I failed miserably

So I didn't run a marathon in 3:40:59 last year. I didn't run a marathon, period. I was a big, fat, lazy piece of fat instead.

To be fair, I did have genuine intentions to run a marathon - heck, I toyed with the idea of even running two marathons should the first marathon not yield Boston-worthy results. But as the old cliche states, the road to In-N-Out burger is paved with good intentions, and sadly, it's less than 26.2 miles to the nearest In-N-Out burger.

The Long Beach marathon was my goal. I signed up in early summer, brimming with enthusiasm, visions of Boston marathon grandeur, and cheapskate desire to not only get the lowest price for the race but also to score one of those nifty technical shirts and a personalized bib to boot. All started off well, as I faithfully clung to my Hal Higdon marathon training program and completed my speed workouts and long runs with due diligence. I was up to distances of 17 miles and feeling pretty good about my chances of being an elite Boston runner (or at least one who didn't have to sell out and enter for charity in order to be able to run in the race).

And then three catastrophes beyond all human capacity for endurance struck: Cluck-U, Neil Diamond's laryngitis, and Staph.

Things all started going downhill the weekend I flew to New Jersey for a girl's weekend. It was Laura's birthday, and Laura, Nina, Hackett, and I celebrated with all the zeal a 28th birthday requires. This culminated in the fateful decision to head to Cluck-U in New Brunswick, NJ, for a post-drinking late-night snack, which of course resulted in nauseau, regret, and an automatic deposit of five pounds on my thighs. This, of course, in turn caused me to skip a long run, or any sort of run, for several days as my body and mind recovered from the turmoil of Cluck-U and the rest of the weekend debauchery.

I tried to recover once I got back from New Jersey and did put in some long runs in the August heat. And then Neil Diamond interrupted. I flew to Columbus for another long weekend in August to do the usual visit-my-nephew/catch-a-Neil-Diamond-concert all-inclusive weekend. It was great fun; Jack is adorable (and that's not just the biased opinion of an aunt - he really is baby-talk inducing-ly cute) and Neil Diamond entertained me and the crowd of 60 year olds in Columbus OH with as much pep as a 65 year old man with laryngitis could muster. However, no running was done in the sticky humidity of Columbus, and the Long Beach marathon goal was yet again set back.

The killer came a few weeks later. I was already struggling to stay motivated since I was behind in my long runs and didn't feel like I was where I needed to be in my training. And then I started getting some bumps on my knees that looked like bug bites. I didn't know what they were. They'd itch at first, then develop an-oh-so-attractive white pus head, and then they'd get a little painful, and eventually they would fade into a purple spot on my leg and gradually disappear. All except one, that is. One bump on the shin of my right leg began to swell and become very painful, to the point where my entire shin was red and swollen and I could barely walk. I, being a procrastinator and hyper-sensitive about being viewed as a hypochondriac, did not go to the doctor until the point where I was limping and my leg was throbbing. I hobbled to the doctor, who diagnosed me with a staph infection, prescribed some intense antibiotics, and told me to rest my leg. Considering I was hobbling like Nancy Kerrigan after being hit by Tonya Harding's husband, I didn't really have a choice other than to rest my leg for half a week or so.

And that was the nail in the coffin. I was behind schedule, true, but I wasn't so far behind that I could never get in sufficient shape for Long Beach. If I had really wanted to, I could have at least gotten an 18 to 20 mile run in at least once before the race, and that would have been enough for me to at least finish the marathon.

But I was tired of running, tired of feeling guilty and behind. The point of running for me isn't to achieve great times, because, let's face it, I'm never going to win a race or set any records. (Heck, I'm struggling just to make the slowest cut off for the Boston marathon.) The point is to enjoy it, to feel good when I'm doing it and when I finish, to help me feel healthy, and to give me a positive outlet for all the stress I bottle up. (And to help me be able to cope with disasters like Cluck-U with minimal weight gain) And I was constantly feeling like I wasn't doing enough, like it was a chore to get out there and run, like I was a big failure. It was definitely more of a stressor than a stress release, and that's not what I want from a hobby.

