Boldly running where I've never gone before

The latest in the Star Trek movie franchise is called “Into Darkness” and features this excellent poster in its publicity campaign:

Have you ever felt like that?  Like you’re the only one standing, surrounded by masses of smoldering rubble, on the precipice of something potentially horrible and wonderful at the same time?  It’s called life.  And all too often we find ourselves at such a crossroad.

Survival is job one at these moments; living, moving forward and making progress trumps all else.  You can’t really make plans because you know neither what lies ahead nor what you are going to do with it.  You just know you will succeed because, like starship captains have been saying back as far as the 20th century, failure is not an option.

That’s 2013.

I am glad to see this year come to an end, and it has little to do with running.  Yes, I fell short once again in my quest to run a first marathon (and ended up doing the half at Kiawah Island) but that’s okay because I’ll do it someday.  I did run three half-marathons in a 6 month span which is something I’d never done before, and I can reliably say I am now very comfortable with long distances.  I’ve gone farther and gotten faster, and the joy of running is more than ever like oxygen in sustaining me.  But the year has sucked and I’m happy to relegate it to the black hole of vanished memories.

Family deaths, big changes at my business, a tax audit, thrilling rides on a financial roller coaster…all these things have combined to make 2012 a growing pain I’d like to believe I have vanquished as we transition into 2013.  Only time will tell of course, but I’m ready to get on with it.

Actually, pretty much the only good thing from 2012 was the running.  I’ll be back later to talk about 2013.

I have been busy.  Crazy busy.  Relentlessly and most stressfully busy.  Too busy to write and almost too busy to run.  But I’ve been hanging in and getting on with the program.    And I am almost back.

Our weather has taken its annual turn toward winter with grey skies, chilly winds and blustering rain.  The water we needed all summer has finally turned up now, enthusiastically pelting my moribund garden and playing havoc with my outdoor training plans.  I’ve pretty much given up riding the bicycle outdoors which has put a big damper on my cross training efforts.  And the new computer system we’re using at work has increased my daily workload by probably 30%, an expenditure that has eaten up my free time like Gaian yar-bear after hibernation.  The amount of data entry that needs to be done and the length of time I have to do it are so inversely proportional that I find myself working all day seeing patients, then doing electronic charting at home until 10:00 pm and often another hour or so in the morning.

On top of that, I have a new part-time job which is demanding some extra time from me to learn their computer system and I lost 3 of my regular Tuesdays off this month as a result.  (Yeah, doctors aren’t all “rich”.  It costs so much money to run your own business that a lot of us have part-time jobs on the side).

So, the training has taken a bit of a hit this month.  I missed a 10-mile long run due to a rainstorm and, like I said above, the cross-training has disintegrated in a major way.  But I don’t believe I’ve significantly fallen backwards nor forfeited my readiness to do the 26.2 some 6 weeks from today.

Having wrapped my mind around the fact that I need to figure out a way to recapture those training hours between now and the marathon as well as do everything required of me to make a living, I am presently etching out a plan that will accomplish this.  I joined the local gym during their $10/month special recently, and I will just have to get out of bed early a couple days a week to go down there and use the spin bikes.  My final “lost Tuesday” is coming up this week.  I therefore simply must make November a killer month, and be ready to rock come December 8.

It can be done.  It must be done.  There will be life after a month in the labor camp!

Here’s how it all played out since my last post:

Week 6 – Intentionally a “light” week after taking the long run to 14 miles the week prior

Sun 9/23  —  walked with the dogs
Mon and Tues  —  rest days
Wed  —  3 mile easy run
Thurs  —  a few half-hearted abs/lower back sets
Fri  —  2 miles of speedwork; then headed off to the woods for a camping trip
Sat  —  Fun in the woods with a bunch of women; not too much exercise

Week 7 – Meant to be “back to the training plan” but I ended up getting sick and skipped the XT

Sun 9/30  —  Still camping:  did a lot of hiking but not running
Mon and Tues  — off sick with a cold
Wed  —  3 miles slow
Thurs  —  Orientation on the new job; no running
Fri  —  2 miles of speedwork (with a lot of coughing)
Saturday  — a 15 miler at race pace;  it was good even though I wasn’t 100% healthy yet

Week 8 – And the onslaught of work begins.  XT goes totally down the drain.

