2014 Will Be Quite A Year...I Think But I Haven't Planned Anything Yet

Well now it's January. Now I suppose I am to make some kind of resolution for the new year. Lose 10lbs? Eat healthier? Hit the gym more? I don't know. I really don't believe in making New Year Resolutions. Not because none of these things don't need focus because they probably do.  I want to say more so because I am lazy but that is not really it either. I don't like to make insincere goals for myself and I definitely don't like to make public insincere goals or resolutions. Once I decide that something is a goal or resolution then it becomes a personal challenge to me. It just takes me awhile to work it out in my head, make my plan and figure out how I am going to coordinate what needs to be done. A date on a calendar does not make that goal/resolution happen I make it happen.

Which leads me to what I've been mulling about. I am not one to come up with a list of things that I need to complete by a certain time. I have a loose idea of things that 1. I know I can do 2. Someday would like to be able to do 3. There's a snowball's chance in Hell it's going to happen but...then along with that loose idea of things I also have a loose idea of how loose item 1 can happen but this loose list only goes to a looser idea of how item 2 can possibly happen. So for running, which this blog is mostly about, I have loosely thought about expanding Pip Running. I have run an ad in the neighborhood flyer and I am collaborating with a few people on a few things. I have loosely thought of getting a legitimate website and the wheels are starting to spin on possible future training groups. Ahhh. That is already a lot of work on inside my head. Then I am supposed to think about, formulate a plan and then execute a plan on the 2 half marathons I have committed to running in 2014? My passport renewal is still in flux but it is getting there. Maybe a 3 trip to a government office will be my lucky day. I should really get down there. My marathon "plan" is even more loose because...well that date has not been released yet. I had a personal goal to run a 1000 miles in 2013. The number wasn't a hard number necessarily. I just wanted it to be over 1000. After tallying through 10 spreadsheets I figured out I ran 1303.96. Another person may have ran that 0.04 when they saw that number but I like to play it fast and loose.  Beyond those "goals" I have no idea what I am doing.

As a running coach I often talk to my clients about setting goals for their running.  It is a great motivator to have this carrot of a race dangling out there and the races with the training and group runs really help keep you focused. On a personal level I really work best off the outline.  So no New Year's Resolutions for me. I am still going to eat carbs, curse like a sailor and drink wine. I would like to resolve to become more organized and get laser-like focus on my goals. But that seems like a lot of work so I think I am just going to loosely decide to just run.

A Christmas Story!

For December I decided to do something I have never done before. I decided to run a Virtual Race. You may be asking what is a Virtual Race? A Virtual Race is a race that you can basically run anywhere you are and sometimes at whatever time you want. The distances vary and the length of time you have to complete them varies as well. The fees are small compared to regular races and they generally go to charity. It seems like many of the Virtual Races offer medals and to be honest it was the medal that convinced me to do this Virtual Race: A Christmas Story 30th Anniversary 5k/10k Run. 

I worked with a friend named Melissa to create an event for Pip Running and our friends. We had a group of 9 or so people running between both distances and Melissa already had a pre-run route that started from her house, through Downtown Renton, past Boeing along the Cedar River Trail then back up to Melissa's house where we had a wonderful pot luck brunch and running clothes swap. 

As I said before the fees for Virtual Runs are generally pretty cheap but this race was not. The starting price was around $55 and then jumped up to near $75 with shipping. Yikes! That was a hard race entry to swallow because I, of course, waited too long on the early bird pricing and paid the $$$ pricing. I set up the event though what else could I do. Of course we did not expect everyone to pay that high fee so Melissa made medals for all the runners. I know many people scoff at race medals and they don't run for them but I ran for this one and got a super unique bonus medal in the deal.

Both of them are hanging proudly on my medal rack.  They are both a Major Award after all.

Half Marathoners!

They did it!

I haven't talked much about it or them but this Fall I had my first half marathon training group. The group was started to train for the Seattle Half Marathon which was happening on December 1st and let me tell you I love/d these guys!

