MCM: Mission Accomplished

It was not the race I wanted, but I set out at the beginning of MCM training to run a sub-three-hour marathon, and a sub-three-hour marathon I did run.

The night before I tossed and turned and paced the halls of the Holiday Inn (The whole weekend I kept finding myself singing “I’m at the hotel, motel, Holiday Inn,” which reminded me so much of my mother who loves to say things like “Paula!  I went to the Harris Teeter this morning and it was like ‘Who let the dogs out?!’)  Even with the rest I had given my ankle, I knew something was not quite right.  While I walked around D.C. pain-free for most of the day Saturday, I immediately felt discomfort when I did an easy jog Saturday evening.  I had doubts in my head whether I should even run on Sunday, but I decided to just keep my fingers crossed and if worse comes to worst I could always pull out of the race if the pain became too severe.

Crossing my fingers that my ankle will hold - Morning of MCM

Whether from ignorance or stupidity, I did watch the sun come up on Sunday morning while standing just a few feet from the starting line in front of a little over 23,000 runners in Arlington, VA.  The day was beautiful – cool and partly cloudy.  And as the Star Spangled Banner played, active and retired military vets floated down from the sky while American flags trailed behind them.

After a slight false start when some runners accidently began with the wheelchair crowd, around 7:55 am, the race was underway.  Even though I started only a few people deep, during the first mile or so, the pack was thick and it was slow-moving uphill.  Randomly I did run in to (not quite literally) a guy that I chatted with a few weeks back during the Marine Corps Half Marathon in Camp Lejeune.  In his Where’s Waldo-striped cap, the tall, jolly kid excitedly told other new friends around us, “Hey – I ran with this girl at the Marine Corps Half a few weeks ago.”  I later passed by my friend, who pulled away early in the race, around mile 18.  He was in pain and could barely speak.  I felt sorry for him, but little did I know at that point that I would soon be taken down by the marathon as well.

Before I even made it to mile three of the marathon, my right ankle was already throbbing, but the pain was bearable.  Thus, I kept marching on.

While some of the marathon has become a blur, I remember countless times throughout the course thinking, “Wow – That’s beautiful” as I passed woods colored with autumn leaves, sparkling waters with monuments in the backgrounds, and under old, arched bridges. 

I also remember the people of the marathon – I chatted with several runners throughout the course (my “I run better than the Gov’t” singlet was a good conversation starter), and all the Marines were so helpful, friendly, and polite! (Love all the ‘ma’ams’ I received as well as the soup and hot chocolate I enjoyed in the medical tent after the race!)  I was also so thankful for all the supporters who came out and lined the streets early in the morning to cheer us on.  My mother popped up a few times along the course, and I was excited to see my friends around mile 25 near the Pentagon holding the cutest signs that I ran past all day.

My sweet friends Becky (left) and Jane (right) on the MCM Course near the Pentagon

I moved along well through the first 21-22 miles of the race.  I had planned on running between 6:30 – 6:40 minutes per mile, but my body felt strong enough that I was covering some miles closer to a 6-minute mark (The 5K between the 25K and the 30K, I ran at an average pace of 6:11 per mile.) 

Rolling through some marathon miles

However, with only a few miles left in the marathon, I realized that I had begun limping.  If it had happened at mile 13, I certainly would have pulled out of the race, but when I was so close to reaching my goal and had so many solid, fast miles behind me, I just couldn’t quit.

With my bum leg, my pace quickly slowed from 6:30-minute miles to 7:00-minute miles, to 8:00-minute miles.  I’m not sure I even bothered to look down at my watch the last mile or so.  I was only focused on continuing to cover ground.

I’ve seen the pictures, and they are not pretty, but I shuffled my way across the finish line in 2:56:05 – about four minutes under my 3:00 hour goal that I set at the beginning of training.  Overall, I was the 9^th Place Woman of about 10,000.  In the 25-29 year-old female group, I came in 2^nd – behind the overall female winner, which probably means the award that I get in the mail will be first place for my age group (Generally the top three overall winners are taken out of age group awards.)

