Stop bidding on my waffle iron

So I should probably recap my marathon last weekend before I forget.  Actually, I have forgotten most of it by now.  Even my quads are back to normal.  Running a marathon is easy breezy.  Just like child birth.

I sort of carbo loaded on Friday by eating a lot of frosting and food in general, and then kept it simple with protein and candy on Saturday.

I’m not sure I can fully endorse this method because I spent most of marathon morning on the toilet.  I was worried this would affect the race and even texted my mom to be on standby because I am not about to poop myself for a race.

I drove myself over to IL, so I had to leave early enough to find a parking spot.  That was still a bit of a struggle because of the road closures, etc.  I got myself ready in the car and took a piss before walking to the starting line area.  It’s a small race, so i just inserted myself in near the 3:30 pacer.  Took about 30 seconds to cross the start. When I felt nerves, I would tell myself that “running is fun” and “this is supposed to be fun!”  Surprisingly optimistic and it worked.  Nerves went away and I found my cruise pace.  Of course I ran it naked because I always do and I like telling people that I run naked.  The race had clocks in weird places though, like the 5 mile mark.  I crossed that mat around 39 minutes.  I had already passed the 3:25 pacer and expected to see them again a few times.  My original plan was to walk a lot.  Of course I didn’t follow the plan.  Plans are for pussies.  I decided to walk after the first 10k, where there was another timing mat that I crossed around 49 minutes.  I ate a shot blok and decided to eat more at mile 10.  I think I turned on music around here too and listened to it on and off until the finish.

I think I walked around mile 11 or 12 and forgot to take a shot blok.   Walked again around 15 and finally ate another. Grabbed some gummy bears from an aid station.  I think I walked again around 17 and then just after 20. I crossed 20 miles at 2:37ish and ate one more blok.  I finished with 3 left.  Whoops.

Prior to the race, I was anxious  about keeping a smooth pace through the boring miles of 13-20, i didn’t think much about the last 10k. That’s always the easiest part, right?  But around mile 20, my hip and quad got really tight.  I could feel them contracting.  I quick stretched them out at aid stations and continued on, but I was really worried about them seizing up and me having to zombie limp to the finish.

I stretched my quad at the 23 mile turnaround and the 3:25 group caught up to me.  I decided to try and stick with them but I ended up pulling away from them fairly quickly and running the entire last 3 miles.  I distracted myself by looking for people I knew on the other side of the out and back.  Of course I didn’t see my family until about 5 meters before the finish line.  And by family I mean, my mom.  It’s okay though, I realize that watching someone run by in 5 seconds isn’t terribly exciting.

My official finish time was 3:24:09 (PR).  I am happy with how the race went.  I did have fun (who knew I could still have fun?), I almost ran a negative split (20 second difference), and I got a 3 minute PR.    After my half marathon disaster, I had lost a lot confidence.  My half splits for this marathon were only slightly slower than my time in that half.

So after the marathon I did what any sane person would do.  I completely ignored my cramped up shoulders and dead to me quad and I signed up for an Ultra.

It’s only(!) 30 miles and I figure that I’m in shape for that distance, so I might as well try it.  It’s 2 weeks away so I probably won’t do any long runs before then.  Now that my muscles have “recovered” from the marathon, I am struggling again with my allergies.  As I type, I have vertigo and a plugged up ear.  So I hope to be consistent and stay healthy until then and see what happens on race day.  I will be employing the walk up the hills method as well as other walk and food breaks.  I guess my goal would be under 6 hours.  I just finished 26.2 in 3:24, so that seems like a lot of extra time, but it is on a trail.  It’s a “runner friendly” flatish course.  The trail 5k I did had me running about a minute slower per mile, so i would expect even slower for an ultra.

I can still go to cowboy weddings

Welp the marathon is in two days.  I can’t say I’m excited.  On the plus side, I’m not completely dreading it either.  I may have burnt myself out on running long distances.  Some people would probably laugh at the fact that 50 miles a week can burn someone out, but whatevs.  I don’t think I will ever run 70-80 miles a week, mostly because NO.

I have taper twinges that keep popping up, both knees, hip, shoulder, neck, etc.

I’m really worried about my shoulders cramping up again and me finishing the race looking like my dad mid-stroke.  I can laugh about it now, right?

I didn’t run yesterday and I haven’t run yet today.  I’m probably going to Hulk out on someone any minute now.  My alarm didn’t go off this morning, which really pissed me off, but my run is only 3.5 miles so I will squeeze that in sometime later.  Tomorrow is a one mile fun run to raise money for a therapy dog. Anything with dogs, running, and spending a lot of money on raffle tickets appeals to me.  I’m bringing one of my dogs, so I’m pretty excited to jog/walk/sprint/repeat with him.  Then I will have to hit up the Marathon expo, which I HATE.  The expos are always across the river and of course I panic about parking and logistics and it’s not even the goddamn race.  Can’t they just send me my shit in the mail? I will panic over logistics again on Sunday unless i can convince someone to drop me off. (@ 6:45a.m….not gonna happen)

I have a race plan and 0 goals for this one.  There are water stops at nearly every mile, so I am walking for about 15 seconds at miles 3, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21 & 23.  Wow I sound anal.  Hopefully that’s all the walking I need and I won’t need a bathroom break.  I am walking every mile during the really hard part for me mentally, when we are on a military installation and there are no spectators.  I am wavering between listening to one song per mile, or waiting to start music until the hard part, or using music, then audiobook.  I don’t know why I’m planning anything because, because I’ll probably just wing it all anyway.  Really the only things I need to remember are to drink enough water, move my legs in a forward direction, and eat my Shotbloks.   Generally I don’t need to remind myself to eat, but when I run, I do.

