It's official, I'm signed up to run the "Progressive Marathon" event of The Wipro San Francisco Marathon on Sunday, July 29.
As defined by the SF Marathon folks, a "progressive marathon" means a 5K race where entrants have logged 23.1 mi prior to the event, for a total of 26.2 miles. Get it? To me, it means paying an extra $5 registration fee, logging the training runs I'd be doing anyway on dailymile.com, running the race, and receiving a medal in addition to the usual race shirt and sense of accomplishment. So, really, why not?
And it gets better: The pre-race logging officially started in March, and I joined the challenge at the end of April, and guess what? I've already finished!! Put that together with the fact that I've completed and paid the race registration and bought my plane tickets, and I'm ready to go! Now all I have to do is ... wait two months and nine days, and keep up the running in the meantime.
It's going to be a busy week, by the way. Not only will I check off California (#6) on July 29, but by Saturday, August 4, I'll also have completed a race in Oregon (#7). I have a choice of two: a trail race in a park in Salem on the evening of Thursday, August 2, which was my original plan, or my current preference of the Greater Portland Half-Marathon (5K event) on the morning of August 4. (It will depend partly on how much of an imposition the early start of the Saturday morning race is on the friend I'll be visiting in Portland.)
The Oregon race, whichever I choose, will also be the first race I'll complete on my first-ever visit to the state in question. Only a few races will have this distinction, because I've been fortunate enough to travel around the U.S. pretty extensively in my life. The other states I haven't visited, or at least driven through, are: AK, ID, IA, MT, NE, and WA. This is one of the two especially fun things about this project: getting to see places I haven't seen before. The other especially fun thing will be visiting the friends and family I have scattered about the country. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone!
Meanwhile, I'm working on improving my pace. I'd like to get to a 9:00 mi by the end of the summer, but I also want to keep enjoying running. I'm already starting to dread my runs a little because, well, running faster is harder, and I'm inherently kind of lazy. Trying to balance my preference for keeping this fun with the great sense of accomplishment I feel when I manage to run faster. One approach is to come up with other incentives to get myself to run, as mentioned in an earlier post. It would be really cool if I could convince myself to work hard just because working hard is a good thing to do. Hmm, and if I can do that in the context of running, perhaps I can even translate that to other areas of my life?
For now, I'm just going to plan on running again tomorrow morning.
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Racing is an ego-free zone
5 down, 45 to go. Yes!
That's 10% of the way to my goal, in under one year! At this rate, I may finish 50 races in 50 states well before I'm 50. But I don't want to jinx anything, of course.
It was a little chilly down by the water, and I was kind of regretting the sleeveless top. But, I'd gotten pretty toasty during my warm-up loop around the neighborhood back in RI around 7:30 a.m., and I didn't want to overheat. And I was right, once I was running, I was not missing the sleeves. It was even warmer just a few steps away from the water, at the starting line.
It was a gorgeous day in New London today. Check out that sky behind me!
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| Just after checking in. |
And the race was overall a really nice event. The organizers were great, even when my name wasn't on their pre-registration list. I had pre-registered, but they were having some snags with the whole PayPal thing, and they just took me at my word, had me fill out a new form, and handed me a number and a shirt, no other questions asked. Special shout-out thanks to Jessica, who was really friendly about the whole thing and also chatted with me a bit at the end and expressed enthusiasm about my 50 Races in 50 States project. I don't know whether I'll be able to find time to do this race again in future years, but I would definitely consider it, thanks to the very nice people I met there.
Also, some random other runner very kindly picked up my hat for me when it blew off just about 100 m shy of the finish line. You can't really see the hat in either photo, but it's from my high school ice hockey team, so I would have been really sad to have lost it altogether. The hat decision was mixed in its success: on the one hand, it was a very bright day, and I was glad to have extra help keeping the sun out of my eyes. On the other, it was also pretty breezy, and I kept having to adjust the angle of the brim to keep it from blowing off (any sooner).
Back to the beginning of the race:
It was a little chilly down by the water, and I was kind of regretting the sleeveless top. But, I'd gotten pretty toasty during my warm-up loop around the neighborhood back in RI around 7:30 a.m., and I didn't want to overheat. And I was right, once I was running, I was not missing the sleeves. It was even warmer just a few steps away from the water, at the starting line.
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| At the starting line. I did warn y'all this would all be self-photography, right? |
So, the results: I finished in 28:44 (officially, although my RunKeeper app said 28:36). Official pace was a very respectable 9:16, overall place was 52nd out of 178, division place 8th out of 25 (F 30-39). I'd have to say I'm really quite happy with that!
