After all, there's only one more week until Dopey...

Life got in the way again. But it didn't get in the way of running. So a week from today, I'll be in my hotel room in Florida (knock on wood--I'm a nut job about traveling and won't believe this is all going to come together until I am standing at the expo). There's a bag at the end of the bed where I'm tossing everything I think I'll need in Florida. And I'm watching the weather like a hawk.

Four pictures above. The magic band package--I'm taking my mom with me to Disney. She's not been  to Disney in 30+ years. So we're heading out together. Crazy.

That's Godzilla the horse. He is spending his Christmas vacation in the pasture across from our house. He is one of the Culver Black Horse Troop horses. So I caught a horse selfie at the end of one of my taper runs. Taper!

That's me in the Culver shirt... 80 degree run inside (or at least it felt like it). And it was 6 degrees outside. So I opened a window and took a picture. Grateful to have hit taper right at the point of the freezing temps.

And on the last day of my last mock Dopey (2.5/5/10/20 runs over four days), I came home to find this cake. Yep, I'm coming for you, Dopey!

Working up a packing list now...

Sick, sick, sick... and 45 days left until Dopey

Once I put a plan on paper, I don't deviate much from it. Doesn't really matter if it's a running plan, a teaching plan, or a moving plan. Oh, I'll tweak it. I'll tweak it right up until the plan is set in motion, but I find comfort in sticking to a plan. I put thought into my plans. Or I put my trust in the people who made the plans. In the case of my Dopey training, I'm trusting Hal Higdon. He's gotten me through more than one marathon; I'd like to shake his hand someday. 

(The exception for the "stick to the plan rule" may be race day. On race day, I always say that I go in with a plan, but then I am totally prepared to throw the plan out the window the moment the gun goes off.)

For the last two weeks, I've had to flip my Wednesday, mid week long run to Tuesday. Family schedules and much shorter days mean that trying to get in eight in the middle of the week is rough. Just tweaking the plan. I headed out on Tuesday night, and by the time I was home, my throat was killing me. I couldn't talk. A cold was about to hit me full force.

I like to think that I'm a solitary sufferer; when I get sick, I like to lock myself in a room, curl up in a fetal position, and whine to myself about the state of affairs. I doubt my husband would agree with this assessment; I'm pretty sure he would argue that I'm a big baby. By Wednesday morning, I was in full-on sick mode. I managed to teach my two short classes, but I was home in bed by 2:00. No run for me on Wednesday.

I was determined to stick to the weekend schedule. It was to be a mini-Dopey--3 on Friday, 8 on Saturday, 18 on Sunday. So Friday night I got my run in. Good enough. But the weather today didn't look promising. And my husband had a hockey game to coach. And our daughter has been feeling kind of crummy, too. Life was getting in the way of running. 

I got up this morning to pouring rain. The temperature was dropping. And I am still at about 70 percent. So a tweaking of the plan needed to happen. I got out and ran 3 in the rain at about 8:30 this morning. Tomorrow, 8 miles. Monday (thank you, Thanksgiving vacation) 18 miles. 

A month and a half until Disney. Hard to believe it. Still need to buy plane tickets. 

13.1 and then some--Indianapolis Half at Fort Ben Race Report

Flat Kim (picture on the left) became less-than-flat Kim today (picture on the right) for the annual pilgrimage to the Indianapolis Half Marathon at Fort Ben. The picture on the right is missing a key figure. I'll get there, though.

Highlights:

• My long run was scheduled to be 15 miles to prep for Dopey, so I planned to get to the 13.1 race early, run two miles, and then jump into the race with a couple of minutes to spare at the start (and a fresh pair of shoes and a dry shirt). I did it. Doing it was actually the highlight. There was a lot of me that wanted to call it good if I just did the 13.1 in a race (we all usually push harder in a race), but I know I need the miles on my legs for Dopey. So I got to the race site at 7:15, headed out for a two-mile run at 7:30, stopped back at the car and changed into a fresh pair of shoes and a clean shirt, and made it to the race start. The two miles were also in a flat park with several clean porta potties, so I got three (yes, three) stops in at the porta potties before heading to the long lines at the race start.
• My other goal for today was to run a 60/30 run/walk for all 15 miles. I was hoping to finish feeling just fine. That's the best phrase I can come up with. Just fine. And I did. All the way through. In fact, I was so "just fine" that I was laughing and smiling as I finished the race (but that was mostly for some giddiness related to two bullets from now). 
• My nutrition plan mostly worked. I went with my new Nathan pack . I filled the bladder with water and put an amphipod bottle filled with one pack of Ucan in the front of the vest. I took a drink from the UCan bottle every eight minutes or so until it was gone, and I never felt like I had a major dip in energy. I was hungry, though... so I ended up supplementing with gels earlier and more often than I had planned. 
• I beat the woman wearing the striped tights. Every race, I seem to have someone whom I'd really like to beat. At the Tampa marathon, it was the woman in the black tube top (I didn't beat her). At the Flying Pig, it was (so many!) the guy dressed like Forrest Gump, the couple who were holding hands as they ran, and the juggler (I wanted to punch that guy in the throat). (I didn't beat any of them.) Today, I was trading places with two or three people through the whole race. I picked up striped tights girl at mile 4, and we traded places over an over again. I knew she was my person for this race. I caught her at mile 11.5. She passed me one more time. And then it was game on/game over. I was determined to beat her in. And I did. (And I get how random and strange that seems--she may have started after I did...what do I know? But I play interesting mental games with myself when I'm running.)

