Tucson Marathon

Winter weather in Arizona is really, really nice. I wasn't particularly pleased to return to Minnesota and find 10+ inches of snow and a temperature of 3 degrees.

When you get mad at someone in a hotel for setting their alarm at a ridiculously early time: watch out, it might be you. I purposely set an extra alarm on my tablet for 4:45 am on marathon day. I just didn't realize that without reliable wifi access, my tablet couldn't update the time. Therefore, promptly at 4:45 am CST (which is 3:45 am in Arizona), my tablet tried to wake me up. I swore at the neighbors. Then I swore at myself. Another hour or so of fitful dreaming and marathon day had arrived.

I had laid out all my stuff two days before so I wouldn't be dumb and forget anything. I forgot my chapstick in spite of this and had to walk back to the room to retrieve it. I arrived in the hotel lobby in plenty of time to catch one of the first buses up to Mt. Lemmon. My seatmate said that this was not a very scenic course and that made me a little sad (turns out she was wrong: for a flatlander, mountains on the horizon are plenty scenic). It was a pretty long drive up and still pitch dark, so I dozed a little bit. We waited on the bus until about 20 minutes before the 7 am start time, put our warm clothes in drop bags and lined up at the start. There was a Marathon Maniac near me who was running this as her 250th marathon. Umm... ok. They don't call themselves maniacs for nothing.

They'd rescheduled the marathon start time half an hour early because of northerners and record heat. Well, it was in the low 40s at the start and maybe 60 degrees when I finished around 11 o'clock. So much for heat. My "run a mile walk a minute" plan depended on my phone app beeping in my ear, so I was plugged in for all but the last 2 miles. Next time, if I'm running injured again, I think I'll skip the app and just walk for a minute at each mile marker. The first couple miles were indeed downhill as advertised, but the rest of the course was generally rolling or descending so gradually as to be imperceptible. Running uphill at altitude is not something at which I excel. Everything felt pretty good until past 20 miles, when my right hip started complaining in earnest. My ankle was fine the entire way. I stopped the walk breaks after 24 miles because I was afraid that I'd never start running again. My pacing was much better than Pocatello last year, when I blasted down the mountain for a half marathon split of about 1:45 (and a finish of 4:11:50, talk about positive splits!).

The course wasn't too spectator-friendly. I'm going to make sure that the next one is, because my sherpas were bored and I missed them. If you're going to drag someone along while you're running for 4-odd hours, at least give them something to watch! My sherpas were worried when I wasn't showing up after 3:50 or so and debated whether I was out somewhere walking or in the medical tent. I just got slow. I didn't feel too awful afterwards, but I don't recommend spraining your ankle 6 weeks before a marathon, having a 6 week taper and running your last 20 miler two months before the race. Just FYI. Splits below.

Mile 1 - 8:05
Mile 2 - 8:30
Mile 3 - 8:46
Mile 4 - 9:29
Mile 5 - 8:24
Mile 6 - 8:39
Mile 7 - 8:22
Mile 8 - 9:08
Mile 9 - 8:33
Mile 10 - 8:53
Mile 11 - 9:49
Mile 12 - 10:35
Mile 13 - 9:07
Mile 14 - 9:40
Mile 15 - 9:05
Mile 16 - 9:34
Mile 17 - 9:17
Mile 18 - 9:38
Mile 19 - 9:42
Mile 20 - 10:17
Mile 21 - 10:41
Mile 22 - 10:11
Mile 23 - 10:52
Mile 24 - 11:30
Mile 25 - 11:08
Mile 26 - 11:12
0.2 - 2:10

Finish time - 4:11:12

1 mile at a time

Or at least that's the plan. My last 20 miler was the Saturday before I sprained my ankle. I ran three 20 milers, two 18 milers and my highest mileage week was 55 miles. We will see.

Road to recovery?

My pt made me do many weird things yesterday, but my ankle tolerated everything well and I seem to have regained decent range of motion. After 16 days off, she said I could try running again. Only 35-45 minutes and I had to start with 3 minutes walk, 1 minute run. That works out to about 10 minutes of running, for those of you playing along at home. 

So what did I do as soon as my appointment was over? Changed into running clothes and headed out the door. Come on! It was 55 degrees and sunny outside! Running for only a minute is not very long and I was grumpy at the lady on the RunKeeper app who kept saying, "Next interval. 3 minutes SLOW." She was right, though, and I complied. Everything felt weird, slightly off, but nothing hurt. Well, not until later and I was getting stab by pains in my ankle. Then it wasn't too fun. A little icing seemed to help and it was only a little stiff this morning. 

