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?

Ow, ow, ow.

Last night my training schedule called for a two mile run. I figured it wouldn't be a problem. In fact, I was actually looking forward to it now that the temperature around here has gone from "raging inferno" down to "small forest fire."

Overall, it was a good run, except for a sharp nagging stitch under my left rib that began around a half mile and didn't let up until I finished. Ow, ow, ow!

It's the distance, stupid

Sorry, I just couldn’t resist that little nugget from American political history. (Here is an explanation for my foreign friends, or my American ones if they've forgotten their early 1990s politics.)

My training schedule for the ½ marathon called for a four mile run this past weekend. I teamed up with another running friend on Saturday to give it a go. Unfortunately, the only time we could meet up was at noon, when the thermometer read 98 degrees.

Admittedly, attempting to run four miles in the kind of heat that makes chewed bubble gum on the sidewalk sizzle wasn’t exactly smart. But sometimes I don’t listen to my smart self. Sometimes I listen to my stupid self. To its credit, my smart self has kept me alive this long. But my stupid self has all the good stories to tell. Besides, my stupid self was being quite insistent that afternoon, telling me I was tough. I could do this. No problem.

My smart self would like to interject here and tell you with utmost certainty that I am not, I repeat NOT, that tough. My friend and I only made it about two miles when we had to stop and ask a security guard working some kind of “art-in-the-park” program where we could find the nearest water fountain. We must have looked really sweaty and pathetic – or perhaps we just reeked so badly with BO – because he gave us an ice-cold bottle of water he’d just received from the festival’s water truck. And on we went.

Sidenote: As we rounded the lake and were approaching the “art-in-the-park” program, I couldn’t help but think, “Geez, what’s wrong with these people? I certainly wouldn’t want to get my culture on in this scorching, mid-day heat.” At this point, my smart self popped into my head and, undoubtedly feeling a little slighted, said with unmistakable snarkiness, “Yes, apparently you much prefer exercise-induced heat exhaustion, idiot.”

We jogged a little more and even conquered a rather long and steady incline on the opposite side of the lake. But ultimately (and please forgive the pun) we couldn’t take the heat. Just after cresting the hill, I admitted defeat and slowed to a walk.

As we made our way back to our starting point, my friend mentioned that many of the running gurus – such as Hal Higdon and Jeff Galloway – say that walking isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The goal is to get your body used to going that distance, whether you walk it or run it. (Galloway even has an entire page on his Web site devoted to “Walk Breaks.”)

Hearing that it is the distance that counts in training, not the speed, made my smart, rational self feel a little bit better. But my stupid self still wants to try and finish this ½ marathon without walking.

Say what?

I just re-read my post from Wednesday. Why in the world would I be running with an umbrella? That's just stupid.

Motivation

I did not want to run three miles yesterday. I tried very hard to procrastinate. I ate a light dinner, threw a load of laundry in the washer and played with my dogs. I even tried to take a nap. But I didn't sleep long, and I didn't sleep well. I felt guilty. It was Thursday, and I was supposed to run. I needed to run.

But even guilt wasn't a good enough motivator to disengage my lazy behind from the couch. It was time to bring out the big guns: ice cream. I love ice cream so much it is almost embarrassing. Ask my husband, he'll tell you. There are days where, if I haven't been able to get to the grocery store that week, we may not have so much as some crumbs in the cupboard and a gallon of milk in the refrigerator teetering on its expiration date. But we always, always have some kind of ice cream or ice cream product in the freezer. Like I said, it's almost embarrassing.

I struck a deal with myself - after my run I could indulge in the frosty, tasty, chocolaty goodness of an ice cream bar in front of the TV. Deal! Fifteen minutes later I was fussing with my I-Pod playlists as I began my first lap around the park. Sometimes I am still just a little kid.

Deep thoughts

And now for a brief message from the Asthmatic Hippo sponsors. Well, one of my supporters anyway. No one would be crazy enough to actually sponsor me or this blog.

