One of the most amusing parts of having a toddler is seeing what strikes them as funny. Normal things like jokes and sarcasm aren't going to cut it, but me stubbing my toe and screaming "OW!"? Now, that's toddler comedy gold.
Yesterday on my run I found out a new thing that is hilarious to a toddler. It was really windy on our run and Peanut's ears were getting blown all around. I kept hearing hysterical laughter from the stroller and it took me a bit to realize what was so funny.
Non-hilarious coonhound mutt
Knee-slappingly hilarious
Even when I was staging that picture, she was laughing and squealing with delight. Who knew?
I ran 8 miles again yesterday, which felt ok with my illness recovery. It's really two easy 4 mile runs with a break in the middle (and a snack!), so it's not the same as running 8 straight miles. Getting back to running has really helped me feel like myself again. It's nice to get the blood flowing and I like having an appetite again.
Even if I didn't understand Faith's delight at inside out dog ears, it was soon even because she didn't understand my joy of dressing her in a toddler size Forever Lazy.
Wait, Hanky Pinky is the actual name?
Mommy, if you look at me and laugh, you're going to give me a complex
Something my husband finds hilarious (but I find more troubling than hilarious) is Faith's reaction to ESPN:
You can't see, but she's clapping
She adores college football too. She won't pay any attention to NFL football, but if my husband is watching a college game, she just plops down next to him with a sippy cup. I don't know how she tells the difference because it always takes me at least 10 minutes to realize what sport I'm watching.
I get my revenge on my husband by suggesting to Faith that she give her Daddy a kiss. Her "kisses" involve a lot of spit, so I laugh when she covers him with baby drool:
That glistening is prime baby drool
The one thing my husband and I can agree is hilarious is Faith's new skill:
The pony is always watching
I'm saving that last picture for future prom dates.
Do you have a different idea of what is funny than other people? I know that my husband thinks the Harold and Kumar movies are hilarious and I just don't get it. No matter how many sequels, it's just the same movie. Then again, I thought Firefly was hilarious and he thinks I'm a dork. :)
Let's start this off with a disclaimer: I'm a stubborn person who doesn't have good sense.
I felt ok when I woke up yesterday morning, with the exception of the pain in my chest. My cough was much better and I was able to run up and down the stairs without anything bad happening, so I did the logical thing and went for a run. I did 4 easy paced miles with the dog and the baby and it felt ok and it didn't make the pain any worse and it didn't make me cough any more. So then during nap time I did 4 more easy miles for a total of 8 for the day (I included that for the math challenged). After I was done, I still felt the same as I did when I woke up. In theory, I should still be resting, but I didn't feel overly challenged by the run and unless I feel like it's making me worse, I'm probably going to jog through recovery.
Other than jogging, my day was pretty full of baby craziness. She worked up a good appetite watching me run and had a nice lunch of leftover turkey and pasta.
Mommy, you are the slowest waitress ever. Where is MY LUNCH?
I like to check the turkey temperature on my forehead
Does she really expect me to eat THIS?
At least it's dark meat
We also spent over an hour at the park because it was 70 degrees here yesterday. Faith didn't really want to play, which is really strange for her, but it's probably my fault since it's been like 2 weeks since she's been to the park. She just wanted to sit next to me and watch the other kids play. I guess that's like reality TV for kids?
I also got a fun surprise in the mail yesterday! I missed the race expo for the JFK 50, so I had to mail away for my bumper sticker. I already had a 26.2 magnet on my car and my husband has a strict "no bumper stickers" policy, so I had to get creative. I just cleaned off my magnet and stuck the sticker on top:
Just the right touch of ghetto
This actually works out really well since I think having a 50 mile sticker and a 26.2 sticker is silly. I mean, if I can run 50, one can assume that I can handle 26.2 miles, right? This is why I giggle at cars with a 13.1 and a 26.2 sticker.
How do you handle resting? I think the only time I've ever been good about resting was when I was pregnant with Faith.
What's your philosophy on distance stickers for cars?
