Recommitment

So on Wednesday I officially signed over the next two and a half months of my life to Team in Training. You might be asking yourself, what? I thought you did that a long time ago? True, true, but now they have my credit card number. Now if I don't raise my $4,350 my credit card will make up the difference. Now they will officially register me in the race, book my hotel, sign me up for the pasta dinner. Of course, the second I sent out my first fundraising letter I had already essentially committed to running the marathon. I mean, of course injury could have give me an out, but otherwise, just imagine writing the letter "Dear Mr. and Mrs. Blank, Thank you so much for your donation. I've decided I'm too busy to train for the marathon, and of course your donation is non refundable, but it is a good cause, so thanks, and thanks on behalf of the Leukemia and Lymphoma society." Nobody would ever talk to me again. Sigh. So nothing has really changed, except that they have my credit card number.

But the fundraising is going well, I'm getting close to 2/3 of the way. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how many more donations my letters will generate at this point, which means I might have to plan events or get creative for the last chunk. At the moment grad school is kicking my ass, so... I keep telling myself, "there will be plenty of time to do that kind of thing come May." In related news, it looks like my brother is going to win my NCAA pool (set up so that 50% would go to charity and 50% would go to the winner). He has told me that he will donate it back, which is awesome. But at the same time, having spent twenty three years competing with my brother it kind of rankles that he is going to win (I'm sitting in second, but can only win if George Mason beats UCLA in the final). I mean, he hasn't watched a single basketball game the entire tournament. Whereas I, I have deprived myself of sleep on numerous occassions and was so going to win the whole thing of Connecticut had just beaten George Mason. That one win would have made it very hard for him to catch me, and now, now.... now it rankles.

Okay, so now time for the running. The running has been rough lately. Last week was good, and I know I didn't post, I'm sorry. But I followed the schedule pretty closely. I ran:

Monday - rest
Tuesday - 5 miles
Wednesday - 8 miles
Thursday - 5 miles
Friday - rest
Saturday - 12 miles
Sunday - rest

Total: 30

This week, every run has been terrible. Every single one. Last thursday I was so excited that the five miles felt good the day after the eight. I whipped them out with very little problem, and I thought that I was finally getting on top of this whole running thing. And even Saturday's 12 were okay. Then my sleep got thrown off, the weather changed, and now, every mile is a chore. So this week, so far:

Monday - rest (I know, I'm a wuss)
Tuesday - 5 miles
Wednesday - 8 miles
Thursday - rest (but I had a good reason)
Friday - 12 miles (it was supposed to be 14, but Amy had to get home... this one wasn't my fault)
Total so far: 25

So at this point, I'm 7 miles down on my mileage, but I'll run some of those tomorrow. Still, there is no way I'll make up all of them. I feel slightly defeated, especially by the 12 miles today instead of 14. Oh well, at least I should still be able to get above the 30 mile mark this week. Okay, that is all for now. I need to go feed myself. Funny how a bowl of cereal just doesn't hold you that well through a 12 mile run. I've already burned of 1,200 calories today and consumed less than 500 (can't forget that gatorade). I think I shall remedy that with some pasta. Yummm pasta.

"nasty"

Last night I was playing a game with some friends called "apples to apples." Basically the way the game works is one person pulls a green card that is an adjective of some sort. They read the card and everybody else pulls a card out of their hand and throws it down. Then the person who read the green card picks the best response. It is supposed to be a word association game, but you get rewarded for speed so that isn't always the case. Anyway, someone threw down the card "running a marathon" in response to "nasty." This provoked a conversation as to just how nasty and gory running a marathon could be, including a discussion of bleeding nipples. The consensus was that "running a marathon" was quite nasty, and Lucas pointed at me and repeated "nasty" several times before deciding that another card was worse. The whole thing was very funny, and leads in to a question that is being asked of me more and more often... Why a marathon?

My mentor, Lisa, has run thirty six. She has also run two ultras (50 miles). She was running one every month for awhile and has been known to run two marathons within a week of each other. She loves hilly courses. She scares me. After talking about her thirty-six marathons, Su asked her why. What is it about running a marathon that would drive you to run thirty-six. Her answer, "when I ran my first marathon, I thought, I should have been doing this all my life, it just felt so good." She claims she ran he last six miles with a doofy elated grin that scared the people at the water stations.