Training started in September for these guys while I was training for the Portland Marathon in October. The mutual training worked well for my running schedule and once the marathon was done in early October I was able to something I call "car coaching". Car Coaching is where I am able to meet my group at several points along the route and be there water stop, moral support and if necessary ride back to the start. Once their miles started getting longer this also gave my husband and I a great chance to get runs in together. Mike would run half the route with the guys (while I car coached) then I would run the 2nd half while my husband did water stops.

I have been very fortunate to have some really great clients and it is really hard to express how much I enjoyed training this group and how proud and happy for them I was when they finished their half marathon. This was a first for several of them and I trained them on a lot of hills.  To see some of them come so far from having to walk/run 5 flat miles in the beginning to being able to run the full 13.1 hilly miles just made me so proud. We felt like a family that day and I have to admit it was a little bit like the morning after Christmas when it was done.

More training groups have been planned and I can't wait to feel this way again!

The "F" Word

The day that I have dreaded for probably 2 decades has come and now gone. It did not come in like an lion but rolled in like a wave already broken. Yesterday I turned 40.

The number is still hard to pass through my lips and people don't seem as surprised as I hope they would be when they hear my age. Even with the number being hard to say, mentally I am mostly OK with it. 39 was a big year for me. I started my own business, I ran 2 major races (one of which was my FIRST marathon) and my youngest started preschool. Mentally and physically 39 had been my best year and I think it really was just setting the bar for the next 10 years. People that turn 40 like to say 40 is the new 30 but for me I really feel it is the new 20. I wasted my 20's in crappy jobs and being so worried about being single that I did not spend that time working on me. I feel younger now than I ever did at 25 or 26 and so in my 40's I am hoping to further my education and my business. I may have gotten it a little reversed but when you plan on living as long as I do then age really is just a number.

This is the new 40!

But My Garmin Says 27 Miles!

Well we DID IT! Months of training, weeks of injury and many, many doctor appointments and the Portland Marathon has been conquered. Ok it's done so let's move on. Ha ha you don't get off that easy.
















I will save you the play by play but I will give you a good overview of the day. Sunday morning I met Jamie in the lobby of the hotel and walked over to the start line together. We met up with Rachel, Erica and Corey in the corral so we could all start the race together. Rachel, Erica and Corey were all doing the half marathon but for the first 11 miles both groups ran together. It was great to see the girls and they all wore their Pip Running shirts which felt amazing! Shortly after we took off Rachel and Corey fell back into their comfortable running pace and Jamie and I ran with Erica for awhile. Lesson learned: be less generous with your finish time. We were in one of the last corrals and took off with the walkers. While I'm sure they are as a whole nice people they were very irritating to negotiate around when you are running a race. The time on our first couple of miles was all over the place do to the "obstacles".

I felt pretty good when the morning started. I knew I would be out there for awhile and faced the miles as a job that needed to be done. My foot was no longer hurting so I just had to handle whatever came up as it came up. We eventually lost Erica and Jamie and I ran through the first 13 miles. There were some interesting distractions such as the pirates shooting off cannons, ladies talking on cell phones and trains moving parallel to us giving you a sense of running on a moving sidewalk. My calves and hip flexors were already tight by the 12 or 13th mile and somewhere around mile 7 I could feel a blister forming. I tried to focus on my form, remember to lift my knees and remember that I had blister Band-Aids in my hydration pack (thank you Beth Baker for the story of you and the blister Band-Aid) and packed in a bag for Mike to bring when he met us on the course. We met Mike and the kids at Mile 12 and I put a Band-Aid on the forming blisters and was able to move on. I tried to keep in mind that I should be fueling and around Mile 5 I started taking Shot Blocks and drinking my watered down Gatorade that filled my hydration pack. When I met Mike at Mile 12 I pulled out my peanut butter pretzels and started to eat those for the next couple miles. Mile 12 was the last chance for Mike to see us for the next 6 miles so I'm glad he was able to negotiate his way around the course (with both kids) before our next scheduled meetup at Mile 18.