So I pulled the plug on Long Beach and didn't think about doing any races for a while. I was still running, but not on an official schedule, so I'd run whatever mileage I wanted to on weekends and whatever I felt like during the week. And it felt good to no longer have a deadline looming, like weight being lifted off my shoulders (it could have been me finally burning off the Cluck-U chicken from my thighs). I started riding my bike a bit more with Adam and even did a duathlon in March that I really enjoyed.

I've signed up for the half marathon in this Sunday's OC marathon and have not yet set any goals for myself to achieve. I just want to finish it. And it feels good to not have a time goal. I want to just enjoy running again. For a little while at least; I am thinking of signing up with a training group for next fall's Long Beach marathon to help keep me focused and motivated over the summer. The group starts in June, and it would be nice to have other folks to run with on those warm Saturday mornings when all I want to do is stay in nice cool air conditioning and snuggle with Adam. But it's not decided yet, and no matter what, I want to run on my terms and feel good about it, without my hobby turning into a chore.

Oh yes, and never fear: Despite not running the race, I did pick up my Long Beach marathon race packet and nifty technical tee, which I wear not only because it is super-comfy but also because it lets people think I ran the darn marathon.

mediocre runs

I'm not sure whether I hate bad runs or mediocre runs more. A bad run is a run where you drag yourself through it, you're in pain/dehydrated/exhausted, you have to stop and walk, etc. It's pretty obvious when you have a bad run. A good run is a run where you feel strong, your body seems to be fluid and wanting to move, you can push yourself and not be miserable, etc. It's pretty obvious when you have a good run.

And then there are mediocre runs. These are harder to define - you're able to finish your run, but it's not particularly enjoyable and it's a little bit more of a challenge than usual. These are the ones that you have to dig the deepest on, in my opinion. On a bad run, you know you're having one and that they happen from time to time and you have to just push through it and accept that these are normal and happen. And mentally you can accept that. Mediocre runs are where self-doubt starts to creep in. You start to worry that you're not in good shape, that maybe your body is tired and needs a break, etc. And you wonder why you're up at 5:30 in the morning slugging your way down the running trail instead of snuggled deep under the covers. It's not bad enough of a run to make you just shrug it off and chalk it up to a bad day, but it's not enjoyable.

I guess it's pretty obvious that I had a mediocre run this morning. I got up nice and early to hit the Back Bay trail by the time it was light out, and I managed to run a decent pace, but I just never seemed to hit my stride and I spent the last couple of miles obsessing about how hard it will be to qualify for Boston and how I'll never be in good enough shape to run 8:26 pace for 26.2 miles.

Monday: day of rest (tired from last weekend)

Tuesday: day of Beth being fat and lazy and not running

Wednesday: 45 minute tempo run, about 5.5 miles. Plus triceps

Thursday: A little over 3 miles, run at unidentified pace but I'd estimate at around 8 minute mile pace

Friday: 12.2 miles, Back Bay trail, around 1 hour 44 minutes

Not running related, but got my heart rate up...

So Adam came over yesterday afternoon and we ended up cuddling on my bed and he was super cute and affectionate and stroking my hair and things. And after a few moments of silence, he finally started talking. He said he was sorry he wasn't very good at talking about his feelings, but he was really into me and every time we had plans to hang out he always would have a huge smile in anticipation and that he knew I knew this, but that this wasn't just some fling for him.

It was really, really nice to hear all this from him. I mean, our first date was nearly 2 and a half months ago and we still have never had the exclusivity talk and he's not very forthcoming with compliments and talking about how he likes me, etc. I guess I don't really need to hear it from him to know it, because I can tell from things he does and how he looks at me and how much fun we always have together. But a little reassurance never hurts, and it definitely made me really happy to hear. I really like Adam - we're compatible on a lot of levels. So keeping my fingers crossed on this one....I'm sure I'll be re-living yesterday's conversation in my head for all my runs over the next few days.

