Dopey Challenge--13.1 magical miles--The half

Controlling the controllables--Managing the cold

I finally figured out the cold by the time I got to the half marathon. Dialed it in! In addition to all the other layers, I used mylar blankets that I picked up at the end of the previous day's race to wrap around my lower half. Then I had a trash bag on my top half over my other layers. And I started to feel like, "I've got this!"

I met a woman on the bus from the hotel to the race start who was running her first half marathon, and she was so nervous and excited that her energy was infectious. She had no clue what to expect, so she decided to follow me and let me guide her to the start. I loved it. 

But then we got to the starting area, and I discovered that they had moved the start line. A long ways away. So a lot of what I had learned about race logistics from the previous two days was moot. I no longer knew where the best porta john stop was. On 10K morning, I found the perfect place to sit outside of the corrals to hide from the wind AND be comfortable on a sand bag, and that wouldn't work. Ahhhh, well. 

I read a lot about the races ahead of time, and many people wrote about the long walk to the race start from the buses. A half a mile! (some people said). On the 5k and 10k days, there was a little bit of a walk from the buses to the corrals, but it certainly wasn't a half mile. It never occurred to me (dope!) that they would move the start line. So all those people who wrote about the long walk to the race start from the buses? They weren't kidding. After getting to the 5k/10k start area and realizing that we weren't starting there again, I had to start to come up with a new game plan. When to hit the porta-potties again? (The layers and layers I had on made any port-potty stop an adventure.) Walk to the start line and get into the corrals early? I'm realizing as I write this just how much of my morning race plan centers around timing porta-potty stops. 

Seen Toy Story? One of the plastic soldiers is there to taunt you at the start line.

Found the new start line--that's not it under my head, though.

I walked to the start. I wished my new friend well when we got there a half mile later--she was headed to one of the "party corrals"--corral G, and I was headed to corral E. Corral G is the last (or second-to-last) corral to be released on race morning, and it's for the people who don't enter a race time to get seeded in the early corrals. That means that there is a mix of runners there--fast and slow, partiers and... well, I don't know what the other word is. But it's a fun spot to start (except it means that they have to wait even longer to start running, and that's rough on a cold morning!)

By day 3 of Dopey, I was finally dressed warmly enough to not have to dance around through the wait in the corrals to stay comfortable, so I decided to relax. And that's how I ended up with that picture of me laying on the road waiting for a half marathon to start.

The half heads out to the MK and back

The route of the half puts Dopey runners in new territory. While we do start at Epcot, the run is primarily about getting to the Magic Kingdom and back. That was exciting. Race plan for the half was the same as the others--run slowly and save my legs for the full marathon on Sunday morning. 

The road to the Magic Kingdom was dark, and I am not speaking metaphorically. It was actually dark. And there wasn't much entertainment. But it was easy to get into "easy run" mode and just go with the crowd. If I were to do the races again, I might think about having some sort of light on my shoes for those back roads, though. There were a number of uneven surfaces, and I saw more than one person who was tripped up out there by something on the road. 

I knew we were getting closer to MK when I came up on Mickey in the form of a hot air balloon in the middle of the road. Surreal. 

And then I teared up a little bit and had to stop for a selfie at the entrance to the Magic Kingdom. The iconic gateway is even more special when you run through it in the early morning hours. 

And a closer view of the gate without the selfie...

Trying to capture the gateway without tripping or slowing down too much. 

And there is really nothing like running up Main Street USA towards the castle while cheering crowds high-five you. Serious happiness!

Heading towards the castle

Coming back around and through the castle.

The finish of the half is at Epcot again, but we only run up and around the fountain and Spaceship Earth and then head back out to the finish line. 

Not my best pictures, but hey... I finished, and I apparently wanted to document that each and every time. 

Each day you run at Disney, you learn something new for the next day. That was certainly true during the half. So lessons from the half:

1. Bring your sunglasses. The 5k and 10k happened almost entirely in the dark, so I didn't think to pack my sunglasses for the half. And because it was so cold and dark in the morning, I had a beanie on in the morning instead of a ball cap. So once that sun came out, I had nothing to protect my eyes. Squinting=extra layer of fatigue. 

2. Make a nutrition plan, and don't rely on Disney nutrition. 1)You can't eat at 3:00 when you wake up and expect that to hold you through a 5:30 start time. 2) A peanut butter sandwich in the corrals at 4:30 is a great start, but it still won't be enough. 3) Whatever your plan is for nutrition, add more calories to it because your metabolism from the two previous days will be in high gear, and you will be hungry. 4) Oreos at mile 9 of the half marathon will work in a pinch. 

