Catch you up and here we go

It is officially the day before race day. Half marathon day. And I am ready, but before I launch into all that, here are some things I've been doing.

The week after Moab, I was in California for business. While I was there, I genuinely tried to get a few good runs in, but I was largely unsuccessful. I did one on the treadmill at the hotel, but it was at least 195 degrees in the workout room. Then I drove up to San Francisco one day, with the hope of getting a chance to run at Golden Gate Park. But by the time I made it up there it was too dark to get a run in. The third day, I just threw in the towel. I felt terrible about it, but I'd searched all over for a place to run outdoors and didn't have any luck at all.

The weekend after I returned from CA I ran the Hope with Every Step 10K. It was a really hot day with a nearly cloudless sky... and not an inch of shade in sight. As I lined up with the other 10Kers (all 49 of them), my iPod (of course) crapped out on me. I was only about a mile in and a horse trailer pulled right in front of me, so I had the lovely view of two stinky horse's butts to enjoy.

And, after a miserable 6.2 miles, here's my finishing scene:
Yes, that is the sweep bike right behind me. He is carrying all of the course direction signs, and he was riding my huge bumper because I was DEAD LAST. He might has well have been carrying a huge sign that said "And here comes the SLOWEST runner of the day."

I was slightly mortified, but afterwards, it sort of dawned on me that being DFL wasn't as bad as I'd always imagined it would be. Sure, I was last... but I ran a decent race on the day that I was given. Sure, I could have been a little faster if there'd been a little shade, a little gatorade on the course, etc. I was slow, but I'd done a good job, and I'd just finished my first official 10K. And it helped that no one pointed and laughed, too.

In the week that followed, I did my weeknight runs (well, most of them, at least), and SoxFan's dad came to visit the following Thursday. We had a great time fishing and driving in the woods and playing board games, but I split from them early Sunday morning to do the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure with a friend. On the way there, I heard a radio advertisement for a pair of Lee jeans that instantly give you "a tighter butt, slimmer thighs and a flatter stomach." Well, that was just about enough to get me to turn the car around. Alas, I decided to head on to the race anyway, and it's a good thing. Here's a picture (taken at 6AM):

Before the 5K, I ran 6 miles out and back on the Cherry Creek Greenway. On the way, I figured out where approximately half of Denver's homeless population resides. I tried to time it just right so that when I finished the 6 miles I'd be at the starting line for the 5K. And, hands down, this was the best run I've had since I started training for the Half Marathon. The run was easy. I felt strong. I felt confident. It was... the best run of my life.

Then I did a few more weeknight runs on the treadmill at work, then the weekend came and it was time for me to do the dreaded 10 mile run. But when the day came, it was about 30 degrees and raining. Boo. I thought I'd wait until later in the afternoon in the hope that it would warm up. It did not, however, so I did not run. This was the first time since I started that I'd skipped a long run, and I was none too pleased that the first one I'd missed was also the first double-digit run.

I did it on Monday evening. And I didn't do any walking. And on this run, I figured out where the other half of Denver's homeless population resides: the other side of the Cherry Creek Greenway. I ran out and back 2.5 miles, then out and back in the other direction 2.5 miles, and then it was DONE! And even though it was just a long run (not a race or anything) I felt very proud of myself for the double-digit accomplishment. I felt like I could have kept running. I felt like I could run a Half Marathon. After 9 miles, I just sort of went on auto-pilot and I felt like I could have run 100 miles.

Which brings us to today. It's the day before the Half Marathon. And all that confidence that I earned on Monday has slipped through my fingers. I feel unsure of myself. Unsure that I can run even 2 miles, let alone 13. I went to the expo yesterday and picked up my race packet and in the middle of that room full of incredibly fit people, I felt like a complete and total fraud.

But, I expected this. I am ready. Sure, I've missed a weeknight run here or there, but I can do this. I know that I can do it because I knew it on Monday. I knew I'd feel nervous the night before the race. I knew I'd feel even more nervous the morning of the race. But I also know that I've got enough excitement about that last 100 yards to carry me through. I'll do this tomorrow.

Updates scramble

Holy-lot-of-updates-to-mention, Batman!

This is going to be quick and dirty, but it's got to be done because it's long overdue.

1. The 7-miler last weekend was great! It rained Sunday morning, so we had to put the run off until Sunday evening, but it was great. I had to take a few "stop and catch my breath" breaks, but I managed to run the entire thing. I was pleased with that.
2. I skipped a couple of the weeknight runs last week. I wasn't pleased with that.
3. I kicked huge butt on this weekend's 8-miler (in Moab, UT, no less!). We went out to Moab to support our good friends in a cycle century ride (called the Big Nasty due to all the crazy climbing they had to do). I ran out of water near the end (more than 7 miles in), but it was the desert, after all. I was pleased with how it turned out. This was the first long run I've done where SoxFan didn't accompany me.
   

