Are we there yet?

Welcome to week 12, my final week of training for this half marathon. I can hardly believe it is this Sunday!

According to training guru Hal Higdon, this is my "taper" week, meaning that I'm running shorter distances for training runs. I'm looking forward to this race for many reasons, but lately one of the big ones is that it will be nice to have some weekday afternoons back. I plan to keep running regularly, but will probably cut down to between two and three times a week instead of four. For some reason this week has felt incredibly long, and mentally it has been a struggle to push myself out the door after work to run, even though my distances are shorter than in previous weeks. Every time I've laced up my sneakers this week, I've felt like a kid on a long car ride: "Are we there yet? Is the race here yet?"

We watched a PBS special on Monday about people training for the Boston marathon. I thought it was a very interesting documentary and rather inspiring. Before I even realized what I was doing, I found myself googling marathon calendars for 2008. But only out of curiosity, of course. I need to get through one race at a time. :)

Walk for Hope 10K

This was actually a walk, but there were a few runners. I ran with some friends, and we felt like rock stars because we were so far ahead of the walkers!

Shame and pride

It is with a mixture of shame and pride that I update this blog. Shame because it has been more than a month since I last posted, but pride because my running regimen is going very well. It's just that McLife has gotten in the way of my posting, which is a pity because this blog was supposed to help keep me accountable as I trained for the City of Oaks half marathon. (But it turns out that I'm such a Type A that I've managed to keep myself accountable just fine on my own, thank you very much.)

Let me back track a few weeks.

My last post was from week 5 of my schedule, when 5 miles was my long run. Five miles seems almost laughably easy to me now as I complete week 11. Five miles is now a normal distance for my weekly, "lighter" training runs.

The following week I ran six miles on a local trail with Friend A. We ran the first three miles with Hippo Hubby and Friend H, who did 14 miles as part of their full marathon training schedule. Six miles turned out to be surprisingly easy for me and Friend A. I even sprinted out the last few several yards, pumping my fist in the air, doing a little happy dance and yelling something about being a champion. I felt good. I was on top of my game.

I should have known it wouldn't last.

The following weekend I went back home, to New York, to hang out with my wonderful and newly acquired sister-in-laws. I had a 5K race on my schedule for my long ran that week, and I did manage to wake up that Saturday morning and run 3 miles around one of the reservoirs in Central Park with one of my sisters-in-laws. (And props to her for actually wearing glasses during our run that morning.) Let me tell you, there is nothing quite like running three miles and having last night's white wine, margaritas, beer and Hawaiian pizza oozing out of your pores. *Blek!*

But that didn't stop me from repeating similar dietary transgressions that Saturday evening, except that I added some food porn into the mix -- freshly made New York cannoli. *So.* *Damn.* *Good.* (I'm not ashamed. It was worth it.)

I paid for my sins though, big time. It took me at least a week to recover. I felt like crap during my next several weekday training runs, not to mention the fact I'm pretty sure those cannoli took up residence on my rear for awhile - I swear, my booty jiggled for a week.

Luckily I recovered for my 7-mile long run that week and managed to cruise through it with Friend A. Eight miles the next week came and went with the help of Hippo Hubby. My usual running friends were out of town, so he biked alongside me the entire way, even though he ran something like 12 or 14 miles the day before. He was a trooper.

During week 9, I did a 10K race with several friends. We had a good time and finished in about 65 minutes. We probably could have gone faster, if it weren't for all the hills on the course and the fact we gabbed during the entire race. Someone ahead of us actually turned around and told us to keep it down. (Loser. Excuse us for having a good time.) Our Mommas raised us right though, so we apologized. And then we passed her. Bwahahahaha!!!

I made it through 9.5 miles with Friend H. last Sunday, and I have 10 miles ahead of me this Thursday with a few of my running friends. After that, the distances of my runs tapper until the race on Nov. 4.

Overall, I feel good and I feel strong. I can't believe how far I've come since beginning this training program in August. My lungs feel awesome, if anything it is my leg muscles that start to ache a little on the longer runs. That's not to say that I never have crappy runs anymore, I most certainly do. The difference now is that I know I can push through it, and even on my crappiest day, I no longer feel like I'm going to die from overexertion. I used to borderline loathe running, and now I actually enjoy it most days. For me, that's something I'm definitely proud of.