Lowlights:

• Clearly, there's no Jen in the picture at the start line. We always take a picture at the start together. And then she goes on and kicks my ass in the race. But we always start together. And she couldn't come this time. It was a lonely, strange morning without Jen there. 
• I have been maintaining about 12:30 pace with my run/walks in training, so I was hoping to hit that today. I ended up at exactly 13:00 pace. I can go faster. But I didn't. Part of the reason I didn't was because I knew I would be driving myself home (two+ hours), and I didn't actually want to be completely gassed on the front end. Sometimes I prioritize one goal over another, and today it was most important to me that I maintain consistency in my intervals.  
• Technology continues to be a bit of a challenge. To maintain battery life, I turned off the heart rate piece of my Apple Watch, but I wonder if that also somehow made the watch less accurate? My final mileage on the AW was 13.83. I asked a couple of people as we were closing in on the finish line, though, and theirs were closer to accurate. It was hard to check progress during the race (hindered, too, by having to fight the "I'm two miles ahead!" mentality). 
• Last lowlight came right before the race. I tried my new Nathan pack today, and I realized right before the race that I didn't get Bodyglide in the right spots on my arms. I stopped in the med tent, found three men in there, and they asked me what I needed. I asked if they had Vaseline. They managed to take me seriously for about three seconds and then broke out in giggles. They tried to hide it, but it was ridiculous. A little bit douche-baggy, really. (And I didn't chafe on my arms, btw. I did chafe in a couple of other spots. Holy HECK!)

Next actual scheduled race is Dopey's 5K. I updated my log today, and I have 933 miles in for the year. Closing in on that 1,000 mark really quickly. Here's hoping for an injury-free fall. 

Moving the Wall--Week 2--The adjustments

If I were smarter (and if I wanted to take a more scientific approach to this whole thing), I would have looked at the list of all the things that concerned me on last week's run and tweaked one thing to see if that would make a difference. 

I'm not smart. I tweaked everything. 

1. I ate a better dinner the night before. I've been trying to cut calories in a smart way during the week to drop some weight (it is taking forever), but I have to make sure that the night before a long run I'm not hungry. So I ate well last night. 

2. I didn't have gels to take with me on the run. It was an emergency last Sunday morning but not enough of an emergency for me to actually sit down and order some online this week. So I found myself this morning staring down an 11 mile run without any nutrition again. I started rummaging around in the kitchen and came across this pack from Generation UCan . Seemed like a good idea this morning before I started, so I mixed it up and planned to drink it while I ran. I also tucked a couple of packets of my daughter's fruit snacks into my shorts. 

3. I listened to a Runner's World podcast this week with Jeff Galloway talking about his run/walk intervals, and I was inspired to go shorter on my intervals. I have been running 2/1 for as long as it is sustainable (see the Wall) and then rolling with a survival of the fittest mentality for the remainder of the run. After listening to Galloway talk about intervals as short as 30/30, I was thinking it was time for a change. If you haven't heard this interview with him, it's worth a listen. (He's just so darn cool!). 

4. I run the same direction every week when I run the lake. This week, I decided I'd run in the opposite direction. Not exactly sure why. But I was tweaking stuff. So why not tweak all the things?

How'd it go? Awesome. Which is kind of a problem. Because now I'm convinced that I have to do ALL these things every single time for a long run to go well. When really, one of the things might have been enough. What really worked, though?

The Galloway talk convinced me to try a 60 run/30 walk interval from the first step I took out the door. His argument is that the point of that frequency of run/walk intervals will prevent fatigue and allow for whatever is in the legs to last more consistently over the duration of the run. Since I've been running a 2/1 interval for as long as I could sustain it, the 60/30 interval is technically the same amount of walking. And it worked for me today. I not only maintained the 60/30 interval for the full 10.7 miles, but I felt like I could go even further. 

The other significant shift for me was with nutrition. I mixed up the drink like a rookie--powder everywhere, too much water in the bottle on the front end. Mental note for next time: fill the water bottle halfway with water. Add the powder. Fill it the rest of the way with water. Mix it up. Yep. Gotta remember that for next time. My kitchen counter got half the powder. 

Even though my kitchen counter got half the powder, the uCAN did the trick today. I took a small sip of my bottle every third or fourth walk interval all the way around the lake. I never got hungry (a problem in past runs). And I never had an energy dip (another problem on past runs). And the one packet (130 calories) was enough for the whole run. I did have to carry a second bottle of water (just water) with me because periodically it felt like I needed to drink something to water down the other thing I was drinking. And it ended up being a 2 hour, 14 minute run, so 130 calories in that time wasn't likely enough. I'll have to do some more research around this. But the point? No dips. Not a one. Picking up some more uCAN today to play around with it on long runs to come. Still need to find a better solution for carrying beverages on the run, though. 

And the question of the day coming out of the run intervals is if I should be doing that interval for every run? Or should the shorter runs during the week be done differently? If so, how? Why? Another thing to research.

Run on friends. 

This week's running log: 26.54 miles.

This year's running log: 793.79 miles. 

Trying to move the wall

I headed out for my long run yesterday morning--I planned to do a 2/1 run/walk ratio for 10.5 miles around the lake here. The Dopey Challenge training plan called for 9 miles, so I was shooting to feel good through 9 miles (in as much as one can control such a thing), and then reward myself with a "run when you feel like it, walk when you don't" mentality for the last mile and a half.

One nice part about yesterday was that I woke up with a stiff neck. Or stiff left side of my neck. Like I had an urge to try to massage a kink in my neck every few seconds. How might that be considered "nice?" Well, it distracted me from any other discomfort I might have been having on the run. I was so preoccupied by the tightness in my neck that my legs felt awesome. For 7.5 miles. And then not so much.

