see jacqueline run

news!

2008-12-02T19:25:00.000-08:00

Hola, my quiet readers!

I know I still need to blog my Run Like Hell half marathon experience from mid-Oct... and it was a VERY fun run, so I will be doing that.

... BUT I just wanted to update people on my running news.

A couple of things:

I've discovered pool running. Or rather, I gave it a spin once a couple weeks back, and it went really well. My dad is getting me a waterproofing kit for my ipod, so that I can pool run with tunes (which I think will make it more interesting), but I think this could also be my secret weapon for training from now on... especially since it is literally a zero impact workout which works all your muscles, including your abs and upper body. It's crazy cool.
After the Run Like Hell, I kinda had the goal of a 2 hour half hanging over me unfulfilled... and I'd like to try to reach that goal in 2009, but I really didn't have any specific races ear-marked yet. I knew I wanted to do PPP instead of Hippy Chick, so that was kinda decided, but other than that I really hadn't decided on anything. I was kinda seeking my next whatever.
I got an email about the upcoming events for TNT's spring season, and the call for mentor applications. One event really caught my eye, the Mayor's Marathon in Anchorage Alaska on the solstice. After volunteering for the 2008 Portland Marathon at the TNT aid station at mile 9 (also need to blog that), I started having jealousy pangs for the runners... and realized I might be ready to consider my next marathon now. I found this running calculator where you input your best time for any distance, and it calculates what you should be capable of at other distances. According to the calculations, at my current half marathon pace, I SHOULD be able to manage a 4:26 marathon!!! That's an hour and a half off my last attempt!! Now I'm just curious whether I can do it. I went ahead and applied to be a TNT non-fundraising mentor for the Mayor's Marathon. I've been kinda leaving the choice of running a full marathon in 2009 up to the selection process of TNT... leaving it up to fate. If not selected, I'd dedicate 2009 to halves again.
I was considering running Race for the Roses again in 2009 too, just cause it's a good time of year to run a half, and if I'm training for a full in Summer it's probably good for me to run a couple halves in the Spring. Also, I think some of my friends AND my mom are thinking about doing it for 2009, and I'm a joiner. hehehe.
We aren't supposed to find out about who the chosen mentors for the Spring Season are until Friday this week (emails out on Friday night, info session for chosen mentors on Saturday morning). However, I just got a voicemail from the TNT run coord, Lindsay. She said basically: "So I see you are interested in the Alaska Marathon, but we were wondering how you would feel about being a mentor for Race for the Roses, and then, once that event is over you could continue training with the team, as a participant, and we'd pay your race entry to Alaska, but you'd have to pay for the stuff you would as a non-fundraising mentor, you know, your airfare and hotel stay... would you be interested in that?"
So, I guess what they are saying is: I'd only have to mentor runners from Jan until early April, and then after that I get to be a non-fundraising freeloader for the next 3 months training with the team, and also get my race entry paid for!?! What am I missing here? Cause, it sounds like I'm getting the better deal here....

Cause like, I was asking for the same benefits but where I'd have to like, mentor runners from Jan-June. This sounds MUCH better. :)
I left Lindsay a voicemail just now that I'd like to take her up on her offer... so I think I'm running a marathon in 2009!! in ALASKA!!! :D

Run for the Cheetah!

2008-10-17T14:57:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, Oct 11, I had an 8K footrace to run.

It was the Run for the Cheetah, the last in a series of 4 races around the country to help raise awareness about the endangered cheetah and to raise funds to support the Cheetah Conservation Fund's programs.

Appropriately, the race started and ended at the Portland Zoo.

A couple things about this race had me apprehensive:
(1) portland was going through a bit of a "cold snap" just in time for the race, and the weather forecast placed that morning run somewhere between 35 and 38 degrees Farenheit. Brrr!

(2) this was more or less the same route as the Reach the Bridge run I ran in late June... only, the Reach the Bridge was 1 way all the way down the hill to the Burnside Bridge. Run for the Cheetah was a loop. We ran approx 2.4 miles downhill, and then turned around and ran 2.4 miles back up that stupid hill. ugh.

Since they had dropped plenty of hints that we should take the MAX instead of planning on parking at the zoo, I went ahead and planned appropriately.

The schedule was as follows:
7:00 a.m. Day of Race Registration
8:00 a.m. Kid's Run / Walk
8:30 a.m. 8K Run / Walk
8:45 a.m. 5K Run / Walk
9:00 a.m. Food, Fun& Festivities
10:00 a.m. Awards/Prize Drawing

I was shooting to get there by 8am... and I think I JUST made it, by catching a 7:30am MAX train from the Lloyd Center station (for $2, I could get a 2 hour 2 zone ticket). I munched on some electrolyte snacks, drank some water, and put myself together on the MAX train (wiring my ipod headphones for running so the wires go along my back instead of my front, etc).

I got off at the Washington Park exit, and took the elevator up to the zoo. The race start/finish line was right next to the elevators. I was picking up my packet right about when they were sending the kids off on the kid dash.

It was cold. It was DERNED cold... but I knew I'd warm up as soon as I started running. I wore my full leg running tights with a pair of thermal tights underneath and a running skort over top. I was also wearing my puma long sleeve running hoodie, with a tanktop tech layer underneath for heat retention. Last minute I went ahead and threw the event Tshirt overtop the hoodie. And, ofcourse, I had my hat and my running gloves... but I also decided to wear earmuffs.

I pinned my number onto my front, and tied my chip onto my shoe... then hurriedly put my gloves back on and zoned out for a bit while the kids were running.

It was a hard decision to check my coat into the clothing check, but a necessary one. Then I found myself bouncing around and running in place in a desperate attempt to warm myself up... or atleast, keep myself from cooling off too much before the race start.

There weren't many people around, which wasn't too surprising given the weather, and the fact that I'd seen virtually no advertising for this event (I heard about it from another person... someone who ended up not even doing it herself). I noticed that the race bibs were color coded tho. I had a yellow number, but most of the people at the start line had a white number. I found out later that the white bib was for the 5K run... and the yellow was the 8K. WAY more people were doing the 5K run than the 8K run.

They lined us 8K'ers up on the start line... but not before I helplessly watched a lady fall over the timing mat machine. She hit the ground, and her leg dangling over the mat and her timing chip strapped to her shoe kept making the thing beep. I was worried about her, but she seemed to just shake it off. The officials got her bib number and zeroed out the timing machine of her entries.

Finally, at roughly 8:35am, they let us 8K runners go.

Here is the course map:

We started exiting the parking lot uphill, and then turned a sharp right turn and then it was 2.4 miles more or less entirely downhill, with some areas steeper than others. I was faced with the dilemma of not wanting to wear myself out TOO much, but also wanting to take as much advantage of the downhill before having to really work on the uphill portion of the run.

I think this photo was taken of me in the first mile or so:

It did take me about a mile and a half to really warm up unfortunately. We passed an aid station at a little over 1 mile. The highschool (or middle school? I really can't tell anymore) girls they had working the aid station were more into talking to eachother than handing out water... and I had to stop and wait for one of them to notice me and hand me a cup. They also said it was water... but it was watered down gatoraide... which I really didn't appreciate. I only wanted plain water. I was only able to get half a gulp down before needing to pour it out and throw it away.

One strategy that I was using, since the route was winding, was I decided to run the tangents to the curves instead of always running on one shoulder or the other. This way I think I actually shaved some distance off the run, and I did noticeably pass other runners specifically when I was refusing to stick to the side of the road. I'd always check behind me for automobile traffic or faster runners before doing it... but I never ended up having a problem with that.

I didn't fall too far behind the front of the pack. I did let people go ahead of me, but I was determined not to bring up the rear. After I FINALLY warmed up, I was able to run faster, and was able to pass a number of people who had passed me in the first mile.

We hit the Lewis and Clark circle at the bottom of the hill, the turn around for the 8K race, and I saw one or two fast looking runners already headed back up the hill, having already gone around the circle. As I ran around the circle, and passed another person, I was stealing myself for a 2.4 mile uphill climb. It wasn't going to be easy... that's for sure.

Exiting the circle to go back uphill, I noticed a handful (maybe 5? maybe more) slower runners just entering the circle... that made me at least feel a little better about my pace.

On the initial uphill I ended up leapfrogging 2 ladies quite a bit, until one gave out and started walking. At about 3.5 miles in we reached the 5K turn around point... and there were a lot of people turning around there right then when I reached it. The good news is, I seemed to be slightly behind my pace for the 5K runners, so I was easily passing a good number of 5Kers once I was among them (passing people really does feel good). And then... on a particularly steep grade I finally gave out and ended up walking for a little bit. But as my heartrate recovered I found myself walking faster and faster and adopting the Portland to Coast walking techniques I had worked on all summer, till I was walking a 12 minute miles uphill. It was just something I thought I'd give a try.

I learned tho, that you really don't give yourself a break by walking fast uphill in place of running uphill, and the transition from walking fast back to running wasn't very painless. I did get back to running before long tho.

I think this photo was taken with close to 1 mile to go:

Back to head-down running up the steep hill (the best way I've learned to not feel overwhelmed by the amount of hill you still have to conquer... you focus on where your feet are, and on your next steps only), I knew the end was near cause I could hear the music in the parking lot somewhere to the left of me... I just needed to reach the top of this hill and then it was a drop back down into the parking lot.

At the top of the hill, I allowed myself a second or two to breathe, and then I pushed like hell to the finish line... using that hill as best I could. I passed 3 or so people on that last stretch who had been able to stay in front of me up most of the hill... so that was neat. I just zipped by them like they were going slow. Man, I love downhills!

Over the finish line, the announcer said my name, and I twirled my forefingers in the air in celebration as I slowed down in the finisher chute. I noticed some of the people who finished infront of me were not having a chip clipped off their shoe, and I remembered that the timing chip was only for those people who cared to be timed. They had a no-timing option. Why wouldn't you want to know your time if you're running? I mean, I could see walkers possibly not really caring, but if you do decently well and you ran, wouldn't you atleast be curious? Ah well. I went and had my chip clipped off my shoe by a volunteer.

Back in the parking lot, I saw that a booth was giving free chiropractic adjustments... I decided why not? So I filled out the form and asked for a pelvic adjustment and help stretching my hamstrings. The chiropractor had me lay down and checked out my back and stuff, then had me lay on my side, curl kinda into a ball, then he braced himself on my femur with one hand on my knee and the other feeling the back of my pelvis... then a big twitch and I felt my pelvis pop in a delightful way. He had me lay on my other side and did the same thing with my other leg. Ahhh.

Then he had me put my leg on his shoulder and did some intervals where I push down on his shoulder for 30 seconds at 20% intensity... then I pull my leg up as far as I could, and he would move to where that was... and then 15 seconds at 40% intensity... then I pulled my leg again and he moved with it... and then 10 seconds at 60% intensity... and we were done... and by gum, if that didn't take away all the weird stretched achy feelings in my hamstrings!! weird. I thanked the chiropractor... but then realized my core body temp was falling pretty quick. Sure, I was warm right then... but it was still under 40 degrees outside, and I was soaked in sweat now.

I found my checked clothes, and quickly put on my coat. I then wandered over to the results booth and found my stats. I got 4th place in my age group (out of 6). There pretty much was no way I could have beat 3rd place. She ran an 8:57 minute mile pace... a pace I have YET to achieve on any race. I'm nowhere close to running that right now.

I finished my 8K in 47:23, or a 9:32 minute mile pace. My Reach the Bridge 8K time was better, but that was also entirely downhill, where this really was a more challenging course. I decided I was happy with that time given the uphills I was running on. Overall, of the 8K runners I was 32nd out of 66.
For women, I was actually 12th place out of 44! Almost in the top 10! Neat.

This is what my garmin recorded for the course and the elevation gain.

I decided to hurry and head back to my car instead of hang out. It was just too cold to watch the award ceremony when I wasn't getting one. I suppose there was a chance I could have won something in the prize drawing, but really, when it was that cold out? I didn't much care anymore.

I checked my MAX ticket for the expiration time... and realized it was pretty much 5 minutes past when the ticket expired. I was ready to claim ignorance for the expiration time on the ticket and hope, if I got caught, it was close enough that they'd be nice. I wasn't caught though. I made it back to my car without incident.

I blasted the heat in my car and drove home. Another good morning!

Champoeg Half

2008-10-16T14:01:00.000-07:00

On Saturday Sept 20th, I ran my first half-marathon that I didn't train for.

The idea behind this run was that on my training schedule for the "Run Like Hell" half in Oct, I was slated to run 12 miles that weekend already. 12 miles? 13.1 miles? close enough. I intended to approach this run as a training run (i.e. don't push too hard, just enjoy the run and relax).

I should know better than that tho. You put me in a race situation, OF COURSE I'm going to put out the best effort I can manage...

The run was in Champoeg Park, kinda near Newberg, OR... so a good 45 minute drive from my place. I found the park easily enough. Entering the park, I was behind 2 other cars who stopped at the little booth at the gate. There was a day-use fee of like $3 or something. I had the dollar bills set aside and was ready to pay the lady. When I pulled up she asked if I was part of the race (pretty obvious from the way I was dressed), I said yes. She then told me the entrance fee to the park was already paid by my registration! I was like, oh? Cool! I drove on through, and followed the other cars to a big open field that was the start/finish line for the race.

Champoeg Park is quite pretty. I'm glad since I was promised a pretty run in the pamphlet I read telling me about the race. It said it was mostly flat with one big hill (similar to the Portland Marathon), and thus it was a great training run for the Marathon. I figured, I can do one hill. sure. The pamphlet said the walker start was going to be 8am, the runner start at 9am.

A couple days prior to the race, I got an email from the event coordinators:
"We have an unusual situation concerning the electronic timing for our event, which will be done by Russ Zornick. He has an unavoidable time constraint in getting to another location on Saturday and I have a plan to help him and to allow part of our runners to finish at an earlier time than they might otherwise. Here's the plan:

The Early Half Marathon Walkers will start as usual  at 8:00AM

Any Half Marathon runners who anticipate a 9 minute or more per mile pace should plan to start at 8:30AM. This will allow a projected finish time of 2 to 2 1/2 hours.and most would be included in the electronic timing. Any later people would be added to those preliminary timing results and be included in the awards. As we do with the Early Half Marathon Walkers we will check off your race bib number so we can accutately time you from your start time."

Hm. Ok. So, I'm not a 9 minute miler, I know that much. I had to choose the 8:30am start time. I arrived in the park something like 7:50am, and picked up my packet before the walkers stepped off the line. I was conflicted about my clothing options, since the weather report was all over the place. Was it going to rain? Was it not? I was hanging out by my car and trying a number of different clothing options, feeling a little lost... then I finally decided to just run in what I intended to run in the night before: capri running tights, running skort, portland marathon finisher shirt, light running gloves, and a hat. While I was changing my clothes back to what they were, I noticed a handful of far away hot air balloons rising above the tree line into the air.

I had noticed a sign to the restrooms through the woods, so went that way. When I found the restrooms, I found them dark, empty... I had the facility all to myself! That's unusual for a race! Once I was done, I wandered back to the big open field and saw that everyone else was lining up single file for the porta potties on the far end of the field. HA! dorks.

The walkers left. Shortly after that I saw someone I recognized: Diane! She did Pints 2 Pasta and won 3rd in her age group. I was happy to see her. She didn't remember my name, but was still very friendly, and totally remembered where she knew me from. She introduced me to her husband. We chatted about the race, and she admitted she didn't know about the 8:30am start time. I laughed saying she probably didn't need to worry, and that she'd be catching me either way. She was waiting for a friend to show up, and so was going to do the 9am start time either way, even though I assured her she was fast enough to start later.

Here is a pic of me before the run. My hat is a little dirty, eh? I took it camping the weekend before.

I finally stripped off my thermal layer and moved to the start line to get ready to run. I have gotten in the habbit of doing those warm-ups we were taught at the Lacamas Lake half before running now. Who knows if it helps, but I guess it's one way to expend my nervous energy prior to a race. We had to line up and get our bib numbers recorded for the 8:30am start... and then the count down and we were off.

Here is the course:

I figured, since it was a slower-than-9 minute mile pace for this group, I should be able to stay relatively in the front without any problem. What I hadn't counted on was the fact that faster people had opted to start at 8:30am just so they could finish sooner. Huh. I tried sticking with the lead runners at first, but had to back off by 2 miles or so. We started out following the course... and made a right turn onto the bike path, and then ran headlong into the walkers... who were all mad at us and pointing to the road to our left. I guess we were supposed to follow the road and not the path before the turn around. Oops.

The group of us in front ended up cutting across this grassy field over to the road. I felt kinda bad we weren't on the correct route, but I didn't worry about it too much. I was more concerned with not twisting my ankles in that field. Approaching the turn around I got to see a big field in the park which was full of more hotair balloons. This was where they were taking off from! They looked so tiny in the air, it was weird that I was able to run to their launching point in only 9 minutes or so. There were apparently many more that were about to join the ones already in the air. We ran through the parking lot, and onto the head of the bike path to head back the way we came. This was about when I started needing to back off on my pace a bit, and people really started passing me. I also found myself overheating slightly. I took off my gloves, but had no where to stow them... so I just settled for holding them in my hand for the rest of the run. I found the gloves useful for patting sweat off of my face though, so it worked out fine.

Over the next 3 miles we followed the paved bike path through the trees, mostly flat, but a couple little rolling hills (nothing terribly challenging as far as terrain). The runners around me had thinned out a good deal, and I was finally in my pace group more or less, as by mile 5 I wasn't being passed anymore by other people. I was getting a little grumpy though, cause the pamphlet had promised water every 2.5 miles along the route... and there was definitely NO water station at 2.5 miles. I was starting to get thirsty!! We ran over some high wooden footbridges, along the side of the Willamette River, past some really pretty large estates. Coming to the end of the bike path was a couple bigger hills... up and then down... then another up (and I remember cursing the pamphlet right about then) and we came to merge onto a road and did another major downhill. Then a BIG uphill along the road shoulder. This was the first part of the run that was sharing the route with cars. The traffic wasn't bad though, I don't remember seeing very many cars at all. At the top of that last big hill was the first water station, right around 5.5 miles or so. I was thirsty and winded from the uphill run, so I opted to walk for a touch while getting the water and drinking. This older guy in a red tank top behind me laughed that he wasn't going any faster than me, so he might as well walk then too!

After the 2 cups of water I snagged, I felt much better. The route also flattened out a good deal at this point. I continued along. The scenery went from forest-like to more rural. We saw barns and fields and more modest houses than what we saw along the riverside. It wasn't long before we caught up to the bulk of the walkers at this point. It was weird to think that they were technically 30 minutes behind us... and yet here we were at the same place. Right about when I was feeling good passing some confident looking healthy walkers... out of nowhere this guy in bright shoes and very little else in the way of clothing (think: split-side short shorts, and no shirt) came flying past me. I was technically 30 minutes behind him! He was a 9am start time runner! It was really impressive to see those guys running.

It was a trickle tho... it wasn't like a MASS of fast runners passing us. At 7 miles along we turned a sharp left turn onto a side road to get to the next turn around. That's about when nearly-naked-bright-shoes darted past me headed back. It was also about when Diane's husband passed me. He was a nice guy and cheered on my effort though.

There was another water station at the turn around at 7.7 miles or so. That was nice atleast. I was past all but the fastest walkers at this point. Those fastest walkers were doing a good job sticking with my pace too, but eventually I broke free of them all. At some point close to the 7.7 mile turn around, the older guy in the red tanktop had passed me and had pulled maybe 50 yards ahead of me. The remainder of my time spent getting back to that aid station at the top of the hill (at 5.5 miles on the out, but approx 10.5 miles on the back) was spent focussing on that guy and trying to stick with him and possibly close that gap. I hung with it.

I walked again at that aid station at the top of the hill to gulp down water... and then happily flew down that big hill that I hated running up. Then I knew I had 2 more hills to conquer before I was done. On the next uphill, I passed redtanktop guy. Woo hoo! Flew down the second hill, and then on the last uphill I could hear someone running up the hill with me, but a little behind me. I convinced myself it was redtanktop guy, so I was going to stay ahead of him no matter what it took.... and I continued to push myself on that hill. At the top I eased off my intensity to catch my breath and let my heartrate recover.

I was wrong. The person on my butt behind me wasn't redtanktop guy. It was one of the 9am runners. As soon as I hit the top of the hill, that guy passed me... taking the time to congratulate me on my hill tenacity tho, which was nice of him. We were back on the pretty forested bike trail at this time. More 9am runners were passing me here, including Diane who cheered me on as she passed. I was starting to kinda flag in my energy a bit... and knew this last mile or two was really going to challenge me.

We wound our way back to the field slowly... I caught sight of red not too far behind me after a turn in the trail too... so that was good motivation to put in a late push. I came rolling back into the parking lot and down the finisher chute to get my time recorded. The volunteers handed me a finisher medal too, which was neat. I'm really starting a nice collection of participant medals at this point.

I grabbed a banana, a capri sun, and a water... and attempted to cool down and stretch a little. Diane and her husband were already done. I had to go to my car and get my pullover, it was still kind of a cold morning. I ran into redtanktop guy at the food table a little later, and I congratulated him on a good run, admitting that a good deal of the second half of the run I was just trying to catch him. He admitted this was his first half marathon in like, 12 years, and he was glad he was just able to finish.

My finish stats were: 2:09:51 (a new PR!) or a 9:54 minute mile pace. I couldn't believe I beat my Lacamas Lake Half pace actually, since I wasn't really going for a time goal. That was nice. Overall I ended up 121st place out of 158 people. In my age group I was 18th out of 26. Hee hee... not that great. I have noticed that competition in small half marathons is just stiffer than other races though.

Redtanktop guy turned out to be 62 years old, and got 3rd place in his age group. HA! So much for me staying infront of him!

Diane ended up finishing in 1:37:16, or a 7:25 minute mile pace. She got second in her age group. Her husband finished in 1:24:03, or a 6:24 minute mile pace. He was 4th place overall, and 3rd in his age group. I didn't hang out to see them get their awards... I was getting cold and stiff and realized with a 45 minute drive back to get to a hot shower, I should really get going. Diane and I took some pics infront of the finish line, and I went on my way.

It was a good morning. I have to admit tho: I got home, showered, and crashed till like 5pm.

Pints 2 Pasta

2008-09-16T21:43:00.000-07:00

On Sept 7, I got to participate in what has been voted Portland's BEST 10K event. I now know why.

The event is called Pints to Pasta and is a run hosted by "Running with Paula" events. I'm pretty sure I have a link to those from this blog's sidebar. The interesting thing about this event was it was a one-way run... not a loop. The advantage of a one-way run is that you don't have to finish at the same altitude you start at! This particular 10K was all downhill and flat. Only 2 little uphill sections really, and both weren't a big deal at all.

In order to facilitate this run, we had to park at the finish line (The Olde Spaghetti Factory in SW Portland). The event coordinators then shuttled us via a fleet of school buses to NE Portland... or more specifically the Adidas headquarters.

Here is where we caught the school buses outside the Spaghetti Factory.

This is the view of Adidas as you get off the shuttles.

The race didn't step off till like 9am, but the shuttles were running from 7:30am-8:45am... I didn't want to be one of the people squishing into one of the last shuttles, so I showed up to catch my shuttle to the start around 8am. Turned out I was on the second bus!

At the Adidas courtyard I drank some water, and put off checking my polar fleece pullover into the clothing check until the last minute I could... and then one last trip to the porta potties, and then me and my group of friends decided to head to the start line. I had met up with Dayna, Sheryl, and Bryce before the run. Sheryl knew this girl Diane from TNT, and she hung out with us too before the run. We had seen her during Portland to Coast also.

Here was the actual start line for Pints to Pasta 10K.

1889 runners and walkers participated in this event.

The day was a beautiful day... supposedly hitting mid-80s by the time the run was over. My goal for this run was to finish the 10K in 1 hour or less. I opted to wear my new wrap skort and my Portland to Coast technical T shirt for this run.

The start was delayed because we were waiting for one last shuttle to show up. The bus literally drove up to the start line and the passengers walked off the bus into the mass of people waiting to start the race... so the gun didn't go off until like a couple minutes late. We were all anxiously awaiting the moment we could cross the start line.

FINALLY we were allowed to start going, and the group of us moved down the hill along Greeley enmasse. Here is the course map....

A lot of this beginning stretch was where I ended up running with Sheryl during the Portland Marathon in 2007, so I was waxing a little nostalgic. I was having fun going downhill, but I didn't know whether my energy would keep up if I was going too fast... so I was trying to moderate my speed a little. I had figured out ahead of time that a 1 hour 10K would mean roughly a 9:40 minute mile pace... so I was constantly aiming for that pace or faster. Mostly I found myself running at 8:30-9 minute miles to start.

I slowed down a bit to run up onto the Broadway Bridge. This was where the crowd started to thin out a bit. Those people who pushed WAY too hard on the initial downhill start had to walk up the hill. Those of us who attempted to moderate our effort were rewarded by being able to pull ahead of the others.

Over the bridge (beautiful day... I remember admiring the Willamette as I crossed the river) and a loop around and under the bridge to then merge onto the Willamette Westbank Esplanade.

There are always a good number of homeless people who spend the night in the park along the esplanade... they were sitting on park benches wrapped in their blankets all bleary-eyed watching the group of us pound past them. Some of the runners took water breaks at the various permanent bubblers (water fountains) that Portland prominently has available to anyone who is thirsty in the downtown/old town area.

The esplanade is a relatively flat and wide mixed-use pedestrian way. Many of the city festivals take place in the park alongside the esplanade. The esplanade was NOT closed off for our race... so there were numbers of bicyclists and other walkers and runners also using the path... both going with us and against us. I saw a number of people with cameras who looked kinda like event photographers, but when I smiled and waved at them, they pulled their cameras up and watched me run past without even trying to take a snap. huh.

The group of people I found myself running with had thinned out quite a bit too btw.

Just before the Hawthorne Bridge I FINALLY found a photographer who was more than willing to snap my pic tho. :)

We went past the Hawthorne Bridge and found a dragon boat race going on. All sorts of tents and teams in matching Tshirts and PFDs holding oars were watching us run by. Some of them cheered us on, some of them seemed annoyed that we were forced to dodge through their numbers to try to keep going at a good clip.

Then we ran along the riverside area with little shops and restaurants. This path gave way to a NEW riverside park area that was completed in the last year. Then, we went through there to the more sparse area with new condos going in near the base of the OHSU tram. I was beginning to drag right about here. I had to slow down to 10 minute miles or slower, and people were beginning to pass me, but there was nothing I could do about it. I was running low on energy. Luckily I had ran most of the race UP til now at more of a 9 minute mile, so I did have a little wiggle room. I kept pushing my pace as much as I dared tho... I knew the end was near, and I was very hopeful to finish in less than an hour.

Finally, after a zig and then a zag, you could see the balloon arch of the finish line infront of you. This was decieving tho... cause you still had a quarter mile to go. I KNEW this too... since I had my garmin. Nonetheless, as soon as I saw that balloon arch I started pushing myself harder... and passed a number of people. Somehow the road here was more crowded than all along the Tom McCall Waterfront Park.... interestingly enough.

My energy didn't hold for that entire quarter mile. I began my final push too early, alas. I had to slow down a bit again to get air in to my lungs... and some of the people (not all of them mind you) who I just passed were easily able to pass me. I crossed the finish line in such a crowd of people, it was simply ridiculous! I never have had to wait to get my timing chip clipped off before! There was simply a crush of bodies in the finish chute, and all of us were waiting in line to get our chips off... it must have taken 2 minutes or more to get out of the chute!

Here I thought I had done pretty good (most certainly a PR for me!).... finished in 57:04. A 9:11 minute mile pace average... but I found the area around the Olde Spaghetti Factory COMPLETELY CROWDED! Look at all these people who were done before me! dang! I went wandering through the crowd for water (why the organizers didn't put water at the finish line, I'll never know. was pretty bad planning tho). I ran into Diane right about then. She was happily drinking a pint of beer already. I asked her what her time was and she told me roughly 45 minutes. WHOAH! I asked her what her PR was for a 10K, and she stopped and said she didn't really know actually. She hadn't thought about it in a while.

However the more she thought about it, the more she realized that this run was a PR for her also! I did some mental math and realized that 45 minutes was DAMN CLOSE to a 7 minute mile pace! That's AMAZING (7:14 minute mile pacE). Not only that, she ended up winning 3rd place in her age group! Pretty sweet!

I found Dayna and Sheryl as they crossed (I was happily sucking down free samples of jamba juice by this time). Both of them had great runs. Dayna finished in 1:03:00, Sheryl in 1:10:05. Both of them were beaming like crazy. We made our way to go get beer and pasta, and found Bryce. He was heading out already. We asked his time and he told us 54 minutes (actually 53:36). I was like, wait! You were 4 minutes infront of me? When did you pass me?? hehehe.

We hung out and ate our food and listened to the band and sat in the sun and relaxed. They had various prize give aways, but we weren't in the right spot to get anything. That was fine with me tho. I was just happy I killed the 1 hour mark.

Finally, as it was approaching 11:30am, I decided I needed to take off. I went home and passed out till like 5pm or so. What a great day!!! :D

My stats were...
Overall Place: 856 out of 1889 (hey look! I'm improving!)
Female Place: 356 out of 1119
Age group Place: 65 out of 212

Last race, I was a middle of the road runner. Looks like I'm slightly ahead of the bell curve now! Neato.

Evil Olive van1, leg 1

2008-09-10T20:07:00.000-07:00

As you probably already know, months ago (arguably before my birthday in February) I put together a 12 person team, Evil Olive, to compete in the "mother of all relays," Portland to Coast.

Well, on August 22-23 we did it... and we did it GOOD!

Portland to Coast is associated with the better-known run relay race, Hood to Coast. Where Hood to Coast is a 197 mile run relay from the top of Mt Hood out to Seaside, OR... the Portland to Coast is a 127 mile walk relay from downtown Portland to the same finish line on the coast, on the same route.

Things about Portland to Coast to know:
(1) it is a WALK ONLY race. Running at all is a penalty that adds time on to your finish time... and if spotted on 3 legs or more can result in a disqualification of the team.

(2) frankly, altho the run teams are going 60 miles further, the walk relay takes longer than the run relay. A "good" time for the walk relay (oh, say OUR time), would be considered a bad time for the run relay. iiinteresting.

