2010 in review

It’s that time of year again. This wasn’t really a banner year for running, with less “firsts” and less PRs, but I knew going into the year that priorities would have to be priorities and running wasn’t always the top of the list or even close. Some notable events in my life this year were, in no particular order, finishing my master’s degree in nutrition, going through the very competitive process of applying for dietetic internships and being matched to my first choice program, learning to love our new puppy Oliver, excellent summer long run buddies Katie and Denise, being accepted into the Brooks ID program in March and subsequently being invited back to the Brooks ID PACE team for 2011, being a warrior, ran 18xx miles for the year (not done yet!), six year anniversary with Brian, bullying my mom into her first half marathon, and running two marathons including the awesome Ridge to Bridge Marathon and the kind of miserable ING Georgia Marathon.

Here’s how my resolutions for 2010 panned out:

Floss more. Success! I floss all the time now. Not even joking. If I’m at home, I can’t go running without brushing and flossing first.

Run faster. Failure! 2010 will not go down in history as the year I turned on the jets. I had A, B, and C goals for faster marathon times (under 3:50, under 4:00, and under PR of 4:12). I met none of these, but I’ll tell you that I might have if I didn’t have to take a crap in the woods during R2B. Or if I just trained more, but whatever. I think I slowed in general this year partly as a function of giving up the treadmill at the beginning of the summer. Next year’s goal: don’t get slower.

Branch out. Semi-success! I would like to think I was a bit more flexible this year. Definitely branched out in the eating department. I can’t say that I did a ton of exciting things in 2010, but short of skydiving or taking up a bunch of new hobbies I don’t have time for, I think I did pretty well.

Keep in touch with people I care about. Semi-failure! My hatred of the phone and reluctance to talk ‘n drive got the better of me this year. I talked to my siblings, but not some of the friends I had in mind when making this resolution. In some success, I did some casual mental whittling down of people that I don’t really think I need to be friends with.

Other stuff: not leaving things undone at night (dishes, clutter, etc), be better about keeping track of things/writing stuff down, less gossip, fewer impulse grocery buys, volunteer for something at least once a month, finish graduate school. Chill out, don’t be a jerk, be a good person. Hmm. Well, that’s a long list and I will probably be lucky to complete it before my time on earth is up, but I think I was pretty successful in each of this. I definitely improved on not leaving things undone, keeping track of things, gossiping less (or limiting my gossip – definitely still did some), doing some volunteering, and finishing graduate school. I was mostly not a jerk, although I had my moments as one is wont to do when blessed with a sarcastic nature, I suppose. I am still working on that. I was mostly non-offensive and minded my own business. 2011 could stand some more discipline in the grocery buying department.

moving along

Last week I was reminded that I’m not great at getting things done without a schedule and a plan. I still don’t have much of a plan for this week except battling the rain and running a 15k Saturday morning.

11/7 sunday – off
11/8 monday – PM 4.54 miles, 41:42 + 1.5 miles with spikey afterward, 14:25
11/9 tuesday – 4.00, 37:43
11/10 wednesday – tired, lazy, OFF
11/11 thursday – 3.25 miles w/ lisa, 36:19 + 2.07 afterwards
11/12 friday – 3.10, 28:56
11/13 saturday – PM 8.01 miles, 76:30 + skated 8.17 in 56:08 w/ lisa and carrie

total miles run: 26.47
total time run: 4:16:09
total cardio: 5:12:17

My skating buddy Lisa met me on Thursday to run after work. She talked a big game about how bad it was going to be, then proceeded to bust out a solid three mile run. Sweet.

Last night I found out that I was matched to my first choice dietetic internship. Heck yeah. Not to brag or maybe to brag a little, but the match rate for the spring is less than 50% and the fall is about 33% (meaning 2/3 people who apply don’t get one), so I am super stoked to have gotten one at all, let alone my top choice. The other three I applied to were pretty random locations. Crisis move to the Midwest narrowly averted. Now I can stop walking around feeling like I’m going to have a heart attack at any minute, though I still won’t find out what city my DI is in for another week or two – at least I’ve narrowed it to a potential two out of 50 states. Crossing my fingers that it’s somewhere close enough to come home on the weekend.

his name is trouble

Last week was basically a wash as far as running went. I was feeling pretty drained in the latter half of the week and felt like I might never get motivated to exercise again. Yesterday I realized how awful I felt after a week of staring at the computer and sitting on the couch and got back in action with six miles today (4.5 alone, 1.5 with dog). On my solo jaunt, I managed to reconcile with the big, bad black dog of a few weeks ago (and his mini-dob sidekick). His dentally challenged owner called him out from under the trailer (not exaggerating, the guy was nice but he had every other tooth and the ones present were greenish), I waved a couple of Milk Bones the dog’s way, and he was nuzzling me and rolling over so I could rub his belly. I only touched it with my foot. Mama didn’t raise no fool, who knows what could be in that fur. Maybe now I can have my 4+ mile country runs back.

