***if you are new here, and have no idea what this is going to be about you have two intelligent choices:
a) Leave Now.
b) Start here, then work your way back, m'kay?
I now had a goal, a deadline and a party to hold me accountable. Sure that date was a looong way off and the person tasked with holding me accountable was less than enthusiastic about actually running the race, but still, this was enough to convince me that it was time to hunker down and get serious about this running stuff…as soon as the holidays were over. And it warmed up a little. And…
Excuses are so incredibly easy to come by. If you can’t find one, it takes next to no time at all to craft one. And I? Am an artisan.
Knowing this about myself, I braced for impact and let that nature butt heads with the other side of me: the stubborn one. I knew that, given the chance to wrestle it out, the stubborn side stood a fighting chance.
In early spring, I started doing something that shocked no one so much as myself…I changed my alarm clock to start waking me up at 5AM (ha! Take that 7AM!!) and stopped allowing myself to press snooze. I started getting out of bed, bundling up, and heading out my door to run. Every morning. In the beginning, it was a roughly 2 mile trot. Slowly but surely, I found ways to add a little distance here, a little distance there. So 5 days a week, I dragged myself out of bed, at the o’dark thirty, and ran around my neighborhood. On the weekends, I would go to the local rails to trails and run a longer run, roughly 5 miles. I was proud, but concerned…I wasn’t even clocking 15 miles a week at this point. How was I ever going to get to 26.2 miles in a single outing?
A little later that spring, business required me to start traveling to KY for a week out of each month. Much as I hated to leave my family, it occurred to me that it might be novel to run in a city, and seeing as I was to be staying in downtown Louisville, I knew I was about to get my big chance. The first morning that we were there, I awoke before the sun, pulled on my pants and headed out of the hotel. I had no idea where I was going, and what were the “good” and “bad” parts of town. Now…a quick note for those of you that may not realize this…I come equipped with my own form of GPS…that is Ghetto Positioning System. If there is a bad part of town? I will wind up there. So this? Not one of my more well thought out plans to be sure.
Anyway… I decided to just go. I quickly devised the ad hoc plan to just run to each intersection and let the lights dictate my route. Whichever crossing had the walk sign, that was the way I would turn. I carried on this way for a couple of miles, without incident. I ran through a little neighborhood of tidy looking brownstone type buildings, when I saw an SUV, stopped in the middle of the street, with its lights on and doors open. Something seemed a little dodgy about this to me, so I deemed this just as good a time to turn around and head back as any. As I did, I looked up and noticed that the building I had opted to stop and reverse directions in front of? The homeless shelter. Of course it was. Because I? Am never more than two turns away from being lost in the ghetto.
Later that morning, I told the story to my boss and coworkers. My local colleagues? Urged me NEVER to do that again. And I was instructed to run inside. On the treadmill. Suffice it to say that I did that one morning and then spent the rest of the trip with my running shoes in the closet.
Soon after I returned, my partner in crime came out to visit from MN, and we went for a run together. I almost broke him, and really worried that he was going to back out. (He didn’t.) It was at this point, that my husband (and kids) decided that they too would like to start running. To say that this shocked and amazed me would be something far shy of an understatement. My husband, up until this point had always stated that he only ran when being chased or chasing something. Apparently he had decided that perhaps it would be fun to chase me. I'm so glad that he did. But that is another whole blog post in and of itself.
The next month, when I returned to Louisville, one of my local colleagues had taken the time to find me a safe route to run…which I did, every morning. But before I left for Louisville...the morning before I left, to be exact, I ran another 5K, the Cumberland Valley Rails To Trails Race, Ride and Ramble...this time with my husband and son. I PR'd by almost 3 minutes, coming in at 28:03, and finishing second for my age division.
When I returned from that trip, I picked up right where I had left off, still running 5 days a week, now 2 times a day on soccer practice days plus one weekend run. Though I had a fantastic frequency going, I still didn’t seem to be able to break that distance threshold. I was already getting up at the crack of dawn, to run my paltry 2 miles…how on earth was I ever going to get my distance any further, without getting up even earlier?? I really started to fret.
