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Posts from the ‘Training’ Category

Nov 21

On the edge of the Western World: Part I

I knew nothing about the Big Sur Half Marathon on Monterey Bay at the beginning of this year. That last sentence might be an understatement. I didn’t know anything about half marathons in general at the beginning of the year. I had signed up for one in June. But I wasn’t quite ready for it yet.

That was until I had a great 10-mile run. I decided, why not?

So I ran the Oakland Running Festival’s Half Marathon in March. And then I ran another and another.

I can’t remember when, but my mom mentioned something about a marathon in Big Sur. I Googled it and found the 26.2 mile version in April. That wasn’t happening anytime soon, I thought.

Then I saw a link for the half marathon option in November. I could do that, I said, and it would be a good final training run for the California International Marathon.

So I signed up. It would be my first traveling half marathon. The only one that I’ve gone away and stayed the night for. My husband wasn’t interested in traveling to see me run. So I asked my mom if maybe she’d like to go, since she mentioned it to me initially.

She said yes. I booked us two rooms at the local Hyatt, one of the race recommended hotels.

We headed out on Saturday morning from my home in Tracy. By 3 p.m. we were browsing the expo.

Packet pick up was painless. They even had an option for packet pick up the morning of, which was incredibly awesome. We checked out some booths and I grabbed my burgundy-colored Asics fitted tech long-sleeved shirt. It’s awesome. I’ve heard people say this half marathon has a not-so-pretty array of race shirts. But I love my race shirt.

I had a coupon for $5 off of $45 at the Asics booth. I picked up a visor there because there was a chance of rain. Chance is actually a kind way to say, it was definitely going to pour at some point on Sunday. I also got a nice salmon-colored half marathon shirt. Both my Asics shirt are pretty nice.

My mom liked the iFitness belts like I have. I didn’t stay long at the expo. I was “over it” pretty quick, if only because I was tired and we had just driven more than two-hours to get there.

We ate at a downtown Monterey Taco Bell before heading back to the Hyatt to check in. Check-in was a quick process (and, oh hey, thanks for the awesome room rate Big Sur Half Marathon that included breakfast and Internet as part of the price, that was awesome). We settled down for the evening and watched some television.

I headed out for a swim, but wasn’t too hot on the pool. I was encouraged by a fire pit and really wanted to go and sit around it, but was too tired. I figured it would be there on Sunday night. It wasn’t, which was a bummer, but I digress.

We checked in bed at about 10 p.m. I couldn’t sleep for a couple hours. I think it was just because it was an unfamiliar place. That’s one thing I learned about traveling to run, bedtime should be earlier than expected.

I was up and out of bed by 5:20 a.m.

It still looked like it would rain. I pulled my “rain possibly” outfit out of the bag. That included my Nike capris, a pair of lululemon speed reflective shorts and my Nike Women’s Half finisher shirt. All those meant high visibility. The shorts also meant that I wouldn’t risk having a wet butt if it did rain horribly.

My mom and I were out the door for the 7 a.m. start. What I failed to do was explain “wave times” to her, so when the clock was looking closer to three hours than my average two and a half hours, she was getting worried (more on that in the second post in this series).

She dropped me off in the dark. It was cold, but I had my Zensah compression sleeves. That marked the first time I’ve worn those in a race and they were awesome.

I hit up a portable toilet with a short line. And made my way down Del Monte Blvd. to my corral.

All the way down at the end is the start line. We had a way to go. My actual start time was around 7:20 a.m. according to my Garmin. The organizers were very specific about letting the corrals go every three minutes.

My corral wasn’t too full. There were a lot of people with bibs that had names in red. That was what race organizers used to show that someone was running their first half marathon. A nice touch.

It started getting lighter and you could see the ominous clouds coming in. But the whole view was surreal. I was standing in Monterey, near Fisherman’s Wharf, getting ready to run my seventh half marathon of the year.

Wow. I’ve come incredibly far.

But the view was beautiful. I thought of this weekend as my reward for all the miles I’ve put in. I treated myself. This race was a treat in itself.

Yeah, I had it pretty rough prior to the race on Sunday.

It was at about this point that I realized I had forgotten by Gu. I figured my mom would be enjoying a nice breakfast at the hotel. I wasn’t going to call and interrupt that. My mom deserved a relaxing weekend. I also realized I hadn’t eaten anything, even something small.

Both of those weren’t good signs for the day. But my legs felt good and I felt strong.

