For the love

For that first time my Dad brought me along on his two-mile loop around our neighborhood, I trade my jeans for my running shorts and my gam-tastic heels for my running shoes.

For every time that I've scored a point in ultimate frisbee because I could simply outlast the competition, I push myself through that first, hardest mile.

For every time my running buddy, Zach has convinced me that the weather's not that bad and that perhaps we really should do that five miles I planned,

For the small handful of Seattle's sunny days, and for all of those torrential downpours I've conquered, and for every time I've swallowed my absolute hatred for wind, and for every time I've allowed it to beat me down,

For every single last exhausting hill that this city throws at me,

For every time that I've looked in the mirror and felt like crying from disappointment at my reflection and for every time I've taken pride in my muscles,

For all the people who make me feel unwanted,

For all the songs I discovered during a long route without a playlist,

For every time I fell for a boy and every time my heart's been broken,

For the year I spent rehabilitating my back and the physical therapist who told me I'd probably never run again,

For everyone I love so much who will be waiting for me at the finish line,

For the pain and for the joy that comes with the freedom of moving my body, and for the love of this sport,

For me,

I run.

FOr a variety of reasons, between weather and wind and bad luck with colds and bacteria, this has been the most difficult training season of my life. I'm just a few short days away from the San Diego half-marathon. When I set out my training schedule, I was so set that I'd force a personal best out of myself because my parents, my sister and her boyfriend and my boyfriend will all be at the finish line. I wanted to give them my best. I effectively lost weeks 9 and 10 of my 12-week schedule to illness, and I know I will not have fully recovered. Though I completed a 12.5 mile run on Saturday, my confidence in my ability to push through the fatigue is fading and I am less convinced that I can fight that pathetic, sad voice in the back of my head that tells me to give up.

I need to change my approach for this race. I cannot run to beat myself this time - I need to run to enjoy it. Regardless of my time, my people will still cheer for me and they will still love me. I'll run for the love of it, because, really, isn't that what it's supposed to be about?

Snapshots

Every time I see a photographer on a race, I smile. Before I adopted this policy, I ended up with really scary race photos.

I got an email today from Evan Pilchik Photography and opened it to discover that I'd made it into a lot of shots from the race. The following is my favorite, even though I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing with my arms here.



I also really like the one below because you can tell that I'm starting to dig for the finish.



I have a few problems with pictures of myself, mostly perpetuated by a hyperactive sense of self-loathing. When I look at the first picture, it's difficult for me to avoid honing in on my softer bits, on the things that I want to change, but hey. At least I'm smiling.

Silly

Remember how upset and disappointed I was about the outcome of the St. Paddy's Day Dash? How I was angry that I'd stopped, that I'd run with a bronchial infection? Remember how I claimed that it was the worst race of my life?

Well, I finally decided to rip off the band-aid and expose my ego to the elements. I navigated away from work to the race website and checked my time.

I finished in 31 minutes and 55 seconds.

That is a pace of 8 minutes and 24 seconds per mile to achieve 1322/7353 over all, 346/4085 women to run, and 70/785 in my division (women ages 26-29).

Not too shabby for running with compromised lungs and a cough. Don't get me wrong -- I still need a lot of work before San Diego, but man. Why do I freak out about the stupidest things???

Planning

11.5 weeks.

I have 11.5 weeks until I run the San Diego half-marathon, and as discussed in my last post, my recent performance worries me. Last time I signed up for a half-marathon, I could barely finish 2 miles without cursing and stopping to catch my breath. I followed an easy training schedule that added 1 mile to my long distance every week and worked my way up to almost 14 miles a few weeks before I ran. And then I ran the fastest half-marathon of my life.

Now I want to run faster.

Clearly, I've responded to training schedules before, so I did some lunchtime research and found this 9 week program. I think that I can do it. I don't live spectacularly close to any tracks that I know of, but I have a bicycle and a decent knowledge of where to ride to find one. I'm interested to see how I can hold up with speed training, etc. And if I train for 8-minute miles (which I *think* I can do), and maintain that pace during the race, I'd blow my personal record out of the water. I'm worried that the longest run prior to the race is 12 miles, but I know from November that I can, in fact, do 13.1. I'm also worried about how my body will hold up when I throw Sunday ultimate into the mix. I mean, I could just shift the schedule such that Sundays would be my rest day (which I would burn on ultimate), but my last bout of training tought me that rest days are important.

I'm torn. I like the fact that this would allow me 2.5 weeks to rebuild my cold-damaged endurance before jumping into training, but I have reservations that I described in the previous paragraph.

