Nearly a year?

So, it's been nearly a year since I wrote anything here, and quite a lot has happened. I'll start at the beginning...

SoxFan and I are married! Don't believe me? Here's some proof for you:



Though I wanted to train for a race in the spring, I knew it wouldn't be wise with all the wedding planning and whatnot we had going on. We signed up for a gym membership instead and I spent the winter/spring working out indoors on the dreaded elliptical machine, in group exercise classes, swimming in the pool, and now and again, even hitting the dreadmill. It was probably a good break for me, honestly, because my knees were pretty spent after the half marathon last fall.

I missed running, though, and when our friend asked us to participate in a half marathon relay with him, we jumped at the chance. The relay was set up as follows: Jeff=leg 1 (5 miles), SoxFan = leg 2 (5 miles) and me = leg 3 (5k). Jeff had been running consistently, and he's really fast, so he got us off to a great start. Then SoxFan ran way faster than I thought he could and finished his 5 miles just slightly slower than Jeff did. Then I somehow managed to run the fastest 5K of my life, finishing in 36:31 (an 11:41 pace)! Again, I have to re-iterate that I had done all my training indoors on the dreadmill, and it was freezing cold that day so I wore more clothes than I normally do while running. I thought for sure I'd be sick at the end, but it was worth it to surprise Jeff and SoxFan early at the finish.

I think I just started off way too fast... Because it's a relay, and because my teammates were both pretty fast, when they handed the baton off to me, I was still surrounded by loads of really fast people. So, I took off really fast, then glanced at my Garmin and immediately thought "whoa whoa whoa, there's no way I can keep this up." So, I reigned it back in a bit, and started to get used to the idea of being passed every few seconds. But eventually I settled into a pace that felt really good. It felt right. When I hit the first mile, the Garmin said 11:29. I couldn't believe it, but I felt like if I'd made it for a mile at that pace, there was a good chance I could keep it going. Curiousity really took over at that point. I just wanted to see how long I could maintain that type of pace. So, I kept pushing it and ended up with the following results:

Mile 1: 11:29
Mile 2: 11:45
Mile 3: 12:11
Last 0.12: 1:03 (---> This is an 8:34 pace... I could see the finish, and I just wondered if I had anything left at all, and I wondered how fast I could run if I just pushed it insanely for a little while... This probably was why I felt like chucking at the finish line.)

Anyway...

All that was back in April, and I still had the wedding in front of me, so I didn't run again until after we returned from the honeymoon in late June. And even then, my running was rather sporadic. It wasn't until last weekend that I decided that I wanted to get serious again. And by that, I mean that I decided that I was ready for a re-match with the Denver Half Marathon.

This time around, I'm going to do a few things differently in the hopes of making the re-match a little easier than round 1.

1. I'm going to do more cross-training. I did exactly ZERO of this last year.\
2. I'm also trying to do better nutrition-wise. More than just eating healthy stuff (which I do pretty typically anyway), I plan to scour the pages of Runner's World and eat all the stuff "runners" should eat.
3. I'm going to do more stretching/foam roller/Stick. I've been pretty consistent with it so far this time around, and last year I hardly did this at all. This is probably why, at the end of the half last year, I thought my IT Bands might just spring free of my skin and keep on running without me.

Other than these small changes, I'm using the exact same training plan as last year, for the exact number of weeks.

I had serious thoughts of just shutting down the blog entirely, but a few people (especially recently) have sent me notes via facebook saying that they read my post-race report from last year's half and found it inspiring. (How flattering!) So, I figure I'll just pick up where I left off last year.

As for the training so far, I'll give you a quick re-cap:

• Long run #1 (last Sunday): I shift the training schedule so that my long runs fall on Saturday rather than Sunday, but still... it was Sunday when I made the decision (in earnest) that I wanted to try the half again, so it was Sunday when I did my first long run. It was, in a word, disastrous. I talked SoxFan into going down to the Highline Canal Trail with me, and by the time we got there it was nearly 11AM (and probably 90+ degrees out). I had a really hard time, I walked a lot, but I tried not to beat myself up too much for it. Oh, this was only a 4 miler.
• On Monday, the schedule calls for cross training, so I swam 750meters at the pool. It was great.
• Weekly run (Tuesday): This was a 3 miler, which I ran before work. I've been trying to get into the habit of working out before going to work, and so far it's worked really great. I have to go to bed with the senior citizens at 8PM, but I love the feeling I get at the end of the day, when I know I can just go straight home without feeling guilty.
• Weekly run (Wednesday): This was a 2 miler, also from work. I ran this one straight through, with a couple of pauses here and there to stretch/catch my breath. I didn't do any walking, though. This was a small victory by itself.
• Weekly run (Thursday): This was another 3 miler, and I did much more running than I did walking. Another small victory.
• On Friday, I did about 60 minutes of cross-training by going mountain biking with SoxFan at Mt. Falcon Park. It was great fun, though we should have started a little earlier in the day, I think. We were melting by the time it was over.
• Long run #2 (Saturday): This was another 4 miler, which I ran yesterday at the Highline Canal. I learned two very important things on this run: 1.) Running at sunrise is MUCH easier than at 11AM, when the heat of mid-day is crushing your spirit, and 2.) I really do run much easier with an audiobook to enjoy. I knew this before, but I'd forgotten just how much easier it makes things.

