Forgive me Hal Higdon

As I predicted, today's long run was cut, well, shorter. In keeping with the theme of this week, I ended up cutting the miles of this run. Instead of the prescribed 12 miles, I only did 8. The arch of my right foot was still bothering me, there was ice patches scattered along my route and I was just plain "not feelin' it".

As it is the day after Christmas, I was at my parents' house. So I set off from their house with a belly full of Christmas lasagna and the desire to just lie on the couch and watch a movie. It took a little while to get moving but I made it the 4 miles to the park where mom the sherpa was waiting with sports drink and, in lieu of my normal Shot Blocks, some mini Snickers. After a quick stop, I was off for 3 loops around the park - bringing my distance to 8 miles. My foot was bothering me and I was tired so that's where it ended. The bright note was that my dad, who had been suffering from a cold, came out to do my last 2 miles with me.


So I again finished short of the mark. It was the first time EVER I had cut the distance of a long run. I'm feeling quite a bit of guilt but I'm guessing I ran more today than most people did the week of Christmas. I'm sure that in his lovely suburban Chicago home Hal Higdon, inventor or my training schedule, can feel that I've cut my run short. Forgive me Coach Higdon!

Tapering a little too much

As I mentioned previously, I am now in the glorious taper stage of marathon training. Never was there such a lovely time. Tapering means reducing mileage following your longest run and gradually working down to only a few miles the week of the marathon. Here's the thing though: in the past week, I've taken tapering to an art form and went a little overboard. Here's the breakdown of my runs since the tapering began:

Day 1
Miles I was supposed to do: 4
Miles I did: 0
Reason/Excuse: The arch of my right foot was sore and I figured at this point rest was more important than a measly 4 miles.

Day 2
Miles I was supposed to do: 8
Miles I did: 6.6
Reason/Excuse: Runner Wendy wasn't feeling well, I was crabby at 6:45 am for waiting for a tardy Runner Wendy to meet me and it had snowed again and left more snow on the trail requiring a lot more of our lower legs (Hey in those conditions, 6.6 miles=8 miles in normal conditions, right?).

Day 3
Miles I was supposed to do: 5
Miles I did: 3
Reason/Excuse: It was raining. Again. I ran on a treadmill in my brother's basement and despite his efforts to make me comfortable by putting on a DVD and bringing out a fan, running on a treadmill is just miserable for me. Plus my 3-year old niece kept throwing balls at me in her attempt to play catch.

So my next run is my "long" one for the week. It happens to fall on the day after Christmas and just my luck, the temperature is supposed to be 20 degrees colder than it is now. And, it's supposed to snow. So that 12 might turn into 8 real quick.

It's all downhill from here...and other lies we tell ourselves

If I ever have kids, I'm going to make them listen to my story about the time I ran 20 miles. In the snow. On purpose. I didn't do it barefoot but maybe I will tell them I did just for good measure.

Actually, though, Saturday's run went pretty well for me. The first 10 miles were actually, dare I say it, fun. I packed my small camera in my pouch for a "test run" (hehe) to see if I would be comfortable carrying a camera during the marathon. It was fine. While I had the camera, I decided to document our snowy trek. We had a "before" picture where we were all smiles. We took some photos at water stops at mile 5 and 10. I even took a picture of the 20-mile marker. We had to brush aside the snow first but we found it thanks to Runner Wendy's memorization of every inch of the trail.

With a strong wind coming out of the north, we altered our planned route a bit so that we didn't have to spend as much time heading north. Instead we headed to the college where Runner Wendy and I work. It was open that Saturday for special registration hours and we were lured by the promise of indoor plumbing, functional water fountains and heat. Now lots of folks know of my recent fondness for doughnuts after a long run, but I can honestly say I've never eaten a doughnut during a long run. After this rest stop, Runner Wendy can no longer say that.

The last 6 miles of the run brought some fatigue but by and large I felt pretty good. We kept encountering other crazy people running on the trail. It's funny - the running community is small, tight-knit group. Almost everyone asked us if we were training for Disney. And even more amazing, they knew how many miles we were running that day. Seems like the Hal Higdon training plan is quite popular around these parts.

All in the all, the day was good and now I can bask in my taperness. You see, the taper is this magical time of year when after the longest training run has been completed, good little runners everywhere can finally cut back on their miles and regain use of their toes. So here's to the taper - so good to see you again.

I guess it all evens out...

Bad news: I have to run 20 miles on Saturday. All at once.
Good news: My wishes of hot tea with brandy following my run were granted.

