not so... Back of the Pack, Baby.

It's Time

2009-04-10T12:55:00.003-04:00

Yep. It's kind of a sad day, but its also kind of not. It's time to retire the old blog. It stopped really fitting what was going on for me, so rather than trying to force it, I've decided to just shut it down and move on.

to my new blog. http://mmmkoolaid.blogspot.com/

It's going to be very different than this blog is, because over the last year I have started to fundamentally change my thoughts and feelings about getting healthy and fit. I'm transitioning away from thinking about running and racing and over into more holistic, integrated ideas of health and wellness. And talking about that on a racing blog just didnt seem to fit.

This blog really helped me change my life. It chronicles the first chapter in a journey I never knew I would take back in the first post. It started as nothing more than a single place that my friends and family could go to to make sure that I was still doing ok through a rough patch and could see that I was using that to start something good and new. The first chapter had a lot of ups and downs, injuries and successes, people coming and going. Starting this blog and chronicling that transformation kept me honest, it kept me motivated, it kept me sane. Chapter 2 is no different. Just as cracked out as ever, just in a few more different avenues.

So... feel free to join me on my new blog:
http://mmmkoolaid.blogspot.com/

I probably won't post there as long nor as prolifically as I did over here, but then again, you never know. I don't think I could have predicted this journey at all when I started.

Happy Friday.
JC

Bleh... Lactate Threshold Work Sucks

2008-12-01T15:25:00.002-05:00

I hate it. It's a necessary evil, but I really hate it. The idea is to push yourself well into that upper limit of your heart rate so you can improve both your aerobic capacity (aka the VO2max) and improve your body's acid tolerance. Like I said, necessary evil in the world of sport, but it's rarely a pretty thing to do.

This weekend I ran a 6.6 mile loop in Brooklyn. It was a really good run, but it had a number of stops and starts in it as I was trying to hunt down a photo opportunity for my dear old Dad. The pace time got really wonky because of all of the hunting around, but I noticed something interesting just before mile 5... one of my favorite upbeat songs came on and I glanced down and caught sight of my speed on my GPS. 6:43/mile. Sometimes things like that pop up on the screen and its just a little hiccup due to weird interference with satellites, but it usually gets worked out when the data upload corrects things. I made a note of the time and definitely that I was running a lot faster than normal and would struggle to keep it up beyond this one song, but just kept going. I was having fun. When I came back home and uploaded all my data I found out it really wasn't off. Somewhere in the middle of this run I had dropped to a sub-7 pace. This was the fastest I had ever run in my entire life. Crazy. In the end, my overall pace worked out to a 9:40, which is ok and certainly improving from where it had been, but I could tell that my limiting factor was just my cardio system not used to running this fast. My legs were feeling ready to do a lot more. And this told me I needed to get a little more focused on catching my cardio back up to where it ought to be. And that means LT training.

Sunday was my Crossfit day. Coincidentally we did a "metcon" WOD (are you starting to learn the lingo yet? WOD = workout of the day). Metcon stands for metabolic conditioning, so basically its similar to LT work in that you go all out and see what you can do in hopes of improving your overall ability to do crazy aerobic workouts. The metcon workout we were doing was called a Tabata, which is named for a Japanese researcher Izumi Tabata who came up with this craziness. Basically it's a way that you can, in parallel, train both your aerobic and anaerobic pathways concurrently, which until his break-through in 1996 was considered something that had to be trained independently. So a Tabata interval can be applied to any number of different exercises, but it is administered the same way. It runs like this: In 20 seconds do as many reps as you can of an exercise. Rest 10 seconds. Repeat this 20/10 cycle for a total of 8 times. It's an all-out kinda gig that lasts 4 minutes. But it's an very intense 4 minutes of everything you got. But this is Crossfit. So its not like its going to stop there. No no my friends.

Our WOD was called the "Tabata Something Else." Weird name, I know. It runs like this: Pull Up Tabata, Push Up Tabata, Sit Up Tabata, Squat Tabata. So string the 8 x 20 seconds all out/ 10 seconds rest all together for a solid 16 minutes of hell on earth and you have Tabata Something Else. Starting out with pull-ups was killer. I knew it was going to be killer so I dropped to the green band resistance and tried to kip as many of the pull-ups as I could, but the truth is that much that fast was killing my forearms most of all. I have small hands and was apparently on the larger pull up bar, so that didn't help. In the end, I got 48 pull-ups in the 8 segments of 20 seconds. That needs some work. Over to push-ups. I got 66. Those were pretty painful too, but not nearly so much. On to sit-ups and I got another 66. I could have gotten more but I didn't get over to my station in enough time, which sucks, so that will improve next time for sure. Squats were my best of the bunch. I got 96 in. I managed to get better with almost each round, so my last round was my best. I think a lot of that was my hamstrings being tight at the beginning but as we went on it got a little easier to pick it up. So with that I was pretty pleased.

So let's get to today's run, shall we? I knew I was going to push myself pretty hard this time. My goal was to average sub-9. In general, I run faster in the morning, but my morning got usurped by work drama, so I wound up running in the middle of the day. Challenge #1-- this was going to make my heart rate naturally higher anyway. Challenge #2, I overdressed. It wound up being in the 50s and sunny and while I knew that before heading out, it didn't translate as well as it could to my clothing. So I was running hot. My goal was 3 and change, so I was keeping it short, but I wanted it fast and hard. And boy did I get it. Up until just after the completion of mile 2, I was averaging an 8:52, but at that point it all kind of fell apart. My heart rate was averaging not just high but very high and suddenly I hit a number I didn't think I could. Until today I thought my max heart rate was 185. All the testing I had done put it right about there and the hardest runs I had done maxed out around 179, so I was feeling like this was a pretty good guess. Max heart rate is a static number. It doesn't change. The Lactate Threshold changes as you get more fit so you can run harder and closer to that max number without falling apart, but max stays consistent. Your heart can only beat so hard and this magic number is unique to individuals. So when I got home I found my heart rate had maxed at 187. Which means that my true max is probably even a little higher since I am pretty sure I didn't hit my breaking point today, but it explains why it all fell apart at that point. I carried on to 3.6 but it was much more of a struggle after that, so I stopped and walked a little bit to catch my breath. Final result was again a 9:40, but overall I am ok with that.

It's definitely taking me some work to get my speed back, but even averaging that right now is perfectly ok with me. If that's all I get out of this, I can live with that. But I have a sense I might be able to go a little bit faster, so we'll keep trying. This week is going to get a little crazy busy with work, so I am not sure whats going to happen with the usual schedule. Here's hoping I can hold it all together and be good to go, but it'll play out as it does, right?

So yeah, that's whats going on. Happy to be back in my cave post Thanksgiving. While it was fun to see my family, my innards weren't too happy to come out of the cave. I kinda felt like crap for a few days afterwards and I think its just because I haven't eaten bread or dairy products in a while now, so it really messed me up again. Yea for Paleo feeling normal now. I *heart* my cave.

More later.

Fitness Idiocy of the Week

2008-11-29T06:54:00.003-05:00

Cause I am sure I can make this into a weekly thing if I want to. We'll see how inspired I can get. But this one bared mentioning.

This is not a joke. It is the brain child of a former Olympian named Alex Astelian (you can read his bio on his website: http://www.speedfit.com/). This gigantic piece of machinery is nothing more than a treadmill that moves at 3x the speed of walking. Now you can take your treadmilling outdoors and run errands while working out. Hmm. Isn't that called RUNNING? And doesn't it cost a whole lot less than running with this piece of crap?? Seriously?? Oh, and Alex... nice work on the accompanying music. I feel like I am ready for an episode of The Greatest American Hero to start.

I mean, who in their right mind is going to throw down even the strict cost of parts to build this thing, nevermind find a way to get this into their garage or worse, apartment, in the first place?

The guy is apparently looking for venture capital to get this thing off the ground (hahahaha). So hey, maybe you'll know someone who thinks it is as genius as Alex does. In the meantime, I think I'll stick to my sneakers and the pavement.

Now That Was A Bear!

2008-11-20T08:23:00.003-05:00

I had crossfit again last night. I moved my week around a little bit again. And I'll be honest, I was stoked for this workout long before I walked in the door.

Couple of reasons why. First-- day 3 of paleo finally turned a corner. Dare I say, I actually felt fit for human consumption once again. While I still felt that weirdness at 1pm, it wasn't bad at all and I could just sort of ignore it and move on. By mid-day I had, literally, nailed my calorie intake and ratios. I was spot on. By the end of the day, I had kept it along the same lines... straight down the middle, hitting each of the new percentages fairly on the mark, and more importantly, within each meal itself. That's really the big challenge-- striking the balance at the meal-level, not just in the overall day. If I can balance each meal it regulates the components of each-- so adding protein to carbs slows down the burn of the carb.

Timing the protein to not just the carb but also to timing of exercise and recovery creates something called "calorie partitioning." In essence calorie partitioning is timing intake to correspond to muscle damage. And remember that muscle damage is part of muscle growth, right? Every workout basically stresses and tears muscle fiber and then the body gets to work on rebuilding itself. This is why after a hard workout muscles swell a little and people think that they are already buffer from the workout one hour later. The swell is the body's healing response. The idea of calorie partitioning is that if I can introduce more calories and the right kinds of calories at that point, I can direct them towards the muscle damage which in turn will help repair and strengthen the muscle.

So my goal for going to Crossfit, and already knowing what I was in for, was to have my caloric base solid and well spread out, but I knew I would want a larger chunk of my calories to be spent after the workout, as close to the end of the workout as possible, and more heavily weighted to the carb and protein side. I'd have some fat to make up after, but that wouldn't be an issue if I planned it well.

I walked into the door of Crossfit at solidly 60% of my calorie intake with the spread perfect. Hot. I was getting the hang of this.

So Crossfit. The workout of the day was called The Bear. It ran with the following instructions:

"7 sets of the sequence:
Power Clean
Front Squat
Push Press
Back Squat
Push Press

5 Rounds
Rest between rounds as needed."

And it included a movie. Yep. Now I can't embed it here for technical reasons, but I can give you a link to it. The Bear. I highly encourage you to watch it. With the sound up... cause the music with it is rockin. It is, simply put (sorry Mom), workout porn. This workout is hot. As you watch the woman in the front, you'll see what I mean.

So when it came time to doing it, I knew that I needed to be mindful of the weight because the newness of so many of these movements. At this point, the worst thing I can do is compromise the form and wind up hurting myself. So I went in knowing I was going to be conservative with the weight and just try and dial in the form. The good thing about this approach is that there are a lot of trainers there to help dial it in with you. Taking what they say and trying to feel through it is hard and there's a lot to pay attention to, so I took it slow and lighter and just kind of ran with it. I wound up getting my 5 rounds in at 35lbs/ 35lbs/ 40lbs/ 45lbs/ 45lbs. At 45lbs I started to struggle with the power clean. I had struggled with the squats all the way through because its supposed to be back over your heels and the strength of my quads wants the lift to come from there, but then it puts me into a forward pitch, which is bad with heavier weights. If I can retrain myself to be over my heels, the weight is in a straight line with me and I don't worry about tipping in any direction. I came away with these two areas as my biggest work points. I need to nail the power clean better and I need to fix my foot placement for the squats. Thankfully, I had quite a bit of advice and help throughout this workout. End result, it was hard. But I LOVED IT. The Bear has been my favorite WOD (Workout of the Day) to date.

From there, because it was one of the trainers birthdays, I hung out with him as he was teaching people "kipping pull ups." Kipping pull ups are totally different than standard pull ups. Instead of strictly pulling with your arms, kippings involve creating momentum through a swing to more efficiently bring yourself over the bar. Instead of aiming to get your chin over the bar, this finishes with your hands at chest level before pushing back and swinging back down into full extension well ahead of the bar and then pulling back. It's like being a swing. I've watched people do this before, but it looks hard, honestly. There's a lot that is going on and its a coordination of a lot of stuff. So, truthfully, I've avoided trying it. Not last night. I started out with the blue band for resistance. Its the same one I have at home and the one that I use for my standard pull-ups. I got a leg in and locked off and played with it for a while. And eventually the movement clicked and off I went. After a few, we stepped me down to the tan band which is the lightest of the bands. Again, off I went, and while it was a little harder, it still felt solid. And it was fun! So with some reluctance, we took the tan band away and let me try it on my own. Close, but no cigar. Truth is, my shoulders were pretty freaking tired from The Bear and now all these other kippings, that I don't think it was my best bet. Maybe fresh I could hit one or two without the band. I will have to try it on Sunday.

In between kippings, I just watched the L2 class after us do the same workout. I love watching this kind of thing. I love seeing people really dialed in. I love seeing the clean movement, the tight form and the strength all together. It's transfixing, honestly. There is one woman I watch more than most. She's got that attention to detail that looks effortless now, but I am sure took her a long time to find. She was helping me on my form yesterday alot, so watching her do it with all the details she had given me was cool. Truth is, this workout just looks incredible. Especially when you have a room full of people doing it.

In the end, it was really cold out and I didn't want to start my cool down until I was ready to get some food into me, so I opted to run home. I was a little overdressed for the run, but that was ok. It would keep my heart rate up and just be a good finish to the night. It was just 2 miles, so it was easy, even with the backpack and the excessive layers. And I love running over some of the old school paving stones in Park Slope. I got home and had some dinner. Lots of protein and carbs. Salmon and more of the butternut squash I had made. And to top it all off I had some nuts to make sure I got some fat in me.

End result-- check me out... right on the mark, baby!

Not too shabby.

Love from the cave,
JC

I Got Me A Baseline

2008-11-19T13:16:00.002-05:00

I told you that before I set out on my crazy little cave person diet, I went to get my doctor's approval. I had her run my blood work too. So hopefully this will establish my baseline against which I can really see how good this diet really is.

With no further ado, I'm sharing it with you all so you can keep me on the hook for this.

Total Cholesterol: 166 mg/dL
HDL cholesterol: 57 mg/dL
LDL Cholesterol: 100 mg/dL
Triglycerides: 45 mg/dL
Blood Glucose: 78 mg/dL

Most importantly, my kidneys, liver and thyroid all tested normal and I am not anemic as of the start of all of this. The anemic thing has been no small feat, so given the timing of this, I think the anemia thing may also be related to starting to eat meat again.

I really wish I had gotten this done when I first climbed up off the couch. It's been interesting to watch the last 2 years of these numbers improving. You would never know looking at these numbers how profoundly sedentary the majority of my life has been. I wish there was a way to equally quantify the improvement in things like lung function since quitting smoking, too.

Seeing numbers like this remind me just how much I saved my own life some years ago when I climbed up off the couch and stubbed out my last cigarette. Now let's see what happens after going Paleo.

Well Ain't This Interesting?!

2008-11-18T17:43:00.005-05:00

I mentioned a few days ago that I was going to be trying my hand at the Paleo Diet. Well, I started it this week and let me tell you, this is turning into quite an adventure. I shall share. Cause I'm like that.

So let's start with the premise. And if you are reading along and you don't believe in evolution, this is totally the part where you hit the red X button. Tho it would be funny to have some non-evolution-believers reading a queer athletes blog. Hahaha. But I digress.

Theory is that humans evolved to eat a diet that is radically different than we do today. Back in the paleolithic period our cave-dwelling ancestors lived off of what they could hunt or gather. There was no agriculture, much less the industrial agriculture we've all been lulled into. While certainly people lived harsh lives and probably died early, they died of things like animal attacks, exposure to elements, getting run over by Flintstones cars and the like. In general, early humans show no evidence of the chronic diseases we are all dying from-- heart disease, cholesterol, diabetes, etc. They retained remarkably healthy physiques and are believed to have been far more immune to just the run of the mill ailments we all contend with. So this guy who appears to have trained as an ethnobiologist more than anything else, proposes this new way of eating in 2002... eating like a cave person.

Ok, so we all know that food can be broken into carbs, fat and protein, right? And calories too, but the key in this shift is more the percentages that comprise those calories. If as a modern person you follow the current convention advocated by groups like the FDA, you are eating along the following recommendation:

* 45% to 65% of calories eaten should come from carbohydrates.
* 20% to 35% of calories eaten should come from fat.
* 10% to 35% of calories eaten should come from protein.

If you are following you cave-dwelling fore-bearers, life looks a little more like this:

* 25-30% of calories eaten should come from carbohydrates.
* 40% of calories eaten should come from fat.
* 30% to 35% of calories eaten should come from protein.

Note the huge shift between carbs and protein? It's pretty dramatic. Then you look at definitions of things like carbs and fat. The traditional American diet tends towards very refined and enriched carbs (look at your labels. See the words "fortified" or "enriched?"). These tend to have a very high glycemic index-- which is basically the amount of sugar within the carb. A high number means its going to hit your blood stream a little harder and faster. Our cave-dwelling fore-bearers didn't have enriching facilities. The carbs they got were in vegetables and fruits.

There's a similar shift in fats. Basics of fat-- 3 types. Unsaturated, Saturated, Transfat. Ok, so unsaturated. This is the good stuff. This is the olive oil, the nuts, the fish. Saturated. This is where things get interesting. Typically saturated fats come from animal products-- dairy and meat. Interesting shift in modern agriculture is that animal products are now notorious for their saturated fat. Didn't used to be that way. Seems when we started tricking animals into not eating grass in favor of corn, they started getting more and more saturated fat in their content. To think that even now, "corn-fed beef" is considered an advertising slogan. Ack. Give cows grass and the saturated fat content goes way the heck down. Seriously. Lastly is transfat. This stuff is evil. It's actually now banned in some places like happy NYC. These are entirely man-made nightmare fats in things like margarine and, oh, everything, that include the words "hydrogenated." Yuck. Paleo fat is all focused on unsaturated, and at that its focused mainly on mono-unsaturated, which is the stuff that kicks up your good HDL cholesterol.

Have I lost you yet? (And to think I am not even getting into the weeds.)

Ok, so Paleo. Change around the ratios, change the types of fats and the types of carbs and kick up the protein and see what happens. Most people experience a few things when they follow this plan. First off, they get over the insulin-related highs and lows of the modern diet. No post-lunch sleepies. So energy gets a lot more regulated. Secondly, they get a lot more heart healthy and lean. These two things are big for me.

So as regimented as I am for my training, I am notoriously weak on the regimented nutrition. A few months ago when I gave up being vegetarian it was with a renewed interest in tackling that challenge. As my weight had started to come back down to something more close to my training and fighting weight, the nagging issue for me was body fat percentage. And it always has been. For someone as small as me, I have an exceptionally high body fat percentage. Because I don't eat well enough. So as of today I am 122 lbs with a 26.2% body fat. That's kinda crazy if you think about it. Here's what the American Council on Exercise publishes as general recommendations

Classification: Women (% fat) / Men (% fat)
Essential Fat: 10-12% / 2-4%
Athletes: 14-20% / 6-13%
Fitness: 21-24% / 14-17%
Acceptable: 25-31% / 18-25%
Obese: 32% plus / 25% plus

See what I mean? I am only in the acceptable range. Which if you think about the kind of stuff I am doing on a regular basis here is a little surprising. And this reads that its time to dial this in. So leaning me up a little is a good thing. Now I really don't want to lose more weight. I am kinda happy around 120. I can do 115. Anything below that is scary looking. So my goal is to add muscle while leaning up so it can offset it all and I don't have to look like Jack from A Nightmare Before Christmas. Cause that ain't hot, yo.

So now you have the back story. Let's talk about where this is. Today is technically day 2. More like 2.5 since I started at the Crossfit "Paleo Potluck" on Sunday, where a number of the other athletes who are already on this kick got together for some communal food and fun. They all started this on November 1, so they have about 2 weeks up on me. Just enough to let me know what is in store for me.

My first 2 days have been shockingly challenging. I don't get cravings, honestly. I don't hanker chocolate or sugar or salt or much of anything. So this isn't about craving. It's about withdrawal. Breaking the addiction to the standard American fare carb garbage is hard. My first day I was, admittedly, downright hostile. The thing with me, however, is that I am both appreciating the transition as being something biochemically fascinating, as I am engaged in the reaction. So I waffle between "Hey, this feels kinda funky. Isn't it cool??" and "OMG if that kid doesn't stop screaming I may break it's windpipe." It was the kind of day I could have gotten into a fist-fight and then thoroughly analyzed the biochemistry of rage thereafter. Not.good.

I also noticed I was profoundly winded. I don't get sick often but last winter I got that case of bronchitis, which was a first for me, and it was the same kind of winded. I went from running 7 miles last week to struggling up a flight of stairs. It was odd. Secondly, I noticed I was nauseous. Mostly in the afternoons. By 1 pm, I want to throw up. If I can just get over the mindset and make sure I am eating anyway, it seems to pass. But its strange. Lastly, and perhaps most strangely, my body temperature has dropped a little. I know my body well. I can tell from a mile away if I am about to get sick. It's how I avoid it. This temperature shift though has nothing to do with getting sick. At all. It's withdrawal. I can feel it.

My biggest challenge right now is hitting my ratios. Truth is that though I didn't eat so healthy, I could usually nail my percentages which I had previously modeled more on the Zone diet (40% carb, 30% protein, 30% fat). It's not a dramatic shift in percentage for me, its more in the types of each that makes it a little harder for me to work out. Here's what I am looking at after figuring in dinner for tonight:

I'm fine on the fat with the nuts and some olive oil and fish and all that, but both the protein and carb percentages are too low. I have 450 calories I haven't accounted for just to maintain my current weight. This is notoriously a problem for me... I am often under calories, but now that I am eating a lot more food just to hit calories, its getting even more challenging. While the shift in food types is something I need to physically acclimate to, the method of eating is a huge procedural change for me that I am very thrown by. To make up for some of the deficit tonight, I'm going to throw a butternut squash into the oven with some sage and see if I can't get some carbs into me. The protein... not entirely sure how to fix that right now. But its a little closer.

So day 2 paleo. I can summarize it best by saying that I am well outside my comfort zone. Phrases like "I need to throw a butternut squash into the oven" aren't typical for me. But hey... it's good to be outside my comfort zone once and a while, right?

This is long. I hit post now. More later, with love from the cave.

Sweating Like a Pig.

2008-11-12T17:22:00.005-05:00

I am a little too scientific for my own good. It's probably why I suck at cooking. I like things that are formulaic and that if I poke at hard enough and in the right directions eventually yields a relatively concrete answer. The world is a mystery and damn it if I am not going to solve it. And that solving pops up in really weird places.

So I've mentioned sweat rate before. It's been a while and I am totally not inclined to dig through the reams of my posts to find whether or not I expressed an opinion about sweat rate stuff, but being highly opinionated and not afraid to share said opinion, let me waste some of your precious time with my little rant.

Most athletes are told at one point or another to compute their sweat rate. They are given the following instructions:

1. Get nekkid. [CHECK.]
2. Get on scale. [Starting to lose appeal.]
3. Record weight. [Still more appeal waning.]
4. Go run for an hour. [I am sure most websites accidentally overlook the redressing part, but it could explain the occasional naked runner or the entire Bay to Breakers experience.]
5. Get nekkid and dry again. [CHECK.]
6. Re-weigh. [CHECK.]
7. Determine sweat rate using formula: Pounds Lost x 16 + Ounces Consumed During Exercise [UMM... Hang on a minute there.]

So this thing pops out some random fluid ounces you are supposed to drink in an hour when you are exercising. Tie a nice little bow around it and fill your water bottles, ladies and gentlemen, you now know your fluid requirements.

IF YOU ARE STUPID.

Seriously. I mean, come on! And everyone is doing this. Does no one engage the critical thinking part of their brains anymore?! As if you are operating in that tiny a little vacuum?!

What happened to things like, oh... I sweat more when I run than when I bike. What about when I swim? (*JC's brain begins to calculate the approximate ounce in a freak-out-swim-gulp*) What about things like... oh... TEMPERATURE?! HUMIDITY?!? INTENSITY?!? CLOTHING?!? Do people not stop to think there might be a wee bit of variety between, let's say, being dressed in a snowsuit in the sahara desert in august while being chased by a cheetah (cause, yeah, they totally hang out in deserts. Haven't you heard of the sand cheetah? D'uh!) and let's say Borat running this year's NYC Marathon? I mean, here is me out there on my little twig of a limb thinking maybe there might be a freaking difference. Call me crazy.

And maybe this accounts for all kinds of ill-preparedness in distance racing. I mean, I'm in my glass house here, right? I'm the moron who wore shoes she hadn't really trained on roads in only to have it bite her in the butt. But if there is one thing I've learned its hydration. Know thy body. Stay hydrated all the time and don't expect that the day of the race itself is the only time you gotta deal with it. But as the distances get amped up over time and as the preparation for it begins to deepen (I am working on defining my race list for next year, cause I am racing it, dagnabbit.), I know that I need to begin to dial that in a little tighter because I also need to start dialing in the electrolytes and the sodium. No more queasy puke-inducing runs. No more feeling drained because the electrolytes aren't happening. And sure as heck no more hitting walls and getting dropped by them. So we gots to get serious.

Look, sweat rate is a factor of a lot of things. And those things aren't hard to figure out. Heck my little garmin does most of the work for me, all I got to do is use da brain to see da pattern. Let's start with looking at a few things, shall we. We'll start with the following factors to consider:

1. Type of exercise.
2. Intensity (hmm... heart rate monitor, much?)
3. Temperature. (*coughWEATHER.COMcough*)
4. Humidity. (*coughYOU DIDNT CLOSE WEATHER.COM DID YOUcough*)

We could probably leave it there, if you think about it. I mean, quantifying the wicking quality of clothes to figure out if i am running in the equivalent of a plastic bag might be a little too scientific for even me. But you get where I am going with this. (Ooooh, or the solar radiation absorption level of varied running surfaces!)

Look this is all stuff I am already maintaining. I always have. I have probably 3 years worth of workout data in my fancy little tracking program along with my caloric intake for almost as long (ain't nothin more humbling than being able to scientifically quantify the poundage of Amy's Macaroni and Cheese that has fueled my many athletic successes over the years). So for me dialing this kind of stuff in is just a matter of plotting and crunching. Not hard. But it should really prove valuable when I start defining fluid intakes for races and then wake up the morning of the race and realized Mother Nature has thrown a New England-style weather curveball at me and left me to compete in pea soup. I wish more people would start to consider some of the factors too. Numbers that are freely available shouldn't be so scary. And people need to stop buying into the reductionism of our cracked out little quick-answer world.

Which brings me to my next topic. Cavemen. Or Cavewomen. Or Cavetransgendered. Whatever floats your boat. I gave up the whole vegetarian thing several months ago. Try as I might I just could not keep muscle on me. It's been my battle ever since I started training and racing. The day I woke up and popped onto the scale and was down to 105 I realized I needed to do something about it. Whey protein supplementation never cut it. It helped, don't get me wrong, but left to my own devices I am made up of 3 things. Bone. Skin. Happy layer of puff separating the other two. My molten chewy marshmellowy layer. Not muscle. So that needed to change. So I gathered the woodland creatures and they agreed to sacrifice a few on my behalf.

Rules for the agreement:
1. Cows don't eat corn. Ever. Find me a cow chewing on a corn stalk and I'll be proven wrong. Left to their own devices cows eat grass. And sometimes boot-laces from back in my days working at the barn. Not corn. Cows that eat corn come from another planet and the woodland creatures and I agreed to eat from this planet. Grass only.
2. God gave me legs so I can use em. 2 of them to keep me from hopping too much. God also gave legs to chickens. He meant for them to be used to. It's why he gave them fake pansy wings (my proof that god has a sense of humor). If my chicken cannot walk it is a land manatee and those are endangered and taste bitter. No non-ambulatory chickens.
3. Pigs have tails. That's why people wear their hair in pigtails. If pigs didn't have tails everyone would look like Princess Leia. Back when I was 7 that was hot. It's not now. All consumed pigs must have tails. Which requires a lot of roaming around space. Pigs don't have fingernails to bite when they are nervous so pig tails are good substitutes.

Other than that, the woodland gave me the go ahead and I rejoined the pack of omnivores. And now I can eat like a cavetransgendered person. This means that in the next few weeks JC will stop hoeing her many fields and cultivating her Aztec Quinoa and searching high and low for the merry land of pastaville and will begin eating in a way that should keep her from losing still more muscle mass while allowing the marshmellowy goodness to congeal into something a little hotter. No more pillsbury dough boy over here, cavetransperson is getting lean.

Ok more later. Must.go.to.yoga. Last boxing class in the AM. Oh and ran 7.14 miles this morning. Longest since Boston Marathon. Felt good. Too slow tho. But that'll work itself out in time.

She Emerges, Relatively Unscathed

2008-11-11T20:16:00.004-05:00

Of course, I may totally be jinxing myself now-- cause I still got one class to go, but... this is my last week of boxing. And the truth is, I am kind of sad about it.

I am definitely not going to miss the 5am wake-up. Most days I get up at 5:45 and those 45 minutes to me are just really.freaking.crucial to my well-being. It's a mental thing, no doubt. But mentally, I like seeing the clock closer to 6am than 4:30. The good news is that I have enough commute time to wake up to coffee brewing (god bless the world for coffee pots with timers) instead of electronic beeping and buzzing-- that definitely makes it feel more civilized, but that's still not saying much.

What I am going to miss is the crew at Trinity. Jon (aka Chachi), John, Shamir and Oleg have really made for some fun times. They've gotten used to my sense of humor and it just kind of rolls from there. I've gotten better. My feet are moving and on occasion, so are my hips. I get told to tighten up my arms a lot less now. I've found the beginning of some good rhythm on both the speed bag and on the double-ended bag. And I have found some stamina against the heavy bag. I've gotten better at slipping and weaving and executing more of the punches in the ring. I have a very long way to go, but I finally feel like I have a decent enough foundation to leverage. So here's what it comes down to. Money. Doesn't it always? Sessions work out to $45 unless you get unlimited at $200/mth. And while I could potentially swing that if it was important to me, not at the same time that I am doing Crossfit. And Crossfit wins, end of story. Which means I need to find a way to carry on on my own.

I can totally do that. Worst case I wind up with a heavy bag in my bedroom. And I mean, come on... people are gonna have 2 reactions to that. If they know me they'll know its pretty freaking rockin. Especially if they knew me back in the fat couch potato days. And if they don't know me well enough to think its hot, they aren't welcome in my bedroom and will probably get clothes-lined on the pull up bar blocking the door anyway. So screw em. (Awesome side note... a few short weeks ago we got the Beach Blanket Baroness to do a pull-up of her own on that very bar. That was off the hook.)

Here's my other thing. I got a lot to learn still. Not just boxing. See, I am out there learning it all. I never know what I am going to love until I do it. And I never know what little crazy athletic endeavor will bring me the break-throughs I want right now. So I still have a list of things I want to do yet. Top of that list, you ask? Krav Maga (the "martial art" of the Israeli military) and Trapeze. Back when I unstuck myself from the couch I promised to get younger each and every year. I got a promise to myself to fulfill. Boston Marathon... check. Growing younger... gettin there.