Almost immediately after I finished running the JFK 50 last week, I noticed that my throat was really sore and in the days that followed, it progressed into what I thought was just a cold. It's pretty normal to get a cold after an endurance event, so I wasn't too worried. However, it was getting worse every day and by Thursday (Thanksgiving), I woke up with a piercing earache and really strong cold symptoms. I was hosting, so I just loaded up on DayQuil and busied myself with turkey preparations.
If you want to know what happens if you make a turkey when you're not feeling well, the answer is this:
Sometimes a cigar isn't a cigar
Yeah, that's a turkey neck. You're supposed to take it out of the chest cavity before you roast it, but I completely forgot. I did get the bag of guts from the other end of the bird, but I spaced on the neck. I even said to my husband "Huh, I can barely fit any stuffing in this turkey!" and neither of us thought to look for the neck. Luckily, cooking the turkey with the neck inside doesn't hurt anything (other than my pride) and everything else turned out fine. The only downside of the meal was that I didn't have much of an appetite because I felt so sick.
It looks like my turkey threw up stuffing
On Thanksgiving night, I started to feel a shortness of breath and tightness in my chest. It's hard to describe exactly, but I felt like I couldn't take a deep breath and I felt winded even sitting on the couch. I'm not going to lie, I was pretty freaked out. I have never felt like that before in my life. First thing the next morning, my husband took me to the urgent care and I was able to see a doctor really quickly (score one for living in the middle of nowhere).
For the first time in my life, a doctor used a stethoscope to listen to my chest and then made a frowning unhappy face. It turned out that my bronchial passages were constricted and my lungs were "diminished' (doctor's term). She had a nurse wheel in a machine to administer a breathing treatment, which basically meant I puffed on this nozzle thing for 5 minutes and tried to not cough out all the medicine.
After the breathing treatment, the doctor came back in and listened to my lungs again and said that it sounded better. She sent me home with medicine for my upper respiratory infection and my cough, in addition to the bronchial dilator to use at home. The doctor also said that unless I got worse, I should be ok to run again by Monday. I almost forgot the best part of going to the doctor: explaining how I got sick.
Doctor: When did you start to notice any symptoms? Me: I noticed a sore throat soon after I finished running a 50 mile race last week. Doctor: Fif-ty? Like, five zero? Do you uh, do that often?
Doctor: Have you had any calf pain since you started noticing symptoms? Me: Uh, I ran up a mountain. My calves haven't been thrilled with me this week.
The doctor still took the information better than I thought she would. My husband said her reaction would be "So...you did this to yourself. You know that, right?" The doctor said nothing of the sort and instead just told me that if I got worse, I should go to the ER and not come back to urgent care.
I felt better for about half the day on Saturday and then I started to feel the shortness of breath again, even though my other symptoms (runny nose, sore throat, etc) had gotten better. By Saturday night, I had a deep soreness in my chest and I had painful coughing spell that lasted over 30 minutes and almost made me vomit. I wasn't able to fall asleep until after midnight because I just couldn't stop coughing (despite my cough medicine).
On Sunday morning, I woke up feeling pretty bad. It hurt to breathe and after some insistence from my husband, I took a quick trip to the ER. I felt pretty stupid for going since in my mind, the ER is a place for broken bones and heart attacks, but after I got winded walking in from the parking lot, I realized that maybe it was a good idea. They took me back almost immediately and the doctor thought I might have pneumonia or bronchitis, so I had a chest X ray to help him decide.
Good news! It's just bronchitis and the pain I feel in my chest is just the damage to my bronchial passages in my lungs and in time (two weeks), it will heal. I asked the doctor about running and he said that I needed to rest, but if I felt up to it, an easy paced run wouldn't kill me. He said that too much activity will just prolong my recovery, but not cause any permanent damage. Considering how much it hurts to breathe just sitting on the couch typing this, it's hard to imagine doing anything other than an easy jog. This means I won't be racing the 15K this weekend, but I will still run it for the experience (and to be honest, the chocolate).
I haven't been for a real run since the JFK 50 and honestly, it's driving me nuts. I have such runner's envy when I see people running when I'm out driving and I can't wait to get back out there. Also, we've had the most beautiful weather ever (68 degrees in November?) and it pains me to not be out there running in shorts. Also, I'm bored. Like watch 4.5 hours of Gone With The Wind on Saturday morning level of bored. I'm so used to running for hours every weekend that this "not running" thing is foreign. Also, I had to rest, so I couldn't just amuse myself with cleaning or something like that (which is what I imagine normal people do on their weekends).