Too bad legs aren’t the only thing that gets me through races…

 

Nov 21

Meet me Monday: The replacement

 

I’ve blogged about Gertrude the Garmin before.

She was my training buddy and the closest thing I had to a constant running partner. I loved my Garmin dearly. And then she turned on me. She kept losing battery life. She was fading, fast. I wrote about Gertrude going bad too. I sent it to Garmin after opening a request with them to do so.

I knew, from reading previous blog posts, that there was a chance Getrude wouldn’t be replaced at all. She’d be deemed unreliable and unusable. Then Garmin would send me a new one.

I knew it could happen. But I kept hope alive it wouldn’t when my.garmin.com didn’t update the serial number of my Garmin.

But, alas, last Monday I got home and found a small envelope stuffed in my mailbox. It contained the Garmin above.

It’s not Gertrude. Not even close.

I was so bummed about it that I didn’t blog about it. Gertrude was with me for my first half marathon earlier this year. She wouldn’t be there for number seven, the Big Sur Half Marathon.

I tried to sync satellites right after I got it. It took forever. I figured that signaled something. But it seems to be working fine. I ran the half (more on that later in the week when I have time to write up a race/weekend review). Even though my efforts at the Big Sur Half Marathon weren’t too stellar, my Garmin and I ran our first race together.

Our second will be the Run Against Hunger on Thanksgiving Day in Stockton.

So far, so good. But I miss Gertrude.

So in honor of her, I introduce you to Gertrude II. Or Gert-II as I referred to her on Sunday to another runner.

Our journey together is just beginning, but she’ll hopefully lead me through my first marathon in a couple weeks.

Nov 17

Beat

I have a lot to blog about, but no time to do it.

This week: Garmin came back, but not Gertrude. My students put out issue six of their newspaper. I have a front-page story in the newspaper (rare, since I’m often at my desk coding or behind a video camera). I got a new pair of lululemon shorts. Received my beautiful new “I was born to do this” necklace.

Started taper for Big Sur Half Marathon.

Packing up for that one tomorrow. Heading down with my mom on Saturday morning/afternoon-ish.

Long week. Exciting weekend ahead.

My goal? Not to break a leg or hurt myself. The marathon is less than three weeks away.

Yikes.

Nov 13

Training off track

I spent Saturday at a journalism conference with my students, after a very long week and three runs totaling 20 miles.

I was tired when I woke up on Saturday morning. Way too tired. But I kept on, because I need to be “on” for my students all the time. I’ve learned working two jobs that calling in sick isn’t useful or even doable most days.

So I spent Saturday at Sacramento State University listening to journalists and industry professionals educate the future patrons of the industry. That included a talk by Sacramento Bee reporter Jon Ortiz, who is the lead contributor on The State Worker blog.

That’s Ortiz talking to the student. The organizers of this conference have on-the-spot competitions. The students swarming Ortiz were competing for the photo category. They kept it up the entire time, which caused me to question why some kind of rules weren’t put in place allowing photos for the first 15 minutes only.

But I digress.

The day went by quickly. Everything went fine. My students got back to campus at a decent hour. I got home by 8 p.m. And I was out, literally, before 10 p.m.

During the early part of Saturday, my chest started hurting. It was sore. I was tired. I chalked it up to just not being at 100 percent.

By the evening, I was kind of heaving while I breathed. I woke up three or four times in the night. My throat was sore too. I’d gone to sleep early to make sure I wouldn’t miss my run with Jennie. I wasn’t even waking up too early with a 6 a.m. alarm time.

Plus, I had a new toy to try out on my run.

My iFitness belt that I plan to wear during the California International Marathon arrived on Saturday. I stuffed it in my bag and got pulled my clothes to the side.

I missed my alarm. I was actually awakened by a text from Jennie. By 6:15 a.m. by body was sore and my chest hurt bad. The run would be a no go. It sucked because I wanted to run. It sucked because Jennie was already getting ready. And it sucked because this was literally my last chance to redo the 20-mile run that we tried a couple weeks ago.

Instead, I went back to bed. I’d let myself down. I’d let Jennie down.

I slept for another four hours before finally waking up. I’ve been on the couch all day taking cold pills. I want to run. But I can’t. My husband says no. But I’d love to get on the treadmill and at least get in six before the days ends.

The problem with training for my first marathon is that I don’t know when I’ve pushed myself too hard. I don’t know when to ease back and when to push harder.

