Trot Trot to Boston!

Three weeks from today is the Boston Marathon, meaning that three weeks and one day from now you won't have to keep hearing from me about the Boston Marathon.  I can't help it, I just can't stop talking about it!  Everything in my life seems to revolve around the Boston Marathon.  Every training run, every "race that I run like a training run", every night I don't go out for beers with friends because "two days from now I have a long run and I need to be hydrating already", every carefully planned meal which is tweaked, tested, and analyzed, and every bottle of Pepto.  Fortunately I have a lot of running friends that are going through this all with me, and pretty much all any of us talk about now is Boston.  And I have this blog, which helps me communicate my thoughts to absolutely no one in particular.  Even still, I find myself assaulting people with my Boston-excitement, including people that have absolutely no desire to hear about my long runs, missing toenails, hectic poop schedule, or snot rockets.  But here you are, reading this, so I'm just gonna go ahead and keep talking about Boston a little longer.

Last Tuesday I did another set of hill repeats, this time making it up my dreadful hill six times (my previous record was four).  I was pretty happy with myself, and my muscles definitely didn't feel as sore as the week before.  On Wednesday I planned a 5.5 mile run at lunch, but shortly after starting off, I felt a sharp pain on the outside of my left knee while I was running downhill.  I figured it was one of those random aches (after running this much, these things happen) and waited for it to shake out.  When the sharp pain started lingering more and then radiating to the inside of my knee, I realized this wasn't just a random ache and decided to cut my run short to 4 miles.  I wasn't overly concerned about it since we are bound to have off days when running this much.  Thursday I took a rest day to see if that helped, and I wouldn't say it was worse but it wasn't really better either.  On Friday I ran a slow and easy 5.6 miles at lunch, and I still felt the pain, especially running downhill.  At that point I started getting nervous, with my 21 mile run scheduled for Sunday, I didn't have a whole lot of time to get this knee issue resolved.  The condition my knee was in Friday, I knew that 21 miles would not have been possible.  This close to Boston I hated having to think about doing anything different, but I was getting desperate, so I went to Sports Authority and picked up some KT Tape.  I had never used it before and never really gave it much thought, but I remember nearly every single person in the Disney Marathon was wearing it so there must be some benefit.  The KT Tape website has instructional videos to properly apply the tape based on whatever area hurts, and after a quick tutorial I gave it a shot.

This is how I roll on a Friday night

I was instantly impressed with the KT Tape.  It definitely gave my knee support and immediately decreased the pain.  The inside of my knee hurt as well, so I added a strip there too.  On Saturday, I still had the tape on, and spent much of the day icing my knee.  I also took very generous amounts of Ibuprofen because I could tell it was swollen.  I'm not a huge fan of taking medication and I'm sure I'll end up with a bleeding stomach, but I was desperate to get this under control before Sunday's run.  Saturday afternoon I went with Mom to the Milford bike path and did a 3 mile walk, which I hoped would help loosen up the knee.  The bike path is a good place to walk because it's mostly flat, and my knee seems to get extra cranky going downhill.  After a little while it definitely seemed to loosen up and I could almost feel the swelling go down, and my mother compared it to how our older horses get puffy legs, but after they walk around for a while, the puffiness goes down.  It made sense, and I made a mental note to walk around a bit tomorrow before the run.

Sunday morning I woke up at 4:30am, tested the knee, and even though I could feel it wasn't quite right, I took a gamble.  It was very important psychologically for me to get this 21 mile run in, so I decided it was worth the risk of hurting the knee more.  Once I made that decision, I had to be at peace with it.  I have found that anxiety has definitely been the culprit of a few lousy runs lately, so I couldn't keep second guessing my decision to run.  Either it would work, or it wouldn't, and that was that.

Leading up to this run I was very careful about my nutrition.  I halted all vegetables and dairy products as early as Thursday.  By Saturday, I had a banana for breakfast, and then nothing but rice and chicken for the rest of the day.  On Sunday morning, I had a mini bagel with peanut butter, half a banana, and a dose of Pepto Bismol.  I wanted to eat this as early as possible so that I could have at minimum two hours to digest before running.  Then I took a long hot shower, got dressed, and took another dose of Pepto before heading out.

Getting dressed is complicated!

I ran the 21 mile course with the Hopkinton Running Club.  They organize an on-course run and I had heard good things about it.  The start times are staggered, with the goal that everyone finishes their run as close to 11am as possible.  Since I planned to go at a 10:30 pace, that put me in one of the earlier start times.  And man, was it freeeezing!  29 degrees at the start, I was really excited to get moving!  I threw my bag on the bus and checked in.  I asked what would happen if my knee exploded, and how would I get back.  The organizer assured me that she would be driving the course and I would definitely have a way back in case anything went wrong.  That was the final peace of mind I needed, and after that I was ready to rock.  Since I was going slower than the girls, I started earlier with Brad.  Brad's plan was to run with me until the girls caught us (which he guessed would be somewhere around the half marathon mark) and then pick up the pace and run with them the rest of the way if he was feeling good.  