So, there you have it. My first week of training for my re-match with the half. Thanks to everyone who's been in touch lately with words of thanks/encouragement regarding last year's post. I hope you keep reading!

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.

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.

Stronger than a Jelly Bean...

Well, after a whopping 4 weeks, I show no weight loss, but also no weight gain. This is actually a small victory, considering that I was on vacation for 2.5 weeks. Of course it's disappointing to waste 4 weeks not losing weight... but whatevs. I have plenty of other things to be stressed out over today.

I ran 2 miles yesterday on the dreadmill, and I tried to push myself a little harder than I normally do. I figure if I'm getting to run indoors, on a flat surface, in front of a TV, I better do something to make sure I get a real workout out of it. So, I ran the first mile at 12:30 min/mile, and then sort of split the second mile between 12:13 and 12:46. The result? I was completely crapped out after 2 measly miles. How embarrassing. Also embarrassing: there was one other person in the workout room with me, who happened to be on a dreadmill two down from mine. I really really like my personal space, ok? I was at least lucky that he didn't choose the dreadmill directly next to mine. I would have had to leave! Occasionally he'd attempt at conversation, but I could scarcely answer with all my huffing and puffing.

I've decided that I'm going to actually start logging miles in Excel. I plan to do this very soon... But so far my lack of existence of a running log (nay a running plan in general) is only the tip of the iceberg when describing the complete and utter chaos that my life has become. Let's examine just today, shall we?

I have just returned from 2.5 weeks of completely unstructured vacation, where I did not stick to an eating or exercise plan. I've just returned from vacation to a huge pile of work. People are late delivering necessary data for me to do my job. My diet/weight loss have been all up in the air since I left for vaca a while ago, resulting in no loss (but no gain) in the last month. My house is a wreck because I've just moved and I still have cardboard boxes sitting everywhere. I can't find time to sort out my bills and my running log (both Excel projects that I'd hoped to get done last night). I can't find time to exercise because, while people are late on their deadlines to me, my boss still expects me to meet my deadlines. The dog escaped from his outdoor pen today and a neighbor retrieved him, so SoxFan had to drive my car 20 miles back to our unpacked wreck of a house to deal with the dog, only to find that the cat (!) crapped on the floor. I will likely work 12 hours today to meet said deadline and will not get anything remotely useful done tonight. To top it all off, a well-meaning colleague (in order to repay a favor I'd done for him a while ago) bought me a HUGE bucket of Jelly Belly jelly beans. You will all remember how fond I am of the Jelly Belly's right? I even dedicated my halloween costume to them last year? (I insert this here because someone at the Jelly Belly company read this post today, so I'm hoping they'll consider becoming my sponsor, and thereby will provide me with a lifetime supply of Jelly Belly's... All 49 flavors except black, please!) Anyway, they beckon to me from the corner of my desk. All. the. time. Every time someone walks by, they ask for one... and I see a Strawberry Cheesecake... or a Caramel Apple... and I think "oh, just a few jelly beans can't hurt"... and little by little, I'm LOSING THE WAR AGAINST THE JELLY BEANS.

As a side note: I do quite enjoy the Jelly Belly energy beans that I often enjoy during my long runs. They are quite delicious (moreso than say your average shot bloks or other gu substance). It's like candy, on a run, that gives you energy. That's a sponsorship I'd love to have, people.

Back on the farm...

Silly me. I seriously thought that I'd be able to get my new modem and wireless router working on Friday. I seriously believed that there would be no interruption to my blogging schedule. Alas, it's Tuesday, and while I did get the whole setup working yesterday, I was far too tired to string together more than 7 words. And 7 words does not a blog entry make.

First things first: I've been running. Today, after work, I ran on the dreadmill for 2.5 miles. I kept a consistent 13:03 pace and listened to my audiobook. The scenery was... wait... it was the dreadmill. I would have preferred to actually do the run outside, but I only had a small window to do the run at all, which didn't leave enough time to actually drive to an appropriate running location, etc. I suppose sometimes these things are necessary. I still have yet to try out the trail running, but I'm hoping to be able to take a try at it on Saturday morning.

