Tuesday bluesday

Well, I had a little adventure today as I went out for my run.... I'd decided to run down the road a ways and back, instead of around and around the house, so I intended to bring my keys and lock the door -- except I forgot my keys. Locked myself out of the house. Took about fifteen minutes and a bit of climbing and jumping to get back in (I climbed into the attic from the garage and out the door from the attic into the sunroom), and by the time that was done, I didn't feel much like running any more. Plus, it's been cloudy and windy and threatening to rain all day, so I just did 30 minutes around the house, as usual.

I felt very ploddy today, but I did get my 30 minutes in, so all's well.

Week 12: Sixteen miles

Another long run down -- and I'm only ten miles short of a marathon!

It was a good run. My pace was about the same as last time -- I averaged just over 17 minutes per mile -- but I felt better. Didn't get so tired at the end. I didn't feel like I was slowing down in the second half, but it took about 15 minutes longer than the first half, so I guess I must have.

I got kind of a late start -- I ended up sleeping until 9:20 this morning, and didn't get out the door until ten minutes to 11:00. Oops! It was clear but cold -- probably around 45 - 50F the whole time. The sun was nice, but the wind was bitey cold. I wore my black running pants and shirt, which are warmer than my usual running outfit, and kept my hooded jacket on for the whole run. At least it wasn't as cold as yesterday! OMG, it was freezing all day yesterday, with high winds and clouds. I went out yesterday morning to attend the opening of Red Apple Road, walked about a mile and a half up the road and back, and nearly froze. Yikes!

Anyway, I planned a route that was 14 miles altogether from here to the park, then added a mile around the house before I left, and a mile around the loop in the park when I got there. Mom came and met me at Valley and Curry to refill my water bottle, as she did before. I drank a soy protein drink with coffee before I left, so I had some energy and a bit of a caffeine jolt to keep me going. Then I had two GUs along the way, one after about two and a half hours, and one at three and a half hours. The second GU was also a caffeinated one. I think the caffeine helps keep me going, although it doesn't make me any faster, it makes the run feel easier.

I think for the 18 and 20 mile runs, I will run from here to mom's place, so I can take a break to get water and use the bathroom at the halfway point. Then probably just run from her place to the park to finish the second half.

Mom drove me back to her place for dinner afterwards, and then drove me home -- it was after dark when I got home! It's been a long day. But I'm happy with my run.

Happy Thanksgiving!

My run is done!

I'm thankful that, despite all my health woes over the past couple of years, I'm still able to run and train for another marathon.

I'm thankful that I'm able to use the marathon as an opportunity to raise money to help people with AIDS/HIV.

I'm thankful for my family and friends, who support me in my training.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Another Tuesday

I didn't do my update yesterday, but I did, in fact, do my Tuesday run -- 30 minutes at 3:2. I had company staying for a couple of days, but am pleased that I still got out there and did my run, not using the excuse of having a house guest to get out of it.

I've been thinking of increasing my midweek runs to 45 minutes instead of 30, but this week -- what with guests and Thanksgiving -- is definitely not a good week to start it. So, tomorrow will be 30 minutes as usual. Maybe next week I'll try doing an extra 10 - 15 minutes per maintenance run.

I haven't really thought about my route for Sunday. If I don't get around to measuring any new roads in my truck, I'll just do a repeat of the 14-mile route, with two miles tacked on around the house before I head off.

Week 11: Seven miles

The seven-mile run went pretty well. I actually got up a bit early this week, and was at the park ready to run at 9:30 this morning. I did ten loops, about an hour and 54 minutes, right on track. I even checked my time at the halfway point -- five loops -- and saw that it was about 57 minutes, so I could compare my total time and see if I was slowing down any in the second half, and it came out pretty darn close to exactly 57 minutes for the next five loops, too. Afterwards, I had lunch at mom's and came home to do housework. I've got company coming tomorrow, and Thanksgiving here on Thursday, so have been spending the last week or so getting the house in order. One unfortunate result of that is that I've been very stuffy-headed, having stirred up my allergies with all the dust. But the house is clean now, so I hope my head will clear up.

Another result of the housecleaning is that I came across a couple of Runner's World magazines I hadn't gotten around to reading, so I sat down to check them out and got myself a bit inspired again. Lots of good advice, and mainly encouragement that everyone has bad days (weeks?) and runs that don't go well, and eveyone gets discouraged every once in a while, and there are ways to get your enthusiasm back and make your runs go better.

So, I decided to get myself an iPod Shuffle so I can listen to music while I run. I think that will help keep me going, especially on the long runs here in town, when I'm running by myself. I'm also going to go ahead and get myself a running watch, so I won't have to be constantly watching my timer to figure out when to run and when to walk. I've already ordered the iPod. I haven't decided about the watch yet, whether to order it online or try to find a sporting goods store in Bakersfield or something. But soon.

I've also decided to make my own schedule for the next month or so, and do 16, 8, 18, 9, 20 mile run. So next week, it will be 16 miles!

And round some more

Bleah. Tired, depressed, still having digestion problems. What's the deal? I'm starting to dread my runs, instead of looking forward to them. Am I reaching my burnout point? Is this all the farther my body can go?