Sun 10/7  —  Rest day
Mon  —  very short bike ride; way too cold and windy outside!
Tues  —  All day computer training on the new job which, I might add is a 2 hours drive away from home (you heard me right:  that’s 4 hours round trip)
Wed  —  Ran 2 miles
Thurs  —  Worked away my morning workout time
Fri  —  Ran 4 miles
Sat  —  Storms all day; no running

Week 9 – Killed by work every evening and almost every morning.

Sun 10/14  —  Rained out my plans for a 10 miler; got 4 miles done
Mon  —  Worked in the morning instead of run
Tues  —  4 miles, then catching up on chores/errands
Wed  —  Worked my run time away
Thurs —  Speed intervals about 3.5 miles worth
Fri/Sat —  Travel to St. Louis via Springfield where I hung out with an old friend.

Week 10 – XT deficiency reigns supreme and sleep threatens to follow.

Sun 10/21  —  ROCK ‘N’ ROLL ST. LOUIS HALF-MARATHON, 13.1 miles of fun and music
Mon  —  Worked in the early hours of the morning
Tues  —  Another day of computer training on the new job; another lost training day
Wed  —  3 miles
Thurs  —  Another morning of work instead of running.
Fri  —  4 miles
Sat  —  a 12-hour shift on the new job = a 16 hour day including the commute; obviously no running got done

And that brings us up to today.  I ran 10 miles this morning.

The Erosene Winds, an atmospheric phenomenon on the planet Alastria, were featured in an episode of Star Trek: Voyager.  They are said to begin just before dawn and will evoke a feeling of euphoria in anyone who encounters them.  Now that would have been pretty nice here yesterday instead of the 25 mph gusts of cold Canadian air we got instead, but believe it or not I am NOT complaining.  The time I lost with them blasting me backward was well reimbursed with the tailwind on the second half of the run, and I actually did feel giddy with delight a time or two.

Week 5 of marathon training concluded on a high note with an excellent long run, faster than the schedule required, and a feeling that I have made great progress over the past month.  Run Less, Run Faster is the best training plan I have ever used.  I don’t know what I was doing messing around with all those other ones over the years.  Other than Couch to 5k, which got me started as a runner, RLRF is the only method that produced measurable results in such a brief time span.  And it’s perfect for an old body like mine that simply doesn’t do well if asked to run on consecutive days.  There are times I am skeptical about the short sessions of cross-training required on the in-between days because it seems unlikely that a mere 45 minutes of cardio will advance my fitness, but it is working so there’s the proof.

Here’s the breakdown for the past week:

Week 5 of 16

Sunday 9/16 —  Bike ride: 7.88 miles in 43 minutes on the old slow bike.

Monday 9/17 —  rest day

Tuesday 9/18 —  6 mile Tempo run:  2 miles easy, 3 at tempo, 1 mile cool-down.  It went well despite a slow start and I ended up with negative splits, finishing faster than I started.  All together that brought me in right on target for speed.

Wednesday 9/19 —  Upper body and abs workout.

Thursday 9/20 —  Speedwork:  Supposed to have been 3 x1600 meters with a warm-up and cool-down on each end, but the loop I like to run in the abandoned construction zone nearby is only 1400 so I did that at a slightly faster pace than the training plan called for, with each round faster than the last.  It was great.  I was amazed.  I know the weight loss has helped too, but I felt my old speed returning (still not “fast” by any means but fast for me) and I was very very grateful.

Friday 9/21 —  Bike ride 30 minutes easy followed by a long session of corework.

Saturday 9/22 —  Most excellent 14 mile long run at a full minute per mile faster than my expected marathon pace.  What a confidence builder!  After the past couple of crappy weeks, it was quite welcome to have a run like this.

Hopefully this is a harbinger of a good fall training season to come and I will find myself at the starting line in December confident and uninjured.  In my mind’s eye, I see it happening.  I feel the euphoria of the Erosene winds.

