Amy Reinink

I’ve spent the week sharing advice, visualization notes and happy-stomach insights for the Marine Corps Marathon. And I want to begin this post by sending my best, speediest vibes to my friends running either the full marathon or the 10K, including Heather from Dietitian on the Run.

Now, it’s time to turn my focus toward the race I’ll be running on MCM Day, the Blue Moon Wicked 10K in Virginia Beach.

I signed up for the race as part of my road to the Philadelphia Half Marathon in November, long before I lost a month of training thanks to the plague. Now, I’m counting on this 10K to be a fun, festive training run to reignite my training for the half. And while I won’t be practicing my speediest paces, I can still practice my mental-toughness strategies. Here’s how I see it going down:

We arrive at the Virginia Beach Convention Center early, leaving the house at 6:30 a.m. to avoid traffic and long lines at the packet pickup. I pick up my bib, lucky No. 814, drop my stuff at the bag check, and entertain myself by watching the costume-contest judging while I wait for the 8 a.m. start.

Photo courtesy of the Blue Moon Wicked 10K.

I’m in corral one, so I line up at the back of what must be a wide range of pseudo-speedsters (considering that I’m in it, and considering that there were several people in my age group alone running sub-seven-minute miles—eek!). It will be in the low 60s, and with a 30 percent chance of rain, if forecasts hold up—perfectly decent running weather (side note: Kudos to race organizers for posting regular updates from local meteorologists on the race’s Facebook page). I run slow and controlled for the first mile, from the convention center toward the beach, and focus on enjoying my surroundings—the costumes on my fellow runners, the Halloween candy given out by spectators. I am pleased to see a perfect 10-minute mile on my Garmin when I glance down around the second mile marker.

I keep the same steady pace as I begin mile No. 2, which takes me along Atlantic Avenue down to Second Street, where I’ll stop to take in water. The course heads onto the boardwalk, where the challenge will really begin.

If I’m feeling good, I pick up the pace a bit here, still running in a controlled fashion that anticipates some extra exhaustion thanks to my recent spate of training-ruining illnesses. I let the first ocean views of the race take my mind off the miles, and remind myself that I’m lucky to be healthy enough to run today, and to be strong enough to know I can finish a 10K even after a considerable training hiatus.

I stay steady as the course heads back to Atlantic Avenue, and remind myself to relax and push simultaneously as I start getting sore and tired. I pass the third mile marker, and start looking forward to another water stop at mile 3.5.

I find a pleasant sense of flow, though I’m definitely working harder now, and the fourth mile marker comes up sooner than I expect it to. Now, I’m looking forward to the 4.5-mile water stop, which also marks the turnaround point at which we head back onto the boardwalk.

I grin widely as I get ready for the fun-filled final mile. Usually, this is a painful mile in my 10K-running life. But today, it is all about enjoying the day, stopping at the “Trick or Treat stop” at 34th Street, nodding at the huge, hulking King Neptune statue, then tucking in and pushing hard for the last half-mile stretch.

Will the promise of a medal, a long-sleeve T-shirt and one of these beer glasses motivate me to finish? Yup.

I find the energy to give one last kick at the 6-mile mark near 23rd Street, and sprint to the finish at 17th Street. I collect my finishers medal and tumblers (only given to actual finishers—how’s that for motivation to finish?) and hit the post-race party on the beach. I think about how much fun I had, and about how I feel ready to jump back into training for the half-marathon.

Have you run the Blue Moon Wicked 10K? Any feedback or advice?

Three years ago, I learned about the dreaded “runner’s stomach” the hard way.

I’ll spare you the gory details. Suffice it to say that no one’s race plan includes running backward on the Marine Corps Marathon course around mile 19 to get to the nearest Porta Potty, then tearfully explaining to the runners waiting in line to use it that if they “don’t let me go next, I will take a crap on the National Mall.”

Looking rough post-race at the 2009 Marine Corps Marathon.