Which is good, because I'd committed the cardinal sin of going into this race with Expectations. And Expectations are exactly the sort of thing I wasn't going to have when I started this whole racing hobby. When I ran my first race last June, my goal was to finish. Ideally, finish having run the whole thing, and not finishing last would be a great bonus. And then I did really well, relatively speaking, and suddenly I started to get Ideas. Put that together with a pretty slow run in Portsmouth and some better training times in the past couple of weeks, and my Ideas started to turn into the aforementioned Expectations that I would somehow be Fast this time.
And then the horn went off, and all the people who always pass me at the start started passing me, and suddenly there were small children running ahead of me. I mean really small children. And also people who were older than I am, look less "fit" than I think I do (whatever that means), and generally all sorts of folks that my middle-school-arrested ego somehow thought "shouldn't" be able to run faster than I can.
Can we just examine that thought for a moment? A year ago in March, I ran more than half a mile successfully for the first time in my life. Until that point, the list of people who "should" be able to run faster than I can included, oh, pretty much everyone on the planet who'd ever run and probably a bunch who hadn't.
Fortunately, since I don't run races with earphones or a playlist, I had upwards of 28 minutes to think about things, and all of this occurred to me. It occurred to me pretty early, even. In fact, I came up with the title of this post sometime in the bottom half of mile one. Simply put, my ego has no place in a race. My enthusiasm? Sure. My ambition? Hey, why not. But an ego that's based in running faster than other people? That's just going to leave me feeling frustrated at best, and at worst could cause me to push myself hard enough to hurt something. I won't do this that way. I'm going to keep it fun.
The only ego trip I'm going to allow myself from now on? Working on this goal. It's fun, it makes me feel good about myself, and it leaves me room to do all this at my own pace (literally and figuratively) without putting myself at risk for injury. And if I happen to learn, somewhere along the way, that someone else is working toward the same goal (or has perhaps already run a certified marathon in every state plus D.C.), then the more, the merrier.
And with that bit of navel-gazing, I'm going to give my New Balances a rest for a few days. My next race is in San Francisco in late July, and I'm only about 4 miles from completing the pre-race portion of the Progressive Marathon. I think I can afford a week off.
You know. Unless I just happen to feel like going out for a run.
Which is good, because I'd committed the cardinal sin of going into this race with Expectations. And Expectations are exactly the sort of thing I wasn't going to have when I started this whole racing hobby. When I ran my first race last June, my goal was to finish. Ideally, finish having run the whole thing, and not finishing last would be a great bonus. And then I did really well, relatively speaking, and suddenly I started to get Ideas. Put that together with a pretty slow run in Portsmouth and some better training times in the past couple of weeks, and my Ideas started to turn into the aforementioned Expectations that I would somehow be Fast this time.
And then the horn went off, and all the people who always pass me at the start started passing me, and suddenly there were small children running ahead of me. I mean really small children. And also people who were older than I am, look less "fit" than I think I do (whatever that means), and generally all sorts of folks that my middle-school-arrested ego somehow thought "shouldn't" be able to run faster than I can.
Can we just examine that thought for a moment? A year ago in March, I ran more than half a mile successfully for the first time in my life. Until that point, the list of people who "should" be able to run faster than I can included, oh, pretty much everyone on the planet who'd ever run and probably a bunch who hadn't.
Fortunately, since I don't run races with earphones or a playlist, I had upwards of 28 minutes to think about things, and all of this occurred to me. It occurred to me pretty early, even. In fact, I came up with the title of this post sometime in the bottom half of mile one. Simply put, my ego has no place in a race. My enthusiasm? Sure. My ambition? Hey, why not. But an ego that's based in running faster than other people? That's just going to leave me feeling frustrated at best, and at worst could cause me to push myself hard enough to hurt something. I won't do this that way. I'm going to keep it fun.
The only ego trip I'm going to allow myself from now on? Working on this goal. It's fun, it makes me feel good about myself, and it leaves me room to do all this at my own pace (literally and figuratively) without putting myself at risk for injury. And if I happen to learn, somewhere along the way, that someone else is working toward the same goal (or has perhaps already run a certified marathon in every state plus D.C.), then the more, the merrier.
And with that bit of navel-gazing, I'm going to give my New Balances a rest for a few days. My next race is in San Francisco in late July, and I'm only about 4 miles from completing the pre-race portion of the Progressive Marathon. I think I can afford a week off.
You know. Unless I just happen to feel like going out for a run.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Aches and pains ... and rewards.
My family gathers for a reunion in Ft. Walton Beach, FL, every year in June. When I arrived at the beach last year, I had just completed my first-ever race, and was also seeing all my cousins for the first time in about a year ... a year, during which I had lost about 40 lbs. So, naturally, everyone wanted to talk to me about my visible changes and what I'd done to lose the weight, and when I mentioned running, I quickly learned/was reminded that there are a lot of other current and former runners in the family.