My calves are still getting kind of sore after running, but this weather is the bomb. I have not thought too much about what my plans are for running between now and Thunder Road Marathon on December 11th, but I think I am going to try to drop down to about 30 miles per week and let my legs rest up some.

Last week’s sad stats:

Friday 11/5 – AM 3.11 miles, 28:10
Saturday 11/6 – AM skated about an hour/8 miles with Lisa and Carrie, PM ran 3.1, 27:06

total miles run: 6.21
total run time: 55:16 (…)
total cardio time: 1:55:16

weekly recap and hello november

I think someone took a cheese grater to my leg muscles this weekend…I’m not sure, though. This might be the first time the aftermath of a marathon hurt worse than the actual run.

10/24 sunday – Athens Half Marathon – 13.11, 2:02:50
10/25 monday – off
10/26 tuesday – off
10/27 wednesday – 3.62, 33:53 (9:22 avg)
10/28 thursday – 3.0, 27:14 (9:04 avg) + skated 5 miles w/ lisa, 34:20
10/29 friday – off
10/30 saturday – Ridge to Bridge Marathon – 26.22, 4:12:45

total miles run: 45.95
total run time: 7:16:42 (avg pace 9:30)
total cardio: 7:51:02

October miles: 169.94
October time run: 27:15:28 (avg pace: 9:37 – didn’t really pick it back up like I “planned”)
YTD miles: 1646.87 (surpassed last year’s miles with two months to go…woop woop)

week in review

This was a pretty sweet week of dialing things down. Hopefully this time next Saturday, I’ll be back on this couch with a sore butt and another 26.2 miles behind me.

Tomorrow, I’m running the inaugural Athens GA half marathon. I am mildly pumped. The course is pretty nice and I ran it a couple of times early in the summer, but haven’t done it since then. I think that I remember the “worst” part being around mile 8 when you run a gradual slope up Sunset for about a mile. The neighborhood is boring ’70s houses, it’s at that point where you’re not almost done yet, and it’s just enough slope to stink things up a little. On the plus side, I discovered that I love incorporating running the opposite direction down Sunset into my long runs. I went to the race expo and picked up my number, etc this afternoon; it is really nice to be able to drive to an expo in 20 minutes and be done with it (I only ever have that happen when I do the Pinehurst Turkey Trot with my mom – all my other races have been out of town).

When I pulled into the parking lot, I waited for this lady in a Land Rover/Range Rover/whatever those are to straighten up in her parking spot. I sat there waiting for about 30 seconds as she moved incredibly slowly. Then a guy in a BMW in the spot behind her started backing out. I watched them both slowly backing up, neither of them looking in their rearview to see the car behind them. They got about two feet apart and I laid on my horn and they both looked over with dirty looks and I pointed at them, then they both finally noticed there was another person who was magically equally as oblivious as themselves backing up behind them…nice. It was ridiculous. The worst part is how slowly they were both moving, which you might assume meant they were paying attention to what was going on around them. Anyway.

My goal for tomorrow is nebulous. The idea of just comfortably running the route is okay, but I already know I can comfortably run 13, 15, 20 miles so unless I do it at a decent pace, it will probably not be much of a confidence builder for next Saturday. I don’t want to kill myself the weekend before the marathon, either. So, as usual, I will attack with no plan whatsoever and be mildly pleased with whatever happens.

10/17 sunday – off
10/18 monday – 6.56, 61:38 (avg 9:24)
10/19 tuesday – off
10/20 wednesday – 8.13, 75:52 (avg 9:20)
10/21 thursday – 6.71, 61:28 (avg 9:09)
10/22 friday – 3.12, 27:53 (avg 8:57)
10/23 saturday – 2.05 w/ spikey, 18:51 (9:12 avg) + skated 8.something miles with Lisa for about an hour

total miles run: 26.57
total time run: 4:05:42
total cardio time: ? haven’t checked yet, about 5:05

la di blah

sun 10/3 – off
mon 10/4 – PM 6.19, 59:02 (9:32)
tues 10/5 – off
wed 10/6 – AM 3.52, 31:38 (8:59), 6.23, 57:15 (9:12)
thurs 10/7 – 3.1, 27:52 (8:59)
fri 10/8 – 20.12, 3:20:01
sat 10/9 – skated 8.23 miles, 59:30 w/ Lisa

total miles run: 39:16
total time run: 6:26:18
total cardio: 7:25:48

I’m probably a little late for much commentary on last week. I had a fairly comfortable last long run on Friday, but otherwise nothing major. I have been out of the double run habit (not sure I ever got into it but for a week or two), but am always so surprised how much easier the second run is. I ran the same route Wednesday night that I did the previous Monday, but 20 seconds/mile faster and just a lot more comfortable.