Even though the marathon was a success in many lights, I cannot help but still feel some level of disappointment and frustration.  Like a detective solving a murder mystery, I have gone over and over my last steps of marathon training to figure out what may have caused the ankle pain that left me limping across the finish line and still unable to walk four days later as I write this post.  Fortunately, after spending hours and who knows how much money at a local Urgent Care, I did learn from an x-ray that my injury is not attributable to a broken bone or stress fracture.

While I think it is certainly possible that the only cause could be overuse, I am now thinking with 99% certainty that the injury is a result of my dog yanking me out of my triangle pose while I was stretching over my right leg before last Tuesday’s night run in order to chase after a neighborhood cat.  Needless to say, Sugar is getting only walks from now on.

As I close the 2013 MCM chapter, I turn my attention from marathon training to healing my ankle.  I am still waiting to take those first few without my crutches.  I have had a slight glimpse in to how it must feel to be handicapped, and it is more difficult than you can imagine.  I’ve had to re-learn how to do things – like how to get a cup of coffee to my desk, or an apple.

Carrying my apple at work.

I am not sure when I will be able to walk again, but I know that this injury will eventually pass.  And after I begin walking, it will only be a matter of time before I return to running.  And once I begin running, the racing will come.  In fact, I got a little, present from Boston yesterday…I’m thinking Spring sounds like a good time to try to break a 2:50:00.

2014 Boston Marathon:  Confirmation of Acceptance

MCM Training Week Twenty (Final Week!):  14 Miles Before Marathon

   

This Week’s Beer Choice: Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA – Marathon Eve at Il Canale in Georgetown (Spaghetti for Dinner – No Surprise There)

60 Minute IPA at Il Canale - Eve of MCM

MCM: Race Weekend

Evidently marathoners are known for crapping in the pants.  Well, I have thankfully never experienced this unfortunate accident, but with race time less than 48 hours away, I sure do feel like I could crap my pants right now.

1,145 – this is the number of miles I have put on my legs since week one of MCM training.  I honestly wanted more, but I will certainly take it.  My goal was to originally have about a month of running 80-plus miles, but instead I ended up turning that 80 in to 70.  But that’s how training goes – You make plans, and then your body tells you otherwise.

Even though my mileage came in slightly under the mark, I am overall pleased and grateful for the training I have accomplished.  There were certainly tough weeks – Remember Week #4 when I only got in 17 miles because I injured the outside of my right foot?  But there were countless hard runs that I am so glad that I got under my training belt.

With the hours counting down, I am focusing on having a healthy body make it to the starting line.  Unfortunately, a bit of tendonitis has flared up on the inside of my right leg around my ankle.  My plantar fasciitis is also still present in my right heel when I first wake up in the morning.  I am not concerned with the plantar fasciitis, but I am a little stressed and frustrated about the pain around my ankle.  I am questioning whether the injury is a result of running in worn-out shoes and that I maybe should have switched out my running shoes one more time before race day.  However, I’ve been through four pairs of Brooks PureConnects this training period!

Since you can’t put the Genie back in the Bottle, I am forced to just do my best to rest and ice my foot in these last couple of days.  And don’t get me wrong, there is pain there, but it could be a lot worse.  Neither a government shutdown nor a nagging tendon is going to stop this marathon from happening.  I’ve been through too many miles and too many hard weeks of training to turn back now.

I’m going to D.C. to get this thing done.

The Unwritten Rules of (the) Taper

Nope!  This week’s blog is not about swiping right on an ex and immediately blocking or drinking if you get a match (you can read about those rules here http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/02/unwritten-rules-tinder_n_3689441.html ) but instead it is about preparing yourself in those last two (maybe three) weeks of training to get your marathon game on.

And thank God / Allah / Zeus / Good Ol’ Saint Nick that there is going to be a marathon!  It was touch-and-go for a while on Tuesday night and Wednesday as news source after news source began reporting that the Marine Corps Marathon was in jeopardy of being canceled due to the government shutdown. 

http://www.runnersworld.com/races/shutdown-could-cancel-marine-corps-marathon

However, on Thursday I received the below e-mail from the Marine Corps Marathon titled:  MCM:  Mission Ready.  And I couldn’t agree more with the MCM Staff – “We are SO on!”

