made my day

1. Little J on the kitchen floor, engineering a box-robot costume with tape and asking me to cut a hole here, a hole there.

2. Changing the strings on my guitar, myself, for the first time ever. [I know; I'm a serious hack. 15 years of playing and always waiting for my mom or brother to change the strings. LAY-ZEE.] Well, “myself” is not totally accurate; mom was on the other end of the phone line, describing which way to fold the string under itself and which way to turn the machine head.

3. Fried chicken and Cash Cab and the family around the table for dinner: we eat and holler answers. Isotope. Helena. Kelvin. Neo-natal.

In other news, I’m waiting patiently for the report from the Moose, who should be returning from Rome any day now, and steeling my knees for our* first long run this weekend: 9.

*Actually, let me add another to the above list:

4. When I say “our” first long run, I mean me and my York running mates, L and S. I’m so lucky to have found them. They are true adventurers: neither has run a marathon before, both are excited and enthusiastic to be training for one, and the three of us make my favorite kind of crew: motely. More on them to come, I’m sure.

inaugural

I ran four of the hilliest miles evar today. My quads are killing me, and I’m working hard to resist the Nutty Bars in the cabinet.

the *real* marathon training season

As D illustrates today in one of her signature acronym-busting posts, finding a proper marathon training schedule can be as painful as the training itself. Well, not really, but it sounded good.

But it’s only hard if you want to do something silly, like PR or BQ or run the damn thing under 5 hours. None of which I am particularly interested in doing*.

Anyway, since I’ve officially drafted an entire dissertation (let’s not get too excited here: much much much revision will be necessary), I’m rewarding myself with a full-marathon registration (the Wineglass in October), since now I will ostensibly feel less guilty spending 10 hours on my weekends running. Also, I’ve been able to convince Rb to run it with me–which adds a good deal of incentive for me to train.

Normally I go with the old standby, Hal Higdon, using the either the beginner or first intermediate mileage schedule, depending on how much of a wuss I feel like when I begin the training. This time I’m going to change it up, and go with this schedule, which clumps the mileage up a little more than Higdon’s and has at least two days of rest a week. Something I’ve noticed about my running is that I do really well if I let myself rest, and that I’m most prone to injury when I run for several days without an off day. Last year D and I ran a crazy streak, where we went every day for like 90 days**. I put myself out of commission for Buffalo in 2007 and ended up only running the half. (D of course, with her amazing biomechanics, extended the streak much longer than I could, and was still able to run the full.)

So, this schedule emphasizes the days off, some weeks giving me THREE days off. My kind of training. It starts on Sunday, and I am utterly and ridiculously giddy about the prospect.

*OK, it would be nice to run another sub-5 marathon, since I’ve only successfully done so one other time.

**This is probably exaggeration. I’m not hunting into the archives to confirm the exact days.

buffalo half race report

See last year’s report here.
And the year before, when I ran the full.

A quick rundown this year, as we are gearing up for a family day of hiking at Salmon River Falls.

This year, the Buffalo race was about two things: J running her first half, and D working her ass off to qualify for Boston.

And while the weather was beautiful (blue sky, cool breezes) and J did wonderfully in her first stint as a half-er, in retrospect it seems like the day was doomed for disaster for lots of other runners.

The course was lovely as always, well-prepared at the water stops even for the slower runners like J and me. The race itself, for us, was relatively uneventful. We finished in under J’s goal time (2:30), running the 13.1 in 2:28. This was an achievement, considering J has never run this distance AND we made a pit-stop in the marina around mile 5.

We finished and walked north to the hotel, showered and put our feet up for a few minutes before walking back south to the finish line to meet D. I was afraid we left the hotel too late and that we would miss her: a BQ time for her had to be somewhere between 3:45 and 3:50 (she’s on the cusp of an age group, so 3:50 would have qualified her next year). She had trained incredibly hard the past several months, and even had dropped several pounds (which is quite amazing since she was a veritable rail in the first place). I was certain that this would be her year for a qualifying time.

We made our way to the barricades at the finish line, and I watched runner after runner cross the line between 3:45 and 4:00, thinking that because we hadn’t seen D cross yet that we’d missed her already, and hoping hoping hoping that that was the case.

As we waited, I saw one runner barf his guts out upon crossing the finish line (thankfully it was all Gatorade and nothing too nasty), watched another runner be carried across the line between two friends, and witnessed several people crying.