I’m eyeing a 30 miler in October and a couple of marathons later that month.  We’ll see how I feel after Sunday.  Ambitious me will probably be dead and gone.

I’m gonna buy some sweat pants and a Nicholas Sparks novel

Welp yesterday I ran my slowest half marathon everrrr.  (Besides the one I ran injured.)  It was so bad that I even ran/walked the last two miles.  LOL.  That is the first time I have ever walked during a half marathon.  (INCLUDING the one I ran injured.)

Luckily I have a sense of humor about it.  At least I do now, I didn’t while I was running/walking it.  I decided that this race would be a good dress rehearsal for my full marathon in a few weeks, so I did everything exactly as I would plan to before the full.  I have been having neck and shoulder pain since I went to the chiro on Monday, so on Sunday I borrowed my mom’s electrocution device… I am not sure what it’s really called…and shocked my neck and shoulder into submission.  So that pain was solved.

I went to bed fairly early and slept on the couch to avoid the hip pain my bed seems to bring me.  I have a love/hate relationship with my bed lately.  I woke up at 5 a.m. and got dressed in basically the same outfit I plan to wear, whatever shorts, red tank top, two sports bras, compression socks, and Nike Frees.  I packed a breakfast of a Snickers bar and a hard boiled egg and brought shot blocks in my Spibelt.  Geez, I sound like a sponsored blogger.

Got in my car and drove an hour to some park I have never visited before and got myself registered.  Luckily they still had x-small unisex shirts left, so I was able to score one of those.  I still had about 40 minutes before the start, so I warmed up, which I never do before a half, for about 12 minutes.  Then I walked around and enjoyed the river views.  We started the race right on time and I ran for a half mile with a pack of three speedy girls before they took off and I found myself alone by mile 1.  The first 2 miles were mostly downhill before we turned and went into some residential neighborhoods.  I was running sans music and planned to do so for at least 5 miles.  I felt like I had run forever before we finally reached mile 2.  I was running naked and there were no clocks on the course, which I thought I was fine with, but now Im thinking maybe I should use something to prevent going out too fast.

Around mile 3 we were on a bike path by the river.  The wind picked up blowing my ear phones out of my ear and the sun kept shining into the side of my face behind my sunglasses and pissing me off.  That’s probably when my attitude fell apart.  I remember hitting mile 4 and thinking 9 more miles? f*ck I wanna stop.  Break it into segments, they say.  It’ll go faster, they say.  I figured that I would eat my chews at 5.5 since I knew there was supposed to be a water stop there.  Except there wasn’t or maybe I just missed it because the bike path kind of split off in weird little ways and I was basically running solo.  We finally reached the turn around just after 6 miles and the wind stopped.  The lead girls were about 2 minutes ahead of me.  I popped my chews around the next water stop at mile 7 and realized that I probably wasn’t drinking enough because I wanted to chug more.

We followed the bike path back to the residential streets and I swear to Pete, the ninth mile was actually 3 miles.  I got to mile 10 and I should have felt pumped about only having 3.1 to go but I was miserable and doing a death march.  I was pretty sure I was running 9 min miles at that point, my legs felt so heavy and slow.  When we got to the 11th mile, I knew it was all uphill from there.  It was gradual at first before the monster hills back into the park.  I walked and ran then walked and ran.  I didn’t care.  I would have walked to my car at that point, but that would involve going up the giant hill anyway.  I walked up that ENTIRE giant hill because I kind of figured I was walking faster than I was running.  After that were some rolling hills I mostly ran and then mile 12 I stopped to drink water and walked a bit before heading into the final loop.  It was also hilly.  YAY.  So I walked for another little bit in the final mile and then finally tried to kick it in but my legs were so stiff and robotic feeling that nothing happened other than my face probably grimaced.  I crossed the finish in 1:41, a full 10 minutes after that lead pack of girls.  talk about falling apart…yeesh.  I then forced myself to run a cool down to get to 16 for the day and I had to walk during my cool down.  LOL.  It was also hilly because there is literally no place in that park that isn’t hilly.

So my plan was to plug my finish time into the ol McMillan calculator and get an estimate of my marathon time.  Using this horrible time, I still got a 3:32, which is fine.  I will accept that.  No 3:20-25 for me this year, or probably ever.  I am calling this race a hard training run and pretending that it will only make me stronger for fall races.  In reality it probably just broke down my body and I will slowly fall apart until December.  My quads, shoulders, and hips are f@cked today.   My next race is a g-damn 5k on Saturday.  Gross.  At least it’s for a good cause blah blah blah.