Well, anyway, I did my 30 minutes today. This weekend is seven miles, so that shouldn't be a problem. I noticed, though, that our schedule calls for another 7 mile run next week, and 17 miles the week after that, December 3/4. That's the weekend I'm going on an excursion with my mom to Ontario Mills for Christmas shopping, and I'm not keen on the idea of running 17 miles the day before. I checked the schedule, and it looks like they've moved around some of the long runs to avoid having them on holiday weekends. Which makes sense, since a lot of people will be out of town, but I won't, so I'm thinking of rearranging my own schedule to do 16 miles next week, 8 the week after, then 18, 9, 20. Then I'd be back in sync with the AIDS Marathon. Trouble is, that has me doing 20 miles on Christmas weekend. I could do it... but I'm not sure how well it will work.

Guess I've got a couple of weeks to think about it. I'm doing 7 miles this weekend, anyway, for sure.

I got an email from the AIDS Marathon saying they hadn't received my recommitment form yet. I mailed it a couple of days before the deadline, and they should have it by now, but I suppose it could have gotten lost in the mail. In the back of my mind, I'm thinking, if they don't get it, I'll just drop out. Sigh. This is a lot harder than any of my previous marathons. I wish I were close enough to LA to run with the group.

Well, I'll stick with it as long as I can.

Round and round

Still had a bit of a tummyache today (which leads me to believe I might just have picked up some sort of mild stomach virus or something, because the popcorn I ate Saturday night wouldn't still be bugging me on Tuesday), but I got my Tuesday run in. My shins and hamstrings are a bit sore from Sunday, but not bad. Nothing like the 10-mile run, which I keep telling myself whenever I start to feel disappointed that the 14-mile run didn't go better. It was Better Than the Ten-Mile Run. That's my new mantra. As long as it's better than the 10-mile, I'm okay!

Week 10: Fourteen miles

Whew! Okay, it was long and got pretty tiring at the end, but it was done, and in fact, it went pretty well.

I started out this morning at 10:13 am from my house, feeling pretty good after a good night's sleep. I was horribly tired and bad-tempered yesterday, and remained worried about doing 14 miles today, but was relieved to find that when I got up this morning, while still somewhat grumpy, I did feel strong and awake enough to do the run.

So off I went. I ran down my road to Highline, where I made the first change from the last time I did a long run through town -- I kept going up Dennison instead of turning on Highline. There was a frontage road along Dennison all the way to the high school, where there was actual sidewalk, so it was easier than running on the shoulder along Highline. When I got to Dennison and Valley Blvd, which I figured was about six miles, I called my mom on my cell phone to have her come and meet me at Curry, my halfway point, to fill up my water bottle. Which she did. So I had plenty of water the whole way, another advantage over the last town run.

I turned right on Curry and ran to Tehachapi Blvd, then left on Tehachapi past the Kmart, then turned left on Mountain View to head back towards Valley. Partly, this was to add another mile to my run so I'd have less to do once I reached the park, and partly it was to avoid running on the part of Valley where there was no sidewalk or bike path. It worked pretty well -- I still had to run up Valley to Tucker and beyond, but until they open Red Apple Road, there's no other way to get to the park than Valley, so I had to come back to Valley eventually for part of the way.

Running up Valley Blvd was hard -- uphill, uneven shoulders, lots of traffic. It's where I really ran out of steam last time. This time was easier, but still no fun.

When I reached Golden Hills Blvd, I turned right, then made a detour to my mom's house to use the bathroom before heading down to the park. I ate a bowl of popcorn for dinner last night, and it was working its way through me, until I decided I'd better stop. That was a relief! My mom's couch was tempting, but I passed it by and hit the road again for my final four miles.

Mom walked with me for a little ways to show me a better way to get to Woodward than going down Golden Hills Blvd. Just one block over, on Angel, was much less traffic on a little residential street. When I started running, she headed back to her place to finish something she was cooking, and I continued to the park.

Along the way, I smashed my left big toe for the third time on this run -- first, I tripped on an uneven part of the sidewalk on Valley, then tripped again on uneven shoulder, and now I bashed my toe right into a big rock! Ow! Fortunately, I'd cut my toenails short before the run and my toe wasn't banging against my shoes, so I was fine for the rest of the run, but my toe is still sore. I hope the nail isn't injured and it heals up before next week's run.

I was pretty dog-tired by the time I reached the park, but still managed to do four loops for my last three miles. I'm sure I slowed down some, but I did keep up with my run/walk intervals right to the end. I finished at 2:18 pm. Subtracting five minutes for the pit stop at my mom's makes it just about exactly four hours for the whole run. That's just over 17 minutes per mile. A little slower than I'd like, but I think I was keeping my pace pretty well up until the last three miles or so, which is where I really slowed down.

When I was done, Mom, who'd come down to the park and walked a loop herself, drove me back to her place, where I did my ab work and stretches and had a yummy late lunch, then hung out for a while until she drove me home.

