Tenuousness

I'm stretched a little thin these days. I'm carrying six active clients at work, trying to keep up with my marathon training, and attempting to have somewhat of a social life. Work seems to trump everything else...tonight I'm sitting in focus groups instead of doing a hill workout with my running buddies. Sigh.

I suspected the time would come when I would have to start doing my training runs in the morning and that time is officially here. I knew I had these focus groups tonight and I knew that last night was St. Patty's Day (BTW I never, never want to shoot Jameson's again. Ever.), so I figured I better get a workout done Tuesday AM if I wanted to salvage my mileage for the week. I was especially proud of myself yesterday because...

- I got up at 6:33 am to do a 5.5 mile hill run before work. 6:33!! It was still dark!
- I held a 9:02 pace on Torrence, Grandin and the Rookwood loop.

It was actually a pretty amazing morning. I had the road to myself, the birds (a scary amount of birds, truth be told) were chirping in full force, and I had a Neil Young song in my head. All was right with the world, if only for 49 minutes. ;-)

Happy Happy Joy Joy

Today's run was fantastic. The double-secret group had an 18-miler, thus beginning our series of four long runs before the April taper. I haven't run with the group in two weeks, so I was excited to catch up with everyone and be back in the pack. :-)

I'm drained...physically and emotionally, but here are a few things that made this morning fun:

- The 6:29 am WAKE UP text from Cole (the 9-minute mile kids get these every Saturday)

- The half-eaten grilled cheese I found on my coffee table when I got up today...remnants of last night's Irish car bomb recovery plan (hey, who can turn down free shots??)

- Running with my buddy Tisha. We haven't run together in at least a month so this made me very happy.

- The sudden burst of speed I got when I hit Delta. I had been running at the back of the bus so to speak (only one guy was left behind me) and I pulled ahead and caught Coach Steve and the rest of the four-hour crew.

- Cherry Jolly Ranchers. They had these at the water stop before Gilbert/Eden Park and I discovered I really like the distraction of eating hard candy while wheezing up hills.

- The St. Paddy's day parade. We ran right through their staging area and everyone was staring at us like we were crazy. :0

- The camaraderie of my group in general. We cheer each other on, make fun of each other, and Coach Steve even stopped while I tied my shoe. After the run we all stood around the lobby of Crossroads (our start and end point) drinking free hot tea, stretching, and being goofy. Good times.

- The swag. I finally got to pick up my "perks" this morning and scored an awesome running shirt, a pair of my favorite running socks, and a gift card for a Road ID. Maybe I'll finally break down and order one of those things...

My least favorite part of the day was the obligatory ice bath, although the ski hat, flannel shirt, and watching the Office online made things much more tolerable. :-)

Pace was an 8:58 minute mile (average). I've slowed down a bit, but not freaking out about this. Yet. I am kind of concerned that there is so much time (10-20 minutes) between our double-secret add-on mileage and the base mileage with the rest of group A. Trying to figure out a plan to close the gap...may have to start doing the add-on at the end...

Vanity Smurf

I've reached a new level of narcissism this evening. Last weekend, my friend, who is also training for the Pig, mentioned that she and her husband had recently measured their calves (these muscles get absurdly huge during marathon training). I can't remember why they were doing this but regardless, I'd forgotten about it... until tonight. Suddenly struck by a strange urge to see how big MY calf muscles were, I crept into the living room, stole the tape measure from my knitting bag, and went into the bathroom to check things out.

13.5" at the largest point.

I have no idea if that is large, small, normal, etc.. I'm kind of embarrassed that I did this, but probably not as much as I should be. :-S

In other news, I have my mileage for the week almost back on track, thanks to a four-mile run tonight. AND both of my runs this week were in the daylight. Dig.

Sabbatical=Over

I've spent the last 10 days on a somewhat inadvertent break from running. Last week was crazy busy at work and I ended up taking a last-minute client trip to PA Wednesday-Thursday - no time for running. Then I was in NYC Friday-Sunday for vacation; however, I was planning to do a 12-miler in Central Park with my NY running buddy. Long story short, I drank way too much over the weekend AND came down with a cold, hence, no running. Monday night I had to travel to Columbus, where it was blustery, rainy, and I was staying in strip mall-suburbia hell. No running there either.

Tonight I figured enough was enough, so I marched out of work promptly at 5:15 and got in a lovely 5.6 mile run. Between all of my time off and my disagreeable respiratory system, I was curious to see how I'd feel once I was on the road. Actually, I felt better running today than I have felt in a LONG time. The weather was perfect, I was able to breathe, and I managed to keep my pace below 8:25 min per mile. Decent. Also, I saw a half-eaten corn dog while I was out. It was at the corner of Woodburn and Madison if you really must know.