Is it possible that I hit a wall at 7.5? Maybe. A mental wall, at least.



I have been running consistent mileage all summer--short runs during the week of 3-5 miles and a long run on the weekend of 10.5. Often lots of walking on those long runs. I don't mind that. But I do mind that I haven't gotten to the point that the full 10.5 feels easier. I wonder how long that will take.

Some guesses on yesterday:
1. Underfueled. I didn't eat much the night before the run, and I have been cutting calories for a few weeks to try to drop some weight, so I was a bit behind going in. I took a gel with me, but I need to order some more--I usually take two over the course of my long run, and I was just out.

2. Dehydrated. It is August and humid. But I didn't want to hand carry a full water bottle around the lake with me. I have been running with a waist belt with one water bottle in it and a hand bottle with a strap on it, but the hand bottle with the strap on it has been driving me nuts. So I put a bottle in my waist pack, and I took a little plastic water bottle that I knew I could drop in someone's recycling bin as I was running. Don't think that was enough. When I am running, and I have to think about rationing out water, that's a layer of thinking that isn't helpful. Especially on an already mentally taxing long run.

3. Who knows?

I did save a bug that found itself in the unfortunate position of being turtled on its back and kicking next to the road. Felt like I was earning some points in the world. I'm not a bug fun. But that little guy needed some help.

On strength training and habits and deeds and forward motion...

I hate lifting. I hate burpees. I hate strength training. I hate planks. Yeah. I've said these things for years. When I first started out training and racing for triathlons, I could rely pretty heavily on the balance between swimming, biking, and running to make up for any deficits I had even though I wasn't strength training. So rather than do an upper body workout with weights, I'd swim a couple of miles and call it a day. And man, my arms were ripped, so I didn't see the point of lifting. I looked good; I felt good. I was a hella fast swimmer compared to most of my competition. Why lift? I was also often doing two-a-days to try to get in the mileage in the three disciplines, so who has time to lift? And why should I do something I don't want to do when I'm getting the results I want doing the things that I want to do? 

Watch your thoughts. They become words. Watch your words. They become deeds. Watch your deeds. They become habits. Watch your habits. They become character. Character is everything.--attributed to just about everyone but me...

I often see this on an inspirational poster in a classroom or quoted in some leadership text. I'm sure you've seen it or some version of it. And I am a firm believer in the power of language to inspire and effect change, so some of this certainly rings true to me. I don't know that I see the relationship between "words" and "deeds" and "habits" the way that this speaker implies, but this isn't a philosophy blog, it's a running blog, so I need to dial back the teacher brain a bit.... on to the point...

I think that I have been saying that I hate lifting and burpees and planks for so long that it has impacted my ability to find a way to do them. My words have become deeds and habits and... well, not character, honestly. That's taking it a bit too far. Really more just like excuses. "I hate burpees" isn't about character. Let's be clear. 

But my physical reality has shifted substantially in the 18+ years that I've been training and racing. My daughter is now 7 1/2, and in the 7 1/2 years since she was born, I have spent nearly all my training/racing time running. Not biking. Not swimming. Not competing in triathlons. Missing-in-action is my ripped upper body (for now, at least), and it's been replaced by arms perfectly capable of swinging a 7-year-old girl around when she wants a dizzying spin in the yard, but those arms are unrecognizable to my triathlete self. And out of the mouths of babes, add to that the fact that my filterless-mouthed daughter so nicely pointed out to me that the skin on my arms looks a little like the skin on our Basset hound (OUCH!). She thought it was funny. I cringed. 

My "I hate" words have come back to bite me in that I've allowed my dislike for lifting and burpees and planks to override what my body needs. I am amazing at moral licensing--that mental glitch that allows me to think that because I'm doing something good (running 100+ miles a month), I am somehow licensed to also do something not-so-good (skipping the stuff I've mentioned here). And I just have to do better.

Sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do in order to be able to do the things you want to do. 

True that. I wonder, though, if it would be more useful (herculean?) for me to change my thinking about strength training altogether so that I start to think of it as a thing I want to do. (Is that even possible?)  I certainly want the results that it promises. So perhaps focusing on the results will help me overcome this mental hurdle? For now, though, I'm taking the "streaking" approach. If I don't like doing something, I just do it a whole lot until I like it. Like every day. So I started this morning--planks and burpees at the end of my run. And planks and burpees every day until they become habits. And results. Wish me luck. Relentless forward motion, friends.  

An Ultra? Can I even be serious?

The link to the Lighthouse 100 ultra marathon popped up in my newsfeed today on Facebook, and that, of course, launched me into a full hour's worth of fantasizing about running an ultra on the shores of Lake Michigan in early June. Of course! Who wouldn't? (My husband... he wouldn't...I get that it's a little bit nutty...)

My longest run is 26.2 miles. And I don't remember a single run of 26.2 miles that ended with me wanting to run another step. In fact, to be fair, here is my face at the end of my last mary (when I discovered that I had to climb 40 steps to get out of the stadium that was hosting the finish line): 

So it's not like I've ever really said to myself at the end of a marathon, "Yep! I wanna do that a second time! Right now!" or "Meh, I really need a belt buckle instead of a medal to hang around my neck." 

Yet somehow, the ultra marathon has always intrigued me. I watched the Badwater Marathon documentary  called Running on the Sun and was absolutely enchanted by the guy who had his toenails surgically removed because he was sick of losing them on long runs (I hate toenails anyway), or the older man who gave me the quote that inspires this blog-- "I always start these events with very lofty goals. Like I think I'm going to do something special. And after a point of body deterioration, the goals get evaluated down. I always get to a point where the best I can hope for is to avoid throwing up on my shoes," said by Ephraim Romesberg--Badwater Ultramarathon participant. Seriously, just watch the first two minutes of that video. "I don't think there's a thing about this that's good for the body," says the race organizer. It must be good for the soul.