Tomorrow I will try 45 minutes of walk 2 minutes, run 1 minute... (15 minutes total of running). It's a far cry from what's on the schedule (16 miles), but it's also not laying around like a lump feeling sorry for myself. And we were all sick of that.

Life as a klutz

I have big feet and I tend to trip over them. That isn't the real problem, though. It has been documented that I am actually a klutz as long ago as 1968 when I rolled down my grandma's basement stairs as a toddler. I've fallen up and down those exact stairs many, many times in the ensuing 40-odd years (as well as many other staircases, sidewalks, dirt paths, etc.).

I've twisted my ankles so many times I can't even count. In my first 10k trail race, I twisted the living snot out of not one, but BOTH ankles. And finished the race. I pretty much go through life assuming that at some point I will spontaneously fall down for no apparent reason whatsoever. Avid readers of this blog will recall my infamous invisible stump accident during a trail race in 2010.

I'm nearing the end of marathon training. This week is a cutback week, so I am only supposed to run 41 miles. I have three more weeks of build up, including two more 20-milers, before I taper for three weeks. I ran 10 miles on Monday. I will not be running any more miles this week. I'm not too sure about next week, either. Or the week after that. My trip to Tucson in December may end up just being a vacation.

I didn't really sleep last night, so I decided to try to catch at least a nap before work and told myself that I'd run today's 10 miles after work. It turns out that you should always stick to your schedule and NEVER NEVER EVER deviate from it, because it is hideous awful bad luck. Sleep or no sleep, I should have run this morning. 

On my way out the door to work, I fell down my back hall stairs. I managed not to scream, but it hurt. A lot. Left ankle rolled completely, as it is wont to do. I got up after a couple of minutes and grabbed an ice pack from the freezer. I iced all the way to work, took 4 Ibuprofen when I got there and kept icing with my foot on the desk all morning. Bearing weight was getting to be too much. I called and scheduled an appointment. They will see me at 4:15. I lurched very slowly to the parking lot and drove myself home. My roofer took one look at me and said, "Hey, are you on the injured reserve list?" I lurched to the basement, got my much-loathed crutches, and crutched upstairs after popping 4 more Ibuprofen. Even moving my foot a tiny bit elicits whimpers, because let me tell you folks, this really hurts. I took off my shoe (whimper), the ace wrist bandage I put on my ankle at work, and carefully peeled off my sock.

My ankle is as big as a tennis ball. I've never had an ankle swell up much at all, and I roll them often. I don't think this is good.

< many many many expletives have been deleted from this space >

Long runs in the morning

Yesterday, I ran 13 miles before work. This morning I ran 12 miles. Tomorrow I will also run 12 miles. I am a little tired.

Funny thing about doing my runs before it even gets light out is that they end up feeling sort of surreal. I (eventually) get to work and the day progresses and it's as though the early morning hours didn't really happen. My one foot feels a little creaky and my eyes are tired and I really want to nap, but the reality of "I spent two hours of my day running" doesn't hit me. Well, at 8:30PM when I'm already comatose, then I suppose it hits me.

On the rare occasions when I run after work, the run stays with me more. I'm thinking all day about "having to run" after work, making sure I don't eat too much or too late in the day (I'm not a good eat-before-running person). I worry whether I will be too worn out from working to finish my planned mileage. I perseverate a little, maybe.

It's almost like having a totally separate life.

Every day I run 10 miles

Well, not every day. But four times a week, it seems that I am out at 5am, running 10 miles, because 10 miles is now my easy run. Except on Saturdays, when I run 15 or 18 or 20 miles. Such is the schedule of a marathon runner. Then there's sleeping. And eating mass quantities.

It has been an interesting year for running. This may be the most I have ever run in a single year. Summer was really hot and really humid, which is not the best running weather for me. It suddenly became fall this week, just as I was getting a new roof installed. Waking up to 25 mph winds and temps in the low 40s was fun, then this morning it was 30 when I got up. Luckily I tested out my warmer running gear yesterday (when I also ran 10 miles). The light rail was not very crowded at 6:10 and it's a quick trip to the Metrodome, where both the TC 10 Mile and the marathon start. About 9,000 people registered for the 10 mile and 7600 or so finished it. The race is along the river, where I do nearly all my runs. I usually choose the more down hill direction, however.

I wanted this to be just slightly faster than yesterday, which came in at an 8:59 pace, each mile slightly faster than the one before it. I was aiming for an 8:30 overall pace, which I exceeded if you count the 10.11 miles that my GPS measured. Splits below. Sheesh, St. Paul is hilly. Looking at the elevation chart explains a lot about the slow down in miles 6 and 7!