(3) the HtC/PtC people start the walk race HOURS sooner to get us through the course before the runners. So, we start way before the run folks... but we also cross the finish line way earlier.

(4) walking fast is HARD WORK. seriously.

So. Managing the team was seriously stressful. There are so many logistics to consider in running a team with 12 people!!

My team ended up consisting of:
* My best friend and her main squeeze from up in Seattle, Hana and Jesse
* A friend of mine from Myspace, and one of her best friends from down in Oregon City, Jaimee and Jessica.
* My soccer teammates and their spouses, Brent, Renee, Marc, and Brooke.
* From out in Walla Walla, my mom, her friend Ronnelle, and Ronelle's best friend, Carey.
* and, ofcourse, me!

And then, 1 month prior to the race, Renee found out that her blight of shinsplints... were actually worse than shinsplints. She had 3 stress fracture on her tibia from overuse. NO WONDER IT HURT TO WALK AND RUN, RENEE!!! Jeez.

We had to find a replacement for Renee last minute... and I was able to convince my running partner, Sheryl, to step in for Renee. Luckily, Sheryl had actually done 2 previous Portland to Coast races, so she went from newest Evil Olive member to being the most experienced walker on our team (as the rest of us were clueless about what to expect)! HA!

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU Sheryl for joining our team!

Anyway, my mom ended up stepping up to help me with A LOT of the logistics. She not only found us a 7-passenger van to use as Evil Olive support vehicle #2, but helped me out with scoping out the course roughly a month before the race and taking notes (this ended up being an 11 hour excursion... holy cow!)... and then assisted me in thinking through all the logistics. She asked really good questions that made me question my previous assumptions, etc. It worked really well having her on the team, and I don't think things would have worked as well without her.

___ anyway, with all that out of the way.... the experience! ____

On Thursday night, Aug 21, the group of us (minus Sheryl, Hana, and Jesse) met up at The Olde Spaghetti Factory for our first ever team meeting. We couldn't have one prior to this date cause frankly nearly half the team lived too far away from Portland to make it!

I got there late. Oops. But, as it turned out, my party hadn't been seated yet, AND they had all found each other! Neat. We all got seated in a really nice separate room in the restaurant, and started ordering and I started going through the list of things I wanted to mention (rules, emergency procedures, penalties and disqualifications, exchange zone schematics, score sheet timing, logistics, and quick notes about each of the legs... both driving notes and walking notes). The dinner was a lot of fun, and I got through everything I wanted to. Plus the food was great! I was feeling REALLY good about the team after the dinner. After the dinner, I watched Brent and Renee transfer the food stuff for van #1 into Marc and Brooke's rig, and then I collected people's overnight bags in my car and headed out to the coast...

1 hour 30 minutes later, I was at Gearhart, OR at our rental condo (1 mile north of Seaside) that we got for 3 nights (Aug 21-24). Hana and Jesse had driven here from Seattle and checked in for us. They had a nice 6 hours or so to hang out and enjoy the coast before I showed up to collect them. I walked around the condo real quick before unloading the car and shepherding Hana and Jesse into my car. The condo was GREAT! It was a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom condo pretty much right off the beach. Plus, it was only like 2 blocks from a McMennamin's brew pub, the Sandtrap. How amazing is that!?!

The 1 hour 30 minute drive back to my house flew by as I went over all the same things with Hana and Jesse that I did with everyone else over dinner.

We rolled into my driveway around 11:30pm. We only had a handful of hours before everything started for us. We made the sofa bed for Hana and Jesse, and they went directly to sleep. I wandered around the house restlessly for a bit before finally settling in bed... and deciding I couldn't sleep. I read a novel for several hours, and then realized I only had 1 hour left before it was go time, so I turned off the lights and tried to lie still, but honestly didn't sleep at all. hmmmm.

When my alarm went off at 2:15am, I was still wide awake.

I got up, threw the 3 additional things I thought of overnight that I needed in my bag, and then went through my ritual of brushing my teeth, washing my face, and putting in my contact lenses. Then I got dressed to walk.

Sheryl showed up at my house around 2:50am. We piled our stuff into her rig, and drove out to Marc and Brooke's house in SE Portland. There we found a warm reception (and fresh coffee!!! mmmmm) and we started packing our stuff into Evil Olive van #1, a Honda CR-V... our home for the next 24 hours. Luckily Marc and Brooke's rig had a roof rack, so we were able to strap our sleeping bags and sleeping pads and pillows up there to conserve room in the rig. If you haven't noticed yet: there were 6 of us... for 5 seats with seatbelts. This is not a problem when one of us is walking. However, when ALL of us are in the rig, one of us was banished to the trunk. I happily volunteered for that position. It was actually quite comfortable back there to tell the truth. Marc and Brooke put a comfy seat back there for me, and there was more than enough leg room.

We drove out to OMSI (the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) where the PtC starting line was around 4am. It was insane. Just a mass of vehicles and people.... I left the van numbers, race bibs, safety pins, and car paint with my teammates to decorate van #1 as I took a couple headlamps and reflective vests into the breach to check Evil Olive in. I also dragged Jesse along as he was our first walker... however once we learned we couldn't check in immediately he went back to the van to get ready for his walk. It was a bit of chaos, but eventually after 4:15am I was able to get our team checked in. We received our timing chip and the relay "baton"... a reflective slap bracelet. The rest of van #1 had walked out to find me by the time I checked in... and then talk of finding porta potties started. I hung out near the start line soaking in the excitement and chaos until I remember the stop watches!!! Shit! We have to turn in a break down of the "split times" at the finish line to completely finish the race. To this end, I had created a clip board with 2 stopwatches taped to it and a sheet of paper. This was the easiest process I could come up with for timing our legs. Ofcourse, it helps if I HAD the fricken stopwatch clipboard at the start line!!

It took a bit of panic and running around, but I found Marc with the van keys and he let me in van #1 to get the clip board. Whew!

Then it was standing around... listening to the announcer guy go through all the team names in our start time (geez, maybe 60 teams?!?) naturally cheering for ourselves... and then 3, 2, 1. GO!!! And they were off (mostly older women... and Jesse) in a blaze of walking. They dissolved into the dark along the Willamette Esplanade, and we who remained filed back to van #1. I learned at this time what "roadkills" are. I guess it's tradition to keep track of the people you pass while you are competing, and that number is your roadkill count. Sheryl informed us all, and we were like, oh? ok.

Here is Van 1 all decorated up:

We played with the idea of going for coffee, but then decided we were all good since we had just had some coffee at Marc & Brooke's place. Jesse's leg was short... only 4.16 miles, so we decided to go straight to the next exchange. This turned out to be a good idea. The parking lot was small, so if we had done anything before getting there, we most likely wouldn't have been able to get in and park!

We were standing in the exchange when the very first walker of the relay (who most likely started at 4am) came through with a motorcycle escort. That was kinda neat. We watched with curiosity as the first several teams did the first hand off of the reflective slap bracelet.

Here is Jesse on the first leg of the race.... he's on the left (obviously).

Finally, after 55:22 here comes Jesse! Hana got ready to go, and the hand off went flawlessly. We also had no problem clearing out of the exchange parking lot, as the volunteers were anxious to have more parking spaces for the various vans lined up on the road waiting to get into the parking lot.

Hana's leg was 6 miles long, and had told us ahead of time that a great place to meet her would be around 4 miles for a drink of water and an opportunity to take off her sweat pants if she was up for it. According to the course route, the St. John's bridge was at 3.94 miles, so just after the bridge we found a turn off that we parked at and waited for her. We hung out in the dark, talked a bit, and then eventually decided given her estimated pace... Hana was coming soon, so we moved out of the vehicle to cheer her on. I spotted her and started jumping up and down and cheering her on. She was smiling in embarrassment. I started yelling at her, "TAKE OFF YOUR PANTS!!" and the other PtC people who were waiting for their walkers thought I was joking and just chuckled at me. Sure enough, hana stopped after accepting a drink of water from Jesse and took off her pants, and then threw them at me like she was a stripper, and everyone at this roadside pit stop laughed. The sun was just coming up, and the whole trip this far felt surreal.

Here is Hana walking in the rising sun.

We piled back in van #1, and headed to the next exchange.

The next one had loads of parking spaces, but the exchange zone was nearly on Hwy 30... which was kinda dangerous, especially with the spectators who were pushing onto the highway. The volunteers were a little stressed out trying to keep people back.

My entire van first lined up for the porta potties... and then Marc and I headed up to the exchange zone (I had the timing clipboard... hence the privelege). On the way up there, I remembered to ask Marc for the van keys. hehehe... he pulled the keys out of his pocket and handed em to me. It was fun thinking about what it would have been like if we forgot to get the van keys from Marc before he started walking. hehehe.

At the exchange zone, as we were getting closer to the expected Hana sighting, Marc started stripping his sweat pants and sweater off and hung them on my shoulder. He also asked to see us around 4 miles during his 7.25 mile leg. At 1:29:22 Hana came up the hill and handed off to marc. We walked back to our car and raided the food supplies in our van. The turkey & cream cheese wraps were excellent at 7am!

I drove us to an area along Hwy 30 with a larger gravel shoulder where some other vans were parked near the 4 mile point, and we waited for Marc. Brooke happily handed Marc his water when we found him. He was talking about REALLY needing to pee for the past 3 miles. Yeeks!

When he was on his way, we passed him and whooped at him in encouragement out the windows on our way to the next exchange point.

Here is Marc on his leg:

As a side note: WAY later that same day, around 9pm, Chelsee Caskey, an 18 year old High School Challenge participant, was hit by a car on this leg, Leg 15. Chelsee was participating on Lincoln High School's team for her third year in the event. The driver has been arrested and charged with second-degree assault, driving under the influence of drugs, and reckless driving. Chelsee remains in serious condition at Emanuel Hospital . This is the first ever occurrence of a runner-vehicle collision during the relay's 27 year history.

So not cool.

The next exchange point, as soon as we got there I had to pee again and took off for the porta potty. I didn't realize that everyone decide they needed to pee also. Unfortunately this was a smaller exchange parking lot, with fewer honeybuckets, so the line was ridiculously long. I found everyone else in line once I was done... and realized I had left the key in the van thinking not EVERYONE was leaving... whoops. Brooke had the key on her and handed it to me. I went and got the timing clip board, and then simultaneously kept an eye out for Marc on the route and for Brooke from the porta potties. My anxiety was for nothing, Brooke was ready to go well before Marc showed up. Here came Marc at 1:45:08, and handed off to Brooke.

Additional side note: Marc found a dirt hill to duck behind to pee during his walk. If someone had seen him do this, it would have been a disqualifiable offense. Good thing he's a stealth pee-er!

Brooke's leg was only 3.52 miles long, and she told us she didn't want a pit stop from us along the way. BUT, she was also pretty sure she didn't want to ditch her jacket and could tie it around her waist if she got too hot. We passed her pretty quickly after she had started tho, and Marc made the executive decision as van driver and as Brooke's husband, to pull off on the next street and get her jacket from her. Brooke was very grateful. :)

Walk, Brooke, walk!

We moved on to the next exchange at the Scappoose Fred Meyers... where Evil Olive van #2 was also meeting up with us. My leg was up next.. so I was a ball of anxiety. The rest of my van was ready to find coffee. :)

I started getting phone calls from van #2 saying they spotted Brooke just a little ways off, and she would be at the exchange soon. Also they were asking where we were... I kept telling my mom, "at the exchange!" I thought she knew where it was since we drove there before... but I guess she wasn't paying as close attention as all that.. cause she parked further away and walked over.

Anyway, all my anxiety was for naught. Everyone was back by the time Brooke showed up at 55:49. Hana made sure that Brent got the timing chip (which he needs on his shoe while crossing the finish line in Seaside, OR), and I honestly couldn't tell you who was doing the timing clip board.... hehehe. Brooke handed off to me, and I was off!!!

My walk was GREAT. I had 5.69 miles, straight and flat along boring Hwy 30. I had been training quite a bit the several months leading up to the race, and knew that I could walk a little quicker than a 12 minute mile (5 mph) when I had flat road. It wasn't easy, and I'm SURE I looked like a complete moron while walking fast... but I could do it.

I passed a whole bunch of walkers, and decided to start counting my roadkills after a bit. I was looking for both vans to pass me and cheer me on... every time I heard cheering from behind I'd turn around smiling to find it was someone else's van. damnit.

Then there was one van with everyone out of it cheering someone on with urgency behind me that I couldn't see. When I heard one of the spectators yelling, "COME ON, YOU CAN TAKE HER!!" I realized this someone was coming up on me! Like hell he was! No one had passed *ME* yet! I stepped it up a notch and really pushed myself on my step rate and using my abdomen and arms more efficiently to go quicker. He was a tall skinny guy, coming up on my heels huffing and puffing. His van stopped again a little further up to cheer him on AGAIN... WHERE THE HELL WAS *MY* VAN?!?! I was able to keep in front of him the entire while. He then started talking to me:
"you're really challenging me!!"
I responded, "you're really challenging ME!"
he said, "but this is my first time! I'm a beginner!"
I responded, "Dude, this is my first time too!"

That's about when his energy gave out, and he started falling behind. HAHAHAHAH! Booya!

After this, both my vans pass me cheering me on... and even my van, van #1 stops and gives me a drink of water (which I refuse to stop for, I dump it down my mouth as I continued moving). Thanks, Hana!! It was very needed!

Sometime around here I also came across the race photographer. I played with the idea of stopping and striking a pose for the camera, but then decided to just smile and hug myself. I should have struck that pose in hindsight.

BLAZE O GLORY! Here I come... I see the next exchange up ahead of me... and I couldn't get there soon enough.

I cruise in with both vans cheering me on, and pass off to Sheryl after walking for 1:06:34... or an 11:42 minute mile average pace. Marc met me at the exchange, and my legs immediately transformed into spaghetti and it was REALLY hard for me to walk or stand at all. Holy crap. 22 roadkills! Woo!

The entire team wants to get a team picture on this grassy hill, and I oblige by sitting on the ground in front of them.. too wobbly to stand. Everyone except Sheryl (who was walking) was in this pic.

I'm pretty done. We have to go get Sheryl at the end of her leg, but after that, van #1 is done with our first leg. I slam 2 more bottles of water... we head to the Columbia County Fairground.

Here is Sheryl's leg:

We aren't able to provide Sheryl any route support since she's on a leg that no vans are allowed on... we can only meet her at the end of her 4.15 miles at the fairgrounds. We get there, and I tear into our van food. Van #2 gets there eventually and parks near us. It's a gorgeous sunny morning by the time Sheryl shows up at 1:00:50 and hands off to Ronnelle in van #2. Before parting ways, Brent and I test the Motorola Walkabouts we brought along to contact one another at the next major exchange location... where cell phones do not work. We decide on channel 8, walk a bit away from eachother and test the devices. They work. We also decide to use the call signs "olive jar 1" and "olive jar 2" for van 1 and van 2 of Evil Olive respectively. Perfect! We're good to go!

We hand off the clipboard to van #2, and we sing song wish van #2 good luck as we head out for "pancakes!!"

We stop at the Scappoose High School where I was informed of a pancake fundraiser... and are informed (after barging in on band camp) that the pancakes are for the Hood to Coast runners... later. They weren't set up to feed people now. WHAT!?! damnit, why include that information in the walker packet if it's not meant for us!!! Grrrrr...

We decide to hit a local diner in Scappoose instead. We had a nice greasy breakfast/lunch... it was approaching noon after all. After food and "bottomless" diner coffee we head out. Our destination is in the middle of nowhere... the sleeping areas at exchange 24 (on Hwy 202 just after it splits off from Hwy 47 near Mist, OR). The drive takes a while to get to along the Scappoose-Vernonia Hwy, and I doze off in the back of the car... well, up till the water bottles fell on me from on top of the cooler (I was in the trunk afterall). We get to the sleep area, and Marc expertly locates a promising looking patch of shade in the back corner of the sleeping field. We immediately pull stuff out of our van to claim that patch of shade (it was pretty sunny) and another van pulls up hopefully, and then drives off when they discover that it was OUR shade... not theirs. Within minutes, we're fast asleep in the shade in the sunny late August afternoon on a Friday... in a field of hundreds of other walkers and vans. For the number of people in this field, it's eerily quiet. So pleasant......

... could almost ignore the spiders that keep trying to crawl on my legs....

(... part 2 to come)

Running in a Sea of Cheese...

2008-08-17T00:11:00.000-07:00

A little over a week ago I found myself getting a little tired of running around Portland and Vancouver... finally.

I found a little run on the coast this weekend called the Tillamook Bay Run, and I went ahead and mailed in a registration form & check for the run. I figured, why not? It'll be refreshingly NOT portland!

The TBR race included a 5 and 10 mile length (10 miles was just running the 5 mile course twice). Since I only was slated for a 6 mile run this weekend, AND I have a major event next weekend, I opted for only the 5 mile distance... altho I did consider running 10 for a moment.

After checking the weather forecast for Tillamook in the morning and trying to call it a night early last night... this morning I was up bright and early (6am?). I got ready to go, had a big helping of oatmeal, stopped by my local Starbuckia on my way out of town, and hit the road. I've never had to drive anywhere for a run before. Google maps predicted a 2 hour drive for me. ugh.

Luckily it didn't take QUITE as long as they predicted to get out there.

I was rolling through Tillamook (if you aren't familiar, Tillamook is home of THE MOST AMAZING CHEESE. I've been a fan of their Special Reserve Extra Sharp Cheddar since I was a kid... I consider Tillamook something akin to the promised land) this morning just before 9am... and noticed a cute little farmer's market set up in their little historical downtown area. The run was located on the Bayocean spit on the far side of the Tillamook bay, so I kept going.

I got to the start line/finish line/race central a tad early it turns out.

Also, I was surprised to find the place was completely surrounded by fog. The forecast the night before hadn't mentioned fog.

But it wasn't TOO terrible. Heck, this weekend is a heat wave in Portland. When I was driving out, the NPR news was all about how temperatures were going to be in the 3-digits today, and there were signs up on the highways warning of high smog levels today, and to keep driving to a minimum. I felt kinda lucky to be getting out of town actually.

I got my race-day packet, and since I had an hour to kill, I brought it back to my car and went through it.

There was some random stuff in it, like a pad of post-it notes, but I was happy to find a sample of Tillamook cheese included. :)

Anyway, after anxiously awaiting the race start for a while, it was time to go to the start line. I was TOTally surprised to find only a handful of people there. Note my race bib number was 301! Well, turns out they're still using the race bibs from the first year they held this race. There were only like 57 people in this race.

They explained to us how the race was going to work (out and back, how hard is that?) and then counted down to the start. I had on my new New Balance flair running skirt (love it), my ultimate frisbee jersey, and, as a last minute addition due to the weather, I decided to keep my polar fleece on... but ended up needing to remove it and tie it around my waist before the turn around.

There was a group of like 10 or so highschool runners, who were clearly being coached, and a group of walkers that were referred to as TLC (who I later found out was a credit union in Tillamook and Lincoln County). Other than that, there were just some random people. We all set off. I tried my best to keep up with the gaggle of highschoolers at the start. Why? I'm not sure actually. Near 1/2 mile I had to slack off a touch tho, and they passed me. However, sticking with them in the first 1/2 mile separated me from the other runners, and I was kinda keeping the rear of the first group of runners. Not a bad spot.

My mile splits were...
Mile 1: 8:34 minutes
Mile 2: 9:44 minutes
Mile 3: 9:38 minutes
Mile 4: 9:51 minutes
Mile 5: 9:35 minutes

Total: 47:49 minutes, a 9:28 minute mile pace.

For a 5 mile race, this is a pretty fricken good time for me. Ok, sure, I beat the pace in the Reach the Bridge run, but that was ALL downhill... this race wasn't. If I can keep that pace up for an additional 1.2 miles or so, I think that would meet my under-an-hour 10K goal.

The course was dirt, gravel, bigger rocks, sand... nothing good lets just say. Luckily I had worn my trail running shoes which has greater stability. I also worked hard to find the hardest packed, least rocky line along the access road that the out and back was along. I was pre-occupied in this race watching the ground trying to plot the least dangerous route along the road. I enjoyed the view less often than I would have liked... however that's fine, since the fog never burnt off. On occasion we could see a sea kayaker or a sailboat in the fog, but for the most part there was nothing to see. More often there was the smell of fish and seaweed. Definitely not in Portland. :)

The course was along the bay-side of the Bayocean spit.

Funny, apparently my garmin doesn't have the spit on its maps... according to my gamin my run was on water this morning...

Cool.

I was, at first, trying to keep track of the ladies in front of me who looked approximately 30-39 years old... since I knew there were age-group/gender awards, and not many people. After a while tho I just was running and not looking at the other people. The weather (cooler, humid) did NOT jive with my bad knee, and with 2 miles left, it started to stiffen up a touch, but I decided to ignore it and just keep going. It loosened up a little after a while, but it was complaining to me the rest of the day. I was kinda glad on the home stretch that I wasn't doing the 10 mile run. My knee was not up for it.

I went ahead and stopped at all of the water stations and stood around while I drank water for a couple of seconds, and then thanked the volunteers for being out there. I told them I was in no hurry... which was only partly true. I had a good enough lead on the people behind me that it didn't hurt me to take those little breathers, and there was NO way I'd catch those in front of me. :)

I got to run alone for most of the race. It wasn't bad!

At 1/4th mile to the turn around, the leaders were headed back. I complimented the lead runners on their effort, but they ignored me. ahh well. They were all kids anyway: no manners. When I was about 1/2 mile to the finish, the lead 10 milers passed me on their second circuit of the course. So, that tells me I was a pretty consistent pace behind the leaders for the entire run. :)

The final mile was deceiving. It was flat and striaght, but I kept THINKING I saw the gate that was the trailhead, and ineffect the finish line... so I kept putting in a little more energy than I woulda if I knew the finish was still .66 miles off. You can't really SEE .66 miles off. Roughly, the furthest you can see at any given time down a relativly straight flat street is 1/4th mile. I kept forgetting that, and kept pushing myself a little, hurt knee and all.

I crossed the finish to a small crowd of clapping strangers and was disappointed to find no water for the runners. booo!

Luckily I had tossed some in my car, so I wandered over there... and then took some pictures. It had warmed up a LITTLE, and you were starting to be able to see through the fog, but not really...

Here is the start/finish trail from the parking lot...

I had about an hour to kill before the awards ceremony, so I stretched a lot, ate a banana and a mini blueberry muffin (complimentary after-run food), and just kinda, hovered nearby... the fogged burned off a touch more... LOOK! you can almost see land on the other side of the bay!!!

Behind me is a typical landscape for the Oregon coast.

I learned while hovering that not only were there NO women doing the 10 mile run, but there were only 5 women in my age group in the 5 mile run, and out of them I was 3rd!!! I've NEVER been a contender for top 3 before!! woo hoo! Ofcourse, if I had done the 10 mile run, I would have been a gold medallist AND the all-around top 10 miler woman. Eh, hind sight is 20/20. My knee wasn't quite up for it anyhow.

I stuck around for the award ceremony shortly after noon, and then the fog started rolling back in some. Some of the local Tillamook runners took interest in me (only person who drove in for this event!), and I had some nice conversations. The Gold winner in my age group and her boyfriend asked what else I was planning to do while I was out there. I admitted I had never been to Tillamook before. I told them I was considering seeing the lighthouse, since it was like, right near us. They suggested before I leave I swing by Oceanside, a little coastal town nearby, and have a meal at Roseanna's Cafe. I said, "cool!"

Driving off of the spit, this was my view...

I followed the Cape loop further away from Tillamook and eventually found Cape Meares. The fog was pretty thick at this point. You could hear the sea, but you just couldn't see it. I was kinda enjoying the fog... made for some special views.

Funny story: when I got out of the car to take that first photo, I hadn't realized I was still wearing my bronze medal that I won in the awards ceremony. I got some funny looks from some other tourists, but didn't much think about it till I was back at my car and was like, "OH! whoops!"

I hobbled on my stiffened knee down to the lighthouse. I know I was walking like a gimp, but I didn't much care. I WAS going to see the lighthouse...

cute little lighthouse!

Altho all you see is fog behind the lighthouse, I SWEAR there is the Pacific Ocean there!

On my way back to the car I spotted a little snake, but wasn't able to get a pic. I did get a picture of this guy hanging out on a thistle tho!

After this, I made my way along the winding coastal 2-lane road to Oceanside, OR.

I love how the houses are stacked up along the hillside like that!

I was happy to see the beach well attended...

I easily found Roeseanna's

The establishment was packed, but the servers were friendly. I went ahead and got the white albacore tuna salad special (as a melt on sourdough bread w/tillamook cheese), with a side cup of vegetarian vegetable soup.

It was AMAZINGLY good! I was eyeing the dessert menu the entire time I was there too... but alas I had no room. I TOTALLY would have been all over that bread pudding otherwise...

I was having fun watching the kites pass the window of Roseanna's while I was eating. As I sat there eating, the fog burnt off some more, and I was shocked to spot some massive Oregon Coast-typical rock formations offshore from Oceanside. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, but I just didn't see them earlier, so they kinda came out of nowhere! You can KINDA see em in this pic. Also there is a kite in this picture! :)

Also I got a quick vid of a dragonfly kite I was enjoying from the cafe. As I was filming, a mother dragged her screaming kid by me. Ignore that.

On the way back to my car, I spotted the CUTEST little sea side cabins for rent:

Dog friendly!?!? Oh man, I'm SO coming back here!

While driving home, I tried to snap pics of the fields of dairy cows I passed (without looking) with mixed success. The cows are the black and white blurs...

In Tillamook, while stopping to refill my gas tank for the drive home, I noticed they were closing down the little farmer's market that I had spotted earlier. I snapped some photos of that too!

All in all a GREAT day. I'll leave you with some shots of my brand spanking new bronze medal!!

Rock'n Relay

2008-08-10T16:50:00.000-07:00

On Aug 2, me and 3 friends came together as the Rock'n Relay team: The Roundabouts- three girls and a guy.

What's the Rock'n Relay?
It's a 2 mile loop course, up and over the Terwilliger hill starting and ending at Upper Duniway Park. The full race is marathon-length, but you run it in teams of four. Three runners do the 2 mile loop three times, and one person (the anchor) does that loop 4 times. The anchor starts and finishes the race, and each team member runs the loop in turns.

At a 10 minute mile, which is roughly what each of us on my team thought they could run, that gives you roughly 1 hour between runs. Not bad. All of us were wondering how that would affect our ability to run the loop. Would it hurt us? Help us? Hell if I knew, I'd never run a tough 2 miles, then waited an hour, then ran that 2 miles again, then waited an hour, etc.

Ahhh... so what's so "rock'n" about that? Well, the event has bands playing the duration of the race at Upper Duniway Park, plus food and beer booths. :D

Anyway, just cause I'd done a 1/2 marathon the weekend prior (unlike everyone else on my team) I was designated the anchor. After my 1/2 marathon time, I was totally pumped for this run.

Basically we just camped out all afternoon on Saturday, Aug 2, listened to music, enjoyed the weather and views, and ran a big hill repeatedly.

Here, meet the team: This is Robin (avid Roundabout fan), Bryce, and Robin's border collie-flat coated terrier mix, Juno... and then Dayna and Sheryl.

So, we hung out a touch before the race started. Other teams were setting up a "base camp" like we did. Some of them even got all dressed up for the race. There was a bouncy palace for the kids. And this was our view of the stage from our "base camp" location. The Portland Cello Project was performing.

The anchor got the purple team bib, and the others got white. The Roundabouts ran in the order: me, sheryl, dayna, bryce.

Here are some pics of us on the course...

Sheryl:
Sheryl, on loop 2, started cramping in her legs. She was disappointed, but had to walk, and was clearly in a decent amount of pain. Ugh... poor thing.

Dayna:

Bryce:
Bryce had some great times. He kept showing up before we were expecting him.

And then, ofcourse, me! I was dressed in all black, cause I thought it'd make me look ominous.
This is loop 1

loop 2

loop 3

loop 4

hehehe, my team greeted me at the finish with beer. Great team!

For me, loop 1 was weird... running in the pack, and trying to slow myself down... ignoring the excitement. I ended up pushing too hard up till the hill, and had to walk up the hill a bit. I resolved to NOT walk up the hill on loop 2 & 3 though, and I was able to manage that. I did walk a touch on loop 4 tho. Just a little bit. Once you hit the 1 mile mark on the loop, it was ALL downhill till the finish.

On loop 1, I ended up getting a side cramp at the top of the hill, and had to walk a bit on the downhill to get rid of it. After that, I also decided to "warm up" as much as a could before my other loops... and could be seen jogging in place while my teammate before me was running the loop. It helped a lot.

Between loops I stretched, slammed electrolyte snacks, drank water, and tried to stay warm.

Loops 2-4? I was basically around no one else. Ok, loop 2 there were some quick runners passing me, but after that, no one.

We finished in 4:18:58... slightly faster than a 10 minute mile as a team. Neat!
My own personal times:
Mile 1 8:27 minutes
Mile 2 10:00 minutes
Mile 3 9:00 minutes
Mile 4 9:15 minutes
Mile 5 9:16 minutes
Mile 6 8:55 minutes
Mile 7 9:48 minutes
Mile 8 8:44 minutes

My average pace- 9:12 minute miles, or for me, 8 miles in 1:13:29!! Not bad!! I think I hit like 5:30 minute miles on my sprints to the finish too. Zoom!!!

I'm pretty happy with both my team and my own effort on this run. It felt really good.

Here are some more pictures from the day...
Note the long-hair chihuahua on the guy's chest laying on the ground... hee!

And, the music

What a fun event.

I even won a $10 gift certificate to Foot Traffic, and a coupon for $10 off registration for another Terrapin Event run.

Lacamas Half pics

2008-07-30T15:35:00.000-07:00

Ok, photos are up now!

Here is us doing that warm-up thing at the start line...

I'm not in that pic. The start line photos are kinda a "where's waldo" exercise for me actually. I put together a handy slide show with some of the shots I'm in. Can you find me?

Here are some shots of the pretty views of the course. Note the complete lack of shoulder on the 2-lane rural highway.

And here is me running on the course. This is around mile 11, and I'm feeling pretty derned good. I think you can tell.

