The first half...

Well, Sunday was the big day.  We ran a half marathon and our mileage was an average of 11:26.  Now, I know that this sounds really slow to some of you runners, but that's actually four seconds faster than the pace for which we trained for Steamboat.  That's great because Corey and I took three bathroom breaks (the revenge of the Cheese Its- more on that gastronomical disaster later) and we walked a little at the end, so that means that we are getting faster overall, I think.  We ran about the same pace for four miles, so I feel great to have run a similar pace for 13 miles.  I was #67 out of 89, but I am okay with that- nowhere to go but up!

So, I want to talk about the weeks leading up to the half.  Those were interesting.  By interesting, I mean crappy, really.  The last two weeks we were supposed to be tapering, and that was fortunate since there were just so many issues that came up that I don't think we would have gotten through our runs otherwise.  To begin with, I fell again.  Ugh!  I am seriously such a klutz.  This time, I was on main street in front of some local businesses.  Of course it was about 8:30 in the morning, and everyone was around, so I am sure that a lot of people saw me biff it.  Ggrrr!  I felt like the kid that falls that has that moment of indrawn breath before she bursts into tears and yelling.  I just had that moment of indrawn breath during which I made sure I hadn't really broken anything, and then I had to just suck it up and hoof it home instead of yelling.  I skinned both my knees this time, instead of just one, and I reopened the one that was partially healed.  After that fall, I am pretty sure I gave myself whiplash.  My neck and head hurt off and on for ten days after that.  That sharp jerk was terrible on my neck, worse than the rollover accident I had during the winter. 

Corey, meanwhile, came home with a cold, which he caught at work.  He was congested and miserable, and I ended up catching it too, so I was then congested and miserable as well.  Well, he kept complaining about how he wasn't feeling well, and his back was hurting.  I didn't think that much about it, but then he called and told me he had gone to the doctor because the pain was so bad, and he was diagnosed with shingles (herpes zoster).  Fortunately, I have had chickenpox, so I couldn't catch it from him, but that made for a really sore few days for him.  He didn't want to run, and I was still recovering from the cold and didn't want to run much either.  We were pretty unmotivated, despite the fact that the half was approaching.  I think we actually missed a run or two, and that has never happened before.

During this time, school started for me, and I had to get my classroom ready.  It really messed up my schedule to have to actually go back to work (it gets in the way of so much I want to do- haha).  Usually, I would get Corey off to work at 6:30 and then I would go for a run.  I love running in the morning.  Everything feels so fresh, and I love the feeling of running into the morning mist.  Well, since gas has skyrocketed, Corey and I try to always commute together, so now I have to also leave at 6:30.  No more morning run unless I want to run at 4:30ish.  Ugh!  I am not an EARLY morning person, so I had to adjust my runs to nighttime.  I also started my ISU classes as well, so that was an added stress, and I had to figure out how to work in my runs around all that. 

So even after all that, we still managed to work in enough running to be ready for the Peoria Half Marathon on Sunday, 8/28.  Our last long run was the Saturday before, and at mile 6ish, I had to stop and walk home with a raging case of runner's diahrea.  It was awful.  I have had this happen before- running just bounces things around inside me, so if I have eaten at all crazy, then I usually have to have a pit stop at some point.  The good thing was that I was somewhat close to home and not in a cornfield somewhere- I have had that experience as well, and it was NOT good.  So you'd think I would learn, but of course I never do.  The Saturday before the half, I had my first Saturday class at ISU.  To deal with my distress over having class on the weekend, I binged a bit- to the tune of almost an entire box of reduced fat (oh that was so helpful) Cheese Its crackers.  Cheese Its will (not shockingly) give you loosey poopies like anything else, so let me just say that I really regretted my indulgence on Sunday.  When I run, I get sweaty- really, really sweaty.  When my butt is that sweaty (my whole body, really), I almost slip off the seat constantly, and on a porta potty at mile 6, slipping is not an option I like very much.  The slurry at the bottom of the porta potty is pretty gross, and the thought of slipping anywhere near it is enough to make me a champion squatter, but at some point, my legs were just too shaky, and I had to plop down on the seat.  Much slipping and sliding occured, but fortunately (this one and only time) my butt was too big to let me slip into the porta potty, so I managed to do my business in safety.