One of my cousins said something which has stuck with me, at least in paraphrase: "Some days [while running], you don't even notice you're doing it, and some days every step hurts." My response was basically, if every step hurts, I don't do it ... but now that I have my 50 races goal, if I'm getting close to a race date, I do sometimes feel obligated to run even when I don't really feel like it.
Now, there's running when I don't feel like it, but then once I'm doing it, it feels good, which is pretty much my normal state of mind because I'm a chronic procrastinator. (Honestly, I'm the same way about practicing my oboe. How I ever got to be a freelancer who actually gets gigs is beyond me.) But then, there's running when I don't feel like it because I'm sick or sore or over-tired and really don't feel like it. After a pretty inactive week last week, I really wanted to get some training in this week so that I would feel ready for this Saturday's race. I had a good run just after posting on Saturday, and then got out again on Monday morning. And this is where things went not-so-well: my lower back had been sore on Sunday, which I'd chalked up to too much standing around in heels during church, and the first maybe 3/4 of a mile of my Monday morning run felt fine ... and then it didn't. I kept going, at a slightly relaxed pace, through the rest of a 5K, but my back hurt kind of a lot by the time I was done, and stayed sore for the next few days. As a result, I've avoided running (and it's been pouring, anyway).
Coincidentally, DailyMile posted an article today about What to Do When Everything Goes Wrong in training. I definitely am guilty of beating myself up when I don't stick to my planned running schedule, and I think there's some advice there I could stand to follow. (Yes, I both procrastinate and beat myself up when I don't stick to my training. Relaxing hobby I've taken up, no?) Anyway, as I keep telling myself, I'm not running to win anything. I'm running to finish 50 races in 50 states. No one said anything about pace or times. Except when I say something about pace or times. And then remind myself that I'm only running to finish.
But, since I have a race this Saturday, I did want to get back out there and run this afternoon. I happened to have my annual physical yesterday, and my doctor indicated that running should actually be good for my back, so since I was free after work today and my back is feeling better and the race is in two days and the rain finally let up, I decided I would go for a run this afternoon. I came home, changed into my running clothes, had a little snack while watching an episode of The Daily Show on Hulu (because I was hungry and, you know, procrastinating a little) ... and promptly fell asleep as soon as the episode was over. This actually worked out, because another few rain squalls blew through in the next hour and I ended up finally feeling ready to run a little before suppertime, just as the sky was finally clearing for real.
Lucky for me, a new taco place just opened up in my neighborhood which offers cheap, fresh, tasty and relatively healthy tacos. By taking a circuitous route, I could stretch it out to a little over 3 miles from my house to there. And what better way to reward myself for finally getting out and running? Sure, the run itself, maintaining a healthy 9:12 pace with my back feeling good and my legs feeling strong, as the late-spring evening sunlight turned toward golden and the weather was warmish with a moderate breeze off the water, could have been considered reward enough.
But all that plus tacos? Even better.
I got three to go (one "green monstah" and two "fun guy"s), and walked home—which is actually only about a mile—in the golden sunshine, my take-out bag in hand, my running playlist still playing in my headphones. Not a bad way to wrap up my training for Race Number Five.
See you in New London on Saturday! And if I don't, you'll get to read about it here.
One of my cousins said something which has stuck with me, at least in paraphrase: "Some days [while running], you don't even notice you're doing it, and some days every step hurts." My response was basically, if every step hurts, I don't do it ... but now that I have my 50 races goal, if I'm getting close to a race date, I do sometimes feel obligated to run even when I don't really feel like it.
Now, there's running when I don't feel like it, but then once I'm doing it, it feels good, which is pretty much my normal state of mind because I'm a chronic procrastinator. (Honestly, I'm the same way about practicing my oboe. How I ever got to be a freelancer who actually gets gigs is beyond me.) But then, there's running when I don't feel like it because I'm sick or sore or over-tired and really don't feel like it. After a pretty inactive week last week, I really wanted to get some training in this week so that I would feel ready for this Saturday's race. I had a good run just after posting on Saturday, and then got out again on Monday morning. And this is where things went not-so-well: my lower back had been sore on Sunday, which I'd chalked up to too much standing around in heels during church, and the first maybe 3/4 of a mile of my Monday morning run felt fine ... and then it didn't. I kept going, at a slightly relaxed pace, through the rest of a 5K, but my back hurt kind of a lot by the time I was done, and stayed sore for the next few days. As a result, I've avoided running (and it's been pouring, anyway).