And here is my run to the finish line... I think the photographer caught me giving my victory "whoop!" too. heheheh

What a great day that was!

Lacamas Lake Half Marathon!!!

2008-07-28T19:07:00.000-07:00

Holy Crud.

This weekend was the Lacamas Lake 1/2 marathon.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.mapmyrun.com/run/united-states/wa/camas/503596685"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Lacamas 1/2 marathon In July&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br/&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.mapmyrun.com/find-run/united-states/wa/camas"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Find more Runs in Camas, Washington&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

So... this is the event I've been training for more or less since the Race for the Roses. I devised a schedule and mostly stuck to it... making adjustments to make sure I don't over train or so that I could run smaller events and still feel like I'm preparing for the half.

This was kind of a big milestone for me in my short running career (16 months so far and counting). This was the first goal running event (8Ks, 10Ks, and even 15Ks don't count) that I trained myself for, instead of leaning on TNT to train me. Granted, I was leaning heavily on the running foundation that training for the Race for the Roses half in April gave me, but I learned from experience last winter that if you stop running, even for only a month, it's really hard to pick it back up again, and it's almost like starting over. I made sure to not let that happen this time around. I put together my schedule and stuck to it.

Between Race for the Roses and the Lacamas Lake halves, I ran no less than 6 organized smaller runs. Crazy how I caught the running bug!! Every one of them has been worth it tho!

Sunday morning, I feel like I outdid myself all over again, on many fronts.

I'll admit. I didn't quite know how things were going to go. Not only did I train myself, but I never managed a continuous run beyond 10 miles in my training, altho 2 were scheduled. If you recall, my 12 mile run was intolerably miserable, hot, and stifling on a treadmill in my mom's garage. I managed the total distance in 2 shifts tho, walking a not insignificant distance in the process.

My 14 mile run landed on the same weekend as the run like a girl 10K trail run. I attempted an 8 mile run following the 10K, but that quickly bottomed out, and I turned around at about 2.7 miles due to side cramps and straight up exhaustion... I had used too much of my energy in the 10K trail run earlier that morning and the second run simply wasn't going to happen. The trail run was a challenging course, and I totally forgot to "take it easy" and "save my strength" for the longer run later that day. I got swept up in the excitement of the event and put in everything I had. Oops.

So, with really only a 10 mile run under my belt (albeit an excitingly optimistic 10 mile run) I ventured headlong into this weekend.

Sunday morning, bright and early, my mom and I get up and get ready for the event. Forecast was low to mid 60's, mostly cloudy, and drizzly rain in the afternoon (after the event was over). Because of this, I chose basically the same outfit I ran the Cane 10 10K in: longer running skort and a T. My mom had gotten the event technical T with her registration, I had not (I think cause I was disappointed by how fricken large the Cinco de Mayo shirts were). Turned out tho, for this event, they got different shirts for men and women, and the women shirts ran on the small side. My mom had gotten a M, but she thought it was too tight for her, so she gave it to me (or frustratingly tossed it in my direction is more like it). I chose to run in it... just cause. My mom saw me dressed in it on race day and gave me a grunt that pretty much said, "you're welcome. don't you have a nice mom?" I also threw a polar fleece pullover on top to keep me warm till I ran.

The drive out to Camas High School was 28 minutes, so we had to be out the door by 6:15am. The half marathon walk began at 7am, half marathon run at 8am, 4 mile run/walk at 8:30am, and the 1K kid run at 10:30am.

We get to the highschool (after a little confusion over the mapquest directions) with plenty of time before the walker start (for my mom). We got decent parking, walked over to the track and milled around a bit checking out the location. The expo booths were still setting up, and there were only really a handful of people standing around looking ready to walk a half marathon. We visited the row of porta potties, and then came back to the track. The walkers were asked to line up at the start while they were still setting up the big digital race clock. I swear the clock only was set up entirely 10 seconds before the start. Finally at 7:05am or so the walkers were set off. This was the first event I've seen where they let the walkers loose first... and I think it makes a lot of sense really.

Earlier my mom and I noticed that the event wasn't timing chip timed, so the "timing" of the event was going to rely ENTIRELY on "gun time"... i.e. the clock starts for EVERYONE when they say "go." Because of this, there is a distinct disadvantage to your time if you hang out at the back and be polite letting the faster peeps go first. If you care about YOUR time, you want to cross that start line as close to the beginning of the race as you can.

My mom and I decided to do this, and I noticed she was on the outside ring of the track, right at the start line during the countdown.

The walkers took off. There was a handful of faster walkers that had separated themselves from the rest of the walkers by a quarter of the way around the track already. My mom was right at the front of everyone else looking strong. In the group of walkers was one runner: some tall lanky teen-aged kid in a blue shirt and yellow split-side running shorts... who bore an uncanny resemblance to that runner kid in Juno. On the go, he started jogging in the pack, and looked around REALLY confused that no one else was running. He ran with the pack of walkers around the track, out of the stadium and then re-entered the stadium from the main entrance. He had figured out that he was the only runner, and that wasn't right.

I laughed and laughed at this poor kid's expense.

An older man near me clearly dressed to run said something like, "well, runners don't always read very well..."

hee!

Then, I had about an hour to kill.

I walked around the expo booths, then I visited the porta potties again. Because I wasn't sure how well I had prepared myself for the run, I made myself feel better during the 12 hours leading up to the run by drinking as much water and electrolytes as I could manage. The sum results were needing to pee more than I normally do before a race.

Finally I wandered back to the car to get my arm wallet containing my cell phone and my jelly belly sport beans, my ipod shuffle, and to ditch my pullover. I also ate a black cherry shot blok while in the car and washed it down with more water. It was still only 7:15am. The parking lot was beginning to fill up, and more and more people were arriving. I realized right around then how good my parking spot was. I just sat in the car and stared at nothing for a while... I was a little tired, and somewhat surprised how much this event snuck up on me, unlike Race for the Roses. I kept wondering whether I did enough to prepare myself. Am I really ready?? Then I think about my mom, and how she's already on the course, and how nervous SHE was the night before (albeit somewhat due to the 2 cups of coffee she had at dinner, but she just couldn't sleep the night before. She was up half the night reading up more about the half marathon route). I silently wish her luck and decide to just go ahead and face the music. I get out of the car sans pullover (not as cold as I was anticipating), lock the door, and head back to the track... it's about 7:30am.

The line for the porta potties is like, 50 people long, and I have to pee again. Eh, I've got time. I get in line.

At 7:45am I'm standing on the track stretching. A nice older gentleman next to me asks if I've done the Lacamas run before. I admit I haven't, so he tells me the course is mostly flat with a couple serious hills. The most notable hills are the way out on the 3 mile out and back (obviously coupled with a serious downhill on the way "back"), and then the 1/2 mile ascent at mile 12 back up to the high school (which is coupled by the 1/2 mile downhill at the very beginning of the race once out on the street). He wishes me luck when the announcer guy asks the runners to line up on the track to do some pre-run warm-ups. Most everyone seems confused, but everyone obliges. We line up, and a guy from some physical therapy business starts leading us through a ~5 minute session explaining how by doing some simple exercises, we can warm up our muscles, activate our nerve endings, and be more-ready to run. Some of the moves remind me of Tae Bo. Some of the people around me were complaining that they were getting too tired to run by doing the exercises (but I think they were just joking).

Eventually we're asked to move to the start line. Following my mom's lead, I find myself edging forward to the very side of the track, but the inner side. Most people are happily chatting and didn't hear the national anthem being sung... but by halfway through the song a hush came over the runners, and we all listen to the song. After the song is sung, we then are given a 10 second countdown to our start at 8:05am.

GO!!!

We start running around the track, the same course the walkers took 1 hour earlier. I think about my mom for a second and realize she's probably more than 4 miles ahead of me just then. Cool.

My goal for this run was to simply beat my PR (personal record) for the distance, which I believe was a 12 minute mile pace (2 hour 36 minute half marathon time) that I was never able to run faster than during the portland marathon training, and certainly not after the portland marathon was over. My Race for the Roses finish time was approx 2 hours and 42 minutes... or a 12:30 minute mile pace.

Needless to say, the runners that show up to a small half marathon like this one are the ones who are serious runners. I can't imagine a beginner runner earmarking the Lacamas Lake half as their first half marathon, and a half-marathon isn't really a distance that less-serious runners decide to do off the cuff (like, say, a 5K or a 10K might be). So, I was surrounded by some pretty hard-core looking people... and well... at the beginning I had intentionally placed myself INFRONT of them all to try to get a good time. heh.

So yeah, people were FLYING past me at the start. I got caught up in the race start excitement, and then, ofcourse, the 1/2 mile downhill on the street, so it wasn't until mile 1 that I was able to work on slowing myself down a touch to be able to maintain my strength. My garmin informed me that I did the first mile in roughly 8 minutes. oops. By then tho we were on this nice flat 2-lane highway along the calm shore of Lacamas Lake. Things were going well... altho I remember thinking I had to pee again, but I told myself to ignore that. People were still just flying past me tho. I did my best to not weave and maintain a straight line so that it would be easier on runners passing me.

I was SO in the way.

I keep checking my pace tho on my Garmin. I figured as long as I was feeling good in my heart, lungs, and muscles, and wasn't going TOO fast, I should be ok, but I was seriously questioning my ability to keep up this pace for 13.1 miles.

I force myself to ignore the people passing me and slow down to a 10 minute mile.

That took A LOT of will power.

at about 3 miles, we go up a little hill and turn onto another highway. We're no longer in sight of the lake. This road is a bit busier, and the local traffic seems annoyed that our event is taking up a whole lane of the 2-lane highway. I move over a little more to the shoulder.

I hear someone coming up behind me having a conversation... asking someone's age. A woman informs the questioner that, "she's 10." The questioner is very enthusiastic, and reminisces that he was 10 when he started running. Shortly after that a mom runs by me with 2 daughters at her side. The three of them are wearing matching purple t shirts, and the youngest girl has the smallest pair of Reebok running shorts I've ever seen. Cool!

At the second aid station at mile 4, the TNT run aid station, the last water-hand-outer person in the line recognizes me as I walk past while gulping water from a paper cup. It's Maddie. She takes one look at me and says, "JACKIE!!!" I try to say "hi" with my eyes and eyebrows, and wave at her with my free hand while I swallow, but I don't stop to chat. I am concerned about my time, and take off from my water break with new gusto, passing a number of people including the mother and daughters in purple.

We run past fields with hay bales laying in them, and rolling hills, and many many cows. If it weren't for the 2-way traffic trying to eek around us in the 1 lane we weren't taking up, I think I'd be enjoying the view a lot more. A couple times we had to compress as far as we could onto the inexistent shoulder to avoid being hit by a truck pulling a horse trailer, passing a car going the other direction or whatever. It's a shame the event wasn't able to close off the roads for us.

Shortly after mile 4, it started raining. Not hard, but definitely more than a drizzle.

I am glad my clothing choice for this morning is holding up well to the rain. I'm still perfectly comfortable. I notice some guys near me squinting through the rain, and I'm glad once again for my running cap that's saving me from that. My ipod shuffle was good company too... giving me a little extra energy on some of my favorite songs.

At one corner, we came across one of the volunteers looking out for us on a bike (there was a whole crew of them that I saw at the walker start), and I was so happy from the music I was listening to that I clapped 4 times in rhythm with my music, smiling big. Shortly after that realizing that no one else could hear the music, and I was being a total dork.

I was approaching the out and back with the big hill. Mile 5. I also could finally see some walkers heading "back" at this point, and I start searching through them to find my mom. There she is!! I wave my arms and say "mom!" but she doesn't see me. She's still looking strong tho as she moves in amongst the trees and out of sight. Technically she's exactly 3 miles ahead of me right then. Now embarrassed a second time in the same 1/2 mile stretch of the scene I was making, I dig back in to my run. I've got a hill to climb. The rain is starting to subside now, and is much less of a concern, but I notice with a little dismay: my socks are a bit wet. This could be bad, but I decide to have a little faith in my bolga socks. So far they are my favorite running socks for their thinness and softness. I need more pairs cause I currently save the one pair I have every week after laundry day for my most demanding foot activity of the week.

Up the hill. A number of the runners ahead of me are slowing down and walking, and I don't. I chug up the hill and around the corner. Down a long gradual slope passing some slow walkers still on the "out" of the out and back, around some construction barriers where the 6 and 7 mile markers are. There are a number of walkers and serious-looking fast runners headed back. Once past the construction barriers and across a cul-de-sac, there is a right turn and infront of me is one serious looking hill. I take a deep breath, thankful for the uplifting song on my shuffle, and chug up it. I pass dozens of people. At the top I feel my heart pounding, but there is a nice flat section of road before the turn around, where I'm able to get my heart rate down. Some people pass me. I get a quick drink of water at the turn around, and then head back to the downhill.

I learned in the Run Like a Girl 10K trail run: I like downhills. I let myself go on the downhill to just FLY past people. Once back on the flatish gradual uphill section, I bring myself back down to a reasonable 10 minute mile and realize... I'm still going strong and I'm about halfway done! Neat! Oh, right about then I wonder about my time/pace. I look at my garmin and notice I'm at 6.61 miles (.4 miles past a 10K distance or so) and my garmin is reading 1:04:15. I start to wonder what my 10K time was.... is it possible I just did a 1 hour 10K?!?! Thats a tough call. I FEEL like it's entirely possible that I did a 10K in an hour tho. I also wasn't totally bottomed out of energy either... so I'm starting to consider a 1 hour 10K totally within reach, if not unofficially already achieved! I make a mental note to also check my time at 10 miles. I have a funny feeling I'm going to set a new PR for that distance for myself this morning.

*** note: I just checked my Garmin results from this run, and determined that YES! I hit the 10K mark in EXACTLY 1 hour!!! NEW PR FOR 10K TODAY!

After the gradual uphill, we make a right back onto a busy 2-lane highway, still sharing the road with people still on the out, and go down the other bigger hill to mile 8. Wee!

About this point, I pull out my bag of orange flavored sport beans and start munching away on them, careful to not inhale the electrolyte jelly beans or my own saliva as I run. It's kinda tricky. Luckily I timed it right, cause I come upon the next water station shortly. I figure I'm feeling good now energy-wise, but in 30 minutes more without a fuel boost I'm going to be slowing down a touch. And, that's about how long it'll take for me to get the jelly beans into my blood stream.

Here we branch off to the Lacamas Lake discovery trail. I realize slowly, I've run this stretch of trail before, just after the Portland Marathon. This trail is narrower, and hard packed dirt and gravel. Plus, there are now a good number of walkers on the trail that we have to pass, as we've caught up to a lot of them. It's small rolling hills, and VERY scenic. Old growth forest, the lake shore just to your left. It's all very nice.

I'm noticing the runners around me starting to poop out a bit. We are kinda forced to run single file along this trail due to lack of space... and I find myself getting annoyed whenever I end up behind someone who is slowing down to an 11 minute mile or so, and after putting up with it for a while, I finally pass these people when I have a good opportunity. I'm also wondering at myself. Where did I get this kind of energy!?!

The rolling hills of the trail fly by, and I scuttle up the uphills with shorter determined steps, and let myself fly down the downhills with the same happy abandon I learned in the Run Like a Girl 10K. I feel like I OWN this stretch of the route. I'm definitely feeling stronger than many of the other runners around me look. I've also notice I've been around some of the same people now for a couple miles in a row. It seems I've found my running pace group finally. I pass mile marker 10 and hit my lap button on my Garmin to save this. 1:38:47. Yep. A 10 mile PR for me. Beat my old PR by 7 minutes!

We emerge from the trail, back onto the street. There is a cop stopping cars at least so we can run nonstop as we cross the street to the right-hand side of the road. I thank him as I trot past. The traffic is REALLY backed up in this little rural intersection. Poor drivers. This stretch of road is a little more commercial, but there is still no shoulder and LOADS of cars. It's a little nerve wrecking to be as far over as you can like that. We follow this road for a touch, and finally turn right. We've reached mile 12. This is the dreaded uphill I've been hearing about.

I see it looming in front of me. A veritable pilgrimage of walkers and runners are slowly climbing this slope. There is no traffic at least, and our event is taking up the entire road as everyone creeps upward however they can manage. Most are walking... slowly. This is a serious grade.

I run for a bit... but at about half way up, I can't anymore. I also hear one participant laugh at her friend about how, if you walk up the hill, you can save your energy for an impressive finish... as the finish line is only like 3 blocks further once you're at the top. I walk up the second half of the hill with long strides. Surprisingly I'm still passing loads of other people while I walk up the hill.

Some people I passed on the trail run past me on this portion. Notably a father and teen-aged daughter who I've been around a lot during the entire run... also I recognize some purple shirted girls. The youngest is tearing up the hill, her mom and sister left behind her.

At the top, I try trotting again, but my heart and lungs take a bit to catch up. I pass some of the people who ran up the hill (father and daughter), but they pass me again quickly as I try to recover my strength. Then... unfortuneately, with the highschool back in sight, not only do I feel my knee twinge, but I start dealing with a side cramp.

dangit.

I struggle to control my breathing to conquer the side cramp, and slow to a walk for a little while. I want to sprint across the finish, but that is SO not going to happen with a bad knee and a side cramp!

Finally, entering the stadium the way we left, I step it back up to a run. The track surface feels good under my feet, and my knee stops protesting at least, but my heart and lungs still aren't up to a legit sprint. I just run as fast as I can at this point... approx an 8:30 minute mile. I spot my mom, she's done with the race and sees me. She gets her blackberry out and moves to the finish line to snap a photo of me. There are no other runners around me in at least 100 feet in either direction actually, so I can't exactly catch anyone at this point, and there is no one trying to catch me. I just cruise in to the finish. I smile at my mom's blackberry as she takes a photo, and then smile at the Evan Pilchik photographer with my arms raised in victory as I cruise in to the finish line, whooping a bit in triumph. I hear the announcer say on the loud speaker, "Good job number 47!" That's me!

In the chute after the finish line, I hand the official guy my tag from my bib, and then stop my garmin at 2:10:50.

Wait... 2:10:50?? Holy cow! I check my garmin facts about the run, and it says that is a 10 minute mile pace!!! WHAT!?!? I just ran a half marathon at a 10 minute mile pace??? Jebus!

I meant to beat my old half time, but I never expected to beat it by 32 minutes!!!!!

According the official race results, my time was 2:10:45.... a 9:58 minute mile pace.

My mom finished literally 5 minutes before me in 3:06:05.

I wasn't very high up in the runner standings... as I mentioned before the runners all looked very serious. I was still extremely proud of my results though. How could I not be!?!! Especially considering how challenging the course turned out to be! Hey, that was more hills than the portland marathon!

My mom, on the other hand, was in the top quarter of the walkers. Heck, she was 9th place in her age division!! Next year, if she walks the same speed in this race she'll probably be in the top 3!

After the race, I got a nice thai massage for free. That was nice since I was totally stiff. Today? yeah forget about it. I am walking funny for sure.

Here are some of my garmin stats from this event:

note where the time line passes the 10K mark....

More photos to come later...

Run Like a Girl!!

2008-07-15T17:11:00.000-07:00

So, on Sunday, July 13 I ran the Montrail Run Like a Girl 10K trail run in Forest Park.

GREAT weather for a trail run. Must have been 80 degrees at 9am when the race started. The route was on a narrow trail in Forest Park mostly... not terribly wide, and VERY steep at times. I understand that last year this was a problem with creating traffic jams and whatnot.

This year, with our registration, we had to put down our estimated running pace. From that we were separated into something like 11 waves of approx 50 women in each wave. About 250 ladies registered for the race, but opted to not "compete" in the race... and instead got to start on the course around 7:30am at their own leisure, and weren't timed. So, all together there were approx 750 ladies doing this event, which is phenomenal.

I parked at Montgomery Park around 8:30am with all the other ladies... there wasn't really any parking at Lower Macleay Park where the race started and ended... so we had to walk up to the park from there... about a 5 minute walk, nothing terrible.

I milled around for a bit, stretched some. I was in the eighth wave, so I had some time to kill. I knew that Lori was also at this run, but I was having a hard time spotting her.

Finally when I was in line for the start with my wave group, I spotted her in the ninth wave. She trotted over to me to wish me luck. Then it was a matter of waiting till we were told we could leave. Finally the eighth wave was able to set out around 9:12am.

This is me starting the race. I'm placidly looking up at the photographer and smiling to the right of the girl in blue.

We got into single file pretty quickly, and I stayed behind the girl who ended up infront of me for a while, but then I finally decided to start trying to pass girls on this run. Passing is kinda tricky on a trail... you have to not only make sure there is enough room and no one is coming from the other direction, but you have to closely watch the trail at all times for rocks, roots, or loose dirt that could make you trip, slip, or otherwise lose control while you're running. It's crazy!

I ran for maybe the first 1/3 mile until I was in a line of girls who all were stuck behind a slower girl, and we had just hit a steep uphill in the trail. I finally caved and walked for a bit until it was possible to pass the slower girl and keep hussling.

On the first half of the run, I mostly only walked when I was kinda forced to via crowding concerns... but then, in the second half of the run I found myself walking up the steep bits to keep my heart rate and breathing in check. There would have been no way my body could have handled me running that entire course!

Ofcourse, what goes up must come down! At nearly the halfway point, the trail pointed downhill finally... and man did I fly!! I learned the real joy of trail running with the downhill. It's a matter of searching for your footings on the trail REALLY quickly as you basically allow your body to free fall down the slope. ZOOM! It was brilliant.

I think I was getting into the downhills more than other girls, as I ended up passing LOADS of runners on the steep downhill portions of the run. I was barreling down the hillside like an avalanche... er, well, a rather controlled one atleast. My knees held up great too! No worries at all!

Here are two pics of me along the run... they were taken at pretty much the same spot. One was while I was headed out...

And the other was taken on my way back to the finish...

you can tell I've only recently started wearing shorts that short. My upper thigh is kinda pale compared to the rest of my leg. heh.

Finally, after continually pushing myself and passing loads of girls, I sprinted over the finish line!

My time was 1:07:55, or a 10:56 minute mile. I don't mind that it was slower than my last 10K, cause according to my Garmin this run also involved 3,500 ft elevation gain. Whew!!

It was one tough run, that's for sure!

Here is what my Garmin recorded for the run

heh. Looks right!

I met up with Lori after the run, she finished in 1:18:14. Crossed the finish line probably 10 minutes after me I think. We milled around after the race for a touch, and talked about what might be our next big run event. It's kinda still up in the air right now I think. Well, MY next big event will probably be the Lacamas Lake half on July 27th actually.

Anyway, in the Run Like a Girl results, it turns out I was 214th place overall (out of approx 500 racers), and in my age group I was 47th place out of 100. I'm pretty happy with these results!

It was a great run!! Totally want to do it next year, and hey! Who knows? Maybe I'll even train on trails prior to the race!!

AND, if you're wondering what's strapped to my upper arm in the pics? That's my arm wallet. It's easier to run with than something around my waist I think. I can keep my car key, ID, credit card, and a little cash in there just in case while I run.

10 mile training run

2008-07-07T13:36:00.001-07:00

On June 6 I ran a 10 mile training run around the Willamette River.

I decided to do the same route as the 8 mile run I did... only include the Willamette Esplanade and cross at the Steele Bridge instead of the Hawthorne... effectively adding 2 more miles.

It was a cooler weekend than the one before... so by 11am, it was still low 70's. Sunny but with a nice breeze. It was perfect running weather, and people were out in great numbers because of it!

So, the route was from the OMSI, go south along the Springwater corridor, over the Sellwood Bridge, north up the Willamette Greenway trail to the westside esplanade, over the Steele Bridge, south along the eastside esplanade back to OMSI. Pretty easy. I ended up having to do a silly little detour around the esplanade at the Hawthorne bridge on the west side because the side walk was blocked off for a big blues festival on the waterfront. I was happily listening to my ipod shuffle tho, and didn't hear any of the music. I was able to get back onto the esplanade around the big fountain.

I had a GREAT run. It went so much better than I was expecting, and I was able to run strong at mostly a 10 minute mile... a touch slower at times. I finished in 1:45:45... a 10:35 minute mile average pace!! For a 10 mile run, I think that may be a PR for me!

I felt good after the run too! Not too worn out or anything. My feet didn't even hurt like they did following the 8 mile run 2 weeks prior. I now feel like a 12 minute mile half marathon is WELL within reach!!

Next weekend I'm supposed to do a 14 mile training run... but I'm also signed up for a 10K trail run event. I'm thinking since 7+5 miles the previous week for my 12 mile run treated me so well, I might as well do 6+8 next weekend (i.e. after the 10k, run an additional 8 mile run... probably around the Willamette River like before since I like that run). After the 14 miles I taper for a week before the half marathon on July 27th.

It's coming up!!

Reach the Bridge

2008-07-07T12:49:00.000-07:00

So, on Sunday June 29 I ran the Reach the Bridge 8K run.

What a fun idea! The whole premise is that the Burnside Bridge is to be raised at 9am sharp. The finish line is on the other side. You can start whenever you like, but you've got to try to beat the bridge raising! The run starts at the zoo forestry center, and ends under the east side of the Burnside Bridge. The extra special thing about this run is it is entirely downhill, and they close off Burnside Ave for it.

I wanted to try to challenge myself, but after my sad 12 mile attempt, I wasn't about to get cocky. I decided to try for 10 minute miles.

Sunday bright and early: By 7am I was parking near the race finish line. From there I walked over the burnside bridge to the Old Town/China Town MAX stop, and got a 2 zone adult pass for $1.75. There were a handful of other people there also dressed in running gear. Since the weather was forecasted to be identical to the Cane 10 10K run, I wore the same thing that I did on that run: green shirt and a running skort.

There were some homeless guys kinda curious about the runners, and one of them came down to the MAX stop first yelling at us about how lonely he was (I ignored him, I knew he would focus on the people who outwardly showed their uneasiness with him), and then he started singing loudly. A police officer on a bike rode past while the homeless guy was bugging us, but did nothing about it.

The first train to arrive was a yellow line train, and many of the nervous runners boarded that one. Since it was going in a circle and then back north to the expo center, it was NOT the correct train to get on. The singing homeless guy followed those poor nervous runners onto the MAX train, continuing to sign for them. Those of us who didn't get on the train sighed with relief when it left... and laughed at the poor runners who got on it.

The next train to show up was the correct red line train. I got on and watched out the window as we sped to Washington Park... arriving around 7:30am.

Up the elevator, we emerged at the forestry center. There was music playing, a long line for the porta potties, and some water dispensers set up on a table. I decided to use the honey bucket first since I needed to, and since the line was ridiculously long. Turned out it was also very slow-moving. For some reason the race organizers only decided to provide 3 honey buckets at the start line. It took me 20 minutes or more to get through that restroom line. During this time I had a chance to look around and see that the start line was right next to the elevator... and beside that was a digital clock counting down the remaining time until 9am.

After relieved, I got my race bib, pinned it on, and then checked my polar fleece pullover into the equipment check. Then I slammed some water (it was already 80 degrees), and stretched... and nervously watched the clock. I was waiting for 8:10am to start my run.

While stretching and waiting, I talked to another guy who was also waiting for a certain time to begin running. He assured me it was an easy run, and mostly downhill, that there was a 1/4th mile uphill section before you were out of the park, and then the uphill to get on the bridge. He also assured me the route was well marked.

Finally at 8:10am, I set off. And was immediately passed by faster runners. I was wondering about that... shouldn't they be timing themselves to leave later if they wanted to run that quickly?? I thought the idea was to challenge your pace and get as close to finishing at 9am as you dared... wasn't it?

It was a beautiful run through Washington Park tho. down down down. Nothing remarkable to say besides the fact that I don't think other people approached this race the same way I did. Several walkers were lagging behind, and you KNEW they weren't going to make the 9am bridge raising. Many faster runners passed me in the first half of the run... and you knew they should have left later. Most the people who left around me were running faster than a 10 minute mile pace (heck, I was too, and was still getting passed).

This is what my garmin recorded.

It was a fun run tho, and running down burnside was neat. The trek up the west side of the bridge was rough... and I caught up to lots of slower runners around that area. There was a drum line at the top of the bridge drumming the last couple of minutes before the bridge opened. It added a touch of drama to the situation. I crossed the drawbridge portion, and was disappointed that I still had another half mile to go till the run was over. You feel like the finish line should be right there instead.

I finished in about 43:15. MUCH better than I was expecting. That came out to a 9:03 minute mile pace for 4.8 miles. Finished a good 7 minutes before the bridge went up!

At the finish, I immediately got in line for the finisher T. When I finally got to the front of the line, I was informed that they only had L and XL shirts left. WHAT?!? Wait, who are all these small people who finished way early?? I didn't quite get that. That's not how this run was supposed to go... PLUS I registered for a S shirt (like normal) and I thought this MIGHT be one race in which I get the right sized shirt. but, no. nope. After getting the Large shirt, I went and retrieved my polar fleece from the equiptment check.

Our stuff was just sitting there, no one was watching it to make sure people didn't steal anything.

The finish line area had some food there tho. Bagels, bananas, the like. The neat addition was the iced mochas they were pouring. I got myself 2 servings of that.

We watched the bridge go up. I think I was the most excited about that actually. No one else around me seemed to care all that much. The bridge came back down, and some walkers finished after that, clearly blocked by the bridge raising. The drum line then marched down the bridge and played a cool riff for us under the bridge. That was awesome. After that was over tho, there didn't seem to be much of a reason to hang out, so I left.

It was a pretty run, but I question the organization of the event a bit. For only 600 participants, you'd think they could put on a really organized event! ah well.

running since 10-10-10

2008-06-27T19:49:00.000-07:00

so... it's occured to me that I need to be training for the 1/2 marathon on July 27th that I'd like to run. My "goal" for this half is a 12 minute mile.

Soo... according to the "experienced runner" 1/2 marathon training schedule I've transposed from Coach Joe and TNT onto the late July marathon date... I was supposed to do 10 miles on the weekend I did the ultimate frisbee tournament (which I didn't do).

Last weekend I did 8 miles... a wonderful run starting at OMSI and headed south down the Springwater corridor on the Willamette, over the Sellwood Bridge, up the Willamette Greenway trail on the west side of the river, back to the Hawthorne Bridge. That was 8 miles, and I was able to manage it in roughly 1:29:17, or an 11:09 minute mile pace. The weather was weird in Portland... mid 80's, kinda humid and overcast. I had chosen to wear a short running skort and a tanktop so that as much skin as possible could be cooled by the air.

