The Flying Pig Marathon...a week later

We watched the weather like...well...like people who were going to have to run a marathon in it for the week leading up to the race. Reports were pretty consistent. It was going to be hot. Humid. Hotter than previous years' races. Got it.

The morning of the race, we got up and headed out from our hotel for what was supposed to be a 1.2 mile walk to the start of the race. I would have liked to have been shivering in my sleeveless shirt and shorts, but I was comfortable in the morning air. Ahhh, well. Control the controllables.

Highlights and lowlights:
The walk to the race start was longer than 1.2 miles. There was no shuttle to the start of the race. No one about to run 26.2 miles really wants to go longer, so that was a bad thing. The physical start of the race may have been 1.2 miles from the hotel, but we had to walk all the way past the football stadium and then back around it and then back another half mile to our starting corrals, so that was more mileage than I wanted on my legs that morning. I admit to getting a little fussy trying to figure out where we needed to be.

Forrest Gump passed me as I was getting into the starting corral. Yep. THE Forrest Gump. Long hair, trucker cap, short shorts, yellow t-shirt, tube socks, classic shoes. The whole bit. I smiled.

The race started, and I passed the first 10 miles or so pretty well. The one blip was at mile 5 when I got to the aid stations to discover they had run out of cups. Seriously. The volunteers were standing there with gallon jugs of water pouring it into peoples' cupped hands. I had a small water bottle with me, and I refilled it, but I had visions of the Chicago disaster in my head, and I got a little wound up about having another 21 miles to go. Took me a couple of miles to calm down.

I was sticking to my plan of regular run/walk intervals. My nutrition was all over the place. I kind of just kept eating. The temperature started climbing. I started thinking I needed more salt. I hadn't trained with Gatorade, but I decided to take in a cup every aide station to give me some salt. I felt like I wasn't racing my plan, though. It was a loose plan going in, but I don't think I remembered it after about mile 4.

The wheels fell off the bus at about mile 13. I don't remember what happened exactly, but I remember feeling like I wasn't feeling nearly as good as I had felt on my first 20 miler, and I wasn't sure if I was even feeling close to how I had felt on my second twenty miler. I was still chatting with some folks out there, and I was still enjoying the day, but I became very aware that I was falling off the pace that I had held for the first half of the marathon.

I was really excited when I hit what I thought was going to be the fifteen mile marker, and it was actually the sixteen mile marker. Heck yeah! A free mile. Somehow, I had missed the previous mile marker. That's always a great moment in a marathon. I was pretty much walking more than running at that point. And I was feeling really discouraged. I kept telling myself to just keep moving forward and to stop beating myself up for how I was doing it. Running or walking, I was going to get to the finish.

At about mile 18, I hit my last highlight for the race when I discovered the guys handing out the Gu were all wearing University of Michigan caps. I actually ran through the aid station and high-fived all the guys while yelling, "Go Blue!" Those were my people. I have no idea where that burst of energy came from. And I hope they used hand sanitizer after I ran through. Cause yuck. I was gross.

After that point, I think I pretty much started generating a list of people that I wanted to punch. Marathons are funny. You run them because you want to see what you are made of. But then you start to get angry at what other people are made of when your race isn't going well. I ended up with an extensive list.
1. Forrest Gump. Yep. He made me smile at the beginning. But then he managed to pass me no fewer than five times over the course of the race. I don't know if he was stopping or going off course or what, but I never saw when I passed him. So it was a surprise every time he came up from behind me again. It was an unpleasant surprise because I would be slogging along, and all of a sudden the crowd would start to go crazy, and I would start to smile thinking that they were encouraging me, and then I would realize that it was just Forrest Gump. Passing me. Again.
2. Guy in the blue camouflage running shorts with the aviator sunglasses. First, he was running with his girlfriend, and she was having a hard time, so he kept putting his arm around her and pulling her closer to him. It irritated the fire out of me for her. If I'm trying to make forward motion, the last thing I need is a smelly idiot boyfriend trying to pull me laterally towards him. Moron. Then, as the miles passed (yes, I was with these people for miles 22-25), he started to clap and say, "Sunburn! Sunburn!" in a puerile chant that was just freaking annoying.
3. Weightlifting dude and his weightlifting girlfriend. They'd run a bit. Then start walking slowly. Then run a bit. Then start walking slowly. At one point, they actually dodged between me and someone else who was walking, only to then start walking slowly again so that I'd have to pass them. And when they were walking slowly, they were holding hands like they were out for a walk in the park.
4. Juggling guy. I got passed by him at about mile 24. He juggled six balls over the course of the whole race. And passed me. That was a bit demoralizing. So I wanted to punch him. A guy walking near me at that point also confided in me that he wanted to punch him, too. So that was good.

