Friday Funny!

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Mostly Wordless Wednesday: Race Pics!

Finishline! I told ya I was ballin' like a baby

Highs and Lows

First the High.

Last night I went for my first run since the race!
It was fantastic. I kept expecting it to hurt so when it never did I was up on cloud 9. It was also speedy. I did one of my 6k routes and decided to just let my legs go. Apparently they were antsy since we did it in just under 34 minutes. My 6k runs are usually 36 minutes. I will even admit to stopping for about a minute at the turn around point. I wore a cheap hairband and it wasn't staying put so I needed to fix it. That will teach me.

Then the Low.

I got the post marathon blues.

Its was even so textbook. Great race, runners high and crash the next day. Life went back to normal, I sent Handy Man off to work and the boys to school and that was it. Other than doing my race report there was nothing to really keep the high going. Sure there was the meet up with clinic Tuesday night. But the fact that there was really no one else to talk to about it was a let down. Most people didn't even know or care that a race had happened in our city. And even those that did I could have told them that it took me 10 hours to finish and the answer would have been "Wow that great. right?"

I'm not surprised at all though. The same thing happened after our wedding. I have a habit of giving a lot of myself to a goal. I worked my ass off prepping for my race. I made sure I was taking care of my body and I wasn't risking injury and then the focus of almost 5 months work was done. It just shows that there is a continued mental aspect of running even afterwards.

It probably doesn't help that I had no real plans after the race. Everything for the winter was going to be based on how I felt after the Marathon. Do I want to keep up my distance or go for speed. I mean I know I can technically do both. I'm debating Around the Bay in March. I'm signing up for the Santa Jingle 5k where you do the race in a Santa suit. You're not allowed to be out of the suit at all otherwise the site says they'll pull you out. Should definitely be interesting.

BTW- once I figure things out I have some really interesting race pictures coming. Think of your worst and these will put them to shame. Really.

Pain Free!

Yeap today, 3 days (who's counting) after my race I'm officially pain free.
Monday was interesting to say the least and stairs were horrible. I did find that if I changed my position at least every 10-15 minutes I would stay unstiff. The worst was the hip and knee pain. Thankfully by yesterday it was just a ache on the back of my hamstrings and today there is still some stiffness if I stay to long in one position but otherwise nothing hurts!

Last night the majority of the clinic people meet up and we talked about the race and it was fantastic hearing all the stories. I even found a great use for my running shoe cookie cutter! and the cookies were a hit!

 Some of other runners are apparently also trying to convince me to stay with (crazy)long distance. A lot of us are thinking Around the Bay and someone mentioned that with doing that race I could go either way towards a half or a full for the spring. A couple of the girls want to do Chicago next year as a girls weekend thing. Yeah at this point I'm waiting till I feel the itch for the marathon again. I think I'll need more pain free days before I can remember why a marathon sounded fun the first time.

Though I am excited about this weekend. I'm sleeping in on Sunday and am in charge of breakfast! For the whole of marathon training Handy Man has taken over pancake Sunday. It seems weird but I missed getting to do that. So I'm happy I get to this weekend. I'll see how I feel on Monday and might try an easy 5k. We'll see what the fall brings.

Marathon Recap!

This in insanely long. Definitely make sure you are comfy before reading.

*********

How to put yesterday into words?

The night before I laid out all my stuff. Which included 3 possible outfits. The weather was horrible on Saturday and thankfully the winds calmed down a bit for Sunday morning. I decided to not force myself to go to bed earlier and it worked well. I had a fantastic solid sleep. Of course my stomach started feeling the nerves once I was up at 6am. I checked my facebook and twitter as I ate breakfast. The outpouring of “Good Lucks” I had received had me crying a bit. I then got dressed and took a picture of my chosen outfit so people would know what I looked like.  I got a ride down with a friend (IR) at 7am and actually felt pretty calm. There was an OMG moment when we down at the race start and saw the amount of people and the set up. Bag check was a bit late but we found some of our other clinic friends and chatted away. Once we checked our bags we went off to the Hilton and met up with more of our clinic friends. It was great to see everyone in such good spirits.

