone tells me I "just need to exercise" or "just need to stick to get in some cardio" to lose weight. Because 50 miles a week on two fractured legs is symptomatic of a lazy doof.

I may have other problems, but laziness is not one of them.

Discount aside, I hope boot camp will give me some new perspectives on exercise and nutrition. There are obviously some serious gaps in my brain on those fronts. Plus, it's always invigorating to get a new workout, a new challenge. The only thing I'm worried about is explaining my need to be careful of impact intensity without sounding like a weenie. You know by now that I, umm, have a problem with being stupidly intense. How do you explain that you need to tone down the crazy in a boot camp? Aren't we all there to be crazy?

It might also help my plan to go someplace where they'll mark my progress — as opposed to the failed social experiment of posting my weight online. I operate on accountability. Only at boot camp, I won't be editor of the records.

So, on this day, Monday, Oct. 18, 2010, I draw the line. No more starting over. Just full steam ahead on the weight train. Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and that GP Cup isn't going to win itself.

Weight-loss redux.

2010-10-17T20:07:00.001-04:00

Believe it or not, I actually not trying to demonstrate the ups and downs of losing weight. It just comes naturally to me. What can I say?

I have to blame at least part of it on my parents—once last weekend and again this weekend they've derailed my efforts to have a successful Monday-morning weigh-in. It's not that they don't mean well. They just bring some really good food to the table. And while their fit, trim bottoms have some level of discipline and healthy metabolisms, it appears that neither of those traits is hereditary.

(Sign two of dieting trouble: denial. When you start blaming other people for your overeating, you have a problem. Don't pass go. Don't collect $200. And don't, for the love of god, eat those cupcakes!)

My best weight has wiggled around 129 pounds. It momentarily dipped to 128 last week, but then the weekend happened. As usual, I have no problem doing the exercise. I have all the problem not eating when hosted and fed. It's time to start hiding on weekends. Or getting my jaw wired shut when leaving the house.

So, this week I start the Cleveland Fitness Bootcamp. Because I like gimmicks. And I get a discount for doing it. I'm eager to get my toosh kicked for the next month (blended with my Tracy Anderson Method). Please look forward to an excuse-laden post in two weeks about how I've failed again.

Time to be a loser.

2010-09-27T06:21:00.000-04:00

It's going to take some time to shake the paranoia of broken bones on the run.

I had a slight breakthrough this weekend, however: one of the last workouts I did before Dr. T prescribed crutches was a skipping, galloping, trotting workout on the treadmill. It was lower impact than running and worked my cardio something fierce. But I remember how much I'd have to lift and support myself on one side because my leg would feel unstable (and painful!) with certain motions.

In retrospect, I know I had a neon sign hanging over my head, pointing to my leg and blinking "broken leg here." Ahh, yes, but denial shines such a blinding light.

Well, I tried the same workout on Saturday (with much caution). It took me a few minutes to gather the courage to make the first light, very low-impact hop, but I did. And it felt nothing like it did four months ago. Four months ago, my leg felt like it was wobbling beneath me, ready to keel over in all the wrong ways they won't show on television.

On Saturday, it just felt like a leg — the way legs were meant to feel.

That short treadmill session really helped me draw a line between "broken" feelings and "recovering" feelings.

It helped too when I was running on Sunday. I started to feel what I thought was a twinge in my right shin. "Aww, crap!" I thought. "I fractured my bleepin' leg again!" But when I slowed down and focused my attention on my lower legs, I could tell the very, very subtle feeling was occurring on both sides.

Could she have hurt both legs already, you wonder. No. I was wearing cropped tights and the elastic bottoms were squeezing ever so slightly over my shins. Not in a painful way. Just a gentle, butterfly-flaps-its-wings push or stretch against my skin. And I thought my legs were broken. Ugh.

One way I'm trying to combat future injury, however, is losing some of this post-crutch tub. I've been following the "Tracy Anderson Method" strengthening exercises for a few weeks. While that chick has all kinds of weird rumors swirling and some bad press, I have been supremely impressed by what this lady can do for your arms and butt in a relatively short time (if only I'd stuck with it this whole time, I'd be a killer babe right now!).

So, I've decided to be a little more dedicated and follow her 30-day plan to kick-start my lard-busting.

It's nothing gimmicky; it's just a plan of nutrition, strength and cardio to follow. And I know myself: I need a solidly outlined plan to follow. I also need to tell someone I'm following something so that I actually do it. Thanks for being that someone!

My objective: I'd like to get back to my healthy, preferred, pre-30th-birthday-pig weight of 120 pounds (yes, I never lost my 30th birthday pig-out week weight and then I hit the crutches... what a year to have my metabolism grind to a halt!).

I'm 133 today and will report each Monday how I've done with my goal of dropping one pound each week. Which means I should be down to my goal weight just in time for the holidays!

My complementary goal will be to learn how to eat like a human being and not like a famished boar. Here goes something!

OK. Go ahead. Call it a comeback.

2010-09-24T07:24:00.001-04:00

Last Wednesday, I visited Dr. T for my it's-been-four-week-since-I've-been-off-crutches-what-now appointment. My leg, to him, felt remarkably well (I think he's just been surprised all along that I've listened to every word he's said and done everything I've been told) and, he regretted to tell me, I could start running again.

He regretted to tell me so much when he first said it, I thought he was telling me I couldn't run. Ever. He's probably just sick of seeing me and was sorry to give me a reason to be back too soon!

As in recovery, however, I will be in shape-up. So, here we go!

I was given very strict directions: every other day I could run 2:00, walk 2:00 in a gradual build-up to 32:00. Once I hit 32:00, I could start lengthening my run time, slimming my walk time. Here's how that's gone:

Day #1: 16:00 total, 4 x 2:00 at 9:35-11:10 pace with 2:00 walking recoveries. Can I tell you how incredible it felt to run for the first time in four months? I would have felt like I was flying if every step weren't hampering by the fear my leg would snap in half! Distance: 1.32 miles

Day #2: 20:00 total, 5 x 2:00 at 9:15-11:38 pace with 2:00 walks. Still loaded with paranoia, but let go, responsibly, just a touch. Distance: 1.60 miles

Day #3: 25:00 total, 6 x 2:00 at 8:46-10:51 pace with 2:00 walks (and a 3:00 walk to end). I haven't checked my pace even once while running. I'm just running by feeling and not pushing one bit. If anything even starts to hurt, alarms trigger so loudly I stop right away. But breaking 9:00 for the first time didn't ache a bit! Distance: 2.04 miles

Day #4: 30:20 total, 7 x 2:20 at 9:19-9:47 pace with 2:00 walk recoveries. OK: I didn't make it to 32:00 before ramping up. But the extra :20 was enough to make me run more focused and even, hence the more consistent paces. Distance: 2.55 miles

Day #5: 33:00 total, 8 x 2:30 at 8:01-9:00 pace with 1:40 walk recoveries. Not a bad experiment. Again, not checking pace while running. But after a couple weeks' worth of Tracy Anderson strengthening, I was feeling, well, strong. While I didn't push the intensity, I did slug either. Did I slap my hand for running 8:00 pace? Sure. Did it feel great? Absolutely. But I'm trying not to do it again soon. Distance: 3.06 miles

Day #6: 37:20 total, 8 x 2:40 at 8:10-9:38 pace with 2:00 walk breaks. I returned to the 2:00 walks because too short recoveries, it seemed, didn't really work as recoveries, per se. Just momentary slow-downs for me to run faster the next rep. And I'm not there yet. It's funny, though, how 2:00 now seems to last an eternity, but when I was doing 400M sprints, it was a blink. Distance: 3.31 miles

And that was this morning. Today was the first time since May I was able to drag my mopey butt out of bed pre-work and run as the sun was rising. I'm feeling a little sad about missing the whole summer, about not running Akron tomorrow, about spending most of year #30 momentarily disabled.

On the plus side, I can do one thing: sing Radiohead's classic "You do it to yourself" and know that in the future I can stop myself from feeling this way. By not breaking my own bones training in stupid ways.

And it will be an ongoing challenge: I'm planning on racing the Pigskin Classic 5K as my first race (it's Ohio State-UM weekend some time in November), followed by the GP family cup at the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving.

The true comeback, however, will be realized in May: the Cleveland Half. Not only is it one of my favorite races, Neil has agreed to train for and run it with me. Granted, the way he's been running, he'll hand me my butt at the finish line. But I'm looking forward to responsibly training for that not to happen.

Challenge: accepted.

It's kind of like Christmas Eve...

2010-08-17T22:07:00.004-04:00

...except I'm hoping that by this time Wednesday I'm not Tiny Tim.

I'm looking forward to being a normal human being again—even if that means I can't run a while longer.

It'll be nice to walk on two feet again. To not draw attention to myself whenever I enter a room. To be able to sneak up on people again.

But I really don't know what to expect. Is six weeks enough for these fractures to heal? I guess I'll just prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Even if imagining another couple days on crutches makes my stomach turn. I'll try to stop listening longingly to Neo on the treadmill too.

No visions of sugar plums tonight. Maybe I can still hope for a Thanksgiving race.

Seriously: for whom do they make these things anyway?

2010-08-05T22:32:00.006-04:00

I admit it: I went a little crutch-crazy the first week I was on the sticks. But it just took one mention of bone spurs by my mom to slow me down.

I've stuck mostly to mat workouts and pretty easy going (at least I'll have plenty of weight to lose when all this healing is over... oh, wait, that's not a good thing?) the past few weeks. With respect to exercise, that is. I've still had plenty of places to crutch at work — the bleepin' bathroom is a few minutes away, my bleepin' car always ends up on the opposite site of the lot and bleepin' Starbucks, well, it's not far at all — and my social/normal life hasn't taken a backseat to fractured legs. I crutched the Tremont artwalk a couple days into crutchville and cheered Neil wildly at Joseph Monastra.

It's not high mileage (it's not meant to be), but it certainly isn't using these things as an excuse to be lazy.

Which me to wonder: what kind of sloths use crutches these days? Because mine look like this:

Yep, that's the metal bar tearing through the grip. It was really fun when it finally broke through the rubber — I was crutching through a tiled hallway to PechaKucha Night and the darned thing slid right across the floor, sending me flying. It took me a few days to remember that my mom had left some spare crutches in my basement. So, a few perilous moments followed.

Like wiggling into the crawl space to get the crutches (yick!). You can imagine my surprise, though, when I found the spare pair. The arm and hand grips were worn to tears, but the bottoms looked nothing mine:

Perhaps my definition of rest is a little different than the average crutchist. Anymore rest here and I might suffer cardiac arrest. From sheer boredom and blubber.

So, I grabbed a new grip and have been crutching smoothly since. And my skillz as a crutchist are only moving up: not only have I mastered the water-bottle carry and the hot-coffee crutch, I can push a grocery cart while crutching too. It's all about rhythm. What I'm most proud of, however, is that I've experienced no residual pain from my new way to "walk." No crutch chafing. No torquing, turning or burning on the opposite leg. No crutches getting anywhere near my armpits whatsoever.

Did I mention I can crutch sideways, backward and through small spaces? Yes, I take my victories wherever I can get them. The downside is at least once a week it totally wears me out. Particularly the work environment. I can't elevate my leg and the bathroom jaunt is a stretch. But it's reassuring that I can keep doing it all.

Even if these crutches weren't made for people like me anyway.

Because my hourlong ESPN special was pre-empted by that basketball guy...

2010-07-09T14:10:00.003-04:00

...I'll tell you now where I've been: Limpville.

But first the marathon recap: you know by now that I ran a 10+ minute PR at the Cleveland Marathon in May. It was meant to be a training run in prep for a shot at a Boston-worthy 3:40 at some June race. We dance, dance, danced the night away at Neil's BFF's wedding (talk about a guy who gives a great speech!). I got to sleep around 1 a.m., woke up before 5 a.m. and started running by 7 a.m.

It wasn't even 7:30 a.m., however, by the time I stopped running. Shin splints kicked in around 1.5 miles. By two, I was in tears limping on the side before I stopped. Some massaging and ego-kicking later, I ran with the promise that if things didn't loosen by mile ten I was out. Mile five came around, and I started feeling a little better. Around mile seven I realized that my mom and dad were coming out to cheer, and I didn't want to let them down. So, I ran the whole darned thing.

The plus side to stopping and then wobbling in tears for 15 minutes in a marathon is that once you get running again, no one passes you for the last 23 miles. At least that's how it worked out for me. I didn't push myself; I just took in the scenery, really enjoyed Cleveland's outpouring of support (big high-fives to the Shaker Heights cheerleaders!) and had a pleasant Sunday-morning long run with water stations and cheering crowds. That's your typical Sunday, right?

I felt so great, in fact, I was able to run mid-8's the last several miles, race my dad down St. Clair (around 22-23) and finish with a smile on my face. Things swelled, and I limped to my much-deserved mole-chicken pizza at the Beach Club Bistro, but it was all to be expected. I had run a marathon. My best one yet.

Well, it might be the last one. The shin splints, as it turned out, weren't shin splints after all. They were this:
What you're seeing is shots from my MRI. The x-rays, which I don't have, show it better. One fracture all the way down my right tibia, a small crack around it, and stress syndrome occurring on my left.

It took me so long to tune out pain of training in my fitness life that I managed to miss distress signals when my body was actually hurt. Poop.

I waited about 3-4 weeks before I saw a doctor (not because I was stubborn -- I had run a marathon, of course things were going to feel funky!). There were x-rays, follow-ups, errant radiologists, denied MRI claims and then the final MRI. The pics were so concerning to the radiologist at Clinic Sports Health that he called Dr. T the minute I left the room. Yet, after six weeks of walking on this stuff, I barely notice my leg is ready to crumble.

So, you can imagine how rough the first couple days were of being on crutches. Not the actual crutching, but the remembering. Because I walked on them for six weeks, I don't feel the pain of fractured bones. My brain has discontinued its subscription that feeling. It's just some aching.

When my leg bares weight, I don't get a pang. I just remember, "shoot... Neil's going to catch me walking and I'm going to be busted!" Horrible, I know. But it helps. By Monday I should be totally trained to not walk like a normal human being.

Good thing is I'm OK to crutch around. I crutched about a mile my first night, and it felt amazing to be out, moving and getting in some form of new cardio. Because my left leg has some stress going on, I still need to be careful. So far my crutching isn't quite aggressive enough to yield more injury. Unless, of course you know of any crutch races this weekend....?

I'm just thanking my lucky stars Dr. T pushed for more info when radiology told him my leg was fine and that playing tennis last weekend didn't actually crumble my leg. Then I would have had to go through all of that change-of-address stuff again. I don't think I'd be a happy resident of Limpville for long.

4:01:27

2010-05-16T13:35:00.003-04:00

Here's the scoop: I've had trouble doing my 20+ mile runs (pure laziness), so I decided to register for Cleveland as motivation. Cleveland, it turned out, became the 20+ run.

Without much training (as I crossed mile 18 I realized it was only the second time in the past year I'd run so far, and only the third time I'd run more than 15 consecutive miles), rest, proper sleep or healthy eating, I somehow survived. It started out pretty bad -- a little over a mile into the race my shin splints got so bad I limped off to the side in tears and decided to quit... before deciding not to quit -- but I managed to salvage it.

And run an 11-minute PR: 4:01:27.

More to come.

Thinking about your worst enemy

2010-04-28T21:28:00.003-04:00

IT bands, shin splints, stress fractures and sore quads are nothing. The pain that slows me the most is in my head.

No, I'm not talking about migraines (although I struggle with those sometimes too). I'm talking self-inflicted sabotage. The wall before "the" wall. The engine that could but became wholly convinced she couldn't so she took a nap.

In my last post, I mentioned all the time I wasted last week pondering my race feelings. Do I like it? Should I be doing it? Should I sit on my lazy butt instead? Thank the angel on my shoulder for winning that battle.

It's no secret that racing isn't exactly a massage. But it sure feels great when you're done -- the exercise, the adrenaline, the endorphins, the pride, the camaraderie, the achievement. And fresh off Saturday's race, I have to admit racing a good one doesn't hurt remotely as bad as I remembered. So why all the hate?

Honestly, I can't explain it.

What I realized today, however, is that tune-up races take the wuss out of your stride. For weeks I had struggled with running my targeted paces. Sub-8's were for sprinting miles. But after Saturday's race, I've felt pretty comfortable running base miles in the low-7's without going breathless the way I might have last week.

Is my watch broken? No. Has my fitness changed in a matter of days? No. Apparently proving to my brain that I could run 7:40 over 10 miles was enough to banish the wuss covering the accelerator. Now how can I get that feeling to stick around (and ditch the wuss)?

My friend Melissa told me when I first started training that I overthink on the run, and I keep her voice with me still whenever the wuss starts creeping into my head. But all too often the wuss wins.

Case in point: a couple weeks ago, I pumped up my treadmill pace to 9 mph without really knowing actual pace. I ran with healthy effort for two miles before the math worked out in my head -- 6:40 pace. Then I started questioning myself. Well ahead of my 5K PR and not even struggling, suddenly I was stumbling over myself. It's as if my brain says "you're not allowed to do THAT!" and my legs comply. It's just not right.

After reading Matt Fitzgerald's Brain Training last year, I've made some serious breakthroughs with mind over matter. But I have such a long way to go. Sure, greater confidence comes with experience. I just need to make sure the wuss on my back doesn't stop me from getting that experience.

Not a perfect 10, but a happy 10.

2010-04-25T23:44:00.004-04:00

It's been so long since I've been happy with racing that I wondered why I registered for the Hermes Cleveland 10-Miler.

Seriously, racing 10 miles this weekend? Is that really the best use of my Saturday morning?

One pretty decent 18-miler and a few mid-distance runs aside, most of my outings have been junk since the Akron Half. On Saturday morning I wondered whether I even enjoyed racing.

Despite all the negative energy, I made it to the start with ESpeed and Salty, and I just wanted to run a healthy race. Beating my PR (1:21) would be rad, but not imperative. Taking a nap would have been nice. But then the gun went off, and I took off at a comfortable pace, weaving among a pretty huge sell-out crowd into the streets of Cleveland near West side.

The downside of showing up relaxed and expectation-free: I hadn't thought at all about my approach. A ten-miler is an interesting race. Obviously not a sprint, ten miles isn't a long-distance race either. And while it's twice a five-miler, I consider the intensity closer to a fiver than a half marathon. But where?

I decided early to run "comfortable, but not relaxed." It was my mantra. Stay comfortable, not relaxed. And it was easy the first couple miles: start-line adrenaline was pumping, beat of a couple thousand runner's racing feet was bumping. I was content with mile-one 7:23 split, but wasn't sure whether mile two's 7:53 split was my final glimpse of sub-8's. Shin splints had come to attack.

My race day attire was pretty flawless for the first time ever. Simple dri-fit Nike tee with new compression shorts and socks couldn't have been more breathable and less chafing. And it was the first time I didn't have to spend too much energy tugging at shorts riding up my chunky thighs. Perfect!

I'd made the compression-sock investment a few weeks earlier when several people recommended them for my shin splints. Yes, it's spring and the splints were back. I've been treating them with major hill therapy (4-5 mph on the treadmill at 10-12% grade for 2-3 miles) and figured the compression couldn't hurt.

The socks have worked wonders for my tibial tendinitis and achilles tenditis (both sides). So, if you see me at work, run, sleep or play, I'm wearing a pair.

At this race I donned a new pair of pink compression socks, which were the best pair yet. I swear they squeeze out my morning tibial and achilles aches. Unfortunately, however, they didn't scare away the splints.

I started tightening up around the middle of mile two, and then, oh, how the mental battle began! Should I stop? Of course you shouldn't; you should run harder. But this burns something fierce. Yeah, but are your shins going to break? Besides: since when is a race not supposed to hurt?

And the devil side was right. Races aren't supposed to tickle.

So, I stayed comfortable cardiovascularly, tried to ignore the fact that I have shins, checked out all the pretty houses along Lake Ave and just ran from one mile marker to the next. Pretty soon they were flying by (I even missed mile four!), my splints had eased and I was posting a pretty decent 5-mile split (38:48), which is just a minute off my 5-mile PR.

Then came the wind. I practiced my drafting techniques, skipping from dude to dude, trying to catch some relief from the gusts. It was remarkable what a difference some shield made, but I couldn't stick with anyone long enough to make a difference. Miles 6 and 7 were rough, but didn't turn out too bad: 7:54 and 8:02 splits.

One point of confidence I did bring to the race is finishing speed. I've lately take 6-8 miles to really feel warmed up, comfortable and ready to go. And that feeling didn't fail me on Saturday. I crossed the mile 7 marker and was finally off to the race.

Three miles? I can run three miles. And so I did.

I can't pretend to understand well enough how my body works, but, boy, was it fun to run those final miles. My body felt loose, and I was running a pretty good clip without losing my breath. Mile eight passed in 7:43, and it just seemed too easy. I wished all my miles felt so light. We weaved around neighborhoods and ticked away mile nine in 7:36 like I was having a picnic.

After high-fiving the volunteers at the last mile-marker and turning onto the curvy bike path toward the finish, I tried to stay comfortable without letting my exuberance peak too soon. The twists and turns helped temper my excitement for the finish, and probably slowed me down more than some of the downhills sped me up, but it was really glee from a ten-miler feeling so darn good that powered me toward the beachfront finish.

As I took some of the final turns, I noticed a pink-shirted chica trucking up on my right. I turned on my final quarter-mile jets past her and crossed the finish in 1:16:47 -- a little more than four minutes faster than my previous PR.

Oh, did that race feel great. I hugged Miranda, the pink-shirted runner who raced me to the finish, for helping me meet my goal (secretly I wanted but didn't expect to run 1:17). And as I ticked through my watch, I was really proud of my finishing speed. The last twisty-turny mile measured only 0.96 on my watch, but I covered it in 6:46 (~7:04/mile).

ESpeed, who finally rang out her Boston quads, found me fast. We cheered Salty, Monica and other friends to the finish before catching some killer egg dish from the finishing tent (whoever picked out the egg dish for post-race food should get the Nobel Prize for Awesomeness).

It was a strange feeling leaving the race. For the first time in a long, long time, I felt content. Even at the Holy Cross 5K, where I won and picked up a major PR, I didn't feel happy with my race. My Akron Half was really great for me, but I walked away with so many "but"s. Was this race perfect? No. Was it the best I could have run that day? Who knows. Was it comfortable, relaxed, smart, fun and healthy? Absofrickinlutely.

It's high time I remind myself that I'm not close to good enough a runner to get down on myself and my running results when they're not what dreams are made of. Am I running to win? Nope. I'm running to be healthy, to challenge myself and, when possible, beat all runners named GP.

Racing may not feel fab when you're doing it, but it should feel great when you're done. And, you know, it really does.

Running hard... or hardly running?

2010-03-18T22:38:00.002-04:00

While Cleveland had a most unmiserable winter this year, I haven't had the best cold-season training. I pulled off the Pittsburgh path and gave racing St. Malachi much criticism. How could I race five miles when I was having trouble breathing (from the cold/plague that will never end)?

The answer: have fun.

Neither Neil nor I felt up to the races last Saturday. But how could I not race St. Malachi? It was my first race ever in 2007. I've run it every year. And it's for a great cause. Plus, the ranks always fill up with the coolest runners I know. Getting to see them, really is enough to run the hilly race.

If that didn't get me to the near West side of Cleveland, however, running a race with Neil for the first time would. Even if I had known what the weather would have been.

I hung with Salty, DaisyDuc and ESpeed (indoors) before the race, and only warmed up trotting uphill to the start with Neil. Wimpywimpywimpy ran high with me that day. And I was OK with it.

Before the race I had promised Neil that we could run the first mile hard, see how we felt and run the rest however we wanted. So, when the race kicked off, I led the muddy way through a mile one that I remembered being much more downhill. Neil started the day sniffling with cold/flu symptoms, so I tried to spy behind me from time to time to make sure he wasn't too far behind. He pushed through the snot and ran a great first mile.

Even with the backlooking and three stops for Neil to catch up, I ran mile one at 6:50. Neil crossed at 7:14.

Mile two ran closer to 8, and then Neil started feeling really bad. So, we slowed down and cruised the last 2.5-3 miles. He ran a consistent pace; I sprinted the hills and waited at the top (if I wasn't going to get in my tempo, I'd at least do hill repeats!). Yes, I picked up plenty of dirty looks.

At least they weren't from Neil. He pushed through his sick to run a very respectable 45 at his first St. Malachi — we had a little track meet sprint up the final hill to the finish, and he beat me by a bunch. Then we came home, ate bratwurst my dad delivered from the West Side Market (he was an awesome cheerleader too), and spent the rest of the weekend getting all resicked.

I think we're finally getting better by now. My nose-breathing is around 80% by now, and Neil's getting his normal voice back. We're eying some late-April races to redeem ourselves. And have yet more fun.

Shameless self promotion

2010-02-03T12:52:00.003-05:00

Excuses, excuses, excuses. I took off last week from impact training to give my leg a heal: it swelled up so much a few nights that I couldn't sleep. And that just wrecked everything. But it wasn't just the leg keeping me up at night. Work had its hand too.

I try not to let work interfere with my personal life. Much. All too often, however, it barges its way into every hour of my waking and sleeping hours.

At least I have something to show for it. If you have a minute, please visit my Think Beyond the Possible Web site. I'm kind of proud of it.