The thing is. I don't normally want to punch people. But I was working really hard to keep my head in the game, and any time I started to think about how disappointed I was in the run I was having, I started to get in a strange headspace. So I focused my energy outward. And that was kinda fun.

6 hours and 11 minutes. 6 hours. 11 minutes. 371 minutes.

Yeah. A definite Personal Worst in terms of marathon times. But it was a heck of a fun day in a lot of ways.

The finish line of the race was a tremendous disappointment. I was WAY at the back of the pack. I get that. But I ran for a very, very long time. When I got to the finish, I had to find someone to give me a medal. I didn't get a mylar blanket. I had to ask someone to take my photo at the finish line. I wandered under the bridge, and I saw a bunch of tables with cups on them, but there was no one there to tell me that it was for me. It was confusing. I kept walking.

I got to the back of the bridge, and I saw a whole bunch of tables being broken down by volunteers. I think I walked a good 50 yards wandering from one table to the next trying to figure out what food was available, and not a single person spoke to me. There was no one there to take my finisher's photo in front of the backdrop. It felt tremendously anti-climactic.

I walked out of the finisher's area to look for my husband, but there was no where to meet him. I finally asked a passing volunteer to use his phone to try to call Kevin. He seemed peeved. Okay. I used it anyway. Kevin didn't answer. I sat down. I waited. When Kevin finally found his way back to the finisher's area, he told me that there hadn't been any signage to direct him where to go.

We walked up the hill and asked a police officer where the hotel shuttles were. He directed us up the hill about 100 yards to a sign that said "hotel shuttle." We felt stupid. Until we sat there for fifteen minutes waiting and no shuttle came. 20 of us sat there together. Waiting. We started wandering up the hill towards a main street where a friend had offered to pick us up if we couldn't get the hotel shuttle. We found the buses another 200 yards up the hill. Next to no sign. Dang. If I had had anything left in my legs, I would have gone back down to tell the other poor suckers waiting by the sign. But I didn't. And I had about 25 minutes to get back to the hotel, take a shower, and check out. Had to go.

All around. A great day. Any race I get to run "with" my best friend, Jen, is a great race. Would I do this race again? Probably. I would want to be better trained. Faster. All that jazz. It was a pretty course. Most of the failings of the day had to do with the weather or within me. And that was alright with me. As for the finish line, well, that was probably the biggest bummer of the day, honestly. I have wanted to finish the Flying Pig for longer than I can remember, and I would have liked to have enjoyed the finish and getting the medal a lot more than I did. I have more empathy now for the BOTP finishers. And a stronger desire to get mid-pack again.

Up next? Not sure. Cross-training for a while and then the Indy half marathon this fall.

Well, holy crap, I'm running a marathon on Sunday. Magiccool?

I've survived much of taper madness. (And am still going through the "am i really ready?" phase of taper.)  I've had a lot of stress at work, and I'm trying to leave it all at home (or at work) to get my head on straight for Sunday.

Came across the notification that they are offering deferments due to the weather. Defer. For next year. Like not run Sunday and put it off for a year. I don't think my 20 milers will hang in my legs for that long, so I'm going to go ahead and run. Here's where we are at on this:

1. Going to be carrying some sort of fluid with me, I think. Visions of the Chicago marathon from that one really, really hot year are dancing in my head, and I'm thinking better safe than sorry. I may change my mind on Sunday morning, but that's where my head is right now. (And the Flying Pig people are already saying that they are doubling up on their fluids for Sunday).

2. Abandoning all time goals. Oh, wait. I already did that. Well, I'm abandoning them even more. They are even more left behind now. If I'm hot, I'm walking. Just gotta cover the 26.2 miles on my feet on Sunday, and that'll be a success. No watch.

3. Taking salt tabs. I have to pick them up yet, but I lose salt like no one's business on hot days. So I'll be taking some salt tabs with me.

4. Bought cooling cloths. Got this great thing called "Magicool". I'm not relishing the idea of lugging my weight in gear around on Sunday, but this looks like a good idea. It's a cloth. And it's cool. How bad can that be?

5. Relying on my training. I'm a pretty tough cookie. Even when I'm a little out of shape, I can get my head in the right space. Depending on that.

Finally, I'm going to enjoy the run. Seriously. This is going to be fun. Damn it.

300 and 1.85 to grow on...

