Boldly running where I've never gone before

Remember the episode of Star Trek: the Next Generation called “Relics” where they found Scotty trapped for 75 years in the pattern buffers of the USS Jenolan?  How I wish I had such a good excuse!  The truth is I’ve just been lazy.

After signing up for the Berlin Marathon, I had a huge burst of inspiration and went all out for a good month:  three runs a week, two cross training sessions, planning meals to include proper nutrients and recording calories on the Livestrong website.  I did pretty damn good too.  For a while anyway.

You see, in recent years winter has become a bit of a struggle for me.  Its long dark days and bitter chills make me want to hide even as I bristle against the sense of captivity hiding brings.   As Thanksgiving gluttony folds into Christmas craziness, I begin to feel trapped.   There is relief when the conclusion of New Year celebrations maneuvers the zeitgeist back toward sanity.  A new year and new goals are very refreshing to me.  Regardless, by mid-February I’m usually ready to snap.

However, I decided last year that I was going to break the cycle of midwinter misery by finding a way to enjoy or at least tolerate the awful season.  For me that means finding a way to embrace the tundra instead of despising it.  So I signed up for a snowshoe 5k in January and a frosty 5k in February which I linked to visits with friends (in order to ensure I’d actually get out and do both as well as enjoy the reward of pleasant company).

The two races were so much fun!   I lost my snowshoe virginity in the Glacial Park Snowshoe 5k while having a blast with my friend Pam, then went up to Wisconsin for the Frostbite 5k and a catch-up visit with my best buds from college.  I was doing great —flexibility, cross-training, weight lifting, Bosu work, running negative splits  —  and even the weather was getting better by the day.  Then it all went horribly wrong.

At some point in mid-March a cold snap hit and the skies turned grey.  I had planned to do a St. Paddy’s Day run in Chicago with a couple of friends.  Both ended up cancelling.  I don’t know why but that sent me into a tailspin.  It was like the giant dark cloud of winter depression which I had thus far managed to escape had suddenly overtaken me.  After a 7 mile run on the weekend of the aborted race, I just quit.  Each time I tried to work out the following week, I felt a leaden fatigue too heavy to shake off.  So after a couple of half-hearted trips to the gym, I gave up.

A month of lethargic bog-wallow later, I couldn’t stand myself anymore so I began to look for a way out.  I eventually concluded that if perceived abandonment helped break me, maybe a fitness support group was the answer.  This revelation came as I was watching an episode of  “Ruby” where she gathers her friends to petition their help after falling off her diet.  Envisioning the same scene in my own life, I fell back in raucous laughter.  First of all, I’d have to spend $300 on snacks and liquor just to host them all.   Then came the vision of Carie jogging in her Kate Spade shoes with martini in one hand and cigarette in the other or Fred beside me at Pilates class grunting like a newborn potbelly pig.  I couldn’t help but laugh and laugh and laugh!

So I hired a personal trainer.  I figured, “WTF, if you can’t find someone to work out with you, just pay someone to make sure you do it.”

And thus I am pleased to announce my return to serious training.  I had a great weekend of nutritious food and vigorous exercise with plans ahead for more of the same.  In fact, I’m sitting here right now procrastinating a 7 and 1/2 mile run as I write this post.  But I shall get off the sofa, leash the hounds and head out the door to do it.

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Bless you Scotty.  You will dwell in the pattern buffer of my heart forever.

My last post in January 2010 said it would be the last post ever.

I said I would never run a full 26.2 marathon.

Well, the impossible is about the become possible.  I’m running in the Berlin Marathon on September 25 during my vacation in Germany.  I’m resurrecting the training blog.

Anyone who wishes to participate in my middle aged craziness is welcome aboard.  Like Captain Picard says,  “Engage!”

After years of being an exercise video devotee, I started running in the fall of 2008 in order to expand my exercise horizons and take advantage of the open terrain in my new town after moving out of inner-city Chicago.  I hadn’t run a step since I was in my early 20s, and was merely a casual non-competitive runner even then.  I had come across the Couch to 5K program online earlier that year and considered it many times, keeping it mostly at the back of my mind.