Coincidentally, DailyMile posted an article today about What to Do When Everything Goes Wrong in training. I definitely am guilty of beating myself up when I don't stick to my planned running schedule, and I think there's some advice there I could stand to follow. (Yes, I both procrastinate and beat myself up when I don't stick to my training. Relaxing hobby I've taken up, no?) Anyway, as I keep telling myself, I'm not running to win anything. I'm running to finish 50 races in 50 states. No one said anything about pace or times. Except when I say something about pace or times. And then remind myself that I'm only running to finish.
But, since I have a race this Saturday, I did want to get back out there and run this afternoon. I happened to have my annual physical yesterday, and my doctor indicated that running should actually be good for my back, so since I was free after work today and my back is feeling better and the race is in two days and the rain finally let up, I decided I would go for a run this afternoon. I came home, changed into my running clothes, had a little snack while watching an episode of The Daily Show on Hulu (because I was hungry and, you know, procrastinating a little) ... and promptly fell asleep as soon as the episode was over. This actually worked out, because another few rain squalls blew through in the next hour and I ended up finally feeling ready to run a little before suppertime, just as the sky was finally clearing for real.
Lucky for me, a new taco place just opened up in my neighborhood which offers cheap, fresh, tasty and relatively healthy tacos. By taking a circuitous route, I could stretch it out to a little over 3 miles from my house to there. And what better way to reward myself for finally getting out and running? Sure, the run itself, maintaining a healthy 9:12 pace with my back feeling good and my legs feeling strong, as the late-spring evening sunlight turned toward golden and the weather was warmish with a moderate breeze off the water, could have been considered reward enough.
But all that plus tacos? Even better.
I got three to go (one "green monstah" and two "fun guy"s), and walked home—which is actually only about a mile—in the golden sunshine, my take-out bag in hand, my running playlist still playing in my headphones. Not a bad way to wrap up my training for Race Number Five.
See you in New London on Saturday! And if I don't, you'll get to read about it here.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Anyone for a trip to CT?
One week from today, I'm running my next race: the 5K River Run for the [James A. Greenleaf, Jr., Memorial Scholarship] in New London, CT. It's been quite the week for failing to get out and run, but my training pace has been pretty good when I have gotten a run squeezed in, and I'm excited to do this fifth race (10% of the way to my goal).
As of this writing, this will be my first race without my own, personal cheering section. My parents have been amazing about coming to all four of my races so far, but this is a bit of a hike and a busy time of year for them, so they'll probably have to skip this one. And yet, it's not so far from RI to New London ... The current weather forecast looks pretty good, and the race location looks lovely. What better way to spend a Saturday, eh? Maybe I can talk a few RI friends into joining me? If not, dear readers, please forgive the low-quality self-photography that is likely to accompany the post-race post.
Meanwhile, I suppose I'd better actually go for a run today. Have I mentioned that this week has been the perfect storm of reasons to procrastinate? Between cold, rainy weather, a generally busy schedule, my exhaustion after last week's ridiculous out-of-town gig (which at least had the redeeming factor of giving me the opportunity to hang out with my sister for a bit, but still totally wore me out), and some other biological factors which I will demurely file under "female," I just have not been able to get myself to run.
Oddly, though, the one time I did run (before lunch on Wednesday), I only took a few steps before my body said, "Finally, you're letting me run!" ... and I managed to maintain one of my better training paces yet. Not that it was all that fast, just that it was a little faster than I usually go.
The website for the Greenleaf run says the course is "picturesque, flat and fast!" [exclamation point theirs], so this could be a pretty good race for me.
Maybe you'll be there to see it?
As of this writing, this will be my first race without my own, personal cheering section. My parents have been amazing about coming to all four of my races so far, but this is a bit of a hike and a busy time of year for them, so they'll probably have to skip this one. And yet, it's not so far from RI to New London ... The current weather forecast looks pretty good, and the race location looks lovely. What better way to spend a Saturday, eh? Maybe I can talk a few RI friends into joining me? If not, dear readers, please forgive the low-quality self-photography that is likely to accompany the post-race post.
Meanwhile, I suppose I'd better actually go for a run today. Have I mentioned that this week has been the perfect storm of reasons to procrastinate? Between cold, rainy weather, a generally busy schedule, my exhaustion after last week's ridiculous out-of-town gig (which at least had the redeeming factor of giving me the opportunity to hang out with my sister for a bit, but still totally wore me out), and some other biological factors which I will demurely file under "female," I just have not been able to get myself to run.
Oddly, though, the one time I did run (before lunch on Wednesday), I only took a few steps before my body said, "Finally, you're letting me run!" ... and I managed to maintain one of my better training paces yet. Not that it was all that fast, just that it was a little faster than I usually go.
The website for the Greenleaf run says the course is "picturesque, flat and fast!" [exclamation point theirs], so this could be a pretty good race for me.
Maybe you'll be there to see it?
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