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.
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.
posted by runninchick at 8:11 PM
1 Comments:
I came across your post as I was just looking for anything about running. Your blog has inspired me to record my own thoughts on running and life. It does not really matter if any actually reads this stuff or not. Some times it is just enough to write down. Or with the internet we can now throw out thoughts and observations to the wind and see if any notices or cares. Keep writing, you are good at it.
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