           All that being said, the folks I talked to before the race told me that there would be plenty of food on the course. People told me that there would be food out there that wasn't even on the race guide: gu, sports beans, power-aide, bananas, candy. I thought long and hard about whether or not I wanted to carry my own nutrition--one of the benefits of doing a race series like this is that it's a catered long run! The reality of race day was different from what I had heard, though, and I was glad I had my own nutrition with me.

          Each morning, I packed a ziploc baggie with a peanut butter sandwich and a bottle of water. For the half marathon, I also threw in some peanut butter crackers. And at 4:30, I ate that breakfast in the corrals. For the half marathon, I also decided to wear my Nathan Intensity Race Vest and load it up with water even though there ARE plenty of water stops on Disney's courses. I wanted to be able to drink whenever it fit into my plan, so I decided to carry my own. I also had a couple of these Nathan bottles  filled with my favorite nutrition for long distances--UCAN in Cocoa Delite. I usually plan on one bottle of UCAN for about five miles of running, so I planned to drink two for the half marathon and then supplement with either stuff from the course or salted caramel Gu that I had with me. 

          There was NOT any Gu out on the course (unless I ran past it and didn't see it). And there were Sports Beans on the course, but I won't take those during a race. I used them during both Ironman-distance races and I ended up with horrible stomach cramps. The Sports Beans may not have been at fault, but I wasn't going to take any chances. 

          I drank all my UCAN by mile 8. I supplemented with a Gu packet. But I hit mile marker 9, and my stomach was growling. GROWLING. I reached in my pack to find something else to eat, and I found only Oreos from the RunDisney box I had been given the day before. All good! I'd eat anything. I did get a couple of looks from other runners on the course as I was munching on some cookies, but they may have been looks of envy. That pile of sugar hit the spot. And I knew then that I'd need to come up with a better plan for the marathon. 

Oh, and I almost forgot! Each day at the end of the races, Mickey, Minnie, Dopey, and Goofy were there for pictures. I decided to get my picture taken with Dopey after the half. (I wasn't sure I would get there in time to see him after the full or that I would feel like doing it.) I kept thinking, "I'm coming for you, Dopey!" It didn't seem right to act like I was going to punch him, though...

Dopey Challenge--The forgotten 10K

Crazy eyes at the finish line

The 10K finish chute

I should have taken notes on the 10k! It's a blur. The course for the 10K is pretty similar to the course of the 5K--we started in the same place, and then we ran out onto a road before running back into Epcot. They also added on a run around the Boardwalk hotels. For me, that was cool; I've been to Epcot a number of times, and I had no idea that whole resort area was back there. Here's the map:


I really enjoyed running with someone on the 5K day, but I also came away from the 5K day knowing that I hadn't run my own pace or race. And that worried me. I went in to 10k race morning knowing I needed to save my legs for the 1/2 and full. And I went into 10k race morning resolved to run my own race and to run it slowly. To that end, I also made the decision to not seek out a lot of conversation in the morning corrals with other runners. Frankly, I was worried that if I didn't resolve to hang by myself, I'd end up back in someone else's race plan again.

I managed to feel warmer on 10K morning. Best piece of running gear that morning: A large lawn waste trash bag. I remember discovering when I got to the race start that I had accidentally grabbed two trash bags that morning. And I knew that I had only packed enough for the four races, so the 10k morning's bit of gear nonsense was me deciding to carry a folded up trash bag through the whole run so that I would have enough to use one for the half and the full. (This reminded me of the time that I ran a 10k in Louisville while carrying a race shirt rolled up in each of the pockets of the jacket I had tied around my waist because we arrived late to the race start. I had to decide to ditch the shirts or run six miles carrying them. I carried them.)

The only other thing I remember now about 10k morning was that I was okay thinking I just needed to get it over with. My mind was on the longer runs, and I knew this was one step on the way to those longer runs. I didn't stop to take pictures until the finish. Medal from the 10K is cool, though!

Minnie hosts the 10k, so this is the Minnie medal. 

Oh, and that trash bag I carried with me in my pocket for 6.2 miles? I lost it somewhere between the finisher chute and the bus back to the hotel. Had to come up with plan C (or D...I don't know which plan I was up to at that point!)

Dopey Challenge--Pluto's 5K (The actual first event.)

