Monthly Archives: September 2009

If it’s going to happen, it might as well be now.

“It” is “getting sick,” and the sentence above is meant to convince myself that really, it’s no big deal that my throat stings and I feel like I’ve been hit over the head with a cast-iron skillet. I’ve got 24 days til the Marine Corps Marathon, according to the helpful little ticker on the right side of the race’s Web site, which is more than enough time to get myself in good working order.

Knowing my immune system would be on the weak side, what with this being the the peak of my training and all, I’ve already been trying to take extra-good care of myself. The friendly reminder that my body’s a bit fragile these days has made me step it up another notch. Here’s what that means for me:

*Eating an absurd amount of baby spinach in salads, red and yellow bell peppers for snacks and fruit for desserts. I’m going the multi-vitamin route, too, but I’m aiming to get close to a vitamin C OD through fruits and veggies alone.

*Taking echinacea, which evidence suggests can reduce the duration of a cold, and is totally worth a try in my book. That, and Zicam. The gross nose-spray kind.

*Sleeping whenever possible. Going to bed early, forcing myself to stay in bed a few minutes longer in the morning — whatever. If I can steal a few extra minutes, I do.

*On the injury-prevention side of things, I’ve been taking baths with Epsom salt after even shorter efforts. It really helps get rid of any lingering soreness.

*Along the same lines, I’ve been foam-rolling daily.

*Saving up for another massage before the marathon. I got one a few weeks ago from Cary Bland, a massage therapist who’s actually a runner and cyclist himself, and it really helped work out some of the training-induced kinks.

*And, finally, I’ve been keeping up with my core- and hip-strengthening routine. A recent addition: a new set of exercises from Robert Gillanders, the ultra-marathoning physical therapist who created a new workout for the DC Running Examiner.

What do you do to take care of your body during the toughest parts of your training cycle? Let me know by posting a comment!

My posts may be sporadic for the rest of the week. For all the tough talk about taking care of myself, I’m heading to West Virginia to tailgate for the CU-WVU game, scream until I’m even more hoarse at the actual game and then go backpacking in the Monongohela for a quick overnight trip before resuming my hard-line on self-care. It’s the kind of trip that, even if it makes me sicker, will be totally worth it. Wish me and my throat luck …

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about the monster month, the part of marathon training when mileage, intensity and burnout rates all peak.

This morning, when I woke up feeling creaky after my longest run — 20 or 21 miles – on Saturday, a recovery swim Sunday and speed work — 6 X Yasso 800s, plus three miles easy — yesterday, it occurred to me: This is IT! I’ve got 25 days to go, and while I’ll tackle maybe one more tough speed workout and a couple more tempo runs, it’s sort of all downhill from here.

Here are the key workouts I’ve got left:

This week: 5-mile tempo run Thursday; 16-mile long run Sunday

Oct. 5-11: 3X1600; 5-mile tempo run; 14-mile long run

Oct. 12-18: 6X Yasso 800; 5-mile tempo run; 10-mile long run

Oct. 19-25: 30 minutes easy; 20 minutes easy; 26.2 miles!

Know what I’d do if I had a million dollars? Two Gu’s at the same time.

This thought, which occurred to me after consuming — wait for it — two Gu’s at the same time sometime after the 10-mile mark of my long-planned 20-miler this morning, carried me through a good two miles of my run. These were an important two miles, as my crazy, “I’m eatin’ two of these bad boys” moment came moments after my trusty Nike-plus for my iPod randomly stopped, then erased all my previous workouts. This includes the 10-ish miles I had just run, including my exact distance, time and pace. Since I was improvising a version of the Marine Corps Marathon course to get familiar with the route I’ll be running Oct. 25, it was really, really important that I keep an eye on my mileage, which made my Nike-plus really, really crucial.

So. Two Gu’s at the same time, and a butchered quote from “Office Space,” and I was on my way again. Luckily, the Nike-plus worked, as did my iPod, so I just started a new workout, and vowed to run 10 miles from that point to make sure I wasn’t shortchanging myself on the only 20-miler I’ll be running. I’m pretty sure I was closer to 11 than 10 when the iPod malfunction occurred, but better to be safe, right?