Could anyone please weigh in on their experiences with speed training? I haven't really done it since track in high school (which, OMG, is 9 years ago now). What are training schedules that have helped you achieve personal records? Finally, does anyone care to join me in this training program? As I've written numerous times, it's always easier to motivate myself and really push myself beyond my comfort zone when I have someone else there.

Running with the Plague and Other Misadventures, Pt. 2

I told you I'd finish this post! Two days later, I'm still hacking away, but my cough is loosening up, the nastiness is making its way out of my lungs (which is really gross, but a sign of progress), and I'm already planning my run for the evening despite the incredibly ominous looking storm cloud rolling over the Space Needle from the west.

As I stated in Running with the Plague and Other Misadventures, Pt. 1, I've had many adventures since my single blog post from February. These adventures most certainly continued after winning the 1st Lady spot at the FHR:

4) A Sunny Seattle Weekend (Seattle, WA)

After working through a month full of the awesome and the tedious (seriously, moving SUCKS), I was relieved to have a fairly unscheduled weekend to my disposal. And what did I do with it? If you guessed "Knowing Kristen, I bet she filled it to the brim," you would be correct. Before I can continue my narrative, I should probably fill you in on one thing....so, uh, yeah. There's this guy. And he's pretty great. He's been in my life for a couple of months now, he's gone on numerous adventures with me, and he makes my life happier. He and I have a similar enthusiasm for hosting, and after a successful Valentine's Day dinner with friends, we decided that brunch would be in order. We spent Friday night gathering ingredients for the strata that I made and for fantastic bloody marys (the trick is lots of pickles and Johnny's seasoning salt). On Saturday morning, a small group of our friends joined us for what turned out to be a fantastic meal, after which a few of us ventured into the rare Seattle sun for a short bike ride up to Matthews Beach, then through the arboretum to the Central District.

Pickles make everything better.

Bikes at Matthews Beach

The evening's festivities included a stop at what is likely the rockingest party I've attended since college for a friend's 30th birthday. Considering the fullness of the hours leading up, I'm afraid that my showing was uncharacteristically quiet, but I had an absolute blast seeing everyone decked out in togas and playing beer pong.

We had a plan for Sunday to take advantage of the nice weather: we would ride our bikes around Lake Washington. THis sounds impressive, and don't get me wrong, 65 miles is nothing to scoff at, but it's also something we both know we're capable of doing. It seemed kind of like the perfect solution to recent complaints of not enough time on bicycles, and it's a great way to spend up to 4 hours out of doors. But, first thing first: brunch. We went to the 5-spot in the Denny Triangle area because it was noon and there was no wait. It wasn't bad, but not awesome either. It was fuel, and that's all we needed. We set off, stopping only for snacks in Kirkland and for a small rest toward the end as we rode by Magnuson Park. I was enthralled by the fact that he had never before taken my route to get from downtown to the airport in Renton AND that he preferred it to the route he had ridden previously - he usually knows a lot more than I do about the best routes in Seattle. Exhausted, we wrapped up our epic weekend with a trip to Target (ugh, moving stuff), a ravioli dinner, and a movie, each thrilled with the successes of the weekend.

And that brings me to the weekend that just ended, or more importantly:

5) St. Paddy's Day Dash (Seattle Center, Seattle, WA)

I think (hope) that every runner will, at some point, experience a race in which everything goes entirely wrong. It is this belief that prevents me from pulling my hair out and crying over the crushing disappointments I endured last Sunday. This race took its dear sweet time getting here - I'd registered long before the deadline, I found fantastic socks, and even went so far as to order a scandalously short green plaid skirt to complement the green argyle target socks. I mean, it was a fun run. Short distance, beer garden finish line, impending holiday...why NOT go all out? Better yet, I'd be running with ShortSkirts, my running buddy Zach, and Ines! ...and then Thursday struck, bringing with it headaches, a sore throat, coughing like whoa, restricted lung capacity, and no awesome miniskirt. I did my best to rest during the weekend, hoping that my stupid skirt would arrive. When I woke up sans skirt at 7am on daylight savings time on Sunday morning, I wasn't feeling so bad that I could justifiably throw away the $30something I spent on registration and threw on my socks, my favorite Nike running shorts, and my 2010 marathon shirt, and rode my bike through a deluge to the starting line. Soaked and cold, I met up with Zach and Josh a few minutes before the race began and despite the excitement around me, the ridiculous outfits, the lack of wind, and the anticipation that normally builds during the countdown until the start, I could not pick my mood up. I was cold, I was sick, I didn't look even remotely silly, and I was absolutely pissed. I'm afraid I carried my bad attitude with me through the entire almost-4 miles, and it manifested in the ugliest word my mind throws at me while I'm running: "cannot." I remember the minute it popped into my head, I pulled myself out of the crowd to the side of the road where I started coughing. I'm pretty sure my left lung is still somewhere on the side of 99. Not only did I walk during a short, short race, I flat-out stopped. I considered the possibility of just taking one of the stairways from 99 to Dexter and going home without any celebration or revelry. I probably cried, and to give myself *some* credit, I was sick and I was in pain. Still. I crossed the finish line swearing. I realize that I should give myself credit for finishing at all, especially considering that I'd been running a race with the plague in my lungs, but I had walked. My pride hurt a lot and, to be honest, still does. I am so disappointed in myself, more for losing the mental game of endurance than anything. I can't stop telling myself that I really could have kept going if I had kept a sunnier attitude. I'm lucky, too, that my friends were willing to put up with my icy cold demeanor and nasty cough to keep me company in the beer garden. They had all run great races - Josh kept his average mile under 7 minutes! Their company and brunch at Portage Bay Cafe (where runners got preferential seating that morning!) made my Sunday morning worth the early rising. All in all, I hope to run this dash again next year, ideally with healthy lungs and sunshine instead.