And You Think I'm Mental?

For those of you who think I'm a tad bit "off" for waking up one day and deciding to train for a half marathon in twelve weeks, perhaps it all makes more sense when I tell you I'm related to one of the members of "No Runner Left Behind," pictured here. Yes, that's sister Hippo on the bottom left in the front row (wearing the cardinal red windbreaker and shiny medal). Collectively, these nuts ran 200 miles from Cannon Mountain to Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, in just under 31 hours in the "Reach the Beach" relay.

Props to the the "No Runner Left Behind" team for a great run!



This is sister hippo passing off the baton. She looks a little postal, no? Someone give her some Gatorade and some Gu.



This is sister Hippo's boyfriend. (Note the perfectly coiffed hair even after miles of running.)

Go Figure

As I did my long run for the week yesterday morning (five miles), I thought for sure my time would be slower compared to last week's five miler.

For the first two or three miles, the muscles in my legs felt like cement pillars, just really tight and rigid. I'm taking this as a sign that I need to put more time into stretching during the week. But to my surprise and delight, my assumption about my time this week was wrong. According to to my stopwatch (which I cross referenced with the song play time on my iPOD) I was almost two minutes faster than last week. It seems rigid cement pillars work for me. Go figure.

First time limits, now this?

I was just cruising the race Web site and read that they do not allow people to wear headphones in the race.

Ugh. Don't they understand? I can't be inside my own head for 13.1 miles! I wonder if it is possible to memorize all of the songs on my IPod playlists.

*Sigh*

Whatever works

Wow, has it really been more than a week since I updated this blog? Long weekends mess with my head. Luckily, this last one didn’t mess with my training schedule too much. I completed all of my runs last week, including the five miler on Sunday. I must say, I’m quite proud of myself — five miles is a new Hippo record! I managed to complete it in just under an hour as well, putting me around a 12 minute per mile pace for my longer runs.

One of the other things I noticed this week is that the soreness in my legs has disappeared. For the first two and a half weeks I felt like my legs were going to fall off the day after I ran any sort of distance. Now, in the middle of week four, my legs rarely feel sore the next day.

I wish this lack of soreness was a result of my increasing athletic prowess, but I think that is only a small part of it. I now have a post-run ritual involving a protein bar (or protein shake) and a rolling pin that is probably deserves most of the credit.

Let me back up for a moment.

About a week ago I came home from a run and found my husband, who is training for a full marathon, camped out in front of the television with a half-eaten protein bar running my rolling pin up and down his legs. This type of behavior is often par for the course around our house, as my handy-around-the-house husband often commandeers my kitchen utensils for some purpose or another. In the years we’ve been together, he’s turned my wooden spoon into a temporary fix for a running toilet, my plastic pitcher into a paint bucket and a stock pot, two stainless steel mixing bowls and a metal spoon into a modified pooper scooper. He calls it “innovation.” I call it “irritating.”

Needless to say, none of the above items ever re-entered my kitchen once released from his servitude. But given his track record, it was no great surprise to see the rolling pin being used for rolling something besides dough. My husband swore that eating some protein shortly after a run and using the rolling pin along his leg muscles helped with soreness the next day, so I decided to give it a shot. Guess what?

He was right. (Yes, write that one down my dear.)

At first I thought it was because all of that rolling helped break up the lactic acid built up in the leg muscles. But it seems it has been awhile since my last biology class. Apparently, lactic acid is no longer the scapegoat for exercise-related muscle soreness anymore. Amby Burfoot, a writer for Runner’s World, does a good job of explaining where our thought processes went wrong in the article, “Is Lactic Acid Really Such a Bad Thing?”

Sidenote: Props to Burfoot for using descriptors such as, “Demon Lactic Acid” and “the Darth Vader of Metabolism.” I have serious word envy.

Now I’m not exactly sure how all this protein and rolling pin business helps with soreness, but it seems to work. Have any thoughts, readers?

In the meantime, whatever works, right?