Only now I have to find something else to think about when I'm on the treadmill...

Will power and the cleansed brain

2010-01-29T11:44:00.002-05:00

In my previous post, I mentioned that the refresh of cleansing, in addition to habits lost and found, helped me avoid the typical binging I commit when I'm stressed (and January tends to be a real doozy for me at work).

Apparently, I get a pat on the back. According to NPR, it's not easy.

A few questions hit about the story, so here it is — Will Power and the Slacker Brain: Why is it so hard to do the right thing? Turns out your brain gets tired sometimes and just can't fight the power... of chocolate cake.

End of the cleanse

2010-01-27T22:40:00.000-05:00

When I crossed the finish on my three-week cleanse last weekend, I celebrated with a cold 13-miler, which broke my training into 10+ (and 30 for the week) for the first time since the Akron Half.

Needless to say, it was a bit much and probably not a fab idea to suddenly kick up my long run by 50% in less than a week.

At least the cleanse was fab.

Now that I’ve shaken the not-so-hot post-cleanse overindulgence I committed on Saturday and Sunday (bratwurst from the market, cupcakes, cookies, apple fritter, pizza on Saturday; cinnamon roll-wrapped bacon and cupcakes on Sunday) and shed weight I packed in a mere two days, I’m basking in the afterglow and digging some new habits.

It’s no secret that nutrition is both mystery and obsession for me. What’s more fun than exploring foods’ properties, cooking up a storm and understanding how food delivers energy and affects our insides, outsides, brains, feet and tears? Yet I’ve never grasped how much grub I needed to thrive (and how not to skyrocket my blood sugar all the time).

The Clean program was a good place to start. Not only did I learn about my body’s natural, regular detoxification process, I discovered a collection of foods that lessen the detox load, deliver energy and kick the habit of blocking my body’s natural ability to heal itself.

A week out of the cleanse, I'm still observing the 12-hour detox period at night and waking up with a lemon-water detox for my liver. If nothing else, these two rituals have helped my body prep for sleep at night and wake up easy in the morning.

What’s more: I began to appreciate a number of ingredients (i.e., quinoa, kasha, kale) that comprised many of my meals, use them in new ways and crave them for the great way they made me feel. For weeks before the cleanse, I had suffered from nearly debilitating heartburn. By week two, it was completely gone.

But it was the “plan” part of the cleanse that delivered the real epiphany.

While I consider myself, in general, a healthy eater (with some unhealthy habits), I don’t think I’ve ever been a conscientious eater. Particularly with respect to calories. I’ve grown up in a culture that advertises 2,000- and 2,500-calorie diets as standard. And they are. For people much larger and/or more active than I am. Even if I am training for the Ironman. After getting a basal metabolic rate assessment from my health care provider, I realized that a person my size (5’1, 124 pounds) needs about 1200-1300 calories each day. Then I get a few more for training… but not much. Who knew?

I’d used online tools in the past to measure my needs, but the standardized tools recommended 1500-1800 calories each day. Suddenly I realized how a girl running 50+ miles a week could gain weight.

Imagine my disappointment, though, when I discovered that I needed 300-500 fewer calories each day! I thought I was going to starve. But then I really tuned in to my plan and listened to my real appetite.

In the past my appetite was measured on taste satisfaction, not quantity. Cupcakes? Those are good… and I’m not full until I’ve had 30 of them. Green beans? Often delicious, but not indulgent. So, I’m full about 20 calories in.

Enter the Clean plan.

The book didn’t outline three weeks of meals, but provided a series of recipes and a recommended eating plan (i.e., smoothie for breakfast, lean protein solid lunch, light detox-friendly snack, soup for dinner). And it only took me 1-2 days to realize that the smoothies, soups and meals I was eating actually left me full and satisfied, even if they were smaller than my usual pig-out of food.

Some things like a brothy soup or grilled chicken breast tend to have filling properties, but I was surprised that I wasn’t full… my appetite was satiated. Even on heavy training days. And once 7 p.m. hit., I observed my 12-hour detox and never thought about snacking. Turns out following this plan was a lot like following a training plan for a marathon. It’s not always perfect, but delivered results.

But what will shock you to your very core: I seem to have kicked the too-sweet habit. Seriously.

Sure, I tried the weekend overindulgence, but I didn’t really enjoy too much of these goods things. In fact, I only ate one half each of two cupcakes and a third of an apple fritter before I felt too indulged (they were tasty… and are now in the freezer). I ditched plans to make fancy donuts at home on Sunday… and haven’t had anything sweet all week despite being done with my cleanse.

Don’t get me wrong: I still love my desserts and treats. But I don’t crave and think and plan and dream about them. Much (I am still alive). I have a drawer full of chocolate I stashed during the holidays (“for later”) and haven’t even reached for it. Somehow I survived a very stressful month without any stress-eating. And according to NPR, that’s not easy to do!

But how long will I stick with the good-eating habits? What will toss me from the wagon? Only time will tell. At least I have regular cleanses planned to keep me on the straight and narrow. I’m most vigilant, however, on how my nutrition affects my training. And… so far so good. My energy has been steady and strong (totally unlike calorie-cuts of the past), and I feel like I’m eating the right things, rather than less of the same schtuff.

Still so much to learn about myself, food, energy delivery... and the million things I can do with kasha.

All this Cleanliness has primed me for dropping some of my non-leanness for racing season. I dropped about six pounds over the three weeks (part diet, plenty of exercise). The only drawback: my running tights are too loose now… and loose tights lead to some mean chafing on a rough 13-miler. Ouch!

Cleanse week two, training week one (15 weeks to go)

2010-01-18T19:14:00.001-05:00

Rumor has it that it takes three weeks to break a habit. Fingers are crossed that it’s true: I’m two weeks into breaking my healthy-diet-spoiling eating habits and hoping that it sticks.

And after a week’s warmup, I finished my first week of training for the Pittsburgh Marathon.

Here’s the full rundown on Week #2 Cleanse/Week #1 Training

MONDAY
On rising: lemon water
7 a.m. herbal tea
Breakfast: blueberries, cocoa, almond milk smoothie
Snack: probiotic yogurt
Lunch: snapper w/broccoli rabe, kale and pine nut quinoa
Dinner: zucchini-basil soup
*Training: 6.25 treadmiles @ 9:00/mile

TUESDAY
On rising: lemon water
7 a.m. herbal tea
Breakfast: blackberries, mango, spinach, almond butter smoothie
Lunch: grilled chicken w/pesto, spinach, zucchini, kale, chipotle sauce over polenta
D: pumpkin pudding (pureed pumpkin, probiotic yogurt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cayenne)
*Training: warm-up; progression hill repeats w/ two sets of 1:00 1-8% grade/:10 pace increments; cool down; 20:00 strength training

WEDNESDAY
On rising: lemon water
7 a.m. herbal tea
Breakfast: oatmeal w/blueberries, almonds, almond milk
L: Pumpkin risotto w/short-grain brown rice and grilled balsamic chicken
D: Pumpkin soup w/cilantro, onions, zucchini
*Training: 25:00 strength, 40:00 yoga, restful night

THURSDAY
On rising: lemon water
7 a.m. herbal tea
Breakfast: oatmeal w/blackberries, cinnamon, almonds, almond milk
Lunch: Sweet miso w/shiitake mushrooms and spinach
D: Bean chili (not exactly cleansing, but the best I could do out)
*Training: 7 treadmiles w/intervals between 7-8:00/mile; 30:00 yoga

FRIDAY
On rising: lemon water
7 a.m. herbal tea
Breakfast: Almond butter, mango, spinach smoothie
Lunch: Pumpkin, cinnamon, fresh ginger, cayenne, almond milk smoothie
Dinner: ahi tuna over cilantro-lime short-grain brown rice w/avocado + green beans
*Training: 25:00 strength; 30:00 medium effort cycling

SATURDAY
On rising: lemon water
7 a.m. herbal tea
Breakfast: harvest grains + steel cut oats w/ blackberries, almonds, cinnamon, cumin, ginger
Lunch: carrot ginger soup
Dinner: cilantro-lime short-grain brown rice w/avocado, green beans, zucchini
*Training: 30:00 yoga; 4:25 miles outside @ 8:50/mile

SUNDAY
On rising: lemon water
7 a.m. herbal tea
Breakfast: blackberries, pineapples, almond butter, cinnamon, almond milk smoothie
Lunch: apple (OK, so I missed lunch)
Dinner: Lettuce, red onion, black olive salad w/minestrone
*Training: 35:00 medium effort cycling with 2x5:00 mid-high intensity; 15:00 stretches

And then I started week #2 of training with 9 miles outside @ 8:45/mile. While I thought I was being too ambitious targeting eight miles, I reached big hill at mile four and decided to tackle. It’s about a half-mile bump whose last quarter mile builds from 5-8% grade.

The sidewalk was pretty icy this morning, so the ride down wasn’t its usual relief.

As you might suspect, I’ve managed to lose a few pounds since I started my cleanse and training. But, as you might not suspect, it’s not a matter of malnutrition.

I’ve tried to drop pounds in the past during training, but found it nearly impossible. Probably because I felt entitled to thousands of calories I hadn’t earned. When I actively tried to cut my calories during training, I wouldn’t optimize my meals or my calories. So, I was left feeling weak and energy sapped and completely convinced it was impossible to drop pounds on the run.

Ridiculous, huh?

My real goal is to drop 15 pounds from my beginning-of-the-year weight by the time I race the Ironman in September.

It’s a pretty healthy, metered pace. I’ve dropped 3-4 pounds in the past two weeks, which isn’t the pace I’ll continue, but a nice start. These first several pounds were, well, easier to drop because I packed on plenty during the holidays. Bonus pounds, we’ll call them.

So, in this final cleansing week, I hope these good habits grab tight. Obviously, I’ll allow myself the occasional blip of indulgence. But maintaining the small size and frequency of blips will be the trick.

I get the sense that it would take me far less than two week to break good habits and find myself smothered in some delicious buttercream frosting.

Spring cleaning: part two, week one

2010-01-10T14:01:00.002-05:00

Cleanses don’t have the best reputations. Sometimes for good reason. In fact, my first experience of detox/cleanse was really unpleasant. And it was third hand.

A friend fell into the Master Cleanse—mostly a water, lemon, maple syrup, cayenne drink until you drop—while crushing on a girl from yoga. By day three he was, well, overwhelmed by the squirts (not to mentioned grossed by the salt water he had to drink), and apparently no amount of feelings for a bendy girl really outweighs the squirts.

I heard all about it, in graphic detail, from my friend Jeff and never wondered why it was called a “cleanse” again.

Then I discovered Goop.com’s abbreviated weeklong post-holiday cleanse last year. It was a balanced meal plan of mostly smoothies and soups with a collection of solid meals that delivered carbs, protein, fats, vitamins, the works in a way my normal diet just doesn’t.

Whole, natural ingredients nixed sugar, high sodium and processed gunk. Regular smooth meals eased work on my stomach. The whole week left me feeling energetic and, for lack of a better word, clean.

But I’ve said all this before.

One week into my second cleanse, a three-week detox, good feelings are back. Most mornings start with lemon water, tea and a delightful smoothie; lunch is a solid meal containing most of the day’s protein; and dinner is a veggie-based soup after a post-work snack of something like probiotic yogurt or almonds.

What’s different with this cleanse is that a) it’s really blimey cold outside; b) I’m still cooking dinner for Neil; and c) I’ve started training for the Pittsburgh Marathon in May and the Rev3 Ironman in September. At first, I wasn’t sure it would work.

Training, however, blends well with cleansing: the hard breathing and sweating removes toxins and eases stress (which releases poisons of its own) in a way that plain old good eating and healthy thoughts just can’t. What’s more: I’m more dedicated to yoga practice and deep breathing during heavy training cycles, which helps kick out the bad schtuff even more.

To illustrate, here’s a few days in the life:

MONDAY:
On rising: lemon water
7 a.m. Herbal goji berry tea
8 a.m. Kale, pineapple and flaxseed smoothie (at least 12 hours after last meal)
Lunch: Balsamic grilled chicken w/ rosemary wild rice
After work: 25 min cycling
Snack: 20 almonds
Dinner: Carrot-ginger soup

Part of the detox process is giving your body time to digest, kick into its natural detoxification process and recover. Alejandro Junger, doc-author of Clean, explains that digestion takes up to four hours, followed by eight to rid the body of toxins, and that we should give our bodies at least 12 hours to complete the cycle.

Putting the solid meal in the middle of the day and a smooth meal at night during cleanse, Junger suggests you’re giving your system greater time to recover with ease of digestion as it heads into daily detox.

Because I cook for Neil (last time he fended for himself), I had to strategize—no way he was going to dig carrot-ginger soup for dinner. How would I do solid lunches?

Easy: time shift.

Starting on Sunday, I cooked dinner for Neil, packed away half for lunch, and whipped up a soup for me. The next day I reheated the Balsamic chicken with rosemary wild rice (on Tuesday it was roast salmon w/broccoli rabe quinoa; Wednesday had Moroccan lamb w/harvest grains and spinach) and repeated.

Neil was a little put off by our different meals, but I’m thinking the deliciousness should eventually distract him.

Alongside feeling great, I enjoy how just one week of cleansing makes me feel in control of my appetite and my diet (and, as opposed to my friend’s Master Cleanse, my bowel movements ;-). Sure I have the occasional fantasy about cookies and cakes, but I’ve already shook the self-consuming cravings.

Could I go for some dulce bread pudding? Sure. Will I have some? Nah. I think I’ll have a smoothie with mangoes, almond butter and spinach instead.

What I did not look like on my first treadmill run

2010-01-06T20:54:00.003-05:00

My last trip on a treadmill? Forty-five seconds of sweaty stumbling, stopping, skipping, swearing misery that actually, according to my friend Jeff, turned me into a fire-breathing devil woman. (I'm still paying for his therapy.)

No, I didn't fall, but sometimes the threat is worse than the actual thing.

Except, of course, when it's the actual thing: 15 years ago I stood on a treadmill for one absent-minded split second as someone plugged it in. And then I was thrown across the room at 6:00/mile. Ouch.

Imagine my anxiety today when I decided to hit the treadmill at lunch. It's been weeks since I last ran, months since I've trained. Chances of me running on freezing rain: unlikely. While I've packed outdoor running clothes every day for work since October, I haven't peeled myself out of my office chair into the cold once. Oh, winter wussiness.

I must have looked I was approaching a lion's cage for the first time and walking in. The buttons were difficult to push, the moving-ground sensation took a bit to grasp, and let's just say my knuckles were white as I gripped the bar to steady myself.

I only let go after five minutes, when my arms started to hurt! Then I gripped hard with two fingers, then one on each hand. Finally: at 2 miles I ran hands free. No stumbles, zero trips and only one too-long stride. I think I'll do it again.

It wasn't a bad inaugural workout either: 4 miles @ 10:15, 8:20, 8:34, 9:00. The first mile wasn't fully slow... it took me several minutes to poke up the pace from 12-13:00!

So it begins: Pittsburgh, here I come!

Spring cleaning: part one

2010-01-02T15:27:00.002-05:00

Nothing leaves me feeling flabby, lazy, gross and, of course, merry quite like the holidays.

My uncanny ability to down 3,000-5,000 calories of sweets and non-essential fats (in lieu of blood, a slow sludge of sugar and butter creeps through my veins) in a single sitting without diabetic coma drowns me in guilt and extra pounds every time. For some reason, I just keep doing it year after year.

A semi-hiatus from running has intensified my itch of grossity this time. I’ve been on the mend and a little lazy since September. Sure, I’ve been keeping up cardio, trainer-cycling and strength training, but nothing quite has the return on investment (for me) like running. And so I flab.

But new year, new me… right? Well, not even the glory of new year could throw me on track this year: I stepped outside for my inaugural run on Friday morning and wiped out on the new ice. Looks like only a treadmill and an indoor track can save me now. When did I become such a winter wimp?

Cold or not, I refuse to wimp out this year on mastering a healthy diet. I’m turning 2010 in February and believe my uber-healthy-on-one-hand, crazy-unhealthy-on-the-other eating habits won’t hold up in decade #3. What better way to start than a three-week cleanse?

Following Thanksgiving, I tried my first detox/cleanse. It was a weeklong process that consisted mostly of raw fruit/vegetable soups or smoothies and making me feel great. No sugar. No processed junk. Very little salt. Despite enticement from Dunkin Donuts chocolate peppermint holiday treats commercials, I felt really satisfied, healthy and clean the whole week. And for the first time… ever… I felt more in control of my appetite and my relationship with food.

Then I went to Dunkin Donuts on Saturday and drowned in guilt. Bleh.

It was such a great experience, however, I’ve been pretty eager all holidays long to get back to an extended cleanse. The trial run was based on this Goop.com detox, which led me to the full plan by Alejandro Junger. So, for Christmas I bought myself and just finished reading “Clean,” Junger’s book about detox and restoring the body’s natural ability to heal itself.

Far from the “eat (this) and thou shall be saved” variety of miracles, Junger’s book explains the body’s natural (and daily) detoxification processes, the makeup of good foods, not-so-goods and toxins, and the benefits of going “clean” for a few weeks. It also outlines the plan, including recipes, recommended eating times (or, more importantly, times between eating), and detoxifying activities, such as deep-breathing, yoga and sweat-inducing exercise, that I’ll be following for the next three weeks.

It’s not gospel, but the book assures me endurance athletes can follow the cleanse while training. Good news because I’m entering a major marathon-training cycle! It should help me regain my appetite control and, I hope, engrain those lessons over the three weeks so they stick. Because on the other side of the cleanse? The next great holiday indulgence.

My birthday.

The upside of lazywussyunmotivatedness

2009-12-31T16:12:00.005-05:00

Technically, training for the Pittsburgh Marathon started a few weeks ago. In reality, I think it will start tomorrow: the ultimate day to start all things awesome.

I'm no resolutionist, but, man, have I been lazy.

I don't think I've properly trained or regularly run since September (and let's just say my eating—short of an invigorating cleanse—has followed suit), so I'm really uncertain what I'm starting with. Tomorrow will tell.

Yesterday hinted a little bit. I tied on my new trail shoes (props to E-Speed for giving me the idea last winter to try them on the snow—they work like a charm!) and hit the snowy streets with Neil. We ran 4.5 at medium effort (~9/mile). Between the snow and cold, which I still haven't accepted, I thought the pace and effort bode well for me.

But even better than that: my achilles didn't swell after the run for the first time in 7-8 months.

My left achilles (followed by my left shin, calf and knee) has ached with varying degrees of frustrating discomfort, stiffness and sharp pains since April 2009. That pain led to an even more frustrating round of shin splints for the Cleveland Marathon. It came and went all summer, and then finally flared a bunch after the Akron Half and Turkey Trot. So, I've tried to rest, rest, rest for the past three months. But I'm a little dumb when it comes to rest.

Unless, of course, it's super cold and snowy outside.

Since September, I've run 2-3 times each week, completing whatever mileage and pace worked for Neil. Probably not a great plan for either of us. But I've supplemented with aerobics, yoga and strength training 6-7 days/week.

What's more: I've gotten pretty good about icing my swollen pieces and should get a T-shirt soon that reads, "I heart R.I.C.E." I feel like my achilles has been mending and all this down-time isn't for naught.

None of this smart off-the-road treatment, however, has motivated me to run. In fact, I just took my mom's NordicTrack (xc skiier) to ride next to my bike trainer. When I'm not riding that.

Following Cleveland, I think I wavered much on my training motivation and, for that matter, devotion. While I had a pretty decent year in 2009, I often wondered whether I cared enough about racing to keep it up. And it's kind of an important ingredient when you're training for time in a marathon. Sigh. New year, new me?

On a much brighter side, Neil's become quite the runner, even braving dark, cold and rainy nights to run miles alone. He had been bouncing around in heavy cotton sweatshirts and bulky pants before he scored some great winter running clothes (the photo is from the Turkey Trot, not awesome winter-running). It's only a matter of time before he passes me in a race.

Maybe that's where I can find my motivation.

Happy Holidays

2009-12-26T10:38:00.002-05:00

Here's wishing everyone merry holidays —Christmas, Festivus, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Boxing Day, various new years, birthdays, anniversaries, new children and pie-eating contests— this year and plenty of happy miles, races and PRs in the new year.

The art of healing

2009-12-13T18:26:00.002-05:00

Even with the stress fracture a few years ago, I count myself lucky for not suffering any serious injuries my whole athletic life. Suddenly I feel like I’m tight-roping the border between the good life and something much more uncool.

It all started last April when I just finished a 10-mile tempo. My training for a 3:40 Cleveland Marathon was beautifully on schedule and on pace. But as I turned down my street at the end of a cool down, I felt an ache near my left ankle. It was my achilles tendon.

Knowing that my achilles was nothing to mess with, I took off I couple days. Then the shin splints struck. (You know the story: I felt paralyzed for the first 30-40 minutes of any run and could almost never stretch into my normal pace.) My limited motion probably protected my achilles from being overused, but once the splints cleared up, and I continued training this summer, the achilles ache came and went.

Well, it’s back with a vengeance now. So, I’ve taken off 2.5 weeks (since the Turkey Trot) and I’m not sure it’s done the trick. I cheated with an easy 3-miler on Saturday and I’ve felt achy today.

What a tricky thing this achilles is, however. It’s tight and painful when I wake up in the morning, and can get a little tweaky throughout the day, but the pain doesn’t hinder my stride when I’m running. In fact, after a warm-up I don’t notice the tendon at all.

Some side effects: I’ve been getting some pain in my shins when I run and some afterward too. My sciatic nerve knocks lightly sometimes to remind me that it’s still there. And only every once in a while, I feel what seems like a resultant tightness somewhere else in my leg, like my hamstring or around my knee.

Like everything else in running, though, healing takes time. Especially the achilles. That part of your heel gets lower blood flow than other reaches of your extremities, so healing often takes a long time. And let’s just say rupturing the thing is the scariest thing you can read about doing.

(Pause to shudder and cry.)

So, I sit here on the eve of training for the Pittsburgh Marathon on May 2, wondering if I should give it another week… wondering whether another week should be a month… wondering whether a week or a month would do any good… wondering whether I should just run through it… wondering if I should just break on running all together until my achilles feels perfect.

After Saturday’s test run, I feel inclined to go both ways. Because my achilles aches today, I feel like I shouldn’t run at all. Because the three miles really stunk, I feel like I should get running fast—there’s no way this body’s running 26.2 any time soon!

When I visited Dr. T last spring regarding my shin splints, he checked out my achilles, but it wasn’t as achy at that time as it is now. I’m not sure, aside from shaming me into rest right now, what could be done for it. Is that, however, a reason to not get it checked out? Is the achiness I feel just something I must live with to train for endurance? Oh, these eternal questions.

THE PLAN FOR NOW…
1. Follow my training schedule, follow my feelings. I start with four miles on Monday morning with no assigned paces for the week. It’s worth a try. I just need to stay vigilant and honest.

2. Warm up like I mean it. Short and simple: I rarely do a proper warm-up and push myself to hit paces right out of the gate and wonder why I don’t hit my paces as often as I like and why I hurt. I think we all know the answers to my questions.

3. Rest when and where I can. My training schedule, for the most part, allows a day of non-impact cross-training between days of running. I’ll have to optimize rest and stretching for my achilles (and the rest of my body) on these days.

4. Return to yoga. Strange this about me is that I’m all about yoga (like seven days a week, 2-3 sessions a day) during some times of year. But oftentimes when I’m training for a race, I skip it altogether. I realize how much it helps me relax and heal. Now I just need to shed the lazy and hop to it… on the mat.

5. Get hot and then get icy. It’s time to get serious about warming up, using heat, seeking massage and icing my injuries. There’s more to healing and treatment than stretching and sitting. I will heart RICE.

I hadn’t intended to be dealing with an injury at the outset of a 19-week plan, but what marathon training doesn’t get interesting? May will be here before I know it. I hope my achilles will be on board for a marathon by then.

Trotting like a big, fat turkey

2009-11-27T22:08:00.008-05:00

It took about six seconds Thursday morning for me to realize it was not a good racing day for me. The 20 hours standing the day before (not to mention the restless four hours of sleep) left my body achy with an achilles that just wouldn’t quit.

Unfortunately, I just won’t quit either.

Except, of course, when it comes to following a training plan. Since the Akron Half, my training has been very unfocused and lackadaisical. I’ll have good weeks that stay on course/pace. But most have been like last week, when I ran 2.5 miles to BURGER NIGHT (and got a ride home from David and E-Speed) and that was it. For the week.

Sure, there’s been some cycling and a few 10+ runs, but nothing inspired. None of my training has been inspired for a while. I just lucked out on the Akron performance and need to kick myself back into by mid-December when I start focusing on Pittsburgh.

But first: the trot.

This year my dad and Neil both vowed to run the 5-mile race. In fact, Neil even requested a six-week training plan a couple months ago with a goal to meet a 42:00. While my dad wavered in the weeks leading to the race, he showed up on Thursday ready to run.

Registration and warm up were pretty quick, and the weather was a bit of a mystery until the gun (it was overcast but calm at home; dark, cold and raining on the way to the race; cool and windy warming up; sunny and breezy for the race). It was cool for us to hang with my dad at the start—not only was it nice to experience his first race with him, it was good for Neil to share his experience and tips with a first-timer—and I considered not racing and just running with one of the guys for fun. But to their credit, neither my dad nor Neil races at a “just run it” pace. So, I was on my own.