So tomorrow is a run morning this modified week-- we swapped run and boxing mornings. Plan is for a longer run. And it will be my rave run-- the Brooklyn Bridge. Just for the history alone, I will never get tired of that spot. It epitomizes the turn into the industrial age. When stone meets steel and the two magically trade places. Right there. And engineering was never the same. And I get to take it in, run after run. In the footsteps of Walt Whitman. In the air of Emma Lazarus. 135 feet above the water. It will never.get.old. Me, some sneakers, Roebling's bridge. Carin is planning on joining.

Tomorrow night is yoga but it may get pre-empted by protest for Prop 8. I gots to stand with my Californian's. For them, I share a sentiment I am as passionate about as the Bridge, but perhaps not as eloquent as Mr. Olbermann.

I'd much rather live in a world with a lot more love in it.

Ok lastly... a teaser. More on this in a later post. Soon, I promise. I got the go-ahead from my doctor today to play around with the Paleo Diet. (And yes, I do actually run all these things by my Doctor.) Yep... we are going all caveman. So get ready. More coming.

OMG, I Feel like a Slug.

2008-11-03T10:42:00.005-05:00

This weekend was the NYC Marathon. I was supposed to run it. It was my promise to myself when I finally crossed the finish line at Boston-- this time I had something to prove (which was in large part that I could wear the right shoes this time). But when my hip injury made it all come to an abrupt end, the folks decided to hang on to their tickets and pay me a visit just for the sheer enjoyment of it.

And boy did we have enjoyment. And food. And not a lot of exercising. Maybe a little competitive napping with Catastrophe, but that's about it. We walked alot, but by New York standards this was a pretty normal non-athletic weekend. I loved it. But it definitely left me feeling a little guilty about it all. I'm a 2x a day workout kind of girl. I love it. I gripe about being up at the crack of dawn, but the truth is I love it. I'm in my element then. I'll grumble my way out the door and then all of a sudden its like some endorphins kick in and I find my rhythm and I know exactly what I've been put on this earth for. (Ok, even swimming.... I just struggle to talk myself into the cold pool.)

So this weekend I felt like a bit of a slug. Maybe I needed a slug weekend. Who knows. But at least I had boxing early this morning to kick the week off well. (My week is going to be wonky too with a mid-week trip). I was actually a little nauseous this morning... probably because my diet was a little richer over the weekend than normal, but I got over it soon enough.

Today we spent a lot more time actually boxing than doing the conditioning stuff too. I started to feel like I was hitting some of the right rhythms finally. Except with Oleg and his pool noodles. I'm still a mess there. We learned upper-cuts today and I feel like I can get that one better because finally I don't have to worry about planting a foot timed with the punch. And its one of the few punches where I know my wrist is straight. A lot of the hooks and stuff I can feel my wrists kind of curling in a little, which is bad. So I feel like if I get into a street fight my best bet is to step in close and upper-cut my heart out.

After beating me with the noodles for a while (I can tell Oleg gets frustrated with my inability to remember really long and complex combinations... left jab, left hook, right cross, slip right, slip left, right uppercut, right cross is really.freaking.hard.to.remember under duress) Oleg brought me back to the double-ended bag. Remember this thing from my first week. The one that I hit too hard and came and smacked me back. Yeah, here we are again. Me and Double and I ain't feelin da'mojo at all. Oleg makes this look easy-- rapid fire punches that the bag hardly moves as he is just keeping this thing going like well oiled machinery. Not so much with me. I take a few jabs at it and we are all over the place. But I keep trying. And trying. And trying. And finally Shamir, one of the trainers, tells me to think of this as the face of the least favorite boss I have ever had. And it clicked. I hit my rhythm. And off we went. Rapid fire punches and while the bag moved, it didn't go all over the place or nothin. It was relatively controlled and I could continue to hit it. No swing and a miss crap. It was good. And I even enjoyed it.

I also got to try out the speed bag this morning. There is something incredibly hot about watching someone work over the speed bag. I mean, if you're a boxer and you want to pick someone up with the impressive skills, this is the trick you're gonna pull outta the bag. It's hot. And I wanted to know how to do it. So Jon pulled my gloves off and taught me the basics and off I went. I couldn't do it for long, and when I got it down it was slow. But you could hear the beginning of the rhythm of it settling in. It's such a sound too. You can tell no matter how fast or slow someone is going that they have it right. It's all about hitting it in the sweet spot and letting it bounce back and forward before hitting it again-- it reminded me of my years of drumming... just settling into that meter. I could tell that with a little practice I might finally make it work.

We finished with more conditioning exercise, though not as much today as the last few weeks. We play this game in the small ring where 3 of the 4 corners have teeny little soccer cones set up in them and the goal is to run to a corner, pick up the cone and put it into the empty corner and then just keep going. It sounds silly and all, but it keeps your agility and your explosive movement pretty tuned. And the way you play it you are supposed to set your feet and your back before you pick up or place down the cone. So it's winds up feeling like a good little workout.

Overall I felt pretty good about boxing today. I have a long way to go, that's for certain... but its nice to feel like I might be making a little bit of progress. At least, though, I am enjoying it. And that's really what matters. I'm mixing it up. I'm staying outside my comfort zone. I am learning something new. I am meeting fun new people. And a nice little by-product of that is that I am getting into some even better shape than before. So I'd say that's a huge win-win, you know?

Tomorrow AM I am running, tomorrow PM I am switching in Crossfit because I leave town on Wednesday afternoon. And if I have to drop a workout, I don't want to miss my 2x/week crossfit or my 2x/week boxing. So I'll miss a swim and a run and hope to make it all up next week.

Oh and one last thing. *heh* I am totally thinking of re-arranging my bedroom to accommodate this new piece of equiment. Whaddaya think? What looks hotter in a girls bedroom but this?!? Mmmmhmm... that's right.

It's Been a Topsy Turvy Week.

2008-10-29T08:48:00.005-04:00

I've been all to aware of my lack o' blogging lately. Look, it comes down to this... workout or blog. And when push comes to shove, I am leaning towards the former. But I discovered that I wind up Twittering about it alot, so I put up a view to my twitter account so you can see whats going on. Call it the up-to-the-moment view of the back of the pack.

So a couple of things have been going on. Let's start with boxing. 3 of 8 lessons down. So far I have determined that I am in trouble if I get into a fight. And that boxing is a lot harder than it looks. Look, if you watch it and think, much like I did, that its some dumb people just knocking each other around, you are clearly missing half the action. There's a lot more orchestration to it than I anticipated. When I was a kid I was a drummer. Some would argue I was pretty good at it. Getting my body to do 4 things complimentary yet distinct really isn't new to me. Boxing takes it to a whole new level. And when you add in that I have one of 4 trainers poking and suggesting all the time, its unreal. Oleg is really big on me keeping my elbows in tight. It's not enough to keep your gloves up at your face (a huge challenge with borrowed gloves, btw, because those things STINK!), but you gotta keep tight. So there's an incredible reliance on the muscles of your pec minor and pec major to keep your body pulled in tight. Your feet are always moving. Always. The minute they aren't moving, you are in trouble. And they need to be moving in complimentary ways to each other, lest you wind up compromising your balance for even a moment. Punches literally come from your hips which are driven from your feet, so you are constantly trading pressure back and forth, kicking out a heel, popping though a hip and your arm just follows. In cases like a hook your arm does nothing more than really pull an elbow up so your forearm is parallel to the floor... the rest is all the momentum of your body. All the while not losing your solid footing and balance and still moving. I come from a people that dance with just our lower bodies. You throw our upper bodies into the mix and we don't know what the hell to do. So it amazes me that my people are supposed to be good boxers too. God help any of the fighting Irish if they have gone through this transition as well. I love it, but I also suck at it. And I think, being the glutton for punishment that I am, I love it even more.

The trainers have all caught on to the fact that I don't quit things. And the minute you tell me to do something with the slightest bit of implication that it will be a challenge, I will bring my game (and usually my mouth too). There's nothing like 6am JC telling the Russian KGB to not waste her time with the girl workouts. Next thing you know I am running kettlebells up and down stairs 2 sets at a time for 10 minutes. While I think its a long time before I am in a ring for a match, lord help me, boxing is a much larger deal than I ever imagined. It kicks my ass and I love it. I go to bed at night after boxing very muscularly exhausted. I like that.

And then there is Crossfit. I didn't think I was going to like it this much. I mean I knew it could get me where I needed to be, but the idea of actually wanting to "lift heavy?!" If you had asked me about that a year ago, I'd have probably added it to my DNR list of crazy criteria (if I wake up wanting to "lift heavy" or if I wake up thinking I am straight, PULL THE PLUG!!). And yet, I don't know... there's a nagging little vision in the back of my head. Now mind you that little vision should reach fruition about my 60th birthday with all the form correction I need to implement here, but there it is all the same. I didn't think I would ever be able to relate to this mentality and yet, there it is. Even more surprising are the people in it. These guys and gals aren't the typical grunts at a gym. You know the ones... you're there on your treadmill and they are making noises that are akin to a bowel stoppage of like a week. These guys aren't one trick ponies with chests like He-Man and legs like Olive Oil who are unable to pat themselves on the back for a job well done. They seem to take a lot of aspects of fitness very seriously. Far more seriously than even the triathletes I know. There's this real sense of fitness being more than just how much you can press, but about what you put into your body and what you get out of your body. It's sustainable. It's a lot earthier and in touch than I expected. And then it feels tight. Like people actually are interesting and interested. It's tuned in and dialed in. And it is nothing like what I had expected. It's why I find the ample criticism you can find about Crossfit so strange indeed. Sure there are people on extremes, but this has to be the most grounded, technique-focused, balanced and education-focused a fitness program I've seen. It makes me think as much as it makes me push. And being the Virgo I am, that's got mad appeal. Finally a group of people that aren't telling me to get out of my own head.

Running has been ok. It's been steady, which alone is a blessing given that running post Marathon hasn't been that at all because of injuries. It's been slow though and I know I need to step it up real soon-- if I ever have a shot at earning my speed back, now is the time to start laying that framework. My swimming has been very erratic. The big challenge right now is the late night swims versus the early morning boxing. If I stick to my plan I get home at 10:30pm and am starving. And boxing has me up at 5am. So that winds up feeling painful for early in the week and throws off a lot of the rest of the schedule. I am disciplined in my 8-9 hours of sleep at night... especially when I am training 2x a day most days, so that little bump there is a huge hurdle for me. I may need to revisit the schedule if I keep the boxing going beyond these 4 weeks. Good news is that the coach has already seen some dramatic improvement in me just with the sheer distance alone. I have a lot of work to do on my pull still, but its getting better.

Cycling has been great, tho I am back to being indoors since its getting dark early and cold. My focus has mainly been on cadence lately. With the running and the Crossfit my legs are pretty strong... they just don't always have the speed to them, so winter goal is to acclimate my legs to a natural cadence of 90-95 rpm. I used to naturally land in the low 80s, so now I can already just naturally hit 90 fairly consistently. Now I need to adjust more tension into that over time and keep that speed up. That should spring me nicely into the spring. I need to work on evening out my strokes though. I am sure if I were hooked up to a voltage meter I'd find the transition points in my pedaling loses a lot. My gut says a lot of that is ankle flexion, so I am focusing some strength building in that these days too.

So it's a lot. I feel like once a week or so I come in here and unload these days. The good thing is that the twitter feed will help, but I gots to find my blogging mojo back. I'm working on that... I swear it.

More later, folks. Boxing and Crossfit tomorrow. I should be keeling over by 9pm tomorrow. Rockin.

This Butterfly Don't Float.

2008-10-20T11:04:00.006-04:00

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I wanted to take some boxing lessons. It's not that I want to become a boxer, but I want to be truly trained in the fundamentals of it so that I can take what I learn into other functional areas of fitness. That process finally kicked off early this morning.

Since my plan to run the NYC Marathon came to a disappointing end because that issue with my hip just kept extending the time I could go back to running, I knew I wanted a chance to mix it all up. If I am going to have an off season, I want a chance to use that to really bring a whole lot of new stuff into my repertoire. The truth is, I have always wanted to be formally trained to box. I knew it was a hellagood workout and I had a sense that I would enjoy it, but I think even in the end, until I was knee deep, I didn't know how taxing and yet how enjoyable I was going to find it.

Morning started at 5am-- got up, caffeinated, showered and met up with Carin who was willing to explore this endeavor with me for the next 4 weeks. We met up, headed into the gym, filled out our requisite papers and got changed. And from there we got our hands wrapped. I actually thought it was tape that got put on our hands, but lo and behold, its actually re-usable cotton wraps that go between all of our fingers and wrap tightly to support our wrists and knuckles. I've never felt like I had such small hands until that point. But once I was wrapped up, we got the explanation on the way the "stations" at the gym worked.

When you walk in you will notice a regulation sized ring, a bunch of heavy bags, some mirrors, a few speed bags, areas with medicine balls and kettlebells, a smaller training ring and then a lot of wide open space. In the regulation ring there is a light timing contraption. Green, yellow and red lights let you know where you are at in a round (which runs 3 minutes). The green light stays on until there are 30 seconds left in the round. At that point a loud electronic bell sounds and the light turns yellow and you know you are almost done. Then a final bell sounds, the light turns red and there is a one minute rest period before the light resets to green. All stations you are on are ruled by this contraption, and as one woman told us as we were just starting "Those will be the longest 3 minutes of your life." Warm up was 2 rounds of jumping rope. So 3 minutes jumping, one minute rest, 3 minutes jumping. Thank god I had done some jumping rope in Crossfit because this kicked my butt. Jumping rope is hard. And me being the tool I am, the more tired I got the more inclined I was to try the crossovers and impressive looking things that mostly left me whooping the crap out of my legs. Within the first 8 minutes, I was tired and bruised. This was going to be fun.

Second station was in front of the mirror. We learned the right stance and how to move forward and back. Stance is basically shoulder width, with your left foot forward (for us right handers) and your right foot as though your were making an uppercase L. So your right foot is back and to the right. That shaping in your feet needs to be fairly steady and you should never cross that right foot behind you. I learned I can move forward well, but lord help me, I better be an aggressive lil fighter cause I suck at backing up. I don't know why I can't quite get that right, but it's not intuitive at all. Additionally, I find that I tend to stand very sideways... meaning I break the cardinal rule of putting that right foot behind me. And that totally throws off my balance. With the footing, we added in the hand positions. Again, cardinal rule, you don't touch or cross your gloves. Your hands are up at your face, with your lead left hand out in front of your head and your rear right hand being right at your chin. As we moved forward we started with the combination of 2 left jabs and a right cross and this would be our basic combination for the day.

So we played around with moving like this for a few rounds and then we moved over to the lighter set of heavy bags. At this point, one of the trainers put some gloves over our wraps. Little did I know before today that those gloves are weighted. Because my hands are so small, I got me a pair of 10 ounce gloves, while Carin got a 12 ounce pair. (I think mine were kid gloves... how appropriate.) We were instructed to take our jab, jab, cross gig to the bag while circling around to the left... kinda circumnavigating the bag as we went along. I started to really struggle now with which foot was leading. Apparently your forward foot leads, but my back foot kept stepping in and trying it... which always left me crossing my feet behind me again. It also kept me turned very sideways, which while great for protecting myself... it was hard to get a cross in without a lot more pivoting than I needed. I mean, I didn't really need that much protection from a bag with no arms... seriously. While spinning around this bag and hitting it for a while, one of the many trainers would come up and correct my hand positions or something, and after a while I started to get dizzy. Indeed the 3 minutes were long and we did about 3 rounds on the bags. After 3 rounds we moved on to the real heavy heavy bags, which didn't swing as much but it was like punching a wall. While it didn't hurt my hands or wrists because of the wraps, wow do you feel it in your whole upper body. Holy crap. 2 rounds of that and I was ready to die.

Next we moved into the regulation ring. Carin had one trainer and I had another. Carin's dude had the mitts for her to hit and mine had what I can only describe as noodle swords. There is nothing quite like being humbled by a grown man with a pool toy. But alas, this was Oleg and I am sure he had fought his way out of KGB holding cells on several occasions with his noodle weapon of choice. Now here things got really interesting because I don't speak boxing and Oleg doesn't speak English. much. Ok maybe a little. But words like slip-- and I don't quite know what to do when a man brandishing a noodle tells me to slip. I think after a few too many shots with the noodle to various parts of my upper body, Oleg started to feel bad for wailing on me-- so bad that he put the noodles down and explained to me a slip by just shoving me around in the movement he wanted. So as it turns out, a slip is a duck by a punch so that it whizzes by your head and ear. Then he started noodling at my sides trying to get me to drop my arms and body down to catch things on the side of my arms. And lastly he just came full on at me with the noodle with the intent of triggering my natural instinct for a fore-arm block. Apparently that little bit of natural selection has skipped over me in the softening process of the couch. The owner at one point took Oleg aside and explained to him that this was Day 1 for me so to go easy. Apparently I had the look of a trained boxer who was just on some kind of excessive medication that slowed my reflexes way down. I will admit that climbing through the ropes into the ring was a lot of fun, but I was happy after a few rounds of the noodle beatings had come to an end for a while.

From there we moved back to the heavy bag and Oleg wanted me to mix up my combination, so now it was jab jab cross, jab cross, cross. That's a lot to remember and then he changed my direction up so now I was circling right. So my feet were all confused at this point. Carin in the meantime had finished hitting her trainer's mitts (I lost track of her) and moved onto what looked like a flattened out heavy bag tied sideways to a wall. Her deal was to do the jab jab cross while walking left and right along the length of this thing. Me... just that big heavy bag, tripping and getting dizzy from spinning. After a few more rounds there, Oleg introduced me to a double-end bag. The double-end bag is not at all what I expected. It's this cracked out little bag on bungee cords to the ceiling and the floor that when you punch, it winds up coming back at you. When Oleg was explaining this thing to me in his tough to understand English, he told me to do my usual combination of jab jab cross on this bad boy. He knocked it a few times kinda fast and it pretty much stayed in place and it looked easy. Ha. As if. So here comes me. My first jab and this thing goes backwards and comes slinging back forward at me and reverberating so much that every time I went to hit it, it moved out of the way (A swing and a miss!). For the love of god no matter how hard I focused, 2 consecutive jabs weren't going to happen. So then I go all boy genius and decide to throw my most impressive right cross to date and sure enough this thing goes hurling out to the side and whacks me back with such ferocity, I almost hit the deck with my sideways stance. Carin, at this point, on what must have been her 11th round with the heavy bag wall was eager to switch with me and given the wall wasn't a moving target unless I made myself dizzy again, I was game. She didn't get much of a chance though before Jon, the first trainer, came and retrieved us again for some conditioning drills with the medicine balls, sans gloves and wraps.

Carin had the pleasure of the medicine ball squat, stand, throw game for a round while I had the medicine ball bounce to the left, arms up turn, bounce to the right drill. Both for 3 minutes each seemed like a life-time and when we were finished with a round, we traded routines. We finally ended with stance drills that included taking these medicine balls at eye height and twisting from side to side as we strode the length of the mirror area a few times. And with that, she and I eagerly snuck downstairs to the lockerroom. Slowly.

So boxing day 1 was... an ass-kicking. Had I not been doing Crossfit over the past few weeks I think I might have really wanted to die. But it was so much fun. I enjoyed getting a chance to learn some of the basics. We have 8 classes in total with the next class on Wednesday morning, which should give me some good solid foundations in boxing that I can take with me into other things... and maybe see about the occasional round in the ring again. But hopefully not against a raging Russian with noodle swords. I think I better start practicing here at home... lord knows I may need it come Wednesday.

I have no permission to use this picture, but

2008-10-16T13:49:00.002-04:00

I couldn't help it. I want this framed on my wall.

Courtesy of Reuter's.

Deena Kastor Post-Oympic Marathon Interview

2008-10-06T17:37:00.004-04:00

Not sure if anyone has seen this or not, but I enjoyed watching it. Mind you I think the guy doing the interview could use some lessons on compassion and tact, but that's a mere aside. Deena is always so poised and graceful and it was so heartbreaking to see her Olympic gold aspiration cut so short, so a chance to see and hear her talk about it was too good not to share.

Is it any wonder that Deena continues to inspire so many women (and men) runners?

This Little Piggy Cried "Wee Wee Wee"

2008-10-06T09:43:00.005-04:00

When I was a kid, my father used to play "This Little Piggy" with me and OMG did it make me laugh-- in part because my feet are incredible ticklish, but also, its kind of fun to have your little toe out there moving on its own like a rogue little soldier.

I remember watching my older sister too with her "monkey feet." That girl used to be able to spread her toes around and move each of them independently of the others, and try as I might I just couldn't get em to do the same. So I stopped trying altogether and left my "skis" (as both my physical therapist and Marisa would call them) to their own devices. See I have incredibly narrow feet. Most people are shocked when they see how narrow my feet are and it has always made shopping for shoes a challenge. But once I got into PT and into yoga too, I realized it created another challenge-- balance. To enhance balance and posture in yoga, most teachers will encourage you to ground into all 4 corners of your feet, keep as much weight on the outside of your foot as the inside and lift your arches.

In many yoga classes I've had teachers come and try and manually adjust my feet to put more weight in the outside edges. They put their own feet on top of mine and pull some weight onto my smallest toes. They push my knee ever so slightly outside as it is wont to drift inwards over my big toe. And in the case of Marisa once, she full on just reached down and tried to get my foot to not be so focused on weight bearing on the inside ball of my toe and pull up my arch. But it's been a challenge.

One of the latest crazes in running and fitness in general these days is barefoot running. Here's the deal. Shoes are often crutches and easy fixes for slight misalignments within our feet. The more we correct, the less our feet know how to self correct. The results can be pretty dramatic over time. When you run around barefoot you tend to be up on the front of your feet a lot. Your heel is too bony and unprotected to really heel-strike in a stride. Watch what happens when you walk around your home in bare feet. You tend to land more on your toes than anything else. And the impact of that landing is absorbed across your toes and within the flexion of the area between your foot and your leg that takes place at the ankle. We call the decrease of the angle between your foot and your leg "dorsiflexion" and the increasing of the angle between your foot and your leg "plantarflexion." You may remember when I had my bike fitting done that one of the things that the fitter noticed with me was the complete rigidity of my ankle. When my feet were pedaling, I was losing large amounts of efficiency by not flexing my ankles to drive the pedals more efficiently. In essence, my dorsiflexion and plantarflexion weren't existent.

With the problems I have had with my hips and knees, over time I have been forced into more and more corrective shoes that compensate for all of this. They allow me to heel strike even more, provide an artificial arch support to pour me into proper position, and provide a rigid sole to prevent that flexion from needing to take place at all. And magically, I can run pain-free. But along comes this new science and awareness of barefoot running to start to question whether we are just making life worse for ourselves in the long run. (get it? long run. ha.)

These days you can find more and more shoes aiming to restore a natural sense of "barefoot" movement. I live in NYC afterall... the idea of walking around barefoot is skeevy at best. One of the most popular brands, and the one I keep thinking I want to learn to ease my way into is one called the Vibram Five Fingers. This is about as barefoot as you can get. It's a little like gluing a thin tread onto the bottom of your foot allowing your foot to be protected from the elements without being over-compensated and corrected. I see a lot of people in these shoes now and have started to talk with them about how they feel and work. Most people tell me it takes a while to get used to, but over time they can feel that their balance has improved, they are less injury prone and that they just feel more grounded. So I wanted to give them a try. This weekend I finally decided to go and see if I could find a pair. And I did.

When I finally got to the shoe place and they found my size, I struggled to get the shoe on at all. Turns out my toes weren't willing to comply at all and stuck together like a claw inspite of my best efforts at flexing them apart (or outright pulling them apart) to get into their little toe sleeves. Simply put I didn't even have the flexion to try the suckers on much less try using them. The muscles that supported that type of movement were so atrophied that trying to literally pull my toes apart wasn't working. I was going to need to forego the barefoot running shoes-- which really bummed me out because the more I had learned about it the more sense it was making to me as to contributing to all the running issues I have had in my career. When we were leaving the store, Marisa recommended that I try something else to work my way up to barefoot running-- an opportunity to keep the dream alive as it were. Turns out that this problem is common enough that some yoga companies have invented ways to strengthen toe flexibility-- and created things called Toe Stretchers. Turns out there are two kinds of toe stretchers. There are the ones that look like cracked out pedicure contraptions you can wear while sitting on the couch, and there are ones that are put into flip-flops that put a little covered strap in between each toe to slightly pull them apart. She took me to a place where they had them and we checked them out. When I first saw the flip-flops my first instinct was that they weren't going to do much of anything... the little dividers seemed really small. But in the interest of seeing if this could help, I went out on a limb and got a pair and came home to put them on.

Much to my surprise, I could not get them on at first. No matter how much I wanted my toes to get into their little slots, it wasn't going to happen easily. But since my toes were out there in the open eventually I could pry them into place and try to walk. And almost immediately the muscles in the top of my foot started to cramp. It was a very familiar cramp in some ways-- the cramp of a muscle being asked to do something for the first time. It wasn't a hurt like I was breaking something, but more like there really were muscles there and they had never actually had to come to life. It was strange and weird and after a few minutes of walking around the house, it felt uncomfortable, so I sat down.

For now I am just working at wearing them while not really walking around much. Right now I am just letting my feet start to get used to the idea of needing to work a little more and strengthen a little more. I am feeling weird muscles in the tops and bottoms of my feet. And when I do get up to walk around, almost right away I am seeing that its like walking more on your hands than on skis or sticks. It's going to take some getting used to, but for the first time I am noticing the little piggy that cried wee wee wee actually hanging out there on its own instead of kinda hiding behind its next of kin. So it will be interesting over the next few weeks to see if this starts to impact my foot flexion and toe flexibility. And maybe, just maybe, I will be in a pair of vibram five fingers by spring. You never know.

Mama Said Knock You Out.

2008-10-03T10:34:00.002-04:00

I had a date last night with a guy named Nate. Nate left me feeling a little tired, to say the least. Even more impressively, Nate left my forearms and triceps sore and spent. Yep. I got my ass kicked Crosssfit style once again.

Let me jump back a little tho. I started out the day going for a run with Carin. We picked up our morning runs together this week since I am back to working at home for a while. So its been fun to get some miles in with someone again. It's starting to get so dark in the mornings... its sad but kinda fun to watch the sunrise in the middle of a run all the same. So we ran about 4 miles-- nothing too exciting. It felt good. I was a little tired from yoga the day before, so it wasn't my best showing, but I can definitely tell that cardiovascularly, I am in my best shape ever. So that part felt really good even if the lack of sleep and the yoga fatigue was at place.

Thursday nights are also my Crossfit classes. I knew, roughly, what I was getting myself into-- you can typically look up the Workout of the Day (aka the WOD) ahead of time. All Crossfit affiliates do the same WOD, although we are sometimes behind a day. Many of the WODs have names. Female names correspond to workouts you do as a benchmark of your fitness. Male names correspond to people killed in the line of duty, and are often rounds or reps for time.

Class starts with some warm ups. We do a lot of squats, push ups, sit ups, something called a Samson stretch, etc. Then we go over the WOD and make sure everyone is down with the plan. And then its all hell breaking loose for the WOD. So yesterday was called the Nate, named in honor of Navy Seal Chief Petty Officer Nate Hardy who was killed in Iraq on February 4, 2008. The "Nate" as it is known involves doing as many rounds as possible (AMRAP) of a set of 2 muscle ups, 4 handstand push-ups and 8 2 pood kettlebell swings. Muscle ups are what you call hanging below the gymnast rings and pulling yourself using your core up so that you are pressed up from the rings and then you do a dip down to the point where your thumbs touch your armpits and back up. I can't do any of them yet. So in lieu of that I got 5 pull ups. I also cannot do a handstand push up (it is exactly as it sounds... up in handstand, go down to let your head touch the floor and push back up. In lieu of that, I got some dumbbell push presses with 30 lbs of weight. Yep... that's where I maxed out for now. I'll get stronger. Lastly is the 2 pood kettlebell swing. So a pood is a Russian unit of weight that corresponds to 36.11 lbs. 2 poods is 72 lbs. Now an American-style kettlebell swing involves taking said 2 pood cannonball with handle, swinging it between your legs and up over your head so that you are fully extended and your head pops out between your arms. With my current body weight I was pretty sure that kettlebell swinging more than half my body weight also needed some adjusting, lest on the swing back between my legs the rest of me just follows suit. So we knocked me down to a 12kg, or 26lb kettlebell. So in the end, my Nate ran like this:

AMRAP- 20 mins
5 dumbbell push presses
5 pull ups
10 26lb kettlebell swings.

I got 7 reps in with 2 additional push presses and lord help me if I didn't hit full on muscle failure a few times throughout that workout. Pull ups did not count if you jumped or if your chin did not come over that bar and that was really where I suffered the most. The push presses were ok... I only hit anything close to muscle failure during the 7th rep and into the beginning of the 8th. It was brutal. And I loved it. At one point, I tuned into the music blasting throughout the vastness of the gym and realized it was LL Cool J's Mama Said Knock You Out.

Today is my rest day, for obvious reasons. I am sore. I am hoping to get my swim on tomorrow morning so if I wake up even more sore than today (which often happens), it may not pan out... but I am hoping it works out in the end.

Either way... these here chicken arms are already starting to get some tone to em which is a welcome sight. And I am not sure if I mentioned here or not that I am looking into some boxing classes. Yep. I decided this a few weeks ago, but once Mama told me to knock you out, then I knew I had to keep it going. So keep an eye open for some updates with that soon. The nice part about base training periods is I get to mix it all up again without worrying too much about making sure I am getting all my other triathlon requisite workouts done. So dang it if I am not going to have some fun now.

I'm Starting to Take This Personally Now

2008-09-30T09:22:00.000-04:00

As a New Englander turned New Yorker there are some things I am very accustomed to contending with in my training and racing. Let's take snow, for instance. In my happy little training drawer I have me a pair of grippy cleat-y things that are a little like chains on snow tires. I can run in snow no biggy. Heat is another great example. Said drawer contains 3 different fuel belt set-ups to contend with heat... along with salt and electrolyte tablets, sunscreen and hats should it get even more crazy hot. But one thing I am just not used to having to contend with-- hurricanes. And damn it if I haven't had to contend with the last two already!

The first one forced me out of Texas two days earlier than I had intended on leaving. It was a real bummer, but I decided to shake it off. As said New Englander, its not like I have to contend with these very often. But oh-ho, was I fooling myself. No, instead a second one decided to come up the coast and thwart my triathlon endeavors. Yep. I got hurricaned out.

So here I was breaking out all the gear-- the special transition bag, the wetsuit, the travel pump, the body glide. Tho I sound like a tool for doing it, I even pulled out a picture I took once I ironed out my preferred transition area set up and made sure I had everything I needed ready to go. I was excited and I was ready. (And if you are about to mock me for the picture thing... try it... the more I played with how I was going to lay it out and then took a snapshot, when things irritated me I could move em around and make the flow better. And it makes sure I don't forget to include anything in the setup.) I checked the weather to make sure I didn't need to get some arm warmers if the morning temperature was low and there was a call for rain. Rechecked the next day and it was thunderstorms. Pulled up the more impressive weather resources and low and behold another hurricane was going to mess with me.