The miles just ticked away so easily, and Brad had to frequently remind me that we were going faster than I planned.  Brad was really fun to run with and kept it entertaining with a lot of conversation.  The Hopkinton club had four water stops set up, at miles 5.5, 10.5, 14, and 18.  I thought these were so well spaced apart, and really helped to break up the run. Because they needed to keep track of all the runners, we all had to stop and check in, and we had to drink the water right there at the table.  They also had Gatorade and jelly beans and some first aid equipment.  Some people ran by and shouted out their names, but I welcomed the stop, drank my water (and got killer brain freeze) and then headed out again.  I never stopped my watch during these breaks (some lasted 1-2 minutes) so I was curious to see how that would impact my pace.  I was really surprised at how well I was feeling.  I could feel my knee wasn't quite right, but nothing to cause a problem.  The best part was that my energy level was high.  One of my most successful long runs was an 18 miler I had done in Upton, so I decided to take the exact same approach to fueling.  I started off with Clif shot blocks in the first 6 miles, and then I switched to a caffeinated Perpetuem drink.  This seems to be the perfect combination for me, and it's what I'll do on race day.
We flew into Ashland, and kept ticking off the miles through Framingham and Natick, and the closer we got to Boston the more runners we started seeing.  Finally at the 14 mile water stop, Marie and Julia caught up to us, so Brad ran with them and I ran with a couple girls from the Hopkinton club.  It was a good thing I hung around with them, because they nearly missed the turn onto Commonwealth Ave in Newton!  
Something weird happens when training for a marathon.  Your perspective on distance gets really warped.  Like when you reach mile 17 and you think, oh cool, only 4 miles up these hills and I'm done!  There was a day when I couldn't run 4 miles.  Or even 1!  At almost mile 18 I stopped at a water stop and then realized it wasn't the Hopkinton table (oops!) but the girls there were really nice and gave me some water.  At this point, Commonwealth Ave was completely overwhelmed with runners of all shapes, sizes, and speeds going up and down the hills.  It was a truly amazing sight.  I stopped at "the real" 18 mile water stop, checked in, and then continued on for the final leg of this journey.  At this point I was in no rush, and I was at complete peace knowing that I had this.  I had already run 18 miles and felt good.  Strong.  Prepared.  And then it hit me.  In three weeks I'm running the Boston Marathon.  THE Boston-Freaking-Marathon!  I'm watching all of these amazing runners on Heartbreak Hill, and then it occurred to me, I am one of these people. I finally get it.  This is a really, really big deal.
When I arrived at the bus, we were treated to tables full of tons of snacks, coffee, and drinks.  I grabbed a Powerade and sat with Brad and the girls on the sidewalk, and I was full of smiles.  They were shocked.  (They've never seen me smile after a long run).  I was clearly buzzed on fumes, endorphins, and caffeine, but I just couldn't stop yapping about how awesome that run was, how awesome I felt, how great my stomach felt, how great life is, how much I love everyone and everything.  Finally I got really cold and went into the bus to change, and then I grabbed a bag of Frito's.  I guzzled a Gatorade recovery shake, a bottle of regular Gatorade, and half a bottle of Coke.  There was a whole lot of liquid sloshing around in my stomach on the way back, so maybe I should have spaced it out a bit more, but who cares.  I just ran 21.25 freaking miles!

Here are a couple observations about the course:

• The downhill at the start of the marathon is so much steeper than I expected.  It's easy to see how people can start too fast in this race, and have really, really sore quads afterwards!
• Framingham is ugly.  Hopefully the crowds will be so thick on marathon day that we won't notice how ugly it is.
• I'm really looking forward to not having to run on sidewalks and yield to traffic on race day!

Now it's time to taper.  The short runs will be about the same as they have been, but there will be no more super long runs.  The weekend runs will be cut down to about 10 miles each weekend to give our bodies time to recover from all the hard training, and get rested for race day.  It will give me a chance to tend to my achy knee and very tight heel.  I'm excited for this day.  We've worked so hard all winter for it.  All systems are go for launch!


Click here to see today's run!

PS. After today's run, I went home, showered, and then stopped at the liquor store on my way to Jackie's house.  Naturally, I couldn't get out of the liquor store without telling the clerk how I just ran 21 miles and "in case you were wondering why I haven't been around much lately, it's because I'm training for the Boston Marathon".  What can I say?  It's a really, really big deal!

Oh and one more thing...
I woke up this morning to discover a little article about yours truly in the Milford Daily News!  Now I'm officially "on the record" and totally jazzed up for this race!  Just one question... what exactly are they trying to tell me?

Road Rants

Training for the Boston Marathon means that I have spent a lot of time on the roads.  I would say about 75% of the people I encounter on the roads are very respectful.  The other 25% suck the big one.  Today was one of those days where that 25% was the majority.  Once last fall I remember going out for a run right after the Patriots lost a game, and drivers were visibly crankier.  I'm not sure what was happening today, but the fact that it's late March, temps in the 30's, and there's still snow all over the place might have something to do with it.

Here's my list of things that are absolutely going to happen when you spend enough time running on the roads:

• If you are on a deserted road where there is absolutely no traffic, and you come up to a narrow bridge, there will suddenly be a car coming from each direction.  The two cars will squeeze together and you will be left trotting on the edge of the bridge like you're teetering on a balance beam.
• If you are on a quiet road where not a single car has passed you for miles, and you come up to a sharp blind corner, a car will come bombing around the corner and will have to do a very dramatic swerve to get around you.  Frequently in conjunction with a hand gesture.
• If you are running along on that nice quiet, dry road where you haven't seen any traffic for miles, and there's only one puddle and it's right in front of you, a car will come towards you and will drive as close to you as possible so that you can't run around the puddle.
• You are not obligated to run on a sidewalk; you are technically allowed to run on the street even if there is a sidewalk.  And keep in mind that when you do, certain drivers are going to "teach you a lesson" about it.
• A dog will chase you (or at least "aggressively follow" you)
• Someone will look at you with disgust when you spit on the street
• Someone will wave at you and you won't know if 1. they're just being nice, if 2. you know them, or if 3. they're using the "I can smell you from here" gesture
• Someone will speed up and swerve towards you, and you will hope a cop will be there to see it, but there won't be.

On today's run I was passed by Joe Stud driving an old fixed up sports car, revving the engine louder as he sped up passing me.  He did this while unbeknownst to him, his directional was blinking away for no reason.  Driving around with your directional on is the vehicular equivalent of walking around with your fly down.  It makes me giggle.  

