Race Recap - Flying Pig 2012

To say that I was anxious going into this race would be the understatement of the year. I set a lofty goal for myself, and the thought that 18 weeks of hard training could all be shot to hell because of the weather had me on the verge of tears all week long. I wanted those 10 seconds back. I wanted them BAD. I resigned myself to the fact that I would need to change my race strategy to account for the heat and humidity, but I knew that I wouldn't be happy with anything more than 3:59:59. I was an absolute wreck. Poor husband had probably had his fill of my moping and whining and self-deprecation - if I learned anything this training cycle, it's that I'm absolutely miserable during the taper period. I get pissy and restless and dream up all kinds of phantom injuries. This time around I had a stress fracture and a busted knee. And a blister, that was NOT imaginary, from my last long run leading up to race weekend. I spent the whole week freaking out about the blister and anything else I could think of to freak out about. I was a miserable person to be around. Sorry to everyone who had to suffer alongside me in real life.

Charlie and I at the Expo. I felt like the clock was teasing me - ha ha, you won't get sub-4, ha ha ha ha ha - I told you, I was losing my shiz.

On race morning I was up and out the door by 4:30, after a night full of tossing and turning. I had adopted a Lance Armstrong quote for the weekend, which is funny, because I don't really care for him. I tried to use it as a sleep mantra - "Pain is Temporary, Quitting is Forever." It didn't work. Well, it didn't work to sleep, anyway, but it must have had some psychological effect, because when the porta-potties had been visited and the bra had been stuffed with sport beans and salt, I went over and stood next to the 3:50 pace group in my assigned Pig Pen. I may have been able to get away with taking some giant steps back and wimping out, had I not run into my Somewhat Likeable Friend. I had been spotted! We chatted and she gave me a pseudo-pep talk, which is fitting, because it was her and her blog that inspired me to take up the hobby, to begin with. So there I stayed, next to the guy with the 3:50 balloons. The ceremonies went on, we sang the national anthem, and then - we were off! Well, kind of. It took a good 90 seconds to actually make it over the start line. But, we were off, and the miles began to tick by. Over the bridge and into Kentucky, west from Newport to Covington, another bridge, more downtown streets, and a third bridge back to Cincinnati.

Short trip to the west side, then back east down 7th, through a canyon of screaming, cheering spectators. It was absolutely amazing how many people were out to cheer us along. After that it was time to climb the hills - the long, steep incline up Gilbert and the stair-step hills through Eden Park, home of the famous inspirational phone booth.





Once the hills were behind us things really started to pick up - the segments through O'Bryonville and Hyde Park went by in the blink of an eye. I felt strong and full of energy. My beans and salt tablets were working exactly as I expected. No random bouts of nausea to derail me this year. The sun started to beat down as we left Hyde Park and Fairfax to enter the charming village of Mariemont, where the residents were waiting to spray us down with hoses. It was heavenly! Then it was on to the dreaded Columbia Parkway section of the course. It was so hot out there on the road with no shade trees. Turning off of the parkway was such a relief. We exited onto Eastern Ave and continued to run at a steady 8:46/mile pace down Eastern and finally onto Riverside. That's when I started to falter. Mile 23 was rough - the pacers were great, super encouraging, reminding us to take it just one mile at a time. Up until that point I had felt invincible, but the wheels were starting to fall off. I plodded on until somewhere in Mile 24, when I took a walk break through a water stop. Thankfully, I was able to start running again pretty much right away. The pace group was a little ahead of me, but the leader kept turning around to shout encouragement at me. The crowd lining the street was pretty awesome, too - this was when I started talking to myself - yes, out loud - telling myself to keep running, one foot in front of the other, you're almost there - and they just kept cheering me on.