A 5k? 3.1 miles? In the two months leading up to the start of Dopey, my shortest run was a taper run of 3 miles. Prior to that taper run, I hadn't done a run as short as three miles since mid-November. Everything was longer. So it wasn't the distance that was intimidating. It was about shaking off the first-morning jitters, getting a feeling for the lay of the land at 3:00 in the morning, and trying to figure out just how cold the start would be.

Disney requires that all runners be on the buses no later than 4:00 for a 5:30 start time. The temperature on the morning of the 5k was 26 degrees. And the high for the day was to be about 40 degrees. And the race was going to be done before sunrise, so I didn't expect to run in temperatures above 30.

I'd done a ton of reading ahead of time, and people warned me that standing in the corrals would be the worst part, so I wore layers. Lots of layers. My mom tried to capture my look before I walked out the door:


But frankly, this was four layers short. I had a long-sleeved Skirt Sports top  with a t-shirt from my high school over the top of it. And I had a skirt sports skirt + leggings on the bottom I was really hoping that I'd be able to represent Culver at the races, but my survival skills got the better of me. I was going to be warm at the start line no matter what.

Before I headed out the door, I added a light jacket (for wind resistance), a hoodie sweatshirt (that I planned to throw away at the start of the race), a $2.50 fleece blanket from Walmart, and I stuffed a trash bag in my pocket to add if I needed it. On the bottom, I added a pair of the ugliest $1.96 pair of fleece Christmas pants I could find on the Walmart clearance rack.

And let me say right now, I was effing cold. I have run in temperatures here in Indiana where people have called me crazy. I have run in temperatures so low that people haven't been able to start their cars. But let me tell you, it's one thing to dress for the temperatures in your house, run out the door and do your run, and come home to warm up. It's another to get dressed in a hotel room and then go stand in a corral for an hour and a half before running. I was a popsicle by the time the 5k race started.

I was still smiling when I got on the bus with my extra layers....

And now for today's tip: If you have a trash bag in your pocket at the start of a race, use it. For some reason, I got off the bus, and I felt just fine, so I decided to set my trash bag down on a table so someone else could take it if they wanted to. An hour and a half later, I was certainly regretting that decision. The wind was eating me alive. And I was cold.

We're all in this together, folks. (This year's mantra, it seems...) Look at all those hats! We were all cold. The start line of the Pluto 5K was all lit up. And we got fireworks. Little ones. 

I'm not sure how many waves there were, but I was in corral C. And they sent us off in waves with a minute apart. I crossed the start line somewhere in the 5:40 range. I chatted with a woman who had run a number of Disney races in the corral before the race, and we ended up doing the whole 5k together. And I never took my sweatshirt off. It was THAT cold.

I teared up when we entered Epcot. It was so beautiful. All the buildings around World Showcase were lit up beautifully, and they were playing music through the speakers, and Disney has a great sound system, so the tunes were just amazing. 

My feet never did warm up. But it was a good first-race jitters kind of a race. I also didn't try to stop for character stops anywhere along the way. Those are pretty popular on the 5K, but it just wasn't my thing. I did stop to take this quick shot with Dory outside of the Finding Nemo ride. "Just keep running. Just keep running." 

I finally got back to the room at 7:30 or so, and my mom snapped this picture. Me in my throwaway top (I'd wear it again the next day for the 10k). And my first of three medals. 

When people have asked me this week which race was the hardest, this is actually the one that comes to mind. It wasn't hardest because of the distance. But it was hardest because of the nerves, the cold, the unfamiliar logistics... And frankly, when I got back to the room and was thinking about prepping for the 10k, I was most concerned about the cold. I wasn't sure how I could handle the cold again the next day. 

(Spoiler: I managed the cold better each day, and the weather got four or five degrees warmer each morning.)

Here's the 5K map:

Dopey Challenge--The expo! (Perhaps the first event...)

I decided not to bring my computer with me to Florida, so my reflections come post-Disney. It's been a week since the 10k; five days since I ran the marathon. I did it! I'm a Dopey! (And it was awesome...)

I'll post here, then, about the Dopey Challenge from start to finish in hopes that my experience might help someone else who is considering doing the series. And while the race series is a 5k/10k/half/full on four consecutive days, there are all kinds of factors beyond the actual races that impact performance. I felt like the fifth event was early start/cold corrals. That required some serious endurance. But it all started with the expo...

This was the closest I could get to Dopey at the expo.

I was flying from Indiana in to Orlando in early January, and I'm a nervous flyer, so I was watching the weather like a hawk. The weather in Indiana was clear enough for our takeoff, but the weather in Florida was... well, cold. I spent the week watching the weather channel, and the predicted temps for the race days kept dropping. I filled my luggage with throwaway clothes for the start lines, and I was grateful that I wasn't planning on any elaborate Disney-style costumes.