And no D.

At 4:05 I began to worry that she was still out on the course, crippled or otherwise badly compromised, and tried to remember her number so I could find an official and see if she’d been picked up. Soon after I began my plan to find her, though, she came running through.

J ran into the chute to meet her, but I hung back. I knew she had to be devastated, and I saw her face scrunching up a little as she was talking to J.

My heart completely broke for her then. I didn’t know what I was going to say to her, and everything I mustered up in my head sounded hollow and ridiculous.

The thing I ended up saying was probably the stupidest, though: I raised my hands above my head and said “Wineglass!” to her, indicating that I was thrilled that she’d have to run the Wineglass with me in October to try to qualify again.

Her look was murderous. I hung my head, immediately wishing I could take the words back. She sputtered something about a husband asking his wife to have another baby as the doctor sewed up her episiotomy.

My gaffe was quickly forgotten as we made our way into the convention center to get D some pizza. As we wandered around the guts of the hotel, trying to find our way out, a woman sitting on the floor, alone and wrapped in a mylar blanket, asked if we could get her back to the hotel.

“You *are* in the hotel,” I told her, since the convention center and hotel were essentially one big monster building.

“I can’t find my boyfriend, and I’m lost,” she continued. I looked at D and J, who looked down at the woman. She shook and there were lines of salt streaked down her cheeks.

“Sure, we’ll show you out,” I said, and D and J bent over to pick up her water bottle and untouched cup of beer.

As we took her from the convention center to the hotel, we politely asked her questions about where she was from and how she did. She, too, had had a horrible race. She told us she’d came in 10th at the marathon in Eugene, Oregon only a couple weeks before, but that this race had been hell. She said she’d thrown up at the finish line and then immediately was disoriented and sick. I asked her if she wanted us to find her a medic but she said she just needed to find her room.

As we approached the main elevators, she said she could find her way from there. She asked our names, and we told her, and she thanked us profusely. I pulled her bib number strip down so I could see her name, and it was Michelle Chille an elite runner.

At any rate, we left the race a little melancholy, sad for D and sad for Michelle, all of us just kind of wanting to go home.

D’s race report is posted at her blog. When J posts her report, I’ll offer a link as well. Sadly, I no longer get to post my friends’ race reports here, as they all have their own blogs now.

getting the goat

Since I’ve been in CNY, I’ve avoided, religiously, the Mountain Goat, a ten-mile race that takes runners up Syracuse’s most painful hills.

Every March I get the glossy brochure in the mail. Every March I look at the elevation graph and the course map published on the website. Every March I decide that such hill-running-nonsense would be absolute torture and misery.

I’m not sure happened this year (D?? you want to weigh in and remind us why we decided that *this* would be the year??), but not only am I registered to run the Goat, as it is affectionately called, but also have signed up to participate in the weekly training runs, that introduce runners, slowly, to the hill-hell they have to look forward to.

This morning was the second training run.
And just let me say: I LOVE IT. I love running the hills of Syracuse. I think I might actually be out of my mind. I’m not sure if it’s the idea of going for a run with 300 other people, or having a no-pressure training run be manned with volunteers and water stops, or if it’s simply the change of scenery from my own tired, still gray, still snowy Parish village runs.

But whatever it is, I am back in love with running.

speedwork

J and I drove to the local high school track this evening for our first round of speed work. It was an easy enough 6X400, with walk breaks in between.

Nothing I do lately seems to run at a fast clip. Diss writing is slow like honey, and I get a decent page out per day if I’m lucky. Getting the house ready to sell is, again, excruciatingly slow. Grading this stack of lit reviews from my advanced research class* is taking for damn ever.

But today, even though the track was still 3/4 covered in snow (so we ran 100 meter repeats), I was fast. Fast enough for my thighs to numb up like they do when I push a little. Fast enough for my lungs to burn and my windpipe to rattle. Fast enough for the pounding of my feet re-set the rhythm of my breath, for my eyes to water, for my mind to be utterly, inescapably present.

I left the track wishing we could have gone longer, faster. But it was getting dark, and the stack of lit reviews needed grading, and kids needed rides to various places.