That has to be a one in a million reaction to running a marathon. I can't believe that most of us finish our first marathon and find that it feels right to run for four hours. That it somehow fills a hole we never knew we had. That we were born to run, the way that Lisa feels as though she was born to run. I certainly don't feel that in my training runs. Instead they are predictably painful. Prior to yesterday I had never run ten miles. Now I have. How did the extra two miles feel? They hurt enough that my legs were sore yesterday and today. Which is not to say that they weren't satisfying. I am proud that I ran them. I am very proud that I ran 10 miles in one and hour and 38 minutes, because that means I was running sub-ten minute miles. But never, not for one moment did I feel elation.

So most likely, I will not feel as Lisa did during the last six miles of my marathon. But I never thought that I would. Still, I've already picked out two marathons that I want to run someday. The Marine Corps Marathon (I'm from DC after all) and The Nike Women's Marathon in San Francisco (you get a Tiffany's finisher necklace). And in the back of every marathoner's mind (if I can claim that moniker) is the Boston. Consequently, unless things go very poorly in Alaska, there is a good chance that I will train for another marathon, or two or three in my life. Maybe even more. Hopefully I will not run thirty-six.

But all of this still hasn't answered the question of why I would run a marathon at all. I knew one person growing up who ran marathons, and I always had a certain amount of awe for her. So at some point in my childhood running a marathon took on the significance of being the ultimate feat of physical endurance and dedication and part of me has always wanted to rise to that challenge. Also, setting the goal of completing a marathon, has led me to become a much more disciplined and regular runner. Now on cold and rainy days, I find myself squeezing in my run anyway. This spring it has kept me from getting bored with running, or at least kept me running even during the weeks that I would really rather not.

I don't know what crossing the finish line will feel like. I hope that I do feel elation. I hope that I don't wonder too much why anyone would ever do this to their body. I hope that my nipples don't bleed.

This week in running:

Monday - 5 miles
Tuesday - 4 miles
Wednesday - 8 miles
Thursday - rest
Friday - rest
Saturday - 10 miles
Sunday - 3-4 miles???

Total: 30 miles

Tunes

Today I wiped my 512 mb flash mp3 player clean and loaded 126 new songs. Apparently 150 miles is about when I max out on the same six or seven cds (on shuffle of course) accompanying my every run. Well, almost every run, not the group training sessions and not when I decide to run hilly windy roads that don't have sidwalks, so maybe I max out on 100 miles. Anyway, goodbye to the Killers, Belle & Sebastian's Boy with an Arab Strap, Modest Mouse, Tegan and Sara's Under Feet Like Ours, the Decemberist's, Death Cab for Cutie, and Jem. Hello to Belle & Sebastian's The Life Pursuit, Tegan and Sara's This Business of Art, The Cardigans, The Squirrel Nut Zippers (which is going to have to go 'cause my mp3 player hates it), The Beatle's A Hard Day's Night, the Clash, and the Magnetic Fields. I went on my first run with my new tunes today and I have to say it just didn't feel right. When a song from the old mix would come on I would have all kinds of running associations with it, like "oh, I was dying on that hill the last time this came on... it is much better on a flat section." Or "oh good this is a great song to finish on." With this new set of songs I don't know what will work for what. I don't know what song to hope for. At the same time, I had reached the point where I needed to mix up the routine. I need new running routes, I need new music. I need to actually be taking a spring break right now instead of spending my break doing the same things (working at kaplan, running, and reading). The only thing that has changed is that I don't have to go to class and I feel the tremendous need to churn out some written product in order to avoid the perhaps inevitable nervous breakdown which is currently pencilled in my planner for April 17th.