Mile 1-8:10
Mile 2-8:01
Mile 3-8:37
Mile 4-8:16
Mile 5-8:34
Mile 6-8:47
Mile 7-8:48
Mile 8-8:31
Mile 9-8:40
Mile 10-7:59
bonus 0.11-(7:24)

Hiking up a mountain

This one, at least, was clearly marked.

Pretty creek flowing down the mountain

And they MEAN wilderness

The boy and the girl consulting GPS

Large fallen trees. Really large.

Trees after a flash flood long ago.

Same trees from far away after crawling over them

Prickly pears

Bryce Canyon

As I found out on my drive to Utah, the west is big. Really big. Mind blowingly big. Bryce Canyon is completely unreal and yet there it is.

The boy drove from town out to the national park. Though I-70 is very flatlander friendly, the state roads are not conducive to driving for someone afraid of heights. When I could look out at the scenery, it was amazing. I am really grateful to the army for teaching the boy how to drive, especially since he didn't have to enlist!

There was a rain/hail/thunder storm on the way up to the top of the canyon. We got out of the car during a brief respite and took a short hike. The sign warning about rattlesnakes was in the bathroom. We saw that after we were done walking around!

In which I drive across the country

Well,  halfway across: Minneapolis to St. George, Utah. The trip odometer read 1657.1 when I finally arrived and shut off the car. Bearing in mind the warnings of few places to stop once I got to the west, I filled up long before I needed to. First in Minneapolis, just before I started off. Then, in Papillion, Nebraska after spending the night with my sister. Then, in Ogallala, NE; Golden, CO; and finally Green River, UT.

Iowa was less flat and boring than I thought it would be, but still it wasn't really interesting. I was also in a hurry because I left later than I'd planned and my sister was expecting me by 7. There was a rainstorm part of the way, but it wasn't bad at all. Omaha is just past the borders with Iowa and Papillion is a suburb just slightly to the south. Omaha, from the little I saw of it, is not very picturesque. My sister and her hubs were very welcoming and I got to hear about Tom's new job and my nephew's great swim team. Who knew swimming was big in Nebraska?

The plan for Day 2 was to get to Ft. Collins, CO. I wanted to tour the New Belgium Brewery, but alas no tours on Sunday and Monday. I got a weird vibe from the town, so I just stopped for treats and then continued on to Denver.

Side note: they drive like crazy out west. I thought Colorado was nuts, but then I got to Utah and it was even worse. They are good with passing and merging, it's just that it's really FAST. Driving 80 was standard in Colorado, well, up until the mountains. In Utah, 85 was common and in one case I passed a guy, then realized I was going 100. Volkswagen can handle it just fine.

I was getting tired as I got to Denver, but I wasn't seeing a good place to stop. The mountains kept getting bigger and then the traffic started thinning out and I realized that I was not going to find anything if I kept going. I pulled over and checked for a hotel (and bedbughotel). Found a Days Inn a couple exits back and turned around. I made good use of their treadmill the next morning. I managed to scare myself enough not to head out to the trail I'd researched online. Running at one mile of elevation is hard. Plus, I found out that my exercise induced asthma is also elevation induced.

The part of the trip that intimidated me the most was driving through the mountains. The last time I tried was 20 years ago and I couldn't do it. I didn't have much choice this time, the mountains were between me and my destination. I knew to stay in the right lane and engine braking worked great in 4th gear. Really the hardest part was the altitude. The higher I got, the crappier I felt. Hard to breathe and nasty pinchy headache. It felt a little like a panic attack wanting to start, but I just kept breathing slowly and also drank about a gallon of water. Eleven thousand plus feet was just too much. That was the highest I got before gradually descending (at 7% grade! ). I guess an Everest summit is not in the cards for me!

The rest of Colorado was beautiful. Utah was, too. Everything is so amazingly gigantic. It was like watching a movie. I didn't have music on most of the time because the scenery was just so fantastic.

The last hundred miles or so weren't quite so fun. Lots of rain and people still insisting on driving 80+ mph. But I got here. All in one piece with the car intact.

I didn't think I would like driving this far all by myself. Turns out that it was a really good experience.

War kittens

Six weeks of bike commuting

Depending on whether you map it with Google maps or GPS it with a phone, the distance from my house to my work is 9.1-9.5 miles. I go with 9.35 miles because that is what GPS most often tallies. So, you end up with an 18.7 mile round trip. When traffic is good, it takes 20 minutes by car. Via transit, the bus travel alone is about 36 minutes (plus a half mile walk to and from the bus stop on either end).

