You Lose Some, You Win Some

It's been an interesting last week or so of training.

The heat finally broke so running has been more pleasant. Having to get up before dawn on a holiday weekend to get a run in while it was semi-tolerable was not my idea of a good time, so despite mourning the loss of summer, I have welcomed the cooler mornings.

With the cooler weather, we also started to see some rain. The effect on my training last week was two-fold. 1) It caused me to skip my Thursday evening Recess Run  sponsored by Fleet Feet. I wanted to avoid slipping and sliding in wet grass as I am hyper aware of anything that could cause injury. 2) Instead of my Thursday night run, I decided to join the monthly early morning Fleet Feet Friday run. I set up my alarm for 5:20 am (ugh), got up, got dressed, rolled my calves a bit and headed out the front door only to discover it was raining. I stood in the doorway for a moment trying to decide what to do. Normally, rain in the pre-dawn hours is my get-out-running-free card but I was already awake (sort of), dressed and ready to go so I went. That might not have been the best idea.

Only 4 of us showed up to run Friday morning in the rain.The first half mile went well.The section of sidewalk we were running on has several spots that are pretty badly broken. We know this and look out for them. This particular morning the rain caused these spots to hold deep puddles. I spotted one particularly deep puddle, shouted a warning to the folks behind me, and then proceed to catch my toe on the broken slab of concrete and go down. Hard. Right in the very puddle I was trying to sidestep. I got up and and turned down offers to go back to the store and wash up. I figured I was already awake, running and dirty - might as well finish the run. I had no idea how hard I went down until I got back to the store and could barely raise my right arm and this picture was shown to me. So much for avoiding situations that could cause bodily damage.

Running - 1, Raegan - 0

Sunday I competed as part of a triathlon relay in Litchfield. Our all-female relay team, Mid-pack Attack, decided to do the Olympic distance option, mostly because I needed to get a 10K run in for my training. Sorry Ashley and Jenny for making you do the long course!

Sidenote: we stayed at a local hotel in Litchfield. When you travel for a triathlon, you have a lot of stuff you need to have with you: bikes, bike pumps, wetsuits, running shoes, etc. Jenny's car was loaded down with all of this - a lot of which we needed to carry up to our room so I wanted to make this as easy as possible. When the front desk employee gave us our room number, I asked him where we should park given where our room was located. This was was our conversation:

Clueless Front Desk Guy: Here you go. You're in room 222.
Me: Great. Thanks. So where should we park then?
CFDG: (blank look) In the parking lot.
Me: Ok - let me rephrase. Given where our room is and the door we should use, where would be the best place to enter?
CFDG: Uh, the front door is right there.
Jenny: Aren't there doors at either end of the hotel too?
CFDG: Yes - one on either end.
Me: (thinking at this point, he'd show us a map of the hallway and where our room was) Ok. Good, then in WHAT PART of the hotel is our room?
Ashley: (Visibly frustrated) There's the sign with the room numbers, looks like we are to the right. Let's go!

In any event, we got to our room and were all in bed with the lights off by 9:05. Wild and crazy ladies on a Saturday night.

You know what? Litchfield is hilly. My flatlander legs did not appreciate that. But I will say it was beautiful down near Lake Lou Yager, near which the triathlon took place. Ashley swam a kick butt .9 mile course and Jenny hit an impressive mph on the 24 mile bike. I anchored the relay for the run and got to see those hills close up. There may have been some walking on a couple of the more obnoxious uphill sections. In any event, Mid-Pack Attack won the female Olympic distance race. It's very possible we were the only female team in that event.

We've decided to still claim pride in our win because we're assume the other female teams were too scared to do the long distance.

 

 Our awards were water bottles, which none of us were too excited about because each of us has a kitchen full of water bottles. But the they did put a nice little finishing touch on them. And I am trying to be better about drinking more water during the day so this might be a good reminder to do that.

 

Raegan - 1, Crazy hilly 6 miles - 0 

In other news, my friend Jennie got a sticker maker last week. It's her new favorite toy and I'm her new favorite recipient of stickers. She made me several "Pain-O-Meter" stickers featuring The Oatmeal. She said she thought I needed them to track how much my training runs hurt. I must say, it is one of the most unusual training gifts I have received. I'd probably put the run at Litchfield at about a 7 - tears, but no blood coming out of my eyes.

 

 

But What Am I Going to Wear?