I received the following e-mail from my big sister, who recently discovered this blog. As a two time Boston marathon finisher and a fiercely intelligent, sharp teacher, who would have thought big sis' thoughts while running were so much like mine? (I figured I'd wait at least several more weeks until owning up to my mental "Let's Make a Deal" game with landscaping features.) I thought for sure her thoughts would be more substantive and meaningful, like whether it's too late to stop the polar ice caps from melting.


"Great blog!

I find the best thing about running is that I can't really be a thinker at the same time. I don't know what I think about when I run. I never listen to music and somehow my mind just wanders. I can't really keep a train of thought because I always get to focusing on my breathing for awhile and then I don' know what I was thinking about. And sometimes the deepest thoughts are - I will just run to that lamp post over there. Then I get there and think - I will just run to that fire hydrant over there. Those are the days that running is a mental game. And some days I really think about nothing but just enjoy moving. Those are my best running days. I think you will find that the asthma feeling will continue to fade. And as your distance increases you will discover that the first 2-3 miles is just warm-up! It's amazing really - there is this groove you get in sometimes after that 2-3 mile mark.

Happy Running!"

Holy hotness!

I met up with a friend of mine for a 4 mile run yesterday evening (Tuesday), but given the eye-poppingly large number on the temperature gauge - 105 degrees - we decided that walking it might be a better idea.

About midway through our route, the sky got all dark and scary. Dead leaves and debris started to come whipping in circles out of the tree tops, and images of Auntie Em and Toto started coming to mind. (I later came to find out that my vision wasn't all that off base -- a funnel cloud was spotted just a few miles away from where we were.)

Did either one of us bother to check the weather forecast before we left that day? Nah. Why bother? For the last two weeks it has been one of three temperatures: hot and sticky, hotter and stickier, and Africa humidity hot.

Then it started to rain. Big, fat, blessed drops of rain! When you haven't seen rain in several weeks, you don't care if you still have two miles to go and no umbrella. We thoroughly enjoyed getting soaked to the bone on the rest of our walk. I didn't even care when I discovered that I'd left the driver side window open on my car. After the rain storm, the outside temperature gauge on my dashboard displayed a beautiful number, the same number as the last world series won by the Mets - 86. Ahhh....

Cross training

Because the hippo is a semi-aquatic mammal, I decided it was only fitting to do some swimming this weekend as my cross training exercise.

According to my buddy Hal Higdon and his training program, I only had to do 30 minutes of cross training. I mostly did alternating laps of freestyle and breaststroke, but I'll admit I cheated once or twice with the sidestroke and the backstroke. Every time I get in the pool I'm reminded of how much I enjoy swimming, especially in the summer heat. My muscles seem to "get in the zone" a little more quickly when I swim compared to when I run.

Mondays are "stretch and strengthen" days according to Hal. I intended to attend a yoga class at my gym tonight, but ended up having to stay late at the office. I am very bummed about missing the class, mostly because I feel about as flexible as a cement statue these days.

I'm meeting up with a friend for a 3-4 mile run on Tuesday night. It's supposed to hit 101 degrees, so we'll see how it goes. Having been born and raised a northerner, I'm still not used to summer in the South. It has been in the very high 90s and low 100s nearly every day for the past two weeks. As a kid I always marveled at people who said they hated summer. Now, after spending more than a few Augusts below the Mason Dixon line, I think I'm beginning to understand.

Just worry about yourself

Earlier today I ran the longest distance I've ever run in my life -- four miles. On one hand, I'm pretty proud of myself. My time wasn't terrible (47 minutes), and I didn't die. Score. Hell, I didn't even get that lumbering, wheezy hippopotamus feeling that I usually do around mile 2.5. I think I might be making some progress with this running thing.

On the other hand, I know this distance is barely beans to someone training for a full marathon. Deep down I know I shouldn't compare myself to others and, in the words of my kindergarten teacher, remember to "just worry about yourself." We're given that advice over and over again as kids, but we seem to forget to live by it as adults. I know I do. Especially when I get passed in the park by a 16-year-old barely breaking a sweat, or worse, by an an old man who probably has more gray hairs sprouting from his ears than growing on his head.