I run more now than I did eight weeks ago. The distances are longer. But will that sustain me through 26.2 miles? I don’t know.

And that worries me.

My training plan called for one 20-mile run. I did it. I also did a 15. And I’ve done several 10-mile runs. I’m tired now. My body is rebelling, even with rest days.

I keep saying that happenings like today put my training off track. I read somewhere that the marathon isn’t one day. It’s a reflection of training over many, many months.

I hope that comes through on Dec. 4 because I’m not feeling confident right now.

Nov 9

A glitchy Garmin

I noticed something a couple weeks ago when Jennie and I ran the 20-miler on a Sunday. Actually I didn’t notice it as much as I heard it.

Beeping.

Small, little beeps.

I looked down and my Garmin had a message that was coming more and more predictable: “Low battery.”

The 405CX had been in “training” mode for a little under five hours. It is supposed to last eight. It was dying.

I kept pushing forward because I really wanted to display to say “20.” How could I run 20 miles and NOT have the proof? How cruel would that be? And then it died. I had to boot it back up. I ended up running 20.09 miles because it didn’t track some of my running for some time.

I had to face a kind of horrible reality: The Garmin wouldn’t be able to hang with me for an entire marathon, particularly because I’m not fast. I average 10:50 to 11:30-minute miles during my long runs. I’m just hoping to finish my first marathon in under six hours. Garmin would die before I got there.

I also had to realize that there were warning signs.

My Garmin has been malfunctioning a lot lately. It would freeze. The battery was suddenly in dead zone, despite charging. It was getting more and more glitchy. During the Nike Women’s Half Marathon it didn’t even pick up a signal until I was somewhere near mile two. Then it started beeping at me and giving me no indication why at mile 10 of the same run.

It was time to face the truth: I had to open a ticket with Garmin.

I did. The first response was to update the software. I did. Then I went on a 10-mile run with Jennie. The battery drained 39-percent. It would, again, only last five hours.

I contacted Garmin again. They set up a “ticket.”

On Monday, I packaged my faithful running companion up and send it to Olathe, Kansas.

It’s blurry and sad. I had to basically strip Gertrude down to her bare bones. She left without even the wrist bands attached. Just the body. No accessories. I packed it in a box with care. I taped it up. I walked it over to the post office near where I worked. And I sent it on it’s way, overnight express.

I knew, from reading other blogs, that I will likely get a different unit sent back to me. I’m hoping that’s not the case. I love my Garmin, especially since she was with me for my first half marathon. I wanted her to be with me for my marathon. I’m sentimental like that.

I considered the sendoff kind of like a viking funeral. I sent Gertrude off in style.

And now I’m checking the myGarmin website to see where the progress is on it. It says “awaiting shipping.”

I’m not sure what happens from here, but I ran 10-miles this morning and definitely felt a little lost without my constant running companion. Jennie and I have another 20-miler scheduled for this weekend. I know the route, yes. But it’s not the same without Gertrude. Not at all.

 

 

Nov 7

Meet me Monday: You must do the thing

Here’s something fun to know about me: I’m completely and utterly petrified of not making the six-hour time limit at  the California International Marathon.

My fastest half is 2:27. My slowest is 2:53 (and that was with hills, dodging people for eight miles before finally decided it was more important to have fun that be fast).

When I signed up for the marathon in May, I thought I’d be averaging 2:15 half marathons at this point. Life got in the way. I’m too busy with other things. My distance training runs are up to par, but my speed work is not.

I’m scared of being pulled off the course. I’m hoping to finish somewhere around 5:30. I’m hoping to keep up the pace and keep moving. But I don’t know what’s going to happen.

So I’m relying on some inspiration to push me through. On the band of my RoadID, I had the last line inscribed with an Eleanor Roosevelt quote.

“You must do the thing you think you cannot,” is the quote. My RoadID, specifically, says “you must do the things.”

I had it put there when I was training for a half marathon. I didn’t think I could. I still can’t believe that on March 27 I became a half marathoner in Oakland. And I’ve ran five other ones since.

And now I’m hoping to conquer the marathon. In six hours.

I hope I can. I hope that it’s a mental block and it’s something I think I can’t, but actually can.

In any case, we’ll see in a month if that’s true. Crossing my fingers.

Nov 6

800

The clocks moved forward at 2 a.m. this morning, which meant that I got an extra hour of sleep before heading out for my long run today. That was nice, but I was also tossing and turning and waiting for my alarm to go off, thinking, maybe, I slept through it.

