Week 7: Down for the count

I didn't run a mile this past week. Not one. I took seven much needed, mandatory days off from running while I recovered from my crappily-timed illness. Do I feel guilty? Yes. Do I feel like I've suffered a major setback? Yes. Am I going to keep going?.... YES!

Training for a marathon is a metaphor for life. Sometimes unexpected things happen and you just have to keep going. Sometimes you fail. Sometimes you succeed. I am not surprised that I fell sick this week because honestly my mood has taken a downturn, I was not properly nourishing my body (vitamins, etc.), and I was not resting enough after my long runs. Let this week be a lesson that at this point in the game I need to start taking every element of my training very seriously if I intend to run this marathon.

Today I am recommitting and moving forward with the plan. This Saturday is my longest run - ever - at 14 miles. Overcoming the mental hurdles is every bit as challenging as physically conquering the miles. You don't anticipate it will be this hard. You can't, because you're in uncharted territory and you have nothing else to compare it to. Fear of failure is alive and real and very scary for me right now. All I can do is keep pushing forward. Every day. Every mile. It's hard.

It was bound to happen

I've been stricken with a chest cold :( You know that feeling when you wake up in the morning and your chest feels like it's filled with liquid and it's achy and heavy and your throat hurts when you swallow and your first thoughts are, "oh, crap." Yeah, well, that was today. And my health and mood continued their descent as the day dragged on. Now it's 6:45pm and I'm watching CNN buried deep underneath my fuzzy blue blanket with my polar fleece sweats and my Patagonia zip-up. I'm going to head to bed around 9:00 tonight and try to head this cold off at the pass with some serious green smoothie action tonight and in the morning. Hopefully a few days off from running will do me good and I'll be back in action for the half-marathon this weekend.

Week 6: Ouch, my knees!

Saturday's run was the second longest distance I've ever completed: 11 miles. Thank god Wacarra ran with me this week, as I probably would have A) probably postponed the run until Sunday due to the pouring rain B) bitched and complained even more than I did and/or C) had a much harder time finishing. Once the rain let up, I was able to enjoy a beautiful and secluded area of West Seattle that I had never seen before. I'll definitely be back here in a few weeks.

Miles 6-7 were tough and 9-11 were borderline agonizing. Running in wet shoes and clothes didn't help. Wacarra took this photo of me at the finish: HAPPY to not be running (and yes, still raining)... I hope as these Saturday runs continue to increase in distance that I'm able to find the mental and physical stamina to complete them on my own.

Next weekend: Bellingham Bay half-marathon

UPDATE 9/22: Edited to add that, despite the pity party I threw in honor of myself last week, I officially registered for the Philadelphia Marathon on Friday. The hotel room is booked and the race is paid for.... now Raj and I just need to book our airfare and we're ready to go!

Week 5.725: Time to vent!

So I've finally hit the wall so to speak with this training. I was waiting for it to happen. Last Saturday was puppy dogs and rainbows up in Bellingham, but this week it really started to dawn on me that I have a lot of frickin miles to run, I'm sore, I'm busy, and I'm highly irritable. Could it be a bad case of PMS you're asking yourself? (I asked myself). Maybe, but all I know is that I DON'T want to run this week!

It's dark in the morning, it's dark in the evening. I'm a slow runner. I'm tired of running at Gasworks Park. I hate running at Greenlake. Alki Beach is far away... and windy. The stuff I'm working on at work is a mess. I'm tired and grumpy when I get home. I have errands to work in. Three runs during the week is haaaaard. I'm tired of my music selection. I miss my boyfriend. The first two miles never get any easier! These races are expensive. I ate indian food last night and woke up and gained three pounds today. My jeans are too tight. I don't like my hairstyle. Sarah Palin might get elected VP. My 401K is probably gone. Why are people working at Microsoft if they don't know how to use pivot tables? Life's not fair.

Ok, so the runs aren't seeming so bad now. Seee??? Just had to vent. < / end rant >

Bellingham detail

Click to enlarge

Week 5: Rounding out the week with a 15K

This morning, Raj, Alex, Mia and I piled into my Rav4 and drove north to Bellingham for the Fairhaven Runners Waterfront 15K (9.3 miles). It was a scenic route, fairly flat, with some great views of Bellingham Bay. Alex and I ran together the entire way, with Raj and Mia waiting for us at the finish line (which boasted the best post-race food-fest free for all I have ever seen!). It was nice to get out of Seattle for a day and substitute my usual uneventful long run with something festive.

I can't believe how much 3 months off from running has set me back. We passed the 10K mark at 1:16, a full 9 minutes slower than my Mercer Island 10K race back in March (which included 3 huge hills). We plugged along the entire way though, walking only briefly at miles 7 and 8, finishing the 9.3 miles in 1:55. It was a fun run though and I'm glad we drove up for it.

Week 5 marks the 1/3 way point to the Philadelphia Marathon. My knee is doing much better now that I'm off the treadmill. Still sore after today, but that's to be expected after a 9 mile run. It's hard to believe that I'm almost running the length of my longest training run for the Vancouver half-marathon, and I'm only half way there! In the coming weeks I'll be increasing not only my Saturday runs (next week is 11, then 12, 14, 16, and 18), but my weekday "short" runs to 4/5/4 and eventually 5/8/5. Now that the days are getting shorter I will need to come up with a better plan for doing 3 outside weekday runs per week. I may need to start running in the dark, which I am not thrilled about.