By Friday I was agonizing over what I was going to do. It's like having those two characters on your shoulders... one was telling me that it didn't matter if it rained... worst case there was lightning, the race was rain-or-shine, it would turn into a duathlon (run-bike-run) and keep going. While the change to a first leg run wasn't exactly my cup of tea, I could deal with it. It got me racing. The other character was telling me that rain and wind on the bike and run for an hour and a half to two hours was not going to be my brightest moment, even if it was part of the come back of 2008 I was hoping for.

It rained most of Friday and Saturday and on Saturday night I conferred with the friend I was going to do the race with and we opted out. In the end, while I am disappointed, I knew it was far better to live to fight another day, you know? So alas, my tri 2008 dreams kind of came to an unexpected conclusion. That just means I will need to be better prepared for tri 2009.

Instead of racing, I had a very Crossfit intense weekend. This weekend was Fight Gone Bad 2008, which was like nothing I had ever expected. I volunteered to do timing and scoring for the event, so I got to witness it all enough to know what I am getting myself into when I sign up for the next round. It is very difficult to describe, but one of the guys made a movie of it so you can watch a montage of the event.
It consisted of a circuit of 5 stations, each station lasting for one minute, as many reps as you can bang out. The stations ran like this:
1. The Wall Ball. Take a 20 lb medicine ball, toss it up the wall to a spot marked on the wall by tape some 10-12 feet in the air. Catch it in a deep squat (hips below knees) and then throw it up again.
2. Sumo Deadlift High Pull. Take a barbell with about 50 lbs on it and pull it from the floor all the way up to your chin with your shoulders shrugged up and your elbows and high.
3. The Box Jump. With both feet, jump up onto a box that is about 2 ft. tall. Stand totally upright before jumping back down.
4. The Push Press. Again, barbell about 50 lbs (option for less weight), but you take from rack position, push overhead and back so your head pops out in front and your ears come ahead of your shoulders.
5. Rowing on the ergometer for as many calories in 1 minute as you can do.

Once you get through 1 circuit, you get 1 minute rest and you repeat 3 times. It's brutal. The video speaks for itself. Wicked nuts, as we like to say in Boston.

Sunday in lieu of the tri itself, I wound up at my Level 1 class at Crossfit. I was amazed how many of the FGB participants showed up the very next day for more fun. Class was good. We focused on maximal dead-lifting and some "knees to elbows" which are controlled curl ups while hanging straight armed from the pull up bar. So in essence you hang and then you use your abs to curl yourself so that your knees reach your elbows and your back is parallel to the floor, and then you controlled lower yourself. We did sets of 3x12 reps. Quite honestly, I didn't have the core strength to get all the way up, so I had to just take what I could get to get them all done. OMG it was brutally hard. My core is still sore and it is now Tuesday. D'oh.

So all things considered, while it wasn't the weekend I had expected, I feel like perhaps it wasn't so bad after all.

Now when is that next Fight Gone Bad, yo. I am ready to bring it.

Happy Mountain Day!

2008-09-24T11:48:00.002-04:00

Back many years ago, I got my undergraduate degree at Mount Holyoke College. I loved it there. It was one of the most beautiful campuses I had seen and there was nothing quite like the fall in Western Massachusetts. The leaves were turning, the air was crisp and we had a tradition that seemed to bring it all together-- Mountain Day.

You never knew when it was going to be Mountain Day. If your dorm was close enough to the chapel, you'd be awoken at 7am by the never ceasing sounds of the church bells. If you were a little further away and the sound didn't carry as well, the day usually started with manic cheering and screaming in the dorm hallways. All classes were suspended for the day and you were encouraged to get out, enjoy the fall, and at least once in your 4 year career, hike up Mount Holyoke in Skinner State Park.

As an alumna some years later, I am still struck by the urge upon hearing it is Mountain Day, to throw on my hiking boots and head out on the trail, even if work is calling, meetings are piling up... it seems to me the tradition should last. Call it a mental health day, a day to commune with nature, what-have-you. It's Mountain Day today and dang it I should be out there on a hike.

I'll go for a run later, but it just isn't quite the same. Next year I think I'll need a spontaneous sick day.

So to all of you who aren't alums yourselves and don't have the same visceral reaction to the news... well heck, its a beautiful day out there... what a perfect day for a hike.

Happy Mountain Day, everyone.

Let's Play Catch Up, Shall We?

2008-09-22T12:23:00.003-04:00

I've been back to traveling lately and when I haven't been traveling, I've been noodling on some new ideas... mulling and chewing and finding myself coming full circle in a way that I hadn't anticipated. I've been somewhat quiet about it all as it has unfolded, but I think I am ready to put some of it out there now. So hang on, cause this is going to be long and messy.

I finished my Crossfit Foundations class. And.I.Loved.It. Yep. It brought me back to the energy I had lost in my training. It gave me a sense of re-invigoration. Between getting to work locally, joining the swim team and then Crossfit, I found myself regaining the love of being fit that I had lost over the course of injury and then the marathon. Truth was, I didn't really enjoy marathon training. I remember back to high school and having to read a book called the Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner and hating it. I think I enjoyed the actual act about as much. I had wanted to run the Boston Marathon, and don't get me wrong, I loved it, but what I missed in all the training was the energy and the essence of what drew me into my adult onset athleticism in the first place. Camaraderie. Marathon training was long and lonely and without the variety I had fallen in love with when I was just a triathlete in the making.

So here came my chance to work local for a bit. And I joined the masters swim team and I took up Crossfit and little by little, with the variety of workouts and the camaraderie of people to do them with, I finally felt like my old self again. It was fun and before you knew it, I was off and running like a crazy person again.

In addition to all the training, I started to get excited about things like nutrition. Now if you know me in real life you know how far out and crazy this new interest really is. Sure I like to eat, but I'm the girl who baked cookies at 550 degrees because the 350 on the package wasn't written very clearly. I know nothing about food or cooking, struggle to taste salt and much like my sense of body awareness, existed in a very binary spectrum (this is yummy, this is yucky, this knee is fine, this knee is hurt). The idea that I would start to cultivate an interest in things like the effects of ghrelin and leptin on appetite regulation, insulin resistance and the endocrine system is a little... uh... way out there.

See, here's the thing. Crossfit for me was a little like yoga and a little like my injury recovery-- it was focused in something I knew nothing about-- the subtleties of bio-chemistry and kinasthetics. And you give me something I know very little about, and I am going to want to learn more and more and more. The thing that I love about Crossfit has been its obsessive focus on form. Each movement, each lift, each breath is specific. It's focused on efficiency within functional movement. It's about using your body in a dynamic way and then about optimizing that dynamism by perfecting the form. Sounds a little like yoga, right (at least yoga done right). Much like when I was in PT and much like in my yoga practice, again I was being pulled into strength through detail and it fueled my interest and energy towards getting stronger and better. Each class I would come home literally feeling exhausted and for the following 2 days I would feel tiny little muscles I had never felt before reminding me what I had done. I spent time doing pull-ups, push-ups, box jumps, squats, push presses and push jerks, dead lifts, medball cleans, kettlebell swings, thrusters, sumo dead-lift high-pulls and ring dips, just to name a few things. And through it, we talked about the nature of fitness, of health, of nutrition. Things started clicking.

Over the past few weeks I've been watching my body composition altering again. I've not only lost some weight, but I've been watching my body fat composition begin to drop in favor of more muscle (yes, I actually can measure this), my measurements begin to change (altho not uniformly... my left bicep has gotten bigger than my right) and new muscles begin to appear. In addition to the changes I am feeling inside, I am starting to see those changes outside too. If you've met me in person you've probably noticed the slight kyphosis I have in my back. It's slight and inherited (most of the clan has it), but it gets pointed out to me a lot by body workers. So much of my work in redeveloping my body has been focused around that-- restrengthening muscles in my shoulders, core, back and chest, to re-align as much of that as I can. Especially with weight-lifting, without very mindful attention to fixing that, my center of balance can be compromised, so each movement has had to be deliberate and attentive and I can begin to see some of the subtle improvements in my posture as well.

All this has got me thinking about something even bigger. I enjoy all of this stuff. I enjoy seeing the results of playing around with subtle movement, subtle bio-chemical changes, whether from diet or otherwise. I enjoy learning about occupying my body and my skin in a much more mindful way. I've talked with my mother a few times lately about just some of the changes in body awareness that I have cultivated and it occurs to me that the majority of people aren't really raised to be mindful of these kinds of things. We don't think about metabolic pathways, anabolic and catabolic reactions, movement efficiencies and the like. As a culture we are so far removed from ourselves that it feels like we are on auto-pilot and for many of us that's just the way life is. It's like being in the matrix. But something came along and made me unplug. So now here I am thinking about all of these things. I'm chewing on insulin resistance, on growth hormones, on tearing down and rebuilding muscle, on plyometrics and realizing I might have something here.

When Marisa first got started teaching yoga, I had talked to her about possibly working with survivors-- I knew well of domestic violence and rape survival from my work for many years in the field. One of the biggest challenges was working with people to re-inhabit their skin, to find the strength and the capacity to own their bodies again when someone had come along and taken that sense of ownership away. When I think of the extremes of that auto-pilot I was talking about, this is the most critical example in my head, but is by no means the only examples. To me, however, the need was and is real. Part of healing, if one ever truly heals from those kinds of traumas, is learning to reclaim yourself and to me body work, whether it is massage or yoga or training or whatever... can and should be a part of that process. But it's not something that would ever be easy. The emotions that get stored in muscle and in body tissue are palpable. The reclamation process can be overwhelmingly emotional and I think Marisa knew it wasn't an area she felt overly comfortable in. For me... well... I think I do. I've worked with survivors for years and while I had to give it up when I moved to NYC, its been something so important to me that I knew it would come back around-- I just wasn't sure in what way. And then it hit me.

I have a long way to go in my own fitness-- I have a lot to learn, a lot to adapt, a lot to strengthen and all of that. But as I am learning, my brain is starting to lean towards wanting to make this more and wanting to bring this back around to the work with survivors I had done before. So I am beginning to consider getting certified as both a trainer and a dietitian (yep... scary stuff for the girl baking cookies at 550.) and working that in to a part-time gig in addition to the work I already do and love. I'm not giving up the crazy traveling security consulting work cause I am damn good at it and I enjoy it... but I see this as something I can do on the side as a way of coming back around in the full circle I've always imagined making.

Anyway, its crazy and brewing and really where my brain is these days. It's fun to think about and over the next few weeks and months I am sure it will get some additional traction as I start to put some things in place and look into some programs I may want to consider.

On that note, this is long, so I need to wind it down, but I will leave you with a teaser for later this week. I got me a triathlon this coming weekend. I wasn't going to let 2 seasons slide without at least one tri. So now... look out... things are about to get a little bit crazy.

3150-- The Magic Number

2008-08-27T09:43:00.003-04:00

That's how many yards I swam last night. Holy crapanoli, Batman, that's a lot of swimming to do. That is, by a wide margin, the longest I have ever swum in my entire life.

It works out to 1.78 miles. The furthest distance I have ever swum before this was a mile-- during the triathlon. Actually, maybe a little more in some swim classes, but never even close to this much. In some ways, I cheated a little because I did have some swim fins on, which makes me a little bit faster... but the thing is, I am still doing all the laps and from what I hear the fins actually make you work harder because though I am faster, I need to kick my legs now-- they don't drag well at all. So technically its supposed to be a better workout. It also trains my legs to the right way to kick, the right way to flex and point and all that stuff. A kick can't come from my knees when I have the fins on... so it naturally corrects my Stephen Hawking kick. Over time it starts to make my calf cramp up a little too because I am just not used to having my feet so pointed all the time. It's intense. And it was exhausting, but it was really really good and I enjoyed myself.

I am also really enjoying having a team again. It's nice to have people to help push me, since I am not always the best at pushing myself. The idea of swimming for an hour and a half straight when it is just me is damn near impossible. I get about a half an hour into it and start to go nutty. So this way, I am getting some camaraderie and some greater motivation. Overall its just a really good fit. I am hoping my ability to work here in NYC for a little while keeps up and I can continue to train during the week with the team-- because it really does seem to do me good.

I get home kinda late when I go to swim team tho-- I rolled home at 10:15 again and just collapsed with exhaustion, so I tend to take my Wednesday mornings off of training-- the idea of an early morning wake up after 3,150 yards sounds dreadful, so I slept in a little bit and then threw on some clothes, chugged some coffee and had breakfast and by 7:30 was out the door to head to the Farmers Market. This to me is the hallmark of decadence on a weekday morning and if only I can keep up my local work, will go back to being a staple of existence. There is nothing like the Farmer's Market on weekends and weekdays. As I am trying to eat healthy and local (again, much easier to do in NYC than on the road), the Farmer's Market becomes the focal point of a lot of attention. Since refrigerators are small in New York and since the market is every other day and both days of the weekend, I tend to just buy what I need on the spot, so I go for a few days at a time only. I got me a bunch of yummy things that will last me till this weekend and I couldn't help but share how pretty it looks:

Sometimes I will get some organic eggs and bread and stuff too, depending on my mood, but I think I will save the eggs and all for the weekend. So I got some fennel, eggplant, apples, basil, baby spinach, garlic, tomatoes and a few other things. The basil sounds heavenly and the stuff I grow in my window is too small to really do much with right now, so I grabbed a bunch. As fall starts, I am looking forward to taking even more advantage of the Farmer's Market.

So what else... let's see. I have yoga tonight and Crossfit tomorrow night. I am aiming to get either a run or a bike in tomorrow morning, but haven't decided which yet.

That's about all I got over here.

Hips and Back and Shoulders, Oh My.

2008-08-26T16:06:00.000-04:00

Yes yes, I have become the suck at this blogging thing. I've been spending some time just right siding myself lately and its been stuff that I haven't really wanted to blog so much about, so I've just been keeping things to myself and working it all out. I think I'm ready to start filling you all in again and see where we go from here.

So let me start with my hip. I did something to my right hip a few months ago and its been nagging at me since. It's actually ground a lot of my aerobic activity to a halt, sadly. There is a tendon deep in my hips, right by my groin muscle, that gets really tight and sore when I run. I notice it most of all then, but also when I bike or use the elliptical, it was starting to tighten it even more, even if it wasn't straining it as badly as running. My suspicions were that my adductors and abductors were starting to get out of alignment again and in addition to not stretching it as well as I could (its a tough spot to stretch), things were getting worse. Sometimes even yoga was making it so that the next day I was struggling to walk. And if you know me, you know I avoid doctors like the plague, so I was working on just kind of working it out on my own. Reality started settling in that this was likely to impact the New York Marathon, but I couldn't just train though it.

I started trying to swim more and more-- the hotel had a decent pool and I could get some laps in, but the truth is, its hard to motivate for laps alone. So I started sort of playing around with some swimming, physical therapy, strength training and mixed aerobic workouts trying to improve my fitness overall while trying to keep this thing in check. Through it, I've still managed to keep up the slow and steady weight loss and, even better, size loss, I had started back on.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I was signing up for a program called Crossfit for a good ass-kicking. I had planned, because of my travel schedule, to do half my required entry classes to qualify into the program, as private lessons and then half as the group class. A few weeks ago, however, my client team asked me how I would feel about working at home for a few weeks, and it just seemed that things were going to fall into place. I would be home for all the classes and could do them all with the group. Additionally, it meant I could sign up for something I had been meaning to do for a while-- a masters swim team, as a way of improving my swimming while I was here in town and eventually allow me to work with the team on weekends when I was back out on the road. Like I said, things started falling into place.

So last week was the start of both my new masters swimming career and my journey into Crossfit. First up-- swimming. If you've read my blog for a while now, you will remember that I describe my swimming style as much like Stephen Hawking in a pool. I am not at all graceful in the water. My legs seem to go periodically quadriplegic and just sort of hang out and do nothing... and my catch/pull isn't much better, so I move with sloth-like speed in water. I look to my Mighty Hamptons Triathlon 1 mile swim as my classic example, coming out of the water damn near last after about an hour. It's not pretty. So masters swim team is going to kick my ass, but should hopefully help me get enough swimming in that over time my form gets cleaned up and I become a stronger, more efficient swimmer. I got to my first class and discovered just what I had thrown myself into. There were about 40 something swimmers of various age ranges, all of whom were fast. Thank god I was in the slow lane, but even then, I found I needed fins to keep up. We swam ALOT. By my rough guess, I swam about 1800 yards, which works out to be just over 1 mile. I haven't swum that much since Mighty Hamptons, which was the day my triathlon career came to an unexpected halt. So this was way outside my current level.

I loved it. I struggled to keep up, but the coaches and my lane mates were awesome. I swam my heart out. And when I got too tired to keep up the freestyle, the coach asked me to switch to breaststroke, which he told me I did fairly well-- not bad for my only other stroke. Finally, in a moment of sheer exhaustion, as we were switching to doing laps of Individual Medley (I didn't know what IM was much less how to swim it), the strokes started to vary-- and knowing I couldn't even begin to fake the butterfly stroke, I did the only other stroke I saw people doing-- the backstroke. I have never swum backstroke before. Ever. Everever. But it looks somewhat clean... lie on back, kick feet, one arm at a time overhead and pull down. Ok... so I tried it. Apparently I did remarkably well for a first timer, so I've decided to add that to the repertoire for a while.

I left my first swim class completely exhausted, but really pleased with myself... and excited that I will be going back tonight and beginning to increase my frequency. Yea! And now onto Crossfit.

How to describe Crossfit. I think the best way is to describe it the way that one of my readings for class describes it:

"Our fitness, being 'CrossFit,' comes through molding men and women that are equal parts gymnast, Olympic weightlifter, and multi-modal sprinter or 'sprintathlete.' Develop the capacity of a novice 800-meter track athlete, gymnast, and weightlifter and you’ll be fitter than any world-class runner, gymnast, or weightlifter."

That seems to be a pretty good summary from what I can see. In many ways its barebones fitness. There aren't any machines, any specialized techniques, anything you couldn't fit in your own garage. It's dirty, its rough, but it is an intense focus on movement precision. And.I.Love.It. It's an ass kicking. I always secretly knew I would get in hellagood shape if I joined the army (minus the whole being morally opposed to war and being gay and all that... but follow me here), because I respond well to the challenge of being pushed really hard and being yelled at. I havent seen a lot of yelling at Crossfit, but I definitely see being pushed well beyond where I think I can go. In 2 classes I have deadlifted barbells, done pull-ups, more push-ups than I have ever done in my life, medicine ball lifts that leave my arms feeling jello-y and straight up push-presses. I've had to chaulk my hands up to make up for the fact that they aren't calloused over enough quite yet. And the fun is really just starting, so who knows where this will wind up for me, but I knew almost from the minute I got there that I was in my element. Say goodbye to my chicken arms.

Yesterday I did my first real run in about 2 weeks. I kept my speed and my distance really low and just waited to see how things would work. While my hip wasn't perfect, it was ok... so I am going to see if I can keep up some of the PT and intense stretching and rolling and get this thing back on track. I am getting tired of feeling injured in one way or the other so I need to reign this in right here and now.

Anyway... last thing to report... I am off to swim team again tonight. Yep... round 2. Go me.

My 6 Word Race Report for Boston

2008-08-01T09:15:00.002-04:00

Pigtails, this one is for you.

Found myself. I had missed Me.

(for anyone that didn't follow)

Taking Control Back

2008-07-28T09:19:00.002-04:00

I am at a crossroads. It's been brewing for a while and its just all finally come to a head. Good things are going to come out of it, no doubt... they already are. But there are days where I get a little bogged down in having lost my way a little.

My last year has been weird and oddly atypical. It was a year that I didn't race at all... something that had come so deeply to define who I am. I didn't race because of an injury I couldn't seem to shake and one that still nags me now. In that, I found a bit of a depression building. Many of the friends I had were friends I had through running and when that fell by the wayside, so to did some friendships. In addition, I dramatically changed my job. I went from working at home 5 days a week to living in hotels 4 days a week and working crazy hours, and agreeing to go all the way back down to start and work my way back through the hierarchy of my company. It was a huge price to pay but one that I knew would catapult me to where I most wanted and needed to be. It was a step back to take a step ahead. And while the decision was sound, it became hard not to internalize some of that need to constantly defend that decision to people who would meet me and wonder why I was "just starting out" after 10 years. When you add in the exhaustion of this line of work and the fact that I was doing twice as much as anyone else I could find to try and move my self back to where I was before my step back, things got overwhelming... at a time where my one truest tension diffuser was not really there anymore. Talk about a not good mix.

In the end, I ran a marathon. And that marathon was an awakening for me that things were not right inside me. I was at my heaviest weight since becoming a runner... clocking in at 134 lbs the morning of the race. While that might not seem odd at first pass, when I had been racing a lot, my weight was down around 118. I was 16lbs heavier than what felt healthy and what was worse was that it wasn't good weight or muscle weight. It was unhappiness and stress and fatigue and lethargy. I was becoming someone I wasn't as proud of and somewhere along that route it dawned on me that I needed to make some changes.

Those changes were hard for me to make at my last project. They say some projects are a "shit sandwich" you just have to eat and this was mine. Learning not to take that home with me each weekend was particularly hard and I just didn't do it well at all. But inside some changes were brewing, some seeds were sowing, some life was being breathed into me again... slowly.

When I changed projects, I found myself creating a break point, leaving stuff at the door and making space for me again. I started to swim again, started to strength train again, started to bike and run again. I started to feel like myself again.

In the past 2 weeks since my last post, a couple of things have changed. First and foremost, I signed up for my first triathlon since I got injured. It's a late fall sprint triathlon, but its eactly what I needed to keep me on track and keep that energy up. I had a goal. Secondly, I joined a new triathlon team. I got tired of waiting for the old group to feel like a good fit again-- it wasn't going to and I needed to face that. So I found a new group. While most of their group things happen during the week when I am out of town, I am hoping to tap into some of that energy for weekends and start to feel like I am a part of something again. Lastly, and perhaps more scarily, I signed up for something called Crossfit. I am not really sure how to describe crossfit except to say its something used by the military and martial artists and hardcore people alike to get into brutally good shape. They describe it this way:

"Crossfit is a grassroots fitness movement based out of Santa Cruz, California. It is the principal strength and conditioning program for many police academies and tactical operations teams, military special operations units, champion martial artists, and hundreds of other elite and professional athletes worldwide. Our specialty is not specializing. Combat, survival, many sports, and life reward this kind of fitness and, on average, punish the specialist. The CrossFit program is designed for universal scalability making it the perfect application for any committed individual regardless of experience. We scale load and intensity; we don’t change programs."

It's an ass kicking. Workouts involve pull ups, deadlifting weights, kettlebells (those cannonballs with handles on them) and all kids of other crazy things. And when you meet a Crossfit practioner, you see the phenomenal results. I want me some of that, so as an early birthday gift to myself this year, I signed up for their 2 x 4 week intro program that I have to do before I can offically join. I have to do some of it as private lessons since I am out of town during half the classes, so you can only imagine the one-on-one attention I am going to get. The guy who runs it has promised to kick my ass and its exactly what I need. I start in a few weeks. God help me.

Things are definitely starting to feel more right-sided, although it has been a very challenging road to get here and I was very overwhelmed by how far off track I had started to go. It's nice to feel some of my old energy coming back again. Things are looking up.

I've lost 5 lbs since this project started. I am ready to be back at my fighting weight again. Cause I'm gonna be a contendah.

More later.

I Know, I Know

2008-07-12T08:55:00.004-04:00

I've been derelict in my posting lately. Funny thing is, I just deleted, literally, 6 drafts of posts that I started between now and the last one, but just never got a chance to complete. So let's see if I can't pull this one off at least.

So when last we left, I was commuting back and forth to Hartford. That has since ended, much to my relief. That project, in particular, was not a good one for me. It was taking a huge toll on me and it was taking everything I had to keep up my dedication to my running and my training in spite of some serious exhaustion. The hours were never ending. And the sleep deprivation really impacted just the time I felt I had for training. In some ways, I think that project really impacted my marathon time. In the last 2 months before the marathon, my time for training and physical therapy stuff (far more important than anything else) just got lost amidst the often 12-14 hour work days. I was really coasting through it just looking for that light at the end of the tunnel for a long time. And finally it came.

This past week I started on a project in Washington DC. In addition to being a less frenetic feeling place, its doing the real work that I love-- not something loosely related to it. And its considered a "stretch" role for me, meaning its a little above where I am supposed to be right now, which makes me enjoy it all the more. I finally have a sense of motivation back, but the time in which to allow that motivation to be expressed. And that is huge.

Somewhere in my 2nd to last week in Hartford, however, I pulled or strained a muscle in my right leg.

Marisa thinks its either my illio-psoas (where the illium and the psoas meet) or my actual rectus femorus (one of the muscles in my quad), but either way its affecting my ability to run. Last weekend I tried to run through it and it just wasn't happening, so in my transition to my new project this week, I decided to switch my running over to the elliptical machines and see if I can't iron it out a little better over the coming days before I have to start getting crazy with marathon training again.

The new hotel has the kind of gym I have needed all along. It's huge. And it has all the machines and medicine balls and training options a girl could want. And, drum roll please, it has a lap pool. And with normal hours again, it gives me time to get on the elliptical for an hour in the morning and swim and strength train/ physical therapy in the evening and still have time for food and sleep. This week was a real breath of fresh air. I've been coming home so miserable and sleep deprived and cranky lately its taken a toll on Marisa too, so this past week was a really nice change of pace. Thank god.

So I've been getting some swimming in again. Lord help me, that's been a while. And given I've always been a little like Stephen Hawking in a pool, I have a lot of room for improving now more than ever. My first goal is to just get my endurance back. While I was doing laps for half an hour at a go, it still lacked the sense that I could do a whole lot more. I've lost a lot of that endurance for sure. I need to do some work on form too and will likely travel with my catch paddles to see if I can't start to focus some work on my catch and pull again.

This weekend I am mainly going to spend doing some laps on my bike. Biking is the one thing I cannot seem to mimic in most gyms. Even spin bikes, while great training, aren't realistic enough that when I transition back to the real deal, I am definitely needing to readjust. So for this weekend, I will do a lot more riding than anything else. Depending on how my leg feels over the next few days, I may try and transition back into running again. Time will tell.

And on that note, consider yourselves caught up. I'm feeling good right now and I'm feeling like I came through the hard part, so its nice to take some time and breathe again. I'll work on posting more regularly... I swear.

more later.

Holy Crap it is Hot.

2008-06-08T22:07:00.000-04:00

It was such a beautiful weekend out there and I really wanted to be out in it, but a fair skinned girl like me will burn through SPF 8,000 and the truth is, its just a little too hot too soon to go crazy in it.

I sucked it up last night, however... and headed out the door for a run at 7ish when I had hoped things had cooled down a little. Sadly, it was still 89 degrees with 45% relative humidity (another feature I love about my garmin watch... the upload gives me the weather data too). Not as humid as it could be, but this early in the season, its pretty unwelcome just to hang out in, much less go for a run in. I had done 2 runs during the week-- one on Monday, the other on Tuesday. Mondays run was the better of the two, but I also got out there so late, they were both about 2.5 miles a pop.

I am in a weird place with my running right now. My speed is starting to come back to me and my body is just naturally starting to move faster, but my cardio system just isn't in place enough to support it to where I need to be. The result is this come out too hard at the start and then struggle to keep it up over time. I can't seem to find any regulating in it. I come out in the 8s and I end in the 10s and I am struggling to find the middle ground. Maybe its not so bad to do it this way-- little by little my pace is starting to drop... but its not quite the way I imagined doing it.

I went out again tonight. It was even more hot and even more humid. This time it was 91 with 50% humidity. It was like soup. Both days I ran a mere 3.16, which was all I was going to get while trying to avoid the sun of midday. I am all too keenly aware that I need to acclimate to the heat and humidity as quickly as possible, so I knew it was best to just be out there even if it sucked. In the end it was a mixed bag, I suppose. It's funny... all the whining and complaining I did over the winter and having to train through the brutal cold, the sleet, the snow... I think I'd take that over this... over the constant tackiness of a NYC summer.

As I finished my run this evening, it started to rain a little. It was the kind of rain that when it hits the sidewalk kind of steams a little bit. God, it felt incredible. The sun was still out, but yet there was this slight bit of lightning and this heavenly downpour and within 5 minutes it was all gone with no sign on the ground that it had ever rained at all.

And now some few hours later, the lightning and thunder and fierce summer rains are pounding away at the buildings. You've never experienced thunder and lightning until you have experienced it in New York City. It is deafeningly powerful. And Catastrophe is sitting all bunched up in my arms eager to see it all move on. But not me... I think I needed this.

Happy Sunday.

I Don't Know What's Going On With Me

2008-06-01T13:09:00.002-04:00

I think a lot of it has to do with work, but I just can't seem to get my training motivation nailed right now. It's weird, really.

I went out for a run yesterday. It took some motivating to get me out the door, but without trying and even really realizing it, I came out way too hard and some 2 miles in, I was running a cool 8:30 pace. I know that while once upon a time I was there, right now I just am not... and while its good to go there in terms of getting my body used to speed again, its not something I am going to be able to sustain for long. Its why speed training gets done in intervals and fartleks. But the thing is, my legs just kept going there and cardiovascularly it was taking a toll. You could see on my heart rate monitor that I am up easily into the top of my threshold levels, so it came as no surprise that at 2.5 miles, I fell apart again and just wanted to walk. My brain was trying to slow me down and just pace in the high 9s and get a nice run out of it, but my body was going to go either full throttle or not at all. The whole thing just became this battle. And the very last thing I felt out of all of it was anything close to a marathoner. So I gotta tell you, the whole thing proved really discouraging.

This afternoon I am going to drag my bike out again. But the truth is, my motivation is really slippery right now. Maybe signing up for some races this summer will help. I don't know.

Lastly, I finally got the cd of professional pics from the marathon. If nothing else, in spite of the foot cramp and sunburn in the making, I looked awfully darn happy to be out there....

Saddle-Breaking a Funk.

2008-05-25T11:44:00.000-04:00

I've been in a fun lately. Not a good kind of fun either. The kind that saps the energy stores and just makes me want to curl up in a ball in bed. The only thing that is keeping me going is just how beautiful it is outside, and how could I not want to enjoy that, right?

My project lately has not been a lot of fun at all. Some projects fill me with energy and I work hard and train hard and exhaust myself into the most restful kinds of sleep. And some projects leave me feeling physically and mentally drained before my eyes are even fully opened each morning. My current project is the later and its becoming hard to motivate around the rest of life. But I am trying.

Last week was particularly hard and by the time Friday rolled around, I needed a physical and mental break from the world. Truth is this holiday weekend has not been the level of athletic I had hoped for. I can't decide if its good or bad. I think I needed a break, but at the same time, I always feel better when I am training like crazy and I know that has slipped a lot on this project. It impacted my first marathon and I need to really prevent it from impacting the second. I need my groove, so I decided to go for a bike ride.

