Running the Ring

Yesterday Jason and I ran at work which I was a little worried about. While we were training for the marathon we would need to run at work sometimes and the lab is basically farm country with a big ass particle accelerator on it. So not too much to look at, especially when one is used to running through downtown streets.

But we made the decision to run around the ring instead of just around the grounds and it was (like all of our runs lately) a great run. The main building is really an amazing piece of architecture and it looked so cool at night with all the lights on. This picture was taken on the other side than we were running on (just found it online).

There is something to be said about running at work. There are times when I hate being a grad student. I hate the menial jobs that we get stuck with, I hate the teeny salary that we get....

But then there are times that the project that you have been working on for 1.5 years works or at least doesn't make situations worse for ALL the physics groups. When you realize that you work at the most prestigous physics lab in the world which is pretty spectacular realization. I still don't know what I want to be when I "grow up", but this all has to lead somewhere. As far as my time now, I will always look upon this part of my life fondly. I mean, moved back to Bloomington, back to Chicago, got married, ran a marathon, and eventually got a PhD in physics. That's a lot of doing in 5 years. Well we all know that I like being busy!

Running Into the Wind

Yesterday, we ran home again from the train station. I realized when I got to work and checked the temperature for that evening I might have not brought enough clothing.

The temp was 45 with a 25 mph NW wind.

I had brought running shorts, a tank top and a long sleeve t-shirt. hmm. Luckily I married a very smart man who brougth 2 long sleeve shirts. he was able to wear the sweatshirt he wore to work and one of these and so I was able to nab an extra long sleeve shirt.

The run went well again, actually much better for me than the first time we did this because I didn't have that annoying pack sitting around my waist (notice how I refrain from calling this thing a fanny pack). But jeez the wind was quite the event. One good thing I suppose about running in a loop is that at least for part of the run you can get a break from the wind, but if you run in a straight line and the wind is in your face, it's going to be there for the next hour.

But we live in Chicago, and expect the weather to not be ideal throughout the winter months. However, we were able to get through it last year, through all the snow storms and 10 degree days. I am hopeing that we will still be able to do this even though this winter our milage will be higher than last year. I just HATE running on a treadmill and once I get out there on the path, no matter what the weather I can usually survive it. I always say that the hardest part is getting out the door, once you are out there you might as well finish. :-)

Today we will run here at Fermi Lab...probably around the main ring.
(I love doing this because we send protons and anti-protons around this ring at about the speed of light....I like to think that I am racing them....plus lots of math to do in my head to try and figure out how many times the protons have gone around in just one of my steps.)

Jason's take on commuting/running

...or runnuting, as the kids are calling it these days.

It's fantastic. It's the only way to travel and it's about 10,000 times better than sitting on the Eisenhower. Commuting with bike was nice too, but this is so much better because I get home and my run is done. Just like magic.

There were a couple really cool things about it. First off, Clark street is an exceptionally cool street to run down, especially at night. Between the restaurants and the bars and the park, there are tons of different looks and neighborhoods. Time absolutely flew by. I mean, we were running pretty fast, but that's not really the point. It still took probably 50 minutes to get home, but it felt like 20.

Another really great thing was the feeling of getting somewhere. Whenever we run, as Leah mentions below, we either make some sort of loop or do a straight-out-straight-back run. This is great if we are running from home (and the only real option) but it is so much cooler to run from point A to point B (luckily enough, point A was the train station and point B was our house. Otherwise, who knows where we would have ended up). I really like the idea of using my legs for transportation and if not for the potential smell issue, I think this would always be a great idea. Just run everywhere!

And finally, yes, the backpack was fine. I never really noticed except when I was noticing that I didn't notice it. Got that? It is sort of like when we are running and I notice that my breathing has been fine which completely screws up my breathing and I have to spend the next five minutes trying to get it under control. Basically, the only time I noticed the bag was if I expanded my lungs more than usual and then I would feel the chest-strap a bit, but it didn't restrict my breathing any. I will probably go ahead and loosen the strap for the next run as I thought it was more necessary than it really is. This give me high hopes for using a hydration backpack in the winter as they are apparently not as annoying as they look.

So, in summary, commuting is much better without a car and I'm really grateful that Leah came up with the idea.

Running and Getting Somewhere

Tonight Jason and I tried our plan to use our commute as time to get some training runs in. So we had this problem of loving to read on the train, but not wanting to exactly carry our books home with us. We went to REI to see what kind of interesting things we could find. I had posted this question on one of the Runners Worlds Forums and there was a suggestion to try one of these water backpacks and to take the bladder out. Jason found one of these that is very small so he got that(on the left) and I found a small, you might call it a "fanny pack", but I won't because that would be too nerdy. We also thought that the water pack would be good for some longer runs we want to do during the winter months because the water fountains are turned off along the lake front, I don't know if I want to do a 10 -15 mile run and not have any water.

So we started downtown at Madison and Canal and ran east to Clark St. This was so beautiful and fun to run across the rivers. Then just took this all the way home (bascially). This ended up being a 6 mile run. You can see the full route here. This was such a fun run because we got somewhere. We have to get from point A to B somehow and to be able to use a run to do part of that really made the trip much better. It was also fun to run downtown and through some neighborhoods that we don't get to see because we tend to run from our door in some kind of loop and then back to our door.

As far as the packs go, I guess Jason's worked really well, while mine didn't. I couldn't quite get the thing to sit right on my waist. I put the pack part right above my fanny thinking that perhaps it would just sit on my lower back and not bother me too much. Unfortunatly it kept sliding around and I had to cinch the strap tight so that it wouldn't bounce. This became a problem at the end as we were moving a pretty good clip and it was affecting my breathing/stomach (too tight!!!). Jason said his little bag didn't bother him AT ALL so he will carry my book from now on and perhaps we can take turns with that.

We will try this again tomorrow and then slightly shorter runs on Thursday (4.25 mi) and Friday (3.8 mi). Whee!!!

Musings on Sunday's run

I think Leah did a better job than I ever could of describing our great 6 mile run on Sunday. I will just add that it was wonderful to get back out there and that Chicago's Lakefront path is as good as it gets and it is probably at its best in early November.

But while running, I couldn't help but think some thoughts (it's what I do). One of the things I thought of during our run was how differently everyone runs. Granted, there weren't exactly throngs of people to look at on this particular rainy Sunday morning, but everyone we passed was just a bit different.

There was the girl who ran as if she either was nursing an injury or had one leg shorter than the other. Whatever it was, it gave the appearance that she had more control over one side of her body than the other. Then there was another guy who ran very deliberately and heavily, as if each step was a big commitment and he wanted to be absolutely sure of it. And, of course, the 50 year old super run who blew past us with his perfect form. I hate that guy.

Just to be clear, I'm not judging. I have nowhere near perfect form. Leah has, in my opinion, nearly perfect form. She holds her arms at the perfect angle, takes nice, clean strides, and doesn't bounce very much (especially when we run faster). And when she sprints, it is a thing of beauty. She is a real runner and a natural runner. I just picked this sport up later in life, so I have a few flaws in my form that I doubt I will correct anytime soon.

The main thing that I would like to correct is my arm angle. Mainly this is an aesthetic thing, as I think the race photos look better when I don't hold my arms up high. I've heard it helps with the running, too, but that's really just a side benefit of looking good. Maybe a picture would help. I run like this most of the time:

But when I get tired, my form really can go to a bad place. My arms get much higher...which would be good in boxing, but less ideal in running. Unfortunately, I've been known to get tired in races and then those arms start climbing...and then invariably a picture is taken. For example:

I think I've gotten a lot better about this in the past half year or so. I didn't really notice this happening during the marathon. Like they say, everyone has a different running style and different things work for different people. I'm not really concerned about having the "perfect form" or anything along this lines as long as I can run far. I just hope it doesn't go to the bad place anymore.

Too Many Meetings

So our plan was to run 3 or so miles this morning before coming into work. That of course was before there was a new "task force" created here at work which apparently I need to be a part of even though it has NOTHING to do with my thesis topic which I am just NOW getting to work on. These meetings are going to be at 8:30 or 9am on Monday mornings and Monday evenings I play volleyball at work which in the end makes for about a 12 hour day. AUGH!!!!

I love the concept of the "task force" being created now when the problem the force is addressing is a problem that has been around for years. That's what you get working for an organization that is a part of the Department of Energy....lots of task forces....not a lot of things accomplished execpt more meetings and more discussing.

Talk amongst yourselves...i'll give you a topic....

I'll update the blog tomorrow when we get home from running home from the train (very exciting!) Then this week we will run Tue, Wed, Thur, Fri and Sunday.

4 Weeks Later

Today is 4 weeks after the Chicago marathon. Wow, it doesn't seem like it was that long ago. I think that running that race has made a huge impact on my life and has absolutly changed the way I want to live it. Jason and I have already planned on running 4 races next year instead of just two and we will be taking a much more intense attitude toward the training by incorporating speed/hill work and in general running more miles per week.

Today was also the NYC marathon and we went out for our 6 mile run and was thinking about all the excitement that must be happening 1000 miles east of us. Remember standing and just waiting for the race to start and looking at all the people around us. Crazy. We have been following a fellow debut marathoner in his quest to run a marathon and was running the NYC marathon today. I just checked the tracker and he finished in 4:43. Congrats Danny!

