May 6, 2007 | Filed under: I Run Therefore I Am

2 hours, 21 minutes, 11.4 seconds for an overall pace of 10:47/mile.

Nothing to be insanely jealous of, considering the top female finisher had a pace of 6:10, but definitely faster than I had hoped for. I figured I’d be in the 11:30-12:00/mile range — the same pace as my training runs typically are. Under 11 minutes is a great stat, especially since it’s nearly a minute faster than my last race and yesterday’s distance was more than double the 10k. Considerable improvement.

Highlights from the race:

Starting Line — Damn, it’s cold! Can’t wait to be running, just to warm up, but at least I won’t have to worry about heat exhaustion. Bad news for the knee, though, as things are definitely tight and will be for a good long while. Have already lost track of how many Advil I’ve taken today. Four? Six? Something like that.

Mile 1 — Aid station, woo! Must consume sports drink. They were serving Gu which, as was so aptly described, tastes like ass. It smells awful, too. AND, there were chunks of ice floating in my cup, which I nearly choked on. Not helpful when you’re trying to drink and run at the same time, people! Wondered if I could get away with only drinking water the rest of the way, because that was an experience I didn’t need to repeat. Doubtful.

Mile 3 — iPod selects Beck’s “Loser” for my amusement. Good thing it’s early in the race, or I might not be so amused.

Mile 4-ish — Aid station, woo! Consider only water, decide against it. Sports drink surprisingly tasty. Wonder if my body was that desperate already.

Mile 4.5 — See lead runner on his way to the finish line. 46 minutes into the race, he had already completed 2/3 of the course. Bastard.

Mile 5 — Aid station, woo! Sports drink. Oooh, it’s Gatorade, this time, not Gu. No wonder it doesn’t taste like crap. That explains it. Probably explains the previous aid station, too.

Mile 6.55 — Turn-around point. Oh, the chafing. Dammit. How much further do we have to go? Oh right, the entire way back. Damn.

Mile 7 — Pre-appointed time for gel. Ew. Reminds me of the jelly part of a jelly-filled donut, only with a thicker consistency and less delicious flavor. Decide closest comparison is that of eating toothpaste — sorta tastes good, sorta doesn’t resemble food at all. Use skills honed in college to essentially do shots of the stuff, trying to not actually have it in my mouth/taste it for more than 2 seconds. Decide the mile 10 Gu is not happening unless I really, really need it.

Mile 9 — La, la, la, this is so lovely. Maybe I should run the Marine Corps Marathon. That could be fun.

Mile 9.012 — I’m bored. How much further? Four miles? $%*&#! And you were thinking about running an entire marathon? Moron.

Mile 9.5-ish — Eek. Landed funny running downhill and tweaked my knee a bit. No no no no no no no no no! Breathe. Seems to be ok, just be a little more careful.

Mile 10-ish — Hmm. Blisters. Awesome. Thankfully, between the chafing and the blistering, the knee pain is much less noticable.

Mile 11 — Pause for some stretching and station identification. We are almost done and my rapidly tightening up calves are not going to be the death of me!

Mile 12 — Final aid station. Gu. Still as gross as the first time. The smell reminds me of … something. Dirty dishwater? A camping experience? Can’t put my finger on it, but it’s definitely not enticing. Gag down two mouthfuls.*

Mile 12.5-ish — Almost there, time to pick up the pace.

Mile 13 — “There is only one way to finish, and that is: you finish hard.” Thanks, Coach Dye. Am forced to sprint the last tenth of a mile.**

Finish Line — Someone is cutting the timing chip off my shoe and someone else is shoving the medal in my hand. Meanwhile, I’m trying to (a) suck as much oxygen into my lungs as possible and (b) locate water. Who the hell is saying my name? Oh, the announcer guy. Well that’s nice. Can you point me to the water?

Saturday afternoon — The hardest part was getting out of the car when I got home. Oh, the legs were not happy with me. I made it up to them by not leaving the couch the rest of the day.

Sunday — Did you know that wearing heels makes your knees work a lot harder to stabilize you while walking? Yes, well good for you. I found out the hard way. Decide flip-flops are “work appropriate” this week, as they may be the only flats I own.

Monday — Yoga class and post-race massage. Cannot wait.

Tuesday — It’s been 72 hours. Must go for a run before I develop the shakes.

* Upon further reflection, I think it’s the smell of the ocean — very salty with that vague fishy/seaweedy/decaying essence. Yummy.

** My high school track coach, a million years ago. And by “sprint,” I mean “run faster than I have all day,” because, let me tell you, there was no actual sprinting going on.

May 4, 2007 | Filed under: I Run Therefore I Am

My average attention span today. Good thing I had a bunch of reports to read and — oh, wait.

Have I mentioned that I’m running a half marathon tomorrow? Yup. And if I don’t manage to chill the hell out, I’m going to be running 8-minute miles for the first few miles. After which I will die.