Halfway into Mile 25, my legs just didn't want to go anymore, so I slowed to a walk/jog until I crested the final "WTF hill." I was ok with slow progress up that godforsaken hill, because I knew that I had plenty of time to reach my goal. Hell, I could have crawled that last .7 miles and still have made it in. That's about when I spotted the husband and the kid in the crowd. I couldn't possibly walk/jog past them, so I picked it up again. Husband managed to snap a single somewhat-ok picture of me - this is just past the point where I thought I was going to die. That chick in the tutu became my motivation - MUST BEAT THE TUTU! (and I did)

I crossed the finish line in 3:50:28. I collected my recovery snacks and water, had a brief celebration with Auntie Ann, and then continued on in search of the bag buses and my flip flops. After I got my stuff I collapsed on the grass. I *may* have cried in relief of actually meeting my goal. I was exhilarated.

After I met up with the fam, I celebrated with a berry weiss beer. Super tasty. It was a good day.

In the end, this was, hands down, the smartest training cycle I've ever done, and it resulted in the smartest race I've ever run. I followed the plan set out in the FIRST training plan (Run Less, Run Faster), but not the advanced mileage version. I missed one run in the middle, thanks to a business trip, and one run toward the end, when I was making sure that I didn't have an injured hip. Other than that, I did my speedwork religiously and didn't skimp on the mileage during my tempo runs. I pushed myself to approach The Wall on my long runs and developed a smart fuel/hydration/electrolyte replenishment strategy. I did the whole pre-race increased carb thing, but did it smartly, watching my carb/fat/protein percentages and being careful about where the carbs came from. And on race day, that all paid off, and then some.

I was still standing at the end of it :)

Reality Check

A friend of mine posted this article - How to Miss a Childhood - on FB, and I've been giving it a lot of thought. Technology is such a double-edged sword. On one hand, it makes it easier for us to be productive. On the other hand, it makes it easier for us to be productive, at the expense of staying "in the moment" and enjoying meaningful interactions with the people around us. I'm not trying to be all high-and-mighty, here. I'm just as guilty as everyone else - I spend more time messing around on the interwebs than I really need to. I read my Nook out on the lawn while C plays with the neighbor kids. Sometimes I don't pay quite as much attention as I should while he's painting or building legos or creating worlds for his dinosaurs (not to the point where something unsafe could happen, just in terms of not being as "in the moment" and interactive as I could be). And I'm a gigantor hypocrite, because I've complained and felt slighted by others doing exactly the same thing. For example, we were out to lunch with another couple when husband's phone rang. I was absolutely mortified when he actually answered it. In the restaurant. At the table. You just don't do that! Ignore it, or take it outside if it's important, but for the love of god, you don't answer the phone at the table. A perfect example of technology allowing us to be too productive and too connected. There have also been instances when I've been out with a friend who is constantly on her phone - texting other people, reading her facebook wall, sending facebook messages - while we're sitting at a table together, barely talking. Awkward.... So the thought that I might be inadvertently making my own child feel the same way - ignored, neglected, second fiddle - by being distracted by the technology I carry around in my pocket - is sobering. I can't promise that I'll ever be the perfect model parent and completely ignore the smartphone at home. These habits are hard to break, even though they're so relatively new. But I can promise myself that I will try to be better, and that I will make a conscious effort to be more aware of the little moments, the daily opportunities we have to make memories and enjoy life together - because those will be gone all too soon.

Lipstick on my Piggies

I don't like feet. I don't have a really good reason, they've just never been my favorite body part. They're clammy and weird-looking and usually unattractive. One of the not-so-pleasant side effects of running long distances is the punishment that 4 hours of pounding pavement gives your feet. I hear horror stories all the time about discolored toes and missing toenails. Thankfully, I've been able to avoid the grossest of the foot issues, getting off lightly with a few callouses and rough spots. Until now. I'm 99% sure that I'm about to be down one toenail thanks to yesterday's superb finish. I think it's an even trade. I keep my toes camouflaged with dark polish, but I think it's a losing battle. Oh well. Full recap still to come. Not in three parts this time.

Sweet Redemption

I finished the hottest Pig on record - 90% humidity at the start, near 80* by finish. The 10 seconds from Air Force have been hanging over my head since last September, and all I wanted was to break 4 hours. I was nervous because of the weather, but as it turns out, it was a lot of stress for nothing, because I have a new marathon PR.

