Oh Everest, My Everest

I've been clinging to a moment, or maybe just not wanting to experience new moments. It's time to let go of that 20-miler. (Mostly because there's another one coming soon but also because I ran a race yesterday that I can't just pretend didn't happen.)

It was humid yesterday, so it sucked. I guess my time was good. I have a really bad attitude about all of this right now, but I can't seem to shake it (try as I might) because there never seem to be enough minutes in the day for me to get all the rest I need, let alone get through all of this physical and mental torture (not just running, but everything) with a big smile on my face.

I guess a pseudo-meltdown counts as rest week for me now? I'm going to expose one of my guilty pleasures by doing this, but this is really the best summary of how I'm doing right now:

Labels: lemon-lime powerade, long run, nsaids, Quantico Half Marathon, rest week, shot blocks, sport beans

WHAT THE HELL.

I hardly want to relive yesterday's run, but I need to get down some sort of record of my first 20-miler in life... if you can even count those last 6 miles.

Let's just say that I went to dark, dark places in my head. The Mile-14 onset Tourette's was mild, but my cognitive processes began to break down badly at that point. I played every game I knew to make the time pass and push through the pain: lasso the person running in front of me, lasso that kayaker on the river, look at that lady in front of me I am so faster than she is 1-2-3 go, wheels on the feet go 'round and 'round, just stay with Space Mountain Train the trusty pacer, count as high as I can in various languages, name the stops on the NYC subway lines I've lived on, name the stops on the DC metro, SCREW THE ALPHABET I WILL NOT SING THE ALPHABET, count again in japanese and pretend I'm doing push-ups oh look how easy this is without the push-ups, remember that day when I was running miserably for what seemed like forever thank god I am on a leisurely bike ride now just watching the memory of me suffer, if you don't stay ahead of at least one person in this group the lions will eat you... and so on.

I had to think of some new ones, too. The best one was magic shoes! Magic shoes come in two varieties: the kind with little wings on them that whisk you around like a little mythological courier and the kind that run by themselves and carry you forward as if you were amazingly fast and perfect and had to expend no effort whatsoever. The thing about magic shoes, though, is that they are only for gods and immortals to wear and the price to pay for greatness as a mortal is that they burn your puny mortal skin. But to be great you just live with the burning pain in your feet because you get to wear magic shoes and be awesome like gods and immortals.

Magic shoes only worked for so long. They got me through the rough spots up until mile 14. Then I had to play, OH GOD THIS HURTS SO MUCH WHAT COULD HURT WORSE THAN THIS SO I CAN BE THANKFUL I AM NOT DOING THAT INSTEAD? Answers included:

*Here is a wall made of spikes and now you have to kick it!

*Here take this knife and carve chunks of flesh out of your legs to put in this bowl.

*Hey let's play soccer and you get a penalty kick OH MY GOD JUST KIDDING IT WAS A GIANT UPRIGHT BLADE NOT A BALL and the lower half of your leg is now sliced in half!

*What do you think will happen if I put my foot in this blender?

Phew! Thank goodness I'm not doing any of that and I'm just here running these nice and easy 20 miles today. What a leisurely day!

That never lasted long either. I ended up in fantasy land a lot...

Oh my gosh I have to keep running or that ringwraith will cut me up and feed me to those nasty orcs. But when I almost dove into a ditch a few times to evade the dark lords, I decided I'd better try daydreaming about real life instead. I pictured myself approaching the end of mile 26 on marathon day and seeing mister-man standing at an oddly placed aid station there. I run over to kiss him and he says, "I'm coming with you!" and I grin and pick him up and go charging up that final hill to the statue where my friends are all waiting and take a glorious picture of me carrying my boyfriend and looking strong as a horse. Hey, man, that's totally unrealistic. Stop it. Okay, okay. So I get to mile 26 and there is that final hill to cover and there are all of my friends watching me and I can't feel my legs. I suck it up and I go charging up that hill and push some suckers out of my way for a glorious finish. Maybe that can actually happen. (Well, maybe I shouldn't push any suckers.)