After that run I treated myself to a 16 oz iced coffee, and went to Foot Traffic to see about trail running shoes. My feet were REALLY sore though, so I think I've developed plantar fasciitis in BOTH feet now. dammit.

This weekend I'm supposed to do 12 miles, but I also wanted to do the Reach the Bridge run (8K) on Sunday morning... which didn't really fit. Ineffect, I decided to try to finish 12 miles on my mom's treadmill while I was housesitting for her. To battle the bore of treadmilling, I had setup my macbook with DVD2 of battlestar gallactica season 1 (not seen by me before) so I could watch while running.

What I hadn't counted on was the lack of airflow in the garage where the treadmill is. I was stifled in moments after starting, and was sweating more than I'm used to. I had to stop running, open more doors, and set up a fan after 1.5 miles. Still, even after improving the ventilation situation, I HAD to stop at 7 miles from various unhappy reasons including fatigue (ok ok. I'll admit my thighs were chafing to the point of rawness... any longer and I'd have started losing skin). I hydrated, ate, and relaxed a bit.. then looked through my mom's workout clothes and was thrilled to find a pair of Hind compression shorts that were long enough to protect the raw patch on the insides of my thighs. I borrowed that for the continuation of my run.

Approx 1 hour after I stopped the 7 mile run, I got back on the treadmill for a 5 mile run. Immediately after starting that run, the lack of airflow got to me again, and I found myself sweating like crazy and needing to walk a bit for every mile ran. My heart was racing like crazy! I was bothered at having to indulge my weakness and walking.. but I also have to admit it's been a LONG WHILE since I've tried to go that kind of distance, so I couldn't rationally push myself too much.

In the end it took me over 90 minutes to go 7.21 miles, and approx 65 minutes to go the last 5 miles. For someone who JUST met a 10 minute miles 10K, both times are kinda sad. I was even pushing myself on this run. All I can guess is that the heat, lack of air flow, and (?) maybe even the altitude was making this training run REALLY difficult for me.

Also, according to my mom's treadmill, I burned over 2000 calories on this run. On the last 12 mile run I did, my garmin said I burnt something like 1200 I think. soooooo... I dunno. This run was harder somehow. Certainly took longer. Aaaah well. This run isn't deciding how well I do on the Lacamas Lake Half.

Plus, I have the 8K Reach the Bridge Run on Sunday morning to shine in. :D

10-10-10 pics!

2008-06-11T16:12:00.000-07:00

ok, got the photos!

less of them are of me running, more of them are of me hanging out after the run. heh.

These are the 2 ladies I couldn't catch. You can see my elbow behind them. Turns out they were both older than me... neither in my age division! I wouldn't have guessed that actually.

Here is me crossing the finish line in a BLAZE OF GLORY!! Note the flared nostrils. I think that means I'm totally serious.

If I were a horse, people would find my flared nostrils totally beautiful. I'm not a mare tho, so I just look silly. Ah well.

I actually saw the photographer taking this shot and stopped shoving frozen yogurt down my throat long enough to smile...

I think Sheryl and Lori were talking about something.

And then there are all the "hanging out photos" where I'm in the shot.

10-10-10

2008-06-10T02:04:00.000-07:00

woohoo!

Sunday I ran the cane 10 10K down in Tigard. It was a beautiful little run starting and ending at the Regal Cinema at Bridgeport Village (that shopping center with Crate & Barrel).

There weren't many runners there... maybe 250 or so, but this was the first annual cane 10 run. Sponsored by Split Dine and Drink (a restaurant and bar next to the cinema) and Cane 10 Rum, our registration fee included a free mojito, a free glass of Menage a Trois wine, and food. Good deal!

In preparation I was looking at the weather the night before... and it looked REMARKABLY similar to the Cinco de Mayo forecast (50's and sunny up to 60 by noon). I remember I was slightly overdressed for that run, so I decided to wear a running skort and a T and that was it (well, ok a jacket for before and after the run). I was dressed PERFECTLY for this run.

I didn't know where to park, but pulled in right behind 2 cars who really wanted to park in a garage that was kinda blocked off by traffic cones, but they went around those into the garage... so I followed them. Turns out, that was THE PERFECT place to park... I was like 1 block from the start and finish line. I was parked closer to the start line than the porta potties! heh.

It seems that several TNT peeps were there, it was good to see them!

Once checked in, with timing chip attached to shoe, they informed us that altho they originally meant for us to go counter clockwise around the route, they changed their mind. We were going clockwise instead. works for me.

The bullhorn blows, we start running. I'm happily running with Sheryl as always. Lori leaves us close to the start. We start on some city streets, over a bridge. Then we turn into a pretty meadow path. Really nice area!

There are like 2 water stations close to the start. The first one is water... but the second one the volunteers hand us some kind of electrolyte drink that taste like frosting. I throw the full cup down in horror, and exclaim to Sheryl that that WAS NOT COOL for them to hand us a cup without telling us it wasn't water. yuck... that was no good. Whats worse is there are no water stations after this at all. ugh.

The route winds into the south side of Cook's Park, through the park, and then uphill from there into a neighborhood. Once out of that neighborhood back on a busy city street we pass the 4 mile marker. I'm watching my garmin closely and notice it says we're at 44 minutes into the run... I'm a touch behind my time goal for this run. I've been trying to achieve a 10 minute mile for a couple months now, and I think it's within reach.

I admit to Sheryl that I was hoping to run a 10 minute mile (she's a little winded, and I'm clearly in a better place when I tell her this). She says "go for it!!" I say, "well, I'm going to have to make up 4 minutes... I don't know if I can do that... but I'll try!" so I take off and pull ahead.

At this point it's downhill, and I am FLYING past runners. One after another. It's brilliant. I'm glancing at my garmin and see it's having trouble fixing on my location but it's bouncing all over from 8 minute miles to 10 minute miles. Who knows how fast I'm going? I just know it was faster than the other people around me.

At some point I catch up to Lori... I smile and say hi to her as I pass her. That felt good!

At the 5 mile marker, I notice that I've made up 2 or so minutes... so I'm doing good... and then unexpectedly, the route turns uphill. crap. I pass another person or two at this point, and am behind 2 ladies who look like they're in really good shape and having an airy conversation as they run (i.e. they aren't out of breath)... and I just can't catch them. I'm kinda breathing hard at this point... and I start falling behind them a little.

Dangit.

We are still cruising along tho. Up through a business park neighborhood... I'm dragging a little more...
... and then we turn into Bridgeport Village. I'm maybe 40 feet behind the 2 ladies now. They seem to perk up from recognizing where they are and step it up a bit. I'm not ready to do that quite yet.

I turn into the parking lot entrance for Bridgeport Village and then decide to dig deep and step it up... I start running faster and faster... and when I make that final turn towards the Regal Cinemas I am FLYING. Heidi from TNT is already done and is cheering by the finish line. She sees me hauling BUTT as I come flying towards the finish at a full on sprint and cheers her head off. That felt pretty nice.

I ALMOST catch those ladies... I'm just a couple feet behind them when I cross the finish. I stop my garmin at 1:02:07. And bend over to try to catch my breath. Man I'm having trouble breathing!! whoo!

I hobble over to the chip clippers, and um... put the wrong foot on the crate. The poor guy points this out, and I try to chuckle between huffs, but really I think I just came across like a retard as I switch feet. I waddle out of the finish line area and can't find water. Where is the freakin water!?! Someone puts a bucket of iced water down right then and I gratefully waddle over there and crack one open. I'm feeling a little better. My breathing is slowing to a normal rate.

I wander to the finish line where I found Heidi and see Lori coming in, I cheer her on.

Then before long, here comes Sheryl!! Wooo!! She's smiling huge!

We mingle a bit with the other TNT runners. Heidi tells everyone how fast I was running when I finished. I beamed and told everyone that this run was a PR for me, and I get a round of congrats.

Lori tells me and Sheryl that when I passed her she attempted to keep up with me for a bit, and then had to give up. She wasn't able to match my pace! That was also nice to hear in a strange egotistic way. heh.

I joked about how I WAS NOT able to catch those ladies, and the funny noises I was making while attempting to breathe at the end of the run... oh well.

Sheryl and some others suggest that I go faster earlier in the race... that maybe I'd find that easier than pushing like crazy at the end. I shrugged and said it really helped me and my run to warm up slowly... I'm kinda a last minute push kinda person by nature. heh.

We decide to partake in our free food and libations together. The food is a banana, ceasar salad, and some kind of pita bread wrap around hummus and other veggies inside. It was REALLY GOOD... oh yeah and a wonderful frozen yogurt with popped rice on top. yum!

There was also a raffle with ALL SORTS of neat prizes... clearly donated from the various stores around the Bridgeport Village shopping center. Even tho they said 1 ticket per person you must be present to win... clearly people gave their ticket to their friends as they left, cause the same people kept going up to claim prizes... meanwhile people like ME got bupkis. I think repeat prize claimers should have been denied. That wasn't cool.

I go ahead and buy a $35 raffle ticket for a mini cooper drawing, simply cause I'm happy. Eh, it benefits the Children's Cancer Association or whatever. A good cause.

Anyway, Sheryl just wrote an email to me and Lori. It seems I ran a 10 minute mile average pace TO THE SECOND. I was the only one in that run to do that. Weird no?

Lori ended up running a 10:15 minute mile pace
Sheryl ended up running a 10:23 minute mile pace.

We were all pretty close to eachother!

Sheryl said we should work on a 10K under an hour now! I'm up for that!! heh.

So in conclusion: on Sunday I ran the cane 10 - 10K at a 10 minute mile average pace to the second.

10-10-10
awesome.

CdM pics + PPP!

2008-06-05T16:46:00.000-07:00

So, I was looking and looking, but hadn't found any Cinco de Mayo photos posted anywhere. I finally came to the conclusion that not all events have photos. Today, out of nowhere, I got a mailer asking me to purchase my Cinco de Mayo photos!!

Granted, what I'd probably want are lo-res digital copies of the photos, but the photographers only sell hi-res digital copies for $25 each (or like, wallet size packages, which are like eh. what would I do with that??). RIP OFF!!!

So, once again, I've swiped the online samples.

Here I come! This is the last leg of Naito Pkwy to the finish line... so I'm cruising at about a 9 minute mile in these shots.

2 weeks Following Cinco de Mayo, I had the Pole Pedal Paddle in Bend, OR with a team.

The Pole Pedal Paddle is actually a large relay race starting at the top of Mt. Bachelor. It begins with a downhill ski (or snowboard) run, then an 8K cross country ski leg, then a 22 mile bicycle ride down the mountain into Bend, then a 10K run, then a 1.5 mile paddle around some bouys in the Deschutes River in a kayak (or canoe), and finally a 1/3rd mile sprint to the finish line. Some competitors can finish the PPP in about 1 hour 40 minutes. My team WAS NOT one of those competitors. hehehe.

Here was our results:

We got 819th place out of 835 teams/individuals. Yeah, some hard core people do the PPP by themselves and not in a team. Crazy.

Anyway, as I was saying, I was doing the 10K portion of the PPP. That's all. It was a touch intimidating as there was a heat wave at the time. 90 degree weather!!! I've not run in that kind of heat since MAYBE last summer... if ever. I spent the several days leading up to the event hydrating and slamming electrolytes in preparation.

Morning of the race, the rest of my team headed up the mountain for the start. We had a 10:55am start time. Brent did the downhill ski, changed skis (which Renee retrieved), and then did the xcountry leg. From there he tagged Anton to bike down the mountain.

Meanwhile I was sitting at the bike-run exchange down in Bend starting around 10:45 am. I drove Anton's car there. I decided to hang out at the exchange early just cause I was nervous so I had to do something. So bored, I went ahead and applied more sunblock. Renee was texting me the progress, like when Brent started the xcountry leg, and when Anton was tagged at noon and started his bike ride.

I was waiting at the exchange all ready to go for a bit, maybe seriously ready to run starting at 12:30pm.... thinking it would take Anton AT MOST 50 minutes to get down the hill. 35 minutes if he was riding like Armstrong, heh. The year I did the bike ride (3 years ago?), when I got into Bend I was going 45 mph... what a thrill!

More and more of the runners leave on the run, and less and less runners are waiting.

It gets past 1pm... where the heck is Anton?

The coordinator guy at the exchange with a radio gets a call about a woman who was unconscious on the 10K run route, and that they were sending in rescue vehicles for her. It was REALLY hot. I'm getting more nervous.

Oh, btw, I've decided to wear a white baseball cap, a performance polyester tank top, a running skort that leaves little to the imagination, a handheld water bottle, and my sunglasses. And loads of sunblock. Very little fabric. hehehe... this was not the time for dignity.

There is finally about 7 runners waiting at the exchange area. The guy is saying I should just go, that I probably missed my biker, but I was holding his car key, so he wasn't GOING anywhere. I insist that he hasn't come in yet.

at about 1:15pm, here comes Anton!! I hand him his key and start on my run... slowly and tentatively.

The first half of the run is uphill... after a short length on a sidewalk we switch to a gravel and dirt path. There are more water stations on the route than they originally had planned. I'm guessing they decided to add more due to the unexpected heat. I feel silly since I'm like one of the last runners. All the volunteers along the route were hiding in the shade while they clapped and cheered my progress. Some volunteers are near houses and have garden hoses in their hands... and are spraying me down as I run past... heaven!!! I notice immediately the worst part of this run is that my mouth is drying out really fast. It's a very uncomfortable sensation actually... and I start using my handheld waterbottle to swish with. I also use my handheld to dump water on my shoulders, front, and back. I'm drying off at an alarming rate, and since I know the body can only really absorb 8 oz of water every 30 minutes that you drink, drinking more water is only going to bog me down. I make sure water goes on the outside of me for the most part, and it's really helpful.

The turn around feels fine, and I'm starting to "warm up" cardiovascularly. The first mile was the worst. Now the rest is downhill onto the more-shaded riverside dirt trail. 2 runners pass me initially... they look hard core tho. One mentioned as she passes that she missed her biker, so she's just running to run. I see some other runners, maybe 4, ahead of me during a long out and back. On the trail portion near the river I end up passing 3 or 4 runners...

Some of the water stations are trying to offer me gatorade or orange wedges... I beg them not to. It's too hot to ingest anything besides water. The thought of it makes me think I'd be ill if I even tried.

I'm feeling pretty good, thinking I have about 1.5 more miles to go and I find myself emerging from the trees with the run/paddle exchange directly infront of me. What? I step it up anyway and sprint to the run finish. My garmin read 55:40 minutes. There is NO WAY I could run a 10K in 90 degree heat in less than an hour. I'm confused, but finish really strong anyway.

My teammates weren't expecting me yet. Anton didn't even have his life jacket on yet! My teammates cheered me on tho. No photos, cause they didn't even have a camera out! heh.

I tagged Anton, and he got into the water for the paddle portion.

I felt pretty good... not really tired at all. I was just confused as to how long the course actually was. My garmin said ~5 miles... but a 10K is more like 6.3 miles I think. I was wondering if they had shortened the run course due to it being late in the day or something. But, I also will admit, my Garmin lost GPS signal during the run, so it could honestly be about half a mile off... but not over a mile off.

Later Anton found somewhere in the packet where the run was referred to as 5.5 miles. EH? That's not a 10K! Ah well... if the run was REALLY 5.5 miles and I finished in less than 56 minutes and was feeling strong and running faster at the end than at the beginning, that's a pretty good pace! I bet if the run was a REAL 10K, I could have done a 10 minute mile average pace.

Oh yes, and later I found out the delay in the start of my run was Anton's bike chain fell apart and shredded his bike's derailer!!! He was sitting on the side of the road for 30 minutes!!! A van of bike experts just happened to be driving down the mountain and found him, and stopped to help fix his bike.

They took some of the links out of his bike chain and bent his derailer out of the way, so he couldn't use all of his gears, but he was able to keep biking atleast! He said he was at the very back of the cyclists, but then managed to pass like 3 or 4 people after his bike was repaired.

It was a REALLY fun day, and a fun evening celebrating our PPP finish!!

Cinco de Mayo!!! cha cha cha

2008-05-07T01:18:00.000-07:00

Well, I ended up staying off my ankle for over a week.

It got swollen and colorful as you saw, and wasn't very happy with me moving about much. I iced it a lot. After a couple of days, a dr. friend of mine suggested I switch to moist heat and massage the colorful bit upward, to encourage the pooled blood to get out of there. I followed the instructions and noticed it made a quick difference in the color of the area. The tenderness persisted though.

I showed up to my Monday outdoor game, geared up, and tried to run around a bit before the game... and realized very quickly nothing good was going to come of me playing the field. I could barely run! When I tried to kick the ball with my bad leg it hurt too much, and I ended up just nudging the ball gently in a general direction... and whimpering a bit. Not gonna happen.

Instead I ended up playing goalie for that game... as my goalie friend is also my indoor team's goalie when I sprained my ankle, and at roughly the same moment I hurt my ankle, he sprained his finger... and preferred not to keep for that monday outdoor game. He wanted to give his finger more time to heal. We swapped positions, but I told Marc (the goalie) he had to play like a girl. hehehe.

The game went ok. I made some saves and missed some great shots from the other team. We ended up losing by 1 pt, and I took full responsibility. I'm not a great goalie. heh.

After this, I made no attempt to play ultimate frisbee on Tuesday, nor indoor soccer on Thursday. My ankle was too tender. I was wondering how it'd hold up for the Cinco de Mayo run on Sunday though. I'd been registered for that 10K event since before Race for the Roses... so I was really hoping to be able to run that. Granted I hadn't actually EXERCISED at all since the soccer game I sprained my ankle in, but whatever.

This is how my ankle looked on Friday afternoon.

Saturday evening, I opted to drink loads of water and electrolytes instead of alcohol... just incase I'd be able to run on Sunday morning.

Sunday morning I woke up and poked at my ankle. The swelling was entirely gone, and most of the coloration was gone too. neat! I got up, got my running kit on, and headed to downtown portland for the race!

It was a smaller event. Probably the smallest organized race I've participated in actually. Nonetheless, they had a mariachi band there as well as several running gear booths, and a clothing check. I wasn't sure how to dress since the weather forecast called for sunshine and right about 50 degrees for the race (starting at 9am). There is a little rule about dressing for a run that says you should dress as if it's 20 degrees warmer outside than it is. You may be a touch uncomfortable at the beginning of the run, but once you are warmed up you'll be happy you dressed that way. When I laid out my clothes for Sunday morning, I kept saying to myself, "what would I wear in 70 degrees!?!" It had been SO DANG LONG since I've ran in nice weather, I had no idea what I'd wear actually.

Turned out it was a BEAUTIFUL day. I wore my capri-length running tights, with a pair of black running shorts over it for dignity... my ultimate frisbee jersey (since it's a technical T), and well.. I brought along my northface windwall vest, but I ended up deciding that was too much. I checked that at the clothes check before the race.

Here was the race route

As you can see, we started and ended at Salmon and Naito Pkwy in downtown PDX. It was really just a massive out and back course, more or less.

I met up with Sheryl and some other TNT runners before the race. We wandered to the start line and merged with the runners to start. Sheryl had been complaining about some leg cramps earlier in the week, so she was ready to go slower. Me? I was obviously concerned about my ankle... we both creeped along at the beginning. No one had to slow me down... I didn't want to hurt myself.

The whole "out" portion of the run was pretty much a constant uphill... Sheryl and I warmed up as we ran. At about 1.6 miles or so, the course veered off for the 5K runners. They were headed back.

At about 1.8 miles or so we started spotting the 1st place runners headed back to the finish line. I thought it was actually kinda cool seeing who was in the lead and was enjoying cheering them on. Other runners around me felt it just reminded them how slow they were.

Eh... I know I'm slow. Look at them go!!

up up up.

FINALLY at the turn around, the event gave us our first water station. Sorry, but 2 miles is a better spot than 3 miles for a water station. I was pretty thirsty. I grabbed the offered cup of water gladly, and then noticed it only had like a tablespoon of water in it. I stopped dead and complained... and then took another cup of water and chugged both of them. Then Sheryl and I continued on to the turn around.

Perry was standing at the turn around. He had apparently gotten food poisoning the night before and was in no shape to run, but he wanted to cheer us on! That was nice of him. He ran with us for like 20 feet and then left us to go find a restroom.

We were headed back down hill, and pointedly stopped at the water station again for some more water (as did a bunch of other runners around us following our lead). It wasn't long after that tho that I started dealing with a side cramp. I don't think my body appreciates a dramatic change in elevation gradient... like running a 3 mile uphill, and then heading downhill. I got a side cramp at B2B... 2B coming off of the Fremont Bridge, and also my legs started cramping coming off of the St John's Bridge at the Portland Marathon. Coincidence? I think not.

I tried dealing with the side cramp with some breathing techniques I know... but it didn't help. I finally told Sheryl I needed to walk a bit. She walked with me a touch, but then was itching to get running again so I told her to go. She took off downhill... and I walked, grabbing my side, trying to convince the side cramp to back off. I think I was dealing with that thing for about 2 minutes before it finally let up. I tried running again and it didn't come back... so I started running faster... and faster.

It was downhill afterall. easy!

After a while I was able to actually CATCH Sheryl... just at the same moment she caught up with Lori actually. It was cool. I was watching her surprise Lori, and then she was explaining that she left me behind because of my side cramp (meanwhile I was only like 10 feet behind them trying to catch up)... but during the story when motioning where I was, she turned around and gestured back and saw me. She smiled, surprised, and cheered me on, and I was like, "dang! I wasn't able to sneak up on you!!" It was pretty neat.

We all three ran together for a bit, and then I found myself chomping at the bit cause in order to pace Lori and Sheryl I had to slow down and I really wanted to go faster, so I just pulled ahead and went with it.

I could hear Lori and Sheryl talking and laughing about something behind me as I turned the corner onto Harrison. down down down.

My bad knee started to twinge on me a little... but not enough to make it impossible to run. I adjusted my gait a little so that I was bending my knees less (and taking smaller steps), and just kept going. Wheee!

Back on Naito Pkwy... I found myself trotting at a pretty good pace. One final little dip under a bridge and I felt my bad knee almost give out on me. Whoah. So close to the finish line tho, I decided to continue to ignore the knee, but try to step more carefully and reduce the impact on it. Infact.. on the little uphill out of the dip to the finish line I found myself speeding up again.

At the finish line I put forth a burst of speed and crossed the finish line with 2 other people who previously were ahead of me. ha!

I staggered over to the timing chip clipping girls, and had my chip removed.. then I grabbed some free vitamin water that was being handed out... and then.. oh yeah! I forgot to turn off my Garmin! I stopped the timer. It read 1:04:50 or so.

Then I wandered back to the finish line and Lori and Sheryl were just getting to it, so I cheered for them and hugged them once they were over the finish line.

Frank and Kim were cheering all of us on at Naito Pkwy... and met us after the finish line. We all got in line for food... AMAZING turkey tacos from Azteca... I've never had a tastier taco. ever.

Besides an amazing taco, our registration also included a complimentary cup of red hook IPA. We found a nice spot in the sunshine on the ground and ate and laughed. a good lunch with great people.

Later that night the official times were posted and I learned I finished in 1:04:14. That comes out to a 10:20 minute mile pace (I managed to shave ANOTHER 27 seconds off my pace since B2B...2B)!! EVEN WITH THE SIDE CRAMP AND THE WALKING! neat. So. I think a 10 minute mile pace for a 10K is within reach for me. I'm pretty sure it is actually. So exciting!!

Next official run for me is a 10K in Bend, OR in 2 weeks for the Pole Pedal Paddle.

B2B...2B pics up + ankle problems

2008-05-05T16:03:00.000-07:00

The B2B...2B photos are up. It's a different photo company, so the previews aren't as big... which is a shame... but you can still see me.

Well, ok, maybe not. Here is the starting line photo. I'm actually running next to Sheryl (in green)... but directly behind the girl in the red ball cap. go figure.

And here is a view from the Widmer Brewery/Tasting room of us running along the lower deck WAY UP ABOVE on the Fremont Bridge.

That was probably the coolest part of the run actually. The view from up there was magnificent.

And then they had a couple photographers on the Broadway Bridge, but I guess none at the finish line where Sheryl and I did our cartwheels! dang. So, here are a bunch of me crossing the Broadway Bridge.

And, that's about it.

In other news, 2 weeks ago was tough soccer game for me. For one thing, none of the ladies on my co-ed team were able to come besides me, so it was just me with the guys.... and since at least 2 of 5 field players have to be women, we had to play down 1 on the field the entire game, and I wasn't allowed to sub at all. That made the game extra tricky.

I did well actually. I had a really strong game and was really enjoying myself.. until close to the end of the first half when I stepped in front of the ball to block a shot (from a girl on the other team) on our goal. Well, my foot didn't reach the ground before it blocked the full shot. A totally legal tackle, but the full force of that shot on the side of my foot made my foot act as a lever on my ankle... and the side-to-side range of motion on my ankle is what absorbed the energy of the shot.

and um, I have weak ankles.

I think I said something like, "hold on hold on hold on hold on..." as I crumpled on to the ground to hold my ankle in agony and roll around a bit on the floor with my eyes closed. It really hurt. It would have been worse if I played soccer without ankle braces on, but yeah... it still did a doozie on me. I was helped off the field. There really was only like 20 seconds left in the half be the time I was off the field.

I stripped my gear off that foot and tried putting ice on it... and then poked at it for a while over half time.... and then I decided I had to go back in. Yes, back on the field. Back into the game. I tossed the ice aside and put my gear back on, lacing my ankle brace extra tight. Then I tested my ankle in the box, hopping around and doing little direction changes to make sure it'll be able to hold up.

I was pretty sure I could do it, so I went back into the game. Played a strong second half, no problems really. I could sprint, kick, pass, etc. We of course ended up getting clobbered like 6-3, but not for lack of trying. heh. I got loads of kudos from the other team for my performance, for being able to play through that injury, and for my effectiveness on the field (oh yeah, I even scored the first goal of the night btw).

The next game was getting ready to start and I was asked to sub for a team who didn't have enough ladies show up... I considered it for about 10 seconds before I decided that was a bad idea.

Instead I went to the pub, where I put up and iced my ankle while enjoying my favorite pilsner. It was starting to stiffen up and ache a bit by the time I decided to head home.

I tried wrapping my ankle for bed, but it was uncomfortable, so I ripped the ace bandage off in the middle of the night. The next morning I woke up and noticed that yes, my ankle was a touch swollen.

Can you tell which ankle is swollen? It's a little subtle unless you look closely at the ankle bones.

Here, this photo might help a little:

By that evening the ankle had even gotten more swollen and colorful...

Yeah, the ankle hurt... I hobbled around on it for about a week or more.

B2B...2B official times posted just now!

2008-04-21T13:15:00.000-07:00

It seems I finished in 01:07:02!!! Slightly better than I thought!

That comes out to a 10:47 minute mile pace (cool that I shaved 23 seconds off my mile pace in only a week!).

Other results:
* 85th out of 107 in my division (Female 30-34)
* 722nd out of 868 over all
* 353rd out of 468 women running the 10K

So, I had a strong run (for me), and actually beat 115 women and 31 men! huh.

BUT ACTUALLY, that's not the entire story!

See, The Bridge to Bridge... to Brew run was both a 10K and an 8K race. If I include the results from the 8K race since they started at the same time and followed most of the same route as us....

... from what I can figure, it seems I physically crossed the finish line before 89 8K runners (meaning they crossed the finish line after 1:07:02), AND had a better race pace than a shocking 240 of them!!! Who'da thunk it?? There were 681 runners running the 8K race overall actually... which Sheryl and I found weird since it was only a 2K difference in length (1.3 miles or so?)... and we were wondering what the huge difference was between the 2 lengths. Why wouldn't you just go 10K if you can run an 8K?

Anyway, I'm surprised that technically, I beat more 8K runners than 10K runners on Sunday! Who would have thought?

two 10Ks (sorta)

2008-04-20T17:03:00.000-07:00

So, the Friday following the Race for the Roses, I went ahead and ran a liesurely 6 mile run from my house.

I had noted on mapmyrun.com that the intersection of Evergreen and Gillis is exactly 3 miles from my house, so on a beautiful Friday afternoon in nearly 80 degree weather, I ran there and back home.

Turns out, I was a touch overdressed, and could feel myself getting hot. I also had to stop at the Marshall Community Center to refill my handheld water bottle after emptying it roughly 2/3rd the way through the run. I was drinking a lot of water. I forgot what running in NICE weather was like... silly me. The run took me about an hour and 7 minutes which translates to a 11:10 minute mile or so. I can do better, and I know it, so I'll keep working on improving that.

Oh, and another fun fact. On a whim, I weighed myself before and after the run. I lost 1/2 pound on the run, even tho I was drinking as much water as I could manage. I went about drinking 1/2 lbs of water after the run to make up for the liquid loss.

I would have a chance soon enough to try to improve my 6 mile time though.

+++++++++++

This morning, I went ahead and ran a 10K organized event called Bridge to Bridge... to Brews. This was a 10K that started and ended at the Widmer Brewery and Tasting Room on Interstate Ave in Portland.

Not by design, I met up with a number of TNT people at the purple TNT booth there to distribute TNT material to potential future participants (cause I didn't know where else to hang out before the race). Frank and Kim, my mentees, were there... as was Lori, my fellow TNT mentors Heidi, Tracey, and Mish, and TNT alum Karen. It was great seeing everyone! This guy named Percy who is also a TNT alum, but not on a season I ran, asked to pace me and Sheryl too. He ran with us for about half of the Portland Shamrock Run, and he said he liked our pace.

I showed up early, 7:45am or so, to pick up my race day packet (I wasn't able to get it on Saturday). That was a little earlier than I needed to be there. Finally around 9am we stepped over the start line. I was freezing by then... the weather forecast the night before said it was going to be mid-30's and raining and even possibly snowing... but in reality this morning it was just cold and overcast. No precipitation.

