The Finish Line

Long delayed post... I survived!  Not a PR by a long shot, but I survived! 5:13:26!

Waited around 2 hours for two separate go around at porti potties so I was 26 minutes late to start the race, so I started with all the runners and was forced to do a negative split, whether I like it or not XD  The hills weren't so bad, and my foot held up with no issues and my knee only ached a little bit.  It was a lot hotter than I expected, though!

Boy was it hard!  But the necklace is ever so pretty:3

I expected to feel super emotional after I finished, but after I was done, I was happy, but I think I want to do longer distances!  Or maybe even conquer my fear of water and do a triathlon!   

I've since done one more half marathon and got an almost PR, but I'm having some random set backs to that cuboid area so I'm taking some time off from running... but I'll be back!  Meanwhile, I'm going to work up training swimming and biking... because way before I wanted to do marathons, I wanted to do an IRONMAN!  Darn you, NBC Sports, for your live broadcast that hooked me!  Might as well use the running downtime to force myself to do some open water swimming! 

To be continued... in Swim Swim Revolution!

Less Than 24 Hours Until the NWM

It's less than 24 hours from the marathon.  There's really nothing I can do now to help me get any faster, just setting up everything to prepare for getting out the door and driving the 1 hour or so into SF for the race.  I'm nervous, constantly trying to get information about the race, and also helping other runners on facebook with information to try to help them with the race. 

Half Marathons are "easy" for me, as in I can pretty much be assured I will physically be able to finish.  Full marathons, though, I've only conquered that distance twice, both times over 1 year ago, before I broke my foot.  I was fitter then, and I think more naive about how hard the distance would be.  About the only times I've ever felt really really spent were when I did the full marathon.  You just never really know if something will happen to stop you during the course.

I love the feeling when I finish a race, especially sweet is when you're not sure you can do it, and you find out you can and the medal is being put around your neck.  All those lonely long runs, waking up really early, begging off a late evening out to save some sleep time for training, culminating in one day when you either fail or you do it. 

This has been the race I've wanted to do since 2007.  Four years ago I was reading about this Nike Women's Marathon like a pipe dream, wondering if I could ever be able to do a marathon at all, much less being able to keep up a 14 minute per mile pace (my half marathon PR back then was a 15:30 ish minute mile...)  Tomorrow it's going to happen.  It must happen, because it's NWM or die trying!!!

On a less serious note, here's me messing around at the expo XD

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150504755012516.475293.633277515&type=3

T Minus 10 days

My longest run since the broken foot incident is 22 miles, two weeks ago.  Last Saturday when I tried to run 24 miles, I missed a turn at Back Back and ended up running in a not so good neighborhood in Santa Ana.  Being inland, the temperatures being high (for me anyway), and morale low from being lost for about half an hour ended my run at 15.5 miles, when my boyfriend ended up picking me up at a McDonalds (I enjoyed a nice chocolate milk.) 

This is interesting since I have never had this kind of a setback on a long run before.  I don't know if I'm just out of shape since I'm still always erring on the side of safe for my foot, or if it was the cross training I did that shredded my legs and it didn't quite recover in time for the long run, but it's demoralizing a bit.  I know in reality 15.5 miles three weeks out from a marathon is excellent taper, but I wanted to do 24 just to make sure I could really do it.

It's only 10 days from race day. 

I also heard that if you get picked up by the bus you still get the finisher necklace... I don't think I could seriously wear it if I was DNF and still got it.  Some people just really really want to get the necklace, but me, I want to be healthy enough to earn it.  Just finishing Disney was a big deal for me, and I want that feeling again, finishing a marathon, coming back from the broken foot and just be able to think of myself as a whole person again instead of still broken.

22 Mile Long Run

It's three weeks out from the Nike Women's Marathon.  I'm "on schedule" with my modified training program, and my foot is holding up like a dream.  My left shoulder, however, is acting up, and hurts at really random times doing really random things.  Not necessarily a clear case of rotator cuff tear, but really the last thing I needed in training.  The doctor recommended 600 MG of ibuprofen, but I'm unsure about taking that much medication before a long run. 