I finished in 3:50:29. To paraphrase my friend Cynthia, I didn't just beat those 10 seconds, I made them my bitch ;)

Full recap soon.

It's Starch:30!

Three days to go until Pig, which means it's time to get my carb on. Hooray fur rice and potatoes!

Normally I'd be celebrating the fact that my recommended diet includes 500ish grams of the whitest carbs possible, but I took the week off from weight training and i'm starting to feel a little doughy. That plus the water weight just makes me feel all kinds of icky.  I'm hopeful that it's mostly in my head. It better be, I ordered a new bathing suit (first one in years!) and it should be arriving any day. I'm going to force myself to wait a full week post-pig before I try it on.

Pigxiety

I think I need to get back into the mindset that the Pig is just a training run on the way to a greater goal of finishing the Leadville Marathon. I'm already obsessing over the weather, and the forecast so far is calling for 50* at start time, warming up to the 70s with rain and humidity. In other words, the same shitty conditions as last year. Of course today is cool, cloudy, and rainy, a perfect running day for me. I had a good last long run this morning.

I know that I'll do better than last year, even if the weather isn't optimal, but I reeeeeally want to hit the time goal that I wasn't supposed to set.

Last night I had horrible Pig dreams, that they had me registered as a half marathon walker and wouldn't let me switch. In my dream, I also missed the start time by a few hours and no one would give me a ride downtown. I hope that I'll be able to stay on track mentally during this last week of taper. In order for that to happen, I need the nightly thunderstorms to stop, because a screeching child running down the hall to your room multiple times in the night isn't exactly restful....

I'm really bad at this rest and recovery stuff. Too much time too think.

48 Hours of Shoes

I've worn all of these shoes in the last 48 hours.

Some women collect designer heels. Apparently, I have other issues.

Inspiration in an Unlikely Place

So that giant hill on the Pig course I always talk about? Gilbert Ave and Eden Park? I've been running it on Saturdays in preparation, five times now. Five long climbs up to the top, where I'm rewarded with this amazing view of the Ohio River, stretching East toward "home."



Five climbs, five weeks of aching leg muscles and screaming lungs, and five times I've noticed this little bit of inspiration in a very unlikely place.

It's 2012, and there's still a phone booth in this particular part of this particular park. It's the landmark that signifies the end of the big climb, so it's certainly a relief to see it, but I always think "really? a phone booth? in 2012?" and shake my head.



Obviously, it's not the phone booth, itself, that I draw inspiration from, but the quote that someone scrawled inside it, in sunny yellow marker.



"Sometimes I believe in as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

Said by the White Queen, herself, through the pen of Lewis Carroll. And really, it's only 26.2 miles. What are some *real* feats of impossibility that I could dream up?

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming.

Waiting is the Hardest Part

71 Days Until Leadville

I'm getting antsy and I'm really excited about the trip we have planned - Leadville Marathon and after-party on Saturday, drinking wine while we sit in the hot-tub and fancy-pants pool in Vail on Sunday, pizza from the Blue Moose and gelato from that really awesome gelato place we found last year, then a few days of hiking and biking to round it all off. It's so far away! In the words of the kid, "It's not NEVER going to be here!"

My fancy new trail shoes were waiting for me when I came home last night. RunningWarehouse had ONE PAIR left in my size, at about half off, so I snapped them up. An online friend of mine also had a coupon code, so when all was said and done I only paid $42, including shipping, which is a good 60% off retail.

Of course, I'm dying to lace them up and go out for my first ever trail run, but, alas, I'm in the middle of more waiting - it's Flying Pig taper time. That means cutting back on the running and not doing anything to hurt myself. I'm anxious about the Pig, because I'm really hoping this will be my sub-4:00 marathon, but I'm trying to remind myself that Leadville is the bigger prize. The Pig was supposed to be a distraction from the Colorado Countdown :P

I have a really good shot at the under 4:00 thing, even though this course is super hilly. My training runs have all been spot on, and I'm confident that if I were running the Air Force course in two weeks rather than the hills of the 'Nati, I could finish in 3:50, easily. Unfortunately, instead of the pancake flat runways, I've got the rolling hills and the steep, steep climb up Gilbert Ave and Eden Park.