The course went up a hill to the east end of the Fremont Bridge, and then over the lower deck and down the long sloping ramp on the other side. It was a TOTAL THRILL to run over that bridge (no pedestrian area on the bridge. It is strictly a freeway bridge that I-405 goes over, they closed a couple lanes of the freeway off for the run this morning). GREAT VIEW of the Willamette River and downtown Portland! Way down below we could even see the Widmer Brewery/Tasting Room. Then, once in NW Portland, we just ran a route that was similar to the Race for the Roses... the 8K runners split off at a certain point, and we caught up with them later on Front St. Over the Broadway Bridge and back to the brewery. There was a surprise uphill at the finish line which was a little annoying, but Sheryl and I made it over the finish line in roughly 1:07:30 or so. So, since a 10K is 6.214 miles, that means I ran it in about a 10:52 minute mile pace. Not bad!! I still think I can do better tho.

We weren't too far behind the other TNTers either... They all met us at the finish line (which Sheryl and I decided to do a cartwheel over), and told us they were surprised at our pace... that it was the fastest that any of them had seen us run. heh. Go us! We got in line for the brewery at that point and went in for our free brats, potato salad, sauer kraut, and Widmer beer. :) We couldn't find a table, so we ended up parking on the floor and having a great time.

Photos to follow...

Oh! My mentees told me I had a couple additional pictures from Race for the Roses in a random person's photos. I went ahead and looked where they told me to, and sure enough, 2 more photos of my sprint to the finish!!

Neat, huh?

Race for the Roses part 2 (with more details and pictures)

2008-04-11T20:46:00.000-07:00

I got up, got dressed, put the temporary TEAM IN TRAINING tattoos on my cheeks (face), and headed out the door. The lobby at the double tree where the running team was meeting was really crowded and chaotic. We didn’t have time to get the team photo. sad. I, before drifting off to sleep the night before, decided to bring the new water-proof light-weight caution orange windshell that I had gotten recently. I knew the weather forecast was kinda drizzly, and mid-40’s... actually pretty good for a run, but the race course sorta stayed close to the Willamette River here in Portland, and I knew the breeze off of that can be bone chilling on colder days. I decided it was in my interest to bring this extra layer... if nothing else, cause I was still sick.

I mindlessly followed Sheryl around. I think I was annoying her a touch actually. I don’t think she was sure how ready I was to run, but I knew I was ok. I just didn’t want to lose her in the crowd, so I stuck with her.

We couldn’t quite get behind the starting line for the race start. It was too crowded, and we were kinda stuck to the side of the race course when they blew the bullhorn indicating the race start. We cheered the serious-looking runners on, and then decided to move into the starting area, and finally crossed the start line.

We ran, she slowed me down at the beginning a touch, and I thanked her for that. It’s really easy to get caught up in the excitement of the event and start out faster than you should.

Shortly after we started (while crossing the Broadway Bridge) my TNT run mentor from the Portland Marathon season caught up with us. Sheryl and Vicki are really good friends, so we were both excited to see her. She ran with us for a couple miles, and we happily chatted. We got to the slight uphill section between mile 3 and 4, and Sheryl started falling behind us. I was torn... I was doing fine and could have stuck with Vicki, but I decided to fall back a little and stick with Sheryl.

Vicki pulled ahead.

Around mile 5, while Sheryl was complaining about her knees, I guess I might have been empathetically channeling her complaints or something, but I noticed my bad knee starting to hurt. I tried adjusting the ace bandage on it on the run, but that just made things worse. Right about then we ran into Coach Julie and Captain Karl, and they asked how we were doing... I was like, "uh, my knee is beginning to bother me." We kept going tho, and I asked Sheryl if she would mind me taking the bandage entirely off and rewrapping at mile 6... that I thought it was slipping a touch and getting tighter ineffect... and pulling my kneecap in a weird direction. She said that was cool. I rewrapped... and let me tell you, that solved EVERYTHING with my knee.

Just before we crossed Burnside there was an aid station where there was also a girl (she looked maybe 30’s and probably had down syndrome) handing out honey sticks from Whole Foods. She was shrieking this fact at us actually "honey sticks from whole foods. honey stick from whole foods"... very high pitched... almost like she was trying to lose her voice. She reminded me of the receptionist lady in Office Space "Corporate accounts payable, Nina speaking. Can you hold please?"

Sheryl and I made our way through the pearl and NW portland, then to the ugly industrial area out and back. I saw many of my mentees during the out and back and was able to cheer them on, which was pretty cool. I was starting to feel fatigued at this point (approaching 2 hours?). I kept having to re-evaluate my running form and tried to lighten my attitude so that I wasn’t dragging myself along as much as actually running. At one point after silently re-evaluating myself, Sheryl encouraged me to go ahead and not feel slowed down by her, which was pretty funny... as I guess my re-evaluation actually worked. I assured her I was at my top speed at the moment, so not to worry. heh.

We watched as we approached mile 9, mile 10, mile 11. About then, I was really digging deep to find my energy (hitting the wall?) when my phone rang. Yeah, I was carrying it. This was like, 9am? I looked at it and it was Val. I answered with, "are you insane!?! why are you calling me??" She was sufficiently cowed. I think I was a little mean to her actually. She was asking where I was on the race course, and I was like, "far enough along that I really am not in the mood to talk." She apologized, I told her I’d call her back when I was done and hung up. As an additional note: I did call her back after the race, she was calling to see where I was, hoping to be able to come out and cheer me on, which is TOTally sweet of her, but we both agreed that was better discussed the day before the race (I could have calculated with my expected pace where I’d be when) instead of at mile 11, with less than 45 minutes left in my race, and me exhausted off my ass. I’m not sure she could have driven downtown, found parking, and gotten to the race course at the appropriate spot in time even if I was up to telling her where she could see me.

Every once in a while on the race course (about every 3 miles?) there was some stereo system setup playing music loudly. I heard an old Michael Jackson song, the Love Shack, I Will Survive, stuff like that. Pretty fun and distracting. We were just passing a sound system like that and Sheryl got pumped. I commented that she was suddenly amped up, and where ever that energy came from I wasn’t quite in the same place. I encouraged her to go with it and not feel like she had to stick with me. She pulled ahead of me.

A second annoying out and back along the river that was WAY longer than I was expecting, and now I was running it alone. I found myself actually closing my eyes while I ran and thinking specifically about my breathing, my strides, my form. I could tell my leg muscles were threatening to cramp if I tried anything they didn’t like. All I could do was continue and push myself as much as I dared.

FINALLY the turn-around came up on me. I was noticing that the runners had REALLY thinned out where I was, it was thicker where Sheryl was (I saw her running "back" while I was still headed "out"), we cheered eachother on. Running back is always faster than the out bit. At the end of this second out and back was the ramp up onto the Steele Bridge. This ramp is the biggest "hill" of the entire course, and altho only 200 meters long is pretty brutal at mile 13. The coaches and captain Karl were at the base of the bridge ramp and gave me high fives as I psyched myself up for the ascent.

I ran... slowly. Some other runner passed me on that uphill like I was crawling. poopy head.

Finally, almost at the top, I actually said out loud, "who am I kidding?" and I slowed to a walk for the first time of the entire run. I was walking kinda bull-legged too till my legs got used to not running, and continued to strut up to the top of the bridge like the walking wounded. Others had caught up to me, but didn’t pass me. They were all feeling that hill I think. Finally on the flat on top of the bridge, knowing it was only like 0.15 miles left in the race, I took a deep breath and started running again. The people who had caught up to me but hadn’t passed me on that uphill (4 of em?) all slowly passed me as I was coming off the other end of the bridge. It was pretty sad. I came across some other TNT people who were done already and were on the side of the road cheering my progress by saying "you’re almost there!"...

(side note: this, along with "pick up the pace!" is THE WORST thing you can say to a runner in an endurance event. When you are running, you’re only "almost there" when you could literally pass out and fall inert over the finish line... much better shouts of encouragement are:go [name of runner here]!, looking good!, you’re doing great!, way to go!, we’re proud of you!, you make running sexy!, and other such endearments which touch on neither how slow you are actually moving, nor how much further you still have to go)

... These TNT people were trying to entice me to keep running by telling me about the carrot cake and cookies after the finish line. I pathetically whined that I don’t much like carrot cake and cookies (I don’t have a sweet tooth). I’d rather have beer and cheese. They gave up and told me that the finish line was up ahead, and that was a good reason to keep going. I said, "ok, finish line. I want the finish line." By this point I was coming to the little underpass just before the sharp left-turn and then the finish line is RIGHT THERE... I knew this. Those 4 people had pulled ahead of me as I was approaching that left turn... and I got a little fire in my belly. I started running faster... and faster... and faster... and I broke out in to a sprint.

I rounded that corner at a pretty good clip, but kept getting faster. I passed all 4 of those other runners and crossed the finish line a good 20 feet ahead of them running my little ass off. The spectators at the finish line were cheering my late-in-the race push with "whoah, nice!" comments that I could hear. The announcer guy called my name out as I crossed the finish line. I smiled to myself and came to a panting stop after the finish... then hobbled over to where they had volunteers clipping the timing chips off your shoes. I was done.

I was able to be there 20 minutes later to cheer my mom over the finish line also. She said it was cool to hear me cheering for her.

There was supposed to be a victory party at a bakery after the run, but I was done. I was completely out of energy and cold and sore and needed to have a hot shower and a nap. I went straight home.

Race for the Roses

2008-04-06T22:00:00.000-07:00

well, I ran the half marathon this morning. I'll add a second event blog once the event photos are posted online at the end of the week.

It was a pretty rough run for me. I woke up with a NEW and different sore throat this morning... more like a tonsil ache really on the left side of my throat. blah.

I packed some kleenex, a handful of cough drops, and my new light weight, high-tech, caution orange windshell pullover on me to go to meet the TNT team at 6am at the doubletree hotel.

I ended up needing all of the coughdrops, but none of the kleenex before 10am. BUT, regardless of my infirmed condition, I MADE IT! I ran the half in 02:42:47, roughly a 12:30 minute mile pace. Ok, my personal goal was under 2 hours 37 minutes... but i think considering how sick I've been for the past 2 weeks (and still kinda am), only 6 minutes slower than my intended goal pace isn't half bad. PLUS it gives me something solid to strive to beat next half!!

You should have heard me coughing through the send-off party on Saturday night. It was pathetic. I clearly was NOT the vision of health I should have been. oh well.

I can honestly say: today's run was HARDER than running the portland marathon last year. I was more exhausted at the end, and just as sore. I'm glad it's done. My mom and I celebrated with AMAZING italian food tonight and lots of wine. :D

She finished in 03:03:02. Pretty fricken fast for a walker. Thats quicker than a 14 minute mile pace (faster than my marathon pace).

So tonight, I sent out a conclusion email to my mentees:
"WELL DONE EVERYONE! I'm so proud of all of you, even those of you who have run marathons or half marathons before!

It was cold and prehaps a touch drizzly at times, but I think I can say all of you had a great run today! AND, today's mid-40's degree overcast weather treated all of us well (after hail and sleet and snow and whatever else we've trained in!!). I think I even spotted the sun on occasion today!

- Amy and Gabrielle had their best pace of the season today, you ladies did a FRICKEN GREAT job!!

- Kim and Frank were a good 2 miles ahead of me kicking serious ass on the course, I was at least able to cheer them on on the first out and back! Great job you two! NEW PRs!!! You'll have to run another half to try to beat your times today!! ;)

- I last saw Teresa going up the Broadway Bridge at the beginning of the race looking strong as always, and I had a funny feeling that was the last I was going to see of you today! I'm hoping today was more fun than any other half or full marathon you've ever ran!! This was your first event as PART of the "purple" group, so I'm hoping that made today more fun!

- Rebecca, you've been running strong all season long! I hope you had a great day too! I'm sure you did, even tho I never spotted you on the course!

- And... last but not least Sheryl, my running partner for this season, even had to ditch my poor, sick, cough-drop-sucking butt at 11.5 miles cause she was so amped up on whatever special run formula she had. She looked remarkable, even from 100 meters behind!! :)

GO TEAM!!!

Besides spotting all of you that I could on the race course, I'd have to say my most notable moments today were:

(1) finding *my* TNT run mentor, Vicki, running today's race!! She ran with me for a couple miles even! Even tho she wasn't wearing TNT's purple race day jersey she still was thanking every TNT supporter with a HUGE genuine smile and chanting "Go TEAM!" more than I was managing! It's no wonder I was inspired to support TNT after having her as an example! I'm hoping I was at least half the mentor to all of you as she was to me!!!

(2) spotting Sherman at the TNT water booth handing out water at mile 4. He was on the Portland running team during the Portland Marathon (fall) season in 2007, and it was amazingly uplifting to see him today volunteering with TNT. I know some of you will go on to do other events with TNT in the future (you'd better, you all did GREAT this season).... but for those of you too busy to train for another "event" (OR to mentor *hint* *hint*) in the near future, please consider volunteering with TNT for booths or support or other things! Being there to hand water to TNT participants is an amazing help to LLS! Plus, you never know who you will run in to!!

(3) seeing Amy with her son after the finish line! It's true, you all have personal lives, work, friends, family, etc to manage/balance on a day to day basis, and the fact that you gave so much to TNT and LLS is so amazingly selfless of you! I don't know if you felt like heros today, but watching Amy pose for pictures with her son, and seeing how PROUD her family was of her, reminded me that each and every one of you ARE heros. I'm lucky to know the group of you!

(4) running into our coaches, Joe, Julie, and Pri, and Captain Karl today! MULTIPLE times! They did such a great job at training us, and it's always gratifying to validate their training by making it through the course. The look on their faces when they spot us is not only heart warming and inspirational, but I feel like I'm reinforcing the strength of TNT (no matter how much pain I'm in) when I'm where they hope they'll see me during the run. Without their support, TNT wouldn't be as amazing a program as it is today! It's nice knowing someone is looking out for you!

(5) every time I heard a cow bell today I smiled. That is the signature sound of a TNT supporter.

I honestly had to dig deep today to be able to run.

It's true! Today was personally harder for me than the Portland Marathon last year, probably due to my week+ illness I'm (still) fighting off. I, on multiple occasions this morning, found myself closing my eyes (while running, yes. Dangerous (!), but safer on a 4-lane police-blocked-off race course) and thinking about my pain and lack of strength to continue, and then thought about the LLS mission and reminded myself that the people going through cancer treatments today, no matter HOW bad it gets, don't have the option to "walk" or quit like I did today... and somehow that gave me the strength to push through.

I thought about my running form.
I thought about my breathing.
I thought about Joan.
... and I thought about how much I honestly DID have still left in me to put into my run. I straightened my posture as best I could, lightened my attitude, and ran like I meant it... simply because I COULD and there wasn't any reason not to.

Today is what we trained for after all!

So, this morning with the aid of 3 cough drops, no kleenex, and walking a total of about 50 meters, I finished the course.

Thanks for making the journey of the past 3 months worthwhile! I hope to see all of you at TNT alumni events or future endurance events, whatever they may be!!!

btw, I'm currently registered for the Cinco de Mayo 10K on May 4 (http://www.terrapinevents.com/cinco-de-mayo.htm), if you are planning on running this event look for me! I'd love to say hi!!

Cheers!
jacqueline"

Incase you're wondering. Yes, a handful for me is 3 cough drops. I have small hands.

oh yeah, and YES I'll be continuing to run. stay tuned!!!

the virus and the half marathon

2008-04-02T22:32:00.000-07:00

I'm sick.

Been sick since Wednesday last week. Started as a horrible sore throat, over the weekend it spread to a stuffy head, runny nose, and swollen sinuses. I skipped the Saturday morning group run, but it was ok cause we're tapering right now and it was only a 6 mile run. Coach Joe and Captain Karl both told me to stay home.

On Monday this week I woke up with an itchy, crusty, red eye. I said, "enough," and dragged myself to the doctor.

She checked me out from head to toe, and pronounced that it was most definitely a virus. And, in fact, this virus had given me viral conjunctivitis (pink eye). She suggested I'd be feeling a lot better on Thursday, and I would probably be able to run my half marathon on Sunday, but I had to take it easy.

Because of my race this weekend, she prescribed me general antibiotics. Not because it would help me with my virus directly, but because if I had anything else going on that would theoretically SLOW DOWN my getting over the virus, the antibiotics could help play defense there. She told me if it wasn't for my race this weekend, she wouldn't have given me the antibiotics.

Anyway.... my eye is still pink. My sore throat is mostly gone, I'm still dealing with sinus and runny nose things, but that's about it. I'm still hoping I'll be better in 4 days.

The doctor also gave me Rx pseudoephedrine. Holy cow, that stuff works.

Anyway, that's my status right now. It probably WAS a good thing I stayed home instead of going out for the group run, I understand this virus is pretty fricken contagious, so I could have infected the entire running team if I went. That would have been very bad.

Oh yeah, and I met Rebecca at the Send-Off party! She's really nice! Now I feel silly for declaring that she was avoiding me on purpose. heh.

... and just cause I'm starting to go stir crazy here at home, I made this:

enjoy.

Here's hoping I can run this weekend!

Bedtime & Send-offs...

2008-03-25T15:57:00.000-07:00

Sorry it took so long to blog my shamrock run experience. I was waiting for the event photographers to post the photos. I literally was checking their website hourly and when they posted their photos at 3pm on Friday last week, I was online snagging them.

I wanted to post my bedtime regime... just cause.

Every night, when getting ready for bed, I do the normal taking out my contacts, wash my face, brush my teeth.... etc. Btw, I brush my teeth while balancing on one foot (I switch feet between morning and evening tooth brushings) to strengthen my ankles.

Then comes the second stage of getting ready for bed. I put on my jammies, climb onto my bed, and pull out my ankle weight: a pouch thing with slots for up to ten 1 lbs bars that I can add or remove, which velcros snuggly around my ankle. Currently my ankle weight has 3 bars inserted. The unused bars are in an ominous pile in my living room under a table.

I lay down and do my quad-strengthening leg lifts for my knee (for my old patello-femoral syndrome). 10 reps, each holding for 5 seconds, in four different positions. I then move the ankle weight to my other leg and repeat. I listen to the second hand of the clock, count to myself, and just get em done. This takes about 10 minutes.

Then I strap my night splint onto my left leg (for my plantar fasciitis). It's a big honkin plastic boot thing.

Once splinted, I then stretch on my bed, sitting with my legs as far out to either side as I can manage, and leaning forward trying to keep my back straight, my legs straight, my feet flexed, and my toes and knees pointed at the ceiling, and I try to relax all my leg muscles and sink into the stretch. I've tied a strap to my bed frame so that I can pull myself forward with constant pressure to make the stretch more efficient. While I'm doing this stretch, I've taken to reading. I'm currently on book 1 of the Death Gate Cycle. I open the big hard cover book on the bed infront of me and read. I have no idea how long I keep this up for, normally I read about a chapter. It's nice getting a little reading in every night.

This stretch is specifically for my hamstrings (I believe my tight hamstrings were the root cause of my plantar fasciitis). I know keeping my legs straight and in front of me and leaning forward would be a more valuable hamstring stretch, but that stretch has NEVER agreed with my physiology, even when I was a dancer back before puberty. I've decided to work on my hamstring flexibility with a stretch I know that my body can manage. Doing my stretch HAS been able to increased my straight on toe touch flexibility without being terribly uncomfortable, so why not?

Once I feel the stretch has been nice and good and long, I then put the book away and go to sleep. This has been my night routine for the last couple of months. The things we do for fitness, eh? I'm a total freak. It's probably good I don't have a roommate or boyfriend. hee

So, in other news, the Race for the Roses Send-Off Party is tonight.

It's a potluck where we first receive a bag of goodies, including our race day jersey (in trade-marked TNT Purple), tickets to the pre-race pasta party and post-race victory party, and a couple other little useful items like SPF15 chapstick. The coaches, staff, captains, and mentors then go through a list of good-to-know things for preparing for the event in 2 weeks: like get more sleep than normal if you can, and what to expect on race-day morning.

Then we eat. :)

Two of my mentees have let me know they can't make it, so I'll be grabbing their baggies for them.

Oh, and as it turns out, Rebecca DID recommit!!! I left her a voice message asking her, and I wrote a little message to my staffer Lindsay asking her in my mentor report, and since no one got back to me I assumed Rebecca was out... but she was never taken off of the roster, so I asked Lindsay again and she told me that Rebecca DID recommit! OH! I had taken her off my weekly email last week! Ooops, my bad. I added her back in. Still have yet to meet her, but it looks like she miraculously raised $600 for TNT in 1 week, and met her fund-raising minimum JUST in time to not get charged the balance on her credit card.

I suspect a parent bailed her out actually.

Heh, maybe I'll meet Rebecca tonight at the Send-Off party? Who knows?

Oh, and I'm bringing shrimp cocktail as my potluck offering. Mmmmm...

Run like a... shamrock... or something

2008-03-21T17:16:00.000-07:00

I told you I’m a slow runner. I’m totally proud I finished the 15K in less than 2 hours, but um... I only really beat 20 runners in my class (female aged 30-34). Yeah, I rock. I know. Here is my official timing chip result:

Woo hoo! 1130th female! Put THAT in your pipe and smoke it! booya!

But, I can honestly say, even tho I was bringing up the rear of the 15K runners, I had a blast running this event.

So, the website says they had 16,000+ participants this year, up from 11,000 last year. Holy crud!

(um, sorry for the photo tag on all these. obviously I’d have to purchase them for those to go away, and who has the $ for that for a blog!?!)

So, yeah. It was pretty crowded.

Also, it being the Shamrock Run... all sorts of folks came out. Some weirder than others...

I showed up, found a spot on the top (8th floor) of a smartpark, and headed out to the waterfront to claim my event T-shirt and meet up with the TNT folks.

Just like how I finished the Portland Marathon, I intended to pace my friend (and mentee) Sheryl.

We watched the 5K runners leave and come back. Man, the 1st place guy was done in like 14 minutes. It was crazy. I went ahead and checked in my track pants and my coat at the clothes check, and then I was ready to go!

Finally at 8:40am, they blew the bullhorn that indicated the 15K was starting. It took a couple minutes to get over the start line, but after no time we were on the course. I started my garmin to track our pace/time.

And... we ran. and ran. I was pretty happy to be running actually. I love events like this...

We ran up and over pill hill. That’s the hill Terwilliger Blvd snakes over that OHSU sits on top of.

Here is the course map...

Yeah, the 15K challenge run was a monster compared to the other run options. heh. Most of the above pictures were actually taken after the big hill, on the second half of the course.

About 1 mile to the finish line there were some people dressed all silly handing the runners free small dixie cups of green beer. My running mates all passed, but I was like, hell! Sure! I can run 1 mile after a shot of bud. Why not? I took a cup and chugged it.... and burped the rest of the run.

And then I spotted the finish line ahead of me... and I started sprinting.

View Album

Get your own

Woo! Ok, sure, I was bringing up the rear of the 15Kers (out of maybe 3,000 15K runners, I was ahead of probably only 150-200 or so)... and at the end of the whole shamrock run really (all the other events finished before the 15Kers). But I DID finish somewhere around 10:30am, which kicks butt for how I was hoping to do.

I immediately got into line for the beer garden (I ran with my drivers license on me... oooh yeah). Got into the beer garden, and claimed my free beer (mmm... widmer!) before really thinking about anything else.

Also, it turns out the free chowder we got for participating in the run wasn’t made with bacon, so I went ahead and got my cup of that. It was all soooooo tasty! I found some of the other TNT peeps in the beer garden, and we all congratulated ourselves and found many reasons to click plastic cups together.

Then, eventually, I realized, I was the only one not in warmer clothes. I was starting to get cold. I finished my beer and wandered over to the clothes check area. There were only like a dozen or so bags left unclaimed at that point (11am). I got mine and found a chair and pulled my track pants back on while shivering. I was pretty done for the day at that point.

THE END!

Recommitment & Shamrocks

2008-03-11T16:38:00.000-07:00

Well, recommitment was last Friday.

I just found out today who of my mentees are left in the program. I lost 3, but those 3 aren't a surprise.

* Tonya dropped... due to being too far behind in her fundraising. She's also had a few work conflicts with our Saturday runs, so she's been doing the runs on her own. I think she'll be registering for Race for the Roses on her own and running it, just not with us. It's a shame the season didn't work out for her, she seems like a very nice person, and it would have been nice to get to know her better.

* Rebecca seems to have dropped... I'm thinking it's cause she wasn't getting anything out of TNT. She's done a 1/2 marathon before, she didn't need help training, and she clearly wasn't interested in getting to know anyone... so... yeah.

* Tami is an assumed drop. No one has seen her in months, she's done no fund-raising, for all we know she isn't even training.

This leaves 6. heh. out of my original 11. That's not a really good retention rate, is it? Eh. But Britteny and Val weren't really ever "in," so it's more like 6 from 9. That's atleast better. heh. I'll try not to dwell on it.

The good news is, of my 6 who are sticking with it.... all of them are done fund-raising. All of them have surpassed their minimums!! Some of them are still doing fund-raising activities, but it's just because they are amazing philanthropists. I'm left with 6 rock stars. It's kinda cool.

So, that's where the recommitment settled out to.

Coming up this next weekend is the Shamrock Run, and I'll admit to being a little nervous about it. 15K, or 9.32 miles is the course I'm registered for. My runs have been going really well over the past couple of weeks, but that's partly because I've been pacing my newbie runner mentees, Gabrielle and Amy. They aren't very fast, and it makes me feel amazingly in shape... so I never really have any trouble when I pace them, cause I'm not really pushing my limit. They ran the 8 mi run last weekend in a little less than 2 hours, a 14:22 minute mile pace (slower than my marathon pace). I'm hoping to be able to finish the Shamrock run in the same amount of time actually.

I'm a little miffed about the Shamrock Run tho. Part of the appeal was the free beer the runners get at the finish line... but that beer is only being served until 11am, and they aren't letting the 15K runners go until 8:40am. If it takes me 2 hours like I'm hoping, that gives me 15-20 minutes to find and drink my beer! Hmmm...

Also, I already know I'll be finishing AFTER the awards ceremony. If that's not a slap in the face, I dunno what is. Yeah, you're still competing, but we've given out all the ribbons. nice. The awards ceremony is scheduled for 10:15am.

Yes yes, I already know I'm not a contender for an award. I'm not a racer. The point is I'll be out running a 15K that most Portlanders will admit to not being in the shape to go out and do, and would flat out refuse to attempt it. That's cool. I'm automatically cool for running the 15K, and yet, "oh, you're still running? maybe we have some beer left for you..." seems to be the theme of the end of the Shamrock Run. Grrr...

eh, atleast I'll get a T-shirt out of it. I suppose one free beer isn't enough to whine over. heh.

In other news, the run team (lead by Captain Karl) is trying to get an online community going for our purposes. TNT run participants can make profiles, and we can host blogs, have discussions, post our fund-raising events for other people to see, etc. It's admittedly a little late for the Roses season (4 weeks left!!), but the other event participants can benefit from this. Karl told me it's so late cause, as he put it, "someone dropped the ball." He's none too pleased about this. I guess someone else volunteered to put this together, and then did nothing.

So Karl is fooling around with this free online community/project coordination website called fmyi. He put together a site, and invited some of us out there to fool around with it and give him feedback. Frankly, I think the site sucks. It's non-intuitive, and clearly geared more towards running a business than running a group like TNT. I mucked around with it, added some content to get a feel for the functionality, and wrote him feedback. I guess I'm really the only one to do this, as Karl called me up last night, and the two of us were messing around with the site trying to figure things out.

I showed him the stuff that bugged me, and told him the features that would serve us better that the site didn't provide. He's working with the fmyi creator on Thursday to go through my wish list and hopefully improve it. In the mean time Karl granted me administrative permissions to our site, and I can muck with it all I want now. hee!

I'll admit to having logged in a couple times since then... and muck-raking a touch.

Ok, yes, fmyi is kinda dumb, but I think it could be a valuable thing for our team to have our own online community. And, being treated special also massages my ego just enough to make me want to help out more. I butter-up nicely.

I'll let you know how the Shamrock Run goes this weekend!

approaching recommitment....

2008-02-20T11:35:00.000-08:00

So, it turns out the Race for the Roses season is super short... only 11 weeks total. Right now we have about 7 weeks left. I'll catch you up on what's happened so far!

First off, Val and Britteny ended up dropping TNT. Britteny is moving to Alaska, and Val was a little overwhelmed with the rest of her life, wasn't able to put in the time and effort into TNT that she would have liked to.

This brings me down to 9 mentees.
* Frank and Kim - an adorable married couple who are TOTally gung-ho about TNT. They seem to be having a great time with it too. Their fundraising is going really well, and they are really good about their training.

* Amy - she has turned out to be very sweet, and also quite good at fundraising. She is 3/4th to her goal as of today. She met Gabrielle on her own at one of the group runs, and the two of them have started running together. Both are really cool people actually.

* Gabrielle - younger, works nights in a bar in SW Portand (called the Bucket Brigade?). She is a first time runner, but seems to be doing really well. Also is at the half-way point for fund-raising, so she's doing really well.

* Sheryl - my alumni star. She's DONE with her fundraising, and has also been doing the experienced marathoner training, and been having no trouble at all. She makes my life easier. :)

* Teresa - she's also half-way done with her fund-raising right now, and doing slightly longer runs on the group run days since she is an experienced marathoner. things seem to be going well for her, and I think she's enjoying the social aspect of TNT above all her other marathon experiences in the past.

* Tonya - she is very sweet, but a little behind. There was a death in her family, and she had to miss a couple weeks ineffect. Now she's working to catch up in both the training and the fundraising... but things seem to be going well. She's very optimistic.

* Tami - she unfortunately works on Saturdays, but has been training on her own on Sundays, and trying to make the Thursday track sessions. I have very little contact with her, so I hope everything is going well. I really should call her this week to touch base. She doesn't seem to be very tech-savvy, as she doesn't really check email, and told me she was having trouble downloading the training schedules off of the emails Coach Joe sends out. Ineffect, she doesn't have a fund-raising webpage up, and hasn't seemed to be making any progress on her fund-raising. I'm a little worried about her truth be told.

* Rebecca - I STILL have yet to meet Rebecca in person, but it seems alright, cause I'm not sure she wants to meet me. She is doing her training, is kinda sorta slow on the fund-raising, but not so slow as to be a point of worry (she's raised around $200 right now). She seems to want me to leave her alone for the most part, so I have been. She's totally unenthusiastic about the incentives (like socks for getting your letter done and shown to our TNT staffer, or a mousepad for the website setup, or a TNT water bottle for the $300 raised by the end of this month). Also we started doing these journey bead things, and she really just didn't want one. I can't say I entirely blame her, I'm not so sure what use they are, or what exactly I should do with them... but yeah.

