11 miles – Silvia August 19, 2008

I looked down at my Garmin 405 and read 4.66. Shit! I am not even half way done! I stopped. I can’t do this. I look ahead and see my dog look back at me as if to say, why are we stopping. Damn dog with limitless energy. I keep going.

The night before I watched the women’s marathon. I was amazed and enthralled with their super lean bodies and blistering pace, despite the announcer saying they were running at a “pedestrian” 5:30. Pedestrian! He even said that one of the runners was “slogging” along. Slogging? That’s my word…that’s me. That’s not them. I was “running” at a 11 minute mile pace – not consistently either.

Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth I ran along the 2 mile dirt road. I was getting sick of trees, mud, and weeds. I saw a deer take off and that was cool. I heard wld turkeys and wanted my dog to chase them for fun, but he didn’t. He was too busy staying ahead of me and then looking back and thinking, come on slowpoke.

I finished the 11 miles, on one hour and 59 minutes. Sick. The marathoners were practically done by that time. How in the hell am I going to run 26.2?

I did decide in my 2 hours of thinking and running and dehydrating ( I didnt have any water…stupid I know) to go on a diet. Perhaps I was delirious. But I can’t carry around these extra 4 bowling balls anymore. It’s just too hard. The day after my 11 miles, I could barely move. My mother is taking care of her husband, who is really sick, and needs a walker to move around. Believe me, I was eying that walker with envy. That’s how sore I was. So, starting Thursday (well maybe Friday because my hubby and I have date night Thursdays) I am going to try to make some lifestyle changes in my eating habits. I will keep you posted.

One more thing.  As I was getting ready for my run, I put on my hefty armor to hold in the girls because this was going to be a long run.  I  checked my luggage and I was aghast because I forgot my Vaseline.  Uh oh!  You know what that means…major chaffing.   So, I decided to improvise and used my Adidas deodorant in all the strategic spots.  I figured the chaffing is caused by the wetness rubbing against straps.  Guess what?  It worked.  There was no chaffing in the spots where I applied the deodorant.  Yippee!  I didn’t worry about blocking sweat glands or whatever because I sweat in so many places that it more than makes up for the lack of sweat near my buxom bosom.   Speaking of sweat.  My ears sweated so much that my headphones (the kind you wear over your ears with the foam over the speakers) were soaked and I could ring them out like a sponge!  YUCK!

10 Miles – Silvia August 10, 2008

The day after my “vacation” in hell, I did not feel like running, let alone running 10 miles. Nonetheless, that’s what my training chart said, so off I went with my Ipod and Garmin 405. Before I began I was sure to grease myself up like a pig in a hog wrestling competition. Lena suggested Body Glide and although we don’t have that store I will find that stuff somewhere.

My slowest mile, believe it or not was the first. I ran it in 11:11. I think my mind was telling my body, oh no, here comes that great big hill. My mind forgot that we were back home in Cleveland where flat means flat (unlike in WV where flat means rolling hills). I was blessed with cool weather today and a nice cool breeze. Ahhhhhhhhh. I dare say it was almost pleasurable. No I can’t say that. But I can say, it wasn’t torture.

When I hit mile 5, I could not believe how far I was- distance becomes so much more meaningful when you are running. A couple of interesting things happened during the run. First, what goes down must come up. I loved running the down hills and I hated when they became up hills later. I just want to run down hill and take a elevator up hill. Also, at around the 5 mile mark I really had to use the facilities. I mean really. And to make matters worse it was number 2. I mean, here I am running, exhausted, and now my mind is distracted by another body part demanding attention. Why don’t they have Porta-Potties strategically placed throughout the trail. ( I was on a lovely asphalt all purpose trail- Beachwood put a lovely all-purpose trail in the middle of a boulveard- it is a little bit of nature in the middle of the city). So I thought there must be facilities in the shaded rest area I spotted a mile back (where they also have Wifi!!!!). If I just make it back I will get relief. So, I ran and ran and by the time I hit that area, I was over the urge. Thank God. Good bowels-way to hold back for the team! Still in the netherlands, I had a bad battle with chaffing down under. Ughhh. Even though I wore capri style pants thus hoping to eliminate any chaffing, it didn’t work. I was so sweaty it felt like I peed my pants. I know, gross. I was running with that feeling. The last interesting thing was that when I finally finished the 10 miles (I literally ran the last 0.10 miles looking at my Garmin waiting for the 10.00 to come up so I can stop my watch and stop running-I refuse to run one step more than I have to). I wiped my face with my hand and felt crunchiness like dirt. That’s wierd. So I tasted the dirt and it was salt! The air was so cool I guess the sweat quickly eavporated from my face and left salt crystals. When I got home and looked in the mirror there was a whole bunch of salt crystals framing my face. I thought that was pretty cool.

I did it! 10 miles and week four, or is it five, is done!

