Why I run

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. My running has been really sucking lately. School has squashed all the life out of me and it's really made me reflect all the things I love about running. . People think I run to keep manage my weight. While it does help with this, that is not why I run. Some people think it's about the races. I like racing, but that's not it either. Some people run because they like the community and the social aspect of running. I love my run group and my running friends, but most people that know me know that I do most of my runs alone. So this is also not why I run. Some people think I run for peace and quiet and to get away from the kids. While that is a perk, this is also not why I run. Some people think I run for the health benefits. I suppose that would be a good reason, but that's not really why I run either.

I'm kind of an emotional girl and I find that why I love running is because my running is completely honest with me.You see I've always believed you can do anything you put your mind to and running has shown this to be true. If I give it my all it then it rewards me. It's one of the few things in life that I know that if I work hard at it I will see results. That fulfillment I get is priceless. There are too many things in life that just aren't fair. Running is fair and honest with me. I find it's how I fight back when I'm feeling down. I used to listen to music when I run. I don't now. I find I really like just being by myself and in my own brain sometimes. When I need to think I can go for a run. When I need to not think I can go for a run. I find I slip into this own little peaceful bliss that's all about making it to the next mile and sometimes that escape from reality is all I need. I can't really put my finger on why I run. I can't explain it to others who don't run. It's like trying to convert an atheist. I'm not sure when it happened, but somewhere in the last couple years I've crossed the line where running is not about the health, my figure, or races. It's just who I am.

The Forest Gump Experiment

Haha. That's what I'm calling it. I'm taking a little break from coaching and "racing" because just honestly I got too much crap going on to keep up with anything. It's just really weird right now not following a training plan or schedule or having a race on my mind. I do plan to run a few races in the spring, but I just need some time off from racing.  School has just had to be my first priority right now. So with that I've been all thrown off my game and finally came up with a "plan" if you want to call it that on how to work in my running and still keep up with my school and life.  So that's where the Forest Gump plan came in my head. So my plan is really no plan. I just plan to run each and every opportunity I can. My mileage is going to be weird, and there are going to be some strange doubles, but  right now I figure getting in running any way I can is better than no running at all. I know some days 3 and 4 miles may be all I have time for and I know that Friday, Saturday and Sunday I can run more so those are the days I'm going to run more. This week I've been totally sucking since I've barely ran all month, but now that I've freed myself from all these notions of how things should or have be done I feel things coming together for me. I ran 3 on Monday, 4 on Tuesday. That's all I had time for and I finally just got over that. You know 7 miles is better than no miles. Wednesday I had time on my hands so I did two runs 8 at lunch and then 5 in the evening. Thursday no time again 3 miles, but Friday had time for 8. I feel very accomplished today. I turned in a paper and should be able to hit 40+ miles this week without a problem! I plan to do doubles any chance I can and run weekend long doubles as well since that's worked okay for me in the past. That's when I have time to run right now so that's when it's going to have to be. Who knows I may wind up running more than I ever have (or I may wind up running less). I got no plans for speed work really or anything else right now. I will do some speed stuff as I feel like it, but not so much structured stuff. Just trying to keep up with my speedy husband when I can get him to run with me and some of my other speedy friends. I'm just planning to run when I can as much as I can and worry about racing in the summer. I plan to focus my "racing" for the summer as I hate the cold, love the heat, have more free time when my kids are out of school and I just think one big goal race a year right now is what it's going to have to be right now. I have come to terms with I can be Supermom and I can have and do it all - JUST NOT ALL AT THE SAME TIME! Yep, that's reality folks. With that, I'll be curious how this little experiment turns out for me. I'm curious how my spring races will turn out and hoping that this break from structured running will put me in a good mental spot for racing hard again this summer.

Thoughts on maintaining marital bliss and being an obsessed runner

This one's for you honey! This one's kind of important to me because we've had some bumps along the way dealing with my running obsession. I know that other runners have had this problem as well so  I want to encourage you to keep on plugging along with both your running and your partner.

My running friends know I'm yappy, my husband knows I'm yappy, but what he didn't know is that when my newest obsession took over that he'd have to listen to my constant jabbering about running this and running that. He's kind of used to my OCD and I joke around about it, but it can sometimes be really hard on the people around me. Anyhow, the last year has been somewhat trying for us as we work out the bugs with changes, but one of the assets I have is that I'm not a quitter. Most people know that about me. Once I set my mind to something I usually stick with it and this along with my running this includes my marriage. Just like running I reassess when something isn't working and make changes. I can happily say I think we've come out on the other side! Yes, we'll probably still have another running fight or two, but I think we've finally overcome this hurdle. Well, here are the tricks I am learning along the way to make marriage and obsessive running work.