I haven't ridden much post injury. My beautiful yellow bike hung in my bedroom begging me to ride her, but you could tell it had been a while when she, quite literally, had no air left in her tires at all. I had gone from 120psi to under 10. Yikes. Bree had told me when I was recovering that I needed to avoid any "mashing" on the bike for fear it would impact my knees really badly. While I had done my cycling training class, however, overall, my biking had been on a trainer and with careful regard to my knees. And the truth is, it kind of sucks the joy out of it. Cycling indoors on a trainer is about as much fun as running on a treadmill (and we all know my prowess on treadmills). So today, I took the old girl out for a spin.

I put on my Spongebob jersey. Man, I love me some of that Sponge. Truth is, people love the Spongebob jersey-- I get comments on it every time I go out. It's just fun to wear. So it was step number 1 in making me find a groove again. I hit the road and heard my cleats lock in and just felt good and strong. I remember a few times going out on my bike and feeling my quads pulling against my knee and just knowing things weren't like they were supposed to be (and usually just ignoring it and keeping going). This time, I felt good and strong. I hit the park and next thing you know, my speed was popping up into the low 20s and I felt the whistle of the wind in my ear and just settled back and enjoyed myself. God, it felt good.

The park was pretty crazy, all in all-- I expected as much for Memorial Day. I kept my speed very in control-- for one I didn't want to go all out because I promised Marisa we could go for a run together tonight, but for two because I wasn't up for the drama of the close-call that can happen on days like today. So I kept it to about 12 miles and about 15mph average speed. I mostly just wanted my groove again. I found a hint of it. And now I don't want to take my cleats off. :)

This afternoon/evening Marisa and I will do a run together and then tomorrow I head back to Hartford for a very short week-- I come back on Wednesday night so I can spend Thursday in celebration of Marisa's birthday. I missed it last year and was determined not to miss it this year, at any cost.

So there... more later, post run.

Getting Hit Head-On by a Bike Really Sucks

2008-05-17T14:12:00.002-04:00

I live in the heart of one of the busiest places on the planet. And life here in New York City is a constant contention for space and resources. You get used to it after a while and even start to miss it in its absence, but sometimes, some days that contention for space hits you, figuratively, and sometimes literally, a little harder than you expect it will.

Today, as it was just stunningly beautiful outside, I decided to go for a run. I knew there would be a lot of people out and about, but the truth is, we are all used to working around each other. Its not until you get into places like Times Square or the Brooklyn Bridge that the outsiders try and join in our well orchestrated and oft-rehearsed interaction with each other. But this wasn't going to be one of those. Nay, I was sticking to my borough and enjoying the lesser known, and in this Brooklynite's opinion, far more beautiful, park. Things should be fine.

I was in about 2.5 miles in what I was expecting to be 4 and change. I had a great pace going. I was down around the low nines, which has been tough for me in my post injury world. So with all the focus on finding my speed again, this was a good place to be and well on the way to being the run I really needed to have today. As I am passing a woman running the other direction, out of nowhere, going significantly too fast for the level of crowd, and at that in the designated walk/run lane, came an 8-10ish aged boy, far more interested in watching the picnic by the pond than at what lay before him-- namely me. It all happened so fast and I could see the kid see me at the very last second and not know what to do to avoid it. There were no brakes, no swerves, just a look of startle at what was about to go down. And I am sure I looked little different.

I remember stopping hard with one leg ahead of the other, kind of bracing myself against the impact and locking my arms at my elbows out ahead of me and thinking I had a chance at catching his handlebars and keeping us both upright and no worse for the wear, so I just went for it. And caught him at full throttle knocking me back a step but keeping him from going down and me from being thrown back. And before I knew it, we were parting ways again. The problem becomes diffusing that impact knocked a heck of a lot of wind out of me, and try though I might, the run kind of fell apart with the sharp stabbing pain in my ribs that often comes from running beyond where your heart and lungs are ready to be. I stopped and caught my breath, but it didn't quite come back to me and the remainder of the run was very stop and go. I kept going the remainder of the way, but minus a lot of the energy I had before and when I got home I threw up. I am not sure if it was entirely the wind getting punched out of me so abruptly or the burst of adrenaline mixed with this overwhelming need to not have this kid's injury on my conscious or what, but whatever... all is good now.

The real bummer is looking at my time now. 10:32. I am half laughing and half crying at that number. My pace pre-crash... under 9:00... looks to be about an 8:50. My pace post crash... all over the map. The good news is all is still right with the world and the little crisis was mostly averted. I just hope the kid learns to look ahead when he rides. I have a feeling he learned that lesson fairly well today.

Quick Post

2008-05-07T20:02:00.002-04:00

It's a tough week. Project is nuttifying, for sure. But the weather is making me itchy.

Monday night I got a "rave run" in... found myself some paths along the Connecticut River, up into some wood trails, some rock climbing towers and a lot of thick smelly river mud. I was in heaven. I came back to the hotel with mud spray up the back of my legs, my shoes dropping dried mud chunks all over the place, my face redder than all get out and the biggest grin on my face. I could get used to a run like that. The rest of the week thus far has been a little more challenging. My soleus muscle was tight and hurting a little yesterday, so I did a half an hour on the elliptical instead with some decent tension... and then had some fun with physical therapy. Tonight I had to take one for the team and go out to eat with the crew. My run will have to be back indoors and early in the morning so I can still do my morning repack and head over to the office by 7:30. Taking today off means I will try and do a run every day this weekend... at least something small. Should be do-able.

I love me spring and fall runs. Thank god I have been blessed with no allergies. But man, I wish I was tromping in the mud tonight. I could use a muddy rave run again. The clay-ish mud smell just puts me in a good mood.

It Was a Good Week

2008-05-04T09:41:00.003-04:00

I had a goal for last week. Reign crazy project in. The life of a consultant, however, makes this a wee challenging. Don't play the game, you don't get ahead. Play it too much and you wind up dead on your feet. My goal this week was just find that balance a little bit better and hope like hell I could hang onto it.

Week 1 went well. I managed to not only leave the office while the sun was up, but leave the office, hit the hotel, throw on running clothes and give myself some time out on the streets. Actually, I should amend that... one day it was still bright enough to run outside. The other 2 it was on the treadmill, but that's better than nothing. I think switching the runs from the morning to the evening is better. And with a little negotiation, I was able to offset some of the fear that I was leaving at 6 by working after my run. Cool. I did have the requisite team meeting at 9pm again, but was able to work my negotiation skills once again to allowing me the run buffer between office and meeting. I don't feel too bad about this since we all start work at 7:30am each day. One week down... whether I can hang onto this and walk the fine line of caring about myself and my project equally (you can never be better than the client, afterall) is something we will have to discover over time.

So I got in my runs on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday... Wednesday being my outdoor run. I am never in glamorous places that I can run through... I always seem to be in a hotel nestled into an office park. This client is no different. So the run was not very exciting scenery wise, but it felt good to be off the treadmill. I also managed to get in my stretching after my run, which is a lengthy endeavor post physical therapy... but then again, its a small price to pay to never have to lose a year and a half of running again. Cause that plain sucks.

Right now I am working hard on increasing my frequency of runs... one of the problems with marathon training in this crazy little lifestyle is that consistency goes out the window. There were a lot of weeks where I had just one short run in during the week and then my long run on the weekend. This isn't the best way to pull off a marathon and I knew it. But I had the luxury of not needing to worry about time, given it was my first run back from that year and a half. Now I have something to prove and I need to do it right. So I need to be consistent. I need to have at least 5 out of the 7 days spent running. I've given myself Thursday as my off day because of the commute home. The rest are supposed to be run days. This week, however, I missed Friday. Fridays tend to be a lot of non-client work and this Friday a lot had accumulated, so I had to just suck it up.

Yesterday Marisa and I did a run together. I consider this my aerobic run because its very low intensity for me while she is getting back into running. I know that once she is a little more settled into running again, she will give me a run for my money, so I can enjoy this now. Today I will take one of her yoga classes and then do a run by myself which will be back to redeveloping the pace I lost. It's funny how I see flashes of that old pace... that day I was hitting my 7:23 pace in my last marathon training run. I just don't have the cardiovascular system to support it anymore. No sooner had I found that cardio support for that pace to begin with that it all fell apart. So I am trying little by little to bring that back. A little speedwork, some fartleks, some hill training and hopefully we will be there. And maybe, just maybe, come marathon time I will be back to my old self. Yea!

Ok, that's all I got for now. More later.

Missing Person

2008-04-26T20:26:00.002-04:00

I don't know how many NYC readers I really have, these days... but when I saw this one, I had to forward it along.

MISSING PERSON!
She is Haruka Fuita from Japan, she had lived in NY for a while, and was a student at DNA. [Dance New Amsterdam, a dance school with many international students located near City Hall]
She used to work at "Yagura" which is japanese restaurant at 24
E. 41st St. (bet. Madison & 5th Aves.) as a waitress.
It seems she is missing for 6 months, and her parents came here to find
her.

Please contact the numbers below the photos with any information you may know.
Also, please forward this mail to as many people as you can.
Thank you!

Chill Runs and Marathon Plans

2008-04-26T10:09:00.003-04:00

I did a nice and easy 4.5 miler on Thursday evening to work out some kinks. It felt good, but I could definitely feel the sapping of energy that had gone on for that race only 3 days before. It was interesting to feel it. But I felt strong. And I felt happy.

Over the last few days, I have been chewing on how I want to prepare for this next marathon. Reality set in hard in my first plan, that following my plan just wasn't going to happen yet, and by the time my body was ready to acquiesce, I was so far off the mark, it wasn't even funny. Furthermore, the plan I was following, Jeff Galloway's, included runs that were in excess of marathon distance. I am not sold on whether I think this is a good idea or not, but the reality was, because it all became so condensed at the end, it was a race to keep up. And now I have the luxury of starting from scratch-- a clean slate.

I like plans that run longer. I don't really care for the super short condensed plans... one of two things happen... either the mileage ramps up too fast and things hurt-- not that this is a problem now... only 5 days from 27.23 miles (yep, apparently I added in another mile... who knows where, but I did.) OR its the slapdash here's enough to get you to the end. I did slapdash, and well... it got me over the line, but I have a lot of room to improve the 5:40:17, that's for sure. I know I have a sub-5 hour in me, if not something a little faster... but it would take some time.

So I am opting to go with Hal Higdon's "Personal Best" training plan. It's 30 weeks and if you do some fast math, as I did, you'll realize I need to be in week 4 this week. D'oh. Now before you get too concerned... truth is week for caps out with a 7 miler. The rest of the week is a bunch of 3 and 4 milers and the truth is, this isn't a stretch for me right now at all. My trick this time is going to be the consistency that I lost in the last plan with all of the work craziness. I think I might have to reign that in a little bit now. This plan is going to do a few things for me. For one its going to radically change the frequency of my running. I will be out there pretty much 5-6 days a week. It's going to force me into something very consistent which was really lacking in this last marathon prep. Secondly, its going to push me into doing some speed sessions, which I really need to start focusing on. Overall, I think its an indication that I am finally back to being able to truly train... not just run. So I am ready to get cracking.

This evening I am taking Miss Marisa out with me for a run. We haven't been able to do this much-- really not since the very start of dating, which I think she may secretly be forgetting, is coming up on May 7th. Yep, that first most beautiful woman and I are celebrating 2 years. But for now I am just happy that we'll be heading on out the door for a run together. This time, I don't have to act like the evil gym teacher.

Bring It.

2008-04-24T10:14:00.002-04:00

It's been 2 and a half days since my marathon. My legs feel great. My knees feel perfect. Seems all my PT work may have paid off. Thank god. And you know what that means? It means I am back. Thank god.

Funny that I needed a marathon to prove it.

Today I am doing really well. Like I said, I am not having any real muscle soreness... which is really remarkable, given I have not been able to stretch. My biggest problem has been the horrible sunburn I have. Its made the top layer of my skin so tight and swollen that it feels like it will tear if I try to stretch. So if I were able to stretch out more right now, I am sure I would feel even better. I have been a little taken aback that my biggest hurdle in this race wound up being something I had never expected-- foot cramps. In all my training I never hit that one. It's funny, because thats probably the one hurdle I didn't hit. I think it came down to an oversight. I keep a pair of shoes always at the hotels I stay at. I keep the exact brand/style/etc and just make sure that I always have 2 pairs going... both to keep rotating shoes in and out, but also so I don't always have to take them with me. For the race, I switched the shoes and wore my hotel shoes, which for the most part I have used on shorter runs on treadmills. Never dawned on me that though they were broken in, they might not be broken in as well as the others. So by Mile 9, I was in uncharted territory with the shoes. Stupid rookie mistake. Much to my surprise, outside of that foot cramp, which at times was debilitating, the run itself was good. When I could run, I was down in the 9s... which for me is back to where I used to be. I am thrilled to feel like I am back to life before the injury. It's taken me a year and a half.

So what did I do to celebrate? I registered for the NYC Marathon on November 2. Yep... that's right. Another marathon. It's a little hard to believe, that's for sure, but here's the thing-- I remember telling myself many years ago when I first conceived (probably over a cigarette) of running a marathon, that if I ever got myself in that kind of shape, I was going to stay that way. In many ways I think I enjoy the battle-- the working my way up to something and then the game of trying to keep myself in it. There is a liberation in the conquest. And now I have a bench mark to use for improvement. And here's the thing... being out there an immersed in the battle... I just feel very alive.

If you've spent any time with me in person you've probably heard my well-worn mantra that I would rather experience all the extremes of life... the highest of the highs and the lowest of the lows just to have the temperance that comes with it. I often meet people that feel like they are living in these little emotional boxes... afraid of feeling too much in one direction or another. No doubt the middle ground is easy when it comes to the low points, but the middle ground is nothing in comparison to those high flying moments. To me, the marathon embodied all of that in spades. I had a lot of low moments on that course... most notably when Marisa, Kelly and Alycen all left me after the first part of Heartbreak Hill. But that race also had some hughely high moments too... the constant cheering... the look on Tara's face... the moment when Kelly, Marisa and Patty, then Tara, and then my parents found me wrapped in my heat blanket at the end of the race. It was incredible. And for those very disparate sets of emotions, I want to be back on the road.

It's funny, I was poking around yesterday on my blog and found this old post about why I chose to become a triathlete. In many ways, I knew it was going to be a step in this direction. Maybe it will springboard me back into triathlon even more... tho to be honest, I haven't planned much for this season... I've been so laser focused on getting through Boston that now I think I might need to replan a few things. Who knows. I guess I hadn't quite counted on how much this was going to re-energize me again-- how much this would make me feel back in the game. How much this would make me want to get out there and keep running.

So yeah, November 2, 2008... marathon number 2. And off we go again.

And on that note... I need to think about maybe doing a nice chill run this evening. Cause I am ready. I just gotta get some sunscreen and a long sleeve teeshirt on me first.

Boston -- The Long Awaited Race Report (Part 3)

2008-04-23T12:10:00.003-04:00

The saga continues.

So Beacon Street. Ohmygod, I never hated that street more-- and to think I used to live on it! When I caught my first glimpse of the famous Citgo sign down in Kenmore, it looked like it was about an entire country away. To think that I had to run to that and then keep going just about killed me. I cannot even explain how demoralizing that felt. I had fought ever step since that foot cramp started and seeing how far I still had to go was unbelievable. But the crowd kept going. I had people atop some of the brownstones cheering for me by name... apparently the letters on my jersey were visable that far up. And every time I could muster a run, the screams got louder and louder. It was overwhelming. How could I stop? When I was coming into Washington Square, I saw an older couple standing by the trolly tracks in red Boston Marathon jackets from a few years ago. The woman turned to me and yelled "Come on JC... you are almost there. If we did it, so can you. Don't give up!" And I ran on. By this time, I must have looked really rough, because the cheers for me by name just got louder and louder. A couple running next to me were both getting a little irritated at the attention I was getting, but I didn't care. They had each other. I had the crowd. Seemed fair to me.

When I finally got myself into Kenmore, I knew I was close. And even more importantly, I knew that someone very soon I was going to see Tara. And I needed to run for that part. So with one last mile to go, I broke into a steady run again knowing I was not going to quit. Before turning onto Hereford Street, I heard a more unusual call of my name. Turns out it was coming from a woman I had been talking to on the walk to the start line. She had time qualified in and was expecting to be somewhere in the under 4 hour range, so she had finished a while ahead of me. My parents had mentioned that she stopped when she saw the signs along the way for me and told them all that I was doing well. Turns out she had come back from the start to watch me finish. And what a wind in my sails that turned out to be. I turned the corner onto Hereford and started scanning the crowd for Tara. And as I was about to make my turn onto Boylston, right there underneath the Hynes Convention Center awning was Tara screaming her lungs out for me about to jump over the railing. It was incredible. I about lost my composure then but thanked her with what energy I had left and then turned and ran down Boylston to the finish line. And it was over. 5:40:17.

It took a while of walking... several blocks, in fact, to get to the place where they take the chips off shoes, give out water, heat blankets, food, etc. And then several more blocks to the family waiting area... I didn't see my pit crew anywhere. Seems the public transportation system had a bit of a meltdown and a lot of runners were left looking for their loved ones. When I finally found the M section, I sat down, wrapped myself in my heat blanket, and finally worked the cramp in my foot out. I was done. And I wanted to nap. Eventually a guy came over to me sitting on the stairs waiting and noticed that I was shivering. I don't really remember shivering so much as just sitting in exhaustion, and he suggested I move into the sun. I had had enough of sun by now and just wanted to relax so I told him if my family didn't show up in the next few mins, I would move to find sun-- but the truth is, I needed to stay as close to this M as I could because otherwise I might not find them so easily. Next thing you know, here come the medical folks with a wheelchair to check on me and move me. Seems my friend ratted me out. So I got up and moved to the sun... no wheelchair, thank you. I settled back down and started chewing on a bagel and Marisa, Kelly and Patty found me and brought me flowers, followed shortly by Tara and then my folks.

Overall, the race was awesome. I wound up, however, with one of the most horrific sunburns you could imagine... all over my neck, my arms and the back of my calves. It made stretching out the tension in my legs impossible as even to this day I feel like my skin is about to tear. My arm, in particular, is swollen from the sun exposure, so I am in a little more pain that I had expected. When I finally met up with the family, we went back to my hotel, I showered, we had some champagne and I donned my new jacket before I took the pit crew out to dinner to thank them all for their incredible support and love.

My race was awesome. My knees held up, even if my foot didn't. While the time wasn't quite as good as I had hoped, I knew that I put everything I had into that race, so I have no regrets... just room for improvement. The course itself is a lot harder than I had imagined. The mind games even harder. But that crowd... let me tell you, friends, there is nothing like it. If it weren't for that crowd, I don't know where I would have found the strength to continue. It was amazing.

So this week I am back to working, just at home, and next week life continues as normal, except for that whole OMG, I ran a marathon thing my brain keeps doing. It will probably take me a few days to really start to feel awesome again... more because of the horrible sunburn than anything else. But I am stoked overall. I got to do something I had dreamed of in the far off future. I got to have my family there. I got to have my friends there. I got to take back mile marker 9 from that moment some 11 years ago when I was at one of my lowest points. I got to live a dream. Can't get much better than that, can it.

And on that note, I am tired of typing. More this week, I promise. For now, there is your race report. Now to insert some pics....

Boston -- The Long Awaited Race Report (Part 2)

2008-04-23T10:18:00.003-04:00

The saga of the Boston Marathon continues.

So marathon morning I got up at 6am and had my coffee, took a shower and had some of my hot cereal greul that proves to be a good choice for race day. It was tough to get more food in me. I was more carbo loaded than I have ever been. I was good to go. I stepped out onto the little porch on my hotel suite and the day was perfect... it was living up to the predictions for 55 and cloudy that it had promised. It was around 45 at that hour and I felt good. I dressed in my yellow Go JC Go shirt, put on my windbreaker, grabbed my fuel belt and headed to Hopkinton for the 8am bus. Since the roads were all closed, we had to be bussed in, so you had to get there nice and early. I got to athletes village around 8:30 with 2 hours to kill until my wave start time. What to do.

Shortly after I got to Athletes Village, I found Steve Runner. That was cool. It was nice to finally talk to him live. Steve is really good at inspiring people and I've been listening to his podcast almost since I started running, so it was nice to finally get to interact with him. We chatted for a while and he recorded a little of it for the podcast, and then we parted ways to get ready for the race. When the first wave started lining up, something truly horrifying happened. The clouds parted and the sun came out and next thing you knew, it started to get hot. Very hot. And that was the worst possible thing in my book. By the time I lined up with the people in my start group, you could see the mad dash and scramble to get sunscreen. For me it was too late-- I have such sensitive skin that I have to be careful which sunscreen I use. And there was no way I was going to be able to do much about it now. In 5 hours, I'd sweat most of it off anyway. So I needed to suck it up. Standing in my corral waiting for the rope to drop and for us to start moving, it finally hit me like a load of bricks what I was about to do. But before I even had time to get scared, we were moving and my first marathon was under way.

Goal number 1 was to not come out too hard and fast. That was hard. Everyone came out like gangbusters and you could tell that it was going to be way too fast for most people to keep it up. But as Tara reminded me, I need to run my own race, so I did. And I took my time. The first several miles were great. Favorite moments included just before the mile 1 marker, when some little kid told me I was almost there. He was awesome. There were tons of people cheering even at the very start and almost right away my Go JC Go bright yellow shirt started becoming a very audible cheer in the crowd. It was awesome. Coming into mile 8, I met up with my pit crew all in bright green Go JC Go teeshirts and more posters than I could imagine. I was thrilled to see them and stopped and traded out some water bottles and handed over my windbreaker-- it was getting really hot and I needed more water, I could tell. I tried not to stop for long, but did what I had to do and was off and running again.

Mile 9 things got messy. I developed a very painful cramp in the bottom of my left foot. I stopped to try and stretch it, but it wasn't happening. My best bet was to just keep running and hope it worked itself out. It didn't. And it made for a very painful remainder of the run.

The miles just kept going from there. It became very stop and start because of the pain in my foot. When I could run, I was running solid 9 something paces, but the walking was really killing me because of my foot. I just kept trying to gut out as much as I could. I remember at one point somewhere around mile 11, this guy yelling out to me COME ON JC, YOU AREN'T GOING TO QUIT NOW! when I just started to walk for a second to loosen up some of the pain. And I yelled back that I'd crawl across that finish line if I had to. That got me a lot of cheers. And the Go JC Go cheers continued. When I got to Wellesley College, I was very close to the outside of the street and wound up right smack against the barricades with the screaming Wellesley Girls. One of them reached over and kissed my cheek as I went by and there were lots of screams "JC We Love You!" The crowd was really hard to ignore. Much harder to ignore than the pain, so I kept running. The distance between Wellesley College and the Newton Wellesley Hospital felt unending. I remember just wondering how I was going to make it to the 128 Crossing, much less the rest of the way. Whatever comfort I could find, however, was in knowing my family would be there and if it killed me I would be running when I saw them. So I ran on with the occassional walk break for less than a minute.

By the time I met up with my family again, it was just before the turn towards Commonwealth Avenue, and what was arguably the beginning of Heartbreak Hill... the several miles of hill after hill after unending hill. It's so much more than a single hill, but I knew this already from having biked and walked it for years. I knew too well how long this stretch was going to be and as I came upon that turn I ran into the now growing contingency of the pit crew. Kelly and her girlfriend Patty, my sister and her partner had all joined. So Kelly, Marisa and my sister Alycen all jumped in to run a little bit with me. While it was such a comfort to have them all there and I could fill them in on what was going on, the point at which they all left was probably my lowest moment... my crisis of faith, as it were. I knew I had 10 more miles to go and I did not know where I was going to find the strength to get there at all. I was exhausted. I was feeling so done. I was in pain in my foot and it was starting to affect my calves and I had what felt like an insurmountable series of hills before me. I wanted to cry, but honestly, I felt so exhausted that even that wasn't an option. So I did the only thing I could think to do-- charge up the hills. I let myself walk on the flat parts, but come hell or high water I was running up those hills. And I did. One after the other. The funny thing is, every time I would approach a hill, someone would call out and cheer for me... even more if I was walking. And the whole way through whenever anyone called my name, I had made a point of thanking them and acknowledging them. And this seemed to stir the crowd even more as I got to this point. I had groups of frat boys and 10 year olds and housewives and old men and whoever just cheering GO JC, GO JC, GO JC! and so I'd kick it up a hill and hear the crowd burst into applause. It was unreal. But that crowd just kept me going and going and going.

The run down the hills and into Cleveland Circle was rough... it really does take a beating on your legs. But I got down and the BC crowds were cheering even more for me. It was so funny at one point, this woman caught up to me and asked if I was the JC everyone was cheering for. It was as though I had become a crowd favorite. And thank god, because I needed it. I met up with my Aunt, Uncle and Cousin as I turned the corner onto Beacon Street. Again, it couldn't have come at a better time because I now had about 5 miles to go and had no idea where I would find the strength to do it. So that stop meant the world to me. And off I went again.

I wont sugar coat how hard those last 5 were. By the time I hit them, there was a lot of run/walking going on. 21 miles was farther than anything I had ever run before and it just never seemed to end. And every step really hurt. But not in the ways I had expected. My knees felt fine. But my feet were done. And the exhaustion and overheating had taken its toll. And I just wanted to get it all done and over with.

Boston -- The Long Awaited Race Report

2008-04-23T09:24:00.003-04:00

Well, it's done. I am officially a marathoner. I am tired but extremely happy at the same time. It may well be the hardest thing I have ever done, but what a rush to have done it.

This will probably be long, so I am expecting to break it into parts, but you never know. So we got to Boston on Saturday afternoon and spent the afternoon with one of my closest friends, Tara, who ran Boston herself in 2002. She also ran it coming off a knee injury, so had a really good sense of where I was at and what I would need to worry about. So we spent the day with her and her kids just enjoying the afternoon and talking about the marathon. Her advice was awesome, but it also made me realize that I knew the course a little too well. In many ways, I think ignorance is bliss when you think about putting yourself through 26.2 miles of hell. Not knowing whether the finish line is just around the corner or the hills are over gives you strength to keep going. But when you are standing at the bottom of the endless series of hills we loosely refer to as Heartbreak, and you know exactly how many there are and how long this thing really is... well its tough to keep the spirit up. So I knew this was going to be an issue. I needed a little more ignorance. But I decided to just literally not think about it. So after getting my sage advice from Tara I literally just pretended things weren't actually happening at all. Denial can be your friend sometimes, right?

Sunday we needed to go into the Hynes Convention Center to get my bib and all that jazz. I also really wanted to get a race jacket, but was feeling a little supersitious about it. I just didn't have any other time to do it, so I had to suck it up. We got off the subway and it was like the marathon itself was in progress right there. Because it was. On the one hand it was cool to see the women's Olympic Trials and all, but I am not sure it was the best idea to bring all 30,000 entrants to the regular marathon up against all the cheering crowd for the Olympic Trials all in one little space. It was overwhelming. And I have to tell you, at that point, I hit melt down. It was too many people, too loud, too difficult to get into the Hynes Convention Center itself since the subway pops you out a block away and you have to cross the street that is blocked off for the race. I was already nervous enough and that about sent me over the edge. The Convention Center itself was no better. It was wall to wall people. Bathroom lines were unreal. Number pickup was chaotic. Overall I felt like I had my invisible cloak on again and people were just plowing into me-- I felt like a pinball and just couldn't stomach it long.

When we got to the goodie bag pickup where you also get your teeshirt, of course, womens smalls were out. Honestly, most people running marathon distances aren't XXLs. They aren't even Ls. Most are comfortably smalls or mediums. So why not have more of those sizes. Nope. No small. I had to grab a medium, which will be a little big for running in-- its loose enough to chafe. That stinks. But so be it. It's almost always the way it is. From there we found the place to get the jackets, so we went over and found that you had to try on one of the samples to request the size from the counter. That was even more chaotic since everyone wanted a jacket and all the women wanted the same size so we just had to wait. There wasnt much of a system-- no line or anything, so whoever got the attention and won the favor of the woman running the station first, got to try on first. It drove me crazy and took forever. But we finally decide on a small for me. Go figure. So we go and talk to the lady at the counter. And here's where I finally got my crankiest. When we were talking to the lady as she was waiting for my small she was saying how much she wanted to run Boston but had not made qualifying time. For those of you who don't know this off the top of your head, for women 26-34 (I believe, I may have the years a little off), in order to qualify to run Boston you have to run a qualifying marathon in 3:40:00 and under. Seriously. No freaking way. So a lot of people don't qualify in and wind up running for charities. This is a great way to keep money coming in for charities, so there are a lot of charity spots. I'd guess its probably half and half charity and qualifying times. So when the lady and I are talking about how she didn't qualify in, I told her I didn't either-- I was there with a charity. Her response. "Well, congratulations anyway."

Huh. Interesting. As if my accomplishment of getting there was any less. As if I hadn't done just as much hard work in my training. As if I did not deserve to be there. And it really irked me. Cause the thing is, I wasn't out there running as much about my own vanity, or chasing down my youth, or whatever else might be a narcisstic approach to wanting to do this. Nope, I was there out of blood, sweat and tears, trying to do something good for people other than just me. It wasn't entirely about me... which is something that not a lot of qualifying marathoners can say. For them, the race is entirely about them. For me it was about the kids and mothers I was trying to do something for while putting everything I had out there for it. So congratulations anyway, my butt. I trained for 5 hours when the qualifiers did it for 3. I was putting in twice the work, twice the time and a lot more other side jobs of raising funds. And while I don't think she intended the comment with malice or even intentional disregard, it was clear that there were haves and have-nots in the athletes. And this theme was going to come up a few more times for me in the course of the day.

From there, we met one of my all-time heroes-- Dick Hoyt. If you have ever seen Dick Hoyt pushing his disabled son Rick through countless marathons and Ironman Triathlons, you will know what I mean about hero. I started watching him on this course when I was a kid. And his son was a kid too. Now Rick and I are both grown up... and Dick is still out there pushing Rick through countless marathons. And he does so faster than I could dream of taking my own self, much less another full grown adult. So getting a chance to get both an autograph and a chance to talk to Dick just before the race was awesome and inspiring. It made my day and will be something I cherish throughout my running career. That part was awesome.

When we left the Hynes shortly thereafter, it was still chaotic outside and this really was the first time I could feel the panic of the next day start to settle in over me. I was freaking out and I knew it. I needed to spend some time with my best friend Kelly. So we called her and met her for brunch. Kelly is my touch stone in a lot of ways. She can even me out when I am freaking out. So spending some time with her was awesome. She calmed me down quite a bit. Afterwards we met up with my folks and left my car at a strategic subway stop so that the getting out of dodge the next day would be relatively easy and stress free. Mom and Pop then drove Marisa and I back to my hotel room where we spent the remainder of the afternoon and evening just relaxing, keeping my denial going, watching the movie Amelie (one of my favorites) that I keep on my iPod and attach to the TV, having some dinner that Marisa made for me, and getting to bed early. I had a big day and I needed the sleep. And much to my surprise, the denial worked and I fell asleep without really realizing that the next day was going to be anything along the lines of a marathon.

