BQby40

Ninja Trail Runner?

2012-02-25T15:33:00.001-07:00

The new Asics are white no more.

Trail runs are the #1 thing I like right now.

Today originally was supposed to include a return to Magnolia Road, the classic Boulder run. Kathy was going to come up to run it with me, as she needs some serious hill challenges ahead of April's Big Sur Marathon (and me, I just like Ol' Mags).

But the cold I mentioned after last week's Snowman Stampede 5 Mile race turned out to be a bigger foe than I thought. I ended up shuffling through the Presidents' Day holiday and then feeling so bad that I stayed home from work on Tuesday AND Wednesday. I managed a weak 50-minute run on Tuesday, but afterwards had one those headaches, very rare for me, that start with flashers and end up with me in bed for a couple of hours in the dark. So Wednesday I just cut my losses and went straight for the bed. The one good thing about it is that it explains my disappointing performance in the race the prior Saturday.

I'm much better now, but I wasn't up for Ol Mags and her 8,000-plus-foot elevation and hills. I did want something interesting, though, so I ran an out-and-back at Hall Ranch, whose trails are better known for mountain biking, just west of a quirky little town called Lyons in North Boulder County. It's not spring yet, but the mud that marks our trails in that season was already an obstacle. For two hours, I slopped through it and some lingering snow under crystal clear skies, passing only two bikers on the way out and several more bikers, plus three hikers, on the way back.

Sometimes I need to do runs like this to remind myself I live in Colorado. Many of my days, as nice as they are, full of library books, preschool activities, grocery shopping and time on the Internet, could be lived anywhere. But it's outside in Colorado that you get the whoosh of the wind through evergreens, the intoxication of crushed pine under dirty trail shoes, the glitter of quartz in the half-buried stones you hurdle on the climbs, and the sight of the hoary heads of Long's Peak and Meeker Mountain rearing above you as you round a bend and emerge from a forest into a burn field.

Another thing I like right now are these:

My son Will holding my new *black* Asics. Maybe I should've worn those on the trail. Nah--I need real trail shoes.

Black is my favorite color to wear. The women in my wedding party wore black (and they each chose their own dress in that shade; I wanted them to have a dress they actually liked, and we all know I have no taste anyway). And if I'm not attired like a ninja while running, I feel gaudy.

So when I saw that my Asics GT-2170s come in all black, I wanted some. I didn't want to spend another $110, however. So I went to Zappo's and found last year's model (the 2160) in all black on sale for $80. They arrived the day after I ordered them. I can't wait to wear them on my next easy run (which will be tomorrow since I missed so many runs during the week).

In all their inky glory!

Seriously, though, I had been wanting a second pair of shoes to alternate in with my others. My back and hip's aches are still very much there and will be at least until March 6, when I see the physical therapist my doctor recommended. I'm doing all I can to make things easier on my body without scrimping on training (avoiding a two-hour run on concrete today was part of that plan, too).

If while doing that I can look even more like a ninja on some runs, all the better!

Book Review: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

2012-02-22T15:55:00.001-07:00

This little memoir by the Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami suited me to a T.

At the time of the writing of the essays that make up What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Murakami was in his 50s and a longtime distance runner (he'd run nearly 30 marathons at publication time), though not one who was ever going to make an Olympic team. He's self-deprecating about his running, nonplussed by his age-related slowdown, but also determined to make the best of it, and stay out there.

He writes:

Most runners run not because they want to live longer, but because they want to live life to the fullest. If you're going to while away the years, it's far better to live them with clear goals and fully alive than in a fog, and I believe running helps you do that. Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: that's the essence of running, and a metaphor for life....

There are a lot of other interesting thoughts in here. This one in particular made me feel good about not having a runner's physique or a naturally speedy metabolism:

....having the kind of body that easily puts on weight was perhaps a blessing in disguise. In other words, if I don't want to gain weight I have to work out hard every day, watch what I eat, and cut down on indulgences...But people who naturally keep the weight off no matter what don't need to exercise or watch their diet in order to stay trim...Which is why, in many cases, their physical strength deteriorates as they age...Some of my readers may be the kind of people who easily gain weight, but the only way to understand what's really fair is to take a long-range view of things...I think this physical nuisance should be viewed in a positive way, as a blessing. We should consider ourselves lucky that the red light is so clearly visible.

It's such an understated yet optimistic way to view what most of us in that boat see as a huge pain in the neck. Likewise his experience of what he calls the "runner's blues," which he first experienced after completing his first ultra-marathon (despite that race being a triumph for him), and his attitude of mixed disappointment and determination to plow on after he didn't meet his goal for the 2005 New York City Marathon. (On a side note, it's cool for me to think he was running that august event the same year I did.)

Keeping in mind that I know very little about Japan, his attitude strikes me as very Japanese. There's a real love for running in these pages and a determination to keep striving, but it's quiet and tempered.

This was comforting to me, because among those who write about running, I often feel like King Lear's daughter, Cordelia, who just couldn't wax over-eloquent in describing her love for her father (says she: "my love's/More richer than my tongue"). Murakami is the same way: the love is there, but so are the frustrations, the starts and stops, the doubts and imperfections. Not every run is a transfiguration. But amid the ups and downs, there is the author, still putting one foot in front of the other.

That's all the inspiration I need.

My Fall Marathon

2012-02-20T09:10:00.003-07:00

OK, it's time for some good news.

Last week I got the green light from Linda, my peerless mother-in-law, that she and Patrick, Dan's stepdad, will be able to stay with our twins Will and Ruthie the weekend of October 21. This frees up Dan to travel with me, Kathy and her husband Eric to......Detroit for the Detroit Free Press Talmer Bank Marathon!

I chose this race because of the company (you can't beat having your husband and good friends there; Detroit is Eric's hometown; plus Kathy's friend Melissa, who is a hoot, will be running it in addition to Kathy and me); because it's late enough in the year that it's less likely to be hot (average high on Oct. 21 is 60, average low is 42); and because the course has some bridge hills but nothing horrible (here's the elevation profile).

Another fun thing about this race is that it crosses into Windsor, Canada, for part of the course, so a passport is required to pick up your bib and chip. (No, you don't have to run in place at the border crossing while customs checks your documents! The bib is enough to get you across and back.) This therefore will be my first "international" marathon.

At eight months away, it seems like a long way off, but I know it will be here before I know it.

Anyone out there run Detroit? Kathy did the half-marathon in 2010, so I have some intelligence from her, but all anecdotes are appreciated.

Sidenote about Colds

My cold is still there, not the worst one I've ever had, very much a "first-world problem," but annoying nonetheless. I went to spin class as usual this morning. At first I felt awful--runny nose, slight cough due to post-nasal drip, scratchy throat, fuzzy head--but as the workout ground on, I started to feel better and right now I'm feeling sort of decent. When I got home, I downed a vast amount of tea (I'm still downing it) and took a good steamer of a shower. I'm going to take the kids ice skating in about 20 minutes, which I'm hoping won't set me back to the morning's ugly condition.

While in the shower, I got to thinking about strange things I've tried in the past to rid myself of cold symptoms. The weirdest by far were the ones foisted on me by Russian friends when I was in the Russian Far East in the Peace Corps. These remedies included: a banya (by far my favorite; banyas are Russia's famous steam room/saunas); a menthol-smelling substance applied to my back; vodka pressed through a turnip and mixed with honey (I kid you not; it tasted bad enough to be medicine); vodka with pepper; and of course....straight vodka.

The first six months I lived over there I had a cold like clockwork every two weeks. If those remedies worked, I had no indication of it. The strangest thing I try now is Zicam. I swear it at least minimizes the discomfort.

Do you have any fail-safe cold remedies? (And Caroline, if you're reading, I confess that I've slacked on the probiotics since the Houston Marathon. I'm getting back on the horse, I promise.)

Race Report: Snowman Stampede 5 Mile

2012-02-18T20:12:00.002-07:00

Well, they say you can't win 'em all. They also say improving at distance running requires patience. And this mysterious relentless paternal "they" also say that you get what you need--which in my case was another notch or two down in my ego.

It's not that the Snowman Stampede 5 mile race today felt hard the whole way. It just felt blah. And every time I looked at my pace on the Garmin it looked blah from that vantage point, too. This was despite perfect chilly temperatures that warmed up to the 40s as the morning wore on, despite warm cheerful sunshine, despite hanging out with Kathy and her friend Melissa (they were doing the 10-mile race that followed the five-miler, too, for 15 miles total as part of their ramp-up for the Big Sur Marathon in April) and despite a flat fast course that I'd had a great time on a year ago in my own showing in the 10-miler.

Part of the problem is that I have a cold. It's not the worst cold ever, and it's not like I can complain, having gone through my entire 16-week training program for the Houston Marathon last month with nary a sniffle. Way better to get a cold now than then, or than four weeks from now when I'm ramping up for a half-marathon. But the cold was there, and it's given me stinky sleep for two nights in a row.

The other part of the problem (as is almost always true) were overly high expectations. I hear all the time about people "using their marathon endurance" to go out and set a personal record in a shorter distance a few weeks after the big one. I wanted that to be me, despite my back, the cold and the poor sleep. I should have known better. On one level, I did know better. But I ignored that little voice of practicality and hoped for the big PR anyway.

All of that, though, just sounds like a bunch of lame excuses. Here's how the race went:

Mile One: My plan was to go out at 8:24 (right around my pace in the Bolder Boulder 10K last year) and then gradually speed up as each mile went on. I executed part one of this plan perfectly--the first mile was done in 8:23. After that, not such a good job.

Mile Two: My legs just didn't speed up. Every time I looked at the watch it was 8:30-plus. I had looked at the elevation profile and this was the part of the course that was supposed to be on a modest downhill. I started to get worried. The Garmin says I did this mile in 8:30, but it must have been slower given my final time.

Mile Three: I felt a little better after the turnaround and some water. I wondered if maybe I hadn't hydrated well enough. Oh well. Too late now. Garmin says I did 8:17, but again I think that was clocking too fast.

Mile Four: In this mile, I actually felt kind of good. I started to pass a few people. Garmin says 8:18. But it was too late for doing really well in this race and I already knew it.

Mile Five: I found a kick and passed a few more people, my nose running like the Platte River the course followed. My back was hurting, I was already disappointed in my time and I just wanted to be finished. The Garmin says I ran this mile in 8:03. I don't believe it was that fast.

The official race results? 42:10 net time, a pace of 8:26/mile--WORSE than my Bolder Boulder pace from last May. I was seventh of 50 in my age group. I know I should be happy to be in the top 10 but........

.......Blah.

Since I know it's important find the good in these kinds of disappointments, here's what I can muster:

1) Except for mile one to mile two, my pace got faster as the race went on. It's a good thing when your last mile is the fastest.

2) I don't have another race until mid-April. Plenty of time to improve....and I will be well into physical therapy by then (yay dry needling! it starts on March 6), which hopefully will help my back and my ability to run fast.

3) I think I'll finally get some decent sleep tonight, cold or no.

4) I have four more races in the Spring of Speed. That's four more chances to do better than I did today.

Onward I go. I get knocked down but I get up again.

Checking In With the Ol' Scale

2012-02-16T11:07:00.000-07:00

After running a marathon, I've found, I have a magical two-week window where my weight stays where it is despite the loss of miles during taper and recovery. Post-Houston Marathon in late January was no exception. I sat pretty at 127 pounds or so despite not really worrying about what I was eating (including birthday cake and celebratory meals out). At one point my weight even dipped into the 126-point-somethings, a place it hadn't gone even at the height of my mileage.

But now that lovely honeymoon is over.

My last couple of trips to the scale have registered numbers that range from 129 to 131. That's the wrong direction to be moving when I'm trying to get faster.

So it's time to get back on the Mario Lopez wagon: lean foods, meal planning, no sweets.

Yep, it's time.

It's also time for my annual Catholic girl ritual of giving up sweets for Lent, which begins next Wednesday. I've had good success with this most years, ending up leaner and with fewer cravings than when I began. And it's not a two-month-plus period of absolutely NO chocolate. The "rules" for Lent, which is a 40-day period of reflection and self-restraint before Easter, say that sacrifices made for the season don't apply on Sundays because Sundays are themselves mini Easters (and if you count, you'll find you can only hit the 40-day total by leaving the Sundays out). So it works out well for me--I eliminate most of the junk but still get a treat every Sunday.

Wish me luck! Despite the recent creep upwards, I'm starting at a weight that's almost 10 pounds lower than where I was at this time last year. Losing even two pounds should help me meet my speed goals for the spring.

Reach Up for the Sunrise

2012-02-14T14:34:00.002-07:00

A funny thing happened on my run this morning.

I had a hill workout on the docket: a 25-minute warmup followed by six to eight hills of 90-second duration followed by a 15 minute cool-down. As usual for me during the week, I started in the dark. The streetlamps were illuminated, and I had to watch carefully for black ice on the sidewalks and streets. Early commuters swooshed past me with headlights on. In other words, pretty par for the course for my runs in the winter.

My hill of choice for this sort of thing is on the west side of a big slope. It's on a quiet street called Longs Peak Avenue (while steep, it's not as steep as its 14,259-foot namesake). I dutifully slogged myself up and down it eight times, trying to run as fast as I can, repeating "Light and fast" to the rhythm of my steps, mostly feeling good, but very much "in the run" and oblivious to the sky brightening to the east, especially since the east was hidden by the hill.

When I finished the hard part of the workout, I crested the hill and turned toward home by a winding route. I hoped to finish the cooldown just before my house with a block or so left to walk. I rounded a corner....and found myself bathed in full sunlight. Warm sunlight. Bright sunlight. Wish-I'd-worn-sunglasses sunlight.

Sunlight that said, "Spring is coming."

I haven't run in full sun on one of my morning treks in a long time. The most light I could hope for, even at the end, were the pink and gold streaks of imminent sunrise. That's always pretty, but very much a part of winter.

Now, I like cold-weather running. I like it better than hot-weather running. But what human being doesn't thrill to that first sign that a long darkness is ending?

If you live in a wintry spot, have you had your first sign of spring, however subtle it might have been?

The Worldwide Run for Sherry Arnold

2012-02-11T16:01:00.000-07:00

God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.

--Psalm 46:1 (referenced on the bracelet we all got at the run today)

It was a cold (in the teens) but beautiful day at the Boulder Reservoir when our group gathered for the run for Sherry Arnold.

Here's the group photo I borrowed from Beth's site. I'm in the back in the green beanie, two people over from the tall guy in the dark beanie. Looks like about 30 people to me.....

We'd had more snow overnight, so the Boulder Reservoir and Coot Lake, along with the mountains to the west and the trails we would run, were veiled in fluffy white powder. It was as if the world had been made pure again, a fitting venue for our efforts to honor a good soul taken untimely from her family and friends. I greeted Beth, who handed me a pink memorial bracelet to wear during the run.

Since it was so cold, we all stood around stamping for only a little bit before Beth said a few words about Sherry and then asked for a moment of silence. You almost hear the stray flakes of snow drifting down from the persistent clouds.

A reporter from Channel 2 showed up and filmed us as we took off. Soon we were strung out in a long line.

Sherry's runners in Boulder coming down a hill!

The loop around Boulder Reservoir is about five miles. I'm not sure how many people ran all the way around, but despite the inauspicious weather early on, it turned out to be a lovely run for me. I don't usually stop to take photos even on casual runs, but I did on this one. The snow-covered surface of the water threw back glittering shards of light when the sun finally emerged. On the dam on the Reservoir's far side, I actually got warm enough that I removed my gloves.

Also on the dam I passed Beth. The TV reporter had waylaid her, so she wasn't able to catch the group and was going in the opposite direction. We high-fived. When I got back to the starting point, I stopped for a quick pit stop and then soldiered off on a second loop. I had to run for an hour and 45 minutes according to my plan, and it felt fitting to dedicate the first long run of my new training program to Sherry.


The trail

After I finished, the parking lot was empty. I may have been the last of the Boulder runners for Sherry out there that morning. My hair was frozen and the gloves had come back on, but I felt peaceful and satisfied.

Not a beauty queen, but a happy runner with frosty hair.

I stopped at Starbucks and got a hot chocolate, and also bought a drink for the person in the car behind me. All days should be days for gestures like that, but it seemed especially important today.

My running is usually a solitary activity for me. But today I was part of something bigger. I felt strong, like I was gliding through that snow and that perfect clean air. Like an angel was guiding my feet.

January Recap and Other Miscellanea

2012-02-08T17:52:00.000-07:00

Between my back/hamstring issue and some really busy days at work and at home, I haven't posted a January recap yet. So here it is, along with some other bits and pieces:

1. January was a great month! My trip to Houston was like Woodstock for runners, complete with a great fellow traveler in Kathy (but no mud or rain like the real Woodstock had). I watched the Olympic Marathon Trials live. The following day I ran the Houston Marathon and got a personal record of 3:53:28 (it was not the long-sought Boston qualifying time, so more patience and work are required). After returning home, I got my plan for running some shorter, hopefully faster races this spring. During the month I ran 103 miles--most of it tapering to and then recovering from Houston. And I turned 39!

2. Today I had my first massage with a great therapist named Kate. She will be doing my therapeutic massage work going forward. The part where she worked on my sacroiliac joint was painful, but the result is my overall pain is less. She told me not to expect any overnight transformation. My first dry needling appointment with a physical therapist isn't until March 6. Kate has had that done, as has Laura, a friend of mine at work. They both said it hurts, but that it really helps. I plan to take some Advil ahead of my first session.

3. A couple of months ago, I discovered a beautifully written and inspirational running blog called The Logic of Long Distance. Jeff's last few posts have been so stunning that I wanted to share the blog with you so you can enjoy it too. My favorite post was the one on January 23 entitled "Running as Aesthetic Rebellion." The last few paragraphs pretty much sum up why I run. Here they are:

.....it's hard to explain the practical value of running in a world that seems deadset on winners and losers, discord, chaos, and strife. Its practical value is play--the impractical grace of beauty.

Stride by stride, effort by effort, we stitch the two sides of experience together, matter and spirit. We ride, we flow -- that's play; that's grace; that's beauty. Despite the politicians, the economy, the wild and alienated swirl of contemporary life, despite the fact that everyone tells us we ought to be doing something more productive with our lives, we end up making time to play.

We can't help it. It's called being a human.

4. On Saturday I'm joining Beth of Shut Up and Run on the local Virtual Run for Sherry. The evil act that robbed her family of Sherry hits close to home for many of us, especially those of us who run alone and early in the morning or have loved ones who do. If you're in the area and want to come, I would love to meet you. I will probably be doing two laps or so of the Reservoir, as I have to do a one-hour and 45 minute run. I will be leaving the iPod and the Garmin at home and running this one grateful to be a living part of the sky, the water, the dirt and my fellow travelers.

Here are the details from Beth:

Local Virtual Run in Longmont/Boulder:

Meet at Coot Lake (west side of the Boulder Reservoir, behind IBM on 63rd St) at 9:00 a.m.
Bring friends, family members, your pet pig, whoever!
We’ll start with a moment of silence for Sherry and her family, then start the run/walk together.
Feel free to go as far as you’d like and to fart if you want.
We’ll start by making our way around the Reservoir heading south. My guess is most people will go around the reservoir, which is about a five mile loop.

Will This Story Have a Happy Ending?

2012-02-06T20:28:00.001-07:00

How my pelvis feels right now.....

Once upon a time there was a runner who liked to say she really hadn't ever dealt with injury. True, she'd had a pesky Morton's neuroma in her foot. But that was (lucky her) easily fixed and hadn't bothered her in a year.

But....she did have this Occasional Pain in her lower back....that sometimes shot down deep into her bottom...and even sometimes down her hamstrings...especially on the left side. Since she'd had it for more than five years, though, she was almost used to it. She didn't talk about it (except to her husband some mornings when the act of climbing out of bed made her feel 90 years old).

Then one Saturday in late January, after she tried to up the intensity of her core workout just a little teensy bit, the Occasional Pain spoke to her. "You know," it said, "I've been here for five years, whispering softly because I'm polite that way, but all you do is ignore me. You ignored me when I asked you not to perch those kids on that left hip, even when they were getting heavier. You ignored me when I told you, 'Not THAT core workout.' You ignored me when I asked you to maybe please not run so much on concrete. You're still ignoring me. So now...I'm gonna YELL at you."

Trying to be respectful, she took two days off running and skipped her weight training class. But the Occasional Pain had had it with her. It refused to go away. She ran easy. She foam rolled. She carried a tennis ball in her purse and sat on it at inappropriate times, like at work.

To no avail.

So she did the last thing she could think of to placate the Pain (which a little over a week later was no longer Occasional).

She went in to see her doctor at Boulder Center for Sports Medicine. The same doctor who had saved her foot. Who had been disappointed in a 2:50 marathon in Chicago last year.

Inside the exam room she donned a pair of voluminously unflattering hospital shorts. Her doctor asked her lots of questions. She mentioned her twin pregnancy, her C-section, carrying babies and toddlers around on her left hip, and how each and every time she had tried to focus on her core the Pain had come back.

"Does it hurt when you run?" he asked.

"Sometimes," she admitted. Oh, how she hated saying that out loud!

Her doctor then had her stretch out on the exam table. He manipulated her legs and hips and back. He said her left leg appeared to be a bit longer than her right (she had no idea) and that her "high hamstrings" were very tight--especially on the left.

He looked at her training plan for the Spring of Speed. He told her it was good things weren't going to ramp up too quickly.

He prescribed six weeks of bi-weekly massage (she could almost feel the Pain cheering)....and six weeks of something called "dry needling" (neither she nor the Pain were so sure about that). He gave her a link to a different core workout and stretching routine.

He didn't tell her not to run.

In fact, he told her she will probably be able to run faster once she deals with the Pain.

If that's the case, she doesn't care how many needles it takes, dry or wet.

She's going to turn that Occasional Pain into a Distant Memory.

5 Ways I Do, 5 Ways I Don't

2012-02-02T11:41:00.001-07:00

Not the car I saw today, but you get the idea.

As I was pulling out of the parking lot of one of the many organic grocery stores in Boulder this morning, I noticed several cars with tons of bumper stickers on them. The stickers were typical of this groovy, outdoorsy and often clueless place: "Wag, don't bark." "Coexist" (have you seen this one? where the word "coexist" is spelled with lots of different religious symbols?). "Another mama for Obama." And of course "26.2."

It got me thinking about the ways I do and don't fit in here. Which of course lends itself to a nice list, or in this case a pair of them. Here they are:

5 Ways I Do Belong in Boulder

1. I'm mostly politically liberal. I don't like nasty xenophobia, I believe in taxing the rich, I think it's shameful that we haven't had universal health care in this country and I do believe we need the government to prod people to behave in ways they should behave anyway (e.g. helping the poor).

2. I like to run. And hike. And I like that Boulder funds open space. It's beautiful here. I love being able to step out my door and be in the middle of nowhere in 15 minutes. I know it keeps land at a premium here, which effectively means I can't afford to live in Boulder proper. But I'm OK with that. The trails are worth it to me.

3. The people here are my style (to the extent that I have a style). There aren't a lot of places where dressing up is necessary, including my job. Business casual is as fancy as it gets around here. The stuff that is in style is appealing to me: puffy down vests, low-slung shoes from companies like Born and Merrell, workout clothes and jeans with hoodies. I fit right in.

4. The university means lots of good cultural options--classical music, a planetarium, lectures, continuing ed classes, a Shakespeare festival in the summer, great college sports. You can easily keep learning here, your whole life.

5. I love the weather in all its extremes. My favorite part is the dryness (I've come to loathe humidity and hope I never have to live an East Coast/Midwest summer again), but I also love the dramatic thunderstorms, the snow and even the wind (unless I have to run for two hours in it).

5 Ways I Don't Belong in Boulder

1. I'm a traditional main-line Christian with a Roman Catholic bent. I think the New Age "spirituality" around here has a lot of silly showiness about it, without much substance. This isn't to say there aren't a lot of genuinely good people who espouse those philosophies (nor is it to say that I'm always an exemplar of the best Christian virtues). But if I had a nickel for every "Buddhist" I've met here who's about as far from "Zen" in attitude as you can get, I'd be a rich woman.

2. I really hate talking about politics, but I'm going to do it just for a second. I don't think everyone who is conservative is evil or a dupe. My own family back in Missouri is mostly pretty conservative. There are even some who watch Bill O'Reilly (yeah, I do think he's pretty awful). They are NOT stupid. They've just had experiences that are different from mine and therefore have a different perspective on the issues. I hate it when the typical Boulder liberal tries to engage me in conservative-bashing. I won't do it. I don't even like to bash George W. Bush. I believe it's up to history to judge people like him. How can I judge someone whose role in current events is still so recent? (By the way, this goes for Obama-bashers too.)

3. I don't believe everything should be run by committee. I believe there needsto be real authority figures in certain roles. There was a controversy at my library at the end of January over a volunteer who was asked to step down. The way the good citizens of Boulder reacted was nothing less than the blog-comment letters-to-the-editor nasty-email equivalent of a lynch mob. The way they are still talking about our director is inexcusable. Maybe this decision was a bad one, maybe it wasn't. But I like that our director is MAKING decisions and sticking to her guns. In the past, leadership at the library (and elsewhere around here) has been too easily swayed by the mass of Boulderites who think they know better. I'm glad we have a real leader now. Hopefully she's real enough they won't scare her away.

4. Boulderites love bumper stickers. I've seen entire cars covered with them. I'm not a fan of bumper stickers, if they're on cars that is. I have a bunch at home that I'd love to put in an appropriate place. Maybe a bulletin board in my basement?

5. I don't like obsessing about food. There's not a lot of moderation around here when it comes to food. Vegan evangelists, raw-food evangelists, 21-day cleanse evangelists.....sigh. I wish people would just eat what they want to and stop talking about it. In particular, please don't tell me every time I have a stomach ache that I need to give up dairy or wheat. I like cheese, I like ice cream, I like good crusty bread. I'm going to keep eating them....in moderation.....when I can muster it. I promise no moderation when it comes to chocolate.

For these reasons, I think it's good I live 12 miles away from Boulder proper. I get down there often. But I can also leave. There's a reason they call Boulder "25 square miles surrounded by reality." In my life, I need both the reality and the fantasy.

More on Running Fashion

2012-01-31T17:06:00.004-07:00

I bought new shoes today at Boulder Running Company. Here they are:

Asics 2170

Asics may be my favorite brand of running attire in general. I also own a pair of their warm-up pants, a pair of arm warmers and a pair of super-soft capris that I will wear over almost anything else in my drawer unless it's really hot.

But I'm not a huge loyalist to any brand. I also bought a pair of Nike shorts (dark green) on sale for $14 (!) and was excited that the Small size fit me. I'd noticed that my shorts are all looking baggy and shapeless in race photos. I'm not fashion forward when it comes to running or anything else, but I do like to look like my clothes fit. I'm still a little worried about what my friend Kathy calls the "thigh-valanche" in race pictures (and the more thigh you show, the more likely this is--I decided NOT to include an example of me illustrating this phenomenon). But I've decided to take the chance.

Speaking of fashion, I had a discussion with the guy who fitted me for the shoes about attire in women's running. He's a running vet who described his Boston Marathon experiences back in the 70s. Summary: neither he nor I is a fan of the "swimsuit" that elite female athletes wear these days in races. We both like Desiree Davila's look much better. I don't think I'd dress in the running swimsuit even if I looked like Shalane Flanagan or Kara Goucher, which I freely admit I never will. It's their choice--maybe they do feel they run better dressed like that--but I'd feel naked.