Our 6 mile run followed roughly this route. We ended at the Jewel though instead of our apartment because we needed a few things for our traditional big Sunday breakfast. We tried to run this route about a week and a half after the marathon and made it about 3 miles. Felt awesome today however and finished with my usual little sprint :-) I have been listening to music again via my ipod shuffle and realized how much I missed it while training for the marathon. Although I do think it's imporant to get out there and listen to nature and your feet hitting the pavement, I also think it's way fun to get Jon Bon Jovi's Shot Through the Heart jammin in your ears.

This week we will attempt our running home from the train station and was happy to get through 6 miles today since we will need to do that tuesday and wednesday. Here are some plots from the week tracking our progress, these can also been seen under the Running Progress link on the upper right.

Slow And Steady

Today we got up at 6am and were out running by about 6:40 or so. Felt "ok". not bad. not great. I think my legs didn't even wake up until about 2 miles into the run. We ran our favorite "less than 4" route. It was good though that we got up and got the run done because this evening we are going to our friends house and so wouldn't be able to get the run in during the evening and then tomorrow morning I wanted to go to the gym and play racquetball and lift some weights before Jason's shift starts at 10am. My cousin is coming to hang out with us tomorrow, so if we wanted to get in 4 running days this week it had to be in the morning. It totally helps me get up and out of bed if I realize that there will be no other time that I can get that run in. It's a great feeling too I think being able to accomplish something (even if it is a stupid 3.8 mile run) when you don't exactly want to because your are nice and comfy in bed :-)

So this weekend marks 4 weeks after the marathon and so next week will add some intensity into our runs. We will try and run 5 days a week instead of 4 and will try and up the distance. I am thinking something like this :

• M : am 3.8 miles
• T : pm 6 miles
• W : pm 6 miles
• Tuesday and Wednesday we will be trying this new idea to run home from the train station. We'll see how it works out
• R : OFF
• F : 3.8 miles
• S : OFF
• S : 6 or 7
  

This will put our weekly distance at about 25 miles, which isn't too shabby. This week should end up at about 17.8 miles, so it might be a bit much of an increase but we will just see how we feel and alter it accordingly if we feel the need.

Too Many SweetTarts

As Jason mentions below our run yesterday was quick and awesome. We ran this route which is 4.34 miles. However we have a big bowl of halloween candy left over, your various assortments of sweet tarts, tootsie rolls, twizzlers and laffy taffys. I was snacking on said candies when we got home from work before we went running and oh was I feeling it in my belly about 1.5 miles into the run. I was able to keep up the pace though even with the rumblings in my tummy, but for future note

Less sweet tarts = better run.

I like running fast

Or rather, I like running "fast." I mean, it's fast to me, but to your average Kenyan it's sleeping. Which is the perfect segue given that we ran last night way past my bedtime. By the time we got home the Daily Show was on. The Daily Show. That's on, like, at 10!

PM!

But yes, it's true, we woke up a bit late on Wednesday morning and so our morning run was relegated to the night. And we were smokin' fast last night! It just feels really good to do more than simply plod on, gathering miles like wild flowers (yes, I just wrote that. No, I'm not proud). And it seems to be easier on the joints. I think if you run faster you run smoother and there is less bouncing and joint-jarring. Of course, the pain in the lungs goes up quite a bit, but I think this will be reduced by the future speed-work that we plan on working into our training.

But, in general, it just totally rocks to be out of training and able to pick up the pace a bit.

(Now if I can just take another minute off of last night's pace, I'll be able to qualify for Boston. Boston's evil.)

Running Teyemas

I just found out that my three cousins, Scottie, Erik and Lisa are also going to plan on running the Indianapolis half marathon in May. This should make the race even more fun. I have never run a race where other people I knew (except for Jason) were running also.

Go Go Welty-Rieger-Teyema Team ( yes i am just that nerdy!)

Carting Books

I am trying to find an easy way that Jason and I could get our books home from the train station while running (as per my commuting idea talked about below). I found this little pack online and it might be just right since it sits on your lower back, but it is small. Would it hold two small paperbacks even?

It will be quite the change to carry anything because we have never carried fuel belts or anything like that. The other idea I had would be to find shirts that are similar (or exactly) like the ones bikers wear that have the big pocket in the lower back, used usually I am assuming to hold food and what not. I am wondering if the size of this pocket however is the perfecct size for a paperback.

Any other suggestions?

7 Continents?

I think it would be pretty cool to have run marathons on 7 different continents (for those counting, that would be all the continents). Sure, it would require a decent travel budget, but if you spread it out enough it would just be a great way to travel and see the world. This seems like a great idea, but one of those continents is Antarctica.

And that would be one brisk marathon.

Take a look as the Antarctica Marathon page. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that they are the only marathon that advertises with an iceberg. To be honest, though, the running conditions don't sound all that bad. 15-30 degrees Fahrenheit is not all that cold, especially if you train in Chicago.

I'm guessing this is a small field, though, which I think would make it that much more difficult. However, it is in freakin' Antarctica, and I think it sounds like fun.

All penguins are welcome.

Call Me Crazy

This morning we ran 3.88 miles and felt pretty good. Got up at 6:15am (like I promised myself I would) and were running by about 6:35 or so. It was cool out but a really beautiful morning. I took my ipod shuffle which used to have really really really awesome songs on. So I recently reloaded it with different songs only to find that it was replaced with very very very slow songs. Gotta do something about that as at the end of the run I had to keep pushing past songs. But all in all the run went really well.

So why can you call me crazy? Here's my new idea.

Jason and I live in Chicago but work in Batavia which is about an hour drive away. So we have two drivers so it's not all that bad, but it can get repetative after awhile. Last summer while training for the marathon Jason and I would ride our bikes downtown and take a train out to batavia, and then drive from there to work. It was great during the summer because our car didn't have air conditioning and it was a nice change of pace and we read on the train and so on. On the other hand, we were exhausted because were biking about 12 miles a day (which i know is not a lot) but then also training for the marathon. So we would get home and then have to run and it just got to be too much.

So here's my new idea. This keeps our cost of travel per week about the same, but changes things up a bit and lets us get training runs in simply. So here is the schedule

• Monday : Run in the AM, drive to work and back (as usual)
• Tuesday : Drive to work in AM take Metra downtown after work BUT RUN HOME FROM HERE!
• Wednesday : Take the el downtown, Metra to work, Metra back downtown RUN HOME
• Thursday : Take el downtown, metra to work, drive home. Perhaps an running off day
• Friday : Work from home and run whenever.
  

So its about 5.5 miles downtown from our apartment. So we get home and get our training run done AT THE SAME TIME. I love to multitask. Plus if we wanted to go farther than this distance we could always switch up the run and run along the lake or whatever instead of city streets.

We would only do this schedule if we weren't in some training program for a race. Right now that is looking like the rest of this month, December, January and then maybe June. We would have to be hyper organized with clothing and how do we get our books that we read on the train home in the afternoons while running (small backpack???) But we will start to try it out next week and see how it goes and we'll update the system on the blog.

Getting back into it

I'm excited to be getting back into running on a full-time basis. After the marathon, we sort of had to back off from running and let our legs recover. However, as the weeks pass, the distance gets to slowly creep up.

What I'm really hoping for is that on Sunday we can do this really nifty 6.0 mile loop. The thing about the loop that is cool is that we stay right on the shore of Lake Michigan rather than taking the inside part of the lakefront path. And in the fall, if you run along the shore in the afternoon, it is quite spectacular. On an overcast November day, the water is a very cold, grey color and the tide is high so the waves come crashing up in a very dramatic fashion. It is like running in a movie (except that, I suppose, in a movie you would probably be chased by Vikings while you ran or something like that. Luckily there are very few Vikings along the Lakefront path).

Of course, it wasn't so nice the last time we tried to run it. A couple Sundays ago, we tried this loop without pre-measuring it...who knew it was so far? Well, our legs certainly knew the distance and right around the 3.5 mile marker they made their opinion known. It was like hitting a wall and all of a sudden our legs started hurting everywhere. And so we had to walk the last 2.5 miles which, on a normal day, wouldn't be a big deal. However, it was about 45 degrees out and the wind was gusting up over 20 mph. Let's just say this wonderful, movie-set like running loop didn't have the Hollywood ending.

I'm hoping, then, that we really are back to the point where we can start doing some nice, longish runs (without having to trudge back home, shivering in the wind). I understand that taking time to recover is important, but running less than 4 miles every run gets old after awhile. After all, half the fun of running a marathon is getting to reply to the question "what did you do today" with a shrug and a casual "oh, we just ran 10 miles."

All Minied up

Jason and I just signed up to run the Indianapolis Mini Marathon on May 6, 2006. We ran this in 2004 and was the first major race that we competed in (and by competed I mean ran in as we aren't exactly competative). Our finishing time was 1:57 and our goal for this year is 1:50. The last time we trained for this we didn't run that many miles during the week and didn't do any speedwork. However, we were training in Bloomington, IN and so all of our training runs were on hilly roads. So hopefully this year with more experience, and some speed work we'll be able to drop the time a little bit. This was such a fun race so I am looking foward to running it again! Plus now I have the fear of the upcoming race and so have to keep on my training schedule.

