Breakin' up is hard to do!

Last night set the stage for a disappointing run this morning. At around 3:30 in the morning, the thunder and lightning sounded like it was going to split our house in two. I knew that within seconds Carrie would be crawling into bed with us (I didn't blame her - I would have been scared, too, if I were only 6). She did. The cat followed. I was in the middle and cooking like a roast goose. Needless to say, I hadn't slept much when the alarm went off at 5:30 for our long run. Argggg!

Somehow we fell back to sleep and woke around 7 but by the time we were out the door and had Carrie taken care of and one of her brothers were rousted to look after her....it was almost 8:00. The first 3.6 went well ...we planned to do the same loop 4 times. Jim's hamstrings screamed at him to quit after the first loop. I kept going and did my second loop. Then I zipped by the car, and had Jim drive me home. I think the humidity was close to 90% when we got out there, the sun got hot, and I decided to break my run in half, doing the second part this evening.

I must tell you that I seriously considered wimping out entirely once it got around 7:00. Then I told myself, "I'm a marathoner, I CAN do this!", strapped on my handy-dandy new Amphipod Run-Lite Snapflask 4, downed half a snickers marathon bar, and out the door I flew---okay--out the door I staggered.

I did my first loop, considered getting in the car and driving home. Gave myself the speech again and started my second loop. I got close to halfway into it, and heard Jim's ring on my cell-phone. There were major problems at work and he had to go in and oversee the fixing of the problems, and I had to come home to watch Carrie so he could leave in a hurry. Wow, I was actually moving my rear quite speedily when the adrenalin kicked in. Unfortunately, I shorted myself some mileage. No big deal. Life happens.

By the way, I did get Jim the Garmin 305. Don't tell....he doesn't know. Should come in about a week. Of course I'm very disappointed that right now he's feeling less and less like he's going to be able to keep up with the training for the big race if he keeps having hammie troubles. We were having so much fun doing this together. I'm not giving up hope yet. So who do you go to when that stuff keeps happening. A sports medicine guy or what? I think I'll call the track coach at the high school tomorrow. Maybe he knows of someone good.

Lessons learned this long run:

• Get out there plenty early (yeah, I know.. this was on my list last week)
• Don't break up the run. Be like Nike and JUST DO IT!
• Bring your watch, stupid!
• Get mentally tough. {{{over-exaggerated eye roll}}}

Wow, Thanks!!

Thanks so much for all the feedback on the GPS devices. Based on all of that, I think I'm going to go with one of the Garmins. I think the accuracy issue with the Nike+ would make him bonkers so that's probably out. The 205's and 305's are SOOoooo inexpensive right now that they're pretty hard to pass up. I was tempted by the 405 but it's nearly twice as much as the others right now and, although he very much deserves it, I think I'll opt for one of the older models seeing that we just paid one kid's tuition and will pay the other three over the next two weeks. Anyway, now I'm just determining which features I think will be important to him. I think he could take or leave the heart monitor and I'm not certain if you can turn that off on the 305 so I need to make a call or two.

His birthday isn't for a few months but I'm going to give it to him early, that way he'll have it for most of our training and the marathon.....AND he'll be really surprised. Cool.

Did my 7 miles tonight on the dreaded treadmill. It went well. I walked out of the Y and said to myself, "Wow, I can do 7 miles and it's not even my longest run, I'm the bomb!" Yeah, pretty lame to pat myself on the back but hey....whatever works! I think sometimes it's good to congratulate ourselves on things. I think it's good to acknowledge that you're taking something difficult and conquering it. It can spur us on to try more things we previously thought were next to impossible.

Training Report and a Request for Advice

This was an interesting week but I learned a lot. When it came time for Tuesday's 4-miler, I was still too exhausted from last Sunday's long run and my legs just weren't up for it. I did it on Wednesday instead. I ran the 6 early Friday morning and had one of my best runs ever. I didn't want to run both days leading up to my long run so I skipped the last 4-miler.

Sunday's scheduled run was a 12-miler. We started at the Y parking lot again. I REALLY struggled this time.....not with pain, I just felt like I was at the top of my effort level cardio-wise....and I wasn't going fast at all. We run by the car at the 6.7 mile mark to get fresh water bottles, throw down some gatorade, etc. By the time we hit the car this time, Jim's hamstring was killing him as well as his heels and the prudent thing for him to do was stop before he did real damage. So, he was done for the day. Let me tell you how much I DIDN'T want to keep going. It was getting so hot out (we got started WAY too late again) and the run was almost beating me anyway. I decided to finish the rest of the mileage on the treadmill now that the Y was open and I was about 30 yards from the door.

So, Jim took little Carrie out for breakfast while I ran inside and ran the rest of the mileage. I must confess that I fizzled at the 11-mile mark. I just had no more in my tank. Couldn't do it. Besides, I had just run almost 7 miles outside and I knew I smelled (sorry) and the Y was filling up. I didn't want to be that smelly person on the treadmill that was bowling over the person next to me.

I grabbed a McDonald's chicken sandwich on the way home along with a sugar-free vanilla iced coffee. Both tasted like the ultimate feast. When I got home, I filled up the tub with ice water and soaked for 20 minutes, right in my running clothes with my crossword puzzle and a cup of hot tea. I will do this after EVERY long run because I have zero pain today!

