8º, 8mi -- by abby

i was going to start this post by saying hurrah! and three cheers! for the last long(ish) cold run of the year. because it was freezing! but i felt great anyway. and, in truth, it will be the last long(ish) cold run of 2006. but also in truth, i plan to continue running and keeping up a 10 mile long run base after the marathon, so 2007 will likely see many more freezing-cold, icy-eyelash, slippery-road runs ........

anyway! the race is one week away. i'm nervous and anxious and exciting and freaked and worried and thrilled all at once, and i am trying to channel all of that into a nice positive vibe that i hope stays with me until the race is over, and that i hope other runners will pick up on too.

regardless of all that though, i have gobs and gobs of anxiety! i started worrying about my shoes on wednesday, about a month too late. so, i'm committed to the asics gt 2110 that have seen me through the last 3 months of training. they'll be fine, i'm sure, and i'm not going to worry about that anymore. so just when i get over the shoe thing, i start worrying about my shorts. i have like one pair of shorts that i like ... and i've been running in tights since october, so i only ever wear the shorts when i run on the treadmill, really. so i freaked out and ordered another couple of pairs to try out this week. probably i'll stick with the shorts i already have. they have two side pockets and a small pocket in the back, so i could carry a few things. but we'll see.

i'm not as worried about the shirt -- that'll be fine, i think. socks? i'd like to carry and extra pair to change out at the 18 or 20 mile mark, but that got me worried about some kind of belt pack to carry. and plus, the weather? i keep hoping that training at altitude will offset any negative effects of humidity and heat. i hope i don't melt into a puddle like the wicked witch of the west. arrrrgh!! all these little details just creep up on you in these last few days. so i decided to take today off from worrying.

instead, i started trying to be proactive and think of all the things i need to remember not to forget -- like my form i need to pick up my packet, and some gels, and maybe some clif bloks, and a few extra second skin things for my foot. and to pack my running gear and shoes in my carry-on so in case i lose my baggage i can still run. and stuff like that. i'm going to take a good couple of looks at the marathon course and try to remember where there's first aid and where there's fuel and where i can station people to cheer us on.

and other than that i'm going to enjoy an easy week of easy runs. i'm going to remind myself to go out easy at the race ... it's not really a race, after all. to go out easy and relaxed and comfortable, and to not push myself at all for the first 20 or 22 miles, because i will be pushing myself a lot for the last 4 or 5 miles. to respect the distance. to not have any expectations other than finishing feeling decent, and to remember all the people who've helped me raise over $1,000 for PanCAN -- which is way more than i would ever have been able to give on my own -- and gerlinda for being an inspiration, and my family and friends who have helped me during these last 6 months or so by riding SAG or picking me up down the road or making sure i eat right or just telling me i'm doing a good job .... amen.

and happy new year!

christmas run

well - i feel much better about things this week.

i ran pretty consistantly (if lightly) all week, thanks to having to get up anyway for crossfit. i ran 2 on monday, 3 on tuesday, and 2 on thursday - all at the gym, squeezing in runs during lunch breaks or after crossfit/before work. friday, a work emergency that turned out to be nothing left me with a free and unanticipated hour of daylight. i grabbed the chance and set out for my 4.5 mile loop around Grant Park, which i've come to love because its the antithesis of running the Silver Comet Trail. it's very hilly and urban, whereas the SCT is flat and rustic. they both have their charm!

anyway, i felt good about myself for making good use of my free time (rather than wrapping gifts, or housecleaning, or any of the other 10,000 things i also needed to do.) feeling good about myself bubbled over into motivation for my christmas eve long run. i have no idea of far our schedule said to go, but i set out to do 16 miles, and that's what i did.

i just really felt like i needed another true "long run" under my belt to prove to myself that i could still handle distance. and for the first time in more than a month, i really felt good. i was able to settle into that space in my mind where i'm drifting and thinking and dreaming and pondering, and not saying to myself every 5 minutes "when will this end?"