Weekly update

Above are the updated plots of our workouts this week.

I didn't really feel like runninng this afternoon after the crazy weekend that we had. But we ran 3.87 miles and actually felt good during the whole thing.

This week we will start these shifts at work that are 10am-6pm everyday. This will continue for 3 weeks and then a week off and then another 2 weeks. This will be a tad annoying but I think it'll be good because it will force us to be regulated with our schedules and hence make workouts stay regular.

Halloween Aftermath

What a weekend! With all of our marathon training for the past many many months we have not gone out like that in a long time. On Friday we had our work halloween party and it ended up being a blast! I was worried at the beginning because there were not that many people there, but as time went on and kegs got emptied I realized it was quite the exiciting party. Yesterday we went out to dinner with our friends Corey and Danny and then went to my friend Becki's halloween party which was pretty fun. Both nights we went to bed around 3:30. Yowza. We are going to attempt a run after the Bears game. We'll see.

The First Marathoner

Everyone knows the story of the original marathoner, right? This guy, Pheidippides, ran from Athens to Marathon to deliver a message of victory over the Persians...and then promptly died.

And then 2000 years later later, apparently because it went so well the first time, hundreds of thousands of people re-enact his dead march every year by entering in various 26.2 mile runs which we'll call "marathons".

Doesn't it seem strange that the guy dies after just one of these races and yet people will do this every year. I think so too.

Anyway, in case you are wondering where I am going with this, that's my costume. I'll have a toga (we'll pretend that's what the Greeks wore...close enough, anyway), my race number ("1" in this case) and "Go Pheidippides" down my arms. And, of course, socks and my running shoes. I'm the original marathoner! Or, I'm a drunk frat guy at a toga party...I'm cool with either costume.

And yes, there will be pictures.

Halloween

Well tonight there is a biggish halloween party here at work. Since I am on the party planning committee I was semi in charge of getting this thing up and running, hence I have to have a costume. So Jason and I went to our local thrift store last night to try and come up with something. Here are some ideas we had

• high school king/queen of the prom (they had old ridiculous prom dresses)
• dead bride (groom)
• trashyiest couple ever....
• disco queen

But then I saw the many many racks of 80's clothes and knew what I had to do. First of all, the only reason that these clothes exist is because someone bought them 20 years ago and thought they were the coolest thing ever. So I found a pair of stone washed jeans with....wait for it.....black lace patches all over it. Oh yes I did. I could barely get my foot through the bottoms of these things because they are so tapered. So I had the pants now what. Oh that's right. I found an orange mesh tube top. excellent. So I plan on going crazy with big hair, side pony tail (with scrunchi and everything), nice dark eye make up, hot pink, blue and green socks (layered of course), big earrings......ahhh the fashion of my childhood.

What were people thinking? I'll post pictures from the party tomorrow.

As far as running. Will run tomorrow and sunday to keep the weekly runs at 4 days a week right now.

Reflections on Two Years of Barefoot Running

Reflections on Two Years of Barefoot Running:

This guy runs barefoot. So at first I thought that he must live somewhere warm to do this. Nope. He lives in Kansas City and says that he runs in all weather INCLUDING SNOW!!

That's insane. I have real problem with cold toes in the winter, I can't imagine shedding my shoes. yowza.

Fun Run

Today's run went really well. As Leah mentions below, we just ran through the city along the sidewalks. But it was really nice to get out there and not know the distance, not know the time, and not feel sore. Before, on all our runs (post-marathon), something had hurt. One day it was my shins, another day I couldn't breath, and every day my knees hurt. So it was very refreshing to get out there and not have to worry about pain or breathing. It seems that we are finally recovering from the marathon.

It is nice not being in training. I had forgotten what it was like to just run for running's sake. You might say, those runs are "fun runs" (which, coincidentally enough, is the title of this post).

Pretty soon we will start building up the milage again, but for now it is alright just knocking off 3-4 miles at a time.

Perfect Speed

Today we ran before we came into work and I thought it would be fun to run through the neigborhood instead of over to the lakefront path because we have spent the last 3 months on the lakefront path, so change is good. We left around 7:45 and felt good the whole way. I have been having a pain in the muscles in the backs of my legs but it only hurt at the beginning and stopped as I continued. When we left I was a little worried because there was a lot of lights along the way, but as the title of this posts states apparently we ran the perfect speed because we made ALL of the lights. (ok except one...but still good!) So in the end the loop was 4.25 miles, so it totally is starting to feel like we are back to normal....well almost (or were we ever normal?)

Screwed up Sleeping

Last week Jason and I slept less than ideal hours. We would sleep like 4 hours a night and then I would not be able to fall asleep the next night and so another 4 hours and so on. We had a wonderfully relaxng weekend with lots of sleeping and napping and so on. The problem comes when we start a new week of work and want to get up early and on it.

I guess I should mention that Jason and I are graduate students working towards a PhD in physics (we aren't that nerdy.....except that we are) but the point is that we don't have to keep any certain hours. We live in Chicago but work at Fermi National Laboratory which is in Batavia, IL. To try and dodge traffic and be able to run in the winter when there is very little daylight we like to try and work very early. Leaving home ~5:30am and getting home around 4pm. So this is fine except when Sunday night comes and now I can't sleep because I had a wonderful weekend of rest and then I have to get up at 4:30 in the morning, it just doesn't happen.

I HAVE TO GET MORE SLEEP or at least be more regulated about it. I would like to get 6 hours a night and then a bit more on the weekends.

Another note of interest. I played a lot with excel last night trying to make a graph that is useful/interesting. So above the "contributers" on the right hand side is a now a link called Running Progress, you can click here and see the graph change on a daily basis. I am going to then just always include this on my Sunday evening posts. So here is the newest version of "runner tracker". The yellow shows the distance ran that day. The purple is the weekly sum of the distances (I will eventuall include a marker of some kind signifying the end of a week) and the green is a sum of the yearly distance. Physics Nerd to the rescue. My entire purpose as a graduate student is to make many many (many) different kind of plots, so that experience helped a bit here.

Nails and Notes

My unbelievably disgusting fourth toenail has finally fallen off. Seriously, that thing was one of the worst things I have ever encountered (visually speaking...it didn't hurt that bad). It wasn't just that the nail was black, but also most of the toe around the nail was black. It was 90% blood-clot, 10% toe (which isn't the ratio I usually shoot for).

But, anyway, it's gone now and my toe now looks like it has a little alien head on the end of it. Still gross, but in a different way.

Now the Big Toe nail is about 50% off. I think it is going to get the axe tonight.

From now on I'll be going by 8 Toes Jason or, if you prefer, Ol' Eight Toes.

In other news, Leah and I went to the gym last night and worked out on the elliptical machines (no, I don't just pick at my toes). This was an experiment for me, as the last time I tried these machines was in college, and I definitely didn't much enjoy the experience. It just doesn't come naturally to me. According to Leah, when I try to use the elliptical, my upper body is completely rigid and I stick my ass all the way out. Much like Michael Flatley, Lord of the Dance, nothing moves except my legs. Suffice to say, this is a somewhat embarassing experience and one I am still trying to live down.

But yesterday was much better. I was going to be comfortable, dammit, or die trying. And so I managed to complete 30 minutes on the elliptical without making a complete ass of myself.

We also worked out and lifted many heavy objects. I'm huge now.

Weekly Milage

I am trying this new thing where I keep track graphically of how our runs are going. I don't know exactly how to do this quite yet. But for now, I just have our progress last week. This graph shows our additive distance each day. This is good because then the last day is our total distance for the week. Maybe somehow on top of this I can show the actual distance we ran each day....or how we do on a week by week basis. So stay tuned for more progress on this front

Today we walked to the gym an then did the stupid boring elliptical machines for 30minutes. The back of my knee has been royally bothering me lately and didn't want to push it. So 2 miles of walking to and from the gym and then ...

***side comment from Jason***
"My big toe isn't going to be around much longer either"
(he just pulled off his 4th toenail. It's totally gross)
*****************************

...I guess the machine calculates how much distance you do and it was 2.7 miles. Then we lifted weights and ended with some situps.

Sunday Run

Well we are still in the process of slowly getting back into the running. We went for a Sunday run, but went at 12:30 pm instead of our usual summer 6:00 am start time. Here's the route. I think we probably went a little fast, I didn't time it but was breathing pretty hard by the end of it. I'm so happy that we are out there running again so soon after the marathon. I want to really try and make sure we keep up with it so that we can be in really good shape when we start training for our next races. We have a tenative plan of trying to get more races in next year and so far it looks like this is our plan:

1. Shamrock Shuffle - Chicago, IL
   
2. Indy Mini Marathon - Indianapolis, IN
   
3. 3 Rivers 12 K - Fort Wayne, IN
4. Chicago Marathon - Chicago, IL

We'll see if these happen. I know that the indy mini fill in fast so we would have to sign up fast. I do think that being signed up for races keeps up the training morale. So I would like to try and make it a common thing.