How long does it take to ride? Well, that depends. If you go too far up the river on the first day, forgetting that turning at Lake St. the preferred method, it takes a little over an hour and you go an extra mile. If you switch out your knobby mountain bike tires (26x2.25, 65 psi max) for narrower slick tires (26x1.6, 80 psi max), adjust your seat properly and raise your handle bars a bit, it takes 43 minutes. Going to work is actually uphill... there's an overall elevation gain. I'm excited to see how long it takes me to get home.

Bear in mind that I am still the slowest biker in the Twin Cities. Really. Chubby dudes on fixed gear bikes routinely pass me. My "fast" ride today? Not even 13 mph. I think my kid runs faster than that.

Oh, yeah, so six weeks. This is the sixth week that I've been biking twice a week to work. I bike on my days off running because there's just only so much time in the morning. If unions were stronger and the knowledge economy operated on a 6 hour per day 4 day per week type of arrangement, then I could probably fit it all in. Damn union.

EVEN HOTTER (and then not)

Then on Thursday it was 96 and that was hot. And then on Friday it got up to 102 when I was riding home from work on my bike. And that was really hot. So hot, in fact, that I got home and stowed my bike and drove to the library to pick up my books on hold. Yes I did.

There were some rather unremarkable thunderstorms and intermittent rain Friday night and then Saturday morning I got up at 5:15 to run and it was only 64. 64! Almost 40 degrees cooler than the previous afternoon! I felt a little cold. So I ran 15 miles and it was pretty fun. Later in the day, GF made me a pie. Mmmmm, pie.

This morning was 71 degrees, 8 miles and the dog. The first two parts of that were good. The dog, not so much. 

HOT

 The highs have been really high over the past week. The lows have been record-high, too. Monday it was 99, Tuesday 97, yesterday it was 101. Oh, and the dew point was 77. Today's high could be 100. The thunderstorms we were promised for tonight seem to have been pushed off to Friday night.

What was originally intended to be the Red White & Boom Half Marathon was truncated to a 5 mile run. It was 84 degrees when I got up at 5 a.m. My internet running buddy picked me up & we luckily scored excellent last minute parking near the start of the race. The sky looked like the picture above (no one I know is in it, but the sky looks good and scary, doesn't it?), threatening thunderstorms, but nothing ever happened. It was quite the sweat fest, but was actually kind of fun. We ran through sprinklers at one point. I think the volunteers might have been hotter than we were because the air wasn't moving much.

You would think that after running in crazy heat and humidity I would have tried to spend the rest of the day inside. Yeah, well I'm not that smart. GF & I headed over to my flyball neighbors and we proceeded to spend much of the early afternoon hiding under a tarp and eating. We finally hid inside with the air conditioning and watched a movie.

This morning, it was only 82. Eight miles were on the schedule and they were run at the pace the schedule told me to run, but that was purely coincidental. I just ran as easy as I could without stopping. Tomorrow is a day off running and I'm excited to see how biking goes with the new skinnier slick tires I'm putting on tonight.

Pride Weekend Running

I went out for 8 miles on Saturday. I wasn't feeling it. Just about the whole time it felt hard, though I wasn't running very fast, nor was it very hot (though it was too hot for Blue to join me). I was probably a little dehydrated. 

On Sunday, GF & I had a rather lame adventure getting to the Pride Race. We'd planned to bus it, because parking uptown during Pride is hideous. The #7 bus never came, so we drove & parked near the start of the race (see? that wasn't much of an adventure). There were many more runners than last year, so I guess their advertising paid off. It was hot (80), the sun was blazing down, but there were tons of people yelling and cheering (and heckling, but I didn't hear that cuz I was rocking out to Russian pop) at this year's Pride Race.  It was a 4k this time, which is a distance I've never actually run as a race (automatic PR!). I wasn't entirely sure whether the distance was 4k or 5k until I got to the corner where we turn into the park. Sure enough, 4k! The clock said 18:xx as I ran past, but I stopped my watch at 19:33, so that's what I'm going with. I experimented with using the inhaler before the race and although I felt weird and jumpy for the first mile or so, I didn't cough up a lung afterward.

We watched a little of the parade and saw GF's coworker wearing his Pride duds. I was tired of standing, so we walked, originally intending to find the bus back to my car. We ended up taking a detour to Brit's and had some beer and snacks before finding the bus and heading back to the relative calm of South Minneapolis.

After a way too short nap, it was back to uptown to see Aelita: Queen of Mars at the Walker. Here is what they had to say about it:

Wrought with subtle erotic tensions and national predilections of the moment, the Martian adventure is known for its incredible leaps of fantasy running parallel to documentary-style depictions of 1920s Moscow. Love crosses light years in this popular Russian classic, presented in a rare 35mm print from the Walker’s Ruben/Bentson Film and Video Collection.
Composer Dennis James returns to the Walker with collaborator Mark Goldstein, known as the Filmharmonia Duo, performing with unusual historical instruments—including a theatrical organ and a theremin—to accurately capture the essence of the unique film for this rare event.