As I breath a sigh of relief after my marathon was on the operating table being shocked by a defibrillator, I also let out an audible, yoga exhale that I have finally made it to the taper – the last few weeks where I can back off my mileage and rest up for race day!  The tough work has been done, the die has been cast, and my preparation is-what-it-is at this point.  There is very little, if anything, I can do to train my body any more now, but – if I choose to not taper properly – there is a lot I can do to ruin all that I have accomplished. 

To me, the most frustrating thing about a taper is that there are no clear, standard rules or best practices.  The taper is often referred to as “an art and not a science.”  Coaches and athletes will argue over a two-week taper or a three-week taper and just how much one should cut back on both mileage and intensity.

So, I have a compiled a list of Taper Rules according to Paula to provide some structure to the taper masterpiece.

Rule #1:  Any way you slice it, rule # 1 is to taper!  If you want your performance to peak on race day, then you absolutely need to taper.  The same hard-headedness, stubborn, perhaps egotistical thinking that makes people try to run through injuries also makes them do stupid things like run 20 miles the weekend before a marathon.  Unless you are Dean Karnazes or Scott Jurek (which let’s face it –most of us aren’t), then you need to seriously cut back on the mileage before race day. 

Rule #2:  Cut back on mileage, but keep some intensity.  Just because you may only be running half of the miles that you ran during your most strenuous training weeks, doesn’t mean that all the miles you are currently running need to be easy.  Instead, continue to incorporate some faster running – especially some running at race pace.  However, do cut back on the miles or minutes you spend running at a quicker pace.   For example, if you did a ten-mile run in the prior week with six miles at marathon pace, then perhaps you may want to do and eight-mile run with two by two miles at marathon pace with a five-minute active recovery (jogging/easy running).

Rule #3:  Stay off the hills.  Normally, I love and encourage hill work.  Coaches like to say that hills are speed work in disguise.  However, the time for breaking down your muscles to build them back stronger has passed.  Instead, the final weeks leading up to the marathon are for recovering from all the hard training. 

Rule #4:  Don’t try anything new.  New foods, new workouts, new shoes – leave these things for after the marathon.  You don’t want to be sore on race day because you tried out a barre class for the first time a few days before.

Rule #5:  When in doubt, come in undertrained rather than over-trained.  My belief is that there is a lot more that you can screw up rather than you can gain.  When in doubt, cut a workout short or even cut it completely.  Again, this rule can be argued but as I mentioned above – these are taper rules according to Paula.

Rule #6:  Find new projects!  The taper can sometimes be the most challenging part of training for some people.  Runners will find comfort in logging high mileage week-after-week, and thus the shorter runs and more free time can cause some people to feel antsy.  Use this time to catch up on other things in life or perhaps complete a non-running (and non-physically demanding) project.  For example, I spent hours this Saturday sorting through papers in my office and compiling items for my 2013 taxes.  Personally, it made me feel like I had organized my life and gave me a sense of calmness and order.

Rule #7:  Prepare for race day.  Instead of sitting around worrying that you will get fat from cutting your mileage, use the extra time to go through your marathon checklist.  Do you have everything you need?  Have you made all your massage appointments, dinner reservations, etc.?  One of the last things I typically do is buy some throwaway clothes.  Because I know it will be in the 40s on the morning of the MCM and I should be arriving at the starting line around two hours before the gun goes off, I made a quick trip to Walmart to buy a cheap pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt that I can leave at the starting line where it will hopefully be collected and donated (Most big marathons will donate all discarded clothing.)  Combining rule # 6 (find a new project) and rule #7, I also started a little art project on my racing singlet that I will wear during the marathon that almost didn’t happen.

Lastly, Rule #8:  Smile – because you made it!  The hard work is behind you and all you need to do is coast safely to the starting line.

MCM Training Week Nineteen:  54 Miles

The longest run this week was only 14 miles with the last three miles ran at a moderate pace (The first 11 were easy.)  I also had a nine-mile fartlek run with a couple minutes of running at half-marathon pace about every mile or so.  Lastly, other than some easy additional miles, I had a twelve-mile run with two by four miles ran at marathon pace.

This Week’s Beer Choice: While you shouldn’t drink and Tinder, you can drink (in moderation) and Taper!  During my trip to Walmart, I picked up a twelve pack of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, an old favorite, for less than $14!