Shalane and Desi running in the Trials. What would you wear? They both have Olympic speed and endurance.....

Did you notice the male runners don't feel they need to wear Speedos to be fast? Just sayin'.....

I'd love to hear what you think!

The Spring of Speed!

2012-01-27T14:25:00.002-07:00

I'm sort of obsessed with my new McMillan plan for spring.

Before the Houston Marathon earlier this month, I mentioned that my husband asked me not to train for another marathon until summer. So I decided that for the rest of this winter and into spring I will concentrate on shorter races and on getting faster. Once Houston was over, I ordered my third custom plan from McMillan Running (McMillan wrote my plans for both Houston and the Top of Utah Marathon last September; I enjoyed and had good results from both plans).

One of the questions you answer for McMillan ahead of getting your plan is which race you want to target. Since it's not about a marathon and qualifying for Boston this time, I put a whole bunch of races ranging from 5K to half-marathon on there and told him to pick, keeping in mind my main goal of gaining speed without losing too much endurance. I submitted the questionnaire, asking for a start date for the plan of Monday, Feb. 6....and then I waited. I couldn't sign up for any races until the plan arrived, because I didn't know which of the ones I suggested McMillan would choose. Instead, I've been concentrating on gradually increasing the length of my recovery runs and on sleeping well.

Today, at last, the plan arrived. I've been poring over it and calling it "My precious." And I know what my spring race schedule looks like at last! Here's what's on the docket:

The Snowman Stampede 5 Mile--Feb. 18
The Platte River Half Marathon--April 15
Boulder Distance Classic 15K--April 28 (guaranteed PR; I've never done a 15K)
Flat-Out 5K or Westminster Women's Classic 5K--May 13 (the Flat-Out 5K hasn't been scheduled yet, but I'm hoping it will happen that Saturday; if it doesn't, I'll go to Westminster)
Bolder Boulder 10K--May 28

The training looks like a nice switch-up from marathon prep, with things I haven't done in a while like 400-meter intervals and 90-minute progression runs in there. I'm hoping that not only will the frequent races leave me faster (relatively) and fired-up, but also fit going into summer prep for a fall marathon. At that time, if I work hard and stay lucky and humble, I hope to be able to run my Boston qualifying time of 3:44:59 or better at last.

Meanwhile, bring on the Spring of Speed!

11 Things

2012-01-25T14:53:00.000-07:00

Before I launch into the meat of this post, I just want to give you a quick running update. I'm still in recovery mode, but I've had several short runs and one spin class since the Houston Marathon a week and a half ago. I'm feeling great, eager to launch into real training again. I still don't have my spring race schedule, as I've purchased another plan from McMillan Running and haven't received it yet. That's a good thing. My 4.5-mile run this morning indicated to me that I do still need a few more easy days. I wasn't sore. I could just tell I was done at the end. Tomorrow I will sleep in!

I also wanted to point out that due to numerous complaints recently about Blogger's comment system, I've changed my commenting to a free platform offered by Disqus. Let me know if this doesn't work for any of you, but I think it will make commenting much easier for people who don't have Blogger accounts.

Finally, I added a new page called "Race Reports" above. It has links to descriptions of all the races I've done since starting this blog in October 2010.

And now, without further ado....

Christi, of The Pedestrian Runner (who is also a cyclist and will be doing the gnarly Triple Bypass Ride this summer), assigned me the 11 Things tag.

You've seen 'em before, but here are The Rules:

1. Post these rules.
2. You must post 11 random things about yourself.
3. Answer the questions set for you in your tagger's post.
4. Create 11 new questions for the people you tag to answer.
5. Go to their blogs and tell them you’ve tagged them.
6. No stuff in the tagging section about "you are tagged if you are reading this." You legitimately have to tag 11 people!

Here are the 11 Random Things About Me (hopefully not repeating random things I've put in other tag posts):

1. People wonder if everyone in my family has an odd name, but my sister and brother are Mandy and John. (For those who might wonder, my first name rhymes with "Persia.")

2. I met my husband at a wedding in Houston when I was living in New York City and he was living in Denver. He visited me in Russia (I joined the Peace Corps two months after meeting him) and we got married in Missouri.

3. I smell books. My favorites are the old ones, but sometimes the glossy new ones have a nice bouquet as well.

4. Once I manage to get the Boston Marathon monkey off my back, I'm going to learn to play the banjo.

5. I almost never blow-dry my hair. I'm terrible at styling it anyway, and Colorado is so dry that I don't really need to spend the time.

6. Both my mom and my mother-in-law are teachers. Mom teaches social studies and MIL teaches English. They both teach middle schoolers. Needless to say, they both have a great sense of humor and a spine of steel.

7. Right now I'm in the middle of reading the Little House series of books to my twins. We're at On the Banks of Plum Creek. I am LOVING it. I have a whole new perspective on it as a parent than I had as a child (also loved it then). Pioneers were tough folks.

8. My high school mascot was the Kewpie. No lie. Here's a picture:

9. I've broken only one bone in my body. It happened when I was two years old, fell out of bed and snapped my collarbone. I don't remember any pain, but I do remember getting an X-ray. My mom told me she didn't even know I had done it until I complained a little about my shoulder hurting. And she didn't have to do anything other than let it heal. Kids' growing bones, apparently, heal that quickly.

10. Sometimes when I'm running in town, I think of stoplights as gates. I ask myself, How many gates can I get through before they close (that is to say, turn red)?

11. My favorite place to travel to is Ireland. I've been there twice, once as a broke college student and once with Dan in 2004. I love the music, the chill and the rain, the ancient tombs and dwellings, the hip cities, the sea and the cliffs that border it. If someone offered me a chance to visit somewhere new or go back to Ireland again, I'd be hard pressed to turn Ireland down.

11 Questions from Christi:

1. Which actor played James Bond the best?
Dude. Daniel Craig. Hands down.

2. Are you a cat person or a dog person?
I like them both a lot, but if pressed I'm a dog person. And to refine that, I'm a BIG dog person. No ankle-biters.

3. What is your favorite race to date?
This is so hard to answer because they've all had something good about them. But I really enjoyed doing a series of now-defunct trail races called the Frozen Ass Trail Run, the Frosty Trail Race and the Alferd Packer Half-Marathon. They all involved icy water crossings, mud, sand cliffs--and they were all in the dead of winter.

4. Do you prefer beer or wine?
Wine. No contest.

5. What is the first race that you ever completed?
The Advil Mini-Marathon 10K in Central Park, NYC, 1995. I had no idea I could run six miles. It took me just over an hour.

6. Do you have a coach to help you with your training?
I don't have a coach, but I do buy my custom plans from Greg McMillan out of Flagstaff, AZ. I love his plans. If I could afford the fee to hire him as a coach, I would.

7. If you could compete in any long distance triathlon and race fees were not a factor would you choose IM or Rev 3 races?
No tris for me!! The swimming part gives me the heebie-jeebies. And having to deal with flat bike tires during workouts/races? Meh. If it were a running race.....the London or Great Wall Marathons!

8. How many blogging friends have you met in person?
Let's see....I've met Erin, Jill, Beth, Amanda, Laura, Corey, Kelli, and Holly. I've known Kathy since long before either of us contemplated blogging. And I've met Dimity and Sarah (celebrity mother runners, bloggers and authors).

9. Who is going to win the Superbowl, New England Patriots or New York Giants?
Geez, I don't know. I do know it won't be the Broncos.

10. If you could meet one person alive or dead, who would it be?
Tina Fey. I love her sense of humor. The older I get, the more I think that a sense of humor is the most important virtue a person can have.

11. And finally the big question, do you prefer Star Wars or Star Trek?
It's nearly impossible to choose, much harder than dogs vs. cats. Star Wars evokes my childhood, and beyond that I love the concept of the Force, the theme of redemption and the swashbuckling black/white conflict of it all. Star Trek, however, is much more cerebral, real-life, with complex characters and relationships. I really like them both. Despite the space theme, they're very different from each other.

My Questions for Those I Tag:

1. Which U.S. state do you most want to visit and what would you do there?

2. If you are a parent, what's the most important piece of advice you have for those of us who are also parents (and I want to know this even if your kids are still young)? If you don't have kids, what's the best thing your parents ever did for you, even if it was unpleasant at the time?

3. Name your favorite sport (running, tris, cycling etc.). If you couldn't do it, what would be your next choice and why?

4. If you could pick a totem animal, what would it be and why?

5. What's the scariest thing you ever did?

6. If you still live in your hometown, are you glad you stayed? If you don't still live in your hometown, would you like to go back and live there?

7. Are you a fan of motivational posters?

8. Do you do well on standardized tests?

9. Which countries/regions did your ancestors come from? Do you strongly identify with any of those places?

10. Which do you like best: baseball or football?

11. Name your favorite movie of all time.

People I'm Tagging:

1. Corey
2. Cynthia
3. Jessica
4. Kara
5. Katherine
6. Kathy
7. Lacey Sue
8. Mandy
9. TNT Coach Ken
10. Trent
11. Tricia

Birthday

2012-01-22T17:56:00.002-07:00

"....Age is number that you put in your head.....If you work hard and believe in what you want to accomplish.....go out there and put the work in and you will achieve it."

--Meb Keflezighi

Yesterday I turned 39!

I love birthdays. I've never had a bad one. My dad always said having another birthday is better than the alternative. There's a lot of wisdom in that.

Since 39 is a multiple of 13, and since some of you might think for various reasons that you will someday have trouble with this birthday or the next one that ends in a "9" or a "0" for you, here are some thoughts on why I'm happier now than I was the last two times my age was divisible by 13:

I'm happier at 39 than I was at 13 because:

I have good friends. At 13, I entered a new school and knew almost no one. It took my introverted self two years to meet kindred spirits. Many mornings, I was so lonely I just wanted to stay in bed. These days, I am surrounded by people I like, and I have a long past that includes COUNTLESS people I like. I saw some of them in Houston last weekend. That was as happy a thing as my marathon PR.
I see physical activity, and especially running, as a celebration, not a sentence. The worst part of my day at age 13 was PE class. The best part of my day now is my early morning run.
I (mostly) like the way I look. I'm no fashion model and I'll never have an "elite" physique, but I've learned how to be comfortable with what I've been given (it helps that, unlike at age 13, I'm not sporting a God-awful Orphan Annie shopping-mall-salon perm).

I'm happier at 39 than I was at 26 because:

I have a husband who loves me. When I was 26, I was on the third in a string of lousy boyfriends. My family and friends were starting to wonder if I liked only men who were bad for me. Now I see that every loser who dumped me, cheated on me or lost his fruitcake temper with me was doing me a favor by getting out the way of the one I was really waiting for.
I am a mom. I'd always wanted to have kids. But at 26, I wasn't sure that was ever going to happen for me. Now I have beautiful boy/girl twins who build spaceships out of cardboard boxes and come to me when they need a hug.
I am a librarian. My job is to help people find the information and entertainment they need and want. I don't please all of my library's patrons all the time, but every day at work I make someone happy. When I was 26, I was an unhappy business journalist. It might have been a more prestigious job in the worldly sense of that term, but I made almost no one happy, especially myself.
I am a sub-4-hour marathoner. At 26, I was a marathoner, but I thought that was a one-time thing I'd done a long time ago, wasn't very good at it and would never do again. I'd still say I'm not very good at it in an absolute sense (let's be real: I did just watch the Olympic Trials). But I have proven to myself that I can get better, much better than I thought I could be. And I do believe I haven't touched the ceiling that marks the limit of how much better I can get.

Now....wouldn't YOU rather be 39 than 13 or 26?

Race Report: Houston Marathon

2012-01-17T18:59:00.001-07:00

I slept well the night before the Houston Marathon, images of the Olympic Trials races still spooling around in my head like a movie reel. Kathy and I set the alarm for 4:30 a.m. and 5 a.m. (just in case we had a hard time shaking off sleep—turns out we didn’t need the second alarm).

I took my accustomed pre-race shower and shaved my legs like I always do, being careful not to nick my ankles with the cheap disposable plastic razor I had brought (two days earlier I had skinned both ankles with that thing). We hung out in our hotel room until about 5:20. It was really nice to be staying so close to the convention center and starting line because we were able to take care of private business in our own clean flushing toilet.

We arrived at the convention center just in time for Mass. Mass was crowded—lots of Catholic runners in Houston, I guess. The priest, pointing skyward, called his homily “a brief word from our sponsor,” eliciting laughs from the nervous crowd. I couldn’t hear much of the rest of it because there was loud music echoing from somewhere else in the giant concrete space. They somehow managed to distribute communion to the crowd, and the service was over in a half-hour. We both realized we had to go to the bathroom again, so we went back to our hotel room (like I said, convenient!).

On the way back to the start area, I heard someone call my name—and there was my friend Jenne, who I know from library school!! It was so nice to see another friendly face! She had driven all the way down from Huntsville, where she is now a professor, to see me run. She was supposed to be in the 5K that morning, but hadn’t realized there was no race-day packet pick-up. But she came anyway just to cheer for me. The three of us worked our way into the steady river of runners exiting to the streets where the marathon and half-marathon starts were.

Jenne got a shot of Kathy and me pre-race. Yes, Jill, I used my Rock Canyon Half shirt as my throw-away!

I said good-bye to Jenne inside the convention center, and outside said good-bye to Kathy. My corral assignment was “A” (this was the case for everyone who predicted a sub-4 time). I was still clutching the bib in memory of Sherry Arnold that Caroline had sent me to wear on my back during the race. Jenne had located some safety pins, but there hadn’t been time to pin it inside. I saw Amanda, the other Boulderite with a press pass whom I’d met the prior day at the Trials finish line. She and her friend were headed to the half-marathon A corral. We chatted a bit about the Trials and then all wished each other luck. (I late found out Amanda ran her half in something like 1:26. Ah, Boulder!)

The scene at the entry to the A corral was a mob. I stood in the group for a while and chatted with two nice women, who pinned the bib on my back and asked me questions about Sherry. One of them turned out to be a reader of Beth’s. I think we all had a catch in our throats. But I left them because I really wanted to get into the A corral and find the 3:50 pacers. I wended my way through the crowd. Once I was actually inside the corral, things opened up. I found the pacers easily and hit the port-a-can one last time before the start (port-a-cans in the corral! Great idea!). Bill Rodgers and Frank Shorter both spoke over the PA system. Shorter called it “no excuses weather.” It was cool but not cold, maybe in the low 50s, with some cloud cover. Perfect indeed!

Through all of this, I felt stomach-clenchingly nervous. And when that gun went off, I cried a little, just to myself, thinking of the past year and of Sherry and of the Trials runners (especially Dathan Ritzenhein and his little girl) and of Jenne driving all that way and of everyone who sent me good wishes and of how I want to qualify for Boston. I knew today would be a good day, but I wasn't sure it would be Boston good and I was worried I would disappoint many people. It was such a relief to start running. It felt familiar and safe.

I had found the 3:50 pacers, but by using the bathroom that last time I had lost them again. I was OK with that because I wanted my first mile to be slower than they were planning to go. It turns out that in the first couple of miles I was behind the 4-hour pacers, too, because I passed both of them in miles three and four. I’m starting to be skeptical of pace groups. I had a great experience in New York 2005 with my pacer, but the groups in the Top of Utah Marathon started too fast, as did the groups in this race (I ended up passing the two 3:50 pacers in miles 22 and 25, too, even though my finishing time was three minutes slower than they were supposed to be posting). I know pacers are human, too, and anyone can have a bad day in a marathon, but still…..

The first few miles went quickly. The crowd support throughout the course was amazing, and there were lots of bands as well. My favorite, in the early miles in the Heights neighborhood, was playing some kind of bluegrassy gospel stuff that I would have stopped to listen to longer if it had been a different kind of day. My legs were feeling good—I noticed no talking from the ankle cuts, my left glute and hamstring or my calves as we ran past Rice University (my alma mater, where the Marching Owl Band, or MOB, was playing). The only physical issue I experienced the whole race was sore feet. I had been expecting that as it had happened on long runs too. It’s time to switch back to my prior shoe brand, Asics—I think they just work best for me.

Not sure where this was....

Soon after Rice, we entered the West University neighborhood where my aunt and my friends Colin and Mimi live. Colin and Mimi and their two daughters, it turns out, were the first friends I saw on the course. They were handing out oranges and bananas just after the half-marathon mark. Mimi called my name and I was rocketed out of my trance. I got a glimpse of her face and saw their two girls, then saw Colin a little way down. I’m sure I ran 10 seconds per mile faster for a long time after seeing them. It was a great boost (even though I didn’t take an orange, as their daughter Alexa pointed out to me later).

I was still feeling good along the stretch by Highway 59 and into the Galleria shopping area, but by mile 18 it was getting a little harder to hold my pace. I thought about the Top of Utah marathon, where I bonked hard at mile 18, and realized I felt nothing like that bad this time. I kept my legs churning and the doubts passed. It happened again around mile 20, and I told myself that moods and sensations change in the marathon. How you feel now isn’t necessarily how you’ll feel later in the race, even in the last crazy miles. It worked, and I kept on trucking.

Heading into Memorial Park, where many Houston-based runners train, I saw my friend Amy from Denver. She was in town visiting her brother and had made a sign for Kathy and me. I didn’t see her or it until she called my name (which I’m glad she did loudly because I’d put my headphones on as planned at mile 18). When I saw her, I inadvertently called out Kathy’s name, because I was reading the sign and because, well, I was in my trance again, but then I corrected myself and called out “Amy!” She snapped a photo of me, and I moved on, again having gotten a huge lift. No one’s ever made a sign with my name on it for a race before! Thanks, Amy!

Amy's wonderful sign! Just what you need around Mile 20!

Here's the pic Amy got.

Jenne was the next friend on the course. She had walked all the way from downtown to her spot at the entry to Allen Parkway, and she was working a shiny hula hoop. Again, a lift right when I needed one, and I felt ready to tackle the Allen Parkway hills. They aren’t really hills, just spots where the road dips under overpasses, but as many of you know, any incline in the last miles of a marathon feels like a mountain. So I prepared to bear down for them.

And you know what? They were over before I knew it, and….they weren’t that bad. I knew then that I could finish this race strong.

But I had one more happy surprise: my friend John! He and Rosann, his wife and also an old friend of mine, live near the early miles of the course, but didn’t put two and two together in time to see me go by at that point. So he had driven up to catch me at about mile 24. He told me later I looked much better than I did in my prior showing in this race in 1997, when he’d helped change my shoes in the freezing rain. It's always nice to hear, on the doorstep of your 39th birthday, that you're looking better at any moment than you did at almost 24! Seeing him gave me one more giant boost, and that along with the sight of downtown Houston’s buildings getting taller and taller and a slight cool breeze sent me sailing toward the finish.

The finish line was the same as the one for the Trials the day before. Its bleachers were lined with cheering spectators, and as I rounded the turn for the last tenth of a mile, I thought of Shalane Flanagan finishing her race the day before in that same spot with that grin on her face, and I broke out into my own huge smile. My Garmin put my finishing pace for that last bit at 7:50. I got my medal and had a finish photo taken before I headed into the convention center for a needed massage, some Honey Milk and an ice cream sandwich.

The final result? 3:53:28, a six-minute personal record good for 2,150th place overall out of 7,649 finishers (only 28% were ahead of me), 509^th woman (only 18% were ahead of me) and 95^th in my age group of 35-39 year-old women (again, only 18% ahead of me). Data from the race say that I finished ahead of 66% of male runners, and that in the last 4.5 miles I was passed by 29 people but passed 183.

Here are what my splits looked like:

In the end, I’m most proud of my relatively even pace throughout the whole race and that I never seriously considered walking or slowing appreciably (though I did slow after the 25K mark--will have to work on that!). This was true even when it became obvious that I wasn’t going to qualify for Boston. Because when I DO qualify for Boston, that steadiness will be a key skill set that will get me there. And I am glad I didn't give in to negative thoughts.

The Olympic Marathon Trials

2012-01-16T07:34:00.001-07:00

Kathy and I woke early on Olympic Marathon Trials morning. She was slated to work as a Medic for the race and had to report for her shift at 6:30 a.m., and I wanted to get out early to scope out the action. I was hoping my press pass would get me into the finish area, but in the end Kathy got a much better front-row seat than I did (read about it on her blog! incredible close-up shots from the finish line!).

I got to meet some bloggers--two of whom I already followed (Amanda and Laura) and three of whom were new to me (Corey, Kellie and Holly). All of us were running either the full marathon or the half-marathon the next day and were excited for this rare chance at professional-runner inspiration.

Laura, Kellie, me, Holly, Corey and Amanda

It was chilly out there--perfect running weather, but definitely coat and sweater conditions for spectating. We all stood near the 26-mile mark. Since the course consisted of several loops we actually got to see the contenders go by four times. And since the men and the women were running the Trials on the same course at the same time, we got EIGHT sightings of Olympic-quality running.The men's race started at 8 a.m. and the women's 15 minutes later.

That's Desi Davila, who went on to finish second, in front of the women's race on the first loop.

The women's pack--even the slowest was FAST!

After the runners made their third pass, I left the group to try to get into the finish area, but by the time I arrived security had closed it off to everyone but medical and race officials. I stood by the gate area for a while, thinking they'd open it up. But soon I heard the roar of the crowd as Meb Keflezighi, Ryan Hall and Abdi Abdirahman came in to claim spots on the Olympic team. I watched the podium photo op through the fence.

It was during that time that I witnessed the most poignant moment (for me) of the Trials. A woman with a stroller carrying a little girl and a toddler boy pushed past. The security officials stopped her just as they had stopped me.

"No one but race offiicals, ma'am," one of them said.

"But my husband's in there," she said.

"Sorry," he said.

She stood back next to me on the curb, pushing the stroller back and forth. The men who had finished behind the winners were trailing out, meeting family who led them into the convention center to get warm. Most of the runners were elated, just happy to have been out there with such a group. But when this woman's husband came out and I realized who he was, I understood why she was so frustrated at being unable to get to him.

It was Dathan Ritzenhein, who had finished fourth--the most difficult finishing place for an athlete with a shot at the Olympics (remember, Dathan was the top American finisher in Beijing four years ago). He gave his wife a hug--it was obvious from his face that he had been crying. And then (and this is what clenched my heart) he swept his little girl out of her stroller seat and walked toward the convention center benches just holding her, just the two of them alone despite the swell of people all over the place. And she, as if knowing that her daddy just needed a hug, twined her little arms around his neck. As he walked with her toward the convention center, I saw her sober little face, chin resting on his shoulder, eyes looking around, just glad to see her dad again.

It certainly wasn't the time for a photo or a quote, but I was glad I got to witness that very human moment of love shining out from disappointment.

Dathan and his family went inside, and I turned my attention back to the action. Another person wearing a press pass introduced herself to me as Amanda McCracken, also from Boulder. She told me Mike Sandrock had said she should look out for me. She was doing a piece for Running Times and had also been shut out of the finish area. We found our way to a spot near the bleachers and had a great view of the finish of the women's race. Shalane Flanagan rounded the corner first, a periodic grin coming over her face. Then came Desiree Davila and then Kara Goucher. The fourth place finisher in this race, Amy Hastings, also had tears on her face. So hard to finish fourth.

Though I was off the hook for the local paper since no one from Colorado came in among the winners (though Kara Goucher did go to the University of Colorado), I was feeling lame for not taking better advantage of my press pass and felt I needed to redeem that. So I went up into the convention center and secured myself a second row seat for the press conference with the winners. The place soon filled up with TV cameras and reporters. (I was also starving, so I had loaded up a plate in the press lounge--I had to remind myself that I had a race the next day myself and shouldn't get too hungry! Fortunately I wasn't the only person in there eating.)

Soon the men filed in: Meb, then Ryan, then Abdi! Limping, just like we do! Easing themselves into their chairs!

The Trials press officials had microphones and called on the reporters with questions. In the crowd was Amby Burfoot from Runners' World (he was right in front of me!), as well as folks from the New York Times, ESPN, the Washington Post and NBC.

The mood was ebullient. There had been a mention of the fact that on average this is the oldest Olympic men's team for the marathon we've ever sent (average age 33; Meb is 36!). To which Ryan pointed out to the other two, "I watched you guys make the Olympic team in the 10k when I was in high school." (Ryan has a really laid-back California dude way of talking.)

It was during this men's conference that I got to ask a question (they seemed to be allowing each person in the audience one question), so I asked Meb what he does differently to train now that he's on the older side for an Olympic qualifier. I told him he's a big inspiration to all runners who think they are on the wrong side of the age factor. And I also asked him (because this was what my husband Dan wanted to know): Does he still take ice baths in mountain streams? (Does anyone else remember the picture of Meb recovering in a cold mountain stream that was in Runners' World a few years back?)

Meb answered the second question first: No, he doesn't really do that any more because the tap water where he lives is already so cold that when his wife fills an ice bath for him he actually has to ask her to mix some hot water into it because it's TOO cold. Everyone laughed.

On the first question, about running as you age, here's what he said:

"I want to thank Skechers for taking me on. I had no shoe contract until last August until they came to me.....For older runners and all runners, I would say that age is number that you put in your head. If you work hard and believe in what you want to accomplish, beating a five-hour marathon or a four-hour marathon, go out there and put the work in and you will achieve it.

"When the cameras not watching...we work very hard at what we do. There are so many obstacles as a distance runner that we face. Who would have thought I'd be sitting here after having a pelvis fracture?"

I love that guy.

The women filed in soon after the guys left. Kara and Shalane are both tall. Desi and Amy Hastings (who also came; how hard would that have been?) are tiny.

Shalane described the finish stretch as "a cross between savoring the moment and just being grateful I was almost done." Desi said the finish for her was "this internal conflict where I really wanted to make a big push, but my calves were just cramping up and tight." Kara said, "The last mile I was just trying to get to the finish line. The last mile I was really just hanging in there basically." Amy said, "I just didn't have quite enough left. It was an emotional last mile."

It made me realize how different it must be to compete against others rather than yourself and the clock alone as most of us do.

At one point, a question came up about Kara's come-back and how she felt going into this race. I love how human she is. She said, "Honestly, I've been a wreck. I was not confident. I can't remember the last time I've been this nervous, but I also can't remember the last time I've wanted something this badly."

And then she said it again: "I was not confident. I've been a wreck. I'm going to sleep really well tonight."

I found this very comforting. It's OK to not be confident all the time. You can still succeed.

I returned to the hotel tired, a little worried about having been on my feet so much, but feeling very inspired. That afternoon, our feet propped up on pillows on our respective beds, Kathy and I watched the races again on TV.

And the reality of our own looming race started to set in......

Houston Marathon: Quick Recap

2012-01-15T16:24:00.001-07:00

I will write a real blog post later--I'm about to go eat some serious Mexican food with John and Rosann, some of my best friends from college/Houston days.

I'm still on my journey to a Boston Qualifying time, but the Houston Marathon was another step in the right direction: a six-minute PR, lowering my best marathon time to 3:53:28. When the sun rose this morning, I thought I would weep at the finish with anything less than a BQ by 39 (my 39th birthday is this coming Saturday). But there's a reason I gave myself two years for this goal. I look at where I was one year ago and feel proud and grateful. The BQ will come, perhaps this fall.

Race recap to come! Thank you to everyone who supported me in person and virtually for this race. I thought of all of you by name as I ran. I did not walk. I did not bonk. I ran strong. Thank you again. And I'm looking forward to planning my Spring of Speed--more on that to come, too.

