Eighteen

Eighteen runs. That's all that stands between me and the individual marathon weekend. Eighteen.

As I push closer and closer to 30+ miles a week, it's been one of those weeks (or two) where it seems like the world is telling me to say "Fuck it" and sit on the couch. Waking up to temps in the single digits. Snow followed by ice followed by more snow. Holiday frenzy of gift buying, parties and an exponentially growing to-do list.

With four weeks before the race, this is pretty typical. I'm tired of running. I'm tired of getting dressed for running. I'm tried of being tired. This training cycle has been different, since I'm running double sessions once a week. I ran 5 miles at noon yesterday, and then suited up and ran 4 miles right after While I know that mimicking the race structure (particularly the run-rest-run component) is super important...UGH I HAVE TO RUN AGAIN was the only thing on my mind while I rolled out my quads at my desk between runs.

This is where training is its darkest for me. Little voices coax me with "you've done enough". These are the same voices that taunt me in a race with "you didn't train like you were supposed to", while I suffer with undercooked legs. It starts with me missing a run, with "it's no big deal - I'll still run XX miles this week" to missing 3 runs in a row, to me staring down at an abysmal training log with big 0 or 5 or 3s looking back at me. Those 0s and 5s and 3s should be 25s and 27s and 31s.

I am trying to rage against the exhaustion, both mental and physical, by reminding myself how much better this race series will be for me because I ran outside through the snow and the slush and because I forced myself onto the treadmill rather than backing out of my workout. But like all long-term goals, sometimes the payoff seems so far out of reach, the groundwork to it seems bleak, and I start gearing up for a nice existential downward spiral (also see: college 2004-2005).

But 18 runs. That's not that much. That's less than all my fingers and toes! I can cross those bitches off in a nice countdown. But next week is Christmas, and I'll be in Albany. Running any distance over 2 miles is really hard in Albany, since it's all busy suburban road and no sidewalks anywhere. The last time I ran in the winter in Upstate New York, the sweat in my hair froze to my head. Really.

My total mileage this week is already 15 miles - which is usually pretty high for me (but I need to end this week at 27), and how I end up lulling myself into a false sense of preparedness. And then I think about how sore I am this morning after my doubles (but I did run my fastest doubles ever yesterday - pulling a min/mile off my pace for each set), and then I think about how despite this soreness, I'll have to run a half marathon on these screaming-bebe legs. Then the fear I originally had for this race comes back, and lacing up my shoes is suddenly effortless.

This feeling, of fatigue and monotony, is normal for any runner. Just like sometimes you own the workout, and sometimes the workout owns you. Sometimes you're stoked to get out for a run, and other days or weeks, you'd rather shave a cat than get out there. The trick is to learn when it's just the inner demons, versus your body begging for additional time to heal and recoup. Most of running is this type of detailed self-study and self-awareness of when you can drop the hammer and crank it, and when you should take it easy. With only 18 runs to go, it makes it a lot easier to ignore the self-sabotaging impulses, and log these miles, baby!

Don't Bring Around a Cloud to Rain on My Parade

Like any normal runner (or person, for that matter), I check the weather before I head out. During the spring and summer, I tack on 10 degrees to the temperature and then dress for that weather. During the fall and winter, once it drops below 55 degrees, I know I need my gloves (since I already have meh circulation in my hands).

After years of careful calibration, I know which layer combination (or lack thereof) of clothing for every temperature range and weather condition.

It's also how I know when to puss out and run inside on a treadmill.

This past Sunday, it was 22 degrees outside. Weather.com said that felt like 6. With a 23 mph wind coming from the WNW.

Now, I have run races with an 18 mph wind coming off the ocean. I have run them in 90 degrees with crushing humidity, and I have run them in 42 degrees with sheets of rain falling from the sky. I have run when it's so cold that my sweat freezes in my hair.

That's how I know that when it's 22 with a 23 mph wind, my ass is running on a treadmill. But please understand: I hate the treadmill. I can usually top out at 3 miles (4 if I really distract myself). Part of the reason I run is to connect with my surroundings and appreciate the (quiet) sound of my feet hitting whatever ground I'm on. Treadmills are proof that God is vengeful and wants us to suffer. But Mother Nature is worse. Much, much worse. She is malicious and ruthless and takes extreme joy in blowing an arctic blast headwind off of icy water when all you really want to do is stop running and eat a cheeseburger. It's not suffering. It's degradation.

So, I was surprised to see that one of my friends, a newbie-ish runner, actually braved the hellish weather on Sunday and actually ran outside. Didn't she see my posts about avoiding it via the treadmill?! I mean, if someone's like, "Wooo! Seven miles on a treadmill!" aren't you a little suspicious?