So is it just in New England that we have rude drivers?  Or is it like this everywhere?

Miles to go before I sleep

My final act of productivity for this evening is to try updating my blog before I fall asleep.  After the weekend I’ve had, this will be a tight squeeze!

                I’ve gone full swing into resuming many of my activities, and just like before I had gotten injured, I’m documenting all of my activity and constantly trying to outdo myself.  Sure, things are a little different now.  I’m tracking mileage walked rather than mileage ran, and minutes on the bike rather than miles on the bike.  But I’ve also added another column to my tracker for strength training, part of my goal to be a more diverse athlete.

                It’s been great getting back to the gym, but even better has been spending time outside.  Almost every day I have been walking 2+ miles a day on my lunch break, and for the last two weekends in a row I have met my running club for their Sunday morning runs.  (I walked).  That puts my weekly walking mileage at:

Week ending 12/31/11: 16.25 miles

Week ending 1/7/12: 13.25 miles

Not bad considering just weeks ago I was on crutches!  Yesterday I finally felt it was time to incorporate my horse into my walking routine, so I brushed him up, loaded my pockets with cookies, and took him for a walk.  He had a few exciting spaz moves but then settled down into a nice controllable walk.  Rocco became my favorite walking partner, and seemed to enjoy it when I took him out again today.



Will walk for cookies



Rocco’s weekend mileage tally: 3 miles

In other news, I am helping to organize a relay race and had to go measure part of the course.  Honestly, I could have done this a number of ways. 1: have someone else do it. 2: use my car to clock the road portions. 3:  Insist on doing it all myself with a mountain bike.  Naturally I chose option 3.  So yesterday I packed up my mountain bike and headed to the forest.  I felt a little out of practice loading up the bike, and for good reason.  Not only had it been months since I had traveled with the bike, it had been months since I had ridden a bike that was A. not stationary, B. uphill, or C. on gravel.  After a mile my quads were burning.  After two miles my heart was pounding out of my chest, and shortly after that my lungs were on fire.  I stopped after 2.5 miles to catch my breath and seriously contemplated turning back.  But, how would I know how long the course was if I turned back?  Stubbornly I pressed on, and was glad I did because otherwise I never would have seen this goat!



Even the goats were out walking on such a beautiful day



Or these friends!

After my 8 mile debut on the mountain bike, I was spent.  I was so exhausted I almost couldn’t walk myself into bed, and this morning my body protested waking up.  Determined to keep the momentum going though, I headed out this morning to meet up with the running club.  While they all ran, I did a nice 2.5 mile walk around the neighborhood.  When I got home I felt guilty that I walked and Rocco didn’t, so I took him out for another 1.5 mile walk.  Then of course Toby the dog was jealous, so I had to take him for a 1 mile walk. 



Two words: Walk. Me. (Woof)



When I got home from that walk, my mother was jealous that I took Rocco and Toby for walks without her, so then I had to go for another 1 mile walk with her.

Today’s mileage: 6 miles, over 4 separate walks

Now after my “high mileage” weekend, I’m struggling to keep my eyes open long enough to finish this post.  (Confession: I zoned out a couple times).  My legs are tired and sore, but my hip is holding up very well!  I’m feeling very confident that I will be out running, collecting miles, and trotting down the trails in no time.  Robert Frost said it best:

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Picking battles

The hip drama continues, a constant cycle of rest, run, reinjure, repeat.  I can honestly say I've been a better patient over the last couple weeks though, and as a result I've been feeling pretty good the last couple of days.  I'd like to say it's because I'm maturing, but I think honestly it's because I was really just in too much pain to run.  Some days it was almost too painful to walk.  Tomorrow is the Harvard Pilgrim 10K at Gillette Stadium (home of the Patriots!) and I've been looking forward to this race all year.  The thought of having to miss this race gave me the motivation I needed to give my hip a break.  As promised, I even bailed out of racing the West Hill Dam 5 miler on Thursday, although I did still volunteer.  (More about this in an upcoming blog when I can do it justice). 
The extensive rest seems to have helped a bit, because the inflamation has definitely gone down and my hip has been feeling a lot better.  Finally, on Friday I had to test it out.  I knew if I had any chance of running a 10K this weekend, I had to at least see if I could run.  So, Friday night I slowly (and I mean slowly) jogged 3.75 miles around the West Hill Dam trails.  At an excrutiatingly slow pace I shuffled along, testing out the hip and all other body parts.  Everything in my body seemed to say the same thing.  What the?? I thought you retired us!  It was frustrating running so slowly, especially when my hip was burning and I was hovering close to a 10 minute pace.  The run was a success though, and mission accomplished.  My hip wasn't any more sore after the run, and everything else seemed to hold up just fine.  (And, no heart failure!)  After that hip-tester run, I finalized my weekend plans for the 10K.

On Saturday Kerri, Andrew and I took a drive down to Patriots Place in Foxboro to pick up our bibs.  It was a nice afternoon to check out the shops and it was a great chance to see Gillette Stadium when it wasn't mobbed with people.  It really is such a beautiful stadium.

Gillette Stadium. Eerily quiet!

We took our time wandering through the shops and I grabbed a couple horsie shirts in the Life is Good store.  I scoped out some future watering holes.  I'll be paying this place a visit real soon!

I'm excited for tomorrow, and it's a fun feeling to have no pressure going into this race.  Not that I've ever been a fast runner, but knowing that this race will most certainly be my slowest, and that I'm truly running it "just to finish" somehow is a relief.  It's going to be a great time with a fun atmosphere, lots of friends there, and my son cheering me on and taking pictures.  After the race, a bunch of us are heading over to Ronnie's for a little grilling and swimming.  I'm hoping for some cool water to soak what's sure to be an aching hip.  Reader beware, the next race report blog post is bound to be a colorful one!  Happy 4th!

