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Posts tagged ‘marathon’

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 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 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 30

A twenty-mile journey

Sometimes when you start running, you don’t exactly know how far you can go, you just hope to get where you need to be. That happens to me a lot. I hop on the treadmill or turn onto my street for a run with no number in mind. Instead, I just put one foot in front of another.

I just keep going.

And going.

I, hopefully, eventually, reach my goal.

Some days, with everything going on in my life, I don’t see the finish line anywhere in site. I’m swamped with work. I have way too many extracurricular-type activities. I’m always on the run, literally.

I have days where I feel exactly like  I look in this photo:

Tired. Confused. Defeated.

And then I have days like today.

Today, I feel on top of the world.

My alarm clock was set at 5:45 a.m. I only hit snooze once. I rolled out of bed, put on my running clothes and was out the door by 6:15 a.m. I had packed the reusable bag I got at the Nike Women’s Half Marathon with about 10 different things.

I called it my “no excuse” bag.

It had Larabars, M&Ms, Body Glide, Zensah Compression shin sleeves, a charger for my Garmin and a couple other things. I filled my two 20-ounce Amphipod waterbottles with a Gatorade/water mix.

I also filled a 32-ounce water bottle (also from the Nike Women’s Half Marathon) with Gatorade for Jennie and I. I figured this would take away all our excuses for wanting to stop.

It actually did.

I met Jennie in the Central Community Park in Mountain House. It was pitch black.

We calmed our nerves a little, but the task at hand was a huge one: One 20-mile run.

No giving up. No turning back.

We started running. About a mile in we stopped at a portable toilet in the newest of the subdivisions in Mountain House. We saw a coyote. We kept moving. And moving.

Two miles. Three miles. Four. Five. Seven. Eight. Nine.

We kept counting down, talking about 100 different things. It’s amazing what you can learn about someone when running. I love Jennie. She’s one of the most honest, nonjudgmental people I know. She’s an awesome mother. And she’s determined as all hell. I’m glad she was with me all 20 miles today.

We laughed. We nearly broke down a couple times. We walked a slightly long duration toward the end (I think about 1/2 mile at one point). But we kept going. We kept putting one foot in front of the other.

And, soon, after more than four hours moving, we were done.

“I look like someone ran over my face,” after looking at this photo again.

But we did it. And thank God for Jennie. When I started to get tired, she propelled me. When she started to get tired, I encouraged her. And we stayed next to each other or close the entire time (until my Garmin battery started dying and I had to step it up to get the 20-mile Garmin reading).

And then, we were done.

We celebrated by running over to the one and only market in Mountain House and getting Slush Puppies (Jennie’s treat, which was awesome after a run that long).

My husband said, all you have to do is write: “It sucked.” But it didn’t suck. In fact, it was the total opposite of “sucking.”

I felt amazing after. I felt renewed. I felt alive.

I tweeted this not too soon after:

In high school, one of my favorite bands was Fuel. The band has one specific song, “Sunburn,” that I love tremendously because of a specific set of lines within it.

“You were gone, you were no there for me, and I cursed the sky and begged the sun to fall all over me. This life’s not living, living ain’t free. And if I can’t find my way back to me, let the sun fall down over me,” the chorus repeats.

The highlighted part is my favorite. A friend once asked me why, the real reason, I run. First it was about diabetes. Then it was about getting in better shape. Now, it’s about finding myself.

Today, I did. Between miles 16-20 I found a part of me that I’d left behind for some time. I found the will to continue to despite difficultly. I found a way to keep going even though I was tired. I found my will again.

Sometimes it’s not about the time. Sometimes it’s about the distance. And sometimes, it’s about the journey that gets you from the first mile to the last. There is a part of you that changes when you put on step in front of another. There’s an even bigger part that changes when you realize, after all, you can do it.

My twenty-mile journey, today, wasn’t just a training run. It was about finding my way back to me.

Oct 28

Good sign for the weekend

I’m hoping to do my longest run this weekend. I have  friend, who is also signed up to run the California International Marathon, ready to run with me. I know I can get through the first 10. It’s the second 10 that worries me.

I ran 8 this morning and was tired.

I’m a little scared.

Then I opened this today after I ate my lunch.

This means it will be okay, right?

I sure hope so.

Sep 23

A beginning

I’ve written blog posts before. But not like this.

For some time I’ve toyed with the idea of starting a running blog. But I didn’t. Why? I felt too amateur to do so. I’ve only been running for 19 months.

I started running to get off my diabetes medication. But I ran my first 5k in Nov. 2008.

The next one I ran I knocked 10 minutes off my time. That was April 2010.

I ran my first 10K on Thanksgiving Day 2010.

I was scared out of my mind. But I ended up registering for a half marathon the next June.

I was ahead in my training, so I ran my first half marathon in Oakland on March 27 at the Oakland Running Festival.

I’ve run three more since. I’m training for a marathon I hope to be able to compete.

To get there, I’m running three half marathons in October (I hope).

This is my journey.

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