Week 2: 1/2 of a long run and marathon trip prep

It rained all day long here in Tempe. We are thankful for the moisture even if it did dampen my mood and affected my running for the day. When I was younger, I used to express my displeasure with bad weather frequently but was caught by my mother a couple of times--uttering my frustration. "I hate the wind" or "I hate the rain" was something I wasn't supposed to say. Mom taught me that the elements are to be respected because they are sacred. It took a couple more reminders from mother to not comment on bad weather anymore. I keep these things in mind and relent to the fact that I just gotta roll with the punches when unfavorable weather is present.

Rolling with the punches meant running on the treadmill today. I feel like a chump because I didn't do my 6 miles. I was only able to push out 3.25 miles before the portly security guy came in and rained on our parade. Neither my husband or I had a watch on us and the gym doesn't have a clock so I couldn't tell if he had arrived early or not. We found that the a-hole stormed in about 4-5 minutes early and started shutting down. I was peeved and now I have to go complain to the management about it. Usually, the gyms I used to go to gave me a couple minutes after closing time to get in my last couple of minutes to run and then take off.

I'm doing my packing for my trip right now. I was doing some searching online about the city of Lakeport. It seems runner-friendly and the scenery is spectacular. If I get in any runs, it will be early in the morning so my friend and I can do some tourist-y activities in the evening after the meetings.

Some things I did today:

• searched around the Eugene Marathon site for hotel discounts. Only discount was for the Hilton and that was fully booked.
• sought an awesome deal for 2 flight tickets and a rental car from Portland on Priceline.com. Hubby and I are going to buy the goods on Thursday when I get paid.
  
• finally cashed in the birthday gift card from Target and scored a beginner's yoga kit. Will take it on the trip with me.
• got really excited about getting close to making the Eugene trip a reality!!!

...now I'm thinking about whether I'll wake up early enough to get the rest of my long run mileage in at the gym before taking off for San Fran. We'll see.

Holy cow...I'm beginning Week 3 of training! I've definitely noticed that my legs have gotten stronger. I don't see any movement on the scale yet. I'm just happy I can hold out on the treadmill running 3+ miles non-stop. Yay Me!

Tonight's Numbers:
Running - 3.25 miles @ 11:50 pace (incline 0.5 - 1.0%)

Week 2: Coasting and Picking Up Speed

FAIL!

So maybe I didn't exactly wake up early this morning to do my run at the lake. Dammit. I ended up staying up until 1:30 am the night before and already knew that I was kidding myself when I set my alarm for 6:30 am. My cats kept me up right before dozing off. I swear, the choose the wrong times to be active.

I spent most of my morning watching a little TV, cleaning up, doing some laundry, and then went out to eat with the hubby for lunch. Then I drove out to Anthem just to get some clothes from the GAP outlet. Yes, I could have driven 10 minutes to the nearest mall but I always score bargains at this particular outlet store and I love GAP clothing for work. I've been meaning to get a new work wardrobe forever but finally had to get them this weekend because I'm traveling to a tribal EPA meeting this week in California.

A colleague (who happens to be my best friend) and I are flying out to San Francisco on Monday afternoon and then driving up to the Big Valley Rancheria near a town called Lakeport. We'll be there the whole week and flying back into Phoenix on Friday. It'll be my first time actually visiting SF other than just touching down between flights. My friend is a hardcore Metallica fan and wants to visit the Metallica Headquarters before we leave. I just want to see the Golden Gate Bridge.

Anyway, that's the big reason why I had to shop around for some new threads. To a lot of the older folks I think we're just a couple of punk kids. haha

I'm hoping that I will be successful at keeping up with my running schedule while I'm there. I'm usually horrible about this when I'm on travel. At the very least, I am crossing my fingers that the hotel we're staying at has a decent treadmill.

Back to running...I ran on the treadmill tonight and was glad that the asshole-y security dude who shuts down the gym early wasn't on duty tonight. We had a lax guy who let us have until 11 pm to do our thang. I picked up the pace tonight but had to remind myself several times that this was not intended to be a tempo run. I ranged between speeds of 5.0 - 5.4.

Tomorrow, I will have my long run scheduled. I'm pushing for 6.5 miles at the lake. I think it will have to be an evening run because some of the hubby's relatives are in town for a wedding and we said we'd have breakfast with them. I'm already looking forward to eating a boiled egg. Yummy.