Here We Go.

2008-04-19T09:00:00.002-04:00

So today is it. Yesterday was packing day and hydrating day and organizing day and finishing my teeshirt day and all that logistical stuff and try not to think about it all.

Actually, I am surprisingly less stressed than I should be. I am just happy to have the chance to do it. This really is a culmination of a lot for me. Most recently, its my official return to the road-- and its nice to finally feel like I am back from injury. Much larger yet is the symbolism this race has for me in how far I have come in general. Remember, I started out as an overweight smoker. I had never even considered something remotely athletic my entire life. My only recorded run time had been the Presidental Physical Fitness Test I did in highschool when I walked the mile in something like 18 minutes and a hearty bit of lip for my gym teacher. So in 1997, when I watched the race with my parents, cigarette in mouth and a lot of cynacism for the whole thing, there was this wee little seed that got planted in me that I secretly wanted to do this too. The first time I quit smoking, it was the goal I put down in a stop smoking online discussion board. I remember telling my online quit buddy Steve that one day I would do this race. It was my goal-- though at the time I wasn't really ready to do the work to get there. I wound up going back to smoking after a good 3 years off it and it took me another 2 years to quit the habit altogether. Truth is, when this little blog began, I hadnt even quit smoking. But it was coming.

So yeah, this race in particular has a lot in it for me. It's why I don't care so much about the time I do it in so much as the chance to do it. And when I see Mom and Dad and Marisa at the Mile 9 marker we stood at some 11 years ago, its going to feel pretty awesome. The rest will be icing.

Yesterday, I had the second of the two massages I knew I needed to work out the kinks before the big day. It was not one of those happy little massages at all. It was a little like the kind Bree would do with me on my knee to work out the adhesions I had built up from running on an injury. This one just focused on all the parts of my lower half. I got elbows in my butt, pulled up off the table, sharp digs into the bottoms of my feet... you name it. I got one hell of a massage. It made me realize how much tension is still stored in my legs and how much more work I really do need to do to get it all back. Truth is, I still felt a little injured when I could feel all the areas that were abnormally painful. But its all good... this isn't the end goal, this is all a site along the way. A big site, but site none the less.

So in about half an hour I hop in the car and head to Boston. First stop, the house of my near and dear friend Tara, aka Uta... who ran Boston several years ago and has been one of my biggest cheerleaders since. I watched her run that day and have been in awe of that ever since. I am running this as much because of her inspiration as any other. And now that she has her two twin boys (who are now about 4 mths old) and her 2 year old daughter, I get even more excited to visit. So first stop is Uta's house.

Tomorrow I pick up my number and go to the convention beforehand and then just chill out and roll around on my foam roller, do some stretches, maybe take a drive of the course, and then have some dinner and go to bed. And it will be game on from there.

We'll be another post before the race... we will see. But if not... remember that you can get up to the moment tracking on www.baa.org with my bib #21540 and wave start time of 9:55 am on Monday.

That's it for now. I gots to load up the car. Wish me luck! Yeehaw.

T-1 Week and Counting

2008-04-13T19:07:00.002-04:00

Can you believe it? I am on the very threshold of running my first marathon. Never quite thought I'd be here. Wow.

I think back to how this whole blog thing spun up. I wanted to write about learning how to run. From there came a dream of doing a triathlon. And from there, I had my first season that was amazing, to say the least. But it ended in an injury that I thought might keep me from really getting much further. So to think that in a week from Monday I will be running not just a marathon, but Boston... well... its kind of overwhelming.

Overall I feel good. I had a massage today to really work out some of the kinks and tension I have accumulated for these many months of training. It felt good, but it was definitely a tough massage too. I filled in the masseusse ahead of time about what was going on-- injury, marathon, all of it. So she spent a lot of time on my psoas, my hip flexors, my quads and hamstrings. It was heavenly and painful at the same time. And I left feeling good.

And what did I do with that feeling? Well, I went out and ran. Yep. 6 miles. Nothing too long... just making sure I was feeling good. As I looked down at my watch after mile 1, guess what I saw... first mile in 7:23. Seriously. OMG... I had speed. I had to pull myself way back for the rest of the run. In the end, I kept at a 9:45 pace, which is the fastest pace I have run since Sept 2006... the week before the injury. And the only thing that kept me from going even faster was that my heart and lungs just weren't used to that speed yet. But oh god, it was awesome. I cannot wait until I can stay down at my old pace again and maybe even faster. It would be nice to do my half marathon under 2 hours and maybe even one day hit a 4 hour marathon... but thats going to be a long road before I am there. So I am not going to get too far ahead of myself.

I am still expecting 5-6 hours for the marathon itself. I don't really know what to expect for a few things-- I haven't run 26 miles before. I ran 17 and I gutted out 19, but never 26. So we will see. Plus, I really want a chance to crowd surf a little. I will get to see people in my life that I don't get to see often-- including most notably my cousin, who I don't think I have seen since maybe the beginning of high school. So I am very excited. And I want to be able to savor that.

I go back for a little more massage work on Friday before leaving for Boston. This week is back in Hartford and I really hope its not as crazy as the last several weeks have been. The midnight bedtime and 4am wakeups with all work all the time in between has really killed me. It's getting me where I need to be career wise, but its really kicking my ass. So I am praying this week is calmer. A girl can dream, right?

Long range weather for April 21 in Boston appears to be 55 degrees and cloudy. I am praying it stays that way. That, to me, is my ideal. So fingers crossed that my Nana, Edna Mae and Harry, up in the clouds, work their magic for me and it stays that way. I'll try and post at least once more before the big day. But just in case, my bib number is 21540 and you can sign up for the athlete tracking on www.baa.org. But I am gonna really try for one more post. I sweah. I got a lot more to say yet. But its 11pm and I need to be up at 4:45 and, well... I'm tired. So more later.

Happy almost Monday.

The Story of John

2008-04-06T10:45:00.002-04:00

Here is the story of the little boy that I am running the Boston Marathon for more than anyone else.

John (changed for the story, obviously) was a rambunctious 3 year old who arrived at our shelter with his mother (I'll call her Alice), older brother and sister. I met his family the night they were brought in to shelter, having left their home some 10 hours before. Alice's life of abuse was one of the more ritualized I had seen to date. As I began to know her over the hours, days and months, I learned the extent to which her life had been controlled for more than 20 years. Even the shades on every window had been nailed and stapled closed. The first morning I brought her outside she got a headache from the sunlight she wasn't used to seeing.

John, like most kids in our shelter, couldn't keep up with the names of all the people he met. Between other guests, our volunteers and our staff, there were a lot of names to learn and like most kids his age he just adapted to not using names. With me, for some reason, things were different. John and I bonded right away. I think it might have been because I knew as many lines from the movie Toy Story as he did, so we could spend hours pretending to be Buzz Lightyear together. He started calling me by the name "Cool." I was flattered. He would ask his mom when Cool was coming over and when she would tell him of my pending arrival (3 evenings a week I would arrive at 6pm and stay until 7am), he would position himself on the landing of the stairs and wait for me to walk into the office. As soon as he would see me he would jump at me, as though part superhero... maybe Buzz Lightyear himself, and wait for me to catch him. I was alway so terrified of not catching him... he was often well over my head and I thanked my family for having raised me knowing how to play football because the catch was similar. I never once faltered in my catch and he would wrap his arms around me before climbing onto my back like a little monkey. He became the highlight of my week.

One day I took Alice, John and the other two kids out to the grocery store. They wanted ice cream and it was a treat I knew was overdue, so out we went to get in my car while the volunteers manned the phones and the house. As I opened the door, I found everyone tapping their feet, one at a time, 3 taps, 5 times perfectly before putting their foot inside. Another ritual method of control. Turns out these little rituals are very common among severe cases of abuse-- just meaningless tasks people had to do to remind them how much they were being controlled by someone else. It meant nothing, but John had never known life without this ritual before getting in the car. I reached out to Alice and told her she didn't need to worry about tapping her feet anymore. She was a little embarassed, but understood what had been happening with this ritual over the years. The older kids understood too. But John couldn't understand people getting in the car without doing it. He was horrified and scared that something would happen. I sat him on the passenger front seat with his little legs and lightup shoes hanging out the door so he wouldn't get scared and told him that the day he came to live with us we put a magic spell on everyones feet so that whatever shoes they had on, they were magically pure for the car. He looked at me a little strange, so I picked him up and stood him next to me and said I'd show him. I climbed into the passengers side with my feet all stretched out and nothing happened. He smiled and climbed up onto my lap with his magic feet dangling down my legs. Alice and I traded places and I took the wheel of the car and off we went for ice cream.

I had a lot of interactions like this one with John over the 3 months he stayed with us. Little by little he started to lose his fear. We even went through the bed wetting phase with him and he was no longer so afraid that he needed to cower in the closet anymore. Life was different with his magic shoes and Buzz Lightyear flying.

A few weeks before Alice was to be leaving for a transitional housing program she had been accepted to, John plopped onto my lap as I was talking to Alice in the office on evening. He was playing nervously with my sleeve and finally said to me "Cool, I'm not afraid of Daddy touching me anymore." As a mandated reporter of child abuse, those words emptied every other sound in my head. "John, where did Daddy touch you?" "My pee pee." "Don't be afraid, John. You are right, Daddy won't do that anymore." Alice and I tried to hide the look of horror, but we could see it on each other. We were both surprised. And as she took John upstairs for his bath, I placed a call to Childrens' Services.

It wasn't long after Alice and John left for transitional housing that I left the shelter. It had been years of stories, faces, names on the news, names on the piles of intakes turned away. I was emotionally exhausted and could tell it was starting to affect the support I could continue to provide. I needed a break from it. I needed a chance to see something else. I needed to not have such a good poker face for stories like that. I needed to breathe.

Sometimes when I am out on my long runs, I think of John. I think of his little hand and how they were always on me... climbing me, hanging off me, painting stuff my crappy old pair of jeans. When my runs seem long, I remember that I am out there for him and for Alice most of all. Their faces are always with me. Sometimes I think that maybe that day I made my feet magical too. Maybe that magic will get me over 26 miles and maybe it will help me to help the people who are continuing doing the work I felt too drained to keep at myself. Maybe magic feet might help the next little boy like John.

So here is my plea again. If you are reading this, help me find more magic for more little feet. Help me make sure that there is always a safe place with magical foot powder and stair landings and places where a little 3 year old boy can no longer be afraid of wetting his bed. And know that April 21st, no matter how long and how hard 26.2 miles feels, my magic feet will help get me there. For him.

http://www.firstgiving.com/runjcrun

13.7 into Taper

2008-04-06T09:39:00.002-04:00

What can I say... in many ways I think this training has made me wiser. Wise enough to not be an idiot anymore and wind up 2 years outta my running shoes. I ran 13.7 instead of 23 and I could have done more.

It's a hard transition into learning to not push it past something feeling wrong or off. 2 weeks and counting it wouldn't be good for me to go crazy and force it. My legs these days are tighter than I don't know what. All these miles upon miles upon miles over the past several weeks and months start to take a toll and I knew I needed a chance to iron it out first.

Marisa has a friend that does sports massage so we reached out to her to get me an appointment for next week and the friday after that before the big day. In the coming 2 weeks while I will still run, it will just be far shorter and my goals for the remainder of my time is to do as much PT as possible and do as much stretching and loosening as possible. I need my legs to be jello-y fresh for this thing. Looking back over my log, I have run at least a half marathon (sometimes a wee less, but I am talking a mile less at best) or more 10 times since January. And that doesn't even count all the other runs I have been wedging in. Overall cumulative mileage, I think I am actually under a more formal, regimented training program, but for my first marathon, its a heck of a jump for me, and its a heck of a jump as my first race back, so its a bit of a shock to the old system.

Overall, I feel good. I feel as ready as one can feel for her first marathon. I got a large dose of encouragement from Tara, one of my dearest all time friends who ran Boston a few years ago and gave me more inspiration than ever to do it. She also did it with knee injuries that kept her at the last big push of her training left to train on an elliptical machine. Her encouragement right now was everything I needed.

The fundraising has continued, although I am still so far off of the goal I set for myself there. That kinda bums me out. I will get one last big push out to my friends and family and see if I can't get the total up a little bit more. I keep thinking if people had the exposure to the kids at the shelter that I did, the donations would increase. So my next email, probably next weekend will tell the story of the most memorable little boy I had in shelter over my many years. With any luck it will raise the totals a little more.

That's about all I got. Today I am doing some well needed spring cleaning and the I am going to have some fun with the foam roller, which will be fun.

Oh and as a parting side story that made me smile... Friday night I got together with my cadre of gay boys that I hang out with once a month or so. We wind up in some random gay bar where Marisa and I are the only women in the place and I have to say, I am in my element there. I think I am more a gay man than anything else, so my Friday night gay boy outings are fun. This past Friday was no different except apparently my runner butt atracted a lot more attention than ever. In a room full (and I mean full) of gay men, its rather funny that my butt is the one that got all the notice. Apparently marathon training makes your butt look good. I may have to keep this up for the next 20 years. Ha.

More next week.

19 and a Wall

2008-03-30T12:16:00.002-04:00

You know, I've been hearing that expression about "hitting the wall" for years now. I've never seen anything definitive about what hitting a wall feels like, but I know it's something I never wanted to do. I get why now.

Yesterday I was aiming to do 20-21 miles. It gets old to say it, but it was to be my longest run ever. And Friday night, as I was having dinner with Marisa, I realized things were going to be a little dicey. Dinner was a little less carby than usual... something neither of us quite realized until too late. I wasn't sure how it was going to play out, but I knew it would be interesting. And boy was it.

From the very outset of the run, I could just feel a little less energetic than usual. My first big hill made that apparent. But I was playing this thing out to see where it went, so who knows. I went up and over the Brooklyn Bridge again. (One day I am going to write a How To for tourists so they can walk around in a city without killing themselves or other people. But that day is not today.) So up and over the bridge, around City Hall and back over to Brooklyn. I was running a little slower than usual but things were still on track. I don't really stress about the time anymore... more about how things feel and it was feeling like it was the right pace for now. So all good.

Mile 15 came and I could tell something was really wrong. It felt like I needed to be at the end of the run... I wasn't sure where I was going to find another 5 miles, but I knew I would need to. By Mile 16, I was faced with a big decision. 1 mile away from me was home. I could go that way and end on 17 again. Or, I could turn into the park for the 3 mile loop and do that and then take the mile home and wind up perfectly at 20. It was an agonizing decision as I could feel my body starting to walk. But I turned into the park anyway. I was going to finish thing damn thing. What came next left me utterly sure I knew what hitting the wall was actually like. For all the legend it has in my head that always seemed to lack concrete description, I can sum it up this way.

I know what its like to run with leg cramps. It's a horrible feeling. I had passed leg cramps and clearly any remaining energy and fuel in my muscles was gone. Pressing on, even at a walk, meant these muscles still needed to find something. And in spite of eating calories as I was going, it was just too little too late. If reaching the wall is that moment of muscle cramping, hitting the wall is taking those muscles and physically twisting them to get any last ounces of energy out. It is nothing short of horrifically painful. The muscles in my calves locked up and literally took me off my feet and to the ground. I got back up. My quad muscles were not far behind. I have never had cramping up into my quads and hips before on a run. My shoulders started to feel like I had gotten some TB boosters a few hours earlier. My lower back ached. I tried to run and to be honest, my calves hurt less running, but it didn't last long at all and I was walking in even more pain than before. I can't even put words to how painful that moment is. I wanted to lie down on the side of the road and just sleep. Again, my brain started telling my body to run... honestly, it hurt less to run, but somewhere between really thinking and firing neurons to run and actually running, the message was getting lost. It's a strange feeling when your brain is expecting a run and the rest of you isn't doing it. It's very confusing to say the least. I had 3 miles still to go.

I took a shortcut, which left me shy of a mile, but I knew even walking I wasn't going to make it much more. I had thrown down the last of my shot-blocks just as I turned into the park, so with the one last mile to home, the energy must have made its way to where I needed it because the cramps let up a little and I could walk without shaking or starting to feel like I was about to fall. I made it home with 19 miles and some feet additional. I poured myself into the apartment too weak to get my shoes off. Thank god Marisa was home.

In a lot of ways, I am glad to have had the experience, though it is one I will never hope to repeat. Most people experience the wall during a race. I have the luxury of experiencing it on a training run. I've never been in a position of running far enough to literally squeeze every ounce of energy out of myself before. I've never been in a position where what I ate the night before a training run ever really mattered that critically. I am glad to know that now.

I came in, Marisa helped me to get undressed (I literally could not get my jersey up over my head) and stood in shower to warm up while Marisa made me a bagel with peanut butter and some very concentrated gatorade. I needed the burst of sugar and energy. The difference was huge when that kicked in. It was unbelievable.

I remember several years ago seeing the footage of Julie Moss at the 1982 Ironman in Hawaii. This was the first year that it was being broadcast on ABC TV and one could argue this moment really made triathlon what it is today. At the very end of the marathon, Julie Moss was in the lead. With simply yards to go, her body hit that wall and shut down and as she was passed by her closest female competitor, Julie Moss crawled on her hands and knees to the finish, with TV cameras rolling. While my experience with the wall yesterday is the teeniest portion of that, I feel like I can see in that footage some of what I was feeling yesterday. I can see her brain telling her body to run and nothing happening. I can see that confusion. I don't think I have ever understood what compelled her to try to keep running until yesterday when I realized its more painful not to.

I am lucky. I learned that lesson 3 weeks before my first marathon... not in the throes of it. I call that a blessing.

More later.

17.61

2008-03-23T09:12:00.002-04:00

Holy crap. I ran 17.61 miles. Last week I ran the furthest distance I had ever run and this week I topped it by 3 miles. Wow.

17.61 miles is really really long. Oh my god, I was running for 3 and a half hours straight. I had with me the new "fuel belt" which isn't actually a fuel belt, but the Nathan Speed Belt 4, which has much larger water bottles and overall just feels better designed. My 14.4 mile run I maxed out the water I could carry in my other fuel belt, since the bottles only hold 6 oz each. These bad boys hold 10 oz, so that way I can make sure I don't run out of water on these really long runs. I also tried out the Hammer Nutrition Endurolyte tablets to see if adding some salt and electrolytes helped with the muscle cramping in my calves. I think it helped, but the jury is still somewhat out. I did notice that it made me feel even more thirsty though. I am learning there is a science to fueling that I still need to perfect, but I am hoping I get a little closer each time.

So the course I ran gave me, get this, 10 solid hills. Yep. I have been training across as many hills as I can just to get used to it. Last week I upped my total number of hills from 7 to 8 and this week, with the addition of running up and over the Brooklyn Bridge and into Manhattan and then coming back, I get 2 more hills, given I have to go from sea level to up that high and back down again. So a total of 10 hills now. So far so good.

So today I am feeling pretty good. I was feeling good enough last night to get my groove on a little at a party-- no small feat post 17 miles. Today I am a little muscle tired, for certain, but doing far better than I might have expected. Next week the goal is 20 miles and the weekend after has a 23 mile goal and then that is it, folks. I am now under one month. My training has had so many ups and downs that I am definitely feeling like I am heading into this a little less trained than I would prefer and with a shorter taper (just one week) than I would prefer, but I am just so thrilled to be where I am right now given I thought my running days may have come to a close with that injury.

It's funny, I was talking with Marisa, and eventually with some of the people at the party, about something I discovered on the run yesterday. It really isn't until something like miles 5-6 that I really start to feel like I am working. All these miles all the time makes the first handful of miles feel like background. It really was such a strange little epiphany to have. I had already made my way down through a few neighborhoods in Brooklyn, up the steep hill to the top of Ft. Greene Park, down to the Brooklyn Bridge, up and over it and into Manhattan around City Hall Park before I started to really feel the run settle in and make itself felt. It kind of caught me off guard how routine some 5-6 miles is that I don't really sweat it much anymore. Never thought I would be back at that point, if I ever was at all.

Anyway, I am off once again to Hartford, so its back to the Internet dead zone. But more training this week, rest assured. And with any luck I will continue staving off the tiniest bit of cold I seem to be keeping at bay. So more next week.

It's Bittersweet

2008-03-16T10:08:00.002-04:00

I did another long run yesterday. Surprise, surprise. It's strange to look over my log for the past 3 weeks and realize I've done at least a half marathon a week.

On the one hand, I am really excited about it. I remember coming home one day several months ago almost in tears telling Marisa I didn't think I would ever be able to run again. It just wasn't working. And now I do a half marathon every weekend. But the kicker is that I am down to just over a month and I am not at the distance I need to be and my window to get there is closing.

Yesterday I ran 14.4 miles. It was my farthest run in my entire life. And yes, I ran it all save for 2 quick walk breaks up the last of what wound up being 8 hills. My course is hilly by design to get me used to the hills of Boston, but this last one (Nellie, if you are a long time reader) and I have a long history and she always seems to thwart me a little more than I like. So 14.4 miles. At mile 7, my right knee hurt. Sharp pain right where I often get it. And my brain thought I would be quitting early again but I decided to just not think about it and try and shorten my stride a little and take my time and eventually it worked itself out. Thank god.

I hit Prospect Park at mile 12-ish and felt like I could keep this up for a while yet... it was becoming, if I didn't think about it, just background. It's a strange thing when that happens... I had been running so long (about 2 hrs) that my legs were just used to it... if I stopped thinking "OMG... I AM STILL RUNNING?!?!" then it would just keep going. Except at mile 13ish, my calves started to cramp and the remainder was a little bit of a battle to keep going all the way home. No more adding on additional miles, I just needed to get home. So I did.

I've had a lot of setbacks in this journey. Truth is, I have managed to overcome them all, but the whittling down of time isn't one I can fix. It dawned on me what I think the muscle cramps in my calves were all about. Salt. I am not sure where I originally came up with the idea, but as I was walking in the door, I just knew what it was. It was salt. I must have read it somewhere or heard it on a running podcast (ahem: Phedippidations) or something, but I knew. I came in the door, popped a little salt into me and stretched. So for the next long run, in addition to bringing my water and bringing my shot-bloks, now I need to take some salt tabs with me. In addition, now I need to get a bigger fuel belt because I finished all the water I brought with me. So I think with that little change for next week, I should be able to get up to around 17 miles. (fingers crossed) I was telling Marisa last night that I kind of feel like I need to do another marathon just to prove to myself that with enough time, I could actually do it really well. But the reality is, with time ticking down, its going to be less than I really want it to be. And maybe that's the point of a first marathon.

I have until May to decide if I want to take the entry I earned for the NYC Marathon 2007 and reapply it for 2008. When the notice came in about the deadline to do that, it was a few weeks ago and I was in the midst of struggling with the 5-6 mile distance. I remember my response being somewhat along the "hell no" lines, but leaving it to decide after Boston. I remember thinking with the NYC Triathlon when I signed up for it and was exhausted from all the training, that this was going to be a one shot deal. And it wasn't. Because I wound up loving it and was barely across the finish line before I was ready to sign up for the next one. So there is a part of me that expects to feel the same way. And maybe with Marathon #2, I can feel like I have worked it all out. But I am getting very far ahead of myself. I have to get through the next month and a few days and see where it goes from there.

So that's where things stand now. Longest run to date down, but not quite enough to feel like I am where I need to be. A few more lessons learned along the way that will help me in long races in the future (like when I finally do my half ironman). And there it is. So have a good week, all. I wish I could post more on the road. I haven't figured out the internet access stuff yet. The craptacular hotel and the client blocking a lot of web traffic makes for a bit of a dead zone. But c'est la vie. More next weekend.

Holy Hartford, Batman

2008-03-09T19:52:00.002-04:00

I wish I could explain to you all how crazy the last 2 weeks has been for me. I can sum it up by saying that my first 2 weeks in Hartford have not involved bed for more than 3 hour spans. And I am tired.

This last week in particular was brutal. And through it all, I have not had time to do my physical therapy. After my rocking run last weekend, this weekend was a very different story. The exhaustion, the stress, the lack of time, is starting to take a toll on me and I am not sure how I will be able to reign it in this week to come.

Today I ran only 11.5 miles out of what was to be 17. About mile 9.5 my knee started to hurt. I gut out running until Mile 10 and then walked a mile and a half home. I'm deciding not to get too upset about it because if I am going to break, heck, at least I am breaking at mile 9.5 instead of mile 4 now. And the truth is that despite knowing that my PT has been dropped for 2 weeks (including foam rolling, which is even worse), my initial pace, which felt remarkably comfortable, was down at 8:45/mile. I can't help but think things really have turned a corner, but with an incredible amount of diligence. And that is something I cannot afford to let slide. My career is very important to me, but long term to permanant damage to myself needs to be the first priority.

I am not sure I have much else to report. I can tell that time is ticking away but I am starting to find comfort in it and get over the terror of knowing I am going to run a marathon. It's Boston, afterall. It's the dream I had many many many years ago when I stood in Natick with my parents at one of the worst moments in my life, smoking my brains out and knowing something had to change. I think that was 1997... so to have kicked that idea off some 11 years ago now and have it still never quite wash out the way some grand ideas tend to... yeah, I am ready. It will be such a stark contrast to that April day those 11 years ago. I am excited that my parents will be making the trip back to celebrate it with me.

On that note, I am keeping it short and sweet. I need to have some dinner, get on that freaking foam roller and then settle down to sleep... this might me my best nights sleep for a few days and I need to start banking some Zs.

More next weekend, I promise.

What's Going On.

2008-03-02T13:20:00.002-05:00

So it's been a few weeks since my last post. I know, it's bad. I am having trouble balancing all the training and work and everything else, and quite frankly, the last few weeks have been so very up and down that I didn't quite know where to begin.
So let me see if I can catch everyone up.

The last few weeks of my training as I was posting was starting, unfortunately, to fall apart. It seemed no matter what I did, my right knee was hurting with shorter and shorter runs. I would be out on my intended 16 miler only to find around mile 5 as I would be putting my jacket on and have to slow to a walk for a minute while I readjusted that I couldn't quite walk. The pain was quite bad and on one occassion, I had to take the subway home in defeat. I'd wind up getting home frozen because I had to walk more than run in the dead of winter and just kinda get very depressed about it all as I warmed up in the shower. I knew I wasn't going to quit, but I also knew I was not in a good place and it brought back all the fears after finishing PT that I may never truly run again.

Two weeks ago, I was out on my long run and around mile 7 of what I was aiming to be around 10, the pain was back and I knew I had to walk home again. But this time, I reached down and took off the cho-pat strap on my right knee because it was scratching me up a little and I went from almost unable to walk to almost fine. And at that point, a lightbulb went off. Maybe the pain wasnt my knee so much as the strap causing the pain. I went home with a mix of emotions-- pissed at the idea that I may have been fine all along but making things bad with the damn strap, yet hopeful that I had something to try to break this mess and then also really scared that if this didn't work, my running career may be over. I got home, warmed up again, stretched and iced my knee and thought about trying my run on Tuesday without any knee brace to see how it went.

And it rocked. I averaged at 10:07/mile pace, which while slower than I used to be, was the 2nd fastest since coming back from injury, and that was a 10:04 fastest, so it was close. I felt fine at the end of the 4.6 miles, which was new as well. I had someplace to go with all of this. Last weekend, I did a 10 mile long run. It's well behind the distance I need to be at, but I am fighting just to be in this right now, and finally I started to feel like I might be. 10 miles, 11:14 pace. Again, its slow, but there was no pain. In fact, what held me back was being tired and my lungs and calves not feeling ready for the work... it had been a while since I had run 10 miles. My knees felt good.

This week was my first week on the road in... (wait for it...) Hartford. Yep. Not Memphis. At the 11th hour before heading to Memphis, there was a change in plan and I picked up work in Hartford instead. So this last week has been a very sleep deprived week as the project I picked up was up for some big milestones this week and I needed to jump right in. But in the meantime, I hit the treadmill pushing myself a little harder on the pace and hills and just tried to get the wind in my sails. I needed this to truly feel like I turned a corner and might actually be able to make this dream come to fruition.

I did my long run on Saturday. Now that I am travelling again, I need Sunday to recover and not just be travelling and working at the client, so Saturdays were a better fit. I set out to do somewhere around 13-15 depending on how it felt and ramp up from there. I wound up doing 13 almost perfectly. My pace was a 10:37 average across all that distance, which is unheard of for me now. And at one point during mile 5, I looked down at my garmin and caught sight of something I never thought I would see again. I was running an 8:45/mile pace. I had wind in my sails.

The best part about my run on Saturday was that I couldn't go any further because of my calves and my lungs. Not my knees. My knees didn't feel like there were any problems at all. Even today I feel awesome. I went to Marisa's yoga class where I didn't have the quad strength after running a half marathon yesterday... but my knees were great. So imagine my excitement when I opened the mail and saw this. Now I am still very behind where I need to be, don't get me wrong. So I have a long way to go in just over a month. But for the first time, I think I have a fighting chance at this. Thank god.

This week will be more treadmill runs and seeing what I can do to play with pace and hills so I can get back on track for the course in Boston. But mostly, I think this week is going to be spent celebrating feeling like for the first time since that fateful triathlon back in September 2006, that I might finally have found the way back.

More to come. Internet access is spotty at best in Hartford, so if it takes me until the weekend, fear not. I will be back. Happy March!

Gulp

2008-03-02T13:13:00.002-05:00

Look at what came in the mail this week.

Not sure if I am excited or I want to throw up.

Next Up... Memphis.

2008-02-07T08:57:00.001-05:00

I bet I had you all fooled, huh? I certainly had myself fooled. I thought I was going to be working locally for a few months, but then the stock markets began a deeper slide and companies began scaling things back and before you know it, NYC isn't such a hot market for consulting gigs. Next stop, Memphis Tennessee.

It's funny... I have such mixed reactions to all the travel. On the one hand, if you've read this blog long enough, you will remember that I hate to fly. Hate it. White knuckles and all that. Along came a very wee dose of xanax and flying has done a 180 degree shift for me. So 2 and sometimes 4 flights a week is totally manageable now. But in my heart I know I don't like it still. And living out of hotels can really suck. Especially for me being vegetarian and all. Marathon training while splitting my time between a hotel and home should be interesting... while I started my training that way, this last month and a half not travelling has been the bulk of the nasty part of the training and its going to get longer and harder from here. So it should be interesting to see how it shakes out.

On the other hand, I love getting to know so many other cities and towns as though I live there. Visting is one thing, grocery shopping is another, you know? I wind up at local fitness centers, local supermarkets, you name it. It becomes a second home when I am there for a few months. I can never imagine myself living outside NYC, but just for a while its fun to experience how the rest of the world does it. I had gotten rusty on it. It makes me appreciate my home and my lifestyle, and even the compromises we city folk make for that lifestyle, all the more. I also love that all this travel enables me to have opportunities I wouldn't otherwise have. All the frequent flyer miles, the hotel points and credit card points opens up chances for me to do some fun travel at very little cost. It's hard to beat that perk, if you think about it.

