This Running Life

I was on spring break this week. So, I stayed away from the office mostly and did some home improvement projects at home, such as repainting doors in the house, especially the ones my sons have run into, drawn on, slammed, scratched, and abused.

But today I started playing around on my MAC, and after downloading a freeware program called GIMP, which is much like photoshop/paintshop, I created a new banner for the blog. Hopefully you can see it. I’d love to know what you think.

A friend of mine has a friend….who swears by the IT band support by Cho-Pat. So I ordered one. No running until Friday at the earliest, and only then will I do no more than 2 miles. It is usually after 3 that I hurt. So, I’ll do a bunch of 2 milers before the race. My new It Band support will be here late in the week or early next. Just in time to use for the race.

Hot baths, stretching, icing, and ibuprofen in the meantime.

Here is a pic:

For the past two weeks, during my long runs, my right IT band has really tightened up and been quite painful, to the point I had to stop and walk. I am really concerned. 13 days until Dallas and I have this issue! Here is the plan: no more running until Dallas. My triathlete friend says that this close to the race my fitness is already set, but that speed will be the issue. I’ve never been really consumed with speed. I just want to finish. So, I’ll rest it, lay off running and do only spin class and other cardio exercises. There is little to no swelling, and by this morning the pain has all but disappeared. I plan to ice it twice a day after stretching the fool out of it, while popping Ibuprofen.

This is really frustrating. Just when I get to the point where I feel good about this, I have another nagging injury. I was supposed to run 8 yesterday, but eeked out 6.4, the last 3/4 mile walking.

The problem is that until 3.5 miles into my run yesterday, everything felt great. My feet felt good, had no calf or achilles issues, my pace was solid, then wham!

If you are the praying type, say a little one for me and my mood and my IT band.

I registered for the Disney marathon last night. So it is official. I am running in January 2009 at Disney. I had waited a little while before signing up but saw on a forum last week (www.disneyrunning.com–great site!) that the race was already half full. I pulled the trigger and registered, even buying my own timing chip to mark the occasion.

Here’s the weird thing. As soon as I pressed the “pay” button, I got all nervous and fearful. We are talking about 26.2 miles, and thousands of people. What makes me think I can run it? Am I crazy? Will I finish? Nothing like signing your name on the dotted line to ramp things up.

The following was on the Disney Running forums and was originally at a blog called “The Subterranean Homesick Noos” (http://shnoos.com/OldNoos/2007/marathon/marathon.htm)

5 Reasons NOT to run a Marathon

ONE: BECAUSE IT’S INSANE.
Only a person who has slipped in some idiot juice and fallen face-first into a vat of “I’m off my tree” would even consider it. Insanity clean-up on aisle three!

Think about it: driving for 26.2 miles is a pain in the arse, and you’re thinking about running it with 40,000 people in your car?

Here’s a suggestion. Slip a stone into your shoe and walk around for 6 hours. Then see how on top of Ol’ Smokey and covered in failure you feel. Oh, and don’t forget to surround yourself with other insane asylum escapees who will happily throw little paper cups of sticky liquid in your face and call it “aid”.

‘Cause that’s a marathon.

And if you’re still going to do it, you’re playing footsies with your own delusions. You’re slick with the idiot juice. Practically pickled in it after four months of training.

IN-SANE.

And you’ll know you’re insane at Mile 18 of your precious marathon. You’ll shake hands with Mile 18 and discover it has a cold, wet-fish handshake that lingers a little too long.

But there’s more. Over mile 18’s shoulder, you’ll spot something else. In the distance. Here comes Insanity Check, riding over the horizon on a ruddy great mare. This sinewy thoroughbred will pull up right in front of you and snort in your reddened face. At which point Insanity Check will dismount and stick a fork in your thigh to see if any juice comes out. And none will.

‘Cause that’s a marathon.

That’s why insane people scream.

Which brings us to the second reason NOT to run a marathon.

TWO: IT HURTS MORE THAN YOUR NEIGHBOR PLAYING CELINE DION AT 3AM.
Unless you work at Marlene’s House of Pleasure and Pain (50% off on Bring your own Whip Wednesdays), you don’t have to put up with that shit.

Seriously, if your knees are crying like baby kittens left in a burlap sack, GIVE UP! If the arches of your feet are burning brighter than banned books at a bonfire, PACK IT IN! And when you see a couple duck out of the race and into the subway in Brooklyn, don’t think ‘Losers’. Think, ‘Now that’s smart.’

For God’s sake, don’t shuffle on.

So what if your friends are at a pub on First Avenue and 88th Street? So what if that happens to be mile 18 and their cheers give you the will to carry on? In the Bronx at mile 21 you’ll curse them to hell and back. You’ll resent them for not telling you to stop and come inside for a beer. A. Nice. Cold. Beer. And that pain in your foot? It’s not going to go away.

