Marathon Prepping – One Month To Go

As of Friday, I am officially one month away from the Nike Women’s Marathon in San Francisco.  I am terrified. No, really. I know a lot of people say that, but I am truly terrified.  I’ve thought more than once I made a mistake in signing up for this. 26.2 miles is a lot, what was I thinking?! But, I’m doing my best to prep for the up coming race in addition to my training (which I feel like I’ve been a majorly slacking on, which only adds to my anxiety.)

First, I ordered a CamelBak.  Megan over at Mega Nerd Runs reccommended the Annadel model which holds 50oz of fluid and comes in this fun teal color! She’s even got a little Amazon store set up where you can find the pack for a bit less than retail.

And for good measure here are some “outtakes” while I attempted to take a photo of myself wearing the pack.

 

There’s Bits in the background, looking out the bathroom window while her momma acts a fool.

 

I haven’t run with the CamelBak yet, but plan on trying it on my 20 miler next weekend.  To say that I am concerned about my physical ability to complete 20 miles is a huge understatement. My only goal for this marathon has gone from finishing strong in under 5 hours, to finishing in 6 hours to simply finishing. I don’t care if I have to crawl across the finish line I want that Tiffany necklace. Good motivation, right?

Just as an FYI this is the description from the race website of the course:

 

“The Nike Women’s Marathon and half marathon courses will remain the same as the courses have been since 2005. The race will kick off in Downtown San Francisco at Union Square and head through the financial district past the famous TransAmerica building. It will then proceed along the San Francisco Bay past Fisherman’s Wharf, Aquatic Park, Ghirardelli Square, Fort Mason and Marina Green while revealing breathtaking views of Alcatraz and The Golden Gate Bridge. The course then weaves through the Presidio and Sea Cliff districts, out to the Great Highway, through Golden Gate Park and south around Lake Merced, finishing just north of the Great Highway along the Pacific Ocean.”

 

It will be a beautiful course, I’m sure, which I’m really hoping will help keep me on my feet and moving forward.

The other day, on LivingSocial there was a deal for Arch & Sole, a local running store. $25 for $50 of merchandise. I quickly snatched that up, and spent Sunday afternoon in the store asking the owner questions and eventually purchasing some items.  Now that my left knee isn’t so painful (nearly no pain when running with the brace,) my right knee is acting up, mostly around my IT band, and I had some questions about the possibility of needing extra support in my shoes.  I went in, asked my questions, the owner analyzed my gait and let me know, after looking at my shoes for wear, I may be getting TOO MUCH support in my right foot, where my arch isn’t as weak, but that he thinks it’s most likely an issue of my right side compensating for weakness on my left with my runner’s knee. He said to keep doing what I’m doing, foam roll more, and stretch really well and if that still doesn’t help (he also said wearing a knee sleeve may be adding to the issue, especially if it’s too small) to come back and he’d have me try some other shoes.  He didn’t want me to buy another pair of shoes just yet though, saying wear-wise it looked okay.

So, instead, I picked up two pairs of socks, some Gu gels, and a lightweight long sleeved shirt (which will probably be needed during my race!)

After my coupon I just paid $2.16!  So all in all, the shirt, socks and Gu cost me under $30, which is a great deal as far as I’m concerned.

I also picked up this gem that was in their stash of local info and what not:

Rolling Out by Ashley Borden - some tips and exercises for the foam roller.

I’m trying to stay positive, and get excited about this race, but I have to be honesty, even short runs have become difficult to motivate myself.  I know most of this is stress related.  I’m a worst case scenario kinda gal, so not feeling 100% confident in this is only exacerbating my current stress. Lately, all I can think about are the things I SHOULD HAVE been doing from the get go.  Strength training, stretching, foam rolling, icing, more rest.  Obviously, I can’t go back, but I do still have 4 weeks left, so I’m going to make the most of them.

One thing that helps is reading Ali over at Ali on the Run‘s blogs about her marathon prep. She is so amped that I can’t help but feel even a tiny bit of that energy after reading her posts!

Time to focus on more stress relief in the form of warm baths, stretching and DIY mani-pedis. ;)

 

What’s your best stress relief tip?