I feel like I should dig into this idea more, but I also don't feel like I'm up to digging too deeply tonight. A couple of ideas are sitting right at the front of my mind. The first is that I have the foundation for the mental resume to do an ultra. I've done two races before that have taken me fourteen plus hours to complete. And I was on the verge of some pretty dark places in those races, but "relentless forward motion" (my mantra) pulled me through. I imagine the dark places on an ultra run are different from the dark places on an Ironman, but I sure would like to find out. 

The second idea on my mind is pace. My last full marathon (in April of this year) took me five hours and fifty six minutes to complete. That was nearly an hour over what I was hoping to do. It wasn't my slowest marathon, but it was nowhere near to my fastest (4:31). I ended up at 13:31 pace when I was hoping for closer to 12:30 pace. And lately, even my shorter runs have been in the 12+ pace range. That's miserable for me. I just am not at the pace that I'd like to be at. And in the same way that I am not at the weight I'd like to be at, I look at it almost like a clinician. "Hmmm, that's really interesting! I wonder what could fix that!" but nothing much changes from looking at it from that angle.

I'm not yet serious. But I'm thinking about it. I wonder if I'll somehow let fate determine my destiny on this one; if there are still spaces for registration after Dopey, and if I have the will do it it, perhaps I'll sign on. Two kinds of crazy in one year? 

Cash Money... and hydration challenges

Who says you can't get rich running? I'm still waiting for my Brooks sponsorship to come through, so I'm not rich yet. But I find a lot of spare change out on the road. Our family total for the summer so far: $10.65. And yep, $10.00 of it came from this one big find. Seriously, I'm not ever fast enough that I should pass up some cash. Today was a dime. I'm working my way up towards a cup of coffee. 

Do you have any tricks for staying hydrated? When we were on the road, I realized I didn't like the taste of the water in our cabin. We were fifteen minutes from the closest store, and I kept forgetting to pick up bottled water anyway, so I felt like I was always slightly dehydrated. By the time I got back home on Saturday, I felt like I was days behind in drinking. So I got up to run Sunday morning in the heat, and I was in the hole.

On a normal, 10-mile run around the lake, I'll usually go through two water bottles as I run the lake. On Sunday's 5.5 mile run, I was out of my first water bottle by the end of mile 2.5. By the time I got home, I was even more in the hole. What stuns me, though, is how sore that kind of dehydration makes me (and keeps me) for days afterwards. I was more sore on Sunday afternoon after running 5.5 than I normally am after a 10.5 mile run. Gotta do better.

38 Flights of Stairs = Run?

We're on the road this week, and I often struggle with getting my runs in when we are on the road. I have my running kits packed and with me (so that's a start), but I run into other mental/timing obstacles when I find myself trying to run while traveling. Today's list is brought to you by the letter "s":

• Scheduling--do I get up early and try to go before anyone else gets up so that I don't disrupt the rest of the day? How do I make my run fit in with an already-packed family schedule? 
• Sleep is often tough; I seldom sleep well on the road. So even though we are currently staying in a cabin with the most comfortable beds ever, I'm still not getting great sleep. 
• Safety--I like the idea of running new roads, but in practice I am nervous to hit the roads alone in a new place. We are in the woods with no cell phone service at least five miles from the main road which sounds dreamy, but it's also dangerous. No way to find my way home on these gravel roads if I get lost. 

Today's Galloway run was supposed to be 45 minutes. We hiked up to the Natural Bridge and back today instead. My legs were shaking by the time we were finished. Those 38 floors were no joke. 

But it was worth it for this fun family moment up at the top (and a few minutes to breathe before we headed back down):

I struggle sometimes (often. all the time.) with being flexible with my training schedule when life throws a curveball into the plan. Felt like today was a good trade-off, though. 

Sunday--Long Run Day--Unbelievable Jackassery Day

I ran on Thursday, biked on Friday, ran on Saturday, and then ran long today (Sunday). That gave me four days out on the roads to witness (and be the target of) some pretty incredible jackassery. Seriously. We can do better, folks.  

(I should preface this entire post by saying that I ran over 1,000 miles last year, and 99% of my runs went swimmingly. My biggest complaint on most runs is... well, about me--my legs, my speed, my breathing, my overheating...) 

Runners: Run against traffic. Bike with it. When you run on the wrong (yes, there is a wrong) side of the road, you are putting yourself in danger--you can't see a car coming from behind to know whether or not the driver sees you to go around you; how will you know if you need to step into a ditch? 

Incidentally, when you run with traffic, you also put the other runners on the road in danger. When you are running with traffic, you appear unpredictable to a car coming from behind--they can't see your eyes to know which way you are intending to go. If other runners are out there, cars are trying to make multiple adjustments, and they don't usually do it well. Imagine if cars did the same thing? Cars sometimes sticking to the right side and sometimes going on the left? Chaos. 

I repeat. Run against traffic. Bike with it.

Drivers: (I started this address thing, so I'll roll with it here). Don't throw things at me. I've been hit by CDs (who even has those any more?), full soda cans, and a coin or two while out on the road. I've been yelled at, honked at, and flipped off. I've had cars "playfully" try to run me off the road while on my bike and while running. I had one woman driving alongside me yelling at me because she thought I should be running on the sidewalk (there wasn't a sidewalk!). Please know, I'm not out there running or biking AT you any more than you should be out there driving AT me. And that your being in a car automatically makes you an intimidating presence. It's okay to leave me alone. (I do love the occasional thumbs up from a passing friend in a car, though. I'm not going to lie.) 