From obese to "just" overweight...

Yes!!!  I got up this morning and weighed myself- 192.8!  Yeah!  Okay, so in terms of BMI, I am now officially classified as overweight instead of obese.  That's an improvement, right?  My BMI is 29.3, which is the high end of overweight, but still... Since I started out with a BMI of 50.8, I am pretty happy to see 29.3!  When I reach 170 lbs., I will officially be in a normal weight range for my height, according to the BMI calculator.  My goal is really 150 lbs.; I will have a BMI of 22, which is supposed to be the optimal BMI for good health.  Plus, being 150 lbs. would be pretty awesome.  The smallest I can ever remember being was 101 lbs. the summer between third and fourth grade.  I can also remember losing weight during the summer between fifth and sixth grade and being able to buy a women's size 6 dress.  So, at 150 lbs., I may be the same size as I was in sixth grade.  Pretty freaky...

Here's the proof!

Staring Kathleen the Klutz Queen...

 How many of you remember that poem about your birth day of the week?  You know the one: Monday's child is fair of face... etc.  Well, I am a Tuesday's child, which means I am supposed to be full of grace.  Hahaha... Joke's on you, poetry.  When I was five, my mother enrolled me in dance classes, and that's when we learned in a very quantifiable way just how graceless I actually am.  All the other little girls would go left, and I would dance right.  They would twirl, and I would fall.  It was just not my thing.  That was 1984.  Fast forward to 2011.  Well, turns out that running also takes a little coordination.  On my four mile run on Monday, the pavement and I had a little run-in (pun intended). 


Notice the lovely purple bruising.  All the blood in my muscles from my run rushed right to
my injury and made it look worse than it was.  It didn't stay bruised looking, fortuntately.


Because I had a late night on Sunday, I decided to run in town on Monday morning.  You know, less hills = easier run.  So I took what Corey and I have dubbed the "Market Loop."  This is a two mile loop that runs by the Elmwood Market and only has a single hill at the one mile mark.  This route also provides a convenient bathroom stop either at my house at the end of two miles, or at the Elmwood Laundromat (sorry, Laundromat) at mile 1.5.  I rocked through the first loop; I was feeling pretty good- not too tired, and I ran the majority of the second loop without incident.  The end of this loop takes me down Main Street to Knox, where I turn to run home.  Main Street, as the name implies, is one of the main arteries of our small community, and as such has many cars and other vehicles, not to mention businesses and houses along its path.  All the houses on this street are the old Victorian kind, which makes for a visually stimulating run.  This is why I included Main Street as part of the Market Loop.  Okay, now that you have a visual of Main Street, I want you to imagine the landscaping that these old houses have.  Are you seeing big trees?  You should.  A lot of the old houses also have old trees, which make for a nice, shady stretch of run, but also means the pavement can be a little uneven. 

Here is my road rash (lol) a few days later.

Even knowing that the pavement is cracked in spots, and having run this loop for 4+ months now, I still managed to fall on the last half mile of my Monday run.  Grrr... I was running by the funeral home on Main when I looked over at a red truck driving by.  This one look was enough to help my toes catch in the cracked pavement and send me sprawling.  I skinned both my knees, my left leg, and both my palms.  I guess I am lucky I caught myself and didn't skin my face.  So now, because it is shorts season being that is is HOT, I get to have everyone stare at my leg and ask what happened.  Then I get to inform them about what a total klutz I am that I can't even run on a flat course.  Luckily, I was almost done with the run, and I was close to home.  Unluckily, I fell where everyone outside saw me- the truck I had looked over at slowed down to make sure I got up, so they definitely saw me bite the dust.  Oh well... At least I wasn't out in the country with six miles left, I guess.  I picked myself up and ran the rest of the way home. 

My leg looks the worst.  It looks kind of like road rash.  That's what I should say happened to me to when people ask- I had a motorcycle accident and fell off my hog.  Unfortunately, I don't look like the motorcycle mama type (although I am not sure I look like the running type either).  I will just have to live with the (mild) embarrassment until everything heals.  (Insert eye-roll here.)

The Worst Run...

Mile 8, exhausted, sitting on a bridge in the middle of my run.