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Catherine, September 19th 2011 | Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in 2011, life, Los Angeles, Marathon, San Francisco, shopping, training

Stepping Forward: One Step at a Time

This morning, Janna and I did six miles in Griffith Park. Because we were only doing six miles we started at 7am and the weather was perfect. It was slightly overcast the whole time we were running. I’m hoping that’s what the weather will be like the day of our marathon in San Francisco. We’re also doing shorter runs alone next weekend, and then our first 20 miler the following Saturday.
I’m not going to lie, I am very nervous about our 20 miler. My knee started hurting a bit toward the very end of our six miler today, and after last weekend’s 15 miler, I am worried I won’t be able to finish the marathon which is now only five weeks away.
In non-running news, I’ve made a decision about work that I can’t really talk about here yet, but it involves my taking a bit of a risk that I hope will end up being a good thing. It may mean that teaching dance goes on the back burner for a bit, but I’m ok with that. I’m still going to take my TCRG exam, they released a date: February 2-5th 2012. I’ll keep you all posted as soon as I can!
What’s the biggest career risk you’ve taken?

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Catherine, September 10th 2011 | Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in 2011, Griffith Park, Los Angeles, Marathon, training, work

Personal Distance Record

Snapbucket

This morning, I woke up at 5:30am, met my buddy, Janna at Griffith Park, and together we finished 15.68 miles. Now, we certainly didn’t do them quickly, in fact, it took us almost 5 hours to finish, but we did finish.
According to our colleague, there is a trail that starts near Travel Town, and goes 13 miles. We have been looking for this mystery trail for a while now, and had not been successful. So, today, we figured we’d try again. We started at Travel Town in Griffith Park, headed up the big hill. When we were nearly to the top we saw an entrance to a trail, with a steep hill at the beginning. This fit a similar description we’d been given, so we headed up the hill. Turns out, that particular trail was only a very hilly 2 miles loop right back to where we entered the trail head.

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This was the view from the top of one of the hills.

So, when we finished that loop, we kept on our normal route. A little farther along, we found another trailhead, and even though there were even more hills, we found the path we were looking for. We took that trail, up and down hills, mostly up, and went around in front of the Hollywood Sign, all the way around and up to the Griffith Park Observatory, down past the Greek Theater and then down Los Feliz back into the park and to our cars.

Snapbucket

Along the run/mostly walk we saw 7 coyotes, 4 rabbits, countless birds, 6 horses, and quite a few people. The trail we found was really popular, which was comforting, with all the coyotes we saw!
There were quite a few times when I was in so much pain, I considered calling Travis and asking him to pick me up and take me to my car. I wore my new, right knee brace, and it was so uncomfortable, too tight, that it was digging into the back of my knee and causing a terrible pain there. I rolled it down to my ankle for the rest of the run at one point, but then my knee started to hurt, and I couldn’t tell which was more painful. The tight muscle or my knee. By the time we were almost to our cars, maybe two or three miles out, m y hips felt like they were in a vice they were so tight. I was really disappointed and upset by this run. I could hardly run at all. The biggest challenge was the hills, we didn’t really expect as many or as steep hills as we found along our route.

Photobucket

As you can see on the bottom graph in the elevation vs. miles, our route was extremely hilly. The hills slowed us down considerably. By the time we were in more flat terrain, my knee was in so much pain I couldn’t really run at all. I was so happy when we reached our cars. Even though this was exciting because it was a personal distance record, the time makes me incredibly upset. It makes me really concerned that I won’t be able to finish the marathon in a decent time (meaning you know, within the 6:30 guidelines for getting the Tiffany necklace.) I drove straight home, sat in a cold bath and after getting a terrible fast food lunch with Travis, took a nap.

Tonight, we’re going to an all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ place, and it’ll be early to bed for me. I’m babysitting early in the morning and then have a 3 hour dance session to struggle through. I have no idea how my knees and legs will hold up for that. We’ll just have to see. I need a deep tissue massage like woah.
Have you recently reached a personal distance record?