Anyway, now that it's all over and I review my data, I see that there is a good possibility I will be capable of this. It felt like I completely broke down during the whole last five miles, but I actually stayed well within my target pace range on the last two miles, even with the stops to stretch and some walking. See, usually it's such a big hurdle to even get myself to run again that I run as fast as I can just to get more distance covered and "earn" some more walking (or limping or crying), which I do for as long as I can stand myself. Then when I am thoroughly disgusted with myself again, I run fast some more. Every time this happens, it FEELS like I'm actually going to make good time when I average out the walking and running, but I always still come in at at least 2-3 minutes slower than my normal pace.

Maybe I can thank my week of Army ROTC PT, but somehow I actually ran fast for long enough to bring my average pace back down to normal. I'd look at my watch in the middle of it and see I was doing somewhere between a 9- and 11-minute pace, which was remarkable for how crappy I felt. Then I'd remind myself about every other time I use this technique and how I always end up taking too long anyway. I really didn't expect to see any good news in the data, but darn it if I didn't run miles 19 and 20 in 13:20 and 12:08, respectively!

I didn't exactly achieve a negative split, but I ran my 19th mile faster than I ran 11 of the other 19 miles, and my 20th was the fastest mile of them all! I do recognize that this is some kind of victory, but I'm still in too much shock (and pain) to actually feel happy about it.



...Also I had my first chafing experience (WTF) and now I have to buy body glide (WTF). I don't want to talk about it. >:(

Labels: Army ROTC, caffeine, chafing, long run, magic shoes, mind games, nsaids, PT, shot blocks

Well, PT hasn't involved as much running as I had wanted (translation: needed), but my entire body certainly is sore today. I did notice a different attitude and threshold for discomfort in my short run after PT, though. I took off only mildly uncomfortable to put in as much as I could before I had to go to class. I planned on 3, but it was cut to 1.5 because apparently I was holding the LTC up. (Oops.) I didn't know they had to lock the track back up. I always forget that it has such inconvenient hours and doesn't officially open until 0800. Anyway, I held a 10-min pace without wanting to puke. We'll see if this actually translates to something that's good for my marathon training on Saturday with the big 2-0.

*shudders*

Labels: Army ROTC, cross-training, PT, short run, speed run

This morning was fun. It was my first mandatory early morning run and I won't see the last one until sometime in December. I think part of my brain is missing. I signed up for this, willing, knowing that it would continue for a month and a half after the marathon is over. Whatever! I didn't need that part of my brain anyway.

Of course, this morning also brought me to that point where I felt this incredible urge to cry and or hurl and I used most of my mental energy to keep myself from whining and ignore how embarrassingly out of breath I was. We only ran a mile and a half, but I was playing the game just to get to a mile and then when I got there, I had to wrap my head around possibly doing two. I knew three would be impossible at that speed, but the PT test that we were missing was only two, so I had that much going for me. Luckily, when I verbalized my misery as unwussily as possible, we decided together that one more lap would be decent, making it 1.5 in total. Oh the relief.

Then I did push-ups and sit-ups to sort of make it a diagnostic PT test. I got passing numbers, better on the push-ups than sit-ups. My hip flexors kill. I also stupidly forgot to stretch afterward, which is making them scream bloody murder.

I'm still kind of nervous about Wednesday, though, because that's when I join the group instead of just running around having fun with my nice new friend. Then of course there will be lots of boys who run a lot faster than me and I will inevitably be trying not to hurl all morning, while also trying to remember how to be in formation.

Now I realize I probably still have to do short runs outside of this, especially if we're only doing 1-2 miles at a time. Of course, at least now I know I'm out of the woods as far as not running at all during the week. Even 3 short 1- to 2-milers is a lot better than nothing. And that's something!