We thought it was just plain cool. The live music was especially good. When the film had an unscheduled stop just over halfway through, the organist talked about creating the score and how a theramin works. You can watch it, if you're interested, on youtube (but you'll miss the awesome live music). The shots of Moscow in the 1920s are amazing.

Running around

I've changed marathon training plans about a dozen times now. Maybe I just like planning? I started off with the plan I used last year, 5 runs a week, three week build up and one week cut back cycle, topping out at 46 mpw. I ran two 20 milers, one 18 miler and three 15 milers. I didn't train enough, either distance-wise or for the downhill extravaganza that is Pocatello.

Originally, for this year's marathon (Tucson!), I planned running 5 days a week and running long every other week. Then I remembered that I had pretty good luck and felt pretty good with the Runner's World smart coach training plan I'd used back in 2008. I played with that for a bit, but didn't change the whole plan because it had me running 4 days a week instead of 5. Somehow, that made me feel like a loser (it's just more of that comparing my 44 1/2 year old self with my younger self and not being happy with the comparison). Five days a week was how I trained for the Trail Mix 25k and that went alright. But, I wasn't loving my 5 day a week running schedule. I was dreading my third run in a row during the week and could barely drag myself out of bed for my Sunday recovery run. In May, after Trail Mix, I switched up my schedule to the Runner's World 4 day a week schedule (Monday-easy; Wednesday-speed/tempo, Thursday-easy; Saturday-long). Guess what? Running is kind of fun again.

I've got the same number of miles I was running over 5 days, so I'm running longer on my 4-day-a-week schedule. And, not only will I be running six (6!) 20 milers, but I top out at 58 miles per week. Yes, that sounds a little crazy. And it was at first, when I was trying to hit training paces that RW figured out based on my half marathon time from Pocatello (1:45ish). They were all too fast and I was feeling crappy about training. So, I had RW figure them again based on a couple of recent 10k races. The paces might actually be a bit too slow, but I'm hitting them and feeling pretty good, so this is how they'll stay for awhile (or until I run what feels like a good race and figure the paces out all over again).

My 14 mile long run last week was ok for about the first 12 miles and then it felt really hard and I felt like I was running really slow (9:56 pace, though, so not really slow). I wasn't really optimistic about Saturday's 16 miler, especially since I started biking to work 2 days a week (hey, let's throw in ~40 miles of biking per week with marathon training and see what happens!). But Saturday turned out to be great. First 6 miles with Blue the dog, who was a little too hot with the high 60s humid weather. Then out for another 10 alone and half way through it started just pouring rain. But hey, that made it cooler and it was actually kind of nice. I sort of waited for the run to start feeling hard, but it felt pretty good the whole time. And 9:43 pace, so faster than the week before. Huh. Sometimes you have good days and sometimes you don't.

Ah, cut back week.7 miles this morning in the steam bath. I have no idea what the dew point was this morning, but it was tropical.

Summer projects thus far

 

I painted the front porch this weekend. little boy had painted the whole thing three years ago when we moved in, but it was already sad and peeling and needed to be repainted. It doesn't help that the gutters are less than efficient and dump water right  down on the steps. With the washing, scraping and painting, that was a lot of work! Whatever I paid the boy back in the day, it wasn't enough.

Square foot garden is the other project. I can't seem to space plants correctly. The previous two summers here, I just put things in, spacing them more or less like the seed directions said. Looking at other gardens, other people get more veggies into a much smaller space. I read Kerstin's book about square foot gardening and there is my attempt. I've got 4 tomato plants, 2 eggplants, 2 peppers, kale, beans, rosemary, oregano, sage, lemon thyme, onions and basil in that 4 foot square box. The metal framework on the end is electrical conduit and trellis netting for the tomatoes. We will see whether that works better than the tomato cages I've been using.

Vacay in Madtown

Vacation was had by all. Some notable quotes from the weekend:

Me: "Oh wow, I packed five pairs of shoes. I really am a girl."

GF, after her inhaler kept me from coughing up a lung after our 10k: "Congratulations, you have asthma."

Girl to her boy getting off the elevator, in obvious dismay at his unimaginative costume, "You're really bad at floomping."

GF and I were a little bit better at it (Genderfloomp, that is). Mustaches are really itchy.