78 miles down and counting.

Will it Blend: Nike Shoes Edition

Ha ha... I own this blender. Maybe I'll try blending my old Adidas.

Running with the Garmin Forerunner 305

So this weekend I bought a used Garmin Forerunner 305 secondhand off of craigslist for approximately half the retail price. Wacarra told me about these little gadgets last Saturday on our run, and as soon as I heard about the 305 I was intrigued. Basically, it's a GPS device that fits on your wrist, like a watch... only it tracks all the important things you'd want to know when doing any sort of physical activity or training: distance, pace, heart rate, calories burned, etc. There are literally about 20 different types of data that this thing records. You wear it on your wrist like you would a watch and yes, it's a little bulky and no, I probably wouldn't wear it out on a Friday night, but I did not find it at all distracting to wear while running. There is also an option to strap a heart rate monitor to your chest which communicates with the wrist device.

(Note: not my arm)

So I wore this on Wednesday morning for my 5 mile run and also tonight for my 3 mile run, both at Gasworks. Wednesday didn't work out, as I hadn't cleared the previous owner's user data from the device which was causing a weird conflict with the software. Once I wiped it clean, I was able to start fresh with my new data. There are so many reasons why the Garmin 305 is cool I don't know where to begin. After using it for 2 runs here is what I'm finding impressive:

1. I actually know how far I'm running by distance, not time. In the past, I had measured one mile as 12 minutes of running. Now, I actually know the exact distances I am running. This frees me up to try some new routes.
2. My heart rate is really high! I am averaging almost in the 90% rate of my max, which means I have fallen REALLY out of shape since I stopped running through the summer, but also gives me a good benchmark for improvement.
3. I can set an alert to beep me when I go above or below my target heart rate. Very cool.
4. The unit ships with some pretty basic software, but you can also use the supplementary web-based software called Motion Based (www.motionbased.com). The free version is awesome! You can upload your runs from the device into Google maps, and see all of your data in chart form - what your heart rate was on such and such a hill, how fast you ran during the last mile, how many seconds you stopped for, etc. 

You can also view other Motion Based user runs across the U.S. (there were some runs uploaded tonight from Oildale, CA - my hometown, ahhhh), or filter by your city. So if I want to see what routes people are running in Seattle, I can view them. You also have the option to make your runs private, but why would you want to?

The coolest thing about the software is the ability to replay your run using the Map Player. When you "play back" your route, the little pin glides along your route, giving off real-time data results including what your heart rate was, pace, elevation, etc. at any given moment during the route. It's really cool.

I think this is going to be a useful little tool for helping me improve my pace while training within my target heart rate zone. I'm excited to track my route in Bellingham this weekend for the 15K!

Week 4: Nicely done!

Ran my 8 miler this morning with Wacarra, who has lost nearly 100 lbs. in less than a year through running...

This was a tough week, both mentally (watched far too much political coverage) and physically (my knee was hurting like a mofo all week). I'm afraid the old "knee issue" has reared its ugly head again, despite running with new shoes and a knee brace. I think I've pinpointed the problem which is doing my short runs on the treadmill. I think there must be a problem with my small muscle fibers and tendons compensating for the movement of the running surface... honestly, I have no idea, but I'm going to stay off the treadmill for a few weeks and see if that helps the situation.

The bad news is I took a 4 day break from running and missed my Thursday run in order to ease the pain a bit. I was having difficulty climbing stairs at work and even pushing the clutch down in my car was causing me to wince. After icing my knee and taking the rest it was back to business this morning. Wacarra, who is in the process of tapering down in her last month of training for the Portland Marathon, ran with me this morning on my 8 mile run along Lake Washington in Leschi. We had a great time! I'm not sure if it was the jelly beans I ate beforehand, or just having someone to talk to for a change, but the hour and a half breezed by and I felt like I could have easily done a half marathon today. Some days are just like that I guess.

Next weekend I am off to Bellingham for the Fairhaven Runners Waterfront 15K and I'm pretty jazzed to #1 - look at something besides Lake Washington and #2 - run in an actual event with people cheering us on. Looks like I will be doing this alone, as Raj has to work and my other friends will be MIA. Saaad :(

More unfortunate news - we found out yesterday that we will not be able to stay with one of Raj's friends in Philadelphia as planned (long story), so we will have to book a hotel room, which will run around $200/night for 3 nights. And I was really looking forward to touring Philly with a local! Oh well....

Wacarra told me about a cool little gadget called the Garmin Forerunner 305 today which is a running watch that measures pace, distance (by GPS, so it's accurate), calories burned, and heart rate. I've already checked craigslist and there are several, so I might pick one up today. I do love my gadgets. Looking forward to trying it out and posting a review soon.

Week 3: 3/4/0/7

Not much happened this week run-wise. I was highly distracted by the DNC/Barack Obama speech/CNN commentary/Sarah Palin debacle, and it was hard to focus this week. Regardless, I managed to log 14 miles and finished with a strong 7-miler at Leschi on Saturday.

My left knee is still hurting day of and day after my long runs, even if I wear my patella brace. The dull pain usually subsides 2 days after my long run, and I hope this isn't going to be an ongoing and/or worsening problem. Keeping fingers crossed.