Magical Express--Mom at Disney for the first time in 30 years

We got to Orlando's airport at about 2:30 in the afternoon and took Disney's Magical Express over to our hotel (Pop Century Resort). I used the online check-in service, and we had a text message with our room number on my phone when we arrived, so we got to skip the front desk and head straight to our room. We planned to use the Magical Express luggage service, as well. When Disney sent me luggage tags, they sent me just two. I called Disney before we left, and they told me that we could just tell the cast member at the Magical Express reception area that we needed the other two bags and give them our baggage claim tickets and Disney would make sure that they got to our room.

We got to our room. I'm not intending this to be a major review of Disney resorts, but I'll say that our room was pretty great considering the price! Below are some pics: 

 I left my mom hanging out there so that I could get over and back to the expo quickly. Disney provides plenty of transportation to and from the expo. Buses seemed to run about every twenty minutes from our hotel over to ESPN Wide World of Sports, so I went over and hopped on one of those and left my mom in the room. 

I headed over to the only chaotic part of the weekend. To this day, I'm still a little bit stunned that Disney didn't have their act together any better. The expo was nuts. Here's why:

1. ESPN Wide World of Sports is huge, and there wasn't adequate signage. People were there to pick up packets for the 5k/10k/half/full/Dopey Challenge/Goofy Challenge. And some people were there solely to buy out as much Disney merchandise as possible to list it that day on Ebay and suck the blood out of the people who were actually doing the race (issues!). And there wasn't signage directing anyone anywhere. The only direction I could get from people was "follow the people who are in front of you." That's good for race day, but it's not good for packet pick-up when packet pick-up means finding one of six different areas. Advice for someone doing it in the future? Get there early. Or make sure that you show up with lots of patience.

2.  There's one line you have to find (and you really do have to find it--there's no signage) for packet pickup. It's an adventure. And the people are really nice. But you have to have a signed waiver (print it before you leave home or you have to wait in line to do that, too), and you have to have your license with you to pick up your race number. And if you are doing Dopey, you have to make sure you get your picture taken with your bib at the expo. It looked a little bit like a touristy thing and not a requirement, so I almost walked out without doing it, but then I realized what it was and jumped in to get my picture taken. 

3. And then, there are two expos, technically speaking. And you have to leave the place where you picked up your bib to go back into either of the expos. And those aren't labeled, either. 

The Running Stuff Expo

The running stuff expo was pretty sweet. I got a new pair of running shoes (I run in Brooks Ghosts right now) for a sweet price. And I also got a pair of Oofo's  recovery sandals. That was my big splurge. (And they were amazing on the hard floors of our hotel room as I piled on the miles!). But I was really most interested in visiting the Disney Merchandise section. Until I walked out the door and found the line for it... 

The line for the Disney Merchandise Expo

I checked my social media chatter, and people were saying that they waited in this line for an hour or longer just to get into the area with the RunDisney merchandise. And then once they were in the area, the lines were even more out of control to check out. And while I was really interested in snagging some Dopey swag, I was disgusted at the line. No one knows how to do lines like Disney; seriously, if you've ever been in the parks, you know that you can stand in a line for hours and not feel it. But that expo line was brutal. So I left. No Dopey swag for me. 

Got back to the hotel, snagged my mom for dinner, and went to eat in the Pop Century dining area. And when we got back to the room, our suitcases were there... well, two of them. My mom's suitcases didn't make it over from the airport. At this point, it was 6:30 at night. I called the resort, and they said that they knew where my mom's suitcases were, but they weren't at our resort. And they said they would bring them to our room when they arrived. (If you are thinking, "That's pretty nonspecific!", you are thinking what I was thinking.)

I'll do the 5k prep as part of another post, but we needed to get to bed. It had been a long day, and I was wound up about the 5k. I put my clothes out for the next morning (again, details on that later), and I tried to go to sleep, but my mom's suitcases still weren't there. They finally arrived at our room at 11:15 at night. 

Frankly, that's it for Disney snafus for this trip. 

1. The expo was a mess with no signage. 

2. The Disney merchandise at the expo was inaccessible. 

3. Disney's Magical Express luggage service was a little less than magical. 

After that, it only gets better! (And frankly, that wasn't all THAT bad.) More in the 5K post next.

Oh, and in case you are wondering what the early morning schedule for these races looks like, here it is (and they aren't kidding about those times you are supposed to be on the bus):

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?