The other concern rolling around in my head is the weather. We've been super lucky that we avoided any real winter this year. Temps have been in the 70s for weeks now, which is super because I love spending hours playing outside. The downside? Well, there was the Heart Half last month with temps in the 60s and blazing hot sun. That was MARCH. Pig is MAY. We've already blown past the 70s and had a few 90 degree days. I hope we see some normal temperatures, just for one day!

16 Days Until Pig....

Texts From...

I've always been a big fan of Texts From Last Night, ever since the days at my old job when I discovered it was a great way to break up the monotony of SAS programming and data analysis. 60-90 seconds of LOLing is good for the soul, especially when that soul is continually being sucked out of you by the work that you do.

Since TFLN, there have been numerous other spinoffs, but none that even came close to rivaling the LOLs that I got from TFLN. Until now. This week, two new "Texts from..." sites hit my radar screen, and I'm sharing the hilarity with you.

First up is Texts from Hillary

Sadly, the creators of this site (and the originators of the meme, after all!) won't be updating TFH anymore, thinking it best to quit while they're ahead, but if you haven't seen the four pages of awesome yet, you need to check it out.

It's hard to pick a favorite, but this is definitely a front-runner.





Thankfully, there's no indication that my second new favorite site will be going anywhere any time soon, so check out Texts From My Dog. I laughed so hard I nearly cried. Again, hard pressed to pick a favorite, but...





Yes, some of them are a little vulgar, but I'm ok with that.

Enjoy!

The Holy Grail

Homemade Nutella. Any bets on how long a single batch will last?

Banana bread is in the oven.

This is all I'm going to be thinking about during my long run tomorrow morning. Can't wait to get back home and eat!

Race Recap - Heart Half Marathon (2012 Edition)

Oh mah gahd it's been a long time since I've done a race recap. 5 whole months! Hard to believe I went 30 years without "racing," and now 5 months feels like an eternity. In those 5 months I've been working on building up my endurance for the Leadville Marathon in June by training for the Flying Pig in May. I decided to put my skills to the test and see if I could set yet another Half Marathon PR, after the 1:54:18 I ran in the Cincinnati Half Marathon in October. I decided that 1:50 would be a good goal to shoot for, but I also insisted that I wouldn't beat myself up if I didn't hit it, because this course is super hilly.



This race was also neat for me because it was the first time I had ever run two races on the same course, and I was really curious to see how much I had improved over the last year.

Anyway. I set myself up with the 1:50 pace group close to the start line. Introductions, national anthem, blah blah blah, start the race. Nice jaunt out of the city, a pleasant little downhill to start things off, and then WHAM bigfuckinghill. Slight downhill recovery and then WHAM evenbiggerfuckinghill. And so it went, on and on like that for the first 4.5 miles, after which we turned around and ran back toward the city. Of course, along the way back we detoured up most of Torrence Parkway. Pace coaches kept shouting "Lean from the ankles! Hips forward! Shoulders back!" (or was it hips back, shoulders forward?) I just focused on trying not to die, or, worse, puke. And wondering WTF I was thinking when I signed up to run a mountain marathon. (I just keep reminding myself that I'm going to be taking it much slower up the mountain. There's obviously no speed goal.)

That's when the sun started to come out and the humidity set in. I was suddenly slimy and sweaty and sticky and all kinds of gross. Big change from last year, when it was a good 30 degrees cooler with a pleasant light rain.

Then there was the 15K split, where most of the runners began a nice leisurely downhill stretch back to the finish line. For the briefest of moments, I considered following them. (ok, fine - for a good 90 seconds I contemplated it) But I soldiered on. Over the bridge, around Kentucky, over another bridge - this is where I let the pace group go. I just couldn't sustain that pace on those hills. I was surprisingly ok with it, only beating myself up for a few seconds minutes. And who the hell decided to make the last 1.4 miles completely uphill, anyway?

