Eat Drink Run Woman

As Bon Jovi would say, “Ohhhh — we’re halfway there. Ohhh-oh! Livin’ on a prayer!”

This week fortunately ended on a much better note than it started. However, I believe what transpired needed to happen to help me gain perspective.

Sidelined with a sore calf, I moped around the house on Sunday. “I’m not going to hit 200 miles this month,” I sniffed. “I may not be able to run the Mt. Si Relay,” I sniveled. “I may as well give up on Boston,” I weeped. While deep down he really wanted to shake me out of my funk, my darling knew I just needed a hug and a good cry.

With that out of the way I too could see how ludicrous my problems were. Here I was sulking because there was a chance I wouldn’t be able to run a 26.2-mile race in a time fast enough to… run ANOTHER 26.2-mile race. However, I’m not too surprised at this reaction. After all, when I first blogged about wanting to qualify for Boston, I wrote:

“I know my biggest challenge will be to keep things in perspective: few people qualify on their first attempt (I read blogs by people who have tried to qualify numerous times). You just have to learn from your experience and adjust your training accordingly. Plus, you can never predict (or control) what the weather will do on race day.”

I knew this adventure wouldn’t be easy; I’m just bummed I started acting like a petulant child at the first sign of adversity. It’s at times like these I need to remember what Juls has endured. Her quest for Boston has been side-lined not from a minor injury, but the devastating loss of her dear husband to cancer a year ago.

Besides, turns out I just needed some new shoes.

Here’s the recap:

Sunday: considered doing some laps at the pool but decided doing housework would be more beneficial.

Monday: weights, abs, stretching and PT exercises in the morning, 40-minutes of lap swimming in the afternoon.

Tuesday: yoga

Wednesday: weights, abs, stretching and PT, followed by more PT with my therapist. I was bolstered by the good news that I could start running again (although she suggested resting one more day).

Thursday: PT exercises, abs, stretching. After my cook date was done I rushed to my running store to buy new shoes, then immediately took them out for a spin. Took it rather slow the first mile (9:23), but was feeling so good I sped it up. Overall pace: 9:02.

Friday: typical morning gym routine. Took off on a 14-mile afternoon run, but decided to bag it after 10 miles when the rain started pelting me. Kept it nice and easy, with an overall 10:17 pace.

Saturday: 15 miles on the schedule, but it wasn’t your run-of-the-mill 15 mile long run; I had to run 12 miles at marathon race pace (a little over 9:11 min/mile). I didn’t want to risk aggravating my calf muscle, so I ran along the flat Burke-Gilman from Matthews Beach to the Wayne Golf Course and back. Took the first two miles slow to warm up, stopping after eight minutes to stretch. It was the perfect day for running, although there was a slight breeze.

At mile three I picked up the pace, but still didn’t quite hit marathon pace (it was just over at 9:14). Kicked it up again and settled into a pace that was comfortable, yet challenging. Wanting to mimic race conditions as much as possible, I took in a gel and some water at miles 5 and 10 without stopping. I did, however, get a couple of breaks when I had to stop at the stoplights (call me a cheater, but I stopped Garmin. I figure I won’t have to deal with stoplights during a race!)

This was definitely one of the tougher runs I’ve done in a long time. Fortunately nothing hurt, it was just tough to keep up the pace. As I neared mile eight of the marathon pace portion (mile 10 overall) I decided I could live with running only 10 miles at marathon pace if need be. After all, I WAS coming off of an injury. Once I hit that mark I focused on the next one — hit 13.1 miles in under two hours. I had to really kick it into high gear, but I managed to do it with roughly 30 seconds to spare.

Because I was practically sprinting toward the end, I stopped to catch my breath, stopping Garmin as well. My head was spinning and it took me a couple of minutes before I could run again. Even then I was slow and had to take a couple more walk breaks. I figured I wouldn’t hit my goal of 12 miles at marathon pace; I’d have to settle for 11. However, I knew I ran some of those miles pretty fast, so I thought there might still be a chance I could hit it even though I was walking. I ran mile 14 at 9:49 and mile 15 at 10:05.

As I was stretching back at the car enjoying my recovery drink it dawned on me: if I ran 13.1 miles in under two hours, then I DID hit my goal — and then some! In fact, after downloading the run onto my laptop I saw my average pace for the first 14 miles was 9:10, and 9:02 for the 12 miles at which I intended to run marathon pace. It was that last mile that brought the entire average down to 9:14 overall. I’ll live with that!