Jamie and I filled the next 6 miles with chatting, walking large hills and running over bridges. On the one big hill of the race, right before St. Johns Bridge, most of the people were walking up. Many, including ourselves, stopped at a scenic point on the hill and took pictures and then we took pictures for other people. One day Jamie will send me those pics. By this point my calves were so tight they felt like they were in vise grips or that they might snap but it didn't hurt too much to run. The stopping and starting was hard but once I was moving they were OK. By mile 18 Jamie had developed a blister so thankfully Mike was meeting us. She blister Band-Aided up, I had some Smokehouse Almonds and I kissed and cuddled the kids. Ailbe kept stealing my almonds but I got a few in before we took off again. Mike was going to meet us again around Mile 21-22. As we came up to Mile 20 our favorite partner in crime Donna was there!  It was so great to see her. I think Jamie's spirits were down and having this ball of positive energy that is Donna with us was great. She jumped right in with us and ran and walked the next 5 miles with us. She came really prepared too. She brought Kleenex, wet towels to wipe our salty faces and she said she had her car full of food/drinks. Our marathon angel.

Mike was there again at Mile 21 and this was a fun meeting because the kids ran with us for a block or so. I wish someone I know got a pic. By this point we were in the neighborhoods in Portland. Strangers were camped out in their front yards or in lawn chairs along the road cheering us on. We were able to customize our bibs when we registered and it was so great to hear strangers saying "You can do it Susie Q!". I high-fived and cheered my way through the next couple of miles. Around Mile 23 we met up with Jamie's family and I think she really needed to see them. Her family all had white shirts on which they wrote supportive slogans to support her. Off to Mile 25 and our final meeting with Mike and Donna's departure from us. Once we met up with Mike, Jamie and I dropped our hydration packs off with him and ran our last mile in elation. We were almost done! On the final bit of our last mile Erica, Rachel and Corey were waiting for us. They finished their half marathon 3 hours earlier but they hung out, thankfully on a beautiful day, for us to come in and ran that last quarter mile or so to the finish chute with us. I was so happy to see them and loved that we ran together.






















Finally we were at the finish chute and we were crossing the Finish Line. It was great to get our medals, space blanket and finisher's shirt. The Finishers Chute was pretty empty by this point so we were able to walk through like champions and pick and choose our bounty. Fruit? No thank you. Chocolate covered donut holes? Yes please!

Jamie was able to cross another "40 Before 40" goal off her list and I could welcome my 40th birthday feeling wonderful. As my training mileage really started to build I became injured. Top mileage before injury was 17 miles and post injury maybe 12. I did not know how I would feel during those 26.2 miles but knew I had the base miles and experience to finish. Never a doubt I was going to finish.  I ended up feeling pretty great.  Mentally throughout the race I never felt down or that I couldn't finish. Yes might calves were tight but I could still run and really just ran the race loving everybody but especially loving my body for being strong and putting up with this bullshit I was putting it through.

I am planning my next one now.  When I told Mike he rolled his eyes. Gotta love him. I really can't wait to see how it goes with what I hope to be a full training.

 

A Tribute To A Husband

My first marathon is a little more than a week away. My foot/ankle are now pain free when I run. I have trained as much as I could under the circumstances, recovered as much as I could under the circumstances and tried to forget about the huge endeavor I will be taking on as much as I could under the circumstances. 