I, Zach, Ines, and Josh celebrate the end of the run with Red Hook Beer

I have never in my life been so unsatisfied with my performance in a race, but all is not lost because I learned a few things. First, it's stupid to run competitively (with others AND myself) when my health is compromised. I probably made my cold a little bit worse and now I'm nervous about my next run back, my next race, and San Diego. Secondly, I have not been taking my training seriously enough. As I mentioned in Part 1 of this post, I have been lackadaisical, lazy about planning, and have not improved. I cannot claim to have hit a plateau because I haven't been putting the work in - I have not improved as a result of not adhering to a more stringent running schedule. The thing is, my family will be in San Diego - my parents, my cousin, an aunt and an uncle, possibly my sister...I want to get a personal best in that half-marathon and I wan tto make them proud. My success in November was the direct result of hard work and smart training. It's something that I can do again. I just have to commit to it.

I'll post my training schedule up here soon. I'm probably going to have to omit the first few weeks because I'm getting such a late start, but I think that I'm perfectly capable of a continuous 6 miles when I'm healthy, so I don't have to worry *too* much. It's also time for me to treat my body better over all - healthier diet, more stretching, ideally more yoga (this should be easy now, as I live quite close to downtown). I'll start posting here more often as I figure out more about this running thing and as I think up more interesting routes, and I fully expect any of you readers to hold me to this. Ultimately, the fear of failure, especially in the public eye, is one of my greatest motivators, and I intend to use it to my advantage.

Here we go.

Running with the Plague and Other Misadventures

Well, hey there inadvertent hiatus! How you doin'?

Sorry for my long-term leave. I could make billions of excuses, but ultimately, I just didn't make time. I could lie and say that I've maintained a pristine running record in my writing hiatus, but really, I've been doing a weird 2x per week thing and am beginning to pay for it. Don't get me wrong, there have been plenty of runs and plenty of active adventures. To name a few:

1) Love 'Em or Leave 'Em Valentine's Day Dash (Green Lake, Seattle, WA)

This one was a lot of fun. As explained in a previous post in the style of emails, ShortSkirts and I ran as team Cupid's Angels. We wore ridiculously cute thigh-high stockings and ran the whole race together, crossing the finish-line hand in hand. Though Shortskirts and I have communicated our running adventures to each other, we had actually never gone on a run together. I had a great time with this new running buddy and hope to make joint jaunts a more common occurrence.

You can see me and Shortskirts running together at the beginning of the VDay Dash in this stolen photo.

Cupid's Angels show off their thigh-high Valentine's Day stockings after the race

2) Zoobomb's Minibike Winter (Portland, OR)

Every year, Portland's bike scene puts on a big party for all of the non-spandexed bike hooligans who love drinking and bike-related revelry. This particular party revolves around minibikes (children's bicycles that you build up enough to ride). Events include Chariot Wars, Minibike Olympics, a photo scavenger hunt, and a big warehouse party where bmx-ers can show off on a half-pipe before everyone gathers to watch multiple bike-dance troupes perform. First of all, I never put much thought into it, but damn. Portland is perfect for bicycles. Mostly flat, friendly drivers, bike lanes everywhere...it was actually kind of hard coming back to Seattle. Though my group did not participate in all the events listed, we enjoyed seeing fellow Seattlites compete in the Chariot Wars, drinking by the river, stops of unmentionable nature, hot tubs, VooDoo Donuts, the warehouse party, and of course, the company of each other. It was a great break from Seattle, from my job, from moving...it was perfect, actually.