Goals

2012-01-14T20:31:00.001-07:00

I have a lot to say about the Olympic Marathon Trials, but I'll have to post it later. There were times during the day today when I did forget, but the fact remains that I have a marathon to run tomorrow! :^)

My goals for the race are:

C) Bad-day goal: beat my PR of 3:59
B) Realistic goal: run a 3:50 or better
A) Dream goal: run a 3:45 or better and qualify for the Boston Marathon

My plan for the race is: line up with the 3:50 pace group at the back of the A corral (I am number 5119 if you want to track me). Run slow and smart at first--no too-fast starts this time. Check in with my body and mind periodically to see if I have it in me to speed up from there--and if so, run down the dream. If I can run a smart race, I'll have checked another lesson off my list, no matter what my time at the finish.

I certainly haven't lacked for inspiration. This is my first charity marathon (it's not too late to donate to the Houston Food Bank--and thanks again to those of you who already have). My training has been solid, if not spectacular, and I'm proud of my long runs. I've spent lots of time with family and friends this weekend (thanks Kathy, Aunt Terzah, Colin, Mimi, Dimity, Sarah, Laura, Amanda and all the wonderful new bloggers I met today). I will be seeing more friends later (Jenne, Amy, John, and Rosann). I watched some amazing runners contend in a fantastic race. I've shaken hands with Olympians (most recently Adam Goucher, about 20 minutes ago, here in the hotel lobby). And I am proud and humbled to run this race for my cousin Katy (serving in Afghanistan), for my friends Max and Angela and in memory of Sherry Arnold, the Montana teacher you've all been reading about this week. I also want to run well for my husband, Dan, and my kids, Will and Ruth, who have put up with lots of months of long runs and running talk.

I'm ready. It's time to do this.

Marathon Weekend: Part 1

2012-01-13T21:01:00.000-07:00

This photo pretty much describes my mood tonight:

From the firework show after the Trials opening ceremony

During the firework display, I shook Joan Benoit Samuelson's hand.

Here's how close I was to her!

Others around me were swarming her for pictures together. I decided just to ask for a handshake, for luck on Sunday. Her hand was small, cool and dry, the hand of an Olympic Gold Medalist, one of the pathfinders for all women who like to run marathons.

Joan, Frank Shorter, Meb, and Deena were all gathered, along with many of the athletes running in tomorrow morning's Olympic Marathon Trials, for the opening ceremonies. I broke down and bought myself an iPod Touch last night, so for once I was actually able to take some pictures.


Yep, that's Meb!

Meb and Deena in the chairs reserved for the athletes; each one got a little flag and a bag of snacks

That's Frank Shorter in blue.

I wasn't able to avail myself much of my media pass during the day today. Before I was granted the credential, I had volunteered to work a 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. shift as a greeter and direction-giver outside the convention center where packet pick-up was being held. All of the press conferences were happening during this time, but it's not at all noble to renege on a volunteer commitment. And I found out later that my team captain had six no-shows for the shift, so I'm really glad I showed up.

In my neon yellow "Ask me" vest

It was also just fun being an answer person (I AM a reference librarian for a reason). Runners are such nice people, and it was nice to chat with a couple of Houston Marathon veterans about the course. There was plenty to keep my mind off the Big Task looming for me on Sunday.

But first, there is tomorrow--the morning of the Trials. Kathy is volunteering in the medic area (read her post about that) and has to be there at 6:30 a.m. The men's race starts at 8 and the women's at 8:15. I will hopefully meet up with some other bloggers for the start, and after that I plan to be lurking in the press area at the finish. And I'll definitely attend the winners' press conferences.

That's the Trials start line in the background and my media credential around my neck. And yes! I'm wearing a down vest over a sweater! In Houston!

Speculation is that a course record or two could be set tomorrow. The weather is almost too perfect to be believed: I was actually teeth-chatteringly chilly during my volunteer shift. I can hardly wait to get out there and watch the action. As I type, I'm sitting in the hotel lobby. The athletes in the Trials are doubtless upstairs with the lights out (which is where I'll be going soon), but there's a party vibe in the lobby among those of us who don't have to race until Sunday.

It's like Mardi Gras for runners!

There is one sadness in the midst of all of this: the death of Sherry Arnold. My friend Caroline has created a bib to wear this weekend in her half-marathon in Sherry's honor. I plan to print and wear this bib myself. For Sherry's family and friends. For women everywhere who deserve to run free (and alone if they wish) without fear.

Taper Interlude: The Alter-G

2012-01-11T22:26:00.000-07:00

Giant steps are what you take/Walking on the moon/I hope my legs don't break/Walking on the moon/We could walk forever/Walking on the moon....

--The Police "Walking on the Moon"

On Tuesday I took a break from taper angst (so no more pity parties this training cycle, I promise!) and took a little ride on....the Alter-G! Dan came with me and took pictures.

Does this giant bag filled with air make my butt look big?

I won a session on the anti-gravity treadmill because I "like" Boulder Center for Sports Medicine (also home to my amazing doctor) on Facebook. About a month ago they acquired one of these devices, which allow you to run at less than your body weight, good for both training and rehabilitation from injuries, and they are trying to get the word out that it's there. For $65 an hour (the amount of time I won!), you too can ride the Alter-G.

The Alter-G (also made famous in a story in Runner's World a while back that showed a pregnant Paul Radcliffe training on one in her house) works by sealing the runner's lower half in a giant bag. The treadmill then calibrates, taking in the runner's weight. When you start your workout, and tell it you want to go at, say, 85% of your weight, the bag then inflates with just enough air to lift you up and make it feel to your astonished lower body like you just lost that much flab.

Dan and I arrived and were greeted by Adam, a young-looking guy wearing bike shorts and a Western States 100 race shirt (typical of Boulder, and BCSM in particular!). We chatted about Houston as he led us back to the area where BCSM does bike fittings and some rehab activities. There in a corner stood the Alter-G.

My plan was to do the 40-minute easy run dictated by my training schedule and then come back next week for a 20-minute recovery run post-Houston Marathon. Adam asked me about my goals for the race, then told me my marathon pace of 8:34/mile was going to feel easy on the Alter-G. Exciting!

But first....the shorts. Ah, they were lovely, the special Alter-G shorts.

They're sort of like a reverse tutu. Putting them on was like putting a second pair of compression shorts over the first (they had told me to wear tight biking or yoga shorts; compression shorts were all I had, but they worked just fine).

Then I had to be zipped into the Alter-G.


That's Adam helping me zip in. Not sure I could do this on my own....

Once I was in, he showed me how to use the screen, which was a little far away for me (I'm 5'7") but fortunately very responsive. Buttons allowed me to adjust my speed up in increments of .1 mph or 1 mph. I could adjust the incline as well, though Adam warned me that steep inclines on the Alter-G can do funny things to your gait (I never set this above 1% during this session).

And of course the fun part: I could toggle my weight between 100% (that is, my actual weight) and as low as I wanted. I generally stuck at 85%, which is what they recommend for people using the Alter-G for training rather than rehab, but I did at one point go as low as 70%. The Alter-G didn't display what I weighed in at, but I know right now I'm around 128 pounds. So running at 85% made for an instant 19 pound weight loss, putting me at about 109 pounds. Seventy percent? That's 90 pounds. It's doubtful either of those weights is something I'll see unless I get very very sick. But it sure felt fun to float along like that!

Yes, that's me running a 6:31 pace! Easy at 109 pounds (but with my 128-pounder's muscles)!

For the entire 40 minutes I never ran slower than an 8:41 pace and spent most of my time at marathon pace. At Adam's suggestion, to make things more interesting, I alternated between my full weight and 85% for one-minute intervals for a good part of the run. And a couple of times I ratcheted it up to a 6-something minute-per-mile pace, just because it was so much fun.

I could have made it even more fun. They offered me a mask that would have furnished me with some oxygen-rich sea-level air, but I declined that. I wanted to save some advantages (however slight) for my actual race!

There were a couple of things to keep in mind: Adam warned me to avoid the loping moon-walker gait that's easy to slip into when you feel gravity losing its hold. So I tried to keep my stride short, my steps light and my knees low. I also think it's easy to get carried away--my quads were a little sore after the workout. It's probably not a good idea to push the pace (even in an anti-gravity environment) quite that much during taper week.

It was HOT inside that bag. My lovely Alter-G shorts were soaked when I finished and sweat was pouring down my calves.

But I have to say...that may have been the fastest 40 minutes I've ever run, at least in the sense of how fast the time seemed to go. I had a big silly grin on my face the whole time, despite having no music and no TV (Adam said eventually there will be a TV there for entertainment). And I can see what a boon this machine could be to injured runners who need their fix but whose stress fractures or strained joints can't quite take full impact yet. I also thought a lot about how great this would be for pregnant women. Run at your pre-pregnancy weight...at eight months!

Blissed out!

I was also quite comfortable the whole time. You do have to hold your arms a little high to avoid hitting the bag with each stroke, and it felt weird having that apparatus around my hips at first (it was sort of like being Ursula the Sea Witch, with a large bag instead of tentacles in place of legs). But I quickly got used to it. The only time I felt out of control was at the end, when Adam demo'd the backwards running feature. I actually had to hang on to the front for a bit until he suggested I lengthen my stride. But even then I felt out of control.

Final verdict? I heartily recommend the Alter-G, especially if you're injured (insurance will cover it for some people, they tell me!) or pregnant and can afford a few hours here and there on it. And anyone who gets the chance should try it just for the fun of running so light. I'm glad I did.

Now....there's this little matter of a race on Sunday...I better go finish packing....:^)

Taper Thoughts Part II

2012-01-08T17:57:00.000-07:00

Abrahams doesn't like losing.....

When the new issue of Runner's World showed up late last week, the first article I devoured was the one about Chariots of Fire, my favorite running movie. My favorite scene? The one where sprinting phenom Harold Abrahams, having just lost to his Scottish rival Eric Liddell, is sitting in the now-empty grandstand reliving every nano-second of his defeat.

His soon-to-be fiancee, Sybil Gordon, tries to coax him out of his funk, noting that he's lost a race, not a relative, and that he still ran like a god. Harold's having none of it. He cries out:

If I can't win, I won't run!

I'm really relating to that right now as taper madness starts to touch me. It's not that I will ever "win" in the absolute sense (which was of course the sense Abrahams meant--he goes on to become an Olympic gold medalist in the 100 meters). But sometimes it seems like this running thing comes easy to everyone but me, and that I never will "win" by the definition I've written for myself.

This could be because I read too many blogs, and too many of you bloggers are awesome runners. The PRs flow, no matter how tough the circumstances (or so it seems). Same thing for qualifying for the Boston Marathon. I've read several blogger accounts of BQs happening on second (or even first) marathons. Because I, like many others, like to read about success, these seeming-overnight success stories are the bloggers who become popular. They are inspiring, and, consciously or not, our standards for ourselves rise as we read about them.

High standards and lofty goals are good. But the downside is that if it doesn't happen for us like it did for them, we can start to feel like failures. Yes, I know even the people who look like overnight successes work hard, putting in lonely miles and grinding speed work day in and day out. You can't NOT work hard and be a successful runner by any measure. But the hard work yields results faster for some people than others. It's just the way it is. That's a hard thing to teach kids. And it's a damned hard thing to teach ourselves.

For me, with my history of giving up, wanting to quit when I can't quickly achieve something is still an attitude that I struggle with. As a young person, I was able to enjoy only activities that came easily, that I was a natural at. I didn't mind working hard, but if hard work resulted in an outcome that put me at merely average in any kind of ranking, I simply wouldn't play. That meant that I poured myself into two things: writing in particular and school in general. At these things, I could be at least a best (if not always THE best). Avoiding everything else was my equivalent to Abrahams' sentiment...if I couldn't win, I wouldn't run.

Then I discovered that I actually love running, good at it or not. It helped that in the early days, I didn't set goals that were particularly tough. When I realized I could finish a marathon, I trained for it and did it. I didn't care that it took me five hours. I just liked being out there and telling people later that I was a marathon finisher. And in the middle years of my running, I actually had some success of the ranking variety that kept me going. I won my age group in one 5K race in 2005 and placed in it in several other races. I even took third woman in a cross-country race (because there weren't many other runners in it, but hey! it was still success at the time).

This go-round, though, with my BQ goal, things aren't happening fast enough. And on the eve of my second marathon since I set this goal (my fifth marathon overall), the specter of failure-phobia has returned to haunt me anew.

Yesterday I ran 10 miles with four miles at a fast-finish pace, as directed by my plan. I did those last four miles in 8:40, 9:05 (uphill), 8:30 and 8:24. I felt just fine at the end of that. But to qualify for Boston, I have to average 8:34 miles over the marathon distance. The objective information from my training tells me that it would have to be a VERY good day for that to happen. VERY good days--where weather, rest and training converge--don't come along very often.

Even if I PR in Houston, which unlike BQing doesn't require perfect conditions, I'm going to have to wrestle with myself to not be disappointed if I don't get the Boston standard. Part of the reason is that flaw of mine, the giving up thing. The other part is that I can't train for another marathon until fall. Which means the hard work, the bearing down, the chipping away will have to go on. There will be no moving on to the next thing until this thing is done.

This has one rather loud corner of my tapering mind echoing Abrahams: If I can't win, I won't run! Why work so hard, if I don't achieve what the dream really is for me and if I can't do so in a dramatic winning fashion?

The answer lies in what Sybil, Abrahams' future wife, zings back at him as he sits there wallowing in his loss:

If you don't run, you can't win.

I think I need to type that sentence again. It is the reason the scene is so good. It is the thing we all have to tell ourselves when the going gets tough:

If you don't run, you can't win.

Regardless of what the Houston Marathon brings this weekend, I must keep on, even if I have to change the name of this blog to BQ by 45. Beyond becoming a better runner, it has everything to do with becoming a better person. I clearly have some work to do on that.

If you don't run, you can't win.

If you don't run, you can't win.

If you DON'T RUN, you CAN'T WIN.

Taper Thoughts Part I

2012-01-06T09:20:00.001-07:00

Taper madness hasn't yet set in.

I'm still running almost every day, though not quite as long and not quite as fast. And there has been plenty to do at work and at my house over the last few days, like taking down the Christmas decorations. Usually this makes me really sad, but with the Houston Marathon coming up it's hard for me to feel down.

Here is one big thing I'm concentrating on as the taper goes forward:

*Avoiding getting sick.*

Last cycle I improbably caught a cold the week before the Top of Utah Marathon (who gets a cold in early September? my kids and myself, apparently). It was mostly gone by the time the race rolled around, and I don't think it was a major factor in how I performed. But it was a stressor while I was dealing with it, and it interfered with my sleep. So I really don't want this to happen again. Here are the steps I'm taking:

1) I'm not taking my kids to indoor playgrounds, malls or even playdates this week. They still could pick up a virus at school and bring it home--I can't do anything about that. But I can keep them (and therefore myself) away from unnecessary exposure. I am normally NOT a germophobe at all. But this week? I've been tempted to put all of us in surgical masks. :^)

2) Caroline recommended probiotics. I eat a lot of yogurt, so I get these anyway. But I've heard this advice from other quarters and I know Caroline eats a very healthy diet. So earlier this week I picked up some Jarro-dophilus powder and I've been taking it once or twice a day with food.

3) I'm drinking as much vegetable juice as I can. I always have V8 low-sodium juice in the morning, but I don't think I normally eat enough vegetables. Well, for this two-week period I've been having a glass of V8 in the afternoon, too, and I've been buying and downing juice combos that include greens as well. In addition, I'm taking my usual women's multi-vitamin and two Omega 3 capsules every morning.

4) I've been really trying to go to bed early and sleeping in just a touch when I can. There's been only one night in the past week where I got interested in reading something and stayed up past 11. Most nights the light has been out by 10 and last night it was out by 9:30. I will try to improve that to 9 p.m. at least once this week before I leave.

5) I've been more obsessed with hand-washing than I've ever been (with the exception of when Will and Ruthie were tiny infants fresh out of the NICU). My hands are dry, but they are CLEAN.

That, I think, is all I can do! I'm worried about the plane ride, but that, like preschool, isn't something I have any control over beyond hand-washing. Fingers crossed that my strategies work.

Thanks so much to all of you for your advice about the Trials! I'm going to try to hit some of the media roundtables with the athletes on Friday so I can get some of your awesome questions out there. I was bummed to miss a conference call held yesterday with Meb, but I had to tour a school we're interested in for kindergarten next year (yeah, I washed my hands when that was over!).

Using My Olympic Trials Media Pass

2012-01-04T20:41:00.002-07:00

Though I can play an extrovert for a little while, the truth is I'm a pretty introverted person. Parties tire me out after about a half-hour. I can come off as unfriendly or cold with new people, even if I like them a lot from the very beginning, because I'm not touchy-feely and I over-worry about my demeanor, which of course makes it even worse. And crowds? Not a fan.

So even though I'm shocked at my good luck scoring that media pass to the Olympic Marathon Trials in Houston a week from Saturday, I'm a little nervous about my ability to take full advantage of it. I spent the first decade of my post-college life as a reporter and editor--and this reserve of mine, this constant fear that I might be bothering someone, really got in the way of any kind of success at it. I love to write, but I'm a terrible talker. In contrast, many of the best reporters just have a knack for chatting people up and getting them to feel so comfortable that they'll spill (if there's dirt to be gotten) and gush (if they're nice and honest, like most of the runners you read about). I'm surprised my employers paid me as long as they did.

No one's paying me to interview people at the Trials, but I'd love to talk to some of the runners. But what should I ask them? If anyone from Boulder makes the team, I'll have some obvious questions to ask--real news (and a happy interviewee) always make interviewing easier. But that's not terribly likely.

I'm turning to you guys for help. There are probably a lot of personable friendly folks among you--maybe even some genuine extroverts! If you had this media credential, what would you ask the Trials runners? How would you approach them when they are probably going to be tired and sore and really wanting to put their feet up in private and drink some chocolate milk rather than talk to a humble blogger who just happened to sneak past the velvet rope?

2011 Goes Out Like a Lion

2011-12-31T16:56:00.002-07:00

The chinook winds returned, just in time for my last long fast-finish long run ahead of the Houston Marathon. I sat in the car at the rec center, thinking maybe I should just do it tomorrow. But that's fool's thinking, and I know it, so I got out, shouldered the CamelBak one last time and hit the pavement.

It only took about a tenth of a mile before I was loving it. I loved the whole slow ten miles I did out in the wind. I loved the guy smoking a cigarette in the parking lot of the used-car lot who asked me, "Aren't you freezing your tush off?" and laughed at me when I told him sincerely that it wasn't that bad. I loved the three super-fast runners, two men and a woman, whom I saw on my favorite hill up 9th Ave. (the same hill that broke me on a tempo run during my ramp-up for the Top of Utah Marathon last summer). I loved the wind that chilled me when it blew and allowed the sun to bake me when it briefly dissipated. I loved the sight of the mountains on the horizon when I turned around, and even the feeling of my calves being blown around when my stride had them airborne.

At the end of the ten outdoor miles, I knew this run was charmed. I entered the crowded rec center and against the odds walked right onto an empty treadmill. A weight lifter dude I see there sometimes shook his head and smiled, asking me if I had food with me. I brandished my Shot Bloks with pride. I started the treadmill at a 9:05 pace and as seven miles flowed by ratcheted it down every mile until I finished at with 3/4 of a mile at an 8:13 clip. I threw in three 2-3% hills of a quarter mile each in the last three miles. I was hot and purple-faced, but I felt good.

Why did I stop at seven fast-finish miles (McMillan allowed eight and I definitely could have done that last one)? Well, three reasons: 1) my left hip and low back were bugging me again, probably because I took my kids ice skating yesterday and the hip didn't like that inside turn over and over again for an hour 2) a very polite lady asked me for the treadmill at the end, and I felt so lucky to have gotten seven miles that adhering to the rec center rules seemed more like a sign from the cosmos that I should stop than an imposition and 3) I feel like the hay is in the barn; what would one more mile today have gained me?

I'm very happy about how the long runs have gone this cycle--the only one that was rough for me was the 16 miler I did right before we flew to Virginia for Thanksgiving, and it turned out I was coming down with a stomach virus. I still don't know what to expect in Houston, as the speedwork was deliberately NOT run as fast as last time. But I strongly feel I can at least PR if the weather is favorable.

For now, though.....it's taper time. Ahhhhhhh! I have big plans for this taper. They involve tasty, nutritious meals....good sleep....a massage this week AND next week (yes, I'm splurging.....). But perhaps most exciting....yesterday I found out I won an hour on the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine's Alter-G Anti-Gravity Treadmill!

I'll be using this machine on Tuesday, Jan. 10 (five days before my race) for an easy wind-down run. Dan will cut work to photograph me. So stay tuned for a post on that next week!

Happy New Year everyone! I'm off to eat homemade pizza and drink some Riesling (not too much, I promise!).

Looking Back, Ahead and Other Weighty Matters

2011-12-29T10:47:00.000-07:00

I'm going to take Miss Zippy's format from a few days back for my 2011 year-end review.

Best race experience? The Top of Utah Marathon; it was a big PR, it was my return to marathons after six years, it was a road trip, it had crazy weather, I got to meet Erin, and it showed me how close to (and how far from) my goal I stand.

Best run? Because I don't really think I can call it a race.....that crazy Rock Canyon Half-Marathon in the snow and wind earlier this month. I love a good story, and that one involved Kathy and Jill (yes, we're all mad, MAD, I tell you!), as well as an epic drive and the nutty weather.

Best new piece of gear? My CamelBak; no more carrying bottles on long runs.

Best piece of running advice you received? “Patience, grasshopper.” This was in a Tweet from Greg McMillan, who wrote my training plans for both Top of Utah and the upcoming Houston Marathon. Though I often wish this were easier for me, I’m not going to be an overnight BQ person–I have to work for it. And that’s OK. By the way, let me put in a quick plug for McMillan's custom training plans here. They are FUN and varied. They make you feel strong. They've been worth every penny to me (and I don't have a lot of extra pennies).

Most inspirational runner? My friend Kathy (see link above), who went from zero to marathon in a year and a half. She has fallen in L-O-V-E with running, and who doesn't like to witness a good love story?

If you could sum up your year in a couple of words, what would they be? A slow comeback. That said (and this next bit makes me happy) I set PRs in every distance this year except the 5K. And I just realized....I didn't run any 5Ks in 2011. Not one!

Which brings me to....looking ahead to 2012.....

My husband Dan has asked me not to train for a marathon again until the summer. He's been doing kid duty on Saturdays during my increasingly-long long runs for six months now. It's harder in the winter because I don't get up as early as I do in the summer, and thus don't get back as early. He's fine with me training for half-marathons and anything shorter...but he doesn't want any more 24-milers until the weather and the light favor earlier starts again.

After some initial worry about the possible impact on my hard-won endurance, I decided that not only is it a perfectly fair thing to ask (he's been a total trooper!), it might even be the case that a scale-back and a change of focus would be good for my body.

I don't know yet exactly which races I'm going to do this winter and spring (though of course the Bolder Boulder 10K will be in there and almost certainly a half-marathon nearby). I don't plan to sign up for anything until after the Houston Marathon. BUT.....I'm wondering if it's possible for me to topple that 5K PR. Could be tough....22:34, set in 2005....the last 5K I ran, the Colder Bolder in December 2010, was almost 2 minutes slower than that, at 24:24. But I think it's a good spring goal. And Lord knows there are plenty of 5Ks to choose from, so I can just keep hammering at it until it's time to go back to distance training starting in June.

Jill tells me that a focus on speed will likely help my fall marathon plans, too. If you put it that way.....yeah....shorter distances could be good......stay tuned for more on this later......

Finally (and then I promise I'll stop this interminable ramble), I wanted to check in with the weight and nutrition side of things. Despite immense quantities of cookies and champagne consumed over Christmas, my weight and body fat on Tuesday were sitting semi-pretty at 127.4 and 21% according to my home scale. This is the good side of marathon training through the holidays. It does make me wonder where those numbers would be WITHOUT all the extra sugar and fat.

My pledge for the last three weeks before Houston is to eat well...as in nutritiously. I'm not eliminating all treats (for Christmas Dan gave me some yummy French chocolates, which I'm using as day-end rewards for eating impeccably otherwise). But the focus is on lean Mario Lopez recipes, good carbs and lots of fruits and vegetables. In addition to being the best kind of fuel for a marathoner, these foods will hopefully have the added benefit of helping me stave any cold viruses and other nasties that might assail me during taper. Fingers crossed! With Houston so close, watching my food is easier and less boring than it usually is for me.

Any foods that are your must-haves when you're close to a big marathon? How do you avoid colds ahead of key races?

Any advice for my Spring of Speed? Do you think I can beat that old 5K PR?

Finals Week

2011-12-26T13:59:00.003-07:00

Upcoming is the last hard week of my training plan for the Houston Marathon. After New Year's Day, I will begin tapering (or, as McMillan calls it, "the peaking phase"). The two toughest runs this week will be a track workout of 3000-meter repeats on Thursday and a fast-finish long run of 18 miles on Saturday. It's sort of like Finals Week!

But it was actually the past week that marked the most miles I'll do in this cycle. For the first time since 2005, I ran over 50 miles in the week (51, to be precise). I'm really happy about how good my body feels. My long runs have gone MUCH better this cycle than they did leading up to September's Top of Utah Marathon. And while I'm still not sure I can qualify for the Boston Marathon when I toe the line in Houston in three weeks, I do think, if the day's weather favors me, I can set a personal record in the marathon, run much stronger (and hopefully smarter) than I did in September and inch closer to the Boston standard of 3:45.

The biggest chunk of my miles this past week were run on Christmas Eve. I ran 24 miles under bright sunshine. Part of me didn't want to go because it meant being away from my family for most of the morning and I wasn't looking forward to negotiating sidewalks and roads still snowy and icy from a huge storm we had on Thursday. White Christmas=wonderful! White Long Run=tedious! But I couldn't face 24 miles on a treadmill either.

I did two things to combat the boredom: 1) I listened to music only for the second six miles and the fourth six miles of the 24, thereby "rewarding" myself for getting through the first and third six-mile segments and 2) in the spirit of the season I tried to think of a blessing for each mile, so that by the time I was finished I'd have a list of 24 blessings (on top of the blessing of a 51-mile week!).

The first 13 miles were all about people.

Mile 1--My husband Dan. He is always first. He always will be.

Mile 2--My son Will. I thought about what a loud, passionate little soul he is. I thought about how he is like me--much nicer when he gets some endurance exercise.

Mile 3--My daughter Ruthie. She is sharp as a tack and has a silly sense of humor. I don't think anyone will ever pull one over on her (unlike me!).

Mile 4--My mom. She was back home helping Dan with the kids. Always a great example of optimism, good humor, sociability, kindness. I need to be more like her.

Mile 5--My dad. He's funny and empathetic. He was my first running partner, back when I was twelve and we'd knock out two flat miles every other day. If it weren't for him, I wouldn't be running today.

Mile 6--My friend Kathy. She went from zero to marathon in a year and a half. She is the definition of game, the definition of tenacious. I'm glad she's going to be my roommate in Houston.

Mile 7--My bloggy friend Jill. She unfailingly says the right thing in all of her comments, on my blog and everyone else's. She's a blessing to so many people, even amid injury and tough times for herself.

Mile 8--My friend Christine. She was there when I conceived this Boston idea and she never fails to believe I can do it (even when I'm failing to believe in myself). I'm looking forward to getting back to our hike-spin-hike routine.