I grabbed my gear and got ready. Jennie sent me a text at about 6:20 a.m. asking if she could borrow a water bottle. No problem. I brought a refill bottle with me for part of our run. This was the view that greeted me in Mountain House from Central Community Park, the beginning of all of our long runs.

We started out right after 7 a.m. The bathrooms were even open, which is always good. We headed toward the still in-progress village battling the cold and somewhat wet conditions.

The goal? Well, we didn’t really have one. I think both of us would like a second shot at 20 miles. But, unfortunately, we both were battling this run early on. Jennie said her shin hurt. My right Achilles was sore. We decided half way through we’d likely only hit 10 today.

I say “only” because last week I ran my longest run of my life at 20 miles.

We are usually warmed up by mile three. Not this morning. We were slogging. In retrospect, we probably weren’t full recovered.

Worst, we were inconsistent:

I noted, though, before getting into bed that my dailymile was at 790.

That’s part of what propelled me to want to do 10. I’m pretty sure I said before leaving the house this morning: “Even if Jennie decides she wants to quit at mile 6, I’m going 10.” Of course Jennie doesn’t quit. She’s good like that. She motivates me. That makes her the perfect running mate for the California International Marathon.

So we kept pushing. And pushing. And finally, we were done.

And it never rained once.

It looked threatening, but it wasn’t. In fact, it wasn’t even as cold as we thought. I wore my new Mizuno running vest and a Nike long-sleeve Miler top and ended up shedding down my my Dri-Fit t-shirt at our 7-mile stop-at-my-car-and-get-more-Gatorade stop.

The beauty of our 10-mile runs is that the first six miles tend to be consistent. Then I changed it up because Gertrude the Garmin lets me do that. (I’m going to hold off posting about how I have a request in to Garmin to have the battery looked at, mostly because I want to see how this plays out and I’m deeply concerned with a half marathon and a marathon coming up that no good can come of me sending the 405CX in this close to the marathon. That said, the battery is dying at nearly five hours. No good for a first-time marathoner who runs 11-minute averages.)

Sorry about the aside. I’m having a little bit of an issue with the Garmin issue.

So our last four miles are kind of sporadic. We run just to run. I do this as a mental trick. I can’t give up if I don’t know where I am going, right?

Works for me.

So Jennie and I pushed. We finally got to 10. And, to be fair, this 10 was a lot easier than I’m used to. Why? Could it be last week’s 20-mile jaunt? Perhaps. Even with difficultly, which we had, it was easier than our usual 10-mile runs.

And I hit 800.

I have the dailymile tag on my blog to prove it:

I did a little dance. I had a moment. And I spent the day celebrating, like someone who has literally ran twice the distance she did last year should do.

My mom asked if I wanted to go see a movie. She came to Tracy and we saw the new Harold and Kumar movie (the duo I later referred to as the “Cheech and Chong” of my generation).

Oh, and there were blended margaritas:

That’s my husband’s hairy arm using the blender that literally hasn’t been out of the box since we lived on our rental. That’s more than a year. We really need to party more.

Plus, I finally got around to making stir fry with the vegetables I picked up from the health fair at work the other day. Best part? I have leftovers for tomorrow.

And, yes, it was delicious.

So I’m at 800. I’m not sure about getting to 1,000. I’d like to try, but that’s 200 miles in two months. Can I do it? Sure. I’ve been averaging 100+ for the past two months.

But the marathon is on Dec. 4. And that’s 26.2 if I make it. (Let’s be real, there’s a chance I could completely balk, I know this, even when people tell me I can do it.)

I have 6-7 on schedule for tomorrow. If I feel good enough I’ll do 8. And then 6 on Wednesday. I have a day schedule on Friday, so I can either run 10 in the morning or in the evening. We’ll see.

Jennie wants to try for 20 on Sunday. I’m chaperoning my students to a journalism conference on Saturday. Hopefully I’m not too tired to conquer 20.

So, my remaining goals this year: Get to 1,000 and run that marathon.

Nov 5

Ready to fall back

We turn the clocks back at 2 a.m. tonight.

This is good on many levels for me.

The class I teach at the local community college begins at 8 a.m. That means I have to be out the door by 7 a.m. to get there early enough to open the door and get the projector going. I’m usually sitting behind my teaching podium by 7:45. My students start showing up shortly after.

The last two weeks my drive has been ridiculous. I leave home when it’s dark. I come home when it’s dark.