Ten on the Tundra

Runner Wendy turned to me to today and said, "I have an ice cream headache." The problem, I noted to Runner Wendy, was that we were not eating ice cream at the time. We were running. Outdoors. In 7 degree weather. "Yeah," says Runner Wendy, "I know. None of the pleasure and all of the pain."

That little exchange pretty much described the conditions of our 10 mile run. It was cold. The sun wasn't quite up when we set out and for the first 1/2 mile my cheeks - both sets - were frozen. When Runner Wendy got out of her car, it was the first time I'd seen a runner wearing a scarf. About a mile in, we passed someone walking on the trail (Lord knows why). She had on a an ankle-length quilted coat, hood, hat and scarf. The only reason I know there was a person under there was that the words "good morning" emanated from the vicinity of where a mouth would be.

Oddly enough, we actually had a good run. We were so consumed with thinking about how cold it was that we didn't even consider how tired we might be running 10 miles before work. So I guess that's a bonus. And according to my fancy new Nike+ Sportband, we burned 1368 calories. I promptly worked towards replacing those calories as I eschewed my normal Wednesday morning doughnut breakfast today in favor of a 4 cheese souffle at Panera. Amidst the butter and fat, I'm pretty sure there's some protein in there. A runner needs her protein.

So despite the fact that we were running on what appeared to be the Arctic Tundra relocated to Central Illinois, the run this morning wasn't all that bad. Now I just need to find someone to make me some hot tea with a splash of brandy.

Hell Week

I have to run 40 miles this week!
40.
Miles.
In the span of 7 days.

20 of those miles have to be run at once. People buy tickets for a Greyhound bus to take them that far. As an added character-builder, the temperature tomorrow when Runner Wendy and I head out for a brisk 10 miles will be a balmy 8 degrees. Fahrenheit. We will be running more miles than there are degrees registering on the thermometer.

This is the week that I've been dreading since September 5th. Most of whatever energy I had left at the end of a run went into freaking out about this week. Now it's here. I've devoted the time. I've put in the training and I've got the scars to prove it. (Literally. Want to see?) So now I just need to come with my mental game. I realize, however, that most people think my mental game was lost the moment I decided to run a winter marathon but I gotta work with what I have.

So now I need to go mentally prepare for my 40 mile week. I gotta be out runnin' the streets early. Unless I can catch one of those Greyhounds...

30 days and counting...

One month from today is the big race! I feel like I've made lots of progress and should actually be ready to go. The training has gone well so far (knock on wood) and if the weather doesn't mess us up, we should be in good shape (pun intended). The flights, rooms and dinner reservations are booked. T-shirts for Team Raegan have been designed and will be ordered in the next few days. I printed out my race waiver today, which will need to be signed and brought to the Race Expo to retrieve my packet.

Four months of preparation has led to this. I think we're in the final stretch now!! :)

I didn't really need those body parts anyway...

Have you ever looked at a marathoner's feet? It ain't pretty. Sure, there are the blisters and bruises that one might find with other athletes, but as far as I know there is one malady that seems to be uniquely marathonish: toenail lossage. Yep - that's right, I made up a word because "loss" just doesn't seem appropriate enough of a term for this reality.

It has happened to me before. And as it stands now, I will surely lose at least one, but more likely two, nails this time around. It isn't painful and they grow back - realllllyyyy slowly - but they do grow back. After the race, I'm considering treating myself to a pedicure and I'll just tell 'em to paint the skin where the nail used to be. Nobody will know. Except of course, those of you reading this blog, but you won't tell, will you?

This is a fairly common occurrence for those of us that log approximately 500 miles on our feet over 4 months. I've grown accustomed to this inevitability, but what I find amusing is that, yes, you can buy a product to help guard against this tragic fate. And with that thought, I leave you with the following picture...

Mother Nature - you will not defeat me!

Winter has arrived. Yeah, I'm not thrilled either. I do realize that I've been incredibly lucky so far, weatherwise. Running this many miles in winter, the odds are not good that one will be comfortable but so far, so good. Then this week came. A huge storm swept through the Midwest this week. With multiple inches of snow forecast for the area, Runner Wendy and I decided it was best to get our mid-week 9-mile run out of the way Tuesday morning instead of Wednesday morning in order to get out ahead of the storm. Unfortunately I had run almost 5 miles Monday night.

Tuesday morning was still and snow-covered. This was our first run through the snow. With my previous run only 12 hours earlier, I was pretty tired when we started. The 9 miles seemed to go pretty slowly. Probably because we were running slowly. In any event we needed to find a way to pass the time. Luckily, the snow on the trail gave us a welcome distraction. Seeing the footprints and paw prints in the snow, we noticed lots of little details. We noticed a man with some kind of traction device in the heel of his shoe had gone for a walk. A dog was slightly dragging its left paw as he walked. A child cut across the trail to walk to school. And a lone biker was crazy enough to go for a ride that morning before dawn.