Almost a little bit better

This week has been bad for the sleep thing. Jason and I have gotten like 4 hours of sleep each night and so yesterday we were so tired when we got home. But running is totally a part of our routine and so we jumped into some running clothes and we were off. I love this running after the marathon stuff, no distance, no routres, no timing. Just getting outside in the crisp Fall air and moving the legs. So I wanted to do this route. Obviously I was not really thinking about the distance, but was just anxious to get outside an enjoy the weather and the lakefront. Ok so I also didn't take into account how chilly it was going to be when I stopped running. The back of my knee was bothering me and so we started walking after we got water. There is no need to push through pain now that there is no race coming up.

On the way back home we ran into Steve and Marilyn who are friends of my dad's. (Steve was also my AP english teacher!) So after chatting with them awhile we were about a mile from the house and freezing. So we walked fast and got home.

This is a great loop for future referance though.

Well now what?

So the title of this blog is Marathon Running.....but the marathon is over now. Well FOR now anyways. We had such a great time not only running the actual event but all the training that led up to it we are planning on running another marathon next year....probably Chicago again since we live here and it freakin' rocks.

So now what?

We took a full week off from running. I was going crazy because it's hard going from training 4-5 days a week for 10 months to nothing. But I was good and took the time off. We are just going to get back into it slowly. Our race plans include The Shamrock Shuffle in Chicago and perhaps the Indianapolis 1/2 marathon. We'll see.

As far as training. On Monday we ran to the gym, worked out and ran back home. It was so HARD. The running was alright, except that I was out of breath...wtf. Then at the gym they have this machine where you can do assited dips and pullups and I used a lot of assitance and my muscles were basically done after that. Did a few more machines, some situps and then ran back home. I am going to put the hardness of monday on the fact that we are still in recovery....yeah that's it........

We will try the same workout today and see how it goes.

Jason's Race Report

Sorry this is so late. The race was such a big deal that I wanted to write a really nifty race report that was carefully crafted and well thought out. While those are lovely intentions, it really just ended up being something that is likely to never get finished. This needs to get written, however, as we are now in a whole new stage of our running and it is time to move on.

With that...

The Race Report

Phase 1: Jason Feels good

I was a little surprised at the start of this race. When Leah and I ran the Indianapolis Half Marathon, I can remember standing in my start corral doubting my readiness. I believe my actual thoughts as they fired the start gun in Indy were: "Wait, we can't start yet, what if I'm not ready?!?" It wasn't just that I was worried about my running shape, but I was worried that maybe I did something wrong and didn't tie my shoes tight enough or would have to pee. In Chicago, I didn't have any of those fears (although, as it turns out, I should have). I felt mostly ready to start and wasn't especially concerned about how far we had to go before we crossed the finish line. This lack of fear and nervousness is really suprising given what I know of myself.

The first mile went amazingly fast. It seemed like we went down a little hill, under a bridge, and then *boom*, the first mile marker. That was a great feeling and made me feel like this marathon thing would be a breeze (note to self: respect the distance, dammit!!) . We saw our intrepid crew of spectators for the first time shortly after and that was all a blur. I saw Scott and Sue at the front and then the only other person I saw was Leah's Aunt Donna as I hurled my long sleeve t-shirt at her face (sorry about that). We just passed them so quickly I couldn't take everyone in. I made a mental note to make sure I made contact with my niece the next time we saw her so that she wouldn't be disappointed.

After the first, the miles really just melted away for awhile. As we passed through downtown and headed north, I was really pleased to find that my legs felt pretty decent and I didn't have to work out too many kinks. I was just completely absorbed in the enormity of the event and the shear volume of people watching me run. Honestly, it was a little surreal. Before I knew it, I was approaching our neighborhood. One of my favorite memories from the race was running up Sheridan and running directly alongside the running path where we did all of our training. I felt like I should cross the road and hopped on the path (I didn't, though).

Around mile 6 or 7 I became very aware of the fact that Leah and I hadn't been talking much during this run. She had mentioned some knee stiffness but hadn't said much beyond that and so I was hoping that she was doing alright. Conversation wasn't really an option, however, as I was just too overwhelmed to have any intelligent thoughts or the ability to form words.

The next encounter with our spectator team was at mile 8-ish. They positioned themselves on the wall at the corner of Addison and Broadway and this time we spotted them in time for me to see everyone. We both waved like maniacs and I shouted my niece's name as she was perched on my Dad's shoulders. And then they were gone and we were running up Broadway, a street we'd been down hundreds of times before.

There were an unbelievable number of spectators lining the streets of the North side including dancing drag queens and men dressed as cheerleaders. It was an amazing amount of fun. The crowd carried us for awhile but around mile 11 or 12 Leah started to get a little down as she mentioned in her report below. I wanted to try and help since I was feeling good, but I still had the little problem of being unable to form sentenced. The best advice I could give was to note that if we kept going, the miles would just go away. Apparently, it worked, so that makes me happy. Sometime between mile 11 and 16 it got quiet and I got a little desperate for some conversation, so I shared the only thought I had been having for the past 3 miles or so. My "conversation starter": "Hey, you know what I've been thinking about for the last half hour? Bob Loblaw." If that makes no sense, say it out loud (if it still doesn't make sense, say it faster). Don't blame me, it's from a TV show.

Anyway, mile 16 was long but that was really the only tough mile before mile 20. I started to drag a bit at mile 20 but I knew that in the 21-22 mile range we would have more spectators. And sure enough, first we saw our good friend Corey and her little baby at 21 and then at mile 22 we saw our road crew again. What you can't tell from reading these race reports is how absolutely amazing the road crew was. They were the best part of the race (except maybe the finishing part). But then we passed them, and the only thing between us and the end was lots of pavement.

At some point, I can't pinpoint exactly when, my quad started to go bad. I actually think it was at mile 18, but I'm not sure. Anyway, one spot on my quad tightened up badly and I could feel it with every stride. It sort of felt like it was going to burst out of my leg at some point and I was a little concerned, although I knew Leah had gone through the same thing in training and had survived. If she ran 6 weeks with this problem, then I could run 6 miles.

Phase 2: Jason goes Bye-Bye

Remember that "respect the distance" thing I mentioned earlier? Well, I respect it fully now, because it is a long, long way to go and I felt it all at the end. I'm not sure what changed, but my breathing started to get a bit ragged around mile 22 or so. Leah claims she never heard me breathing, but it was loud and clear in my head. Except the clear part, that's not true. It was loud and wheezy in my head. I was a little worried. Never in any of my long training runs did I run out of breath. The problems always involved leg, back, or shoulder aches and pains, but never breathing. I think it may have been caused by the quad thing as those nagging pains can be very distracting and make the running seem harder than it actually is. Regardless of the cause, I was worried. For the first time, I started to be very concerned that I wouldn't be finishing the race without walking a significant portion of it (which I very much didn't want to do). This, however, was also the point where Leah started to feel much better and kept on running like a pro. My only goal in this race was to finish with Leah, and so I was going to have to keep running as well. Oh God.

Phase 3: Thank God Leah kept running, because I died somewhere back there

Mile 23: Man, only 3 miles to go, this is the distance that I always say is easy if you can get there because then one mile later there are only 2 miles to go and anyone can run 2 miles. As it turns out, this is complete and total bullshit. The only actual thought going through my head at mile 23 was how I would never make it and that the thought of running 2 more miles once I got to the next mile marker...well, that's just stupid. There was absolutely no way that I could run 3 more miles, but Leah just kept on running, and so I did too.

That's the nice thing about running: it's easy. You just put one foot in front of the other.

Mile 24: I want to walk. We very briefly pause to walk at an aid station, but it is not as long as I was planning. However, Leah is saying that we are almost done and wants to press on, and so do I. I really don't want to let on to how badly I'm doing. I never, ever like to be the one to slow us down. The spectators mock me with cries of "You're almost there, you can do it." Actually, no, I'm not almost done and I can't make it; clearly you are mistaken. I know I shouldn't feel this way, but it just seems so far and I am basically dead. Right now I owe everything to Leah. She is the only reason I'm still running.

Mile 25: We cross the 25 mile marker and I know that I should feel relief. After all, there are only 1.2 miles to go and so we are practically done. However, I don't feel that way. Part of the problem is that we are still in the numbered street and I know we have to get to Roosevelt, but in my head the numbered streets have to go all the way to zero before I get to Roosevelt. This is not actually the case, and of course it doesn't matter because a mile is a mile, but right now logic is not my friend. Logic is for people who can breath.

Mile 25.2: The "One Mile Left" marker!!!!! Only 2 minutes have passed between the 25 and 25.2 mile marker, but it seems so different. I know I can run a mile because it becomes a half mile so quickly and then a quarter mile, and then done. We are cruising now and passing all the people who went out too fast and are now walking. The crowd is screaming all around us and we are going to make it! In a couple more minutes we will be marathoners! We start to approach Roosevelt and I can see the runners starting to make the turn and head up the hill. I know at the top of the hill is the 26 mile marker and then, of course, the finish line. We make the turn and hey! This hill's not that bad. We surge past dozens of walkers and make it halfway up the hill when we spot our road crew again! Hey, they made it! A little extra surge and we reach the 26 mile marker. The finish line is in sight. All I can think is "Come on finish, please hurry" and "you're almost there, don't stop now."