Mile 9--My friend Angela. I've known her since first grade. She's a great runner and a great person. She continues to inspire me and make me laugh, even though we don't talk nearly often enough.

Mile 10--My friend Max. Compared to what he goes through daily, nothing I do is a marathon.

Mile 11--My sister Mandy. You will never meet a more honest or genuine person than she.

Mile 12--My brother John. He's probably the only person in my family who understands why I like running long distances and going on other uncomfortable adventures, even when I run the risk of pooping in my pants and other unpleasant consequences.

Mile 13--My smart, practical sisters-in-law, Kate and Jessica. Kate, like Dan, is a true Renaissance person. Jessica has a dry, incisive sense of humor. They say you can't pick your family, but if I could I'd totally pick these two.

The next half of the run my brain got less focused, and I started being thankful for things and circumstances:

Mile 14--People who actually follow the rules and shovel their sidewalks. This was a purely practical blessing for that moment, that mile.

Mile 15--My health. During this mile I passed a guy limping down the street on crutches. My pace wasn't fast, but I am lucky nonetheless to be able to run under the bright sunshine. At all.

Mile 16--My (knock-on-wood) lack of running injuries so far. My lower back was twinging me a little, and I was thinking I need to work hard on my core during the next training cycle....but even with these concerns, I have stayed solid and strong.

Mile 17--The beautiful place I live. At this point I was working my way west on a highway in the county. On the horizon loomed Long's Peak and its companion, Meeker Mountain. Cool breezes and the smell of horses (which I like!) wafted over me.

Mile 18--Music. Of all kinds. The kind I had just turned back on--yay Mile 18 (I'm loving Pitbull these days). The kind I'd been listening to at home with Dan and the kids (all Christmas, all the time!).

Mile 19--That that truck next to Target back in Mile 10 didn't kill me when he tried to run a red light and then braked/honked at me as he skidded into the cross walk. There were lots of crazy drivers out. Last minute holiday shopping?

Mile 20--That I was finally headed home.

Mile 21--For my wonderful church, St. John's Episcopal, where we'd be taking the kids later for an afternoon Christmas service. Part of me will always be Roman Catholic (if you're born into it like I was, it's not something you can ever NOT be, no matter how much you disagree with certain points of church dogma), but I've never felt as at home and spiritually cared-for as I do at St. John's.

Mile 22--For my job. I'm so lucky to have one, and even luckier that the one I've got challenges me intellectually and helps me in forging a better character for myself. I'm thankful for everyone who uses a public library, even the crazy people. (I can't quite be thankful for the mean and entitled types yet.....the customer is NOT always right.....)

Mile 23--That this was now a two-mile run. And that Pitbull was still with me.

Mile 24--For that last hill up to my house. And that I was able to run up it, feeling strong, all the way home.

Blog Exchange: Thank You Lindsay!

2011-12-22T16:25:00.001-07:00

So earlier this week I got a box in the mail and didn't open it right away--we're getting a lot of packages these days and most of them are for the kids. When I realized what it was, though, I tore into it and found this T-shirt inside:

It was my blog exchange gift, from a blogger I didn't know but now am following, Lindsay of Lindsay on the Go. Unlike me, Lindsay also bikes and is working towards a triathlon, though she says running is her first love. She also has Type 1 diabetes and writes a lot about how she works that with her running. I'm looking forward to reading about her goals for 2012.

Meanwhile, I LOVE this shirt. I've always wanted something from Oiselle (for female runners, it's sort like what Guess jeans were for me as a middle-schooler)--and now I have something. If you look close, each of the lines on the shirt represents a race, with the top one being a 5K and the darkest one, on the bottom, and wrapping all the around the back of the shirt, being an ultra.....Haven't done one of those, but never say never, right?

Anyway, THANK YOU, Lindsay (and thanks to Jill at Run With Jill for organizing the exchange--I know it was a ton of work). Here's a photo of me in the spirit of the season saying it again:

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Book Review: Running the Edge

2011-12-21T11:29:00.001-07:00

I live in Boulder, domain of runners but also of Deepak Chopra, Eckhart Tolle and other New Age-y, self-help-y, laughing-all-the-way-to-the-bank-at-our-neuroses types. I'm not a fan of this stuff, or of the self-help, self-love and self-improvement movements or pop psychology in general. The ideas of "because I deserve it" and other Oprah-esque cloakings of hedonism are big turn-offs. I (and I'd wager many middle- and upper-class Americans) actually do plenty for ourselves. It's other people we should be focusing on.

That said, I do believe that while perfection isn't possible and happiness isn't reached via a check-list or a particular spiritual practice or a set of goals, improving one's character IS a worthy process to embrace. That's where Running the Edge: Discover the Secrets to Better Running and a Better Life comes in.

Adam Goucher and Tim Catalano were teammates on the University of Colorado cross-country team made famous (among runners anyway) by the book Running With the Buffaloes. Goucher went on to become a professional runner and an Olympian, while Catalano coached runners and taught. In the introduction to this book, they say they wrote it because "both of us realized that as good as our lives were, we could do better."

Though non-runners won't relate to a lot of the material here, becoming a better runner is really only a sub-point. The point is becoming a better person--in your family life, your education and other facets--by examining yourself in what Goucher and Catalano called the "six mirrors," among them initiative and personability. There are exercises at the ends of the "working" section of the book to help you do this.

It took me a long time to read this book, not because it wasn't enjoyable (Goucher and Catalano's anecdotes are funny and inspiring, and the writing is unpretentious and clear) but because I actually tried to work through the "mirrors" and really absorb what the authors were trying to impart. In the days leading up to the Top of Utah Marathon in September, I read Running the Edge daily.

Does it work? Well, I'm still a work in progress. I don't believe any one book can change a person, or a runner, overnight. But the authors know that. I liked their no-excuses attitude, their frequent references to the truth that we are all "in progress" and that ultimately the only way any of us can make a positive change in the world is to make positive changes in our selves. A sprinkling of philosophy gave their ideas some intellectual heft. Their sense of humor and humility made them appealing guides.

The Houston Marathon is in a month. I'm already re-reading parts of this book as that big day gets closer. I'll never be an Olympian or even very fast. But I do like the idea that I haven't reached the edge of my potential in running or in anything else.

This book would make a great gift for the runner in your life. Want to buy it? Go here.

[Disclaimer: Goucher and Catalano answered questions from my readers on this blog last summer. I purchased this book myself before they did so, and my review is my own.]

A Beauteous Pre-Christmas Run

2011-12-20T17:53:00.002-07:00

I am enjoying being in "marathon" shape.

Runs like today's help with that.

I woke up before my alarm, a little worried because I hear that interrupted sleep is a sign of overtraining and yesterday during the day I was super tired. But awake is awake. I got out of the house and was on the road for a nine-miler by 5:30 a.m.

For some reason, nine miles is a nice distance for me. Maybe it's because if you're running super easy (like I was supposed to do today), it comes out to an even half-hour for each three mile chunk. I named the three three-mile chunks in honor some characters in my favorite Christmas book: the Ghost of Runs Past, the Ghost of Runs Present and the Ghost of Runs Yet-to-Come.

The Ghost of Runs Past (the first three miles): This part of the run featured a port-o-john stop (I might have eaten some French fries at a brew pub last night), but it also featured gorgeous stars, a waning crescent moon, cold still air and glowing Christmas lights. I was the most "in my head" during this part of the run, fretting about work, my friend whose situation last week was so worrisome, when I was going to get Santa gifts for my kids. That all blew away like smoke as I got further into it.

And soon I was cruising along with the Ghost of Runs Present: This was the most in-the-moment time of the run for me. Some barefoot prints on the snowy sidewalk caught my eye. Yes, barefoot! I followed them for about two miles. I figure they must belong to an owner of a pair of Vibrams. I certainly hope so. Running barefoot in the snow.....it would be either hard-core or....stupid. I wondered about other footprints I saw too. Who, I wondered, was up walking or running earlier than I? Or had they been out the night before and the windless night preserved their tracks? The other thing I noticed was a train whistle. I love this long mournful sound. I never saw the train, though. By the time I circled back to the tracks, it had come and passed on, headed for Wyoming.

Before I knew it, an hour had passed and it was time for the Ghost of Runs Yet-to-Come: I wasn't running out of gas, but I was definitely thinking about breakfast. The sun was turning the eastern sky pink, and the mountains to the west were glowing in their white mantles, as if they were ghosts themselves. I came to a downhill stretch before turning up again closer to home. The snow ahead of me sparkled in the pale streetlights. It was as if my path were heralded by fairies and elves. My instructions were to pick up the pace for the last 10 minutes of the run, so I did. I felt like I was flying through that cold morning. And in the spirit of "yet-to-come," I prayed for a similar feeling during my marathon next month.

I arrived at home right as my hour and 30 minutes ended. The spirits of the run have stayed with me all day. I smile whenever I think of it. Especially that sparkling white carpet of snow.

Mid-December Update

2011-12-18T15:54:00.002-07:00

This Christmas season has been like a roller coaster. I'm enjoying the ride, but I gave up thinking I had any control over it last week sometime. I am managing to get my runs in on schedule, at least so far.

Here's a summary of my running life right now:

After last Wednesday's rest day and some good sleep, I had some great runs. Thursday's was 7 miles with some fartlek stuff thrown in. Friday's was an easy run. And yesterday's 16-mile Fast Finish Long Run......nailed! First I ran ten miles outside at an easy pace, taking in the beautiful fresh air (chilly, but no longer frigid for now) and the clear Colorado sunshine. Then I moved inside and did 6.2 more miles on the treadmill at marathon pace, throwing in three 3-3.5% grade hills of a quarter mile each to mimic the Allen Parkway hills that come in the last push of the Houston Marathon.

Why the treadmill for this part? A wise reader pointed out to me that Houston could feature all kinds of weather, but it's highly unlikely to feature sub-15-degree cold and darkness of the CamelBak-valve-freezing variety, and that perhaps I should prepare for something warmer than I can get outside right now. Seemed sensible to me (especially since I am *not* a warm-weather runner), so I'm going to mix in a bit more treadmill than I usually care for in these last weeks, making sure to play with the incline and the speed so I'm not letting myself off easy.

Those of you who have read this blog for a while might remember that I have a friend in Michael Sandrock, the running columnist for the Daily Camera in Boulder. Mike comes into my library to use the computers, and we often chat about running (he is one of those cool old-school runner dudes, and he's involved with a really good charity, One World Running). Mike will be in Haiti at the time of the Olympic Marathon Trials, which are in Houston the day before my race, so he won't be traveling down there to cover them. He suggested I apply for a media credential to cover the Trials. I figured what the heck, submitted my application....and got the credential!

This means I will get to access the media areas of the trials race on Saturday and will be able to interview at least some of the elite runners after the race! This will be especially cool if any Colorado runners make the Olympic team because my "dispatches" might actually make the paper here. But even if nothing I get ever sees the light of day anywhere but this blog, the inspiration from being around runners of that caliber will be priceless. Maybe it will rub off on me like Tinkerbell's pixie dust and bring me some extra oomph for my own race the following day.

The coming week will feature the hardest runs and the most miles of my Houston ramp-up. It will also be the first time in several years that I will have exceeded 50 miles/week. The capper? A 24-miler on Christmas Eve. I fully expect to hear about this from my mom, who arrives for the Christmas weekend on Thursday. She thinks I run too much. :^) Does anyone in your family think you run too much????

Four weeks until the Houston Marathon!

Rest Day

2011-12-14T15:18:00.000-07:00

Today I didn't run, cross-train or lift weights. I had the option of doing a 30-minute easy run, but my McMillan plan for the Houston Marathon had a big yellow highlighted cell in the spreadsheet for this week that said: "This is a good week for recovery. You may want to run on the low end of the mileage or take an extra day off."

Usually on recovery weeks I try to do the lower end of the mileage range. I always have Sunday off and have felt good on just one full rest day, so I haven't felt the need for more.

This week has been different. I went to spin class on Monday morning as usual and felt no leftover soreness from Saturday's 22-miler. But the rest of Monday was stressful. A friend of mine had something terrible happen, and I was worried about him. This resulted in one of my insomnia nights. I woke up at 1 a.m. Tuesday and couldn't return to sleep. At 6 a.m., my daughter came into our room. I decided up was up and went out for my planned track workout, which was supposed to be eight to ten 800s.

In retrospect, I should have done this on the gym treadmill. It was really cold outside (our window thermometer said 15 degrees when I got back after the sun had come up, so it may well have been colder when I set out). Due to the lack of sleep I felt like crap. Somehow, though, it seemed easier at the beginning to bundle up, skip scraping car and just do it at the high school.

I could never get warm and managed only six 800s before I flat ran out of gas. The six I did were good, right in the range where McMillan wants me to run them, but I hate falling short in a workout. I hate when my mind isn't strong enough to make my legs go. Even now, part of me is still telling myself...."You should have done eight.....you should have done the minimum...." But I didn't. Instead, I jogged home, sad to be wasting all the fast songs I'd put on my iPod for the occasion.

Now that I'm clear-headed (last night's sleep, thankfully, was good), it's evident to me that I needed today to be a real rest day. 22-Mile-Long-Run+Hosting-a-Party+Personal-Stuff+Insomnia=One Tired Runner. Often on rest days I feel draggy, and also like every morsel I put in my mouth is making me fat. That hasn't been the case today (though I probably shouldn't have eaten all those pita chips....pita chips are like crack....) I'm still sleepy, but it's a good kind of sleepy, un-tinged with grouchiness or that deep malaise that I associate with over-training.

I get to run on each of the next three days. I'll be back in the weight room in the morning.

But today is for rest and recovery. I'm going to bed early tonight. I may or may not do some stretching first.

I'm OK with that.

The Week's Summary

2011-12-11T15:35:00.001-07:00

My husband and I hosted a cookie exchange yesterday, my job has been busy and my kids turned FIVE on Thursday, so this is the first time I've been able to think about blogging since Monday.

I don't write much about my twins on this blog, mostly because like running itself I see this journal as "my time," where I can focus on my non-motherhood obsession. But nonetheless they are a huge part of my life, and I'm very proud of them.

Here's how we looked five years ago:

And here's how we look today!

Five years old is a great age. While they were adorable babies, I kind of always wished they could have just emerged about five years old, so I could skip sleep training, potty training, separation anxiety, and preschool illnesses. Yep, I'm a lazy parent. But despite my laziness, we've made it to five the old-fashioned way and most of that stuff is behind us (I know there are more illnesses lurking, and lots more to learn about manners, not to mention the teen years....but at least the latter are a ways off). Bring on the Wonder Years!

Back to running......

This is the only palatable photo from last weekend's Rock Canyon Half.

I had two *great* runs this week.

On Thursday, I did 10 miles with the middle six at marathon pace. I decided to do this one on the treadmill because the streets and sidewalks were still really icy from the prior weekend's storm. While I don't mind negotiating a bit of ice when I'm doing an easy run or a long steady one, I don't like having to think about it when I'm concentrating on holding a tougher pace for any time longer than a fartlek. So the 'mill it was! I got to the rec center early enough (5:30 a.m.) that the time limit wasn't a factor.

The other issue with this run was choosing what the heck to call marathon pace. My Top of Utah time, on which I'm still basing most of my paces for my runs, has 9:05 miles as my marathon pace. So when the two warm-up miles were over, I put the treadmill at 6.6 mph, which is right on 9:05. At the end of that mile, I punched it up one notch, to 6.7, and so on, until for the last mile I was running 7.1 mph. On that mile, because I was still feeling good, I notched it up one more on the last half-mile, so that I finished at an 8:19 pace. I also threw in four 2.5 to 3% grade hills of about a quarter mile each on the last two MP miles. Then I cooled down for one mile on the treadmill and one mile on the indoor track. Afterwards? No obvious achiness, no ill effects at all either the rest of that day or Friday!

However, I was worried that having pushed my pace on that run would affect the weekend's long run of 22 miles. After all, running too fast on midweek runs is what I believe made almost all of my long runs ahead of Top of Utah so unproductive. Until Thursday's run, I had deliberately avoided exceeding the prescribed paces this time, hoping to avoid any hint of over-training.

Happily, this didn't appear to be an issue at all in the end! The first part of the 22-miler was rough, but not because of any fatigue. I was running outside again and got myself out the door by 7:30 a.m. because I wanted to be back well ahead of the 2:30 p.m. cookie exchange. I had all my clothing and equipment lined up (water, fuel, toilet paper in a baggie, cell phone). Unlike last weekend, the weather was still (no wind! yay! it's much better to have to run a half-marathon in wind than to have to do a solo 22-miler in wind; if you're going to be miserable, you need some company).

But I didn't plan on the valve to my CamelBak freezing by mile two. It didn't thaw out so I could drink from it until mile 10. So what did I do? I did what I tell my kids never to do: I ate snow. Yes, I tried to find the cleanest snow I could. Yes, I avoided the snow that was anywhere near the many prairie dog colonies I ran by (I was on the Boulder County backroads). Yes, it's still a little gross. But I needed liquid and it seemed like an OK risk to take. Fortunately it paid off in the form of a wonderful distance run where I felt great the whole way (and better in the second half than the first AND didn't have to find a bathroom once!).

My calves are a little stiff today, but I think that's less from the run itself than it is from wearing uncomfortable but cute leather boots all afternoon at our party. Which also was an excellent time, especially since after running 22 miles I didn't worry too much about how many cookies I ate or that glass of champagne Dan and I enjoyed by the fire after the kids were in bed and the guests gone home.

November Highlights, December Goals...and a Winner!

2011-12-05T14:47:00.001-07:00

(Thanks I <3 to run on Facebook for this!)

November was a roller coaster month. I didn't manage to write everything down, but here's my best shot at capturing it.

--I ran 112 miles. This isn't as much as I ran at the same point in the build-up to the Top of Utah Marathon. More on the possible implications of this below.....

--I missed several weight training classes. I was doing great with this until Ruthie's hand-foot-and-mouth illness erupted. Between that, the stomach virus she got the following week, our trip to Virginia, my own stomach virus and a kindergarten visit last week, not a lot of weight was lifted. I'm back on the wagon, but I'm tabling my one chin-up goal until after the Houston Marathon.

--I made it to spin class only once. Part of this is because some days it was just easier to do an easy run while at work.

--Considering it was a holiday month and there was a lot of illness in my house in the latter half, I did a good job sticking to the Mario Lopez Extra Lean Family eating plan. We're still planning meals and eating out less as a family. As of last week at least, I had maintained my weight and body fat percentages. Expecting to lose weight at this time of year (even with marathon training) is setting oneself up for disappointment.

--I held my own in the Rock Canyon Half Marathon last weekend and the weekend before ran an 18-miler that I can truly say for the first time since I started training for marathons again post-pregnancy felt good the whole way. I also ran well despite wind in the Longmont Turkey Trot on Nov. 12, setting a 10K PR of 50:55 (I'd originally reported a time of 51:04, but when the race folks emailed my results to me they'd given me back 9 seconds--sweet! sub-51!).

December is going to be quite a ride. The Houston Marathon is six weeks away. Over the next four weeks, I have two long runs (a 22-miler this weekend and a 24-miler on Christmas Eve), two McMillan fast-finish long runs (one on the 17th and the other on New Year's Eve), lots of medium-long mid-week runs, and various tempo, marathon-pace and track workouts.

I mentioned above that my monthly mileage ahead of Houston has been lower than it was for Top of Utah. This isn't what I expected, since I've missed only one of my Houston plan's scheduled runs (a fartlek that fell right after I got sick in Virginia--I did make up the miles, but not the speed part). I really have no idea if less mileage has helped me improve or has held me back. The two test races that were in my plan (Rock Canyon and the Turkey Trot) were both run in wind and in the case of Rock Canyon on some icy terrain. The Turkey Trot time was right on where my Top of Utah Marathon performance predicted my best 10K finish could be, which I guess is a good sign considering I felt I could have been faster without the wind.

Doing my best to be objective, I'd say at this point running a BQ in Houston (sub-3 hours 45 minutes since I will be 40 for Boston 2013) looks unlikely. If I can run smarter than I did in Utah (slow down in the first miles, Terzah!), a PR (sub 3:59) might happen.

Still, I do have lots of good hard workouts ahead. If I can stay healthy (no more stomach viruses or colds!), get 'em done and get good conditions outdoors for one of those fast-finish long runs, I will know more about what I should realistically be shooting for on Jan. 15.

A Winner: Another fun thing about November was my Banana Blossom Press Giveaway. Thanks to all who entered--I really wish I could get cool T-shirts and cards for all of you. The winner (according to Random.org) was #18 (I couldn't get the screen capture to translate into a usable file for Blogger, but I do have it if you want the proof). By my count that makes Marcia of The Studly Runner my winner. Marcia, email me with your address and let me know your final t-shirt and card preference.

Marcia, by the way, also won my only other giveaway back in the spring. She comes by her good karma naturally, but I think she was also helped by the karmic fact of her donation to my Run for Food cause. Want some of that good karma for yourself? If you can help me get to $600 (my original goal was $500), please go to my fundraising page and donate. I'm going to do a gratitude giveaway if I make it to $600 before I run Houston.

Race Report: Rock Canyon Half Marathon

2011-12-04T12:55:00.001-07:00

Before the race--the snow was still coming down, the sky was gray, the road was icy! But we were there!

The night before the Rock Canyon Half Marathon (in Pueblo), I (in Boulder) called my friend Kathy at 6:30 p.m. and suggested maybe we should bag the race.

You see, Pueblo is a 2.5-hour journey from Boulder. A storm, complete with snow and 40-mph winds, followed by frigid temperatures, was the forecast for race morning. I'd had a long day with my kids, whose birthday party was scheduled in Boulder on Saturday 3.5 hours after the time I would probably finish this race. I knew if I missed my kids' party because I'd driven to Pueblo for a race in bad weather that I'd feel like a terrible parent.

I hadn't run that day. You know what that means: cranky pessimism triumphing briefly over my accustomed sunny outlook.

Since I put the picture up there, you know that ultimately I changed my mind and drove to Kathy's place. In her cozy Tahoe we made the rest of the drive down to Pueblo before the storm hit. By 10:30 we were fast asleep in our hotel room as planned. It was a risk. We decided if we awoke to weather that looked so horrible it would require hours to get home, we'd skip the race after all and set out first thing so I wouldn't miss the party.

The risk was still there in the morning. We both woke up well-rested between 6 and 6:15 and checked the weather. Kathy belongs to a tight running group, and her phone was full of texts from her buddies who had been turned back by the storm in the wee hours. But where we were, though the snow was falling, the wind wasn't horrible and the roads looked passable. We decided to race. Kathy agreed to pick up her running buddies' sweatshirts for them (this race offered comfy old-school sweatshirts instead of the now-ubiquitous tech tee--I love mine despite the men's size small). I called Jill, who was actually on her way with her son!

I took my requisite pre-race shower (and afterwards used the hair dryer, which I almost never do in bone-dry Colorado). We bundled up in our best cold-weather gear (not counting my hat, which is a hand-knit one not meant for racing at all; I couldn't find any of my running beanies on Friday) and set out to get our numbers and sweatshirts. That errand was accomplished quickly (after we found the park where the start and finish line were, passing a frightening looking accident on the slick streets on the way). We fueled up at Starbucks, then returned to wait for the 9 a.m. start in the Tahoe. One more bathroom trip, a quick meet-up with Jill (she and her son made it with about ten minutes to spare, so we didn't get a picture) and we were off!

Do you always hope for PRs? I do! Despite the conditions we observed driving over there, I was still fantasizing about a big half-marathon PR (I do like cold weather)....until we actually started running. The first two and a half miles were on park roads. They were flat but slick, basically ice on pavement. The wind, on the portion of the loop when it blew in our faces, was bitter and relentless. Kathy and I stuck together for most of this part. With the footing what it was, we didn't talk much. I watched my feet, which at least had warmed up quickly once we started.

Eventually we left the park and veered down to a paved trail that runs along the Arkansas River. I lost Kathy on a steep little downhill (I found out later she was developing a wind-induced headache that really slowed her down). The wind was fickle. Sometimes it seemed full-on in our faces, sometimes it seemed to be shoving us from behind. The whole thing was relatively flat, and the trail (which ultimately changed to gravel under snow) no longer slick, but I still couldn't muster much speed with that wind.

Not bad for Colorado! Too bad about the wind.

Jill had told me some serious Colorado trail runners needing an organized training run would come out for this one. And I figured some hard-core road runners might venture down from nearby Colorado Springs (very much like Boulder in its daunting running scene). Sure enough, with about three miles to go to the turnaround for me, the frontrunners met us coming the other way. A guy behind me counted out their placement so they could hear him: "Twelfth.....thirteenth....fourteenth...."

I caught up with Jill on a weird little bridge on the loop by Pueblo Dam that finally turned us around near mile 8 (thank you for wearing the bright pink jacket, Jill!). She asked me how I was feeling and I said I wasn't sure. (What I meant was, I wasn't as miserable as I know I could have been, but I also wasn't running as fast as I'd hoped. Hence, the uncertainty.) I was about to ask her the same question when suddenly we felt the bridge bouncing underneath us. It's a disorienting feeling when you've got a rhythm going. We came upon an aid station right after that, and I moved ahead of her. I wondered how Kathy was doing.

The wind was less intense at this point. I had turned on my iPod at mile 6.5. An old favorite ("Goody Two Shoes") and two new-to-me songs came on (both by Pitbull: "Shake Senora" and "Give Me Everything"). This put something that passed for a spring in my step. I managed to pick up the pace just a little. At that point, I hoped to finish this beast under 2 hours, but even that wasn't to be. My final time was 2:01:16, average pace 9:05 miles, good for 19th out of 56 in my age group and 254th out of 558 runners (750 had registered, selling the race out, which gives you an idea of the number of no-shows in that weather).

At the finish line, I tried to wait for Jill and Kathy to cheer them in, but I was too cold. I headed for the Tahoe, sponged off with some antibacterial wipes I had in my purse, changed into my party clothes (yoga pants and the race sweatshirt) and was about to go looking for them again when Kathy arrived. She'd finished slower than she wanted to as well, but was feeling good again. Very quickly we were on the road, Christmas tunes pumping, and in the end I made it to the party in Boulder with 10 minutes to spare. I traded some texts with Jill, who was hilarious about the race and how miserable it was (what she didn't mention was that she finished 8th in her age group--may I please have her base in ten years?! the woman's an animal).

I am really grateful to the brave volunteers and race organizers who turned out for this icy race. I definitely plan to send them a big thank-you email. My biggest thanks go to Kathy!! She's always up for an adventure, she's a great driver (not too fast or slow in whatever conditions) and she didn't mind skipping the post-race festivities to get me back north in time for the party. She earned her baking and her time by the fire that night, in more ways than one. I'm so glad that she'll be my roommate in Houston too.....in just six weeks!

Good Things About Winter Running

2011-12-02T08:52:00.001-07:00

Gonnaclose my eyes

Girl,and watch you go

Runningthrough this life, darling,

Likea field of snow

--DavidGray "The One I Love" (in my iPod playlist right now)

I have a half-marathon tomorrowmorning down in Pueblo. The forecast for race time? 27 degrees, 70% chance of precipitation. "Precipitation" in thiscase="snow." And it goes on to add my very favorite:"windy." So let's just say I'm throwing out any PR hopes and justplan to do my best, whatever that might be in those conditions.

Since this seems like a good time tofocus on the positive I'm going to echo a post I did back in July about summerrunning and give you.....