Hobbling up the hill on 5th Avenue – a hill that’s longer than a Kevin Costner directed epic – you’ll have a pain epiphany.

You’ll see your body for what it really is. A machine. A ruthless, selfish, hungry beast that is sucking every conceivable gram of energy out of you with its pistons and gaskets and hydraulic need.

It will feed on itself and steal what it can from your blood, your teeth and your hair. It will raid the cupboard of your daydreams and suck the color from the freckles of your face. And it will never stop.

There will be a point where even running through the sticky dried carpet of Gatorade on the road requires too much effort. Too much pain to lift your feet off the sticky tarmac.

The thought that you will need to willingly run though all of this and suffer the consequences in the days after – grinning wildly as you prop your feet up on a pillow – simply proves the first point.

THREE: PEOPLE MIGHT ADMIRE YOU.
Who the hell needs admirers? If you’re looking for buddies, get on Facebook and friend farm ’til the zombies come home. Join Twitter and follow someone off a cliff. Start blogging long and meaningful posts about your dog, then search optimize that puppy.

What you don’t need in life is random comments from real people who are standing right in front of you. Comments about how awesome they think you are. Or how proud they are of you.

You don’t need people to tell you that when you texted them at mile 11, just to let them know you had leg cramps and had stopped at a med tent for salt, it felt as though they’d just heard you’d been shot.

And you sure as hell don’t need someone telling you that when they saw you on First Avenue running towards them at 88th Street, they thought to themselves, “Holy shit, she’s really going to do it.”

Do you really need to see them jumping up and down on the side of the road, and screaming for you, and hugging and chasing after you? Really?

Because who the hell knows how to deal with that kind of in-your-face compliment? How do you even react to that kind of reality? That would mean you have friends. That would mean that you were actually doing something extraordinary.

And face it. We all know that’s just not you.

FOUR: MEETING PEOPLE. IT’S IRRITATING.
Runners belong to the worst kind of cult. They have secret codes and a language with words like fartlek and GU, but they don’t have a well-fortified compound.

They just start conversations. Randomly. With anyone. It’s annoying. They talk to you at the start of a race, about all sorts of messed up shit. Like how to avoid chaffing like wheat in a threshing machine. And you’ve never even met them before in your life!

It’s like they think that just because we’re all sliding around in our body glide together, they have some right to slide all over you. That you really want to feel like you’re part of something, and here’s your chance. Pfftt!

And then there are the ones that live on the other side of the country, who will randomly read your pathetic running blog on weendure.com and oh, wait for it, start a conversation with you.

Through the Internet.

They will spend four months encouraging and inspiring you to keep slogging away at your marathon training.

YOU WILL BE VERY IRRITATED!

Because that person is now watching you. And you want to quit, but you can’t because then you’d have to explain why to that person. That you’re too lazy. That it’s too hard. That your knees hurt. It’s too hot. You’ve got blisters. You’re too hung-over.

You can’t use these excuses because he’s doing the same marathon you are and you’re supposed to meet up at some point, face-to-face.

There’ll also be a surprise. You’ll find out that not everyone you meet on the Internet is an axe-wielding, homicidal psycho billy. Because you’ll meet up with them in a public place (you never can be sure, so pick somewhere crowded), and find out that runners are runners are runners and they’re a very irritatingly lovely cult, whether you meet them in the start corral or online.

Still, the Internet is filled to the gills with psychos. You might want to write that on a post it and stick it on the side of your monitor.

FIVE: YOU MIGHT LIKE YOURSELF.
The Supreme Being is totally against that. You need to always feel just a little unworthy in life. Aim to be at the top of the worthless class – the Valedictorian of Self-Loathing. Running a marathon is not going to help you achieve that goal.

Running a marathon will burn your body right down to the nub, while also flooding your soul tank with gallons of “I am the shit!” fuel. Who wants that?

Those last three miles through Central Park where you decide to run the rest of the way just to get it over with faster – what do you think that’ll do for you? Make you feel like you’re achieving something? Make you think that you’re overcoming the hardest challenge you’ve ever had in your life?

Do you really want people cheering you, and saying your name as you run past? Like you’re special or something? Trust me, you don’t want to feel special. It sucks.

If you’re running a marathon, you’re an idiot. You should be crying as you turn the corner at Columbus Circle. Because holy crapsticks in a crayon case, look at how wrecked you look on the JumboTron. Don’t throw your arms in the air just because you’re 500 yards from the finish. Drop out. Now. No one cares.

Actually, why aren’t you crying? You know, insanity hurts the whole family, and it’s not natural to feel this good when you’re actually feeling this bad.

To top it all off, now your face is hurting from the huge smile that you can’t seem to eradicate as you cross the finish line. More pain? Really? It’s over, and you can’t even walk. No medal slung around your neck, or silver blanket around your shoulders is gonna help you get to the truck where your bag is. A truck that’s even further away because you have the misfortune to have a surname that starts with an M.