Other than that unfortunate moment, I had a truly amazing long run. I Metroed over to Rosslyn after a Luna bar and a few sips of coffee, armed with a plastic baggie with my iPod, ID, credit card, route map and cell phone, plus a big bottle of PowerAde Mountain Berry Blast (thank you, Marine Corps Marathon, for choosing a blue-flavored sports drink for the course. They’re my favorite!).

I set out around 8 a.m., checking my course map and Nike-plus intently to make sure I ran the right distance on Lee Highway. I almost immediately failed at following simple directions, adding about a mile total to the route on the unlovely, hilly Lee Highway. Oops … My main take-away from this portion of the course is that I will NOT have to worry about holding back, pace-wise. The hills are going to take care of that for me, and I’ll be lucky if I can hold even the conservative pace I’m shooting for.

Things got lots better as I crossed the Key Bridge into Georgetown, where adorable brick homes worth more than my entire family’s life savings distracted me from the slight uphill on the way out. And that downhill on the way back! Whee! I’ll definitely appreciate that on race day.

My iPod malfunction occurred while running out to Hains Point, through a gorgeous park bordering the Potomac River with flat, runner-friendly roads and tons of trees just on the cusp of changing color. But I was thrown by the iPod mishap, feeling tired at the halfway point of a long run, and starting thinking about how on race day, this part will feel very, very lonely. I may or may not have whimpered out loud at the realization that I had three miles to go before heading back into downtown D.C.

Then, I glanced at the street sign: Ohio Drive. My inner monologue: Ohio Drive! Sarah is from Ohio! She can run fast marathons! I can, too! Right? Right! Heh! Heh, heh, heh!

My imagined serendipity continued as I headed up toward the memorials and the monument. Remember those summer-reading drives in which Pizza Hut promised a personal pan pizza to whoever read five, or 10, or however many books? I never got a pizza. Not because didn’t read enough. Sweet little dweeb that I was, I would read 30 to 40 books in a summer. Show me the sweet, dweeby second-grader who will admit to that?

I mention this so you know just how awesome it was to see the National Book Festival, with dozens of booths of authors and banners exclaiming, “Books!” on the National Mall. It felt like a personal shout-out, especially since the theme-color is purple — my favorite. “This one’s for you, Dweeby McGee,” I told myself as I picked up the pace.

Here’s the cool thing: I kept on picking up the pace. I managed the first 10 or 11 miles at something like 9:30-minute miles, and stayed relatively steady throughout. I slowed down a bit when I was trying to find my way from Potomac Park to the National Mall, but once I was on the Mall, I picked it up a few seconds per mile, finally ending at mile 20 (or 21? Who knows?) with an 8-minute mile.

I picked up the Red Line Metro to head home to Silver Spring at Gallery Place-Chinatown. Why did I weave around to this particular spot? Because there’s a Starbucks right next to the Metro stop, and I started thinking about a Vivanno for the ride home as soon as the 13-mile mark. A bonus: When I walked in, sweaty, dirty and bedraggled, the barista said, “Wow! You must’ve had quite a workout!” When I told her I had just ran 20 miles, she, after confirming that I did this all in one run, seemed genuinely floored. “I have a lot of respect for you for being able to do that,” she said. Awww.

I don’t know my final time (thanks, Nike-plus), or my overall pace. I just know the run felt great, that I stayed close to 9:30-minute mile pace the whole time, that I finished much faster than I started and that I ran more than 20 miles, maybe as many as 21. And, most importantly, the IT band that was acting up in the beginning of this training cycle was the absolute least of my problems, and has continued to behave through a delightful afternoon of watching college football on the couch, with my husband and my nachos by my side.

Stay tuned … the best long-run playlist in existence is on the way. Again, if anyone knows how to copy the text of an iTunes playlist to another document, I’ll post it, like, now.

Near the end of our time in Jacksonville, Fla., where we lived for four years before moving to Silver Spring, Steve and I had established an awesome and comforting routine.