On that note, 

if you are passing a cyclist, you should only pass if the oncoming traffic lane is clear. 

I repeat.

If you are passing a cyclist, you should ONLY pass if the oncoming traffic lane is clear. 

When the sign above says, "Share the Road," it doesn't mean that a cyclist should pull off the road or into the gravel so that you can pass. That's not sharing. It may, however, mean that you have to slow down and wait your turn to go around the cyclist so that you can BOTH use the road. That's sharing. It also doesn't mean that you should get angry and frustrated with the cyclist when you time your pass poorly and find yourself in the path of oncoming traffic. That's your fault. 

This morning while I was on my long run, running into traffic, a cyclist was coming towards me. He moved out into the center of his lane to go around me. In that moment, the car that was riding behind him decided to pass him. So there we were--me, the cyclist giving me room to run, and a car that was suddenly trying to adjust to passing both a car and a runner at the same time because she hadn't really tuned in to the conditions of the road. She nearly hit the cyclist as she moved in front of him because she underestimated his speed up against hers and also misunderstood the adjustment he was making for a runner on the road. 

We have to do better at sharing the road. Our town is small. We don't have a single red/yellow/green stoplight in the city limits. The speed limit in the city limits is 20 mph. Golf carts are street legal as long as you pay for the $40.00 license each year and carry insurance. And you can get anywhere in town within 10 minutes in a car, fifteen minutes on a golf cart. And this isn't really a town built for speed. But man, we've gotta do better at sharing the road. 

Of hot runs and early runs and hot, early runs...this week's notes

Cooldown view from the dock...

Random Training Thoughts

It's almost always unpleasant for me to get up and run early. I think running is hard. Period. One of the reasons I love it so much is because it's hard. But, oddly, I also don't think I need to make it any harder than it already is by forcing myself to get up early and run before I've had a chance to have my first cup of coffee. Still, races start early. And I hear that for the Dopey Challenge, I'll need to be out of my hotel room by 3 a.m. (?!?!?) to make it to the start lines on time. Compared to that start time, my 6 a.m. alarm this morning for a 6:30 run was nothing, really. I wonder what the best way is to prepare for those early a.m. wake-up calls. Is it best to go cold turkey? 

Here's my week of training (so far) in Indiana heat (which I get is different from Arizona or Florida heat):

Tuesday p.m. (80+ degrees and humid): Ran 4.27 miles, and it felt like I was in a furnace the whole time. When I slowed to a walk to cool off, I didn't cool off. It felt like blasts of hot air were just hitting me every time I stopped to walk, so I might as well run more. 

Wednesday lunch: SWIM. Yep, I got in the pool. A happy place for me.

Thursday a.m. 6:30 a.m., actually. Ran 3.84 miles. I needed to be home by 7:30. I don't always enjoy having a deadline by which I need to wrap a run, but this morning it helped. My pace was a little bit better than usual. This morning, while not hot, was quite humid.

Disney Planning 

I'm keeping my eye out for cheap fares for flights to Orlando. I started looking for fares on Southwest on Tuesday. Tuesday: $473.96 each. Wednesday: $337.50 each (same flights). Thursday: $349.95 each. Ironically, I found a site that told me that I should buy tickets from Southwest on Tuesdays. Clearly not THIS week Tuesday. The price drop between Tuesday and Wednesday was $140/ticket. That's nuts. Still waiting to see just how low I can get the tickets to go. I get it's a gamble. At the same time, if anyone out there has any secrets for getting a good price, I'm all ears. 

When we went to Disney as a family the first time, we bought a stroller on Amazon and had it shipped to our hotel so that we wouldn't have to take it on the plane. It worked out fantastically well. It was waiting in our room when we got there, and we got to use it for the week and then brought it home and sold it for almost the purchase price. I'm thinking about doing the same thing with some groceries for the race week. I'm kicking around the idea of putting together a grocery order through Amazon or some other site and having it shipped to the hotel. (Not planning on selling the leftovers when I get home, though.) 

Shoes and Miles for the Year

I am switching between two pairs of shoes for training right now. I've always tried to rotate shoes, and I've always based retirement on feel rather than on the number of miles on the shoes. But this time, I'm trying to actually track usage in my log. Four runs in, and it's not a shocker that there's already a big imbalance in use. I tend to go for whichever shoes are closest. Confirmed. Try harder, Kim!

And according to my running log, as of July 13, 2017, I've put in 639.1 miles this year. Definitely on pace to hit my 1,000 mile goal again. On July 13 of last year, I had only run 352.65 miles. I was off pace for my 1,000 mile goal, so I started a run streak that went for 188 days. That won't be the case this year, but I think the Dopey training plan will keep me on pace.

Not much to see here, today. Just some rambling thoughts of a runner. 

Dopey Challenge Travel Planning--Hotels, Flights, Parks, Dining

My initial plan for Dopey was to go with my partner-in-crime, Jen. But she can't make it. So my Plan B was to go by myself. Then my mom cooked up an idea to turn this into a mother-daughter trip because she doesn't want me to go to Florida and run 48.6 miles without someone there to cringe as I lower myself in an ice bath each night. (Plus, she hasn't been to Disney in, oh, maybe 30 years, so the prospect of getting to ride It's a Small World probably appeals to her a little bit, too). So we're on to plan C, but that means some details.