Tonight's numbers:
Running - 3.65 miles @ 11:45 pace

Rest Day: Whew!

It's a Friday night and a relaxing night in for me and the hubby. We ate pizza at the local Nello's in Tempe and now we're spending the rest of the night playing Guitar Hero III on the PC. That game is so addicting!

I have to wake up early tomorrow. Well, 7 AM, on a Saturday morning is relatively early for me. I'm going to attempt a 5-mi jaunt around Tempe Town Lake. If I can muster, I'll push it to 6 miles.

I assembled a group of friends to run the Valley of the Sun 1/2 Marathon Relay with me on March 9th here in the valley. I just registered the team on the website and sent the gals the login info so they can register. It's my first time doing a relay and I'm glad that some friends were willing to step up to the challenge of running. One girl isn't so fond of running but thought she needed a kick in the butt to start working out so she joined on.

Our team name is "Running Off the Frybread." haha
Read here if you aren't familiar with Frybread.

Week 2: Born for Endurance

I read a while back about the study of the correlation between ring finger to index finger length ratio and exposure to prenatal testosterone. As I was logging into my email today, this story caught my eye and I just had to read it. The part I found most interesting is near the end of the article where it states,

But "the links with sports are the strongest I've found," Manning says. "They're particularly strong with endurance running." He theorizes that prenatal testosterone benefits the cardiovascular system.

I immediately examined my hands and found that my ring finger is longer than my index finger. The difference is more noticeable on my right hand. (Yeah, I have Pillsbury Doughboy hands. haha) I would say that endurance running is somewhat of a forte for me in terms of athletic ability. For someone my size and weight, I can hold out at a regular pace for a number of miles. Most of my slender counter parts find this a bit difficult even if they identify themselves as athletic or have an affinity for running. This is only what I've encountered with my friends though.

Interesting study, nonetheless.

In the past couple of days, I've switched from the Runner's World Ultimate Marathon Training Plan to one that I found in a more recent issue of RW. I don't have the issue on hand so I can't say what month it's from. It may be December or January. In it, there is a Rookie Plan and I find it easier to commit to especially since I haven't been running consistantly lately. My training plan is part Galloway---meaning, I'll use the walking break method if needed.

Tonight, I was supposed to do 3-4 miles but I got a late start at the gym which closes at 11 pm. This certain anal security dude likes to intrude about 5 minutes early and start shutting stuff down and turning off the lights. He pissed me off when I had about 2 minutes left and a quarter mile to go because he told me the gym was closed. I thought I'd bite my tongue this time but if he pulls me off the treadmill early again before closing time I'm going to tell him to back off and give me my extra minutes.

I ran at a faster pace tonight just because of the time constraint and I felt absolutely spectacular after finishing. I felt like I could go for another mile. I was ranging between a 5.1 - 5.5 pace although the last 15 minutes I kept at 5.4. It was about an 11:20 average pace.

Last night I ran 2 miles but forgot to document this.

Tonight's Numbers:
Running - 2.73 miles @ 11:40 pace

Choke Hold

Anxiety is a mutha******!!

I'm hella anxious about a number of things and they all ganged up on me this weekend but I felt it the most today. My throat tightened up really bad. I feel like I have a bad sore throat that has been scraped with an ice pick or something. Swallowing is difficult. I'm so miserable!

Before you say, "Go run!" Save your breath, doesn't work for me. I find that running compounds my anxiety so I'm better of trying to meditate although it hasn't been working today.

No running today because it's rest day but even if there was a run scheduled I wouldn't have put one in. Feel too much like crap. I think I'll just go to bed now.

Hope I feel better in the morning.

Hubby and I talked about me finding a licensed counselor to go to through my PPO. I thought seriously about it but never really made any calls. I think I'll start my search for a good therapist soon. Better safe than sorry and before I end up in a nut house!

P.S. I didn't do my 3.75 run yesterday evening. I did a 2 mile run but the left arch started stinging really bad and I had to force myself to cut it short and go to the gym. I finished 10 min on the elliptical and 10 minutes on the bike. Still adds up to something right?

Week 2: Every Cell Feels Good

Yesterday (Sunday) was my scheduled long run day. As soon as I woke up from sleep that morning, my lower back and my hammies were a little achy. The night before (Sat), after my 4-mile run I was already feeling that achy, tired feeling coming on and I knew I was going to be in for it the next day. I felt a little uneasy about pushing out another 6 miles, as scheduled.