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Catherine, September 3rd 2011 | Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in 2011, accomplishments, Griffith Park, Los Angeles, Marathon, training

13.1 Unexpectedly

<a href=”http://s1191.photobucket.com/albums/z473/jigandjog/?action=view&amp;current=866e2801-ce93-44ad-928f-fd0ba756874e.jpg” target=”_blank”><img src=”http://i1191.photobucket.com/albums/z473/jigandjog/866e2801-ce93-44ad-928f-fd0ba756874e.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”Snapbucket”></a>

Yesterday morning, I woke up at 5:15am and met my running buddy, Janna at Griffith Park at 6am.  On my way out the door, I’d eaten a piece of bread with peanut butter on it, and by the time I got to the park, I needed to find a bathroom.  So, before meeting Janna, I high tailed it to the nearest bathroom and prayed for two things.  One, that there would be toilet paper, and two,that there would be no murderers or animals in the bathroom. Thankfully for me, my prayers were answered. When I first met with Janna we agreed to just see how far we could go today. I had no real milage goal other than “maybe 6 miles?” We first went along our usual route, up a giant hill, down the giant hill, around the golf course and were heading out toward the road when we discovered a side street we hadn’t noticed before.  It lead us up onto a trail that took us back around to near the golf course and we just kept going.  By the time we got to the Pony Rides, we had hit a little over 6 miles. Janna then told me that her goal for the day was a half marathon, 13.1 miles. We had tried to keep our pace at conversational, which for me meant really slow, but my legs felt good.  My left knee was feeling ok, but my right was starting to twinge a bit, and I had done a lot of power walking. So, knowing it was at least another 4 miles back to our cars, I said I’d see how I felt once we hit 10 miles.  I wasn’t feeling super awesome, my hips were getting really tight which made my IT band really tight, which made my right knee sore, but I toughed it out, walking almost the whole thing.  We eventually finished our 13.1 miles, and then spent a good 15 minutes stretching.  I’m still not proud of the time it took us to complete the milage, 3:34, it’s a whole hour slower than I finished my last half marathon race, but I was proud of the fact that we covered the distance. I kept reminding myself that it has been 8 months since I last covered that kind of distance, and being mostly out of commission for several weeks hasn’t helped either.  Next weekend, I’m going to lobby for doing 5-6 miles and then we’ll try for 14 or 15 the following Saturday.

When you start to feel your muscles tighten up during a run, do you stop and stretch or power through?  We stopped to stretch twice, but I have a feeling I may actually also need a little extra arch support in my shoes.

This morning I’m a bit stiff and sore, but not nearly as bad as I thought I’d be.  I think the extra stretching, nap and icing I did when I got home helped.  Also, the ibuprofen.

Last night my parents took Travis and me out to an early birthday dinner. I chose Flemming’s Steakhouse  in El Segundo because I’d never been, love steak, and had heard good things about it.  It did not disappoint, although the dining room was really loud which was kind of annoying. The food was great, the service was wonderful and we all left with full tummies.

Now, I’m off to breakfast with my parents at their hotel, then to dance to help and finally we’re having a friendfamily dinner in the Marina tonight.  Travis and I are bringing a Greek Salad.  :) Hope you’re all having a wonderful weekend. 

2 Comments

Catherine, August 21st 2011 | Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in 2011, accomplishments, food, Griffith Park, half marathon, life, Los Angeles, Marathon, training

Workout Guilt

Jasmine at Eat Move Write has a great post with some wonderful suggestions regarding combatting missed workout stress.  It couldn’t have come at a better time, since I ended up working until almost 7:30pm tonight, and need to be up at 5am for work tomorrow which means I missed my workout today. I should have gotten up early this morning to run, but instead, I slept in.  Work got crazy, and I ended up working overtime to prepare for a big meeting tomorrow morning (I have to pick up the bagels at 6:30am and set up for the meeting which happens at 7:30am).

Last night, Travis and I both went on a quick 2 mile run in the neighborhood. I didn’t wear my Garmin, but Travis wore his new Nike GPS watch, which is pretty snazzy.  He is just starting to get into running and is having a tough time.  He walked five miles yesterday and six miles this morning, but running is a challenge.

So, I left my Garmin at home, and decided to try and help Travis pace himself, thinking maybe he’s starting out too quickly and burning out. I did 2.4 miles in 25 minutes which is a 10:25 average pace.  This is I think the fastest average pace I’ve ever managed! I was shocked.  Travis and I both jogged/ran the first mile, then walked a bit of the second mile, and then I took off and wanting to finish at the same time as Travis, went a block further and then met him. We wanted to make these runs a nightly thing, but clearly, tonight wasn’t going to happen.  I’ve got dance rehearsal tomorrow night so I’ll be getting my workout in tomorrow for sure.

I’m working on not feeling guilty for missing yet another run. How do you avoid missed workout guilt?

