Amy Reinink

It’s Marine Corps Marathon week, and longtime readers of this blog know this race holds a special place in my heart after a heartbreaking, but ultimately life-changing, experience last year.

Grinning ear-to-ear before the Marine Corps Marathon.

This year, I signed up for the Marine Corps 10K instead. But I have lots of friends going the distance on Sunday, and I’m truly motivated by the adventure they’re about to embark upon.

In their honor, I’m dedicating this week to re-running various Marine Corps Marathon posts from last year that might be helpful to others. Among them is a series I wrote for examiner.com breaking down the race into five-mile chunks. I’ll run those here every day leading up to the race. I hope those, along with the links below, will help other runners mentally rehearse hills and envision themselves crossing the finish line to get their medals.

Running MCM this weekend? Good luck. Now, go get your medal!

Spectator’s guide

How to avoid Marine Corps Marathon taper tantrums

The ultimate Marine Corps Marathon playlist

What motivated me to enter

What motivated me to finish when the going got tough

Also, check out The Washington Post’s Marine Corps Marathon 2010 guide. It includes mini-profiles of inspiring runners, featuring a woman who trained for the race while undergoing chemotherapy.

Did you run the Marine Corps Marathon last year? If so, what’s your best piece of advice about the course? Are you running it this year? If so, what are you doing this week to prepare?

Ever since reading the chapter in my Outdoor Emergency Care book about ACL tears on the ski slope, I’ve been consciously amping up my pre-ski season workout to improve balance and agility, decrease my chances of tearing an ACL, and increase my chances of not making a fool of myself in front of my fellow ski-patrol candidates during ski and toboggan training this winter. I’ve been doing lots of jumping lunges, incorporating stability balls and BOSUs to my planks positions and adding weight to my leg presses (on the 45-degree machine, I’m up to 270 pounds, or more than twice my body weight, thankyouverymuch!).

In this month’s SKI magazine, the legendary ski-movie maker Warren Miller has a column addressing this very topic, and offers the following tip about shaping up before ski season:

“Never talk to anyone about losing weight,” he writes. “All I ever hear about is the 12 pounds that a friend lost while he was on a diet of cabbage and beets for three months and working out three times a week with a trainer who charged $100 an hour. The only thing that much exercise will get you ready for is to die healthier.”

Amen, brother. I’m still going to push myself at the gym, fueled my images of me breezing down mogul runs with a toboggan in tow. But thanks to Miller’s tip, I’m also going to enjoy my S’mores and wine during a camping trip to Harpers Ferry this weekend—the beets and cabbage can wait.

On Monday, registration opened (and closed) for the prestigious Boston Marathon. I know this because, thanks to having lots of runner-friends on Facebook and Twitter, my social media streams were filled with chatter about it all day, from the jubilant registration announcements to the wistful consolations of “maybe next year.”

The difference between the two posts: The all-important Boston qualifier, or BQ, or a marathon time that meets Boston’s tough time limits—3:40 for a woman my age. That’s 8:23-minute mile pace, or roughly what I do for a fast half-marathon. You may recall that last year, my Marine Corps Marathon goal (the one I had before all the wheels fell off) was a humble four hours, meaning a BQ just isn’t part of my daily vocabulary.

I am, however, gunning for a different kind of BQ—a Bay Qualifier, or a successful lottery bid for the 4.4-mile Chesapeake Bay Bridge Swim. When I first registered a week ago, I was feeling pretty wishy-washy about the event, in part because of its $250 entry fee.

Me finishing the 1-Mile Chesapeake Bay Bridge Challenge in 2009.

But watching the Boston chatter, I realized two things: not only am I no longer even personally curious about that kind of BQ, I’m also not tantalized by the idea of running any full marathon at this point. But I *am* officially excited about the prospect of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Swim, and will be forking over my $250 if I get the chance to.

The first round of swimmers find out their fate on Nov. 4, with more rounds of swimmers approved every 48 hours until the swim reaches its 700-swimmer limit. Cross your fingers for me!

There’s a moment before any swim practice, whether it’s a little kids’ summer league or the U.S. Olympic team, when every swimmer realizes it’s time to jump in—and the entire team begins stalling. We stretch. We chat with each other. We chat with our coach. What we do not do is get in the pool and swim, until someone all but pushes us in.

Katie at Run This Amazing Day says it’s the moment when her brain says: “NO.  WATER IS COLD AND BAD. GO FIND YOUR JAMMIES AND A COOKIE.”

Olympic swimmer Dara Torres has a chapter in her first book about this phenomenon, and I’ve seen it myself as both a coach and a swimmer. Now that the weather’s cooling down again, I’m seeing it in myself. Last winter, I bribed myself with Celestial Seasonings Sugar Cookie herbal tea. This year, I’m reverting to an older trick.

Sugar Cookie tea tastes even better post-swim.

Whenever my high school swim coach, a lovely, kind, soft-spoken Russian man who looked a little bit like a thin version of Val Kilmer, saw us lingering on the pool deck, he’d call us out by name, and say, in heavily accented English: “Get in or get out!” We’d laugh at the idiom, and maybe roll our eyes at the instruction, and then … we’d get in. I’ve decided to make this my new poolside mantra, and tried it for the first time swimming at the newly reopened Takoma Aquatic Center yesterday.