I got my finish line adrenaline going and sprinted the last half mile, coming to a stop in 1:51:01, a full 11 minutes better than last year. Of course, last year the weather was cold and rainy, not sunny, warm, and humid, so I'm pretty sure there's a 1:4X:XX half marathon in my somewhere.

Running Buddy got a new PR, too!

We rock our medals.

I like Nutella on my Wafflehs

Sunday morning in our kitchen:

Me: Ok, are you ready to go to the Waffle place?

Charlie: Yes! I love waffles!

Me: Charlie, do you know how to say 'waffles' in Spanish?

Charlie: Wafflehs! (waff-lays)

Me: Really? That doesn't sound right. Let me Google it. (what did we do before smartphones and the internet?!)

:: checks google - sees 'wafflehs' - grumbles that can't be right. waff-lays? what the hell kind of spanglish is this? checks more google links ::

Me: Ok, Charlie, it looks like you can say 'wafflehs,' but there's also another real word for it - 'gofres'

Charlie: No, mom, it's 'waflehs.' You're WHACK!

Me: Did you just call me 'whack?!'

Charlie: Yeah, like in the Jumping song. Wiggity whack!


Maybe it's time to reevaluate the MP3s we've loaded onto his radio.

Bonus 90s points if you can name the song: And everything is the back with a little slack, cause inside-out is wiggity wiggity wiggity whack!

Sweeeeeeeeeeeeet Sixteen!

Cheer Cincinnati, Cincy will win!
Fight to the finish, never give in!
You do your best, boys, We'll do the rest, boys!
Onward to victory!

Go Red! Go Black! Goooooo Bearcats, fight fight fight!


Even Charlie's school is getting into the spirit - the director brought in her giant inflatable Bearcat. I'm so proud of my little fan, he ran right over and said "Mom! Look! It's Lucy the Bearcat!" (did you know that's her name? the real Bearcat at the Cincinnati zoo?)

I'm feeling smug right now, because even though the rest of my bracket is pretty much busted, I had my Bearcats going to the Sweet Sixteen. I hope they can beat OSU tonight and bust the rest of my bracket. I'd be totally ok with losing the pool in spectacular fashion if it means we'll be seeing the Elite Eight this weekend!

Whoop whoop!

So while the class was over and the studying was behind me, I didn't feel like I could truly relax about it until I had seen my grade. I checked obsessively starting on Saturday morning, when I nearly had a heart attack because I saw an "I/F" grade staring me in the face, and it took me a few minutes to get used to the new interface and figure out that the I/F was from spring quarter of 2008, when I foolishly thought I could study for prelims while on maternity leave. Once that scare was over, I logged in multiple times a day, worried that maybe they had lost my registration and that I wasn't *actually* registered for class, and wondered if they'd let me re-do the final or make me take the whole class over again if I failed. And then finally, after much stress and anxiety, my grade was posted.



Hallelujah! Apparently I must have struck some kind of awful bargain with a higher power, because then this happened...




NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Is this punishment because I spit out communion when I was 7? If they start winning Super Bowls, does that mean I need to convert back to a religion?

And, Breathe! ...?

Well, it's finally over. Last night I took what will hopefully be the last exam of my looooooooooooooong graduate school career. I say hopefully because it was an exam unlike any other I've taken in grad school - an actual final exam in the computer lab with a single sheet of quotes taken directly from the readings, rather than an end-of-quarter research paper. Leading up to the big event, I thought I was going to lose my shit. I did more sociology in the last week than I have in my entire life. Sociological theory has never been my friend. I'm not good at bullshitting like that, and I'm not good at boiling down thousands of pages of bullshit into a few coherent paragraphs. Unfortunately, my PhD is far from complete. I'll be taking my prelim exam in the fall and then writing a dissertation. Thankfully, the pressure won't be quite as bad - they're not going to be pleasure cruises, but at least the experience won't be crammed into a tight 11-week timeline.