Around 8:30 we went to our corrals. It was a mad house. I think weren’t big enough to hold their people or something because there were tons of blue corral people standing outside and blocking the sidewalks.  IR and I managed to get seeded in our corral but we lost pretty much everyone else from our group. At 9am the gun went off and we waited for our turn to move up. It was basically a walk up to the starting line and then we were off!

Note: I don’t have any splits since I forgot to set the laps on my watch.

The goal for the first 5k was to take it easy and just allow my body to warm up. It was busy and I was getting annoyed with the 2:15 pacer group that was doing 10 and 1s. While most would go off to the side not everyone did so there was more weaving than I would have liked. IR and I were doing great and it was hard to make ourselves take our walk breaks since we felt fantastic but knew we had to take it easy so we wouldn’t blow up later.

It was about 6k when we saw the leaders and I yelled and cheered for our Canadian guys. They were looking great! After that I put my music on to keep me in the zone. I saw Marlene and whooped for her but she couldn’t hear me with the band playing next to her.  I was feeling great and just worked on not letting myself get to speedy. We hit the 10k mats at 1:04:26. Then we hit the 12k turnaround and headed up for the division of half and full. I told IR around 16k that I was feeling great and it didn’t feel like we had been running that far at all. We were on target for a 4:30 with a tiny buffer.

Around 20k we hit the divide where the half marathoners head up to the finish and I got all teary eyed as I went under the Marathon arch. I even made the comment that we were really doing a marathon once we turned down to Front Street.

21.1k split - 2:14:23

It was around here that my legs stared to feel sore. Nothing bad but in a “we’ve been doing this a while now” kind of way. My stomach felt off and so I stopped at a porta potty. It added 5 minutes to my time since there was only 1! Just before 25k I saw my first support group and it really made my day.

 As you can tell I got teary eyed again and was trying not to cry.

 The winds on the east side of the city seemed to be worse than the west side. I’m not sure if that was just because I was getting tired as well. On the Lakeshore towards Coxwell I was having to stop and walk a bit more than planned because the winds were making it hard to catch my breath even though I know I was at a comfortable pace. I was so happy to be in the Beaches since to me it was home court. Seeing everyone cheering was great. But the real highlight was getting to see my parents and my boys.

30k split: 3:18:14

I saw them around the Neville Park turnaround. I actually went off course technically and past some traffic cones so I could hug them all. I SO NEEDED that.

I was crying a bit again after my quick 30 second hug break. I got to see and hug them again as I headed towards the finish. On my way out of the Beaches I saw my Clinic Leader and waved. She jumped in and ran with me in her boots for a couple minutes and we talked. I told her my original goal was out the window but I for the most part felt great and that I hadn’t hit the wall yet. She told me that I looked strong and she was so proud of me.

35k split: 3:54:08

 Then we were headed to Eastern and by that point we were running into the winds and it hard. My legs were so sore and tired. IR was feeling it a lot now too and we ended up taking longer walk breaks and kept checking in with each other. The Don Valley flyover was a bitch and I complained about it. I ended up doing most of my slowing down here. It was literally just to finish with my legs and the crazy head wind.

40k split: 4:30:44

 I saw my friends from 25k again around 41k and I ended up giving them my fuel belt. I couldn’t stomach anything from about 37k on. I would take water if there was some at station but I was worried my stomach was going to revolt.

IR and I took one last walk break and I kept repeating to her that her family was waiting. “Your daughter is at the finish” She had pulled me through some rough patches earlier and I wasn’t letting her go down now. We were so close!

At 500m to go all of sudden my pain went away! It was like I was on cloud 9 and my legs were on their own and just wanted to go. At 400m I realized that IR was behind me but I couldn’t stop. I knew that while my endorphins had kicked in and I couldn’t feel the pain I knew it was there. If I stopped it would be hard to start again.  The tears started coming and it was hard to push them away.

My husband and step-daughter were at the last turn before the finish and the tears couldn’t be held back as I waved to them. I cried and held my hands up as I crossed the finish with a time of 4:44:59(chip).

I stopped and looked for IR and she wasn’t far behind at all and we hugged and fought back more tears. Of course once we stopped all the pain came rushing back and I thought I was going to throw up. I got my medal and space blanket and got my bag. I found my husband and stepdaughter easily and we went straight for home. The idea of food grossed me out and I knew if I stopped for anything at this point I wasn’t starting again.