I'm in the "training zone" Not super excited or super concerned about finishing.  From my longer runs, without major implosions, I should be able to finish ahead of the NWM cutoff pace, even factoring in a 30 minute delay to start.  It really is more than I could have hoped for at this point, so I'm glad.

I do miss running in my vibrams.  My IT band has needed more TLC since I'm running in full on running shoes, but I'm keeping the barefoot form as best as I can even when wearing the big clunkers... though the New Balance/Vibram cross over shoes do look sexy... I might look into getting one of those for after the NWM to train for the Tinkerbell Half Marathon :3

On the road to NWM...

I finished the Disneyland Half Marathon in once piece.  2:20:32.  Much faster than I had anticipated, but boy did I pay for it later in sore knees (both of them) and really sore quads!  It was definitely not a PR by about 10 minutes, but it was my second best time. 

I'm happiest that my foot and the prior knee pain (much worse than the overuse ache I suffered right after the race) did not get worse.  I think at one point in the race it hurt about 2 seconds, but overall I kept my form well, did not push too hard, and both parts stood up to the punishment.  On the cardiovascular front, I was quite under trained, and felt it from about mile 10.  The walk breaks really helped a lot.  My foot was a bit sore after I woke up from a nap later that afternoon, but it was kind of in a different spot and it cleared up in less than a day.

After the race, I took a couple days to recover, and four days later did a light 8 miles around my new neighborhood.  Two days after that I woke up at 4:30AM on a Saturday for a nice 15 or 16 mile run (turned out to be a 16 mile run.)  My gymboss clip broke (so I tucked it in my sports bra, which ended up killing it with humidity), the beach opened later than I thought, and it rained AND hailed on me, but my foot felt a lot better, and no pain afterwards.  I'm really starting to think I can do this marathon.  Granted, the training won't really be the same, and I won't have time to taper.  Due to my lost weeks of training, I'm literally training up to the marathon mileage as a "training run" portion of a normal marathon training program!  Next weekend will be 18-19 miles long run, the following week will be 19-21 miles long run, then 22-24 mile long run the weekend before the race...  since I bombed so badly in my first marathon, I might not be that far off my marathon PR!  Which is exciting since I'll need it to beat the 14 minute (minus losing a minute a mile from the delay in the start) pace at NWM!

Getting really excited about the race now :3

Bib from the Half Marathon!

Finisher medal :3

Testing the Waters @ Disneyland Half

So the podiatrist has released me from care, saying I'm cured.  The physical therapist said I needed more sessions for the knee but did not bother sending the notes to my podiatrist so I'm not quite sure what's going on with that. My last test run was a 10 miler last week where i did okay when I discovered that running slower longer instead of spurts of faster with longer walk breaks works better.

I worried a lot about what pace group to run... the 2 and a half hour or 3 hour... then set my heart on running alone.  No pressure, but also not holding back.

My friend from Canada is also running. She'll be much faster than me and I'm sad that I cannot run with her (her anticipated pace is a little bit faster than my original goal.) but I will be healthy for another race. She already invited me to the Canadian Death Race. With a title like that, who can say no?

Here goes nothing!

Another Setback

It's been a difficult week.  My foot swelled up from too much walking last weekend and I had to take an entire day off to elevate the foot, and yesterday (when I only did 30 minutes of cycling) the entire left leg swelled up about an extra inch.  My knee is still periodically bothering me when I exercise and I'm really afraid I did something bad to it. 

It seems like I'm actually in worse shape now than when I started treatment for the broken foot.  Not I'm not sure if I could even do the half marathon coming up in 5 weeks or the Nike Women's marathon.  I found out you can at least unofficially downgrade to the half marathon, but if something is really wrong with my knee or leg then I might be up the creek with no paddle anyway.

The only thing I can do is cycling, but even that's bothering my knee slightly.  It's hard not to be depressed or to be motivated when the foot/leg/knee keeps going downhill. :(