*This advanced research class, in which I am essentially teaching methods + scholarship-in-action, is, I think, my favoritist class I’ve ever taught.

hope springs from training

The marathon training season has begun. Clearly, right now I cannot cannot cannot hack the hours of daily training that preparing for a marathon requires. But I pine for the set structure of those weeks, knowing which days are early-up-and-out days, which are gone-until-noon days, which are sanctioned sit-on-your-duff and recovery-eat days.

So, instead, I’m training for the half. Still some structure, but none of the extraordinary time commitment. Instead of 18 weeks, I only need 12. Instead of 3 twenty-mile Saturdays (which really take up the whole day; 4 hours of running and 12 hours of couch riding), there are a couple 10 and 12 days, which are completely doable and uncrippling.

The training schedule makes me feel a little like normal again. Moving into the schedule reminds me that the weather will not be cold and the ground covered in feet of snow forever–by the time the race comes runners will hope the day doesn’t get too hot.

What’s more, I’m running with J. It will be her first half, and so my role as running-support-buddy makes it so that her goal (to finish) trumps any goal I would set for myself. That is, her goal is my goal. And I like that.

the weekend runner

The dumb thing I did today was leave for my writing session without the power cord for the MacBook. And no battery juice.

So I sat in Panera and wrote in a small notebook. I won’t be able to report my word count until tomorrow, when I type up what I wrote. It was an interesting retro-exercise for me; I kept thinking, “Wow, when I try to write fast my handwriting is atrocious! When I write slowly, my handwriting is quite lovely, but gawwd this is taking for ever!”

Also, I must find another writing place. Their soups are good but they give me heartburn. I’ve sworn off their sandwiches because the bread there is so darn *hard*. It scrapes the roof of my mouth raw.

So, somehow D and J have talked me into another race this weekend, the Bruegger’s Bagel Run. I have become the weekend racer. I don’t ever run during the week at all anymore. D and I are supposed to meet tomorrow morning, but The Weather Channel says rain for the wake-up hour, so I might be off the hook. Not that I want to be off the hook. All that Panera is finding my middle. But being a leisurely weekend runner suits me. Anything leisurely suits me.

Ah. Leisure, I hardly knew ye.

eastwood autumn 5-miler

I got an email from D a few weeks ago, before the Albany marathon. She’s found a new run, a 5-miler two weeks post-marathon. Do I want to run it?

Sure, I reply. Why not? At that moment, I am feeling invincible. My body is still in one piece; I cannot–and do not–anticipate the agony of Albany.

So, today, only two weeks after the marathon, D and J pile into my car and we drive to the Sunnycrest Ice Rink in Eastwood, a neighborhood in Syracuse. This run is special to D, as she grew up in Eastwood, having attended Sacred Heart and Henninger high school.

Who knew a teeny-tiny five mile race could be so satisfying? We pick up our numbers and CHIPS and the PROPER SIZE T-shirt from the table as the high school band serenades us with “Louie Louie,” “Back in Black,” and other great tunes.

I am now convinced that it is the Syracuse Track Club that manages the best races around here. Things are laid-back but incredibly organized; waters stops well-stocked with cups and volunteers, and Brugger’s bagels and other important goodies at the end (and they had cider, too, which didn’t sound very good to me at first, but after I sipped it a little, I chugged one and then another cup of it–who knew??).

The sky was blue, the trees in full color, and the weather simply fabulous–it might have actually been a little too warm. The great old houses in Eastwood (and the other neighborhood–can’t remember the name?) provided great scenery. We ran past runningburro and rainbowhair’s old house on Aberdeen, and then D’s sisters met us on the corner of the street that D’s mom still lives on. They made fun neon green signs and were cheering and happy. Aside from runningburro’s lovely parents, who cheered for us at the first Buffalo marathon, D and I haven’t had much in the way of personal spectators, so to have actual people we knew waiting for us was really exciting for me in an embarrassing silly kind of way (I wanted to hug them! But I resisted!).

The annual Eastwood Autumn 5-miler is a MUST run for locals. It gets three thumbs up from us!

Oh, our time? 54-something. A PR, since none of us has ever run a 5-mile race before.

it is albany

Yesterday I ran from Schenectady to Albany.

I will never do such a thing ever again. Ever.

We arrived in Schenectady at 630, only a half hour before packet pick-up was scheduled to begin. But the park was completely deserted, and we drove around in circles trying to find something that indicated there would actually *be* a race. We finally flagged down a guy picking up trash and asked him where where we were supposed to be. “Right here,” he told us, and pointed to an empty pavilion.