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Catherine, August 18th 2011 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in 2011, accomplishments, life, training, work

3 Sweaty Miles in the Park

I don’t know about you guys, but Ali on the Run is one of my favorite blogs to read.  She’s super upbeat and cheerful and funny, and I usually end up having major city envy when I see her runs in Central Park.  Los Angeles doesn’t really have a Central Park, Griffith Park is kind of a close approximation I suppose,  although I guess we also don’t have the humidity that New York has either, so….toss up?  Anyway, as I’ve been trying to slowly ease myself back into a running routine, I find myself not running in Griffith Park as much because I’ve been skipping my longer runs (bad Catherine!) and have been doing most of my runs in my own neighborhood and Pan Pacific Park.

My running buddy’s son broke his arm for the second time yesterday so she spent the whole evening in the ER with him.  Poor guy, they had to put him out to re-set his arm :( Not a fun way to spend a Friday night, right?  So, of course, I slept in this morning instead of waking up at my usual run time and going to Griffith Park by myself.  By the time I was getting my butt out the door for a run it was 12:30pm and about 70 degrees.  Not too bad, but still a little warm when not in shade.

I actually probably did a full 5k because it took my stupid Garmin a while to find the satellites, in a little over 37 minutes. Not too shabby, eh?  I tried to be good about keeping a manageable pace, somewhere between 10:30 and 11 minute miles. I always seem to forget how hilly Pan Pacific Park actually is.  I did about three laps in the park before heading home.  I really wanted to attempt 5 miles today, but the heat was starting to get to me.  The good news is there are several drinking fountains in the park, the bad news is, it’s still pretty hot and I could feel my face getting super red.  My legs felt like they could have kept going a bit longer, but I didn’t want to push it, and I was starting to get really hungry.   I only ate a Vanilla Gu before I head out for my run, so I knew I would definitely need food very soon.

Once I got home, I stretched and iced my knee.  The weird tightness/pain I’d been experiencing in my left leg, where the seem of the knee sleeve sits, wasn’t too terrible today.  I was able to keep running and eventually it went away, so I think the sleeve just needs to stretch a bit.

Tonight we’ve got a birthday party to go to at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. How are you spending your Saturday night?

2 Comments

Catherine, August 13th 2011 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in 2011, Los Angeles, Marathon, Pan Pacific Park, training

Once More With Feeling

I expected to post several times this week.  I was going to make a post about last Sunday’s adventures on Monday, but I forgot I was meeting a friend at the Arclight for a screening right after work.  Then, I figured, I’d just post on Tuesday, but a crippling migraine knocked me out all day Tuesday and Wednesday.  Thursday I got home from work and was completely exhausted, having worked a full day with the lingering headache leftover from the migraine.  Friday, I went right from work to a dance rehearsal in the valley, then back out to the Westside for late dinner. I didn’t get home until around 11pm and went right to bed.

So, now it’s Saturday again and here I am, sitting in the second bedroom with the kittehs anxiously waiting for me to feed them dinner. I’m babysitting late tonight, then again tomorrow afternoon and we have errands to run tomorrow so that, you know, we have groceries for the week.  Even though Tuesday and Wednesday were spent doing nothing, it feels like this week has been non-stop.

Anywho, I’m bringing my laptop with me when I babysit tonight in the hopes the family with have WiFi that I can use.  The babys I’m sitting for are 10 months and 2 years and will already be asleep when I get there (easy money, hai.) I am also bringing all of my TCRG study materials because I am about to mail off my application for the exam in January and need to get very serious about my studying.

In the meantime, here’s some news: I went on my first run back in like almost four weeks today.  More on that later.

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Catherine, July 30th 2011 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in 2011, accomplishments, life, Los Angeles, training

Caved

Sunday, I managed to run 3.22 miles. Tuesday, I ran 4 miles, and yesterday I ran 5. Although, saying I “ran” 5 is a bit of a stretch since I did a hell of a lot of walking. My left knee is not getting better. It still hurts, even after icing. I had diagnosed myself with runner’s knee a while ago, and sort of attempted to “rest.”  Clearly, I didn’t really REST, but it was the closest approximation of rest I could manage. I’m an idiot.

So, I caved. I made an appointment to see a Nurse Practitioner on the 14th. I’m pretty much worried she’ll tell me to stop running. When I talked to my dad after work yesterday, he said “maybe you need to stop running.”