MyTop 10 Reasons Winter Running is Good

You're always eager to start just to get WARM.
The "who's that crazy running lady out in sub-20-degree temperatures?" looks you get from people scraping their cars or getting their newspapers make you smile, even if you can't smile because your face is frozen.
The ice bath actually feels balmy.
You've earned that hot chocolate, baby. And you need it, too, to help with the hypothermia.
I've heard (somewhere) that it's good for the immune system to spend time outside when it's cold.
You avoid some summer running symptoms that aren't so attractive. In my case those summer running symptoms include a purple and white blotchy face and salt tracks.
The stars (whether you run in the evening or the morning--both are dark) are beautiful, unadulterated by summer heat and humidity.
Christmas lights! Cozy houses! Running outside in the winter makes your own cozy house that much more appealing, especially because you know you got your run done.
You're primed for any other outdoor chores you have to do (including shoveling and helping your kids with a snowman).
At least you're not on the treadmill!

I did have a wonderfulone-hour run in the falling snow yesterday. I was on the road by 6:30 a.m. Thestreetlights gave the flakes a pink tint, some houses still had Christmaslights on and there wasn't any ice under the soft carpet on the sidewalks. Itook it really slow at first, getting used to the terrain, but soon I was ableto get into my usual easy run pace. At the end I did eight 20-second strides ina park near my house. The David Gray song I quote above came into my head.

My friend Kathy (who is doing thiscrazy half tomorrow, too) reminded me recently of that silly scene in RockyIV where Rocky is training in Russia and runs up a craggy mountain. Ididn't exactly feel like Rocky yesterday (couldn't even see the mountains), butthe rest of the day was fantastic.

Have you entered my giveaway?

A Lesson in Flexibility

2011-11-29T19:58:00.001-07:00

Flexibility: every now and then you get a reminder of why it's so necessary, in running as in everything else. That's what Thanksgiving Week was for me this year.

Leaving off where my 16-miler finished...we left for Virginia, where Dan's sister and her family live, the next day, which was the Saturday before the holiday. Ruthie, my little girl, had largely gotten over her stomach virus. We were excited for the week ahead, as over the course of the seven days we were going to see Dan's entire extended family. And I was looking forward to running in a new place, and at sea level, too. The travel day wasn't bad, and I had big plans for an exploratory 3-to-4 mile run the next morning.

It wasn't to be. I had felt sort of queasy all day on our journey, but figured it was motion sickness from a bumpy landing. I'm prone to motion sickness anyway. But it didn't go away, and sure enough I spent most of that first night throwing up and most of the next day sleeping. The preschool virus had gotten me!

On Monday, thanks to my running-reinforced immune system and all the sleep (bless my sister-in-law for her white noise machine), I felt nearly 100% and managed a slow but nice 8-mile run. Charlottesville is one hilly town! I got to see a lot of the University of Virginia campus that day and even found a windy trail up a mountain. Things shifted again the next day when my little 10-month old nephew came down with the Dreaded Virus. It lasted two days for him, poor guy.

I was supposed to do a track workout on Wednesday, but didn't want to bug anyone to drive me to a high school (they were all too far away to run to), so I found a nearby gym, paid the daily drop-in fee and for the first time since early June ran on a treadmill. I figure intervals are an OK thing to do on a treadmill, as tracks are flat anyway. I knocked out a good solid 6 800s.

Thanksgiving itself was a nice day. I took my friend Kathy's advice and threw out the scale, just enjoying my dinner and especially lots of pumpkin pie. My plan was to run 18 miles on Friday, the day before we were due to leave.

But that, too, wasn't to be. That night, Dan came down with the Dreaded Virus. As did his mom. As did his sister. And her husband. That left two adults standing: me and my mother-in-law's husband. That wonderful man let me out for a three-mile head-clearer, but other than that I was busy trying to keep the kids quiet or, if not quiet, out of the house so the invalids could sleep. No 18 miles in Charlottesville. (Just as a side note, I have no idea how my son Will avoided this virus. I'm even scared to type that, for fear I will jinx it.)

Dan felt much better by the time we flew out on Saturday. Happily, I had taken Sunday off work. So that afternoon, after we all returned from church, I shouldered my CamelBak stuffed with Shot Bloks and set out for what I was sure would be one sucky 18 miles of slog. After all, I had just been down at sea level for a week, was tired and dehydrated from flying and driving the day before and generally hate running in the afternoon.

The final twist to this story? I felt *great* on this run. I actually completed it more quickly than the 16 miles I'd done the week before.

Flexibility is a beautiful thing! Sometimes (not always, but sometimes) it even rewards you.

Weight check-in: Home scale today: 128.4; 21.7% body fat (maybe the stomach virus wasn't all bad); didn't go to weight training today due to a kindergarten tour, so no gym scale to compare it to

Weeks until the Houston Marathon: 6.5 (ahhhh!)

Have you entered my giveaway?

Giveaway: T-Shirts & Cards from Banana Blossom Press

2011-11-27T17:29:00.001-07:00

The time has come at last for the giveaway I've been talking about for weeks.

One of many wonderful "says-it-all" cards you can find at Banana Blossom Press. Perfect for a running partner, supportive spouse or coach!

Maria Millsap started Banana Blossom Press (to use her own words) "to honor those in the fitness and wellness community who support me in my athletic endeavors." In a short video on her Web site, Maria notes that she celebrated her first three-mile run by smoking a cigarette! She's been-there, done-that with all of the things we average athletes deal with as we journey toward achieving our goals. She's also pretty badass, having just run the Seattle Quadzilla (four half-marathons in four days!).

I was honored when Maria contacted me last summer to tell me she was thinking of using a quote from my "Why I Run" essay (which appeared on Sarah Bowen Shea and Dimity McDowell's "another mother runner" blog) on her next T-shirt. Two weeks ago, she sent me the first version of that shirt, which reads "Every run is redemption," the last line of my essay. She also sent me two other great T-shirts and a sample of the understated and elegant cards she's created just for runners.

I wore this one on the plane to Virginia. It says "no run=cranky+moody". So true!

This is the "Every run is redemption" shirt. Maria tells me she's going to lighten up the colors in the final version.

This one says "running. it's family thing." Awesome for my fellow parent-runners.

The T-shirts are by American Apparel and wonderfully soft. I'm so grateful to Maria not only for sending me this fun package (an early Christmas gift) but also for the Redemption T-shirt. Long after Boston is or isn't achieved, I will still be running and feeling like a new woman with every mile I add to my life total (sure wish I'd been keeping count!).

So what's the giveaway? I'm offering one lucky winner the T-shirt of your choice and one set of cards of your choice (and yes, Maria does offer guys' shirts, so you dudes should enter too!). Here's what you should do if you'd like to be that winner:

Required:
1. Follow my blog and leave a comment telling me you do.
2. Go to Banana Blossom Press, have a look around and leave a comment telling me which shirt and which set of cards you would choose if you win.

Optional:
1. Follow Banana Blossom Press on Facebook and let me know in a comment.
2. Follow Banana Blossom Press on Twitter and let me know in a comment.
3. Donate to my Houston Food Bank cause. This is good for TWO entries to the giveaway (and if you've already donated you automatically get two entries per donation; donating again will get you two more).

I'll choose a winner on Monday, December 5.

I hope everyone had a Thanksgiving brimming with blessings. Ours was a wonderful but crazy week. I'll tell you all about that, and today's 18-mile run, in my next post.

Got 'Er Done

2011-11-18T17:20:00.001-07:00

I ran 16 miles this morning.

It wasn't easy. The crazy wind that dogged me during last weekend's 10K had returned. It felt like it was coming from all directions. And when the wind wasn't blowing, the sun was hot. It was a bit like a fever, where you get hot, then you get chilled, but you never feel good. I had been up two nights in a row with Ruthie, who was sick again, this time with a nasty, pukey stomach virus. Last night Dan took most of the Ruth duty, since I had had most of it on Wednesday night. But I still was tired, and also worried, because tomorrow we take off for our Thanksgiving trip to Virginia. I don't want any vomiting kids on the airplane, or at my sister-in-law's house with her 10-month-old.

Dan and I talked about whether I should put the run off until Sunday. I told him I was happy to do just three miles today to take the edge off, if it made the packing, the Ruthie watching (Will was at preschool) and him getting some rest easier. He decided that I should get the "Big Daddy" run out of the way. So I did.

In the end, despite the wind, the hot sun, the poor sleep and the worry, it was a good thing. I kept it within my McMillan pace range for this sort of run, and as always, when I was done, I felt the confidence boost that comes only with a long effort. Perhaps even better, I'll have plenty of time to enjoy the weekend with our extended family without worrying about my long run (I still plan to do that easy three, but I'll do them on Sunday!).

Because of all this, I haven't prepared the giveaway post I was planning to leave you all with. It's a great giveaway, from a wonderful company run by a creative runner. I will have it up next Sunday. This will be my last post until after the holiday week. I plan to check in with your blogs a little bit, but I'm giving my own a rest.

Meanwhile, I will leave you with this suggestion: head over to Jill's blog and sign up for her 2nd Annual bloggers' holiday gift exchange. If you don't know her yet, Jill is a great blogger, a wonderful source of running wisdom, and the gift exchange will be fun.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Eating Check-In: Thanksgiving Strategies

2011-11-16T12:32:00.001-07:00

Once again I forgot to weigh in on my home scale this week. I'm off-kilter because our whole family is headed to Virginia on Saturday for Thanksgiving week, and I've moved all my runs and other workouts up so I can get my long one done on Friday instead of Saturday (which will be its own kind of long run with two little kids on two planes across two time zones).

Yesterday at weight training I did weigh myself on the gym scale and came in at 130.8--better than last week. The work pants are feeling looser, too. With most of the kid illness behind us for now, we're back in a better groove at home with planned, healthy meals. The Halloween candy petered out quickly at work, which also helps. It may be the Calm before the Storm of Food next week, but I'll take it.

I'm on a team with four of my work-mates for a program sponsored by our employer called "Hold for the Holidays." (Yes, the city government in Boulder is health-focused too!) The object is for each team to collectively gain no more than 2 pounds per member (we were all weighed in private a week and a half ago) and to encourage each other in healthy habits throughout the holiday period. For our group that means we can collectively gain no more than 10 pounds. Each week we get mailings with strategies to help cope with the food deluge. For Thanksgiving, here are some of their suggestions and how successful I think I'll be at them:

Work activity in wherever possible. Walk the dog. Play football outside instead of watching it on TV. Take a family stroll after dinner.
I don't think this will be a problem. My sister-in-law (and Dan's family as a whole) are good at moderation and healthy habits. Plus, my running program is about to really ramp up the miles. I have an 18-miler scheduled for a week from this weekend. I'll run it in Virginia. Let's hear it for sea level!

Use a small plate for your meals.
Um, I can't say I expect I'll be really good about this.

Don't starve yourself ahead of the big holiday meal. Eat breakfast and lunch as usual.
I always eat breakfast. I am incapable of starving myself for any reason. This recommendation should be just fine.

Think about which "treat" foods you really really like and which you're OK passing on. Resolve to skip the passers in favor of the must-haves.
I will try to do this. I love pumpkin pie and cookies. I'm OK skipping anything meaty and anything creamy. That said, I don't know what tasty things will be served on Thanksgiving or Dan's birthday, which is the next day. Dan's family contains a number of excellent cooks. I may be doomed to stuffing myself on everything!

What about you? Will you adhere to that advice? Got any tips not mentioned here for managing the gravy train?

Two Kind Profiles

2011-11-14T10:17:00.001-07:00

In the last few days, a couple of other bloggers have honored me by featuring me on their pages.

Big thank-you to Jessica at Pace of Me first of all. She's doing a series called "Rock My {Running} World," and I'm grateful and lucky to be the second person featured under that heading after her own sister. (I also dig the fact that her sister and I are about the same age and at about the same running level, too. I wish I could run with both Jess and Jodi.) I expect Jessica will be added to my "Inspiring BQ Stories" page very soon, because her latest showing in the Marine Corps Marathon was a gigantic PR and put her just two minutes from qualifying. She has worked hard for this. She and I now have a joint dream of meeting in Boston in April 2013.

The second place you'll find me is in the Houston Marathon Committee's blog. They too are featuring some runners ahead of January's big race. The guy they profiled before me, Sary Joudah, is actually a much more inspiring runner than I am. I really enjoyed reading his story. And if you're running Houston this year, the committee's blog is a great place for information as well as inspiration as we pull within two months of race day.

Later this week I will have a giveaway I'm excited about. I won't reveal much today, but I will tell you it has something to do with this site.

Race Report: Longmont Turkey Trot 10K

2011-11-12T12:35:00.001-07:00

I woke up this morning wanting to see a 10K time that starts with a 4, but when I heard the wind (one of those autumn gales rushing down the mountains from the west) I knew it probably wasn't to be. In racing, you take what you get as far as weather goes. In the end, I set a slight PR for both my pre- and post-kids self (50:55, down from 51:42 set at sea level in 2004). Plus I really enjoyed the course, wind and all. So it wasn't a bad day at all!

Finishing with a smile! It was great to have my husband and kids with me at this race.

Here are the details.

Pre-Race: The race wasn't until 9, so I didn't set an alarm and woke from a great sleep at 6:45. My kids got up soon after, I got them breakfast and then ate my own--dry Cheerios, about six ounces of OJ and a banana. I also had several glasses of water and one glass of Ultima, an electrolyte drink I can tolerate because it's sweetened with stevia rather than sorbitol or tons of sugar.

I also took a shower. I've mentioned before that I'm not much of a girly-girl, but I do like shaved legs under my capris and clean hair when I race. Then I put on my race outfit: capris and a short-sleeved neon-green race shirt from last summer's Heart and Sole Half that my daughter Ruthie picked out (Ruthie, by the way, is MUCH better; she even went to the dentist yesterday and did great during her cleaning; the mouth sores are still there, but healing; thanks to everyone who wished her well).

I wasn't sure about this shirt. I don't like to stick out in races in any way. But what do you say to your almost-five-year-old who is coming out to watch you run six miles in the wind when she wants you to wear a certain shirt? You don't say no! And it turns out it was a good shirt. My husband and kids were able to spot me coming in to the finish wayyyyy before I got there--I could hear Dan yelling from a half-mile away! Also, another runner complimented me on it as we ran together briefly in Mile 5. We agreed there was no way I would be hit by a car. When I saw her later after the finish she said she had used me as her rabbit, watching my shirt ahead of her like a flag.

Dan saw the shirt from a long way off.

The Race: We got there too late for me to warm up. I hit the bathroom and went straight to the start with only about two minutes to spare. While waiting in line, I ate a pack of Black Cherry Shot Bloks. I figured a little more sugar and some caffeine wouldn't hurt. I was a little chilly at first, but despite the wind the sun was warm and there's no shade on this course, so I figured I'd be OK.

The first three miles were the windy ones. Miles 1 and 3 were straight into the north/northwest wind. Mile 2 featured the only hill of the pancake-flat course. These things are reflected in my times for these miles. I was trying to hold back a bit, knowing the weather wasn't favorable and that I would still have half the course to go when we finally got out of the wind. I paid a lot of attention to my breathing: four steps for every inhale/exhale cycle. It was nice and controlled.

Mile 1--8:17
Mile 2--8:14
Mile 3--8:19

Then we turned east. Boy, turning out of the wind helps!

Mile 4--7:56
Mile 5--7:54
Mile 6--7:54

We had to go west again for most of Mile 6, but you know how it is when you're almost done. You can hammer a bit and be OK. I'm proud that Mile 6 was as fast as Mile 5. And I'm proud that I found a kick for the last quarter mile, though I'm sure having Dan and the kids cheering for me had as much to do with that as any ability of mine.

Last .2--7:00 pace

Finding a finish kick--I couldn't quite catch the girl in red, but she and I passed two other women just ahead of the mat!

The times may be off because the Garmin never matches the actual time. But I was much closer on the watch and the official time than I usually am, so I must have done better with the tangents than in the past.

My only real disappointment was that the finish line clock said 49:04 when I crossed the mat. I thought I had done sub-50, only to find out that was the clock for the concurrent two-mile race. Fortunately I found this out quickly, had about a 30-second sulk and then cheered up again. You can't argue with a PR of any kind in the wind. Dan also helped (as always): he said he thought a 10K PR seven years and two kids after my prior one was really awesome.

The Lessons:

Good Things (besides the new PR):
1. I paced myself almost perfectly. Now I know I can handle the tempo and race pace runs I have coming.
2. I didn't let adverse weather get me down. You get what you get with weather. No whining.
3. I felt good the whole way. I was definitely done at the end, but I am not sore and know I can hit the ground running with training again this week.
4. This was an awesome field, especially for us double-X chromosome types. The women's winner, Nuta Olaru, finished a mere three seconds behind the 18-year-old top male (he ran 35:11, she ran 35:14!). Dan said it was an amazing finish, that she *almost* caught him. Olaru and five others among the top ten finishers were in their 40s (Colleen DeReuck, one of my favorite local Olympians, was sixth and top female master); the man who finished 8th was 50 years old. (Running) life does NOT end at forty. I was honored to be 11th out of 58 women in the 35-39 age group (my group's winner ran 39:17), 50th out of 298 women and 173rd out of 555 overall.
5. I can run without music! Turns out I probably didn't need to (lots of folks were running with music), but the official rules for this race said no headphones and I'm a rule-follower. This was a good confidence-builder for sure. While I have no plans to ditch my iPod, it's great to know I can run well without it.

Bad Things
I can think of really only one negative thing about this race (besides the sub-50 continuing to be elusive): This time doesn't indicate a readiness to run my BQ time in a marathon. My McMillan running calculator paces for my Houston training will stay about the same after this race. I was hoping to be able to run my training efforts a little faster.

Like I said, though....no whining. Just gotta keep on doing the work.

Sick Kid and Weight Check-In

2011-11-09T14:51:00.001-07:00

Over the weekend my daughter came down with a nasty virus called hand-foot-and-mouth disease. It's given her horrible sores inside her mouth, so painful she can't eat much of anything. At first she had a fever, too. That seems to be gone, but the pain in her mouth--and her grumpiness because eating is so hard--are still there. This is her third day home from preschool. According to the doctor, she should feel much better within a day or two.

I haven't missed any runs or spin class due to this, but I did miss weight training yesterday staying home with her in the morning (still hoping to be able to do that chin-up at some point). As for today, I was supposed to have a day off work, and I planned to go out to lunch with Jill at last. But it wasn't to be. I was really unhappy about this. It's not the first time I've had to cancel something fun because one or both of my kids got sick. I haven't mentioned it, but I've been dreading cold and flu season for weeks, watching as my friends and their kids have come down with various kinds of crud and wondering when it would move to our house.

Now that it's here (in addition to his sister's situation, my son has a cold--nothing horrible so far, but he's a sneezy, snotty mess), I'm feeling more sanguine. If we can keep Will from catching Ruthie's bug, I'd say there are even some good things about this timing:

We're traveling in a week and a half for Thanksgiving; these illnesses should have run their course by then
Their 5th birthday party is three weeks from this weekend; I'd hate to have this happen then
I am not yet to the truly hard, high-mileage weeks of my marathon training program, where there's guilt about leaving the kids so much with Dan even when they're well and where I'm more susceptible to viruses myself
Sick kids nap a lot; so do the parents who stay home with them; I'm getting more sleep this week than I usually do because I'm not at work

Small blessings, right?

In other news, my eating is NOT going well. I couldn't weigh in at the gym yesterday because I didn't go, but this morning after spin class I got on the scale at home. The Halloween candy appears to have caught up with me:

Weight--131 (so bummed to see a 3 on the scale again)
Body Fat--22.1%

Blech. Oh well. Maybe it's Mario's revenge for the bet on his NYC marathon time.

I know what I need to do: stop the creeping snacking, stop using the miles as an excuse for eating junk and stop the portion ballooning. I've definitely gone through worse eating patches, and I'm still making Mario's recipes, but it's time to get back to the straight and narrow.

At least I don't have sores in my mouth. Knock on wood.

Mario Bet Winner and a Couple of Blog Recommendations

2011-11-07T08:05:00.000-07:00

There was a lot of great news from the New York Marathon today, including a new course record. Congratulations to all of you who ran, especially Carrie and Erin.

And unless my race-time stalking powers betray me, Mario Lopez ran a 4:23:31. That means Tricia of Running, Life, Etc. is our big winner. Her guess of 4:23:11 was uncannily close. By the way, I heartily recommend Tricia's blog. She is going to run her first marathon next year, and it will be really fun to read about her training as she heads for success. She's really good at keeping it real, too.

My friend Kathy suggested I post about my experience running NYC in 2005. Since it's such ancient history at this point, I'll just list a few highlights. I do think this is a race everyone who loves running marathons should do. It won't be your fastest time, but every step is memorable.

The highlights for me were:

the fabulous summer and fall of training that led up to it, including running in Hawaii on our honeymoon, running in my first relay and running a 5K PR
forgetting my bra and borrowing one the morning of the race (thank God it fit, and didn't chafe!)
running on the top of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge (yes, I got the top deck! almost as lucky as winning the lottery first try, which also happened)
seeing my husband, in-laws and friend Wendy twice on the course (Wendy used her NYC savvy to get them around)
sticking with a really great pacer woman to run what was a PR at the time (the other pacer for our level gave in to the high 70s temps and couldn't maintain it)

Heading toward Central Park with a few miles yet to go; I'm in the blousy orange shorts; no one wore running skirts back then as far as I know

getting a sponge from the Sponge Bob people
entering Central Park at last
after the finish, telling the pacer that my next goal was to have a baby. Who knew we'd end up having *two* at once?
eating an amazing meal wearing my medal at the Blue Water Grill with Dan, my wonderful in-laws (who traveled all the way from Pennsylvania to watch me run), Wendy and my other old friend, Jim

Dan and I celebrate with his mom and step-dad, Patrick, at the Blue Water Grill

having a beer with Steve (who was soon to BQ) and another Peace Corps friend, Dan

Good times!

Thanks for suggesting this, Kathy. Kathy is a new blogger. She ran her first marathon in Portland last month and has two more planned (including Houston with me!) early next year. Read about her journey at got to keep on running long.

Newsflash! Mario Lopez Will Run NYC!

2011-11-04T15:12:00.000-06:00

Did you know Mario Lopez, my nutrition guru, is also a marathoner? He's running the New York Marathon on Sunday!

Credit: Runner's World

According to a Universal Sports interview online, he has a time goal. Here's a quote:

You know, I'd like to go as close to four hours as possible. But my running partner is unfortunately at 4 and half. To be honest, because my running partner tore his hamstring I'm feeling bad and feeling guilty. I'm like, ‘Should I slow up for him until he gets better and he's in good shape too, or should I just leave him and just do my own deal?' I'm a little conflicted. But I know I'm definitely going to complete it.

That's right, dude. Blame the running partner!

Mario was profiled in Runner's World a few years back and claimed a half-marathon PR of 1:48. That's better than my half PR by eight minutes. But when he ran the Boston Marathon for charity in 2002, he clocked a 5:41:42. So I have beaten him at 26.2 by nearly two hours.

He blamed his girlfriend at the time for his Boston time, according to the same interview:

Well that one I ran with my girlfriend and she didn't want me to cross the finish line without her. I swear. Believe it or not, I'm in decent shape.

Classy.

So anyway, for a little fun for those of us not running NYC this weekend, I have a friendly wager with Raina over at Small Town Runner that I want to open up to everyone. I've got five virtual cents that says Mario finishes in 4:12. Raina (being a more generous soul) says 3:59:59. What's your guess?

Frozen Hair!

2011-11-03T11:42:00.001-06:00

For the second week in a row, we had a snowstorm that started on Tuesday night and kept things gloomy through Wednesday. And for the second Thursday in a row I had to get up and run on a chilly morning in the aftermath.

Here's what my workplace looked like yesterday. Pretty!

Last Thursday it wasn't so bad. I had a hill workout to run, and there just happens to be a hill on the other side of the golf course near my house that I knew would meet the two most important criteria for a successful post-storm run: 1) it would be cleared of snow and 2) it would have little traffic. Since the bulk of the run involved me going up and down this hill, I didn't really have to worry too much about the winter pitfalls of uncleared sidewalks, black ice and cars not seeing me.

But I was worried about today. Today's run called for four five-minute intervals at half-marathon pace (which for me right now is supposed to be around 8:40). I knew I'd need a bigger course than my safe golf course hill, and I also knew that the sidewalks would be iffy and the traffic would be, well, there. But as Samwise Gamgee says in The Lord of the Rings, when there's a run on the schedule, there's nothing for it. You get up, you put on the right kind of clothes and you go.

Sure enough, just as the first of the five-minute intervals cropped up, I hit a patch of crappy sidewalk. We're talking ice like rocks and patches of slickness where there had been melting yesterday and re-freezing overnight. And there was no veering into the road, because rush hour traffic starts picking up around 6 a.m. here. I might have cursed a little. The first interval came in at an 8:52 pace. Blah.

But after that, as often happens, things improved. I got out of the residential stretch of the road and found that the sidewalks were much clearer around the little strip malls and shops further on. I was able to find my pace and stay steady. In fact, I found myself battling my constant problem of going too fast. Even the hardest of the five intervals, entirely up a hill, came in at an 8:42 pace. I haven't hooked the Garmin up, so I'm not sure what the fastest one was, but I did have to reel myself in twice when I saw 8:02 and 7:56 on the little screen.

As the stars gave way to the rising sun (AMAZING stars right now!) and the intervals ticked by, my spirits lifted. When it was time to cool down and head home, the sidewalks got crappy again but it didn't bug me. I ran 7.25 miles total and could have kept going.

When I walked into the house, the kids and Dan laughed at my frozen hair. Yes, sticking out from under my fleece beanie, my hair was crusted with white frost. I hadn't paid attention to the temperature, but when I looked at that moment, the needle on our little kitchen-window thermometer said 19 degrees. Makes me wonder how cold it had been at 6 a.m. when I first set out in the dark!!

I also noticed that, when I took the Garmin off my right wrist, which is where I always wear it, my right hand was noticeably colder than my left. Dan said he's experienced "cold watch hand" syndrome too. Apparently I need to make it looser, so the blood can get to that hand and keep it warm. Weird. Anyone else experienced this?

So I am pleased to note that as of today, November 3, I have yet to resort to the treadmill. The treadmill is a huge pain for me because I have to go to the rec center to use it. That means adhering to time limits, and even my weekday runs now take at least twice as much time as most rec center time limits. My friend Christine (I love that woman!) bid on my behalf on a 10-punch pass to Flatiron Athletic Club that was in the silent auction at her kids' preschool and won it for me. But FAC is now a 25-minute drive for me.

So I plan to run outside as much as possible to avoid the time limits. It'll be better for my running anyway. And the frozen hair makes me feel like a bad-ass. :^)

Mario Lopez Eating Weeks 4 and 5

2011-11-01T16:43:00.001-06:00

I'll share some happy news first.

Somehow, despite many and significant slip-ups in the last two weeks (described below), I weighed in this morning on three different scales as NOT SO MUCH WORSE than the last time I weighed in two weeks ago.

Home scale=128.4 (post-run, pre-breakfast) and 21.8% body fat (the body fat was actually down)
Gym scale=129.8 (post-breakfast); no BF measure, but Chris, my trainer, is going to do it again next week
Special weigh-in for our "Maintain, Don't Gain, Over the Holidays" team at work=129.6

I have this man to thank (or at least his ghost-writers and personal chefs) for the Extra Lean Family eating plan:

So now for the bad and the ugly.....