That sort of sums up the running I've been doing. I'm in California this week for training for my j-o-b (that's another story for another time), so I'm going to be doing my running this week. This weekend I have a 10K scheduled back in Denver, and I am looking for a good finish.

Quite honestly, I am getting a little nervous about the half-marathon. Every weekend, I think "oh dear, it's XXX miles this weekend, I don't know if I can do this." But I always do finish. 13 miles just seems like SUCH a long way. And I've told lots of my friends about this race, so I know I'll have loads of support along the way, but that makes my fear of failing all that much bigger! I guess the only thing to do is keep training. Preparation is the only thing that is going to make me feel confident on race day.

In other news, SoxFan and I have picked a date (6/6/2009) and a location! We've mailed in our non-refundable deposit, too, so now we're getting married for sure!

A big announcement...

OK. Clearly, I have the most awesome friends in the world. NewMama and DigitalBoy came out to visit and we had a blast! We had a spa day, and we saw a Rockies game, and we went to Casa Bonita! We laughed and laughed and generally had a blast. Here's a picture to prove it!

We don't get to hang out as much as I'd like, but every time we get together, it's like we've seen each other every day. They're pretty awesome that way.

And.... during the course of their visit, NewMama was taking photos of SoxFan and me for her photography portfolio ...and... he proposed!

I know... let's just let that simmer for a while.

..............


That's right, folks. We're going to get married. And here's a picture to prove it!

Please try to ignore my hat hair.

We're very excited about getting married. And Ini the Dogbeast and Tux the hairy snake couldn't be happier that mom and dad are going to get married! We haven't set a date yet, but we're thinking an outdoor June (2009) wedding sounds perfect.

Like I said, SoxFan proposed while we were out posing for NewMama. This wasn't his original plan, however. He'd originally wanted to propose at sunrise on Sunday, right before we went out for a stellar run. That didn't happen, however, because when he woke me up for the sunrise run, I came up with some lame (but apparently quite convincing) excuse for why I couldn't run and/or get up. In the end, though, it's better that his original plan didn't work out because NewMama caught the entire proposal with her (awesome) camera! Obviously, pictures will be posted at some point, either here or on her site (which you should all check out because she's flipping fantastic!).

Obviously, I'll post updates here regarding date/location as soon as I have them. Thanks again to everyone who's sent their congratulations! Again, I have the best friends imaginable.

On the running front, WHAT running? Seriously, SoxFan and I did a 4.5m run on Tuesday, but then I skipped yesterday because I had an evil headache and I skipped today because it was 15 degrees outside and raining. And who wants to run in that? I'm a little worried because I have a 7 miler coming up on Sunday. I'll repeat: a 7 miler. Some of you are undoubtedly saying "what's the big deal?".... but to me.... a 7 miler is also known as.... a "long freaking way."

11 and I are good friends.

Even though tonight was supposed to be another awesome 4 miler, I decided, instead, to spend time cleaning/preparing my house for houseguests! Lucky I'm off work tomorrow so I can get the 4 miler in anyway. It feels pretty good to be sticking to my training schedule.

This weekend's "long run" is a measly 5K. I understand that I'm really meant to have entered a race this weekend, but who has the time/money for that, especially while you're entertaining guests? I mean, I doubt NewMama and DigitalBoy would have found hanging around a race course for 40ish minutes to watch me run very entertaining, no?

Another funny thing that I noticed about my training schedule? This Sunday's long run is exactly 6 weeks from the HM. Yikes. Also this week, I will run exactly 13.1miles. So, exactly 6 weeks from this Sunday, I will run this entire week's worth of miles at once.

Since I have no awesome 4 miler to report on, I will describe the lightning pace with which I finished yesterday's 2 miler. OK, yeah, it's only 2 miles... but here are my splits:

Mile 1 (mostly downhill): 11:01
Mile 2 (mostly uphill): 13:10

That is officially the fastest I've ever run the uphill part of that course, I promise. Try not to give yourself a hernia laughing there, alright?

And, since I'm low on content tonight, I figure I'll share a couple of pictures with you all. These first ones are the old, fat me of a little while ago. I probably weighed about 220 here. (Jeesh, I will tell anyone anything, right?)

And these are the new and improved me a couple of weekends ago camping. I now weigh ~173.

Good times bad times...

Question: If you're set to do a 6 mile run, but instead of running straight 6, you run 2m, then take a 30 minute break, then run 4.5m, does that count as a 6 mile run?

