Timing

Proudly, I did not have to sacrifice any of my runs to Mother Nature this week, despite an ice storm. I was able to switch around the days and run the longest of the cycle, 20 miles, a bit later in the day after the ice had melted. I think I timed it well. However, there were several times as I dodged fallen limbs and gently padded across icy sections that I wondered if I was crazy. Is this running a passion or obsession? In my estimation, passions are okay, obsessions are not.

In the wake of the 20-miler, once again, little or no muscle soreness, except my hips. Must be time for new shoes.

I haven't been good about the weekly confessional. Nothing confessed last week. Here's a confession: I really like disco. Who can sit still when there's a disco tune playing? My musical tastes are so unrefined. I can listen to classical music, but it's not my first choice.

General Training Update

Running life is going well. I had my longest run yet of the training cycle, 19 miles, on Sunday morning. While the northeast received the famed "Blizzard '05," we in the southeastern U.S. just got cold temperatures (relatively speaking) and wind. Once I got warmed up, it wasn't too bad. Amazingly, I felt decent after the run; no muscular soreness, but a strange soreness in my hips and pelvis. This feeling subsided and I had a nice 5-miler last night. In the last training cycle I never had a day of running following a long run so this experience was something new - a proud accomplishment.

I'm finishing up reading Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation and plan to record my reflections here once complete. I want to take some time to stew on my conclusions before I put them together.

In other news... less than two weeks away from the marathon in March, husband and I are embarking on our annual pilgrimage to Las Vegas to gorge ourselves on blackjack, sin and degradation. Okay, maybe just blackjack. My current missions for the trip include the everlasting desire to go bowling at 3:00 a.m., eat at an In-n-Out Burger (thanks to Schlosser's plug in the book) and learn how to play craps. Admittedly, I am also caught up in the wave of interest in Texas Hold 'Em poker. If the opportunity presents itself to lose some money to other dead money slacks and hacks in the Bellagio, I may don some sunglasses and participate. Of course, being that I've turned into something of a running addict, I've been scheming and figuring how many runs in my schedule I'll fit in, where I'll run, etc. Sad. I often preach that life is about a happy medium. Sometimes I wonder if I'm off kilt with this running stuff to compensate for other missing variables in my life. If I had to guess, I'd say that I'm deeply dissatisfied with my professional life. I have virtually no sense of satisfaction from my current position of telling people to get off of their cell phones and calling maintenance about a toilet overflowing in stall two. Each day I question what my true professional purpose in life. Questioning is a good thing.

The Weekly Confessional

Running life of late has been fairly mundane. After the rain run, I've just been plugging away on the miles with one marathon pace run of 9 miles that went extraordinarily well, except that I don't think I have any hope of running that pace on a hilly Knoxville course.

I've decided to start the weekly confessional. By nature I hold most of my thoughts, feelings and emotions close to the vest. I feel the need to share to this obscure world of nothingness, where I'm not sure if people (besides my husband) actually read these insipid posts.

This week's confession: I hate small talk. Hate may be a strong word, but it's the only feeling that can truly express the ire I feel for the mundane conversations of the every day. I dread Monday mornings because I know that once I walk into the office I know I'll be confronted with the hollow "How was your weekend? Did you do anything fun?" from no less than five people. God forbid I see someone I know on the walk from the train station or in the elevator on the way to the office. Both of these venues serve as an unfortunate forced catalyst for tiny conversations. Often times I wonder what life would be like without the "how was your vacations?" Probably the result would be a wealth of what some people perceive as uncomfortable silence through which they could no longer mask bodily utterances and such. It's easy to slip in a burp in the amidst the muttering of small talk. I'm certain some bit of flatulence has been facilitated and disregarded during one of these exchanges with a mere clearing of the throat. I suppose I could have people avoid small talk with me personally (but many people avoid me in general anyways, because I'm not much of a talker) by answering their questions too honestly. When they ask "how was your weekend?" I could respond with, "it was okay except that my hemorrhoids are acting up again - real pain in the butt." I fully understand the intent behind the questions and menial conversations, but it's just another tedious part of life that we must somehow endure.

Up the Down Escalator

After I sing the praises of my trusty Garmin Forerunner, the thing craps out on me! I must say, however, that Garmin is extremely accomodating with their product as they've provided superior customer service with replacing the unit.