Mile 26.2: We made it. Alright then, I'm ready to sit down.

And a half hour later I finally do get to sit down.

This was probably the most amazing thing I have ever down. I know it was the hardest. But we both made it and crossed the finish line together. Leah and I made a great team as I felt good for the first 20 miles, and she felt good for the last 6.2. Running partners don't come much better.

Walking a little funny

Well it's all over and we did it! We finished in 4 hours 20 minutes, which was our exact goal! How about that! I wanted to write a really long detailed post about how I felt during the race, before the race after the race but it was all so exciting and crazy that it's hard to recollect any of it!

At the beginning I think we should have warmed up and stretched a little bit more...as in at all. It was a bit cold and we were in the pens with about 40 minutes to go. We probably could have warmed up and stretched at the location we chose in the pen. This might have proved useful later on in the race. We started talking to some other newbies next to us who also seemed a little on edge. Then we started moving forward and slowly but surely the starting gates got closer.

Oh my gosh and then we are running and there are millions of people around us, on the course, on the sidelines cheering us on. I am in awe of how many other crazy people have decided to run this race. Almost immediately I see someone wearing a Maine East high school sweatshirt, which is my alma mater. I scream at him, "Hey Maine East! I went there, that was my high school" He smiled and waved and probably thought that I was only a little crazy.

A little bit after our first mile we see our family and friends wearing all red with big red signs that say, "Go Leah, Go Jason....." I start jumping and running and trying to get their attention, we run right in front of them and throw our long sleeve t-shirts at them and we are on our way to more miles.

We run the loop downtown and I am amazed. It's about 8:30 in the morning on a Sunday, the streets are not only packed, but music is BLASTING through the streets of downtown Chicago. It's unbelievable. I am overwhelmed with everything.

We start to head north and as we continue in this direction we start to run in more and more familiar territory. We run by Lincoln Park Zoo, and then I really know where we are because we are running right next to the Lake front path, which I have run on thousands of times. I know this area by heart. All of a sudden we are at Addison Av and I know to start looking for our family and friends. There are literally thousands of people at the corner of Addison and Broadway all screaming and cheering and wait, there is the family. Run by and say hi, grab some candy from them and we are gone.

We continue up Broadway and the road we are running on looks like something out of a TV commercial. The road is packed with runners, the spectators have moved in on the street and are going crazy. Wow. I really can't get over how many spectators there were at this point in the race.

We get to mile 10 and all of a sudden I realize that my knee is starting to get a little stiff. Great I think, I am only at mile 10 and my leg is starting to hurt. We go another mile, stop for some Gatorade walking through the stand a few steps. Alright we are back on it. I realize that we are not yet half way, my legs hurt and I start to get a little negative. We keep moving forward and wait, we are near mile 12 where is the family. Oh there are the red signs, run near them and wave!!!! Can't believe they made it back south to see us.

Alright, almost halfway now. There is the sign, check my watch. It's take 2:07 to get here. If we can keep this pace we'll make the 4:15 goal we had set. But my legs are killing me. We keep going, get to the Gatorade stand at 15 miles and walk through it. One of the volunteers says, "Now the slow ones come...." and I yell back, "HEY, we aren't slow we're fantastic!!!!" Everyone around me cheers. Alright, back on the running thing. But I have to stretch my legs. Alright, Alright. Legs stretched. Break is over. 10 miles to go. Let's get on it. I tell Jason that this is horrible and I'm never doing this again. He says, listen if we just keep running the miles will come and go and we'll be done. I think, well of course. So we stay on it.

At mile 18 there is a stand for some of this power gel stuff. I look for the tangerine flavor because I remember that this one is double caffeinated and thought it might help my brain. I take the top off it and push some of the most awfully gross goop into my mouth. YUCK. I quickly get to the water stand and take some water to get the taste out of my mouth. I realize I should have taken all of the goop right before the water, because then maybe itwouldn't have been that bad. Oh well. Time to keep going.

We get to mile 20. Well this is what it's all about right. This is the part that you train for. So now I get my mind into finishing mode and I'm on it. All of a sudden I hear my name and I see my best friend Corey and her Husband and baby. I peel to the side to give her a hug. I can't believe that she found us in the crowd. Total boost of energy hits me and we are on it. There is mile 21 we are about to enter china town. Wait Wait there are some red signs. Wave at the family and grab some candy. One bite of snickers bar, and then some Gatorade at the next stop. Getting close now.

The miles start peeling off for me at this point. Mile 22, 4 miles to go. I remember when we were training and every time we would get to the point where there was 4 miles to go I would say, "anyone can run 4 miles". I had this distance photocopied in my brain. I knew I could do it now.

We come up on Sox Park and I know this is as far south as we will have to go. Mile 23.

Mile 24!!!! I realize that when we get to the next mile marker there will only be one mile to go. There it is. Mile 25. Right after this is a sign that says, One Mile to Go.

I can feel it now. The girl in front of us says this is it; this is what she has been training for the past year. The crowds are huge, everyone is screaming. We make the turn onto Roosevelt, and then turn onto Columbus; there it is the Finish Line. I hear someone screaming my name. It's my Dad. I can't believe he made it to the finish line. Jason and I grab hands and cross the line.

I am overwhelmed just thinking about it again and apparently I do remember a lot about the race. Just had to get it all sorted out.

I am proud of us for keeping the same pace throughout the race. I know that our first 3 miles were at 10 minute miles, and I am guessing some of the middle ones were faster or slower. But we only walked when we got Gatorade or water. We didn’t walk at all if not at one of these stands. The aid stops are so crowded anyways, and crazy and slippery that there was no real need to run through them and bounce Gatorade all over yourself. At the end many of the people that had passed us earlier in the race were walking and we were running by them. That made me so proud of us for sticking through it all the way!

I have to thank our family and friends for being there for us. Their support helped us get through the race in ways they can never understand. Thanks you guys!

I CAN'T WAIT TO RUN AGAIN AND START TRAINING FOR NEXT YEAR.

looks like I got the bug.

Okay, I really should post here too. I've been pretty preoccupied with trying to hide this face from the world:

:-o

whenever I think about this weekend (as Leah sums up below nicely). My fingernails are pretty much all gone and I've been very jittery recently (especially my legs). Other than that, I'm just really excited about the idea of the race and eager to get it on. Let's get this party started already!!

holy crap it's almost here

The marathon is this weekend. THIS weekend. Did everyone hear me right? THIS WEEKEND.

I am so so so so nervous. All of the runs recently have been going really well. We ended up running Saturday morning instead of Friday night because we stayed at the Lab to help with a volleyball tournament. That run went alright. Saturday evening we had a wedding to go to and probably danced a little too much as woke up with slightly sore feet.....i know i know how stupid. But we ran our 8 mile run in the evening and it went alright although it was raining really hard at the start.

We will run wed/thur/fri this week with distances of 3/4/2. I want to try and sleep as much as possible on Friday night because I don't know how much sleeping i'll get done on Saturday.

After the race we are going to our friends Kay and Gary's house for an after marathon party. We will just go straight there from the race and shower and all that good stuff there. Thank you to them for having everyone over. And early apologies if I fall asleep while talking to you ;-)

Other non-running related news. I was elected to the Graduate Student Association at Fermi Lab....so perhaps I can form some running clubs or something through that.

Can't wait to run

Yesterday we ran 6 miles and again felt good. Felt fast! Again for the first time in a long time the runs are not dragging along with nothing to focus on except the various pains in the body.

So I can't wait to run my 3 miles this afternoon.

Ran in the new shoes and they felt really good. So bouncy! I'll keep track of the milages on these shoes as well as keeping up with the old ones. I don't think the old shoes are quite dead so I might keep these in use for short runs and so on.

Go Go Manager of Fleet Feet

Earlier this morning I had e-mail the Fleet Feet chicago people about the horrible service I receieved at their store.

I just wanted to note that the manager of the store wrote me back apologizing and explaining the situation in more detail. Perhaps this is the true sign of a good company and not how a couple of minions behaved.

Nice and Easy

We went 4 miles today and for the first time in a long time my legs felt good! Not only my legs, but it seems that running life has re-entered my body. For awhile my runs have been long and tedious and just ughhy.

I know it was only 4 miles today but still all of a sudden I was at the turn around point. The weather was super crappy too...windy and rainy.

Anyways, I am doing ok with the taper, but Jason and I are being VERY snappy with each other. I guess when you stop running lots of miles a week the extra energy has to go somewhere else.

Bad Bad Bad Service

I am appalled at the customer service I got at my local Fleet Feet running store yesterday evening.

At the beginning of last week I went into the Fleet Feet in Chicago on North Ave to buy my shoes for the marathon. I figured with 3 weeks left to go until the race, I would have plenty of time to get them. The store didn’t have either my husband’s or my size in the shoe we were looking for, so they said that they would order them for us. They had hubby’s at another local store so they said they would be at the store in two days. For my shoes, they had to order them and said it would take a week. So I went into the store a week later because my husband’s shoes had come in (although a week later not two days like they said!). I asked about my shoes and after many looks in the back and then telling me that they would be in on October 15th (yes this is a week after the marathon I am running in), then took a closer look at the card with my information on it and said, “Oh, we just put that order in yesterday” So I asked them why then last week they told me they would be in in a week. Cashier lady said, “Well, we put our orders in on Mondays, it’s not my fault”

And. That. Was. It.