My vote is YES.

During the course of Sunday's long run (6 miles, you guessed it), SoxFan and I had a little conversation after the first 2 miles. The first 2 miles had gone pretty well, and I feel confident that I could have run 6 miles pretty well. But, our conversation ended up taking about 30 minutes, making me feel needlessly (?) guilty and slacker-like. We ended up doing the last 4.5 miles after the sun was WAY too high in the sky, so rather than being a delightful early morning jaunt down the Silence of the Lambs trail, the run turned into the oven-temperature death slog through the holy-hills batman and did you see the size of that bee?

I was tempted to go through another tedious self-loathing session afterward, but I was exhausted, dude, so I just threw in the towel. I mean, I got the run done, right? I even did an extra half mile as penance for my resting ways. And I did extra stretching when I got home. I'm hoping it all evens out in the end.

Monday called for "Stretch and Strengthen", and that's just what I did. We bought an exercise ball and a few free weights and even some resistance bands over the weekend, so I made great use of those last night. I did ball crunches (oh, that sounds funny).... and pelvic thrusts (hahaha)... and I did some seated row with the resistance bands and a few push-ups and even some curls. Oh yeah.... I'm going to have some huge ripped guns after about 8 billion reps with my 8lb weights. To cover the "Stretch" part of Monday's routine, I rolled a few times on the foam roller, basically until my IT bands started audibly threatening my life, at which point I retreated to the sofa.

And then there was today.

As I started today's run, I was thinking about the Facebook. (I was also thinking about how frigid it was outside, but mostly I was thinking about the Facebook.) It's truly the best and the worst of everything, isn't it? It's how you keep in touch with old friends, and it's how you stay in "the know" about your friends' (and your frienemies') love lives, and it's how you win at Scrabble (hey, I won't tell anyone you use that website to cheat, dude!). But sometimes, you end up running into ghosts there. And that's just what's happened to me recently. Innocently enough, I sign on... I need to check who's dating who... and who's changed their profile picture, etc.... And then, there's a blast from the past staring me in the face. This time, it was an especially friendly ghost (or so I hope, at least), and I took a chance and started a conversation.

This was all on my mind as I began tonight's run. So maybe that is why tonight's run came off without a hitch. I was really thinking hard about my old friend, and how and why we'd grown apart. I was trying to figure out how I felt about initiating a conversation and perhaps even a renewed friendship.

So when my Garmin beeped and beckoned me out of my introspection, and I noticed the little pace notice flashing at me, you can imagine my surprise to find that I was running the fastest splits I'd ever run on the Silence of the Lambs trail. Even on the uphill stretch, even on the last mile of the 4 mile run, I was getting faster! Don't believe me? Here are the official splits.

I know that seems glacial to most of you... but for me, it's pretty flipping fantastic. It was a great run. And it came at just the right time, too. After Sunday's debacle, I desperately needed a running pick-me-up.

Brrr, that's Colorado fall on the way.

For the first time this season, on Thursday's run I wished I had my swift Under Armor long sleeve running shirt with thumb holes. And maybe even my running tights. It was for reals cold, y'all!

I hit the Silence of the Lambs trail again on Thursday evening, this time without Ini the dogbeast. Turns out I actually prefer that particular trail when he's with me. I only made through the woods part twice (once on the way out, once on the way back). After that, my fear was bigger than my desire to keep on running, even though I was putting together a pretty fabulous run. I ended up doing 3 miles, and my training schedule only called for 4, so I call it a success!

This run was also my second attempt with PodRunner, and I didn't have very much better luck this time around than I did last Sunday. It seems that I underestimate my cadence. I've downloaded two new episodes for Sunday's 6 miler, one at 144BPM and one at 150BPM. I am determined to run to house music. Oh yes. I will do it. I don't even like house music, but if it's the thing that allows me to turn off that one song... I will embrace the techno. I may even run with glow sticks.

In other news, I am very very excited because NewMama and her hubby, DigitalBoy, are coming to visit me in Colorado! I love it when people come to visit. I've got some fun things planned for us, but mostly it'll just be fun to just laze around and laugh. That's what we do best when we get together. We laugh 'til we pee.

And, in some sort of random (and WAYYYY late) news, I read an article on RunnersWorld.com a few days ago that discussed the men's Olympic Marathon. Now, I watched the women's marathon. Nearly the entire thing, in fact. I believe I picked it up around mile 3, shortly after Deena Kastor dropped out, I understand. And while it was amazing to watch these women--they are strong like Hercules-- it got a little tedious near the end when the lead woman sort of broke away. It sounds like the men's marathon was infinitely more exciting, and the winner (a Kenyan) ran it in 2:06. That's less than 5 minutes per mile for 26.2 miles, folks. Clearly he isn't human. It's just not possible.