Blogging from the sidelines

WARNING: You are about to read a full-fledged pity party.

If you’ve noticed (which you haven’t) (don’t worry I’m not offended) (okay I am a little) that my blog hasn’t been updated in over a week, rest assured it’s not because I keeled over when my heart went into some sort of arrhythmia.  The unfortunate truth is that my hip injury that I’ve been denying carefully nursing has gotten progressively worse.  It’s pretty discouraging, especially because I had been hoping that over time it would start to heal on its own and wouldn’t require any sort of surgical repair.  I’m starting to lose hope on that, but at the same time I’m looking forward to surgery if it means getting patched up good as new.  Now, some may argue that I’m not giving it a chance to heal on its own because I have continued to run lightly, mountain bike, and ride my horse.  Some may argue that my definition of “lightly” running is skewed, but I can honestly say that my mileage has dropped to just about zilch.  Nada.  Goose egg.  In fact, my mileage tally for June is a measley 34 miles.  And if that’s not convincing enough, I am doing something amazing: I am backing out of a race that’s on my race calendar.  See?  I’m maturing.

                This Thursday is my running club’s first in a series of three trail races, and I’ve been looking forward to this race since I ran the last one in August of last year.  It’s a 5 mile trail race, and what I love most about it is that the course is on the West Hill Dam trails behind my house, which I run, bike, and ride my horse around on a daily basis.  I was so excited about this race that I even coordinated a trail clean up day between my horse club and my running club so that we could get the trails in ship-shape for the race.  That was just a couple weeks before my infamous faux-pas that caused my hip injury (which, coincidentally, occurred on these same trails).  Since the injury, I’ve been reducing my mileage and incorporating more rest days in between runs.  Up until last week I had still been able to run a couple days a week for 3-6 slow miles.  I had been careful to keep the strides short and I avoided hills and sharp turns, which all seemed to cause worse pain.  As pain started to win out, I eventually stopped riding my mountain bike on trails, and incorporated even more rest days in between runs.  The last time I ran was one week ago today, the first day of summer.  It was a beautiful day for a run and I ran on trails and roads, for a total of 4 miles.  The roads were more hilly than I should have tackled, and my hip started hurting pretty badly while running.  I knew this was a bad sign because that was the first time the pain was so severe that I couldn’t continue running.  I ended up walking the last half mile back home, and felt pretty deflated about it.

                The days following that last run were painful, and I alternated Aleve with some stronger painkillers, packed myself in ice whenever I could, and stopped pretty much all activity.  As a person who identifies herself as a runner, this injury has some pretty serious consequences.  Now what?  As a runner I feel like I have something that not everyone else has.  I have a physical ability that a lot of people say, “wow, I could never do that”.  Losing the ability to run is like getting my wings clipped, and it’s made me pretty depressed if we’re being honest.  The only thing that lifted my spirits last week was knowing that I was heading on vacation with my horse.  (Yes, Rocco and I vacation together).  He’s been a real godsend to me, because he’s a super comfortable Tennessee Walking horse, which basically means that I have a lot less pressure on my hip than I would with other types of horses.  I’ve also used the past week to evaluate my current condition and make some decisions.  As depressing as this is, I recognized that it would be irresponsible of me to attempt to run the trail race on Thursday.  The hills and the terrain would be too harsh on my hip, even if the pain had started to die down by then.  Another factor is the Harvard Pilgrim 10K race I’m signed up for next Monday, July 4^th, at Gillette Stadium.  This is another race that I’ve been looking forward to all year.  I ran the inaugural race last year, and it was a total blast.  That course is very flat and easy, and I am confident that if my hip gets back to what it was a couple weeks ago, I would be able to complete it.  I obviously won’t be breaking any speed records, but I would be content just to finish it.  If I have any chance of running that race next Monday, I know I need to rest the hip as much as possible this week, and that means backing out of the trail race. 

                Once I made the decision to back out of the trail race, the next best thing I could think to do was volunteer at the race.  At least this way I can still be part of the event (and won’t get nearly as sweaty!)  I really enjoy volunteering, which is good because if this hip doesn’t get resolved in the near future, my racing blog is going to turn into a volunteering blog!  In the meantime, I am going to attempt to run a couple of flat miles sometime later this week so that I can gauge whether or not my hip can survive the 10K in Foxboro.  If it poops out on me, I’m still planning to attend the race and cheer on my pals, take pictures, and hopefully find new ways to scratch my running itch.

Flatlined!

I would like to start off by confirming that I am not, in fact, dead.  This might come as a surprise if you are checking out any of my Garmin stats, especially my recent uploads that include heart rates.  (Still cursing Scott for convincing me that this was a good idea).  As expected, this has become my new obsession and I’ve been doing research and analysis on optimum heart rates for runners.  I also reformatted the display on my Garmin to make the heart rate more visible so I could monitor it more carefully during my run.  My first run with the heart rate monitor was on Monday, where I maxed out in the 170’s in what I thought was a casual, easy run.  After speaking with some friends and looking it up online, 170+ is a pretty fast rate and is normally only reached during harder efforts.  I got a little defensive about this and started looking up other Garmin users in my area to see what they maxed out at.  Apparently I live near some real machines that can bang out 6-7 min miles and never break 150bpm. This led me to the obvious conclusion: I’m going to die of heart failure at any moment.  In an effort to avoid being overdramatic, I feel it important to explain a couple possible factors.  1. This was a trail run, which is a harder effort than roads.  2. I was the only female during this trail run.  Not only was I working a little harder to keep up with some of the guys but, um… hello… I was surrounded by men!  That alone should cause a spike of 20-30bpm.  3.  It was a short run.  I wondered if after a few miles my heart would calm down, or if it would sustain that hard effort regardless of the distance.