We wiggled closer to the front (last year’s bottlenecks were such a pain) for the start and took off separately into the race. I ran comfortably hard for the first mile, despite all my bad feeling parts, and crossed mile one at 7:05. To my surprise. I laid back for a 7:45 mile two and started to analyze how I felt that day. Was this a goal day or not?

Months earlier my goal had been set at 37:00. Not an aggressive target (just :42 off my St. Malachi PR), but decent considering the off-season race date. Little did I know how off-season I would feel.

So, as I turned into the third mile, I decided that I just didn’t feel like hurting a 37:00 amount. The big bummer: I knew this would be my first non-PR race ever.

Mile three was a leisurely 8:19. My dad passed me around 2.5, as I slowed for water, and I watched him run an admirably consistent pace through mile four (7:51). Then I overtook him back!

As we wound down the East 9th hill, I watched the shadows bouncing over my shoulder to see if my dad was catching up. I knew that if he caught me before the West 3rd hill there was no way I’d beat him.

Let’s just say Thursday was not a good day for hill-climbing.

Now, in most races, I don’t wimp it up the hills. I push it. Hard. In fact, when Neil booted his 5K PR to the curb (he cut 2:13 from his Holy Cross 5K to run a 23:07 Pigskin 5K) last weekend, I stood in the middle of the West 3rd hill, rooting people up the steep and scoffing quietly at anyone who wussed and walked.

I didn’t walk at all. But, geez, did I dream of it.

The course turned onto Lakeside, and I could see the red clock ticking at the finish. My final kick was still at home in bed, so I only picked it up a touch to finish in 39:10—2:00+ slower than my goal, 1:30 behind Malachi, my first ever non-PR race. Boo hoo. It was bound to happen sooner or later.

Little did I know my dad was nipping at my heels! He hated the final hill just as much as I did, but ran an impressively even-paced race (I think he literally ran five 7:54 miles)! I turned around and watched as he crossed 22 seconds behind me in 39:22.

Before the race, the three of us agreed to meet at the finish. My dad and I pulled off to the side to watch for Neil. As 42 and then 43:00 came and went, I looked with hope for Neil. It was his first 5-miler, and I had my fingers hard-crossed that he’d meet his goal.

Forty-four minutes… 45… 46… 47. Where was he?

We walked to the water, bananas and granola to see if he was grabbing food: nothing. I watched the seconds tick by and told my dad at 50 I would run back through the course to make sure Neil was OK. He’d just run 7:36 pace in a 5K. I knew he could beat 10/mile in five miles. What was up?

Worried he was hurt, I started looking for an open spot toward the sidewalk to start running back through the course when I saw… Neil!

He had been standing about 20 feet from us the whole time! Neil finished his first 5-miler in an inspiring 40:24 (8:05 pace… I’m so jealous). I had no doubt he could run a fast one, but wow.

So, while I trotted like a stuffed turkey, this year’s Thanksgiving race was totally worthwhile just to see these awesome guys run great races. And commiserate about that damned hill… and all the extra Thanksgiving treats we deserved.

Chasing guys in Central Park

2009-10-19T19:40:00.000-04:00

For weeks (and by weeks, I mean almost 30 years), I’ve been trying to get my sweet tooth under control and my training on track. I’ve thought about using my twitter feed (above) as a wall of shame, posting all the unnecessary sweets I eat and workouts I blow, to remind myself how bad I’ve been.

Then I spent a few days in New York.

The wall of shame would have taken twitter down, down, down…

As usual: totally worth it.

It was rainy and cold most of our days in Jersey City and NYC, but no weather holds us down! We visited Betsy and Dan, who were kind enough to give up much of their busy days and nights to eat Cuban food and seek out terrific cupcakes and cookie-dough lumps with their out-of-towner friends. (Jersey City, if you haven’t been, is really quite pleasant.)

One of my favorite things to do in New York, though, is running in Central Park. Last time we were in the city, I took the fastest fly-by 10-miler through the streets and park that I couldn’t wait to run it again.

Two years later, Neil suited up for Central Park jaunt too.

In fact, Neil and Dan both suited up! They ran Neil’s workout while I took off for 4+ miles that hopscotched between 6-8:00/mile. Despite all the recent loafing and all the walking, I felt like I was flying right away. How could I not? I was in one of my favorite places; NYC Marathon banners fluttered in the wet air; and… well, there was a dude who just couldn’t be outrun by a girl.

Funny thing you notice in Central Park: New Yorkers (N+D saw Anderson Cooper), it seems, run equipped to trek the Andes—gallons of water strapped to their waists, rain gear to the max, enough tech to guide a jumbo jet—and don’t move very fast.

Then a sleekly dressed dude whipped past me a few minutes into the run. Big deal, right? I didn’t think much of it until he flew by and slowed when he was 10 feet in front. Maintaining my pace, I would nip his heels, and he’d speed up. Other dudes would run past: nothing. I’d catch him again, and he’d take off.

Why not have some fun?

Nice part about the CP route was the general unflatness—it wasn’t hilly, by any means, but kept things interesting. On the uphills, I’d take off and make Runner Dude push the tempo to keep up, before I cruised the downhills, where he’d waste energy passing. That was a good 2-3 miles.

Then on one last hill, he just couldn’t keep up. He fell back, and I ran into the sunset of beating-the-runner-dude-in-Central-Park glory. I realize my sad entertainments are lame. But I no longer swim with Flipper Dude at Kent State, and I have to get my kicks somewhere.

I ran my cooldown back through the path to find Neil and Dan, and then we found our way to a great café whose harvest porridge and nutty breads made for perfect recovery food after a energetic jaunt.

And while I’m trying to cut back, I felt wholly deserving, not long after breakfast, of the biggest warm cookie [made outside of my kitchen] from Levain Bakery. Not so much because I had run hard or because we had walked there or because I had demonstrated any kind of restraint on this trip.

I was on vacation, and this girl can make a wall of shame look pretty dee-licious.

A little off the sides

2009-10-11T12:01:00.005-04:00

Just like most chicks, I've suffered from poor body image all my life. My worst fears about my arms or butt or thighs were always confirmed by people I was meant to respect or revere (last words my late swim coach ever spoke to me: "next year we'll have to work on those fat legs of yours"), and sometimes I wonder how I didn't end up with some serious disorders.

While I've dropped 10-15 pounds since high school (mostly trimmed baby fat and bulky butterflier's muscle to lean), I still feel plenty of chunk to junk when I'm running. Sure, now it's more about carrying less baggage on the run than looking like Filippa Hamilton, but how can not feel guilty for putting my adult self through the torture I survived as a teen?

Well, I can say I'm more healthy about it now. I have the mix of exercise (i.e., various forms of cardio, strength and flexibility training) that makes for healthy living, and, I'd say, at least 95% of the eating part down. But if you've known me for 5-10 minutes, you're aware of the mind-blowing indulgence that makes up that spare 5%, which gives me an extra 5-15 pounds I don't want to carry past my 30th birthday.

So, for the first time since I was a teenager, I'm actively trying to shed some weight... and admitting it out loud. Hey! Blogging about marathons and triathlons has kept me honest. It could work with butt-chopping too!

The timing couldn't be better: I'm in between big races right now and won't start training for the Pittsburgh Marathon until December. And some sustainable adjustments should get me on the right track before those miles start stacking up.

No, no, no... I'm not saying a permanent good-bye to cupcakes or bread pudding or crepes. I'll just be revisiting the concept of moderation and seeing what it means for my back fat.

It's hard to cut back overall calories when you're training—you need the extra energy and stored jolts to get through the next hard workout—but I know I scarf thousands of spare calories on bad days, birthdays, depressed days, I'll-eat-better-tomorrow days, Saturdays, wedding days that add up faster than the national debt.

Maybe I need some shock diversion therapy with buttercream or something. Just no gimmicks or fads, please: I have races to run! But I hope by February I'll make some progress to carry through spring. Something tells me running hills in Pittsburgh will feel better with less junk in my trunk. And that's all I want: to feel great.

(Cuppie on a scale by Jessie Oleson, cakespy.com)

What the tweet?

2009-10-05T07:30:00.000-04:00

One major change this summer: I followed my own training plan for the Akron Half. It's only been three years of running for me, but after two marathons, a couple halves and a bunch of other races, I felt I had a solid enough foundation to give self-training a try.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not training Olympians anytime soon. My plan gleaned bits from Runner's World workouts I've dug in the past, Galloway tips and brain-training's Matt Fitzgerald. I spent much more time cross-training (i.e., low-impact aerobics, high-volume cycling, swimming, pilates, yoga, tennis) and taking joy-runs... being happy and loving what I was doing.

Most importantly, my training plan flowed with (and sometimes pushed against) the way my body was feeling day to day and configured workouts based on what's worked for me in the past.

Sure, I probably didn't push myself to levels I could and, maybe, should have, but I provided myself with the new experience of running a major distance PR injury free! Will I always run the GP plan? Probably not. It pays to switch things up a bit.

Hence the new blog! Another major change this summer: I couldn't squeeze in blog time (it was a good-busy summer). In fact, I had a difficult enough time logging my workouts on a scrap sheet of paper! I like to keep myself and buds on the up and up, however, so I've blended micro-blogging (the daily tidbits at the top of the page) with more lengthy race reports and diatribes below. I'm working on ways to improve the site over the next few months and welcome your suggestions.

Akron Half and the Summer of Run

2009-10-04T23:59:00.009-04:00

Akron rocked something fierce this year. For the third year in a row, the weather was perfect, the streets were lined with cheerleaders and I crossed the finish with a PR.

Talk of the bad weather loomed like scary clouds all week. Cold temps, hard winds, driving rain. We were supposed to get something nasty on Saturday, and I showed up at the start prepared with shorts, a singlet and my trusty Red Sox hat. Unfortunately, I also showed up with a serious need for a bathroom stop.

Yeah, yeah, yeah… I have a history with bathroom starts and Akron. But this year I had an excuse! Long story short: Neil joined the ranks of awesomites running at Akron this year, kicking off “Crazy for Swayze” in the marathon relay. When we saw bathroom lines were too long, he split to hang with Pacer E at the start… and I tried finding a line. Until I realized Neil hadn’t picked up his relay bracelet, that is. I ditched the line with five minutes to go, picked up a bracelet, spied E’s 3:40 sign, and found Neil with a bracelet already in hand. Nuts!

At least I found Landon at the start. Too bad for him, all I could talk about was needing a bathroom. Thankfully for the race and my blog post, the bladder saga didn’t last too long.

We took off into Akron at 7 a.m. sharp, and I had my Strategy A in place: stay within eyeshot of the 3:20 pacer (7:38/mile), aiming for 7:47 splits over 13.1 miles. Imagine my consternation when I hit mile 1 at 7:11 (not another speedster pacer at the start)!

Well, I learned from the Cleveland debacle and slowed down. Landon had taken off with the fast guys and my bladder was weighing my down. I fought my sinking spirits hard… until I heard the next pace group nipping at my heels! How frustrating to think the 3:30 group (8:01/mile) was catching up already.

I almost felt like taking the race easy until the pacer passed. With his 3:20 sign. I didn’t show up at the start with glasses or contacts, so I didn’t notice I was tracking the 3:10 pacer through the first mile. Switching off my negative thoughts, I found a bathroom (lost about 2:00 and the pace group) and then found my rhythm as I ran the most steady, metered and evenly paced race in my three years.

Well, steady for Akron, at least.

It was going to be rough hitting my A Goal (1:42:30) with the bathroom break, but I was going to give Akron and its hills a run for its money. I was surprised, though, by the magnitude of Akron’s hills—despite two previous appearances, I seemed to have deleted all memory of the race route and its complete absence of flats—as I embraced the challenge.

For all Akron’s elevation, it has plenty of supporters cheering you up those damned hills. I lucked out in my race position too: I kept pace with a guy running in full costume as good ol’ Rick Vaughn from Major League! Every crowd we passed erupted in cheers for the guy and he totally kept me on pace, and it was a major bummer when we parted ways at the marathon split.

The rest of the trek was delightfully uneventful. While I had a few momentary cramps and energy slumps, I just ran a very comfortable pace and absorbed the atmosphere. It was way rad to see Landon’s lady Laura race-side handing out high-fives. Her spirits came in quite handy after heart-attack hill… but that’s for mile 12.

We only had a few cool sprinkles throughout the race, so I was burning up under that baseball cap. I thanked my good graces, then, when I caught site of Kate, cheering on the U. Akron campus, and threw all my spare stuff her way. What a savior! (Thank you, Kate!) Rick Vaughn thanked me for ditching the Boston hat, and as I crossed mile 10 at a PR 1:19:30, I assured him it was from my Johnny Damon halloween costume from a few years ago. It was the least I could do.

Although I should have done much more in the way of long, drawn-out hill-training this summer. All was dandy through 11 as we sped downhill just outside downtown Akron. I met Rob from ultrarunner.net and picked up as many seconds the hill offered. But then the marathon split, and it was confirmed: what goes down, must go up.

The half turned onto a part of the towpath where, I’m almost certain, bad people are taken to be tortured. We all went silent, huffing and puffing up heart-attack hill. The route was marked with “5% Grade” signs the whole way up (as if I needed to be reminded I was running uphill), but felt like a much bigger pain. So, I was surprised when I clocked an 8:38 mile-12 split because it felt like 30!

Now, I don’t know Akron very well, but I could tell we were so close to the finish. I gave Laura one last sweaty, happy-to-be-almost-done high-five on my way into downtown and just tried to stay even… while totally emptying the tank!

No one passed me in the last mile, and I was happy to see Neil cheering at the stadium entrance as I barreled down the final street. Akron’s stadium finish can’t be beat, even when the final stretch (cloth-covered grass outfield this year) catches you by surprise the first few steps and makes that final sprint pokier than you’d hoped.

But even as my feet sunk and slipped, I watched the clock and knew that even if I somersaulted to the finish, I’d get a huge PR!

I finished in 1:44:32 (7:58/mile), a 9:06 PR!

Neil led off his relay with a 3.5-mile leg in 29:13. The awesome fivesome ran 26.2 in 4:02:49. Congrats to Neil, Glen, Steven, Melina and Christine! (Neil’s finisher medal is hanging on our fireplace just below his Fantasy Football trophy.) And high-fives all around to Landon, E, Salty, CJV, Janet and everyone who made it to the races, including cheerleaders Nino, Jessica, Laura and Kate.

Akron Half capped a pretty sweet summer for running. Not only did I finally make it to a major race injury-free, I had won my first race at the Holy Cross 5K with a 22:26 PR two weeks earlier. I’m so proud of Neil venturing into the world of running and being so fast… so fast!

And these races have me on pace to wear a Boston hat for good reason when I hit the Pittsburgh marathon this spring.

BRB

2009-09-13T16:47:00.001-04:00

I've been blogabsent forever, but will be back with a renewed blog on Oct. 5. Stay tuned.

A Most Excellent 5K Race Report

2009-07-07T09:46:00.000-04:00

Oh, yeah: I ran a 5K last Sunday. Not only did I win my age group, I crossed as first female. Well, technically.

In lieu of speedwork during a week with a crabby calf, I decided to give a local 5K a try. While I had been disappointed in my previous race, I wasn’t out for blood on this race. In fact, I played some pretty hard tennis pretty late the previous evening, didn’t get much sleep and had almost no rest for my legs by Sunday morning.

Sometimes that’s just the way things work.

I was running a little bit late to the race and feared I wouldn’t get any warm-up let alone a proper one before the race. Lucky for me, the gun went off half an hour late. Unlucky for me, I warmed up to more tightness than usual and then sat around for half an hour waiting for the race to start!

My goal: run an even race and use it as a tempo around 7:30/mile. While I wasn’t feeling quite able at the start, I warmed into the race about 2-3 minutes into the race. 5K races always leave my anxious: there’s little room for mess-up, no spare seconds for anything, and I don’t have a clue how to run them well.

Last race I went pretty balls out the first mile and then tanked around mile two. At this Most Excellent race, I crossed a perfectly marked mile one at 7:09 (my Garmin and the marker were dead on) and felt fine.

In fact, I felt A-OK the first two uneventful miles. It was just a tempo run on the Cleveland Heights streets I trot during lunch three days a week. I slowed for the water stop (and didn’t drink too much water this time) at 1.7 and then cross two at 7:27.

Then the course turned EVIL.

The last 1.3? All uphill.

I was explaining to Neil last night that running this 5K didn’t feel any shorter than running the marathon. Mentally. I’m in shape to run way more than 3.1 miles, but even though I was running a steady pace, albeit uphill, it still seemed to be taking forever to find the finish. Until I found out where I was, that is.

“You’re first female 5K,” one woman cheered. Hmm? I picked up pace a bit. “First female: finish is just up the road,” another lady shouted down the way. Wow. Me? No way. While I was sick of the incline and feeling tennis sore, I picked up pace with my spirits (I’d slowed down for about .5 mile, according to my Garmin) and pushed to the finish.

I crossed in a PR 23:11 (7:57 last mile…yick!) to the ring of “First Female 5K,” received a pat on the back and engaged in a fruitless search for the glazed donuts I saw before the race (I only found the empty boxes). After settling for a chocolate macaroon bar, I cooled down with a few track laps and plopped down to massage a cramped calf. A race official stopped by to tell me I wasn’t first female and that I should enjoy the post-race treats.

Thanks.

Total upside to sticking around: I finally had a chance to meet Charlie, who ran an awesome 10K, in person! We hung out for the awards, where I found that I lost on chip time by two seconds (gun time I won by :18), but still picked up the same prize for winning my age group.

Regrets? No. Sure, if I had seen a woman two seconds ahead of me, I would have chased her down. But I ran my best race pace yet on pretty tired legs and crossed the finish line first for the first time. And I ended up getting a glazed donut the next morning. That’s a most excellent race.

Another Lesson Learned

2009-07-06T09:05:00.000-04:00

For the first time in a very long time, I’ve learned something that I didn’t learn too late to put in play. Last time this moment hit I was in college and I found that if you did the readings and work all semester, you didn’t have to cram for finals. Cha-ching.

Here I am, years later, with another useful lesson: running yourself into the ground doesn’t make for good marathon training. Brilliant!

Lucky for me, I survived my last two poor training methods to try a third. Will it be the charm?
It didn’t take long for me to decide on the Akron Marathon – I didn’t meet my goal at Cleveland; I felt fantastic after two weeks off running; and I learned E-Speed was pacing my group at the race. Can we say stars aligning?

OK, maybe I’m just reaching. But we’ll see if stars align in a few months. While I haven’t been at this marathon game for long (and only running, period, since 2007), I’m giving my own plan a try this time around. I’ve collected tips and workouts from various sources I’ve used over the past two years (Runner’s World, Galloway, Fitzgerald) and created a 15-week plan for the summer.

Here in Week Four, I can honestly say so far, so good.

My typical week involves a base run with hill repeats on Monday, cross-training on Tuesday and Thursday, speed work on Wednesday, optional tempos on Friday, endurance on Saturday and restful Sunday. Yoga 3-4 times a week is blended with cycling and soon-to-be swimming for cross. I’ve also continued a pilates regimen and weight training for strength. And I’d like to integrate more races for kicks.

I was a little afraid of scaling back to 3-4 runs each week. Will it be enough? My previous plans ran me 6-7 days with high miles. But this time I’m focusing on the quality of my workouts and meeting my targeted paces. Instead of pace ranges, I’m being very particular about my goals. And I’m hoping that by late September I’ll finally be able to recognize a pace and run it in a stable fashion.

(A girl can dream.)

Only time (and the race) will tell if my approach to marathon training will work. With all the last-minute injuries and pains I’ve experienced these past three big races, I figure it can’t hurt to try. Cramming, it turns out, doesn’t work well for running either.

Flag Day and its 5K

2009-06-11T01:20:00.000-04:00

So, I’ve had much better races than the Flag Day 5K I just ran, but it was all worthwhile because I did get to cheer on E-Speed and Salty to their incredible sub-19 races (typically I just hear about these ladies kicking butt; today I saw them kicking in action)!

Talk about a junky (and not at all smart) lead-up week, though: first five-days-straight running in at least a month left me more ragged and worn than expected, while other life/work stuff beat me up in the head. I guess it happens.

My guess is the extra cycling, aerobics and pilates might have added insult to preventing injury, but my mood weighed the most today. At least the weather cooperated.

Enough crabbing, here’s how it went down: I hitched a ride with E-Speed and made it to Deep Woods with enough time to register, stretch, warm-up and mosey around before the start. My warm-up felt plain poopy, so I trotted a half-mile out and back, prodded my calf to loosen and waited at the start, where I wish the chicas good racing, and used a pin to scratch off the misspelling of my last name on my racing bib.

Cue the anthem, runners set and go.

Obviously, I don’t start toeing the line. But these no-chip races make me anxious about the precious seconds added to my time—I realize I’m not breaking records, but I have my pride at stake! (What’s left of it on a day like today, anyway.)

Lucky for me that negative attitude subsided, even while feeling pretty sluggish, as I tried to take advantage of the first downhill. I rooted on E and Salty around the first hairpin turn, ran behind a slow-moving, exhaust-spewing truck, tried to flee a guy who grunted like he was dying a painful death every 15-20 seconds and was happy to cross mile 1at 6:45.

If only that feeling (and downhills) had lasted.

Well, I momentarily escaped the grunter, despite slowing way down in mile 2. My cardio still felt great—the cycling intervals, in particular, are working wonders—but my legs just weren’t with it. I slowly trotted the water stop (just before tripping over a sewer), downed too much water and picked up a stitch before crossing mile 2 at 14:57 (8:12 split).

Note: by the time I crossed mile 2, the winner was already finished.

Just before heading up some final hills (man, was I pokey up those hills!), I walked for 15-20 seconds to try working out the stitch. While I wasn’t cool with walking in a 3.1-mile race, I was even less cool with the cramp. It didn’t totally subside until after the race; I’ll have to learn to work stitches out on the run in the future.

Slugging up the “final” hill, Mr. Grunter came hurling his agony back in earshot. I knew I shouldn’t have wimped out and slowed down! I let him pass me in the woods, but never separated enough to stop hearing him yelp as if he’d been shot every 20 seconds.

Ahh!

Faked out by a subtle downhill and cheering from what turned out to be a softball game and not the finish line, I sped up a while before exiting the woods. It’s strange the way 3.1 miles feels like such a long haul when you’re running a bad day!

When we actually emerged from the woods, I could see two things: 1) big red numbers ticking down the straightaway at the finish line and 2) mad Mr. Grunter hoofing down the last hill.

As the clock ticked toward 24, I looked through my bag of tricks to see what I had left: Speed? No, I dropped that last week. Endurance? So seven weeks ago. Spite? Ha! An abundance!

I didn’t go into today’s race with a real goal, but I knew I’d regret not outrunning Sir Gruntsalot for giving agony such a bad name. My closing speed isn’t much to write home about right now, but I was able to hoof it down the final stretch, pass Gruntasaurus Rex and finish the last 1.1 miles in 9:01 (8:13 split for the mile, :48 for the 0.1).

My watch time, which accounts for the starting delay, was 23:58 (7:42/mile).

The official time, with added start gap, probably puts me over 24, so this is my time, and I’m sticking to it!

It wasn’t a good race for me (albeit a 5K PR—a perk of having run only one other 5K!), and it didn’t leave me feeling great about much, but the post-race spoils were super, as was the post-race pie with E and David and the opportunity to cheer for the girls.

Now I just have to get back to rest and recovery. I’ve felt pretty creakedy the past couple days, and it’s high time I get back to training like a good girl and trying to make it to Akron sans injury.

That’s the Stuff

2009-06-02T19:39:00.000-04:00

My doctor joked each week that we knew exactly what would make my shin splints and achilles better. I just wasn’t willing to do it. And had I known that two weeks of non-impact with plenty of stretching would have done the trick, I probably would have listened. For once.

But I didn’t.

I did, however, listen to his post-race prescription and tested my rested legs today. What a difference a fortnight makes!

Being the good girl I’m determined to become, I warmed up with yoga moves, dancer’s lunges and dynamic stretches before starting slowly into my first three-miler back. It’s a weird place: I haven’t run in two weeks, but it’s just two weeks removed from being injured yet in decent marathon shape. So, I could have run five, six, twelve miles if I wanted. But that’s not what good girls do.

I woke up my Garmin, which was ready to retire to Florida, and ran a short three-mile route up and down Lakeshore. And while I was wearing the Garmin, I tried not to pay attention to pace. This run was all about shaking off rust and feeling out what’s mended and what still needs to heal.

It was a relief to finally start a run without the crippling grip of dire shin splints and an achilles that just won’t quit. In fact, it was kind of strange to warm-up without excruciating pain: it was the first time since late March that it happened!

Aside from a little right achilles ache and some right calf knots (the original injury was left achilles), I felt fantastic. My legs weren’t fatigued at all and felt strong through each mile. As I stayed strong (but relaxed) the whole run, I could feel how my cardio has benefited from 15-25 miles cycling every day for the past two weeks.

And I must have looked strong doing it too: an older man stopped me on Lakeshore to ask if I was the superstar E-Speed! He and his wife were proud to see that a speedster from Euclid ran so well at the Cleveland Half. While I broke it to him that I wasn’t Ms. Speedy, I promised to pass on the praise. Next time I’ll have to run with E-Speed autographs on hand!