It puts the lotion in the basket...

So much for well-laid plans, I guess. A mere 6 days into my shiny Hal Higdon's Half Marathon (for Novice runners) Training Schedule, I missed a run. Soxfan and I had the best of intentions, but we just ran out of time. I tried to make it up the next day by tagging it onto the already scheduled run, but I didn't quite make it.

Oh well. I can't beat myself up over it too much, I suppose.

For last week's long run (5m) on Sunday, I decided to try running along the South Platte River. I figured I could run while SoxFan caught us a delicious trout dinner. The road is hard packed gravel and doesn't climb terribly, and is at a mere 6100ft. And you definitely can't top the scenery. It's beautiful. One of these days I'm going to take my camera along and get some pictures of the places I get to run on a regular basis. All non-Coloradans will be green with envy.

Anyway, because the previous weekend's 5 miler on the High Line Canal turned into such a death march, I thought it'd be prudent to carry along a little gatorade at least. I was feeling really good before the run. I felt confident... I had my gatorade. I had a freshly downloaded Podrunner episode. I had my sunglasses. I had a fully charged Garmin with a strong signal. I felt like it was going to be a "great run." What I didn't have? A properly hydrated body.

Now, I know you've all heard (many times) about the importance of drinking plenty of water, etc. And I know you're all tempted to roll your eyes and say "yeah yeah, we get it. Drink the water." But seriously. Drink the water. Oh, and don't run with no shade in an arid environment at mid-day. You'll thank me for this.

Around 4 miles into my 5 miler, I realized that I was no longer sweating. Hmmmm, that's odd. I decided to take a "walk break." ***As an aside, it's been a long time since I had to take a walk break... I may not be able to decide how FAST I'm going to run a particular distance before I head out, but generally I can decide how FAR I'm going to run before I head out. Thus, this "walk break" is synonymous with "heart break."***

I realized: I'm freaking thirsty! My gatorade was long gone, and I was seriously considering plunging my face into the South Platte River and starting to chug. Then, I noticed that I had chill bumps. It was a whole 85-90 degrees outside. Hmm...that's odd.

After about a tenth of a mile, I thought I'd try running again. But my legs felt like jello, and it was clear that I shouldn't try to run, slowly or otherwise, anymore for the day. I dragged my defeated butt back to SoxFan's truck. He gave me a huge smile and asked "How was it?" (as if my tear stained face and slumping shoulders weren't evidence enough).... I just said "Water." Then I chugged so much of it I nearly puked.

Afterwards, I had an excellent self-loathing session during which I tried to determine the source of my running suckiness. Was it possible that I was in worse shape than I was the week before? Did I not get enough sleep? Was it too hot? Did I not get the proper nutrition? Was I simply too much of a wuss? Eventually I narrowed in on the whole water thing. And it helped ease the pain that I wasn't the only complete and utter failure that day: SoxFan didn't bring us even one trout home to share.

Since then, I've been chugging water like Escalades suck gas. And it's made a marked improvement in my running!

Last night I went for a run in a park pretty close to my house with Ini the dogbeast. He was a complete psycho for the first mile, but after that we settled into a nice rhythm and had a perfectly happy little 4 miler together. However, you know that scene from Silence of the Lambs, where Clarice is sort of trail running through the woods? Well, when you're a lone girl running (with a dog, fine, but seriously, Ini would just want to play with any attacker, wouldn't he?) at sunset (and slightly after), the last words you want running through your head are "wow, this is just like that scene from Silence of the Lambs."

Today I'm babysitting for a couple of friends of mine, so I woke up before dawn (no exaggeration, folks) and hauled my sleepy, stinky butt into work early so I could run on the dreadmill. I got 2 miles in this morning, and they went pretty well for dreadmill miles. The only drawback is now, it's only 12:19PM, but it feels like it should be 3:19PM.

See? I've been doing loads of running! Don't go all pessimistic on me and assume that my silence = my laziness!

Oh, and I mentioned this earlier, but do check out PodRunner. It's free, and it's organized by Beats Per Minute (BPM), so you can find an hour or so of music (well, technically it is music) with a perfect beat for you to run to. Before this, I'd only found one song with a perfect tempo for my running speed, and quite frankly, I was getting sick of listening to it over and over again. One of these days that song will shuffle up on my iPod while I'm at work and due to my conditioned response, I'll instantly break out in sweat and start breathing hard.

Oh, in other good news, I've lost 50lbs! I should post some pictures soon.