Having given birth twice med free I can honestly say that to me this was harder. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done and it’s also one of my proudest. Yesterday ranks right up there with the birth of my children and my wedding day.

Gun Time: 4:55:52

Chip Time: 4:45:59

W25-29: 172/231

Gender: 971/1400

I'm a Marathoner!!

Just a quick pop in to let everyone know that I finished my race and I'm now a Marathoner!!

I did 42.4k in 4:45:58 according to my chip time.

Thank you so much for the support, from here, Twitter, Facebook, emails. It met so much to me knowing I had people from all over cheering me on.

A race report will be done in the next couple days as I come off my runners high. Its truly been a roller coaster of emotions and I can't wait to share all about it with you.

I want to do that!

Most would think that the path that has taken me to my first Marathon started August 1 2009(That would be the first day of my Learn to Run Clinic)

Nope. That day I went into it thinking that if I could do 5k a couple times a week then that would definitely help me stay healthy.

The date that I believe led me to here was September 27 2009. Just a couple weeks later. I know I've mentioned this before but humour me. The Learn to Run clinic had finished our run and I don't even remember the intervals that we did that day. What I do remember is that when we went back to the store a staff member was at the door telling us that the leaders of the Marathon would be coming through here in about 30 minutes. It was the first time Scotia would bring the Marathon through our part of the city so it was exciting so of course I stayed.

The lead car came by and the runners weren't far behind at all but I watched them speed past me. I got teary eyed and cheered them on. It was amazing to see the speed they had and that they were so far into a race and clearly pushing it but they looked so fresh still.  I was awed. Simple as that.

I talked with some people around me about what we all just saw and slowly more runners were running past us. They were fast too and as time went on they were less fast, more of a pace I thought I was doing (though with far less distance). But

They were regular people!

They weren't going for prizes and cash. They were running and had trained for months just to run a route and get a medal at the end. I cheered harder for them than I did the leaders. I tried to encourage those that were taking walk breaks. I high fived a couple people. I saw Marlene in there at some point and was excited that I "knew" someone in there.

Though the sore hands from clapping, the getting sore throat from cheering, I realized something.

I wanted to run the Scotia Full. I wanted to run the Marathon down in the Beaches like I saw others do that day just over 2 years ago.

I want to do that!

Tomorrow morning, I'll be wearing a Marathon bib and at the starting line ready to take the first steps to being a Marathoner.

Track Me!

So as we all know I've got plans on Sunday. You know just a little thing called the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon.
Last night bib numbers went out. I had already set the post about Trouble to go up for today and was going to leave this till tomorrow but really? I'm just too excited and want to share!

I'm bib # 3818.
If you are not in the area and want to cheer me on, live results will be up on the SportsStats website during the race.
If you are in the area you should really come down and support all the runners.

Invested!

So last night was a pretty important night in our Beaver Colony. It was Investiture night. All the new kids officially became Beavers with the #115 Seton Group. Trouble was one of them.

At this meeting they got their scarfs and woggles(that would be the little blue thing that holds the scarf).
He was so excited that he even did a break dance.

Now we fully have a Scouting family. and we'll even be able to get a good picture of it all since this weekend is Apple Day! Shorty will be with us and shes going to help us sell some apples. So if you see anyone from Scouts and their apple baskets please PLEASE donate. 100% of the apple day donations go right to the Colonies.

The Irony

So I currently sit here impatiently waiting for my bib number to be emailed to me.

Laundry and other cleaning isn't very distracting, Neither really is playing games with Trouble where he makes the rules up as we go and I seem to always get it wrong.

It brings to mind that I'm not a patient person. Believe I'm fully aware of this. I am an instant gratification kind of gal. Which brings me to the irony. I'm running a Marathon in 4 days. A Marathon isn't an instant gratification kind of thing. Neither is the training for it. Yet I've done one and an in a couple days time about to do the other. huh.

So like I said I'm currently waiting for an email that might not be here till later on tonight (when you think end of day is? That's what FB said, emails should be received by the end of the day). So I guess I could use this as practice for Sunday right?