Wiscon was fun, though not nearly as controversy-ridden as the previous two years. I got quite a bit of knitting done on my wedding-related knitting project. I also got a bit of reading in, but not nearly as much as when I am riding the bus and don't have a knitting project. The Great Dane has an even bigger menu than last year. It got really hot on Sunday (98?) and they preemptively canceled the marathon. Everyone registered either didn't run or ran the half marathon instead. We headed out of town to a farm where we ate way too much food and sat in the shade and were only slightly frightened by livestock (sheep & goats). GF and I were pretty smart in our slacking and signing up for the Twilight 10k on Saturday night. It was warm, but there was a good breeze. Madison still has hills, though. I didn't run a PR by any stretch of the imagination (53:41), but the course was much harder than Get in Gear was. Certainly more than 31 seconds harder. Anyway, it was good enough for 3rd place in my age group.

The new car behaved quite well. Even with the air conditioning going, we were clocking just over 50 mpg. Snapped this pic at a rest stop after a couple hours of continuous highway driving:

Slackitude

Yeah, I'm a slacker. So is my entire generation, Gen X. It's our planets, man.

I ran a one mile race last week. I thought it sucked. It was hot, windy, dusty (not Dusty the dog) and I not only coughed like crazy afterward, I lost my voice for an hour or so. I started in between the 7:00 minute and 8:00 pace signs. As my finishing time was 7:31, that was perfect. However...

Last week when I started doing some intro speed work (after 3 years off of anything but easy running), I did three mile repeats with a half mile slow running between. First mile repeat? 7:22. Second? 7:40. Third? 7:26. Can you see where I'm going with this? Ok, good.

Next race is Saturday in Madison. Forecast is for a high of 81 and the race is at 8:00 pm or something. I'm not holding out any hope that I'll run this fast. Even at what passes as fast (for me). I am super happy not to be running the half or full marathon on Sunday, though. The forecast is for a high of 91. I bet they close the course early.

On a somewhat less cranky note, my 4 day a week running schedule seems to agree with me. I'm running the same number of miles as before, but spread over 4 days as opposed to 5. It's nice not dreading the morning run or the second weekend morning run. I ran 7 miles this morning and it seemed like nothing. Now if I can just get the dog to stop pulling me... (then she might get to run with me again!)

Trail Mix 2012

Another year, another Trail Mix 25k. Well, not exactly. I first ran this race in 2007. It was my first try at something longer than a half marathon. Then I ran it again the next year. In 2009, I ran the 50k as part of a team. Something or other was wrong with my hip, as I recall, and the single loop (it's a 12.5k loop that you run twice for 25k or 4 times for 50k) was really painful. Shortly after that race, I took a break because everything hurt. In June of 2009, I started all over again, this time barefoot/minimalist running.

I didn't get my mileage up enough to run something this long (25k=15.5 miles) for a year. In July 2010, I ran the Afton 25k, broke the hell out of my toe, and didn't run for four months. Learning to walk, then run, again was enough of a challenge. That kind of distance wasn't a possibility in April 2011. To prove to myself that I could run minimally-shod with a pinned toe joint, I trained for & ran a marathon in September 2011. Somehow between bad work ergonomics and learning to run again after losing most of the muscle in my left leg, I developed a (in the words of my surgeon: HUGE) Baker's cyst. The MRI didn't show any structural damage to my knee (the usual cause of Baker's cysts), it was just a fluke.

I ran the marathon with Lumpy anyway and two weeks later had Lumpy evicted permanently. This time, I only took a month off running, but again with the baby steps when starting up again. I've done three 5ks, a 10k and one 10 mile race since Lumpy was replaced with Stitchy. Nothing as fast as before my adventures in surgery.

This year the Trail Mix didn't have the fun run down the crazy ski jump hill, which I missed, and no single track up the hill to the jump, which I didn't miss. All wide, grassy and wood-chipped cross country ski trails. I didn't wear my Moc3s, figuring I needed more toe protection. I wasn't fearing invisible stumps (Afton), but I haven't run a trail race since breaking my toe and I felt spooked. So, Evo to the rescue. Still minimal, with only 4mm between my feet & the ground, but a little more structure on top to protect my toes.

It was mostly fun. I wasn't taking it easy, but I wasn't really racing, either. In the first half I told myself that I could quit in the middle if I wanted to. I wasn't loving the ups at all, but the ski walking I learned over the winter helped a lot in getting me up the hills faster than I could have run them anyway. I was loving the downs, though. Crazy head first running down hills, leaping around, feet searching for the best placement. I passed everyone on the downs. After running the loop the first time, I wasn't really sure I wanted to run it again. But lots of those down hills were fun, so I kept going. A mile or so into the loop, the guy who'd been yelling, "More cowbell!" at all the volunteers and spectators yelled, "How come you keep passing us!?!?" I yelled back, "Because I can only run downhill!!" That made him laugh for much longer and much louder than I thought the comment warranted. Anyway. A ways later, he yelled again, "Hey!! You're walking!!!" So I yelled back, "I can't run uphill!" Another dude who was running near me asked if I knew Mr. Cowbell. I said, "No, he's just a guy who likes to yell." The dude said, "If it was me, I'd go back and kick his ass." Heh. Both of these guys were older than me.