My answer?

“I already paid for the marathon in October and the half marathon in January.”

“Well, you have to decide which is more important… your knees or race fees…”

“Dad. It’s like $300.”

“….they’re your knees.”

So, until the 14th I’m still going to struggle through my training plan. That sounds smart, right?

Super typical.

8 Comments

Catherine, July 7th 2011 | Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in 2011, lessons, life, training

Freedom

Happy Birthday, America!

For the second year in a row I participated in American Revival Day with my friends.  We headed out to the Pacific Rod and Gun Club in San Francisco for some skeet shooting, and I am excited to report that this year, I managed to hit 5 clay pigeons, an improvement over last year’s 3.  Woo!

 

Sadly, Travis wasn’t with us this year as he’s stuck in Louisiana for work, but we had a good time anyway.  After shooting we headed to one of my favorite taquerias, La Taqueria in the Mission for lunch, then hit up Mission Pie for the annual 4th of July pies.

Before all of this happened, though, my dad and I finally made it out on a run together this morning.  I say finally, but he’s been going out every morning without me, so it was my fault.  Running with my dad is more like speed training for me.

The first mile, we take the dogs with us, and the half mile out is done at an easy pace, while the half mile back to drop them off is full of stops and walking breaks while the girls take their time to stop and sniff and pee on things.   After dropping them off at the house we were at about a mile.  We headed out on my dad’s normal route which has some small hills and is basically a climb, yay?  My left knee wasn’t feeling so hot from the get go, but I was determined to push through as much as possible.

Every time I looked down at my Garmin, I realized the pace I was keeping (which was still a few paces behind my dad,) was much faster than I normally do.  It didn’t always feel fast, but my typical average pace is about an 11 minute mile.  We were doing at some points close to an 8:30 or 9 minute mile, phew!  Normally, my dad does an out and back/loop that’s 4 miles, but we headed back sooner because my knee was hurting.  We ended up doing almost 3.25 miles in 41 minutes.  Averaged out with all our walking breaks it was a 12:55 mile pace, which isn’t anything for me to sneeze at considering how little I’ve been running lately.

I realized while I was trying to keep up with my dad it wasn’t always that difficult, and maybe I don’t push myself enough speed-wise when I’m running alone.  How do you determine how hard/fast to run? I typically have a hard time finding that right pace where it’s comfortable but not too slow feeling, and not a flat out sprint.  Maybe because I run more frequently on the treadmill I get stuck selecting what I know is an easy pace for me?   Sometimes, I forget, even though I’ve progressed, I’m still very much a beginning runner.

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Catherine, July 4th 2011 | Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in 2011, life, San Francisco, training

First Sunburn of the Year

This morning I spent about an hour and forty-five minutes outside at a work related site walk through, and managed to get a super attractive sunburn in the process.

You can see where my staff name badge was, awesome, right? It’s like an ongoing reminder that I’m an idiot and ran out the door without sunscreen.  Also, a reminder that I will never, ever be “tan.” This picture is so unflattering, I hope you all appreciate the amount of self esteem I have in order to share such gems with you all ;)

Last night, Travis and I were out way past our bed time for a school night because we had game night with some friends.  It was so much fun, but I am paying for it today.  I’ve been so exhausted that by 1:30pm I felt like I could lay down under my desk and sleep the rest of the day away.  I decided to skip out on spin tonight in favor of resting up so that I will be in top form for my (drum roll) first attempt back at running this week.

I ordered two pairs of new running shoes from DSW who happen to carry the style of Brooks I like, because they were, as my Nor Cal friends would say, “hella cheap.”  They arrived on Saturday, and I’m itching to break in the first pair, and get going on my Marathon training plan.  I’m using Runner’s World’s Smart Coach to train for my first marathon, and lucky for me, even with skipping spin I’m still technically following my plan!

 

Sure, spin could have fallen into the XT category, especially since Tuesdays are a total wash for me with my teaching gig out in the valley, but, some days, when you feel like you are sleeping standing up, it’s best to go home, put your feet up and fall asleep on the couch with one hand in a bag of chips and the other holding open a young adult fiction novel.

I’m off to do just that while I wait for Travis to get home from work. It’s too early to go to bed at 6:30, right?

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Catherine, May 23rd 2011 | Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in 2011, life, Marathon, training
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