Running Chick

Well, I made it. I'm not exactly thrilled with my performance and I'm still pretty grumpy about it, but it is what it is.

I heard, at various points on the course when people will still being chatty with one another, that once you cross the finish line, you're in "an exclusive club".  I guess I never really thought about it being exclusive, but apparently it is and now I'm in it. Yay.

Once I become less grumpy, I'll write up a race recap. Right now, I'm going to wallow.

Carbs have been loaded.

Veggie bowl from Rodeo Mexican Kitchen the team var/run/ unofficial sponsor, meeting place.

Smoked brisket from Fitzgerald’s by way of the work fall party.  I was in a brisket stupor for the rest of the night.

Bags are packed, with everything but the kitchen sink.

Several more “just in case” items made it into the pile after this photo that I'm pretty certain I won't need but I know if I don't take them I'll be obsessing about them for the entire drive.  I’m now taking three pair of shorts and four tops and a set of cold weather items.

Inspirational and informative reading material has been collected.

I’m still looking for my mantra, maybe I’ll find it in there.

Tendonitis has been (hopefully) massaged into submission thanks to a very painful visit to my PT lady.

Fingers crossed.

I think I’m ready to go. Fox Cities Marathon, here I come.

I'm back, after a week of not running. I only missed four runs, so it's not like I missed an entire week, but still. Anyway, my blister is all healed and those weird muscle spasms that I was getting in my thigh/knee area have been foam rolled/massaged into submission.

This is marathon week (eeesh.), so my schedule is pretty tame. 3 miles on Monday, two each on Wednesday & Thursday.  I've been kind of antsy to get back to running, so I was looking forward to last night's run.  I debated over whether to head into town or not.  It seems pretty silly to drive my giant gas hogging SUV into town for a stupid 3 mile run that I could easily do around my house, but my goal was to take it easy and keep my left leg as happy as possible, so I decided to hit the flat & forgiving Nara trail over the hard & cambered roads in Liminga.  Screw the environment, YOLO!

As soon as I got a couple of miles from home, I realized that I left my Garmin sitting on the table so I decided to use the RunKeeper app on my phone. Only the battery on my phone was almost empty and I didn't have my spare battery with me.  Great.  I'm not really good at running by feel, I need that electronic feedback to tell me how fast & far I'm running, so I was pretty annoyed.  Anyway, Zoe and I took off. I was hoping that my phone would at least get me to the turn-around mark, around 15 minutes, which it did because Zoe took off like a bat out of hell.  Seriously, this dog is a crazy good runner.  No matter how fast I run, all she's ever doing is casually trotting along ahead, she hardly ever breaks into a run.  Occasionally she'll glance over her shoulder to make sure I'm still there and to see if she needs to stop and give me CPR. The cool thing is that I'm laying down some really fast splits running with her, the not cool thing is that she's probably is going to need to give me CPR one of these days.

Anyway, we were zipping back after the turn-around and I checked my phone to see how close we were to the finish & how much battery we had left, and accidentally hit the button which stops the activity at 2.72 miles. Gah. I ended up running what I thought was the last quarter mile and figured we finished that 3 miles in 9:30 pace or close to it.  We wandered around on the boardwalk for a bit then headed home.  Here's a foggy picture of the Pilgrim River, thanks to carrying my phone in my bra. Classy.

Unfortunately, my left leg was ticked off at me. This is what I did for the majority of the night.

And, here's what's happening at work today. 

It feels just like it did a couple of years ago, before I started cadence training.  I stopped carrying my mp3 player with 187bpm mp3 last summer because (1) it was annoying and I was always fighting with the wires to the ear buds, and (2) I have a fancy cadence sensor for my shoe and I figured I just keeping an eye on it that way.  Unfortunately, (2) only works if you consistently pay attention to it, and I probably haven't.  I suppose I'll have to start using the mp3 player again. Boo.

I don't know if I'll run again this week. I'll continue to use the ice packs & take Ibuprofen and I'll go by feel.  I'm not really worried about losing any fitness in the next few days, but I am worried about being in pain on Sunday. 

Speaking of Sunday, holy cow it's almost here.  I'm starting to obsess about things: should wear my hydration belt? (that one woke me up in the middle of the night last night) orange or purple compression socks? (yes, it does matter!). what pace should I try to keep? should I go with a pace group? Plus, a million more things that make my head hurt.

Overall, I'm feeling pretty anxious & nervous. Scared. Unsure. You know, all those feelings that make you, like, feel.  Bonus, I'm sure they'll only get worse as it gets closer. If I don't end up having a full on meltdown sometime between now & Sunday, I'll be amazed.

In other not running news, we got our first frost on Sunday night. Winter is coming.