i felt great physically - no knee issues or leaden legs. because i was solo, i ran 6 miles out and back, so that i could refill my water bottle at the trailhead fountain. then without really stopping, i headed off for another 2 miles out and back, for 16 miles total. once i hit 14 miles i started to "feel" my quads and calves. i wonder if that's psychological? to start feeling pain when you know you're only a couple miles from the end? i wonder, if at the marathon, i'll be able to stave off noticing my stiffness, etc, until i've hit 20-24 miles?

i guess i'll find out in 2 weeks!
2 WEEKS?!?!?!?!
and speaking of the big event - i've *almost* reached my fundraising goal, but i'm still a couple hundred bucks short. help me out! http://www.firstgiving.com/gerlindagrimes

training stalled by dog bone injury -- by abby

friday night frida got me up at about 3am to go outside. as i was stumbling and groping back to bed in the dark, i stepped on a dog bone -- not a rawhide, but a real honest-to-god piece-of-cow-leg dog bone -- and it put a nice gash right in the meaty part of the ball of my left foot.

it's a nasty wound, about 3/4 an inch across and about 1/4 inch deep. i was able to cover it with the still-attached skin, so it's not as bad as it could have been. still -- ack. so. my mom made me take a picture to send her.

yesterday i could barely put weight on it (and i am tough, people! i could saw my own arm off it meant saving my life! i do not complain about injuries!). i covered it with two second skin bandages and this morning it's slightly less tender, but i think there's no way i'm running on it. the roads are snowy/icy, and it was already going to be a tricky run without the hole in the bottom of my foot. i'm kinda bummed. it's actually going to be above 10 degrees and kinda sunny today and i was looking forward to my run despite the road conditions, and plus it's christmas eve and all. and, i feel like a couch potato already for missing what will be 4 days in a row. nevertheless. i guess i better play it safe/smart and let this thing start to heal so i have at least one more good week of running before the big race. maybe i'll do pilates or something.

in other news, i've been eyeing these "icebug" shoes for a while, but i've only been able to find them starting at size 7. what gives?


*******2 WEEKS TILL RACE DAY!!!!!!*********

winding down - gerlinda

i have nothing much to report.
my running has been challenging - mentally. i went to a toys for tots bootcamp funraiser on the 16th (after a pathetic week of running around doing errands, but no actual running.) then friends & i went on a short run afterwards. i intended to run 12 miles the following day, but woke up so sore from bootcamp i could hardly move!

still, shaking things up a bit seems to have helped my mental outlook. starting on the 19th, i joined this program called CrossFit with the bootcamp instructors (which, i'm supposed to become one of them starting in february!!) it's short bursts of intense activity - totally the opposite fitness program than endurance training. i ran monday, tuesday & thursday this week - just short little runs of no more than 3 miles each, and i did CrossFit on tuesday & thursday.

I'm going to try one last long run this weekend. I'll call it my "Christmas Eve Challenge!" I hope to do 14-16 miles. I hope i can bang it out and feel good, like i did with my last 16-18 milers. for some reason, ever since the horrible 20 mile run, i just feel deflated. and running has been difficult. even to go 2-3 miles at a 9:13 pace (which a few short weeks ago felt easily manageable, if not effortless), feels difficult. it's harder physically. and its really hard mentally. i'm not sure what's going on with me, whether its because i'm out of shape from not following the schedule strictly enough these past couple of weeks, or whether i've just got some sort of mental block.

abby has already given my a kick in the pants, so everyone else - just wish me luck!

g.

ps-abby our PanCAN shirts arrived! they're white singlets with purple side panels made of 100% polyester...

20 -- by abby

i have to say, it really was a pretty decent run. my mom rode her bike to keep me company and carry all my junk. it was nice and warm in denver, about 40 when we set out and about 65 or so when we finished up 3 hours and 30 minutes later. the run itself actually probably took about 3:20 when you factor in all waiting at stoplights and one bathroom break. we ran on the highline canal trail, which goes all over denver for about a billion miles. it's this nice crushed gravel trail, and it was a lot more cushy for my hip than the road.