Not my finest moment. And sadly, I’m hardly alone in suffering a wide range of symptoms of digestive distress mid-run, including vomiting, stomach cramps, and diarrhea. Even Olympian Paula Radcliffe needed a pit stop—and a quite public one, at that—on her way to winning the 2005 London Marathon.

Jared Rice, a registered dietitian, ACSM health and fitness specialist, and triathlete, says there are a couple of reasons runners may be so susceptible to digestive distress, with dehydration and a lack of blood flow to the gut due to exercise being the main culprits.

“The body diverts blood flow and energy focus away from digestion and toward the extremities to fuel the exercise being performed,” Rice says. “Running, being a demanding, full-body motion, may result in more significant diversion of blood and resources.” He also points out that running results in “a significant amount of jostling and agitation to the digestive system, which may further compromise digestive function and result in things moving along more quickly than usual.”

So what’s a runner to do?

Rice says a runner’s diet leading up to and during a race or workout plays a huge role in causing or preventing digestive distress. He’s careful to note that “no one thing will work for everyone, and different people will tolerate habits in different ways,” but says runners with sensitive tummies may want to try the following:

1) Avoid eating large meals within two to three hours of a long run or race.

2) Avoid eating within 30 minutes of starting a run. Instead, sip a sports drink for that final dose of fuel.

To read more, please visit Washingtonian.com.

Today was my first workout “back” after being sidelined for more than a week thanks to a throat infection, which came on the heels of a stomach bug that forced an equally long training hiatus. The workout, a Tabata-style TRX class, left me feeling totally spent, but also more energetic and alive than I have for weeks.

Returning to training also meant sitting down and taking a hard look at the rubble my Philadelphia Half-Marathon training plan has been reduced to, despite the fact that I managed to squeee in a seven-miler and a few shorter runs between bouts of sickness. The resulting training plan looks like this:

Though I’m still disappointed that factors totally out of my control prevented me from training for this race the way I wanted to, I’m also feeling motivated and encouraged to see that there’s still time to piece together a plan to get me comfortably to the finish line on Nov. 18. Adapt and overcome, right?

We’d been planning the escape for months: Me, Steve and eight runner-friends were scheduled to camp at Doyle River Cabin, a Potomac Appalachian Trail Club primitive cabin in the southern portion of Shenandoah National Park. Despite the throat infection I’ve been whining about for days, I decided not to abandon those plans. After all, SNP is one of the most healing places I know of.

With its big porch and stone fireplace, this may have been our favorite PATC cabin yet:

I spent a lot of time reading and journaling on this rock:

Steve and I took our time driving home, and stopped at every overlook to watch the sunset:

Also, a throat update: My doctor on Monday sent me home with antibiotics, a hard-core nasal spray and a prescription cough syrup that is Everclear to NyQuil’s peach schnapps. So I’m feeling much better now, thanks!

Back in March 2010, I posted a short list of motivational quotes for injured athletes on this blog. I was recovering from a fractured wrist that had to be surgically repaired, which left me in pain and unable to run, swim and otherwise live normally for months.

Wearing the SpongeBob-esque contraption that immobilized my wrist post-surgery.

I had no idea then that the comments portion of that post would become a virtual support group for injured athletes of all stripes, from basketball players with torn Achilles tendons to softball players with ACL tears to lacrosse players with traumatic brain injuries—you name it.

In the beginning, I responded to the calls for comfort and wisdom myself, offering whatever small, insufficient words of consolation I could. But before long, the athletes who posted on that page started consoling each other, starting conversations about what it means to be an athlete, to get hurt, and to heal. I’ve been lucky enough to get to sit back and watch.

I’m happy to say I’m not battling any injuries at the moment (knockonwood!), but I have been struggling to recover from a killer throat infection, which came in the wake of a week of Montezuma’s revenge last month. I’ve also been wallowing in a bit of self-pity about the unfair amount of germs coming my way this fall. Reading through the comments on the original “motivational quotes for injured athletes” post helped put my little head cold in perspective. It also reminded me of two sentiments that run through all the comments: Injuries happen. And people heal.