As far as my own training goes... I had trouble 2 weeks ago on the 4 mile run. I had to stop at 3 miles cause my old knee injury started acting up again. I was totally bummed over this. So this last weekend I wrapped my knee with the same ace bandage I used for the portland marathon season, and I seemed fine. I was able to complete the 5 mile run around NW portland (thank god!). It was such a great run this last weekend.

The weather for our group runs started out cold, wet, SNOWING, and dark. It was kinda miserable, but we were out there, bundled up, doing it. It was an interesting thing. The runs always feel good, and I can't help but notice in a group it's always easier to run distances. The last 2 weekends we got some warmer weather and SUNSHINE! It's been great!

I've decided to run the Shamrock Run on March 16 in place of our March 15 group run, so that'll be fun. I registered for the Shamrock Run 2 nights ago.

That's pretty much where things are. As far as other mentors go:
Heidi and Deanne (the soccer mom types) have mellowed out a good deal, and are actually quite nice.
Tracy is REALLY cool too, always very friendly, so that's nice.
Greg is kinda quiet, but a really good runner. He goes the extra mile (quite literally, running the course back and forth) to accompany our participants on their runs. If I was more fit I'd probably try that too, but um. I'm not as in-shape as he is.

We have only 1.5 weeks till our mentees are supposed to have $300 raised... and 2.5 weeks until recommitment. Rough!

Oh, and yesterday Lindsay had us order out race day jerseys. I've opted for a T-shirt this time inplace of the tank top I chose for the Portland Marathon (and it ended up being WAY too cold for a tank top). I figure: I already HAVE a TNT race day tank top. If I really want to wear it on race day I have it available to me. Better to have more options.

Tomorrow I'm going to a screening of The Spirit of the Marathon movie. I've invited all of TNT, but so far I don't know of anyone else going. Ah well. I'm looking forward to it, already have my ticket! Then on Saturday I'm celebrating my birthday, and I've invited all of TNT to that as well. Several of my mentees, and Captain Karl are planning on going, so that should be fun!

did I say 8 mentees?

2008-01-27T23:26:00.000-08:00

... make that 11 now. heh. 3 signed up at the kick-off party.

(9 & 10) Kim and Frank. I don't know much about them yet, but they are married and both seem like neat people who will do well with the TNT program.

(11) VAL!!!! Yes, my running partner for the portland marathon is now one of my mentees! Ok, perhaps that's cheating a touch, but I don't care... I'm stoked having her in my numbers.

AND, I just had to fill out my first mentore report of the season (I guess I have to submit one every monday). Seems my mentees have already raised $1050 for LLS. Pretty good for our first weekend of the season! I'm gonna have fun watching that number grow... partly cause it's a metric of my success as a mentor, and partly cause I'm not having to fund-raise myself this season.

So, let me back track and talk about the Kick-off and our first training.

Kick-Off Party!!
It was fun. I realized that roses are quite easy to come by due to Valentine's Day looming on the horizon. I got a couple bundles of "Garden Roses" which means they aren't long stem, but rather have several blossoms per stem. Still quite pretty, and frankly, cheaper.

Showed up, found rock star street (free) parking, and went and decorated tables. I helped put up posters, and then began mingling with the new participants. I found several of my mentees, snapped photos and exchanged pleasantries with Tami, Gabrielle, Sheryl, Tonya, and Amy. Teresa and Becca didn't show up to the event though.

I ate some funny-tasting finger sandwiches (I opted for the white mystery meat flavor). Then we watched the info video and all the staff, coaches, captains, and mentors were introduced. For some weird reason, my name was called first out of the mentors. This made no sense to me. Why? I've got the least amount of running experience for one thing out of the mentors, and I don't come first alphabetically in ANY sorting of the mentors... still rather confused about this. I suppose it could be innocent, but I dunno. it's weird. Went up and got my mentor training jersey. It says MENTOR across it in large letters. heh.

After the big meeting, the running peeps met in another room to talk about running. I made a bit of a fool out of myself here... by cheering for Vancouver. Coach Joe stopped and looked at me and said he's never seen ANYONE show that kind of enthusiasm for the couv before. People laughed. I stood my ground and said I was making the couv awesome again. so there.

It was a good meeting, and I walked away pretty pumped. I probably should have gone and collected my roses afterwards, but oh well. They would have just slowly died and gathered dust in my house. They were really pretty tho. Maybe I'll actually get flowers from SOMEONE ELSE for V-day though... who? who knows... but a girl can hope, eh?

First Training
Showed up with coffee in hand and with Val in the car. I tried desperately to find Becca, Teresa, Kim, and Frank before we began. Only succeeded in finding Kim & Frank. It was nice saying hi to them in person atleast. We began by learning about the weekly workout sched, learned good stretching techniques, and then met the other runners in a quick social exercise. After this, it was time to run.

Coach Joe wanted the mentors to be stationed ALONG the running course instead of running themselves... cheering on the participants. All well and good, except it was freezing and beginning to rain. Yay.

I got stationed at the bottom of a large hill on the 6mi course. Instead of standing still, I insisted on running the block back and forth. I would escort some runners to the end of the block, and then run back to the other end and look for more runners to escort. It was nice. While running with various participants I was able to chat with them a little. I think it worked well.

Then, eventually, the runners started coming back (it was an out and back course), and so I did the same thing in the other direction. How far did I go? who knows!?! I was pacing that block at various speeds for a while atleast. 45 minutes? eh. I think I ran atleast 3 miles, which works fine for me.

The rain was coming down fairly hard by the time the practice was over. A group of us ended up going out for breakfast at the cadillac cafe on East Broadway following the run, which totally hit the spot.

The group seems like a GREAT group of runners. Lots of really nice, enthusiastic people. Looking forward to the season now!

Kick-off night!

2008-01-24T16:02:00.001-08:00

Here we are at the kick-off party night tonight. I'll be taking my camera to capture my mentees hopefully.

I now have 8!! yay!

Nicki moved over to the Anchorage Marathon event, so she is no longer my mentee. No worries... now besides Teresa and Sheryl I have:

(3) Gabrielle... I know little to nothing about her besides the fact that we've been playing phone tag with eachother since she signed up 3 weeks ago.

(4) Tonya... also, I know nothing about her at this time.

(5) Amy... Now HERE is someone I've introduced myself to over the phone. She is running this half in honor of her brother Dave, who was diagnosed last year with hodgkins lymphoma at 54. He went through 6 chemo sessions, and as of Oct was declared cancer free! Yay! She is self-described as an extremely tall middle-aged woman, so it shouldn't be hard to spot her. She was really easy to talk to on the phone, so I think I'm going to enjoy getting to know her.

(6) Britteny... left her a message, but still haven't talked with her.

(7) Rebecca (Becky)... she seems worried I think she's crazy. The phone conversation was a tad awkward, but I think she'll warm up to me when she realizes I just want to be her friend. It'll be easier to talk to her in person I bet. She's done a half marathon before, the Run Like Hell half on Halloween. I always thought that one sounded fun. She's pretty confident she can raise all $1200 by letter-writing alone... which very well may be the case, but I think I'll watch her fundraising amounts closely just in case her friends/family/coworkers aren't as ready to give her money as she was hoping.

(8) Tami (Tamara)... yet another mentee I haven't chatted with yet.

So, in conclusion, tonight at the kick-off party I'm definitely going to have to hunt down Gabrielle, Tonya, Britteny, and Tami and ask them how they like to be contacted (phone or email).

All that aside, I've got to show up early tonight to help decorate the tables. Since I have no previous Race for the Roses shirts, medals, race bibs, or anything else relating to this particular race (Portland Marathon stuff work? no? dang) I'm going to try to hunt down a couple of bouquets of roses to scatter around the tables. Hopefully I won't be paying too much... especially since roses aren't exactly in season right now :P

See, we got this email from the walker mentors (told you they don't mingle with us.. same event but we are totally segregated) that they had discussed their table decorations and decided on the above as our decorating theme... and they didn't know what us Run mentors had decided on, but that's what they were doing. Heidi, a super-mom run mentor, responded in a group email that us run mentors had discussed it and decided to match their decorations (we have!?! I wasn't part of this discussion... by we does she mean she??). Oh well, I don't really care since I have no better ideas. Let Heidi be the roses run spokesperson... it makes it easier to be critical about her behind her back. Tis the burden of those who lead afterall!

Well, I'm off to look for roses in january!!

3 mentees(!) + a new honored teammate

2008-01-07T16:43:00.000-08:00

I now have 3 mentees:

(1) Teresa... a sweet sounding mom. She's been running since high school and makes sure to run a marathon every year (yeah, ok, WAY more experienced runner than me). Thought she'd be interested in trying something new and doing a half with TNT. She was already working on her letter and website when I called her a day after she registered. I think she's going to have no problem with TNT, and will really enjoy herself.

(2) Nicki... another mom. She is not an experienced runner, but was actually thinking about maybe doing the Anchorage marathon instead of Roses. She'll decide for sure later. She knows several people who have done TNT in the past and have been motivated by them. She's also brainstorming having a poker tournament or garage sale to help her fund raise. I like how she's thinking.

(3) Sheryl. Now, not only is she a TNT alum, but she actually ACCOMPANIED ME on the last 4 or so miles of the 2007 Portland Marathon when SHE was a mentor and I was a participant. She has registered for the Race for the Roses as a participant this time, and requested me as her mentor. coolness.

Also, today we got the email introducing us to our honored teammate: Joan Griffith.

She has a blog outlining her cancer experience at joangriffith.blogspot.com.

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Get your own

Her story is amazing, so I have no doubt she'll help inspire and motivate our participants for our event to work towards their fund raising goals and work to conquer their own personal challenges in training.

Other than that... I need to think of some activity I can do with my mentees in a group (we were told that the program would like us to do a social kind of thing with our own group once during the season... so I need to brainstorm on this).

Any ideas?

I'll have a group of (hopefully) 8-10 mentees by the time we're done recruiting too...

and it still continues....

2008-01-02T13:58:00.000-08:00

Hi all!

I thought I'd pick up where I left off... for those curious enough or bored enough to still be checking this blog. I'd still like to recall my marathon experience for posterity (even tho some of the details are admittedly a touch muddy now)... but that can wait a bit.

I've taken a small break from running since the marathon. I tried running regularly following the marathon conclusion, but the bad weather and my lackadaisical motivation made it less than happen. I went on a 7 mile run, then a 3 mile run, then 2 weeks off, then a 5.5 mile run, then a 13.1 mile walk, and since then... nothing. Oof, bad me.

BUT, it's not all over. Before Thanksgiving I applied with Team in Training to be a running mentor for their summer season, and they accepted my application in early Dec! I'll be a running mentor for the Race for the Roses run on April 6. It's a half marathon event in Portland.

And, don't be weary of me. I'm a non-fundraising mentor. I won't be sending out letters or baking more pie for now.

So... life goes on. Everything around mentoring begins this week too. TNT is recruiting right now for their summer season (which for the running team involves not only Roses, but the Rock and Roll marathon in San Diego in June or July or something. The other endurance events for the summer season include a century ride around Tahoe, and a tri out in Sunriver, OR).

We had our "mentor orientation" meeting on Dec 15, where we met the other mentors for the summer season. Apparently they are revamping the mentor program, and making the mentor's roles more involved, and also trying to make participating in TNT more fun and rewarding. So, it's kinda starting to feel like being a camp counselor all over again, but for a camp of "active adults."

Interesting.

As I was saying earlier today: it's been a long looong time since I've heard the pro and con aspects of puffy paint discussed seriously. Gah!

A couple of observations from the orientation...
(1) Race for the Roses was the biggest "event" of the summer season with 10 mentors (half walk half run), even tho we have the smallest fundraising minimum per participant and the shortest training period.
(2) the walk mentors and run mentors really didn't inter-mingle. V. segregated.
(3) of the 4 Roses run mentors present, there were two very... um... super-mom looking ladies with flawless hair and makeup, and very outgoing attitudes, and then there was Greg and me. You know, single, younger, more interested in running and the social aspect of group training than the other parts of the TNT mission. I mean, I think it's WONDERFUL to be active in an organization that works to cure cancer... but that's admittedly not my own personal drive for being there. I want to be a part of it, I'm proud I'm helping... but I don't have my own experience or personal hero. I can't write a captivating story about cancer to help motivate others.

Anyway, enough musing on how unsentimental my reasons are.

Recruiting for the summer season begins this week.

January 3, 2008 - 6:30PM Summer Season Informational Meeting Northwest Natural Headquarters One Pacific Square - 4th floor 220 NW 2nd Ave
January 5, 2008 - Noon Summer Season Informational Meeting Lucky Lab Beer Hall 1945 NW Quimby St.
January 8, 2008 - 6:30PM Summer Season Informational Meeting REI 1405 NW Johnson St.
January 9, 2008 - 6:30PM Summer Season Informational Meeting Lucky Labrador Brew Pub 915 SE Hawthorne Blvd.
January 12, 2008 - Noon Summer Season Informational Meeting Lucky Lab Beer Hall 1945 NW Quimby St.

I have to attend some of these. Basically we'll be looking to tell people about TNT's mission and possibly give some personal testimony about how amazing the experience is... and maybe sign new recruits up!

After these sessions, hopefully I'll be saddled with my own gaggle of 8-12 mentees that I get to mold in my own image... or rather communicate regularly with and encourage and monitor their progress. I'm supposed to do some fun team-building stuff to help make them feel special and "looked after" as it were, so I'm still brainstorming on the subject.

... I suppose pet rocks are a bad idea.

But, that's the news from this neck of the woods! Hope everyone had a great holiday season!!

SUCCESS!!!

2007-10-12T14:45:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'd like to write a full blog on my experience, but until I can get around to that, this will have to suffice: my photo album of the weekend!!

For those keeping track, I ran the marathon in 6:08:22.

getting closer...

2007-10-05T12:37:00.000-07:00

So, only 2 more nights until the portland marathon. My mom is on an airplane on her way here already, she arrives at 3pm. We'll be going to the marathon expo today to pick up our packets, including our numbers and timing chips. This is all getting to be SO REAL all of a sudden.

Val, my running partner, has been sick all week. She was diagnosed with strep on monday and started on antibiotics. That night she got really ill, and while trying to throw up in her bathroom passed out on the floor where her housemates later found her.

Yesterday she went back to the doc who prescribed different antibiotics, since she still wasn't feeling better... so there is a real chance that she won't be feeling good enough to attempt the marathon on Sunday... which sucks for both of us really. I was looking forward to running with her.

I'm still not sure what the weather is planning on doing for the marathon. It right now looks like it's going to be crappy, wet, and cold. oh goody. First portland marathon in 30 years without sunshine. figures.

Me? I've been in a weird place I think. For the past 2 weeks I've been sorta hiding at home. I don't want to face the marathon. Well, 2 weeks ago I didn't even want to run it. That's changing now thankfully. The training schedule has this week as "do nothing" literally (which is why I haven't had anything to blog about recently, I skipped the 8 mile run on Saturday like Coach Joe advised), we should be well-rested and kinda antsy by Sunday... ready to run. My body is feeling good, my foot doesn't hurt anymore (besides the mild plantar fasciitis that is still there), I definitely have been getting a good amount of sleep.

And, the thing I was looking forward to the most this week? the eating? I'm not enjoying it like I hoped I would. I just eat and eat, and it's more a chore than anything else. I'm out of food at home AGAIN already. I've been drinking alot of water, juice and tea recently, eating alot of bananas, buttered toast, and eating spaghetti for nearly every meal, except when I'm more in the mood for soup. I'm trying to eat well, stay hydrated, and take my supplements (calcium & magnesium). Honestly tho, it's weeks like this one where I wish I had a housewife to help me eat well... it's so much work to feed myself this much food! ugh.

Anyway, I think having my mom in town will help focus me for race day. I've been avoiding thinking about it at all. Today I think I need to sort out what I'll be wearing on sunday.

That's everything from nervous runner chick for now...

send-off party

2007-09-28T13:24:00.000-07:00

Total Distance So Far: 300.0 miles

Tuesday this week, we had the "send-off" party for the Portland Marathon by the TNT group. It was a potluck where we picked up our race-day jerseys, tickets to the spaghetti feed before the marathon, and victory party tickets for after the marathon. Coach Joe went over a number of things here... around what to expect of race day.

Some of the items of interest he discussed:
* go to the marathon expo and peruse (where we'll be picking up our official marathon packets, numbers, and timing chips). You can find cheap layering-clothes there for like $5 that would be good to wear before, or atleast at the beginning of the race while you're still cold. It's a long wait before the race begins, just standing around. The idea is to shed these clothes either at the beginning, or at the first aid station. The Portland Marathon will be collecting discarded clothes and donating it all to a non-profit charity like goodwill or something, so it won't end up in a landfill.

* it was suggested to wake up 2 hours early and get a good breakfast in you on race day. A good 4 hours atleast before you step off.

* on the week leading up to event day, try to get more sleep and drink more water than normal. Pretty much no one can sleep well on the night-before the marathon, so if you have a lot of sleep prior to that, you should still be in good shape. And, preparing your body for good-race-day hydration starts several days prior. Your body will already be "storing" most of the water it'll want to use on race day, and you will only absorb a small amount from the stuff you drink during the race. Better to have stored-up water.

* at the finish line, resist the urge to look at your watch as you cross it. There is a professional photographer there waiting to capture your photo, and it's amazing the number of these photos are ruined because the runner is looking down checking his or her time, and you can't see their face. Keep your head up, enjoy crossing the finish line, and strike an inspirational pose for the camera!

* After the marathon, DO NOT CURL UP INTO A BALL AND GO TO SLEEP. The previous marathon runners were stressing this. It is very important to stay awake and stay active afterwards. Your muscles will hurt a lot less if you force yourself to stay semi-mobile doing things. They said your legs will hurt twice as much if you skip the victory party and just sleep after the race.

That was pretty much most of the advice I walked away with. The potluck was fabulous. I stuffed myself silly. Oh, and Coach Joe asked me about my foot. I told him about the trouble I had on the 12 mile run... and he suggested I skip the 8 miler this weekend. He said better to be healed than anything else. Oh! Really? Skip the 8 miler? huh. I'm still mulling over this option. I feel like I need to stay active... but I'm also (I'll admit) getting a little burned out from training, and I'm ready for the marathon to be over.

I went swimming on Wednesday.
I started out with a more solid plan of what I was going to do, but then I got bored most of the way through the workout, and stopped swimming seriously... and was just playing around on a lap (doing a flip mid-pool) when my calf cramped up on me violently. It took everything I had to straighten my leg out mid-lap, and will my muscles to relax enough to allow me to get to the side. I vowed to drink more water and eat more bananas after that happened prior to the race. I need my muscles to work!!!

Anyway, I think this was my workout... I stopped keeping track after a while...

Warm-up: 400m breaststroke
Laps:
* 100m kickboard (flutter kick)
* 100m wait-for-it
* 250m breaststroke
* 100m crawl
* 300m breaststroke

Total: 1250 meters

swimming tonight

2007-09-24T21:45:00.000-07:00

Total Distance So Far: 298.0 miles

Went lap swimming tonight only for about 35 minutes or so. I pushed myself a little, but didn't swim for very long. Just really got my heart rate up for a little bit.

Here is what I was up to:

* 300m breaststroke
* 6 x 50m crawl
* 300m kickboard (flutter kick)
* 100m paddles
* 100m breaststroke

Total distance: 1100 meters

my foot hurts

2007-09-24T13:35:00.000-07:00

Total Distance So Far: 296.0 miles

Group run again on Saturday. We're tapering now, so the distance was supposed to be 12 miles for the Portland Marathon group. My foot has been sore since the 20 miler. Worse initially, but slowly getting less painful. Still, I was feeling it Saturday morning before we stepped off for the run.

This pain is not where my plantar fasciitis is located, but rather along the left side of my left foot (not on the bottom of my foot). Sometimes it feels like a cramp, sometimes it feels like sore ligaments or something, sometimes it hurts like my foot has a hairline fracture... but I do know: it doesn't hurt when I'm not moving my foot or standing on it, and it doesn't hurt when I swim.

On Saturday morning, I decided to just try running on it; See if the pain went away as it warmed up. It kinda sorta started feeling better after 1 mile. But then at around 3 miles it cramped up on me so that I had to walk for a while. Once that sensation went away, I tried running again. Val accompanied me as I ran/walk past the halfway point (where it painfully cramped up on me again). Finally I decided what I was experiencing was lame, and I should stop. Luckily I was able to get the message (via bicycle) to Karl, who came to get me in his car. That was sweet. I called it a day at 7.5 miles.

When I first told Karl I was having trouble with my foot (around 4 miles) he seemed to indicate that I should tough it out. When he rescued me at 7.5 miles he apologized and said the better advice was to avoid injurring yourself further. We are tapering right now, which means the purpose of the next couple of weeks is to recover from that 20 mile run, and heal, and be ready on Oct 7 to face 26.2 miles.

Hopefully I didn't hurt myself too bad. My foot still hurts, but I'd like to imagine it hurts less every day. I'll go lap swimming tonight, and probably also on Wednesday and Thursday evenings this week. Keep my activity level up and my impact on my foot down.

MARATHON IS IN LESS THAN 2 WEEKS!!!! AHHH!

another dip

2007-09-21T11:23:00.000-07:00

Total Distance So Far: 288.5 miles

Since I ran really far on Tuesday, and I have our next group run on Saturday, I was only going to exercise one other time mid-week... and that was last night. I opted for lap swimming again. I've been achy since Tuesday's run (duh), so I thought the swim would feel really good, and I was right!

Here was the workout...
Warm-up: 300m kickboard (flutter kick)
Laps:
* 300m breaststroke
* 150m wait-for-it
* 300m breaststroke
* 100m paddles
* 300m breaststroke
* 150m crawl
* 300m breaststroke
Cool-down: 300m kickboard (flutter kick)

Total: 2200m in an hour.

The outside of my left foot is still very sore today, and still makes it hard to walk. I'm really hoping it heals quickly so I can run the 12 miles tomorrow....

20 mile attempt 2

2007-09-19T12:41:00.000-07:00

Total Distance So Far: 283.5 miles

Since I had to get my 20 mile run in by Wednesday if at all, Coach Joe had told me to try again on Tuesday. I was admittedly nervous about this: a solo run, a very long distance solo run. No aid stations, no running partners.

In preparation I used mapmyrun.com and came up with 3 loops that started and ended at my house that added up to 20 miles. I got my coworker/friend Paul to agree to come get me if I needed help, and he had the courses I was planning on running, and the approx times I thought I would be done with each. The weather forecast was cold and wet. I wasn't looking forward to that aspect, but I was prepared for it.

Tuesday morning, bright and early, I layered on the clothes: 1 pair of Hind running capris, my TNT training jersey covered by a long sleeve exercise top, my windwall vest covering this for heat retention, and ontop of everything else my motorcycling reflective vest so motorists can see me better.

I had all my gear: cap on my noggin, ipod, Garmin on my wrist, slathered on sunscreen (just incase), snacks in my pocket, cellphone & $20 bill in my arm wallet for emergencies, and my waterbottle in my hand. I was ready.

I set out just as the sun was rising.

My first out and back was a 9.07 mile (total) route north of my house. I was attempting to run the Discovery Trail, an area I'd never been to before. I had found an access point onto the trail that was less than 2 miles from my house, so that's what I was headed for. To get there I had to pass a Hospital, cross over I-5 into a nice residential area, and then cross a busy commuting intersection that was controlled by stop signs (that makes it easier for a runner, let me tell you!). Once past that intersection it was a half block onto the Discovery Trail in Leverich Park. Wow, what a neat route!

Leverich Park is a nice rolling green space with a creek running through it (burnt bridge creek). It had picnic tables, picnic shelters, a beautiful rock-masonry BBQ pit, big open grassy areas, large old trees covering it, and I swear I saw a baseball field up on a hill. It is a pretty and well-maintained park! The Discovery Trail just skirted along the park on the north side. Here is a link to the PDF trail map of the Discovery Trail section that I ran.

Once you go over I-5 on the dedicated pedestrian bridge, you cross into a pretty greenway area, and it's easy to forget you're in the middle of the city!

According to the blurb on the trail map, "This shared-use hard surface trail offers excellent opportunites for walking, biking, jogging, commuting, and viewing the Burnt Bridge Creek Greenway. It meanders east along the creek through thick forests and grass bottomlands, and crosses over two bridges to end at Hazel Dell Ave."

It was simply a lovely run, even at 7am. As I approached NW Fruit Valley Rd I passed about half a dozen dog walkers. Even tho I could see my breath fogging in front of me, I was really happy on this part of my run. Also, fall was in the air, and there were some newly fallen leaves covering the trail in parts. That really added to the charm of this place. Oh, I should mention that I got lost. I missed the trail on NW Hazel Dell Ave (it's up the street maybe a quarter mile from where you find yourself on the street), so I kept going... up this big ol' hill probably an additional quarter mile before it occurred to me that the elevation chart from mapmyrun.com didn't include a spike in elevation at this point in the run. I must have missed the trail somewhere at the bottom of the steep hill! I turned around and backtracked down the hill till I found the innocuous unmarked trail. Ugh.

On the way back to my house I found the Evergreen Chapter of Habitat for Humanity. It was in a humble little brick house. This really isn't relevant to anything, I just thought I'd mention it.

I found myself back at my house at about 9am. With the extra 1/2 mile "mistake" I made I had gone about 9.5 miles at this point.

I refilled my water bottle, took off my reflective vest, shoved some gummy bears in my mouth, and headed back out on the next stage of the journey.

This route was an easy 5.65 mile out and back to Vancouver's Waterfront Park on the Columbia River where I ran a stretch of the Waterfront Renaissance Trail.

According to the Parks & Recreation website blurb on this trail, "This 14-foot-wide, shared-use concrete trail is the crowning jewel of Vancouver's Columbia River Waterfront Renaissance, connecting the downtown area to the city's long-neglected shoreline. The trail follows the Columbia River, passing Vancouver Landing, the Captain Vancouver Monument and the plaza dedicated to Ilchee, a Native Indian chief's daughter."

The river was a little breezy, so I was glad I had my vest on. There were also a good deal more walkers on this stretch of my run. On the way out to the river I stopped at the Washington Department of Licensing to use the government building bathrooms. I also stopped to stretch a bit and enjoy some gummy bears at the turn around point on the riverside. On the way back to my house (a slight but constant uphill) my legs were starting to feel the burn (passing the 14 mile point I think). I also ALMOST witnessed a car accident when a silver SUV, altho stopped at a stop sign, thought it was a good idea to try to go directly in front of a red sports car who didn't have a stop sign. Both cars screeched to a halt (as I crossed the street quietly behind the silver SUV) and the two female drivers glared at each other for a moment before the red car moved on and the silver SUV finally was able to cross that intersection.

Around this part of my run I was noticing the SUN trying to break through the heavy cloud cover! GASP! Note, at this point I hadn't felt one raindrop. This is a good thing. I was getting a little hot by the time I got back to my house.

Back home, my legs were really feeling the run. My right calf was trying to cramp up on me so I took a longer stretch break, refilled my water bottle, changed into shorts and a shirt (and the windwall vest), and was ready for the last leg of my journey (even tho I'll admit I was tempted by the lure of just... staying home at this point, hee!).

The last route was a 5 mile loop that wandered past Clark College, Hudson Bay Highschool, Officer's Row (next to Fort Vancouver), up Columbia St to Carter Park, and then back to my house.

I was just dragging myself at this point. I think I was TRYING to go at a 13 minute mile pace, but sometimes I just slowed down to 15-16 minute miles on occasion. My foot that the shot was in was starting to ache on the side, but luckily my knees were both holding up pretty well.

I slogged past the newly renovated Marshall Community Center and Leupke Senior Center. There were construction crews installing the sprinkler system, and newly dusted green stuff on the dirt that will eventually become a lush community center lawn. I noticed a lot of the people I passed gave me a smile as they witnessed me creep past them.

Then I passed Clark College. It's hard to miss the college as it's well labelled.

Across the street from Clark College is Hudson Bay High School. I remember attending a few colorguard events here over a decade ago. It looks pretty much the same now from the street as then. School was in session, but even tho it was around 11am, there were a number of students just arriving to school in cars. I even got cat-called by some students pulling into the parking lot as I dragged myself down the street! I found this amusing considering I most likely was in high school the year they were born.

Finally, I looped around to head back to the downtown area, through Officer's Row.

Again, according to the Parks & Recreation website, "Located just north of Ft. Vancouver National Historic Site. Walk in the footsteps of presidents & generals along this tree-line land of 21 stately turn-of-the-century homes built for officers at Vancouver Barracks. It is the only entire row of officer's preserved historic homes in the nation."

Well, I slogged instead of walked. But I also enjoyed the trees and green lawns. This stretch home was probably the most challenging for me. I had to convince myself to keep going, and noticed when I took walking breaks for the pain, the pain continued. Thus, I might as well keep pushing myself to run as fast as I could manage. There really was no relief from the feeling of having gone this far, the kindest thing I could do for myself was not make it drag on longer than it had to. I DID notice here though that I broke my 18 mile time by about 10 minutes. So, I was doing fairly well all in all.

The last little detour before home on this route was a pass by my neighborhood park, Carter Park.

A slightly less bombastic blurb on the Parks & Recreation website, "This small, 0.7-acre park serves the residents of the Carter Neighborhood with facilities that include play equipment, benches, and picnic tables."

From here it's 1/2 mile to my house. It was good to be home.

Originally I planned a 4th excursion on a small 4 block loop to finish up the 20 miles, but with the mistaken 1/4 mile hill climb, and then the inevitable 1/4 mile descent looking for the trail I missed, I was satisfied that I had gone 20 miles total.

I ended my run with my Garmin showing 4:18:53 as my time. That comes out to 12:57 minute miles. I wouldn't have been able to manage that without the stretching breaks tho, so my time doesn't include any amount of time I wasn't progressing along the course. All in all it looks like it took me nearly 5 hours to run my 20 miles, but none of it was in the rain.

Today, I'm sore. But hey! I think 20 miles are SUPPOSED to hurt. I think it's a law.