i felt pretty great. really the biggest thing is i just got kind of bored with running around mile 15 or so. my mom talked a lot and that helped. i ate my gels and sports beans and listened and talked some and enjoyed the weather. i stopped to walk for about 2 minutes at mile 11 and again at mile 16. in mile 19, my mom counted down every 10th, and then i took a victory lap around the parking lot. we were using the computer on her bike to mark miles, and later my dad said it's pretty accurate, so i guess that's that. my legs were tired, but i feel confident i could have knocked out another 6.2 right then if i'd had to.

i was sore saturday and a little on sunday, but today i feel great. not quite fully recovered, but almost. i was just looking at the rest of the schedule up to the race and it's like there's hardly any running left to do! i'm glad to have this run behind me (last week i was a ball of knots and worries and anxiety, lost inside my own head and hard to be around), and i'm looking forward to an easy few weeks before the race ---

back on track i suppose - gerlinda

I ran 5 miles @ the gym last friday, and then 14 on the silver comet trail saturday, so i am back on track, i suppose!

The 14 miler felt pretty good, although i'm still battling a bit of mental sluggishness: the annoying voice in my head that goes this is stupid! i'm tired! whine! But, proper nutrition & rest seems to help with that, as does changing up the music on my iPod, or looking up from the ground and actively trying to find something to Behold! along the way, or any number of other mental tricks i am slowly developing.

This week, my schedule looks pretty tough:5-10-5-20. I'm still anxious about my knees & contemplating trying some Ace knee braces. But, i was telling a friend about my first 5K @ Disney World Marathon Weekend last january, where i ran the race in something like 44 minutes & felt so amazingly proud of myself for running the whole way, with no walk breaks. Now, not even a year later, my PR in the 5K is 27:13, and running 14 miles last weekend seemed easy in comparison with the 20 or 22 miles i'll do this weekend... My friend was, like, all jaw-droppingly telling me i should be so proud of myself. And maybe she's right. Maybe i should be.

hmmm. :)

12 / 5 -- by abby

a funny thing happened on my run on saturday ... the SUN CAME OUT. i mean, when we moved here, we understood that there like 340 sunny days a year, or something like that. and that was massively important to me because i am some kind of sun freak. it's the vitamin D, i swear it. anyway, it turns out that you can call it a "sunny" day as long as the sun is out for like a minimum of 2 hours or something. so in other words, it's not really all that sunny here, necessarily. like maybe it's clear at 5am when you take the dogs out, but by the time you actually have coffee and wake up it's cloudy. this is mostly in the winter. in the summer it's pretty much always sunny. and i can't really complain about the winter because i LOVE the winter and obvs you have to have clouds to make the snow and whatnot.

ANYWAY. this is all just to say that i have been missing the sun. it went somewhere, like australia, and it's been weeks since i've seen it. so saturday, behold: sun. meow sun meow!

so i ran 12 miles and it was fine. i went out easy and light on my feet and came back full of sports beans but still feeling light. today (sunday) i went out early in the (sunny!) cold and knocked out an easy 5 since tomorrow i can't run due to the long and hideous inteview process at MSU (i'm interviewer, not interviewee, thankfully), and this week is all wonky because i have to run my 20 miles on friday instead of saturday since i'll be in denver will all my family and etc etc etc. so i've had to move everything up some i'm ready/rested for friday.

the 20-miler will happen on denver's highline canal trail, which is a nice crushed gravel trail that goes all over denver metro for like a billion miles. my mom's going to ride SAG on her bike so i don't have to carry anything, and hopefully neither of us will freeze to death (forecast looks good, but ya never know).

and that is the story/plan.

mental blocks & lazyness - gerlinda

without really meaning to, i seem to have totally fallen off the running wagon this week. i haven't run a single step since the 20 miles, unless you count my trot across the street last night to fetch the car...

part of me is okay with that. the 20 miles really took it out of me, mentally. it was a terrible run and in a way, i'm okay cutting myself some slack. plus, my knees are acting strange. almost like they want to give away under me. when i round corners (not even especially tight ones,) i sometimes feel a wrenching sensation on the inside of my knees - as if the slightest twist could cripple me without warning. the good news is, my knees aren't making the clicking sound when i go up stairs this week...so maybe the 20 miles ground away whatever bit of cartiledge was grating against my bones....