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale in one of my favorite beer glasses - a prize from the 2013 NoDa 5K

Good Times, Bad Times – You Know I’ve Had My Share

During the course of marathon training, I have obviously had good days and bad days – This is to be expected.  However, as much as I try to think rationally and keep my emotions at bay, I can’t help but feel low when I have a crappy run and elated when I kill it.

Even though I know my body will not feel great every day, I still start to doubt my abilities when a run turns out to be harder than I expected or if I can’t complete the miles at the pace I planned.  And it’s sometimes difficult to not let it all snowball…On my worse days, I start to doubt what I am even doing spending all this time running.  How far do I think I’m going to take this?  How good do I really think I’m going to get?

I also tend to have a love/hate relationship with my Garmin watch – I can’t imagine running without it, but I know it does not always tell the truth.  When it tells me I’m running faster than I had thought, I do a little victory dance in my head.  But on the dark side, when the number staring back at me is slower than I wanted, it kills my spirit.  I will let my Garmin watch dictate how I feel about my entire run.  And when the sky is cloudy or the trails are shaded and my lying watch tells me I’m running too slowly, I will run myself to death trying to beat my watch.

I wish I could say my manic episodes are confined to the trails and city sidewalks, but I know that I am guilty of letting a bad day or a bad week while not in my running shoes change my whole outlook on my life.  Even though everyone has bad days and bumps in the road, it can still be difficult to recognize these times for what they are – just a low moment in a long life – and try to remain positive about things improving or focus on all the positive things that are already in my life.

And just like how I allow my watch’s judgment to overshadow my own, I will sometimes let my reflection of myself in others change the way I feel about myself.  And I really shouldn’t. 

As a young girl in the 6^th grade, one of my friends became angry with me and accused me of “always trying to be perfect.”  My natural, overachieving personality clearly had upset this girl, and I remember questioning if I did have some sort of character flaw…Was I trying to be “perfect?”  Fortunately, another friend of mine, Janna, stood up for me and said, “You can’t be mad at her just because she makes good grades.”  Thanks, Janna.

On a more light-hearted note, I caught one of my sorority sisters in college stating I was “not cute” after her date said to mine, “Oh, you are here with cute Paula?”  It could have hurt my feelings (for the record I thought she was pretty), but instead it just became a huge joke with my friends to talk about how “not cute” I was.

I am certainly an imperfect person, and I am certainly my own worse critic.  But sometimes I forget that we are all imperfect people.  I may not always say the perfect things or act in perfect ways and I definitely do not kill every run, but sometimes the best thing I can do is to forgive myself.  We all deserve to just give ourselves a break sometimes.  Otherwise, we will run ourselves into the ground trying to beat our GPS watches or please others.

I know good days and bad days are part of the course for both marathon training and life.  Sometimes I stumble, sometimes I fall, sometimes I bleed, and sometimes I cry.   But so far I have always picked myself back up and continued to run. 

So whether it may be a bad run, a tough day at work, a hurtful comment from a friend, or an ex-boyfriend who didn’t respect me the way he should have – I am trying to not allow these negative thoughts to consume my mind and impact my entire outlook.  Instead, I’m trying to take the bad days with a grain a salt or – in the case of an ex-boyfriend – perhaps a large margarita.

MCM Training Week Eighteen:  71 Miles

After last week’s sub-par long run, I was happy to nail two important runs this week. 

First, on Friday, I ran 14 miles – 2 miles easy, 10 miles at marathon pace, and then 2 miles easy.  The run was comfortably hard, and I was happy to be able to hold the marathon pace at a reasonable effort.

The second important run of this week was my 20-mile long run on Sunday.  Scheduled to run at a “steady” pace, I completed the run with an average pace of just under 7:30 minutes/mile.  Perhaps more important, I felt solid and strong on the run.  Fingers crossed this is a good sign!!



This Week's Beer Choice:  Unita Brewing Co.'s Punk'n Ale (A pumpkin ale that actually tastes good!)

   

Gold Medal Confidence

Early one morning in August 2012, I woke up before it was even light out for a Sunday long run.  However, for this particular run, no shoes were required…I was actually a spectator from the comfort of a leather recliner as I watched the men’s 2012 Olympic Marathon.