Since we were early, we wandered around looking for the tell-tale line of port-o-johns that frequently mark the starting line, and slowly we realize there is none.

“There is none” becomes a kind of refrain for this race. Chips? Nope. Schwag bags? Nope. Mile markers for the first several miles? Nope. Spectators? Not many, really. Music? None. Interesting scenery?

The first half of this race, for me, was phenomenal. The fact that there were no mile markers for the first three miles meant I had absolutely no idea of how fast I was going. I found a woman whose ponytail had a pleasant, hypnotic bounce to it and I set my pace to hers. When we finally hit the 5K mark spray painted on the ground, I hardly believed it. “That can’t be for this race,” I thought to myself. My watch said 28 and change, which meant I ran my second fasted 5K. I felt strong and light, and decided at that moment that my strategy would be thus: continue with this pace, which was probably at about 80% of my push, until I had to slow down. Then I would slow down. Running negative splits (where you run the second half faster than you ran the first) doesn’t work for me; I always always get slower, even if I try to hold back. So instead of trying to “save” anything, I figure I’d just use what I had until I didn’t have any more, and then I would run on pure will.

This strategy worked fabulously for about 7 more miles. At 10K the clock said 58; at 15K it said 1:30. I constantly was running numbers in my head: if I maintain this pace, I’ll finish in 4:20-ish. Holy shit. I was passing people left and right, my eyes on the leaf-littered bike trail, listening to people behind me talk about taking their teenage son for a jog in search of a connection and finding that he can run a sub-6 mile (which didn’t, I gather, make for much of a conversation).

I hit the half-mark at 2:15, 6 minutes faster than my PR for a half. I was giddy that I might actually beat my last time of 4:52.

Then all at once both my knees decided to hate me, and my right hip started sending shooting pains into my glute and quad. Ouch ouch ouch ouch with every. single. step. At the next water stop I popped 2 Motrin and willed them to work.

The next mile was agony, and I began mentally composing my race report. “d.n.f…everybody should dnf at least once so they have compassion for others who must dnf.” The biggest problem, though, was that while I wanted to quit, there was no one anywhere to help me quit. The only other people I saw were other runners–now most of them shuffling past me. I had no choice except to simply continue on until the next water stop, and who knows when that would be?? So I shuffled on. Ouch ouch ouch ouch.

A lone spectator on her bike was clapping and cheering around mile 14. She yelled a standard: “Halfway there! Looking good!!” to me as I passed. “I don’t feel very good,” I told her.

“It’s all mental,” she said. She was looked smart and looked like a runner. “Remind your brain that your body is a machine. You can do it.”

I smiled weakly and continued on, thinking to myself that I’d broken the machine.

As I approached the next water stop, I realized I’d already covered 2 more miles, and that while my knees both still felt broken, the Motrin had helped the excruciating hip pain. I realized I felt a little better. I ate a Gu and drank some water and decided I’d press on, and take things one mile at a time.

While running the bike trail was lonesome, once we got into Albany around mile 20 things became treacherous. For about 2 miles we ran on the shoulder of a major 4 lane artery, and I was tired and woozy and afraid that if I were to trip I’d immediately be hit by a car. I began working to pass people just so that I had something to keep my mind sharp and my head up. I told one man as I ran abreast of him: “You’re really hard to catch,” and I meant it. He laughed and said, “No one’s ever said that to me before.”

At mile 22 we ran back onto a bike trail. I rounded a bend and saw J stretching against a tree. I shrieked in joy and relief. J ran that last 4 miles with me, talking to me about minutiae and encouraging me to keep going.

I finished in 5:02, which is not a PR and it’s not under 5, but good gravy this race was harder and more painful than my first. J, a talented pep-talker, kept me from walking the entire last couple miles. I was probably ugly and rude to her the whole time and still she pressed on. “You want to try to pick it up?” she’d ask. “Shut the hell up,” I’d respond. The only thing that got me to the end was thinking about how I’ll never ever do it again.

*sigh* I always reassure myself with this promise–and I always somehow talk myself into marathoning again.

Today I feel like someone took a baseball bat to my kneecaps, and I have horrible shin splints. I can “act natural” if I’m walking, but stairs are near-impossible, and to get up or sit down is extremely hard.

As long as I live next door to D, though, I imagine I’ll continue this torture, especially as her saga to qualify for Boston continues.