When the experts tell you to carbo-load before a race, do you think they had picking out and eating all the jelly beans from a package of Harry & David’s Easter Candy Mix in mind? Yeah, I didn’t think so either.

FYI — the “mallow cremes” are gross. Just throw those away. And save the chocolate eggs for another day. Preferably a day when work is kicking your ass.

Is it 5:00 yet? Because if so, Tracy and I are out doing some outlet mall shopping (read: wandering around aimlessly each with our respective short attention spans) and having a sensible dinner of pasta and bread and more pasta. Perhaps the food coma will enable us to sleep tonight.

May 3, 2007 | Filed under: I Run Therefore I Am, Is She Still Talking?

A few weeks ago I came home from a run, took a quick shower and threw on shorts and a t-shirt to wear around the house the rest of the night. They’re nothing special, just casual and comfortable and have been in my wardrobe forever.

Shortly thereafter I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and realized it looked like I’d been scrounging for clothes in my boyfriend’s closet again. The clothes, they were huge! The shorts were literally falling off my hips, and the shirt could nearly have been a dress. A quick check of the tags revealed that the t-shirt is a size Large and the shorts are “Adult Medium.”

What concerns me the most, however, is not that I appear to be a 12-year old boy, nor that I have over-sized clothing in my closet that obviously needs purging, but that at some point I purchased these items in these sizes. Because that was the style.

Yes, I posted a picture. No, I have no shame. Yes, those are, in fact Umbros. You remember Umbros, don’t you?

Also, not that you can really tell beneath that knit cotton tent, but I had to stop and put a bra on before taking this picture. Because my mother would die a thousand deaths if she knew there was a picture of me, bra-less, on the Internet. She would also die if she knew I was telling you this, which is why we won’t mention it to her, OK?

April 29, 2007 | Filed under: I Run Therefore I Am

Did you know that running in 82 degree weather is different than running in 62 degree weather? I’m here to tell you that it is. It is different. And it is different in this way: 82 degrees? Is hot. Especially when you’re running on the sunny side of the street and the asphalt is blasting up at you the heat of a thousand furnaces that it’s been storing all day. Hot.

I recently bought new headphones for my iPod. They were recommended by Sundry, and, well, I do everything The Internet tells me to. I must have defective ears, or perhaps these weren’t designed with running in mind, because less than three minutes into my run, I gave up. Constantly sticking them back in my ears just to have them fall out again two steps later was not working for me. So I ran the damn five miles with no entertainment except what my brain could come up with. I thought about lots of things for this here blog, about 6% of which will ever actually be written and posted; ruminated on some of last week’s shit, which is always a frightening prospect; and, in the final coup de grace of randomness, around mile 4, my brain decided to sing My Sharona. A song whose lyrics I know fewer than half of, and which I have not owned, and perhaps haven’t heard, since Napster was my music download source of choice, back when downloading music from Napster was not yet illegal. (I have now looked at the lyrics. Oh my hell.)

All that to say, my run Thursday was hot. And music-deprived. And not very much fun. I was dehydrated most of the time (woo! let’s hear it for not carrying water with us when we run!). I walked more frequently and for longer than usual. I hurt more. Overall, it sucked. And given that this was only 9 days before Race Day, I did not need a workout that sucked. I needed a workout that said, “I can totally do this.” My Thursday workout said, “Why are we doing this, again?” Argh.

The good news is, the race starts at like 8 AM (8:30? I don’t know. Guess I should figure that out, huh?), so it should be relatively cool next Saturday. The bad news is, if I run anything like I did on Thursday, I’ll still be running at noon, by which time it will definitely be hot.

Saturday’s run, however, was much better. Primarily because I ran right around the time the sun was coming up, so it wasn’t 82 out yet. Also, I switched back to the iPod earbuds. No, they’re not the most comfortable things in the world, but at least they stay in place most of the time and I don’t have to sing songs to myself from the 1970s. Another factor that made Saturday’s run better — actually bringing water with me. In fact, I totally dorked out and bought a running belt thingy-jig.

Fun little side-story: the purchase of this water hydration system, coupled with my need for some delicious gels, took me to my local running store, where I was helped by someone who can only be described as hot. Or, perhaps, HOTT. (Why yes, he did have brown hair and brown eyes. Why do you ask?) Too bad I knew exactly what I was looking for. (”Um, some gel…anything that’s not gross? And, uh, a water thing.”)

While it’s lovely to have constant access to water, this thing still annoys the crap out of me. For starters, it requires one to carry any additional three pounds around one’s waist. People, I am already carrying an extra five pounds around my waist, which is part of why I run in the first place. I do not need any more! In addition, the belt nature of this hydration system serves to squish those five extra waist pounds up into an unsightly roll over the top of the belt. Really, I could do without that aesthetic. I mean, it’s one thing for me to know about those extra five pounds, but it’s quite another to show them off to everyone else on the trail. (Yes, I’m vain enough to care what I look like when I’m working out. Shut up.) But, I guess I will just deal with this. I kinda like being hydrated.