I lingered on the side of Takoma Aquatic Center's pool yesterday.

The pool’s been closed for the past month for renovations. Apparently, those renovations included filling the pool with ice-cold water—like, 70 degrees—to test how serious I was about this new tough-love mantra. I felt the water. I squealed a little. I watched another swimmer dip her toes in the water, and then turn around and walk out the door without swimming. And then …. I got in.

I’m not going to lie—it was legitimately cold the entire time, even when I interrupted a distance set to do some sprints to generate more body heat. But I got in. I swam a great workout. And then, I headed home and sipped some Sugar Cookie tea under a warm, fuzzy blanket, which is almost the same as seeking jammies and a cookie.

What’s motivating you this week?

I’ve been working on a feature profiling busy, high-profile people who manage to fit workouts into their schedule, and have gotten to the point that common themes are emerging. The most popular sentiment is also the easiest to replicate: Just do *something.*

Sports psychologist and “mental toughness trainer” Alison Arnold finds this sentiment important enough to make it into an acronym, J.D.S., in a write-up offering motivational tips and tricks. And I find it important enough to withstand a workout that I truly find boring: the stationary bike.

If I had all the time and resources in the world, I’d alternate swimming, running and lifting, maybe throwing in a yoga class and a weekly overnight backpacking trip for variety. But I don’t, so once a week or so, when I’ve punted on all other workout options, I grab some reading material (usually, these days, my Outdoor Emergency Care book), walk down to the little mini-gym in my condo complex and park myself on the stationary bike for 30 minutes to an hour, pedaling while I read in the ultimate act of multi-tasking.

It’s not my favorite form of exercise, but it’s saved me from doing nothing on many days when a nice, leisurely swim just didn’t work out. The recumbent stationary bike is also ideal for cross-training through injuries, as it’s low-impact and easy on my IT band, unlike regular bikes.

What do you do for exercise on those “just do something” days?

Is there anything more terrifying and thrilling than committing to a new challenge? It’s why we sign up for marathons after tackling halves, or look into triathlons after taking up cycling. New challenges expand our concept of what we can accomplish, and keep us motivated to head out the door to work out when we’d rather curl up under a blanket.

I didn’t exactly commit to a new challenge this week. But I did commit to think about committing to one by registering for a lottery spot for the 4.4-mile Chesapeake Bay Bridge Swim.

This A. Aubrey Bodine photo of the Bay Bridge captures how I feel during peaceful moments of the Bay Bridge Swim.

I’ve done the Chesapeake Bay Bridge 1-Mile Challenge, derisively called the “Baby Bay,” twice, and placed in my age group both times. The distance and course are comfortable, but I can always work on the challenge of defending my “title” (ha!) or besting my previous time. Still, the 4.4-miler, a terrifying journey from one shore to the other, with a terrifying registration cost of $250, has my attention, and I’m at least thinking about committing to it.

Psychologists call this the “contemplation” stage of goal-setting or behavior-changing, and say it’s marked by ambivalence and conflicted emotions (yep), with a stark understanding of what’s at stake (my “fun” budget for the next two months thanks to the $250 registration, my Saturday mornings thanks to long swims). The lottery-selection process might decide for me. Even if I do get picked, I’ve got some time to continue contemplating before I start the next phases of goal-setting: preparation, followed by action.

What’s your style when it comes to registering for races? Do you ponder and contemplate, or just take the plunge and sign up?

When it comes to working out, I know what I like.

I like running. When I can’t run, or need to cross-train, I like swimming. If I don’t have enough time to swim, I like the recumbent stationary bike, and I like supplementing all of these by lifting, and by doing a wide variety of hip and core strengtheners (check out my favorites here and here).

If you’d told me before last weekend that I would also like a workout that involve a canoe, a paddle and a mosquito jacket, I would have declared you insane.

Insane ... but also correct.

I’m one of those people who gets weird, phantom mosquito bites in January, and can put up with about 30 minutes on the rowing machine at the gym before boredom hits. But an opportunity to write about a camping trip to Assateague Island, off Maryland’s Eastern Shore, led me to purchase a mosquito jacket (park rangers warned that the bayside campsites are buggy all year round), rent a canoe and paddle six miles to a back-country campsite.

Marketing photo for the mosquito jacket I bought, and conveniently forgot to get photos of myself wearing.

And guess what? It was fun!

Breaking out of my comfort zone let me paddle into a gorgeous sunset on the Chincoteague Bay …

… camp alongside a beautiful (if buggy) marsh …

… see a sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean …

… and get a killer upper-body workout decidedly more exciting than the rowing machine at the gym.

I’ll post the link to the full story about the camping trip when it runs next year. I mention it now because it offered a powerful reminder that even when we think we’ve got our perfect workout lineup, we can challenge our minds, bodies and spirits by daring to mix things up.