Nonetheless, I've been running on without it guessing my distance based upon time and the recorded distance of familiar routes.

Last night I completed what I think to be a 9 mile run in a virtual downpour. I wouldn't have had to run in the rain if I didn't chicken out on Wednesday night so I could catch more of the Carolina/Georgia Tech basketball game. At first I was kicking myself as my clothes grew more saturated and my shoes became completely waterlogged with each step. In the end I reconciled myself to the task, thinking that 1. this challenge can only make me stronger and 2. the upcoming marathon might be a downpour too, so this run is good preparation.

I encountered the most strange sensation running up hills as the water cascaded down towards me on the shoulder of the road. There were moments when I felt as though I wasn't even moving or as though I was running up a down escalator, not making up much ground.

Interestingly enough, as I exited the train on my way home from work earlier in the day I watched a foolish man, frustrated by a convenient stairwell closed for repairs, attempt to go down the up escalator. My husband and I did this one time as we left a rather large event. We both made it down unscathed, but the event was quite possibly one of the stupidest things I ever done in my adult life. The man last night at the station was not so lucky. I could see the glimmer of daredevilishness in his eyes as he backed up to get a running start. He made a few of the moving steps before the mechanical conveyor flung backwards in swift motion. He popped back up again; I could not continue to watch him struggle and kept moving to the safe sane exit.

A Running Line of Poetry

No run today as it's sort of a scheduled day of rest. Instead I reflected on things I have seen during runs; while I move safely in my fragile mobile cocoon through life, the rest of the world turns as well. One morning there was a woman screaming at a man, calling him a b***** and other curse words not masculine in nature. Apparently he had just struck the woman and now she threatened to call someone as her hands shook dialing the cell phone and she pounded her fist on the old Honda Accord in front of her. I kept moving so I had no idea how the situation resolved. I never heard sirens. Another morning I witnessed an old man beating the hood of a small SUV and yelling. The woman inside honked at him and kept moving on. He saw her green vehicle as getting in his way, almost hitting him. While she saw him as an obstacle to her next stop in life. I waited at a stop light to cross (jogging in place as I waited of course) when I was approached by man who looked hopped up on crack with a "Got Milk" t-shirt on. He asked me if I was running, to which I replied affirmatively. Then he proceeded to inspect my non-running physique and wished me good day (in so many words). All of these moments are like .mpgs - just snippets of the lives of others which I crossed through as an observer.


Sunday morning
with Frank Sinatra
Reflecting upon life as it stands
the lights come on
the world spins again
by the hands and wrists.

That’s life he says.
A lover whispers in
her eye and rolls over
then gets up,
cleans off and walks away.
Now that we’ve made love,
I’ll leave.

Broken breakfast of half-cooked
faux eggs
hung over thickly buttered cold toast
and a single-toothed woman
with rare delivery buzzes about
making sure the burgeoning alcoholics
are equipped with coffee to make it
through sputtered conversations of obvious
concepts
the day’s agendas
what we did last night
you were so funny
what was that about a pitchfork
as you massaged his...?
Anything to avoid the real issue at hand.
The trivia of every day is so only personally crucial.

They move moderately by involved
on the streets
beneath trees and around the courses
in their own little world
improving bodies and churning
papers to write and read
children to feed and
vacuuming

Just a passing shade in the driver’s day
the old man beats on the hood of
the woman’s car and she speeds off
with blood pressure rising
angry at the man she almost maimed
the phone rings and she forgets
moving back into her safe green bubble.

In the morning quiet
she wonders about the small fish
in the big sea
she’s nothing but a fable of her
former self
no reputation to precede her in
this awkward torment
longing

A dewy man awakens
and tucks his cardboard bed behind the church steps
and waits in line for half the morning
his cup of coffee and sticky oatmeal
on the cold concrete steps
which the ubiquitous they say
can lead to hemorrhoids
the least of his worries
with visions of today’s activities
what corner to stake out
or the usual routine
three dollars is enough.

