Only the Lonely...

Who knew the middle of the pack could be such a lonely place?? At the encouragement of Coach Crazylegs, I've been pushing the pace of my long runs a bit. To fully grasp the pain-inducing effect of this endeavor, I should probably be honest and admit that my old Running Partner and I used to run at about a 10:15 pace. Sometimes we even hit 10:30. Amazing, eh? We were blurry streaks, I tell ya. Now, before you get all high and mighty with your speedy selves and look down on our turtle-ish pace, it's only fair to recognize that we chose this pace so we could talk freely and easily about the minutia of our daily lives. That was the main purpose of the outings at the time; the running was secondary.

Fast forward to two weeks ago when I tried to follow a friendly looking subgroup from my larger running group. We clocked in 12 hilly miles at around 9:00/mile. I thought I was going to die.

I took it a little easier last week--and Coach Crazylegs noticed. He was not pleased. You don't want to upset Coach Crazylegs, there's punishment in that.

Sooo, this week I tried to take it up a little notch. I managed 17 miles at 9:22/mile. Granted, some of you speedsters might still look down on that, but you're just being snobby if you do. I was proud of my pace.

Here's the problem: Out of the 20+ runners that ran today, not.a.single.one ran a similar pace. They all seemed to be going sub 9:00 or over 10:00. What's up with that? I joined a running group so I could run with people. If the people are too fast or slow, what's the purpose? At one point I stopped and waited for the back of the packers because I was, well, ahem, lost. And the friendly man (he said "good morning") holding a knife made me think I wasn't in the best area to go wandering.

Ah well, 17 miles are done. And Runner Boy and I are ditching the runlets so we can go to a concert tonight! Woot!

Runner Boy surfing the crowd around 11 p.m. tonight.

Oink, Oink

I'm a pig. Darn Subway and their $5 foot longs! I fully intended to save half for dinner but something ugly and gluttonous happened whilst my coworkers were daintily nibbling their grub. Seriously folks. I devoured that entire thing AND a bag of chips in TEN MINUTES. Can I call that carb loading for tomorrow's 17 miler?

My Cheatin' Heart

Gah. I hate to admit it, but I've been thinking about cheating. On my mileage that is. You see, I can pinpoint the problem. The problem is I have no frickin' official training schedule for this godforsaken marathon that's only ten (?) weeks away. Who doesn't even know how far away their marathon is?!?! For chrissake, I'm a hot mess this time around.

I've got Coach Crazylegs in one corner yelling "Run, run, run! A billion miles a week! Faster, longer, harder!" He's insane. Then I have Hal Higdon in the other corner saying "Take it easy. It's time on your feet, not effort that counts. Have fun. Be gentle with yourself." (That's a paraphrase obviously. Don't sue me, Hal.)

So where does that leave me? I try to find my own happy medium but this chick doesn't work well with some abstract happy medium. I need numbers. I need a spreadsheet. I need a training program that says what to run on what day.

I'm thinking I need to make up my own schedule, but I'm having trouble trusting myself with that endeavor. I'm committed to Coach Crazylegs for Wednesday track, which is about 5.5 miles, and Saturday long runs--which tend to be at least 4 miles longer than ol' Hal's suggestion on any given weekend, mind you. Should I just follow Hal for Tuesdays and Thursdays? What about when Hal's schedule gets up to 10 miles on Wednesday and I'm only doing 5.5 at track? Does that fact that I run so fast I puke in my mouth make up for the difference in distance?

Does everyone freak out this much??????

My New Obsession

Runner Boy gave me the best gift for Christmas: a running log. What did I ever do without it??? How did I not know that I needed one so badly??? I loooooove my running log. I use it to track the usuals: distance, time, and pace; and I’ve created my own little rating system for each run. (The rating system if VERY high tech and complicated; it involves a check, a check plus, and even a check minus! I know, I’m wild.) But my favorite part of the running log is that I use it to record the outdoor temp and the clothing I wore for each run. I’m obsessively religious about this part. I check the temp at the last possible second before heading out the door then I diligently come home and record every article of clothing on my body. Then I add a nice reflective sentence on the effectiveness of said clothing combination. There's gotta be a Pulitzer for that somewhere.

I have to admit it’s taken on a life of its own and made me totally obsessed. For instance, I know I’m running tomorrow morning so tonight I’ll check the predicted temp for tomorrow’s start time. (I'll wait to check until right before I go to bed because they might change the forecast a degree or two before then. Yup, that's how anal I am with this shizz.) Then, I’ll go to my log, find the entry for every run that has been within five degrees of that temp, and read my sweet, pensive postrun sentences. Next, I’ll pause for a few moments, pondering the data I’ve collected, and thinking about the outfit for the next run. Finally, I’ll decide the clothes I want to wear and lay them out for the morning.