In the minutes leading up to the start of the race, NBC interviewed several of the athletes including Ryan Hall.  I honestly was pretty gobsmacked or perhaps godsmacked as I watched Ryan Hall going on-and-on about his Christian training and how great he is (And by he I mean Ryan – not the “He.”)  I think the quote that got me was something along the lines of “I am already am awesome.” My first thought was “Who’s this asshole?”

What I didn’t fully grasp as I watched Ryan Hall coming across as an arrogant, brainwashed, religious fanatic was just how much mental strength plays in to a race – especially one that’s 26.2 miles.

In my naïve mind, I thought of a race like taking a test in college – You could feel nervous and unprepared as hell but could end up walking (or rather running in the case of a race) out of it having killed it.

What I now believe to be true is that no runner (or perhaps only very few) can actually win the Olympics if they don’t believe they can win it before getting to that starting line.

And you don’t have to be up for a gold medal to need confidence.  A marathon is a long distance, and if you start out too slow (or too fast) for too many miles, there is no way you will be able to make up those errors later in the marathon.  Thus, if you don’t believe you can run a three-hour marathon for example, you won’t start out at an appropriate pace that you can hold steady to reach that goal.  Instead, most likely, later in the race, you will pick up your pace and finish realizing that if you had gone out a little stronger in the beginning and maintained, you could have run a faster race.  But you didn’t start out faster – Why?  Because you didn’t believe you could run a three-hour marathon.

Of course confidence is like that two-sided coin – the fear is that you will be overly confident and pick unrealistic goals.  It should be noted that Ryan Hall dropped out of the 2012 Olympic Marathon after only running for 10 miles.  He evidently had a hamstring strain entering the race that turned out to not have been completely healed as he had thought.

As my training for the Marine Corps Marathon is down to its final few weeks, my physical preparation is almost complete.  Much like the last few miles of the marathon, there isn’t much you can do to at the end to make up for all the miles already run (or perhaps not run).  Instead, it’s time to make sure I have prepared myself mentally.  In addition to training my brain to stay focused during a hard run and withstand the necessary pain, my mind will also need to be calm and confident.

So while I still think Ryan Hall is a bit of a strange cookie, I do feel a little bad about calling him an asshole (not that he knows).  As with most people who boast about themselves, the person he is really trying to convince of his ability is himself.  And you know what?  I’m trying to do the same thing myself.

MCM Training Week Seventeen:  76 Miles

Needless to say, my Sunday long run after my Saturday brewery hop (see below) could have been better.  It certainly didn’t help that when I jogged down to NoDa Brewery Sunday morning to get my car to make the trip out to the flat, South Charlotte trail, I found that the parking lot had been padlocked closed and wouldn’t reopen until 1:00 pm.  Thus, I was forced to take to the brutal hills of the nearby urban Charlotte neighborhoods.  I was supposed to hold a hard pace (6:50 – 7:00 minutes/mile) for 18 miles of my 20-mile run but after 16 miles I had had enough.  I was not running up one more hill!!  As any bad run can do, it certainly shook my confidence a bit.  Thus, this week I will focus on nailing my long run on Sunday (last true long run of training!!!) to hopefully get my Ryan Hall-confidence back on.

This Week’s Beer Choice: It’s a Brewery Hop!  

On Saturday we hit up some of my neighborhood breweries starting at NoDa Brewery.  I actually had my first Jam Session Pale Ale (it’s hard to pass up a Hop, Drop, N’ Roll) which was tasty!  We also took a tour of the brewery and learned all about the origin of the hops and how they make their delicious beer.  It was super interesting – I felt like I was visiting a foreign country and going to the country’s home brewery (I’ve been to the Heineken and the Guiness Breweries – They were a little bigger.)

After NoDa Brewery, we popped next door to Birdsong and enjoyed the summertime weather on the porch with a Higher Ground IPA.  Life really doesn’t get much better than that.

Lastly, while the sun was setting, we walked a little up North Davidson St. to Heist Brewery.  Set in the old Highland Mill, Heist has character, craft beer, and curiously amazing food.   Just like its Noda neighborhood, nothing is normal at Heist.  Chicken & Waffle Sushi?  They got it.  Everything I’ve had at Heist is amazing, and it was the perfect place to finish our tour with some much-needed grub.

View of Uptown Charlotte as we walked to Heist in NoDa.