so, part of me too, is okay with giving myself a break because - well - if i'm feeling suddenly a bit weird about my knees, maybe i should heed that warning? at least that's what i tell myself...

but, truthfully, there is another part of me that knows i'm just being lazy and whiney. this is the part of me that is scared to death about the marathon. i'm scared of crossing the finish line to whatever does (or does not) exist on the other side. i've been focusing on this goal for so long, knowing that it means something more than just a difficult road race. it's for my father. it's for myself. it's for a million things. but i can't really articulate any of that. i've trusted all along that, by the end, i'd be able to put all of this into words. but now the end is looming and i still feel as scared and as numb as i did when i started all of this.

last night, i told myself it was okay that i'd taken a break this week. but, it's time now for me to get back on the road and take control of myself again. i don't think i can run today, but i'll plan to run tomorrow, and this weekend. i'll run as far as it feels right to run, and i won't worry about anything more than that.

18: further proof that hal higdon is a scheduling genius ... by abby

a long time ago, when gerlinda signed up for the marathon, and then i signed up for it too, i went scrounging for the training schedule i'd used in my last marathon. because: well, it worked the first time, so i figured it would work this time too. and my run on saturday was proof of just that. i think the reason the higdon training works so well is because it builds you up and steps you back in good intervals, so that you are ready for the next big push.


i also like that he only has you do 20 miles before the race. gerlinda -- i've been reluctant to tell you not to do more than 20, because you gotta do what you gotta do, but really, i promise you, you will not be any better off for having done more than 20 before the race. you might even be worse off, because it will take your body longer to recover from those runs. after reading about your 20-miler, i would encourage you to do 14 as scheduled this weekend, and then 20 again as scheduled the following weekend. you are going to make it through the race -- you are, even if i have to drag you across it with my own two hands, which won't happen b/c you'll get there on your own -- so you shouldn't abuse yourself too much beforehand. you've trained well, and the last thing you want to do is get injured this close! i swear if you don't cross that finish line with only 2 20-milers under your belt, you can hold me personally responsible.


anyway. this past week say below zero temperatures for most of the weekdays, so i did 4-6-5 on the treadmill (6 miles being the most i can tolerate on those things). the higdon schedule has like 10-milers on wednesdays now, but i'm not doing those. i'll do 7 or 8 at most. i just don't have time to work in the longer runs, and plus i'm not sure they really benefit me that much.

my 18-miler was really as great as an 18-mile run can be. it was FREEZING cold, about 8 degrees when i started, and probably about 12 when i finished 2:51 later, with a wind-chill of who-even-knows-how-cold. anyway, i dressed warmly, but my right hand would not warm up, so i kept balling it into a fist and pumping it like that to keep blood flowing. the cold made my eyes water, so i kept getting these ice balls frozen to my eyelashes, and i was slowed considerably in places by bad road conditions -- snowy/icy patches that are tricky to navigate in sneakers. i broke the run up into 3 6-mile segments and took splits for each. my last split was only about 3 minutes slower than my first split, so i feel pretty good about that.

i stopped to walk for a minute or so at mile 8, planned to eat a gel at mile 10 and actually remembered to eat it at mile 11. i really felt pretty good. my iliopsoas/hip is still an issue, but i can work through it. at mile 16 i realized the tube of my camelback was frozen, even though it was *inside* my vest. so no gatorade for the last two miles. then i started getting this weird opthalmic migraine thing that i get, with repeating geometric patterns across my field of vision. it's never a headache, it's like this weird eye thing. it lasted the rest of the day, but i think it was more a stress thing than a running thing, since i don't get them very often. when mile 18 came, i felt like i had a good 2 or 3 miles in me still, and that's a good sign.

i ran faster than i thougth i would, so my ride didn't show up for another 10 minutes, which was actually good, because i walked some and stretched and worked out a kink in my right calf. i was so cold though, that i couldn't stop shivering. my hands and feet were without any color -- these totally sick-white appendages. it wasn't until i got in the shower that i started warming up, and i just stood there forever under the hot water, which was so hot it hurt but also felt good at the same time. yesterday i was a little sore, and today my calves still protest at certain activities, but mostly my muscles feel okay. i was already fighting the beginning of what feels like a nasty sinus infection, so i'm sure spending 3 hours outside in arctic conditions only furthered that and i fully expect to fall out with a cold any minute now. my ears are gone already; i can barely hear.

anyway. i feel good about the run. i feel ready for the 20 coming up in two weeks, even though i'm freaked that i have to run it in a different city. i feel like my training is working and that my body is responding the way it should. it's supposed to be warmer this week, so hopefully i can do some of my weekday running on the road instead of the treadmill.