Mommy, let's go shopping
Don't worry, I'll carry your purse
Faith has been pretty cooperative about me being sick. She really likes being allowed to sit on the couch next to me while watching TV and eating pretzels. When she gets bored with that, then she just starts bringing over all of her toys to me. The one member of the household who isn't cooperative? This one:
I do what Satan tells me
Seriously, worst dog ever award goes to my dog. So much whining and pacing. This is why we could never give her away, she is absolutely nuts without 45 minutes of exercise everyday and who wants that burden? Sure, most people say they'd love a dog like Peanut that will run with them, but they don't realize what it's like to live with a dog who HAS to run.
So, no I didn't run a Turkey Trot, but if annoyance at people constantly saying "I need to run to earn/burn off Thanksgiving food!" counts, I worked out a ton. People, please: run if you want to run, don't do it to justify a piece of pie. It's once a year, just eat the freaking pie and don't moan about it on my Facebook feed.
I didn't get any pie. I want pie.
Reindeer feet are the cutest.
Does your dog drive you nuts when you're sick or the weather is bad?
Do you get tired of the holidays being 3 months of everyone complaining about eating too much and then complaining about dieting after New Years?
We came across the first photographer on the scary switchbacks coming down the mountain. They had this yellow CAUTION tape up, like that was the safety barrier that would save us from death.
Even the big tough dudes were scurred
When I saw the photographer on the switchback, I was like "Oh, man! I don't want a picture of me walking!" and this was the result:
Yes, everyone did laugh
The other photographer on the trails was in a tricky spot because I needed to look down, but I also wanted to cheese it for the camera:
A skinned knee is worth a good picture, right?
Once we got to the tow path, you can see that we picked up the pace:
I'm just so happy to not be running on rocks
I don't even remember this photo, but it must be early because I look happy:
I really like to wave when I run
Because as you can see, by the finish I wasn't looking so fresh and happy:
Brian's picture was better
I hope everyone enjoys their Thanksgiving! I'm not going to try to run again until Saturday to give myself some much needed rest, so it's just going to be hanging out and eating for the next two days!
For the first time since....uh....last December, I don't have a race that I'm actively training to run. I thought I'd be really burnt out on running after the 50 mile training and race, but I actually really grew to enjoy having a higher weekly mileage and it's going to be hard to give up. I'm not going to give up running or anything crazy like that, but I do want to scale back my mileage to a more manageable level, which means a level that doesn't leave my husband on solo baby duty all weekend, every weekend.
But I like Daddy time! We watch ESPN and he makes the best block towers!
I do have the Hot Chocolate 15K next week to anticipate. I think that's going to be a really fun race experience. I'm not sure my legs will be ready for a full race effort (I still can barely pick stuff off the ground), but I'm running it with some great people and that will make it fun.
I had told myself that after the 50 mile race that I was going to work on speed. I'd love to run a half marathon and set a new PR. I've only ever run one half marathon before and that took 2:16 (that's what happens if you try to race in the heat while unknowingly pregnant). I'd love a redemption race! The best part of working on speed is that I can do that without running 50+ mile weeks.
I still haven't been for a run since the race last weekend because I'm still sore, but also because I picked up a nasty cold. I woke up yesterday with a swollen, sore throat and felt bad enough that I didn't even try for a walk. It was also pouring rain, so it wasn't too hard to stay inside and rest. I really want to come back strong, and not run too early and prolong my recovery (from both the race and the cold). I spent my free time discussing one day running a 100 mile race with Alyssa instead of working out. It's not going to happen anytime soon, but the important thing is that it will happen one day.
Since my throat hurt a lot, I wanted a can of my favorite soup for lunch.
The best soup name of all time
It used to taste a lot better before I had a toddler, mostly because she ate all my little meatballs. It's hard to be mad at her when she enjoys them so much that she claps as she eats, but this soup without meatballs is just sad.