Anyone who is familiar with runDisney races knows they are full of people running in costume. When I first heard of this, I thought it was crazy. I mean, running for multiple hours starting before dawn is hard enough. Then you want to go and make it even more challenging by running in costume? These people were nuts, I thought. But then I ran my first runDisney race and saw how much fun people were having and how they weren't taking themselves seriously at all. Something about that appealed to me. I had spent plenty of years running when being the fastest was the most important thing, and a lot of times no matter how fast I ran, I wasn't having a lot of fun. So when I my friend suggested we run the Princess Half Marathon together, I agreed to run in a sparkly skirt and tiara. It was actually kind of fun. And I learned that my head was made for a tiara.

Now I find myself training for another runDisney race weekend and the the subject of what I will be wearing has already come up (Jennie - I'm looking at you!). So here's what I thought. The idea of running all the races that make up the Dopey Challenge is crazy enough. Why not make it even crazier by running one of them in a costume? Being a big Mickey fan, I thought a Mickey Mouse costume would be my style. Then Jennie happened. She decided that one race costume was not enough. So currently I find myself preparing 3 costumes. They are currently in various states of completion. 

Costume #1 is the aforementioned Mickey Mouse. This one is actually pretty simple to put together. I already have a black running shirt and tights. I also have a couple pairs of Mickey ears, because who doesn't? All I needed was something to pull it together. Enter Etsy. This is the piece I needed, in its almost-done state:

Costume #2 was going to be the hardest. My favorite Disney Princess is Jasmine from the movie Aladdin. When I saw the movie as a kid back in the 1990s I loved how independent she was. She refused to be married off just because she was the "right" age and she was determined to live her life her way. Even at a young age, that resonated with me. Unfortunately, Jasmine is not one of the more popular princesses and finding pieces to make this costume has proven to be a challenge. Thankfully I have Pinterest, Jennie and a mother who is a kickass seamstress. I have found a couple of headbands that will fit in with the costume and this weekend mom and I found material we think will make the perfect pair of Jasmine pants. I just hope they are not too uncomfortable to run in. So now I have about half of what I need for my Jasmine costume. Here's a sneak peek:

This was where I was going to stop, because A) this was getting expensive, and B) I'm not crazy*. But Jennie would have none of that. Luckily for her, costume #3 just kind of fell together. I happened to find a great Ariel t-shirt on clearance and a pair of mermaid-looking tights at TJ Maxx. Check another costume off the list. 

*This is apparently up for debate.

Now that I have ideas for 3 costumes (sorry Jennie - that's all I got), I just need to wait for mom to finish some sewing. Of course, then I'll have do do a test run in each of them to make sure there are no issues. So if you see me running on the Constitution Trail dressed as a princess, a mermaid or a beloved mouse, wave and say hi. I'm guessing I'll be hard to miss.

Progress Report - Month 1

I'm just about a month into Dopey training and I think I'm starting to get into a groove. Unfortunately, it's a slow groove - like a 33 record when I want to run like a 45 (I totally had to look up those numbers - I'm too young to know about record playing speeds!). But it's a groove nonetheless and I'm thankful for it. So here's what's going on with training.

More miles, same speed. I have been adding miles fairly regularly. I'm now up to 4 1/2 miles for mid-week runs and I have an 8 mile "long" run planned for this weekend. I've noticed something about myself in regards to mileage. I can seemingly add mile after mile to my runs and yet my pace stays pretty much the same. I don't get any faster when I do shorter distances. So 6 miles or 16 - I'm pretty much at the same pace. I know a lot of this is due to the fact I refuse to do speed work, but still.

Rolling, rolling, rolling....Most people probably think running is what takes the most time when you're training for a race like this. I think it's all the stuff you have to do BECAUSE of the running. I talked about the laundry already (seriously - it never ends!) but the other thing taking a lot of my time is foam rolling. My muscles, especially in my calves, get really tight when I'm doing all the this running so I have to roll at least twice a day. It's gotten to the point that I have to multi-task in order to get stuff done.

Physical therapy I've been in PT since the beginning of training because I was coming off a hip injury. I just recently graduated from 2x/week to once a week. Progress! I've improved in a lot of ways but some things never change. During my time in PT, I've gone from not being able run at all to doing 7 miles, but I'm still only at 20 seconds for planks. Planking is my kryptonite. I'm seriously thinking my demise might be death by planking.

Early mornings suck. I am not a morning person. If you're reading this and you know me personally, this is not a surprise. But having working several evenings a week, paired with the hot and humid conditions lately, I've had to give in to the early morning workout. The picture below (me in the middle) shows how happy I am about that...