But as I said before, it should be interesting to see how it all shakes out. Marathon training on the road will be a challenge for sure. So yeah... the next few weeks should be a little mixed up around these parts. I am starting on the 18th, it seems, so I have one more week to really get myself grounded into all of this.

Back to the training front... let's see. I left you with a note that I needed to spend Tuesday night doing PT. I did. My butt was sore the next day from it. Truth is, I do PT better on the road because I have not much else to do in the evenings but work out... its not like being home where you have all your stuff and all your friends to be distractions. But Tuesday I rallied and did my PT and it was good but I could tell I haven't been doing it as much as I needed to. Yesterday was my sleep in day but I went to Marisa's yoga class last night. She kicked my butt hardcore. I have gotten really addicted to her Wednesday night class, so that will be tough to give up too... but we'll just do more when I am home. I've gotten spoilt and the regularity of my going is finally starting to show, which is nice. I am going to try and get her to record some lessons for me... both for sampling for her website as well as for helping me keep it up on the road. Anyhoo... this morning I did another 4 miles. Its been nice having a run buddy for the mornings and I am really bummed to lose that again, but for the time I have someone to run with its been really awesome. My knee is still a little wonky. But I think its better... it was probably good that I didn't go crazy last weekend with the long run. I think a week off of the distance was a good idea.

Tonight is more PT work. And with any luck tomorrow I will be able to get in a little cross-training. I am starting to miss my bike like crazy... so I might have to get out on it... hopefully this weird warm weather thing we are doing will hold up another day.

So that's all I got for now. More soon. Happy Thursday.

A Lesson in Perseverance

2008-02-04T15:01:00.000-05:00

It's funny how 2 steps forward, one step back this whole training thing is. Maybe its what makes it so cathartic to begin with. Progress is never linear. It's hard fought. And the only real question is how much are you willing to fight?

I tend towards the philosophic over here when I am truly on my game and living out the very essence of JC. Lately, just 'cause I've been so busy, I've tended less towards the philosophy and more towards the list of what I've done. No so today, my friends. Today I am feeling philosophic again. I get that way when things start to slip, I guess. It's part of keeping myself on track.

So I left you with the 14.36 miler that fell apart just over a week ago. And I left you on the note that I was heading back out on Thursday to see where things stood. So I did my usual 4.6 mile loop and towards the end, I could feel my knee acting up again. It didn't really affect my run, but knowing that at under 5 miles things are starting to get dicey is not a confidence builder for the 26.2 dealio looming large. Friday I wound up having to be in the office and going to a client meeting, so I wound up in my usual work heels for the day. (don't worry... I don't get too girly...) By the end of Friday my right soleus muscle (or what I think is my soleus muscle...) was sore. Great. As it was I knew my Sunday run was going to be backed way off and I thought it would be a good time to do my Brooklyn Bridge run. Get in a nice 7-8 miles and see if I can shake some of the cobwebs out. But honestly, I could just tell it was off on Sunday morning before I even left the house. And that is never a good feeling.

So there I am thinking I need to get some miles in, but knowing I need to live to fight another day and running hard isn't going to make things better. In fact, if I play worst case scenario, its not my soleus muscle at all... its the beginning of a stress fracture. Truth is, I don't want the answer just yet. I'm covering my ears and yelling LALALALALA and totally not dealing with it. So keeping my expectations in check, I headed reluctantly out the door. And off I went. In the end I pulled out 5.8 miles and my time was actually faster than it has been lately, but there was that nagging irritation in my "soleus muscle." Damn. I don't really know what to do about it. My right leg is a mess. Knee all wonky, whatever this thing is starting to get irritating. And there is a part of me that just wants to throw in the towel. But I won't. Cause I can't. It's what I have to do and I need to find a way to make this happen.

If I think back to where I was a year ago... I was broken. And the truth is, though it fell apart a week ago, my long run fell apart at mile 12. Mile 12. That's a huge comeback. Forget that its slow, I am a 34 year old reformed couch cushion coming back from injury. It's been a huge 2 steps forward. Then I had that big old injury step back, and now I am at 12 freaking miles! So why do I keep losing sight of this?!

Every now and again, I go back over this blog and remember where things were, which helps me keep some perspective on where things are. This time I went back to December 2005, as I was preparing for what would be my longest run to date... a 10 miler. I didn't realize when I went back there what I was going to read... I just wanted to see my quote again... the Elizabeth Kubler Ross one that reads:

"People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within."

I've been keenly aware of that feeling of the darkness of this process lately. It's hard not to have it feel so dark when it seems like every run is a battle to get my body back on track without forcing it where its not ready to be. That darkness gets my head really clouded with doubt and disbelief. I come home and Marisa waits to see from the reaction on my face how it went, and lately, she can tell right quick that it didn't go as I had hoped. So I guess I am starting to think its time to stop "hoping" and time to just start "being" again. When you hope, its all about thinking of that darkness and thinking of how you are going to find your way out of it. When you just "be" its more about taking what you got in you and letting it do its thing. It's that light within. And I need to refind it. I need to just be with it and let things unfold. So far it hasn't led me astray, right?

Tonight I have to do some PT work and tomorrow I will get in a few more miles and go from there. It's also looking like I may be back on the road afterall in the next few weeks, so I am trying to figure all that good stuff out. But in the meantime, I am just gonna do what I got to do and have some fun with it. I'm going with the flow of things and having some faith that my 2 steps forward are gonna be an awesome ride.

Happy Monday, all.

14.36 and Boy Was That Terrible.

2008-01-28T09:10:00.000-05:00

This marathon training is teaching me one hard lesson. This will most likely be the one and only marathon I ever do. It's really doing a number on me and the truth is, if it weren't for this cause, I'd be packing it in and calling it a day.

So Sunday, I ran 14.36 miles all told. It is the furthest distance I have ever "run" in my entire life. Ever. Ever. But I have to put the "run" part in quotes because around mile 12, I just couldn't do it anymore and had to walk. I was still 2 miles from home and at first shut my watch off in disappointment and defeat. But then I realized, either way I was walking home and the truth is there is a very good chance that I will be walking part of this marathon anyway, and that is totally ok for me. So I flipped the watch back on and let the miles continue because, ultimately, I was getting the distance in.

Today my right knee is a mess. I am icing it like crazy and hoping that I can feel ok enough to run tomorrow. I am likely to take my Sunday run and drop it to something like 8-9 miles as an easier week, but we will see how it plays out. A while ago, when I started this adult onset athleticism, I remember Claudia telling me it was better to go into a race under-trained than over-trained. I remember being surprised by that, but there is a lot of truth to it in the end. I would rather go into this having to push more on the day than wreck myself along the way of getting there. Its a hard lesson to learn, but its one I have learned in spades. Truth is, I am way off a plan now. I am making my plan up as I am going and I am making it up with an eye to being very conservative. I really don't care about the time. I don't care about the place I come in. I care about my cause and I care about living to fight another day, you know? Most of all, I care that I can run, because for a while even that wasn't in the cards. So while I had to walk the last 2 miles of my run on Sunday, I ran 12 miles and did ok with it. And that is such a blessing, really. I am not Deena Kastor and I don't want to be. I'm me and that me may be someone who has to walk a big chunk of a marathon, but knowing I am doing it for the right reasons is what matters.

I wound up taking Tuesday morning off. I was still hurting and wound up having to work a lot that night, so the two things together told me to just relax and heal. Tomorrow morning I am heading out and will see where things stand now.

I found out on Friday that 2 team members and 1 backup team member of Team Casa Myrna Vazquez have pulled out of the race due to injury. Which leaves us with a team that is now 1 short. Not good. But truth is, I am not surprised. When our team first kicked off the guy who had been assigned to the team as the "coach" sent everyone out his plan. Mind you most runners for a charity are new runners, or at least new marathoners. So you have to be cognizant of that from the get go. The coach presented a plan that had a long run the first week of 8 miles and the second week of 13. Most runners live and die by the 10% rule. You never increase your overall mileage in a week or in a single run by more than 10% of the week before. Breaking that usually means shin splints and stress fractures and lots of bad things. Even I was walking a fine line in kicking my mileage up as quickly as I did, but it was careful, measured, and started far enough back that I could do it ok. But the team coach started people off on the last week of December, with little time to build up to it. And off people went. I had expressed some concern with this plan to the group, but short of irking the coach, I don't think anyone really paid much attention. Bummer. So now the team is coming up short. And with several months still to go and the distances increasing, I am not sure how the rest of the team will fare. I just know for me, I am out there on April 21st regardless.

More later, as I figure out where things stand. Stay tuned... its always exciting over here. :) And happy Wednesday.

12.81 Miles of Complete and Utter Hell

2008-01-21T20:56:00.000-05:00

As I am learning, training for a marathon is hard work. I knew it would be, but until I was knee deep in it and doing it, I don't think I realized how much of a challenge it would be. What makes it even worse? Doing it in the winter.

Sunday was supposed to be a 14 mile run. After my 11.26 miles, I figured I could add 2 and a half miles and be ok to manage. And the truth is, I probably would have been, had a few things not happened all at once to make it a challenge. Remember the movie "A Perfect Storm?" Which for those of you from New England, you can probably remember the storm itself. I grew up far enough inland that we had a "hurricane" but it wasn't anything as fancy as my siblings and I were hoping for. When you are an adolescent, some how the roof tearing off the house takes on a coolness factor that adults don't seem to share. Anyhoo. My reason for bringing that storm and movie up is that each of the pieces by themselves weren't anything unusual, but you converge them all at once and things get messy.

So here comes my run on Sunday. And I watched as the forecast kept saying Sunday was going to be colder and colder and colder. And it was. 23 degrees with a "feels like" temperature of 14 degrees. Wow. Ok, so cold. But it add to the cold a brutal, chapping wind at 9.2 mph. Now let me give you a sense of scale here. On average, I run somewhere around a 5.4 mph pace. It's not fast. Throw a 9.2 mile an hour wind in my face and guess what happens. Yep. I grind to a halt. So 14 miles, brutal weather. And I am gonna make it just a little worse. I am under calories from the day before and I knew it. It wasn't intentional or anything... the day got away from me. But lord when you are out there doing 14 miles, there's not a lot of room for error.

So there I go. And wouldn't you know it, I cannot get warm. There is nothing worse than running when you can't get warm. My quads always felt like they were about to lock up. My calves weren't much better. And as time went on, and here I was fighting the wind, I noticed the water in my fuel belt was starting to freeze around the periphery of the bottles. Worse yet, the nozzles froze quickly, so as I was running and running and running, I was having to really breathe on these things to get any water out.

In the end, I pulled out 12.81 miles. But wow, it may have been my slowest run of all time 11:20 pace. The thing about running in NYC is no matter where you go, you hit that damn street grid. I love the grid, don't get me wrong. I am a big fan of the grid and the Commissioner's Plan in Manhattan that kind of set the pace for a lot of the expansion in other boroughs, but not when it becomes a wind channel in my face. I just could not catch a break. The wind just funnels itself between these buildings and speeds up a little and can just plain suck. And this did.

When I got home from that run, I couldn't get my hat off. It had frozen to my hair. Literally. There was ice on it. Now mind you, I have run in plenty of cold before. I kind of like it, to be honest. But not like this. I needed to catch a break and I just couldn't. And it sucked. It took me forever to warm up. I shivered and shook through my stretching, to say the least. And then took a nice hot bath.

During the run my knees felt decent. After the run, my right knee was a little sore again, so I have to keep icing it more tonight as I am going to sleep. Tomorrow morning I am up nice and early for a run with my old running buddy, which will be such a welcome change of pace. So that's where things stand for now. I don't care if I have to fight this battle mile ontop of mile each week, I will do it. Let's just hope that was the worst run of the season, shall we?

And thanks to all who keep the donations to my cause coming in. I promise to write more about that topic this week... but this is already a little long, so I am going to leave it here.

Happy Monday, all.

Welcome Phedippidations Listeners

2008-01-19T09:07:00.001-05:00

I was so thrilled to have Steve help me plead my case on episode 131. And clearly it piqued your interest, cause... well, here you are...

Please take a minute and help me, even in the smallest way possible, towards my goal. $10 will go a long way. And I have a long way yet to go.

http://www.firstgiving.com/runjcrun

As a quick update, I have learned that my charity has had to recently close its emergency shelter. When it comes down to budget cuts and you have to lose court advocates, a 24-hour hotline or a temporary shelter, the shelter naturally goes. So my request is even more urgent than when I got in contact with Steve a few weeks ago.

Please consider making a small donation. His "10 or so" listeners could really make a difference for a lot of people. Won't you help?

Why Your Donations Matter More than Ever

2008-01-16T19:54:00.000-05:00

I don't like to ask people for money. I hate it, to be honest. I wouldn't be doing it for a cause other than this. It's real, it's personal and unlike the miracles we are waiting for with cancer cures, AIDS vaccines, MS treatments, this one doesn't require miracles. Just love and support. The world has enough of that to help

I am reprinting this in its entirity from the Boston Globe, because it pertains to the very program that I am raising money for. Recently, Casa Myrna Vazquez had to close the door of it's emergency shelter because of budget cuts. This means women and children in critical need of a place to go when they are trying to get out of abuse are being turned away.

I know what we all think when we hear of another victim of domestic violence. We think 'why doesn't she leave??' I can, and probably will, elaborate on that in a future post, but for now, imagine a world where a person does leave. And instead is turned away and sent back home. Readers, not only is it happening, it is happening at the very shelter I am trying to raise money for. If you haven't donated yet, please do. Don't do it for me. Do it for the love and the support that I know is out there. And do it because every time a woman goes home after leaving abuse she is in infinitely more danger than before she left.

----

From the Boston Globe on Monday, January 14, 2007:
Shelters can't help all fleeing abuse
Cutbacks, shift in policy narrow victims' options

Domestic violence shelters across the state are becoming overwhelmed and are increasingly turning victims away, driving some of those seeking help back to abusive partners or to the streets, according to advocates and shelter program directors.
more stories like this

The number of victims turned away from shelters more than quadrupled, from 1,374 in fiscal 2003 to 5,520 in fiscal 2005, according to Jane Doe Inc., a statewide coalition against sexual assault and domestic violence that also tracks trends.

On many days, only one bed will be available in the state for 100 people who call domestic violence hotlines seeking shelter. Sometimes, none can be found.

"It is alarming," said Deborah Collins-Gousby, interim co-executive director at Casa Myrna Vazquez in Boston, which has three residential programs and runs Safe Link, the statewide domestic violence hotline. "If you're feeling the need to flee and there is no space, what do you do?"

The problem, advocates said, has worsened in recent years for several reasons. Federal funding for shelters has ebbed; the state has had an influx of undocumented immigrants who are too afraid of police to report their abusers but will seek shelters; there is less affordable housing statewide, meaning victims often stay in shelters longer; and several shelters were forced to close after losing funding from the Department of Social Services, which in 2006 shifted its resources to community-based services, such as counseling and legal services for abuse victims, so they can remain at home.

Agencies and advocates go to great lengths trying to ensure that a victim does not have to return to an abuser. When a shelter runs out of beds and cots, victims stay at volunteers' homes temporarily. Victims are also sent to shelters in Connecticut or New Hampshire, or advised to stay with friends or relatives that the abuser does not know. If a victim must return to a home shared with an abuser, advocates work with police to provide protection, offer to help file restraining orders, and provide counseling services.

But even then, a victim might not be safe, said Brenda Lopez, domestic violence prevention coordinator at the Springfield Police Department, where officers have provided food for women and children forced to wait hours at headquarters for shelter space to open up.

Last July, Lopez recalled, a young pregnant woman who went to the hospital after her partner hit her returned home after her abuser told police he would leave the house. Two days later, he came back and beat her so severely she almost miscarried, Lopez said.

"You're punished when you go back," she said. "You're punished because you tried to leave. It also verifies for the person what their abuser has told them: 'Nobody is going to want you. Nobody is going to help you. You can't live without me.' "

Maria, a domestic abuse victim who left her husband 12 years ago, said that when she and her young daughter fled, they immediately found refuge at a shelter in Western Massachusetts. Now a victim's advocate, she said it often takes her several days, even weeks to find space for victims.
more stories like this

"It's just pathetic," said Maria, who asked that her last name and the name of the agency she works for be withheld because she does not want her abuser to find her. "It is so sad to see these women being traumatized and abused by their partners and then being traumatized and abused by the system."

Since 2003, federal funding for domestic violence programs in Massachusetts, which helped pay for shelters, has decreased. From fiscal 2003 to fiscal 2006, funding from the US Department of Health and Human Services went from $1.85 million to $1.78 million. During the same three-year period, a grant from the Department of Justice decreased from $2.8 million to $2.54 million, according to Jane Doe Inc.

In 2006, after DSS, under former governor Mitt Romney, renegotiated contracts that shifted funding from shelters, several agencies lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in shelter funding. The change forced Casa Myrna Vasquez to close its seven-bed emergency shelter.

The Asian Task Force Against Domestic Violence, which provides beds for men, women, and children, lost state funding for one of its shelters, a four-bed safe home, during the rebidding. The agency found enough private funding to keep it open, but the solution may be temporary, said Cristina Lee, assistant director of advocacy services at the task force.

"We can't afford to keep it going," she said.

Officials at DSS, which funds about 90 percent of shelter beds across the state, said funding for shelters increased from $6.57 million in fiscal 2007 to $8.27 million in fiscal 2008. But officials said they had no statistics indicating how much the shelters received before fiscal 2007 because, under Romney, DSS did not break down funding for shelters for domestic violence victims.

Marilyn Anderson Chase, assistant secretary for children, youth, and families, said the agency is focusing its resources on preventing domestic violence, such as counseling children of abusers who are more likely to follow in a batterer's footsteps.

"I think everybody recognizes that having a robust shelter system is imperative," Anderson Chase said. "But I hope they would agree that our first priority is: How do we reduce incidence of domestic violence?"

It is a goal many advocates say they commend.

"More shelter beds is really not the solution," said Candace Waldron, executive director of Hawc, Help for Abused Women and their Children, in Salem. "The solution would be for community response teams that are comprehensive enough to keep victims and their children at home, while the perpetrator is held accountable for their behavior."

But until that happens, people need a place to go, she said.

"If someone is calling for shelter, you know they're at the end of the rope," Waldron said. "To say to them, 'Sorry, we don't have space,' is devastating."

The Quest for Consistency

2008-01-15T21:23:00.000-05:00

It's my new approach. Call it my New Year's resolution. Actually, there are a few things that are making it all possible. I am getting stronger. And I am traveling less. Such beautiful things when combined.

Yes, I believe I finally have my new project and I am somewhat relieved to say it is a local project. Don't get me wrong, I love the travel. Never thought I would say that and the flights still bother me a little, but the soft benefits of life on the road are hard to beat. In many ways I will miss it. But what made it hard was keeping consistent when Monday mornings were 4am wake ups and late evenings at work only to do it all again on Thursdays. And when I could find consistency it gets challenging when things have to always wedge in suitcases. I can work it when I have to, don't get me wrong. I found my routines, but it doesn't lend itself to the true consistency I need right now. That was always hard.

The other little side of being local... I can run with people again. Oh how lovely that will be if I can work it out that I have a morning run buddy again. My long runs are fine on my own, but it would be nice to have someone to run with on the mornings when its tough to get out of bed. So with any luck that will work out for me too which should help keep me consistent and on the ball.

So today I did my 4.6 miler. It's becoming a standard, I suppose. I am not sure how I feel about it except that its predictable and I can bang it out and be good to go. While I am ramping up I think the predictability of the course is ok. So no worries there. My right knee is still a little off. My left is rocking. But its getting better and better as I go, so hopefully I am over the hump I never thought I would get beyond.

I am struggling with how slow this injury has made me. I would almost never believe I was running down into the 8s at times when now the high 10s are where I am and at that I feel like I am working it as best I can, but I have to keep telling myself how long I was away from this with any real consistency (see... there's that pesky word again). A year and a half away is hard to forget. And I don't know why I am expecting to be back at full throttle already because that's just not the way the world works. I will appreciate it more if I have to work towards it. I remember this from learning to run the first time. It is no different now.

So check this... I am at long runs of 11.27 miles and about to edge it up. I am back to half distance. And what do you know in just over a week and a half there is a NYRR half marathon coming up. It's nuts, I know. I am so far from race form, but I think it might be what I need to really get me feeling good and back in this again. I am deliberately playing it cool and telling myself not to look, but its there. Its going to be a real nail biter as to whether I will do it or not, but there is a part of me that thinks maybe. Just maybe.

Going to aim for the same loop again tomorrow. Ice the right knee again tonight and roll it out in the am and we will see how it goes. Fingers crossed for me please. I think I am starting to get to where I need to be. Yea. (its about damn time....)

Happy Tuesday.

11.27

2008-01-13T17:39:00.000-05:00

It's a number I have such mixed feelings about. It's strange to feel both excited and disappointed in it. But it ran the gamut and it is what it is.

My plan today was to run 12. Even with a GPS its never 100% accurate until you plug it in and know where things wash out. I landed at my door thinking I had hit 10.8 but I knew it was more. I wasn't sure how much more, but the watch is usually a little under around these parts. The original plan I had started to follow called for 20. That all went to hell back a few weeks ago when 13 miles fell apart at 5 and I wound up on a city bus limping and almost in tears in pain with my knee. The plan changed dramatically that day, whether I wanted to or not. And while I am loosely still following a plan, I am kind of driving this out on my own based on where I know I am. I am pushing myself hard but trying to do so in a way that respects my body and my goal over a sheet of paper and someone elses thoughts as to where this should be. It is where it is. And if you have followed the old blog here for any length of time you know that statement is a profound paradigm shift for me. No more sticking to someone elses plan regardless of where I am at. No more rigidity. Me post injury is a lot wiser and knowing I will do better running with the possibility of being a little undertrained than full out broken. So it is what it is.

What made the 11.27 tough tho was how rough I felt at the end. Mind you my pace was EXACTLY what it was for my 5 miler the other day. To the T. And mind you I ran 11.27 miles stopping only 2x for about 20 seconds of walking up the notorious Nellie, the hill in the park, that came along and reared her ugly head at mile 10. Stupid Nellie. Miles 9.6 to 10.6, which are entirely Nellie, my elevation changes from about 62 miles above sea to 215 miles above sea. In one mile. Figure that's 153 feet over 5280 feet in one mile and it works out to a grade of 2.9%. So its not the hughest hill in the world, but on a bike that is going to cut your power output by half. (or... you gotta work twice as hard to maintain your speed to get up it.) So its no small feat for mile 9.6-10.6. And that's her grade over a whole mile. What I call Nellie is much shorter and comprises a far scarier grade that I would have to compute later if I weren't DYING AS I AM RUNNING UP HER. So 2 quick stop breaks before I coaxed myself back into it isn't so bad. My problem is that 11.27 miles isn't even half. But its the furthest I have run since early August 2006... just before the injury put me in the hole I am still climbing out of. (oooh, I totally just ended on a preposition. As the daughter of an English teacher that's really bad. But "the hole out of which I am climbing" sounds pretentious to say the least. So... sorry Dad. The blog is a living colloquialism at best.)

11.27 miles. It's both good and bad. It's a triumph of the comeback but its a reminder of how insurmountable this is starting to feel. Who comes back from a year and a half of being broken to running 26.2 miles?! Me. Cause I have to. Because whether you believe in god or God or Shiva or Allah or just the primordial ooze that put us here, I think its my reason. Who am I to whine about not being quite half way to where I need to be when I am alive, I am safe, I am free from someone elses tyranny?! I am out there running because of the faces, the names, the stories. It's funny how years and years of working at a shelter and I never quite got a chance to deal with some of it. Here's where I tell you that the workers in shelters and in courts and on hotlines and in hospitals are nothing short of gold. You never get a chance to deal with it. You see some unspeakable things that want to drop you to your knees in shock and horror and pain and you can never let that show because it can never be about you. And you learn to compartmentalize. You learn to take some of that and put it in this very well guarded little place and lock it up tight because there is always someone else who needs you to be their rock. And over time that builds. People find ways of letting it out but there is a part of it that always sticks with you. And I call that part humanity. But as I am out there on the road, painfully aware of why I am out there this time... why I need to do this right but do this... the parts of that box I never got to empty start coming out.

When I walked in the door, I think Marisa must have thought me insane. I was half disappointed with how it had gone, half doubtful I could do it, but unusually teary for it. I have 720 people I am doing this for. I have 720 names and faces I need to make proud. And that doesn't even touch you guys who read along and support me in ways I cannot even fathom.

So yeah, 11.27. Welcome back, JC.

Another Run Down about another Run Down

2008-01-12T09:39:00.000-05:00

My goal this week has been simple. Get back out there after being sick and make sure things run smoothly.

Thus far the one thing that has been missing the most from my running has been consistency. Which is killer. I need to be out there alot. Not just long runs, but out there running alot. It's definitely a complication of life on the road, that's for sure. I will have to find a way to make it happen once the travel picks back up again, but for now it is looking like I might be here one more week before the craziness ensues, so now is my time to work it all out so I can have that consistency I need.

Last afternoon/ early evening was another run. I felt good going into it, so I was hoping it was going to be a good feeling run. Most of the day had been thunderstorms and lightning and incredible volumes of rain, so I had waited a little longer than I wanted to, but it was all good. And off I went.

The quality of the run overall was good. I can tell that my lungs and heart are really needing me to be overall a lot more consistent. My breathing just isn't as chill as I need it to be just yet. My average heart rate is still up way too high for a marathon, especially at what should be a very chill pace. This time before the injury... so like September 2006, my average heartrate was down into the low 150s and high 140s. Now its the high 160s pushing 170. Little things like that really show me how far I had come from my sedentary life but also how quickly I had lost that. It's funny to see how quickly you can lose health and how hard it is to gain it.

My left knee this morning feels awesome. Remember this is my bad knee. Or rather my worse knee. And the one with the actual, harder cho-pat strap. My right knee, on the other hand, is a little more creeky and sore this morning. With a long run looming for tomorrow (goal is 12 miles), I am thinking I should pick up another true Cho-Pat strap and see how it feels on that knee too. It is remarkable to me how good the left one feels after a run given its the worse of my 2 and the knee that made me think I would never be able to get back into this. I never expected the right one would be the problem child now. So hopefully making that little change will help.

So that's where things are standing right now. So far so good. Tomorrow's long run should be in the 40s and cloudy, so it should be decent weather to bang out 12 miles. Stay tuned.

Calling card... $5. Size 2 Huggies... $10. The opportunity to help... priceless.

2008-01-10T16:47:00.000-05:00

I have gotten such a wonderful response to my fundraising. Slowly but surely my numbers are inching toward their goal. But I keep hearing one thing again and again that I wanted to address. "I wish I could give more."

I cannot tell you all how much all donations mean, even if they are small. So I figured one of the best ways is to give people an idea of the kinds of things those donations go to buy. There are certainly the big things, right? Keeping electricity on. Keeping heat on. Paying the mortgage on the shelter. Paying salaries (tho they are abhorrently small for anyone working on a cause like this). It can sound really overwhelming. But more often than not, donations help cover the smaller things that you never quite think about. Like calling cards. A woman in shelter can have her safety actively compromised these days by things like caller ID. It's never safe to call people from a cell phone or from a land line. As a result, shelters often have to have things like calling cards to give to women so that they can call people and places. And for a woman who hasn't made it to shelter yet sometimes those calls on the home phone can put her in more danger when the bill comes in. Little things like calling cards can be instrumental in just day-to-day survival.

Diapers. Seriously. I remember going to the store when I was working at my shelter to buy diapers. All kinds of sizes in as many as I could get my little hands on. You never know who might be coming into shelter and you always have to have things like diapers and bottles and teething rings and what-have-you on hand. (Imagine the look on the face of the cashier when I showed up with a carriage full of diapers looking like I must have septuplets at home.)

I can't even begin to tell you how much very single dollar goes to work at a place like a shelter. It's the kind of thing that would make the the folks over at Tightwad Central stand up and take notice. So to those of you who have donated and worry that you wish you could donate more... please understand how grateful I am and this program is for each.and.every donation. It is helping more than you could ever know.

Now as for the down and dirty of the running part (aka, the easy part), things are going... ok. Not great, but not off course or anything. I wound up getting horribly sick on New Years' night. Yep, that's right. I couldn't even claim my puking was due to excessive consumption of festive beverages. Nay, my friends, I came home from what little enthusiasm I could muster that evening (I knew I was feeling off) to get sick and be down for the count for a bit. It was a weird little bug. Part cold, part liquified innards. Not good for running as you can imagine. Not such a great way to spend my 2nd week of vacation either. So the running took a back seat for a bit until my body and lungs felt up for the road. Now we are back to the road. So I hit the streets yesterday, which was good. It's been unseasonably warm out here (*coughGLOBALWARMINGcough*) so it was kinda nice and kinda creepy to be feeling warm along the way. My lungs did ok, but I was a little coughy thereafter. All good tho because the kicker was my knees felt good. I've been trying 2 different kinds of cho-pat straps on my 2 knees. Didn't mean for it to work that way but they only had one of each and I needed to try it out. Both wind up being very different and I wish I could combine the two into one awesome one, but so far so good. This one goes on my left knee because it is a little harder. But its velcro kinda brushes against the back of my knee and over 26.2 miles that's gonna be painful. But its harder than the other so it holds my knee in place a little better. This little bad boy goes on my right knee, which is the better knee, honestly. Its a softer piece holding my knee so it doesn't have as much support but it doesn't scratch, which is nice. Combine the two and I would be in heaven. For now we will see how I do.

So running is going ok. I am heading out again tomorrow for more fun. I had wanted to go out today to try and get my running a little more frequent and consistent, but given I have a long run this weekend, I didn't want to push the overall mileage total through the roof so quick, since there is that whole 10% Rule I don't want to mess with. So tomorrow it is and hopefully my lungs will be in even better shape after all the sickness works its way out of me.

So that's where I am at. Please keep the donations coming. If you popped over here just off a google search (especially the person who found me using the search string "smoking baroness la bondage"), consider throwing a few bucks to my cause so you can do your good deed today. You'll be pleased ya did.

Happy Thursday, all.

It's Time

2008-01-03T15:30:00.000-05:00

It's time to unveil my crazy plan. It's time to get personal and maybe a little deep and all kindsa whatever else. But it's time. The road brought me here and it brought me here for a reason. So read, bear with me, and maybe help me make something big happen.

I told you all I am training for something. And I think I let it slip that it's a marathon. But it's not just any marathon. It's the marathon. And it's the cause. My cause. The reason my heart beats some days. And the reason it doesn't. I am running the Boston Marathon out of a love I found in me many years before I found the love of running. I am running for the love of survivorship.

I am running the Boston Marathon to raise money to help survivors of domestic abuse. I don't often get personal on this blog... or at least outside my crazy training life personal... but this time I am gonna.