When’s the last time you broke out of your workout comfort zone? How did that work out for you?

Swimming’s been called the “sport of last resort” — no matter what your injury, it’s likely you’ll be able to swim through it. I came (back) to swimming a few years ago because of an injury myself, and relied on a pull buoy to immobilize my legs through a brutal hip injury in 2007.

Wait. Using a what to immobilize my legs?

I’m sure you’ve seen pull buoys in the buckets of swim toys at public pools, though you may or may not have seen someone use one. They’re not sexy and exciting and fun like a kickboard and flippers, which everyone seems to be an expert in using (why, oh why, do people insist on using flippers when there are more than five people sharing a lane?). But the humble pull buoy, just a figure-8-shaped piece of foam, can help you work on your pull and alignment, not to mention give you a kick-butt arms workout.More importantly, when you’ve got a lower body injury that even swimming aggravates, it can keep your hurt parts in place while you swim.

My trusty pull buoy.

My pull buoy had been gathering dust in the closet for months until this past week, when I started using it again thanks to a dinged-up toe (again, long story, big bruise). I was truly shocked at how challenging my first pull-only workout was, so I thought I’d share it as a workout tool here.

Here’s how to use it: Insert the skinny part of the figure-8-shaped pull buoy between your thighs. Swim. Need further instruction? Check out these detailed instructions, videos and photos from GoSwim!

My favorite pull set? Five X 200 freestyle, pull. If your shoulders aren’t throbbing by the end, throw in a few 50 freestyle sprints.

Every so often, while I’m working on a story, I’ll stumble across a piece of information—a poignant quote or powerful anecdote—that seems tailor-made for me, not just as a journalist, but as a runner and a human.

This week, that came courtesy of a Women’s Running story I’m working on, for which I got to talk to Janet Hamilton, an Atlanta-area running coach and registered clinical exercise physiologist. Hamilton told me that the biggest mistake people make is trying to “bludgeon their bodies into fitness,” a strategy that leads to burnout and injury.

“If you tune in to your body’s little whispers, it will never have to shout at you,” she said.

This is counter to everything we believe about hard work and effort, and decidedly less exciting than the workout montages in our favorite movies about physical triumph. But in real life, Rocky would most likely have to stop and stretch his IT band after charging up those steps.

For me, this means laying off my runs for a few days while I wait for an annoying toe injury (long story, giant bruise) to calm down. Though I’m tempted to just run through it, Hamilton’s advice reminded me that listening to this particular whisper could mean avoiding a big, loud shout down the road in the form of a stress fracture in my foot, or something equally awful.

What have you been doing to tune into your body’s whispers?

It’s rare that a race that sounds too good to be true lives up to its expectations.The Daiquiri Deck Tropical Splash Open Water 5K Swim in Siesta Key, Fla., on Oct. 2 was one of those rare, wonderful races.

I swam the 5K (there are also 1K and 2.5K options), and finished in 1:31:58.6, or 29:40-minute mile pace—a good time for me, and good enough to win my age group. Here’s why I loved the swim, and why I’ll be back for it next year:

Can you imagine a prettier place for an open-water swim?

Natural beauty. Dr. Beach, a Florida professor who releases an annual ranking of the country’s beaches, ranks Siesta Key as the No. 2 beach in the country, touting its fine white sand, wide, pretty beach and clear, clean water. If there’s a better way to nix pre-race nerves than wiggling your toes in powdered-sugar sand, I don’t know it. Plus, it’s lots easier to drag your support crew out of bed at 4:30 a.m. when you know they get to hang out on that beach while they watch you.

Me and my loyal, generous “support crew,” otherwise known as Steve and my parents.

A great post-race spread. The race doesn’t actually finish at the title sponsor, the Daiquiri Deck. But offerings at the finish festival at a lovely, shaded beachside pavilion made up for it. Options include rice and bean burritos from Clayton’s Grill and wraps from The Broken Egg, both local eateries. A volunteer also brought homemade bread, which she told us had “all sorts of good whole grains” as she sliced it and dished it up. I can confirm it was all sorts of good, and love that this is the kind of hometown race where people bring homemade bread.

The super-cool post-race party.

Great organization. The event, which is sanctioned by U.S. Masters Swimming and put on by the Sarasota YMCA Sharks Masters, was amazingly well-organized, from the quick, easy registration and check-in to the many volunteer kayakers on the course.

The race was well-organized and fun from the start …

… to the finish.

My only complaints:

Sea lice. I spent the first quarter of the swim thinking that I’d been stung by a jellyfish (these were present on race day, too), and that the sting had sent me into anaphylactic shock, as the horrible itchy-ouchie sensation had spread to my whole body. Other swimmers informed me I was among many participants to have a bathing suit full of sea lice. I don’t know what these are, or how to prevent them, but I can confirm they’re not cool. Nothing race organizers could have done about this, and not a reason to not do the race—just something worth mentioning.

A looong awards ceremony, which organizers promise will be shorter next year.

Me posing geekily with my age-group award.

Overall results can be found here, and age-group results here.

Have you done this swim? What did you think? Let me know by posting a comment below.