As I was driving to the gym this morning I was reflecting on the process and the journey I have been on this year with starting my coaching business and taking on the gigantic tasks of having a Ragnar team this year and training for this marathon. This made me think of my husband Mike. A real partner in every sense of the word. He has put up with a lot. I mean A LOT! I am gone more in the evenings than home now. We rarely have dinner together as a family and the patience and flexibility to be able to meet up with me at various parks or to be home by a certain time has not fazed him much. Maybe he doesn't like doing it, I don't know, but he WILL do it. I have stolen his Saturday mornings for coaching and commandeered Sundays for my personal training. His Monday schedule is adjusted so he is home early enough so that I can go to bootcamp and Thursday nights, while they are pizza nights, they are also my group run night. Although I am generally home to put at least one kid to bed on more than one occasion he has to handle both plus showers. So when I think about this running journey I have been on I can only think of how I could have not done this any way without him. My kids have put up with a lot too but really they only miss out on Mommy for dinner and occasionally a snuggle before bed. Mike has had to put up with his wife literally running out the door as he is pulling in. It is not totally unprecedented that I have stood in the garage in my running clothes waiting. I'll give him a quick smooch then jump in the car to meet my group.

BK (before kids) we weren't morning people. We would lounge around the house on the weekends often hanging out in our jammies into the afternoon. Once we had our kids, although they may have gotten up earlier than we would have liked, they adapted to the lounging on the weekends, watching cartoons and maybe getting dressed around noon. This year since I have been in constant training sleeping in on the weekend is 7am. More often than not we are up and running before the kids even wake up. The cruelest thing that could have happened to Mike was to get up even earlier during the week...and then it did happen. I started taking on private clients and we would meet at 7am twice a week. Yet he complains very little and sets the alarm clock. Sometimes he will go back to sleep with a pillow over his head and it does look just as pathetic as it sounds.

I thought I should think about this as I'm running my marathon. All the sacrifices a family has to make so one person can accomplish a goal. I think in the long run (always a long run) it is worth it. I think it is so important for my kids to see their mom active, train for a goal and finish it and to be there with their mom as I accomplish the goal they have sacrificed for. It becomes a family goal and a family triumph. I will mostly be thinking about Mike though and how much I would rather be with him at that moment. Looking for him and the kids every mile throughout the race will get me through until I see them. I hope the kids are cheering and that Mike is proud of his wife and knows how much she appreciates him and loves him for all the support.

Footsicle

It's been a couple weeks now since I have been cleared to run. I did not run any real distance for at least a month and it shows. I had a few set backs from when I was cleared. My second run out was the Sunday before Labor Day and I attempted 6mi- 3 out and 3 back. By the time I got to 3 out my right foot hurt so much with each step but I was 3 out so I had to get back. I ended up doing intervals of 3 min run with 1 min walking. It seemed like I was out there forever but I finally made it back to my car and promptly texted Dr. Monti. I felt so defeated and felt I was right back where I was a month prior. I came home, put my foot in ice and sulked a bit and briefly would let uncertainty about completing the Portland Marathon seep in.

I got to see Dr. Monti on Tuesday and by the time I saw him I was feeling better. Monday morning I had my usual Monday Morning Group Run with Pip Running and I was able to complete 4 miles. Not the fastest 4mi but to have the ability to get back on my forefoot on my right foot is wonderful. It really makes running easier when both of your feet are doing the same thing.  My foot and ankle still hurt. The pain seems to move around from behind my ankle bone to the side of my foot to the point on my forefoot where it bends when my foot pushes off to the fatty part on the right side of my foot right below my ankle bone. Dr. Monti said I am still a mystery but it seems that my peroneal muscles seem to be involved and I believe the Superior Extensor Retinaculum and probably the Inferior Extensor. However, since that dreaded Sunday before Labor Day I have been able to add miles and although it is still painful it is not too painful. I have been trying to work on my endurance which was trashed with not running for so long. My longest run so far has been 9 miles. It was broken up but I was happy to have it done. I am shooting for 11 this weekend.

I am still worried about Portland and joke that I will be running a 7hr marathon.  If I just knew my foot/ankle would not be hurting I would feel more relieved but with just weeks until the race that idea seems unrealistic. Now I just have to have a plan to manage the pain during the long time out there. I know I can do this.

Running Tip: If you wear a sock while icing your foot it hurts a hell of a lot less.