Running home along the lake, I stopped at 3 miles before trotting a cool-down home, where I plugged in my Garmin to check out the splints—mile 1 at 9:24, mile 2 at 8:20, mile 3 at 8:00. Oddly enough, the last two miles felt slower, easier, more relaxed than the first. Now we’ll just see how I feel in the morning!

Marathon #2: Check

2009-05-18T10:35:00.000-04:00

After months of long runs, early mornings, doctor appointments, dessert hiatus and yammering about marathon strategy and not much else, I was hopping in place listening to my 3:40 pace group leader at the Cleveland Marathon. Finally! And as the announcer counted down to the start, I fixed my eyes on the pacer’s balloon-festooned pace sign, where I planned to train my eyes for the next three hours and forty minutes.

The best laid plans.

Let’s call the pacer Marlon. (Just because.) So, Marlon’s getting us pumped to start, explaining that he takes downhills fast so we can catch some “free” speed. We waddled to the starting line, and he shot out the gates.

Good for Marlon.

Not so good for the 50 people trying to weave through droves to find him. We sped down East Ninth Street toward the Rock Hall to swing a left on Erieside.

Hello Marlon and good bye.

Three-quarters of a mile into my 26.2 race, I had lost my pacer. What now?

The day started out swell: I drove downtown with E-Speed and Landon, found bathrooms fast and didn’t feel crippled by shin splints and tight calves for the first time in weeks. E helped get me sufficiently warmed and somehow Salty found me at the start. It was my day. I could feel it! I just had to stick with my pace group.

Why the desperation? We all know I have no ability to pace myself. Even with my Garmin. I’m either all or nothing. No smart in between. I knew I could physically run 8:24/mile for 26.2. But I hadn’t arrived ready to do it on my own.

Imagine my panic when I crossed mile 1 at 8:40 with no Marlon balloons in sight. I was 1/26th of the way into the race and I was already 16 seconds behind! By mile 2, I couldn’t even spy him up the straightaways and fell 37 seconds back.

Logic would have weighed me down in a marathon, so I left that part of my brain at home on Sunday. Thirty-seven seconds isn’t an impossible thing to make up over 24.2 miles. Nor is it impossible over 2-3.

It just isn’t a smart thing.

I inched up my pace on the Lorain-Carnegie bridge and through the west side, pulling within striking distance by crossing mile 4 at 33:52 (8:28/pace). But where was Marlon?

Turns out I wasn’t the only one hunting for the 3:40 group. By mile 5, I had run with at least 20 people (4-5 at a time) who saw the 3:40 goal pinned to my back and latched on a few miles at a time. Even the appointment as pseudo-pacer, however, didn’t sharpen my pacing skills. Panic held me and picked up these first nine splits:

Mile 1: 8:40
Mile 2: 8:45
Mile 3: 8:20
Mile 4: 8:07 (33:52, 8:28/mile)
Mile 5: 8:13
Mile 6: 8:10
Mile 7: 8:18 (58:33, 8:21/mile)
Mile 8: 8:36
Mile 9: 8:50 (1:15:59, 8:26/mile)

Somehow after getting ahead of 8:24 pace, I still couldn’t catch even a good rumor about where Marlon might be waving his balloons. And as I turned onto the highway, into the sun, I felt totally deflated. I gave up. My hammy tweaked and super-tightened as we climbed the first highway hill and I crossed…

Mile 10: 10:16

Lucky for me: I have the world’s most incredible friends.

All but socking myself in the face, I was slumping hard when Salty (who rocked the 10K hard!) appeared on the bridge through downtown to help me through some hard miles. She talked me through my self-pity, blocked the wind off the lake and helped get me to the half mark with these splits:

Mile 11: 9:15
Mile 12: 8:52
Mile 13: 9:52

Not even the joy of halfway would make my hamstring quit. At first I slowed down, took a 30-second walk break and eventually paused to stretch. Then it was 5:00 on/:30 walk for three miles. Nothing. Until I heard the 3:50 stampede heading my way.

Pained but excited, I flipped around every few seconds to scan the group, and in the middle of it all, I found Landon!

(I’ve wanted to run a marathon with Landon since the day I started running. Somehow it all worked out!)

We knew by miles 17-18 we weren’t meeting our respective goals, and once I knew my hammy could hold pace with Landon, we decided to finish the race together. And what could have been a dreadful experience turned into one of my favorite days.

Over the river and through the Rockefeller Park woods in search of few and far between aid stations did we go!

Shade along East Boulevard and MLK served us well, but I would have taken aid stations over trees. Don’t get me wrong: the volunteers were top notch! But the aid stations every 2-2.5 left me parched and floopy as we flopped from one station to the next.

But where there wasn’t Powerade, there was power support. Like my mom and Neil hanging on some shady parts of St. Clair (I was so loopy when we passed that I didn’t recognize Neil until he was running next to Landon for several seconds), and then E and Salty waiting for us around mile 22 or 23!

For weeks I’d envisioned reaching E (the day’s half-marathon superstar) and taking off for an incredible 3:40 finish! Unfortunately, this wasn’t the race.

E kept us alive those last miles. While I felt bad we couldn’t pick it up for her to really run us to the finish, I couldn’t be more grateful for her motivational spirit that stretch (her parents, from Mich., were even there cheering for everyone!).

With the last 0.2 to go, she hopped on the sidewalk and rooted us the whole way, and Landon told me to take off if I had it in me. Too tight to really pick up pace, I bid him to go… and go he did. Landon took off in an incredible sprint to the finish.

And what a finishing stretch: my mom and Neil cheered from one side, my dad shouted from the other and E rooted from the sidewalk. Then I waddled across the finish in ~~4:11:20 (9:35/mile)~~ 4:12:19 (9:37/mile). Great race.

Not only did I get to run a marathon with Landon, I had way-rad family out to cheer and outstanding friends run me through one heck of a race. Sure, I didn’t run a great time, but I had a great time running it. And how can I complain about a learning experience and a PR?

On my way out, I stopped by the medical tent to thank my doctor for getting me to the race (and thanked my massotherapist for her part of the magic online) and headed home ready to heal my aches, sprains and all the new ouches.

But it’s nothing a little pie can’t cure (click to replay):

Glimmers of Hope

2009-04-14T14:46:00.000-04:00

Signs of hope aren’t just showing up in the economy these days. They’re all over my legs.

Neil and I visited our nation’s capital last week (All I wanted was to see the president while we were in DC; 30 minutes into our trip, Obama rode by, waving, in his motorcade!), which provided ample distraction from my non-running.

Even if every 1/3 people on the DC streets was jogging. All the time.

It wasn’t all rest, however: we walked 10-15 miles each day, which averages more mileage than I run in average marathon training week! Neil (you can imagine) was thrilled! I’m one helluva vacation partner. At least we totally deserved those dogs at Ben's Chili Bowl.

We did the occasional street-crossing sprint. And by “occasional” I mean every 3-5 streets. It was rough at first—my achilles and calves were suffering big time—but stopped feeling dangerous after the first day and a half.

I was (this) close to taking a run, but I resisted.

Until today.

I’ve been resting since last, last Thursday. It made me a little anxious to not run for a week and a half. Sure, I’ve been cycling, stretching, yogaing and doing other aerobics. But would it be the same?

Well, it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t too bad either. I loaded my ipod with laid-back songs and struck out for a slow, short run. The pain wasn’t all gone and the stiffness stuck around at the start. But it was just feint pain and stiffness—as if I couldn’t quite forget what it was like to run in pain. I wasn’t optimistic.

Then around mile two, it started to rain and my legs warmed up. I picked up pace slightly (from 10’s to 9’s) and fought the urge to figure out what I could do.

After the first five miles, I felt great—in my achilles, calves, legs, lungs—so I took an extra mile lap around the neighborhood to run an even 6 miles. It was a good run back. Phew!

What’s next? I’ll start slowly building up to my workouts and see what I can get out of this last month. Sure, I’ll modify my time goals. In a few weeks.

Running Skirts and Marathon Dreams

2009-04-04T09:57:00.001-04:00

The marathon must be getting close. Not only do I have my regularly scheduled nagging injury, but I had my first absurd dream about the race last night.

In the dream: I ran way off course, missed the turnaround by six miles, had to swim part of the way, ran a stretch wearing my winter coat and carrying my computer bag, was forced to stop and have lunch with some visiting friends, ran all uphills backward and realized I hadn’t bought my finish-line Boston crème pie before the race. As you can imagine, I didn’t meet my goal—I looked down at my dream watch to see it ticking past 7:42:00 and then I woke up.

Good thing is the tight calves/shin split/achy achilles/slight runner’s knee thing I’ve had going on this week didn’t make an appearance. I hope that’s the only part of that dream that makes an appearance (although running the uphills backward sounds interesting).

I’d like to blame these aches and pains on that Sunday after my tempo, but I think it has more to do with a tight glute from weeks ago. Around mile 15-16 I felt the glute tightness creeping back for a few minutes. Either that tightness trickled down or all the compensating is paying off in all the wrong ways.

My mid-distance and long runs last week started out creakedy and stiff. Stretches and a couple miles of warm-ups smoothed it all away. Not so for last Saturday’s outing. I took a she-runs/he-bikes ride with Neil and never warmed up. For over an hour!

Typically I keep up a pace with which Neil can casually pedal along side. But last Saturday’s pace was akin to my post-marathon recovery. These legs just weren’t moving.

So, I rested.

It was all yoga and pilates for Sunday and Monday. More on Tuesday and Wednesday with an hour of cycling each. Then Thursday was the day of reckoning. It was also the day that I learned the truth about running skirts.

If you’ve ever seen me run, you’ll know I’m not a pretty lil’ runner (in form or fashion). I put little thought into my ensembles—just whether they’ll keep me warm or cool enough. Mix that with my lifelong shorts-wearing hesitation, and you just have one big damn mess: me.

I gave in a couple years ago and bought a bulk of running shorts. They work just fine, even with all the inevitable riding up of any pair on the planet. Then I noticed running skirts—basically a fitted tennis skirt with longer “bloomers”—and thought I could get on board with that. It seemed Puritan enough for modest me.

My new skirt came in the mail on Thursday. I bounced home from work, threw on my running clothes and hit the streets for my first run in a while. Would my legs work?

They did, I think. I was so damn distracted by how severely the skort was riding up and began to expect all the nasty catcalls from the extraordinary number of piggish dudes out that day. Not at all what I had envisioned for new line of modest running clothes.

So, I ran to the library to drop off the West Wing and fix the skirt parts one of many “last times.” I ran well over 10:00/mile the first 1-2 and wondered if I was doing more damage than good. Nothing felt like it was getting worse in that first 20 minutes; nothing felt like it was getting better. I decided to give myself a 30-40-minute window for warming up. After that I’d just turn around and waltz home.

What do you know? At 35:00 I started feeling almost human again. I comfortably picked up pace into the 9:00’s and then the mid-8:00’s. I finished my scheduled 9+miler at the end of my driveway, walked slowly inside, cooled down a bit on my bike and yogaed away.

Soreness was inevitable on Friday. But it wasn’t worse than any other day. I walked a bunch before and after work, rode my bike, massaged and stretched. And this morning, I feel like I could run without agony. We’ll see.

On one hand, it’s a major bummer that this hitch in my plan is happening just when I started hitting my paces and times. I’ll take it easy this week and most of next, and make a game-week decision about the Hermes 10-Miler. Argh.

On the other hand, this type of thing happens. To me, it typically happens the week or two before the race. This year, I have time to recover. I’m 17 weeks into a 24-week plan… that’s 11 more weeks than I’ve ever stuck to any plan! So, I’ll chalk it up to part of the learning curve and get back to stretching.

30 Miles, 26 Hours

2009-03-26T22:54:00.000-04:00

Sure, I made it through Sunday's run bucket-of-chickenless, but that wasn't the only downside to a good run. There's the whole my being an idiot that came into play.

Eager to write and talk about the run, I plopped on the couch (still pretty gross, too), tucking my leg beneath me and making my achilles squeal. It felt like something serious all of Sunday and the better part of Monday. I rode an easy hour on my bike on Tuesday and took the legs for a test run on Wednesday after work.

Fingers were crossed.

Creakedy start —achilles sketchy, calves reluctant and tight— those first two long miles, and it almost seemed like a bad idea until I pushed through Little Italy, passed a cyclist up the hill, eventually hit my "base" stride and cut all the apocryphal thoughts ('you were marathon-training and you injured yourself sitting?') these tweaks induce.

The short, slow test run turned into a pretty good hill exercise and 11-mile run a touch under 9:00/mile. Warm-up miles were tragically slow, but I tackled each incline and flew the downhills to pick up the pace. And the achilles scare? All just a bad rumor.

Not that it helped my super tight legs today! I took the buses (express into downtown, transfer to HealthLine) to work in the morning and tried to keep my legs stretched and warm all day. It didn't matter: I started running on a cold, rainy day, and my calves were stiff as stones.

Seven some miles later, I met E on the Marginal, where it was 15-20 degrees warmer and 100 percent sunnier than when I started. My calves? About 70 percent less stiff.

We took the scenic lakefront route home, and I dipped and peaked all over the place. At some points I suffered from post-work malaise; other times I was just pumped to be finishing my long run on a week day. The post-work thing, however, is pretty rough for me, so I finished that few miles feeling more ragged than usual. E, as usual, talked me through it. Whew!

We reached the end of my street (just past 19 miles), and I bid E on the rest of her Wednesday run. I ran the slowest cool-down in human history and smiled. Feeling tight, rough and a little slow, I still managed 19 around 8:50/mile. Now I need a massage...

Road to May 17

2009-03-22T18:12:00.000-04:00

Next time I plan a run in the afternoon, I’ll have to consider the aromatic spots along the way. Talk about distracting! I took a 15-miler today – four warm-up, 10 miles at 8:29/mile and 1+ cool down – to wrap up a 48-mile training week, which almost ended with more than one bucket of fried chicken.

And I don’t generally meat! (Unless, of course, you give me $2 burger night, or even dollar dogs.)

By noonish it was 20 degrees warmer than my typical 8-9 a.m. start. I was also more than 20 times hungrier by that time. Tour de Lakeshore makes for a mostly think-free run, but wouldn’t you know that it’s blocked up with wafty food joints—a couple Italian restaurants, several grills and burger joints, Wendy’s, Burger King and more than a few KFCs. Torture. Pure torture.

The run marked another solid week of training for the Cleveland Marathon – 9 miles around 8:45/mile on Tuesday, 18 with E on Wednesday around 9+/mile, 6 trail miles with E and Salty, and 15 mile today – and the beginning of figuring out what I’d like to do in that race.

When I decided to run Cleveland, I had hoped to just break four hours. Seriously: 3:59:59.99 would have been OK for me. But then I started picking up pace in my runs and feeling more confident with distance. Then I had all these fast birdies chirping in my ear. All this made me start to wonder: what could I do?

After last week’s PR at St. Malachi, I started adjusting my training paces (i.e., my “base” pace inched from 9:18-10:14 to 8:47-9:43) and reminding myself during long runs not to relax into something more like recovery pace. I’d like to incorporate a few more tempo runs—I’ve been touch-and-go on any speed-work lately—over the next several weeks, work on my distance pace, get in more progression runs and take the Hermes 10-miler at a serious pace.

By early May, then, I should begin to understand what I can do on May 17. Do I join the 3:50 pace group or dare I so much as think about 3:45… 3:40, even? Obviously, it’s easy to say, sitting on the couch and feeling fine, that I’d like to push for 3:40. Only the coming weeks will tell, though.

So, let’s see what they’ll say.

St. Malachi 2009 PR

2009-03-16T08:49:00.000-04:00

Good thing getting back in the swing of blogging isn't as arduous as kicking up running again. What's it been? A few months? Well, on the up- and downsides, it's just been a ball of work, fun and training for me. I've been running a bunch with E*Speed and Salty while picking up some speed and 40-50-mile weeks in prep for Cleveland on May 17.

And part of the training plan was last weekend's 5-miler at St. Malachi. Anyone who's been around the blog awhile knows St. Malachi stays close to my heart because it was my first race ever. Somehow that little detail keeps me coming back each year, even when they seem to add new hills to the darn thing!

It's a great event, however, and I enjoyed it even more this year. I rode in and had a great warm-up with E before hitting the starting line a couple minutes before the gun. While I typically like to start closer to the front of any race, I was still feeling a little sticky at the start and welcomed the opening waddles of middle pack. All the slowed, stumbled people-dodging I had to do for the first quarter-mile was totally worth it.

I went into St. Malachi with one goal: run a steady race around 8:00/mile and finish any cut under 40. Lucky for me, E reminded me to ignore mile 1 split (last year I hit it "too fast" for my taste and slowed way down, not appreciating that it was plenty downhill), which was 6:49, and stay even through the hills. So, I did.

Pace didn't fall off too much through mile two —14:17 or 7:28 split— and my stiff morning legs finally loosened up right around the mile-three hill. I snorted some water as we turned up mile three (I finally reached the water stop at St. Malachi not parched and just wanted a splash of water... but I kind of need some practice with splashing that doesn't go up my nose!) and took a moderate slowdown up the incline. Of course, I was too busy choking to see my split... but I think it was around 22 or 23.

My recent hill repeats definitely made the hill more bearable, even if it wasn't any more fun. At least this year I didn't get heckled by a homeless man on a bike. The downhill, however, did bring much joy. While I rode that thing pretty smooth and steady, I could have picked up a few seconds with a touch of effort... but that's for next year.

Mile four gave me a boost— I crossed at 29:58, knew it wouldn't take me more than 10:00 to finish the last mile (even with the big even hill at the end) and just had to kill my goal!

Unfortunately the energy boost only lasted 2-3 minutes before race fatigue kicked in, and I started totally wussing the last mile. My mind flip-flopped between "yeah! let's shoot through this last bit" and "yeah... let's take a nap." Wimp.

It helped, though, to see my favorite fans —mom, Neil, Nino and Jessica— waiting at the last uphill turn to cheer me up the way. I don't remember that darned thing being so steep (I guess the hill repeats weren't as helpful on that part as I had hoped), but I wheezed my way up and crossed on a personal best 37:42 (7:32/mile)!

As always, I had a few moments of doubt after the finish (couldadonethis, shouldadonethat), but how could I complain about this personal best? It's almost 3:00 better than the Turkey Trot in November and 7:18 faster than my first Malachi. Here's to improvement!

Congrats to all the awesome runners to hit the race this weekend! Photos to come.

Happy New Year! And Many, Many More...

2009-01-01T01:00:00.000-05:00

We rang in 2009 with cupcakes and sparkling grape juice (who needs champagne when you have a run to take in the morning?) and this video about the unexpected health benefits researchers found in their 20-year study.

Hello, Global Warming. My Name is Toasty.

2008-12-28T11:14:00.000-05:00

Wow. Who put warm spring day on his or her holiday wish list? Looks like you weren’t quite as naughty as you should have been this year.

And I totally took advantage of it.

Landon was in town for the holidays and gave me good reason to make it back down to Lock 29 for a run on the Towpath.

The air was perfect—65 degrees with only a few patches of wind and no rain—for the 5ish-miler and the trails, well, they were perfect for getting my shoes dirty. Half mud and half puddle. Good news is that the mud and puddles switched off enough to give my shoes a bath in the final stretch, so everything came out clean in the wash.

My legs felt a little muddy all day on Saturday, though. Running with Landon is always invigorating (I’m like a puppy who gets way too excited when she sees her friends), but I was just plain slow and too sluggish. Perhaps it’s the out-of-whack holiday sleep patterns. Or the eight pounds I’ve gained since Thanksgiving. My legs have been screaming about how carrying this extra weight was totally not in their contract. They might be on strike.

Which is why it was totally appropriate to visit Main Street Cupcakes while we were in the neighborhood…

Even I was surprised at myself, though, when I bought 12 cupcakes (six chocolate lava for Neil, two chai for a friend and four for future use) and didn’t eat any of them before I made it home. Instead I sipped some pomegranate juice and ate rosemary loaf. See? There’s salvation for me yet.

Lucky for me, this mass of holiday celebrations will be coming to a close. (I hope everyone had a happy season.) And putting “stop binging” on my new-year to-do won’t be necessary. Who needs to wait until Jan. 1 to do these things anyway?

Friday morning runs with E*Speed have been a good habit to pick up (thanks, girl!) and sticking to lunchtime treks through the Heights should keep me on track for the Cleveland Marathon in May. I hope to run at least part of that race with Landon.

And here’s crossing my fingers that we get the same weather we had on Saturday, Dec. 27, on Sunday, May 17!

And Now Back to Food Week…

2008-12-09T15:11:00.000-05:00

One of the advantages to my obsessor’s mind is that it’s pretty easy to wrangle myself free of one object when I’ve found a better object over which to obsess. Case in point: the recovery meal.

Did I mention the power of the recovery meal? Well, let me just tell you about the power of the recovery meal.

Lately it’s been some combination of bagels and protein smoothies or Teahouse Noodles’ pad thai with chicken, tofu and fresh veggies. Whatever my recovery meal, it’s light and delicious, chock full of antioxidants, lean protein and carbs. We’ll call it the magic three.

Because eating (actually, I should say enjoying food) has long been a huge motivator, it was only a matter of time before I found a new way to use it in my training. Sure, the dessert goal helped me reach my first 30-mile month and the cupcake bar pushed me to break my first 8:00/mile race. But what could be next?

Now it’s not about reach singular goals. It’s bigger carrot this time. And a tad more advantageous that some of the sweets I’ve craved in the past.

In a previous post I mentioned that I bring a “runner’s lunch” to work on days when I plan to run. And I can only eat the lunch if I am, in fact, a runner that day. There’s no “I’ll run after work” or “I’ll double up tomorrow.” I have to earn my recovery meal with something from which to recover. Like a quality workout.

So far it’s worked every time.

The downside, of course is that it might work too well. My training plan calls for Mondays off, which works perfectly with my schedule because I always have meetings galore on Mondays and feel weeks behind by Monday afternoon. Sad, huh?

But I worked my butt off to get a bunch of work-related things done this weekend and hit Monday feeling just as burned out as they say you should when you over do it.

Two morning meetings later: BOOM! No motivation to do anything at all. Let alone get a day ahead in my training schedule. Shame, too… it was such a perfect day. Sigh.

What did it? Well, it wasn’t the bag of running gear staring me in the face all day or the sunshiney weather. No. It was the normal lunch in the fridge. Where’s the motivation in that?

So, I made it home and took a nap before hitting the bike for 20 lazy minutes. Obsessing over adequate sleep should be my next goal.

Then came Tuesday morning—rainy, dark, miserable Tuesday morning. I couldn’t drag myself out of bed for my morning pilates and laughed as I packed my recovery meal. “As if…” My brain was hardly functioning and, again, motivation to do anything was pretty low.

Then lunchtime crept around. I had an everything bagel in my drawer just waiting to be warmed and enjoyed while a vanilla-almond protein smoothie was chilling in the fridge. And the only thing that stood between me and the goodies: running.

It was a no-brainer! I got up, changed and ran into the rainy day!

But I wasn’t outside for long. I ran to the rec. center track where I covered 4.5 miles at 8:50/mile, followed by various drills including 2x20-second skipping, bounding, high knees and no arms. And I had plenty left at the end of the workout to run an extra mile roundtrip to get a work bud a chai to sweeten her crappy day.

Six miles down, I settled in with my warm bagel and smoothie. Totally worth it.

Will Run for Food

2008-12-06T14:45:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite parts of the recovery-eating obsession is picking out the healthy foods I’ll eat after a run. Granted, I get consumed in it sometimes during a run, but it works in other ways too.

Runner’s lunches, for instance, have become bigger carrots in my training regimen than the old cupcake trick of 2007.

What’s a runner’s lunch? It’s a delicious but healthy recovery meal (like everything bagels and green antioxidant-rich protein shakes or seduction bread with pomegranate and grilled chicken) that I take to work and can only eat if I run during lunch. Works like a charm.

I’ve worked my new job since early January 2008, and I never ran during lunch until October! While I had been content to train after work or in the mornings, the month off after Akron and the time change really threw me for a loop this year. Because I’ve never run during this time of year, I wasn’t prepared for that shift. Lucky for me, I have the option to make a change.

It took many attempts to get my butt out of the office during the day. Finally, I brought a bagel-and-shake combo, which I could only eat if I ran my workout, to put me over the edge. And it’s worked ever since. It helps that I don’t bring a backup lunch—so it’s either run or starve—and love the stuff I bring to eat. What can I say? I’m all about incentives.

And Thursday’s run was chock full of rewards. Not only did I have a healthy Whole Foods bean burrito and bialy bagel waiting for me, I trucked up Cedar Hill for 2x30-second hill repeats and through the Heights for a 4.5-miler that ended running down Mayfield hill in Little Italy (I intend on remembering the feeling of running down that hill next time I do 6x60-second repeats up that thing!).

Recovery or not, Friday hit me hard. It had much more to do with a stressful month than running, but I crashed hard at the end of the day. I took a much-needed nap and didn’t do much else Friday but crab and eat. But I did celebrate the 21st Amendment anniversary with my brother, Neil and Greg at Willoughby Brewing Company at night. And I was reminded why I don’t drink alcohol anymore.