I will admit that getting my workout done early makes for a pleasant rest of the day. But getting up while it's still dark outside is not cool. My body is confused about why I'm asking it to things when clearly it's still the middle of the night. Luckily, I have people to run with from time to time, like my neighbor Lauri. Lauri is a morning person (I know, right? But I like her anyway.) and she's always more than willing to wake up at oh-hell-no-o'clock to run or bike or swim. Many times getting up to work out with her looks something like this:

Sleep....and the lack thereof. So early morning workout have become a necessity. Ugh. But I've been surprisingly effective at getting this done in recent weeks. That leads me to the sleep situation. I'm not getting enough of it. I have gradually worked my way to getting to sleep earlier at night. This was made possible by both Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert leaving their respective late night shows. I'm going to try to keep this up, but Colbert is coming back to the late night airwaves next week so....

Fails. I've had a few of these. A particularly nasty run during which I got suddenly sick after mile 2 and was a mile from the nearest unlocked restroom comes to mind, but we won't discuss that further. The other thing I've been particularly bad about is my hydration. I'm not a big water drinker. I know, I know. With the extra running, and accompanying profuse sweating, I know I need to take in more water. I have replaced my shower beers with shower nuuns so that's something. The electrolyte replacement drink is a good start but I know I need more good ole'  H2O.

I'm 1 month in and have 4 more months to go. I can do this! I think....

Can't I Just Buy New Clothes?

I'm scarcely into my Dopey training and it's already come to this. I've had to buy an additional laundry hamper.

Most people need to do laundry when they run out of clothes. I usually just buy more clothes. But at some point, this is no longer a practical option. I mean, my house isn't all that big. But the main problem I've been having lately with all these wardrobe changes necessitated by multiple workouts is that my hamper simply cannot hold enough clothing . So I either had to buy a 2nd hamper or do laundry more often. I think the answer was clear so off to Bed, Bath and Beyond I went.

But it's not just the overflowing laundry pile that precipitated this purchase. There was also the issue of my "liquid awesome" getting all over everything. You know that saying that women don't sweat, they sparkle? Well, I sparkle a whole hell of a lot. I usually have to peel my running clothes off of me. Nice visual, huh? I know it sounds ridiculous, because all the clothes in the hamper are dirty, but I don't like my workout clothes to mingle with my regular clothes. In my mind there are multiple levels of clothes dirtiness: "regular day dirty", "hot day dirty", "workout dirty", "hot day workout dirty" and "what died in there?". I feel like I've had many an outfit fall in the latter end of that spectrum lately.

One of the ways I accommodate the "hot day workout dirty" and "what died in there?" categories is to air out my clothes before I put them in the hamper. On any particular day, you'd find clothes hanging off doorknobs, shower curtain rods, hooks, the sides of the hamper, and the edge of a bed. The only reason nothing is hanging off my ceiling fan is that I'm too tired to climb up my stepladder after a run.

So I had the brilliant idea to segregate my clothing. By putting workout clothes - and only workout clothes - in one hamper and the rest of my clothes in the other, I know which load to use my super-duty, you-stink-more-than-average, workout clothing detergent on. I can also just drag the hamper straight down the washing machine and dump without touching the clothes with my hands.  And I can probably put off doing laundry by at least 5 days.

I'm sure my stench hamper won't be the last purchase I need to make for Dopey Training, but it might just be the laziest. And I'm ok with that.

Things I Think About When I'm Running

This Dopey Challenge training stuff has caused me to spend a lot of quality time with myself. Often in the oh-hell-no-o'clock hours while normal people are still sleeping. This has already had a couple of effects: 1) the time of day I most look forward to is bedtime. When I wake up, often my first thought is of when I can sleep again, and 2) I have a lot of time to think. I'd like to say I use this time to ponder the great questions of the universe but let's not forget it's really early and I'm not a morning person. Below are some of the thoughts I've had during runs this week.

Thoughts about what I'm using to fuel myself. "Powerade does indeed go bad. I'm not sure what the timeline is for that to happen but personal experience tells me it's somewhere south of 7 years."

Thoughts about what normal productive people do. "Geez - look at these people in their cars. They are already showered and dressed and on their way places to do things. That one even managed to get a kid dressed too. It's only 6:43 a.m. Who are these people? "

Thoughts about the one shoe I found abandoned by the water fountain in the park. "Hmmm....one shoe. How does someone lose one shoe? I mean, it's clearly a kid's shoe, but wouldn't they notice that they were walking a little crooked on the way home? At the very least, wouldn't the adult that took them home from said park notice the child in their care was semi-shoeless? Also - what will they do with the other shoe?"