No apologies, no helping to see what other options there could be. Just pointing the finger at someone else and looking at me like I was crazy for thinking that a specialty running shoe store would be as helpful as possible in getting in what I need. How could I want a new pair of shoes for the marathon, I mean what is wrong with me!

It was absolutely the worst costumer service I have ever received. I mean I wasn’t shopping at the local Sport Mart or Sports Authority where some 17 year old is just there to look cool. They are a specialty running store and they did nothing to try and please the customer. Instead they did everything to get me out of the store as fast as they could. I worked at the local Sport Mart when I was 15 and I am now currently a physics graduate student and I know better sales behavior. I mean, I’m sorry but how hard is it to please the runner. We love our stuff: shoes, shirts, shorts, watches, sunglasses and so on. A little bit of help goes a long way in my book. Now Fleet Feet has lost both my business and my husbands’ business. You do the math….shoes alone would have been roughly 600 dollars a year. Plus, who knows who else I can contact though the few channels that I know.

I am still out to find a better store and stopped by Universal Sole on Lincoln Ave and they seem to be on the task of finding the shoes I am looking for. Hopefully they will come through for me and get the shoes I am looking for so I don't have to run in shoes that will have way over 300 miles on them. This is a bad situation and I just want to warn those that read this site to try their best to find another shoe store so they don't have to have this kind of problem in the future.

*Update. I found three other running stores in Chicago that were very willing to help me out. I ended up finding the shoes I needed in my size at Running Away at 1753 N. Damen in Wicker Park. Just goes to show that Fleet Feet is not in fact the heaven of running stores and there are plenty of places to buy shoes. The people at Running Away were very friendly and so thanks to them for the help.

Taper Taper Taper Time

So as mentioned below we ran a 20 miler on Sunday and have started the taper. We walked about 3 miles on Monday (X-training) and then took Tuesday off. Yesterday we ran 5 miles and felt ok. Some miner pain twinges, but other than that things look ok.

We will run 8 miles tonight, then 4 tomorrow and 12 on Sunday.

I really wish that I could have gotten my marathon shoes earlier in the week. Hopefully everything works out alright and I'll be able to get them in time. A note about the milages on the shoes. The routes that Jason and I usually run end about 1 mile from our house, which we then walk home as a cool down. But I never add this 1 mile in on the shoes....so don't know if it matters but there is probably about an extra 40 miles on each of our pairs of shoes. Man those numbers are climbing. Come On Fleet Feet and get my shoes in!

Shoes?

So Leah and I went to get our OFFICIAL MARATHON SHOES from Fleet Feet, the lovely local running store. As it turns out, we weren't the only people to have this idea. Who would think, 3 weeks before the marathon, that everyone would try and get their OFFICIAL MARATHON SHOES?

(okay, everyone would think that...shut up)

To top it all off, both Leah and I wear Asics 2100's, one of the top selling shoes on the market. So, oddly enough, they were out of that particular shoe in our sizes. Damn.

Now I have to wait a few days and Leah has to wait a week to get our OFFICIAL MARATHON SHOES. Luckily shoes don't take very long to break in these days.

So anyway, here's a tip for anyone out there that hasn't gotten their shoes yet: GO GET YOUR SHOES.

And next year...pre-order.

Hey, I ran 20 miles too! I think I should talk about it.

Actually, Leah said it all. 20 miles is really, really far. It is really hard to head out from the house and keep going farther and farther out when you know you have to eventually comeback. And once you are 9.5 miles away from your end point, there is no choice. You simply have to finish because walking would be even worse (especially if you combine failure with pain). Btw, when I say walking, I mean for miles. We always walk a bit when we get gatorade or water. I'm very okay with this.

There was a lot of pain involved in this run. For the first 10-11 miles, my knees and ankle hurt most of the way. The knees are nothing big, just the usual runners knee. The ankle just hurt off and on for the first half. In the second half, all my joints stopped hurting (numb?) but then I found some new body parts. My hips started to get really sore as well as my feet and stuff. Not a big deal...20 miles is far. Stuff is going to hurt. But I just thought it was interesting that I had no two things hurt the same between the two halves of the run. I guess that is better than one, long, sustained soreness.

But the run went great and it was very exciting. I still felt I had plenty at the end and I finished running strong (so did Leah, if she didn't mention it below). One little concern: about an hour after the run, my ankle started to hurt pretty badly. It was very sore to walk on, probably a bit of tendonitis. So I rested it the rest of the day and iced it (And iced it. and iced it). The next day I iced it a bunch more and when I went for a walk it didn't hurt, so that's a good sign. I haven't tried to run on it yet, but I'm fairly confident that it won't be a problem.

Okay. 20 miles is the bag. Let's taper, baby!

20 miles whoo hoo

Well we did it. Yesterday we ran 20 miles. yowza!

We started at the ole' wayne manor and ran to the lake front path and then to about 2.5 miles south of the aquarium. This is far :-) It was so hard to be going, ok, we have to go more south now. At about 12 miles, it felt to me like we were in no mans land, but this guy came running up next to us and started talking to us. That was awesome as the next .5 mile before we had to turn around went quite a bit faster as we had someone new to talk to. He is running the detroit marathon. I think he also mentioned that he's from the Detroit area which was very confusing as he was running in chicago....later as I realized that the Bears were playing Detroit so perhaps he was in town to watch the game.

So then we got to turn around yeah (!) and then it was 9.5 miles back to where we could stop. First just had to make it back to the gatorade stand that was 4 miles away. I did want to stop for water before that, but to make it less time to the gatorade I held out as long as I could and was able to make it about 1.5 miles. So stopped for water, then onto gatorade. After this I was like ok, just 5 more miles to go, and all of a sudden I realized where I was and how far I still had to go and I freaked out and had to walk for about 30 seconds. Jason calmed me down, got another drink of water, made it to the next gatorade stand and then made it to the end (one more water stop between) So at the end I wasn't crawling and still feeling semi-strong.

So we had two gatorade and 1 water stop on the way out. and 3 water (quick stops) and two gatorade on the way back.

Now it's time to taper and start really freakin' out about the marathon. Holy Shit it's in 20 days. damn.

Kick!

Yesterday we ran 9 miles and I felt pretty good. Stopped for water at ~3.5 miles and 6.5 miles and was able to kick it at the end and finish with a slight sprint. by end I mean like 100 meters :-) but it's something.

It was nice to run farish and not be limping at the end.

No run today, easish 5 tomorrow and then the big 20 miler on Sunday.

Sure, I lost the keys yesterday and had to run all the way back to the totem pole to try and find them. In my defense, though, I'm very dumb.

But what was fun, though, is that I wanted to find the keys before anyone else did so I took off and ran the 3/4 of a mile all the way back at my fastest non-sprint pace. That is the pace I would like to run someday (you know, in my dreams). Actually, at this point I can't run that fast as I was starting to lose a little steam towards the end, but I could probably run a 5k at 90% of that pace. But still, it was fun to air it out. After the marathon, the next thing I will want to train for will be the shamrock shuffle, which is just a 8k, and so I want to run it really fast. Last time Leah and I ran the shuffle in 38+, and so this time I will shoot for 35 or so. I think it will really be fun to train for a short run.

But anyway, I ran 5 miles yesterday nice and slow. Everything pretty much hurt below the waist at some point, but the only thing that was any concern was a pain/tightness in my lower right calf. I iced it last night and it is feeling a bit better today.

9 miles today, nice and slow again. I just want to make it to the taper without anything bad happening. Nice and slow.

Easy 5

Ran 5 miles yesterday and finally (!) got through one of these runs all the way. I have been having such sore legs that I would have to stop and stretch a couple times durning the run. This didn't happen yesterday though. We ran to the 5 mile marker and then back to the 3 and my legs were quite stiff. So we stretched right then which we don't usually do (i know i know we should always do this) and then got some water and headed back to the apartment. we were about 5 blocks away when I said, "You have the keys right?" Jason looked at me like I had two heads. So we had to go all the way back to the totem pole and hope they were there. Which the were. He must have dropped them when we were stretching. So that probably added about 2 extra miles of walking since the totem pole is a bit over a mile from our apartment, but that's alright.

Legs are feeling pretty good today actually. Maybe this quad thing is loosening up (slightly) Today we have a 9 mile run. woof.

notice that the milage on the shoes is pushing it's way to 300 hundred miles. We will get new shoes before the marathon. need all the bouncyness i can get :-)

My Favorite Run

As I was checking out the RW forums, I came across this thing where you could map out runs in your neighborhood using Google Maps. Check out:

http://www.favoriterun.com

It's really amazing. When you zoom in all the way and then go to satellite view I could get the lake view running path which is not visiable on the regular map thing. Although I use GPS when making new running routes anyways, this is great for folks that don't have such devices. Also just to keep all the loops in a handy place with distances attached since once I have a loop I don't wear the GPS. I am frequently going ok, I ran from this block to this block to this block and so on. This site has you make an account and then you just name all of your runs and then you can also post how fast you did them and any comments you had about the run. A training log you might say. Very Very cool. !