I don't feel like I can give an honest assessment of how I did on the exam, either. I've never had this professor before, as she joined the faculty after I had stepped away from the program. I don't know how she grades, and I don't know if my essays were up to par. I do know that I forgot to include one point that I really wanted to make, but I don't think that omission will kill me. Now it's just a waiting game for the papers to be graded and the grades to show up online. I don't feel like I can really relax about it yet. I'll be happy with a B.

Either way, I'm so glad to have that over and done with. I'm looking forward to catching up with my internet friends and my In Real Life friends who have been long neglected, especially my BFF who has probably forgotten what I look like by now.

Up next:

I'm recombining my blogs. I don't have the time to worry about two separate blogs, so the running ramblings are coming back here. You can just skip those posts if you aren't interested in that kind of thing.

I'm running a half marathon on Sunday. It's the first time I'm going to repeat a race course, so I'm curious what the results will be.

My Google Reader has over 1,000 unread items in it. It makes me twitch.

The Bearcats are back in the NCAA Tournament again this year - I'm hoping for a good showing against Texas this afternoon. Go Red! Go Black! Go Bearcats!

Whee!

10 More Days

10 more days and my theory class will be over. I'm suffering through it and I can't wait to be finished. I'll be back soon, I promise! I'm not "forrest gumping" on you guys.

Ah, I do NOT miss the marketing industry!

Now THAT'S some tasty satire.

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Happy Friday!

Ever Have One of Those Nights

When you just can't turn your brain off? It's not even like it's obsessing over one thing in particular, which leaves even more room for thoughts to wiggle around in my head every time I think I've cleared the slate.

I've got two more weeks left of class, and then the final exam. I'll be so glad when it's over, but then I have to start preparing for the doctoral prelim exam that I'll be taking in the fall. Then there's the dissertation process. Can I really do this? Am I just setting myself up for failure in a department that doesn't really respect the kind of work that I do? What if I don't finish? That will be my second failed go-round. I don't even have an operational dissertation topic anymore and I'm feeling uninspired.

Charlie is starting to ask tough questions, like what happens when you die. I'm not ready to deal with that, yet. Mostly because, I don't know what happens when you die. I'm torn between being honest and telling him that I don't know, or making up something like heaven just until he's old enough to really understand. Husband is on the side of making something up for now. I think I'm starting to agree.

Work is stressing me out. We have a full project list and not enough people to do the work. It's a problem, but there's nothing that can be done about it right now.

My dad very nearly died of a heart attack 6 years ago. Since then, he quit smoking, started eating right, and stepped up on the exercise. I hated (and yes, that's a strong word, but there's a history there) his now-ex-wife, but she did a good job keeping him in line with diet and lifestyle choices. His new wife - not so much. From what I understand, he's stopped exercising and I'm worried about him.

Three months later and we've made no progress on the baby-or-no-baby decision. Husband just got back from a weekend ski trip with his brother, and I'm trying to plan a sisters trip for this summer. My heart hurts when I think about Charlie growing up an only child and not having these things in his future. I just can't wrap my brain around how you can go and spend 3 days having a great time with a sibling and then not want the same for your own child. Different strokes, I guess. I'm trying to gear up to move on, selling and giving away some stuff, but it still sucks.

I'll be really happy when this theory class is over. I feel like I've been out of the loop (sociologically speaking) for too long, and I have a few years' worth of research to catch up on.

My Google Reader has over 1,000 unread items. Just opening the tab makes me feel anxious, so I'm ignoring it :p

I guess the positive is that I'm finally starting to understand the benefit of long runs as stress relief. I've never really "gotten" it before, but there really is something therapeutic about being out before dawn, just you and the road, watching the world slowly come to life as the sun comes up. I hardly even feel guilty for not being at home reading soc theory, instead.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Got a nice surprise this morning - apparently some random guy decided to treat all of the women in Rookwood to coffee. He bought a gigantic giftcard and told the Starbucks peeps that women were to get free coffee all day. What a great surprise, especially after being up before the ass-crack of dawn to get my run in.




I also got a lovely homemade flower from Charlie.




Also, there's this.




Happy Valentine's Day!