Hmm...is this an appropriate time to mention I sleep in my sports bra every night before a morning run?? I've convinced myself it saves many minutes of valuable sleep time. Is that too much information?

The Dark Ages

That’s how I think of my midweek runs right now. The fact that I have to leave for work at 7:15 a.m. is beginning to create some very dark start times for my runs. Poo. I don’t like it. Not one bit. Today my neighbor was gracious enough to run with me, but she hadn’t thought about how dark it would be at 5:40 in the morning. The poor girl showed up in black tights and a black sweatshirt—no reflective strips whatsoever. Fortunately for her I was sporting my god-awful, please don’t let anyone I know see me in this, reflective vest. Thankfully the few cars on the road avoided us. Oh yeah, and lest I forget, it was eighteen frickin’ degrees outside with a single digit wind-chill. Lovely. When’s spring??

A Girl's Gotta Do What A Girl's Gotta Do

And this girl had to take the Brooks back. Sorry, Brooks, but homegirl just isn't down with running pain. Our love affair was intense and brief and we're both better for the parting.

Now I have a bright white pair of Asics waiting for their inaugural run--perhaps tomorrow? I should be recovered from today's 15 miles by then, right? (When did 15 miles become hardly worth mentioning???)

Head Games

I got a new pair of shoes last Saturday. Big woop, I know, but these are really new shoes. As in “NEW BRAND” new. I made the switch from Asics to Brooks. Asics have been my go-to shoe of choice for many rounds now, but I just didn’t like their most recent incarnation. So you take an annoyed-with-her-brand runner, a clearance sale at the local running store, and you have the perfect storm for drastic change. Was it the 50% discount that swayed me? The pretty green color of the Brooks? The lack of better options? Who knows. But I committed to the Brooks Ghost and have been obsessing over the decision ever since.

I’ve been wanting new shoes ever since I first donned my latest pair of Asics last fall. They just weren’t comfy. Not to mention, my ankle felt a bit twingy in them. Mr. “I’m Angry So I’m Going To Get Tedonitis and Knock You Out for Six Weeks” Ankle is very sensitive. I held off on buying new shoes, endured the Asics, because I didn’t want to waste money. However, after logging over 400 miles in them, I felt justified in dropping cash on new shoes. Four hundred miles is a lot of time to deal with shoes you don’t like. You can imagine how excited I was to replace them. It’s then not a far leap to imagine how disappointed I was when I ran in the Brooks for the first time and had to stop because my ankle hurt. {sigh}

I iced my ankle; it felt better. I ran track; it hurt. I ran this morning; it hurt. BUT, my junk in the trunk hurt too. As did my hamstrings. And my calves. Heck, even my toes felt a little weird. Is this a trickle up effect where a change in the shoe impacts the entire leg and it’s just a matter of adapting to the change? Or, are these new shoes the spawn of Satan??? How am I supposed to know? (This stuff actually keeps me up at night. My poor tormented little brain.)

Pyramid of Death

Now I know some people think I have a tendency to hyperbolize, but I really don’t know how else to label this morning’s track workout. What’s that, you say? Track? Oh yeah, that’s one of the new aspects of running I’ve taken on since the last mary. Wednesday track workouts at 5:30 a.m. Yes, I am insane. Fortunately there are about fifteen other similarly afflicted folks who show up each week. Not to mention our fearless leader, Coach Crazylegs. Coach Crazylegs loves to force, I mean give the opportunity to, hapless victims to lead certain sections of the workout. Coach Crazylegs seems to have latched on to me as his 800 victim. I’ve learned that when he says we’re doing an 800, yours truly will be the rabbit. Ugh. I literally almost vomited in my mouth last week as I was running. Did I mention that of the fifteen or so gluttons for punishment, at least half have qualified for and run Boston ? Yeah, that’s great. Try to rabbit them. Not pretty. Today I actually improved last week’s time by 4 seconds but the recovery was much worse. And that wind-sucking interval fell in the first half of the deadly pyramid: 400, 600, 800, 1200, 800, 600, 400. You don’t even want to know what that 1200 looked like. Gross.

Aaahhh, but it’s done. Therein lies the appeal of track. Kill yourself for an hour, question your motives, your desire, your endurance, your humanity, then go home, shower, and be grateful the workout is done for the day.

And Awaaaaay We Go...

Crap. I'm doing it again. Yup, that's right--I've officially signed up for another full marathon. Cleveland, 5/17/09. And no, that wasn't a typo. It's in May. A mere 12 or so weeks from today. RG better get her run on! (No worries for reals, I've joined a local running group, have logged 167 miles so far in '09, finally have some decent cold weather gear, yada, yada, yada--yeah, basically we have lots to catch up on.)

So. I'll try to post here as much as I can. I'm still doing the Frederick Half in May (uh-huh, THAT May, the marathon May) and the Cherry Blossom 10-Miler in April.

Let the fun begin!