Run Walk Run

Walk Walk Walk

There wasn't even a run scheduled for yesterday, but I was figuring that wa because in the schedule we should have run a race on Sunday. So as we didn't I thought it would be a good idea to get out there and see how the ole' legs held up. We probably were out there for about 4 miles, but I am guessing only ran about a mile of those. Not a big deal, just felt good to walk and stretch the legs out.

I had lots of problems falling asleep last night. The point of this month is to get lots of rest and blah blah blah. I just couldn't do it. So I probably slept about 5 hours or so. Sheesh. Tomorrow Jason and I work from home so I might be able to sleep in then.

Wow, Jason thanks! I'm so happy that I was able to do something to help you today. I was feeling all kinds of things like, " I have been holding you back this whole time, " and stuff like that. I had a whole blog written in my head about things I could write about and how your left me in your dust (which i know had to happen because i was crawling at that point)

Anyways, the run for me was in 3 stages. The first was miles 0-4 or so. I felt shitty. My legs hurt (shins and left quad muscle), I was feeling bad for myself, I was thinking of all the people in my life and how they are all seemingly better off now that they are as far away from me as possible, and now my husband/running partner was included in that now that he was probably about a mile ahead of me so he didn't need me to be with him while running. sigh.

Then I stopped and got some gatorade and continued the trek on towards the 9 mile marker and I started to stop feeling sorry for myself and just thought about how to get through the run alone. My legs had worked most of the kinks out so that wasn't bothering me anymore. So I saw Jason coming back towards me about a 1/4 mile before the turn around point (I just put my head down and didn't look at him) I stopped for gatorade about 1/2 mile later.

The last part of the run was really pretty difficult, although I was able to get through it. I had to stop for some water at Oak St. Beach but that was the last time I would stop until the end at the totem pole. One really fun thing happend while I was running. I was going over the North Avenue Bridge and one of the running groups was coming up the other side. One of the girls in the group started shouting:

"WHEN I SAY CHICAGO YOU SAY MARATHON!!!!!!"

and everyon started clapping and cheering and I just this surge of energy and I got this huge chill and realized that there was going to be an end and a purpose to all this training. I thought that if that was what the marathong would be like people cheering all over the place I knew i would be able to finish. So who ever that group was you ROCK (i think it was the AIDS marathon people...although i'm not 100% sure)

So that was it. Next week we have a 20 miler whoooo whooooo whooo!!!!

Today was a "fall back" week. I put "fall back" in quotes because it is pretty silly to think that 13 miles is an easy run. There is never anything easy about 13 miles. It is brutal.

This time Leah and I separated because I was running faster than her today due to the fact that she was experiencing leg pain. So I went ahead so she could do her own thing. It is really a whole different game, running alone as opposed to running with a partner. It takes much, much more mental toughness because there is nobody to feel guilty towards if you stop.

Running on the lakefront path, we started at the 3 mile marker and ran out to the 9 (oh, sorry, that should be "just the 9 mile marker"). At about the 8.5 mile marker heading out to the 9 I started to get real down on the run. I knew where I was and I knew where home was, and even worse I knew that I had a whole mile more just to get back to the 8.5 mile marker again. It just seemed like it was too far to run. Too far and too hopeless.

But, I pushed myself out to the 9, turned around, and began my death march back home. But then I saw Leah! I really had no idea what had become of her. I didn't know if she had quit and gone home, had walked, or was 10 feet behind me. I really had no idea. The fact that she had fought through all that leg pain and pushed on this far was a big time inspiration to me. I figured if she could make it with legitimate pain, then I could fight through my aches and pains and make it back home.

Oh course, this boost only lasted about another 2 miles and then the death march began anew but it was still very, very inspiring. Great job, Leah. You are going to kick the marathon's ass!

Where's the Love

Yes a song by the Black Eyed Peas (I think) but also a description of my current training state of mind. We just tried to run 8.5 miles here at work which we promised a couple of months ago that we wouldn't try to do again. We work at Fermi National Lab which is basically in the middle of a farm and so there are lots of long straight paths with not a lot of action on them. I get so freakin' bored immediatly that all the little pains i have which I can usually ignore along the lakefront path back in the city come roaring their ugly heads up.

my feet hurt
the outside of my shins hurt
it's hot
my thiegh hurts
and so on.....

When I am in the city I can go ok, I know exactly where I am. I know there is a water fountain in one more mile. Oh look at the other hundreds of runners of all speeds, shapes and sizes doing the same thing I'm doing. I can get past the....pardon....the bullshit of the little annoyances and just get the run done.

The plan now is to run 8.5 tomorrow. The run today ended up being 2 miles to the main building and then walked the two miles back to my office. Shitty. So we'll be back in the city tomorrow and will just try again.

A quick other note. I have recently been perusing the Runner's World Forums which are becoming a little annoying. People are posting about how you won't finish the marathon if you dont' do at least 2-3 20 milers and well maybe you'll finish but it won't be worth it. These comments are not towards me, but to other first time marathoners. Isn't the freakin' goal of the first marathon to finish? How about giving some support to these folks who are doing their best, their out there anyways and might not be running 3:10 marathons! That's my feeling on the matter anyways. Alright, that's all from crappy runner girl. More tomorrow.

Time for me to catch up. As Leah has mentioned (somewhere) below, we completed our 18 mile run and it was a success. I was really happy to get through one of the really long runs with no major problems. Sure, everything was pretty sore by the end, but we finished very strong at the end and probably could have squeezed out another 8 miles with a little race day magic.

I was really, really tired for the next three days following that run, but I have finally gotten back to normal. Recovery from an 18 mile run seems to take a long time.

We next ran on tuesday (yesterday) and it went fine for me. I had to stop a few times because my knees we hurting me pretty badly, but with a little walking I was able to finish. It was also super humid again, and so it was much harder to finish.

All in all, I think this last month is going to be hard. However, I am also very confident that we will both be able to finish the marathon and that is more than I knew last month.

I CAN DOOOOO IT

oh man. yesterday's run. I don't have much good to say about it. As we started everything hurt on my legs. My quad muscle on my left leg, my feet hurt, my shins hurt. It was just annoying. I told Jason to just go ahead of me because I knew that my pace was probably a little bit over walking (if that) and I didn't want him to have to run 5 miles at such a slow pace. Instead of doing that he slowed down to go behind me, thinking that I just wanted to run alone. So then I felt that I had to move the pace up just to stay in front of him.....by the time we got to the lake I was dying. So I finally yelled at him to JUST GO AHEAD. Which he finally did.

In the end this is better for me. When Jason is right next to me and I'm having a bad run I can whine to him and he'll be the good husband and tell me to walk or whatever. However, as soon as I'm alone I realize there is no one to whine to and hence I can move the run along. I can hone in on what is actually bothering me and get the job done.

I know it's hard for Jason to leave me behind when I am in pain, but we talked about it after the run that sometimes it's better for me to just do it by myself. I think it's good anyways to get through some runs alone because like I said, you can focus on what the problem is and not telling your running partner that your legs hurt and not being able to get off that train. So in the end ran about 5 miles and an incredibly slow pace. i stopped to stretch 3 times within that distance. Tomorrow is an 8.5 so we'll see how that one goes. We'll have to run it at work so at least it's a change of scenery.

We Did It

Well we did the 18 miler on Saturday. Wow. I almost don't have words for it.There were times that I didn't feel awesome, there were times that I felt like a machine. But as I was running the last mile, I could feel my heart pumping out of excitement, I knew we were going to make it and I just felt awesome.

I have stopped timing the long runs to try and just enjoy them and not be so worried about the pace. However, I did note time the time we left the apartment and the time that we stopped (probably actually about 18.3 or so) and it was under 3 hours, which means that we were pacing less than a 10 min/mile pace which is awesome.

So with a little over a month left until the marathon I am so happy to have finally gotten through this long run. I am so much more confident about the marathon now to have this one under my running short....so to say.

Running Angry

Well I suppose it something that you shouldn't do cause you run to fast and are too crabby to stop for water or to stretch if needed. so that's what happened today. I suppose we went about 5.5 miles or so. I don't think we will be able to run tomorrow so I wanted to get as much in as possible. Now it's 9:40 pm, still haven't eaten dinner and dont' know if that's going to happen anyways. sigh.

Yesterday was an 8.5 mile run, or as I like to call it, the "other long run". I have to admit, I was a little concerned about this run. Leah's leg had been hurting and my motization was fairly low and I feared a bad Wednesday run would kill confidence for Saturday's big 18 mile run.

But, never fear! The run yesterday went very well. Personally, I was aware of every inch of my right leg all the way from my hip to my ankle, but I was able to run fast and that was fun. Honestly, after weeks and weeks of plodding through our runs, it was great to lengthen the strides and have a good run.

I could tell my legs were hurting more than usual, though, so I stopped four different times in the 8.5 miles to give them a break (which is about four more stops than we used to make in our 8 mile runs). I would rather my legs be a bit fresher on Saturday.