No quips here about people drinking; it’s just never been for me. I spent a few months in college becoming an Irish whiskey expert, but alcohol has always hit me hard for days no matter how much or little I drank.

Like the ¾ pint of IPA I drank last night. Blah! The beer was fine (as was the bread pudding with turkey butter I ate with it) and didn’t affect me much last night. But I woke up today feeling groggy and way too yuck. My head feels heavy and my body’s so bloated.

It was a struggle to push through my 5-mile Fartlek (which didn’t get started until some time around noon) and I kept damning myself for doing something I knew was bad for me. Even if I was totally responsible about it. I guess the 21st Amendment just isn’t for all of us. Some people should be bound to their own prohibition.

Good news is I welcomed myself back from the run with another burrito-and-bagel recovery, complete with antioxidant-rich tea and a probiotic shake. So, it may be all mental—the alcoholic downside, the recovery-meal upside—but it all works for me.

Food

2008-12-05T14:10:00.000-05:00

Imagine my surprise almost two years ago when I first started running and a friend said, “now that you have your training started, let’s work on your diet.”

My diet? WTF is wrong with my diet?

Well, if you’ve been around my blog long enough, you probably have a few suggestions. And that friend did too. Plenty of people had plenty to say. I’m better for it now.

Obviously, the first to go were cupcakes (at least they were the first things to go on my should-not-eat list; they didn’t necessarily leave my diet) and all the tarts and tortes that make me smile. In sum: sugar was a problem.

Before I started training (running, in particular) I paid little attention to what I was eating as it related to how I was running or swimming. I was the healthiest eater I knew. Unfortunately, relativity doesn’t count here. Instead, my diet was very backward: I ran or swam or cycled to eat, not the other way around.

That food could actually help me do these things better never crossed my mind.

For years I spiked and dropped on blood sugar, ever skipping breakfast, sweetening up lunch, crashing every afternoon and overstuffing dinner. It was almost impossible to make it through a day without fighting the nappies or needing coffee to think about mounting an elliptical for a shamefully short time.

The more I talked to fit people, though, the more eating right for training made sense. Even if it did take a year and a half to really take hold.

I listened to vitamin stories and checked the magic of nutrition bars. I heard about the “hour after workout” rule and the secrets of Ensure shakes. But it was the training runs after a high-energy meal (antioxidant-rich fruits, lean protein, good carbs) that made it all dawn.

But what really brought it home for me? Recovery meals.

I was reading about the damage we do to our muscle fibers, ligaments and tendons during average and intense workouts. And all the memories of how my vitamin- and protein-deficient body let my leg fracture and my muscles ache from overuse. Sure, I was overtraining for the most part, but I wasn’t giving my body the resources to rebuild and recover at all. Like proper nutrition and rest.

While the brain-training book provided some background on nutrition, one piece of advice really stuck: you must become fanatical about eating in recovery! And if there’s anyone who can become fanatical about eating, well, that would be me.

It helped to understand a) how our bodies are damaged during exercise; b) how our bodies rebuild and improve in recovery; c) how antioxidants, lean proteins and carbs consumed within an optimal one-hour period contribute to that rebuilding effort. Perhaps it’s all a mental game (but I have been brain training!), but that knowledge somehow makes me feel better when I eat and feel lighter when I run.

And there’s so much more to learn. I just picked up a book about running nutrition, and I’m emotionally prepared to learn how bad my diet used to be and how to cope with all the guilt I feel next time I fall for that cupcake.

Well, Now What?

2008-12-03T20:14:00.000-05:00

Taking a break in October wasn’t too difficult: my ITB was aching something rough, I was a little fatigued from the crammed training and getting behind in my life. Never have the states of my house, thesis and ironing been so wrecked.

A month off, a pilates obsession and a few hip abductor exercises later, I’m starting my training again. But this time, I’m going to do it right. At least I’ll try.

Today I began training for the Cleveland Marathon on May 17. That gives me a little less than 24 weeks to build, which should work much better than my “three weeks to a new marathon you” gig last summer.

I’ve been reading a new book this fall, called Brain Training for Runners by Matt Fitzgerald. (Sounds cheesy, doesn't it?) While it’s not a book about easy ways or tricks to training yourself to 26.2, the book helped me in just a few weeks to break down many of the mental barriers I like to build between myself and great times. In fact, I used many of the lessons I learned from the book at the Turkey Trot to achieve a 5-miler PR.

But it’s nothing new. And it’s nothing my running friends haven’t told me all along. It’s nothing my dad never told me growing up. Nothing Melissa hasn’t been reminding me for the past year and a half.

Fitzgerald’s book explains the physiology behind running and fatigue and how your brain responds to those things. And how to get over some of those triggers. Like defeating yourself. For some reason, though, reading about what my muscle fibers are doing and why I feel a certain way… well, that clicks.

And when I start to get tired at mile two, I can tell myself that my legs aren’t dying, that the burning is good, that I can push at this level and beyond.

Best of all is that the training plan for marathon takes a healthy course, building miles slowly over 24 weeks and incorporating some Fartleks, hill repeats and cross-training with the distance runs.

Obviously it’s a healthier route than my last-minute job in August, and I’m already liking it better than most other plans I’ve followed from pubs like Runner’s World. As I mentioned, the mileage builds slowly. So, week one doesn’t have a sudden 15-miler popped in on a Saturday. This week’s long: a 5-miler at base pace on Saturday. Then it ekes up from there.

To kick it off right, I woke up early for 30 minutes of morning pilates today and then ran the Heights for 4 miles at 9:05/mile during lunch. Only 23.5 weeks to go!

Turkeys Trottin’ All Over This Place!

2008-11-28T17:18:00.000-05:00

Have I mentioned (a million times) I was cooking my first Thanksgiving this year?

Last year I cooked the junior varsity version—it was a big meal for an exclusive family group the day after turkey day—but had the big meal for 12 at my house on Thursday.

But the real challenge? Standing all day Wednesday as I prepped for the big day.

By Wednesday night I was whipped—lower back hurting, knees aching, brain throbbing from standing locked while I whipped, chopped, diced, stirred, grated, crumbled, cut, sliced, simmered, blended, folded, whisked and dipped anything in eyeshot—and asked my mom how she managed all this every year. With kids no less? Geez!

First wisdom had it that I shouldn’t, couldn’t race on Thursday morning. I collapsed into bed (visions of fig-and-proscuitto flatbread and sugar plums dancing in my head; check out the full menu), resigned to running a slow personal Turkey Trot near home. No way I could have the time or energy to do the real thing.

Then came Thursday morning. B-E-AUTIFUL! It was a little brisk, but so clear, bright and sunny. It was one of those mornings when you just couldn’t stay in bed or just couldn’t not run a turkey trot.

So, I rolled some dough, cut potatoes and threw on running tights before I flew out the door. I made it downtown pretty quickly, registered and hit Lakeside a minute before the race started.

But who would have thought a few thousand people show up to these things? The start was really crowded and the first mile was chock full of waddling and bottlenecks and the strategic weaving, skipping, squeezing and jumping more commonly associated with trail-running than urban turkey running. But all the strategy did make it seem like we were all running toward something, chasing something. Like a big, fat turkey. Or, in my case, a vat of pumpkin-gingersnap tiramisu.

Despite the slow going at the outset, I ran comfortably through mile 1 to hit the marker at 7:48. Not bad for little miss sore leg, eh? So, I settled into my pace, rode some downhills and easily hit mile two at 15:00 (7:12 split), which really surprised me because the effort didn’t feel that great.

Then I hit the heavenly water stop at 2.5. It may have been cold Thursday morning, but I was incredibly parched. Perhaps it was the dinner nerves or all the standing. I walked the stop to chug as much as possible, continued on my way and (you guessed it) ended up with the world’s worst stitch. I stopped to walk (What? Walk in a 5-miler?) it off and kind of lost my rhythm.

Yet not too bad: I crossed mile 3 around 24:00 (9:00 split) and just tried to run with stitch remnants at a healthy pace, passing the mile-four marker at 31:30 (8:30 split).

Why is it, though, that Cleveland 5-milers seem to end on never-ending uphills? There’s St. Malachi with the dreadful finish and now the trot with the West 3rd climb? Argh! I felt like I was cruising backward on a treadmill trekking up the last hill until I started hearing the race caller announcing the time, the finish, the end. Somewhere (in earshot) I was a quarter mile from the finish.

Now, I set out to just run this race. No real time goals, although I did just want to match my last 5-miler, which was a little under 43:00. And considering the way my back and knees already felt, I was aiming too high. Plus, with the season of pretty slow going, I just wanted to enjoy my turkey morning.

Imagine my surprise, then, as I barreled toward the finish with 40 minutes just crossing the clock. I used whatever I had left to hit a PR at 40:20 (8:04/mile). Sure, that I might have broken 40 had I not walked or chugged or stitched crossed my mind. But there’s always St. Malachi and there was a wonderful dinner to cook.

On Hiatus until Thanksgiving

2008-11-16T17:42:00.000-05:00

So, I managed to get my training back on track (short of a few skipped sick days this week) and still plan to run the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving, but will be taking an intentional blogger break between now and that Turkey Day race report. Then I'll start marathon training again.

I'll be cooking my first full Thanksgiving-for-14 this year, primping my house and obsessing (in a totally healthy way) about work for the next couple weeks. And then I'm going to put my brain back in my head and start writing, catching up, making sense.

Best of luck to everyone on their late-autumn races (congrats E*Speed on your awesome marathon today, Greg on qualifying for Boston a couple weeks ago) and other big projects like waiting on babies to show, keeping them warm, trimming trees and singing carols.

Early and Often

2008-11-04T09:02:00.000-05:00

Lucky for me, getting back on track with running hasn’t been as difficult as getting back into the blogospheric swing of things. Running the Turkey Trot and cooking my first major Thanksgiving dinner are also on my to-do.

Last week, though, I took off the day after my first run to let my body relax and respond to this new but very familiar activity. I wasn’t surprised on Thursday then when my lower back was achy as I kicked out to my first lunchtime run since starting my new job.

After a two-mile warm-up around University Circle, I headed to Cedar Hill, a 1/3 mile steady climb from Cleveland to Cleveland Heights, for hill repeats. And isn’t it just so me to do way more than scheduled? The plan called for 1x30-second hill repeat at relaxed sprint pace (it was my first week), which I read and remembered to be “30 hill repeats.” Duh.

I trucked up the hill 30 seconds and jogged back down. Then repeated 3-4 times. Talk about boring! So, I sprinted all the way up the hill and timed myself a little over 2:00. Instead of doing 30x30-second repeats, I figured I’d cheat a little and do 7x2:00 repeats. Obviously not the same effect as the short sprint… but when you’re mistakenly doing 30 times the reps assigned, there’s bound to be some adjusting.

Surprisingly, I made it through a total of 5 full repeats. Every time I hit mid-hill I’d feel some serious burn and fatigue, but pushed past it each time with mental strength and the empty promise that it would be the last. I was really just punishing myself for doing zero hill training to prep for Akron.

Cross-training—from pilates and cycling to yoga and resistance bands—have played a huge role in my “break” training. And I’ve been working to make room for the cross-training and running in my schedule. Soon, I’ll have to find an opening for swimming too.

In fact, I was still on my bike when the kids began trick-or-treating on Friday evening. Neil and I sat outside on our front porch to hand out candy to all kinds of cute kids from the neighborhood. The weather was incredible that evening, which made for perfect conditions for my Saturday morning run at North Chagrin.

My mileage is still relatively low—20 miles last week will become about 21-22 this week—but I haven’t felt the overtraining fatigue and breakdowns I couldn’t shake in September. Thank Hermes!

The lower back that plagued me for a couple days following the over-the-hill repeats, however, was no surprise. Even if it did curb my plan to run on Friday afternoon and almost stop me on Saturday. The slow two-mile warm-up on the trails shook away most of the ouch, and I was able to get 6x30-second relaxed sprints sprinkled into a 4-5 miler.

What really helped the work out was a legitimate cool down! I walked with Salty for 90 minutes around North Chagrin, and I actually took time to check out the natural scenes and animals I’m too afraid to spy when I’m by myself. The walk really relaxed my muscles, and I made it to breakfast with CJ, Daisy, E*Speed, JenC and Salty feeling like I hadn’t run at all. Talk about good therapy!

And even more so about good weather. My Sunday morning 5-miler was easy in the cool morning air. But not as awesome as my Election Day jaunt this morning.

I woke up a little before 5:30 a.m. this morning to don my Obama shirt and run around all the polling locations within a few miles of my house. I wanted to get pumped up with Election Day spirit, spread the Obama love and just see how the day might shape up.

What made my morning, however, was an elderly lady at one polling spot who stopped me as I ran by and said ‘good morning’ to a long line of voters. She said “I’ve been waiting for a sign about who to vote for; I think you’ve made up my mind.” See? Running is good for the world order.

So, one more vote, 70 degrees and a five-miler before 7 a.m.? Not bad for a Tuesday in November.

What I Did on my Running Vacation

2008-10-28T22:04:00.000-04:00

Like most marked periods of time, I came up with a list of things I wanted to do on my running vacation:

5. Finish my thesis: I didn’t finish the thing, but I did adjust my topic, do plenty of research, change my topic a bit and start narrowing my focus.

4. Convert Undecideds to vote for Obama: Not only did I score a couple of undecided voters for the Obama camp, I worked hard enough to educate two Nobamas to the good guys. And you can still donate to the campaign, using the link to the right →

3. Gathering my friends to recreate the Feist video: I wish...

2. Heal my ITBS: check!

1. Make decorating strides with my hous: One living room down, a bedroom to go!

The break, which started Sept. 29, the day after my recovery run from the Akron Marathon, was nice and not really a break at all. I rode my trainer-racked bike 5-6 days each week and renewed my religious vows to yoga and even more so to Pilates.

All that keeping up made my return to training this evening pretty swell. I ran four miles at 9:20/mile and felt great the whole run, despite the blustering winds and the chilly temps for which I’m not ready.

Lucky for me: I live by the lake, which makes the air not-so-cold.

That’s speaking very relatively.

I hit some fatigue points along the way—my body’s way of saying “WTF? I thought we gave this up, girl?” But I persisted and pushed past two very premature walls and cruised to the end feeling grateful for my health and ability to get back to it.

(I was also grateful for the Nike running tights I bought on clearance this summer. They totally neutralized the heat in my legs and the ice in the air. Surprisingly, too, they felt better than the Mizuno tights after whom I'd planned to name my firstborn. If only I had found my gloves!)

After last year’s injury and this year’s ITBS, I’ve learned to appreciate the running break. There’s something to taking off a few weeks and resuming your training anew. My leg doesn’t hurt and my body feels rested. It almost makes me want to have a healthy approach to training!

This bout with training, though, is an in-betweener: I’m warming up for the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day (I’ll also be cooking my first 14-person dinner that day), after which I’ll take another couple weeks rest before I get in the long haul. I’m going to race in Cleveland this May. And I might just do another marathon.

Speaking of marathons, muchos congratulations to Landon, who ran a stellar 3:58:26 at Columbus a couple weeks ago. I watched him cross checkpoints online, and I was awed at his steady pace and ability to hit negative splits from the 10K on. And as the projected finish time approached, Neil and I sat in the living room, wildly cheering Landon to the end... and then he beat his expected arrival by at least two minutes. Now that’s the way to run a race!

And that was what I did on my running vacation.

Looking Back on a Couple Years of Running

2008-09-30T19:08:00.000-04:00

It was about this time in 2006 that I stared at a registration page for the Bowman Cup 5K Race at Kent State. I had tried to start running that summer, but only managed a steady run-a-few/walk-a-few routine that resulted in only a couple straight miles at a time.

Then we vacationed in Boston that August and almost all was lost.

A few weeks from race day, I wimped out on signing up. I was afraid I couldn't run 3.1 miles!

Truth is I probably couldn't have run the full 5K in late 2006. I didn't have a clue how to start running or how to get past the point at which I wanted to die. And I really only knew how to run hard and fast without any hope for endurance whatsoever.

I'm not sure what clicked for me in January 2007, but my running life has really looked up since then. So, I thought it was only appropriate to look back on my old self, having run a couple half marathons and my first marathon, less than two years from skipping a 3+ miler.

My running isn't worlds different -- in fact, I'm probably a little slower than I was at the start --
but my training is better. Without the lessons and advice I've received from friends, from the blogosphere, from friends from the blogosphere, I'd probably have either quit running or been forced to stop by multiple injuries beyond my wildest dreams.

Plus, I would have never earned all the cupcakes I've eaten over the past year and a half.

I've told everyone the biggest surprise of my 2008 Akron Marathon was by miles 23 or 24, I was already thinking about my next marathon. I was giddy for most of the race and yelped in celebration as I crossed the finish. Talk about an awesome time.

Never did I doubt I'd cross the finish, which is a long road from the chica who thought she couldn't finish a 5K, then a 5-miler, then a 10-miler, then the Akron half last year. Less than two years ago, I remember driving 26 miles from Stow to Mayfield, Ohio, and telling Neil that I'd never be able to run that far. I hadn't ever run 26+ miles before last Saturday, but now I have. What can't I do?

So, thanks to everyone who has pushed, pulled and patted me along the way. From training advice and warnings to parsing tips and racing strategies, everyone has left their marks on my stride. Here's to many more runs, races and recoveries for us all!

4:33:00

2008-09-28T10:03:00.000-04:00

The starting bloop was sounding as I blasted through the port-o-potty door. Somewhere between trouble parking and waiting in the port-o-potty line, I ran out of time and dashed into the starting corral. And as I crossed the line, I clicked on my watch and figured I’d run 26.2 miles today.

First mile: a quick 8:00 fueled by excitement of making it to my first marathon despite some hurdles (i.e., ITB, Friday night migraine, questionable prep, trouble eating). I slowed that blazing train fast—my goal, after all, was to finish the race, not die trying—and started taking quick walk recoveries, as suggested by Galloway, within the first several miles. They were just 20- to 40-second breaks every 1-2 miles that rested my muscles early and held off fatigue… for a few extra miles.

Because I missed a pace group at the start, I kept one eye open for the 4:15/30:00 groups and kept the other off my watch as much as possible. It wasn’t about racing, after all; it was about finishing. Still I bounded between 8:30-10:00 miles from one stretch to the next—I sped when the crowds cheered us and I slowed when I noticed the cruising—taking brief breaks whenever my ITB started to kill.

The first 10K flew, though: I crossed the line at 57:21 (9:13/mile) and started desperately looking for the fluid station, which signs around 5.8 miles advertised. My stomach wasn’t right all morning, so I had subsisted on Powerade and water for the first six.

Then it started growling.

I hit a group handing out GU, sucked the stuff down and never hit a water stand! GU without water? Bleh!

So, I fought chalky mouth for a few miles before I finally hit a water stop (I noticed a few teaser signs in this race, which boasted fluid stations long before they appeared… so not cool). My stomach turned and shot with acid reflux for a few miles before settling. And that was the last time I took GU without water in my hand.

But the city miles went fast and smooth when I wasn’t searching for that swig of water. I hit 15K at 1:27:13 (9:21/mile), floated past the break wither halfers at 11 miles and thanked my lucky stars I didn’t have to run that stupid interstate route that ends the half marathon route.

Unfortunately, what came next wasn’t much better.

We crossed onto the towpath for several miles of trees, trees, desolation and the sound of shuffling feet. Perhaps there’s something wrong with me that I prefer concrete, cheers, smog and streets to the backwoods, but I’ve never been a fan of running in nature (unless I’m with friends). And for miles 12-18, it was all woods, all the time.

It was dead quiet for most miles, aside from a few relay legs laboring so hard they made me tired, and each mile seemed longer than the next. I was happy, however, when I crossed the halfway point at 2:00:00 (9:09/mile) and encountered the several packs of awesome cheerers—the insane party in the park, the nurses and the lady with the pot and spatula—who lifted my sinking spirits. Sure, I was on pace for four hours, but I could feel fatigue setting in.

My ITB pain, however, had set in long before the woods, so I took things easy and tried hard to keep my mind off the clock: it’s better to not get the time I want, I thought, than never have a time again.

After a brief eternity on the towpath, we entered a great eternity in the park, traversing hills and shaded roads that made me feel a little bit like I was lost and trying desperately to run home. Somewhere between miles 16-17 (that mile was at least six miles long!), the 4:15:00 pace group passed. I tried for a few minutes to stick with the group, but my ITB and lack of hill training slashed 9:43/mile off my can-do list.

Oddly enough, things really started going downhill just when the hills really picked up!

What felt like 16 hours later, we emerged from the woods and took back to the streets of Akron, hitting 30K at 3:02:34 (9:47/mile). I saw Greg around the relay exchange and ran with ITB Chris for miles 18 through almost 20, commiserating about our ITB pain.

I was all but ready to tie my arm-warmer around my leg, thinking I had missed the boat on the ITB compression band. Chris assured me, however, his was purely decorative. And, lucky for me, my whole body hurt by this point, so ITB pain, ankle pain, foot pain: what was the difference anyway?

But it was at mile 20 that I hit “the wall” about which everyone had warned me. While I had previously run 21 training miles with some ups and downs, I had never run myself to a true breaking point. Twenty miles hurt.

I walked through the aid station, sucking down GU and drinking enough Powerade and water to make my stomach slosh, before picking up pace again. And it was just in time: I passed Jeff, Vincent, Melissa, Ryan and Emma right after the 20-mile marker, and they couldn’t have been better placed.

My head was pretty loopy and it took me a moment to process that my awesome friends had come out to cheer me. I wasn’t moving fast at all by miles 20-21, but seeing them really kept me moving. Thanks Melissa, Ryan, Emma, Vincent and Jeff!

And the rest of the race? Cake. I just ran from one awesome anchor to the next!

I hit Stan Hywett, where my dad was cheering on his bike. After a loop through the estate, I crossed my dad again, and he rode on the sidewalk and roadside with me, chatting about training and how I was feeling, for miles 22-25. He also told me Neil and Nino were waiting at the stadium and that my mom was cheering somewhere too. That was a rush!

I shuffled one ITB break and walked the aid stations, but really took to my dad as a pacer for these final miles. It wasn’t a fast pace (let’s just say I wasn’t in a hurry), but steady.

And it just got better. Tricia was cheering from a corner around mile 24 and I saw 3:50 pacer extraordinaire E*Speed running up one of the final downhills. My dad took off at 25 to make it to the stadium in time for my finish just as I caught sight of my mom about a mile down the street at mile 26. So, I just kept running toward her.

Point two miles to go!

I had a wobbly moment (Dehydration? Exhaustion? Elation?) right before I turned down the road to Canal Park, so I slowed down, steadied and started to smile. No way I wasn’t finishing now.

My dad was waiting at the gate to the park, cheered me to go, and I sprinted to the end to the cheers of thousands, including Nino and Neil whooting at the finish line. Four hours, thirty-three minutes flat. I finished! Yeah!

While I was only half coherent for the next half hour, I did see Salty as I walked the finishing chute (she anchored the incredible Speed Bumps who finished 26.2 miles 3:57:42—congrats mamas!) and managed to find my top 10 reasons for finishing the race. I downed a sub sandwich and, with Melissa’s helpful reminders, drank enough water to start clearing my head.

Everyone was kind enough to hang around the park, sitting with me and my stink, as I recovered a bit and made them listen to my marathon stories. My ITB was in no condition to step on a clutch, so Nino drove my car (after we found it!) and headed straight to the cupcake shop!

I walked into Main Street Cupcakes to a big cheer and joined the gang for some celebratory treats (one warm apple spice and one cassata cupcake, which was Amazing with a capital A).

My head wasn’t really with me until… this morning, so I don’t think I expressed to everyone how much their support meant to me. Just seeing everyone out on the routes, cheering, smiling, clapping was… wow, the reason I made it. And Landon’s congratulatory call this morning was like a call from the president (just not the current president).

Many thanks to everyone who cheered, supported me, gave me advice or just a pat on the back!

Despite the ITB pain, Neil took me for a nice, slow recovery run this morning. I couldn’t actually lift my knees for the first block, but could shuffle a bit toward the end. At least now I can give these legs, these injuries some rest.

But not too much: I bought a cycling trainer as a marathon-finishing gift to myself and I can’t wait to get pedaling.

Today's the Day

2008-09-27T05:14:00.000-04:00

Thanks to everyone for the great advice and the inspiration. Now, I think I'll go run a marathon!

Break it down now...

2008-09-23T14:49:00.000-04:00

How do you count your miles? When I swim I break distances into sets of 100, 200, 250... whatever enables me to focus on swimming and not oh god, how far do I still have to go? It doesn't make me a better swimmer or help with technique, but it gets me to what's next.

And what's next right now: the marathon.

marathon quote of the day:

Running is the greatest metaphor for life, because you get out of it what you put into it.

- Oprah Winfrey

For weeks I've twiddled in my head ideas about how to parse the miles in this race.

I'm not looking at race strategy in my first marathon, just brain games.

While I could just run, following the course until, well, it ends, there's something reassuring to me about breaking down 26.2 miles into something... less than 1.5 days' worth of round-trip commuting for me. (See how well I can deflate myself?)

Running to five miles 5.5 times, for instance, might be easier to conquer than 4+ hours of run, run, run. Or 2.5 sets of 10-milers. Or four sets of 6.5 miles.