And do you really think that your pain is gonna slip away like hot oil when you see your friends outside the park? Their hugs will just continue to trip the needle in your internal awesomeness meter to condition red. You don’t need that.

Trust me. If you know what’s good for you, don’t run a marathon. Stay in your safe little unchallenged cocoon because it’s easier. It’s nice and comfortable. And face it; after you’ve run a marathon, nothing lives up to that. Everything else is…bleh.

Just don’t do it. I dare you.

Noodle completed the NYC Marathon in 5 hours and 46 minutes. She plans to complete it next year minus the foot pain in 4.46.

Here endeth the missive

Noodle

©Janeen McCrae 2007

As much as I’d like to for this post to be all about Pink Floyd’s smash hit from the 1980s, alas, it is not.

I met Mr. Wall today. Actually, I met the Wall that bullies the normal walls. No. Check that. I met the bully who picks on the bully who torments normal running walls.

And, as we say in the South, he opened up a can of whoop-%$# on me!

Here’s the deal. My family is at the beach. My kids’ spring break never matches the one at the school where I teach. So they always head to the beach and leave dad alone in the house. I can’t sleep in my empty house. My family is like a snuggle blanket for me and without them around, I find it hard to relax.

So, last night I didn’t sleep well. Plus, I overslept. I find it easy to oversleep when your spouse isn’t around to tell you to shut off the snooze, or else.
With the late start, and a bad night’s sleep, I set out for a 12 mile run. The first in my life, I might add. After 5, I was tired and my legs hurt. I knew I was in trouble. By mile 8, I could have sat in someone’s yard and fallen asleep. My legs were killing me–the whole leg, from feet to knees to hips. No gas in the tank. I had my shot bloks, my camelbak. None of that was the issue. My body just decided enough was enough. When I ignored the pleadings of my body to stop all this madness, my body’s close friend, Mr. Titanium Wall, appeared. There was no breaking through that sucker. so I ran along the length of the wall until I hit 12 miles and then called it a day. I took more walk breaks than ever, too. I know this is an important step on the way to the Dallas Half Marathon, but boy was it hard today. This is the first time in this period of training that I felt this way. Must be a sure sign that it is time to taper.

That said, I still ran it in a respectable (for me) 2:38, with a 13 min per mile pace.

Here’s a little tidbit about the shot bloks. My struggles with shot bloks have been well documented here. I don’t like to start chewing into the things right away; they stick to your teeth, you can breath the small chunks down your windpipe, all sorts of trouble. So, I just wedge them in my cheek and treat them like a Jolly Rancher hard candy. Well, I was switching a blok to the other side of my mouth and accidentally inhaled an entire shot blok. Luckily, it went down my throat and not into my windpipe. There were a couple of seconds where I wondered if I would have to find some protruding object with which to perform some crude self-Heimlich maneuver, but it slid right down. Maybe I should stick to gels.

First, let me say that although I have only run 2 10-milers, this last one was awesome. I had energy, my legs didn’t hurt after 8, and I felt great. It was warmer than usual on a Sunday morning around 7 AM, but the day was beautiful. My first two miles were warm-up miles, slower pace and easy strides. But once I got into the zone, I was really going. I ran this 10 in 1:57, shaving some 13 minutes off of the first 10-miler last week. The half-marathon really is within grasp now.

As with last week’s run, I had my camelback and a bag of Clif Shot bloks. Since it was warmer, the bloks weren’t as stiff and hard as when it was 36 degrees. Much easier to chew, so no hacking on the road.

Okay. Now the legs story. I wore shorts. It was maybe 60 degrees, so not cold enough for tights. I was about 7 miles into my run down Island Drive (see pictures in an earlier post) when I ran by a house with a couple of pickups in the driveway and two older gentlemen in what appeared to be hunting gear. I gave the standard wave greeting, said good morning and jogged past them. As I went by, one of them said “good looking legs!” It took a moment for that to register with me. Getting ogled by an old man is not what most 40-year old men expect (nor wish) to hear while on long runs. While I remain faithful to my wife, I must confess that I much rather liked to have heard such a comment from a woman—-any woman. How did I respond? I shouted back to him, “I don’t know whether to say ‘thanks’ or to run faster.” I really don’t think my legs are that special. But I might post a pic here for you to vote on.

Running 8 miles later today. The time change really got me. But I rose early and saw the temp outside–29 degrees–which sealed my decision to not run. I’ll run after church today when the temps will be in the 60s.

Less than a month until Dallas. I registered this week, so I am official.

What happens when you run the best 10 miles of your life, a 60 year old man says you have “good looking legs” (and you’re a guy!), and you don’t choke on Clif Shot bloks?

Find out in the next post of Running To Disney. Coming soon.