I'm debating what to do training-wise the rest of the week. I don't think my body is up for a Coach JF speed work out just yet, so I might run a few easy miles solo to get myself back on track. We have an 18-miler this Saturday, although, I'm not as psyched out about this as I usually am. Maybe it's the cold medicine.

Mood swings, bribes, and bridges

One of the myriad benefits of long distance running is the emotional roller coaster you begin to experience after being on the road for more than two hours. No other activity has quite the ability to make me happy, sad, pissed off, and elated...all back to back. It's interesting, this sport.

The double secret group met early this morning to get in 3.6 miles before joining the rest of Group A for 13.4 more. As an added bonus, we had to be at Newport by 7:30 (40 minutes early) to get the mileage done, and as a SUPER added bonus, we had to run two more bridges than everyone else (seven bridges total). Ha ha ha I hate Newport. :-)

I wasn't feeling great on the double secret route and actually considered going home and not doing the rest of the run. However, I bribed myself with a Chocolate Gu and decided I could turn around and go back at any point. (I tell myself a lot of things just make it through one more mile.) It was really, really windy today and we were doing the half Flying Pig course, which is basically all uphill with the exception of the last four miles or so (seriously). Somewhere in Eden Park I started getting pretty surly and decided I don't want to run at all next week (yeah, right). By the time we passed the Walnut Hills YMCA, I contemplated going inside and calling one of my parents to come and fetch me.

Another Gu and half a mile later, my 3:50 running pal found me and kept me distracted until we hit the Gilbert downhill. By then I was all smiles, waving at the people at the bus stop and loving life. I discovered I had a bit of fuel left in the tank and took off, only to discover that we had to run all the way to the Southgate bridge. Boo. Back to cranky. We finally made it back to Newport and found that our average pace was 8:50. Cheers to that! Happy.

I stopped at UDF on the way home to get two bags of ice and a delicious chocolate milk to enjoy in the bath. I also discovered the awesomeness that is hulu.com and entertained myself with a nice episode of the Facts of Life while I shivered and tried to avoid hypothermia. :-) All in all a good morning.

Just because you can...

...doesn't mean you should. Ha.

Our head coach had us doing speed work tonight from Newport. The plan was to do a 1.75 mile warmup, five miles of fartleks (based on marathon goal time), then 1.75 miles back to the start line. The fartleks were supposed to be five minutes "on" and two minutes "off". No breaks.

Since I've been running faster than a 9:09 pace on our long training runs, I got brave and decided to hop in with the 3:50 group who were doing the following paces:

8:16 on (MP minus 30 secs)
8:46 off (MP)

I felt great during the five miles...I kept up with the group and was able to get my breathing stable in the "off" minutes. Then we stopped for water before heading back. Then everything went to you-know-where in a hand basket. :-)

My legs were actually in good shape; however, I had the mother of all side stitches, my stomach was making goofy noises, and I was trying to talk to someone and realized I wasn't making any sense. Doh. Two hours later and I'm still hurting...

I don't know what the problem was. This definitely isn't the fastest I've ever run, but I guess that's neither here nor there at this point. All I can say is that if it's this painful to recover from TRAINING at the 3:50 pace, no way do I want to know what happens after I do this for 26.2 miles.

Not sure that a 3:50 is a realistic goal anyway given the marathon I've chosen to run; however, for a split second tonight I actually thought about it. The aftermath has been nothing short of humbling though. I kind of want to curl up in a ball somewhere and howl. Yeah, I'm a punk. :-P

Mind over matter

Ugh...what a week. In the last nine days, I think I have had one day off from work (today is not that day. nor is tomorrow). I'm SO glad to be busy, especially in this economy, but the stress is getting to me - to the point where I'm so exhausted that running has switched from being a stress reliever to being "one more thing I have to do".

Needless to say, I wasn't completely jazzed to do 12.1 miles this morning. My legs were tight and I was a little overdressed for the run (it's a balmy 31 degrees), so I was kind of surly for the first few miles. However, we were doing part of the Pig course, the section from O'Bryonville to Mariemont, which reminded me that I CHOSE to be out there today and I CHOSE to train for this race. Training is the one thing in my life I can control (as long as my body cooperates) and since I like being in charge (hello OCD!) I really should be enjoying every workout even if it hurts. Remembering these few things helped me to have a much better run. :-)

Some other things that made today awesome:

- Chocolate Gu. This stuff is heaven in a foil pouch. It's like licking all the icing off of a cupcake but it's even better because you don't have to feel guilty about it. AND it didn't make me want to throw up. Amen to that.

- Our pace coach. Today's run was pretty hilly and the coach cheered us up every incline and kept us on track.

- The Boston Boyz. I don't know how they ended up with the 4-hour gang, but I got to run with some of the BQers for the last few miles. Since my goal (very very long term goal) is to someday run Boston, I kind of idolize these guys...

Average pace du jour ended up being between 8:35-8:41 minutes per mile. Happy.