Then in late September 2008, I went on vacation to New Orleans with my sister and we stayed in a hotel that didn’t have a fitness center.  I wanted to do something to combat the effects of Hurricanes and beignets on my already-generous figure, so I decided to go out walking around the French Quarter one day when I was the first to awaken.  There was something about the beauty of the sun, the cool air and the architecture that morning that filled me with an unusual energy and I broke out into a run.  It would be nice at this point in the story to say that I somehow miraculously galloped along for miles like a gazelle, but the truth is that I made it to the end of the block and then slowed to a walk because I was gasping for air.  So I walked a block and caught my breath and then did it again–and again–and again–down Esplanade to Rampart to Canal to Decatur and back to the hotel, alternating running a block then walking one.  I felt great, and I loved it.

I started C25K upon my return from New Orleans and ran my first 5-K (a Jingle Bell run) in December 2008.  I would gladly have continued doing 5-Ks here and there as an adjunct to my other fitness efforts but I got an envelope in the mail about 6 weeks later from the race containing a ribbon.  I had placed as one of the top in my age category.   Wow!  It was like getting an A on my first term paper.

I immediately started looking up training plans, online forums, runner’s magazines, and immersed myself in the sport.  I wanted to run farther and farther to see how much I could do.  I enrolled in races that were months away, each one longer than the next, in order to stretch myself to a greater distance because I wanted more.   I did another 5-K, an 8-K and then a 10-K and still I wanted more.    When I found out about Walt Disney World’s Marathon Weekend and noticed that it coincided with my annual trip to Florida, I immediately signed up.

I started this blog because I wanted to commit myself to the training via a public forum as a means of keeping myself accountable.  My focus for 2010 is to work on strength and speed while maintaining distance.  I can’t say I want to move beyond 13.1 miles as a maximum but I d0 plan to shave 10% off my pace andput more focus on trail races (which will necessitate greater physical strength).  My new training schedule starts next week and I’m excited about it already.

My first thoughts after the Walt Disney World Half were quite literally:  (1) I’m hungry, (2) I’m cold, (3)I’m wet, and (4) Boy am I glad it’s over!

Don’t get me wrong.  It isn’t that I didn’t have fun, because I did.  Walt’s folks really know how to create an atmosphere of excitement.  But there’s not much in this world that’s exciting enough to have me rise from a warm bed at 2:45 a.m.to wait almost 3 hours (most lounging on a beanbag chair inside a heated tent but a full hour of it outside in the dark with little ice balls bouncing off my face) and then shuffle along with 17,000 other people.  I don’t know if this is the worst weather they’ve had for the WDW Marathon Weekend, but I’m sure it ranks pretty far up on the list.

But gripes about the weather aside, it was such a fun event.  Costumed characters from all the Disney eras were on hand in abundance to mingle and pose for photos with the runners (and believe me, if I’d had a camera I would certainly have posed with Captain Jack Sparrow).  There were marching bands and other live as well as recorded music at practically every mile.  The fairly flat and potentially-fast course, which wound through the Magic Kingdom and Epcot, was incredibly charming and brought many a smile to my face.  Aid stations were more plentiful than I have ever seen (featuring water, Powerade, Clif products and even Tylenol), and the amenities in the Race Retreat tent were five-star.  Even the mile markers were almost billboard sized Disney-themed displays with digital splits clocks at each.  Many people stopped running to pose for photos by them!  I highly recommend a Disney event to all marathoners because it is an experience beyond any I’ve had in my brief span as an endurance athlete.  As for the details….

After arriving at Epcot before 4:00 a.m. (because that’s what we were told to do), we all waited for the start of the race and then lined up in Corrals A through G.  I was in G with the newbies and slow folks.  The start of the race was at 5:35 with the wheelchair racers first, followed by the elites, followed by the rest of us.  It took almost an hour from the starting gun for me to cross the starting line.  That’s a lot of runners!  Being in the final corral meant I was with many of the walkers and had to navigate my way through and around them so I could run.  .  At times it was impossible to pass anyone so I settled into an easy jog and stayed there. 