I also made the mistake of going to Target yesterday afternoon to get dental floss and cough medicine. Holy Thanksgiving shopping frenzy! I keep forgetting that Thanksgiving is tomorrow, which is bad since I'm hosting. I have been doing the prep work, so I'm pretty sure we'll actually have food to eat. My running club is doing a group "Turkey Trot" run tomorrow morning and I'm hoping that I can make it and not embarrass myself with getting out of breath and sweating after 1/8 of a mile. One of the guys in my group ran the 55 mile Stone Mill race, so if he can do it, I should be able to handle it too. :)
Do you always need a training goal, or are you ok with running just because?
Then you never run alone! Or in my case, limp painfully around my house.
The most common question I'm getting is "How do you feel?" after I say I just ran 50 miles in one day. I can break it down in two categories:
The Expected:
Extreme leg soreness. My quads are even sore to the touch and picking things up off the floor is painful.
Fatigue. I would love to sleep for 12 hours. I really need to get on the kid's schedule.
The Unexpected:
Swollen feet and ankles (cankles?). I googled it and it's apparently pretty normal after an ultra, but it still freaked me out a little.
Hair loss. Maybe I should blame my new hat, but I have been losing a ton of hair since the race.
Mental impairment. My brain feels foggy. I probably need to eat more sugar. :)
Strange muscle soreness. Even my forearms are sore, which seems really odd since I'm pretty sure I ran with my legs and my arms were just along for the ride. Also, my abs are really sore, but I don't remember doing crunches.
Sore throat: After the race, I lost my voice and now I just have a really sore throat and feel like I have a bad cold.
The Very Unexpected:
The kid is pissed at me. Like, really angry. We had never left her for 2 nights before and she was with her grandma, so it's not like she was suffering in our absence. There has been a lot of crying since we got home. I tried to make her feel better by playing with her outside on Sunday afternoon. Do you know how hard it is to push a play car around the day after a 50 mile race?
Less whining, more pushing Mommy
She also "helped" my husband with some leaf raking on Sunday afternoon:
Daddy, you missed a whole bunch of leaves over there
This is fun! I'll help you re-spread them so we can do this again!
Yesterday, Faith decided to see how much endurance I really have and she got herself in so much trouble for one little baby. First, she figured out how to give herself a shower with the water dispenser on the fridge and then cried because, shocking, the water was cold. Do you know how fun it is to clean up spilled water over the kitchen when your legs are pillars of pain?
Then in the afternoon, I was doing the dishes and I looked over and saw this:
Finally, I can add a little kick to my food!
Totally safe, I know. So now I have to keep all of the chairs away from the table to keep her from flirting with head injuries.
After this, I had to go to the grocery store and get all the supplies for Thanksgiving (we're hosting) and the store was insanely packed for a Monday afternoon. After battling for one of the last bags of potatoes and trying to keep the kid from throwing herself from the cart, I still had to unload all the groceries and then put them all away. I didn't cry during the 50 mile race, but trying to put cans of chicken broth away in my pantry and having the baby slam the door into my forehead and then giggling almost pushed me over that edge.
The best part of the day was yet to come: when I prepare Faith's bath, she plays in her room across the hall with the baby gate closed. You know what she learned how to do yesterday? Lock the door! I had no idea how to get the door open from the outside and telling her to "Unlock the door!" just wasn't cutting it. I ended up having to painstakingly slowly unscrew the door knob while she screamed on the other side. It turns out there is a little key that unlocks the door from the outside, but my husband was in class so I had to rely on my idiot method of taking the whole door knob apart.
I eventually got the door open and when I got in there and calmed her down, she closed the door with us both in there (while I was trying to clean up the mess she left for me) and locked us BOTH in her room. The knob was off, so I was at a loss at how to unlock the door, but jamming a baby sized clothes hanger in there and jiggling the crap out of it got us out. I even screwed the knob back on the door, so I'm basically Bob Villa at this point.
The point of this story is: if you have a toddler, then expect extra pain in your 50 mile recovery period. I can't wait for her to be old enough to wait on me hand and foot after races. (readers with older kids, don't ruin my fantasy)
She's lucky that she's cute, especially when she says rude words in an innocent fashion. Lately she's been trying to say "Cookie" and only gets out "Cock". It's pretty much the best thing ever.