A week from Thursday, Soxfan and I are headed to NYC for a bit of a vacation. A vacation from what, you ask? Isn't living in the mountains enough of a vacation? I'll get to that in a second. While we are there, I am considering racing in the Front Runners New York Lesbian and Gay Pride Run. It's a 5 mile course through Central Park. I would have preferred a 5K, but unless I want to run in New Jersey, this is the closest thing I can find. I haven't signed up yet, mainly because I'm not sure that I can run 5 miles. More than that, I'm fairly certain that I can't run 5 miles in the sweltering NYC heat and humidity of late June. That being said, I do have the advantage of having been training in Denver... so maybe I'd win! ... ok, back from dreamland... This race would be a big challenge for me, but it would also be a lot of fun to complete a race in NYC, I think. I may give it a go. Worst case: I walk when I get tired. Worse things have happened.

Now, as far as the rest of my life goes...

Did you ever see that movie "Funny Farm"? With Chevy Chase and that woman who looked just like my neighbor? I'll give you the jist... Two city dwellers decide to move to the country. They move with all these romantic ideas about how wonderful and peaceful everything will be... But things go wrong right from the start.

That basically sums up my experience in the mountains so far. We heaved the newly purchased washer and dryer into the wrong positions, forcing us to remove both machines back out of the laundry room. Once we got them back in, the dryer exhaust hose was too short to reach. We finally got that problem solved only to find that the hot water valve to the washer not only leaked, but sprayed the entire room with water as if we were trying to grow gardenias in there or something. The plumber came and fixed that problem and ran an entire cycle without ensuring that the drain hose from the washer was properly attached to the drain, so we came home yesterday to about 1 inch of water throughout the entire laundry room. Turns out the hose from the washer to the drain is too short, and the extension that we tried to add just leaked water like a colander. So now we have 4 completely soaked towels and no way to do laundry. And that's just the laundry room!

The upstairs toilet routinely clogs and/or overflows. There was a hair clog the size of Texas in the upstairs shower that caused the water to be at ankle level 0.14 seconds after turning on the shower. There are about 872 missing electrical faceplates throughout the house and several light switches appear to do nothing whatsoever. In the kitchen, all of the cabinets open from the stupid direction, leading me to believe that the owner must have been left-handed (apologies to any southpaws out there...I have been pulling on the wrong side of the cabinet doors ever since Friday). Outside, there are birds living in the kitchen wall and a squirrel tore down my birdfeeder, which had hung for all of 4 days. Ini the dogbeast has figured out how to open the gate for his enormous dog pen, but when that becomes too tedious for his ADHD brain, he simply jumps the fence. After it gets dark up here, I am too scared to move by myself between the upper and lower floors (I am just completely ridiculous), so I have to make sure to get myself in the proper location before nightfall.

All that said... I love it up here. Sure there are loads of annoying things about the house and about unpacking and about figuring out a new place. But it really is peaceful up here. And I really do enjoy waking up in the mountains, just like I knew I would. We've talked to our property manager about all the little nuisances, and he's been very prompt about taking care of things for us. All that remains now is for me to lace up my running shoes and try out some new routes.

A day full of perfect

As I left the house for what was to be tonight's "easy" run, I may have been a bit optimistic. The weather was fantastic, I had a fully charged Garmin, I had a freshly purchased audiobook on my shuffle (Songs Without Words)... It was... perfect.

My running, on the other hand... not quite perfect. You see, I had all this residual confidence from Friday's huge running success, all of which promptly blew up in my pretty little face as I began to struggle less than a mile in. I honestly believe it has to do with the audiobook. If I focus my attention on listening to my footsteps and my breathing, my running is cake. If I try to listen to an audiobook or, heaven forbid, music... I get all out of whack. It's always been a bit of an issue for me, but I learned how to combine running and audiobooks before, and I will do it again. Besides, there's no turning back at this point. I've already spent $21.95 on the audiobook.

Tonight's run, all in all, wasn't too bad. I did 2 miles of running, and covered 2.6 total. In general, I felt really strong. I felt tired and winded at times, but it wasn't anything I couldn't push through. I noticed, at one point, that I was worrying about my pace. With Friday's run floating around in my mind, filling me with unrealistic expectations, I found myself thinking: "I know I can run faster than this..." Worrying about pace probably isn't the best thing for me right now, but tonight's pace ended up being almost exactly my pace from Friday anyway.

In other great news, I am happy to report that I passed my physical exam for disability insurance! (the crowd goes wild) True, I had to take a physical exam to qualify for disability insurance, which I'm not entirely sure is normal... maybe they thought because of my size/medical history/lack of coordination I am not a good candidate for disability insurance? Either way, my blood pressure has dropped from normal-high (130/80) to practically perfect (112/62). I'm so proud of my blood. I always knew it was talented, it just had to apply itself.