Race report - FIVE MILES

Oh, hello internet. It's a lovely evening in Southie, and yours truly here just ROCKED A FIVE MILE ROAD RACE. Suck on THAT, New Year's Resolutions.

I am so ridiculously proud of myself it's kind of embarrassing.

My neighborhood is amazing. Walking home from the Expo center with a dopey smile on my face, the sun was setting across the ocean and I heard the slightly off-pitch but still dulcet tones of an aging Sinatra impersonator and all was right with the world. I still had my race number on and oldtimers with their dogs and cigars clapped for me.

While I feel like I'm getting faster, according to most race results I'm sticking at around a ten minute mile (shut up, I never said I was fast). Near the end, my whole body was tingling, my arm was numb, and I felt like I was going to throw up. Then my Amazing DenialBrainBot4000 (usually utilized to convince myself that I'm not in love with people and/or don't need any friends) took over and by the time I reached the finish chute I passed eight people and almost forgot to stop.

Considering all I've had to eat today was half a salad and a handful of trail mix, I'm pretty impressed. Though I know that's not a healthy diet. And I've been so soul-crushingly sad for the past few weeks I could barely put one foot in front of the other, much less train for a race. Or get through a single hour of a single day without crying. (More on that later, because while it pains me to write about it or admit much of what has been going on, it must be done because a life without honesty is just stupid. Life is short, and I'm pretty sure that at the end of it there's nobody handing out cookies for not talking about stuff.)

Anyway I wish my roommate was home because I want to go drink a Guinness. That counts as dinner, right?

FIVE MILES, DUDES. FIVE. That's FOUR MORE THAN ONE, which is what I could barely run six months ago.

The below photos are from around mile 4.5 or so. I love that my face is all puppies and fluffy clouds but inside I'm cursing the day I was born and wishing I could curl up for a nice nap in the middle of Day Boulevard.

Race report - Artesani Park 5k

My official time has yet to be posted, but it was either a flat 30 or 29:59. A minute plus better than my last run on this same course, despite the heat and the fact I walked what I felt was a substantial part of the race. The walking was totally due to lack of mental toughness, and it makes me angry, but at the same time I must have been really hauling to still have beaten my previous time.
This race was much smaller than the last, and there was this hilarious group of Cougars (I don't know what really qualifies them as Cougars, but they were older and hotter than me so Cougs they are) gushing over the young male runners who were obviously going to win the thing with their tiny shorts and complete lack of body fat (and shirts).

New shoes

On a whim, I got a new pair of running shoes on Saturday. My leg pain was getting so bad I was convinced I had compartment syndrome and that there was nothing I could do to fix it and I should stop buying new shoes because they're expensive and maybe I'm just not meant to be a runner and ARRRRRGH. But, I found these lovely Asics Equation 2s at some discount shoe store and the difference from my month-old Rykas is absolutely astounding. I mean, they've created some new problems, namely that my toes now go numb and the collar of the shoe gives me ankle blisters but those problems are all run-through-able so I don't care. For serious though, it's like I'm running on clouds. I ran a nice 4+ loop around Castle Island in the mist and at the end, I felt like I could have kept going. So, take that legs. It's just me and you now, lungs. BRING IT.

On Sunday, I went to the gym. The FitCorp has majorly stocked up on kettlebells since I started there. This is exciting. I can only go there on weekends, but I think I want to at least try to make it for one weekend day every week. Of course, I am not very smart with numbers, and so I think I thought 12kg was a lot closer to 12lbs than it actually is, and ended up squatting & military pressing 2 12kg kettlebells which I think now is closer to 50 lbs? It felt good though. There were some old guys down there who looked at me really funny as I took my shoes off and repeatedly hoisted two cannonballs over my head, and letting out the occasional very ladylike grunt.