Do you have an approach to marathon miles? Whether it's a race look, walk-and-run method or just a miles-counting game, what do you do to run the 26.2 mental miles?

Another Taper Bites the Dust

2008-09-21T14:56:00.000-04:00

I was really good about preparing for tests throughout elementary, middle, high school, but my first two years of college I was queen of cram. It was likely the product of subject apathy (I switched from chemistry to biology to psychology to philosophy to computer science by the end of my sophomore year) and probably didn't yield the best results.

But those first two years did teach me precisely what not to do, which yielded great results the final three years of school and eventually grad school.

Let's hope the same goes for running.

For the second year in a row, I'm all but laid up for my taper leading into Akron. Some serious Iliotibial band ouches (which, in my opinion, is the much better IBS to have) slowed down my miles for the past several distance weeks and stopped me in my tracks on Saturday.

I ran four fast miles on Wednesday (I gave myself a couple days rest once the non-running pain really began) and rested Thursday and Friday. By Saturday morning, my body felt kind of stiff and rusty, so even getting started on what should have been a 10-miler was rough.

So, I took to a barely running pace down the street, where I heard and then saw E*Speed. I was so not with it, swearing to myself about why I do these things to myself, that it took me forever to realize who was saying hi and from where!

It's always a boost, though, to see people you know on the run, and I was pleasantly distracted for at least the next half mile.

Stiffer than usual or not, it almost always takes me 20 minutes to loosen and warm up. After 25 minutes on this run, however, I still felt like crap. I stopped to stretch again and rub-warm my legs to no avail. In fact, I felt tighter with each passing stride. And as my muscles, joint, tendons, thoughts grew tighter, my i-band felt worse and worse. Then the knee pain kicked in. Blah!

Another 10 minute push to see if it would warm away just made it worse. And bad enough that it even hurt to walk the rest of the way home.

Good news is that after some stretching and some rest, nothing hurts in non-running mode. So, I'll stick with my non-running routines, resting and walking between now and Thursday. Then I'll take my last jog and hope for the best on Saturday.

I'll also be plotting out how to make it to Akron next year without missing my taper. Because I miss my taper. But another one's gone...

It’s Official

2008-09-17T21:41:00.001-04:00

I’m running the Akron Marathon.

“What?” you say. “You’ve been talking about this bleepin’ race all winter, spring and summer long!”

Yes, yes, but I didn’t register until six minutes ago. And now it’s all settling in.

It took me weeks to register because I just wasn’t sure it was going to work out – like four short weeks ago when I was just breaking into some real distance runs. While, like any math test I took through college, I’m not remotely as ready as I’d like to be, I know I can run 26.2 miles. Rain or shine.

Although I am hoping for shine. My shoes finally dried from Saturday’s run in the rain!

So, how did I spend my taper week so far? Well, I rested Monday and Tuesday (my quad and knee really appreciated the vacation) and ran about four miles this evening, three around 7:45-8:00/mile pace in sets of 1000 m.

The middle 1000m was probably the fastest: one of my neighborhood streets lost power to its street lights, which made the whole stretch pitch black. I run for my own knees’ safety on the street when it’s dark – think those sidewalks jump up and bite me in daylight? – but this was more than dark. I couldn’t have seen a pothole, uneven concrete, human being or skunk if I tried.

None of it felt very fast, however. Granted, 8:00/mile for short distance isn’t too speedy for me anyway. And while I wasn’t really laboring, I just didn’t have it in me to push much faster or farther. At least I’m getting all of my “another one of those days” out of the way before the race.

I suppose it’s also a perk of not running for a solid goal on marathon day. Crossing the finish line? That’s golden to me.

But what excites me most about the next week and a half is the food factor. Obviously I won’t be loading up on cupcakes and treats (that’s post-race food), but I will be testing my race week foods and crafting precisely what will make me feel awesome Saturday morning.

Will it be sweet potatoes? Or will it be pasta? A bowl of gnocchi? Or a big old baked spud? Only eating will tell.

Run, Cupcake, Run!

2008-09-14T18:57:00.000-04:00

Saturday’s 14 out of 26-mile run wasn’t all for naught: I ran the remaining miles in Hudson on Sunday on the first annual cupcake run.

We had a perfect turnout and tour of the town, which started at Heinen’s, winded through some newer McMansion neighborhoods, skidded through traffic where sidewalks ended, climbed some hills and dashed through Western Reserve Academy before landing at Main Street Cupcakes, where I think we all picked up at least a dozen cupcakes a piece.

Boy, did we deserve it!

The weather was worlds better than Saturday’s 2.5 hours in the rain (my armband and shoes are still soaked), even if it was a little warm. You’ll be pleased to know I finally took my own advice, toting water for the run, unlike the 20+ routes that failed before it.

It was the first time I lead the way on fairly unfamiliar territory (I used to run around Hudson when I lived in Stow, but not enough to have a real sense of where on earth I was at any given time), and I’m glad no one expressed too much displeasure at always ending up at Aurora Rd or crossing streets like the bad jaywalker I am.

Monica and I dreamed up the idea (amidst a conversation, I believe, about earning our delicious treats) a few months ago, and I’m glad we were finally able to be a couple of running cupcakes. Our friends came from as far as Rochester and Columbus to celebrate the deliciousness. And I picked up enough treats to freeze and enjoy until I find my way south again for another sugary adventure.

Perhaps after Akron?

Speaking of Akron, I talked marathon with Landon, who has always been my great source of knowledge. My goal for the marathon, as I mentioned, is pretty much any time with a “4” in front of it. Finishing is really key. But I thought that since E*Speed is pacing the 3:50 group, I might try to keep pace with her. Until I died off.

What I realized today, though: above all else I don’t want to just die off. I want to run a strong, consistent pace. I want to enjoy the marathon experience. And I don’t want to sputter out as the halfers split from the rest of us (or have to convince myself not to take that turn!).

Extra 20-miler or not, I’m done with distance training and will start my taper this week. I can’t explain how much I’ve looked forward to the next two weeks, particularly after missing my taper with an injury last year. While I have a quad/thigh/knee to heal in the next 13 days, I’m still running A-OK on it.

Although I might be finding my way to a masseuse soon. But that’s just a treat for myself. Now that I’ve checked cupcakes off my list.

(Congrats to Sarah from Main Street Cupcakes, by the way, who raced her first triathlon a couple weekends ago. She rocked the Akron Women's Tri, which I hope she'll revisit next when I make my way back.)

WANTED: Marathon Training Intern

2008-09-13T16:39:00.000-04:00

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to: assessing maps of my Saturday distance runs (which have been curbed midway for the past two weeks by dehydration and subsequent swelling); establishing water stops at hydrationally advantageous locations along the routes; knowing when I need nutrition or a splash of electrolytes; charging my iPod Shuffle before I leave for a projected 4-hour run; reminding me to stop for fluids even when I think oh, I’m just fine; cheering me along the way when I start looking rough; massaging the stiff out of my knee; stretching the stiff out of my quads; kneading the sore from my feet; yelling inspirational phrases as I cross 20 miles; drying my shoes after 2.5 hours in the rain; and making me quality recovery meals upon returning home.

Internship starts four weeks ago; incumbent must provide own transportation, enthusiasm and water bottles. Self-starters OK. Previous experience with desperate novice runner a plus; patience and mind-reading ability a must. Position is unpaid, but intern will receive partial credit for my success. Apply within.

And the Beat, the Training, the Route and the Video Go On...

2008-09-12T23:09:00.001-04:00

If you've ever been around me for more than five minutes, you've probably heard me exclaim, "I love the Internet!" What's the latest thing tickling my Web fancy? The Akron Marathon... video.

It's a fast-forwarded video from the 2005 race just a few minutes ahead of the lead runners. I just watched it and reveled in still-fresh memories of last year's half marathon. Between the familiar streets and rocked-out music, how could I not be pumped for this year?

But then the video just kept going.

And going.

When the video hit the University of Akron campus, I remembered feeling my leg crack at that point and convincing myself there was no way I wasn't crossing the finish line. Cracked leg or not. And that's not even halfway for me this year.

On one hand, I feel like I'm running like a big girl this year; on the other hand, it scares the bejesus out of me.

It really shouldn't. It's only running, after all, and I have done it before. I'm not out to win any awards and my real goal is any time with a "4" in front of it. Like anything else, however, in the land of unknown, it's going to be a challenge to get over the anxiety and fears before getting to the meat of my goal. To run these 26.2 miles: (Check out the video at http://media.discoverneo.com/movies/marathon06.wmv).

Prophesy This

2008-09-11T08:48:00.000-04:00

Do you know my secret ultimate super power? I am the queen of self-fulfilling prophecy. In fact, I'm so good at it they should have made a Disney movie out of me (well, the producers did come knocking).

While I don't know if I'd wear a cape, corseted leotard or a mask, I think I could hold a candle to Superman... if and only if our objective were to defeat one common enemy: me.

No, no, no, nothing bad has happened. But my right quad has been increasingly achy for the past couple weeks. I know: it's the consequence of upping my miles faster than recommended and not allowing enough recovery time. I'm on a tight schedule for Sept. 27 here, people!

My fault entirely.

Anyhow, the quad has been tight and a little nagging all year. Yoga and targeted stretching, rest and massage have worked their magic for months. Until now (bum, bum, bum... may the movie-voice guy rest in peace).

I ran 7 miles on Tuesday and returned home to some tightness, which I didn't really stretch until the next morning. Several times I reminded myself that by this time last year I was training in tears from injuries, but that didn't rush me to my yoga mat. Just to bed.

Then came Wednesday's 6 miles. The quad felt subtly tight and not problematic at all. About 1.5 miles into the run, however, it really started aching. First I tried to run through it, then I stopped to stretch, to massage, to shake, to grimace.

So, I took a slight jogging pace to keep it warm (walking just made it worse) and headed home. The quad hurt for the first 5 minutes, but then warmed up and felt only a little yuck. Was it really achy? Did I merely convince myself it hurt? I salvaged what was left of my run (it was supposed to be a 13-miler, but we all know how some things shake out) and spent the rest of the night stretching.

For the past week I've been waking up to some serious stiffness in my quads and calves. In fact, I'm not looking forward at all to older age now or arthritis -- not that arthritis was high on my to-do anyway. Walking right out of bed was getting tough; stepping on my clutch not so good; stairs have been impossible. I'm that person who makes "ahh" and "ooh" and "ouch" sounds with each step.

This morning, however, I felt about 85 percent better. I could feel the hint of stiffness and a touch of nagging, but no pain whatsoever. The lesson here, my friends: if you have a recovery method like stretching, yoga, sleeping, eating, gambling, walking or massaging, do it! And, umm, if you can avoid convincing yourself that injury is nigh, do that too.

While this week marks the last distance week before Akron (oh, how I live to taper!), I'll probably take off today and see how the quad feels on Friday before my long day on Saturday. Sure, I won't meet my distance goal for the week, but I'd much rather run the marathon, not run in tears and run my taper weeks than sit them out. Like I missed taper last year.

Which wouldn't be very superhero of me at all...

First 50 Miles and One Failed Run

2008-09-07T21:59:00.001-04:00

Just think: three weeks from now I should be crossing “complete Akron marathon” off my to-do list. But first, some training.

I recovered well enough from last Saturday’s 21-miler to by new shoes from Second Sole, hit a baby shower and get hit with water balloons at a birthday party only after running five miles on Sunday with tired legs and well-equipped feet.

Last week’s total distance: 46 miles. That’s a personal week long, as well as a few miles short of swimming to Wheatley, Ontario. Woo hoo!

So, I recovered Monday with more stretching than a taffy factory and sheer admiration for my new Mizuno Wave Riders (I used to be an Inspire girl, but Second Sole suggested Rider; so far I agree). They’re the right fit, right size, right shape. I have faith that they’ve be A-OK for Akron, but that didn’t stop me from obsessing over the shoes all week long.

Seven miles on Tuesday, ten on Wednesday and four on Thursday (it was supposed to be a 15-miler, but 91 degrees melted my will) set me up well for a 50-mile week. All I had to do: finish the planned 25-miler on Saturday and cool down on Sunday.

It was not to be. The 25-miler, that is.

I woke up early and optimistic on Saturday to cloudy skies and rain, rain, rain. While I’ve never been a fan of rain-running, I wasn’t going to let it stop me from running now. Besides, I’d like to be prepared for whatever condition Mama Nature throws my way Sept. 27. I dressed as normal, found a baseball cap, reconfigured my routes (in case the rain, chills or chafing got too bad, I didn’t want to be too far from home) and flew out the door.

It wasn’t bad heading west into Cleveland for a bit with the rain and wind to my back. Running the remaining 15+ miles into the rain, however, just wasn’t as fun.

I made a water/bathroom stop at home around six miles, when I picked up a mini bottle of Aquaphor to combat the massive chafing exaggerated by the rain-soaked clothes. Because of the damp air, I didn’t feel very thirsty, so I just swigged some water and rushed back out to finish my next segment due east.

When I hit my end point several miles east of home, I kept running until the sidewalk ended, turned and looped around just as the air was drying and the sun playing the tease. I was crossing 12-13 miles when I really started regretting the small water swig and no GU decision at my first stop. I was wholly dehydrated and totally drained. Oh, and about six miles out.

It was a terrific exercise in mind control as I spent about an hour convincing myself to keep running, though I had nothing at all left in the tank. “What would you do if this were the marathon, girl?” Well, I’d probably start walking, self. “I highly doubt that, competitive freak.” OK, watch me, self.

But I didn’t.

I made it home at mile 18, chugged electrolyte Vitamin Water, several glasses of water and ate a bar of something. My legs started tightening super fast and my whole body just didn’t feel right. At first I thought I should rush to get back on the road when I realized it wasn’t a happy run and my body obviously wasn’t digging any of it.

And I turned in. Seven miles short. I showered, ate four bowls of cereal, dressed for a wedding and then ate my guilt away with coconut shrimp and chocolate-covered strawberries. Sigh.

A big difference between this week and last, though, was the feeling in my legs. When I finished yesterday, I stretched through and through, massaged and had Neil rub out some horrible pain plaguing my back and alignment. So, I felt pretty awesome Sunday morning.

After a big breakfast, a nap and some football, I took a run around Neil’s parents’ neighborhood and a local track for 12 miles. Sure, I ran three miles short of last week’s 21, but I recovered much faster. And instead of doing several mid-range runs and one uber run, I completed three pretty good distance days.

While I beat myself up Saturday for not running my 25, I felt better Sunday for the week’s training. My first 50-mile week felt great. And I totally deserved all eight of the chocolate-covered strawberries (and two hulking pieces of wedding cake) I downed last night.

Who knows what the follow week has in store? But what I do know: it’s my last week before the taper. And I live for taper… and dessert.

Today I Joined the 20+ Mile Club and Here’s What I Learned

2008-08-30T14:47:00.000-04:00

. Yes! I can run 21 miles, which bodes well for my imminent marathon in less than a month. Just tack on five more, right?
It’s a mental game, I think, more than a physical effort. For the first time in a year, I listened to music when I ran, to block out all the mental crazies that convince me I have GI jostles, plantar fasciitis, knee problems, side stitches, thigh cramps. Somehow singing to Kanye West cures that.
Twenty-one miles isn’t as long a distance as I had imagined. And while I ran for close to 3.5 hours, it didn’t feel much longer than the 18-miler I ran last month. Good sign? I think so.
I still have plenty of work to do. The last 5-6 miles I swayed between energized running and desperate jog-slogging. Then there were the final two. So close to home, I flipped between “well, I’ve gone far enough; I can walk now” and “I’ve come this far; I can’t possibly walk now.” See? Total mental case… I mean, game.
It hurts! But in a totally good way. I think. And now I must take a nap...

Don’t let it rub you the wrong way

2008-08-25T22:11:00.000-04:00

We all have our personal stories about it. The blood. The pain. The agony. But when did you discover the reality of chafing?

Landon was the first person to tell me about bloody nipples. And like most people, I giggled. I didn’t get the chafe, however, until my first summertime ten-miler last year. In fact, I still have scars. My sports bra left a ring around my chest. My ill-chosen t-shirt left chafe seams all over my arms. Don’t even get me started on the tag at the back of my shorts.

Excuse me while I cringe.

You can imagine these things are weighing heavily in my mind as I prepare for the Akron Marathon on Sept. 28. It’s a little over a month away, and all I can think about is where I can buy Aquaphor and Body Glide in bulk. Maybe I can put it in a camelback for the run.

Who would have thought wardrobe would be such a big deal on race day?

Well, the bigger deal right now is building my mileage. After putting swim/cycle on hold until October, I finally broke my 10-miles-a-week pattern last week. I was raring toward 30-40 miles when I had another incident with the sidewalk that dorked up my left knee. Again. (Yes, please call my Iron Clutz from now on.)

I didn’t let it slow me too much (I missed the Bellefaire JCB Biathlon last weekend because I couldn’t bend my sticky scabbed knee enough to ride my bike, but went to cheer on JG who debuted his new roadie with a PR), even if I was stiff for the first couple days.

I hit the trails with Salty last week—managing not to fall despite staring almost exclusively at the rooty ground—and ran an 11-miler up, up and up the Heights on that 95-degree Thursday. I’m pretty positive about being able to build my distance in time for Akron, but I’ve arrived at one major problem: shoes.

Yes, another wardrobe malfunction.

See, I have two relevant pairs of running shoes. My first pair of Mizuno I bought about a year ago; my second pair of Mizuno I bought in February.

The first pair is obviously pretty shot. They have about six miles in them before soreness sets in.

The second has what I can the 13-mile ouchies. They feel great until about 13 miles when I can feel running’s impact in my ankles and arches, which moves up to my knees closer to 16-17 miles, which I imagine only gets better from there.

So, I’ve been training in the old shoes, “preserving” the second pair for Akron. Silly, isn’t it? Perhaps I’ll wear them both at the marathon—one pair for the first six, the other for 13 and barefoot that glorious last leg.

It was halfway through last week’s hilly 11-miler that I realized my tweener state of shoes. A month out I thought I could buy a new pair, but my last shoes took more than four months to break in. And my first marathon isn’t the place to try it.

Oh, lord, imagine the chafeage! Maybe it's just time to invest in Body Glide: I'll need plenty of it.

Friday Quiz: Food or Money?

2008-08-15T14:04:00.001-04:00

Put all of your good qualities, outward caring and inhibitions aside, and tell me: would you rather have Bill Gates' money or Michael Phelps' 12,000-calorie daily requirement?

And be honest.

The Greater Cleveland Tri... Duathlon

2008-08-11T19:41:00.000-04:00

OK, first things first: how awesome was the men’s relay last night? I think that if they had swum Saturday night, we would have stormed the water at the Greater Cleveland Triathlon despite the swim being canceled (rough waters).

You can imagine that while I was wholly undertrained for the swim, I was pretty bummed about my best leg being cut from the race. But I did get some duathlon experience in its place. A little notice (or time to practice, a few months to brick back and forth) might have helped, but what’s a race organizer to do?

So, in lieu of 0.75-mile swim, the Olympic “tri” began with 1.25-mile run out and back above the beachfront. I sucked down some Roctane, Gu’s new endurance snot, when I was warming up and my heart was racing before I even hit the start. Watch that stuff!

Standing still at the start, I had some nerves, but the excess caffeine and stuff kicked up my HR to 199! The ill effects dorked up my breathing and actually made me feel a little fatigued before I took my first step. It didn’t really subside until about three miles into the bike. So much for that stuff!

I’m happy to report, however, that my opening run was A-OK. Lucky for me, I found Jen before the start, and she knew our first-run distance. (Jen’s not only a great athlete; she knows everything! And man was she flying when she passed me on the bike!) Otherwise, I was just going to follow the pack until I happened upon my bike in transition.

Because I’d never done a duathlon, I didn’t really know how to take the run. It was only 1.25 miles, so could I run it fast? Should I?

A little over a mile? I can hoof that! So, for the first half I did: 4:00 at halfway point (6:24/mile). It was pretty windy and my sweatshirt ballooned and dragged like a parachute. Lovely. Then it dawned on me that I, umm, still had to ride my bike farther than I’ve ever ridden and then run again! Ahh, duathlon.

I put it on cruise for the second half and finished in 8:11 (6:32/mile).

Surprisingly, I felt all right after the run (it was only 1.25 miles) and only a little weird hopping on the bike. Maybe the first 6+ miles were all settling into bricking this way? But it took about the first ten miles for me to stop convincing myself that, OK, that feels like a flat tire or, no, that feels like my tires are low. (Don’t you love paranoia?)

In case you’re unfamiliar with the GCT Olympic bike route, it looks something like this:

Don’t let it fool you, though. That (insert expletive) is uphill both ways!

Nevertheless, the ride gave me plenty of hill-training I haven’t done since the new-bike era, and by mile 12 I was still on pace to meet my 93:00 goal.

Enter the bump in the road.

On the way plus side, I took my first aid station on the bike (I’m not comfortable yet riding without both white-knuckled hands on the bars) and sprayed Gatorade like a geyser so high the whole station cheered my spectacle.

The not-so-good side: a girl crashed on her bike and totally destroyed her bike chain right in front of me. I stopped to make sure she was OK, and even tried to apply my bicycle naivete to her chain. Poor gal: I think we were somewhere between miles 12 and 14.

Once she started back for the last aid station, I turned around to, you guessed it, one big mama hill. The Kirtland Hills hill that climbs like 500 feet in a quarter mile. And I was at a dead stop. I mounted my bike and tried to push off, but only rolled back. Looking around me, every single person had dismounted and walked to the top. So, I succumbed.

Now I was a 5-6 minutes back and tried to pedal hard to catch up to my goal self. I played passing games with several people and totally wimped out on the major downhill speed opportunities on the road back (I admit it, I brake until my bike squeals going down big hills!).

The wind managed to be in my face the whole ride, but my favorite moment came as I sped down the final stretch. Last year, I remembered passing the “Your Speed Is” radar machine on Heisley Road. I was proudly rolling at 20 mph; a guy on a tri bike flew by over 45 mph.

I knew it was coming about a half-mile out, so I started pedaling hard in whatever my highest gear and hit the downhill at a considerable clip. The two people before me passed the machine. 35 mph, 38 mph. And when I passed? 42 mph. What a difference a bike makes.

Somewhere I picked up a couple minutes and finished in 1:30:52 (15.75 mph). Not bad for my longest ride, complete with stop, help and walk! Oh yeah, and the freakin’ mega hills too.

Let it not be a secret I was pretty tired at T2, and just not happy that I had to run. Again! Didn't I already cross that off my to-do list?

It was pretty slow going at first: my legs were pretty tight for mile one, which I finished around 10:00. And I was just getting warm before mile two when my GI tract got a little unhappy. I walked a few minutes to settle that down, and I was really warmed by how many people ran by and cheered me on to just keep going. Oh, little did they know... hee hee.

It took about 15:00 to complete mile two, but as I crossed into the second half of the race at 37:00, I was feeling all right with no ill effects on my digestive system. I stopped paying attention to time, but can deduce that it took me 37:00 for the first 5K (11:54/mile) and 25:00 for the second (8:02/mile) for a final run time of 1:02:03. At least I finished strong.

Swim or no swim, it was a fun day at the races. I finished in 2:44:30, ate a hot dog and feasted on raspberry-filled cookies from Corbo’s after I showered and changed at home. Not only was I pleased to finish the unexpected race, but I was amazed that I could smell just as bad running-biking-running as I did when I swam in the lake too!

Having the swim cancelled was a lot like have your flight canceled for weather. You realize it’s unsafe to go and that the people making that decision know much better than your own meathead, but you’re still a little disappointed and wish there were something you could do. But there’s not.

So why not have a swell time of it? Not only did I get to spy Jen at least once each leg of the race, I crossed Papa Louie during the 10K and caught scores of other athletes I’ve known within and outside the blogosphere. Congrats to TriGuyJT and all the chicas who ran the half, and big high fives to all!

Particularly to my mom and Neil, who were kind enough to wake up before dawn to cheer me on, keep me going, and still love me when I smelled that bad. I'll have to share a photo of how cute Neil looks in my GCT tech tee. It fits him perfectly.

Up and At 'Em!

2008-08-10T05:41:00.000-04:00

So, it's finally race day. I stayed up a little late last night to watch Michael Phelps win the gold in 400 IM, but had to sleep while Katie Hoff and Dara Torres did whatever they pulled (don't tell me! I'm going to watch when I get home!).

But all the lying-in-bed-and-wondering I did last night, led me to the following goal for today:

Swim (~1320 yards/1200 meters): 30:00
Bike (~24 miles): 15.5 mph or 93:00
Run (10K): 9:20/mile or 58:00
Transitions: <4:00

Overall first-Olympic goal: 3:05:00

I'll just be happy, though, with a good attitude and a little bit of grace (I've lacked that in my recent races). And, you know, some good food at the finish.

Now, if it could just warm up a bit outside, that would be great!

All in Good Fun

2008-08-09T18:42:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite things about race day is actually the day before race day. OK, maybe the two days before race day. Sure, I try to get in some really light workouts and plenty hours of rest, but it’s the food that always wins me over.

Gnocchi, multigrain pilaf, brown rice, linguine, sweet potatoes, buckwheat pancakes, everything that’s just plain carbolicious! All carbs are welcome here. The carbier the better!