Back several years ago I had the honor, the pleasure, the challenge, the heartbreak, the heartwarm of working at a battered women's shelter. It was, to steal a phrase, the toughest job I could ever love. For years I would leave my day to day office job and drive over to a nondescript little house, in a nondescript little town in Massachusetts, to be reminded time and time again what life really meant to me. I worked overnights at a shelter for women and their children fleeing domestic abuse, rape and ritual abuse. I would leave my desk and wind up in police stations, hospitals, bus stations and our shelter to have the chance to provide one single moment in time in someones road to becoming a survivor. It's a powerful journey if you have ever had the honor of being there for it. It will challenge every fiber you have in you and at the end of that day it will leave you in awe of the incredible strength the world has in it.

Over 5 years, I worked with... at best guess 720 women and their children. I worked at a shelter that had beds for 4 women and their children. We were never without a guest. I answered thousands of calls to an 800 number and helped women plan how to make themselves safe... whether it was for a single night or for the rest of their lives. I held hands with them, I shed tears with them and little by little I found a part of my own self in them I never knew existed. These women and their children gave me a blessing they may never know. Every day I feel truly honored to have been there alongside so many of them to share in what was a horribly painful experience that some never walk away from.

Over the years I have known people who have gone on and rebuilt their lives. I have known people who have gone back to their abusers. I have known people whose names I have seen on the news as the latest homicide victim. I've sat on swings in the rain with women who haven't been allowed out of the house for more than a dozen years.

If you have been following this blog for any length of time, you know that it's been more than a year since I took to the road for a real, honest-to-goodness race. Way back in September 2006, I got injured. Really injured. Because I was a little too stupid to think about how to run right. I learned a hard lesson as it kept me away from what became my passion for more than a year.

Several months ago I found out that one of the sister shelters to the one I used to work for was hosting it's last ever Boston Marathon charity team. I was invited to apply. Several of the people I had worked with at my own shelter have since moved on to this bigger one and who was I to say no. One of the things that has been the hardest for me since leaving Boston for New York was giving up those overnights at the shelter. They gave me such perspective on the world. Most days I feel like I got more from the many women I knew than they may have gotten from me. I feel blessed to have shared their journey and now I wanted to give them something back.

This year, I am running for all of them. Each day I go out for my long run their faces are in my head. Its tough to not find the motivation to get through 15 miles on the road when I think how much harder their journeys have been. I am asking you all to help me make this journey for these women and children. I am setting a lofty goal for my fund raising, to say the least. I want to raise $50 for each of the (at least) 720 women I had the pleasure and honor of knowing. I have to say the "at least" part because I know over 5 years, 4 beds and 3 months stay that's the minimum... but oftentimes people didn't even get to stay with us that long as they had to move on to avoid being found. That $50 in memory of each of those women comes to a total of $36,000. Sounds crazy, huh? I agree. I don't know if I can do it, but my heart tells me I need to.

So here is my plea. And my fundraising website.
http://www.firstgiving.com/runjcrun
Help me get there. It will be a long road. And to be honest, I don't care about time or speed or anything for this one. I care about just doing it for some incredible women, some incredible children, some incredible courage. When you get a chance to see the strength it takes to run from abuse, running 26.2 is a walk in the park.

Now That Didn't Go As Planned At All.

2007-11-26T19:08:00.000-05:00

This past Sunday was my 13 mile run. I was approaching it with some fairly mixed emotions, to be honest. But boy, I didn't expect what happened.

Going to bed on Saturday night knowing I was heading out for 13 miles, which would be equal to my longest distances to date, I was a little nervous and a lot kinda dreading it. I am finding the distance runs to be a real challenge because of all of the alone time. It's funny. My first year doing all this training, I did everything with Theresa or Carin. And now I am back to running all on my own. Cause, you know, you can't just hit someone up and say, hey, you wanna spend 2+ hours running 13 miles with me? Not so much. So there is a real loneliness to it. Add to it struggling already with the mind over matter and keeping my head in the game after the injury, and you can kinda get to where my brain goes the night before a long run. On one hand I am excited to see how its going to pan out. On another hand I am dreading how I am going to keep my brain invested in the whole game.

And then it happened.

So I headed out on Sunday around noonish, having made sure I was hydrated and fed but with my fuel belt on and enough time to have digested. I was good to go. Weather was good. I was dressed right. I had my iPod loaded with some stuff to keep me going. I was good. First few miles I felt good. I was running at a nice speed for me. Without really trying, I was down into the 9-something pace, which was awesome. Its a good sign for me to be dropping back into what used to be a normalish pace. 9s are good. But somewhere around mile 3, my left knee started to feel a little off. It was just this dull ache at first and I kept going, but it just got more and more pronounced, more and more localized, and more and more difficult to shake off.

By mile 5, I was stopping and starting and trying to work it out, but it wasn't working. By mile 5.5 I could feel that I was almost limping in my stride. By 5.83, I called it quits and had to hop a bus to get back home. Ugh.

So I am thinking I have runner's knee complimenting my ITBS. It's not really a surprise, I suppose... its something Bree and I had considered. But now, what was I going to be able to do?

So here's where I think it went a little awry. Last week was hard in terms of keeping up my PT and my shorter runs. Not good. Too many flights in too few days followed by some time off. That led me into that 13 miler with nothing in the 5 days preceding it. Bad news. Secondly, though I have gotten a lot better with the post-run stretching, I am not so good at the pre-run stretching. Apparently thats another cause of runner's knee problems. I will need to address the appropriate pre-run stretching and warming up in the future. Lastly, I gotta step up the foam rolling. I need to loosen my quads and my IT Bands more. I keep getting myself into this weird place where things go well and the stuff that gets me there starts to take a back seat. You would think I would learn. But apparently not. I really need to fix that part of me. I need to invest in running when I am not running. It's hard. Lastly, I have to deal with Runner's Knee being a degenerative issue. If I don't get this fixed now, I may do some permanent damage. This is it.

So tonight I will do my PT and roll my quads out and then ice the heck of out my knee. Tomorrow morning I will roll again. Tomorrow evening I will see how I am feeling and maybe transition to some cross-training instead of my usual run.

So, it didn't go as planned. I am disappointed and down, but I am far from out. I am doing this marathon, whether I run it or not. (I know, I know... more on it soon, I promise.) But that's where its at. Now where is my @!^*$^&#@ theraband.

And Another 10.77...

2007-11-12T19:36:00.000-05:00

Yep, I got me a little more distance to my credit, post injury. I pulled off a 10.77 miler this Sunday. And all things considered... it wasn't half bad.

So let me back it up a bit though, because its been over a week since I posted. I spent last weekend (not this past one, but the one before) sick with a cold. My plan had been to run 5 miles, but with a cold getting worse and worse and some cold rain, I played it safe. No run. The cold got pretty rough on Monday and by Tuesday, I felt pretty ok again. I did my usual 35 minute run and that went well. But then came Wednesday morning and I was a mess again. Damn cold. So I spent the rest of the week just really working to get better knowing I was going to pull off a long run this weekend and I needed to be in good shape for it. Plus with all the travel and some nutty deadlines at work, I knew I needed every ounce of healing I could get.

So blast forward to Sunday. I had done the one 35 minute run on Tuesday that week and the last one before that had been another 35 minute run on Tuesday. So I was a little nervous, all things considered, to head out the door and bang out 11 miles.

And now here's where I have to fill you in on the secret you have no doubt begun to put together. I am training. I got a spot again in the Boston Marathon. Now mind you, I will be posting a lot of the details about that soon, cause I need to do some hardcore fundraising and all, but for now, yes, I am training to run a marathon. I am following a very elongated plan that pushes me on some longer and longer runs every 2 weeks. The off weeks I get a nice 5 mile break. And Tuesdays and Thursdays I do time-limited speed or hill work. I picked this plan for a few reasons. For one, training and traveling is hard, so I needed to be realistic about what I can do. For two, I really wanted to be careful that I gave myself lots of healing time. It feels a little crazy to go from injury that kept me out of competition for a year into the longest run distance I will probably ever do. But I need to do this. And while I need to do it, I need to do it carefully. So lots of healing time seemed a good fit. Its a little like agreeing to almost break myself a little, then heal alot and stretch alot and then try a little more. But like I said, I am going to get more into the actual details of the Boston Marathon soon. And I really hope you all will help me raise some funds. I need to do this because the cause is so important to me that even if its a little iffy right now, its what I am meant to do.

So yeah, 10.77 miles. It was slow, for sure. Kinda deliberately. I am not in it for speed these days. I am in it to get the distance done right. Right around mile 10 my left knee started to hurt, so I dropped into a run/walk/run/walk dealio, which helped. But I have time, so I played it safe. Mostly I am pleased with it all. I mean, all things considered, to be back here as well as I am after a year off feels nice. My right soleus muscle, which I got a little scared might be a stress fracture, has been feeling good. I've been heating it instead of icing it, which may be helping to work out the tightness in the muscle. Plus, I've been rolling it, massaging it, you name it. So after almost 11 miles, it doesn't hurt to touch, which is new. And good. Right knee is fine, left one is a little wonky. But heck, it took until 10 miles to start to hurt a little, so that's a good sign.

Tonight I am exhausted. I didn't sleep too well last night. I forgot to feed the beast since she fell asleep early, so she kept waking me up last night by batting things around and playing with my feet. She's been a little sick lately too and after a few trips to the vet and some meds I couldn't be too upset that she was being playful. But it left me tired. And when I have to be up at 4:30am, Monday nights are tough. So now I am off to do my PT routine, roll my IT Bands and soleus, get some grub and go to bed. Tomorrow evening will be a 40 minute run.

So that's where its at. Its all good. More to come soon, I sweah. Now off to torment myself with the theraband. Meh.

8.7 Baby. Aw, yeah.

2007-10-29T20:56:00.000-04:00

Yep. 8.7. I ran it. All by my lonesome. Me, a bridge, some sneakers and a long road there and back again.

The speed still isn't there. I am slower than ever, but little by little its coming back. Truth is, I am not going to push the speed right now. I could care less how fast I run, so much as just that I can run. And it feels good that I can again.

So I did the Brooklyn Bridge run. Haven't gone that long since the half marathon I did when I was sick. So its been one year and 2 months since I have run that long. And if you are doing the math at all, thats when the injury really kicked in. It was shortly after running that half that I was sitting on a plane to Atlanta realizing something was wrong with my knees. It's been a long road since that day.

The run wasn't my most comfortable ever, thats for sure. I am basically trying to see what I can do safely... trying to be both conservative but aggressive about it. I need to see where things are and what I can do. And most of all, I need to see if I can get my body to do it right. So I am keeping an eye on things like the first feel of shin splints telling me my body isn't ready for the distance yet. So far so good, no shin splints. I am keeping a feel on my knees and my ITB, not just when I run, but afterwards, for a day or two. I am keeping a feel for how the stretching works or doesn't work and what lingering issues I need to deal with. Right now, its one great big experiment and I am keeping my fingers crossed that all the work I have done pans out. Time will tell.

So where is it at? Right now I am having some issues with my soleus muscles, which is the smaller muscle that sits underneath the two muscles of the calf. So its a little tender, which can be from overuse, which I would worry about, except its always sore, even when I haven't run much at all. Truth is, I think its overly tight and unbalanced, so I am spending a lot of time stretching it and strengthening it. And I am rolling it as much as I can. Fingers crossed, its going to get better and easier as I go. But time will tell.

Ok, back to my stretching. More later.

Not Since September 11, 2006

2007-10-22T19:18:00.000-04:00

Have I run this far in one shot. 6.8 miles. It's been more than a year. But I did it.

Yep, you heard me right. 6.8 miles. It was actually supposed to be 7.5, but I wound up getting a little short and that was ok by me. I am trying really hard to come back, but also to come back right and not wind up where I was before. It was rough, I gotta be honest. I don't remember 6.8 miles being so hard, but I have a feeling I might be painting an awfully rosy picture-- how could 6.8 miles really feel like a walk in the park??! All that being said, it wound up being an unusually hilly course-- ending on the worst of all hills. Almost right from the start my soleus muscles were tight and cramping, which wasn't good. The remainder of yesterday was spent just trying to walk as much of it off as I could. I spent about an hour stretching post-run, which definitely helped. I am starting to really get that routine down.

So yeah, so far so good. My plan to make the comeback is starting to finally take some shape.

Ok, its a quick post. I am off to do some physical therapy work and then crash. It's been a tiring weekend and all too early a morning. More this week, I promise.

I Hope Bree Doesn't Read This

2007-10-17T21:30:00.000-04:00

Cause damn I hate her Physical Therapy routine. Hate it hate it. I hate it. It sucks. It hurts. If I never see another theraband, it's too soon.

But I am sticking to it. Cause I am a glutton for punishment and all that. Yesterday I did another stint on the treadmill, since I got out of work so late. And it didn't help that my legs were feeling a little tight still from Sunday's run. I wanted to keep to my Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday run plan, but I knew I had to take it easy. I am only now starting to increment some miles, so I need to play it careful. I've decided to spend Monday, Wednesday, Friday doing some PT work even more consistently. Saturdays I take off altogether.

After my run last night I spent a lot of time stretching. I also worked out a more formal post run stretching program. If left to my own devices, without a list to follow and check off, I don't always do so well with it. But you give me a check list and I am good. So yesterday was the first time for that program. Afterwards, I gotta say, my legs felt rocking. Today they weren't tight at all. They felt great. I don't know if my legs have ever felt that fresh after a run. So perhaps the routine really does work. My favorite of all the stretches is an IT Band one, which, as you may recall, is my problem area. Its the reason I wound up in PT to begin with. So I wanted the most rockin stretch I could find for it. But its really hard to target your IT Band. So here's the deal, for those of you who also need some IT Band stretches. Ready? Picture it.

Lie on your side on the floor. Pretend like you are running, so you bring your bottom leg up towards your chest and your top leg heel like you are trying to kick your own butt. Exaggerate it as much as you can and the top leg IT Band gets the stretch. Then switch sides and do it again. It's awesome. And it beats the hell out of physical therapy thats for sure.

Ok, so tomorrow I have some hill work to do. I will probably do that very deliberately on the treadmill because I haven't seen any good hills out here yet. Maybe I will find some this weekend. I am staying out here in Boston for the weekend for Head of the Charles. Sunday I will wedge in a long run and go from there.

Anyhoo, that's all I got. I know... not so exciting, cept that I am still hating on PT. And Bree, if you are reading, wipe the smirk off your face. Ha.

I Came. I Saw. I Begrudgingly Ran.

2007-10-14T13:44:00.000-04:00

And it was my longest in a while. 5.12 miles.

I am not going to tell you it was easy. It wasn't. It was pretty hard. The last time I pulled off 5 miles was back on April 5th. It's been a long time. My road to recovery was really just starting at that point and I thought it was going to be smooth sailing. And it was anything but. But at the time I ran 5.13 miles in a 10:44 pace. It was slow, but it felt good in the end. Today was somewhat similar. With one exception. This time I wasn't sure I could do it.

And I did. At a 10:41 pace. I am still slow, for sure. A lot slower than I want to be. But I am ok with that. For now I just want to be able to run. And run in a way that doesn't injure me, doesn't break me, doesn't leave me on the bench for an entire year. Today I took my time. Today I just ran to get my head into believing I could do it again. Today I ran because I am refinding purpose in my runs. Today I ran because I could.

So now I stretch, stretch, stretch and ice, ice, ice and stretch some more and get a good nights sleep before I head back out to Boston tomorrow morning. Monday is my rest day from running, but it means PT workout and probably some additional stretching routines Marisa is working on for me as I work my way back into all of this. Tuesday morning, I am off and running again. This time with a goal of just 30 minutes-- nothing too big or crazy... just the next stop on my little journey.

Happy Sunday, all.

Yea! Meatheads!

2007-10-09T21:11:00.001-04:00

I know, I know... I shouldn't characterize them that way. But I kinda can't help thinking it. It just gets in my head and next thing you know I'm being all judgemental. Maybe its cause I am a vegetarian or gay or whatever that meatheads have zero appeal. But there they are.

Cause I stepped into a Gold's Gym. (Watch me now get tons of hate comments from Gold's members.) Truth is, Gold's Gym wasn't that bad. The guys were actually really nice. I am just not used to gyms that are so devoted to free weights. It's not really my scene. But there is some good yet. So there are a fair number of treadmills, ellipticals, recumbant bikes, yada yada. That's good. There's also a spin class schedule, but that may not be so good because they seem to have the last class at 6pm and there is no way I can make it in time if 4 of us are sharing a car. So that's out. BUT... it looks like they will let me use the spin room when its not in use, so now I can do my own spin workouts. Next task, find a spin workout podcast or something I can download onto my ipod and just follow along that will push me harder than I push myself. I really need to get some bike training back in. And something that mimics an actual bike... not this recumbant bike thing which is like a couch with pedals. No good. So the option of really kicking my own ass on a spin bike just makes my day.

I've managed to get some mostly treadmill runs in lately. Its hard to get out here-- its dark when I leave for the office, its dark when I get back. And the tough thing about suburban Massachusetts is that it gets dark and there are no street lights. Even at 6am its pitch black outside. I tried to rally this morning, but it didn't happen. Monday days are the most exhausting, so Tuesday morning its nice to rest up a little more. Tomorrow morning a run. Come hell or high water.

Ok, so I got a really awesome ride in on Sunday. An hour. I haven't been able to get a solid hour in on my bike in a while. 21.32 miles. I've slipped, thats for sure, but not as badly as I thought. My last week was nice to get back to my Bree workouts too. I was able to do a lot of stability ball and PT exercise work. It felt good.

My last little bit of excitement requires some 'splainin. See, one of the things that has helped me keep my motivation is to keep an electronic diary of how I am doing. I spent a year tracking every workout. And with all the time on the road with that little application on the home computer, I didn't have to account for all my time and all my calories anymore. I wound up helping the company that wrote the software test their online version. And it rocks. But the problem for me is that a lot of client sites I wind up block and filter web content. So it wasn't always something I could access. Until it hit me this weekend. My USB fob. I have a little jump drive. 4GBs. I cleaned it off and tried installing the application on that instead, with the idea that wherever I plugged it in, I could run it. It has some quirks, but once again, I am pitching it to the guys who make the software that they could have a portable app version of their software. But for now, I gotta tell you, in spite of its little quirks that I can get around, it is utter heaven. I have my data back. And for whatever reason, it seems to inspire little virgo me to keep to the plan, stan. So its plugged into my laptop right now. And when I get home I can plug it in there and my data is all up to date. And I can back it up and no matter where I go, my plan goes with me. Now I can schedule all my workouts and check them off as I go. Life is good again.

So thats where things stand. Dave, I am so happy to see that not only have you not given up on me over here, but you haven't given up on you and your new blog as well. I'll be updating my blog roll this weekend. But rest assured, I am reading along. And BBB, I knew you'd hang in there. Thanks for always being the bestest ever cheerleader. Still got your pompoms??

Happy Tuesday evening all.

Life Is Hard On the Road

2007-10-02T19:24:00.000-04:00

Though, don't get me wrong, I am not whining. I took a risk and took the show on the road. I had no idea how it was gonna pan out. It's been an interesting few months, to say the least.

So how is Minnesota, you are wondering. Hmm. I don't know. Yep, that's right. No clue. Cause I haven't been there since mid-August. Within the course of a week, everything changed. Its par for the course in my line of work. Clients come and go and sometimes they see a few weeks where they need to focus on other things so they "roll you off" for a while hoping that when they are ready, you will still be available. So my gig in MN played the gamble and as I was getting ready to take 2 weeks of vacation, they decided to formally roll me off for a bit. Problem is when I got back from vacation and they got ready to go through the process of re-booking me, someone else beat them to the punch.

I loved my time in Minneapolis. It is such a warm and friendly place. And when I could experience it, it was beautiful. I got to do some of the coolest work and it was clear that my gamble to take a step back to take 2 ahead was going to play out well. But I needed to jump into something harder, something riskier, something bigger. So when the opportunity knocked, I grabbed it.

I am now commuting to... (drum roll)... my old digs... outside Boston. It's weird to be back and the truth is my hotel options are a lot less favorable than they were before, but the work is awesome. I am both overwhelmed and enjoying every minute of it. And there is something really cool about jumping back and forth between the two cities I love. But my first few weeks here have been nutty given I also had to spend some time in Washington DC for the 2007 Out and Equal Summit. So life is only now starting to settle down as I have finally checked into another extended stay hotel room. Meaning I can leave stuff here-- including my foam roller, therabands, valslides, ice packs, all of that. I can finally eat better too because I have a kitchen again. These things are critical on the road. My new digs have a totally crappy gym and no pool. Turns out I can use a membership at a gym a few miles from here, which will hopefully start up next week, but it also means working it out with all the people I have to share a rental car with. So there is that pain in the butt. But the backup is running, which gets a lot easier with the foam roller and the stuff I need to do my PT routine.

So, I gotta tell you, its hard to be active on the road. Life has to fit into a small suitcase that can fit into an overhead bin. You learn that lesson right quick when your checked luggage gets lost the first time. So what you got has to stay on you at all times. Liquids in your quart bag, everything else in your carry on. And when you are dressing for work and need a pair of brown and black shoes and your sneakers too, already room is at a premium. I had imagined time being a challenge in my new role, which it is, but suitcase space is really the limiter when its a weekly thing.

So now my routine is settling in again. And from that I can begin to restore my routine. And I am lead to believe I am here until the end of the year, at a minimum, but life changes in a flash around here, so who really knows. But for while it lasts, life should be good. Now I just need to learn how to manage it better when I am bouncing from hotel to hotel each week again. But hopefully I won't have to do that anytime soon.

So don't give up on me yet. I am here. I am hanging on. And though I have put on a pound or two and slowed down a little, I am here. I am running. I am still fighting my way back.

Ever So Graceful.

2007-08-13T20:44:00.000-04:00

Back when Marisa and I first met, somehow I became the "graceful cowboy." It was my nickname. It came from the fact that one of the first pictures she saw of me I was wearing a cowboy hat. The graceful part-- I don't remember except that let's just say I am not the most graceful person on the planet. I am pleased I can live up to that name still.

So here I am in Minnesota planning on a 4 mile run today. Its ghastly humid outside and there are storm warnings that include words like 'hail' and 'tornado,' so I opted for the safety of the treadmill. The run is going awesome. I am 2.5 miles in and feeling on top of the world. I got some speed going and its just coming together perfectly. There are 2 treadmills and the other one is occupied by a woman who has been walking. And then she leaves. Just on the other side of her is the oscillating fan. And its, as we say in Boston, wicked hot. So when she leaves, I take the opportunity to just step to the sides of the belt and climb over to turn the fan on. I am singing my way through and knowing I am going to own the next mile and a half. And then... (you can see where this is going, can't you?)...

... so as I go to step back onto the treadmill, I kinda forgot that the belt was still going. Yep. I took a step and hit the belt and went FLYING. Back over the treadmill I flew. I came down on the belt with my right shin, got thrown a little further to the side, whacked my head into a brick column and down hard onto my left hand. No sooner was I down then I was back up, making sure no one noticed. I got back up onto the treadmill and started to run only to find my hand really hurt. I kept running and noticed a little blood in my hairline. Dang it.

Quite honestly, it was pretty dang funny. I wished there was a security camera, because you know I'd be putting this video up on zee blog, cause you can't choreograph this kinda thing. So my run got cut a little short and I am now icing my hand hoping I didn't actually break my wrist. I am also going to have the most spectacular bruise of all time on my leg.

butchaknowwhat?

I was a happy running fool.
And a graceful cowboy.
And I think a little bit of a triathlete too.

Happy Monday from Minnesota.

It's All But Defunct, huh?

2007-08-11T09:05:00.000-04:00

I know, it's been weeks. Learning a rhythm to this new life of mine has been a real challenge. And what rhythm I find is hard to supplement with blogging sometimes. I need to find a better way of doing this.

The schedule on the road has been a lot more challenging than I expected. But in totally different ways. So the deal is I fly out every Monday morning and I fly back every Thursday night. This means my Monday mornings begin at 3:45am EST to get to work. So as you can imagine, Monday evenings are a challenge. Likewise, I don't get home until about 11pm on Thursday evenings, no delays presumed, so Thursday nights and Friday mornings are challenges. Those I predicted.

What I didn't predict was the extent to which not having a car on my client was going to be tough. I knew that there were a lot of folks on my team that had cars and we wanted to keep them to a minimum so we should carpool. But when you work with a bunch of guys, carpooling is a challenge. It never quite occurs to people to proactively think about the people they need to offer rides to, so as a result, its this constant attempt at securing a ride to and from work and the hotel and there aren't any other real options outside that. The car became even more of a challenge when for 2 weeks the gym/pool that was attached to the hotel was closed for renovations and the alternative was a facility a few miles away. Tough without a car. And the guys who do go to the gym go late and spend about 30 minutes lifting weights which makes my routine totally not work. My initial reaction to it was just that it would be a good 2 weeks to focus on my running. Only to find that we were hitting "feels like" temperatures of 104 degrees with out-of-control humidity. Running outdoors was horrendous at best. Finally, because my project has been mostly local and external people, I would often find myself out with the team having to call cabs to get back to my hotel. It became nothing short of a pain in the butt, so I finally got approved for a car. Things were starting to look up.

The last 2 weeks I really started to find my stride. I had found my routine. The gym was back open. I could come and go at my leisure and when unsuspected things happened like the gym closing, I had my workaround in place. I got a foam roller for my room and I started really working at my running again. It was awesome. I was back. This past week I learning there is a 90% chance I am ending my stint in Minneapolis this coming week. Not because things didn't go well-- in fact they went so well that I have gotten more accolades than I could have ever expected. BUT... there is a lag between finding the right solution and implementing the right solution that requires contract negotiations. And during that contract negotiation, which could take a while, the work starts to slow down. When you are chargeable all the time to a client, no one wants to pay for you to not work full throttle. And so you roll off until the client is ready to start back up. If the negotiations go fast, I stay on for the next phase for about a year. If they take time, which I expect they will, I roll off and move on to the next project. And learn a routine all over again.

It's a well known fact that people don't like change. It's an even more well known fact that I don't like change. I am a virgo. I like routine in spades. And yet here I am in something that lends itself to anything but routine. The routine is in the constant flexibility. The routine is in standing at the airport watching your flight get delayed 2 hours and then cancelled only to scramble to get where you need to be. The routine is in quickly learning your at hand resources and driving directions. The routine is in carrying only what you can get through without checking baggage, even if it means wedging every liquid you need for a week into a plastic bag for a sandwich. The routine is in Friday morning 8:30am runs to the dry cleaner and laundromat even if you get home at 2am. The routine is not getting too set in thinking something will be the same next week because you might not even be here next week. And somewhere in all of that mess is the routine of run and bike and swim.

Mostly in the last few weeks, I've been running. In the midst of it all, I am trying to come back to my basics. Find joy. These last few months have been hard. They have been tiring. I have been all over the place since this year began-- Atlanta, Madrid, Kansas, Chicago, Minneapolis, Portland and oh yes, New York to name a few. In just over a week we add Hawaii to the list. Travel is fun but sometimes I miss being home. And finding the joy in a run has been hard amidst all that. It became a chore somewhere along the way. (Actually, I know precisely where. On York Avenue in Edina, Minnesota, passing the Target on the longest 2.5 mile run in blistering humidity I could imagine.) I am trying to find joy again.

I've been very hard on myself through this all. Being a triathlete makes you feel super-human. Except you aren't. My last year I defined myself around that goal. This year I am defining myself around my career. I am letting myself indulge that need to be super-human there too. Except I am not. The work is incredible. I am learning so much. I am challenged. I am engaged. I am utilized. But I struggle alot with not being able to do both at the top of my game. So now I am going back to where it all started in my heart and just running because I can. Because I can feel progress and expansion and breath and freedom and continuity and empathy and humility in every step. I didn't start running because I had to. I ran because it was in my heart.

So yeah. Next week will be interesting. But I will run through it. Because I want to. And after that, who knows. A week here at home and a week in Hawaii with my running shoes and we'll see what comes next. There have been rumors about a client back in Boston, which will be fun. But I am not 100% sure I am going to skate without the excitement of a Minnesota winter. Time will tell. Now off I go on a Saturday morning to do my laundry and go for a run. And if you see me out there, gimme a high five. I could use the encouragement.

Be well, all.

It's Not Easy

2007-06-15T11:03:00.000-04:00

I know. I know. A few of you pointed it out. The postings are getting fewer and fewer. The last two weekends have been ununsually hard for posting time, so I am going to try to make up for it now. I have a few things to catch you all up on. Some good, some not so good. I think I am heading in the right direction, but its all a bit nutty right now. So off we go.

I am gonna start off with the not so good, cause I really just want to get it out of the way. So the not so good is that I am not going to be ready for the half ironman. Much as I want to be, I am not. And its a reality that has been sneaking up on me and has now just full on smacked me in the face. I am not ready. Its a whole bunch of things in that statement. It's the slower than expected injury recovery, it's the adjustment to the travel schedule, and it's the fact that my A race for this year was double the distance of the longest race I have done to date. I had to deal with the truth this week that I am still very new to triathlon, still very new to being active at all, and maybe not as super human as I wanted to be. I need to take it a little more gradual and just allow both triathlon and career to coexist a little while longer and work it out. I need another year of just being a regular old triathlete and runner. I need to go back to my basics. And that was hard to deal with. So the last 2 weeks have been a funk. Deep funk.

The other bit of the not so good is that Fridays are becoming my least favorite days and are getting harder and harder to blog through. Fridays are really the one day I NEED to do everything. No sooner am I in bed after a long week than I am up, racing to drop off dry cleaning so it can be ready the next day, unpacking, doing laundry, repacking and trying to wedge in the things that I cannot do on the weekend... like my long bike ride because it is too crazy in the park during the weekend, PLUS non project related work, regular work and all of that. Fridays are a nightmare. I hate them. I thought I would welcome my Fridays at home, but they are the one day that I am stretched thinner than I know what to do with. And trying to wedge in the friends I have here at home all the while and weekends are starting to feel harder than the week. This week my flight got delayed by almost 4 hours, so I didn't even get home until 2am and yet, Friday was off and running. I wind up spending a lot of time just trying to catch my breath and that's not fun.

And lastly, blogging is suffering to, oh, training itself. So already my time feels challenged and when it doesn't, I'm trying to use that free time to actually run or bike or swim or do yoga. Maybe what I need to do is change my blog style to just include quick posts with info on what I am doing and not spend so much time being all chatty. I'll figure it out, I promise.

In the meantime, if you have noticed a decrease in the amount of comment love I am getting to other people's blogs, I am sorry. The RSS feed is astoundingly large these days. I am behind and trying to catch up, but its hard. Y'all write a lot.

So the good news is that although I am going to cancel the half this year, I am going to aim to do at least 1 race-- Harriman, again. I want to stay in race shape and even at shorter distances, thats better than not racing at all. So I will be looking into some races in the next few weeks.