Smuttynose Will Run for Beer 5k

Smuttynose "Will Run For Beer" 5k

The best race I've been too, and yet the most unpleasant and my worst 5k time to date. Whatever though, there was free beer and really ugly race tshirts. (Seriously, guys. Comic Sans? Is it discounted or something because it's such a joke? I don't know how this stuff works. Oh well, free is free.)
The four of us (me, Claire, and racing newbies Pat and Jenna) set off for the Land of the Free at around 8:30 after some confusion about our Zipcar (mainly that it wasn't there). We arrived in plenty of time, and went to pick up our numbers (on a super-immature sidenote, Pat was dissapointed that Jenna & I got numbers 67 and 68 and he somehow got 219 even though we'd all registered at the same time. Oh, ha ha).
While the race was chip timed and pretty well organized, it was still very casual. There was a guy with a mic who just said "go!" and it got clogged up for a minute or two at the front.
It was shaping up to be a hot day. Many of the good residents of Newmarket had placed sprinklers on the side of the street and I made it my business to jump through all of them. I seriously think I might be the sweatiest skinny white girl on the planet. When I'm doing a hard run, my face gets so red people stare at me in alarm. Just sayin'.
Pat immediately took the lead of the four of us (of course), and then Claire was behind him and Jenna and I jogged together for a minute or two before I started pulling ahead of her so none of us ran together the whole time. There was a loop-around where other runners would pass us, and Claire passed me at the corner and waved, then when I came to that corner Jenna was running into the loop so I waved at her. She yelled "THIS SUCKS!" at me, apparently making a lot of friends in the back of the pack.
I managed to run mile 1, but was getting really fatigued going into mile 2. I really didn't want to walk, since that's been my main goal in all of this, but my vision started to go a bit blurry so I figured it'd be best to walk a bit so I slowed right before the water stop. I drank one cup and dumped another one on my head. The rest was kind of a blur, running through sprinklers and trying to keep my pace up but I ended up walking for probably 3 or 4 minutes on and off.
The last part was an incredible steep hill, and I charged up that, collapsing on the grass with a lame stupid time of 35:12 (11:22 min/mile). Pat did great with a 28:16, Claire did 31:02 and Jenna came charging up the hill at 35:56.
Surprisingly (or not?) we all really did want a delicious, cold, frosty beer after that. Smutty is one of my faves so I was pretty excited. There was also tons of free pizza, wings, chili, bananas, various sports drinks we lumped together as "Haterade", and of course karaoke to set the mood. We spent the rest of the afternoon drinking Shoals Pale Ale and Smutty IPA and eating pizza and chilling at the Old Stone Church. Really really good times.

All in your head

I read somewhere that running any distance beyond 3 miles is all in your head. I can only really run 3 miles, so I wonder if that means I have a weak mind. That's a depressing thought, but I wouldn't doubt it. How do I make my mind stronger? Jedi mind tricks? Wiggling my ears and rolling my eyes at the same time?
Or how about just flipping running more than 3 miles? Just DOING it. Somehow, I feel like there's some secret thing I need to do, some magic spell, some person I have to become and then POOF, I'll be able to run 10 miles. Telling myself that's not true doesn't seem to get the concept through my head though. Feeling guilty and weak just discourages me into not trying anymore, and that's no good.
The physical benefits of my quasi-running are obvious. My cardiovascular fitness has improved monumentally, for instance. When I started, I'd easily break 180 bpm running an 11 minute mile, now I'm at a comfortable 140-160 running a 9 minute mile. Can't keep up the 9 minute mile for more than 5 minutes, but hey.
Maybe the key is to just stop obsessing about 5 minutes and 9 minutes and 3 miles and just run all these silly thoughts out of my head.

No Stopping Now

Today I ran 4 miles. I almost didn't want to since I'd forgotten my iPod at work, and I had so much cleaning to do, and I am chock full to the brim with excuses, but I did it anyway and feel all the better for it.
It's lilac season and the Fens smelled like all of my best childhood memories. I crossed over to do the Riverway loop, and it was teeming with fluffy goslings. You really can't beat that kind of a cotton candy a rainbows evening. Not having music made me more aware of my surroundings, and looking up at the street signs that read "NO STOPPING ALLOWED" was oddly inspiring. So I didn't stop. Except when I would have otherwise been run over, which I think is fair.
No music also made me more aware of my own stride and my breathing pattern, which made me realize I really wasn't nearly as winded as I'd thought. And it also made me start humming very odd songs to myself, like old stuff from church camp, folk songs, stuff my mom made up, Christmas Carols. Before I knew it, I was home and couldn't feel my toes or my right arm.
Maybe it's just my low expectations of myself, but I'm still pretty excited that I can run more than a mile. I never in a million years thought I'd be able to run four. It's really shown me that just because something is possible, doesn't mean it's possible NOW. I always thought three miles was such a short distance that I should be able to do it right away, and that's the kind of thinking that has been derailing my progress for the last several years. It wasn't until I found a plan that enforced slow progress that I started to make any progress at all.
I am a slow learner at physical things. It always took me far longer to learn dance combinations, it took me three months to learn how to dive, and I fell thirty-seven consecutive times before I finally got up on waterskis for the first time. But you know what? Most other people would have quit long before I did. I had to get rugburns on my feet from practicing, spend hours at a time in the deep end of the pool, and faceplant into a lake thirty-seven times in a freaking row. And in the end, I accomplished what I set out to do. That, is the important thing. So I will continue to pat myself on the back for baby steps.

When does it get easier? I did almost 4.5 miles today, but much of that was quick walking breaks and wanting to vomit. How do people just start running and keep going? Not worrying about their knees or lungs or stomach or the traffic or how totally insane it is to be running around in a circle for 45 minutes?
Still, I do feel kind of awesome about it now. Maybe that's some sort of answer.