Weekend Recap

I realized I didn't make one post this weekend. Perhaps because it was such a weird running week; rainy weather and what was kind of a short run of 12 miles. Kris, D and I ran a little bit of a different route on Saturday. We have only been as far south as Ohio St. Beach but when we hit that marker, we decided to keep going. I had my new Garmin watch on so we could afford to go off the plan (a biiiiig step for me) and still run the correct amount. So we ran to the "dirty south!" The stretch along Lake Shore Dr. was so dirty and dusty I felt like I would have to start yelling Marco Polo to find Kris and D. We turned around at the Museum Campus and figured out we could stay "low" on the path and run along the harbor. It basically felt like we were running through a war torn area with the potholes and cracks...this was no Foster Beach/Montrose cinder running trail. I guess we're North Siders until the end! It was nice to do a different route, but it was a little more "extreme running."

My feet and hips definitely felt better thanks to the little temporary insert the Doc put in my shoes...I'm kind of excited to get my orthotics! Does that sound kind of weird? I wonder if I'll be excited one day to get my knee replacement or the handle in the bath tub to make getting in and out a lot safer. Oh, the life of someone who used to be an athlete trying to claim this title again.

This should be one heck of a week. We have 4, 9, 5 and then....dunhdunhdunh 18! D said 18 is like how 15 was for me. I think I'm just in denial. I'm gonna throw this out there; we would LOVE to have people meet up with us on the trail and run some portions. We are nervous that we will run out of things to talk about! So, if you have some free time early this Saturday morning, we'd love to have you. Since I didn't post this weekend, I missed the shout out to our friend Jess M for her Birthday. Happy Birthday!

Old Feet

I finally broke down and went to a podiatrist this morning. I always had some problem with pronating which caused achilles and knee pain but I could manage in the teenage years. One of the reasons I took the hiatus from running was the achilles pain..too much to bare when I wasn't even competing for anything. I tried some Super Feet inserts from the running store and they were miracle workers on my achilles but i have had some arch pain and my hips and hamstrings were sore... a lot! A had quite a nice experience this morning. I was fitted for custom orthotics (yep, I have some bad feet) for running/sports, encouraged to stretch my calves more and to keep up my core exercises (I'm not sure I want to tell my trainer this because I fear I'll be doing even crazier things than balancing on a bosu ball with one leg while doing squats). The Doc already put little extra inserts in my shoes and I feel a thousand times better. I highly recommend the Running Institue! Orthotics should arrive in 2 weeks...Just in time for the Crystal Lake Half Marathon on Sept 13th. Woohooo.

We have 12 miles this weekend....nice to have a low key run. Hah! 12 miles and low key don't seem to match. It's still over a 2 hour run, but just doesn't sound the same as SIXTEEN. I'll get to try out my Garmin watch for a long run now that I tested it out last night...I think I'm gonna love it! Have a great Friday.

A Moment of Thanks

I just want to take a moment to recognize Senator "Ted Kennedy" whose legislative support of Title IX greatly impacted my life and many of my female friends. We are the generation of children that grew up reaping the benefits of his constant championing and development (and consequential push for reinstatement) of Title IX. I'm pretty certain my mom could have been a wicked basketball player, but she didn't have the opportunity that I did. Without Title IX, my high school basketball coach may not have won the fight to have equal gym time for our basketball team (yes, he had to fight for this in 1994). Or, our complaints might not have been heard in track to allow the girls to have more than 2 out of 8 lanes during track practice. When I was in college, I had the privilege of sitting on our intercollegiate athletic board for a semester where they were still struggling to meet a 40/60 female to male monetary support of sports.

Did you know women were not allowed to run the Boston Marathon until 1972? Funny to think about the need to keep people from running 26.2 miles, but they did. One of my favorite stories of a woman (helped by her male coach) staking a claim in sports is the one of Syracuse college student, Katherine Switzer, "illegally" running the Boston Course in 1967 with a number she obtained through just registering under her initials. A course manager was so mad about it he tried to rip her numbers off while she was running. Check out her site and look at the pictures at the bottom showing that cooky guy and his actions and her coach defending her.

I just want to say that I'm not for taking sports opportunities away from boys; I think athletics offer so much to both genders; just want to keep equal options for both!

I may never be faster than Kris or Darren, but I sure am happy that I can run beside them. While girls/women aren't currently as fast or as strong as their male counterparts, who knows what will happen in 50 years...We have a lot of missed time and catching up to do.

November in August

Yick! What is with this weather? It is a gloomy rainy day here in Chicago and we didn't get our 8 in this morning as it was too rainy. All three of us have decided to do the 8 tomorrow morning and if it rains, we'll just have to deal. Of course, unless there is lightning. Maybe I'll have to do a search on google for some running ponchos! I really hate missing days of running. In my paranoid head, I think, "this could be the day I miss that causes me to not be able to finish the marathon." Not logical, I know, but I've never been much of a rule breaker. If the book says run 8 miles then I have to run 8 miles on this day, no matter what. I like my schedules and function much better in life when I know what's coming. That's not to say I'm not adaptable; I think I'm pretty level headed when things "come up," but I like to do what I can to prevent it. I think of my friend Stacy C who thrives on being flexible and I think would love a different schedule every day. Not me!