Today I'm pretty achey, but I feel a renewed confidence regarding our runs. Amazingly enough, I'm not dreading today's run, and it has been a few weeks since that was the case. I'm looking for the enthusiasm for running to spill over into Saturday and we will have a great long run.

Btw, a few days back the nasty toe nail fell off. It was pretty nasty underneath, as well. Nothing good going on south of the old ankle.

Finally!

Jason and I took the day off yesterday because we got back late from work. The schedule for the week had yesterday off anyways, so we figured it should be ok. Go Figure that it was the right thing to do. We ran 8.5 miles and I felt great. My left quad hurt for awhile (I did take two aleve though before we left so I could get through the run) Anyways, by the end I was feeling strong and wow, it just felt good to get through a longish run a big faster and a bit stronger. Don't want to slump through every run from now until the marathon. We stoppped quickly for water 3 times which was an alright thing to do.

Alright, we'll see how the legs fend in the morning.

Recovery

Yesterday we just walked (ran a couple of blocks only) 3.5 miles. It was suggested in the book we are using to train for the marathon that one day a week should be cross training and that walking counts. So my quad has been bothering me and didn't want to do more damage to it, so we just walked the distance. kinda lame, but don't want to get hurt before the marathon.

Catching UP (again)

We tried to run 8.5 in Bloomington on Thursday. You might say that it was bad, and if you did you would be right. hmph. We made it about 4 miles and it was so hot and so hilly that we just walked the rest of the way back to our friends apartment where we were staying for a total distance of 5.5 or so.

After this we decided to run only 12 on Sunday so that we could get in a long run and hopefully feel a bit better.

So we ran 5 miles on Friday and felt ok, and then this morning made it through 12 miles fine which was nice. I think it really helps running these long runs back in Chicago where we know the course there are plenty of water fountains along the way. Knowing exactly how much farther 2 miles is, is nicer than knowing that there are 2 more to go. Plus another shout out to Fleet Feet for having the water/gatorade stands out at certain points along the lakefront. This is about the most helpful thing, because I know I can always make it to one of these and get a shot of gatorade and get back on it.

Another note we ran to the 8.5 mile marker today which is right past Navy Pier. There was a Triathalon happening downtown so there were tons of bikes locked up along the path. They still kept a path open right along the lake front so that was nice. But I would just like to reaffirm that it doesn't look like fun at all. So we ended up going between 12-12.5 miles today. Nice.

Recent 3.5 milers

On Monday we ran 3.5 miles. Felt good, my left quad muscle is a bit sore and I think it's from walking around NYC for 3 days. The schedule had us with a day off on Tuesday, (which was good because we had a softball game....which we ended up getting slaughterd at!) but then 8.5 today, 3.5 tomorrow. Because we were driving to Bloomington, IN today we flipped the two days. We did another 3.5 miles this morning and did it very quickly, somewhere around 30 minutes....leg still hurting. Jason suggested some ICYHOT and might try that if it keeps on bother me.

It's been awhile

Well, just need to update what's been going on with the runnin' even though I don't really want to. Jason and I went on a 10 day vacation that had stopping points at Niagara Falls, Cooperston, NY for the baseball hall of fame, New York City and finally philadelphia. So we tried to get all of our runs in, but didn't really succeed. We did run a couple times and I would say did about 35 miles total. We tried to do a 16.5 mile run while in Cooperstown, but wait what happens when you don't really eat anything all day, don't drink any water, sit in a car for 7 hours previously.....you don't run 16.5 miles. We did walk run the whole distance though, so at least got that in. We stopped at a restaurant for water because we were dying, and then also at a motel on the way back.

We did walk our freakin legs off though on the trip, so it's not like we just sat around and at pringles. We did 3.5 yesterday and felt "ok". We have the day off today and then we'll be on it for the nex three days.

This Sunday brings an 18 mile run, so we'll just have to see how that goes.

Here is a nice/nasty picture of Jason's black toe.....EWWWWW. This is what happens when you train for a marathon....needless to say i am keeping my toes off the blog!

Yesterday we ran 5 miles and my legs felt great!!! I am so happy but still cautious about my ankle. We will take today off due to a softball game and then try an 8.5 mile run tomorrow morning. I think this will be the major test so I'm excited to see how I do.

I'm back

Well after taking about 5 days off from running and icing my ankle like it was my job, I went out for a 3.5 mile run. I felt fine. my ankle didn't hurt while I was running at all, and didn't hurt on the walk home. If I move my ankle in a certain way I can feel some minor uncomfort. I am going to keep icing the ankle after every run at least once and twice if I can fit it in time wise.

So nothing new to report, it felt great to be back out there. about 2months until the marathon. woof.

Hmm...my post got eaten so here's version #2

Wednesday I had to run by myself after Leah hurt her ankle. This was, to say the least, an interesting experience. I hadn't run by myself in over a year.

So I got dressed and stretched and all that stuff and then it was time to start...

and it was weird. I just thought, "okay, I guess I start now." It was just very strange starting myself, by myself. But I got started and then I became very concerned about my running. It wasn't a short run, 8 miles, so I didn't want to start out too fast. I was very concerned about my pace and then it seemed that my steps were too loud...things I never normally worry about.

Very strange stuff. I really prefer to run with Leah. I kept seeing things that I wanted to share with her, but she was stuck at home. Sure, it's nice to have things to tell her, but I just wish she could see them too. Like the father running while his daughter rode her bike next to him. That is something that Leah used to do with her dad and is something she would have appreciated.

But, anyway, I made it. It was hot and my legs were heavy, but I made it. I went waveland to the lake, lake out to the 6 mile marker, and then all the way back to Clark. I figured that was at least 8 miles. I'm glad to know that I can keep going on my own, though. I prefer to have a running partner, but I can live without one.

On Friday I ran again - 3.5 miles. Nothing much to report except some shin pain which I iced. It is a little easier to run alone when it is a short run. Less to worry about.

Today we get to run again! 3.5 miles, but an important 3.5 miles. This is Leah's triumphant return from the sidelines.

Cross your fingers.

Well after the long run, I felt great but had an annoying pain in my lower right leg. The inside of my ankle is very sore and i am a little concerned about it. Monday we ran/walked 3.5 miles as we ran 15 miles the day before anyways and so thought it would be a good idea to take it easy. We ran 5 miles yesterday and although my leg didn't hurt until about mile 2, by the end it was screaming. The area is right at the ankle and it does look slightly swollen (although as Jason says it's hard to tell because due to previous ankle sprains i have quite a bit of scar tissue there)

humpf.

I don't know the best course of action to take here. Luckly this week in our training schedule has a race planned for the long run. The recommended distance is 5-10K so even though I'm not signed up for a race this distance is very short and so I guess it's a good week to have this twinge of pain. I will probably take today off and keep icing, and try and run tomorrow and see how it feels. After training for the past 8 months, I DO NOT want to screw my chances of entering the marathon by being stubborn on a so called easy week. I am very frustrated and I don't know the best thing to do here. Taking time off requires pushing back my training runs (i don't have room in the schedule for this really). Not taking time off could make the whole thing worse. Well, I'll just have to see what happens.

The long run according to Jason:

I thought the run went very well, especially considering we were adding 1.5 miles onto the end of our longest run instead of just a mile. I'll left you read below for the details of our loop, but one neat thing about it is that it took us past McCormick Place. Yes, that McCormick Place...the one on 22nd street. Considering we started out on Waveland, that is quite a hike. That was definitely one of the highlights of the run. Other highlights?

• Swimming afterwards: felt awesome and was a great reward
• Popsicles: great reward #2
• getting to say: "I just ran 15 miles...and it's not even 9am yet"

The only negative thing of note is the dime-size blister on my heel, but if that is the worst thing that happens, I can live with it. I think the swimming in the cold water was really good for the leg muscles as my legs feel really strong the next day. I also iced my knees and so far my knees don't ache. In general, a pretty solid day after so far.

In summary: Good run. 15 miles is very far.

I'm Behind Again

7/29/05
Today we worked from home and ran 4.5 miles around 3pm. Everything felt fine. We had a nice surprise on the way home. The Cubs were down by one in the top of the 9th when we ran by Wrigley Field at the start of the run. We figured they had lost, but as we were coming back we noticed the W flag flying and found out that they had won the game in the bottom of the 9th. GO CUBS.

7/31/05
Well today was the big 15 mile run. I had been worried about it all week, and I had a lot of problems falling asleep the night before. We got up around 5:30 am and were out the door by about 6:00. We decided that we were pushing too hard in our long runs timewise and thought it would be a good idea to slow down a little and try and enjoy the run. We took some water and gatorade breaks (thanks again to Fleet Feet for having Gatorade stands out there!!!) and ended up having a great (!) run. We paced 9:15 miles for 15.010 miles. Awesome.

We planned on ending our run at North Avenue Beach so that we could swim when the run was over. This was a great idea as the lake is a perfect temperature, and cooled us right off. It felt so good just to float in the water. Of course after this little swim we realized we had about a 4.5 mile walk home! Oh well, the swim was totally worth it and will try and do this from now on.

The Route:
G&W->Waveland->Lake Front Path->11.5 mile marker (this is a bit past McCormick Place! aka....this is far)->Back to a little past Oak St Beach (there is a ramp on the RHS where we stopped)