I'm just sad I haven't gotten the times she's gone to the pantry and pointed and said "Cock!" on video. Parenthood is all about finding these special moments and saving them to embarrass her when she's a teenager.
The 5K has to be done between December 2nd and 6th and she has a cute bib you can print out and wear as you sprint around your neighborhood. I hope some of you decide to join in too!
I did it! I ran fifty freaking miles in one day and I have lived to talk about it. :) This was the hardest race I've ever done, and also the one I'm the most proud of completing.
Pre race: We drove to Hagerstown, MD on Friday night because my husband had to work, so we figured that we should go later and miss the D.C. rush hour. The drive was fine (well, I was snoozing, so I assume it was fine) and we got to our hotel at 10pm. Even though our hotel was awesome (Homewood Suites by Hilton rocks), I didn't sleep well at all. I was really nervous knowing I was so close to running the race and probably only managed 3 hours of solid sleep.
Race day: I had my traditional pre-race bagel with peanut butter, but I was so antsy, I couldn't even finish it. I just wanted to start running, so at least I could start thinking "49 miles to go!" instead of "I'm going to run HOW MANY miles today??"
4:45am pre-race photo (in the dark apparently)
All of the runners met at a local high school and we got a pre-race briefing on where to poop and how to not die on the Appalachian Trail section. I was a little nervous when they said that the Alpine Rescue Team would be out if you got hurt on the mountain. Because I live in my own La-La Land, in my mind I had thought the first part was more of a large hill versus an actual mountain. Not even close to the truth, but it was a nice comforting thought in the days leading up to the race. They also made all the military guys stand up and the race director was like "If you need to be carried out, one of these guys will do it." Awesome.
I'm a Mike Wardian stalker
Jessica and I in the nice warm gym before the start
After the briefing (and like 8 trips to the bathroom), we were all herded outside into the cold air and walked about half a mile to the start line. I much prefer walking to the start than just standing to start! We only had to stand for like 30 seconds before the gun went off and we all started running. I started the race with Jessica and our goal was to not kill ourselves going up the mountain, but we still wanted to stay toward the middle so we wouldn't get stuck behind slower paced people on the single track trail.
Crazy dudes in shorts always start in the front
The first few miles were insane. It was a steep incline that just never ended. Everyone was walking, so we started to do a combination run/walk. After about 3 miles, we made to the Appalachian trail and we were able to start running again because it flattened out for a bit. After just a short distance on the trails, we hit a pavement section and one of the more experienced runners warned us that we hadn't hit the worst hill yet. When we did come up to that hill, it was brutal! It was so long and it was so steep that it was hard to even walk it upright. Even just walking it, I was winded!
When we reached the peak of the hill, we went back on the trail and we started our "Dancing with Rocks" phase of the race. The combination of rocks and lots of leaves made the trail pretty difficult for running. I felt like I turned my ankle every 3rd step and I was forced to go frustratingly slow. It was so hard to be passed on this section because it was my inability to speed up while remaining upright. I saw one woman fall and she looked like she was in a ton of pain and wasn't getting up (she had help, I didn't just run past her carcass). After that, I felt more committed to getting off the trail section in one piece, at whatever pace.
After about 3 and a half hours at mile 17, we got off the trail and started the 27 mile canal path portion. I don't understand why people complain about this section, it was just so nice to not be trying to run over rocks anymore. Sure, it was flat, straight and boring, but after flirting with death on the switchbacks coming down the mountain, I was ok with boring. Jessica set a pretty quick pace (around 9 minute miles I think?) and it was slowly and surely too much for me. Around mile 20 was when I hit my low point of the race. I was starting to feel a lot of pain and we hadn't even hit a marathon distance yet. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to run for hours more when I was already winded and in pain. By mile 30, I just needed to go slower or start mixing in some walking, so we parted ways and she darted off like a fast little bunny. :)
After I parted ways with Jessica, I decided to do a timed run/walk interval since if I went by walking until I felt like running, then I would be walking more than running. At first I tried 15 minutes of running and 3 minutes of walking, but the math was just too much for my distance addled brain, so I switched quickly to 10 minutes of running and 2 minutes of walking. With the aid stations about 4 miles apart and only having to run 10 minutes at a time, my outlook on the race greatly improved.