The good news is that I had a decent 10k experience on Saturday. Su and Mark and I skipped the GTS and drove to Mableton, GA to race (and Isabelle came too!). My goal was to run the 6.2 miles in less than 55 minutes and I managed to slip in with a 54:34 (which is an extremely inaccurate time). According to the results six other women and I all finished in 54:34 (this race did not utilize the champion chip). Also there were over 1,000 participants and no attempt to divide people into pace groups, so it took awhile after the gun to even get up to the starting line. As a result my actual time could be anywhere from 30 seconds to 45 seconds faster. I didn't run the race as strategically as I should have. I definitely ran miles two and three faster than they should have been, and as a result was suffering by mile five. Mark blew past me around 5.5 and at that point I was pretty defeated... though I managed to keep him in my sights and finished within about 10 seconds or so (I swear it was closer than that... men and women finished on separate sides and I think that someone wasn't handling their timer correctly). God, I'm a competitive child. Anyway, goal accomplished which felt great. Except that I pushed that last half a mile perhaps a little too hard and proceeded to get sick again. Training for a marathon makes you extremely aware of your body and how easily it can tyrranize you. Although, I swear at mile 5 I gave myself a pep talk that amounted to something along the lines of "yes, you can stop now, but you don't need to stop. If you stop it is because you are mentally weak, not because your body is not capable of finishing and you will have to live with the knowledge that you gave up." Needless to say, I kept going. So I'm not sure, both mind over matter and matter over mind seem to have been in play.

Tomorrow I'm going to try my first eight mile run. I'm excited. This is the first time that the distance on the schedule is more than I've previously run. I mean, last saturday should have been eight miles, but I opted for the race instead. So after tomorrow I will be in unfamiliar territory, which is thrilling. Since I'm desperate for some new scenery I think I will drive somewhere and spend the afternoon running tomorrow (that almost resembles Spring Break).

In other news, I've realized that this whole fundraising thing is like a second job. There is always some task waiting to be done. Right now it is two thank you letters and another batch of fundraising letters (to people I missed the first time). I also need to start sending out the little thank you gifts to those who have donated $100 or more and try to get more people to join my NCAA pool... do you see what I mean?

Sigh. There just aren't enough hours in the day.

Anyway last week in review:

Monday - rest
Tuesday - 4 miles
Wednesday - 6 miles
Thursday - 4 miles
Friday - rest
Saturday - 6.2
Sunday - rest (my back was hurting... I don't run when my back hurts)

Total: 20.2

So far this week:

Monday - 5 miles
Tuesday - 4 miles
Wednesday- 8????

More Pictures

(Kathleen, Mark, Melanie, Su, Tedd)

(Stretching)

(Picnic at the Pavillion)

(random people)

Another Week

So, another week is officially down.

By the end of each day for the last several days I've been exhausted, to a level I'm not used to. I fall into bed and feel absolutely incapable of getting up, and then, if I'm lucky I slip into dreamless sleep and wake up the next morning feeling less tired. Unfortunately that hasn't always been happening. Sometimes I can't sleep, but more often I sleep alright and then wake up still feeling incapable of movement. Something has to give. Last night I just couldn't get warm, I finally put on a hat (in addition to the five blankets I already had piled one me) and woke up at 10 still tired.

But, I did manage to get in my runs. I ran 5.5 miles on Tuesday, 4 miles on Wednesday, and 7 on Thursday (I got lost... it was only supposed to be 6), 6 miles on Saturday, and 3 miles today, making a grand total of: 25.5. So my mileage has been increasing nicely.

In other running news, I think I'm going to skip the group training session next Saturday and run a 10k with some of my Team in Training Friends. The Silver Comet 10k is one of the last Peachtree Qualifying races and it would be cool to qualify for one of the early time groups. The Peachtree Road Race, for those of you not from Atlanta, is Atlanta's big race. It takes place on the 4th of July and in order to race it you have to send in your registration card the day it appears in the AJC (which is March 18th). Now, Atlanta on the 4th of July is always ridiculously hot and ridiculously humid, but a ton of people turn out, some wearing unusual attire, and race 6.2 miles anyway. And so, I've decided that post-marathon I will join the insanity. You know, when in Rome do as the Romans?