Here's what happened in Weeks 4 and 5 that caused a bit of a breakdown in the good habits:

We got (oh, the horror) invited out to eat a couple of times by friends. Yeah, I know...first-world problem. But I've come to believe that restaurant food--more than any single food group, even sugar--is the devil when it comes to getting and staying lean. I do believe at some point that I will get better at not inhaling my entire plate of tasty tempting restaurant fare (in these cases, it was a brew pub twice and an organic grocery deli once)--but I am not there yet. So it's best for me just to avoid restaurants altogether. When someone invites your whole family out, though, what are you gonna do? Say no and look like a food prude? Fortunately, this doesn't happen very often.
Halloween. Peanut butter cups.The work candy trough. And cold weather. Hot chocolate cravings. 'Nuff said.
Insomnia. Yes, it's really true. The carb cravings came back after last Tuesday's bad night.
Portion distortion. All the other stuff aside, I found myself going back for seconds more than I was in the first three weeks. Gotta stop that. I just like to eat. What can I say? I wish it weren't so fun for me.

Fortunately, much of this is over for a couple of weeks (until the temptations of Thanksgiving week and a couple of family birthdays arrive). And returning to good news, we have stuck by the basic tenets of the Mario plan (meals planned in advance, most of the shopping done in one fell swoop on the weekend) even amid all the slip-ups.

There's still something that's a mystery to me, but it probably always will be. Why do plateaus happen where they do? My weight history since my kids were conceived looks something like this:

April 2006: twins conceived; weight 125
June 2006: height of morning sickness; weight 125
August 2006: morning sickness a distant memory; appetite HUGE; weight 145
November 2006: appetite waning, but weight gain continuing; weight 170
Dec. 8, 2006: twins born; weight before C-section--175; weight after C-section--150
Dec. 8, 2007: twins one; weight around 145; yeah, that baby weight didn't come off despite a year of breastfeeding/pumping
Dec. 8, 2008: twins two; weight about 137; I started running again for real that year and did a half in the fall
Dec. 8, 2009: twins three; weight back above 140; less running, more eating; blame potty-training and bed-wetting? or my own lack of willpower?
Dec. 8, 2010: twins four; weight between 137 and 145; the plateau getting old; I had started running again and started my Boston quest
June 2011: weight 134; some pounds finally came off as I ramped up for another half
September 2011: weight 128; more pounds came off post-Top of Utah Marathon
Right now, Nov 1, 2011 (twins almost 5): weight 129; thanks Mario Lopez!

So it took me almost five years to get back to the vicinity of my pre-pregnancy weight. Much of that time was sitting in a huge plateau in the five-pound range between 137 and 142. Now I think I might be sitting in another plateau at around 129-ish.

Why do these plateaus occur where they do? Why was it so hard to break through 137, and yet when I did I lost nearly 10 pounds? What will it take to break through this one?

Don't get me wrong. I could be happy and healthy for the rest of my days at 128 or 129 pounds. But I feel that 120 would be better for my running. We'll have to see what happens with some returned fidelity to the Mario plan. Because of course we're going to stick with it. I like the results. My husband likes that it's actually inspiring me to cook. :^)

October Recap

2011-10-31T10:46:00.000-06:00

Today was a cross-training day, and I got my spin workout done pre-dawn (that's how I like to do 'em).

Thanks to those of you who offered opinions on the fueling question I asked in my last post. I decided to eat something before my long run (something being a couple handfuls of corn flakes and a packet of Shot Bloks) but didn't bring anything along. I got 12.1 hilly miles done in the allotted two hours and felt good. I'll have a new post on my Mario Lopez eating tomorrow. I'm a little scared to get on the scale. Let's just say the hands haven't stayed out of the Halloween candy and too many restaurants were patronized in the last week and a half.

Thanks also for the sympathy on my insomnia issue last week. I think I'm back on an even keel with that, but I admit to having trouble getting my light out before 10:30 p.m. I've definitely struggled with feeling rested enough as a consequence. Oh well! Something to work on this week. Life is like one those carnival games where you have the huge hammer and you try to get all the heads that pop out of the box to be down at once. There's always one you can't get to right away, but you have to keep trying.

Here's a recap of October:

--I ran about 103 miles. I say "about" because many runs were done without my Garmin, just by time and feel. The miles are inching back up now. This past week saw 27.1 miles, the month's highest. I'm hoping this training cycle will see me healthy enough to peak at 50-something miles for a couple of weeks in December.

--I missed only one session of weight training (on insomnia day, when I opted to stay home and take a nap between my run and going to work). I'm making progress toward my one chin-up goal. Tomorrow at weight training I may try to do one on my own. I don't expect success at that yet, but I should be closer.

--I've been a decently regular attendee at spin class, which I'm supposed to go to twice a week. Christine and I were disappointed to learn that Tammy isn't teaching our early class any more, but the new teachers have been fine (if not quite as helpful in the "awesome new music" department as Tammy was). I need to get better about going to this twice a week. Once a week I've been good, but by Wednesday, when I'm supposed to go again, the bed is feeling pretty nice at 5 a.m. I have no trouble getting up to run, but getting up to cross-train....a different story.....

--I reached my Houston Marathon fundraising goal of $500 for the Houston Food Bank. This is terrific not only because it's such a good cause but because it's my first time using my running to raise money for a cause and so many of you made it amazingly easy. At $526, I'm $74 away from the $600 level at which I have promised to do a giveaway of some local goodies (and I'm not just talking about food goodies). If you can help me get to $600, please go to my fundraising page and donate. A big THANKS AGAIN to all of you who have already given.

--I've done a reasonably good job sticking to the Mario Lopez Extra Lean Family eating plan. All the Halloween action this past weekend threw it for a loop, and we ate out twice as a family because others invited us. I feel like my favorite pair of work pants are a little tight. We'll see where my weight and body fat readings are tomorrow morning--I'll try not to stress about it, whatever it is (I WILL be honest with you guys, I promise!), and get back on the wagon until Thanksgiving Week throws us for another loop. (I missed last week's weigh-in due to insomnia day--I just forgot to get the scale out after my run and by the time I remembered it was what I consider too late in the day to get a reading comparable to what I usually do.) Really, the most important thing has been the change in my habits. I've cut way back on foraging for my lunch and snacks while at work and on scrambling to figure out what to feed my kids and husband on days I'm at home.

--I marked my one-year anniversary of the launch of my Boston quest, and this blog. Thanks again to everyone for all the support. Congratulations to all of you who ran this past weekend in races long and short.

Long Run Fueling Question

2011-10-28T15:05:00.001-06:00

My long runs will finally return to being long for real this weekend. I have a two-hour long and steady scheduled for tomorrow morning. I'm looking forward to this because last weekend's hour-and-45-minute effort felt so good. But I have a secret I didn't share, a factor that may have contributed to the run's niceness.

I fueled.

Now I know a lot of people fuel before every training run, or at least before every long one. And not only that, they also carry fuel with them for the "during" part. I don't usually do that. In the long-ago past, I didn't do it because, well, at first no one told me I should and later on I was afraid of what it would do to my gut. In the first three marathons I ran (Houston in 1997, Boulder and New York in 2005), I ate and drank nothing but water during the races or the training runs that preceded them (with the exception of New York, before which I did consume a bagel because the start was relatively late).

My fourth marathon, Top of Utah last month, was the first marathon where I fueled consciously before and during the race. And yeah, it made a *huge* difference in the way I felt. (Yes, I bonked, but that was due to stupid race execution, not fueling mistakes.)

So now that I know better (and know, more or less, how to handle my gut), why don't I fuel before and during my training runs? Because of an article on the marathon long run that Greg McMillan wrote. McMillan training plans like mine include two types of long runs: long steady ones and fast finish efforts, the latter being where you DO fuel before and during because you are trying to simulate race conditions and get your body used to race pace and preparations. In contrast, for the long steady ones, where time on your feet at a relatively easy pace is the only goal of the workout, McMillan advocates NOT fueling.

You avoid fueling on the long steadies, he writes, "so that the muscles will become better at sparing the carbohydrate stores, more efficient at burning fat and used to running with lowered blood glucose levels. Now, many people think I'm crazy when I say this, but it works. It takes time to get adjusted to it if you have always been carbing up before and during your long runs, but with time and practice you can do it." (He does note that it is important to drink water and electrolytes throughout these runs and he recommends carrying an energy gel with you just in case you run into problems, like taking a wrong turn that adds unexpected time and distance.)

This is what I did during Top of Utah training, and it is what I have been planning to do for Houston training too. I don't know if it made my body more efficient at fat-burning and sparing carbs, but because of my prior races where I never fueled, I knew I could at least handle it and I figured it couldn't hurt. And I found my long runs without fueling were more consistently successful than my attempts at fueled fast-finish long ones (though I think that's due more to running too fast during the week and leaving nothing in the tank for these efforts, something I'm trying to improve this time by running more conservatively during the week).

Then came last weekend's long run. Why did I eat something before the run? Because I slept in and woke up hungry. My body is used to waking up early and not eating before a run. I've gotten to the point where I don't even consider eating while I'm knocking around in the dark getting my clothing on and sucking down some water (on the fast-finish long runs last cycle, I had to put Shot Bloks etc. out with my clothing to remind myself that this time I was *supposed* to eat to practice for race day). But push me too much past my usual breakfast time and it's harder not to eat. What can I say? The sun was shining like orange juice into the kitchen. My whole family was awake. I took one look at my kids' tasty Cheerios and smelled Dan's toast....and I had to eat something. The something was a package of Cran-Razz Shot Bloks. Yum. Result? Great run.

And now, because I felt so good, I'm wondering if I shouldn't always eat before and during. After all, I'm not one of McMillan's elites, for whom changes like this to their finely-honed routines might give them a real edge. What do you think? Is making the fueling a part of the "race day" advantage worth some bonky long ones in training? Or should I just eat something already?

Insomnia

2011-10-25T04:36:00.000-06:00

Can you read this? Unfortunately, it's true for me tonight.

One benefit of marathon training that I didn't expect is that since I launched into it in June I have been sleeping much better.

I had a rough time with the sleep deprivation that comes with small babies. Our kids slept through the night fairly quickly (around four or five months it was pretty consistent), but those of you with kids know that even good sleepers are easily disrupted by things like illness, feeding routine changes and potty training--and they don't necessarily wake up at the reasonable morning hour you want them to. So even when we weren't feeding infants in the night any more, the sleep wasn't great--not for someone like me, who really needs eight uninterrupted hours a night under normal circumstances and when running a lot does best with nine or ten.

It made me into a bit of an insomniac. Up until last summer, if one of the kids woke for a bathroom trip or a nightmare or a wet bed, it often meant the end of my night's sleep, no matter what time it was. I'd lie awake staring at the ceiling, wondering if and when they'd emerge to wake me up again. This happened several times a week, more nights than it didn't happen. It's a big reason I didn't consider training for a marathon at all until last year. I just didn't think I could get the sleep I needed to support the training.

Happily, the training seems to have helped take care of the sleep issue to a certain extent. Since upping my miles, I sleep more deeply, so that even when one or both of the kids wake me, I go back to sleep fast and stay that way most of the time. When a daytime nap is possible, I find myself falling asleep easily then, too, and waking refreshed.

But it's still not perfect, as tonight illustrates. Will, my son, startled me awake from a deep sleep right at midnight. I took him to the bathroom. An hour later (and I hadn't fallen asleep again this time), he was back. I took him back to bed again. And that was it. I've been awake ever since. As I type, it's 4:17 a.m. I moved to the couch about an hour ago, afraid I was going to wake Dan, resulting in two grumpy adults tomorrow. My plan is to wait until 5:30, when my alarm was due to go off anyway, get my six miles in and then go back to bed until I'm due at work at noon. Tuesdays are my night shift, so I'll be there until 9 p.m. There will be no chance for running or napping in the afternoon.

It's bleak. Outside, a cold front is moving in. I can hear the leaves skittering on the porch and in the street, and the wind is whistling eerily at the corners of the windows. I know my run will make me feel at least temporarily better, but I won't feel safe going out until it's a bit closer to dawn (even at 5:30 around here there are people headed out to work, so I'm not alone out there in the dark).

Now I know to some of you I am a big ol' wimp. I'm not nursing a baby, and I don't have special needs kids (bed-wetters who soak through pull-ups don't count as "special needs") or an unhelpful husband (Dan handles as many night wakings as I do; he just doesn't have the same issue I do with returning to sleep after them). But regardless, I'm sick of this. Yes, it's been better than it was. But any insomnia is too much insomnia. I'm ready for it to be over for good. Maybe this is melodramatic, but I'm afraid if it goes on much longer it will be a problem I'll never shake.

Perhaps we haven't disciplined our kids properly--shouldn't almost-five-year-olds be capable of going to the bathroom in the night without waking their parents? If anyone out there has any advice on how to get that ball rolling, I'm all ears and bloodshot eyes. I am not a sentimental parent, especially when it comes to sleep. I remember as a kid myself being very respectful of my parents' sleep. I never woke them, unless I had thrown up or had a fever. What I don't remember is how they got me to be that way!

Update: It's 7:15 and I just returned from a 6-mile progression run. One kid is up--everyone else is still asleep. And you know what? I feel awesome! The weather was amazing--cool breezes, and everywhere the golden leaves, the yellow and red ones, wafting down on me in the glow of the streetlamps and later the rising sun. Walking down the sidewalk at the end, I felt like I was in some musical on stage. I know I'll be tired later, but this is the magic of running. I now feel good about this day.

The Versatile Blogger

2011-10-23T12:48:00.001-06:00

Big thanks to Julie over at You Just Have to Tri! for tagging me with the Versatile Blogger award. The award I actually should get is the Lazy Blogger award, but this one sounds a lot better. These "tag" posts are fun because you can learn a lot about your fellow bloggers, things they probably wouldn't have thought to share.

There are a few basic rules with this award:
1. You have to thank the giver, and provide a link to that person's post. Thanks Julie! I love your blog and especially the recent pics of your adventure race. Hopefully we can meet soon, since we live in the same general area (I should have met Julie already, but remember what I said above about being Lazy).
2. Share 7 random facts about yourself.
3. Award 15 other newly discovered blogs the same award.

Here are some random facts about me that I don't think I've shared here before:

1. I want to organize a 5K with my brother and sister and all seven of our first cousins on my dad's side of the family at some point. Some would walk, some would run, but all would finish and it would be a great family reunion. We might even let some of our parents do it too! :^)

2. Speaking of cousins, I have seven first cousins on my dad's side and seven on my mom's side. But my own kids have only one first cousin on my husband's side and only one-on-the-way on my side. I love cousins. My first cousins are all wonderful, and I have tons of awesome second and even third ones that I grew up with, too. Cousins are like brothers and sisters who don't live with you. I hope my kids eventually have more.

3. I've lived in Missouri, Texas, New York City and now Colorado. That's the Midwest, the South, the East Coast and the West. I think people from the Midwest are the most unpretentiously friendly people in the country (but maybe I'm biased because Missouri is where I grew up). Where do you think the friendliest folks in the USA are?

4. I lived overseas in Paris briefly in college, for a year in Russia for the Peace Corps and have traveled in Canada, Mexico, Western Europe, China and Costa Rica. There were fantastic things about all of these places, but I think the most laid-back people were in Canada and the most "instantly family-style friendly" were in Russia. Where do you think the friendliest folks in the world are?

5. If I could have any talent I desired (aside from being a faster runner, of course), I would wish for singing talent. I love to sing, but only my kids seem to enjoy hearing me do it. :^)

6. My grandmother used to say I'd better take my calcium or she would haunt me after she died (she was always worried about us girls developing osteoporosis). Now that she has been gone for three years, I wish she would haunt me, calcium or no. I miss her.

7. I think I'm probably done having kids. If I change my mind about that down the road, I will adopt.

OK! And now for the newly discovered blogs. I've found a lot of great new-to-me ones in recent weeks (maybe you've been reading these for a long time). Here they are, in alpha order, with one beyond the required 15:

Adventure Is Out There
average girl doing average things
Colorado Runner
Getting It Done on the Run
Just a Colorado Gal
luminosity
Miles, Miles and More Miles.....
Mostly Fit Mom
Pace of Me
Run the Long Road
Run With the Black Knight
Runner Woman
Runnin' From the Law
Running Around on Empty
Running On Words
Will Race for Carbs

Can't wait to see what you post, should you accept this tag. (I have a lot of old favorites, too, and probably left some of the new ones I've been reading off that list. Apologies to all of you--my Google Reader now has 88 subscriptions, I get several via email and I do my best to keep up, but I know I miss things sometimes.)

Quick Running Update: We've been having gorgeous weather out here, and the leaves are the most magnificent I've seen in my years in Colorado. Yesterday I had an hour and 45 minute run on the schedule. I slept in a bit (7:30!! that's late in my house!!), and felt grumpy when I started. I'm reading an intriguing but disturbing book right now, and it was on my mind. So much so that the first five miles of this run were over before I knew it. And suddenly I realized I was really enjoying myself.

In the end, I did 11.1 miles in the allotted time. I didn't go over, tempted as I was. I'm trying to stick with the instructions in my McMillan plan to the letter. Early last week Greg McMillan posted two quotes on his Twitter feed that I need to remember:

"The hardest concept for distance runners? The process of becoming a better runner is loooong, not short. This runs counter to modern life."

"Fitness is built over time. Period. It can't be wished for or rushed. Patience grasshopper. Build toward the future."

This grasshopper is building. And trying to be patient.

Breaking the Routine

2011-10-18T17:58:00.001-06:00

My husband, Dan, who has been sidelined for too long with a sore Achilles tendon, has been easing back into running. One of his co-workers introduced him to a phenomenal network of trails behind the laboratory complex where they work, and he's been doing this trail (and telling me about it) twice a week for a couple of months. Today, we decided, was the day for me to come up and run it with him.

Now, I'm a creature of routine. Part of that routine is that I am an early-morning get-it-done-so-nothing-else-interferes runner. On my schedule for today was a one-hour easy run with strides at the end. Normally I'd have that sucker all done and dusted by 7 a.m. But since I was running with Dan on his trail I needed a new plan. It made me a bit nervous, but in the end it all worked out beautifully.

I slept in, not exiting my bed until 7:20 (this part of busting the routine was niiiiiiiiice). I anxiously inspected my kids for any sign of illness (because I was sure that, given I hadn't run yet, one of them would need to stay home and I'd miss running altogether). I took the (perfectly healthy) kids to school and then went to weight training (more on that below). I met some co-workers for lunch. I did a little work (anxious the whole time that my reference desk hours would change and I'd miss running altogether). And then the hour arrived! I called Dan, told him I was on my way, changed in our little locker room and began my run.

The first 30 minutes were me running on my own up to Dan's lab. I decided to run up 9th St., which is a large, long uphill. Then I would run down Baseline, another large, long hill (this time down!) that terminates about 1/4 mile from where I was meeting Dan. These two hills, both up and down, felt amazingly easy. I got to the lab in 23 minutes and jogged in circles waiting for him. I admit, I was feeling cocky.

Soon Dan emerged and we set off up toward the trail.The first hill (which took us by the kids' school) felt easy. But as soon as we hit the dirt fire road, I started to feel that first 30 minutes (and the squats and lunges I'd done earlier in weight training). Soon I had slowed to a shuffle.You'd never know that Dan was the one who had been injured. He was chatting away about the trail, the foliage, the fresh air, his pace steady and confident. That's the kind of runner he is. He seems to be able to come back from the longest lay-offs without having to endure that humiliating huff-and-puff stage that so many of us have to get through to enjoy running again.

Eventually the dirt road veered into a trail and we were going up a little valley below the Mesa Trail, where I'd run on Saturday. Then we climbed an even steeper path to the top of a small mesa. I lagged a good 10 feet behind my sprightly husband. My cockiness had all drained away. Then....the climb was over. We paused at the top to take in the view. And then the fun began!

As we began the fast run back down, I at last was able to notice the red and golden leaves, the blue sky, the silky-cold air on my skin, the smell of sun-warmed pine. We talked and laughed, remembering other runs we'd done together (including the Bay to Breakers Race, which we ran side-by-side in 2004), chatting about how Dan and one of his work friends had run this trail and some others on their way to a brew-pub on Friday. We were on a date--a running date! I looked down at my Garmin at one point and saw that we were doing a 6:59 pace. Isn't downhill a miraculous thing? Isn't it amazing what you can do when you're trying to impress a good-looking guy?

When we finished, he drove me back to work. And now that the run is done I'm SO glad I busted out of the routine and had this wonderful hour with my husband--even if he ran stronger than I!

Quick Mario Lopez Eating and Body Fat Update: Mario, Week 3, went well, despite some extra cheese and chocolate and coffee with real cream consumed over the weekend while Wendy was here. My Tuesday weigh-in was as follows:

Home scale: 128.4 pounds (unchanged from last week); body fat=21.9% (lower than last week!)
Gym scale: 129 pounds even (up from last week, but I'm not super worried about this as I'd had a big breakfast and hadn't run, so I was probably better hydrated than usual)

The best news is that my trainer, Chris, took my body fat measurements with calipers. Several people have told me this is way more accurate than home scales. Chris's reading this morning? 19.7%! Rock on! I lifted weights with extra gusto after that. Thanks to Jill for suggesting I have this done.

One Year of Blogging! Tomorrow (October 19) marks the one-year anniversary of my first post on this blog. I feel I've come a long way and I have so many of you to thank. I have not yet made it to my BQ, but thanks to all of you I am starting to really believe it can be done.

Can We Make It to $600 for the Houston Food Bank? At $526, I'm $74 away from the $600 level at which I have promised to do a giveaway of some tasty and healthful Boulder goodies. Wendy and I visited Celestial Seasonings this weekend and I bought the first item for this huge gift pack. Do you want to be entered to win it? If so, go to my fundraising page and donate! A big THANKS AGAIN to all of you who have already given.

Mesa Trail Redux!

2011-10-16T15:53:00.000-06:00

The foliage along the trail is at its fall peak!

My friend Wendy, whom I've known for almost 20 years and still lives in NYC, visited us this weekend. Yesterday she suggested that for my long run, we go somewhere with trails so she could hike while I ran. Excellent idea! So I did my 90 minutes on the Mesa Trail.

Some of you may recall that this is one of four "classic Boulder runs" I tried to complete last spring before launching into marathon training. I got three of the four done, including a two-hour jaunt on the Mesa Trail. It's a wonderful place to run, especially in October when it's still warm and dry (but not TOO warm or dry). And I'm pleased to say that on yesterday's excursion I felt so much stronger than I did last spring. One day later, I have no soreness, whereas last time I felt as though I had done a race. A good sign!

After we had finished, Wendy and I went to the Boulder Farmers' Market, had lunch, picked up some treats for later--and she took this video of me hula hooping (still in my running clothes). Hope you all had as fun a weekend as we did!

Steady As She Goes

2011-10-13T13:00:00.000-06:00

Today featured another one-hour run with a 20-minute portion in the middle to be done at my Steady State pace. For me, that's between 8:40 and 8:55 a mile, slower than tempo but faster than easy.

Last week, I wasn't able to accomplish even 10 minutes at Steady Pace--I went too fast and quit after six minutes that averaged 8:21/mile. You might think, well, what's wrong with going FASTER than you're supposed to? Aren't you trying to get faster?

Absolutely! But I'm also trying to learn how to pace myself. Going 20 seconds/mile faster than prescribed is as much a pacing fail as going 20 seconds slower. It might be worse, in fact. It's my belief that pushing my pace on mid-week runs while I was ramping up for the Top of Utah Marathon hurt my ability to accomplish my weekend long run goals, and ultimately my race goal of qualifying for the Boston Marathon. That's why this cycle I'm going to do my best to stay in the pace bands dictated by the McMillan Running Calculator. (My paces right now are based on my finish time of 3:59:11 at Top of Utah. They'll be adjusted later depending on how I do in my tune-up races.)

So how did my run today go? MUCH better. I ran 20 minutes at a very easy pace, then put the pedal down just a bit for the next 20 minutes, then slowed down for the final 20 minutes. Here's what my splits looked like for that Steady State portion:

Mile 1--8:44
Mile 2--8:37
Final .31--8:32

It was still on the faster end--that last 3/10 I should definitely have slowed down more. But it was a big improvement over last week. I'm particularly pleased because this run featured a nice set of rolling hills. I didn't cheat by running only flat or downhill. And I also left the music at home. The speeding up and the maintenance of pace were done without musical inspiration.

Areas where I can still improve: holding the pace when I know the fast part is almost over (I always tend to speed up at that point); and slowing down enough when the fast portion is over (the final 20 minutes were run a bit faster than my easy pace; I justify this because the first 20 minutes were slower; hopefully it will come out in the wash).

Here's a link to my Garmin data for this run:

Other notable features of today: I was really sore from weight training, but it didn't affect my running. Score! And this morning was the first one where, when I stepped outside, I realized I was COLD in shorts. Not a little chilly, not thinking it was brisk, but actually "Geez, I wish I had my gloves and jacket" cold. In the end, it was fine. But it was a nudging reminder: Fall is getting on, and winter is coming.

My Awesome Doc and Mario Week 2 Recap

2011-10-11T14:58:00.001-06:00

As a city employee, I get good benefits. The best, I know as a wife and mom, is health insurance, but that's not as sexy (to me) as the free membership I get to the Boulder Recreation Center, home of my weight training and spin classes. One condition of this membership, though, is that I have to get my blood drawn every year for a cholesterol/glucose analysis as part of the City Wellness Program.

This meant a visit to my doctor at the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine this morning. My doctor is *great.* He effectively fixed my Morton's neuroma back in February, was super kind when I came down with a kidney infection in July after the ZOOMA Women's Half and he's been helping me try to get to the bottom (so to speak) of my tricky intestines.

He's also a badass runner. This morning I had the following conversation with him before the Wellness Program blood draw. Have you ever had a conversation like this with your doctor?

HIM: So your kidneys have been OK? No residual pain?
ME: Oh yeah. That was the other thing about my marathon. 15-minute PR, no pooping during the race, and no bladder infection! Yeah, they've been fine.
HIM: Great! You know, I ran Chicago on Sunday.
ME: Really?! How'd you do?
HIM: Well, I'm a master now, I'm 41, and there's good money at that race for masters, like $2,500, so I thought I'd go for it. And I was doing great, on a 2:30 pace. But it was hot and I just couldn't eat, and at mile 17 I just died. Those last nine miles were torture. I did pull out a 2:50 but I had to walk for about 15 minutes at one point.
ME: (trying not to let my mouth drop open at "2:30 pace" and "2:50") Yeah, that happened to me in my race too...except I DID eat. Makes me feel better that guys like you walk sometimes, too.
HIM: Yeah, it was my first marathon. I really want to do another one now and get it right. I guess I should do Boston, since I qualified.

I guess!! His first marathon! 2:50! And that was with a bonk! He told me he had four GUs in his pockets during the race and couldn't bring himself to touch them.

I'm so glad this guy is treating me, that there is a facility like this here. A couple weeks back, I was in there briefly and had the door opened for me by Frank Shorter. Ah Boulder.

Today is Tuesday, so that meant weighing in. Not such good news on the body fat front today....my home scale read 22.5%, and because I had to leave weights class early for the doc appointment, I didn't have a chance to get my trainer, Chris, to do a measurement with the calipers as I had planned. My weight, at least, was unchanged on the home scale at 128.4 pounds, and a little lower on the gym scale, at 128.2. I might have been a bit dehydrated, as I had to fast for the blood draw and had run 6 miles in the wee hours.