I just keep telling myself that an extra day of rest will help with my sore hamstring. The hot tub at the health club is calling my name.

Gadgets!

Today was a beautiful day for a morning run. All three of us were on the road at 6:15 for a very nice 4 miler. It was just about 70 degrees and not much humidity which is rare for an August morning in Chicago. I am having a little hamstring pain but I think it's due to the fact that Kris and I went to my mom's on Saturday after the 16 miler and had to take a long hike to the beach carrying a LOT of stuff and a big hairy dog. Or maybe it was the beach volleyball or perhaps the bike trip back from the beach where I rode behind the bumper of the pick up truck that was carrying my niece (she was loving that I could keep up). Take your pick!

Kris met me for lunch today and he had a big smile on his face! He let me know he bought "us" (really me) the garmin running watch. We had talked about this and said we could find some other things to spend that money on (ummmm, like the dog that was in my dream last night from the Caesar dog food commercial)but he found a great deal on ebay! I'm pretty excited because it tracks how far and how fast you have run using GPS; the same system Garmin uses for their car GPS. This will solve all of my problems about worrying if we have gone far enough. Also, I won't be asking Darren every half hour how far we've gone according to his Nike Plus. I had to lay off of this during the poop run for his benefit. Darren can now stop guilting Jeff T. into giving us his because he never uses it. Tomorrow morning is an 8 miler and it's usually the most difficult run of the week; D and I talked about taking the day off when we have our weekday 10 miler. I'm surprised nobody commented on the poop post. We would love to hear your thoughts! Oh, a big shout out to our friend Sam W. who is celebrating a Birthday today. Wooohhooo!

Conflicts of interest . . .

I'm using this first post of mine as a defense of my training habits. As you can tell from Starr and Kris' bevy of words, I tend to not take care of myself and would rather sacrifice a good night's sleep and a nice, hot meal for a Delirium Tremens (both liquid and physical), a basket of wings and two hours of sleep. And in an effort to be transparent, they are telling the truth.

Although my interests conflict with the training, I have, pretty much, kept up a consistent, and, cross your fingers, injury-free, running schedule. There is no way I would have been able to do as much running if it weren't for Starr and Kris, but I did start the training process a little earlier than them on my own (and on a track . . . yuck), and I haven't compromised the main goal at hand: to train for a marathon without giving up my habits. The reason for this goal is simple. If I can train and complete the marathon (without killing myself) and still enjoy the summer (and drink like a fish), then ANYONE can do it. For reals!

Just think of me doing all of this for YOU. My own little experiment for all to see. Hey, it was either run a marathon or practice all summer on perfecting a Strike Out.

So yeah, I did pretty much crap my pants last Saturday, and most of the time, I am still a little tipsy (sorry mom) on the super long runs, but I have finished all of them. I did have a self-intervention on Sunday though, where I decided to use September as the "month of cleansing."

It probably won't happen. Whatever.

Nature calls even at 16 miles

As much as I try to plan these runs, nobody can really predict how a long run will turn out. The run began with Kris and I knocking on Darren's door at 5:50 as he was nowhere in sight at "our spot" at 5:30. We jogged back home and texted him with no answer. There have been some muggings of men in our neighborhood so I was all worried! It turns out, D's alarm is set to his cd player and it was just skipping along. Phew! Once we started we were all loving how it felt almost cold outside. It felt great. About 5 minutes into our run, i had to make a quick pee break which, little did I know, set the tone for our run. Kris had to make a couple of stops the first part or our run as well and I happily took advantage. I think it was all related to us being very cognisant of staying hydrated but the cool weather greatly decreased our sweating.

Ok, now comes to the subject that all of the sudden dominated much of the second part of our training run. Poop! Yes, I said it, poop. Come on, everyone does it and it is a part of our training so I will share with you. Kris, D and I have joked about it before as Kris's cousin, Stacy (who has run a half a dozen marathons), told us all about runners trots and how people get it (not her!). I won't go into it so you'll have to google it on your own.

Running the early morning long runs it's inevitable to come into play. I was the first person to have to find a creative place to go to the bathroom during a 9 miler in Door County. Last week, we were walking home from our 15 miler and all of the sudden Kris said, "umm, I gotta go" and he took off towards home. Well, yesterday, it was D's turn. I think his quick, fire drill to get out the door this morning had something to do with it. We were about 30 minutes from foster beach which has a full facility bathroom and all of the sudden D shared that it was his turn to "need the bathroom." We offered to stop somewhere at Montrose but he said he could wait. We came upon a long stretch and he said he was just going to go ahead 'cuz he had to go. He dramatically picked up the pace and as he was almost out of site, i realized, we were at the spot that feels like we are close to Foster, but really over half a mile away! Oh no! Darren would be sprinting for a long time and I was hoping he would make it. Good news! He made it. Bad news, I don't think he felt very well the rest of the run. Very proud of Darren though because he basically gutted out the last 5 miles of our run. Talking was limited and he looked very focused.

No matter how much we train and prepare, "stuff happens," literally. Nature is nature and it's these types of things that makes the marathon training always eventful. Sorry for the gross post, but I wanted to offer full transparency :). I'm off for brunch with the ladies this morning for some much needed, non poop talk. Have a great week!