Before too long, it would be time to head back to KY. I knew I already had one “safe” route in my pocket, but I really kind of had a hankering to find some other courses. A little Googling and I found an app and website, called WalkJogRun. You plugged in where you were, and it would spit out any local route that other runners had saved. Perfect! I quickly downloaded the app and started looking. Before long, I noticed that it also had a number of training plans available. I found one for a first time marathon, loaded it, and almost immediately had a gigantic sense of relief. It was May. The program was 20 weeks long. I had 20 weeks until the marathon. I could do this!
And so I began really training for my very first marathon.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Taking The Next Step
***if you are new here, and have no idea what this is going to be about you have two intelligent choices:
a) Leave Now.
b) Start here, then work your way back, m'kay?
the thing about platitudes is that, while they sound pretty catchy, in general, they don't really tell you anything you didn't already know...however, sometimes you just need to hear them anyway. This? Was one of those times...and thankfully, there is no shortage of running axioms, with which to bolster one's spirits. At the end of the day, they pretty much all boil down to one simple fact...anyone who runs? Is a runner.
This would become my mantra, post blister.
As summer turned to fall, and school and sports started back up, I recommitted myself to running. The boy child had twice weekly soccer practice, at a field that was an almost perfect 3 mile distance away. Starting in September, on the nights that he had practice, I would come home from work, get changed, and run to his practice. Some nights, if I was feeling especially ambitious, I would run a few laps around the walking trail that lines the park as well. It felt good to get into a routine, and I enjoyed trying to better my time with each outing. I even added slightly longer runs into my weekends here and there and really, truly started to feel like an actual RUNNER.
Fall slowly turned the corner towards winter though, and soccer season came to an end. Without the scheduled regularity of practice, it was suddenly eleventy billion more times difficult to carve out time to run...what had been 3 times a week suddenly dwindled down to once weekly runs...I was crestfallen, and had no idea how to get my groove back. Where and how would I find the time to run?
It was right around this timeframe that I had expressed my desire to eventually run a marathon to one of my best friends, and had explained that I just didn't know which race I wanted to aspire to. It was at that point that he started trying to sell me on his company sponsored marathon, The Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon .
"Sure" I said..."Sure, I'll come to Minnesota. In October. Right-o..." A short haggling period ensued, and we finally came to the agreement that I would come out and run this marathon if and only if...
a) He ran it with me. (**updated for clarity's sake: This was *my* condition...)
b) He paid for the registration fee. (**this was not so much a condition, but the offer he made to convince me to do it)
...now, in all honesty, I would have done it regardless, but I figured, if he paid the fee, he would be less likely to not do it. I also figured, if he was training for it as well, I would have less temptation to give up...I would owe it to not only myself to follow through, but to him as well...come heck or highwater, this. was. happening.
a) Leave Now.
b) Start here, then work your way back, m'kay?
the thing about platitudes is that, while they sound pretty catchy, in general, they don't really tell you anything you didn't already know...however, sometimes you just need to hear them anyway. This? Was one of those times...and thankfully, there is no shortage of running axioms, with which to bolster one's spirits. At the end of the day, they pretty much all boil down to one simple fact...anyone who runs? Is a runner.
This would become my mantra, post blister.
As summer turned to fall, and school and sports started back up, I recommitted myself to running. The boy child had twice weekly soccer practice, at a field that was an almost perfect 3 mile distance away. Starting in September, on the nights that he had practice, I would come home from work, get changed, and run to his practice. Some nights, if I was feeling especially ambitious, I would run a few laps around the walking trail that lines the park as well. It felt good to get into a routine, and I enjoyed trying to better my time with each outing. I even added slightly longer runs into my weekends here and there and really, truly started to feel like an actual RUNNER.
Fall slowly turned the corner towards winter though, and soccer season came to an end. Without the scheduled regularity of practice, it was suddenly eleventy billion more times difficult to carve out time to run...what had been 3 times a week suddenly dwindled down to once weekly runs...I was crestfallen, and had no idea how to get my groove back. Where and how would I find the time to run?
It was right around this timeframe that I had expressed my desire to eventually run a marathon to one of my best friends, and had explained that I just didn't know which race I wanted to aspire to. It was at that point that he started trying to sell me on his company sponsored marathon, The Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon .
"Sure" I said..."Sure, I'll come to Minnesota. In October. Right-o..." A short haggling period ensued, and we finally came to the agreement that I would come out and run this marathon if and only if...
a) He ran it with me. (**updated for clarity's sake: This was *my* condition...)
b) He paid for the registration fee. (**this was not so much a condition, but the offer he made to convince me to do it)
...now, in all honesty, I would have done it regardless, but I figured, if he paid the fee, he would be less likely to not do it. I also figured, if he was training for it as well, I would have less temptation to give up...I would owe it to not only myself to follow through, but to him as well...come heck or highwater, this. was. happening.
Monday, October 22, 2012
Getting Off On the Wrong Foot
***if you are new here, and have no idea what this is going to be about you have two intelligent choices:
a) Leave Now.
b) Start here, then work your way back, m'kay?
…and now, the exciting conclusion of The Great Blister Disaster. As I mentioned yesterday…ok, ok, you caught me…not really yesterday. It’s a couple days later. But from a business perspective, it’s the next business day…so can we just go with that? …like you had a choice anyway.
What was I saying? Oh, yes, blisters.
So, the misguided, misdirected run in TX left me with two things. A new personal record for the longest distance run and a big honking blister, square on the ball of my foot. I spent the rest of the vacation largely ignoring it, and hoping it would just go away, but blisters aren’t fond of giving up their claim, if you don’t stay off of them. A few days after we returned from vacation, some friends of ours, who live roughly 3 miles away, were leaving on their own vacation. They asked if we could look in on their pooches, and I thought “Hey, perfect excuse to run…3 miles there, have a drink, feed the dogs, then get back out on the road, and run 3 miles back. What could possibly go wrong???”
So, early on Saturday morning – or at least what I thought of as early back then – around 7 AM, I strapped on my trusty Newtons and headed out the door. The sun was already up, the air was already still and it was already pretty darned warm. Not TX warm, mind you, but definitely mid-July in PA warm. Off I ran, towards their house, with all the best of intentions. The first mile went pretty smoothly, with some gentle inclines and declines. The second mile smacked me in the face with a pretty obnoxious hill, but I made it up the whole thing, without stopping to walk, no matter how badly I wanted to. I was rewarded for making it up this “monster” of a hill with a swift downhill, that really set my blister to rubbing. Hmmm. Hadn’t thought about that…
The end of the second mile brought me to a hill I had forgotten all about, despite having driven it hundreds of times, on my way to their house. I looked at it, panicked a bit, and then gave myself permission to walk…at the next mailbox. I managed to squeeze about 5 more “next mailboxes” out, before finally giving in, and walking the rest of the way up. As is so often the case, I was again rewarded with a downhill, which led straight to their house.
I scurried inside, in hot pursuit of air conditioning and a cold drink.
A good long(ish) while later, and I was faced with the harsh reality that I was going to have to go back. Suffice it to say that the trip home, was less successful than the trip there. It was hotter, sunnier, steamier and I was already tired, sweaty and cursing my blister.
By the time I got home, I was red in the face, out of breath and basically, downright miserable. I made the executive decision, then and there, that I was not going to take another step in running shoes, until that blister was gone. And I stuck to that. It’d be weeks before I ran again…and even then, I was hesitant, and unsure whether I even had the right to call myself a runner…
a) Leave Now.
b) Start here, then work your way back, m'kay?
…and now, the exciting conclusion of The Great Blister Disaster. As I mentioned yesterday…ok, ok, you caught me…not really yesterday. It’s a couple days later. But from a business perspective, it’s the next business day…so can we just go with that? …like you had a choice anyway.
What was I saying? Oh, yes, blisters.
So, the misguided, misdirected run in TX left me with two things. A new personal record for the longest distance run and a big honking blister, square on the ball of my foot. I spent the rest of the vacation largely ignoring it, and hoping it would just go away, but blisters aren’t fond of giving up their claim, if you don’t stay off of them. A few days after we returned from vacation, some friends of ours, who live roughly 3 miles away, were leaving on their own vacation. They asked if we could look in on their pooches, and I thought “Hey, perfect excuse to run…3 miles there, have a drink, feed the dogs, then get back out on the road, and run 3 miles back. What could possibly go wrong???”