It’s no wonder I have been so tired lately. I seem to basically be working all day.

At least now I leave when it’s light out again.

Technically I do work all day, at least from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. most days. Some days I get off at 7 p.m. I come back to Tracy and swim on those days.

Other days I get home at 8:30 p.m. and go right to the treadmill. Sometimes I don’t even eat.

Friday marked the beginning of fewer Friday late shifts for me. The regular high school football season is over. That also means I say goodbye to my mid-day runs. I ran eight miles in between jobs yesterday.

And when I hopped off the treadmill, I found these in my mailbox:

Score! I’ve been a Runner’s World subscriber for about six months now. I recently picked up a subscription to Running Times. They sent me both the October and the December issue as a new subscriber.

Can I say I’m loving both? I am.

Tonight 7 p.m. seems much later than usual. Tomorrow it will be 6 p.m.

I’m anticipating a long run tomorrow. (At least 10, maybe I’ll get higher, that would be nice.)

So I’m staying at home. It’s raining outside. And I’m ready to fall back right about now.

At least I get an extra hour of sleep tonight.

Oh, and we finally lit a fire in our fireplace.

We’ve lived here for more than a year. It’s about time.

A cozy fire and a running magazine? My idea of a good Saturday night.

Don’t forget to set those clocks back.

 

Nov 2

‘Tis the season to be sick

One of my friends has a bad cold right now. She sounds miserable. I started thinking about that a couple days ago when I noticed a lot of people around me sneezing, coughing and generally in a “coming down with something” mode.

Well, darn.

It’s just that time of the year. Everyone is getting sick.

Unfortunately with only a little more than four weeks left to train for the California International Marathon, I don’t really have time to be sick. But I’m apparently making myself more susceptible to illness.

I’m running outside more. I’m running longer distances temperatures cold enough to make my lungs burn during the first part of my run. I’m also swimming. That means at some point I’m getting out of a pool dripping wet in the chilly California Central Valley cold. I started to feel as if I was getting a sore throat the other day and panicked.

I can’t get sick. Not now.

So today my full-time job hosted a health fair. There was glucose and blood pressure screening. I passed on that. And they were giving flu shots.

Truth be told, I am petrified of needles. I hate to look at them. I hate the thought of one piercing my skin. I get a little white and have been known to pass out. So I asked one of my friends to come with me. She didn’t so much old my hand as distract me.

And I got a flu shot, the person administering it poked my shoulder with ninja-like precision.

Even better, I didn’t have a reaction to it. That’s uncommon. This is only the second flu shot I’ve had where I haven’t broken out in hives or looked like I had a quick attack of the mumps. That was good too, since I had a lot of work to do today.

The health fair even had fruits and vegetables to give away. So I grabbed some. I think I’ll make a nice stir fry tomorrow out of the haul, which is at the top of this post.

I don’t know if the flu shot will prevent the flu. But I’m hopeful. That said, I’m still investing in hand sanitizer and staying away from coughing and sneezing people.

Better safe than sorry, right?

Oct 31

Meet me Monday: It doesn’t define me, but it’s a big part

One of the first questions I get asked after a weekend is how long my long run was this weekend. I got to answer “twenty” today, which made me feel pretty good.

But, sometimes, I think people see me as one-dimensional. I’m getting a lot of “really?” looks since I told people I’m swimming now. I got some eye squints when I bought a road bike (which I’m hoping to finally take on a longer ride this weekend, finally).

In fact, the title of this blog sums up how I’m introduced now more than ever. “This is Tara, she’s blah, blah, blah…and she runs.”

One-day after my twenty miler, I’m not feeling any bit extra powerful. Just happy to have made it. Happy to, potentially, be doing it again this weekend with Jennie.

I’m also a little sore, which is cause for the wearing of compression sleeves under my jeans today. (Yes, I wear jeans to work. Yes, we have a dress code. Yes, I can make jeans professional. I actually spend time crawling around on the ground for video. I once ripped an awesome pair of slacks. I also once split a pair of jeans shooting video, so I have a tendency to tear apart my clothes pretty good.)

But, especially with marathon training, it’s easy to forget all the other things in my life. I do it. So do others.

And that’s OK. Sort of. Until I start forgetting things like turning in my Flex contract for school (which could have cost me $350) or a conference call, or a video assignment, etc.

I’m dubbing it “runner’s brain.”

It kind of makes you think running is the only thing in the world. That’s not to say that’s bad. There’s just more too me than that.

 

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