My "Badass" tights were a good conversation piece on the trail and I chatted with a lot of people. Most of us were doing a run/walk system and were constantly leap-frogging each other. My "I only have to run for 10 minutes!" system worked really well and pretty soon I was at mile 38 and grabbed a bunch of gummy bears and took a Gu Roctane and I got to the next aid station pretty quickly and the mile 41.8 aid station is significant because it means you get off the canal road and onto normal road. The policy is that if you get to that aid station after 3pm, you have to wear a reflective vest the rest of the way (I called it the Vest of Shame because it seemed funny to me at that point in the day). I missed that cut-off by 4 whole minutes and it was a big morale boost because it made me feel like I was going to finish in the daylight instead of the dark.
Instead of doing the 10 minutes running/2 minutes walking system for the last 8 miles, I switched to running the downhills and flats and walking the uphills. The last 8 miles were described as "rolling hills" which was technically true, but the hills were still pretty significant so walking was a good choice since I was able to run faster on the downhills and flats because I walked the hills. I kept thinking over and over "I just want to be done" and that really helped me push those last few miles because I knew once I crossed that finish line, I could finally stop.
My "Can I stop running now PLEASE?" face
Around mile 44 I started running with another girl who had done the JFK 50 3 times before, so it was great because she knew the course so well. At this point on the course they had mile markers, but it was still nice that she knew exactly where we were turning and were the aid stations were located. This portion of the race was in really pretty farmland and I was cheerful since I finally felt like I was really going to finish and it was looking like I was going to finish sooner than I thought I would.
That is my "Wow, this hurts" face
Running was really painful by this point in the race, but I still think I felt better than a lot of people I saw, or else I looked that bad and just didn't know it. Arriving at the mile 48 aid station was such a great feeling and I had one last cup of Coke before heading for the finish. We turned the one final corner and even though the last stretch was uphill, hearing the crowds cheering encouraged me to run. In a complete surprise to me, I crossed the finish line at 9:26:14 (official time) which is an 11:20 average pace.
I hate when paparazzi get in my face
I had told my husband at mile 27 that I didn't expect to cross the finish line before 5pm, so he wasn't even there yet. Luckily, Brian and his wife Angie were there to cheer for me and took pictures of me. My husband arrived shortly after I finished and brought me a warm coat and helped me walk like a wounded penguin back to his car (he had to park SO FAR away). After I finished, I felt happy and exhausted and I was absolutely crusted in salt. I also couldn't touch my toes if you paid me and stepping up a curb seemed like a real challenge.
Is it just me, or is this metal REALLY heavy?
Post race: I took the longest, hottest shower of all time back at our hotel. I was glad we stayed two nights because that meant I could have a private shower instead of a shower at the middle school. Also, my husband was able to get grad school work done in the room while I was running for hours. I thought that I would be able to eat a ton of food since you know, the 50 miles and all, but I was barely able to eat anything. I was shaky hungry, but when I tried to eat I would feel awful after about 4 bites. Very disappointing! I felt the same at breakfast this morning, but better at lunch, so hopefully I'll be able to eat a good sized dinner.
What post is complete without a salty butt shot?
How do I feel? Like I got hit by a bus, but I can still walk up and down stairs and stuff like that. I'm sore in strange places like my abs and shoulders. I wasn't able to sleep at all last night because the caffeine I took in during the race and the pain factor, so I also feel really tired.
Nutrition during the race: I drank lemon-lime Nuun out of my hydration pack (about 3 liters) and I took a Gatorade and Coke at almost every aid station. I also had about a handful of M&Ms and few potato chips at other aid stations. Mile 34 aid station was the cookie station, so I had a chocolate chip cookie and then at mile 38 I had a handful of gummy bears. In past races, I ate more at the aid stations, but this race only had a few choices (no boiled potatoes!) and I really just wanted to keep moving forward. I also took 3 Gus and ate about half a pack of mint Mentos (for nausea).
I may be officially tired of Gatorade...for a few days
Would I do it again? Absolutely. The race was really well run, I love the shirt, and I had a great time.