Have had three runs this week post-20. First was a quick three. Not so hot. Second was a 5 that started slow and got faster by the mile. Today was supposed to be four. But dang, it felt so great, I went five. Can't remember the last time I felt like tacking on an extra mile.

Weather today? 48 degrees. A bit of a drizzle. A slight breeze. I have put in a request with my friend who works at NOAA for the same weather May 6th in Cincinnati. I think the government must have some sort of top-secret weather-controlling deal in their arsenal, and she would have access to it. I'm sure she'll pull some strings. I could do without the drizzle, but it was an otherwise perfect day for a run.

I'm excited that I hit 300 miles for the year so far by finishing today's run. I'm on par for a 1,000 mile year if I can keep up about 87 miles/month for the rest of the year. Considering that last year I ran a total of 387 miles, this would be an outstanding feat.

Random thought for the day: You can never use too much Bodyglide. Ever.

Random thought number two: 23 school days left until summer vacation.

Not so random thought: 14 days until the marathon.

Ahhh, sweet, sweet taper...how I have earned ye...

20 miler number two. Check. 

 

I knew it was going to be tough. I was running on tired legs after having done three solid runs this week plus one walk around a fairly hilly zoo yesterday. And my schedule had me with a week in between twenties, but it didn't work out that way. I don't think I've ever run two twenties in a row. I don't think I really ever want to do that again. But today, I earned the taper.

I got about three miles into my run, and I realized that my shoes were not tied properly. They kept loosening to the point of annoying me, and I thought I wasn't going to put up with that nonsense for the rest of the run. So, I plunked down on the side of the road to re-lace. I was out on a road that has, I believe, one house in a two-mile stretch. The rest of it is farmland. I seldom get passed by a vehicle. Today, I did. While I was sitting on the side of the road. Tying my shoes. The driver kind of hit the brake lights, but then he kept on driving. I got up and started to run again (feeling much better about my shoes) when it started to drizzle. Just enough drizzle to keep me content but enough to make me concerned that more was to come. 

Five more minutes in, the man in the truck came back. He had driven past me, and he had gotten all the way into town when he had seen the rain coming, so he turned around to come back to see if I needed a ride. Seriously. A full five minutes after he had left me. Our town is small enough that in that five minutes, he probably had gotten all the way to his house and parked in the driveway before coming back for me. How amazing is that that he would come all the way back to check on me? (And I know. I need to be cautious out there. Believe me, I get myself into a strange headspace about running on such a remote road at times. But today, I just want to think that was pretty darn cool.)

Ten miles in, and I was running well enough. I was hitting my intervals for my run/walk, and I was on pace to be where I was last week on my 20 miler. Unfortunately, my legs felt like they had last week after fifteen miles. Crap. Honestly, I set out this morning knowing I was going to have to tough it out no matter what. I was just hoping the tough it part wouldn't come so soon. 

13 miles in, and I realized I was running low on water. Lucky ducky me, though, I run past the IGA in town. And I had $2.00 with me. I used $1.00 to buy some water from the vending machine out front. And with the other $1.00, I ran in the store and bought some of those peanut butter crackers that come in the little packet. The guy in front of me in line let me cut--I'm not sure if it was my small purchase or because he was trying to do everyone in there a favor and get my stinky butt out of there as fast as possible. But when I stepped up to pay, he asked me if I was running back to the next town. This surprised me a little, and I said that I was kind of headed that way. Turns out he's been a runner before (not running now), so he's seen me running around town. Small town strikes again. 

15 miles in, I called my husband to let him know that I was starting to hurt, but I was going to finish, so I didn't want him to worry about when I would be arriving at home. And the last five miles took a really, really, really long time. But I finished.

So when I hit the Flying Pig course, I would really like to feel like I did last week. I hope that taper will do that for me. If I feel like I did this week, it's going to be a long day. But I earned the taper. And an Anchor Steam. (My DH went out and bought me Bell's Oberon and Anchor Steam today...how lucky am I?)

The rules of long runs

We got back from our trip to Philadelphia, and I was scheduled to run 20. HA! I forgot the first rule of long runs--I don't go out to run them doing an "I might run..." with my distance. Oops. Loaded up the Camelback with water and strawberry banana gels--enough to run 20. But I set out with the mentality that I might not do 20, and I gave myself permission to turn around at any point, and guess how well that run went?

My legs were bricks. My lungs were not cooperating. My pace was turtle slow. I couldn't stop looking at my watch. Most importantly, my head wasn't in it. Damn. I was back home after 11 miles, and I was once again kicking myself and wondering what the hell I was even doing out there. I was thinking, "I have a marathon in 5 weeks, and I can't even comfortably cover 11 miles?"