On Saturday, I had the most miserable run I have had up to this date (I'm afraid there will be worse).  Now, this is all based on my vast experience of four months of running, but Saturday was pretty sucky.  Based on our half marathon training schedule, we had to run 11 miles.  10 miles the previous Saturday hadn't been so bad, so I had few reservations about running 11.  Wow, was I mistaken.  I think what sabotaged the run partially was that I ignored all proper preparation the day before.  Friday, I ate so much crap.  Some days I am super disciplined, and I can say no to all junk food, but there are days when my will power is almost nil, and I just have to have a splurge; it's never a great food choice (usually candy, ice cream, or potato chips), but it's small enough that it doesn't affect my weight loss too much.  Friday was neither of those types of days.  I didn't binge, but I didn't exactly hold back.  I kind of grazed a lot throughout the day.  I think I may have eaten close to a half a can of Pringles (oops) and just a lot of little junk that added up to a lot of calories.  My justification?  I am running eleven miles tomorrow.  This is why I haven't lost tons of weight while running.  I have some friends who also run (Jodi and Sami), and they have also witnessed this phenomenon.  There is way too much room for the justification of junk food when engaging in any strenuous activity.  Sigh...

I also went grocery shopping Friday night, and since I am a big couponer and bargain hunter, my list included three different grocery stores.  We were out pretty late, and we didn't get to bed until close to midnight.  Skip to Saturday morning now.  I ate crap the whole day before, and I only got about 4 1/2 hours sleep. To run 11 miles.  In the summer.  Through the country on a bunch of hills.  Yes, it sucked. 

I woke up incredibly grouchy, like I had a terrible case of PMS.  Corey got the brunt of that, unfortunately for him.  Usually I want to hit him over the head to steal his water bottle; last Saturday, I just wanted to hit him over the head.  We also had to go drop off water every two miles, so it was kind of intimidating to see how far we were going to run.  I'm thinking to myself, "Holy cow, it took us 15 minutes just to drop off all the water.  How long is this going to take us to run it all??" 

Tired, self-defeating, grouchy, and with a junk food hangover, I started running with Corey at 6:00.  That sounds pretty early until you know that we got up about 4:30.  That's how slow we were both moving and how much preparation went into the run that morning.  Miles 1-4 were okay.  The first two miles were part of the new 11 mile loop that we had made up, but miles 3-4 were familiar, and the country was pretty.  Corey sang "You Are My Sunshine" to me while we ran in the hot summer sun, and the fact that running is a mood lifter was very fortunate for him because by then, my bad mood had shifted which meant that he didn't get his eyes scratched out for being so cheery. 



No cheeriness in evidence here.  This was about mile 9, and Corey is looking tired.

 Mile 5 was where things started going wrong.  We had to run by the main street into Elmwood, and I really wanted to take it and call it quits.   Even though I was in a better mood, I just felt so tired, and it was getting hotter and more humid by the moment.  By that time, we had been running for just a little over an hour, and the sun was fully up.  Plus, we weren't even half way done, and I think I psyched myself out about that fact rather than giving myself the mental pep talk I needed.  By mile 6, we broke out these chewy energy bites that are like gummy bears for runners.  I ate a few of those and gulped down some Gatorade G2, but I was dragging.  We walked some and then ran from mile 7 to mile 8.  From mile 8 to nine, we ran some and walked some, but I was so tired, I was not running so much as shuffling.  We actually stopped at a creek, and I sat down on the bridge for a quick break (sitting is not good for long runs- you have to get back up, which is the worst!).  Okay, so now I am telling myself to just suck it up and run; I have control over my legs, I can keep going, it's not that long, I'm not really exhausted, etc.  When we hit mile 10, we actually ran past the street to our house, and that was terrible because all I wanted to do was run home.  Instead, we ran up the last hill (hallelujah) and turned around and ran back to our street and to our house.  I actually raced Corey on the last three blocks to our house, and despite the fact that I cut through our neighbor's lawn, he still beat me. 

What this teaches me:
1.  Don't eat junk food the day before a long run.  Food hangover is terrible, and it makes for a crappy run, which is bad enough for four or five miles, but almost unbearable for eleven.
2.  Get enough sleep the night before.  Running takes energy, so SLEEP!!!
3.  I actually AM in control of my legs.  Even though they really wanted to stop and go home at mile 5, I made them go six more miles, and they ran the majority of that distance!  Way to go, legs!!!