6 miles-Kirsten July 22, 2008

Yesterday I woke up so excited to go to the gym. It has been over a year since I belonged to one. So Nick and I woke up around 9:00 and I had my mind set on 6 miles on the tredmill. I felt I failed on Sunday; walked 3, ran 3. So I needed to prove to myself I could do it. After running the 5 miler race I thought 6 might not be TOO bad, but it was hard second attempt around. I did it; I stopped running for a minute to get a drink (I can’t run and drink, I will look like a fool!) and otherwise totaled 6.1 miles. However, it was hard!!! The whole time I wanted to just stop and at least get on a different machine. I looked around, and not only was I the only one running, everyone who started on the tredmill when I did had long cleared out. It got me to thinking…am I crazy? Is there a reason why I am the only one running, sweating, being tortured? Well, the after feeling of running 6 miles was great. I felt good and strong, and can honestly say you forget the pain. You forget feeling heavy, you forget the desire to stop, you forget the dripping sweat and red face. While running I told myself, just one foot in front of the other…

So I feel I sort of redeemed myself but doing 6 miles on Monday. Today is my rest day, and while I am tempted to go the gym, I think I might actually just take the day off and rest. Maybe I will go in the evening…right now I am just so content staying in my PJS and eating a bowl of icecream…ok I will hold off on the icecream until a more decent hour. This training is going to be HARD…I mean I realize that just because I ran 5 miles two weeks ago with ease (ok, not ease, but it wasn’t torture) doesn’t mean my 6 mile run will be any easier. I wonder if in three weeks 6 miles might feel easy? Nick has started running a mile a day; and he says he has no idea how I run 6, let alone 26. Which I of course added in that it is 26.2, can’t forget that .2 PEOPLE!!!! I really think the last 6 are just going to kill us in the race. What if I hit the wall before the 20 mile mark like they say? So many things I won’t know until I get to that day, in that moment. And while everything will be spinning around me, I will remember one foot in front of the other…it’s the only way! I miss you guys…I wish we were training closer, but we are going to do this!!!

6 miles – Silvia July 21, 2008

This morning I woke up not wanting to do anything except drink coffee and look at our garden which is overflowing with blossoms. It looks like an artist took his paint colors and strewed them over our backyard. Alas, Yoga starts at 8:15 and I need the stretching. It felt good to stretch, difficult but good. It’s like my body was saying thank you, thank you. I remember when I was in middle school, I could have done all the poses easily, but now, I feel like an 80 year old woman trying to contort her body into simple poses like downward and upward dog. My favorite part is the end, the last five minutes are spent in the Savasana pose, which is a fancy yoga word for lying down on your back with your eyes closed just breathing. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Bliss.

After that I did my “Power Flex” workout, which is 45 minutes of strength training using barbells and weights. I read that strength training is important for runners. I have been doing it since April, and I like it. Probably because there’s loud music and an instructor telling me what to do. I love not being alone with my thoughts. Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it. I don’t like relying on me. I am too weak.

After that I was done. I was at the gym two hours already and wanted just to go shopping for my mom (I am going to Canada to visit and there’s stuff here she can’t buy as cheaply over there. For example,  there’s a tube of toothpaste at Trader Joe’s for 1.99 here and in Canada, it’s close to 6.00. No kidding. Keep in mind the dollar is basically at par. So there is no reason for the prices to be so much higher, but they are. I digress.)  So, I figure I would go shopping, go home and grout. (The stupid stairs are still not done! I figured out the secret to tiling stairs; pay someone to do it!) Then later this evening I would go back and run my six miles. I leave the gym, go shopping and was about to go on the highway headed for home, when I thought, who am I kidding. I won’t  go back to the gym. I will get sidetracked for sure, and progressively more lazy as the day wears on. So, like a good girl, I went back to the gym, hopped on the treadmill and began slogging the long, slow, six miles. I actually did 6.2, so it’s like a 10K.

Unlike, Meghan, I did not feel I could do more. I think that her body is just more conditioned. She has a great base with being a regular 5 mile runner. I am still in the process of building up my base. There is a reason that ‘they’ say that you should have been running for 8-10 weeks before you start training. I feel that I am not conditioned enough to make the training easy.

Today’s problem was sweat. Yes, I was in AC but I was soaked. I sweat a lot. I don’t perspire, or have a healthy glow. I sweat like a monsoon after the dry season in the Serengeti. That’s just me. I always have, even as a kid. I start sweating on my nose and then every other place that there is a pore in my body. I think that’s why I can’t keep those ear phones in my ear, the sweat slides them out. I sweat so much that when I run the marathon in Arizona I bet the desert will turn into a tropical rain forest. Anyway, what happened was that I began to sweat in my feet. I felt them get hot and sweaty. Then my toes began to rub together. You know what that causes. Blisters. Ouch. My feet burned. I just kept thinking, run through the pain, run through the pain. If I can’t run 6, how will I run 26.2? (Don’t forget the 0.2, that 0.2 will be so annoying by the end of the race, I just know it!)

Then my shirt got soaked. I mean soaked. So, you guessed it more rubbing. This time it was the bottom of my  bra strap and my skin. I felt it rubbing back and forth. I even tucked in my T-shirt into the strap   ( I didn’t care what I looked like, one look at my tomato red face tells anyone that I am not here to win any beauty contests) to provide a buffer, but the T-shirt kept coming out.  At last, after 58 minutes and 55 seconds, it was over. After my cool down walk, I got off the treadmill and couldn’t even walk properly on my feet they hurt so much. I had to walk on the sides of my feet. And my drenched shirt was just clinging to me. Luckily, I had sandals in the car and took my shoes and socks off to let my feet breathe. I wish I had those toe separators like when you get a pedicure.

When I finally got home, I struggled to take off my clothes. You know how hard it is to take off clothes after they are wet. I felt like I went swimming in salt water. When I had a looksie at where my bra was there was a huge red rash – like a rug burn. OUCH! The shower was painful. It burned when it hit my rash. After I couldn’t even put on a regular bra, so I had to hang free all day. Not comfortable at all for someone like me, I am not a woman of the Borneo rainforest. As I am typing this, it is still painful.

Nonetheless, week two is done. Hallelujah!