As soon as I bought my race entry, I booked a hotel room at the Pop Century Resort. I did a little bit of kicking around on some running blogs, and I found that as a recommendation among the "economy" resorts. Our family stayed at the Fort Wilderness Campground this last go-round and at the Caribbean Beach Resort on our first trip there together, but I was thinking economy this time (I'm feeling guilty because I'm not taking my husband or daughter with me for this trip...). I think that's going to stick.

People on the Facebook group I'm on started talking about dining reservations. That's where things start to get a little tricky for me. The races are Thursday through Sunday. I'm going to get my mom and me tickets to Magic Kingdom for Thursday (the day of the 5K), so I made breakfast reservations for us at Be Our Guest at 10:25 after the 5k; I'm trying to think of places that will be a treat for my mom. I also made a reservation for Epcot on the night of the marathon, but I'm rethinking that now. I'm wondering if I should just play it by ear and see how I feel? I want to get my mom a walk around Epcot, too, and I think the day we would do that would be on the marathon day before heading home on Monday, but I don't know if it is wise to commit to dining reservations. This will be my first Dopey and my ....oh, I don't know how many marathons I've done. But every marathon has a different kind of tired after it. Still, I want my mom to get to experience the parks. Still thinking about this one...

And today I'm looking at flights. I live in NW Indiana. My gut tells me to book flights out of Indianapolis because the weather up here can be bad, and Indianapolis is two hours south. Midway is a two-hour drive, too, so there's not a real advantage in heading in to Chicago. There are so many layers of anxiety around flights for me. I don't like flying. I don't like booking flights because there are so many things that can go not-quite-right with the reservations and the weather at that time of year and... And then there's the whole non-refundable commitment. Kills me. But I found a pretty cheap flight out of Indy; I'm waiting on my mom to call me back and give me the go-ahead.

Planning for a family trip (how people do these both at the same time, I don't know) and this kind of trip are two different beasts. Just need to get some more boxes checked off in the planning process.

Security! (A new path, but we aren't allowed on it...)

In order to get this story right (in my own mind--the other guy has a different version, I am sure), I must state two things that I know to be true about myself. I am, at my core, a rule follower. I don't really think that I blindly follow rules, but unless there seems to be a good reason to challenge the rule, I feel pretty okay doing whatever the rules say. So I show up for meetings because I'm supposed to be there (even if I don't want to be there), or I follow the faculty dress code because it's what I'm supposed to do. I can explore my whole bending-to-authority bent later on, but let me just start out by saying that I follow rules.

The other piece of this running story needs to acknowledge that I don't often set out from my house for a run just letting my feet take me wherever they'd like to go. I'm not a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants sort of a person. I don't sit down and map out every run, but in my town I have a 4, 5, 6, 8, 10 mile set of roads I run on. For giggles, I sometimes run the route backwards. So running without a plan is pretty unusual for me.

So I'm visiting my hometown of Holland for a couple of days, helping my parents clean some stuff out of their house. They've lived in the same house since 1965, and they've accumulated some stuff. So the stuff has to be cleaned out. We've made some headway in a closet and a room of the basement in the last two days, but this promises to be a months-long project.

I got up yesterday morning here (Holland, MI) knowing I needed to run 45 minutes on the Dopey Training plan. Normally when I run in Holland, I head out South Shore Drive. There's a bike path out that way that doesn't require as many stops for traffic as the roads in downtown Holland. But yesterday, I thought I'd head over towards Hope College and Holland Municipal Stadium (the site of some of my most triumphant soccer moments twenty-five years ago in high school--cough). My plan was to run out and around the stadium and then make the next plan from there (see paragraph two here, folks. This is living life on the wild side for me.)

I ran the stadium (gorgeous!), and then I decided to head down towards the Holland Energy Park. I had seen someone walking on a new footpath there the day before, and I wanted to see where that path would take me.

As I ran up towards the path, I noticed a small "no trespassing sign" off to my left. I remember registering it in my mind and thinking that it was indicating that I wasn't to be going in this little group of construction trailers to my left. I also remember thinking that it was telling me I wasn't to go into the plant itself. Frankly, the positioning was pretty darn ambiguous, so I ran to the right--away from the no trespassing sign and towards the running path. Here's what I saw as I hit the path:

And then I came to these spots. Gorgeous, right?

And I was thinking to myself, "Man! This is really great! I'm so glad that they've done this. I'm totally going to bring my parents here for a walk. I wish they would connect this path to the downtown path, though..." and then, "I'm so glad I ventured out to find this new path..." (see  paragraph 2 again.) 

And as I was finishing the loop around to the front of the Energy Plant and getting ready to head back out to the main road (it runs right along the railroad tracks there--really gorgeous, honestly), I glanced up to my left and saw a tall, blonde-haired guy wearing dark clothing and a bright yellow vest running towards me from the entrance to the plant. I smiled and stopped and pulled my earbud out. And this interaction happened:

"Just so you know, you are trespassing. That path is closed to the public." (He's out of breath and is a bit agitated.) 

"Oh, there weren't any signs. I didn't see any signs."

"Yes, you did! We have three signs. One there! (pointing at the ambiguous sign that I mentioned), one out there (pointing out towards the train tracks), and one over there (pointing again out towards the train tracks--never saw either of those signs)." 

"I saw that first sign, but I thought it was for the plant entrance, so I ran that way. And then I didn't see any other signs. You really need better signage." 

"No. You were trespassing." (He's clearly agitated now). "And we have signs." 

(Must pause here and point you back to the first paragraph. I'm a rule follower. Had I thought that I was trespassing, I never would have taken another step forward. So there's a part of me that's feeling badly that I've broken a rule at this point, but there's also a part of me that's irritated that 1) this guy is talking to me this way and 2) the signage is so inadequate that it's actually his own darn fault that I didn't know I was trespassing. Seriously, there was not a single sign all the way around the path). 