Factoring in those three points into my analysis, I have revised my heart rate from Monday’s run:

175 average BPM – 5 (trail run) – 25 (surrounded by men) – 5 (short distance) = 140BPM.  Voila.  Genius!

I have this reoccurring dream.  Every morning I wake up, go to the bathroom, brush my teeth, jump into my running clothes, lace up my running shoes, and just as I’m strapping on my Garmin…the alarm goes off.  Then I hit snooze.  Then I wake up, go to the bathroom, brush my teeth…blah blah blah…and the alarm goes off again.  By the time I stop pressing snooze, it’s time to get ready for work.  This morning was different though!  I woke up, went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, jumped into my running clothes, laced up my running shoes, attached my heart rate monitor, (awesome, I am definitely not dreaming if I’m attaching my heart rate monitor! I’m awake!), and just as I’m strapping on my Garmin…the alarm went off.  UGH.  Apparently my reoccurring dream is evolving.  Finally, I managed to actually, really, truly wake up and do all of the above steps.  Ugh, I feel like I’ve done this 5 times already this morning.  However, when I fired up the Garmin I got the dreaded message: Low Battery Power.  What? Noooooooooooo!  How did this happen?  Oh please tell me I’m dreaming.  I won’t press snooze this time, I promise! 

Unfortunately I wasn’t dreaming, and I was kicking myself for hitting snooze so much this morning.  If I had given myself more time, I could have charged up the Garmin for a few minutes.  Since I cut it so short however, my only choice was to soldier on and get whatever life I could out of the battery.  I was only going for a four mile run so I hoped the Garmin would make it for the next 35 minutes or so.  I started my run very slowly, carefully monitoring my heart rate.  My goal was to keep it under 170.  I wanted to see how hard I could run before it reached 170.  So I just plodded along at a nice casual pace on a beautiful, sunny Friday morning.  My new obsession with this heart rate monitor is putting crazy thoughts into my head.  I was wondering what it would look like if I just dropped dead while running.  I have a vision of someone finding me, hours later, wondering what happened.  Then, a savvy detective who doubles as an avid runner would spot the Garmin, upload it, and see my stats.  This savvy detective would not only trace my starting location, but he would see my exact performance leading up to my collapse.  I thought of what the heart rate scale would look like: 167..168…169….170.…..171………Flatline.  This morbid thought for some reason struck me as hysterical, and I giggled and snorted my way down the street.  (I wonder how much laughing while running impacts heart rates?) 

At the one mile mark my Garmin chirped, and for the first time I didn’t even glance down to see my split time.  My new obsession has shifted my focus so far off my pace that it’s not even important anymore.  Getting to work on time is, however, a consideration so I made sure I wasn’t shuffling along too slowly.  After another minute or so I glanced down to make sure I was still in a comfortable zone, and I was struck with sheer panic.  The Garmin display was blank.  Empty.  Gonzo.  That’s it.  I croaked.  Bit the dust.  Kicked the bucket.  Flatlined.  My heart has stopped beating and any second now I will collapse.  Luckily it only took a millisecond for me to remember that it was only my Garmin battery that was dying, not my actual body, and I settled down.  I can only imagine what my pulse jumped up to at that brief moment.  I’m lucky I didn’t put myself into cardiac arrest!  Maybe I need to calm down a bit with this heart rate obsession.  I’m making myself crazy.

The rest of the run was fun and uneventful, and I managed to get by just fine without tracking my time, pace, or heart rate.  My only real disappointment was I didn’t get to see how my heart held up over the longer distance, but hey… there’s plenty more opportunities for that!

And for the record, my reoccurring dream isn’t so bad.  I also had a dream shortly before waking up that I snuck into my neighbor’s outhouse while they weren’t home.  (No idea why my neighbors had an outhouse in my dream, or why I would have a desire to use it while they weren’t home).  Then the outhouse started to flood and I was up to my knees, so I quickly jumped out of the outhouse, only to find that the neighbors had pulled into the driveway along with a bunch of other cars, and they caught me sneaking out of their outhouse.  So, in the grand scheme of reoccurring dreams, strapping on a heart rate monitor isn’t too awful.  As long as it doesn’t evolve into flatlining. 

My first club run, and the marvels of technology

Yesterday I found out why being in a running club is so cool.  I originally started running about two years ago and after building up some endurance and learning some tips from Kerri, I primarily ran solo.  I always enjoyed the solitude as it gave me some much needed “me time” and was an endless source of sightseeing, daydreaming, and occasional mind games.  For a good six months now, I’ve been running regularly with my awesome lunch runners at work, and I genuinely look forward to having company out on the roads.

                Last fall I decided to join a running club for a few reasons.  I wanted to meet other runners, gain some good insight, and have a reason to stay motivated.  Late fall was probably the wrong time of year to join a running club, because there wasn’t a whole lot of activity over the winter months.  But as the weather got better I started attending some of the races, the last few member meetings, and I’ve done some volunteer work.  As I suspected all along, runners are a great group of people.  Everyone is so friendly and we all share a common interest.  No need to talk about the weather, because there’s never a shortage of conversation when you pull a bunch of runners together!  (Although we do, occasionally, talk about the weather.  But only as it relates to running!)  My club, the Tri-Valley Front Runners, holds a fun run every Monday night and last night was my first time attending.   What a blast!  I made quick friends with a couple girls and we had lots of fun trotting the 3 mile loop together while chit chatting.  At the end of the loop I was tempted to run again, but decided against it since I had already run 4 miles at lunch.  I felt that 7 was enough for one day, considering my aching hip.  I’m hoping next Monday I can get 2 loops in though, because I’m really going to need to pack a lot of miles into next week with my half marathon coming up.  And make no mistake about it, I will be back next Monday! The girls already made me promise to come back, and I’m not about to break a promise to my new club pals!