1. Do not force your partner to be interested in your running. Also do not try and turn them into a runner. If they are interested it will come naturally. It's okay if you don't like the same things and it's important to remind them and yourself of that. It is okay to ask them to run with you or try to encourage it, but don't force the issue.

2. Do try to find a mutual hobby or something to do together. For us, this is a big one. What we found is that we felt disconnected some because our interests were different. We are working on something fun that we both like to do together.

3. Try to adjust your running to be not so disruptive to the family's routine. That is not to say there shouldn't be any give and take on this, but if your running is interfering with every single outing that is planned this could cause a problem. My husband is very good about taking over with the kiddos so I can run and this has actually never been an issue.  He knows how much I do all day and has never had a problem picking up the slack. Other spouses though do feel differently on this. For us, the bigger issue has been me missing out on family things versus him having to pick up extra responsibility.

4. Following number 3 another tip is keeping a family calendar. Figure out important dates like vacations and events that your kids or spouse may be participating in.  Use this when you schedule your races. More than once have I managed to schedule a race during a date that was planned for a kiddo's sporting event or a party that we were invited to.  Not all things can be planned ahead, but if you put a little effort there you can avoid this conflict.

5. Races - this is a your partner may vary kind of situation.  Mine does not like going to races. We have found that we get along so much better when I go by myself.  Also, and this is hard for me, I get big time taper madness that can test the patience of every single person in my family.  I try to remind my husband that this too will pass... until the next race anyway.

6. My final tip don't hold in hostility towards each other- keep the lines of communication open. Keep talking. Just like running sometimes you gotta push along through the tough spots and run on the days you just don't flipping feel like it so goes with marriage. Sometimes you gotta just push along talking until you get past that rough spot. Just like with running though you'll often find your second wind.  Sometimes this is easier said than done, but you married them for a reason. Remember that. Just like when you lose your running mojo sometimes you lose your marriage mojo.  Do something to rekindle that.