The father didn’t want to go home yet
and arrived with groceries,
Oreos that would last only one day,
just before the children awoke
how about pancakes while
I read the paper
watch Charles Kuralt
and swim through last night when
I escaped this single
entity with other people
just as desperate and sorry as
me
Don Ho at the Hu Ke Lau
I tried to woo her at Denny’s
she’ll be hopping into the shower with
me later
we’ll go rollerskating later
and this time we won’t be late.
I promise.
This Sunday morning was always
His valiant effort at righteous fatherhood.

Introductions...

Being as this post is the first, here's the skinny on runninchick. I'm a 30 year old female who started running as a consequence of playing sports in high school. Though I played three sports, I was never a "good" athlete. I played basketball; a fact that's an absolute farce given that I'm barely 5'2" tall. Basketball was perhaps my worst sport. However, during my senior year, after the season concluded, I participated in the annual "shoot-a-thon." Each member of the team had to shoot 25 foul shots. For some reason when I went out to the gym that night, I wore my glasses (I am horribly near-sighted). In all basketball practices, I probably would make less than half of a series of foul shots. This night was different; I made 22 or 23 out of the 25. To think if I never realized my talent as an athlete due to my poor sight. Perhaps that's why I continue to have dreams of playing high school sports often. As far as running goes, I've never been fast. Even the fat kids in gym class would beat me. Nonetheless, I enjoyed running for distance rather than speed. Our field hockey coach would give us timed out and back runs. Another member of the team and I would always be at the lead out, and eventually lead back after we passed the entire team coming back.

I've taken a fancy of late to training for marathons. This fondness for distance running began when I decided to run the Chickamauga Battlefield Marathon in Georgia back in November. The race closely followed my recent milestone birthday and seemed like a good way to celebrate getting older. Many have said that the 30th birthday was the coming of age, particularly of one's body. At this point, a person's metabolism slows down and so begins the slow decline into middle age. Rather than succumb to these natural forces, I decided to try to get into the proverbial "best shape of my life" by training for a marathon. I wouldn't say that I'd necessarily fulfilled this goal as I still have cottage cheese thighs and didn't lose a whole lot of weight. Yet, the venture proved successful in better fitting clothes. In this marathon I pursued the goal of breaking the magic four hour mark, but was unsuccessful by about a minute or so. Painfully enough, the race results people somehow lost my results, so I'm unsure of my official time. This event particularly perturbed me because there exists no proof of my participation and completion in this race, other than photos taken by my husband. I probably would have been more upset if I'd qualified for Boston and they'd lost my finishing time though.

Following Chickamauga, I was hooked on marathoning. After the initial soreness in my quads wore off, I began plotting the next challenge. Geography served as the most significant factor in decision-making, resulting in the selection of the Knoxville Marathon in March. I certainly don't anticipate meeting my previous goal time given the hilly environs of Knoxville. Nonetheless, I look forward to having my finishing agony magnified on the jumbotron of UT's stadium for all to see.

As with the previous marathon, I'm using Hal Higdon's Intermediate II program (www.halhigdon.com). I think this program served me well in Chickamauga despite not achieving my goal. As a modification, I'm breaking Higdon's 20 mile max. rule; I'll try to get 21 and 22 mile runs in before the race. In future races, I'll probably try to branch out for more advanced programs integrating speedwork, but for now this plan should work.

Nearly 99% of my training runs are completed solo. The biggest aid to these solo runs has been the company of a Garmin Forerunner (www.garmin.com). With the Garmin I can track my routes with relative accuracy and maintain a decent pace. Without the GPS, I would probably muddle through runs at a snail's pace. Why run solo? Honestly, I haven't found anyone to run with. Being socially inept, I haven't made "friends" with anyone since moving to a new place two and half years ago. I joined the local track club hoping to change this condition, but I haven't taken total advantage of the membership as of yet. The one race that was to feature a social gathering afterwards for new members was cancelled due to the wreckage left by inclement weather (stupid hurricanes). A friend of mine is amazed at my ability to complete this training alone. She has a great support group; her parents ride bikes with her on her long training runs. Though, the 3+ hours I may spend on a true long run (19+) serve as a good mental time to run through my life.

About today's run: my 17-miler went much better than I would have expected. The weather was superb and I felt strong the whole way through. One new strategy I tried post run was to use chocolate milk as a recovery drink. In the last training cycle I would eat an energy immediately after a longer run. Chocolate milk has the good 4:1 ratio of carbs/protein for replenishing glycogen and repairing muscles.