My club’s marathon training plan started this week with yesterday’s long run, and my run was a stomach-knotter, literally.  I had gone to a gala the night before and something didn’t really agree with me….but it was my coffee that really put my intestines in a knot.

As I’m suffering through eight miles, I started wondering why I was suffering so much….and it came down to my morning coffee.  Okay, I am completely addicted to coffee.  I get excited to try a new blend or roast and drool when I read the phrase, “chocolate notes.”  It’s what I need first thing in the morning, but I’ve gotten into the habit on run club mornings to grab a few extra moments of sleep and pick up my morning coffee on my way to our meeting spot.  Any runner knows the problem with this logic. 

(On the plus side, guess what my extra large coffee on the way to the Wisconsin half failed to do?  Good thing I had all that practice, sigh….)

So my mission, should I choose to accept it, is to get up early enough to have my coffee at home so that my intestines are relaxed and ready to run.

On a side note….I am a charity runner for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, so I’d be crazy not to post the link to my donation page.  Please click here to contribute, and thank you for your support!

The “Puke Point”

I have to apologize, since bodily fluids are not exactly a great topic, but currently a necessary one.  As someone who is naturally squeamish about discussing such matters, I will try to do it in a minimally gross way.

I’ve been really pushing myself of late, speed-wise, because I like going faster.  Of course, that means I’m running more anaerobically, so I’m also swallowing air.  Then I need to belch, but the water in my stomach wants to come up with it….and the sour taste of butyric acid gets into my throat and mouth, blech. 

For obvious reasons, I’ve named that moment when you are when so fast you’re bordering on getting sick, the “puke point.”  As a kid, trying to avoid the puke point probably contributed to my lazy runner attitude.  I was so scared that I would get sick that I would slow down, especially on speed workouts.  I never ate right before a workout, including not eating more than a few simple carbs when I was competing.

However, my pace at the puke point isn’t fast enough for me—and actually, is slower than the pace I need to maintain to qualify for Boston.  So not doing my training, not pushing to go faster, is not an option.  I’m going to have the winning combination of pushing through the discomfort and figuring out my eating and drinking habits to reduce the problem.  I hope by the end of the summer, I'll have this conquered--and be much faster!

Marathon Kick-Off!

This past week I have been super lazy, almost tapering because I start training for the Chicago Marathon.  Of course, “lazy” means “less than 10 miles.”

Today I kicked off marathon season by running the CF Superheroes 5K this morning.  Last year, it was a 90 degree day, so to turn around and be in the upper 40s this morning was a surprise.  I had planned to wear my marathon shirt from last year, but with the forecast, changed to my LRC long sleeved shirt.  I still wore shorts, and despite being a windy, chilly day, was very warm after the first mile, so I was very, very glad I didn’t keep my warmups on.  The chill (and the positive energy from the LRC) made me push all that faster, and I ended the day under 30 minutes for the 5K, not far from my collegiate PR.

It is hard to believe that when I did my first LRC run, I looked at my run app, realized that I was running sub-9 pace, and thought, “holy cow, I am sprinting.”  On Tuesday, marathon training starts in earnest with a track workout and a mile time trial.  My goal is to run that mile around 8:45.  I’ve come a long, long way in a short period of time, and I have miles and miles to run before October.

Of course, full training is more than just running.  I have to purchase my pool pass for the local park district.  I have to clean and prep my kitchen so I can cook and eat healthier food.  And as a charity runner, it means fundraising… 

I kicked off my fundraising with an online Origami Owl party.  Their main product is lockets that you can customize with various charms, from a 26.2 to crystals in a rainbow of colors.  It’s very much like those online parties for other direct sales companies, except that I’m giving my hostess proceeds to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.  I would be a horrid fundraiser if I didn’t post the link and code.  To purchase, go to superangie.origamiowl.com and use the jewelry code:  95450

And thus I start my first mission on my quest.  18 weeks of running and fundraising, with some swimming, some distractions, some challenges, and some adventures spattered in the mix.  There will be lessons learned and wisdom gained, achievements and setbacks.  I’m looking forward to this next chapter.

Feeling Like a Kid Again

Running-wise, it’s been a great couple of weeks.  I joined Strava, a combination social media and fitness tracking app, which has been great to keep me accountable on my runs.  I was using Nike+, but the app just drained too much of my battery on runs.  Strava has a sleep mode, so it’s not as taxing to the battery.  Of course, I joined the run club group on Strava and enjoy all the kudos, as well as giving my runs clever titles for everyone else to see.

After work on Monday, I did a short five mile run I do all the time.  The end is a short downhill slope, and I sprinted down the hill.  It was like I was back in high school, where our home cross country course ended down a hill and into the chute.

Saturday, the run club had a scavenger hunt as a going away party.  It was Texas-themed, so we had a group of adults, dressed in Western wear, running around all over our town, posting photos and videos on a Facebook event page.  Running around, from clue to clue, I somehow logged six miles, but again, felt silly and childish.

Within all of the good feeling, there has also been some seriously fast runs.  Five miles at sub 10 min pace, 8.5 miles at sub-11 min pace.  It’s like in addition to recapturing my love for the sport, I am recapturing my speed.  Given my goal—a sub 5 hour marathon—I’ll take both!

The Running Club that Goes Beyond Running…

(Well, it’s the so very awful Monday that starts out realizing you never finished your Sunday journal writing.  Sigh.)

I’ve blogged about why I joined a running club and how important it is to me in my training, but the past few weeks I’ve been reminded about how the social side to a club helps your mental health and wellness.

While running and training forges strong bonds with teammates, whether it’s the high school cross country team or the local running group, it then expands with discovering common interests away from the path or track.

My sophomore year of high school, I’ll never forget spaghetti dinners at different teammates’ homes and the routine of singing “Piano Man” and “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” on the way home from meets. 

When your running club often meets at bars after runs and has the motto “Running and Shenanigans,” it is inevitable that someone will see a poster for a concert or trivia night, and say, “hey, let’s go to this!”  Next thing you know, you’re doing karaoke to Jon Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” just because it became an earworm this week. 

On Friday, one of our members decided to enter a hula hoop contest near my office, so I walked over and was part of a large crowd to cheer her on.  The restaurant also has a games night, and as we waited for the contest to end, I mentioned that I have an old set of Axis & Allies, so we agreed to meet at one of these games nights to play.

Saturday night was wild and crazy and fun and bonding, just as much as that awful speed workout or that time someone got lost on the trail run.  We started with pedicures.  Normally, I don’t spend money on a luxury like a pedicure, but my feet, especially my toes, have survived two seasons of marathon training, plus a half marathon.  My nails have the marks of being bounced around running shoes for miles and miles, to the point where I’m having trouble keeping them trimmed and pain free.  So it was time to give my feet some professional attention. 

Not only was the pedicure worth every penny, but the time spent with the other girls was just as valuable.  I have wonderful friends, but the closest one lives over an hour drive away, so I’ve been craving a local social life, local girlfriends for quite some time.  Hopefully the time spent with the other girls will help open doors to having local friends.

However, I may need to get a second job just to cover my social life.  Our club does road trips, and in November, they are going to the Rock & Roll Marathon in Las Vegas.  I discovered that there is a five hour time limit (remember, my PR is 5:39), but it seems like exactly the push I need to work hard over the summer.  Plus, Vegas.  I need to ask for the time off of work, but once I have, I’m buying my bib.

In the meantime, is it wrong that I’ve already picked out my song for the next Karaoke night?