What have you learned from your injuries?

The past several days have brought two exciting training milestones: My last open-water swim of the season, and the successful completion of my weekly long run, a seven-miler with Steve on Sligo Creek Trail. It also brought some cool events in my life as a volunteer ski patroller, including my first time helping to teach at an annual Outdoor Emergency Care refresher in my journey toward becoming an OEC instructor.

The sun set on my swim season last weekend.

Unfortunately, those exciting-but-energy-sapping milestones were followed by something completely predictable, given my already-trashed immune system and my lack of rest: The itchy, sore throat that’s been with me since Montezuma’s Revenge’s angry older brother left a couple weeks ago has morphed into a bark-like cough and laryngitis.

Earlier in the week, I resisted the inevitable post-sickness slow-down, taking two CrossFit classes as part of a story I’m writing about the wildly popular workout program for Bethesda Magazine’s January/February issue. You’ll get to read more about it when the magazine hits newsstands, but for now, a few takeaways:

I had a lot of fun doing the skills portion of a class focused on Olympic lifts. My barbell use is mostly limited to squats and deadlifts now, so it was kind of fun doing stuff like clean-and-jerks, which I’m simply not going to do on my own.

I also enjoyed the class that consisted of this workout: LIFT: Back Squat, 3-3-3; CONDITIONING: Row 500 meters. Then 10-9-8-7…1 burpees, 1-2-3-4…10 pull-ups.

It’s been a long time since I did so many pull-ups. By the last set, in which we were supposed to do 10, I was jumping in addition to using a band. Not my finest workout moment. But the band reminded me I can always modify an exercise on my way to mastering it, and my sore lats and forearms reminded me that there *are* body parts pull-ups work that I’m not hitting up in other ways. I kind of want to buy one of those bands now.

I also got some helpful tips on using the rowing machine, which I’ve long struggled to figure out.  I’ll definitely be adding that to my cross-training regimen this winter.

ANYWAY. Now that that stuff is behind me, it’s time to regroup and rest until I’m no longer barking and voiceless. I’m kind of freaking out about missing some workouts ahead of the Philadelphia Half Marathon, but I’m trusting some wonderful advice I got before my first half marathon in 2007: It’s better to show up on race day 10 percent undertrained than 1 percent overtrained (in this case, with pneumonia or some other ill effect of not giving myself time to heal).

Happy weekend, all!

This is my perception of what happened in the last hundred yards or so of the Daiquiri Deck Tropical Splash Open Water Swim last Saturday: I spotted another 2.5K swimmer ahead of me, and tried to turn on the finishing “kick” I almost always have deep within me at the end of open-water swims. I had no such kick, and the swimmer in front of me totally out-swam me. But when we reached shore, I quickly, gracefully sprinted ahead to the finish line as she walked to catch her breath.

This is what actually happened at the end of the race:

Running fast and strong as I come out of the water.

Still coming …

Still coming … this poor woman is looking at me, thinking: “If you’re going to pass me, pass me already!”

This is really getting a little bit ridiculous …

I’m grinning like I’m winning the Olympics, while barely moving forward.

Hey, I’m making progress (though it still looks like I’m casually jogging on the beach)! But what am I looking at over to the side?

Oh, right: I’m looking at the guy who was actually jogging on the beach THROUGH THE MIDDLE OF OUR FINISH CHUTE. He looks like he’s going considerably faster than me.

I did, eventually, make it to the finish line (whew!). Race photos are funny, aren’t they?

Let me begin by answering the question I asked on Friday: I had some hay left.

More importantly, I had a heckuva party in the barn—er, at the Daiquiri Deck—I mean, at the Daiquiri Deck Tropical Splash Open Water Swim on Saturday.