Another thing that helped pass the time - a quick calculation. In the last 72 hours, I've run 32 miles. Guess that means it's time for bed now.

Running is the antidote for cockiness

I ran 18 miles this weekend. All at once. Seriously. And I felt pretty darn good too. Regular water stops kept me hydrated. Preventative ibuprofen at mile 11 kept my back from acting up. And multiple layers of clothing kept me from freezing to death on a 4 hour run in 14 degree weather. To add to my sense of grandeur, Runner Wendy and I finished our 18 miles in the same amount of time as we completed our 16 miles two weeks earlier. But anyone who has trained for a marathon will tell you that the sport has a way of smacking you down when you get too full of yourself - as I soon found out.

Let's start with the wardrobe. Now anyone that knows me can tell you that when I have a goal, I will work towards it with reckless abandon until I achieve it. This has caused me to run in conditions that have been less than ideal. However, I would normally not be so keen on running in below-freezing temperatures or pre-dawn rains. Because of this fact, I do not own many cold weather running clothes and I don't own any holy-crap-it's-freezing outside running clothes. So for Saturday's frigid run, it was necessary to layer multiple items that I do own. I didn't realize how ridiculous I looked until mile 5. Note the black capris/blue tights combo. Classy.

Unfortunately, the the indignities did not end with the unfortunate wardrobe. At the mile 11 water stop, I looked down to grab some GU chomps out of my pouch and discovered a lovely surprise that a bird dropped on me. As you can imagine, the options to clean oneself up along Constitution Trail are somewhat limited. Luckily (and I use that term loosely here) another running group had an event that morning and I was able to "borrow" a paper cup from their stash and scrape off as much of the bird essence as possible. I couldn't help but think that for the last 7 miles I was running with a bird crap brooch.

Despite the efforts of the running gods to keep my ego in check, I finished my run feeling great. I wasn't sore and I wasn't terribly tired. I had burned, according to Wendy's GPS computer watch thingy, approximately 2,491 calories and my next stop was to get a doughnut. So take that running gods, you can't ruin my sugar high!

Marathoning Can Save the American Economy, Part 2

Add headphones to the list of things that did not last through my marathon training. They bit the dust on Monday. And right in the middle of a challenging run that should have been a piece of cake, or pie. Mmmm... pie. Pumpkin pie sounds good right now. What was I saying? Oh yeah - headphones.

Anyway, in the last 2 weeks I've had to replace my running shoes, buy new headphones and discard two pairs of socks that I wore a hole through with my big toe on a longish run. That led me to think again about all the "stuff" I've had to purchase in the last 12 weeks and I've once again come to the conclusion that if just a quarter of the American population trained for a marathon, our recession would be SO over. Following is the continuation of the partial list of things I've had to buy in preparation for this marathon:

1) Road ID - this is an ID bracelet that is printed with your name, an emergency contact number and any medical issues that first responders need to be aware of. Somebody out there is making a lot of money due to runner moms' paranoia.

2) Reflective vest - when you run in the dark multiple times a week for over any serious distance, one tends to run out of streetlights and sidewalks pretty fast. Not to mention, I look sooo cool wearing one.

3) Head lamp - because my dorkiness factor just wasn't high enough with the reflective vest alone.

4) iTunes songs - it doesn't take long to tire of the music you have when your runs consistently take 2 hours or more.

5) Advil - for a marathon runner this is probably most economically purchased by the case. During the course of training, I had to switch to generic ibuprofen so I could afford my mortgage. This wonder product is worth its weight in gold though. It has served me well as emergency pain reliever, preventative pain stopper, breakfast and dessert.

6) Sports Drink - I've actually considered joining Sam's Club in order to purchase this item in the quantity necessary. My preferred beverage is the electric green liquid known as Sour Melon Powerade. It almost glows in the dark.

7) Boy short style underware - let's just say when you chafe in certain areas after a long run, the last thing you want sitting there is the elastic on your underware. Guys have it so easy...

8) Doughnuts and cheeseburgers - ok, so this might not be a necessity but you would have been hard pressed to find me eating either of these items 3 months ago. Now they seem to have become a staple.

So President Obama, if you're reading this (and really, why wouldn't you be?) just dump that presidential fitness test everyone has to do in elementary school PE class in favor of marathon training. I can't think of a better economic recovery plan.