A good run. An amazing effort. It's all tapering from here until event day!

20 mile attempt 1

2007-09-17T13:48:00.000-07:00

Total Distance So Far: 263.6 miles

Woke up bright and early on Saturday morning to attempt our one and only 20 mile run. We were going to do it on part of the actual Portland Marathon course too, which was exciting.

Val and I stepped off. Val asked how my foot felt. I told her I wanted to wait a bit before commenting on it. About a mile in tho, I said, yeah. This is nice being able to run for once without constant pain in my foot. REALLY nice. I guess I spoke too soon.

At 2.25 miles I started experiencing little stabbing pains in my heel right about where I had the shot. I stopped running. I encouraged Val to continue with the others instead of running alone (she offered to walk with me back to the start, but that didn't make any sense, plus I was SO CLOSE to the start so it was no big deal to walk it), and I took myself out of the run for the day.

On the 1.7 mile walk back to the start I had 2 more more acute stabbing pain experiences that passed after a couple seconds. The coaches all said I made the right decision to not continue running.

See, my doctor didn't want me running on Saturday. He said it was too soon, and 20 miles was too much. He was adamant, and I told him I'd play it by ear. The coaches just before the run told me that I should really pay attention to how my foot felt for the beginning of the run in particular. So all in all, they were all right. I think my foot wasn't done recovering from the shot just yet.

Once I had taken myself out of the run, I had some breakfast and coffee, then went home and had a little nap, then got up and put my dog in the car, and went back to the meeting point at around 11:30am to pick up Val. She came in all smiles, she had a very strong run. I'm proud of her!

Coach Joe wants me to attempt the 20 miles again on Tuesday morning by myself. I was considering 5 laps on a 4-mile loop from my house, but he suggested doing something a touch more interesting than that so the run is more fun (and not miserable). He also told me Wednesday was the latest I should attempt the 20 miler... any later than that and I'd be hurting my chances for running the marathon successfully. Also, Karl and Joe both told me that since I was able to run the 18 mile run, I SHOULD be ok for the marathon even without this last group run.

Nonetheless, I'd LOVE to have a 20 miler under my belt before attempting 26.2.

So since things went the way they did on Saturday, I went lap swimming on Sunday afternoon.

Same workout as last time:
Warm-up: 300m kickboard (flutter kick)
Workout:
* 300m breaststroke
* 100m wait-for-it
* 300m breaststroke
* 100m paddles
* 300m breaststroke
* 150m crawl
Cool-down: 300m kickboard (flutter kick)

Total: 1850m

After this I was playing around with mapmyrun.com trying to figure out a good course to run on Tuesday morning. I think I have a good candidate. I'll be running with a waterbottle in hand (because no aid stations) and a cell phone in my pocket. My friend Paul knows the routes I intend to run and in what order, so if I get into trouble I'll call him for a pick-up.

Unfortunately, it also looks like it's going to be cold and raining tomorrow morning.

poo.

an apple a day...

2007-09-12T23:35:00.000-07:00

So, some of you know, I've been dealing with a bout of plantar fasciitis since I began training for the Portland Marathon back at the beginning of summer.

I've tried all sorts of things to make it better, but I decided today to finally take that last drastic measure: I went to the doctor to get a corticosteroid injection.

hehehe, and yes, I photo-documented it. Because I could.

Here is my foot all prepped for the procedure:

Ok, this looks pretty blah and doesn't really tell you much, does it? I took some time to fill in some information so that you have a little more context as to what you are viewing.

There. Does that make more sense now? I whipped out my camera while I was sitting on the exam room table with my foot covered in iodine or whatever (prepped by nurse), waiting for the doctor to come in and give me the injection. There was a mirror on the far side of the room, so I thought I'd capture a little self-portrait while I was at it.

There, on the counter on the other side of the room was the needle the nurse had prepared...

What too small to make heads or tails out of that picture? Ok, I've put together another situational primer to help you see better what you should be noticing.

See, after this the doctor came in and stuck the pointy end into the evil plantar fasciitis bit.

Yeah. It did kinda hurt initially, but since there was a numbing agent mixed in with the corticosteroids, I quickly stopped feeling anything. I was surprised to notice that the doctor had the needle in to my heel almost 2 inches. I only really felt the first inch of it I think.

Sorry, didn't mean to get so graphic. No worries, I didn't photograph the shot.

Anyway, I was surprised it hurt less than I was anticipating. After the shot, the doc cleaned my foot with an alcohol wipe, and then put on the band-aid.

Ta da!

So that was my morning, how was your's?

swim swim swim swim swim

2007-09-10T21:38:00.000-07:00

Total Distance So Far: 256.3 miles

Swimming again. I wasn't sure if I was going to make it actually, when I got home from work I found myself napping on my couch. Luckily the cheap lap session is from 8-9:30pm at night. The price went up starting today tho, a crushing $0.25. Heh, so now it's $2.25 to go swimming there on week nights. Still the cheapest deal in the greater Portland area I believe, and this pool is luckily only 2 minutes drive from my house (timed it today driving home).

Today, unlike last week, I got into the zone. Maybe it was that there were less people in the pool, or the lights were dimmer today, or the mustachioed lifeguard or something... but I was able to just swim, and swim. No worries. This is the way lap swimming should be.

My workout today...
Warm-up: 300m kickboard (flutter kick)
Laps:
* 300m breast stroke
* 100m wait-for-it
* 300m breast stroke
* 100m paddles
* 300m breast stroke
* 150m crawl
Cool-down: 300m kickboard (flutter kick)

Total: 1850m in about an hour... possibly a little less.

A good workout. I'm glad I got off the couch to go swimming tonight.

smile for the camera!

2007-09-10T15:54:00.001-07:00

Total Distance So Far: 251.3 miles

Once again, I took the week off from further training last week following my swim. I was saving my energy for the group run on Saturday. I was pretty sure the group run would go well, but at the same time I was nervous because I hadn't had 3 successful group runs on consecutive weekends since we were running less than 6 miles! This run was a milestone for me, even if it is a distance I've gone twice before and exceeded once.

Our run on Saturday started at OMSI, went over the Steele Bridge and up into NW Portland, or more specifically, up Thurston all the way to Leif Erickson Drive in Forest Park... and then ran 2 miles into Forest Park. Then we simply turned around and went back the way we came.

5 miles to the gate at Leif Erickson Drive, 4 miles in Forest Park, 5 miles back to OMSI = another 14 miler.

Val wanted to attempt to run this 14 miler nonstop, so we gave it a good go. I personally felt like we had a really strong run, but our time came out to... oh 3 hours almost on the dot. Which means we did about the same as the last two 14 mile runs! However, I have to keep in mind that this run went up Thurston.... which is a serious hill. Infact it's probably a bigger hill than anything we'll be seeing on the marathon course, truth be told. The fact that my knee held out for this run was brilliant.

Also, I should mention, to make sure we were being smart, Val and I walked down the steep bits. Our knees just weren't going to be able to cushion our descent if we tried it any faster.

Oh yes, and as an added bonus, I brought my camera along... just to see what it was like to run with it in my hand. Turned out, it wasn't really inconvenient at all. I totally didn't mind carrying it with me! So, for once... I have pictures of this run!!!

Not many mind you, we were just goofing around with the camera cause I had it.

Here is coach Joe addressing the runners before the run (it was really cold at that point in the morning... approx 7am). I believe he was talking on the topic of what to expect from the marathon course, how the aid stations are setup, and more on the fact that food isn't really going to be provided at the aid stations like we had grown accustomed to in our TNT training.

Not being fed is a serious subject.

Oh, also it's about time I've shown you who Val is! Here is an action shot of her running next to me.

Ok ok, here are some better pictures of us... one including Coach Joe even!

Once we were down the Thurston hill and heading back to OMSI, I had to stop for a bit to adjust my ace bandage wrap on my knee... it had been slipping a touch, and I was having trouble getting it back on in the right place with the right amount of constriction.

Here you can see me struggling with it, and then posing for a pic. Val was trying to get a different pic earlier, but then the bandage decided to hold me tight around my ankle and not let go, so I'm actually wrestling the thing in the first photo...

Whew! Isn't it nice when inanimate objects don't outsmart you?

So yeah, only a couple photos, but maybe you'll feel more like you've been on the run with us now!

more swimming

2007-09-04T21:19:00.000-07:00

Total Distance So Far: 237.3 miles

Eh, I was in the water for 45 minutes, so I'll just add 4 miles to my "running total." I decided to try out a new pool today, the one near my house that offers $2 lap swimming from 8-9:30pm. A good deal!

I'm between soccer sessions right now, so I didn't have anything else going on tonight. Also I opted to not swim last night cause my stomach wasn't feeling too great. I blame the leftover sushi I deemed suitable for dinner.

So, tonight I was in this pool:

It was alright. There were kids playing at one end, other lap swimmers present (impressive for being kinda late at night), and the pool was certainly clean and well lit, and most certainly near my house (less than 5 minutes away by car). It just didn't have to same energy as the other pool did tho. I'm not sure how to describe it... I think I was painfully aware of the laps I was swimming tonight, where in the other pool I've been going to, I kinda lost myself in the pool and just was swimming.

I tend to not like it when I'm aware of the exercise I'm getting. That's why I like soccer. Oh well... I think my body is benefiting from the swimming sessions (or more specifically my bad foot and knee), so I'll keep it up anyway, even if I do find it tedious. Only what? 5 more weeks to go?

Yes... about 4.5 weeks until event day! Oof... this is kinda getting real, isn't it?

lovely lake oswego

2007-09-01T15:08:00.000-07:00

Total Distance So Far: 233.8 miles

Can you believe it? I've finally succeeded at 2 long group runs on 2 consecutive weekends!!! It's the first time since before my knee started locking up!! This makes me optimistic for event day. Maybe everything I've been doing for the knee/foot issues I've been having is paying off!!

Today's run was out in Lake Oswego. As an added treat, my mom is in town for the weekend, and she is training to walk the Portland Marathon, and I was able to bring her to the TNT group run to walk with the walkers. She was really nervous about the prospect of walking with people who have been training (up till now she's been training on her own out in Eastern Washington, and she had no idea how she was doing compared to how she should be doing). Everyone agreed though, my mom is looking strong. She was averaging faster than a 15 minute mile pace, and she went 20 miles today!!! I think she'll do great on event day.

It was kinda cold when we all convened. Coach Joe was giving us a pep talk about the end of the training, and what to expect as the sun rose behind him in George Rogers Park. What a pretty park, situated pleasantly on the Willamette River just off downtown Lake Oswego.

After the review of the route (the short-hand directions that they gave the runners were very cryptic and difficult to parse), we set off. The first bit was an out and back south of the park along the Willamette River, a 4 mile length. Very pretty! Val and I were practicing the 8 minute run and then a 1 minute walk for this first bit. We continued to take regular walk breaks throughout the rest of our run too, but not as often as during this first bit.

The second bit was through a residential area around the lake (Lake Oswego itself... you know all this time it never occurred to me that the town Lake Oswego was situated on a Lake named Oswego... but it makes alot of sense). This loop (with some additional little loops to up the mileage somewhat) was supposed to be 9 miles back to the park. However, the directions, as I mentioned before, were hard to follow. Several times Val and I questioned where we were supposed to go next, and whether we were hopelessly lost or not. For the most part we were actually correctly on the route, but there was one right turn onto A Street that wasn't marked as a turn. Infact the directions said "straight", so we crossed A Street and went straight. We were on 10th Street at this time... and as we got further in (B Street and 10th, C Street and 10th, etc) I started questioning our decision to go straight so I asked some guy working on his front yard whether we were indeed headed to State Street like we were supposed to be. He said nope. Infact we were going the exact wrong way. oh. He gave us directions back to A Street, insisting that we go his way instead of back track the way we came, so we followed his directions and approached A Street from several blocks further away from State Street than where we were before when we missed the turn... all in all when we got back on the route, according to my Garmin, it was about a 1 mile detour... so our loop around the Lake took Val and I 10 miles... and also allowed a good amount of the faster walkers to pass us. Oof.

While running along A Street toward State Street tho, we came across a large SUV stalled halfway onto the street. There were 2 large guys trying to push it, altho it didn't seem like they were getting anywhere, and a woman behind the wheel turning it in whatever direction the guys told her to. Val and I took one look at eachother, and got infront of the car on the outsides of the guys and helped push. It was mostly uphill, and that SUV was big, so it took a good amount of effort. Finally tho we got the vehicle into the parking lot over the highest bit, and the rest of the parking lot looked downhill or flat, so Val and I decided to continue on our way and leave them to finish taking care of their stalled car. We had about 5 and 1/2 or 6 miles left to go at this point.

The last bit was an out and back along the same course (but supposedly 1/2 mile further up) to round out the last 5 miles... but since Val and I had gained 1 mile through a missed turn, we repeated the first out and back of 4 miles to round out our run.

I was starting to experience noticeably aching knees and feet with about 6 miles left to go in our run... which is about the same distance from the end that my knees and feet started aching last week... so I was able to get 4 miles further this week before my joints started complaining! That was an interesting revelation. They ached so much tho that I was having trouble continuing running, and Val decided to walk with me everytime I declared that I needed yet another walk break. On the final out and back, we walked nearly all of the 2 miles out. At the turn around point I encouraged Val to go ahead and run back if she wanted to, so she took off (mind you, when we turned around I found my mom marching up the hill about 50 feet behind us!). Before she left me, Val encouraged me to try running if the mood struck me, and then took off at a good clip down the hill.

I walked for a little while, and then decided I was bored and wanted the 18 miles over, so I was going to try running again, and took off down the hill after Val, altho I could no longer see her. And, I actually managed to run the entire way back to George Rogers Park at about an 11:30 minute mile! Granted it was mostly downhill, but still it felt good to know I had that in me, even with sore knees and feet.

According to Carl, who was hanging out at the aid station in the parking lot, I was only about 6 minutes behind Val too. She apparently put nearly everything she had left into that 2 mile run back to the parking lot. She hauled butt! heh.

By the time we were done, the sun was high, it was approaching 1pm, and the day CLEARLY was a hot one. My knees were having trouble bending once I stopped running, and Coach Joe urged me to ice them. I am.... right now actually. But hey! I made it! It was a really pretty route too, with beautiful neighborhoods, great water views, challenging hills, and even functioning water fountains along the run! What a charming run today!

My stats from this run:
DISTANCE: 18 miles TIME: 4:04:20 PACE: 13:34 minute miles

Pretty sweet!

driven to the drink

2007-08-28T15:58:00.000-07:00

Total Distance So Far: 215.8 miles

Hehehe, by "driven to the drink" I simply mean I had the yen to go swimming again this Monday.

I showed up to the Columbia Pool again after work, this time by myself, and claimed a lap swimming lane. In the shallower water area there were a bunch of little children (3yrs-4yrs?) doing a first swimming lesson kind of class... involving the singing of songs and lots of laughing while their young parents watched from the side of the pool with large smiles and digital cameras poised.

In the deeper end of the pool there was some sort of senior water aerobics class taking place. I couldn't see what the ladies were particularly doing, but they were hovering in a circle following the instructions of a younger lady. They also seemed to be rather enjoying themselves too.

I like the pool.

I ended up doing the same workout as last time, but found it went faster and was notably easier this week. I might need to up the lap count in order to keep my heart rate nice and elevated for the workout tho.

Warm-up: 4 laps with a kickboard (flutter kick)

Intervals: 2 laps non-stop with a 1 minute break between (x 5, alternating between crawl and breast stroke)

Cool-down: 4 laps with a kickboard (switch between flutter and frog kick)

Hmm... maybe I should consider timing my laps too? That could make things interesting. I'll try that next week perhaps.

another half marathon!

2007-08-26T17:04:00.000-07:00

Total Distance So Far: 211.3 miles

YES! I've passed the 200 mile mark, and completed my second half-marathon distance this month!! Who'd have thunk I could travel that far on foot!?!

The group run this weekend started and ended in Vancouver, WA's Marine Park. I'd never been here before even though it's a very short drive from my house. I found beautiful beaches right on the Columbia River that are very accessible from the trail in the park, and I need to bring my pups back here to go swimming.

The route started with an out and back across the park (3 miles round trip), and then from there in the other direction (west) along Columbia Way to Columbia Shores Blvd over to the trail along the waterfront (access between Beaches and McMenamins restaurants). This trail ends on the sidewalk of Columbia St, and which then curves northward past Esther Short Park (all fenced up for the Wine and Jazz Festival). From there we (the 14 milers) had 2 out and backs... one along Columbia to 20th St and back, and then out along Evergreen over I-5 to Grand (in the historical Vancouver Fort area) and back to Columbia. After these we turned around and retraced our waterfront route back to the Marine Park parkinglot.

Today we also were doing the same route as the walkers. This way we could share aid stations. I understand this will be the case for all our remaining group runs until our event days. It's nice to see how large our team really is.

The weather was low 60's and overcast, but not raining like previously forecasted. I wrapped my knee again, which seems to work in my favor, and headed out on the run with Val. The run was a lot easier than our first 14 miler in the St. John's area. However my knees and hips did begin to ache from the run around mile 8 or 9. We were following a suggestion from Val which she read in the book Marathon by Galloway, that we should take a 1 minute walk break every 8 minutes of running. This was supposed to give us more energy for later in the run, and I think it worked!

Stats...
DISTANCE: 14.0 miles TIME: 3:00:08 minutes AVG PACE: 12:51 minute miles

A pretty good pace considering the frequent walk breaks actually!

back on the elliptical

2007-08-22T18:55:00.000-07:00

Total Distance So Far: 197.3 miles

Just a little note that I spent about 30 minutes in my fitness center again today on the elliptical machine. I'm really getting much better at using it. In the 30 minutes I was on it today it said I went 3.54 miles! That boils down to an 8:28 minute mile pace. I was "running" at over 200 paces per minute for nearly the entire time I was on the thing. I also tried varying the height of the ramp and increasing the resistance for the first time. That made things interesting.

splish splash

2007-08-20T23:43:00.000-07:00

Total Distance So Far: 193.8 miles

Alright alright... I'm not sure the total mileage meter is completely accurate with the latest mileage addition. See, I'm back home again finally, and tonight since my foot is aching quite a bit I opted to go lap swimming with Val in place of running fast around a track. It was one of the low-to-no-impact alternatives Coach Joe suggested to me to get my heart rate up.

When I suggested to Val that I didn't think I should run tonight due to a particularly unhappy foot, she eagerly suggested we try swimming. She even knew where we could find a public pool that was open afterwork! I was up for it.

I met her at her house, and we carpooled over to the Columbia Pool. It was something like $6.25/person to get in. They had 3 lanes setup for lap swimming in the center of the pool. I took a quick tentative lap to see how it "felt" in comparison to our laps on the track. Surprisingly, one lap in the pool seemed to be the same exertion for me as one lap around the track. I shared this with Val and suggested we do 4 laps (i.e. a 200 meter swim) in place of the 10 minute warm-up, and then since the training tonight was 5x 800's on the track (800 = 2 laps around the track) we would replace that with 5x 100's in the pool (surprisingly also 2 laps), then another 200m cool-down. Also, to make the warm-up and cool-down more approachable, I suggested we use kickboards.

So that's what I did for my training tonight. I switched out between breast stroke and crawl stroke, and even threw in a 50m of backstroke for variety. It was a nice change of venue, and man did my arms get tired from crawl stroke! I guess I don't use my arms much when I run. Go figure! hehehe.

Anyway, I think this is a great option for me to get my heart rate up and not put stress on my feet. I might continue to do lap swimming on Mondays.

not exactly the Boston Marathon...

2007-08-17T13:07:00.001-07:00

Total Distance So Far: 189.3 miles

Still in Boston, still running around the pretty reservoir. I've been dragging my dad out to help me go running (i.e. be my aid station and make sure I have water at the ready) at 7am both days I've attempted longer runs. Today was a little more overcast than Sunday, and a little more humid... but a pleasant running temperature all in all, maybe mid 70's?

I've spent the greater part of the week on trains and in Philadelphia actually, much of that wearing my foot splint to keep my bad foot stretched appropriated, but my feet have been more sore than usual all week long. I wasn't entirely sure what that would do for my next run. One thing was for sure: I stayed off my feet as much as I could manage this week, even deciding not to play Dance Dance Revolution on my brother's amazing hard pad controller. What can I say? Marathon training is sacrifice.

So Friday finally is here. Since I (once again) am on a plane tomorrow morning to head back to P-town, Friday was the chosen day to attempt the longer run. The TNT group run on Saturday is going 16 miles... so that's what I was shooting for today. Yeah, I didn't make it.

Here is how I did:
(lap 1) DISTANCE: 1 mile TIME: 10:29 minutes
(lap 2) DISTANCE: 1 mile TIME: 10:38 minutes
(lap 3) DISTANCE: 1 mile TIME: 10:48 minutes
(lap 4) DISTANCE: 1 mile TIME: 11:01 minutes
(lap 5) DISTANCE: 1 mile TIME: 11:11 minutes
(lap 6) DISTANCE: 1 mile TIME: 11:54 minutes
(lap 7) DISTANCE: 1 mile TIME: 11:37 minutes
(lap 8) DISTANCE: 1 mile TIME: 11:57 minutes
(lap 9) DISTANCE: 1 mile TIME: 13:09 minutes
total: DISTANCE: 9 miles TIME: 01:42:44 minutes AVG PACE: 11:25 minute mile

Around lap 6 I was starting to ache quite a bit in both my knees. Every step was an effort following this. During lap 9 though, I decided to take a walking break... and noticed as I did so an overwhelming sensation of fatigue, and blackness creeping into my peripheral vision. That seemed VERY wrong, so I decided to cut my run short right there. Sure enough back at the house I weighed myself, and found I had lost approx 3.5 lbs during this run (even though I was drinking water).

That's a dangerous amount of dehydration, and it was a good thing I stopped when I did.
I blame the humidity out here. I should do better once back in Portland. I'm as exhausted and sore right now as I suspect I would be if I had made it all 16 miles in Portland.

It's amazing how hard the humidity hit me. Both of my runs out here ended up being approximately 1/2 of my goal distance. Go figure.

Hello, Boston!

2007-08-12T12:39:00.000-07:00

Total Distance So Far: 180.3 miles

I had long-standing plans to visit family on the East Coast this week, so surprise! I'm in Boston this week.

Since it seems to be taking me about 2 weeks to recover from the longer runs... I've decided to attempt running 10 miles on Sunday instead of the 12 miles the TNT Oregon team did on Saturday morning. I missed that group run because I had a flight to catch.

My dad (Massachussets resident) had found a location near his house that seemed pretty good to do my runs at. It's a reservoir with a flat running trail around it, banked with pretty boston-esque benches and lots of trees. He sat down on a bench and happily read a book with a pile of water bottles next to him... I began running around the reservoir in laps. Turned out, one lap was 1 mile!

Here is a picture of the reservoir:

I did have my Garmin with me, but unfortunately it never really did get a good satellite link and was constantly losing it's GPS positioning, so the pace and the distance recorded on my unit was all screwy for this run... but I counted laps and had the timer going....

... so here is how I did:
(lap 1) DISTANCE: 1 mile TIME: 10:03 minutes
(lap 2) DISTANCE: 1 mile TIME: 9:47 minutes
(lap 3) DISTANCE: 1 mile TIME: 10:40 minutes
(lap 4) DISTANCE: 1 mile TIME: 10:37 minutes
(lap 5) DISTANCE: 1 mile TIME: 14:27 minutes
total: DISTANCE: 5 miles TIME: 55:34 minutes AVG PACE: 11:07 minute miles

During lap 5, my knee (surprise) locked up. That was it for me for the day. After that happened, I walked back to my dad's bench and we went home.

Not my best run, by any means. I do believe it was the humidity or something that messed with my knee. That's just no good. I did just get here the night before at midnight, so it's also possible I was really worn out from sitting on an airplane and in airports for 14 hours. I'll get as much rest as possible this week and try for a long run again on Friday...

35 elliptical minutes

2007-08-09T15:51:00.000-07:00

Total Distance So Far: 175.3 miles

I seem to have managed to work up to a "10 minute mile" on the elliptical. I decided to just ride the elliptical today until the Distance meter got up to 3.5 miles.... and somehow today that only took 35 minutes... so... weird. I must be getting better at using the thing.

60 minutes on an elliptical

2007-08-08T17:22:00.002-07:00

Total Distance So Far: 171.8 miles

Perhaps I overdid it today... doing 60 minutes (+3-4 minutes cool-down) where probably 45 minutes would have sufficed. But, I did 60 minutes. That + the cool-down took me 6.02 miles, and supposedly I also burned a little over 600 calories in the process.

It was a surreal workout as I had the ENTIRE fitness center to myself for the entire hour. I've never had that before!

I was really hungry when I finished exercising... and then as I waited for my late lunch of tunafish sandwich to absorb into my body, I was pretty sleepy. I'm normal again now tho.

happiness runs in a circular motion...

2007-08-06T21:18:00.000-07:00

Total Distance So Far: 165.8 miles

Another Monday track session... I'm still on the beginner option thanks to my bad foot.
A little cooler and overcast, but a good day to be running. Lincoln High School's track is more enjoyable when the sun isn't beating down. I think it's fortunate that Lincoln High School is in Portland. heheheh...

Ok, the stats:
Warm-up...
DISTANCE: 1.18 miles TIME: 10:31 minutes PACE: 8:55 minute/miles

Laps..
(1) DISTANCE: 0.26 miles TIME: 1:44 minutes PACE: 6:40 minute/miles
(2) DISTANCE: 0.26 miles TIME: 1:47 minutes PACE: 6:41 minute/miles
(3) DISTANCE: 0.26 miles TIME: 1:49 minutes PACE: 7:03 minute/miles
(4) DISTANCE: 0.26 miles TIME: 1:54 minutes PACE: 7:23 minute/miles

Cool-down...
DISTANCE: 0.90 miles TIME: 11:05 minutes PACE: 12:20 minute/miles

half marathon anyone?

2007-08-05T13:52:00.000-07:00

Total Distance So Far: 162.7 miles

Saturday's group run this week was 14 miles long. We were meeting at Pier Park in St. Johns, a new route for the TNT team. Val and I carpooled there. The route, as it was explained to us, entailed 2 laps around a hilly trail-running trail in Pier Park, then out onto Lombard heading west, a left turn onto Columbia, and out to Kelly Point Park... all the way to the back parking lot there. Once in Kelly Point park we again run 2 laps around their pretty paved waterfront trails, and then head back the way we came to Pier Park. TNT had set up aid stations in the parking lots of each park.

It was roughly a 4 mile run between the parks, on roads which frankly lacked... a sidewalk, a shoulder, or any protection from the semi trucks barreling to and from the industrial area that the parks share the space out there with. It was a little uncomfortable, and coach joe admitted he didn't think the traffic was going to be as bad as it was, but he patrolled that stretch in his subaru outback constantly to make sure everyone was ok. It was reassuring to see him every once in a while drive by and wave at us.

Ever worried about my knee, I opted to try something new out. I loosely wrapped my left knee in an ace bandage to keep it warm. I figured it was having trouble when it cooled off too much. Sure enough, the wrap helped keep my knee toasty warm, and I had no problem with my knee freezing up on this run!! That was a relief! The weather was also not humid, and rather sunny on occasion. I was glad that alot of our run (the laps in the park at least) were under some beautiful old growth evergreens, nicely shaded. Oh, I should also mention we saw a decent number of people walking their dogs out at Kelly Point park. It seemed like a wonderful place to let Fido romp in the water.

Val and I made sure to take all the steep downhills walking (I learned my lesson on that 12 mile run), and eventually took some walk breaks on the way back to the first park. Val's toe was killing her, she suspects she might have broken it in one of our soccer games last week. Still we made it all 14 miles in approximately 3 hours.

I say approximately because I forgot to put on my Garmin initially, and snagged it out of Val's truck once we had finished the 2 laps in the first park, before we headed to the other park. The first 3.26 miles of data was effectively lost, and I have no clue how fast we ran it.

The stats I did capture say that we ran the last 10.74 miles in 2:21:41, giving us an average pace of 13:09 minute miles.

Assuming 3 hours for 14 miles though, that would give Val and I an average pace of 12:51 minute miles. That sounds about right actually. We were intentionally taking it slow (for the last 6 miles or so I don't think I could go any faster than I was actually)... but it worked! we made it!!

And, it occurs to me, that we had just ran our first 1/2 marathon distance too! Amazing!!

After the run, Val and I had to prepare for our BBQ fundraiser. We went to Farpost and picked up some donated items for her raffle. After that we went our seperate ways to shower and nap, and then met back up again at Val's house around 2:30pm to setup for the BBQ.

The fundraising BBQ (dubbed "BBQ to Save Lives"), went really well. It was a good time, we had a keg of Coors Light donated by Coors Brewing Company and a load of steak and chicken donated from Albertsons to grill. I even won some soccer gear in the raffle! We drew on the sidewalk with sidewalk chalk, hung around, and had a great time. The weather was perfect too.

Altogether a successful day!

40 more minutes on the elliptical

2007-08-02T22:33:00.000-07:00

Total Distance So Far: 148.7 miles

Just a quick addition to my "running total" to include my 40 minute workout on the elliptical today... 40 minutes came out to 3.72 miles today, so I was pedaling at a slightly higher rate today.

Cheers!

elliptical workout

2007-08-01T13:29:00.000-07:00

Total Distance So Far: 145.0 miles

Wednesdays are supposed to be timed runs according to our workout schedule. I'm, however, not really supposed to be doing anything high-impact between group runs, so I'm banished to the fitness center machines for now.

This was my first time to the fitness center when there was a free elliptical machine. Our fitness center only has 2 of them, and they are a popular device as they provide a decent aerobic workout with low to no impact. The way it achieves this is there are 2 footpads that are cleverly fixed on an elliptical track. A workout motion on an elliptical is something of a combination of a bicycle pedal motion, and a running stride. Your feet never leave the foot pads.

My personal problem with them is I have trouble maintaining my balance on them, and always nearly fall off. Plus there is the added element of feeling like a weirdo, being the girl that is flailing around on the elliptical machine, nearly falling off. No one else seems to have this problem. I must be unique.