Dirty Girl

I did the mud run down at Camp Pendleton today with Brooke and Brittany and a few of their friends. I woke up with my toe throbbing from the blister again and was limping by the time I walked out the front door. When I picked up Brooke, she noticed I was limping and asked if I was OK and I felt like a complete wimp when I had to tell her it was because of a blister. I mean, Brittany had a stress fracture and she was in better shape than I was. I think the blister has to be infected or something because I've never had one so painful. 

I was a bit scared when we arrived down at Camp Pendleton because the toe was hurting and Brittany had let it slip that there is a swim across a lake. I am a bad enough swimmer without shoes and clothes weighing me down, so that got me worried. To be honest, when I was standing at the starting line with Brooke, I thought I might have to drop out of the race in the first couple of miles because my toe hurt so bad. And the first mile or so was kind of rough. I was running at a weird angle to try to minimize pressure on the blister, which in turn made my ankle feel weird. Fortunately, however, after about a mile we encountered our first gross patch: a calf-deep stream of water to ford that got my feet completely soaked. And miraculously, even though my feet felt swampy and gritty, the pain in my blister subsided soon after that. It disappeared for the rest of the race and hasn't really come back yet. 

Thank god it disappeared, because the course was tough enough without it feeling like someone was holding a hot poker to my big toe. I ran with Brooke and purposely just took it easy and ran her pace. It actually was kind of challenging to keep myself from going faster, particularly on the hills that went on and on for about a mile and a half. Normally I would have actually liked the hills - I tend to do well on hilly courses for some reason, maybe because it works different muscles and gets the heart rate going. I didn't mind walking with Brooke up the hills because I knew the race would be a lot more fun if I did it with someone else, but a tiny little part of me wanted to just put my head down and barrel up the hills full force. Especially when I saw that everyone around me was wheezing and gasping for air, and I wasn't even breathing heavy.  I wanted to feel their level of pain, as weird as that sounds, and I wasn't getting that at the nice slow pace (and walking) Brooke and I were doing.

After the hills came the first mud pit and wall to scale. That was a blast. I had a young Marine help me scale the wall. After the wall came the lake that was probably about 3 swimming pools long. It was a bit difficult for me because I could barely touch the bottom at parts and it was nearly impossible to swim with my shoes on and so many people in the water next to me (I think I kicked the poor guy behind me in the face), but here I was glad I stayed with Brooke, who used to swim and play water polo in high school, because she held my hand and helped pull me through. After the hill came a long stretch of running, followed by another mud pit with  wall to scale (I scaled it by myself this time!) and a nasty muddy tunnel to crawl through and then a steep, steep hill of sheer mud. It was tough to get up - no one was running; everyone was just trying to avoid falling.  Another brief stretch of running and we came to the final, and most fun, obstacle yet: the mud pit you have to swim through. Basically you have to crawl through retched-smelling mud and keep your head below flags for about 100 feet. It was an absolute blast. So gross but so fun. 

Since I had maintained such a slow pace throughout the race I didn't feel like I'd gotten much of a workout in so I sprinted the short distance from the mud pool to the finish line and beat some girl at the last second, with a couple of Marines giving me high-fives for pushing myself at the end (I didn't want to tell them that I was barely out of breath and hadn't pushed myself for the other 99% of the race).  I think I finished around 1:22, which, even with a mud hill and mud pits and a lake of water, is still pretty embarrassing. But I had an absolute blast and can't wait to do it again next year, so who cares what my time was?

Today's workout: 6.2 miles of running, swimming, crawling through muck and loving it.

My damn blister had better cooperate for tomorrow, which is when Operation BQ officially gets underway.

Blisters on top of blisters

My feet are pretty used to having gnarly-looking blisters on them.  In fact, at any given moment, I usually have a black/bruised toenail and at least one fresh or one remnant of a blister. They're a fact of running. I wear special wicking socks, I make sure there is plenty of room in the toebox of my shoe, and yet I still routinely get blisters on all my toes. 