Badass pants are even more badass with a salt crust
For your viewing pleasure, there is also a movie. Keep in mind that my brain on running is like your brain on 2 or 3 beers, so if I'm not making sense to you, it's ok.
Legend says that when Hannibal stood at the base of the Alps, his generals told him that crossing by elephants would be impossible. Hannibal replied "Aut inveniam viam aut faciam" which means "I will either find a way or make one". While this story may be apocryphal (since it's unlikely that Hannibal would have spoken in Latin), the spirit of the quote is not tainted.
Those elephants were probably like "WTF??"
While the effort to run 50 miles on established trails isn't the same as crossing the Alps on elephant, I'm planning on taking this same spirit with me as I run. I'm not a natural runner and I don't have a depth of experience (it hasn't even been a year since I ran my first full marathon), but I do have a strong will and desire to push my body to new limits. There may be obstacles in my way during this race, but I will either find a way around them or make a new way.
This quote was also my over-arching mantra for training for this kind of endurance event while taking care of a baby. Everyone has obstacles when it comes to training and you can either find a way to make it work or if you don't want it enough, you'll just find excuses about how it can't work. I've had to be creative to get my miles done (for example by splitting up my weekday runs into two parts to get it all done), but even though it would have been easier to say "I can't", I decided to find a way to make it work.
When it gets hard tomorrow (which will happen), I'm planning on thinking about all the days I managed to run 8 or 9 miles with a fussy baby, the runs in the rain, the runs in the smoke, the runs in the heat, and all the hours of work I've put into getting to the point of being ready to tackle 50 miles. I'm pretty confident that I'll find a way or make a way for this race to be a success.
No pre-race blog post is complete without running quotes, so here are some of my favorites:
"It's very hard in the beginning to understand that the whole idea is not to beat the other runners. Eventually you learn that the competition is against the little voice inside you that wants you to quit."
- George Sheehan
"You'll be wistful for the "wall" of the marathon, when you hit the "death grip" of the ultra."
- Bob Glover
"Any idiot can run a marathon. It takes a special kind of idiot to run an ultramarathon."
- Alan Cabelly
"In ultrarunning, the pain is inevitable, but the suffering is optional."
- Al Bogenhuber
I am taking my lap top with me this weekend and I will be tweeting before and after the race (but not during, sorry). If I don't make it, my husband has my passwords and will post an obituary tentatively titled "This was her fucking hobby". Either way, you will have a fun post to look forward to reading. :)
One of the reasons I wanted to run a 50 mile race is because the idea of running 50 miles scares the shit out of me. So it's not shocking that I'm feeling a little scared leading up to this race, even though I've been happy with my training and improvements in endurance and speed. In this week before my race, I have experienced a wide spectrum of moods:
Exhaustion: Just thinking about packing for this weekend makes me feel like taking a nap. This mood leads nicely into the next mood.
You want me to run HOW FAR??
Panic: The "Oh, no I'm SO tired right now and I only ran a tiny fraction of my overall race distance today. I AM GOING TO DIE!!"
Nothing says panic like a screaming hamster
Cranky: Anything that isn't race related is irritating me. Oh, the dishwasher needs to be emptied? TOO BAD, I'm TRYING to get RACE READY HERE!
Exhilarated: I'm so excited to run this race after all of these months of training and I love the atmosphere at ultras so much and I bet we're all going to hold hands and sing kumbaya at the start line and have S'MORES at the end!
Let's all poop in the woods together!
It's really amazing that my husband hasn't come up with reasons to work late this week.
I only really need two key things for this race: stupidity and stubbornness. I was stupid enough to sign up and I'm relying on my stubbornness to see me through to the end. :)
Yesterday, it rained all day long, so it was just me, the baby, and my taper crazies all day. We did exciting things like packing up all the toys that Faith has "grown" out of, or more accurately, ignores. The less toys she has out, the more she plays with toys, so I'm trying to streamline our toy situation. See what happens when I taper? I start doing stupid things like attempting to organize the baby's toys.