The second week of the Mario Lopez Extra Lean Family eating plan didn't go quite as smoothly as the first, though the planning, shopping and prep were once again fine. Part of the issue was it's "that time of the month" and at that time I'm always ravenous for things I shouldn't be eating--like second helpings of Mario's chicken enchiladas and other tasty things. I also caved and took the kids to a coffee shop once for their snack, which didn't harm me (I drank unsweetened green tea), but wasn't exactly easy on the pocketbook.

On the upside, we once again stayed out of restaurants entirely (two weeks of no eating out is a record, I think), and my fruit and vegetable consumption is way up. This week I'll do my best to keep the portions reasonable again, and my hands out of the snack trough at work. I'm still really liking the ease of this plan. I actually ordered Mario's book. It's a big deal for this cheap librarian to actually BUY a book, if that tells you anything.

Finally, I have MET my $500 goal for the Houston Marathon/Houston Food Bank's Run for Food Program. YOU FOLKS ROCK!! In fact, at $506, I'm now just $94 away from the $600 level at which I have promised to do a giveaway of some tasty and healthful Boulder goodies. Can you help me keep it going? If so, go to my fundraising page and donate! A big THANKS AGAIN to all of you who have already given. I'm so happy about this.

Fall Arrives in Earnest!

2011-10-08T15:22:00.002-06:00

Will in a kid's natural habitat (leaves, not box)

Fall has arrived in Colorado in earnest. Yesterday after my husband Dan got home from work, he and the kids raked the golden leaves that now are covering our front yard into a giant pile--and played like crazy in it. My beloved St. Louis Cardinals defeated Dan's beloved Philadelphia Phillies in a classic pitchers' duel for the National League Division Championships last night (that was a tense night).

One person here was NOT happy after this game.

This morning I went for a run and found the long-talked-of cold front that has supposedly been stalking us had finally arrived. Dan had said to expect rain, too. When I left for my 90 minutes at about 7 a.m. (ah, sleeping in!), there was no rain yet, but it was in the 40s, with a chilly leaf-rattling breeze and low clouds. I LOVED it! When the drizzle started, it just felt good.

I left the Garmin at home and concentrated on keeping the pace easy. I also added some hilliness by running up and down a grid of streets that are on the side of a semi-steep hill near my house, weaving down from 3rd Ave. to 2nd, then running a flat block east, then running back up to 3rd. This lasted a good 20 minutes or so. I'm going to try to keep my long runs hilly as they build back up in time and miles this cycle.

I also left the music at home. I haven't run with music since the Top of Utah Marathon. I'm going to reserve it for really speedy workouts, tempo runs and races.

Kathy and me after last spring's Run Like a Mother anniversary run in Denver

Another sign of fall? All the marathons this weekend, and next, and into November! I'd like to send a special shout-out to my friend Kathy who is running her FIRST full marathon in Portland tomorrow morning. Kathy was in every race I ran this summer except Top of Utah. She has been training hard for her big one this weekend with a great group of women who all live near her in the southern suburbs of Denver. She is going to do so well!! Good luck, Kathy!

One Chin-Up and Six Minutes Too Fast

2011-10-06T13:17:00.002-06:00

In addition to being a wimp about running as a kid, I was also a wimp about anything strength-related. The ONE year I managed to get the 50th percentile award for physical fitness I barely hung on for the required nine seconds in the cursed flexed arm hang.

But when I started running at age 12 with my dad, we'd do our two miles on one of those 80s-era fitness courses. One of the stations was a chip-up bar. Watching my dad knock some out, I conceived the desire to do just one chin-up. I even put it on a list of goals I wrote down on a piece of pink paper and carried around in my wallet as a teenager. It never happened. And honestly for a long time I thought I just wasn't capable of it. (Some of the other goals on the list did happen! I saw my byline in a national publication; I drove a Porsche; I've seen several shooting stars; and I've skinny-dipped. Ah, the dreams of a teenager!)

I've been back at my weight-training class now for five sessions. One of the things on the list for today was assisted chin-ups on one of those machines that makes the exercise easier by giving you a bit of a counter to your body weight. I found them sort of.....easy...with the extra help. I asked my trainer, Chris, if he ever thought I could do a chin-up on my own. He didn't hesitate: "Yeah, I think you're really close."

So now, without really meaning to, I have another goal: do one unassisted chin-up. Chris gave me a plan for getting there and reassured me that because it's all upper-body, trying for this while training for the Houston Marathon will not be a problem (and Chris is notoriously conservative, so I don't think he'd say that if he didn't mean it).

This is a good thing because it will keep me from wimping out of weight training later when the miles get harder (of course I will still take an intentional break from it a month to six weeks out from my race, whether the fabled chin-up has yet occurred or not). This is a good thing. Weight training is a deadly chore for me. Now it will be something more.

Meanwhile, on the running front, I'm still having trouble with pacing. This morning's hour-long run featured an optional finish of five to ten minutes at what McMillan calls a steady state pace. This pace is faster than easy, but not as hard as tempo. For me, it's supposed to be between 8:40 and 8:55 a mile.

The run felt wonderful (ah, fall!) and exactly 50 minutes into it I sped up as instructed. I chose a hilly course, too, as I need to practice finishing strong when the going gets tough. But my problem, as it was all summer, was that I couldn't keep it steady. Even with the hills, my Garmin pace never got higher than 8:30/mile. So after six minutes and change of this, I cut my losses and slowed back down. My final pace? 8:21. Too fast.

I have work to do on this. It seems like I have three gears: slow, tempo and fast. There's no intermediate speed, or at least not one that I can maintain without either speeding up or slowing down too much. I must learn to feel it!! Practice, practice, practice!! I want my long runs to rock this cycle. Going too fast on Thursday morning runs will NOT help with that.

September Recap and Body Fat Verdict!

2011-10-04T13:55:00.001-06:00

September was a blur.

Since much of it was taken up with either tapering to or recovering from a marathon, I didn't keep track of my mileage. The month's accomplishment was:

*My 15-minute PR and first sub-4-hour time in the Top of Utah Marathon!*

True, it wasn't much of a sub-4 (3:59:11). In fact, this was a disappointing race from a lot of perspectives. I didn't qualify for Boston (far from it). I went out too fast and bonked (hard). I didn't stick to my race plan. I walked (where I hadn't planned to).

So why was and am I not disappointed?

In many ways, I was "like a virgin" with this one. It had been six years and one twin pregnancy since I had run a marathon. I had forgotten what it was like. The prior three times I had done it, I was able to sleep as much as I wanted, go to as much yoga as I wanted and (within the predictable confines of my job) do the runs whenever they fit in.

This time, my window for working out was limited not just by work but by the needs of my husband and kids. It took me two years to get my "base" conditioning back (I didn't run at all after the first three months of pregnancy and for about three months after, and beyond that I ran mostly slowly and not very far). I dealt with two winters of frequent illness (mine and my kids'). And I find myself living in a reshaped body that almost entirely lacks the core strength it once had. I also learned my lesson about pacing and running my own race, about making strength training and stretching non-negotiable, about getting back my core, about what it really will take to meet my Boston goal.

So I'll take a PR and a sub-four.

Now, on to my body fat/weight results from this morning.....(drumroll).......

Home scale: 128.4 pounds and 21.9% BF (both my lowest on that scale since I got pregnant, when I was right around 125 (not sure was BF was then))

Gym scale: weight 128.6 pounds (only 2/10 of a pound higher than the home scale, and this reading was *after* I ate breakfast, so I'm really happy about it; means my home scale is semi-accurate)

Bonus reading: I went to the City of Boulder employee health fair this morning after weights. They had one of those hand-held body fat readers. The reading on that? 17.2%!!! Wow!

Here's the caveat, according to the nice ladies at the fitness table (and just goes to show you learn something new every day): My home body fat scale apparently measures my lower-body fat percentage, while the hand-held measures my upper-body fat percentage. This doesn't surprise me: I am, have been and always will be pear-shaped (alas), and those readings reflect my, um, ample hips and thighs as well as my relatively scrawny arms and trunk.

I was told to get a decently accurate overall number, I should average those two together and round up. Which gives me a number of: 20%. Woo hoo!

Now of course I'm not going to call it good and stop worrying about it. By January, when the Houston Marathon rolls around, I'd love to be at my calculated "racing weight" of 120 (or as close to it as possible). And I'd love my home monitor to register a number that's closer to 19 or 20% (if lower half genetics allow).

So while I'm psyched that weight training, plus the Mario Lopez eating plan, appear to be working, I've still got a ways to go. Lucky thing all the good news has me re-energized for some healthy cooking and some heavy lifting (both of which normally bore me to tears!).

Recap of Mario Lopez Eating: Week 1

2011-10-02T17:53:00.001-06:00

Sorry to frighten you with that picture, but I can't resist any reference to the 80s. Or I guess early 90s. I got a funny note from my sister-in-law, who's a California girl, talking about Mario's sleazy tomcat ways and how ironic it is that he's writing books for families. I'm not really surprised. But hey! I still like the book (and I'm using the library copy for now, so I haven't lined his pockets yet, though I probably will buy it).

Before I fill you in on the scintillating details of my family's first week on the Mario Lopez Extra Lean Family eating plan, let me put in another request for donations to my Run for Food/Houston Marathon fundraiser for the Houston Food Bank. Click here to donate.

OK! So...the week went well. I had gone on a mondo shoppning excursion Saturday night, stocking up with most of the things we would need for the entire week. This itself was a big change from the piecemeal grocery shopping we usually do, which is to say, Dan and I calling or emailing each other at about 4:30 p.m. with the "Any ideas for dinner?" question and then one of us beating a hasty path to the store ahead of picking up the kids. Having done the shopping was g-r-e-a-t. It made all the evenings so much less stressful. We did have to make one other trip on Thursday, to pick up some more fruit (my kids eat more fruit than Mario predicted--a good problem to have)...but I stayed out of the (expensive) organic grocery store across the street from my library all week.

The other great result: I brought all of my meals and snacks to work. I had all the kids' meals and snacks ready to go at home on the days I was with them (I can't tell you how many afternoons I've just taken them to a coffeeshop because I have nothing to give them--way too much expensive pumpkin bread consumed). And no dinners were left to chance. We didn't eat out once, any of us.

We are now geared up for Week 2. I went on this week's mondo shopping excursion last night, and this morning made a big pot of turkey chili for dinners tonight and Wednesday and some quinoa for a salad on Tuesday night (Sunday is Mario's prep day). Last night, the plan fell apart a bit as we went over to some friends' house for dinner, and I had FAR too many chips with guac, chips with bean dip and chicken enchiladas that were decidedly NOT extra lean, as well as too many of Mario's "lean" brownies (which were my contribution to the evening--and mmm, they were good). But we don't do that very often, so I figure if that's the worst I did, it will be OK.

Has my leanness (or lack thereof) been affected yet? Doubtful. I will check in with my bodyfat scale on Tuesday morning after my run and report back. Tuesday is scale day for me. I generally weigh myself both on my own at home (thus getting the bodyfat reading) and also on the one at the gym after weight training.

Regardless of what the scale says, trying this out has been great so far on a number of other fronts. I love having the meals planned, the healthy food we need bought, the guesswork removed, the restaurants and coffeeshops avoided, the spending on unnecessary grocery trips eliminated. I don't love shopping on Saturday nights, but really, since I'm at home with two sleeping kids most Saturdays anyway, it's not like I'm sacrificing great social alternatives.

Bring on more, Mario! Saved by the book!

Recovery is Over!

2011-10-01T14:41:00.000-06:00

This morning I ran for 60 minutes, bringing my second and last week of easy recovery runs after the Top of Utah Marathon to a close. I had to get up early as Dan was traveling to a south Denver suburb for a go tournament (never heard of go? it's an ancient Eastern game involving black and white stones and trying to conquer territory on a gridded board; it makes my mind bend like a pretzel, but Dan loves it).

I owe Dan big time. He gave me an entire weekend for Top of Utah and has taken the kids solo pretty much every Saturday morning for a year so I could get in my long runs. He's going to continue doing that, and has also given me the OK to run a half-marathon this fall that will require travel, as well as several days in Houston in January for the marathon, its build-up and its (hopefully happy) aftermath. He can play as much go as he wants, and I hope some other fun things come up for him this fall so I can give back to him again and again.

The run this morning was beautiful. The weather was chilly, clear and cloudless. I was doing a rolling course, and at the top of one small hill I could see Pikes Peak, 135 miles to the south, hulked there like a massive iceberg. Much closer to the west loomed the massive pair that dominates the northern Front Range: Longs Peak and Meeker Mountain. I enjoyed the easy pace, the fact that there was no need to push myself. I like easy runs, but I know that it's the hard ones that make the easy ones so nice.

So I'm excited that next week I'm finally allowed to put some fast stuff back into the mix. It's not much--up to 10 20-second surges embedded in Tuesday's run and 10 "steady state" minutes in Thursday's--but it's enough of a contrast with the post-marathon slow-down to get me going. And next Saturday I get to do 90 minutes, which at my slow and steady long-run pace should be nine miles. Yay! Nine miles!

I'm going to do my best to stick to the McMillan Running Calculator paces predicted by my Top of Utah time. I admit that I didn't always do this in the last training cycle. The paces felt quite slow in the mid-week fast efforts, and I usually ran faster at the track (in particular) than the calculator dictated. When the time came for goal-pace runs and fast-finish long runs, I fell short too often. I'm going to see if slowing down in the fast efforts will pay me back in greater ease in these key longer ones later in the week.

My new plan also calls for a 10K on November 12 and a half-marathon on December 3. So after finishing this post I will be signing up for:

The Longmont Turkey Trot--this 10K is right here at home! No travel, and the kids can run/walk the 2-mile event if they come with us (maybe Dan will want to do this, too, in which case we'll get a sitter!).

The Rock Canyon Half Marathon--this one's in Pueblo and it's the only semi-nearby half on that date, so it will mean one night in a hotel. The course looks on the hard side, but hey, they can't and shouldn't all be downhill races and I've done worse.

I'm hoping for a PR in both of those races. If I achieve that, it will mean the only pre-pregnancy PR still standing will be my 5K mark (and I'd love to take care of that one after Houston, though at 22:34 it might be the hardest to beat).

As you can see, it's going to be an awesome fall. Good luck to everyone racing this weekend!

Houston Food Bank: Please Donate

2011-09-29T13:19:00.002-06:00

Many of you already know that when I run in the Houston Marathon in January I will be running not only for a Boston qualifying time but also to raise money for the Houston Food Bank as part of their "Run For Food" campaign.

Some of you have already donated money to this cause. Thanks to that generosity, I am already 70% of the way toward my goal of $500, which will be enough money for 1,500 meals for individuals and families who need nourishment. A big THANK YOU to you all. You come from all parts of my life: college, work, blogging and family.

Because I still need $150 to get to my pledge, I'm putting another call out there. And I want to tell you about one of the donors who has already given. His name is Max Weller. I met him through his blog, Max Weller on Homelessness. He writes lucidly and fearlessly about the issue of homelessness in Boulder. Looking at the city from the outside, you might not guess--given the multiple organic grocery stores, the mansions in the Flatirons, the university and all that--but it's a big problem here. I see a lot of homeless folks at my job in the library in downtown Boulder. None of their stories are the same. But the fact remains that even with excellent services offered here, most of them are struggling.

Max isn't usually happy with the way homelessness and its attendant issues (drug and alcohol addiction, unemployment, abuse of women and other crime) are handled in Boulder. He's a Missourian like me, and, like a lot of people from there, he believes in self-sufficiency, accountability and zero tolerance for bad behavior. He's a true "Show Me State" character plopped down in the flawed hippie paradise of Boulder. I don't agree with absolutely everything he writes (he's too hard on Boulder's cyclists, for one thing, though I understand why he has the perspective he has on them, but most of the time I do.

Here's the main thing about Max, though, and the reason his $20 donation to my marathon cause is so impressive: he himself is homeless. His campsite is an assemblage of tarps and chairs on county land in North Boulder (camping in the city is illegal). All of his income comes from donations from passers-by (he won't accept government subsidies of any kind, apart from maintaining a locker at the homeless shelter and using its morning services, including showering). He sticks close to Broadway, Boulder's main thoroughfare, because of its proximity to the shelter, a grocery store and the library where he writes his blog post. You see, his hip is injured and walking is an ordeal for him (something some of you runners can relate to). He rarely strays too far from the bus line.

Max's blog is hosted through the Boulder Camera, the city's newspaper, and if you dip into it, you'll see how smart he is, and how he isn't afraid of controversy. It's not my place to go into his past or the reasons he is homeless--you can find that out for yourself from his blog. All I know is that when he presented me with a $20 bill in an envelope inscribed to the Houston Food Bank a couple months back, I was humbled and inspired. It reminded me of the parable of the widow who gave all she had.

And so....I hope a few more people will follow Max's example and donate to this cause. I am upping the ante. For every $100 ABOVE my original $500 pledge that I raise, I will do a giveaway of some truly awesome Boulder goodies. So that's a giveaway at $600, at $700....do you think we can get to $1,000??? Here's the link to my fundraising page. Let's try.

A Digression

2011-09-27T17:53:00.000-06:00

I love giveaways...especially when I win them.

And I've been pretty lucky with winning this year. Here's the list of my loot since I started writing this blog nearly a year ago:

A pair of Newton running socks (from a trail running blog that's no longer online)
A box of LaraBars (from Another Mother Runner)
A full Asics running outfit (shirt, capris, hat AND shoes--can you say LUCKY?) (also from Another Mother Runner--I think I'm banned from winning anything else from those nice ladies)
A book, Stillpower: The Inner Source of Athletic Excellence (from Forward Foot Strides--I'll have a review of this at some point; I'm about halfway through it)
Yurbuds and another book, Meb Keflezighi's Run to Overcome: The Inspiring Story of an American Champion's Long-Distance Quest to Achieve a Big Dream (from See Mom Run Far--she's taking my copy of the book to NYC, where she's going to run the marathon and have Meb sign it to me--too too cool!)
Tommie Copper Calf Sleeves (from The Studly Runner)
A CamelBak-style hydration backpack (in the raffle at the Top of Utah Marathon)

So I wanted to say THANK YOU to all of the nice people who hosted these giveaways. I've enjoyed everything I've won. The content of the rest of this post is NOT directed at any of you. I realize that when companies are providing items for giveaways, you may be obliged by them to require certain things as part of the giveaway. And I know I'm free to choose to enter or not enter any giveaway I want.

That said, I want to talk about something that bothers me: giveaways that require you to "like" a company or product on Facebook.

Here's what Facebook (to me) is for: keeping up with family and friends (and maybe a few news sources and some of you running bloggers out there with Facebook pages), and giving them a convenient way to keep up with me and my family. That's it.

Here's what Facebook is NOT about: a whole bunch of spammy posts trying to get me to buy a product. If I like the product, chances are I'll seek it out on my own. Having the virtual equivalent of junk mail arriving in between photos of my nephew and updates on how my friend is doing at her new job will NOT induce me to buy even a product I like. In fact, it might make me like it less. I've been "un-liking" a lot of company pages in Facebook, gradually cutting down on the crap scrolling by in my news feed, and I'm going to continue to do that. My nephew is pretty cute, and I would have hated to miss his latest photo because it was overwhelmed in posts from T-shirt companies.

Why am I saying this? Because I've noticed more and more giveaways seem to require a Facebook like if you want to enter (on some giveaways, the Facebook like is optional-- much better). I've not entered some giveaways lately because of this. You might say, my loss. Well, sure, in one sense. But jeez, don't we have enough "targeted marketing" in our lives?

Requiring a Twitter follow doesn't bug me at all. Twitter is much more ephemeral. My mom and my childhood friends don't share their photos there. I follow lots of total strangers on Twitter. Another company's tweets scrolling through my list there is fine (and besides, they are limited to 140 characters--ha!).

Keep in mind I'm not on the list of bloggers who get to do giveaways (unless I want to buy the stuff I'm giving away myself), so I really don't know how they work. And I'm not young and cool and edgy, so maybe I'm just sounding like an old fogey who's mad I can't just tear the damn junk mail in half like I could in the good ol' days of print.

Anyway, just wanted to get that off my chest. Back to your regularly scheduled blog about running.....

Mario Lopez Will Help Me Eat Right

2011-09-25T15:44:00.001-06:00

My recovery week from the Top of Utah Marathon has been a week of regrouping. Here's the quick lowdown:

1. I've got my plan for the Houston Marathon ready to go. It starts tomorrow....with an off day. :^)

Like my Top of Utah plan, it's from McMillan Running (home of the running calculator that many of us use). I'm excited about it. It ups the intensity and the miles a bit (3000 meter repeats! a 24-miler on Christmas Eve!) while still preserving some cross-training and step-back weeks.

I really liked the McMillan plan I used this summer. It was not only effective but fun, with a lot of variety in the workouts and a lot of choice built in. Depending on how I felt, I could go harder or easier (within a range of paces and distances). There were even frequent "Choose Your Workout" days mid-week, where I could go with a fartlek (if I was feeling the need to work on speed), or a hill workout (if I needed that--I'll be choosing this option more often in this cycle), or a stamina workout.

2. I'm (again--yawn) working on diet.

A few days after the marathon, I climbed onto the scale and found my weight still sitting pretty at 129 pounds (this is "pretty" for me in recent years). But my body fat also hadn't budged: there it was, 22%. Too high for a runner trying to BQ.

A big part of my problem with food is poor planning. Here I sit, with this super-detailed plan for running workouts that I follow like a religious zealot, but almost never do I have any idea what I'm going to eat that day. This results in lots of seat-of-my-pants meals and snacks that may or may not be what I should be eating. It also results in hunger striking at bad times (like when I'm about to enter three hours of meetings at work) and the loss of lots of money I shouldn't be spending that way being poured into unplanned eating excursions. It's not good for my kids, either. Frequently (and especially when Dan is working late), they get PB&J or macaroni and cheese for dinner. How can I expect them to be organized and healthful in their food choices if I'm not setting an example?

I've known this planning thing is a problem for a long time. Now, with some time to devote to changing my habits and that 22% chub factor literally hanging from my body, I'm going to tackle it for good. And to help me out, I've turned to the obvious source: Mario Lopez.

Yes, he's got a high cheese factor (and no, I NEVER watched Saved By the Bell). But it turns out he's written the book I've been looking for on this topic. It's called Extra Lean Family: Get Lean and Achieve Your Family's Best Health Ever. That's got two words in it that I like: "lean" and "family." And I like the inside of it even more. It's all there: four weeks of good-for-you mostly-kid-friendly meals and snacks for a family of four planned out, with a grocery list at the beginning of the week so you can (hopefully) do all of that at once too (we're also at the grocery store way too much) and plans for making enough for leftovers (and then actually using the leftovers) built in.

These meals are realistic, and these meals are easy. I really don't like cooking very much at all. Every now and then I'll get a bug and want to make something elaborate, like a cake from scratch or scallops in pistou sauce. But those bugs have been few and far between since I had my kids. And while Dan loves cooking and is good at it, the man has a full-time job and isn't really much better at the planning side than I am. Mario takes care of all of that. He does incorporate some healthful takes on fun foods, especially on weekends (this morning's breakfast was Banana French Toast). But mostly it's super-practical. Even for someone who hates cooking, has a job and has kids--but wants to cut sugar and fat out of everyone's diet.

The debut of Mario's plan in the Becker house was today. For lunch at work, I brought a sandwich of lean deli turkey on a whole wheat English muffin with lettuce, tomatoes, a slice of low-fat cheese and hummus. It was yummy, and even better it was filling enough that the planned snack (a cup of grapes) will actually be enough for me. Tonight we're having grilled BBQ chicken with brown rice and an Asian cucumber salad (that I made in advance last night).

I know I'll have to bump it up some when the miles start rolling again. But it's organized enough that I can do that easily. I'm also hoping that after four weeks, I'll be able to branch out a bit and add some easy ideas from other sources, like Cooking Light magazine.

I'm really really hoping to get that 22% body fat down to something more like 19 or 20%. Mario does say "extra lean," right?

3. I will be returning to Tammy's spin class this week. Yay! Not only will she kick my booty, I should get some new music ideas.

4. Last Thursday I started weight training again. I'll be doing this twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Hopefully this will also help with the leanness factor. I'm going to really work on the leg stuff this time, too--no slacking on hamstring curls and lunges. I don't want my legs to die in Houston like they died in Logan, UT.

So there you have it! Solid plans laid on all fronts. I love new beginnings!

Race Report: Top of Utah Marathon

2011-09-19T10:50:00.001-06:00

When the hail started, all I could do was laugh. Right there at mile nine or ten of the Top of Utah Marathon, the walls of Blacksmith Fork Canyon rearing up on both sides of me like castle ramparts, the smell of the early fall trees in the air, the sound of my fellow runners' feet smack-sloshing the road around me. I laughed. My nose was running faster than I was, and I was running too fast. Next to me was a guy from New Mexico.

I told him, "This is what I wanted to happen during some of those hot summer training runs, but it never did."

He said he had done some long ones in 100 degree weather and dreamed of rain.

We both laughed again. And down came those pea-sized ice chunks and chilly needles of water.

It wasn't the end of the nutty weather, or the beginning. The first dousing rain had fallen on us at the start. We stood in the inky-black pre-dawn porta-john line, wearing the ill-fitting sweats we'd eventually toss away. At one point, after I had said goodbye to Erin and Alana, I stood with a bunch of other runners under the inflatable starting line gate. After my sweats got thoroughly sodden, I cast them off. They weren't doing me any good.

At other times during the race, thunder and lightning creased the sky, seeming right over our heads. After I emerged from the canyon and into town, about mile 14 or 15, I saw a horse in a meadow, an Appaloosa-looking fellow. He cantered nervously, beautiful in his contained energy. I think the thunder had spooked him. In that euphoric moment, I imagined myself drawing on his animal power. I thought I might actually do it. I thought I might qualify for Boston.

But I should have known it wasn't to be. The night before, at the expo, I had talked to the pace group leaders for the 3:40 and the 3:50 marathoners. They agreed that runners in this race, unlike most marathons, needed to bank time in the first half. Once the downhill ends (somewhere around mile 18), a lot of people slow way down, they said. The 3:40 guy said he planned to set 8 minute flat miles in the first part.

Thinking I was being conservative, I lined up with the 8:50 group. When I found myself keeping up with them for the first three miles despite a pace in the 8-teens and 8:20s, I went with it instead of being sensible.

I hurtled down that canyon.

Mile 1--8:29
Mile 2--8:11 (at one point in this mile, my Garmin said 7:36--ack!)
Mile 3--8:15
Mile 4--8:28 (the pace group got way ahead of me)
Mile 5--8:28
Mile 6--8:44
Mile 7--8:38
Mile 8--8:27
Mile 9--8:35
Mile 10--8:53 (this is probably where I should have been the whole time)
Mile 11--8:30
Mile 12--8:28
Mile 13--8:31

I ran a half-marathon PR of 1:51:50 in this race. Great. Except this wasn't a half-marathon.

Mile 14--8:34
Mile 15--8:21
Mile 16--8:40
Mile 17--8:31
Mile 18--8:54

And somewhere in that mile 18, the bonk came. They say it comes at Mile 20. For me, it was two miles early. There was a little hill there, but it was gradual, nothing really as hills go. Nonetheless, to me it was like someone had turned me around and asked me to run back up that canyon.

Mile 19--9:30
Mile 20--10:03

Somewhere in the 21st mile, my buddy from New Mexico, whom I'd lost at a water station somewhere, caught me. "I've been trying to get you for five miles!" he said. He looked great, his stride steady. I tried to stay with him.