This week has been weird. I had an unfortunate run in with a gigantic and aggressive dog on Tuesday and have felt a little out of sorts since. Yesterday I failed my attempt at running ten and called it quits after just four slow miles. Tonight was an improvement. I decided to break out some new shoes since I had put about 550 miles on my current pair and could use a little jazz in my step at this point – whatever it takes. I saw an old man who told me he saw what happened with the dog on Tuesday morning. He asked if I called the police and I told him I talked to the sheriff on my way home and he said he’s called the police on the dog before, but they won’t do anything about it. Pretty poor policy given that this happened in our county, about four miles from my house, just last year.

I was lucky to get away unscathed, but I would recommend testing out pepper spray before someone or something attacks you because it is pretty useless until that thing is actually on you. My talent for running away and pepper spraying at the same time was considerably less than anticipated. Lesson learned. I was never very good at that rubbing your belly and patting your head at the same time thing, either. I’m feeling pretty dedicated to having an excellent day tomorrow.

joy, elation

These are my feelings about having my last long run before Ridge to Bridge over and in the books. I ran a little over 20 miles this morning (jk, not going to lie because I know it was 20.12 in 3:20) and boy howdy, is it good to know I don’t need to wake up early as hell to run for a couple of weeks. The last two weekends have been a lot cooler and so I’ve had the luxury of waking up between 5:30 and 6am, which are both vastly superior to your alarm going off at 4am only to step outside and it’s already 70 degrees out.

It was pretty uneventful as running for several hours generally is…motorists are scary, why does the guy in the beer truck have to honk at me while I am going uphill, my butt hurts, where am I, what does my bank think about me spending .92 on my debit card several times this morning, etc etc. Around 11 miles, I saw my friend walking near the EPA, where she works. She was walking from her house which is about as “across town” as you can get in Athens (five miles away). You know you might be a weirdo (in a good way) when someone halfway through running 20 miles is like, “You are walking to work from WHERE? The same house I have been to? Are you nuts?” Then I kind of laughed about five miles later when I ran by her house.

school daze

I have this habit of – I am trying not to say over committing – but basically setting a very high goal to get a ton done in a small period of time, getting halfway through no problem, and then realizing, oh, this is why I am freaking out – because I planned to freak out and be busy for a month or so instead of being kind of lazy for a couple of months. Of course, by that point it’s too late to give up even if I wanted to and nothing is ever really TOO bad. But I think the next several weeks will give me a run for my money on attempting to complete graduate school in as short a time span as humanly possible (short of getting a fake online degree or other non-thesis degree). This is to say, I’m kind of wiped at the moment and am having daydreams of napping. Luckily running makes me feel less homicidal than looking at the computer for 10 hours a day. My advisor recommended I make time for some runs. I don’t think she knows I run marathons…maybe she actually reads the tshirts I wear, I don’t know. Or she noticed that I’m perpetually sweaty. I guess it doesn’t take a psychic.

I owe a September recap and my miles from last week. Last week, most of my runs were in the evening and accompanied by some heartburn-y, stomach bloating thing that wasn’t really doing anything good for me. I am not sure what was going on because I didn’t eat within hours of running, so I am going to go ahead and attribute that to stress or something. No problems with my long run Saturday morning or so far this week. I’ve had a couple of long sleeved runs in the past couple of days…life is good.

september miles run: 175.45
time run: 28:14:50
avg pace: 9:39 (ouch, but not surprising)
YTD miles: 1476.93

Goal for October is pull my average pace back down below 9:30, where it hasn’t been since July. If I could do that in part by running a marathon faster than 9:30/mile, that would be sah-weet. I was going to do another 20 last Saturday, but was informed that was basically dumb planning so I decided to do 16 instead and save the 20 for this week. Oh, goody. I’m stoked to have almost all my long runs in the bag. It’s one less thing to think about. After that, I might do a 10 next week if I’m feeling sassy and then I’m running the Athens, GA Half Marathon the weekend before the Ridge to Bridge Marathon. I am feeling more or less prepared at this point, but I am really hoping that with the change in weather comes a return in some old speed I’ve been missing.