Friends and bikes in sunny Portland

I pose on a heavy BMX bicycle (the one that a friend used in the CHariot Wars) while waiting for donuts at VooDoo.

Turns out that you can barely squeeze 6 adults into a photo booth, as we discovered in the Portland mall in search of swim suits.

3) Point83's F***ing Hills Race aka FHR aka Cascade's Chilly Hilly (Bainbridge Island, WA)

I'd like to begin by pointing out that we only pirate the course. We do not use any of the Cascade resources, food, water, rest stops, etc. The weather on this particular Sunday was disgusting. Rainy/snowy and wind gusts like whoa. We woke up late and pushed through a headwindy sprint to the meet-up point at the ferry. I was cranky. If there is one form of weather that pisses me right off, it's wind. And here I was, the morning after a rough conversation with the gentleman friend that kept me up way too late, leaving the warmth and comfort of bed for 33 miles of effing hills in wind and snow. When we left the ferry, someone yelled "go," and listening to the song Black Sheep from the Scott Pilgrim soundtrack, I began on my way, pedaling along on Kingsley, my pride and joy yellow LeMond Buenos Aires. I paced myself to another member of the club who is always pleasant, and usually keeps a pretty good clip. There were times that I damn near started crying, but kept on truckin' until I got to the one check-point of the race, a vodka stop at the beginning of Baker Hill. I asked one of the labcoat-clad drink peddlers how many women had been by. He gave me a pensive look, then replied, "Huh, I guess you're the first!" I gulped down my shot of vodka, coughed a bit, did NOT puke, then proceeded to granny-gear my way up Baker Hill. Surprisingly, the alcohol helped. Anyway, without a clue as to who was behind me at what distance, I hurried along, making friends on the way. I eventually started cursing the Seattle winter weather and topography. My quads were cramping, my calves were screaming, my lungs where heaving, and the wind was blasting into my face, bringing snow and strife with it. I pushed myself through the one hill that remained between me and sweet, meaty, warm chili and fell over upon completion. I was the first woman to cross the finish line and god damn. It felt good.

FHR finishers crowd around the bonfire as they cheer on their fellow pirates

Please tune in for part 2 of this post. I have no idea when I"ll have time to write it, but I'll make it work somehow.

Fleeing

So, it's not that I've been skipping the running part, I'm just failing to write about it. I haven't forgotten to write so much as I've been pressed for time lately. It should also be noted that none of my recent runs have been remarkable in any way. No long distances and they're only peppered with the occasional guest star.

And then there was last night.

I had finished another long day in lab, and we'd unearthed really exciting information that is likely to diminish some risk that had been previously associated with my project. We're making progress, people. And even though it feels damn good, the hours upon hours that it has taken to generate these data have exhausted me. I am burned out, mentally and physically. Furthermore, remember the post "Distracted?" Yeah, a lot of that drama has not calmed down. In fact, it seems to have escalated and I'm finding myself working through a weird sense of rejection and trying to gracefully navigate my way through the rumor mill.

My typical knee-jerk reaction is to divert to a quiet, melancholy outlook, and spend a few days pouting and feeling sorry for myself. But yesterday, I came to two conclusions:

First, to my job:


Secondly, I decided to go running. Again, this was not a remarkable run. I covered a very brisk 5.5 miles in the dark, listening to my iPod on random. At first, my legs only wanted to move because they knew that doing so would get my blood flowing and keep me warm. But they kept moving after I broke a sweat - they picked up speed and each step brought with it a specific purpose of removing me further from everything that has been pissing me off or stressing me out. I was fleeing, and this didn't become apparent to me until I rounded the corner from the Seattle center back onto Mercer which put me back in the direction of my office. It all still waited for me - my lab, my email, my phone, my work, my reports, my stupid facebook account...My stride got shorter, my legs heavier, and the spring diminished from my step. The last mile dragged on and I couldn't find a single song that I wanted to hear. And though I finished with endorphins pumping through my vessels and veins, I lacked the emotional reprieve that I can usually achieve after a good run.

I suppose that's the problem with this habit - it's only temporary. You can only run so far before you wear yourself out, and when you return, everything is just as you left it. Sure, it doesn't directly solve any problems (excepting, of course, the improvement of physical fitness and perhaps aiding in weight loss), but perhaps it can lend you the resolve to handle all of it with strength and grace and patience. Or maybe it exhausts you just enough to stop caring so much.

Ugh. Sorry for the super emo posts lately! I have an exciting brunch run this weekend - stay tuned for happier (food-related!) posts :)