OK, so it wasn’t quite as bad as the time Captain Kirk and company beamed down to the planet Excalbia to conduct a geological survey and he ended up fighting this big ugly creature (a beast named Yarnek).  But it hasn’t been the most fantastic two weeks either.  Training has been up and down:  a couple of days were absolutely excellent and a few pretty much sucked.

Mainly there were some “intestinal issues” over the past week which have finally resolved, and then today I stubbed my toe and might have broken it.  It’s the middle toe on my right foot.  I have it buddy-taped, and I don’t run again until Tuesday.  So hopefully it will not be an issue.  But I sure will be happy when it quits hurting.

Anyway, here’s how it went:

Week 3

Sunday 9/2 —  A day off after the 9 mile Long Run; went with my husband to the Check Please Farm to Table Festival about a 2 hour drive away in Michigan.   The food was great:  “small plate” servings of food prepared by about 30 different chefs along with local brews and wine.  Our favorites were the sauteed pork belly on honey mustard with herb salad and fresh cherries and also a wonderful sweet-potato bread pudding.  I just love good food I didn’t have to cook!

Monday 9/3 —  Labor Day.  I should have done some Cross Training but I felt like lounging instead.  So I did.  It was nice to hang around the house with nothing on the agenda for the day.  You need those days every now and then, even when training for a marathon.

Tuesday 9/4 —  The schedule called for a 7 mile Tempo Run.  It was very hot and sunny, so I was slower than I wanted to be but I got it done.  I’d rate it “so-so.”

Wednesday 9/5 —  A Weights day.  I did one of my favorite DVD’s: Cathe Friedrich’s Push-Pull.  Nice DOMS the day after.

Thursday 9/6 —  Speedwork:  1200, 1000, 800, 600, 400 and then 200 meters with a 200 meter rest interval in between.  A most EXCELLENT outing!  Faster than the training schedule called for, and I really kicked ass that morning.  It was great.

Friday 9/7  and Saturday 9/8 — Sick days.  Did nothing.  Feh.

Week 4

Sunday 9/9 —  A scheduled day off.  I worked at the Urgent Care.

Monday 9/10 —  Cross Training day:  45 minute bicycle ride around the neighborhood with a few hills.  9 miles in 45 minutes.

Tuesday 9/11 —  Tempo Run day:  Again, slower than I wanted to be.  The schedule called for 6.  I managed 5.5.  I still wasn’t back to 100% yet and it showed.

Wednesday 9/12 —  XT again:  30 minutes on the bike; should have done weights after the run but time got away from me and I had to get to work.

Thursday 9/13 —  A “supposed to be Speedwork” day:  30 minutes of run/walk intervals outdoors.   Just wasn’t feeling well enough to put forth much effort.

Friday 9/14 —  Scheduled day off.

Saturday 9/15 — 12 mile Long Run.  It was a nice day, slightly warmer than I would have liked, but I did good.  I followed the pace on the training schedule even though it seemed slow and felt decent afterwards.

So that brings us up to the present day. I have a 6 mile Tempo Run for Tuesday, more Speedwork for Thursday and a 14 mile Long Run on Saturday (with 2 XT days and a Weights session in between).   Hopefully the toe won’t be an ugly beast I have to conquer but if it is, c’est la vie.  I shall slay the monster like Captain Kirk and consider it another successful mission.

If you look closely enough you will see I am not there.  Life is not exactly normal where I am, but floating aimlessly among the stars is not my location.

In the weeks since my last post, I have been trying to restore my life and that of my family to something resembling normal and it has been a daunting task to say the least.  The amount of training time that fell by the wayside cannot be recovered and some adjustments needed to be made.  The Century Ride is off the books for this year, and the Marathon was rescheduled from October to December.

There are 16 weeks until the Kiawah Island Marathon in Charleston, SC and I’ll be training for it with the Furman Institute plan detailed in the book “Run Less, Run Faster.”  It worked well for my first half-marathon, so it makes sense to use it for the (second attempt at a) first full.