Then I remembered that every runner needs to run the gamut of terrible weather (no pun intended). You need to run on the most awful of days, and brave the harshest conditions (within reason - for safety) for a couple reasons:
1. When you're running the race you trained for, and you start to revert back into that dark, internal hole of "Fuck this shit", you can remember that you got up early, got dressed, and ran. Maybe it was raining. Maybe it felt so hot you thought you were running on the goddamned sun. Doesn't matter. You got up and did it. And if you can run on the goddamned sun, you can finish this goddamned race.

2. Until modern science proves otherwise, you can't control the weather on race day. And chances are, the weather conditions you decline to sack-up for will be the exact conditions you have to run in. Period. The summer of 2010 was like, 90 fucking degrees every day. Training was brutal. So I didn't do it. Because my logic was: my marathon is in the midwest, in October. Not a chance in hell it'll be over like, 65 degrees. It's more likely to be 40. And then the weather report in Chicago rolled out, and every day around the marathon was gorgeous, temperate 65, but marathon day was fucking NINETY. NINETY DEGREES. So now, regardless of what season my race is v. what season I'm training in, I run. Because NINETY DEGREES.

3. You need to learn what gear you own that sucks in what conditions, and what gear you better own, or you're going to be one overheated/hypothermic mofo. Lululemon pants make my butt look good, but NEVER run in the rain with them...they weigh about 91039893849 pounds all wet. Learned that at the half marathon in Central Park in a steady, soaking rain. I have 3 different weights of long sleeved shirts.  I know which sports bras I can wear for different distances before they start to chafe.

This morning I woke up to get my run in, and the weather said, "35, feels like 26, 10% chance of precipitation, wind is 14 mph SW". So I put on 2 pairs of tights, 2 heavy long sleeves, gloves, the works. And about 1/2 a mile in, it started snowing. Snowing.

So I trudged on, knowing that during whatever mile of whatever race I'm doing in Florida in 6ish weeks (!!!), when I want to stop and just have a beer instead, I can think back and say, "I fucking ran in snow. I fucking ran 7 miles - IN A ROW - on a treadmill. I can finish this race." And when my newbie friend is in the crushing, evil cold of her February half, she can think back to Sunday, when she wanted to punch the wind in it's face, but she finished nonetheless. And she'll keep on going and finish her race, too. Because let's face it: the miles aren't always that sunny, but they always do make us stronger.

The Individual Marathon. Seriously.

As I write this, I'm rolling out my sore hammy - my nice little "remember those hills during the BAA Half" souvenir. But when faced with memories of soul-crushing races, I did what any normal runner would do: I signed up for more races.

The Gobble Gobble Gobble 4 Miler, on Thanksgiving, is my next race. I love running on Thanksgiving, because it gets a race in on a non-Sunday (so it's like a forced tempo run), and it gives me the ability to absolve my 3rd piece of pie.

I also caved and signed up for the Jingle Bell 5K in December. Even though I despise 5Ks. Despise. I even think one of my 2013 resolutions was "no 5Ks". Or was it "no marathons"? It gets hard to remember this late in the year. But, I have these candy cane socks. And red under amor. Might as well put them to good use.

Then the following is what transpired in my head during one of my post-BAA recovery runs:

"A 4-miler and a 5K to close out 2013. This should be enough.

The past 2 years, I've run that 10K at St. Pete's Beach when I visit Ma 'n' Pa Boots in Florida. The course is flat and fast, and I typically place unusually well for my age/gender because...well...the South.

OK, so a 10K to kick off 2014.

Wait. 2014? I'm getting married in 2014. I also enjoy lounging on the couch/hibernating most of the end of the year...through February or March. How am I going to stay motivated to run through the New England winter? Which is when I'm going through most of my dress fittings...

Doesn't St. Pete's Beach have a half marathon, too? Maybe I'll do the 10K on Saturday and the Half on Sunday. That sounds a little nuts, but I can pop off 6 miles, and if I keep my base, I can probably swing both.

Wait. St Pete's has a 5K on Saturday, too. I think I remember there was something at the expo...maybe a hat trick? A 5K, 10K, Half? Man, that would be fucking hard but really fucking badass. I've never gone for a hat trick before! This should be rad."

So, I went to sign up for the St. Pete's hat-trick, and found out this year, they have upped the ante. Since a 5, 10 and half are so close to totally 26.2, they added a 3.8 mile beach run Saturday night. The "Individual Marathon".

What. The. Fuck.