There was more running. I got kind of tired. My feet got kind of sore. When I saw the 18.5k marker, I told myself, really only 3 more miles, you can do that. (It's really 4 miles, but my running math is bad during a race.) I knew I still had the ginormous uphill and its corresponding downhill to go. And I'd have to be careful on the downs, because although I was still flying down them, my legs were getting tired and I can't fall. Just can't do it, despite my propensity to do so. I stayed ahead of Mr. Cowbell and that's really all I wanted. I was feeling really slow but in the last half kilometer, I made myself run up the hills and bombed back down. The clock was set for the 50k runners, who'd started half an hour before us. (I beat Mr. Cowbell, who found me after the race and apologized for being obnoxious.)

I checked my time on the website when I got home.

As my GF said, No more caterwauling!

2007 Trail Mix 2:39:05
2008 Trail Mix 2:41:49
2012 Trail Mix 2:39:53

(Afton 25k was about 40 minutes slower, but it's a lot harder race and I ran the last 3 miles on a broken toe, so there's really no comparing the two races even though they're the same distance.)

So, I ran this race at the same pace I did 5 years ago and two minutes faster than I did 4 years ago (which was a few months before my marathon PR).

Maybe the old girl still has some life left in her after all.

Racing against myself

I've been sort of grumpy (gf would say VERY grumpy) and kicking myself for not being able to PR at 5k on Saturday. Apparently, I am racing against my 2008 self. The last time I PR'd at 5k was 2008, when I was 40, and now 44 1/2 y.o. me can't keep up. I could come up with excuses like these: it was hot, I've gained 10 lbs, I had surgery 6 months ago, just transitioned to the really-barefoot shoes, no speed work at all since oh 2008... But really? I think it's that I crossed some invisible boundary between "back then" and "now." I didn't think over the hill would come quite so soon.

In retaliation against the inevitable, I ran 14 miles yesterday. If I can't go fast, I'm gonna go long. Including water stops, checking on the dog, chatting with J & C who got to run with me & gf for the first part of the run, it took about 2 1/2 hours. A little lurching through the rest of the day and a little creaky today, but not bad for an old broad.

Minnesota thinks it's spring

Despite the calendar, which clearly proclaims that it's Pi Day.

Wait wait, it was fun!

Mark this day on the calendar for me. Running was fun this morning! For the entire 5 miles! The last time? Well...it was last September, the morning that Lumpy was evicted. So yeah, I haven't actually had fun while running in six months. It's been ok sometimes, tolerable other times, bearable on a few occasions, and lots of times it was just completely unfun.

Might this have something to do with my new shoes? (Moc3 by Soft Star Shoes.) I just got them nearly half off in their clearance sale. There's not much to them: 2 mm of Vibram soling glued to a thin layer of leather footbed. They are sort of an update of the RunAMocs I was wearing all last year (which I put through about 600 miles including a marathon). No ties, fit better to the foot, and a lining on the upper so that dirt & little rocks don't get in through the perforated leather. Love, love, love them!

Tonks didn't run a 10 mile race today

But still seems pretty tired. It was crazy windy and already 46 this morning when gf & I headed over to Lake Harriet for the 100% Irish for a Day 10 mile race. If it had been colder, we would have frozen in those 20 mph gusts off the lake(s). For having a thousand some people running the 10 mile and who knows how many running the 5k that started just after we did, this was pretty well organized. As I was running, I wasn't actually having fun. It was only fun when I was done. Oh well. Not every race can be fun, I guess. Next week I have another green-themed race, a 5k this time. I'm holding out for fun.

Not so bad

The little grey box where I spend nearly a third of my life got reconfigured. I have four corners now and a doorway (non-ADA compliant, as it's 24" wide). My desk wraps around half the space and as I sit facing the computer screen, there is a skylight and trees in the atrium. I got a climbing jasmine plant for my shelf today. Pictures of Big Boy, my soon to be daughter in law, little boy, GF, and Blue the flyball dog now surround me. Things are getting better, though the management issue is still a problem. It was hard to be so unhappy for so long. Huh. I guess I have come a fair ways since my 20s.