We started in the parking lot and wound our way through Epcot and then the Magic Kingdom.  And how magical it was!  My jaw dropped when I ran past the giant castle, just like the one I saw on Walt Disney’s “Wonderful World of Color” when I was a kid watching TV on Sunday nights.  Two castle guards tooted those long ribbon-festooned horns as we crossed through the gates like we were returning royalty.  People were lined up at the sides of the streets shouting encouragement.  It was truly a trip through fantasy land.  Sharpie was once of the race’s sponsors and had posted little signs along the less-interesting parts of the course featuring amusing commentary like “Einstein never learned to drive,” “If an ant gets intoxicated it always falls to the right,” and my favorite “I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she broke up with me before we met.”  It was all very entertaining.  Even observing the discarded clothing that littered the entire distance was amusing.

So how did I do?  Well, I’m glad I was not trying to set any particular pace because I found the sheer number of runners slowed everything down.  There were lines for the porta-potties, lines at some water stations and mobs of people 5- 6 abreast all going at random paces.  I don’t know my official time yet but I’ll bet it was around 3:00 plus whatever extra time I spent waiting for bathrooms, etc. along the course.  And that’s okay because the sole focus of my first full year as a runner has been to achieve distance goals and not PRs.  Having completed two half-marathons in the past 3 weeks, I’d say my ability to do 13.1 miles is a beyond doubt.

Whoever said the best way to break down a half marathon into manageable pieces is to think “5 miles, then 5 more, and then a 5-K” is truly brilliant.  The first 5 miles go by fairly quickly because of the training, and they seem like no big deal.  The next 5 may require a bit of positive self-talk toward the end but by the time you’ve done all 10, it’s a no-brainer to tack on that final 5-K.  My mantras when I began to feel the strain were “trust the training,” “your body knows what to do” and “5….5….5-K”.

Honestly, if the weather had been better and there had been fewer people, I would have had a blast.  There were a lot of event photographers around the course and I’m sure any pictures of me will likely show me smiling because I did smile and laugh a lot, despite the cold and the wind and the sleet.

So now I’m down the coast a bit in Cocoa Beach with my husband (who flew in after the end of the race) and I’ve already had an excellent broiled fish dinner, some rum punch and a nap.  The Disney Half was a great way to close my first year as a runner, and now it’s on to the next phase.

The past 48 hours have been an exercise in mental fortitude and a ridiculously sardonic demonstration of Murphy’s law.

First there was the weather forecast: 
a winter storm bearing 4-10 inches of snow that would begin approximately 9 hours before my scheduled flight to Florida.   I was originally scheduled to work a 13 hour shift the night before departure but got another doc to cover the last 4 hours for me so I could get a ride into the city from my son and stay at the hotel next door to the airport.

10:30 pm Tuesday night —
 the doc sends me an email to say he would likely be unable to work due to a family medical emergency.  Great.  I spend the better part of Wednesday morning making other arrangements and find someone to work.

Wednesday noon —
I get a call from my son.  His car won’t start.  Not only can he not pick me up but he needs a new battery for the car.  Okay.  I arrange for a cab to the motel (a mere $75)  and ask him to meet me there so I can loan him the cash for the battery.  This greatly diminishes my funds for the trip but I will survive.

4:30 a.m. Thursday —
Automated phone call from Southwest Airlines to say my flight has been cancelled.  I spend the next 45 minutes sleepily listening to muzak while awaiting “the next available operator” to make a new reservation for me.  We schedule a flight that has me leaving at 5:35 p.m. instead of 9:10 a.m.

Other than risking decubitus ulcers on my butt from sitting at the airport all day, the wait for my flight proceeds pleasantly enough.  Until….

5:00 p.m. Thursday —
My 5:35 p.m. flight is now leaving sometime after 7:00 due to delays at its origin point in Minnesota.  I’m going to arrive in Florida approximately 12 hours after I had originally intended, which nixes my plan to pick up the race packet, etc. on Thursday.

And just to put a cherry and some whipped cream on this vile sundae, the rental car was not ready when I got to Hertz.  I got one though.  My credit card got declined at the hotel.  I used a different one.  MY ROOM KEY CARDS WOULDN’T WORK  when I dragged my old tired ass up to the room!  I slogged back downstairs and the clerk gave me new ones.

I was starting to wonder if there was a freakin curse on me or something.  I got to bed around 2 a.m. and slept until almost noon.  Today went much better for the most part.

I headed over to the Health and Fitness Expo to pick up my race packet, T-shirt and other materials.  What a crowd of people!  If even half of those throngs are planning to run tomorrow, I don’t know if there’ll be room for us all.