Today when I was running my measly 3 miles, my legs felt like lead and just about every five steps I wanted to turn around and go home. But I didn't. However, after a little more than a mile, this girl trotted past me, this beautiful blonde, leggy girl. She blew past me as though I were standing still. I wasn't running particularly fast, more sort of trudging along, but she still put me to shame. I realized I'd been sort of shuffling along, focusing on my pain and tiredness, so I tried to shake it off and keep up with her. You know, trail her from a comfortable distance. That worked until we reached a hill, and then I realized that I really was in pain and tired, and I decided that trudging was okay. But this girl, with her taunting, swinging gold ponytail, who didn't seem to be sweating or breathing heavily, and looked like she was prepared to go for miles, seemed to be put on this earth solely to torture me. I wish I had tripped her when she ran past.

On that charitable note, I finally got my fundraising letters out, for the most part, and I'm starting to get donations in which is very exciting. Thank you everyone who has donated (or plans on donating!) I'm going to set up a March Madness fundraiser, so stay tuned.

Anyway, my goal this week is to finally make it to the grocery store for a real shop (I've done that twice since winter break so it is definitely time). After I get some real food in my apartment, I'm going to try to start paying attention to what I eat, because maybe that is why I'm so tired. Also, it might be time for allergy medication. I can't believe it is actually spring already here. All of the trees are flowering, and it is warm most days. Crazy.

Oh, and I have pictures from Saturday. After our run there was a picnic, which was cool...except it was like 9:30 or 10, so it was a little difficult to choke down fried chicken and sandwiches. So most of the pictures are of the picnic, but there is one of people stretching, and there is one of Melanie, Tedd, Mark, Su, and a woman whose name I can't remember... they were my running buddies on Saturday.

Running Myself Ragged

So I feel very remiss in my duties to any faithful readership I might have out there, but this week has been really crazy and I just haven't had time to write. I still don't, so this is me officially stealing time.

Anyway, where were we? Last week's long run was by far the most miserable yet. It was about 50 degrees but with a steady cold rain. My group decided that despite the weather, we were going to run six miles. I started out in shorts, a cotton t-shirt, and a fleece pullover (the sports kind that actually doesn't absorb water like a sponge). Unfortunately after a mile and a half, I decided to leave my fleece at a water stop because I was hot. On seeing my cotton t-shirts my running buddies chided me, but I figured I'd be fine. Oh was I wrong. The rain picked up, and soon my cold soaked t-shirt was clinging to my stomach as I ran. I would have been warmer if I had taken it off and run in my bra (next time... next time). Anyway, every part of me was cold, my legs my arms, and most especially my stomach... which isn't a fun state of being. Also, there were hills, lots of them. But, we stuck together as a group (Lisa, Tedd, Melanie, and I... though Lisa always went ahead on the hills and then slowed down so we could catch up... she claims the hills are her favorite part, she certainly takes them quickly).

After the run, Su and I decided to get a hot breakfast and we tried out the Atlanta Bread Company, which we chose because it always has a full parking lot when we drive past it. The food was a little pricey, but very good, and unforunately, very heavy. We were both still cold (and sopping wet) so we ordered the most decadent hot chocolate that I've ever had (complete with whip cream and lots of chocolate shavings). I got french toast as well, and Su got crepes stuffed with apples and pecans. So, in addition to learning that cotton really is a terrible fabric to run in on a rainy day, I also learned that eating a lot of rich, heavy food, after running six miles, doesn't agree with my stomach. I promptly got sick, went home, and slept most of the afternoon away. I hope it was the food and not the run, because otherwise this could be a problem.

Sunday I went to our honored hero party, and met Elijah Cox as well as some other cancer patients and cancer survivors. The honored hero for the San Diego marathon just found out that she is officially in remission and is actually planning on running the San Diego Marathon, which I think is fantastic. The actual event didn't leave much space for meaningful interaction with the honored heros (there were just too many people), but it was still worthwile. You could tell that the fundraising efforts mean a lot to the families involved, and it was good to talk to some Team in Training people while eating cookies instead of running. Most of the pictures that I added are from that event. The pictures of me looking cold in a parking lot are from a couple of weeks ago.

so I really need to get some work done, but I will write more soon...