first song on the shuffle: "normal life" july 4 kings
so here's how my morning went:
6:20 a.m. - alarm rings 6:20:30 a.m. - roll onto floor 6:21 a.m. - crawl into running clothes and shoes laid out the night before 6:24 a.m. - brush teeth 6:26 a.m. - put hair in pony tail 6:27 a.m. - walk out the door to run
um, yeah. so, i clearly need to give myself more than seven minutes between the time i roll out of bed to the time i walk out of my front door to run because the entire first mile is a blur. my eyes were all icky, my body was all out of whack...i generally felt out of control. i am so not a morning person.
we're going to try getting up at 6 a.m. tomorrow and giving myself 15-20 minutes to wake up before leaving the apartment. yeeeah.
today was the first long run with the cara marathon training program. it was a lot of fun, but boy does my ass hurt.
i ran with the 10-minute pace group and felt really great the whole time. my group leaders were funny as hell. they were all about ensuring that we were following running path etiquette - a very tight two-by-two pack. at first, i thought they were being a little uptight about it, but once we circled back and started running into the other groups, i realized they were just trying to keep it from getting ugly. the girl i was chatting with the whole time gave our group a name and a tagline: noah's ark - we run a tight ship. it was no surprise when i found out she was a pr person too. we joked about getting t-shirts made, and our group leaders were fairly amused.
so why does my ass hurt, you ask? well, they gave us four options with a mile left in the run: 1) keep running the same pace; 2) run at pace and do this massive hill; 3) run faster than pace and just end; 4) run faster than pace AND do the massive hill.
earlier in the run, we were talking about marathon novices needing to increase mileage and intensity in their training slowly to avoid injury.
well, friends, you can't give a type-a-overly-competitive-novice-marathoner choices like the ones above and expect that same person to do the wise training thing...because that person will ALWAYS pick the most challenging option. so, of course, i chose #4.
and that is why my ass hurts.
tomorrow: cross training weekly mileage: 15 miles monday: rest day tuesday: 3 miles
ran with the niketown running club today. felt pretty great, actually. my pace was a lot faster than what i thought i've been running, but it was comfortable. gotta like that.
saturday will be my first long run with the cara marathon training program. i'm excited...i just hope i can pull my ass out of bed on time to get there by 6 a.m. ouch.
first song on the shuffle: "i'm still here" vertical horizon
holy crap, it's hot outside. i'm pretty sure i lost about 5 pounds in sweat alone. gross. i would've gladly taken my chances of getting struck by lightning just to have it downpour on me.
first song on the shuffle: "now that we found love" heavy d and the boyz
well, it's officially begun. the first day of an 18-week training plan for my very first marathon. i'm pretty excited because i don't feel overwhelmed by the plan. this first week is only 15 miles, and the progression is extremely gradual.
i'm still trying to get used to the new shoes - hopefully i won't have any problems. one thing is for certain...no more pedicures for me from now until after the marathon.
my bud sb's nickname is gremlin. it's supposed to be ironic because he's so far from being what john bingham describes a gremlin to be - that evil voice in your head that tells you that you aren't running fast enough or far enough. sb is indeed the complete opposite of that - in fact, he's the optimistic one in our friendship. however, our friendship wouldn't be our friendship if there wasn't humor and mockery.
the point of my explaining the gremlin is this: i'm in the process of killing mine. i say "process" because it's just that - an unfortunately long and arduous process. my gremlin is persistent...and evil...and has lived inside my head for as long as i can remember. when i was a sprinter, he was the little guy who kept me on the track after everyone else was gone doing block work hoping to shave a tenth of a second off my 100m time. he was the little guy who added three tenths back on during the race because i let him convince me that i was going to choke - and i always did.
he's now the little guy who makes me feel like i have to make excuses for how slow of a distance runner i think i am. he's the little guy who makes me turn every training run into a race against myself. he's the little guy who often makes me question why i bother running since i'm no good at it.
i've known that my gremlin has been a problem for a long time, but it never became more clear that i need to get rid of him because of how ridiculous he makes me than on friday.
i met a fellow runner while volunteering for packet pick-up for cara's marathon training program. we were trading running bios as many runners do - did you run in high school or college? what kind of shoes do you wear? will chicago be your first marathon?
and then, inevitably, the question i avoided like the plague came: what pace group do you think you'll run with for the training program?