Yesterday I discovered a particularly painful one. I'd gotten a blister after the Laguna Hills half marathon on the outside of my big toe on my left foot. It had popped and drained, as usual, and I paid no attention to it. Well, over the course of the next 2 weeks, I kept developing new blisters in pretty much the same spot - blisters developing on top of blisters. Yesterday morning I peeled my sock off before heading to the shower and discovered that the entire side of my toe was a gruesome looking yellow mass of half-popped, half-fresh blister, with a small sore gash next to it. I wore flip-flops to work to give my foot room to breathe, but by the afternoon, my toe was throbbing even while sitting at my desk and I was hobbling around. I came home and rested on the bed for a while, but my toe was throbbing in pain so bad that the slightest touch of the blanket or rolling over was agony. I put some neosporin and a band-aid on overnight and that helped a bit -- enough to enable me to get a 12-miler in this morning with only mild discomfort.

I've heard it said that the most painful part of a run is actually the shower after the run, and when the water in the shower this morning hit the side of my toe and I gasped in pain, I saw the wisdom of that statement.  I've never been this disabled by a blister that wasn't under my toenail (those effers hurt). It's almost impressive. I'm supposed to do the mud run down in Pendleton tomorrow. I'm hoping my toe cooperates, because marathon training starts on Monday officially and I can't afford to get off to a bad start because of some poopy blisters.

Today's run: 12.3 miles, about 1 hour 48 minutes, Aliso & Wood Canyon. Plus stopped at the gym to do biceps. 

Sweater Magee

It seems the more I run and the better shape I get in, the more I sweat. It's to the point where I I only like to work out in black shirts because they don't show my sweat as much as other colors . Even just a 3 mile run has me dripping with sweat. I've heard that increased sweating is actually a sign of an efficient cooling system, but it sucks being a girl and going to the gym and being a huge sweatball and using my sweat towel more than anyone else there. Most other girls are in cute workout clothes and don't seem to be sweating, while sweat drips down my legs and my shirt is absolutely soaked. It's embarrassing. Wish I were more feminine and didn't have to look like I just stood under a waterfall after I run. Oh well. It is a nice feature to have when I'm hungover and then I just hop on the treadmill and sweat out all the toxins and feel much less hungover. I suppose it has its perks. 

By the way, I ate Kabuki sushi yesterday and it was really disappointing. Mental note to never get sushi from there again. 

Monday: day of rest

Tuesday: 1 mi warmup, 2x1600 @ 7:13 pace with 1/3 mi slow jogs in between, plus 1x400 @ 7:13 pace, 1 mi cooldown (5 mi total). Plus abs and biceps.

Wednesday: 5 mi @ race pace (8:13 pace). Plus triceps and shoulders

Thursday: rest

Friday: 1 mi warmup, 5x800 @ 7:19 pace with 1/4 mi slow jogging in between, 1 mi cooldown (5 mi total). Plus abs and back.

One week until official training starts

Why is it that the day after a long run I always have some of my best runs? Today I decided to do a tempo run and thought I'd do a 45 to 50 minute one.  Five minutes into my run I knew this was going to be a good day so I ended up doing a 60 minute tempo run, peaking at 7:40 pace for five minutes and holding 7:47 pace for another 10.  And at the end of 60 minutes, I felt great and probably could have kept going for another couple of miles. 

It's always like that the day after a "long run" (not that yesterday's 10 was that long).  I always am able to do great tempo or interval workouts the day after. Does it work different muscles? Are my lungs in peak form or something after an endurance run? I'm not sure what it is, but I think I'm going to continue to take advantage of the stamina boost I always feel after my long runs and try to do my tempo runs and interval training (but maybe not the hill repeats) the day after long runs. I know Hal Higdon's plan calls for those on Tuesdays and Thursdays but I think it makes sense to do them on days that are easier for me. I don't know, maybe my logic is completely flawed here, but I think as long as I'm doing those workouts, it fundamentally doesn't matter what day I do them on, right?

Training for LB starts next Monday officially. I'm a little nervous because this is for real - the training that supposedly gets me up to Boston level. I think I can do it, I just need to be disciplined.

Time to bust out the new shoes and lay my old shoes to rest. My shins will thank me.

Today's run: 60 minute tempo run, 7.45 miles. Also finally did some ab work, triceps, and back.