20 Miles, Doubt and Despair - Gerlinda

Last week's running kind of sucked. I was supposed to do something like 5-10-5, 20. or 6-8-6, 20. instead i did 6 miles on wed. and another 6 on thursday...

i ended up not running at all on tuesday (airport delays monday trashed my tuesday.) wednesday, i knocked out 6 fairly decent miles. thursday, i had an awful day spent in traffic court, after which i really needed to run... but when i got out on the road, i felt terrible - leaden, slow, just not into it. i kept having to stop and walk, just to get through it. friday i had a show & couldn't run...

saturday's 20 miles was the hardest run i've ever done. i got a late start, around 2pm (thanks to the show the night before, and to putzing the morning away.) the weather was beautiful - sunny and cool. by all rights, it should've been a good run, but ... i just wasn't into it. i felt ok physically, i guess. i gave myself short walk breaks every 3 miles. after the 6th mile, running across the "bridge of optimism" which i've described in previous posts, i got a bit of second wind and actually enjoyed myself for a few miles - but it was short lived. by mile 9, i was desperate for mile 10...just so i could turn around and go back. at mile 10, i stopped and stretched, ate a gel, walked for a minute, etc. by mile 12, i really just wanted the run to be over. by mile 14, i felt kind of dead on the inside and i really, REALLY wanted the run to be over. i kept telling myself "just 6 more miles to go..." but i wanted to punch myself, b/c i didn't (&)(*%&% feel like looking for )(*^*&%&% silver linings... at mile 15, i gave in and started letting myself take a short walk break at every mile, rather than every 2-3 miles. at mile 17, i actually stepped off the trail and had a bathroom break at this coffee shop along the way. (i could've sat on that toilet forever, by the way.) at mile 18, i tried to distract myself by thinking up a nationality for every letter of the alphabet. A = Argentinian, B = Bolivian, C = Canadian. Etc. At mile 19, I started counting my footsteps, but I couldn't concentrate and kept losing count...

Finally, I finished the *(&^)*^(&% run (3:19), and immediately my calves seized up in excruciating knots. I think I actually fell to the grass in a moment of melodrama, while my "crew" (who was actally tired and sore herself after biking 20+ miles, hauling my extra powerade and cliff blocs) grinned and say "way to go, grimes! you did it! 20 miles!) Somehow, I managed to haul myself back to vertical long enough to stretch. on the car ride home, it occured to me to take some advil. later, i had a hot bath and some excellent pizza...

i honestly don't know how in the hell i'm going to run 26.2 miles. don't get me wrong, i'll cross that blasted finish line if it kills me. but, i'm banishing all thoughts of race times and goals from my mind. i just want to finish and not die in the process. why was 20 miles so much harder than 18? was it that i stayed up late the night before? that i've been vacationing and my training & eating/sleeping schedule has been all out of wack? are (2) 20-oz bottles of powerade not enough hydration along the way? should i have eaten more than 1 gel and 1/2 pack of sports beans? was it that i switched to powerade instead of gatorade (cuz that's what they'll be serving on the disney course)? it wasn't that my body gave out, although i did have small aches and pains (my left ankle/arch is sore, my calves were tight, my hips got sore, whine, whine whine). but the physical stuff was nothing to the mental anguish - i simply couldn't get my mind off how difficult the run was and why anyone would be stupid enough to agree to run that far.

scheduling-wise, i was planning to run 22 miles this coming weekend, then 24 the next, then step it back a couple weeks before the marathon. now, i don't know. maybe i should ramp back to 14/15 miles this weekend, and then push ahead to 22/23 miles next weekend ... then call it quits with the heavy training and just rest up for the big race?