So, early on Saturday morning – or at least what I thought of as early back then – around 7 AM, I strapped on my trusty Newtons and headed out the door. The sun was already up, the air was already still and it was already pretty darned warm. Not TX warm, mind you, but definitely mid-July in PA warm. Off I ran, towards their house, with all the best of intentions. The first mile went pretty smoothly, with some gentle inclines and declines. The second mile smacked me in the face with a pretty obnoxious hill, but I made it up the whole thing, without stopping to walk, no matter how badly I wanted to. I was rewarded for making it up this “monster” of a hill with a swift downhill, that really set my blister to rubbing. Hmmm. Hadn’t thought about that…
The end of the second mile brought me to a hill I had forgotten all about, despite having driven it hundreds of times, on my way to their house. I looked at it, panicked a bit, and then gave myself permission to walk…at the next mailbox. I managed to squeeze about 5 more “next mailboxes” out, before finally giving in, and walking the rest of the way up. As is so often the case, I was again rewarded with a downhill, which led straight to their house.
I scurried inside, in hot pursuit of air conditioning and a cold drink.
A good long(ish) while later, and I was faced with the harsh reality that I was going to have to go back. Suffice it to say that the trip home, was less successful than the trip there. It was hotter, sunnier, steamier and I was already tired, sweaty and cursing my blister.
By the time I got home, I was red in the face, out of breath and basically, downright miserable. I made the executive decision, then and there, that I was not going to take another step in running shoes, until that blister was gone. And I stuck to that. It’d be weeks before I ran again…and even then, I was hesitant, and unsure whether I even had the right to call myself a runner…
Friday, October 19, 2012
In The Beginning...
So, in an unprecedented effort to stick to my guns on the story telling…let’s open that whole can of worms that is otherwise known as running.
As I alluded to yesterday, I rekindled my romance with running last in March(ish) of 2011. Honestly, I blame Twitter. I started seeing tweets in my timeline about so and so finishing Day2 Week3 of the C25K program, and just *had* to find out what that was all about. Because I am nothing if not nosey. What I found out intrigued me. An app that purported to get you from sitting on the couch to *running* a full 5K in 12 weeks? An app that would provide you with a little voice inside your head, to tell you what to do next? So, basically training that I didn’t have to think about…just needed to follow instructions? Sign. Me. Up.
Of course, in typical pack animal fashion, I drafted one of my closest friends…the very one that had dragged me into the running store in the first place…to complete this program with me. And she did. For the next 12 weeks, we would get together, 3 nights a week, and do whatever the masochistic voice in the app told us to do. Honestly, in the beginning, it wasn’t anything too terrible. Walk for a minute, run for 90 seconds, do the hokey pokey…you know, the basic stuff. Over time, the walking became shorter, and the running became longer. Finally, on a Friday night in early June, we lined up at the starting line of the Race Against Poverty, and prepared to take the plunge.
After 12 weeks of strict adherence to the plan, I ran every step of the 3.1 mile course, without pain, and finished the race in 30:36. I was damned proud.
As soon as this was accomplished, we embarked upon the Bridge to 10K program, with the earnest belief and desire to step up to 6.2 miles deep into the summer. A few weeks in, we ran the Spirit of Gettysburg 5K. I eagerly anticipated setting a PR, as I just *knew* I should be able to crush my old time, based upon the longer distances I had already started putting in. It was an extremely hilly course, that wound through wide open battlefields, on a very hot morning. My time was 30:34, and I was *quite* disappointed.
Anyway, back to the Bridge to 10K, for about 5 weeks, all was well. And then July hit full force. It was HOT. It was HUMID. And our interest started to wane a wee bit. Finally, in mid-July, a trip to Texas, to visit the in-laws, put what would be the final nail in a (thankfully temporary) coffin on my running efforts…
With the best of intentions, I packed my running gear for a family vacation. My in-laws live on a beautiful lake in Texas. My sister in law informed me that the distance around the lake was approximately 3 miles. This was perfect. So I arose early, one morning, strapped on my shoes, and set out for a trot.