Since my feet are a little sore today from my 2 games of indoor soccer last night (shhhh... don't tell anyone I'm still playing soccer this much. Or, um... it's low-impact indoor soccer, yeah!) I wasn't sure how comfortable the elliptical would be, but to my surprise it was very comfortable.

After about 20 minutes on the device I stopped lurching about at strange angles and got more into the rhythm of the machine... however I still had to hold on to the handle bars to keep my balance.

The NICE thing about the elliptical is I learned I'm able to read a book while using it. This helps the time go by wonderfully, as I've got a nice backlog of reading I'm trying to catch up on... not the least of which is Harry Potter book 7... DO NOT TELL ME WHAT HAPPENS IN IT, I'VE YET TO CRACK IT OPEN.

Anyway, I comfortably worked up a good sweat in my 40 minute workout, and the display informed me that my workout was the equivalent of traveling 3.52 miles (if I were pounding pavement I would expect to go 4 miles in that timeframe, so clearly the elliptical doesn't provide you with an equivalent workout as straight up unreconstructed running). I'm supposed to do a 35 minute timed workout tomorrow... altho I'm thinking of doing 40 minutes again, and in the future pumping my 40 minute workout up to maybe 50 minutes?

The interesting thing was stepping off the machine. My legs felt exercised.... which was rather pleasant. However, I also noticed that my feet were still sore. You see, I didn't feel my feet at all while I was on the elliptical, so that tells me that EVEN WITH unhappy feet, I can get a workout on the elliptical. That's good to know!!

a new track

2007-07-31T13:05:00.000-07:00

Total Distance So Far: 141.5 miles

So, the track we'd been going to for the monday faster-run sessions is being re-surfaced now for the rest of the summer. We have been looking for a new track permanently, but in the mean time we met up at Lincoln HS's track (right smack in downtown Portland... I didn't even know there was a highschool there!). It's a nice track, and when we arrived we were informed that we didn't ACTUALLY have permission to be there, so we were supposed to not appear to be an organized running team. The only other occupants of the area was a cheerleading squad painstakingly practicing lifts and throws of their smaller members. It was kinda interesting to watch actually.

It was a nice sunny late-afternoon, and Lincoln HS is not under the looming presence of a large hill like Duniway Track, so my Garmin satellite reception was much more ideal. It is a bit of a shame that the football field the track runs around is actually turf. It made the entire sport field radiate more heat. I think grass goes a long way to cool an area down in direct sunlight. Note to self: plants are good to fight against global warming.

We have ditched the hill ascents for now, and have gone back to the faster laps. I'm still following the "beginner runner" option due to my injuries.

Here are my stats:
Warm-up...
DISTANCE: 1.09 miles TIME: 10:23 minutes PACE: 9:34 minute mile

Laps...
(1) DISTANCE: 0.24 miles TIME: 1:39 minutes PACE: 6:57 minute mile
(2) DISTANCE: 0.24 miles TIME: 1:46 minutes PACE: 7:34 minute mile
(3) DISTANCE: 0.24 miles TIME: 1:54 minutes PACE: 7:45 minute mile
(4) DISTANCE: 0.24 miles TIME: 1:51 minutes PACE: 7:41 minute mile

Cool-down...
DISTANCE: 0.93 miles TIME: 12:20 minutes PACE: 13:19 minute mile

I once again opted to walk the remainder of my cool-down due to my foot situation.

stupid knee

2007-07-29T13:26:00.000-07:00

Total Distance So Far: 138.5 miles

My legs and feet were in pretty bad shape following that 12 miles. They were VERY sore, regardless of me icing them, and using topical anti-inflamatory/analgesic cream, etc. I did no further training all week besides my indoor soccer double-header on Tuesday evening (won 1 game, lost 1 game). Go Team Brown Dog! ahem.

Friday I went to the fitness center at work to perhaps work on an elliptical trainer for 30-35 minutes or so (any earlier in the week and my feet were too much in pain to even consider standing for very long, let alone exercising on them), but when I arrived both of the elliptical trainers were being used, and I had no idea how long I'd have to wait to use them... so I just left.

Finally on Saturday our next group run rolls around. Once again Val and I carpool to OMSI at 7:20am. We are supposed to go 10 miles. I was thinking, sure, if I can do 12 I can do 10! Right? Wrong. I was noticing even before we stepped off in the mid-60 degree, misty morning that my bad knee was feeling a little suspect. I massaged it a little, and decided to try my best anyway.

The course took us along the esplanade, over the Steele bridge, up towards NW 23rd, and beyond that up Thurston all the way to the gate to Leif Erickson Dr in Forest Park (where we started our first 6 mile run). It is a SERIOUS uphill to that point. And then down hill again back to about 19th and Raleigh. Then south on 18th to Everette, then east to the waterfront park... and then finally over the Hawthorne bridge back to OMSI.

Things were going swimmingly up till we were doing the uphill to Forest Park. Then, out of the blue at 4.56 miles my runners knee froze my knee up again. Val slowed down and walked with me (dealing with a pulled muscle herself, so she wasn't feeling great). We walked to the gate, turned around, walked back down the hill to the aid station. About 1.5 miles total. There were still 4 more miles to go to get back to OMSI though. I really didn't think it was a good idea for me to walk it (plus walking that would take over an hour). The aid station lady started making phone calls to try to get me a ride back.

Val left with the run/walkers (run 3 minutes, walk 1, repeat) to finish the course cause she didn't feel done yet. I hung around at the aid station snacking on jelly beans until my ride showed up.

It was disappointing, but I'm not surprised my body wasn't done "resting" yet after the 12 mile run the weekend before. I stayed off my feet the rest of the day, and iced my knee a couple of times. By Sunday my knee felt fine. Heck, all of me felt fine (ok, feet still a little injurred, but that's normal for me anymore). I felt better Sunday morning than I did Friday morning, so I've decided to focus on the next group run instead of dwelling on the last one. Whether it was the colder/humid weather inflaming scar tissue in my knee, or my still-healing sport injuries, or the fact that I got smacked in my bad knee by a warp-speed soccer ball on Tuesday, who knows?

All I know is that my stupid knee isn't cooperating right now.

Gabriel

2007-07-23T15:30:00.000-07:00

Following our 12 mile run, we had our honored teammate breakfast at the Buffalo Gap.

It was a bit of a cruel joke, but our "reserved room" for our buffet breakfast was the second floor. If you have ever ran beyond 6 miles before in your life, you'd know that stairs are the most evil thing to traverse after running. You just don't have the leg control, and every stair hurts.

After my 2 and a half hour run, and the liberation of a handful more of gummy bears from the aid station, I hopped in my car and drove the 2 blocks to the restaurant.. and pulled my way up the stairs using the banister.

There up top we were asked to put on name tags "Hello, my name is..." and then we were allowed to get a plate of food. The food REALLY hit the spot. Assorted fruits, fried potatoes, and scrambled eggs with melted cheese. There were also assorted mini-muffins to choose from, but I'm not much of a "bread" person.

I sat at a table occupied by one lady, and shortly after I got my seat, the other 2 empty seats at our table were claimed. I ended up sitting with 3 experienced marathon runners, who had great stories about the various events they've competed in. I learned about the Disney World marathon, and the Honolulu Marathon. Really interesting.

Eventually (when I was mostly done with my plate of food) we started the proceedings, where 2 honored teammates were invited to share their stories. The first honored teammate (I'm sorry, I no longer remember his name. Perhaps he's the Nike Women's Marathon honored teammate?) got up and talked about how we, the TNT runners, were the real heroes to go through the pain and effort of training for endurance events to raise money and awareness for their cause. It was inspirational, and made me feel good about what we were doing.

When he was done, Gabriel's family went up.

Gabriel's mom Tami did all the talking, and Gabriel angelically and shyly stood by while his mom told their story.

There were a couple moments when Tami was describing the hard times, and she was on the verge of tears: when they relied on all their neighbors and friends to help them get through the days. The type of blood cancer that Gabriel has requires 4 years of treatment (including several rounds of chemo), and at this point Gabriel is about halfway through. It's been rough this far, but they aren't out of the woods yet.

And, I guess there is A LOT to know about the cancer. The hospital gives you a large binder on your way out the door after the first hospital stay with information on the condition/treatments/etc, and you have to read and know this information. Tami said this is where organizations like LLS are invaluable. LLS provides something like 87 informational classes and provide a support community for patients and their families, not to mention assisting families in need with medical costs.

Tami said that she could just about be an RN right now from amount she knows about blood cancers at the moment. She has to read Gabriel's charts and stay ontop of his various levels of everything. SHE has to know what's normal for Gabriel. It clearly has been a terrifying experience for Gabriel's entire family, and as his mom told us about it she absently clung to Gabriel, periodically petting his head. He patiently stood by and listened as we all took in his story.

It really was moving to hear Gabriel's story. His shyness in addressing the room of 50+ strangers all individually interested, and partially emotionally invested in his well-being was also really endearing. But, shy as he may have been, he indulged me in a photo of the two of us...

Yeah, alright. My headshot in that photo isn't the best but Gabriel sure looks good, so I cropped myself out. But look at the nametag, you can see it's me!

After this photo, it was time for me to go home and take a well-deserved hot shower. I went down the stairs carefully, in a procession of other unhappy runners also trying to reach the ground floor... one step at a time. It seemed hauntingly appropriate.

doctors, slings, and accomplishment

2007-07-23T12:47:00.001-07:00

Total Distance So Far: 133.9 miles

I've got a back log of information to lay out... so sorry for the long blog. Let's get started.

On Monday, July 16 I went to the track session, and continued to do the hill ascents with a lap around the track before trucking up the hill each time... walking downhill, no rest between laps. Since I am still nursing a sport injury from over-use, I did 4 laps again instead of the 6 my teammates were doing.

Stats:
Warm-up...
DISTANCE: 1.26 miles TIME: 10:38 minutes PACE: 8:26 minute/mile

Laps...
(1) DISTANCE: 0.45 miles TIME: 4:11 minutes PACE: 9:22
(2) DISTANCE: 0.46 miles TIME: 4:17 minutes PACE: 9:20
(3) DISTANCE: 0.51 miles TIME: 4:17 minutes PACE: 8:25
(4) DISTANCE: 0.45 miles TIME: 4:11 minutes PACE: 9:22

Cool-down...
DISTANCE: 0.77 miles TIME: 10:01 minutes PACE: 13:02

It was a pretty humid day, and I was sweating buckets. I opted to walk the second 5 minutes of my cool-down, which accounts for the slow pace.

***********************

Wednesday I went to see the orthopedic specialist. I was given a large padded plastic contraption to strap to my foot every night when I sleep to stretch my foot at a greater than 90 degree angle. The doc also told me to pick up a pair of good insoles from a sporting good store (he recommended Spenco Polysorbs).

The doctor emphasized my need to stretch my achilles tendon out regularly. That the lack of flexibility on the back of my leg was what caused this condition. I have to admit, I am pretty stiff and inflexible right now. Currently if I stand straight-legged and try to touch the floor, I'm about 3 inches shy of reaching the ground. This is the least flexible I think I've ever been.

The doctor also suggested I do low and no impact activities whenever I can. Replacing the timed run with the same time on an elliptical, stuff like that. I'll see what I can do.

When he first came in and suggested "no running for 2 months" that's when I originally panicked, and realized I needed to take all his suggestions very seriously.

***********************

Due to an extremely busy work schedule and a suggestion to take about 2-3 weeks off of training atleast from the Doctor, I didn't do any of my training for the remainder of the week. I did, however, email coach joe the information from the doctor. I was asking for training schedule recommendations. Joe got back to me and said all the week-day training stuff can be substituted for other things with low to no impact, but he'd still like me to participate in the group runs every saturday. Those were the most important thing and there was no substitute for them.

I was hesitant, but planned on participating.

In the mean time I started wearing the nighttime sling. I quickly learned it's actually more like a medieval torture device. The position it holds your foot in is neither natural nor comfortable. Inevitably I wake up in the middle of the night with my foot in pain, and rip the sling off. The foot, nonetheless, seems to be getting better. My morning symptoms have really reduced. It's amazing the difference the sling is making! I'm guessing one night in the future I'll be able to wear the sling all night long, but right now it's not happening.

Oh yes, and I got the polysorb insoles. The fancy ones for $35. They seem to really help too. I'm optimistic finally!

***********************

Saturday July 21
We met up at Willamette Park for the TNT group run at 7:30am. We're running 12 miles. (btw, Val did her 12 miles on Friday and didn't come to this run). The weather was overcast and humid, around 70 degrees or so.

The course was north from the park along the Willamette Greenway Trail to the Hawthorne Bridge. Over the bridge, and then south on the Springwater Corridor to the Sellwood bridge. Over that bridge and then north on the Greenway Trail again back to the park. At this point we'll have gone 8.3 miles. After that is a 2 mile out and back north again along the Greenway Trail to complete the 12 miles. Only, the course laid out was actually more like 13.3 miles. A half-marathon!

I also have to mention, this course is BEAUTIFUL! The scenery of the Willamette River is quite wonderful, and I was very much enjoying the wild flowers, the great blue herons, and the charmingly situated houses you can see along this course.

I intentionally decided to go slow as molasses so that I could increase my chances of making it through the run. I also opted to spend 30 seconds or less at the aid stations, just long enough to down 8oz of Gleukos sports drink and grab a handful of gummi bears. I didn't want to let my body cool down too much (another theory of mine as to why my previous 2 weekends failed).

It WAS NOT easy. Every step past 6 miles meant that I had healed significantly since last week. Hell, every step past 8 miles was a new record for me. I honestly thought I was doomed at about 9 miles when my GOOD knee started to have problems. Going over the Sellwood bridge was interesting. It's alot steeper than I realized. So coming down off of it there was a decent slope. I was babying my bad left leg, so was absorbing all my downward momentum with my right leg. Approx 1 mile later the right knee started aching... so I'm pretty sure it was my careless use of my good leg to help me down off the bridge. I should have just walked down the bridge in hindsight. blah.

At 9 miles my right knee was hurting and starting to stiffen up... to the point I was wondering if I should just call it good, but I REALLY wanted to go the full 12, so I did something weird. I started running a different way. To me, with slightly numbed legs and sore muscles, it felt like I was leaning forward, keeping my legs straight and kinda behind me, and wiggling my hips up and down in a shimmy... and somehow I was propelled forward! And... it didn't hurt. And... I couldn't seem to do this any slower than a 12 minute mile pace. I was forced to take these teeny tiny steps, and I realized I probably looked like those experienced marathon women that I've noticed at practice who run with tiny steps and not bending their knees much.

So, when I thought at 9 miles I might have to give up, I started running this different way, and I was just propelled the final 3 miles at a faster speed than I even crossed the Sellwood bridge at!! It was amazing.

and... I DID IT!!!

I had my garmin, so as soon as it read 12 miles, I stopped running and started walking.

Mind you, my right knee just stayed very unhappy the rest of the day. But it feels much better today. I think it'll heal. I just need to be careful on downhills.

Stats...
DISTANCE: 12.09 miles TIME: 2:23:00 minutes PACE: 11:50 minute/mile

After the run we had our honored teammate brunch, but I'll blog about that in a seperate blog.
Anyways, looks like I'm back on track! Yay!

sad run

2007-07-15T13:17:00.000-07:00

Total Distance So Far: 118.0 miles

Saturday morning we had an 8 mile run scheduled starting at OMSI and wandering into the NW 23rd area and back to OMSI.

Val and I met up there, and started our run strong... all the way up to the Steele Bridge. We got to it just the same time the bridge was being raised to let a barge through. We opted to wait around for 15 minutes for the bridge instead of going up and over the Steele Bridge like a lot of the other TNT runners. Eventually the bridge was lowered again, and we continued on our way.

We had a little trouble with some of the directions, I kept forgetting to look at the streets, so, for instance, we turned on 19th instead of 15th to go from Thurman to Raleigh, and we went up to NW 24th St before turning right instead of turning on 23rd. We were giggling about it, as were the other runners who were actually following the directions correctly and we kept popping back up on the correct course. All in all I think the distance was the same since NW portland is pretty much on a standard grid.

We turned around at Thurman and NW 28th back the way we came, and did MUCH better at following the directions on the way back.... however at approximately 6 miles into the run, my knee painfully froze up on me again, and my run was effectively finished for me. Sad. Val walked back to OMSI with me. She was doing this 5.5 mile extreme scurry race (race over rough terrain, across streams, etc) on Mt Hood today and wanted to save her energy for that, so she didn't mind not doing the full 8 miles.

The good (I hope) news is, I FINALLY have my first orthopedic specialist appointment scheduled for Wednesday this week (it's taken over a month to get it), so HOPEFULLY things are just going to get better with my foot/knee from here. I'm super intimidated by my running injury now, cause if I can't even go 8 miles, there is NO WAY I'll be able to do the next group run (12 miles), let alone 26.2 miles in Oct.

sad. frustrated. disappointed in myself right now.

I think the worst part was when my knee seized up yesterday morning, I wasn't even breathing hard. I wasn't exhausted, I wasn't done running yet.

stupid knee.

independent running

2007-07-12T20:00:00.000-07:00

Total Distance So Far: 112.0 miles

So, as you probably noticed, I've not blogged since June 28. The reason is because I was happily vacationing for the whole Independence Day week on Whidbey Island.

Needless to say, it was a doggy haven on the water. BEAUTIFUL weather all week long too.

I attempted to stay ontop of my training also...

The day I got there, Sat June 30, I did the 6 mile long run.

See? There I am running with my mom's whippet, Michiko.
Stats...
DISTANCE: 6 miles TIME: 59:44 minutes PACE: 9:59 minute/mile

My mom agreed to play the role of a mobile aid station for me, driving by at 30 minutes with my water bottle. It worked out great! The funny bit about this run was when I was happily chugging along, when out of nowhere a miniature dachsund came charging at me. Not knowing how serious the little dog was, I leapt over the little dog and looked back, the dog was still after me, so I sprinted away from it. Man that was alot of work after running 4 miles.

**************

On Monday, July 2 I did hill ascents up a grassy slope here at Fort Casey

I did 8 nonstop laps of hard runs up the slope and jogging back down the slope. Ofcourse I also did a 10 minute warmup run to the fort from our rental house, and a 10 minute run back home again.
Stats...
warm-up
DISTANCE: 0.91 miles TIME: 10:04 minutes PACE: 11:02 minute/miles

laps
1) DISTANCE: 0.11 miles TIME: 0:50 minutes PACE: 7:45 minute/miles
2) DISTANCE: 0.11 miles TIME: 0:52 minutes PACE: 8:18 minute/miles
3) DISTANCE: 0.11 miles TIME: 0:56 minutes PACE: 8:57 minute/miles
4) DISTANCE: 0.11 miles TIME: 0:56 minutes PACE: 8:57 minute/miles
5) DISTANCE: 0.11 miles TIME: 0:59 minutes PACE: 8:55 minute/miles
6) DISTANCE: 0.11 miles TIME: 0:59 minutes PACE: 8:55 minute/miles
7) DISTANCE: 0.11 miles TIME: 0:57 minutes PACE: 9:05 minute/miles
8) DISTANCE: 0.11 miles TIME: 1:00 minutes PACE: 9:40 minute/miles

cool-down
DISTANCE: 0.98 miles TIME: 10:03 minutes PACE: 10:15 minute/miles

**************

Happy Independence Day!!

Wednesday, July 4 was a 35 minute run. It was getting a little late in the day, but I was planning on running late cause it was a really warm day. The only thing I didn't count on was the wind picking up. I simply did a 17:30 minute run away from the house, and then turned around and headed back. The return run was directly into the wind... it was pretty intense.

Stats...
DISTANCE: 3.52 miles TIME: 35:02 minutes PACE: 10:01 minute/miles

**************

Saturday, July 7 was a little disappointing for me. I was supposed to do a 10 mile run... and had determined the day before that the lake our rental house was next to was circumvented by a ~5.5 mile road. I was going to circle the lake twice, and walk back to the house in a cool down over the final mile after I hit the 10 mile mark... once again my mom was going to play the mobile aid station and drive by every 30 minutes to allow me a drink of water.

Unfortunately, after a strong start (first 5 miles I was going faster than a 10 minute mile pace and feeling great), at approx 7.2 miles I found my knee suddenly and painfully stiffening up on me, just like on that 6 mile run about a month ago.

I tried walking it out, and then running again, which allowed me to run about 20 more feet before the knee seized up again. I continued the run/walking for about .5 more miles before the mobile aid station came by again... and I admitted if I kept it up I'd be doing more harm than good. I gave up at about 7.8 miles and climbed into the car.

So sad.
Stats...
DISTANCE: 7.8 miles TIME: 1:25:15 PACE: 10:46 minute/miles

After the run, we packed up and headed home.

**************

Sunday, July 8 my mom helped me run another garage sale with the remaining items I still had in my garage, and we did really really well!! About twice as well as my first (rained out) garage sale. THANKS MOM!

**************

Monday, July 9 track session again. We were doing slightly different hill ascents. It involved a lap around the track, and then a hard run up the hill, and then a walk downhill to begin the next lap. Coach Joe was telling me to take it a little easy due to my inability to run 10 miles the previous weekend. I only had to do 4 laps of this course instead of the 6 my fellow inexperienced marathon runners were doing.

Stats...
warm-up
DISTANCE: 1 mile TIME: 10 minutes PACE: 10:00 minute/mile

laps
DISTANCE: 1.83 miles TIME: 18:54 minutes PACE: 10:22 minute/miles

cool-down
DISTANCE: 1 mile TIME: 10 minutes PACE: 10:00 minute/mile

**************

Wednesday, July 11 another 35 minute run. I have to mention my plantar fasciitis plagued foot was KILLING me this morning. I decided to run anyway. I tried to take it easy though.

Stats...
DISTANCE: 3.29 miles TIME: 35:04 minutes PACE: 10:40 minute/miles

AND... that's all folks! We're all caught up! I was supposed to do a 30 minute run today, but I'm going to attempt that tomorrow night instead to give my foot a little more time off to heal.

another timed wednesday run

2007-06-28T14:00:00.000-07:00

Total Distance So Far: 84.5 miles

What a great day for a run! It was slightly overcast, about 70 degrees farenheit, with a welcome warmer breeze blowing through every once in a while. I went out and did my 35 minute run around my work campus again.

Wednesday's Stats:
TIME: 35:01 minutes DISTANCE: 3.53 miles PACE: 9:55 minute/mile

... a nice pleasant run.

On Tuesday in the weight room I was looking at the various running routes my fitness center recommends off campus. The shortest one is 4 miles tho, so I'll probably attempt those once our timed runs hit 40 minutes (which unfortunately is no time soon).

a new regime

2007-06-26T21:08:00.000-07:00

Total Distance So Far: 81.0 miles

We are solidly in week 6 of the TNT training now. Among other things this means we are mixing up the weekday training schedules a little.

On Monday at the track session, we started doing "hill ascents." Yep, it's about what you expect... running hard up a slight hill for 100-150 meters, and then jogging down the hill back to the start... these laps are meant to be done nonstop. No rest between laps. For our first day we were supposed to do 8 laps. I knew I'd have trouble counting, so I used the handy "lap" button on my garmin.

I found this hill ascent exercise quite delightful actually, and really enjoyed trucking up the hill repeatedly. It's not as miserable as it sounds. I've been told that's probably cause I'm normally a team sport sprinter tho, so a 150 meter hard run followed by a 150 meter trot is about what an ultimate frisbee game or soccer game is about.

Here are my stats:
warm up...
DISTANCE: 0.59 miles TIME: 5:09 minutes PACE: 8:45 minute/mile

laps...
1) DISTANCE: 0.17 miles TIME: 1:13 minutes
2) DISTANCE: 0.17 miles TIME: 1:19 minutes
3) DISTANCE: 0.17 miles TIME: 1:20 minutes
4) DISTANCE: 0.17 miles TIME: 1:20 minutes
5) DISTANCE: 0.17 miles TIME: 1:22 minutes
6) DISTANCE: 0.17 miles TIME: 1:20 minutes
7) DISTANCE: 0.17 miles TIME: 1:23 minutes
8) DISTANCE: 0.17 miles TIME: 1:54 minutes

The last lap gave me a pretty severe side ache that made it hard to breathe, so I had to step off the track a bit on the trot back to the start so I could catch my breath.

cool down:
DISTANCE: 1.74 miles TIME: 18:29 mintes PACE: 10:39 minute/mile

since I only did 1/2 the warm-up, I did a much longer cool down. Thought that would ballance me off a good deal.

Today was weight training... but this 5 weeks we'll be doing less reps and more weight. Plus we are doing slightly different exercises (like seated row). Anyway, it made weight training today a little more interesting than normal.

a romp around NW Portland

2007-06-23T16:25:00.000-07:00

Total Distance So Far: 77.3 miles

This morning was a group run again. Today we were going 8 miles, and actually (for once) going the same distance as the experienced marathon running group. Normally they are going 2 to 4 miles further than us newbies on the group runs.

Val and I carpooled to Sydney's Cafe where we were all meeting up at roughly 7am. It's located on 14th and NW Thurston (more or less under I-405). All the coaches are out of town this weekend for some TNT endurance event, so today was just the mentors and us runners.

The route was a little complicated. From Sydney's Cafe, we ran over to NW Raleigh, up to NW 23rd, over to NW Everett, downtown to Broadway, north 2 blocks to Glisan, back up to 21st, and then back to Raleigh and back the way we came from Sydney's Cafe... and that was only the first 4.35 miles of the run. It took us roughly 48 minutes to get this far. At this point Val and I attacked the aid station TNT had setup. I occupied myself with drinking Gleukos sport drink and massacring gummy bears. Val decided to try the tangerine flavored Power Bar gel they had out for us, and washed the reportedly terrible taste down with water. She said it was simply awful. During the first half of the run, Val and I found ourselves keeping pace with an experienced marathon runner named Nicole. She was very nice, and the three of us had a great conversation as we wound our way back to Sydney's Cafe. We set out on the second half of the run together too.

The second half of the run went the opposite direction towards Front. Once at Front (only 2 blocks from Sydney's), we ran north along Front until we got to Gunderson's (a welding company?) which was the turn around to go back the way we came... back to Sydney's Cafe. This route was kinda dull, less tree cover, and well, frankly lacked sidewalks for a good quarter mile stretch, forcing us to share the road with the semi trucks. A daunting practice.

Nicole, Val, and I chatted on this leg of the run. She is doing the Nike Women's Marathon in San Francisco which takes place after the Portland Marathon. She ran the Portland Marathon back in 2004, and completed it without walking. Impressive! She thought it was really cool to meet Val and me, and got excited about the prospect of cheering the two of us on when we attempt the marathon in Oct. She may even run a stretch of it with us! That's way cool.

Like last week, the course laid out for us today was actually longer than they told us, so when my Garmin said we had gone 8 miles, all three of us decided to walk the remaining 0.4 miles back to Sydney's Cafe as a cool down. My legs felt like Jell-O on this walk. I blame the gummi treats.

Our run stats:
DISTANCE: 8.05 miles TIME: 1:30:29 AVG PACE: 11:11 minute/mile

Once back, Val and I decided to try Sydney's fare. I had a 12 oz drip coffee, and the most adorable mini cupcake you ever saw, Val enjoyed an iced soy chai. We both have to say, Sydney's Cafe is pretty good. Too bad it's tucked away in such an out-of-the-way location.

We enjoyed our caffeine while sitting in the parking lot amongst other exhausted TNT runners. Sitting down with our tired leg muscles was hard, but not as difficult as navigating steps (up or down). Finally we decided to head out. I dropped Val back off at her house and went home.

I found out after getting home that I actually weighed 1 lbs less than when I woke up this morning. Now... not to get too technical, but I never went to the bathroom between these two weigh-ins, and actually drank a lot of water and ate several snacks.... which means I sweated and/or burned over 1 lbs of water and carbs running 8 miles this morning. That's actually really surprising I think.

Anyway, the good news is altho the plantar fasciitis made it's presence known initially on the run, the pain turned to a dull ache that didn't affect my run I don't think, but more importantly, didn't make my knee hurt! Then again, on Doctor's orders, I've been doing a number of stretches and exercises before bed every night to aid in the healing of the plantar fasciitis and runner's knee symptoms I experienced last Saturday.

Exhibit A

It takes about an hour every night to get through them all. But... as I learned today... totally worth every second.

on the road again

2007-06-20T15:47:00.001-07:00

Total Distance So Far: 69.3

FINALLY, after a couple of awkward weeks, I was able to get back outside running around my work campus for the Wednesday timed run.

It felt GOOD, and I finally feel back on track for my training, even with the plantar fasciitis onboard.

And? I learned that after running 6 miles in my career as a runner, running for 30 minutes is just... nice. Calming. Gentle. Go figure.

Today was a pretty day outside, cloudless. A nice breeze. I headed out for my run when the sun was at it's highest, approximately 1pm, armed with my garmin, ipod, sunglasses, running cap and sunscreen on. I didn't experience any of the same things from that last hot outdoor run either, no side cramp at 2 miles, no listlessness or any feeling like I was losing energy. I also warily eyed every metal grate I passed, just to make sure I didn't step on any.

It just felt GOOD to be out on the open road again.

And, it seems I ran a 5K in my 30 minute run today. According to my garmin my stats for today are:
TIME: 30:06 minutes DISTANCE: 3.12 miles AVG PACE: 09:39 minute mile.

neat! go me!

a little humor to ease the pain

2007-06-19T14:13:00.000-07:00

Total Distance So Far: 66.1 miles

Last night I went to the track to do the interval training after going to see my doctor. Btw, she confirmed that I have plantar fasciitis, so now is lining me up with either a podiatrist or an orthopedic specialist. Also, I now have a number of exercises and stretches to do every day to try to correct the plantar fasciitis. My time commitment towards this marathon has just increased. heh.

At the track, I informed coach Joe of my unfortunate diagnosis. He told me to take it easy, but I could probably still participate in the run that night, etc. I was supposed to run on the grass to decrease the impact on my plantar fascia (fancy name for part of the heel). I did 4 laps of the track and my warm up and cool down, so about 3 miles total last night. Then I went home and did my leg lifts/stretches/icing for my plantar fascia.

Today was a gym day, lifting weights and whatnot. Not very interesting to blog about.

Anyway I also wanted to share this today. My friend Hugo emailed it to me to show his support for my marathon training. I though it was neat, so I'm putting it on my blog.

Cheers!