Rule number 2 of long runs--remember that sometimes they suck, and sometimes they don't. I'm sure that there are plenty who disagree with me and would say that success on long runs isn't random. It's not entirely random. Clearly. There is nutrition. Rest. Previous mileage. Mentality. Even weather. But there is also this other thing, and I often know how a run is going to go within minutes of stepping out for my first mile. So, I headed out Saturday morning for my 20 miler, and it didn't suck. In fact, it went really well considering where I'm setting the bar right now.

Things that worked for me:
         I walked for about five minutes to warm up. My knee has been a little bit twitchy lately, and the little walking warm-up actually helped.
         I abandoned monitoring my mile pace. I'll do that on my shorter run days from here on out, but I have been beating myself up every single long run because I'm not remotely happy with how fast I'm running. Beating myself up isn't making me run any faster.
         I ran "easy" through mile 15. I actually did a route where the toughest miles were 8-14, so I focused on making those miles feel easy. Then, I ran consistently through the last miles.
         I took in a gel every 30 minutes. (I need to pack something else, though...I am so sick of strawberry banana power gels that I never want to see one again.)
         I finished feeling like I could do another mile. Since the marathon has 6.2 more, I was happy to feel like I wasn't dying at the end of this one.

I don't have a profound closing thought on this one. The run fell on an odd weekend. I was supposed to have run 20 last week, 12 this past weekend, then 20 again next weekend. Now I'm trying to figure out my schedule for the last weeks before the marathon. Too early to taper. So right now I'm thinking about doing another 20 next weekend, then 12, then 8, then marathon day. Alternately, I'm thinking about amping up my mileage during the week this week and running 16-18 on tired legs next weekend, then 12, then 8, then marathon. All opinions welcome.

Checking in from Philadelphia

Quick. And running-related.

I DID run 18 miles two weekends ago. It was tough. And boring. And not so very much fun. But I covered the 18 miles. (And I ran out of water...that was really tough, too.) But it didn't kill me. So that was good, too.

THEN, my daughter came up/down with pneumonia. It started on the Sunday night of my 18 miler. She couldn't lay down without vomiting from coughing. The week that followed was full of not working, lots of laundry, several runs to the doctor and pharmacy, and very little sleep. I'm a mom. It means I'm a slower runner than I used to be and that small people puke on me. I'm okay with that. But it was a tough, tough week.

THEN, my parents showed up to watch my daughter for the week while my husband and I flew off to Philadelphia so that I could present at a conference this week. That was tough, too. I packed my running shoes, but tomorrow will be the first day that I get on a treadmill. Running downtown Philly doesn't appeal to me--too many stoplights. But I'd love to get out to Fairmount park. It is amazing. I have put several miles on my legs with all the walking I've been doing, and I have been going to bed every night exhausted. But I've gotta run. Tomorrow. This weekend.

Like I said, I'm a mom now. Stuff gets in the way. Puke gets in the way. And I'm okay with that. (But it also means I better get more okay with a long, long, long, slow, slow, slow marathon.)

Yesterday's run was brought to me by the letter "R"

Running stroller + Ruby Grace + wind Resistance + Reality + REALLY warm

Yesterday was the start of a much-needed four-day weekend, and I took advantage of the free morning to pull the running stroller out of the closet and take the Rooster out for a run. A tough, tough run.

There was a lot going on. Roo is now 25 pounds big. Even though we bought a top-of-the-line running stroller, that's still a bit of weight to push. And there was a wind. I felt like I was trying to push a small horse down the road. A small, reluctant horse. The 70+ degree day was beautiful. It was the hottest I've been on a run in months. I was drenched by the halfway point. So grateful for my small, reluctant horse of a running stroller to carry my water bottle!

I intended to run somewhere between four and eight miles. Thunderstorms were threatening. I wasn't sure how Roo was going to do in the stroller for that length of time. And I was waiting for a call that was going to change my schedule for the day, so I felt like I couldn't commit to a specific distance.

All that being said...what a great, tough run! Roo is a champ in the running stroller. We talked for the whole run. She pointed out every bird, butterfly, and big tree along the way. Whenever I drank, she drank (never too early to instill an understanding of the importance of hydration). And she loved the ride so much that when we got home, she insisted on staying in the stroller for her morning snack.

I do not always gauge runs by the distance, and yesterday was all about gauging by effort required to finish the run. Despite only getting in five very slow miles, I felt like I had gotten in a very hard eight. More stroller runs to come, for sure.

18 miler coming up this weekend.