                On the hip front, I’m starting to become an unruly patient.  I know that logically I should be resting and giving it a chance to heal, but the goal-oriented runner inside me is pushing for higher mileage.  This dichotomy is further complicated because my MRI has still not been scheduled.  I called the doctor’s office today to see what the holdup was, and apparently my insurance company has not approved the procedure.  It infuriates me that despite what a doctor orders, the insurance company that I’m required to pay for can refuse to cover tests.  I’m hoping it will get approved soon, but in the meantime it has turned me into a bit of a renegade.  For example, the following thought flowed through my brain repeatedly today, “Oh, my hip isn’t bad enough to qualify for an MRI?  FINE!  I’ll just run until my leg rips off!  How’s THAT!?”  Yeah, I’m sure that’ll show them.  So, today on my lunch run I did a solo 3.6 mile run at home, and for the first time in a couple weeks I inched my pace up to race pace (actually a little faster).  The first mile was slow, but the second was 8:36 and the third at 8:22.  I was happy to be moving out and testing my breathing a bit.  It was nice to feel like I was working hard but not feeling depleted.  If I didn’t feel like my leg was going to fall out of my hip, it would have been a perfect run.  When I got back home I stood in front of my garden checking out my plants for a minute before walking into the house, and when I went to move I couldn’t seem to get my leg moving.  I’m sure my temper tantrum induced lunch run was not what the doctor ordered and contributed to my prolonged pain but as I’ve said, I’m becoming a bit unruly.  This isn’t, of course, the first dumb thing I’ve ever done.  Once I had a stress fracture in my foot and the doctor said absolutely no running for a minimum of 6 weeks.  I tried negotiating with him since Hyannis was in 6 weeks.  He wouldn’t budge, and told me Hyannis was absolutely not going to happen.  So, four and a half weeks later I was back on the road and made it to Hyannis.  I really showed him!!  Of course, my foot has never been the same and threatens me every time I start to increase mileage too aggressively.  Maybe it’s a blessing that the MRI hasn’t been scheduled yet since I might be facing the same fate on a larger scale, since I have a half marathon just two weeks away.

                In other news, I’m starting to become much more tech-savvy.  In fact, after a full year of owning my Garmin Forerunner 305, I have now learned how to put the data online to share with people.  It was actually very complicated.  I had to:

1.       Go to the Garmin website

2.       Click “upload”

You can see how this was confusing.  Once I mastered this skill, I started putting some of my routes into Google maps.  Unfortunately, until about a week ago I didn’t know how to record mile splits on the Garmin.  I was only able to get averages for the entire distance.  When I told Hiroshi this, he told me I had to change the settings.  So, after exhaustive research I learned how to update the setting to record splits:

1.       Go to Settings

2.       Press Auto Lap – 1 mile

Voila!  Now I have splits.  So, some of my newest routes have individual mile data, and the older ones from my rookie days (like, anything prior to last week), only have averages for the entire run.  I have been rather lazy about bringing my Garmin running with me lately, especially for well known routes that I have the mileage memorized, but the ability to analyze individual splits is just too tempting to pass up!  That Garmin is going everywhere with me from now on!  I’m seriously considering using it for other activities.  For example, I could compare my pace through the soup aisle at the grocery store against my pace down the ice cream aisle.  Meat aisle versus seafood counter.  Dunkin Donuts drive-thru’s.  The possibilities are endless! 

Now that I have access to this magical technology, I wanted to share a couple of my routes.  Click on the links to see what I’ve been up to the last couple days!

Hopedale Pond Run

Today’s lunch run

See?  Magic!

Fun runs and a newbie update

I’ve had a good start to the month, with 38 miles logged so far in 7 of 10 days.  I also decided that since I don’t have major race coming up for a while, I may as well mix up my running a little bit and have more fun with it.  On Tuesday for my fun run, I went down to the West Hill Dam and did “Dam Laps” (not Damn laps).  This “lap” consists of running across the top of the dam, then running down a steep hill to the bottom of it, then down alongside the bottom, and then back up a steep hill back onto the top.  One lap is just over a half mile, and it’s really the best of both worlds with some tough hills coupled with some nice breaks in between.  So I did a few of those laps and then continued on a nice easy trail run.  It was a great way to spend an hour.  Wednesday I ran with the lunch group down to the ice cream stand, but ran into some serious stomach issues and ended up leaving work early.  Wednesday was also the day I promised my son Andrew that I would take him on his first run.  (More on him later). 

My fun runs continued for the rest of the week, where I did 5.6 miles on Thursday and my favorite 8 mile loop on Saturday.  It seems ironic that now that the pressure’s off and there isn’t a significant race in my near future, I’m logging all kinds of extra miles.  It’s amazing what a difference a month makes!

Newbie Updates:

Pinky:  By far the most common question I get from blog followers is, “Did Pinky ever run with you again?”  If you aren’t familiar with Pinky, refer to the New Recruit.  Pinky has not yet run with us again, but according to Todd she’s running on her own and building up the strength to run with us again someday.  I'm very much looking forward to leaving her in my dust running with her again.

Sister:  It was one week ago today that I dragged my sister out on her first walk/jog.  She did well despite the initial complaining, and I had hoped I didn’t push her too hard or scare her off.  I talked to her on the phone today to see if she wanted to run again tonight, and she announced that today was the first day since last Sunday that she could walk without pain and that her knee has been giving her problems.  I’m hoping she will be willing to give it a try again soon, but we might have to do more walking and less running next time.