a normal person who doesn't have a gremlin would have just said, "probably the 10 minute group." instead, i rambled on about not knowing for sure and being confused since i just ran a 10 mile race and a 5k at very different paces. i did this because i assumed she was a sub-7-minute-mile girl who would judge me for being so slow. instead, when she asked what my 10 mile and 5k paces were, i was surprised by her reaction. she was impressed.
but even if she weren't impressed, she probably would've been supportive because that's what most runners are. i don't judge runners who are slower than i am...so why do i assume faster runners are judging me? and even if they are, why should i care? i suddenly realized how silly i must have sounded and how silly i am for always sounding that way.
a part of the reason i run is because it's a challenge. it's something that doesn't come naturally to me like a lot of other things in my life. and it's because the challenge is so great that the return is so much greater. eb said i need to accept my failure to embrace my success. and she's right. i accept that i will never be the fastest runner, but i will embrace the challenge to be the best runner i can be and all the success that comes along with that.
so to my gremlin, i say this: your reign has been long and successful, but your time is coming to an end. it's my turn now, sucka.
a smart person would've stayed away from the liquor and fried foods the night before the race. a smart person would've realized that the pace for the first mile was entirely too fast for someone who hasn't done a lick of speedwork for weeks. a smart person would've stuck with the plan of just having fun.
i never claimed to be a smart person.
i hit mile one and decided that i would try to keep up my silly pace for the next mile and then pull up for the third. i hate running that way. negative splits are always so much more fun.
this was the first race ever where i didn't have a kick at the end...and that sucked a lot.
however, what didn't suck was that sb and eb both came to cheer on mb and me. it was really great having them there. i didn't have a whole lot of fun during the race, but i did after.
the race wasn't chip-timed, so i'm going to go with my watch time as the official time. we'll see what the race clock time was tomorrow.
i have fred flintstone feet. seriously. when i was little, i used to jump out of the pool and my footprints looked more like the tracks of the swamp thing than of a small child.
yet, somehow, i have a neutral gait. last year, i decided to stop being such a heavy heel striker and started running completely on my forefoot. from the wear on my shoes and the way i run, the guy at the running store said it's ridiculous for me to wear stability shoes but guessed that everyone just assumed i was an overpronater because of my fred flintstone feet. so, when he brought out the three or four boxes of neutral shoes for me to try, the only thing running through my head was, "there aren't any mizunos in there."
i've been running in mizunos for about four or five years. i had no idea how attached i was to them until i realized that i was going to switch brands. when i finally decided on the brooks, it was as if i had agreed to infidelity.
well, today, i did it. i cheated on my mizunos and broke in the brooks for the first time. and i gotta say...it was pretty nice. there was so much cushioning in the forefoot, i felt like i was running with pillows on my feet.
i'm sure i'll grow to love the brooks. but there will always be a special place in my heart for the mizunos.
first song on the shuffle: "bombs over baghdad" outkast
run or beer? this was the question i was asking myself at around 4 p.m. today. a group of co-workers were going out to some place with over 20 beers on draught, a happy hour buffet and a beer garden - an offering that is usually impossible for me to resist.
however, i haven't run since monday and was feeling sluggish and lazy. oh, and did i mention that tuesday and wednesday were filled with greasy food and booze? yeah...
so i left work a little after 6 and got myself out on the road. and it was definitely a good choice. instead of spending another $30 on booze and food, i spent $3.36 on two 32-ounce bottles of gatorade.
first song on my shuffle: "when you cry" vertical horizon
i'm back, bitches.
for the first time in...oh...3 or 4 weeks, i felt awesome during my run. i'm not sure that i was going very fast, but who cares? it was sunny, there were tons of people out on the path, and i didn't feel like i wanted to throw myself into lake michigan. woohoo!
i have a long sleeve t-shirt from my one year as a high school cross country runner that says "there is no off-season" on the back.
yeah...uh...about that. i'm calling this past week my official "off-season." i only ran twice - 3 miles on tuesday and 3.5 miles on saturday. we'll also call last night's dancing/bar-hopping debauchery "cross training." i even did pilates today so i guess that counts as more cross training.
ok, so maybe it wasn't an off-season as much as it was the taper i should have done before the 10 miler. maybe then, i wouldn't have felt like poo from mile 2 on. oh well. you run, you learn.
i am: a sprinter by nature. an average-below average distance runner. hard on myself for being an average-below average runner.
i love: running. but more than that, i love runners. they're the best people in the world.
the truth: while i love running, i tend to get lazy in the winter. that's where this blog comes into play. it'll be the way i hold myself accountable and a way to remember the best, the average and the worst days - nonetheless, all memories i want to have.