Now, the thing to know about where they live is that it is surprisingly hilly for Texas. Also? There is more than one lake in their neighborhood. I didn’t know either of these things as I set out on my run.
The first mile or so was fine…it was still very early, and relatively cool out. I came to a road aptly named “Lake Cross”, and started over it…a small way into it, I noticed that there was water on *both* sides of the street. Not wanting to cheat myself out of my 3 mile distance, I turned around and continued along the road I was originally on.
It went on for a long, long time.
Just shy of 6 miles to be exact.
By the time I returned to their home, it was 90 degrees. I was drenched, and I had a horrible blister on the ball of my foot.
Looking at my father in law I said “Your lake is *not* 3 miles around, it is closer to 6.”
Looking back at me, he said “There are two lakes.”
::crickets::
This is riveting stuff, no?
So, perhaps tomorrow we will have the exciting conclusion to the cliffhanger of the blister. I know, you can hardly wait.
As I alluded to yesterday, I rekindled my romance with running last in March(ish) of 2011. Honestly, I blame Twitter. I started seeing tweets in my timeline about so and so finishing Day2 Week3 of the C25K program, and just *had* to find out what that was all about. Because I am nothing if not nosey. What I found out intrigued me. An app that purported to get you from sitting on the couch to *running* a full 5K in 12 weeks? An app that would provide you with a little voice inside your head, to tell you what to do next? So, basically training that I didn’t have to think about…just needed to follow instructions? Sign. Me. Up.
Of course, in typical pack animal fashion, I drafted one of my closest friends…the very one that had dragged me into the running store in the first place…to complete this program with me. And she did. For the next 12 weeks, we would get together, 3 nights a week, and do whatever the masochistic voice in the app told us to do. Honestly, in the beginning, it wasn’t anything too terrible. Walk for a minute, run for 90 seconds, do the hokey pokey…you know, the basic stuff. Over time, the walking became shorter, and the running became longer. Finally, on a Friday night in early June, we lined up at the starting line of the Race Against Poverty, and prepared to take the plunge.
After 12 weeks of strict adherence to the plan, I ran every step of the 3.1 mile course, without pain, and finished the race in 30:36. I was damned proud.
As soon as this was accomplished, we embarked upon the Bridge to 10K program, with the earnest belief and desire to step up to 6.2 miles deep into the summer. A few weeks in, we ran the Spirit of Gettysburg 5K. I eagerly anticipated setting a PR, as I just *knew* I should be able to crush my old time, based upon the longer distances I had already started putting in. It was an extremely hilly course, that wound through wide open battlefields, on a very hot morning. My time was 30:34, and I was *quite* disappointed.
Anyway, back to the Bridge to 10K, for about 5 weeks, all was well. And then July hit full force. It was HOT. It was HUMID. And our interest started to wane a wee bit. Finally, in mid-July, a trip to Texas, to visit the in-laws, put what would be the final nail in a (thankfully temporary) coffin on my running efforts…
With the best of intentions, I packed my running gear for a family vacation. My in-laws live on a beautiful lake in Texas. My sister in law informed me that the distance around the lake was approximately 3 miles. This was perfect. So I arose early, one morning, strapped on my shoes, and set out for a trot.
Now, the thing to know about where they live is that it is surprisingly hilly for Texas. Also? There is more than one lake in their neighborhood. I didn’t know either of these things as I set out on my run.
The first mile or so was fine…it was still very early, and relatively cool out. I came to a road aptly named “Lake Cross”, and started over it…a small way into it, I noticed that there was water on *both* sides of the street. Not wanting to cheat myself out of my 3 mile distance, I turned around and continued along the road I was originally on.
It went on for a long, long time.
Just shy of 6 miles to be exact.
By the time I returned to their home, it was 90 degrees. I was drenched, and I had a horrible blister on the ball of my foot.
Looking at my father in law I said “Your lake is *not* 3 miles around, it is closer to 6.”
Looking back at me, he said “There are two lakes.”
::crickets::
This is riveting stuff, no?
So, perhaps tomorrow we will have the exciting conclusion to the cliffhanger of the blister. I know, you can hardly wait.
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