Son:  As I mentioned earlier, I made a deal with my son that I would help him get into better shape.  Wednesday was our first run together.  It was a 1 mile walk/run.  He held up well and I made sure we walked before he was exhausted so that he wouldn’t overdo it.  Tonight we pushed a little harder and did a 2.25 mile walk/run.  It’s funny watching a 15 year old running for the first time.  Whereas I’m usually concerned about my form, my Garmin, or logging miles, Andrew was more concerned with high-fiving the pine tree branches and hurdling the speed bumps in the park.  It was pretty funny seeing running through the eyes of a non-running teenager.  We continued the walk/run pattern for the whole loop, although there was a lot more walking towards the end.  He was pretty tired by the time we got back, and I’m crossing my fingers that I didn’t push him too hard.  I’m starting to develop this pattern of One-and-Done running partners, (not unlike my dating life) but at least with Andrew I have a little more power of persuasion!

Blog Envy

A few months back I met this guy Anthony in a Starbucks.  He quickly identified me as a fellow runner (the book, The Long Run, in front of me gave it away).  We struck up a conversation, I shared with him a link to my blog, and we wished each other well.

                Months later, Anthony’s name has been popping up all over the place, and in a weird twist of fate it so happens that we belong to the same running club.  Small world!  As it turns out, Anthony is like my male doppelganger.  He lives a couple towns away, we run for the same club, we run most of the same races, (although he is much faster than me) and he too has a running blog!  His blog is geared towards training for his upcoming Boston Marathon and fundraising efforts for the Alzheimer’s Foundation.  Naturally I had to check out Anthony's blog and see how it compared to mine.

                Let’s just say Anthony doesn’t take distant pictures of fuzzy llamas and post them on his blog.  His blog is polished, organized, entertaining, and the pictures are just outstanding.  This blog really puts mine to shame and made me realize I’m going to need to hire a photographer to follow me and take pictures on my behalf.  Perhaps I’ll just start running with Anthony J. 

                This morning I confided in my pal Scott about my newfound insecurities about my blog.  Scott has his own blog.  Scotty Tris is a blog about his personal journey into the world of triathlons.  I love reading his progress because he is even more neurotic than me, and I feel a little more normal after I’ve read all about his experiments with cadence, pace, calories, meters, and trainers.  Thank God I don’t do triathlons; I can’t imagine having to track performance components of not one but three sports!  Scott also has a food component to his blog, Scott Eats.  He’s quite the foodie, and posts new recipes and pictures of his creations.  So when I mentioned to Scott about Anthony’s blog (which included both running information and pictures of soup), naturally he was intrigued.  And by intrigued I mean slightly threatened.

                Scott and I browsed Anthony’s blog, marveling at the beauty of the pictures and commenting on Anthony’s training success and quick finishing times of his recent half marathons.  We were both envious and I do believe I sensed a little tone of jealousy is Scott’s voice.  Scott quickly announced that his next goal was to “out-do” Anthony’s soup pictures, which I found hysterical that he’s more jealous of the soup than the running.  In any case, reviewing Anthony’s blog made Scott and I reevaluate ours, and will no doubt cause us to step up our game.  Scott’s approach is to find a new soup recipe, and mine is to hire a photographer.  None of this, of course, will help us with our running so we may be a bit misguided with our goals, but one can’t control where the competitive juices strike. 

                So, now that I’ve shamelessly plugged these blogs, feel free to make fun of Scott’s neuroses, check out his recipes, and of course donate gobs of money to Anthony’s Alzheimer’s cause.

Moving On…

                The Boston Tune Up 15k is this weekend!  And right on cue we have another snowstorm due to arrive Friday just to make things interesting.  I went for my last run today, and will be taking Thursday and Friday off to be well rested.  (And this time, my “rest day” will not include furniture moving or any other form of heavy lifting, unlike the day before New Bedford).  Todd and I ran at lunch and he was unusually slow due to a head cold but we still managed a nice 4.5 mile run on a beautiful 50 degree day.  We speculated about what my time would be for the race, which is hard to gauge because of the unusual distance and number of hills.  My only goals are to beat last year’s time of 1:27, not finish in the bottom 10, and not puke during or immediately following the race.  (If I do, I will not have my faux-photographer capture that moment).  J

Special thanks goes to Scott for teaching me the art of including links to my blog!  Sorry I used it as a means to make fun of you J (No I’m not).

The signs of Spring!

Spring is in the air here in New England!  After endless complaints of the cold and snow, today was a picture perfect – and might I add – well deserved Spring day.  (Must be the luck o’ the Irish!)  I have been hiding from my Asics and avoiding looking other runners in the eyes over the last week, and have not run even once since – gasp – a week ago.  I realize I’m taking a huge gamble on this, with a half marathon coming up on Sunday, but with my foot and my stomach getting progressively crankier over the last week I felt I needed to scale back a bit.  Well… scale back I did!  At this time last month, while complaining about the weather, I had accumulated about 60 miles.  Today, I’m up to 30.  I knew it was critical that I got in a decent run today if I had any chance of completing the half on Sunday, and at some point I had to dust off my foot and see how it held up.  With temperatures in the 50’s, today was the perfect day to give it a shot.

                Todd, Kerri and I were supposed to run together at lunch but at the last minute Todd bailed (for some “work related” conference call – this is the first evidence of Todd actually “working” since I met him in December).  Luckily Old Reliable was still up for a run, so Kerri and I headed out on our favorite Ice Cream stand route.   Technically Spring doesn’t begin until Sunday, but today for us was the official start to Spring.  Here’s why:

·         Today marked the first day we traded in our full length running tights for running Capri’s.  A small change to some, but to me having my ankles exposed felt like I was running around half naked.  (Not to mention my pasty ankles would no doubt blind some drivers).

·         The roads were so crowded with runners and walkers it was akin to running an organized race.  Part of me expected to see an aid station on the way back.