Thoughts about how I need to add some variety to my playlist. "Man I need to add some more music to my running playlist. Ugh...I don't want to have to use iTunes on my computer. I bet celebrities don't have to update their own playlists. They probably have someone to do that kind of thing for them. I need someone to do that for me. There should be a service where people do that for you! I would pay for that. This is brilliant. This is my million dollar idea."

My runs are still fairly short so my thinking time is still limited. I'm sure I'll manage to solve the world's problems once my run milage hit the double digits.

What Have I Done?

Crap.

Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap.



Crap.

Today I had what was no doubt the first of many freak-outs regarding this Dopey plan. I am still trying to figure out which training plan I'm going to use. In the plan I first decided to use, I don't need to start the official schedule until mid-September but the distance starts out pretty long. The 2nd plan I considered started a month ago but with my hip thing I wasn't able to start it then. The third plan I considered starts out with a long run of 13 miles on the first week. With all this confusion I decided to ask my physical therapist Josh, who is also a runner, what he thought would be smartest considering I was coming back from injury. In the course of our conversation, he said " You could use several 20 milers. You're basically training for an ultra."

Huh.

I'd never considered that. He's right, of course. And that caused some mild anxiety. And then on the drive back to my office, I had another thought. I'm doing this thing all alone. Well, I do know 1 other person doing it, but he'll be coming off a 100 mile run this fall, so I'm thinking he's out of my league. Yep - I'm alone in this. And that's when the freak out commenced.

So let's take stock of where I'm at right now.

1) I'm basically training for an ultra marathon.
2) I'm coming off an injury.
3) I'm already behind in my training due to said injury.
4) I'm doing this alone.
5) My hair is at that awkward stage where it's too long to leave down for a run but too short to pull back in a ponytail.

Ok - so that last one is not so catastrophic but the rest are kind of a big deal.

Crap. What have I done?

When I started this journey to the Dopey Challenge, I had a plan. A good plan, if I do say so myself. The plan was run a half marathon every couple of months to keep up a good mileage base and to have some options to submit for proof of time for corral placement. I signed up for the Flying Pig Half Marathon in Cincinnati. I knew a hilly course like that wouldn't likely allow me to PR but it was mainly for fun and I'd have at least a time. In order to hopefully get a faster time, I signed up for the flat Chicago Rock N Roll Half Marathon for July. And then I injured my hip and that effectively put an end to all those lovely plans.

So if I haven't been running or writing about running for the last 3 months, what having I been filling my days with? Being electrocuted and stabbed mostly. Since the doctors can think of nothing more to do than take x-rays (2 sets), MRIs (2 different ones) and bone scans, I've taken matters into my own hands and been going to physical therapy. And that physical therapy has included little things called dry needling and electrical stimulation. Let's break these fun activities down a little further.

Dry needling. Even the name sounds horrific. This is when my therapist takes his thumb and forefinger and poke around in the general area where it hurts. I'll react from time to time when his pressure hurts. When I really jump due to the pain, that's where he presses harder and then sticks hollow needles into the area. First you feel the initial prick. "That's not so bad," you think "This won't be too awful." Then  once you relax for a micro-second, there's the heat sensation and then the pain that can be so severe that it takes your breath away. That process gets repeated. And repeated. And repeated. Once, my therapist had to leave the curtained area to get something. While he was gone, I happened to lift my head up and look in the direction of my hip and saw that I still had 3 needles sticking out of butt cheek. I almost passed out.

Electrical stimulation usually follows the dry needling. This is exactly what it sounds like. My therapist puts some device on my glutes and sends an electrical current through it. This is where it gets weird. The electricity causes my muscles to move without me moving them. I can't control it and I feel the muscles twitching. Once, my therapist was doing his normal stimulation of the muscles in the gluteal area and the muscle twitching went all the way down to my ankle. I saw my therapists' head snap to the side like he was at tennis match to see my twitching all the way down my leg. "We must have found a good spot," he says. I can barely walk when I get off the table.

Sounds like fun, huh? Despite the pain, I do think these treatments have helped get me back in my running shoes so every PT appointment when my therapist asks if I'm up for the needling, I say "short term pain is worth it for long term gain" and let him commence with this torture methods.

In the last few weeks, I've been able to finish a back-to-back 5K and half marathon as well as my first training run in 3 months. I'm cautiously optimistic that I can start working back up to a regular training routine. Dopey is in 5 months and I have a lot of work to do. So bring on the needles.

One day, as my therapist was doing the dry needling, this sentence came out of his mouth: "I'll put one more [needle] in and then I'll shock you."

The things we do to be able to run.