Thanksgiving and running

First off

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! I hope you are all having a fantastic weekend with friends and family.
Yesterday we went to my parents and enjoyed a yummy turkey dinner. But first we had to make some room. We hit the local pumpkin patch for their karting, hay rides, corn maze and pumpkins of course

Because after dinner there was lots of lazing around. I had made two pies (apple and pumpkin) neither of which I remember to take a picture of and I doubt either one will last the day today.  Later today we're hitting up a Chinese buffet with some of HandyMan's side of the family. What? Chicken balls and rice totally go with Thanksgiving......

So about my running this weekend. The plan called for 16k on Saturday with 6k on Sunday. The original plan was to head to the store with some others for 8am. But my bed was too comfy and Saturday is my usual sleep in day so I slept in till 8 instead. I did manage to be out the door by 9:30 and I'm glad I changed my plans. It was  a wonderful run. You know those ones where you only feel like you ran as far as you did because you listen to lots of songs on your Ipod and your watch shows that you were out for a hour and a bit? Yeah it was one of those. By the end I knew I had done 16 but honestly it felt like I had just did 5.

Then before we hit up Guelph, I did 6k with some friends. One of them was coming back from a  hip flexor issue and was going crazy. So since it was supposed to be long run pace and 10 and 1s we decided to do just a slow continuous pace and see how her hip takes it. She did great and we ran the whole thing just chatting it up. She feels good about the race now.

Which is currently

6 days away!!!!

So the plan for this week is to hydrate, eat well, organize my play list, and get me my shot bloks (our store is out of my favourite flavour) and oh yeah get some rest in there.

BTW- Huge Congrats to Cindy who did her first Marathon yesterday in 4:40:56!!!!!

Good Luck Friday!!!!

Cindy at Foodie at the Finish Line will be running her first Marathon at the Victoria Marathon! She got sidelined last year attempting her first due to an injury and we've been talking throughout our training cycle about our races. I'm super crazy excited for her to do this race on Sunday. Lots of fun and Lots of Luck!

A couple friends from my clinic will be running the Chicago Marathon and I want to wish them lots of luck and fun, espeically for Maureen who be doing her first!

You will all Rock it! and I can't wait to hear all about the races!

Three Things Thrusday

1.
Well my Wednesdays are going to get interesting. I volunteered to work with Group with Scouts. The levels I believe are
-National
-Provincial
-Regional
-Area
-Group
-Section(where the kids actually are)
(feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, btw)

Handy Manny is already a Leader with the boy's section and kinda volunteered himself for Area. I then was talking to the Section Leader and they needed help with more of the administrative stuff and an additional leader since Beavers enrollment really jumped up this year. Yeah so I volunteered for that. So now our whole family will be at Beavers Wednesday nights.

We are definitely an Scouting family.

2.
Its our last clinic night tonight. Its hard to believe we are so close to done. I think our guest speaker will be talking about recovery stuff. Then we'll do 10k recovery. Its also hard to believe there's only

10 Days!

left before the race. Tomorrow its single digits. Eeee.....

3.
You'd think that once I'm done training for a Marathon my schedule would open up more right? Apparently not. Its actually getting busier. I don't mind at all but it just feels that people weren't inviting or asking me about things while I was training. The closer I get to race the more the calendar seems to be exploding with activities and coffee dates, volunteer stuff for afterwards.

Solo Sucks

I'm starting to think running with my clinic has somewhat wreaked my solo running.

I've noticed that if I have a bad run, its generally when I'm running on my own. Apparently I do well or at least I'm don't wimp out when I have others with me. Yesterday I had a 6k tempo to do and my Ipod was dead but I figured it was 6k and doable without. My legs felt heavy the whole time and it took a bit of distractions to keep me from wimping out. So for today's 10k tempo I made sure my Ipod was ready to go. My legs felt ok but today it was mentally challenging.

I figure a good chunk of that was because I usually run Wednesday evenings with my clinic group. I planned to run this morning on my own since I would be helping out at Beavers with the boys tonight. Was it because I switched up my routine? Or maybe that I kept thinking of other things I needed to do today? It was just hard. I ended up cutting it short at 7.5k and walked the rest of the way home. I was literally with the thought process of...

Get to the next light and you can walk a bit
Get to the next street......
Get to the next pole.....
Finally when the get to the next.... was things that were 10 feet apart, I just accepted that mentally I was done and it was ok to stop.

Hopefully tomorrows run WITH my clinic group will go better.