We’d always run together a couple days a week. But I’d gotten into open-water swimming while he was on his second deployment, and when he came home, our desire to not be apart, like, ever, led him to tag along on my swims. A few days a week, we had “swim dates” at a pool on a Navy base near us. Watching Steve, who’s the first to admit he’s not a swimmer, muscle through his requisite mile of breaststroke, is by far my biggest swimming motivation.

So when we moved to Silver Spring last November, finding a good pool was among the first tasks on our to-do list. When we found a beautiful pool at the National Naval Medical Center-Bethesda, maybe a 10-minute drive from our apartment, we felt like we’d truly made our new address home. Our swim dates there are now part of a lovely routine that includes a stop at our favorite farm stand, Norman’s Farm Market, which happens to be right on our way.

This is all a long preamble to sharing the horrifying news we got yesterday, when we went to our beloved pool for the first time in about a month: As of Oct. 19, the pool will be closed. Like, forever. The entire base is closing to merge with Walter Reed, and apparently, there will be a period of three years or so — roughly the period of time we’re slated to live here — when the whole place will be pool-less.

How the Base Realignment and Closure committee failed to consider my swimming schedule when mulling this change is beyond me, I joked with Steve on my car ride home.

But as we joked, we decided this really is a pretty crappy move. The closest military facility with a pool is all the way across town (not that I’ve ruled that option out), meaning all the people who crowd the pool at Bethesda on weeknights are simply going to have to pay for gym memberships. I’m willing to bet a lot of people will just stop, which makes me sad.

The news was even harder to take considering the fact that, even though I’d been out of the pool for a month (read my letter apologizing to swimming here), I had a wonderful workout, a nice 3,200-yarder that included 3 X 400 IMs and a lot of easy freestyle with a pull buoy. It was like I’d gotten all gussied up for a hot date with swimming, only to have swimming tell me on the cab ride home that he’s seeing someone else.

I’m committed to finding us a good, affordable pool to continue our swim dates. Because without my swimming buddy, it’s unclear how I’ll motivate myself to train for the Great Chesapeake Bay Swim next year.

But first, today and tomorrow, most of my procrastination time is going to be taken up by planning two very important pieces of my marathon training: My route and playlist for my 20-miler on Saturday. Orchestrating the details has made me realize that, even though the long run will likely take up a single morning, the net loss of time is much, much greater.

If you’ve got any last-minute playlist suggestions, make ’em here!

Dear swimming:

Heeeey! How ARE you? It’s been a while! (Laughs nervously).

Yeah, I know. I’ve been so busy! You know, we were gone all of August — have I sent you my Monterey pictures? You’d love it there.

What’s that? No, we’ve been around in September. But, you know, Steve just started classes again, so we don’t have our Monday swim dates. No, I guess I don’t *need* him with me to swim. And yeah, there’s Wednesday. And Friday.

But here’s the thing: I’ve been training for this marathon, and man! Does that ever take a lot of time! So on my cross-training days, I’ve just kind of been putting in 30 to 45 minutes on the stationary bike in my little mini-gym downstairs.

Fun? No, the stationary bike sucks. But it’s quick and easy. It just takes so much time to drive to the pool to meet up with you, then put in the time to actually swim, then dechlorinate, then drive home. If you weren’t so high-maintenance …

I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I was angry, and wanted to hurt you. You always make me feel so good, like each stroke and kick is tailor-made to work out sore spots from my run the day before. And you keep me so healthy, with your low-impact, full-body workout. And you boost my ego, because, you know, we ARE pretty good together, don’t you think?

I’m sorry. I’ll meet you at the pool today. Just do me a favor: Don’t go too hard on me?

Love,

Amy

A couple years ago, when I was working on a series of stories and multimedia features previewing the Five Points of Life

Only 33 days to go until the Marine Corps Marathon!

Marathon in Gainesville as a reporter for The Gainesville Sun, I wrote a story about what Runner’s World calls “the monster month,” when marathon training gets into the longest of the long runs, the toughest speedwork and the highest chance of burnout.

I’m coming into the monster month leading up to the Marine Corps Marathon just about now, but I’m thinking of things a bit differently this training cycle.