At this point, the teacher and Challenge Course Manager who thinks about liability ALL THE TIME in me decides to take another angle: "I hope you are open to feedback here because you need better signs... Oh, wait. You are mad!" (I realize as I'm about to tell him that I think that his job would be a lot easier if he would just put up a couple more signs that he really isn't listening to me...). 

He responds, "I'm not mad! But you are!" (Clearly, this is deteriorating quickly...)

At some point, he kind of pats his yellow Security vest and says something like, "This is my job. You trespassed, but you aren't in trouble." 

At that point, I said, "Oh, well you have a great day," and I popped my headphones back in and ran off back out to the main street. 

So that was a sour note. I'm left wondering how that interaction might have been better. Won't run that path again, I guess (or maybe they'll post signs saying that it IS open?). I do have to wonder why, if I was trespassing, they let me get all the way around the back of the plant and waited until I was back heading out to the main road again. Why not chase me down? Why bother telling me as I was leaving anyway? Can't really squeeze that toothpaste back in the tube. But also, what on earth was going on in that Security guard's world that he had to manage that conversation that way? (Simon Sinek might have some insight.) 

Run on, though. Run on. 

Thinking Gear Thoughts...

Thinking gear thoughts this morning out on my run. It was a hot one. And a blister on my little toe from Sunday's run was bugging me, so I decided to pass my mental time by making a list of current favorites. I like the simplicity of running because it really just requires minimal gear (compared to triathlon, for example), but I also do love me some gear.  (Interestingly, I spend more money on running gear than I spend on clothes for work.) So here's my list from this morning's run (and there are links here for your convenience, I make NO money if you click if that's important to you to know):

Shoes:
I'm currently running in Brooks Ghost 9s. From where I'm sitting as I write this, I can see three different pairs of them in my living room. There are another two pairs upstairs in my bedroom closet. So now that they are going to Ghost 10s, I'm watching for sales with dread as the sales indicate that my shoes are going to be gone forever.

Yesterday, I found my $120 pair of running shoes on www.jackrabbit.com for $72.00. Bought two pairs. I'm thinking that two pairs @ three months a pair will get me to the end of the year and Dopey. But then they sent me a coupon for 10% off my next order, so now I'm thinking about ordering two more pairs. With an extra ten percent off, it's nearly two for the price of one, really. (The things I do to justify my thinking...) There's another website that's pretty good about finding shoe deals: www.runrepeat.com.

Bottoms:
Go to the skirtsports website and read Nicole DeBoom's story about wearing her first skirt in her win at Ironman Wisconsin 2004. I was there! I wasn't remotely close to the finish line the she won, but I was lucky enough to see Nicole on race day. The morning of the race, I found a small, quiet room in the convention center to collect my thoughts before the race, and Nicole found the same room. I didn't realize it at the time, but it was a cool after-note to know that I had warmed up in a room with the race winner, and she was so nice!

Last year, I bought a couple of the Happy Girl Skirts for running, and I love them. I used to run in shorts all the time, but I always found chafing to be a problem, and they weren't long enough, and they often rode up, and it was just all kinds of awkwardness.

Skirtsports is running a summer sale, so I am picking up another of their Happy Girl Skirts, and then I'm going to try a tights/skirt combo. I'm thinking ahead to Disney, and I know that the weather could be such that I have to wear tights or it could be a skirt day. I want to be prepared either way.

Nutrition:
And it's time to order some more nutrition for while I'm running. My favorite of favorites: Gu Salted Caramel Gel. There's a long and not-all-that-interesting story about why Strawberry Banana gel is my kryptonite, so I haven't had that in quite some time. But I'll also say that I haven't done much in terms of experimentation with nutrition for long runs. Might be time to do some reading.

There's other stuff I love: Tifosi Sunglasses, Bodyglide (how does anyone live without it?), my Road ID, and Swiftwick socks. But I am not feeling all that inspired to write about them this morning. Just wanted to get this up in the blogosphere and ask if anyone out there has favorites, too. What are they? Any great stories?

Sunday--Long run day--Secret Service Fun Day

Galloway's training plan called for a three-mile long run this week. And heaven knows I love a plan! Somehow, if it's on paper, I feel justified in doing it regardless of whether or not I'm already ahead of that mileage. But then my best friend shot me a text last night, and she asked me to run the lake. Yep! It's the foundation of our friendship--yep! We get into so much fun because one of us is willing to ask the question (whatever the question might be) and the other one always answers, "Yep!"

The lake is 10 point something miles around depending on which roads we choose. Last week, Jen's knee was bothering her, so we walked the whole lake. Plenty to talk about. And we were both sore for two-three days afterwards because walking is a different kind of a workout.

Today's numbers: 10.37 mile run, 2:30:53, 14:32 pace. We were really solid through the end of mile 7, and then the heat and the distance started to get to us, and we slowed down quite a bit. For most of the first seven miles, we were running two minutes, walking one. And I hit mile six or so and said, "Oh, I feel really good!" But within a mile, I was no longer feeling good. I never felt rotten, but my legs were just weary.

Today's bit of excitement on the run was realizing that the Vice President is still in town. In our town of 1500 or so, this is big news (although also somewhat irritating given the hassles it causes). We got two miles into our run this morning and encountered this sign:

It says, "Check point ahead." And then we noticed a bunch of cars lined up, and a bomb-sniffing dog, and we realized we had come up on the house where the Veep is staying this weekend. They actually blocked off about a mile of road for this. The checkpoint was a half mile before we got to the house where he was staying, and they had a checkpoint a half mile on the other end, as well. They eyeballed us as we ran by, but they didn't bother to check us out in any other way. The nice part? There was next to no traffic on that stretch of road for once. Normally, on 4th of July weekend, we'd be dodging vacationers all day long. So that was a bit of a treat. 