Love you with all my heart Mr. Wannaberunningmama

2012 Chicago Marathon Race Report

Well, thought writing up a race report might give me something to do while I sit and wait not so patiently for the Chicago race people to get my Garmin data and get me an official finish time. I still don’t have that so you’ll only get my word of mouth finish time for now.
I’ll do my best not to be too yappy. This was by far the most fun I have had in probably 10 years. I can’t thank everyone that was there enough for helping me figure out what the hell I was doing because even though this was my 4th marathon I really didn’t have a clue how these big races work. I won’t spend a lot of time on training other than I knew this training cycle was going well and I knew I was going to PR. Not a doubt in my mind going into that. What I didn’t know is how much easier this race would feel for me running it than the others I’ve ran. I feel like I really learned a lot on the course about pacing and this will help me a lot with the next race.
Prerace I realized night before that I somehow managed to grab the extra band for my Garmin instead of my Garmin itself. I was in a bit of a panic, but since I’ve managed to do this to myself before I wasn’t actually too panicked. Thankfully though John (my super fast California coach) is a pretty amazing guy and found me a Garmin I could borrow. Thank you Sandra if you are reading for the loner!! Hurdle one solved. I also packed my blender even though John insisted I didn’t need that either. I’ve been mixing glycomaize with flax milk and a banana and I didn’t want to drink that crap without my banana mixed in. So had that prerace and felt pretty ready to go. Oh, I should add night before I had pasta with just a little bit of clams in it. Big mistake. Lesson learned. I knew seafood made me retain water, but there weren’t very many and I stayed away from a heavy seafood dish so I didn’t really think those tiny bit of clams would matter. Not for sure they were the cause of my problems, but just the same not eating them again.
Leave for race with the friends I met there and we were kind of cutting it close to get there and get gear checked. I knew I really had to pee (sorry tmi). Anyways, they all assure me there’s plenty of toilets and I’d have time to go. We get there with 9 minutes to get to our corral and get gear checked. I hand my friend Brandi my gear bag and ask her to please check it because I really got to go. I start looking at the lines and start freaking. I knew there was no way I’d get to a toilet and to my corral in time. (Yes, promise to get to the race part, but for whatever reason this peeing issue took up a bulk of my energy on race day.) I start looking around like Clark Kent looking for a phone booth and trying to find somewhere to squat because I figure I damn sure was not blowing all this training and PR on a full bladder. Finally find a big old potted planter thing in front of a wall and fixed my problems or so I thought.
Start running and oh my gosh mile 1 not what maybe 10 minutes from the last time I peed I feel like I gotta go again. I’m thinking you gotta be kidding me. This is not gonna be my race. I spent the first 3 miles thinking about nothing but that. Yes, sad. I again kept saying I am not blowing my training on a full bladder and not proud of this, but at that point actually tried to pee on the course. I heard real marathoners do it, but guess I’m not a real runner. No can do. I decided that I was going to push on and I was not stopping. If I still had to go at the half way point then I was going. I figured I could hold it two hours if it killed me. Garmin I found to be useless. The paces didn’t seem to line up with anything so figured I’d just run for now and then thought about my friend’s advice to use the pacers. Yes, that was real helpful – these pacers sucked. Well, maybe not the official ones, but I’m telling you I saw people with anything from 4:00 to 4:30 on their backs. I had no idea what pace I was going at this point. I knew that I saw the official 4:15 guy around mile 6 and knew I had to get ahead of him. I also was proud of myself for not starting out too fast – although honestly wasn’t too worried about that. I am slow to warm up and rarely have that problem. Around mile 6 I think I moved ahead of the official 4:15 pacer and then my next strategy was to try and make sure I was surrounded by mostly people with 4:10 on their back. I saw some with 4:10 and some with 4:00 so I figured I was doing okay. My garmin was off on distance for most of the race. I can’t remember where it started, but I know I was hitting the miles beeping on my garmin about 2 or 3 minutes before I’d hit the official mile marker. I also wasn’t sure what my exact start time was either so I couldn’t even figure out what my times were or paces by that. The clocks were all based off of the 7:30 start and I started after 8:00 according to the chip times that registered. I just figured as long as I was running between the 4:00 and 4:10 group I was okay. I switched Garmin over to average pace and it was showing 9:18 minute miles so I felt pretty good. It read 9:18-9:20 for well actually almost the whole course, but it was below 9:20 from mile 6 to mile 12. I remember that for sure.
At mile 10 I kept thinking this is too easy. I thought about my last race how I was tired at mile 10. I wasn’t the slightest bit tired. Everything felt good and I felt like I was really sandbagging, but Garmin said less than 9:20 pace and I remember the correspondence John and I had prerace and he told me that 9:20 seemed about the right pace to hold for most of the course. I knew from my half times and my training that 9:20s were about right as well so even though I felt really good and wanted really bad to pick it up I kept that advice to heart. He said wait until mile 18 and then if I felt good pick it up. Mile 12 rolls around and I still have to pee. I was annoyed, but I knew I had held it for 11 miles and my watch still said I was averaging below 9:20 pace so I knew I was in good shape. I knew I wasn’t going to make it to the finish if I had already held it for 11 miles and that if I had to go this was the best place to stop. I knew mentally it would be harder for me to stop past the half-way point so I just wanted to go and get it over with. I don’t think I lost a whole lot of time, but obviously this was time that I would have liked to have had and I really had to go. (Which sorry more tmi, but I was grateful that I actually had a full bladder and it wasn’t my usual nervous bladder dribbling crap. I felt 100 times better after.) Get back on the course and avg pace was now showing 9:23 so I was pissed that I lost that much time. I had to work real hard on not picking up the pace too much because that’s a bad habit of mine. I try to play catch up after potty breaks and sometimes wear myself out. The other reason I stopped at mile 12 is I really wanted my second half to be faster than my first. I still felt really good here. No fatigue whatsoever. Keep telling myself to stay steady and not pick it up no matter how easy this felt. Plug along at mile 15 still feeling good. It still felt too easy, but I kept remembering that 11 miles was further than I thought and I knew my last 3 marathons I never ran the entire race. I always walked at least part of the end if not lots at the end. I should add I was psyched that I also had not walked a single water stop. I thought I would need to and nope didn’t need to do that either. I was real focused though. I honestly didn’t even hardly notice the crowds even as loud as they were because I was just so focused on what I was doing. Oh and I also remember looking at my HR around mile 15 because I think I started to pick up the pace a little, but HR was edging up so I backed my pace back down.
Finally get to mile 18, you know the spot where I could pick it up if I felt like it. Well, I still felt good, but I didn’t think I could pick up the pace any more so I decided to just hold where I was at and reassess at mile 20. I picked up the extra gel that was on the course at this point too because I was starting to get a little antsy about my legs staying strong. Get to mile 20 and I decide again to just hold where I’m at and reevaluate whether I thought I could pick up again at mile 23. Mile 22 rolls around and I don’t know what happened, but I literally started tearing up on the course. I picked it up pretty hard there. I was real emotional because I knew I had it in the bag then. My Garmin was still reading 9:20 pace average so I honestly thought I was closer to a 4:05 finish at this point, but I didn’t realize how off the distance was on the Garmin by this point. I only picked up the pace for about a ¼ mile before my legs said uh uh and I backed it back down again. Miles 24 and 25 were really hard. I just kept telling myself I was almost done. I get to mile 25 and I picked up the pace a little there. I get to the sign that said 800 meters and I picked up the pace a lot. Of course then the finish line seems to be so far away and I somehow kept running. I hit stop on my Garmin as I cross the finish and it said 4:10:40. It also said my distance was 26.77. This was a phenomenal experience for me. I am definitely doing it again.
Hopefully soon I will have an official time. Still waiting on that. My 20K, 30K, 40K and finish times apparently did not register. Highly annoyed about that as I know I did not go astray from the course and was in the middle most of the time. As soon as I get my official time I will update for sure.