That's why when I run I love see dogs out walking with their owners. Dogs are just just happy to be there. They're not worried about anything except enjoying themselves and smelling some new stuff. They're totally in the moment, and it's written all over their grinning, tongue-lolling faces. Bruno isn't worried about whether Fluffy got an extra lap on him this morning, or whether Rover left a bigger calling card under those pines near the playground. Happy dogs are a nice reminder to just worry about my good time.

Rest day

Yesterday (Friday) was my first rest day in my half marathon training schedule. I love rest day.

I didn't realize how much I needed it until I put my head down on the couch after work. I intended to just close my eyes for a minute or two, but I quickly slipped into a deep, drooling sleep usually reserved for heavily narcotized people or those suffering from transpacific jet lag.

I have no idea how long I slept. A loud, piercing bark from on of our dogs brought me back to daylight. My husband was home. As I stumbled off the couch and across the living room in my glassy-eyed, fog-headed post nap stupor, I wondered, "How early can I go to bed on a Friday night without being considered a total loser?"

Time limits

I learned yesterday that there are actually time limits involved in this 1/2 marathon. Apparently, they want you to wrap things up in about 3.5 hours.

I freaked out and e-mailed my husband in a panic, worried that at exactly the 3.5 hour mark officials would scoop me up into the slow people paddy wagon and cart my butt off to the Land of Shame.

Having run a few half marathons himself, and being the patient and kind person he is when it comes to my various neuroses, he e-mailed me back and told me that such time limits aren't strictly enforced. It seems they're flexible, especially if you're a mile or two from the finish. He tells me the time limits are there to discourage those people that would finish in the 4.5 to 5 hour timeframe. This makes me feel slightly better, but I find myself sympathizing with those people, because apparently they are the citizens of the Land of Shame, at least according to the race committee.

On the upside, if I do end up being one of those people, my tendency to be harder on myself than anyone else would probably result in me being elected the mayor of the Land of Shame.

Thinker vs. Runner

I don't have asthma, and I'm not a hippopotamus. I just feel like one sometimes when I run, usually right around the 2-2.5 mile mark.

I'm actually pretty fit. I'm 28 years old, just shy of 5'4, and I wear a size 4 or 6, depending on the brand or designer. (Ladies, you know what I'm talking about.) I got married in May, and one of the most valuable things I learned about myself during the wedding planning process is that I'm a goal-oriented exerciser. In the months leading up to the wedding, I worked out constantly. I lifted three times a week and did at least 30-45 minutes of cardio on days I didn't lift. It paid off, and I felt great on our wedding day.

But post wedding, I've found it harder and harder to motivate myself to get to the gym. I've decided it is because I need a new goal, so I've set my sites on running a half marathon in early November. I found a 12-week 1/2 marathon training program for novices online, and with the encouragement of my husband and friends I'm going to go for it.

Let me be clear here -- as far as cardiovascular exercise goes, I've always been an elliptical machine, spinning class, step aerobics kind of girl. Up until this point, I had much the same taste for running as I do for a plate of wax beans. I can choke it down, but I don't necessarily enjoy it.

I did run a a season with the cross country team my freshman year of high school, but the only medal I won was for a race where there were more medals than runners. Near the end of the season, my track coach -- a burly, gruff, ex-NYPD cop -- said I should go back to the debate team, telling me "you're a thinker, not a runner." (And, at the time, he was right. I went on to compete and place at the national level in speech and debate three years in a row. But I digress.)

Most people that know me would probably argue that I'm still a "thinker." And I think I still have a shot at being a runner. Yesterday I ran 3.3 miles in approximately 36 minutes, on Wednesday I ran 2.2 miles in 26 minutes, and on Sunday I ran 2.7 miles (I forgot to keep time last Sunday). I should probably point out here that I didn't say I thought I had a shot at being a fast runner. Just a runner.

This weekend I have 30 minutes of cross training and 4 miles ahead of me. Stay tuned!