I also saw a small group of Marines running by on the road as cadet-friend and I were headed into the Bagel Place for me to have my first real bagel since NYC. (Yum!) (Wait, tangent: Somebody should tell Lenders and that other store brand that bagel-shaped bread does not equal bagel. Bagels have hard shells from being boiled in water before baking! You'd think more people would notice.) One of these days, I'm going to be out there with them, running like the wind. I wonder how many times my all-out, gutsy PT will make me puke before then.

This is a fun, twisted game.

Labels: Army ROTC, bagel, PT, pukie the clown, short run

With us. All of us who are training for the marathon. We do this thing that is painful and drawn-out for extended periods of time, while every part of our bodies is screaming for us to quit.

...And we don't. Not for a while longer anyway.

Guess I had a "good" run yesterday. That's one of my fastest average paces on a long run, even though I didn't run a lick since the last long run. I guess my fitness is still improving, even when I feel like crap and don't train enough.

Luckily, that is going to end, too. I signed up to PT with the Army ROTC on campus so I'll be getting some form of working out at least three days a week, which must include running, not to mention the cross-training that I haven't exactly been doing. With this latest development, my pace may actually improve more before the big day! My first marathon time may possibly be slightly less pitiful than I expect!!

I look back and see that I guessed poorly at what a decent beginner time should be when I set my "goal" time in April. Er, I should say, I guessed poorly at what MY beginner time would be. 5:00? Yeah, right. I'm just praying I'll break 6:00. Anything under 6:00 means I kept a decent pace and did not have any major breakdowns. Finishing much later than that means I gave too much just to beat the bridge and gave up on myself for the last 10K. I know that this is my first one and I should just aim to finish and everything, but I'd rather not look back on this experience and regret giving up on a measly 10K (forget that it's after 20 miles) and having a 6-hour+ finish time looming over me for the rest of my life.

Labels: lemon-lime powerade, long run, PT, shot blocks

No moping today! I just ran 18 miles and I feel like having a good ol' victory bar fight as soon as I finish icing my knees. (Too bad I know better than that.) That was a damn good run. I'm feeling violent in the good way!

I used a number of mental tricks on myself today, but the most effective during the clinch was ramping up the speed in the last mile and thinking about how embarrassing it would be to give up so close to the end in front of so many Marines. I thought of mister-man running the 5+ mile endurance course this last week with his load-bearing vest and a pack and rifle. The Marine Corps, being the Marine Corps, planned for the E course to end with an obstacle you have to hurl yourself over... atop the final hill...

...where everyone is watching you.

Gee, this sounds a lot like the marathon course, whose elevation map (just recently released) looked pretty brutal, involving running PAST the finish only to come back around to it a second time... managing to be uphill both ways. 10 miles of hills, relatively flat course, and then 1.2 miles of utter torture. Not to mention that this is in front of probably the largest concentration of spectators. You know, the Marine Corps being the Marine Corps. Sometimes I stare at that elevation map just to meditate on it bit. Without fail, I end my meditation by saying to myself, "Yep, this route was definitely planned by a Marine."

Anyway, I tried to sing the Marines' Hymn in my head as I started running hard. I mixed up the verses a whole bunch and ended up running out of song before the mile was up, but then I imagined mister-man running up from behind all weighed down like a mule and completely schooling me in that last half mile. I almost started crying because my mental image was too real and I was *so* close to giving up on my dreams and even life itself. But before I knew it, my Garmin bleeped at me and made the 18 miles official. Of course it was almost another quarter mile to the parking lot so I kept going and even sped up a bit because I felt SO DAMN GOOD to be done.

I remember turning my left ankle on a rock somewhere in the last half mile but I didn't notice until I was stretching and my left ankle was too tender for me to balance on that leg so I could stretch my right quads. Already feels mostly better, though I'll have to ice it a bit and not do anything stupid to it. I'm just glad it wasn't like The Great Sprain of April, which took me out of commission for a loooong while. That would be pretty devastating at this stage of the game.

Wait, why am I even talking about that shit? I effectively dodged the bullet, and I just ran 18 miles! Fuck everything else! Time for ice packs and a victory nap.

Labels: ankle, caffeine, canal towpath, long run, shot blocks, violent urges