While the food gives me real energy for race day, I think it does me a good mental trick too. So, about halfway through tomorrow’s running leg, when I’m ready to call it a day, I’ll remind myself that I’ve eaten a week’s worth of spaghetti in the past 72 hours. How could I possibly not have the oomph to kick it on home with that in my tank? That burrito from the other day? That will makes miles 20-24 on the bike cake. And, well, the cake I’ll pick up at Corbo’s or Presti’s after the race tomorrow… that will just make it all worthwhile.

Everything that goes into race-day prep, though, seems worthwhile. Like my bike ride on Friday morning that ended fast with a flat tire! It was planned as a short ride—one last brick before Sunday—so I didn’t bring a patch kit or air pump.

Lucky for me, I was only three miles from home when my smooth ride felt bumpy. A nail popped the back tire and left me looking pretty awesome, running down some big streets in full cycling attire (it only took me about one mile to take off my helmet). I’m thinking I should start the bike-running phenomenon now!

I popped my bike in the trunk and took her to Eddy’s for a quick change. It feels pretty secure right now; if only my paranoia were in check. You know I’ll be wondering whether my tires are flat or if the road is just bumpy for 24 whole miles!

When I visited Mentor Headlands this afternoon for packet pick-up, I tried to ease my paranoia on another front: open water swimming. I’ve hit the open water as a triathlete a total of three times. And while I try to practice open-water techniques at the pool, I’m really going to hit the lake hard next year t\o get my head out of the worrying clouds.

To ease what’s been ailing my head since my disastrous Huntington showing, I thought I’d hit the beach today and just get cozy with my lake.

Erie, however, had other plans.

The waves were just plan crazy! My plan was to just run straight into the water, swim for 5-10 minutes and go home (where we’re still unpacking, nesting, moving) to chill. I made it about thigh-deep before the waves almost took me out. While I had a blast wave-diving when I was a kid, I wasn’t going to pick up any confidence points this way.

So, I just reminded myself that last year’s dip went well; this year would just be twice as long. I just hope the Coast Guard doesn’t have to yell at me again for swimming off course too far! Besides, Olympic swimming finals start tonight. And if that doesn’t give me a rise, I don’t know what will. Maybe this goody-bag Carb-boom! will do….

Calling All Olympians!

2008-08-07T22:04:00.000-04:00

Remember when it used to be bright and sunny at 6 a.m.? It was so easy all summer to fly out of bed and hit the street before work. What’s with all this early morning dark?

Fall, my friend, is upon us. But not before we squeeze in a few triathlons.

And having run about ten miles each week since being sick, not biked at all and merely dipped in the pool six (count ‘em: 1-2-3-4-5-6!) times this year, I’d say it’s high time for my first Olympic triathlon, eh? Ahh, nothing like cramming.

It’s not all for naught: I have some serious garden action going on (butternut squash, orange sun peppers, two tomato varieties and herbs o’plenty) and a landscaped front yard to show for the summer. I wonder how building a retaining wall will fuel my run at the Greater Cleveland Triathlon (join us: late registration on Saturday) on Sunday…

Two weeks ago I was all about feeling sorry for the sad state of my training. I even considered skipping this race or just downgrading to sprint. But I don’t doubt I can finish an Oly tri. Sure, I’ve never ridden my bike for 24 straight miles, and I’ve only bricked twice this summer, and, yeah, that whole not swimming much at all point.

My solution: have a good time. I’ve gotten away this year from digging race day. You know: you under-train, you’re unprepared and you can’t expect your best performance. No pain, no gain, right? Race after race, though, it just wears on you.

At least I have my garden.

And what better weekend to race my first Olympic triathlon? If you haven’t heard, I’m a total Olympic junkie. The mere THOUGHT of Dara Torres gives me chills; the SIGHT of Michael Phelps makes me giddy. Let the fun/games begin!

So, why not do an Olympic tri this weekend? Good weather, good health, good spirits. All I need is to have one good time.

It's Been How Long?

2008-07-22T18:17:00.000-04:00

Good news first: my Web site launched, I think we’re beginning to get a clue about owning a house and I finally, finally, finally tested my bike in a race.

Not so good news: I’ve had the worst two racing weekends of my life; I have a quarter of a black eye; and I have dropped five pounds in three days.

But what good is being competitive if you don’t face adversity? I mean, where would ESPN be if we didn’t have anything to overcome? So, it’s all in good fun, right?

A Walk in the Park
Well, it all started last weekend when I drove to Akron for the Muddy Paws Trail Race, a race that benefited the Greater Akron Humane Society, in Cuyahoga Valley National Park, which happened to be about two miles from where we used to live. Too bad we just moved 40 miles away!

It was an incredible event: dogs everywhere! And two of those pooches were Lucy and Harley, accompanied by none other than my mom.

The day offered a two-mile dog run, a 5-miler and a 10-miler on the trails. I was really impressed with my mom for running the two-miler with the dogs—it was a very hilly and “technical” route, and she was no doubt being dragged by puppies more energetic, fit and competitive than most you’ll meet—and without a day of training on her own. Way to run it, mom!

If you haven’t attended the event, I highly recommend it for next year. Especially if you like dogs. I think the overwhelming sentiment at the start of the two-miler was “Doh! Why didn’t I bring my camera?” Over 100 dogs and their owners ready to tear it up on the trails? It doesn’t get much sweeter. (See some photos.)

My 10-miler could have been sweeter, but I let Competitive G get in the way. Long story short: I headed out with a group; we never took a race pace; there was a lot of waiting; I should have just used it as a romp in the park, not a race. Nevertheless, I did get to experience a trail run and might make my way back soon.

Finally, a Swim or Three
I also made my way back to the pool a total of three times in the past week and a half (2,500 yards the first time; an interrupted 2,400 the second visit; and 3,000 yards on the third, including a fast mid-workout 1-miler followed by several 100-yard sprints), which would get me only slightly on track to do all right Aug. 10 at the Greater Cleveland Triathlon, right?

Well, how about a snap decision to do the Huntington Sprint Tri this past weekend? Oh yeah, the morning after the Winking Lizard Shot in the Dark.

Shooting in the Dark
Last year’s Shot in the Dark 4-Miler was sweltering. I will always think of that race fondly as the moment that I realized how good life is outside that race. It’s at a horrible time of the day (5 p.m.) during a horrible time of year (late July) in a truly great place (Cleveland). I wish it were in the dark. It’s hot. It’s muggy. It’s painful. And that’s why I go back: it’s a challenge.

It was also the one-year anniversary of JG’s first race. I remember how nervous and uncertain he was last year (especially when he tried to hit the bathroom two minutes before the start), and how well he finished despite the conditions.

He was back at the starting line this year, and even brought company: Cathie and Tim from Kent State, who both represented very well in their first road races, the two-miler. Neil joined us downtown as well to watch the race and, I think, felt a little tempted to run the two-miler (more to come on his recent running). Maybe next year.

Saturday was a strange day: having to wait around all day for the race, do new-house work and prep my body for the next morning’s race was a bit weird. And my stomach didn’t feel too happy about it. I carbed up around 3 p.m. in anticipation of Sunday’s race, but felt wrong about it from first bite (but it was a really good proscuitto and grilled chicken with farfalle, so how could I resist?).

I gabbed up everyone at the starting line about watching people puke at finish lines as part of a you’ll-be-fine-during-your-first-race routine, but kind of felt a little queasy myself. Butterflies? It had to be.

Despite the heat, I wanted to have a good race and wanted to take some racing advice Salty gave me during our last time out. In very, very short: umm, run fast and keep running faster!

I’ve mentioned that I’ve never really pushed my tempo beyond “comfortable and sustainable” in a race, so I thought this oppressively hot July afternoon in a muggy urban area on a day when my body felt way off would be a perfect opportunity!

Off we went.

It seems that every race in Cleveland starts up the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge, which happens to be my least favorite climb in all the city. Mostly because it always reminds me that I should have warmed up for a race, but probably spent my time talking about puking instead.

Because I’ve done most of my recent running in the early morning or later at night, I wasn’t even close to acclimated to mid-day smog and the breathing trouble it brings to the asthmatic. And so began the uphill battle of beating myself up over things I could do nothing about in the middle of a race. Oh, how the negative energy began to fly!

Surprisingly, though, the first mile wasn’t bad. Sure, I was uncomfortable and wheezing, but I was keeping a decent pace heading up an incline. JG caught up to me shortly before mile 1, and we were both pumped to hear it: 7:10. And somehow it felt sustainable, particularly as we crossed the marker and headed down the bridge!

But how short lived the glory would be. It wasn’t a few moments after crossing West 25th that I knew I had to stop. I told JG to go on without me, and I quickly found a garbage can to, umm, store the delicious farfalle I ate earlier that day. I took exactly five minutes to ralph and feel sorry for myself before shaking it off and running out the remaining 2.5+ miles.

Truth be known: I really don’t remember most of the race. While I knew I felt lighter and probably didn’t have anything else to throw up, I just wanted to finish and go home. That’s what I did. In 34:03 (8:31/mile). We joked that if I could nix the five-minute vomit break, I would have finished really well, but alas…

Oh, Why Do I Even Tri?
So, I shook off the stomach problems as nerves and heat, scarfed a bunch of post-race food and went to bed early for Sunday’s triathlon in Bay Village.

I’ve been fighting with myself over whether to go sprint or Olympic at this year’s Greater Cleveland Tri. While I want to up my distance each year, I have the new bike and wondered if I should try another year sprinting. Or at least get in one sprint.

Conveniently, I found a nearby race. It sounded like a great idea when I signed up on Friday afternoon. Sunday morning, though, I was really questioning my decision-making abilities.

It was hardly 12 hours since my last race when I hit the beach for this tri, and I don’t think I’ve ever stood on a beach and wanted to go swimming less. Plus, I was all by myself, so I had no one to remind me that I was defeating myself before the race had a chance to kick my butt.

As the age waves ran into the water, I felt what I thought were more butterflies in my stomach and tried to calm them down. It was swimming, I thought; it’s the one thing I can do.

Ha. Ha.

THE SWIM
First, the cool water/muggy air combo triggered some serious asthma (I really should have warmed up), which was only worsened when I got a swift heel-kick to the face that blasted off my goggles and gave me the lovely black eye I’ve been sporting. Then the nausea came back. And it was only when I watched two people get saved from the water that I started to panic.

I’m not going to lie: I wanted to quit it all right there. I was just going to swim straight back to shore and leave triathlons behind me. For good. I was so bitter and unhappy. Unfortunately for the G in the water on Sunday, I just don’t quit and I can’t. So, I didn’t.

Besides, I was in this race for the cycling leg, and it was next. I treaded water a minute while I contorted and unzipped a bit the back of my tri suit for some breathing room (high-neck tri-suits aren’t good for panicking) and slowly breaststroked the rest of the ¼-mile swim.

It took 15:20 (some perspective: I swam 17:30 for the half last summer), but felt like an eternity. But it was actually the trek back to the transition area that took forever!

As I passed a garbage can by the beachside bathroom, I threw up all the race-prep food I ate the night before and walked the 4-5 minutes uphill back to transition. Yet somehow I was still convinced there was nothing wrong with me. I hopped on my bike and headed out through the western burbs for my first race on the bike.

Oh, what a difference a bike makes!

THE BIKE
On the upside, I was pretty far back (between the poor swim and what looks like the worst T1 in the field!) and could only move up if I was able. My expectations for the cycling portion weren’t high—not only were my previous races on a hybrid, I haven’t trained much at all this year on the bike—but I wanted to see how this baby would ride.

Sure, I felt plenty of empathy as I cruised past the hybrid and mountain bike riders at the beginning of the 12-miler, but I felt at least a little cool as I pedaled past folks on racing bikes. Could I be decent at this biking thing?

I’m still wholly uncomfortable with going too fast on my bike (it was pretty scary when I saw a three-person crash around a tight turn before mile six), but I was pretty cozy with my pace as I was only passed by one person the whole stretch. It was a good ride that didn’t really tax my energy and only dented my spirit a bit at the end when I had to get some assistance when my shoelace got caught in my gears at dismount.

My time for 12-mile bike: 40:00 (~15 mph).

That’s a 15-minute improvement over my GCT time from last summer with just the switch of a bike. Wow.

SIDE NOTE: My cycling time comes from my honest watch. The official results, while they state otherwise, appear to include my T2 time in the cycling portion instead of running (overall time is still accurate). It was a quick turnover, which wasn’t hampered by all the bitterness I dragged through T1!

THE RUN
Pleased with my cycling, I hopped off my bike and used the run as a bit of a cool down. I wasn't winning anything that day! It was a strange course that had a serious downhill at the outset that I was surprised didn’t leave piles of old, broken knees on the sidelines.

I used the 29:30 to convince myself that I enjoyed doing these races, even when they went bad and that I could enjoy being a triathlete whether I was world-class or just happy to cross the finish.

And I was happy to cross the finish. I had pretty much raced the whole thing on a half bottle of calorie-free iced tea and a few swigs of Gatorade. I hit the food table hard, downing about half the watermelon they offered and topping it off with nothing less than a Hostess cupcake.

And Then There Was The Flu
As luck would have it, that cupcake was the last thing I’d eat for a few days (I told you those things were good for you; even if it was Hostess, it was the only thing to stay down!). Once I came home, I finally admitted to myself that I was sick. I plopped on the couch and was pretty much down for three days (barring a silly attempt at going to work on Monday morning) with stomach flu. Bleh.

Five pounds later, I’m finally up and I tried to get outside this afternoon. Being sick really takes it out of you! I walked about three blocks to get some fresh air and felt totally whipped. All this sleep and no energy? Come on!

I have a race on the schedule for Saturday and would like to re-try this whole actually racing during a race thing. If that whole pukey thing didn't get in the way on Saturday... who knows what could have happened?

Maybe I’ll just watch the race and regain these pounds with some race food. I mean, it is near the cupcake shop… and I know what could happen there.

What Ever Happened to the Good Ol’ Foregone Conclusion?

2008-07-06T16:24:00.000-04:00

Finally: part of a day I can have to myself. Between the current load at work, the new house and, well, the new bike, I just haven’t found a moment for some important things. Like blogging.

Today I thought I’d take an hour or two after morning yoga to watch Wimbledon and then get things like more work-work and housework done. But here I am, 4-5 hours later, still waiting for Roger and Rafael to work this thing out.

On the plus side of being occupied these past couple weeks, I neared 40 miles last week (I ran 36 miles between Tuesday and Saturday, but then biked nearly 40 miles with JG around Cleveland on Sunday… it rained shortly after we finished riding, so I never made it to those final four) and was scheduled to close out 40 this week with a weekend 20-miler, but, alas, calf soreness and Wimbledon. They get me every time.

This road bike phenomenon is phenomenal. I rode the bike-without-a-name 40 miles last Sunday, and it felt like nothing. In fact, it was almost easier than driving. And when I pedaled to work last week, the only real obstacle was the straight-into-the-sky hill out of Little Italy that posed a challenge (I would surely had to stop and walk on my hybrid), but mostly because the Corbo’s cookies and Presti’s napoleons were at the bottom. Shucks!

What’s more is that the 25 miles I rode that day weren’t enough! I hopped off my bike, already dressed for the road, and added five miles to my week’s low total.

Although last Saturday, before the long ride I ran my first 18-miler around Euclid on what started out as a gloomy morning and blossomed into a sunny day. It took me about three hours to run the miles, not including a bathroom and water pit stop at home at mile 10, and add another set of stripes to my summer runner’s tan.

Following the personal long, I was optimistic about this week’s hope for 40. But alas: six on Tuesday, five on Wednesday and then nine on Saturday… all that Fourth of July food must have tackled me too far down! I was happy on Saturday, though, that suddenly nine miles just isn’t a great distance to me anymore.

Sure, I didn’t hit 40 miles, but I felt a great sense of progress in my running life. Nine miles isn’t my distance day? Awesome. Maybe next week I’ll pull the big 20. But for now I want to go play. Roger has bowed down to Raf, and now I have only a few hours before Dara Torres tears it up (again) in the pool. Perhaps that will be enough to get me into one. Now, where’s my tennis racquet?

Riding on Bikes With Boys

2008-06-26T21:35:00.000-04:00

What kid were you when you were growing up? I, believe it or not, was the ultimate tomboy. (I’ll give you a moment to recover from your amazement.)

Seriously: I hopped fences, climbed trees, played with mud, skipped stones, rocked boys league, mastered kickball, played G.I. Joe, loved my Commadore 64 and always, always, always had a ghostman on third with less than two outs. It must have been a disappointment for my mom, who wanted a pretty, dainty little girl to dress up and play nice, but that poor, good woman got… me.

Girls, though, were a disappointment to me for years. Aside from a few good friends, I didn’t hang with the girls much or have anything in common with anyone, really. You’ve heard that song and dance.

Fast forward a few years. All this tri-training has put me in touch with so many cool people, especially strong, cool women who rip it up on the course, in the water, at work, at home. I liked being surprised by the number of awesome women I know and get to call my running buddies and friends. Rock on, chicas!

Amidst all the girl power, I’ve still made time to hang with the boys. In fact, I took out the bike-without-a-name with Neil and my dad the other night for a laid-back tour of Euclid, which ended at Dairy Queen. It was hard riding cool on my new roadie, but Neil and my dad indulged me a few times, racing down streets with me so I could warm up these racing legs.

It was a back-to-back workout too: I met my dad early Wednesday for a morning run. I pedaled to his house and then headed on another (different) trek around Euclid, through parks and along the shore. It was the first time I’d ever run with my dad, so I’m glad I had the opportunity (he just might retire soon and I’m trying hard to convince him to train for the Ironman with me!). My dad and I used to watch the Ironman every year when I was little, so it only seems appropriate that we should race together, right?

Wednesday was made for a tempo run, but I didn’t expect to run a tempo. The weather was prime for a good workout – cool morning with crisp, clean air and light sunshine – and we couldn’t resist. I had intended on 7 miles at 9:00/mile for my tempo, but we ended up running 8.2 miles at 8:38/mile. And it was so easy! We just chatted and chugged along mile after mile.

After I mapped the run and told me dad the distance, he was surprised. “Oh, I’ve never run that far before.” Could have fooled me. I guess we’ll have to take him 10 next time, eh?

My campaign for triathlon recruiting hasn’t stopped with my dad; my friends suffer for it too. And I think I have my next victim.

I met my friend Barney after work today (and a two-mile warm-up) for what he claimed was his first run in quite some time (of course, I didn’t realize he wasn’t running at all and was about to make him do four miles of intervals with me!). He was a really good sport about it, particularly after he saw a sign claiming it was 104 degrees.

While it couldn’t have been THAT hot, it was a little roasty outside, so the intervals turned into a regular pace for a couple miles. We ran mile one in a little under 9:00, recovered a few blocks and took mile two around the same pace.

I think he’s (this) close to thinking about Greater Cleveland Tri this year… now if only I knew how to give good swimming advice. Apparently suggesting Michael Phelps footage isn’t a great idea. Shucks.

Getting into a pool this week, however, will be a great idea. The outdoor pool nearby, I’ve learned, is open at 6 a.m. And I’m pumped. Here’s to early mornings biking to the pool like I’m a kid again, swimming, running, biking, throwing rocks and making mudpies. You’re never too old for mudpies, are you?

I Love My Bike

2008-06-23T13:49:00.000-04:00

What’s perhaps not the best thing but one of the best things about getting a new bike as an adult? It’s like super Christmas… only better. I finally got my hands (and butt) on a road bike this weekend – a blue Trek 1000 WSD – and couldn’t stop riding it and waiting to ride, thinking about riding and wanting to ride it again.

For weeks I had been torn between this Trek and the Felt FW40. Something, though, spoke to me with this bike, and I haven’t been able to leave it since. In fact, I’ve kindly asked Neil to let me keep it in the house for now – I’m like a new parent, too afraid to let my baby get out of eyeshot lest someone come scoop him/her up because s/he is the best baby… bike in the world.

The purchase of (insert name here) was the crowning jewel on a pretty swell weekend. It’s no secret by now that I skipped my college reunion for greener pastures, but I did run through the thing on Friday shortly before meeting up with Monica.

Determined to hit 30 last week, I warmed up right after work with 5 miles by myself around University Heights. John Carroll’s reunion weekend has always been a gorgeous affair; it looked really nice at 9:00/mile in the blazing sun. The university neighborhood made for apt distraction on a strikingly warm day. It was so much warmer than normal that I was plagued by stitches whenever I wasn’t being distracted by something much more interesting. For a while, that is.

Then I met up with Monica and ran what had to be a time-warp 5-6 miles before meeting up with her hubby G. Sure we cruised some inclines at a normal hot-distance pace, but running with Monica always makes things fly by. Poor girl, though, had to listen to all my therapy venting… so, it may not have flown by for her just as well!

We swung back toward her neighborhood and picked up Monica’s Hubby G for the last three miles. All was going swell – I was still running strong after 10-11 miles, the sun eased on us and the Heights had all kinds of front-door and landscaping ideas for me to spy – until the stupid stitch attacked.

M and G were kind enough to wait for me to stretch and walk it off. It came and went. But by the end of the run it was really nagging and I just wanted to finish the full 14. By 13.95, however, it stopped me in my tracks. I waved M and G to finish while I wallowed in my stitchiness. It sucked… but it did ease up the second I stopped running.

Guilt ridden by the last .05, I ran the last stretch up and down my driveway when I arrived home. So, mark down 14 miles for Friday!

By Saturday morning, I was surprisingly fresh and ready for my next adventure: the new bike. Rumor had it that Eddy’s Bike Shop was holding a summer sale, and I was all about it. It was, though, decision time in the bike arena. Trek or Felt?

I was ready to hit every Eddy’s in the area for the right bike. There was something about the sole Trek 1000 WSD at the Willoughby Hills store that caught my heart. I tried it on for size, tested it around the lot, had it fitted in a million different ways, and viola! It was mine.

I stuck with cages on the pedals – I’m so not ready for clip-in yet – and am always used to the motion of getting in and out on the roll. Neil helped me pack the bike into my car (it’s just the right size to fit without dismantling anything!); we drove home; and I rode wild.

On Saturday I rode was about 7-8 miles around Euclid at speeds impossible on my hybrid. Even if I’m probably still a little pokey cyclist-wise. I hopped off the 30-minute ride and right onto the road for a 3.3-mile run around the neighborhood for a suitable first brick of the season.

You can imagine that riding was all I could think about as I slept into Sunday. I woke up around 8 a.m. ready to roll! I threw on some clothes that yelled “I don’t bike often at all,” nearly forgot my helmet and pedaled away. While I had my heart set on riding the 11.5 side-road miles to work, I changed my mind halfway out of fear of the unknown. I hadn’t take my phone and thoughts of flats and crashes distracted me from an awesome ride.

So, I turned around and rode all around Euclid for a really decent 16-mile journey at an average 16 mph.

What amazed me most? I hopped off the bike and ran 4+ miles (that puts the week’s total a little more than 30!) for brick #2 like it was nothing. In the hot sun. Who's ready for tri-season?

The only pain I felt was leftover butt aches from the previous day’s ride and no ill-effects on my legs. I was a little upset at first how easy the piece of equipment made cycling – and, therefore, how big a difference an external piece of equipment makes on triathlon – but got over the reality and smiled at my new ride.

Next on the list? Gloves and biking shorts. My butt bones are still aching today (while my body doesn’t feel like I rode at all – Lance’s next challenge should be the Alps on a hybrid) and my hands/arms felt more pain than the rest of me. With all that in place, I might not have to hate cycling after all!

More importantly: what should the bike be named? S/he is a 47-inch women’s design road bike in a mist-duo blue. Black handlebars and a smooth ride. What should s/he be called? Neil suggested Mortimer or Penelope; I came up with Mellow Janey and Secretariat. What do you think?

An Exercise in Stitching

2008-06-18T22:16:00.000-04:00

Isn’t this mild NEOhio weather fantastic? I want to appreciate every easy-to-breathe breath of cool autumn-like air. And get in my miles before I have any reason to complain. At all.

I stayed up a bit too late last night watching the NBA’s forgone conclusion (feeling ever so grateful for David Tyree’s dexterous helmet), so another morning run didn’t make it into the books. But on the calendar was some speed work.

For the past several weeks, when I’ve done speed work, it’s left a bit to be desired. Racing sets of 800-1000m can be fun, but I’ve appreciated the effects of slightly longer speedy spurts more.

When I run 1600m sets, for instance, I feel the lactic burn, push past it and feel my threshold extend with each rep. Half and ¾-milers just don’t do the trick anymore.

So, today I had intended on running three 1600m in lieu of six 800m at 5K pace, but even that was modified. I had too much on my mind, so I took off down the street at a decent clip despite running a little cold.

Heading west for the first mile, I missed my first 1600m marker and just pressed on to the next. What’s speed worth if it can’t last, right? I hit two miles at 16:10 (8:05/mile) and quickly hit a stitch as well.

I tried to walk off the stitch, but it just wouldn’t shake. First it was on my right side, then it jumped to the left. So, I ran two more miles around 9:00/mile, practicing running with a stitch and a smile.

After dinner, Neil and I went out for another evening walk to take in the breeze, watch the sun set and listen to the waves crash on the shore. One of our neighbors was outside playing the bag pipes, while we ran into the Gibbonses walking their Bella and later hung out with their cat, Bud (he’s kind of a dog too). But I could have run all night.