·         The driving range was open!  The driving range is adjacent to the ice cream stand, and from a good distance we could hear the unmistakable strike of the golf ball and the subsequent crackle as the ball ricocheted between trees after taking a sharp slice off the tee. 

·         It’s still unclear if the actual ice cream stand was open but we once again confirmed our future Summer plans to someday stop in for a cone during our run.  

As we headed back to the building, we were honked and waved at by a guy on a motorcycle, who I’m pretty sure was mesmerized by our exposed ankles.  Seems even the motorcyclists have a touch of the Spring Fever. 

                For all the preparation that had gone into training for Hyannis, I have done surprisingly little for New Bedford.  There have been no dress rehearsals, and no time spent fretting over directions, pre-race foods, or energy gels.  At this point there’s nothing I can do to improve my fitness so hopefully the base I had developed for Hyannis will be enough to get me through this race.  And if that’s not enough, maybe the Luck O’ the Irish will carry me through!  J

(In the interest of full disclosure… I’m only a wee bit o’ Irish.  But it’s Saint Patrick’s Day, so why not jump on the bandwagon.  Plus, it’s way cooler than say… Bastille Day.)

Honeymoon's over, back to the grind!

As much as I had been looking forward to Hyannis, I had worried about the after effects.  When I ran a half marathon in the fall, I had finished strong and could have run again the next day if it hadn’t been for the painful groin pull that had me sidelined for three weeks.  In preparation for Hyannis I tried to listen to my body better to know when to stopping pushing.   Although I had complained all winter long about the lousy running conditions, it may have been a blessing in disguise that I had more cross training and less wear and tear out on the roads.  Immediately following my finish in Hyannis I had felt a mild pain in my Achilles.  It only hurt periodically on certain steps, and with nothing to pinpoint, I just iced the general area.  For two days following the half marathon my body was tired but not in any sort of pain.  I even did a kettlebell workout on Monday!  Of course, I also took advantage of some post-half-marathon indulgences.  Such as, yes I will have that extra beer, I earned it today!  Sure I can eat that pizza, I just ran a half marathon yesterday!  Chocolate? Why not!  I earned it when I ran that half marathon last weekend!  Yes, it was clear that I needed to get back to a routine, and thinking about my next running event.

By Wednesday I was back running with the group at work, although it may have been a day too soon because that periodic pain in my Achilles started to flare up again.  We did a slow 3.5 mile run (actually I was the only slow one, and lost sight of the rest of the group for much of the run).  On Thursday I had decided to test it out again on a 4.5 mile run at lunch.  We were all completely nuts for running.  It was less than 20 degrees, windy, and frigid.  I don’t think I’ve ever been so cold running in my life.  Our normal 4.5 route is an out-and-back, with the turnaround point being at an ice cream stand.  We decided that one day this summer we are going to run to the ice cream stand and actually eat an ice cream, and then walk back.  Ice cream seemed like such a foreign concept at that moment, since I would have preferred a hot bowl of chowder.  My foot held up ok, with occasional flare ups.  I decided to take a couple more days off and reevaluate. 

Normally when I have to take time off of running, I incorporate other forms of exercise as cross training.  In better weather I’m out mountain biking, but this time of year the cross training comes in the form of different machines and classes at the gym.  Unfortunately over the last couple of days, my work schedule has gotten in the way of each of the classes I had planned to attend, so the only non-running activity I managed to get in this week was 30 minutes of kettlebell at home.  (My goal is to someday return to the kettlebell class at the gym, and be able to walk upright at the end of the class).

Today I just couldn’t pass up an opportunity to go running.  It was an unusually mild 50 degrees this morning with gusty wind, and with a heavy rainstorm headed towards us I knew I had a small window of time to sneak in a run.  With the snow banks and lousy road conditions, I hadn’t been able to do one of my favorite local 5.6 mile loops all winter.  I looked back in my running log and realized the last time I ran this loop was on Christmas Eve, the day I decided to count Christmas wreaths hanging on houses.  A full 10 weeks had gone by since then, and I was eager to get back to my familiar run. 

The route seemed different than I remembered it.  The awful 3 minute steep hill climb only took about 2 and a half minutes this time (although I was still gasping for air by the time I got to the top).  The roads were different, uglier.  They were full of sand and debris from all the storms, and I spent a fair amount of time dodging puddles, thick streams of running water, and litter.  My footfalls sounded like I was marching on sandpaper, and the frost heaves added another layer of complexity to my strategy of trying to keep my foot on a flat surface.  Water ran down the sides of the roads, and snow banks still occupied the sidewalks, so my only choice in some spots was to run close to the middle of the road.   Luckily it was pretty early on a Sunday morning and traffic was light.  On such a beautiful morning, I would have expected a lot more foot traffic.  I thought for sure I’d be meeting up with runners on every street, all as anxious and eager as me to hit the pavement on this spring-like day.  Surely they all have the same level of cabin fever as me.  Oddly enough, I never saw another runner.  I never even saw Brown Dog, or the horses Pedlar and Skip.  In fact, the only people I saw were two kids playing in the snow in their tee shirts and shorts.  (You know it’s New England when you wear a tee shirt and shorts to go play in the snow when it’s 50 degrees).  I enjoyed the run, even without any company, and finished in a respectable time.  I was quite pleased that my foot held up well throughout the run.

Hard to believe, but my next half marathon – New Bedford – is only two weeks from today.  I’ve never run the course before but I’ve heard there are a couple sizeable hills, which I can’t really say I’m looking forward to.  I’ve never run two big races so close to each other before so I don’t know the best approach.  I think for the next two weeks I will stick to my usual weekly mileage, try to incorporate a little more cross training at the gym, and one long run next weekend.  Weather in March in New England can be anything from snow to 70 degrees so this will be a tough one to predict.  I better start my dress rehearsals!