Lessons learned this week:

1) Stick to scheduled running days so I don't throw my week off.
2) Don't do a long run without Endurolytes.
3) Get the long run started much earlier or expect to die of heatstroke (I'm a heat-wimp).

Now, for the advice. I would like to get my dearest a cool running gadget like a Garmin or Nike+ for his birthday. I am woefully ignorant in this area. What gps-type gadget do you use? What do you like or not like about it? What would you change? If you were making the purchase all over again, what would you get? What are the features I don't want to do without? Thanks in advance for your help.

Week 6- DONE!

We did every inch of our 11-miler yesterday! We have the aches and pains to prove it. Jim's going to the podiatrist on Wednesday. My feet seem to be in pretty good shape other than a little pain because I am klutzy. Right around mile 5 I took a corner a little weird and landed on the side of my right foot. It seemed to feel better right away but then just about at mile 7 it started hurting pretty bad. I soaked it in ice water in the afternoon. It felt pretty bad last night but after a night's sleep I can tell this isn't going to be a big deal.

I tried the Endurolytes which were extremely effective. Nothing to chew up or taste so overwhelming sweetness wasn't a problem like with those sport beans. Just past the halfway point I did try a double latte PowerBar Gel. Sickly sweet but for some reason, the coffee/chocolate flavored stuff doesn't gag me like the faux fruit flavors. It's funny---I feel weird even using some of this stuff because I still don't see myself as a runner. I still feel like I don't belong in the running store. Oh well.

I was darn proud of us for doing our 11 miles. It is, however, really humbling to consider that the elite marathoners do the whole marathon in less than what it takes me to do 11 miles. Wow!

For Real?????

Monday I was flying pretty high after conquering the big TEN. That was until I looked at what I was supposed to do in the dreaded push-up challenge for week 3. Are you KIDDING me? I have been faithful for two weeks and I still can't go more that 6 at a time. What gives? How about all of you other push-up challenge people out there? Were you guys really able to progress at the recommended rate? Go ahead and tell me, I can take it. I will just chalk it up to me being almost twice as old as most of you and at least ten years older than the rest of you. Except, of course, for my sister....who would probably blow my doors in should we have a mano a mano pushup challenge. (yeah---she's the one who did 40 miles on an elliptical machine during the Detroit Marathon last year because her podiatrist told her she shouldn't run on pavement). I guess I'm repeating week two this week. If ever I am thinking about changing the name of my blog, I will just remember my push-up challenge and be certain that 'pathetic' definitely belongs in the title.

The good news is that my four-mile run last night was great. I still can't believe that I can run that long. I still can't believe I can do it without someone having to use the paddles to revive me. I can't believe I'm a third of the way through the marathon training. I can't believe how tired my legs are. I can't believe how much I don't care! I'm so glad I'm doing this!

Oh yeah!!!!

It certainly wasn't an effortless glide, but we did it. We conquered the first double-digit run!

We had planned on getting out the door around nine in the morning, simply because the humidity was supposed to be astronomical early in the morning. Unfortunately, what made the humidity disappear was the hot sun, apparently. By the second half of our run, even though it was less humid, the sun was close to directly overhead and it was pretty blistering hot. Around mile 7, things started to cramp up, we're still trying to work out this whole hydration thing, and we were getting just plain tired. We started saying things to each other like, "there's no way we're going to be able to do the whole ten miles." We had ingested some delightful (gag me) sport beans at mile 5 and thankfully, they (and the gatorade) started to take effect around the beginning of the eighth mile. Huge difference. We just kept going. We were slow but on we went. We altered our path a bit to keep us out of the direct sun, and our ten miles ended at the front door of the Y. How fortuitous! The air conditioning felt great, as did the ice cold drinking fountain. The lady at the front desk said, "wow...did you guys run here?" "Yes, Ma'am! Ten miles!"

We walked back almost a mile to where we had parked the car, went home & showered, grabbed the little darling, and all headed out to eat lunch. Yikes, did I ever EAT! I wolfed down a mini greek salad (light dressing, of course), a chicken kabob, a baked potato, and enough iced tea to float an ironclad. I could have gone on eating all afternoon, but I didn't. We headed to the Y with Carrie and floated around in the training pool. Let me tell you how good that felt. Hardly anyone was there.

Today, my legs feel the most exhausted they have yet, but my hip is fine, Jim's feet are fine, and we're looking forward to next week's long run. We've got to figure this whole hydration thing out. I have to figure out some quick energy source that doesn't gag me with sweetness. It really isn't fair that we can't just burn all our body fat for these long runs.

It wasn't pretty, it wasn't fast, but we did it!

Tuesday-3, Thursday-5, Friday-3, Sunday - 10!!!!!

Just about 7 hours from now, I will do my very first double-digit run! I'm so excited! I pretty much sailed through my short runs this week. Yeah, of course they were work but just not killers like when I first started.

TEN miles. Wow! I went on a late night Gatorade run. I'm all stocked up on Cliff Bars, Sport Beans, and my personal favorite...the PayDay Sport Bar. Son#3 is actually running with us tomorrow. He hasn't run in over a month but I'm sure he'll hardly be sweating as he completes his ten miles in half the time it takes us. Ah, youth!

I just hope I'm at least this excited tomorrow AFTER the run! I'll keep ya'll posted.