So now, the schedule looks a little like this:
Sat 8 AM - 5K
Sat 10 AM - 10K
Sat 5 PM - 3.8 mile beach run
Sun 8 AM - Half Marathon

Somehow, 3.8 miles on the beach threw me for a loop. Running on the beach aggravates all my nagging injuries. It'll screw up my rest schedule between the Saturday AM events and the half. After all my years of Ultimate tournaments, I know the worst thing you can do to your legs is give them a bye, let them cool down, and then try to shake the cement out. What the fuck kind of distance is 3.8 miles, anyway (the math makes sense, but, come on.)?

The truth is, I'm scared of the Individual Marathon. And I like it.

I haven't been scared of a race in years. I don't even think I was scared of my first marathon, because I was too naive and excited. I mean - how do I even prepare for this? How do I train? Good luck typing, "multi-race weekend training plan" into Google. I mean, if the internet doesn't even think this is a good idea, what am I even doing?

I finally found a plan that will get me most of the way there (it's designed for the 3 races - I have to take what I can get). It involves double sessions of running (like a 4 mile AM run followed by a 3 mile PM run). I move it closer to my long run day over a span of 8 weeks, until I run my double session Saturday with my long run (10 miler) on Sunday.

So, the girl who can't even drag her sorry ass out of bed in the dark right now and run when it's 30 degrees will not only have to drag her sorry ass out of bed, but then drag her sorry ass out after work, too. Really? Really. The girl who slacks hard on marathon training plans is going to start running marathon volume (35ish miles a week) with 5 runs a week? Really?

The great thing is: I'm scared. Scared of that deep, black pain of racing when you're unprepared for a race. The agony of your brain and your legs battling about when to stop. The fear of running by Ma 'n' Pa Boots and crying out, "What the fuck was I thinking?!" (which will probably happen regardless of how much I train, really).

The fear of that pain consumes all my excuses. Every time I'm on the fence about going out for a run, I think about running 13.1 miles with a day's worth of lactic acid in my muscles because I wasn't prepared for a 10K/5K/4M. And the searing, shooting, gnawing pain, mentally and physically needed to get through this, let alone trying to get through it via half-assery. And then my running shoes are magically tied and ready to go.

I hope this motivation-by-way-of-fear lasts. I hope that my legs can sustain this beating. And I hope that I can bask in the fruits of my labors by crossing 4 finish lines in under 48 hours.

B.A.A.? More like B. Ow. Ow.

Well, here we are. Post-race round up for the final BAA Distance Medley event: the half marathon.

I just read my pledge from my post-10K flop, and chuckled to myself. Oh, how naive I was back in June. A sub-two hour half. Very LOLz worthy.

So, I trained. I actually kept up with 3 or 4 days of running per week. With 3 or 4 weeks to go, I started notching 20+ miles a week again for the first time in over a year. I ran an 11-mile peak run. I even dragged myself out with a cold to make sure I had my 10-miler in last week, so that I had one more long run and more miles on my legs.

But secretly, I knew. All the miles and the spin classes and the core strengthening was merely to hang on, not to PR. The tempo runs, the lead-in-my-legs run was all for the goal of "finishing", which for my  6th (7th? I'm losing track) half marathon, is a pretty paltry goal.

But every time I hit the split time button on my watch, it was another pancake mile behind me. Flat as Ohio. The biggest hill I ran around the Charles was the JFK Bridge near the Harvard boathouse. And THIS is the elevation profile for the BAA Half Marathon:

Maybe you didn't notice THIS:

My glutes and quads just started weeping from the PTSD.
At the information session that the BAA held back in August about the half, some unsuspecting lass asked what the "Heartbreak Hill" was for the half. I scoffed at her question, for two reasons: 1. Heartbreak Hill is so humbling because of where it falls in the race (mile 20) not because you're scaling Everest. In a half marathon, there is no "wall" because you never deplete your glycogen enough. So there is no Heartbreak. 2. THE WHOLE FUCKING COURSE IS HEARTBREAK HILL.

It was a beautiful race day. Fifty degrees, just a little breeze, sunny. The 11.5 to the 20K mark was through the zoo, so I saw some camels and something that kind of looked like Pumba from the Lion King. There was gorgeous foliage around the JP Pond, and spectators throughout the majority of the course.

There were these awful banking curves, unkept paths, and a short section on a trail that everyone slowed down on.

And there was pain. So. Much. Pain.

I know I whine a lot about courses. I've run the Quincy Half twice, and each time I finish, I vow to never run it agin, because of all of the hills. This year was no exception. But, when I ran Quincy this past May, I was completely undertrained (I had peaked back in March, and then the race was postponed due to a blizzard THANKS, NEW ENGLAND). While Quincy is hilly, it's not ruthless. There are shorter, steep hills, but nothing as soul-sucking as rolling hills for 13 miles. The pain I felt in Quincy was lack of miles on my legs.