I first participated in this event in 2010, and immediately fell in love with the low-key vibe and beautiful setting on Siesta Key, Fla., located a couple hours south of my mom’s home in New Port Richey. I returned last year, making it into a vacation for Steve, my mom and my dad. This year, only my mom and I made the trip. My dad was present in every breath of breeze in the air, every glimmer of sunshine in the water, and every back-lit cotton-ball cloud in the sky.

The condo was right on a particularly peaceful stretch of beach, and we headed right outside for a picnic lunch on the beach when we arrived. As I lazed around in a lounge chair, a maintenance worked walked by with a dead bird under each arm. “Might want to stay out of the water,” he said. “Red tide’s killing birds.”

I wasted an hour Googling around in search of a recent report from the Sarasota County Department of Health, but found nothing useful or up-to-date.  No news is good news, right?

We arrived at the start of the race before dawn, and spent the next 30 minutes watching the sun transform the sky into abstract art.

At about 7:30 a.m., a race official walked the 2.5 K swimmers out beyond the sandbar for the start.

“Any questions?” he asked, after explaining the course and the race regulations.

“Yeah,” said the woman standing next to me. “Why am I doing this?”

As is the case with any open-water swim, that question stuck with me the whole first quarter of the race. But as I turned around the first buoy on the rectangle-shaped course, I settled into a quiet, steady rhythm, focusing only on my own body gliding through the water, and thought: Oh, right. I do this because I LOVE it. Soon, I was passing the orange-cap-clad swimmers in the 5K, which started right before the 2.5 K.

My race plan was to swim the first half at a pace that felt comfortable and steady, and to swim the second half as hard as I could. I did just that, and it felt absolutely great. I figured I’d finish in about 45 minutes, and in the final 400 meters or so, I started wondering if I’d crushed that goal.

When I saw the time on my watch—50 minutes and change—I just about choked. 50 minutes? My 5Ks the past two years have taken me about an hour and a half—how could I take 50 minutes to swim half that distance?

As I crossed the finish line, I could hear Steve’s voice saying: “You were so sick you couldn’t eat for a week. I’m sure you’re still kind of weak.” And I heard my dad’s voice asking: “Did you have fun?”

The answer: Yeah, I did! And the swim itself was only the beginning. We still had the incredible frosty drinks and seafood nachos at the Daiquiri Deck, not to mention more beach time, ahead of us.

We stopped by the awards ceremony so I could check out my official time, and I got a pleasant surprise—on this particular day, 50 minutes was good enough for third in my age group! How many other people in my age group? I purposely didn’t find out (don’t look a gift medal in the mouth).

As was the case last year and the year before, the race was organized beautifully, and was a joy to participate in. One of my favorite things about it is the fact that it gathers people ranging from fancy, fast high-school and college swimmers to octogenarians—all of whom are bettering their lives through swimming. And seriously: How many races end with a daiquiri? I’ll be back next year for sure.

Don’t you hate it when that’s a question rather than a statement on race-day eve?

My only goal for the 2.5K Daiquiri Deck Tropical Splash Open Water Swim tomorrow morning is to have fun. Secondary goals include not worsening the slight cold I seem to have come down with (stomach flu and then a cold? That’s just RUDE, health gods. Really rude.).

If my muscles remember that my swim training was awesomely consistent all summer before falling off a cliff in the fall, terrific! If that particular batch of hay is long gone … well, I still get a post-race daiquiri.

Anyone else racing this weekend? What are your goals?

Just about a month ago, I plucked a training plan from a random magazine and got psyched up to train for the Philadelphia Half-Marathon.

Things got out of control pretty quickly, huh? The bad news: I missed a week thanks to the stomach flu. The good news: Despite the lost week and scratched-out schedule, I nailed my first longer run of the program, a lovely six-miler on Monday.

How closely do you follow your training plans? How do you handle schedule curve balls?