I feel pretty good now. I was really hungry by the time we ate, but I had two GUs and most of a pack of Sport Beans along the way, and it seemed to keep my strength up. I'd probably have done better if I hadn't eaten that popcorn last night. I'll have to remember not to do that any more.

All in all, I'm pleased. I wish I could stick to my 16-minute-mile pace for the whole run, but the important thing is that I finished it without getting overly worn out.

Counter-clockwise, again

I was feeling kind of depressed and tired this morning, and really didn't want to run, but I did it anyway. I considered running down the road for fifteen minutes and back, instead of around and around the house, just to break up the monotony, but settled for running counter-clockwise around the house instead. The run went fine, although I didn't feel very energetic. I stuck to 2:3 most of the time, except for a couple of intervals where I did 3:2 by mistake. Heh.

I'm feeling a bit apprehensive about the 14-mile run on Sunday, after how hard the 10-mile run was, even though I've figured out why the 10-mile was so hard and thought of ways to avoid those pitfalls this time. I'm still not really looking forward to it. I hope I can stir up some enthusiasm before Sunday.

Clockwise

I did my maintenance run with a 3:2 run/walk ratio again today, but I ran clockwise! I'm just so unpredictable!

Cloudy and coolish today, good running weather. I ran between doing loads of laundry. I am so industrious today!

Week 9: Six miles

This is the point where we start alternating long runs with shorter recovery runs on the weekend, so today was only six miles. I ran at Meadowbrook Park for and hour and 40 minutes or so, then finished my last lap walking, so I ended up doing nine laps altogether.

I noticed that I was doing laps fairly quickly, so I timed one, and it was 10:52 -- not quite eleven minutes. Either I was running way too fast (doubtful) or the laps are not 0.8 miles, as I'd thought. I suspect they're actually closer to 0.7 miles. Which would help explain why my 10-mile run was so hard -- the week before, I was supposed to do 8 miles, but that was the week I forgot my timer and had to estimate my distance by laps. I ran ten laps, thinking that would be around eight miles, but if each lap is only 0.7 miles or less, I really ran no more than seven miles. Which means that when I did my ten mile run, I was increasing my distance by three miles or more. I do remember that I began to run out of steam after about seven miles, so that would make sense. Today I did nine laps, and I was only doing six miles.

I measured the distance between my place and the park in my truck, and it was 9.9 miles. I also drove down Valley Blvd instead of Highline, and it seems to be a better road for running -- more sidewalks, paths, bigger shoulders, and slower speed limit so less worry about traffic. I could run from here to the park and then do another four miles of laps to get in my 14 miles next week. Or I may measure some other routes. I've got a week to figure out my route for next week.

Anyway, I felt pretty good today, and felt as though I kept up a good pace. For six miles, I should be able to!

My fundraising total for October was within three or four bucks of the amount needed to bring my total to $500, so I just contributed the whole amount. I think I should be able to scrape up another $500 sales and donations this month, which will leave me with only $500 more that I'll need to come up with on my own. Not bad.

Counter-clockwise

I did my second maintenance run today this week instead of yesterday (Thursday), because I spent two hours yesterday digging dirt to repair my driveway where it got washed out in the rains last month, and I figured that was enough exercise for one day.

Just to shake things up a bit, on today's run, I did a 3:2 run/walk ratio, instead of my usual 2:3, and also ran around the house counter-clockwise, instead of clockwise! What a wild and crazy person I am! Heh. The 3:2 was no problem on such a short run. I might even try to extend my maintenance runs to run more of the time, just to keep them interesting.

It's starting to get windy and cold. I haven't had to run in the rain yet, except for a few drops, but I'm sure it will come at some point. I'm still thinking about driving down to LA to do some of the really long long runs with the group. Maybe at 18 or 20 miles I'll try another one. Now that I've been there once, I shouldn't have to leave quite so early. If I can actually sleep until I need to get up -- instead of waking up at 2:00 AM and lying awake until 5:00 AM wondering if it's time to get up yet -- I should be ok. Well, we'll see. I've got some weeks to think about it yet.

I forgot to mention that I took advantage of the hotel's high-speed wireless Internet in SF to make reservations at the Wilshire Grand in LA for the weekend of the marathon. The Wilshire is the official marathon hotel -- supposedly a short walk to the start and finish areas of the marathon -- and they had a special marathon rate, which was still spendy but not too bad for a big city hotel. I'll drive down Saturday afternoon so I can go to the Expo and pick up my race packet, get a good night's sleep and walk to the race in the morning, then head back to the hotel after the marathon to rest and recuperate for one more night before heading home on Monday. Should be a nice little mini-vacation.

Home again

Boy, I really didn't want to do my maintenance run today. Still feeling kind of tired and icky from my trip and eating strange vacation food and such. I had to speak firmly to myself to make myself go out and do it! Fortunately, it was just a short, midweek run, rather than a long one. The run itself didn't feel bad, although I didn't have much energy. It was motivating myself to get out there and do it that was the hard part!

So, I managed to do maintenance runs the day I left and the day after I got back, and a long run while on vacation. I'm pleased that I'm keeping up with the training and not letting things get in the way.