Finally found something to sweeten my coffee!

I know all my friends were deeply worried about my coffee habit... Ok, not, but I was.  I've been on a mission to ditch Splenda from my diet.  I gave up sugar in my coffee and anything else you add sugar to a long time ago, but I switched the sugar to Splenda.  I was putting a TON of Splenda in my coffee. What I have been discovering is that by switching to Splenda I really haven't fixed my sugar problem.  I've really wanted to move towards more clean eating - less processed foods and healthier options.  I've been on a mission to clean up my diet more. Although I wasn't necessarily eating poorly I was doing a lot of dieter type things and I think it was not helping me in any way.  I have spent the past few weeks though struggling with what to do with my coffee.  You see I really like coffee! I have cut back to a reasonable amount of coffee a day so I feel no guilt about it. Coffee actually has health benefits if you don't abuse it. I'm down to 2 cups a day. Although occasionally I will have 3, but no more than that and most days just 2 or less.  I feel good about that too, but I've tried lots of things in the past few weeks trying to figure out what to put in my darn coffee if I don't use Splenda.  I just couldn't bring myself to go back to sugar. I switched to coconut milk creamer a while ago and I like that, but without sugar or Splenda my coffee just tasted blah.  I tried cinnamon. It helped some. I tried sugar again, but just couldn't do it.  It just seemed counter productive. I went back to Splenda again, but really don't want to use something processed so I tried honey.  Honey was "ok", but it's still got a lot of calories in it without a lot of nutritional value. I am using honey in my oatmeal now, raw local honey, but that is because one of the doctors I saw a while back for the chronic allergies/headaches I had when I was pregnant with Natalie suggested using local honey.  I've read up on it and it's supposed to help so figured what the heck I'd try it and  kill two birds with one stone.

Now, back to my coffee. I found something! Woohoo! All is right in my world now. Raw coconut crystals! Yay! It's still a kind of sugar and I sure as hell wouldn't call it health food, but at least it has some nutritional benefits.  It's a good source of minerals - potassium, magnesium, zinc, and iron as well as B vitamins. Because it's still sugar still not going to overdo it, but now I can have my 1-2 cups of coffee with something that doesn't taste like crap.  It's really a light sweetness so I don't feel like it's feeding sugar cravings, but it's just enough to make my coffee happy again.

Post run recovery drink - my newest creation

Well, since I'm obsessed with nutrition. Although I'm far from perfect, I do try to eat healthy. I've been reading a lot on running nutrition and how important it is to provide a combination of carbohydrates and protein after working out to refeed muscles. I also wanted to get in omega 3 fatty acids mostly for overall general nutrition, but figured this was a great to work it in. I've been drinking flax milk lately and I like it so I thought hmmm... I bet I could put this all together and voila I did.  Women need 1.2g per day of Omega 3 vitamins and men 1.6g per day (- source http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/othernuts/omega3fa/). I also stumbled across another article stating flax oil produced better results in studies than fish oil so that's even better because I like flax milk. I like fish too though and still try and keep that in my diet as well. One cup flax milk has 1200mg (or 1.2g) omega 3. Men if they are wanting to meet the daily requirements may want to add a little more flax milk to the recipe below. So here goes my post run recovery recipe.

Flax Milk Recovery Drink

1 banana
1 cup sliced strawberries
1 scoop whey protein powder (or half a serving) *you can use a full serving if you want more protein, but for my needs 1 scoop was plenty of protein
1 cup flax milk (I use Good Karma Flax Milk)

Nutritional breakdown - Roughly 200 calories, 33g carbohydrates, 11-14 grams of protein depending on what source of protein powder you use, and 4g of fat

Put it in a blender and yum! If you want it to be more ice cream like you can freeze the bananas and the strawberries and it will come out closer to the consistency of soft serve ice cream.