Techno-geek (plus rant)

Since the beginning of the year, not quite two weeks ago, I've read three books on my phone (free Android Kindle app). I tried reading Moby Dick on my phone last summer, but it just wasn't working. I got bored, my mind wandered, there were either too many or too few words on the page. After fiddling with the color, text size and brightness, I got the settings right. Either that, or I chose less dense and more mindless reading material. Grisham certainly qualifies, but I don't think The Handmaid's Tale does. Last night I finished The Magician King. Virtual page turner (for those of us who enjoy YA-ish science fiction/fantasy) nearly the entire way.

The coolest part of this is that I got the books from the library, all without ever having to leave my desk. Ramsey County library has a decent selection of Kindle books, which after a few clicks, get delivered to my amazon.com Kindle account and from there I can send them to my phone. I'm ridiculously delighted by how easy it is. Hennepin County library seems to favor the Adobe epub format, which doesn't work on my particular phone. They have some Kindle titles (I think I even have some on hold), though.

I've been hating my job lately. One too many things have changed and the balance has tipped. I can tolerate my skills being underused, and being bored, and being hated by the populace (government employee), and never getting to do novel research, and the occasional unfathomable management decision. But combine that with a new dysfunctional and impenetrable management structure (no supervisor, an overworked director, an unsupportive chief legal officer who is neither director nor assistant commissioner, but something new and different), the administration's focus on "supporting schools" (there won't be much support for schools without federal money and there won't be any federal money without compliance with federal laws - that's where I come in) while de-emphasizing monitoring & compliance (hi! that's me again), my division's move to the far reaches of the building, and my scoring an open administrative assistant's cube... Well, it's too much. My coworker told me today that I could choose to be happy about it and that it was really obvious that I was not pleased with the situation. Too bad. The situation isn't tolerable anymore. I'm reviewing my options.

[insert sentimental maternal rambling here]

 

 

Things to Accomplish in 2012

Maybe not "resolutions" per se, but things I'd like to get done and will put some effort into accomplishing in the upcoming year.

1. Running
Explore Minnesota Challenge
I haven't yet decided if I'm going to shoot for 8 races in the four designated regions of Minnesota (mostly because they haven't finalized the races and haven't told us the boundaries of the regions). I'm doing the Securian Frozen 5k on January 28th, which is the first race in the challenge. The upcoming races box on the right has a list of the races I'm doing next year. The ones with an asterisk are part of the Challenge series. Most of them are tentative.

Marathon?
I still haven't figured out whether I'm running another marathon next year. I've got a 5 or 6 week span where I could fit one in, but I can't decide where to go. Travel? Stay nearby? I think I've decided that I can't run another marathon in Wisconsin, though that would give me several possibilities and it's close to home. Maybe I need to rethink that. Even though it would be about 10 months away, I feel like I need to decide and nail down all the details, if only to finalize my running schedule.

UW Badger Cross Country
I'd like to watch little boy race some DI races next season (I will have to keep checking #2 and keep myself from buying any fangirl gear).

2. Saving & spending
One of my GF's observations this year was that it's impossible to get me gifts because if I want something I get it myself. 2012 will be the year of wish lists, fewer impulse purchases and more saving. I already have book lists online at the library and I started a wish list on amazon.com. The stock market this past year has made me very skittish about putting more money into my Roth IRA (which I haven't even looked at in months). I figure that any money I'm saving will be safer in a regular old savings account earning a tenth of a percent interest, rather than slowing dwindling away (or abruptly losing half its value in a week) in my IRA account. Knowing that I won't be able to retire also makes me less inclined to save for retirement. Why postpone vacations or home improvements or dinners out or movies or traveling to save for a future that isn't even possible for me? Given how much my IRA has lost, not to mention how much it has not grown, plus my age, it is not mathematically possible for me to save enough to stop working. I theoretically have a pension, but I don't trust the state legislature not to rip it out from under me. Same goes with the feds and social security.

3. Travel
GF and I are already slated to go to DC in April to celebrate both of her parents turning 70 in 2012. We could also plan a destination race for September or October somewhere in the US (or Canada!). I've also got my eye out for a good fare to fly to England or Spain. Big Boy is moving to Utah in April and will be working in St. George again. It's easier (and cheaper) to fly to Las Vegas than to St. Lake City, plus it's only a 2 hour drive from where he'll be living. I'm supposed to be accruing 5 hours of vacation time every two weeks now that I've been working for the state for 5 years and I have over 100 hours already sitting in my vacation bank. The longer I work at this job, the more I want to vacation. Hmm...

4. Wedding!
Big Boy & his fiancee are getting married on November 24, 2012! Ok, that's not a resolution or something for me to accomplish, but it's really exciting and it's on the calendar. The family is all heading to Minnesota for Thanksgiving and hopefully a snowy white wedding. With the lack of snow we've had this year, I wouldn't mind some snow next November to brighten up the place.