Please Note: Iron G in 2015 is now a whirlyball blog

2008-06-17T22:13:00.000-04:00

OK, I’m not joining the professional whirlyball circuit yet. But who knows where this life will take me!

We played for work last week, and while we were all initially skeptical, I think we walked away pretty big fans. If you’re not familiar, think lacrosse mixed with basketball in bumper cars. It looks something like this:

For the past couple weeks, though, life has taken me farther down the new-homeowner path than the marathon-in-September way. Two weeks in a row I’ve ditched my high-mileage days for yard work. Granted, I have fewer weeds and a pretty cleaned-out front yard as a result of it… but I’m thinking neither of those things will get me through miles 13-26 at Akron.

Last week was a step ahead, albeit a small one, from the previous week: 7 + 6 + 5 = 18 miles. The saddest part is that Sunday’s run was supposed to be 16. But, hey, I have boxwoods and a hydrangea.

Over my six miles with Salty, I learned a bit about racing from a girl who knows her stuff. I quipped to her, as I have quipped many times here, that my speed work and tempo runs tend to be faster than my race paces. WTF, right?

But I’m getting a sense that I, umm, don’t really race when I’m… off to the races. At least not as much as I should. It’s not that I don’t try when I race, but I can’t say I feel really taxed at any point except the last 100 yards of any race when I’m trying to book.

It’s as if my [personal] financial conservatism has flooded my racing philosophy—I’m always saving up for something. And it figures the one place where I’m conservative would infect the rest of me…

Perhaps I just need to stop overthinking.

I was lost in my thoughts this morning, though, when I cruised Euclid around 6 a.m. Not only were the streets pretty quiet (there were a good number of runners and cyclist, nevertheless), it was perfectly chilly for a mid-June morning. What a pleasant break from the heat!

It was an easy 5-miler around 9:30/mile, which really is one of the better ways to start the day. I’m often torn about what kind of shape I’m in because I ran the first four miles around 9:30/mile, ticked at least a minute off the last mile and like I could have kept going and going. Then, of course, there are those other days when I can’t run down the street at a noticeable clip.

While today was a little bumpy on the homefront, I still felt pretty well energized all day. I was (this) close to running tomorrow’s workout after work today, but I opted for a walk with Neo instead. The evening weather was just as pleasant and autumnal as the morning. And that’s really something you should share.

You Summer Lover!

2008-06-13T08:32:00.000-04:00

Gorsch, do you ever miss summer vacation?

I think I’m too much a busy-body (not to be mistaken for a busy-busy-busy… I just like to always be in the act of accomplishing SOMETHING!) for the real thing, but imagine what I could accomplish with three whole months of sunshine!

Run in the morning, swim in the noon, nap mid-morning, bike everywhere I need to go. I could run dogs and write my thesis, do my gardening, up my culinary quotient and mispaint more rooms in my house.

I’d like to say I appreciated break when I was a kid, but I don’t think the imminent disappearance of the thing occurred to me… until right now. Mostly kidding. Growing up, I swam pretty much everyday—two practices in the morning, 6-8 hours at the pool each day, a brief break for dinner and back to the pool until close—all day. There was also tennis and soccer and inevitable cycling everywhere. What a woman of leisure I was!

But when I was 15 I started working full-time all summer long. Sure, I’d skip days here and there (part of my teenage work ethic), but it was mostly to either watch the paint dry indoors or recover from all the energy it took to stay up late, wake up early and just be 15. Swimming went out the window. I stayed inside.

Now, here I am, years later, wanting it all back. Like we always do. Every morning when I walk into work, I take big breaths of the fresh early air and wish I could spend it running or cycling from here to the moon. By mid-day, however, the heat tempers that urge. And by evening, my motivation and I accept a toned-down version of my morning self.

As such, my 7.5-mile tempo on Thursday night transformed into a 5-mile semi-tempo, which I ran between 8:20-8:30/mile. The pace pleased me—not only because it’s, umm, faster than my racing pace, it didn’t feel at all laborious and it was sticky hot last night.

My racing self really blows my mind. Am I not properly warmed? Do my nerves keep me tight? Am I still oh-so afraid?

After my first 2-3 races, the anxiety of race day lifted. Aside from the Akron Marathon, I really have no question I can finish my distances and I’m not exactly in a place to compete for anything but wholly personal achievement and pride.

So, why the nerves or whatever else affects my pace? I have no flabeepin’ idea.

And the tempo wasn’t cut short by ability, heat or effort. I just wanted to hang out with my boy (Neo came home late from work just as I was headed out to run)! It was after 7:30 p.m. and I thought it would be a total bummer to get home around 9 p.m., give him a high-five and go to sleep. We’re all about healthy relationships at the IronG-Neo household.

Healthy commutes are in vogue here as well. While the move has opened up some fun summer-loving time on its own, I’m thinking about extending my summer-loving time with bike rides to work. It’s around ten miles and I think it would be totally rad to find other cyclists traveling this way in the morning.

It’s only necessary then that this weekend is bike-buying weekend. And the finalists are… a Trek and a Felt. Both roadbikes. Both awesome.

But who will by my trusty steed this commuting and triathlon season?

Slow Times at Ridgemont High

2008-06-11T15:22:00.000-04:00

My first week back to marathon training didn’t exactly kick off on the foot my training plan intended. I completed my speed work and the easy 5+, but totally skipped the 6.5 tempo, my Saturday 14 and the Sunday five. Life, it turns out, goes on.

At least I have good excuses for two of the three. I skipped the tempo out of sheer laziness and weather-wimpitude. The idea of running anything tempo in 90+ degrees just wasn’t happening for me. Naps were more my speed.

But I did get out! I met Monica, Salty, CJ and co. on Saturday morning for ~6.5 miles on the NC trails. While the sun and heat were blazing that day, we were pretty sheltered by trees and even took the big ol’ NC hill that normally wipes me out. Because it was only a 1+ hour run, I didn’t carry water with me, but was grateful for a mid-point water stop. Surprisingly, though, I wasn’t parched despite the weather. Wippee on that!

Sunday was all house, all day. We painted the tragically colored kitchen to something much prettier, and I spent most of the day getting scorched in the sun while pulling out all things living, dead and intrusive in my garden. It was a workout! This weekend is front-yard landscaping. And I intend on actually completing my runs as scheduled.

Just like I intended last week.

The weather shouldn’t provide too many excuses for me now. I headed out right after work yesterday for what should have been speed day. Instead of 800s, I ran seven miles around my neighborhood and up and down Lakeshore at about 10:00/mile. It started as my speed warm-up, but kept extending. Slower and slower and slower.

While it wasn’t too hot or muggy on Tuesday, it was warm enough to slow my already garden-aching legs. I just didn’t have any kick. I was happy to get our and run, nevertheless, and at least get some good miles under my feet. Maybe today will be the day for speed.

So far, last week’s mileage (15.5 miles) has only a slight edge on this week (7 miles). Now, if I can only get over 40 miles… that’s when I’m allowing myself dessert. It’s the new plan.

Holy Hotness, Batman!

2008-06-06T10:58:00.000-04:00

These are the days when I’m more grateful for the Cleveland Half Marathon’s weather than I am for sliced bread. Truly.

I worked most of yesterday from the kitchen table (we don’t have much else in order yet) with the front door open and the sun shining in. The dogs sat at the foot of the door, enjoying their leisurely lifestyles, and expressed visible and audible confusion as the weather tumbled and rumbled from one personality to the next.

The morning started in the wake of the loudest thunderstorm I’ve ever heard. Seriously: one massive bolt I was certain had hit the house. It was that loud. But it was around 5 a.m. (and I had gone to bed around 2 a.m., which I’ve discovered is something I’m not capable of doing anymore) and I was too tired, really, to be concerned about checking.

Nothing caught fire and the morning was pretty fresh and mild. Had I slept enough the night before, I wouldn’t have resisted taking an early morning run.

That mildness, however, flipped between fiery 90s and blazing sun to big breezes and pounding rain from one minute to the next. By the time I was ready for a work break, though, it was muggy hot with all the day’s moisture thick in the air. My schedule called from a 6.5-mile tempo run, and I kept waiting from one hour to the next for “better” conditions. Maybe just a stroke of energy. But that late night did me in. No run, just chilling and food.

Thankfully laziness didn’t do me in the previous night. I ran an easy 5.5 miles along Lakeshore on Wednesday from my block to the Cleveland border, about halfway to the other border and back. It was probably closer to 9 p.m. and getting dark when I ran. But talk about a nice time to run!

Aside from the spring bugs (I probably only swallowed about 60), it was a pleasant evening bustling with dozens of friendly walkers and—get this—courteous drivers who actually stopped for pedestrians. No joke. Not only did I have every driver wait and wave me through before I reached the street, but none of them hit me, none swore at me for being a runner and at least two backed out of the crosswalk when they saw me coming.

Big deal, right? Well, it’s a huge change from the old neighborhood and major upgrade from the pedestrian-haters who used to run me down. OK, it only happened twice and I’m way overgeneralizing. But these early impressions are important and I need to hold onto them for when that one rude driver really ruffles my feathers.

Lucky for my training schedule, Friday calls for a rest day. Unfortunately that doesn’t mean I’m going to rest tonight. I do, however, get to run yesterday’s tempo without falling behind. Then I can hop back on schedule and find many more places to run in the heat (and get over this weather-related hang-up the way I dealt with rain).

Back at it, again…

2008-06-03T21:11:00.000-04:00

If I had a nickel for every time I said that.

It probably wouldn’t afford a tank of gas, but I don’t drive that much anymore. So, maybe I would just buy a cupcake.

My nutritional sense is coming back to me, however, along with my scattered brain and training mindset.

I managed not to binge on desserts at all this week (it’s only Tuesday) and finally reached day #1 of my restarted marathon-training plan.

But first: the lead-up.

The hardest part about this move has been controlling my unbridled desire to run when I get home from work. (OK, it's not exactly a bad problem to have.) Not only am I saving at least ten hours in the car, I totally get home with ten times the energy I had driving out to Stow. And now I have all this time! It’s incredible.

We’re still not unpacked, so I’ve been doing much of my cross-training by lifting and moving boxes all the livelong day to find clothes, shoes, kitchen stuff, vases, spoons and the DVR. It’s all worth it, though: did I mention the killer new commute?

Once I get my hands on my Felt FW40, I’m going to try to incorporate a bike ride to work every once in a while, and many bike rides after work in preparation for the tris I’ve scheduled this summer.

The Greater Cleveland Triathlon, where I’ll attempt my first international distance, is almost two months away. And we don’t want another [lack of] bike showing like last year. They might just close the course on me!

So, last week was pre-training week. I tried to tone down the sugar-rush eating and get in some miles before the real stuff begins. It was so easy to come home, run 3-6 miles after work, have dinner and hang out until bed (I forgot to mention, I get more sleep now too!).

And it was even easier to meet Monica and Ilana at Shaker Lakes on Sunday morning for an 8-miler in the Heights. I felt really smooth and fluid the whole run, which worked well on my confidence (it’s been a little shaky during my 2-week move-related training hiatus… I always think I’ll forget how to run), even if my stride is never quite fluid or smooth. Talking and trotting with the girls, however, made the time fly!

We ran 8 miles at about 10:20/mile across varying terrain, which I think might be part of a race on my to-be-considered list this Sunday: the Sunbeam 4-miler at Horseshoe Lake. But what’s more important is that Monica will race her first triathlon next week (a sprint) in preparation for her big HIM in August. Go, Monica!

What surprised me most about Sunday was that I ran pretty well and didn’t tire even though I woke up with some seriously sore legs from one kitchen paint job the previous night.

I gave myself Monday off—it was supposed to be a cross-training day—to rest and to have a Caribbean carnaval in my kitchen. And today it all began. Again.

My rejuvenated marathon training started with some “speed” work, which, again, I take pretty lightly. I mean, I’m really not going anywhere fast. Even if I’m in the car.

Instead of 5 x 1000m at 5K pace, I ran five sets of 1030-1080 meters, which was easier for me to measure out up and down my blocks. And the pace stayed pretty close to my target 5K times (they were 5:04, 5:03, 4:53, 4:52 and 5:10), interspersed with 2-3 minute recovery jogs that sometimes became strolls. My pace ranged from 7:39-7:55/mile. Not bad.

If you’re looking at my splits, you might think I was pooped for the fifth rep, but I really wasn’t. Perhaps I was giving myself too much recovery time. I felt swell going into the last stretch… until it began to pour as I kicked off into number 5. Luckily I was soaked about one minute in because I had to run right past my street to finish the distance. I was a block away from home when I was done, so I trotted home to cool down. And, apparently, to shower.

I don’t fear the rain as much as my pre-half self. Sure, it’s inconvenient and the downpour can slow you down. Most of it, though, is just state of mind. And I’ve had a good one of those lately. I just need to get that good mind into the pool... or, better yet, the lake. August will be here before I admit it.

Week One in the North

2008-05-28T22:58:00.000-04:00

It’s warm-up week here in Euclid, and I’m digging in and holding out for the weekend to really get settled. So, I’m just free-running this week and trying to return to some semblance of my former healthy diet.

It’s hard to believe now, 1.5 weeks later, that I made it three months without dessert. You wouldn’t know it from the sugar in my body. In fact, I may have developed an extra sugar bag near my intestines. Where else could it all be processed and held?

But I merely sacrificed an apple and some dried mango for my sweet tooth today—shortly after my first new-house run. I wound for 30 minutes through what E-Speed calls “the comb” and then ran to the Cleveland border and back for a full hour and a little more than 6 miles.

It was a cool day and a pleasant evening for a run, and now I’m totally convinced that getting acclimated to summer weather is going to be one of those tough, one-day smacks in the face that happens one morning when I’m forced to race, race, race!

Don’t get me wrong: weather this year has been tops for running. In my book, at least. A few hot days here and there, a rainy half mary… I’d rather take the gloom and chills over heat and dehydration.

I’ll take whatever comes my way these days, however. While I’m still at a loss for my stuff (after the move), I’m still glowing from the commute improvement.

Even after missing my turn—you get used to a route home, and when you’re going the opposite direction, it takes some practice!—and plugging through some slow-moving MLK traffic, I still made it home in 30 minutes. Beeee-autiful!

I pulled into my driveway energized and ready to run. So, I did.

We're He-re!

2008-05-26T21:36:00.000-04:00

After one awesome move, a lot of stairs, plenty of boxes and bruises, tons of dessert and a weekend with family, we're in! Neil and I—eleven strong with friends and family—moved to Euclid. And I'm ready to run!

Short of two runs, I took off training for the past week and abandoned pretty much all nutritional sense. The dessert emancipation has been pretty badly abused, but not too far from deserved.

But I think it’s time to get back to marathon training in my new land.

The Road to Recovery Runs Through Stow

2008-05-23T14:27:00.000-04:00

Have I mentioned that I've let myself be victim to stress lately? Well, on Tuesday, I let it get the best of me... and I kind of binged on desserts I had saved up in my freezer from the past several months of fasting. It was pretty intense.

While the binge highlighted my need to establish an incentive-based dessert plan, it also pumped me up with so much sugar energy that I continued packing my apartment and finally made it out for a recovery run kind of late on Tuesday evening.

Just 3 miles around 10:00 pace. And what do you know? My legs totally loosened and I feel just peachy today. I (heart) running. How did I ever diss you?

The best part was that I headed outside close to 9 p.m. It's been so long since post-7 p.m. running has been a possibility that I'm uber-raring to move to a sidewalk community where dark doesn't mean done for the night.

Post-7 p.m. running was supposed to continue on Wednesday night at the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, where I had hoped to join Monica for a fun race. My lack of Akron sense, however, turned me around on OH-59 and I couldn't make it to the starting line on time. Doh!

On the plus side, I had stopped pre-race to visit Melissa in the hospital and to see Melissa and Ryan's new sunshine, Emma Isabel. I spent a quality hour with the girls and enjoyed spending time with an incredible new mother and one sweet little bebe!

My training trailed off this week, however, in preparation for Sunday's move. I ran Tuesday's recovery and then about four slow miles on Friday. Thankfully, much of the week also involved stair reps, moving boxes to and from the car... and that should have offset at least some of the indescribable dessert damage from the week of stress, love and rocky road.

What's next? Movin' on up to the east side...

The Cleveland Half Wheezies

2008-05-20T09:27:00.000-04:00

My calves and I are itching for a recovery run!

So, then, why have I let two days pass? Well, I have the Cleveland Half Marathon wheezies.

Part way through Sunday’s race, I started feeling a little chest-wheezy, and I teetered on the brink of something all day Monday. Am I getting sick?

I’ve heard that a few other people had similar symptoms, so I thought I’d share the gross details as a kind of PSA.

It was almost impossible to breathe deeply on Sunday and Monday, and I felt just plain beat, a little achy (more sick achy than post-race achy) and just almost, almost, almost stuffy. This must be some kind of running pneumonia, eh?

I came home after work on Monday, made some chicken and brown rice soup, slurped it down and napped away until How I Met Your Mother. Then I just slouched on the couch, sending notes to friends on Facebook until it was time for bed.

We’re still in Stow until we move this weekend, so I had to do the way-early morning thing again, and I had one heck of a time peeling myself out of bed. I’ve been slogging down hot tea all morning and think I’m seeing this thing break. Away with the wheezies!

Moral of the story: I think I’ll take a slight jog tonight and start looking for recovery hereafter. I mean, I do have to train for a marathon here….

Five Things I Learned at the Cleveland Half Marathon

2008-05-19T13:30:00.000-04:00

1. Running in the rain isn’t half bad.
Weeks before any event, I track the weather day-by-day to see how my race day will fair. Even 2-3 weeks out, May 18 wasn’t looking good. And as a non-rain runner, I was making too much of the weather. I always do.

I woke up on Sunday morning, pained to hear lots of drops slapping the windowsill. To my surprise, though, I just got up, put on a baseball cap and rainy-running jacket, and piled into the car with my mom, who dropped me off at the starting line (thanks, mom!).

One of the biggest benefits of training in the blogosphere: getting to know plenty of non-wimps. Afraid of a little rain? Try Salty’s Nor’easter battle at Boston or a couple of E-Speed’s and Monica’s blustery races this winter. Plus, after running in the rain and traily mud with JenC & co. a few weeks ago, I actually thought this might be fun.

And it was.

I made it to the starting corral about 15 minutes before the start and waded through the crowd on an unsuccessful attempt at finding Landon (he ran a stellar full marathon) near the 4:00:00 pacer. By the time I made it to the front of the corral, the pacers had just put up their signs, and people really closed in behind me. So, I stayed put.

Because I ended up next to the 3:10:00 pacer for the start, I blew across the start after the gun and got out of the way. I had anticipated a blast of runners blowing by me, but the whole route seemed wide enough to accommodate the crowd and I didn’t feel slowed or cramped (or that I was slowing or cramping anyone else) the whole 13.1. Nice job, Cleveland!

The coolest part was that I could see the front of the pack for most of the first mile. Granted, it was a straightaway. For a middle-of-the-pack runner, however, that’s pretty cool.

And by the time I crossed the mile-1 marker at 8:17, I was pretty soaked and pretty OK with it.

2. It is possible to run into people you know mid-race.
After my last couple races, my friend Melissa (who’s about to have a baby in 1.5 hours!) reminded me not to over-think my runs and not to psych myself out mid-race whether I’m running too fast or too slow. So, I didn’t.

In fact, after I crossed the mile-2 marker at 16:56 (8:39 split) I stopped focusing on my pace and just ran. I’d check my time at each marker to make sure I was keeping my general desired pace, but I didn’t calculate my times or focus on how long each mile took.

I just ran, ran and absorbed the scenery of Cleveland’s inner East side, lakefront houses on the near West and about 30 guy runners lined up and peeing into the trees of OH-2 between miles 4-5. Ahh, where nature meets the city.

Often on the route, however, I’d get these jolts of energy. And it wasn’t the breaks in the rain, the GU or the prospect of first desserts (OK, maybe a little of the dessert); it was the awesome people roadside cheering us on.

I felt like a bleeping rock star under the West 3rd bridge (which is where, JenC indicates, E-Speed was leading the race’s best cheers!), down Lake Avenue and throughout downtown. Wow-ee. Plus, it was totally rad running into people like Greg on the OH-2 bridge and Kathy on Lake Avenue. What are the chances?

I wish I could have seen the scores of other people, including TriGuyJT, Charlie and JenC running the half, Monica volunteering at Mile 17, Salty and her mom rooting us on (and anyone else I'm forgetting), but I'm glad everyone braved the rain and joined the party!

3. Wearing a local college T-shirt, however, is also a good way to get cheers.
Not much thought went into throwing on my John Carroll T-shirt on Sunday morning. One T-shirt that doesn’t chafe is just as good as the next, right? Well, the crowds went wild.

At least 10-12 times between Lakewood (when I took off my jacket) and the finish, I had individuals or entire crowds cheering for John Carroll. I’d hear “Yeah, JCU!” and “Go John Carroll!” and “JCU! Woo hoo!”

The best cheer, however, came from a St. Ignatius crowd (the high school and college are closely associated) that yelled out “Hey! JCU!” and cheered loudly while performing an impromptu wave. I have to say my feeling-special-o-meter was off the charts there. It may not have been the Wellesley girls, but I’ll take this Cleveland version!

4. GU is easier to open than Hammer Gel.
I wasn’t too keen on the Hammer Gel version of gooey energy gunk. At least not the container. I hereby declare myself a GU girl.

Around mile 5, I walked through a water stop (actually, I walked through all water stops—some faster than others) to take down a chocolate GU and power through the next couple miles. Smooth as can be! But when I hit the Hammer Gel station closer to mile 9, it wasn’t so pretty.

Don’t get me wrong: the gel was plentiful, the volunteers rocked and I had my water ready to go. I just couldn’t get the stupid package open! My first try tore the gel right above the tear line and subsequent attempts got me closer, but got me no gel! I went for the second pouch and did the same thing. Grrr!

So, I just stopped running, walked and focused on the Hammer Gel. By the time I finally got the thing open, took it down and started running again, I had probably wasted—beginning to end—at least two minutes. At least I know, for next time, that I can shave off a couple minute by not letting the extra hammer-detailed tab on Hammer Gel defeat me!

5. An easy half marathon makes a nice distraction.
Except for the weather-worrying and a few moments of “have I trained enough?” despair, I didn’t spend much time thinking about the race. Between big work projects and the move, I didn’t have much brain left to focus on the race. And it actually turned out to be a good thing.

Not only did I avoid wasting energy being nervous about the race, I ran a totally laid-back half marathon, managed a PR at 1:53:27 (I hit the 10K at 53:55) and earned myself some major dessert-love in the process (still waiting on photos from my mom)!

Neil, my mom and Philip met me at the finish, equipped with smiles, a Boston Cream pie and spoon. Now that's love if I've ever seen it.

I walked away from the finish line still feeling pretty energetic, plenty proud and honestly thinking, “that’s it?” Who would have thought I’d come such a long way? I still remember when I finished my first full mile. Last year.

So, what’s a girl to do?

Full marathon.

1:53:27

2008-05-18T12:57:00.000-04:00

I came. I ran. I finished.

Congrats to all who ran (big high fives to Landon and Greg for awesome full marathon runs) and thanks to everyone who cheered, volunteered and watered us.

More later. Especially about the dessert (there are photos).

You’re Not Welcomed Here…

2008-05-14T13:11:00.000-04:00

…is what I said to the momentary cold, flu, allergies, whatever that wiped me out for most of Tuesday.

I woke up really whipped and wrote it off as carried-over exhaustion from the weekend’s running. But by 10 a.m. it felt like much more than that. My throat hurt. I felt on the verge of being stuffy. My head went fuzzy from time to time. It was all I could not to nap at my desk. I still don’t know how I kept my eyes open.

My race-week schedule had me running some short distance (5-6 miles) on Tuesday, and I promised myself I would do it. After a short nap.

I fell asleep around 5 p.m. and was CERTAIN I would wake up with the flu. This thing just didn’t seem shakable. And when I woke up an hour later, I still felt like poop. So I ate.

What do you do when you’re under the weather? I know there’s the old feed this/starve that, but if my stomach is even close to A-OK, it’s getting fed. Perhaps it’s the spike in blood sugar or sheer hunger-related satisfaction that makes me feel better (if only for a moment). Whatever it is, it works.

Two soy butter and fruit spread (a.k.a. peanut butter and jelly) on toasted multigrain English muffins later, my stomach was happy! I picked up my computer and plugged away at work to the tune of the Indians game. And two hours later, I felt almost fine.

Which leads me to ask (pardon the language): WTF?

It’s like my body just wanted to give me a race-week scare. “So, you think you’re ready for 13.1 miles? Ha! Try it sick as a hippo!”

Most people who know my "I'm not sick and I don't need to rest.... ever" attitude will be surprised to learn that I didn't run. You read that right. I stayed in. I rested. What do you know? I feel better. I think.

This morning wasn’t as bad as Tuesday; I hope the progress continues. The rain, however, seems to be in on the joke, and it will likely dampen tonight’s miles.

Oh well. I only have tonight and Thursday night runs before I rest. And then, I don’t know, maybe I’ll take a 13.1-mile stroll around Cleveland on Sunday. Just for kicks and pride.