I got lucky and found a Whole Foods market near the hotel and was able to get my usual supplies:  gluten-free bread, fruit, peanut butter and a bonus  — 2 six packs of gluten free beer.  Woohoo!  For post-race consumption of course.

I came back to the hotel and was enjoying my chicken and fried plantains dinner when I had a realization that made my blood run cold.  I FORGOT TO PICK UP MY TICKET FOR THE RACE RETREAT PACKAGE!

The Race Retreat package is a little “extra” that Disney makes a ton of money on each year.  Because there are so many runners, everyone is asked to arrive about 2 hours before the start of the race.  Even though this is Florida, the temperatures at 4:00 a.m. tend to be a bit brisk.  The Race Retreat provides heated tents, email access, snacks, private bathrooms etc. so that the wait is not as debilitating as it might otherwise be.  I gladly paid the extra $75 for it.  But unless some other stroke of good luck arises to thwart Murphy’s postulate of perversity, I will be huddled out in 30 degrees with rain tomorrow morning instead of lounging in a heated tent.

Whatever.

Well, I’m going to bed now to see how much sleep I can get before the alarm clock goes off at 3:00 a.m.  I arranged for a taxi to pick me up at 3:30 to take me to Epcot.  Unless the alarm shorts out and burns the hotel down or the taxi gets sucked up in a cyclone and deposits me in Kansas, I will be back after the race with the rest of the details on how I kicked Adversity’s ass.

My flight to Orlando leaves in less than 12 hours.

I’m heading to Florida 2 days before the race so I can acclimate to the location, time change and weather.  I AM SO READY to leave this frozen snowy place!  I just hope I can beat most of the 4-10 inches of snow we’ve been promised here.  I can’t wait to be someplace where the temperature is above freezing.  I’ve barely done anything in the past couple of weeks because I’ve been absolutely paralyzed by the cold.

My next post will come from sunnier climes.

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EDITED TO ADD:  My flight was cancelled and I’ve now been waiting 9 hours for another.  <sigh>

  OK, I really WAS ranting yesterday!

 
Let me correct some faulty data.

 I WILL run outdoors again before it’s 40 degrees F.  Just probably not below 25.

…not a freakin Polar Bear!

What in the name of Kahless was I thinking, scheduling an early January half-marathon?!  Even if it IS in Florida, I still have to train somewhere!

It is TOO COLD AND SNOWY to be running in this crazy place where I live!  Oh yes, I sucked it up and ran 4 miles outside today but I HATED IT.  I’ll do it again but I’ll HATE IT again! I CAN’T WAIT until January 9 comes and I’m done with this crazy quest!  Jeez!

I know, I know, I could run at the gym but it squicks me out thinking about all the germs lurking there waiting to jump on me.  Community acquired MRSA is no joke. 

          Nasty, ain’t it?  I treat it daily.

   And I damned sure don’t want it.

 And because I’m a doctor who would be considered pretty much a LEPER if I caught it, I run outside.

Today I ran in ankle deep snow.  My toes were frozen, my eyes were watering, my cheeks are now red and pocky looking.  But I did it.  And sure, I’ll do it again.  Maybe twice more before the race.  And then I’m done.  I’M DONE until it’s at least 40 degrees out there.  This is nuts!

Since I last posted, I also did a 60 minute step aerobics video and a core workout.

More to come.  Done ranting now….

Since I last posted, I’ve travelled to New Orleans for my birthday weekend and run the Ole Man River Half Marathon as a “practice race” on December 20.  I feel like I did okay, even though it was less than stellar.  I was scheduled that day for a 12.5 mile long-slow run on my training calendar so I decided to get out of town to someplace warm so that the run would actually take place.  Since I love NOLa and they were having a half-marathon, I figured “why not?”.

Because we’ve been caught up in the usual winter craziness at work, I was very poorly prepared for my journey and as a consequence learned a lot about “what not to do” when heading out of town for a race.  First, I booked a hotel room without a fridge, microwave or even a coffeepot.  This guaranteed I would not be able to observe my usual pre-race ritual:  early rising, relaxed high-carb low-fiber breakfast followed by substantial evacuation of bowels (sounds gross but all runners know they’d better have empty bowels before a race).  Secondly, I forgot to bring my special gluten-free energy bar to eat after the first 90 minutes of running.  Third, I stayed up too late the night before the race hanging out around the French Quarter and ended up sleeping too long the next morning.  Despite all these errors in judgment, I did okay and the breakfast of raspberry Zingers purchased from a vending machine then eaten before and during the race only cost me about 10 minutes off my time because of all the porta potty stops they caused.

