Taking Time Off

After allowing my body to recover a little, I put on an old pair of running shoes (cause I lost one during the race) and tried to go for a run on Sunday. At first, it was like trying to lug around two huge tree trunks. My legs felt heavy, I was breathing really hard, my ipod was broken - so it was just me, God and my broken body. I only ran about two miles and decided to call it a day. I felt like I had never run before in my life.

A couple days later I tried again. This time, I took Kacie for a walk in the jogger down through the harbor. I mostly walked, with a bit of jogging here and there. I still didn't have my new shoes yet so I was out there with no support under my ridiculously flat feet, and they were beginning to get sore. By the time I made it home, I was limping again. I need to take more time off.

My new shoes came yesterday YEAH! I can't wait to take them for a run - or a walk rather. My legs feel sore all the time. I think because I'm not running. Now I know what everyone feels like when they talk about having to take time off from injury. It pretty much sucks.

My First 26.2

I did it! And all in all, it was exactly how I expected it to go. The first 17 miles were just fine and I had to fight through the last 9.2 My unofficial finish time was 5 hrs 45 minutes.

The weather was gorgeous - sunny and cool all day. Brad Kacie and I had spent the night in a hotel there and our friends Dave & Michelle were meeting us in the morning. By race time, my friend Matt and Coach Andrea were still stuck in traffic. I was sure they wouldn't make it. Bummer!

At the start of the race I was so excited I almost cried. I had all my gear and supplies. After singing the national anthem, we were off! I started off at my usual 10:45 per mile. There were over 18,000 people running in all of the races that day and the marathon & half marathon was the biggest group.

To be a part of that was spectacular. All the thousands of bobbing heads running forward together was wild! As I was trying to pass some of the walkers, other runners were flying by me. It started to thin out a little by mile 3 and up at mile 11 the half marathoners split away. That was really nice because then it was basically empty. I refuelled again at that point with Hammer Gel and got really excited - out there all by myself. Just then, my right foot acted up again. The pain was severe enough for me to stop a couple times to see if I coule stretch it out but mentally it took it's toll. At the halfway point, I saw my coach, Andrea! She had sprinted to the starting line - ran up all the way to the pace group we agreed to meet and passed me during all of that. She was about 1.5 miles ahead of me. (She's a Maniac! (lol)

We finally met up and started running together at about mile 15 or so. She told me that she talked to Brad on the phone and they were trying to cheer me on at mile 6 but we missed each other. That was really encouraging. I was doing okay until I hit mile 17 - 17 was the longest I had run in my training. Even though I wasn't thinking about that, it still hit me physically - I was fatigued and pushing through the pain in my legs, and foot. My shoulders and upper back became tight and that's no fun to run that way. So I ran as much as I could and stopped to walk when I had to. And it wasn't walking like you normally walk. It was fast L O N G strides, so it all still hurt. I remember thinking, if it hurts anyway, I might as well be running =)

It was really great running with Andrea because she showed me that you can have fun on the run. She would stop to hoola-hoop with college students when we ran through campus, she stopped to dance with another group. She would heckle back at the crowd - jeering them to come run with us... It was soo much fun. She even wanted to run in and buy some pizza right in the middle of it!

At mile 22 I ran the entire mile because that's my lucky number. It felt good, considering I was feeling quite fatigued. I walked and ran up to mile 24.5 and was trying to run the last 1.7 - right about then, we saw Brad on a skateboard with a video camera. It was really cool! At mile 26 Michelle was there with Kacie and I got really excited - she was too! My firend Matt who I thought didn't make it, had finished about 15 minutes BEFORE me and was there with Dave at the finish line.

It was such an awesome experience - There were other really great stories that were told that day. Dave had to swim in the Hyatt pond to retrieve a skateboard, we lost our lawn chairs and cooler and we had a super fun lunch at Gladstones.

The course was beautiful. What an accomplishment! As for my full Marathon Days - I'm putting them on hold and sticking to half marathons. I'm running Huntington Beach in Feb and San Francisco in July. I'll dot some 5k's & 10k's in there too. I've never even run one of those cute little races yet.

THANK YOU to all of you for your kind words of support and encouragement. And keep reading because I'm still running.

Tapering...

Hey Everybody! I've been getting some great feedback from all of you - it is really encouraging and I thank you for taking two minutes out of your day to read up on my little blog.

Well, it's that time - time to Taper: "to become gradually more slender toward one end." As I draw closer to race day, my training has begun to taper off. Instead of increasing my mileage every other week, I will actually decrease my long runs. I will continue to train during the week, staying around 4 miles per day and my long run this weekend will only be 6 miles. This will give my body time to rest & gain strength for the 26.2 mile adventure.

For those of you who have decided to take up running, keep it up! Don't get discouraged because not every run is going to be a good run. You just keep going and run again another day.