And then this was on the other end. It's not a great picture. I wasn't sure if they would let me take pictures or not, so I felt like I was being a bit sneaky.

Great run day today. Perfect temps. Perfect company. And just one little blister on my toe from the seam of my sock. Dopeying onward. 

Looking for the shade--a "long"ish run

Found this while I was out on my run this morning. The local Boys' and Girls' Club posted on their Facebook page a few days back that they had planted these around town after painting them on a rainy day. I thought the idea was cute, but I also remember thinking that I'd never see one. And yet, I was out running this morning, and there one was. Just sitting in the grass on a street corner. Coolness. 

It wasn't raining this morning, though. And it wasn't dark. It was HOT. Okay, it was 70 degrees and a bit humid, but it felt like I was running in the 90s. The Dopey Challenge Training Program calls for a three-mile "long" run today. That feels a bit to me like a punt considering my base is already greater than that, so I decided to run longer. But about 30 minutes in, I was just hot. 

I came up on a friend mowing his lawn, and I used that as an excuse for a chat break. If you can't stop  a run to chat with a friend who is mowing his lawn, you shouldn't live in a small town. After a few minutes, I headed back out, but I had a hard time running longer than five or six minutes without needing another walk break. The heat was getting to me.

I was still a mile from home when I knew I needed to do much more walking than running. I found myself looking for the shade. I always know that I'm on the edge of something that might not be so great when I find myself looking for the shade and choosing my streets based on how the trees are covering the street. I can be pretty stubborn about keeping up a run even when I shouldn't, but when I stepped off into the shade of a tree, and I felt a chill, I knew I was in the hole on hydration. Ended up walking more than running the last mile home. 

Coffee, saying good-bye to a friend, and running...

This morning, I couldn't pick up my coffee cup. I didn't sleep well last night, either. Something in the right shoulder/neck/upper right quadrant area of my body was off enough that when I rolled over in bed, the pain woke me up. I'm a right-side sleeper, generally, and trying to sleep on my back was hard. And then I got up this morning, and I could get my coffee cup about four inches from my mouth, but not all the way there because of a pull in my neck. Haven't had this kind of soreness in quite some time. What on earth?

A few weeks ago, a close family friend passed away. She was in hospice care when my mom called to    tell me that it wouldn't be long. Our friend and I had fallen out of touch. But I imagine it's like many friendships--people weave their way in and out of life. At the point that my mother called, our friend was not really in my life. And I didn't get to talk to her before she died. By the time I was ready to make the call, she was already gone. 

So yesterday, when I headed out on the bike, I found myself in conversation with my friend. And by the time our conversation ended, it was 45 minutes later, and I had ridden really hard without noticing...until last night when I was laying in bed and kept having weird, stiff pains in my neck. And then there was the coffee cup this morning. Clearly, an excuse to skip a scheduled run--day 2 of the Galloway training program for Dopey.

(Spoiler, I didn't skip...) So I went and got my running shoes on. My neck was stiff enough that I couldn't really negotiate putting on my shirt and bra, so that was my first adventure. And I set out planning to walk as much as I wanted to. But then I started running. And I hit the hill pictured above, and it felt pretty darn good. Galloway calls for a couple of 45 minute runs during the week, so that's what I set out to do. Ran 4 minutes, walked 1 in the heat and humidity of this fine Indiana morning. And then came back home to another cup of coffee. This one, I could drink. 

The Dopey Challenge--Re-entry to the blogosphere

First Run Selfie

Happy Cross-Training Day Selfie (in an Oberon Jersey!)

Imagine my surprise when I signed on to my running blog this morning and realized it has been four years since I have posted. Fear not, I've been running for the last four years. I just haven't been writing much about it. No time like the present, though, to kick off a new round of entries with a cliche and everything! 

I have signed up for (and plunked down a good chunk of change for) the Dopey Challenge at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida taking place in January of 2018. I will be running a 5k on January 4, a 10K on January 5, a half marathon on January 6, and a full marathon on January 7.  Why? Bucket list, of course. But also because it just sounds badass and hard, and I like doing things that sound badass and hard. 

There are all kinds of logistics things running through my head as I write this first entry. I'm a teacher, and I'm supposed to be back in class on January 8. I'm not going to make it. But I'll be in class on the 9th! My best friend usually goes on these adventures with me, and I'm still trying to convince her to at least join me for the full (the Dopey Challenge closed pretty soon after registration opened). My mom has offered to come to Florida with me so that I'm not down there alone, and now I want to run around the parks with her, but that isn't in the race plan.

But the training plan really should be the focus of this first entry. So I'm using the Galloway training plan for right now. It started yesterday. And he lists the goal for the plan as something like, "To finish upright." That seems like a reasonable goal. But in September, I'll be switching to what I perceive to be a slightly more rigorous program--the Hal Higdon training plan.  Galloway sticks with a three-day per week training plan early on. It doesn't feel like enough given how much I have to get done between now and then (much getting in shape to happen), but I like it for the summer months of July and August so that I can get in some biking. I just finished up a Hal Higdon training program to run a marathon in April, and I was feeling pretty burnt out by the time I was done. Hoping that cross training will help me maintain some sanity.

On that note, I took a day 1 selfie for the run (look at that happy smile!). And a day 2 selfie for my first cross-training ride (look at that jersey!). I am a runner who loves a plan, and I've got the next several months of training runs mapped out.