The pain I felt yesterday was due to pure torture. I had to keep reminding myself that I was prepared for this. That I trained for this. That I was ready for this, even though my hips and glutes were exploding. The hills were ruthless. The bar has been set; all other courses will now be compared to the BAA Half (and they will all probably look like lovely skips through flowery fields).

In the end, the training really did pay off. Regardless of the evil, demoralizing course, I shaved 2 minutes off of my 2013 Quincy time to finish in 2:14:16. Not my sub-two hour goal I was looking for; but I finished - which doesn't seem as paltry now.

Back to School

I guess I’ve been treating running like it’s college: as long as I accumulate miles on my legs, regardless of the frequency, I’ll be able to move to the next level. Cs get degrees. Since I’ve run marathons, my legs will remember that, and I can do any race without preparation.

Unfortunately, running is like most things you learn in school: if you don’t use it, you lose it.

I ran the BAA 10K for the 3^rd year in a row yesterday. The heat was oppressive (but it always is at this race – why would that be any different?). The hills on Comm Ave were rolling (but they always are – how could that change?).

I clocked a 1:02:19. Not my worst, but definitely not my best (especially when, in my head, I was going for a 55:00-er).

I sat at my post-race brunch, perplexed. I said to my running partner/BFFL: “I feel like I’m in better shape than I was for the 2011 10K (when I ran a sub-hour), but for some reason, the clock says otherwise.”

To which Mr. Running Boots kept it real: “I think you were running a lot more back then.”

Ugh.

He’s right.

Ugh.

I got home and looked at my running logs, and the proof of my 1:02:19 stared back at me. Four mile weeks. Six mile weeks. Running twice a week, if that. I can’t believe I even did it as fast as I did. (My legs are also killing me today. After 6 miles. Six miles. I used to run 14, 15 miles at a time. The shame.)

And just like my ability to conjugate –ar verbs in Spanish, I’ve lost it.

The final event of the BAA Medley, the half marathon, is in my crosshairs. I have 16 weeks to train up to that – 12 of formal training, and 4 to ramp me up to avoid blowing out my legs.

I really, really want to run a sub-2 hour half.

But I think I should also focus on something I’ve never really been able to do: stick to the plan. Do all my homework. Ace all my tests. Get an A.

On the syllabus this week: Running four days this week, including a long run of four miles, for a total of 11 miles.

Class is in session. 

For Boston

Today was a hard day. The Boston Marathon is something I hold so close - because this is my city. This my event. My running the Marathon changed my life and the very fabric of my identity. To run Boston restores your faith in humanity - from all the amazing causes people fundraise and run for,  the kindess of strangers who live along the route and pass out food and water to runners, to a generally grumpy and sarcastic city opening their small and mighty city to the world - it is the epitome of the human spirit: resilient, kind, and connected.

The events from today looked to be the antagonist of the Spirt of the Boston Marathon. Whoever is responsible was seeking to shake that spirit and destroy the bond within the global running community, Boston, and beyond.

I've experienced so many injuries from running (as most runners do) - hammies, knees, blisters - the list goes on and on. But as any injured runner knows, it'll heal, and you can get back out and hit the road. The stories of cancer survivors and trauma survivors who turn to running to heal themselves and go on to help others are countless. The running community has learned from running that nothing happens overnight, but that gradually and with support from our fellow runners (and non-runners alike), we can heal, we can accomplish, we can contribute to something bigger than ourselves.

The stories of humanity are already starting to surface: the first responders on the scene, running into the oblivion, to help victims. The nurses and the doctors in the medical tents who triaged patients with grave injuries, even though they thought the worst they'd face today was some dehydration or some chafed nipples. The residents of Boston banding together to offer vistiors anything - a phone charger, a place to stay, a hot shower, food - in a giant Google doc.

Today's events cut me to my very core. My home, my friends, my co-runners, my spiritual center was attacked by someone I don't know for reasons I had no control over. I cried for the victims. I cried for that patch of Boylston St. and my running store. I cried for those runners whose personal victories are now overshadowed by this atrocity. I cried for the runners who were not able to finish the race, after 16+ weeks of training and mental preparation. I cried because I felt like someone had hurt one of my closest friends or family members.

But tomorrow, I will lace up again. I will wear my "Boston Runnah" t-shirt. I will run my quiet 3-mile loop around the Charles River. And I, with my fellow Bostonians and runners, will begin to heal.