Rather than looking at the last 33 days before the marathon as a monstrous jumble of physical exertion to be gotten through, I’m going to see it as a chance to really take care of my body, fueling it with fruits and veggies and whole grains, strengthening it with my lineup of core and hip exercises, repairing it with ice baths and stretching and generally preparing it to cross the finish line of a 26.2-mile race — an accomplishment I’m absolutely not taking for granted.

I’m also going to focus on appreciating each remaining long run for the awesome journey that it is, whether it’s a journey filled with pain and humiliation or warm fuzzies and ego boosts. Sure, I wouldn’t be running 20 miles next weekend if not for the impending 26.2, but I don’t want to see it merely as a means to an end.

I’m preparing myself to have a similar attitude about my finishing time. Since I’ve completed one marathon and run several halves, it’s hard not to have a fairly rigid goal time in mind. But I’m starting to realize that being too rigid about it might take away from the joy I ought to feel about just being able to run 26.2 miles. I’m not saying I won’t be disappointed with a time that’s way slower than what I have in mind. I’m just saying, I want to maintain my sense of awe and respect for this distance.

With all that in mind, I’m going to view the next four weeks as the home stretch — a sort of mini pre-marathon running spa — rather than the monster month.

First up: Truly savoring this morning’s run through my parents’ subdivision in New Port Richey, Fla., where I’m staying through Tuesday. I’m heading out early, before the state turns into a giant, sunny sauna, and before the demands of the day start weighing on me. How easy it is to forget that running is my reward! I hope I can keep that in mind both this morning and on race day.

I asked for your best trail-running stories for a chance to win a pair of Saucony ProGrid Xodus Trail-Running shoes. You seriously, seriously delivered, and there were so many well-written, thoughtful stories, I had to resort to a random drawing among an only slightly narrowed-down list to choose a winner.

If these quotes, excerpts of the entries I got to read all week, don’t inspire you to get trail-running, you might want to check your pulse:

“Running breakneck through the forest made me feel like a kid again. I had no direction, no mileage goal, devoid of time constraints, I just ran wherever the trail went. Perhaps it wasn’t childhood I was revisiting but rather something more primal – the fight or flight of being chased by or pursuing something.”

“I love the calmness, noncompetitiveness and camaraderie that comes with trail running.”

“From the “mellow” attitude of the runners to the homemade banana bread offered at the finish I was in love with the trails.”

You told me about encounters with bones and Amish guys. You ‘fessed up to peeing in bushes and falling, gloriously, in a variety of places (clumsy runners: You are my brothers and sisters!). There were tales of trail-runners so hard-core, they vomited from exhaustion, then kept going to finish the race — and to PR. There was a Sun Valley trip that inspired what will likely be years of trail-running in DC. Maybe even more touching, there were trail races in which people became runners again. Is there any better feeling than going for the kind of run that makes you feel like announcing: “I’M BACK!”

There was a shout-out to the Park Ranger who told an entrant at mile six of a trail race “that the REAL hills were starting then.”

Another entrant confessed a plan to net a cute trail-running chick for her single firefighter friend by tripping a fellow runner, then letting her friend rush in to provide medical attention.

Yet another said she recovered from a heartbreak by training for a half-marathon by running in the Santa Monica Mountains on a “pretty lonely and pretty steep trail.” Steep lonely trails DO heal all wounds, don’t they?

And are those any more wonderful than the entrant who said the trail-runners would inspire her to sign up for a 5K, or the one training for her first half-marathon on trails frequented by the likes of Shalane Flanagan?

So. You see my dilemma. You all were too good. I narrowed it down, and narrowed it down, and then narrowed again, but I still couldn’t single out one story as being the best. I could only whittle my list to 13.

Personal circumstances put me in Florida this weekend. My dad, a former ski patroller and serious outdoors enthusiast, helped me choose the winner. I asked him to choose a number between one and 13. He chose 12. I counted down to the 12th name on my whittled list, convinced I’d be going back to flip a coin … until I saw this lovely post from an ultra-runner named Kirstin.