This is Week One.  More later.

Since last posting in mid-July, we have had an unexpected death in the family which turned everyone’s world upside down.  I’ve done little in the way of serious training but have managed to stay fairly active, considering.

I bowed out of the Waterfall Glen Extreme 10 trail race, and opted for the the lower mileage segment of the Venus de Miles bike ride.  During a business conference in Bozeman MT last week, I did the Winddrinker’s 5k.  Ran a bit here, rode a bit there, all of it half-heartedly while surmounting waves of grief, miles of misery and trails of tears.

Nonetheless, forward is the only way to move so that’s the direction I will continue to follow.  And at this point I would like to say:  multiple sclerosis fucking sucks.  It cripples the young and contributes to early death in ways you might never expect.  I’m not sure when or how, but I’m going to find some races that benefit MS research and support them.  It’s all I can do at this point.

In that spirit, I’ve retooled my training schedule and am getting back to it tomorrow.

If there really was a Genesis Planet, that’s where we would have sent our sweet Kim.  

Not really.  It just feels like it sometimes.

So here is the obligatory Star Trek reference:
Neelix, the cook and self-proclaimed “chief morale officer” on the starship USS Voyager, is a Talaxian whose  home planet has a moon called Rinax which contains marshlands where the climate is said to reach 122 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer with 90% humidity.  OK, so it’s not quite that bad here. But if I don’t start using sunscreen on a more regular basis, I’ll probably end up looking like him.

Anyway, it has been a fairly uneventful training week.  No races scheduled, just a lot of heat and sunshine.

Tuesday, July 10 – Rode 20 miles on the bike in 1:45 then did a 3.1 mile run.  Although my goal for the inaugural ride was just “to get used to the new bike,” I found myself wanting to make it go faster.  I’m still not sure how to work all the different gears though.  I’d get it up to a speed where I couldn’t pedal anymore and then had to coast.  My legs got so used to the effort it took to power my big old cruiser, that this bike seems easy by comparison.  I think the guy at the Trek store was right when he told me “you’re gonna be a beast on this bike.”  I like that!  And I know now why they call it a “brick” when you ride first and then run:   that’s what your feet feel like the first few dozen steps after biking.

Wednesday, July 11 – 5.15 miles run.  I had intended 6 but got out of the house late.  Oh the joy winning a lottery would bring!  In the meantime, I’ll keep getting to work on time and fit in the workouts as I can.  I truly envy people who can work out at night.  My job drains every last ounce of mental and physical vigor from my body.  By the time I get home, I’m about as energetic as a slug on Quaaludes.

Thursday, July 12 – Really crappy sleep last night.  It was supposed to be a weights day but I rested instead.  Too tired to function, too cranky to care.

Friday, July 13 – Biked 1 hour then ran 30 minutes. I tried different shoes today to see if it made running seem easier.  Not necessarily.  It’s eerie how I felt so incredibly slo-o-o-ow.

Saturday, July 14 – There was supposed to have been a 14.3 mile long run today, except I overslept by 2 hours.  Yeah, I guess I was tired and needed the sleep but it pissed me off anyway.  Then the heat prevented me from doing much once I got started.  I made it about 6 miles and called it a day as far as running.  I did venture to spend some time on the bike afterwards but, with the combination of my old right carpal tunnel issue suddenly flaring up, a little neck arthritis joining the parade and my sore butt not liking the seat much, ended up heading back home after three miles.  So I went into the City to join friends at the Irish Fest and listened to music instead.  At least I got my Smithwick’s-drinking training done.

Sunday, July 15 – an off day:  brunch with friends then errands

Monday, July 16 – 30 minutes run, then 45 minutes on the bike before work.  Next goal: make this bike go faster.  It used to take all my effort to get the White Elephant (as I now fondly call my old one) up to 15-16mph.  Like I said before, the new one is a breeze by comparison and I find myself with leg power to spare. I guess I’ll study up on all those rings and chains now.  The old bike had a display with numbers for each gear.  The new one has none so I’ll have to do it by feel.  Next time I ride for sure.

And that’s it for now.