It was pouring rain yesterday and taking the baby and the dog out in the rain isn't anyone's favorite, so I did my 5 miles on the treadmill instead. It felt unsatisfying and I still wanted more at the end, just like how I feel when I try to eat an actual serving size of frozen pizza. Hopefully I can bottle this "I want to run more!" feeling and pull it out at mile 45 on Saturday. :)
At this point, I just want Saturday to be here already because the anticipation is killing me. I know you are all as concerned about the weather as me, and it's still looking good for the race (high of 53 and partly sunny). Cross your fingers that it stays that way!
Many people ask me how I think I'm going to do during Saturday's race and here is my short answer: I have no clue. I mean, I have a general idea based on my training, but this race will be outside the bounds of my current running experience. The general idea for ultra training is that if you can run 26.2 miles, you can run further and the rest is pretty much mental. Included in that are the back to back long runs, but even with those you don't come close to how the actual race will feel (I assume).
Even though many things can happen on race day, I do have a general time goal. I'm not going to be too upset if I miss it, but I will be upset if I get swept from the course for being too slow or not finishing in the 12 hour cut-off. I know I hate when people say "I just want to finish, that's my only goal!" because that's probably a lie and the person just won't admit their secret goal time.
My (realistic) goal: Finish under 10:30. This is pretty attainable, especially considering that only a 12 mile portion is on a trail and the rest is roads and canal path. When I did that 21 mile trail run back in September, our average pace was 12:00 min/mile and a 10:30 finish for 50 miles is a little over a 12:30 min/mile pace. Keep in mind that the pace has to include bathroom breaks and aid station stops. Also, this course is 50.2 miles, which just seems mean, but what can you do?
My (dream) goal: Finish under 9:30. This is about an 11:30 average pace. I have no idea if this is possible at all, but it can't hurt to dream. Well, actually it can, but let's face it: 50 miles is going to hurt no matter what. :)
My non-time related goals for the race:
Stay on top of my nutrition and hydration. If I run into problems in this race, I don't want it to be something I could have prevented.
Don't be afraid to run when it feels good. In my 50Ks, I felt that I held back when it felt good because I was afraid of burning out, but at some point in the race, you just burn out no matter how careful you were at the beginning.
Streamline my aid station time. In my past races, I felt that I spent too much time at the aid stations and for this one, I'd really like to get in and out faster.
If I fall, I want to get a bad ass injury like this:
If you google image JFK 50, this pops right up
Instead of skinning my butt again:
You know you wanted to see this picture again
I've been training for this race since July, so really the most important thing is that I finish. At least I seem to have avoided my fear that signing up for a 200 dollar race was a sure way to tempt a birth control failure.
I know it's only Wednesday, but I'm already starting to pack for the race. My husband and I are driving up to Hagerstown, MD on Friday night and my mom is coming to stay with Faith for the weekend. The race starts at 7am on Saturday and luckily I can pick up my packet race day morning. I'm also meeting Jessica at the start of the race and we'll probably run the trail section together and then split up on the canal path because she's significantly faster than me. I'm so happy to at least not start alone. I hate that awkward standing around waiting for the race start, so I'm glad I'll have someone to listen to my babbling.
We don't get drop bags at this race, which is a pain mostly for my husband since that means he has to be my crew for the day. (Drop bags are bags of extra supplies that you give to the race organizers at the start that will be available to you at a set mile point later point in the race). I have a "wet race plan" and a "dry race plan" for my husband and he'll be lucky if it's dry because I'll only need him once. If it's raining, I'll need to change my shoes and socks more than once, so he'll have a rough day of standing in the rain waiting for me to run by. However, the forecast looks great for race day and my husband's dream of spending the day sipping Starbucks and doing grad school work in our hotel room might come true.
Shocking race plan: I'm not running with my Garmin. I'm just going to use a digital watch. My Garmin battery probably wouldn't last anyway and I don't want to get confused about my pace with the auto-pause. The overall time elapsed matters more than my average pace per mile anyway.
This is by far the most complicated race I've ever ran and all of the logistics of what I'm carrying with me and what I need to pack was giving me a headache, so I distracted myself by torturing the dog for the baby's entertainment:
Where is Sarah McLachan when you need her?
Peanut is the new Black Swan
Oh, your pretty collar matches your pretty tutu...
Yes, I have the world's most patient dog. The key is that she just likes attention, any kind of attention.
Do you ever abuse your pet's good nature? It's ok to admit it here. :)