Mile 21--9:14

But it didn't last. My lungs and heart still felt great, but my legs--quads and hamstrings--were as achy as I ever remember them being. It was then that I walked. A lot. I watched the window for BQ'ing recede and pass.

Mile 22--10:36
Mile 23--11:10
Mile 24--10:36

When I realized I had only two miles to go, I decided that if I couldn't get the BQ, I needed the sub-4. I knew it would be tough on those legs. But I wanted to salvage this race and be happy at the end. So I pushed (or what counts for pushing at that point!).

Mile 25--9:41

In this mile, a jubilant man in green passed me. "I've just gotta stay ahead of those damn balloons," he was saying to the woman next to him. "Don't they stress you out???" she replied. I knew they were talking about the 4-hour pacers' balloons.

Mile 26--9:40

The 4-hour pacers with their balloons passed me. One of the balloons had popped and hung, deflated, from the stick as its porter bobbed along. I felt like that balloon.

But I kept my eye on the Garmin. It said I was still OK. I rounded a corner and there was the finish line, a tenth of a mile down. I bore down. The 4-hour guys were dancing just ahead of the line, waiting to cross it when it turned 4 hours on the dot. I sprinted (or what counts for sprinting at that point!). I got there ahead of them.

Last Point-2--8:35 pace (ironically, this is my bare minimum BQ pace)

Final result: 3:59:11

I had done it. Despite not sticking to a reasonable race plan, despite bonking, despite rain and hail and lightning, despite walking, I beat four hours. My previous best time, in New York City 2005 at age 32, was 4:13:58. My first marathon, in Houston 1997 at age 24, was 5:00:26.

Best of all, I was happy. I had redeemed a race that could have left me miserable and discouraged. Redemption is what running is all about for me.

Good things about this race:

1. NO POTTY STOPS!! My "fueling" pre-race was perfect. I stuck to my guns and avoided fiber, dairy and heavy baked goods (and most other sweets) in the three days ahead of the race. The day before I had hard-boiled eggs, bananas, salty pretzels (thanks for this tip, Jill!), a turkey-tomato-mustard sandwich on a white salt bagel, Gatorade and the pre-race pasta meal of pasta with vegetarian red sauce, a white roll and salad. Race morning, I ate a hard-boiled egg and some dry Frosted Flakes and drank a cup of coffee. I had Cliff Shot Blocks every four miles during the race until the last six miles when I didn't bother. I had water and Gatorade at every aid station. It worked. I'll do it again just that way for Houston.

2. I was able to set a personal record even with a bonk. I'm now only 15 minutes shy of my BQ time. I think I can do it in Houston with good training and the willpower to stick to a race plan even when the talk around me suggests I do something else.

3. The weather! I love cold weather. I don't mind rain. Even hail is OK if it's short (and it did help that we had patches of sun during the race's second half and at the finish line). I'm hoping it will be nice and cool in Houston in January. I really do believe that heat takes a lot off your time. Expectations will need to be revised downward if heat is an issue.

4. Hanging out with Erin and Alana before and after the race. Especially after! Who doesn't love a celebratory lunch involving Mexican food and three women who got PRs?

Bad things about this race for me (the ones that were mostly out of my control):

1. I had to drive to get there and didn't study Interstate 80 in southern Wyoming well enough. I ended up driving way longer on Thursday night than I meant to because there was nowhere to stay between Laramie and Rawlins. Then, when I got to Rawlins at 11:30 p.m., the nicer hotels were completely full with itinerant refinery workers. I stayed in dumpy place, the kind with a musty cigarette smell, bare bulbs, peeling plaster and a curtain safety-pinned over a rickety wall-unit A/C. I slept terribly, worried the whole time about bedbugs and fleas (fortunately not an issue).

2. My cold didn't clear up before the race. Fortunately, it's just a little cold and it never entered my chest--I don't think it was a factor (at least not a major one) in my Fail. But it added a layer of stress and uncertainty to my entire taper week and interfered with my sleep.

3. I had to walk a lot in those last miles. I wouldn't care if walking had been part of my plan. But it wasn't.

This race reminds me a lot of my Boulder Spring Half last March (though for that race I had a cold that was much worse than this one). I ran too fast and bonked, but still set a PR (albeit not as much of a PR as I wanted at the time). After that, I overcame those mistakes in my next half marathon (the ZOOMA Women's Half), finishing strong and beating my PR again despite heat. That's what I will seek to do in Houston (minus the heat part, I hope).

My goals for Houston, therefore, are simple:

1. Stick to my race plan.
2. Finish strong--no going too fast.
3. BQ (the end for which all these other things are the means)

Oh--and because as usual I was CRAP at taking pictures and Fast Cory was AWESOME at taking them (and really you should see this gorgeous place), here's a link to his race report (PR for him too-Yay Cory!).

No BQ....but PR!

2011-09-18T14:58:00.000-06:00

I just got home from Utah after the amazingly fun Top of Utah Marathon. I'll have a full race report later--need to catch up with my family and eat ice cream--but for now:

3:59:11!

A barely-squeaked sub-4--no Boston 2012 for me.

What can I say? I started too fast and bonked! But I still beat my 6-year-old PR of 4:13:58 by 15 minutes....and I learned a ton. I also had a great time with Erin of See Mom Run Far, who went sub-3:30 (I am not worthy!) and her friend Alana, whose debut marathon was sub-4 (what a great beginning!).

Thanks for all your good wishes! I'll have details (including hail!) very soon.

Top of Utah Marathon Playlist

2011-09-15T11:41:00.000-06:00

It's Thursday morning and I'm feeling good. The cold is still there, but it's lower-grade (so far!) than the one I had back in March for the Boulder Spring Half. For the pace group situation, I'm leaning toward starting with the 3:50 group to preserve my quads. But I'll hopefully get to talk to someone at the expo about this before making up my mind definitively.

I've got my playlist for those last eight miles. Here it is, with commentary. It's about 90 minutes, hopefully way more than I will need. I know I'm really nerdy when it comes to music, but it works for me. I'm not sure about the order yet. I'll probably play with that some.

"Take Me Home Country Roads"--John Denver (always have to start with this song)
"Private Conversation"--Lyle Lovett
"Down By the Water"--Decemberists
"Let It Will Be"--Madonna ("just watch me burn")
"(Let Your Mind Be) Free"--DJ Quicksilver
"Sandstorm"--Da Rude
"Roses Are Red"--Aqua
"Can't Let Go"--Lucinda Williams
"Rox in the Box"--Decemberists
"Lift Me Up"--Moby
"Roll Away Your Stone"--Mumford & Sons
"I Get Knocked Down, But I Get Up Again"--Chumbawamba
"Americano"--Brian Setzer Orchestra
"Goody Two Shoes"--Adam Ant
"Wild Wild Life"--Talking Heads
"Learning to Live"--by Unknown (I got this alt-country sounding song off a mix CD that Will & Ruth got as a party favor at a 5-YO birthday party; I need to ask Zander's mom about it; couldn't find it on YouTube; it's awesome though)
"The One I Love"--David Gray
"The People's Limousine"--Elvis Costello (Dan loves Elvis Costello and I know thinking of Dan at this point will give me a lift)
"Lost in My Mind"--The Head & the Heart (new song I just heard on the radio the other day; sounds like a road trip song)
"Africa"--Toto (more 80s; it's just who I am)
"Sloop John B"--Beach Boys (my dad loves this song; thinking of my dad will give me a lift too; I need a song my mom loves next time; Mom, if you're reading, send me a song!)
"Fadeaway"--BoDeans
"Telephone Road"--Steve Earle (this is about a road in Houston; thinking about Houston....)
"Gabriel's Message"--Sting (yeah, this is a Christmas song, but it's beautiful and it's about submitting to the will of God, which is what I need to do in this race)
"Rock This Town"--Stray Cats

One song I did not include, because it's a little too mellow, is the Eagles' "Peaceful Easy Feeling." But I think that's the theme song for me for this race. It's my first marathon since my pregnancy five years ago. Yes, I want to BQ, and I'm going to do my damnedest to do that, but I know it's not the end of the world if I don't make it this time. I have another chance in Houston in January. And no matter what happens Saturday, I will have a much better idea of where I am, what I can do, what I need to work on, after this race is over.

So as the Eagles say, "I got a peaceful easy feeling/And I know you won't let me down/'Cause I'm already standing on the ground."

See you all in Utah!!

I Feel Like I Should Be Writing My Will

2011-09-14T17:44:00.002-06:00

Do you ever get the feeling, when you have a big race looming, that your life is now divided between everything that led up to the race (especially the immediate torture of waiting) and everything after (none of which particularly matters)?

I spent my day at work making little Outlook appointments with myself, convinced that as soon as I walked out the library doors everything work-related would flee my mind to such an extent that I'll make lots of silly mistakes next week (missing meetings, forgetting deadlines, maybe just not showing up). My work week is Sunday through Wednesday (I'm 3/4 time). Tomorrow evening, after a normal Thursday home with my kids, I will get in my car and drive. The Top of Utah Marathon is behind every action and thought I've had today. It's amazing I was able to function on the reference desk!

Here are some new developments:

1) I have a cold (cue Darth Vader music). Dratted work (the kids aren't sick so I can't blame them this time). I'm downing water and Zicam, and I skipped my easy 30-minute run today in favor of a 30-minute walk. The symptoms aren't too bad so far. I hope I can keep any really wicked stuff at bay until after approximately 10:45 a.m. Saturday morning.

2) I found out the marathon will have pacers. This is huge! The only problem is they have a 3:40 pacer and a 3:50 pacer. My BQ target time is 3:45. Dan thinks I should run with the 3:40 pacer for the downhill part in the canyon and then allow myself to slow down and let that pace group go if I need to for the final 8 miles, which are flat to slightly rolling. And indeed this is the strategy many of the pacers on the TOU site recommend for this race. I tend to think of Dan as my running Zen master. He's never given me bad advice. Does anyone out there disagree with him?

I still honestly don't know if I can go as fast as those 3:40 pacers will probably be running in the canyon. I know I can stick with the 3:50 pacers. But then I risk not getting my BQ....

3) The weather: predicted high of 74, low of 49, possible thundershowers. Sounds good to me!

Taper Tics

2011-09-12T14:59:00.000-06:00

This morning I was sleepy when my alarm went off at 6 a.m. I'd had another 3 a.m. Will wake-up. This time he needed me to find Mr. Wawa, encourage him to use the bathroom...and to answer this question (and this is a spooky one from a preschooler when it's the wee hours and you're talking to him in the nightlight's bleary glow): "Mommy, are there real bottomless pits in this world?"

Since it's Taper Week, though, this wasn't a problem. At 6 a.m. I rolled over and went back to sleep for another hour. I had only a 30-minute run scheduled and I knew there would be plenty of time to do that on my break at work. And there was. It was hot but it felt good, like all runs do when you're tapering.

Here are some things I'm doing (other than ignoring my alarm) to make the taper feel special:

1) I'm ditching the Garmin until D-Day on Saturday. My old Timex died a couple of weeks back, so I'd been using the Garmin even on easy runs. Not this week. I borrowed Dan's Swiss Army watch and will do all my easy ones with it. No tracking miles. No tracking pace, even on the little shake-out track workout my McMillan plan is allowing me tomorrow. I'm going purely by feel.

2) I'm also ditching the tunes until the last eight-point-two miles of Saturday's race. Even on said track workout. The iPod is getting a rest. And when I do put on the phones this weekend, I'm going back to my old-school ones. I can't imagine trying to squish the Yurbuds into my sensitive ears when I'm 18 miles into what will hopefully be a fast-for-me marathon.

3) I've read a lot about really fast, awesome runners having stomach trouble in their recent races. I still don't have the magic bullet for this. But I've gotta try. So starting Wednesday it's good-bye to dairy (even my beloved Greek yogurt), nuts and nut butters, any and all things with artificial sweeteners (yep, I mean you Nuun, as good as you do taste and hydrate), anything spicy (salsa....sigh....) and anything with too much fiber (broccoli, whole wheat pasta, beans). I may even avoid my husband's tasty bread because he uses whole-wheat flour.

What will I eat and drink? Very bland things....grilled chicken, hard-boiled eggs, toast, white pasta with garlic and olive oil, tortillas, big pretzels with lots of salt, fruit (though probably not the night before, except for bananas), V8 juice and cranberry juice (I do NOT want another UTI or kidney infection).

4) I'm trying to read stuff that has nothing to do with running. Yesterday I picked up The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake. Anyone out there read that? I also have 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus.

But I can't help dipping into some running things. Blogs, of course! And Running the Edge. And I pore over my now dog-eared McMillan spreadsheet, as if just reading it again will reveal some secret that could unlock Saturday for me.

5) I'm playing lots of two-handed bridge with Dan. Yes, bridge is a game for four people. But Will and Ruthie aren't quite ready to play with us yet (Ruth's getting pretty good at playing war, though) so we make do, each of us playing two of the four hands. It's hard to get better without playing, and we've found most of the bridge groups around here meet when one or both of us are at work.

6) I'm thinking about my playlist for those last 8.2 miles. Post on that to come!

Here's another video, this one courtesy of Christine, who told me about this on our hike last week. Since I'm sharing a hotel room this weekend with the awesome Erin of See Mom Run Far and her friend, Alana, I don't think the alarm issue will be a problem for me. And I don't plan to accept any hot tea from spectators....

The Week of Joy

2011-09-11T07:03:00.000-06:00

I woke up 15 minutes ago and wanted to run. Of course. That's the way tapering is! You stretch yourself out...resting....resting.....almost there....until BAM! you spend all of what you've put in the bank in one spree.

Yesterday I had a fantastic 10-mile run. My McMillan plan called for doing the last four miles at marathon pace. I wanted to do them at 8:20/mile and did 8:29s. I feel OK about that. It was hilly, and 8:20s would have been a stretch given my training paces. By the end, I felt so good and full of anticipation for my race I decided to call this last week of tapering the Week of Joy.

Fittingly, the rest of the day was wonderful too, as fun as Labor Day was last week. I got my hair cut and colored, something that happens only once in a blue moon because of the expense and length of time it takes (three hours! it's not like I have that much hair or do anything fancy with it, but my hairstylist, Carrie, is super careful and thorough, so it's worth it). Afterwards I was starving so I got a Jamba Juice berry shake with whey protein in it, which my stomach did NOT like (note to self: no more whey protein). Then we went to a cookout with my relay team. I got my pint glass and shirt (which I had forgotten to take after the race). It was fun to see them all again (and we were all CLEAN and well-rested), and everyone's kids got along great.

At one point the TV was on with NASCAR--the kids were riveted. None of these kids watch much TV (my kids watch none at home), and it was really funny to see them so excited about something that all the adults (runners, you know) thought was pretty boring. Now Will and Ruthie want us to take them to a car race. I told them they could go with Daddy. I just don't get car racing. Human racing, yes, obviously. Horse racing too! Even dog racing, though I don't like what happens to the non-talented greyhounds (I love greyhounds--I want one). But car racing? Uh-uh.

I had too much food and wine yesterday, but Dan just laughed at me when I asked him if he thought it would make me fat for the marathon. "It's just one day," he said. So I'll be careful today, and the rest of the week...until Saturday.....

Today is 9/11. On the original horrible day, I was teaching English at my little school in Far East Russia. I had been in the country for two months, and at my site for two weeks. In Russia, it was actually already September 12 because of the time difference. I was writing vocabulary words for the 5th graders on the chalk board. My principal, Sergei, came in and said he needed to speak with me. He told me Peace Corps had called him, that two airplanes had hit the World Trade Center. I thought it was some kind of drill. He shook his head. Usually he liked to joke with me, but I saw no laughter on his face.

He took me back to his parents' apartment and over and over again I watched those planes hit those towers.I understood almost nothing of what the newscasters were saying--my Russian language skills were still too weak.Four months prior, still at my former job as a news editor at the Wall Street Journal, I had worked right across the street from those towers. My bank branch was in their basement mall. I often bought a falafel sandwich from a vendor on the sidewalk outside. I had interviewed people who worked on the 102nd floor. I had eaten several times at Windows on the World and stood on the observation deck with my mom. When my sister had visited once during the three years I lived in New York, we walked by and she had touched the massive base of one of the towers, saying, "It just feels like it might not be permanent." (Not kidding about that...psychic sister...)

On that September day in Russia, I was worried about my former co-workers, other friends in the city and my family. Communication was hard, but I managed phone calls to Dan and my parents and emails that got me answers ("Not one hair on the head of anyone at Dow Jones was harmed," wrote my friend Carlos). I spent the next few days and nights riveted to the BBC on my short-wave radio. My new Russian friends were amazingly kind, some embracing me in the street and crying on my behalf. Sergei's mother said, "I believe God brought you here, because you are much safer in Russia." And gradually my days returned to their new, weird Russian normal.

Back home, I know it didn't become any kind of normal for many of you for a while. When we volunteers were sent home almost a year later, the USA for which we had all been homesick was changed (most obviously at the airport). I'm grateful that in the ensuing decade, for now anyway, the fear has subsided, that a new tower is rising in that spot (which I later went and looked upon), that I was able six years ago to run the streets of that amazing city and that many of my new running friends will do so this year, ten years later.

We human beings are lucky that time heals. Another reason why this taper week will be a Week of Joy.

Two Videos

2011-09-09T10:31:00.000-06:00

Now that their book Run the Edge is out (review from me coming soon), Tim Catalano and Adam Goucher are spiffing up their interactive website for readers of the book. It's called The Mavens' Guild--check it out. They put this video up today--it seems especially relevant for me with my race coming up, and I bet it will speak to you too.

Also, because I'm already thinking about how to get stronger for Houston and one of the things I need more of is core work, here's a video with some simple exercises that Runners' World has up. I like the idea of having to do only three exercises twice a week. Is that too good to be true? I know some of you have some serious abs out there. What are your favorite core exercises? I'm especially interested in hearing from those of you who (like me) have or had major issues with diastasis post-pregnancy.

Top of Utah Marathon Goals

2011-09-07T20:49:00.003-06:00

This morning was a cross-training day, and I really wanted to hang out with my friend Christine. So we both got up early and went for a little hike up the Sanitas Valley Trail. Our usual climb up Mt. Sanitas would have been too slick to be safe. The valley trail is a climb too, though much more gradual and without the stairsteps and rock scrambles that characterize the mountain trail.

We talked about a lot of things, like how her boy/girl twins started preschool and an eccentric former co-worker of hers and of course, because I'm thinking of little else these days, my upcoming race. She laughed at me a little for my grouchy post last week, in which I maligned The Secret. I explained to her that I know I was in a bad mood that day, but that even when I'm not in a bad mood (thankfully that's most of the time!) I do feel like an odd duck in the world of running bloggers because I don't think it's wrong to admit that I am not.....always....optimistic. She laughed again and said, "That's because you are a chronic realist. Not a pessimist...a realist."

That's the great thing about having a friend who gets you. It made me feel better. Pessimism might doom a person to failure, but realism? That just sets up reasonable expectations.

Which brings me to my goals for the Top of Utah Marathon.

Normally I like to have a three-part goal for any race I've trained seriously for: a moonshot-stars-align goal, a solid goal that moves the ball forward and a bad-day bare-minimum-performance goal. But being honest (and realistic!), I know that I will be disappointed with anything less than a Boston qualifying time at Top of Utah. So I have only one goal: run a 3:45 marathon or better--or completely flame out trying.

Part of me knows that's impractical. By race day, September 17, the Boston sign-up period will have been open for a week. Even if I do manage to squeak in with a qualifying run, chances are Boston will have sold out. I'll still need to qualify in Houston in January for Boston 2013. (For those of you who already qualified for 2012, check out the Boston Athletic Association's nifty registration date calculator to figure out when you can register!)

So why bet the farm on this race? Aren't I just setting myself up for a week of painful walking and a long drive back to Colorado in tears? Perhaps. But I'll also know what I can do, what I still need to work on, and that I tried my hardest in my first marathon in six years. Realistically, given my inconsistent training paces, a BQ in ten days probably is not going to happen. But I want to know how close I can get. And being a realist I know I'll be more disappointed if I have to ask "What if?" than I will be if I go down in spectacular flames.

Labor Day Weekend

2011-09-05T20:14:00.000-06:00

My last long run of the Top of Utah Marathon training cycle went well. I was fearing being unable to do the fast-finish bit, so Dan suggested I cheat a bit and make it a hill run instead, something that sort of mimicked Top of Utah's downhill-at-first-then-flat profile. So early on Saturday morning I drove my car to the western terminus of the Boulder Creek/Canyon trail--and left it there. I ran down the canyon and into town for eight miles, and then back up the trail, including the canyon climb, for the second eight miles.

I felt slow and pinched for the downhill part. But somehow, the turnaround revived me and I felt "in the zone" for the climb. It went by so much faster. I was really surprised and gratified. I felt high the rest of the day. My family went for a little hike that afternoon, and I was even up for some Fast Cory-style jumping:

Yeah, that twin tum....it's never going away.

Then the kids wanted to get into the act:

We couldn't get a good simultaneous jump photo.

Sunday was a work day for me. I went for a nice little recovery run on my break, the kind of run where you feel like you are flying and could keep going until you reach heaven, because that's the only place you could be going feeling like that.

When I got home, I knew for sure that fall was coming because Dan had baked bread for the first time since May. In the cool months, he bakes all of our sandwich bread from scratch. It's the best bread in the world, especially when it first comes out of the oven. And it makes the whole house smell good:

Yeah, the four of us had already consumed a lot of the first loaf by the end of lunchtime today. Fortunately there's another loaf in the freezer.

Today, Labor Day, was awesome.

First, we volunteered at Aid Station #9 at the Boulder Marathon. I've run the half three straight times, but this year that wasn't happening because of Top of Utah. I wanted to stay involved, and also expose the kids to some volunteer work, so we signed up. I had never volunteered like this before, but it was so much fun. We saw runners of all shapes and sizes, starting with the eventual men's and women's winners and ending with the last guy on the course. I was proud that two of these runners told me that ours was the best aid station out there.

Here we are just before I took the kids home--Will and Ruthie lasted a solid two hours, helped with filling cups and picking up trash. We're definitely doing this again next year.

After that, we went to Boulder's Hometown Festival. Again, it was a great time: the kids bounced in bouncy castles and hurtled down bouncy slides; they tried a climbing wall (as did I!); Will was in a Big Wheel race; they rode on Vern the Train Man's train; Ruth had a helicopter painted on her face; and Will had an airbrush train tattoo on his arm. Dan and I watched them and ate kettle corn.

Then we went over to old neighbors' house for a quick cookout. We got home about 30 minutes ago, got the kids in bed about 15 minutes ago--and I think they are already asleep.

I'm about to go to sleep too. My McMillan Plan has this to say about the next two weeks:

"You now enter the special Peaking Phase to rest the body/mind but keep the engine revved for racing! Reduce your life stress and focus on good sleep, proper nutrition and hydration."

I say, Amen to that!

I'm game for a little stress reduction. Ahhh!

Last Long One, Tommie Copper Calf Sleeves and August Recap

2011-09-02T20:58:00.001-06:00

Tomorrow is my last truly long run ahead of the Top of Utah Marathon. I can't believe the race is in two weeks. It seems too soon. I'm starting to fret already. Hopefully tomorrow's run will help me burn some of that off.

It's a 16-miler (or 18 if I feel good--we'll see about that!) with a fast finish. I plan to drive to the top of the trailhead in Boulder Canyon, run down into the city for eight or nine miles and then run back up the canyon for the second part. I figure this will simulate finishing under duress, even if I don't go fast, because I'll be climbing pretty much the whole way back. Some of it will be quite steep.

Bring it on! After Thursday's lousy run, I feel like attacking this one. (And I got eight hours of sleep last night--thank you, Will, for conking and staying that way all night!)

Meanwhile, I've been trying out another product this week, one that I'm excited about. The product is my Tommie Copper calf sleeves. I had been meaning to buy some compression socks or something similar for my calves, which (along with my quads) get the Most Likely to Be Sore award after any given run. I foam roll them a lot, but that's not always enough to get the hurt out before the next hard effort.

Lucky me, I won a pair of Tommie Coppers from Marcia at The Studly Runner. They arrived just in time for me to don them after my Unexpected Relay last weekend. On Tuesday morning, I put them on immediately after a hard fartlek workout. They were supportive without making me feel like a sausage in a casing (as my friend Rosann would describe it), and nice and soft. I was also surprised, given the climbing mercury, that I didn't feel hot in them.

Ruthie wants a pair too! Do they make them in size 4T?

They were so comfy I put them back on after showering to go to work---and forgot to take them off until I arrived AT work and realized they were still there, still comfy, but didn't go so well with the skirt I had put on. I've worn them after every run since. I think they are helping with the calves. Today I had a short recovery run, and I noticed a big difference between the way my calves felt when I had them on post-run and the way they felt after a day on my feet with the kids (and no calf sleeves). I'm wearing them again as I type this. Winning them was definitely a coup, and I recommend them to anyone who feels their calves need a little TLC. Big thanks to Marcia and Tommie Copper! Now maybe I need to get the ankle sleeves....

Finally, I wanted to do a quick recap of August:

--I ran 168.3 miles. My biggest week was that of the 22-miler (the relay), which came in at 44.1 miles. I was a bit bummed that I didn't have a 50-mile week. The relay one would have been had I done the two 3-mile recovery runs that were supposed to bookend the big one. But I have my Houston ramp-up in the cooling weather to pile on the miles. All I can do now is cross my fingers and hope I did enough miles for a PR at Top of Utah. It was certainly the highest-mileage month I've done in six years. Surely that counts for something.

--I ran the Colorado Relay, unexpectedly, as Runner 2. It was a great time. I got to spend time in nature, running under the stars, hanging out with others who love and get running, reconnecting with old friends.

--I had some very satisfying workouts where I could see progress in my running: the ones that stick out are my second fast-finish long run (I used the Heart & Sole Half Marathon to push me along) and the fabulous tempo run I had ahead of the relay. I also had two very stinky workouts: yesterday's 9-mile goal-pace fail and the first fast-finish long run, which ended up being a slow 18 miles instead. Hey, you win some, you lose some.

--I got to meet (virtually) Adam Goucher and Tim Catalano. These two answered some of my questions and some of yours. They are classy guys, and I'm so looking forward to reading their new book, Run the Edge. My signed copy arrived in the mail today (to buy a copy, go here). I've already dipped into it and can't wait to give it a real read.

--I got lots of free stuff! In addition to the Tommie Coppers, I won some Yurbuds from Erin at See Mom Run Far, another inspiring-looking book, Stillpower: The Inner Source of Athletic Excellence, from Katherine at Forward Foot Strides and got some inspiring bumper stickers from Jim at 50 After 40. Thanks to all of you for the ongoing support and for doing giveaways. Maybe it's time for me to buy that lottery ticket.

--The AWESOME Dimity McDowell and Sarah Bowen Shea at Another Mother Runner let me do a guest post on their blog that ran on Wednesday. In it, I wrote about one of the more personal reasons running is so important to me. The teenager I used to be is still inside me raising doubts, so their support and yours mean a lot to me. Thanks to SBS, Dimity and everyone who read and empathized with the sentiments in that post.

September, the month of my first marathon since 2005, has arrived. A post of my goals for Top of Utah is forthcoming. Meanwhile, good luck to all who have races this holiday weekend. I hope you meet or exceed your goals and that you and your families have a long, relaxing time together after that.