Panda Bear Night Half Marathon

Panda Bear Night Half Marathon

I debated on writing a race report because I was in such a pissy mood about it, but went to my girls Feis (Irish dance contest) on Sunday and found myself listening to myself cheer my youngest daughter up for not place in her age group. I said to her “You had a lot of competition in your age group and you did a great job. You’ll get a medal at your next one.” And with that my mood brightened and here I am with my usual long winded race report... since I like writing them.

This was supposed to be a training run. I had decided a while back that I didn’t want to lose focus on Chicago by fixating on this race too much. I ran hard this week, no taper and planned to run longish again on Sunday. Thursday night was when it hit me that I wanted to race it. I started thinking if I want sub 4 in Chicago I gotta be able to do sub 2 in a half. With that I decided what the heck I was going to race this one. Besides I figured it’d be good practice. Showed up at race. I started getting reservations about doing well when I looked around and there were a lot of young people as this race was at a college. There were a lot of fast looking people too. Not sure why some people look fast to me and others don’t.

Since this was a night race they gave away headlamps as an entry. Race cost $20 with a free headlamp. Also they were giving the winner of each age group free shoes. Can’t beat that. Started out with annoying headlamp on my head. Couldn’t figure out where I wanted to put the thing without it bugging me. Right before the race am chatting with this gal. She’s older than me in the 55+ age group. She asked me what my pace was. I told her my PR was 2:03ish and she said last race she ran was 2:04ish so I figured we’d be running pretty close in pace. It was nice company. I kept with her most of the way. She was good pacing for me. It kept me from slacking off when I wanted to and a few times I wanted to move ahead of her, but just couldn’t. She’s pretty steady. We started a little fast. Kept talking about slowing down, but in my head I was still thinking sub 2 so I wanted to keep the fast pace if it wasn’t hurting and this race I actually flipped to HR to make sure I wasn’t pushing too hard. Get to around 3 miles and go to adjust annoying headlamp and one of the straps slides out of place so it won’t stay on my head. I spent a short time trying to fix it before I decided screw it I will just carry the thing. You really needed one to see on this trail. (It was a paved bike trail so real nice, but you still couldn’t see anything in the dark.) I was tired by 4 miles, but at the same time knew I had plenty in me to keep pushing along. Miles 5 and 6 weren’t too bad. Running gal got ahead of me there for a little bit there, but still within eyesight. Turn around surprised me as I thought I had further to go. Wasn’t looking at my watch or something, but nice surprise anyway. Catch up with running gal I think around 7ish and we chat about maybe making sub 2 if we could pick the pace up a little. We decided we could try to do it together which was cool. I told her since she was in the 55+ age group she stood a much better chance on the shoes and just think about those shoes and we pushed along. Mile 8 and 9 just ticking away. Mile 10 I decide to play Pacman. (Thanks for teaching me that, lol). And you know what nobody did pass me from mile 10 on. I only passed a few because there just wasn’t many people left to pass, but I passed who was left. At 3 miles left I didn’t have the energy to calculate how much time I needed to come in under 2 hours. I’m getting better at my pacing so I knew I would only be able to push so much faster for the last 3. I knew from my lap times that I wasn’t keeping fast enough pace for that likely to happen, but I don’t know was determined to finish as strong as I could. I went back to remembering this was supposed to be a training run and this wasn’t a goal race. I kept thinking about Chicago and how this would be good practice for the last 3 on Chicago and just mentally went there. Get to 2 and did rough math estimates and realized I’d have to do like 8 minute miles on the last 2 to finish sub 2. I knew that wasn’t happening and honestly didn’t think I’d even PR. Couldn’t look at my watch for the last part. Too much work holding the darn headlamp so I could see and just kept pushing hard. When I saw the clock though and realized damn, I’m gonna PR I pushed hard. Quite proud of my little legs for that last mile and especially the finish. I’m getting pretty good at strong finishes at least. Came in at 2:02:15. One and a half minute PR. I should have been happy with that and I feel real bratty whining about it, but when I looked at my time compared to everyone else I felt like a big slow poke. I was also discouraged as to how much damn work it is now to move my PRs one minute now. I got spoiled last year with the huge gains. I also was a little discouraged that I might not be able to get sub 4 in Chicago, but then I got to thinking about what I told my daughter and you know what - so what. I will definitely PR in Chicago, maybe not sub 4. Maybe it takes me one more race or maybe 2. I am making progress and as I’ve realized in life the secret to success is sticking with it. (Found that holds true with lots of things...) Have a great week all and happy running!

Laps - 9:16(170), 9:24(173), 9:17(175), 9:32(174), 9:27(176), 9:25(176), 9:50(173), 9:30(173), 9:20(174), 9:19(176), 9:27(175), 9:29(176), 9:02(177)