9/26 sunday – off
9/27 monday – 5.28, 47:26
9/28 tuesday – 4.10, 37:54
9/29 wednesday – off
9/30 thursday – 4.84, 33:00 + 3.38, 46:34 (stopped to see Brian along the way, so I reset in the middle)
10/1 friday – 6.02, 58:07
10/2 saturday – 16.28, 2:42:48 (10:00/mile), PM skated w/ Lisa 8.17 miles, 57:14

total miles run: 39.81
total run time: 6:25:49
total cardio: 7:23:03

weekly recap

It feels like I have barely run for the last couple of weeks even though I got a lot in the past few days. I am glad it’s my last peak mileage week! Woop woop! Can’t beat that with a stick. The weather is getting better and I have been doing more night runs now that I don’t have to wait until 8 or 9 o’clock to sweat my butt off in the dark.

9/19 sunday – warmup .5 mile, 4:49 (yeah, I was not that dedicating to warming up) – kennesaw locomotive half marathon, 1:57:33
9/20 monday – 3.16 miles, 27:53
9/21 tuesday – 3.4 miles, 31:58
9/22 wednesday – 7.01 miles, 67:41
9/23 thursday – 6.59 miles, 62:08
9/24 friday – 3.12 miles, 29:03
9/25 saturday – 20.02 miles, 3:21:42 (avg 10:05 pace)

total miles run: 56.9
total run time: 9:02:47

finish the drill

I had a sweet 20 mile run this morning with Katie and Denise. I woke up a little after 3am and couldn’t get back to sleep, so after playing with the puppy for a while (he didn’t mind waking up) and eating breakfast, I was more than on time to meet them on campus at 5am. Since I was early, I trotted across the parking lot to my building to use the bathroom there, armed with my banana-covered pepper spray. Our building is full of too many freaky noises at night.

We headed out a little after five and cruised out College Station to a gas station on Lexington Road where we bought some water at 6.33 miles. The guy running the gas station was like, “walking, huh?” Sir, if you think I sweat this much from walking…I chowed my Shot Bloks and was glad to not have to carry them anymore. We followed the same route back, which is a little more forgiving since you are running more down than up on College Station, and Denise peeled off around mile 11 so she would get back to Dawson Hall at 12 miles. KP was going to run 12 as well, but is either a good friend or just plain nutty because she continued with me for the remaining eight miles. They’re both running a marathon in California in two or three weeks, but I am not sure…I listen, but usually half of what I think about while running blanks out afterward. I know it has something to do with wine (the marathon, not my memory). It’ll be Katie’s second and Denise’s third. We hit my fave Golden Pantry at 12.66 miles for water and the bathroom. I took a Hammer gel here and drank Gatorade.

We continued with a pretty uneventful loop past Bishop Park and returned down Milledge. I felt good today; there were many times I thought I was about to be feeling it pretty hard, but it more or less held off until mile 17 and by that point, there just wasn’t that far to go anyway. The second ten miles was a bit faster than the first. I would say most talking had ceased around 16 miles and it was just time to get it done. I was glad to have Katie as a little rabbit to keep up with. I thought a lot about how hard it is in races to keep going when I am tired and just want a little walk break or whatever which will invariably turn into many slowdown breaks or walk breaks if you let it and it’s better to just keep moving and shut up about it. My two longest runs this time around have been with them, so it is going to be difficult to do another 20 by myself.

Since my thesis defense date was set for the week following Ridge to Bridge, most of my concerns for the race have taken a back seat to how I am going to finish my data analysis and write my thesis and defend in essentially the same time period. I have put the work in to finish the marathon well, even if not as well as I’d like, but I still have a lot to do on my thesis and it’s not as simple as taking a few hours a week to do something I enjoy doing. I think it will mostly come down to my “mental toughness” on race day, anyway. Like I said, the hardest part for me is pushing to do more than I feel like I can do comfortably, especially in the last hour or so on the course. It’s a couple of hours you just have to deal with being uncomfortable and being uncomfortable is okay, so.

To me, finishing a marathon is fine, but it is the culmination of all the hard work you’ve put in over 6+ months to get there that is the real accomplishment. If you didn’t do the work, well, congrats on spending a few hours running on one day, but I’m so impressed with people who put in the time to do it right and I feel like I’ve put a lot of time into this one, even if I don’t end up finishing as fast as I might’ve thought a few months ago. I hope to run Ridge to Bridge as stress-free as possible and then hopefully run Thunder Road again with a little more ambition when the weight is off my back.