Overall, I LOVED the race!  We started at Tad Gormley Stadium and ran through beautiful City Park.  The weather was perfect:  sunny and 50-ish with gentle winds.  The number of runners was small but they were not so fast as to leave me in last place.  There were plenty of water stops along the route.  And they had a WONDERFUL post-race buffet including pancakes, bananas, and a self-serve beer truck.  Nice. 

Since my son Simon came along with me (because it was not only a birthday trip for me but for him as well, his birthday being 12/25 and mine 12/21), we spend the rest of the weekend eating and drinking and carousing around New Orleans.  3 days went by so quickly!

And then I came home. 

I got back on Monday afternoon.  Tuesday I worked 11 hours then shopped for Christmas stuff.  

After sleeping about 5 hours, I worked for 13 hours on Wednesday and then went grocery shopping for the holiday. 

After about 4 and 1/2 hours of sleep, on Thursday I worked 8 hours and was immediately catapulted into the family ritual of  a long boozy Christmas Eve dinner (this year spent at a fondue restaurant).  Upon arriving home afterwards, I went immediately to bed where I remained for the next 12 hours.

On Friday, I cooked.  Yes, all day.  First brunch,  then dinner with sangria and dessert.  My son and his girlfriend spent the night and we had a very nice time.

One might remark upon the lack of RUNNING in this past week, a mere 14 days before the Disney World half marathon, and I would have answered I rested after the New Orleans Half and was going to resume running today, Saturday, December 26, with a nice 10-mile jaunt.  However, it started snowing yesterday afternoon and hasn’t stopped yet.  At least 4 inches are on the ground, the temperature is somewhere in the mid-20s and it’s positively awful out there. 

Not to be done in by weather however, I did have a spectacular Plan B.  I decided to do two 60-minute high-impact cardio videos down in the basement preceded and followed by a mile of low-impact Leslie Sansone (with the sound turned down because her babbling drives me barking mad). So I turned on all the lights in the workout area, searched out the DVDs, filled water bottles, switched on the fan and even got into my workout gear.  Then I laid down and took a nap.

I haven’t been able to summon the energy to do anything even remotely athletic today, and am currently sprawled on the sofa enjoying a Harry Potter movie marathon.

I guess sometimes you really just have to let yourself CRASH.

 But I will return to my training tomorrow.

It was a beautiful wintry day today.  The sky was a watercolor blue and the sun was brilliant.  If it had been warmer, it would have been perfect.  After starting somewhere the in high 20’s, the temperature gradually slid down an icy slope toward the biting frigidity we know and dread here in Northern Illinois.   I am off work today and tomorrow —  my first two consecutive days off since Thanksgiving  — and I was weighed down by the exhaustion I usually feel after a long run of work days.  I went to my volunteer job in the morning and then had to take the dogs to the vet at 2:00 pm for a vaccination.  I had fully intended to go home afterward and flop on the sofa for the rest of the day.  Until I saw the sun.

Something about its brightness filling my eyes gave me a surge of energy, a rush of happiness and a powerful desire to be outdoors just to revel in its company.  It was almost like the craving one feels for a new lover.  I felt a little crazy actually but decided to go along with it, so I headed over to the Hammel Woods with the dogs where we hiked up and down the hills for about 45 minutes.  The temperature was about 17 with a north wind of about 10 mph.   It was COLD!  I liked it, but it was really cold.  And I can hardly wait to do it again!

Since the abortive run last Saturday, I’ve done no other physical activity.  I hope I get a great night’s sleep tonight because I’d like to really step up the pace over the next couple of days.   I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately about exercise and have learned that one’s level of fitness can begin to diminish in as little as one week spent idle.  And since the Disney World half is in a mere 25 days, I need to get to and stay at a relative peak for the next 3 and 1/2 weeks.  So even though my newfound practice of periodization calls for peaks and valleys of intensity, I feel wary of any kind of slacking this late in the game. 

More later….