Apparently my legs enjoy this hydration thing, too, because I was running 11-minute miles for the entire 8 mile workout. The whole time I was thinking, “Too! Fast! Must! Slow! Down!” but each subsequent mile was still in the 11-minute range. This has me seriously concerned for Saturday. I need to set a personal best for distance, not for speed. 11-minute miles for better than 13 miles? I’m not sure I’m up for that. But that kind of pace guarantees I’d be done running before it’s 82 out.

April 23, 2007 | Filed under: DC! DC! DC!, I Run Therefore I Am

Well, this Tuesday-only posting schedule certainly seems to have taken hold. Sorry. Once again, I’m going to attempt to enforce some standards around here. Rules like no shoes on the couch and no eating after 8 pm and please, for the love of all that is holy, post more than once a week! (I’ve already broken two of those rules tonight, so, uh, we’ll see how well this goes.)

I realized yesterday that I’ve turned into a bit of a travel snob. Frankly, I’m surprised it took this long, but it has. Checking in for my flight late Saturday night, my seat selections (which United did not allow me to make when I booked the ticket, despite my repeated inquiries) were middle, middle, middle, middle, or that middle seat over there. Argh. When I noticed that there were some lovely window seats available up in the “United Plus” portion of the plane, I succumbed. I paid $44 — of my own money, not work’s — for the privelige of sitting in the 9th row, in a window seat, with enough leg room to cross and uncross my legs if I so desired. Sigh. I have to say, though, that for the 4 1/2 hour flight from Chicago to Sacramento, it was worth every penny. (The deal I made with myself was that I was not allowed to sleep on this flight. If I’m going to pay for the extra room, then by god, I’m going to be awake to enjoy it. Also, I wanted to be able to fall asleep at a reasonable hour once I got home.)

The flight itself was remarkably less eventful than actually getting to the airport had been — it took me an hour and 15 minutes to get to the airport — 5.5 miles away. I started having heart palpitations at the thought that I might very well miss my flight. People, I could have run to the airport faster. I know, because I did it Saturday morning.

Yes, I ran from Courthouse, to the Mount Vernon Trail along the Potomac, and past most of the airport. I followed the trail to the Shops at Crystal City, decided I hadn’t gone far enough, so I doubled back and kept running to the far eastern entrance to National before turning around and heading back home. It was, ballpark, 12 miles in 2 hours and 18 minutes, the last mile of which was entirely uphill and into the wind. HATE.

I have to say, for as much as I love DC and appreciate the National Park Service, this trail is not marked worth crap. On the stretch I ran, there were only three mileposts actually marked, leaving me to guess how far I was running for most of the day. And, either I was running fast or somebody measured wrong, because according to my watch, I ran a particular one-mile stretch in 11 minutes, and that was around my eighth mile of the day, so I have a hard time believing that I was making that good of time. Also, can we all please agree on which side of the trail bikes belong on and which side of the trail runners belong on? Because in Sacramento I was yelled at — YELLED AT — by a biker for running on the right side of the trail, in the same direction as bike traffic. In DC I noticed that most people, but not all, were running on the right side of the trail, but I steadfastly clung to the left edge of the pavement. Right up until a guy on a bike told me (much more politely than Mr. American River Parkway) that I should be running on the right side of the trail. Argh! I’m happy to be a law-abiding citizen (and even happier to avoid being run over by anyone in brightly colored spandex zipping along on their bicycle), but damn it, it’s hard to follow the rules when (a) they’re not posted anywhere and (b) they vary by location. Is there not some Supreme Ruler of the Running Universe who can issue an edict that all runners are to be in x location and all bikers shall be in y location? Is it really that complicated?

Anyway. Saturday was my longest run. Ever. I now feel sufficiently prepared for the half marathon, except for the part about feeling completely unprepared to do any of it. I’m still undecided about the whole gel/not to gel thing. Really, if I were to use gels, I should’ve practiced with them this weekend, but I didn’t. On the other hand, I was definitely hurting that last mile, so perhaps a little energy boost would be a good thing. On the third hand, I have a feeling that my pre-race preparation will not involve two happy hours and five drinks on the night before the race, so perhaps I’ll be in better shape in a couple weeks than I was Saturday. Decisions, decisions!

And, in a display of how colossally insane I have become: I haven’t even run my first half and I’m looking around for the next one. I know there’s another local race two weeks after mine, but I’m not sure I’ll be up for it quite yet. But by June…it’s entirely possible. Thankfully, I’ve managed to get myself on a mailing list somehow and every sponsor of a May or June race in Northern California has sent me an invitation to join them, so I should have plenty to choose from.

Finally, I cannot help but point out that Internet Rockstar Sundry left a comment on one of my previous running posts and I am just so excited that I may be SQUEEEing a little bit and perhaps I don’t need those gels after all, if I can just harness all that excitement and turn it into energy for finishing the last couple miles of the race. If you don’t read her (many, many) blogs already, you should. They are entertaining and informative and full of pretty pictures. And she’s a much better writer (and more consistent poster) than I am. Go!