The thing about me is that I'm pretty adaptable to most things. I like to adapt things so that they work for me. I'm not very structured and when someone gives me a plan to follow, I'll give and take here and there but not by very much. It's kind of like baking. When I was younger, I used to put painstaking effort into measuring perfect cups of flour and teaspoons of salt and vanilla extract when I was baking cookies. I thought every measurement had to be followed to a T or else the whole batch would flop. Now I know better and I usually guesstimate on how much of what ingredient to throw in. If I go a little over or under, oh well. All hope is not lost.

And that's how I feel with my training plans now. I don't follow 'em to a T but just enough so that I can feel the benefits of it. I've learned to listen to what my body is telling me.

Little Girl Carmen would have read the scheduled 6-mile run on my plan as running 6 miles straight, no break, and all at regular pace (5-10k pace). Thank goodness for all the Runners World magazines I've read over the years because now I know that it's okay to break your long runs in half. When I first learned about this, I thought it was a cop-out. Grown up Carmen likes adapting, as I said before. So my 6 miles waited until today. And I'm breaking it into 2 runs right now.

I just ran 2.25 on the treadmill @ 12:15 pace and 1.0 incline. This evening, I will be taking it outdoors, finally! My shoes haven't kissed asphalt in about two or three weeks so it's time to get them acclimated.

Best of all, I feel good. I've noticed improvement in how long I can run non-stop and not feeling like I'm breathing like some 300-lb monster. The aches are not intense nor are they bad type of aches. It's more like the feel good, barely there but noticeable aches.

So today is MLK day. I got the day off from work. The hubby and I did tons of rearranging inside our little apartment. We've lived like 3 years without a kitchen table and chairs. Yesterday, we finally bought a little set from Ikea. Hubby is assembling the last of the 2 chairs. It was funny when he set up the table and 2 chairs because he remarked, "Now we can actually eat in the dining room like normal human beings." haha I'll have to post a picture of my little decorating job this evening.

Today, I'm probably headed over to Target to cash in a gift card I got for my birthday a week ago. I've been thinking about buying a Yoga kit. I'm going to start doing yoga on my off-running days. It's going to be interesting to see how this helps my running.

Week 1: Deciding to be smart about it

Two nights ago when I was running my 3 miles, I came to the realization that I'm not running to break any world records, let alone a PR. I'm running because I want to. I'm running because nothing makes me feel better about myself than just getting out there and sweating the minutes away. Every single time I run, I feel like I accomplished something big for the day.

When I thought about the main reason why I wanted to run my marathon, the main thought that came to mind was that I just wanted to accomplish something even bigger. I wanted to prove to myself that I could do what I thought was unthinkable back in 2005. I think running 26.2 is a huge ass deal and completing such a distance would make me feel even more like a fabulous superwoman. I'm running, simply because I want to see how far I can push myself and how well I can do it. I love personal challenges.

I just want to run to finish. This is my first marathon and it's not going to be in my back yard. I actually have to save up some money to buy plane tickets, a car rental, a hotel, food, souvenirs...let alone my race ticket. Eugene is going to take tons of commitment and dedication. I'm going to ensure at all costs that I train smart and avoid injury.

Therefore, I'm doing my training runs as I should be doing them...at marathon-pace. Although, it feels super slow to me I know it's going to pay off in the end. I don't want what happened to me after the ARR 30k back in 2006 to happen to me again. I'll be damned if I get injured. It was the suckiest feeling in the world and even worse-- it could have been avoided if I were smart about my running.

It was a little different running tonight without the added self imposed pressure on myself. I ran at a 12:15-ish pace and thoroughly watched my running form in the mirror. I paid attention to my breathing. I straightened myself up when I noticed I was begin to slouch. I practiced running efficiently without an exaggerating movements. It was a good run.

My plan had me running 4 miles. I did it all on the treadmill at a 1.0 incline. My speed ranged from 4.9 - 5.1 mph. I ran non-stop for about 2.85 miles and then stopped to stretch out a bit and drink some water. I took some deep breaths to shake out some anxiety and then hopped back on the treaddie. Finished out my 1.2 miles at 4.9mph.

I stretched as well as I could and exited from the gym smiling. My body felt good and it was certainly a different feeling from last week when I felt tired. I am noticing improvement and it's downright sweet!

Tonight's Numbers:
Running - 4.1 miles @ 12:00 pace