This weekend is Pride weekend in NYC, so again, the weekend is wonky. I'm getting some training in-- ride and a run, but its a little on the hard side. I've been doing some running through my neighborhood of Edina, Minnesota, which have been ok, but not great. I'm having trouble keeping mentally on track more than anything else, which I think is due to the funk I've been in over trying to decide what to do about my race. It's been interesting to explore my new area, but its no New York City and I just wind up feeling less engaged in my run as I do here. I've been keeping my mileage around 3 miles for the past 2 weeks, about twice a week, and I am getting ready to start upping the distance, but I need to have some time to find a good route. So thats on the list.

So for now, I am here. I am training, albeit less than I want to be, and hanging in there despite some real challenges (like getting up at 3am on Monday mornings. ugh.) You may see some shorter posts soon, if I can get my stuff together. My blog helps to keep me on track, so I need to use it more. Not sure about keeping up with the RSS feed... I'm doing my best, but it still might take me a while.

Ok, off to do laundry. And wedge in a bike ride. And then go to the opening festivities of Pride. Happy Pride fellow gay readers and bloggers.

It's My Usual (now) Friday Post

2007-06-01T11:16:00.000-04:00

I am back from the crazy world of Minneapolis, where it has been one fast and crazy week. I moved into my home away from home for the next year or so and started finding a routine, though it was a very short week.

Short weeks are hard. I flew in on Tuesday morning because of the holiday and really only had all day Wednesday to do my thing. Tuesday after work I drove with the guys to my new hotel and found out it was AWESOME. OMG this is so much better than the other Residence Inn I was at. For starters, the staff is a lot friendlier and it is much closer to the office. My room is a good size, with a king size bed and a bedroom with french doors that can open into the living room. I have a kitchen with microwave, some hot plates, full size fridge, regular old coffee pot and dishwasher. Survey of the room checks out real nice. I am told that the hotel runs a shuttle service to anywhere I want to go whenever I want to go there, within 5 miles. I have a million things within 5 miles of me, so I am made in the shade if I can't get one of the guys with a car to drive me someplace.

Next I wander down to check out the afore-discovered Edinborough Park. I don't even know how to describe this to you well, but for lack of a better way of doing it, think of a large indoor park that is made to feel like you are outdoors. It has one of the hughest climbing, sliding, jungle-gym-y thing I can imagine. It is big enough for adults (you can see one at the bottom of the picture, in the white shirt, just to get a sense of scale) and you have to pay to get in it, but I am totally going to do it one day. I mean, how could you not?! This is right outside the window of the lobby of the hotel. So as I walk to the fitness facilities, I pass this. Inside here is also a basketball court/open area, an amphitheater, and the fitness facilities which includes a junior olympic length pool (so 25 yard length), a track just above it, and some limited workout machines. When I say limited machines, I mean it, but there is everything there that I could need... 2 ellipticals, 2 treadmills, a rowing machine, some free weights, a "lifting station" for lack of a better way of describing it... its all there. So I gotta again say, lord help me, I am made in the shade. If I had to try and make this training on the road thing work, I think my Nana Kelly managed to work me into a good situation, to say the least. Training here will actually be easier than it is at home. What gets even more exciting is that behind all of this are trails for running and biking and lord knows what. I mentioned to the woman at the front desk about maybe shipping a bike to keep with me at the hotel and she thought it was a great idea and told me she would find me some longer trails too and we could work out the shuttle getting me there. It was just plain awesome. So training front, for all my worries, has ironed out most beautifully.

I spent Tuesday night settling into my new home away from home. I put things in drawers and closets knowing I was going to really be there for a while and just started sort of "moving in." I spent that night doing Bree's routine of stretching and strengthening my legs, did some core work, and then crashed really early. I was up at 5 to do some stretching and then laps at 6am. I got to the pool and found it was damn near empty. I had so much space to myself I didn't quite know what to do. I had planned on swimming alot. My goal was about 2500 yards according to my schedule, but lord help me, once I started swimming, I was slow. In the end I only got about 1550 of those yards in before I knew I had to get moving to get ready for work. As I was heading out, I started talking to one of the women there and found out the pool actually opens at 5:30, not 6, so I think beginning next week I will just head there earlier and get more time.

That evening we had a work event to welcome all the new people, so I went bowling with all my new coworkers. It was a lot of fun. But it killed my training for the evening. I got home though and went to bed with the thoughts of more pool time, but when I got up at 5am I noticed my IT bands and knees were a little extra sore and extra poppy, so I decided to do some stretching instead. I spent my morning training hour and a half just working Miss Bree's routine again and again. And come time for work, I felt good. I am really glad I did that because if I had to sit on a plane last night with my legs already a little sore, it was going to be worse today. So today I feel great.

Next week will be my first regular week of Monday through Thursday, which will be good, not because I want to be away that long, but because I want to settle in to the real routine and not feel like I am there for such a short period of time. I am going to go grocery shopping for the few odds and ends I need (like full bottles of shampoo and real coffee), get a toaster oven for my room so I can start to do some of the meal options I have been investigating, and then just really get into the plan again now that all my stuff is there. So yeah, I am psyched.

Ok, so plan for this week. Today I need to get some biking miles in, so I am likely to do that soon... in the godawful heat, unfortuantely. I will also be doing some running tomorrow, which I am excited about.

I still have to update you all on a bike fitting I had done. Yep, its done. But this post is already long, so I am going to try to fit it in this weekend and tell you all how wonderfully that went. But for now, I am going to sign off and promise it for you later.

Happy Friday, all.

Phew.

2007-05-25T11:22:00.000-04:00

Ok, ok, I know, its been several days since I posted. I have a feeling that is going to become the usual MO around here... probably a Friday post to catch you up on the week and go from there. So let's see...

This week was my first week of full time on the road. It was actually a short week because I was only gone from Tuesday morning to Thursday night, and its going to be the same for next week because of the holiday. After that we settle into a usual Monday through Thursday gig. So this was the start of my new project that will likely run me about a year, but as things in consulting worlds go, you never know.

The good thing is that beginning next week, I will have a permanant hotel room that I can leave things at over weekends and all. In essence it becomes like a little apartment, complete with a little kitchen and all. The place I was in this week was actually the same deal, just not the right location yet. So I have myself a permanant room with a kitchen. The new digs are also attached to Edinborough Park which has quite a few nice fitness facilities. So I will be able to use the pool for laps, the track, treadmill and elliptical for running and some of the trails around town too. There may also be an option for me to ship my hybrid bike there too. So things are starting to come together for how I can train. Thank god.

This week was a good introduction. I got the lay of the land for a few things... how easily am I going to be able to keep my nutrition consistent and my training regimented. So here's what I found. The office building I am working out of has some astounding options for food. The choices are nothing short of astronomical. But my favorite is the very diverse salad bar, which includes all sorts of fun things. The hotel chain has breakfast which includes plain oatmeal, yogurt and fruit. Awesome. Hotel also has options where they can do the grocery shopping for you, so I can make sure I have decent food options for dinner. Plus, god love her, Mom dug up a whole bunch of options for pre-prepared meal companies that are a lot better than frozen dinner kinda things, so I can get several meals prepared ahead of time, ordered and put into my freezer. Food was going to be tough as it always has been when I travel. Typically you are tied to what is in your office or nearby and dinner is this always having to eat out of restaurants. I always put on weight when I travel. If I am going to do this for a year, thats not an option. So food was going to be a challenge. I was thrilled to see I had ways that I can actually eat as well as I do at home.

Next challenge... with my new project, will I be able to have the time to train? Can I set up a schedule to work? So though I was not in the same hotel for this past week, I had a small workout facility and a small pool. Ok. I flew in Tuesday am and spent Tuesday PM on the treadmill. I am not much for running on a treadmill, but the location of this one hotel isn't as great for running outside. Besides, I really need to be careful right now to pull myself back together and get over the injury. So down I went to the treadmill. It was good, it was a good run-- only half an hour, which I followed with some strength training with the free weights that were there. I went back up to my room and broke out my travel kit of exercise gear. I've been perfecting what this set up will be, so this was my trial run of whether I could do both my PT and core work on the road.

So here's the current list of what I fit into my luggage, and will actually now be able to leave in my room (though it is good to know I can fit it into my bag along with my 3 days of work clothes and all):

stability ball and pump
Quadballer
Valslides
Theraband
Swim cords
5lb ankle weight
Yogitoes
Yoga belt
Garmin & HR strap

The rest is just stuff like shoes, swimsuit/cap/goggles, etc. I was pleased that all those things are nice and small and able to fit in my bag but still give me lots of options. The quadballer lets me keep up my rolling routine I would do with my foam roller. The theraband lets me do alot of Bree's routines, especially when I use the 5lb ankleweight held out in front of me. I use it like a medicine ball with a lot of her workouts and its great. Plus I need it for some leg lifts she had me doing too. The yogitoes mat lets me do some yoga and stretching. The swim cords let me do some resistance work and can help me out in the smaller pool. The valslides help with core work, balance and some of the stability training I need. Awesome. So after I ran and did some strength training, I came upstairs and worked my way through Bree's routine and then got myself some dinner and stretched and rolled afterwards before going to bed at a reasonable hour.

I was up at 5:30am the next morning and got myself down to the pool for some laps at 6. The pool was tiny... about 10 yards long, so I was getting a little nutty trying to do a lot of straight laps because I was turning alot. I did a little more practice on my flip turns, which will be good if I can do that once I am in the larger pool, so that was good. I also worked out a few kicking drills and then hooked myself up to the aforementioned swim cords too. Overall it wasn't the best swim I have done, but it helped me start to establish routine and gave me a sense of needing to come up with some drill work to mix it up.

That evening after work, I was back in the fitness center, this time on the elliptical and then the strength training. And after all that, back to my room to do more core work and all that. The usual. Thursday morning again I was up early and working on some strength training on my legs.

So here's what I learned. I have a really awesome set up to make this work. My project timeline is very aggressive, to say the very least, but I think timewise I should still be able to make room for training. Now all I need to figure out is how to take the plan and adapt it... when do I do what I need to do, and what can I do to mix it up a little. Beginning next week I will figure out if I have an option to really ship my bike and if that would be time well spent in the end. It might not be afterall... I will have to gauge as I go. I was pleased to see that it was actually easier for me to be more disciplined on the road than at home since I don't have my fuzzy warm bed and kitty and girlfriend there making me not want to get up.

Round 1 of the "take the show on the road" campaign seems to have gone quite well. This week and next should be working out the rest of the details, so the routine emergeth.

This weekend I am going to be getting in a nice long outdoor bike and probably a run too. I am not too worried about struggling to get laps in at the Y anymore since lap swimming will hopefully be the easiest part of being on the road. So, overall I am pleased. I think it will start to come together quite nicely.

Anyhoo... work is calling. I told you its busy around here! More soon, I promise.

100 Things About Me

2007-05-18T08:50:00.000-04:00

I've found I have a lot of new readers lately. And I've seen a lot of my fellow bloggers offer up something called 100 Things About Me, which is a fun way to get to know some of the bloggers I follow, so I thought, what the heck, I'd do the same. So with no further ado...

100 Things About Me.

1. Before I started this crazy life I smoked. Alot. For a long time.

2. When I was 7 I was bitten by a watch dog. Because I was petting it.

3. I have a scar from it still.

4. I have another scar on my thumb from when I almost sawed the tip of it off on a
bandsaw.

5. I don't like bandsaws.

6. I played the drums for many years. People tell me I had talent in it.

7. I was a lighting and sound technician in college. I got to work fun concerts and meet some quasi-famous people.

8. I worked at a horse barn. Throwing bales of hay from a hay loft into a tractor builds nice arm muscles.

9. I have a cat named Catastrophe. In her 13 years she has lived up to her name every.single.day.

10. My family is my world. I got blessed with a really good one.

11. I have a brother and a sister and I am the middle child.

12. My sister and I had matching strawberry bikinis when I was 4. My father bought them. That was the last time we ever wore the same thing. Ever.

13. I used to have a Raggedy Ann and Andy Talking Alarm clock. I am convinced it made me way too chipper in the mornings.

14. It used to shout "Andy, Andy, please get up. ..It's time to call our friends. ..Ok, Ann, I'm awake, let's shout it once again. ..We were sent to wake you,so here we are to say, Please get up, brush your teeth and start your Happy Day." I rest my case.

15. I moved to NY from Boston the year the Red Sox won the World Series.

16. More importantly, that was year we beat the Yankees.

17. I was in both cities for all of the games.

18. It was unintentional, but I consider myself a good luck charm because of it.

19. I came out as gay when I was 18. I had always known but didn't want to admit it.

20. My Father stole my coming out thunder when we were arguing one day in the kitchen and he said "Is this because you're gay? I don't care and I love you anyway!"

21. I've never loved him more.

22. I keep a list of all the places I want to visit on my PDA. First on the list is Bhutan and Tibet.

23. In college I couldn't decide what to major in-- too many things were interesting. One day the comptroller called me to remind me I should have already declared a major and I had the pre-reqs done for 5 possible paths. I created an interdisciplinary major on my own from there. I'm non-committal that way.

24. The subjects were Geography, Womens Studies, Religion, Politics and Philosophy. We rolled it up into Environmental Studies.

25. I started a Thesis on the Roles of Women in Agriculture in South Asia, as influenced by Colonialism and the Green Revolution. I had to drop it when my advisor took an unplanned leave of absence.

26. I taught myself how to speak Sinhala. I can speak almost none of it now.

27. My Mother was a French teacher when I was little. I remember my brother, sister and I sitting in my sister's bed (with the white wicker headboard and yellow sheets) and listening to Mom read us Little Red Riding Hood in French. I sat closest to Mom cause I'd get scared.

28. Said aforementioned Mother would sleep with me in my bed during hot summer nights when the mosquitoes had snuck in the holes in my window screens. She used to tell me not to worry, the mosquitoes would bite her because she is sweeter. Years later when recalling that story I realized how funny it was.

29. My Mom is the first person I call when things go right and the first person I call when things go wrong. She's my rock.

30. Mom is the reason I started my blog. I kept sending her emails with how my running was progressing. It grew from there.

31. For Christmas she gave me a bound, printed copy of this blog. It weights about 12 pounds.

32. I like to serenade people with Frank Sinatra songs. And sometimes Islands in the Stream.

33. I have the worlds craziest collection of music.

34. Musical transitions with me go from Irish Folk songs to Korn to the Backstreet Boys.

35. Most people are amazed at how many songs I can sing along to.

36. I am almost always singing, mostly in my head, but every now and again, it leaks out in public.

37. I got busted singing and dancing to Heat Wave by Martha and the Vandellas at a bus stop on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn. Well, it was hot out!

38. I worked for years overnights in a battered women's shelter. It was the hardest and yet the most amazing experience of my life. I will always be affected by the women I met and the strength I saw in them.

39. I have been known to sleep walk. The first time I remember doing it I was at the shelter and I woke up on a completely different floor than I had gone to sleep on.

40. Sleepwalking with me is often productive. I sorted my laundry and dusted my apartment once.

41. I met my girlfriend (aka Gear Bitch) when I saw her picture online and I sent her an email telling her that it would be criminal for me not to tell her she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. We've been together ever since.

42. I'm super corny.

43. She replied that she liked hot triathletes.

44. I started running a lot more after that.

45. I don't eat land animals.

46. I sometimes wear a Tibetan Mala around my wrist to remind me to be mindful.

47. I also keep the word "Believe" written on the underside of the visor of my running hat.

48. When I am struggling with a run, I look up and remind myself I have gotten through worse than a run.

49. If I could meet anyone living, it would be Etta James.

50. She sings my favorite song, Plum Nuts.

51. My senior year of college, I talked to a Buddhist nun about joining their order. She rejected me. Talk about humbling.

52. She rejected me because she knew I was just running away from life instead of living it.

53. She was right. I haven't run since.

54. Until just about 2 years ago, I hadn't ever done anything remotely athletic.

55. Pee wee soccer didn't count since I was always playing Defense and not moving.

56. They now hold a triathlon in my hometown and in the lake where I took swimming lessons when I was kneehigh to a grasshopper. I plan on doing it next year. It didn't fit with the half ironman this year.

57. My 4th grade boyfriend lived just around the corner from that lake.

58. I still email with him periodically. He occasionally reads this blog too.

59. The next time I meet Debbie Harry, I am asking her to dance. She left too early the last time.

60. I have two tattoos and I am almost done designing my third.

61. I live my life in a quest for perfect moments in time.

62. My last one was while sitting in a cab after climbing off a plane from Madrid on Valentine's Day after almost 3 weeks of not getting to spend any time with Marisa and being one of maybe a dozen planes allowed to land in the piling snow. Brooklyn, and New York City in general, is beautiful in the snow.

63. I have a love affair going with New York City. I will never tire of this place. It is magical to me.

64. My mother grew up here and used to tell us stories about it when we were kids.

65. My most cherished memory is of sitting in the tub when I was 3 and having my Mother make the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building in my hair with shampoo.

66. I have an official entry to the 2007 New York City Marathon. So does Joan Rivers.

67. I am terrified I might not be able to run it because of my knee.

68. It bothers me a lot more than I let on.

69. I still like to pretend I am a superhero. Especially when I put on my wetsuit.

70. Sometimes I put on the wetsuit just for fun. I tell myself I am practicing getting it on and off, but I know better.

71. If I were a superhero, I'd want to be able to turn invisible.

72. I don't like broccoli because it makes me feel like a dinosaur eating a tree. Same with asparagus. Taste-wise its fine. It's just the dinosaur complex it gives me.

73. My younger brother used to call me Brontosaurus Breath as a kid. It bothered me alot.

74. He's made up for it in more ways than I can count.

75. My older sister lives in San Francisco and I don't get to see her as much as I wish I could. She's a punk that way.

76. My father told me I was named for Priscilla Presley. I don't buy it.

77. I still have the teddy bear I was given when I was born. His name is Jingle Ear.

78. I also have just about every card anyone has ever given me. Even my exes.

79. One of these days, I'll have to get rid of a lot of them. I'll start with the exes first.

80. I have an Atari 2600. I like to play Frogger on it. I am still on the hunt for the original Donkey Kong.

81. My first computer at home was a Digital VT180 (aka "Robin") dumb terminal with green screen. We got it when I was 10. It used a proprietary language called Select with a Select prompt instead of a DOS prompt.

82. I've been computer obsessed ever since.

83. I work in data security now.

84. Now I have 4 active computers and 3 sitting on a shelf. I also have 4 generations of PDAs. I've taken most of all of them apart at one point or another.

85. I have an herb garden in my little apartment. I am also growing indoor tomatoes and have a lime tree. It's a jungle in here.

86. I also have a plant that was given to my mother when one of the 3 of us was born. Either way, the plant is probably older than me.

87. I cry every time I watch the movies Bambi, ET and Step Mom.

88. My best friend Kelly-bee won't let me watch Step Mom anymore.

89. Kelly-bee is the thing I miss the most about Boston. But we've decided to retire together.

90. I flipped over my handlebars on my 10-speed once, while on the Cape Cod Rail Trail. A guy named Richard Cheney patched my bloody knee up with a wash cloth. He is not the current Vice President, but I'd have voted for him for sure.

91. I had to bike 10 miles back with my bloody knee.

92. I had a cabbage patch kid named Louis Ben.

93. He was a Canadian immigrant.

94. I had a dog named Dusty. I still have a clump of his fur that my brother sent me when I went off to college. I miss Dusty alot.

95. I also miss my Nana Kelly. She was technically my great aunt, but she stepped in as my grandmother before I was born, since my grandmother had passed away.

96. If I could visit with anyone dead it would be her. I miss her alot.

97. She watches over me. I can feel her all the time.

98. She called me "You rotten kid" and laughed devilishly when she said it.

99. I lived up to that nickname more times than I should admit to.

100. This list took me a lot less time than I might have expected. Who knew.

I Got Me A Project

2007-05-16T08:39:00.000-04:00

And its going to be a long one. One year long. Possibly more, who knows. I can't tell you much about it online, but suffice it to say it is nothing short of a dream come true. And like my brother told me yesterday, being picked for this project is a little like being the first round draft pick. And he's right.

So that being said, beginning next week, I will be spending way too much time in Minneapolis. And by way to much I mean Monday through Thursday. Technically, I will be spending more time in Minnesota than I will in New York. Its a little weird to think of it that way, given my utter love affair with my city, but like I said, this opportunity is nothing short of a dream come true. So off I go.

There is some comfort in knowing I will probably never have to pay for a vacation again, what with 104 flights a year or so, never mind all the hotel and credit card points. But as of Monday, life takes on a very different twist. And at that point, it really will test my committment to whether I want to be a triathlete or not. Thus far it has been easy to balance, but lord help me, this is taking it to an extreme. I am truly hoping I can navigate my way through it all and keep going, but time will tell and there is a part of me that is just ready to see how this all shakes out. 'Nuff said.

Ok, since last I wrote, I promised you a run and some biking. I have done both, along with some more work on restrengthening my legs post Physical Therapy. Overall I would say the run went ok. It had some good and some bad. The good was that my legs felt ok. My knee didn't hurt, which was good-- that was my biggest concern. But I made a point of keeping the mileage low. Mostly I needed to be out there to keep myself used to pavement and to just start to break out of my own head about this. I needed a run win, so that was really my goal. Don't hurt and feel like you can get back into this. In that regard I accomplished both. I wound up running 3.5 miles at a 10:48 pace. I am still so much slower than I used to be, but lemme tell you, right now its not about speed anymore. Right now its about doing it right. And not losing anything more. The first part of the run was awesome. I felt a little reborn, honestly. The second part got hard, and mentally I struggled alot. For one it was ungodly humid for the first time this season, for two, I was way underhydrated and I knew it. The combination made me feel a little like... SpongeBob in air. It was hard for me to just keep mentally checked into the run, but I did somehow and finished the 3.5 miles with my legs feeling pretty ok. I stretched a lot afterwards and was good to go.

Lately, a lot of my focus has been on the bike. I've been doing back to back long days in the saddle just to get used to it. I am also trying to iron out what is causing my knee problem, to be honest. When I ride I can feel my quads alot. I am playing around with when and how I feel them. I am discovering that the longer the ride and the longer I am in aero, the more it hurts, which is completely counter-productive to being in aero position. I haven't ever spent 2 hours solid in aero before, so this problem may have existed long before now, its tough to say. But suffice it to say I need a bike fit. And I keep trying to pin Jon down to do it, but his schedule has become increasingly difficult. I am thinking I might have to find someone else to do it, which sucks. I really need a tri fitter and he is someone I trust alot. So I am really hoping we can work it out soon.

Tonight I am swimming, and depending on how my day goes, I may be wedging in a run today, or more likely tomorrow morning, so keep your fingers crossed that goes well. And lastly I am making final preps for my travel training kit, final preps for my training plan and setting up actual stretching routines that I am having Marisa review for me and go over with me. She's been spending the last several months immersed in anatomy and biomechanics, both for her school work as well as for the progression of her yoga practice. Its helpful to be her guinea pig in some ways. Working out the stretching kinks is just one of them. So hopefully by weeks end I should be good to go with formally taking the show on the road. Blogging should get interesting then.

Anyhoo, thats what I got. Happy Wednesday, all.

Got Some Changes Over Here

2007-05-11T10:41:00.000-04:00

I thought it would be nice to change it up a little over here. Call it a spring cleaning. Call it dusting off the old digs. Call it jazzing it up. But we needed a new look.

I had some fun yesterday with creating myself as a South Park character. I got the idea thanks to Wrenching Winz and his blog. It's kind of fun to try and make your own self in South Park. So I thought it was time for a new header. Hope you like it. It made me laugh. Alot. Actually, it still does. I liked the water droplets on my face from swimming, though it might be a little degraded to see it well. But either way, its funny. Hahaha. Anyhoo.

I told you on Wednesday I had a bike ride and a stint on the elliptical to pull off. I did both, yea! hooray! Its very strange for me to run on the elliptical. I don't like it. I want to be out on the ground running. But at the same time, I am not doing nearly enough to fix my knee. I don't know why I can't seem to just get into the habit of doing Bree's exercises to strengthen my knees again. I feel like my structure from last year has just not come back from the injury. And while I am managing to keep up with my training, its just not as regimented and structured and driven as before. I need to reprioritize the re-strengthening of my knee and just get that built into the program. I think in some ways it will be easier on the road, scarily enough, because I can just make it part of my hotel morning routine. Fine, cool, all good. But for now its difficult. I feel like I have so many balls up in the air right now that its difficult to manage. Today is my last day with my current job. The job I have done for 8+ years. Monday I have no idea what I am doing. Literally. No client site yet, unless someone tells me something different before 5pm today and I have to scramble to book a flight and hotel and all. As of Monday I am sitting "on the bench" waiting to be called into the game, and trying to determine how I am expected to spend my time. I won't have a supervisor until I am on a project, so I am sort of thrown to the wolves to figure it out, which is... challenging, to say the least. I'll probably wind up buried in training, but my access hasn't been formally realigned yet either, so I can't do that. So this is all just a brain dump way of saying 'OHMYGOD for the last several months, life has felt like nothing short of chaos. And out of that chaos I haven't been able to establish routine.' And for Virgo me, that sucks.

Today I am supposed to run for 75 minutes and swim for 45. Wowzers. I may try and do an actual outdoor run, believe it or not, but it won't be 75 mins, for sure. But I want to do some stretching and then head out and see how it feels. I need one day a week on pavement to keep from feeling insane, I think. So wish me luck that it goes moderately ok.

Ok, so there is my Friday update. I'm still really in limbo over here on a few things, so maybe the run will help me iron some of the panic out. Happy Friday and Happy Weekend all!

The Latest

2007-05-09T09:48:00.000-04:00

I know, my titles are getting so much more snappy, aren't they?

This may be a quick post. Let's see. This cold/bronchitis thing is still hanging on for dear life. I can't quite seem to shake it and now it may have drifted over into the allergy side of things. Either way, I am congested alot and have had to dose up on some meds that sometimes make me a little loopy or just outright comatose. Somewhere in the middle of that I have managed to get in a few rides on my bike (mostly indoors to have kleenex readily available) and some swims. Both have been overall pretty good, which I am really excited about because I have been afraid that this cold has kept me away from training long enough that I would have lost some of my fitness. Indeed last night in the pool, I posted my second fastest 100 yet, in what wound up being a 1900 yard swim. I was aiming for 2400 yards, but it had to get cut short because of the damn cut off in the pool hours. While I had my second fastest 100 time (I swam a 2:01), and my first fastest was just before getting bronchitis when I pulled a 1:58, overall my swim yesterday wasn't as good. It wasn't that I was struggling because of the cold... or maybe it was, who knows. I just know I had some real challenges breathing correctly. A lot of strokes on my pivot and my turn for breath, I would catch a face full of water for one reason or the other (some outside my control, like passing swimmers), so I seemed to lose breaths a few times, which just made my stroke go to hell. I really need to get better at elongating my breath and trying to breathe every 4 strokes or so, which should help this. But when I try to do this, I clearly have a hard time with it, so I don't do it for long. I think I just need to practice it more and more and more. So overall I would say I was pleased with the swim, but it wasn't my best overall. But at least I am starting to see some very clear improvement.

I also managed to get in a 2 hour long stint on the trainer. It was good, overall. I can definitely feel my right quad getting tight which may be what is causing my right knee to act up. I am also trying to reschedule the bike fitting that I need to make sure thats not the source of anything. So again, overall, I think the ride was good. I was worried that I had lost some fitness since I hadn't been able to ride much over the course of being sick, and knowing I had a 2 hour ride scheduled on my training plan, I knew I had better take it slow and steady. In that regard I did well. Slowly increasing my time in the saddle should be fun (ouch).

Tonight I am planning on doing a run on the elliptical and getting in some biking too. Again, the plan is to ease my way into it for the next few days and keep the RPEs low even if my duration is long. So I am sticking to the plan for time if not for RPE and drill. One more week and I should be good to go physically. I am waiting to find out if next week for me is on my first project site or not. Its still a little in the air, which is ok, I guess. I am learning to be very chill about it all, which is a new role for hyper-analytic virgo type A me. But so far so good.

Ok, happy Wednesday. More to post soon.

Well That Knocked Me Back A Little

2007-05-04T09:39:00.000-04:00

To say I got sick was an understatement. I got my ass kicked by that cold that turned bronchitis. Lord help me, I hope I never get that again.

For a week and a half training literally ground to a halt. When I realized I couldn't breathe deeply anymore, I knew training was out. Shallow breathing doesn't work well in the pool, you know? I wound up getting a chest x-ray to make sure it was only bronchitis, so I guess I was lucky that came up clean. But wow that just knocked me on my keister to say the least. Last weekend Marisa took me to my first restorative yoga class to help me get back into things. Restorative yoga is meant to be a very gentle form of yoga. It is meant to fully support your body in a way that allows you to release muscles you otherwise would keep tensed just in day to day life. Its a little like waking sleep, where you body just gets this profound amount of rest and every inch of you is supported in one way or another. It was so relaxing a few people actually fell asleep in the class. I had just managed to finish my antibiotic treatment but was still struggling to breathe deeply without my cough and slight wheeze kicking back in, so this really was a perfect fit. I got to release a lot of the tension my body had been holding and get some great stretch out of it while really just giving my muscles the time off. I didn't know what to expect nor how much I would enjoy it, but it was really rather excellent. It kicked off my healing just right.

No sooner was I back to feeling moderately recovered than I had to hop on a plane to Kansas City. Though I was feeling better, I was far from 100%, but you do what you gotta do, right? I was going to KC to transition my biggest project over to the folks who will be managing it after my departure, so I really needed to be there. I had also hoped this trip would be my trial period to see how well I would do training on the road. I even managed to get a hotel with a pool and a fitness center. When I checked on the address of the hotel a few days prior to departing I found that both the fitness center and pool would be closed while I was there so that they could do some repair work. Dang it. Instead I brought some of my gear to try some regular old yoga on the road and work through my core and stretching routines. I packed up some stuff to see how it would do and off I went. The trip was good and I was able to do a lot of the stuff I had planned for, so that made me feel much better. Its a little weird doing yoga alone, but I am hoping it will grow on me. I opted to follow an audio yoga routine that one of Marisa's mentors put out, and that was good, but a little too new agey for me. Marisa agreed to perhaps record some of her own yoga routines for me while I travel, so hopefully we will be able to get that going and I can have all sorts of fun yoga on the go!

I got back late late late Wednesday night, so last night I decided since I can now breathe again that I would head back out to the pool. I hate the pool on Wednesday and Thursday nights. The lap swim is only 1 hour and for some reason the swim instructors at the Y cannot seem to respect that this is an adult lap swim and not a teen swim class time. So you always wind up sharing the lane with teens who are swimming much faster than you (to their credit they are all stunningly good swimmers) and with a certain amount of entitlement and attitude about the adults slowing them down. Many of the regulars complain about it but it clearly falls on deaf ears. So the swim times are limited for the adults to 30 minutes since the kids occupy half the spots, which really sucks. And the whole time I have 2 kids racing behind me constantly hitting my feet as I go along to force me to go faster. Truth is, however, I consider it a decent supplement to my training as one of the hardest things to get over in open water swims is the constant presence of other swimmers knocking into you and jostling you about. If you give in to that panic you wind up swimming at a heartrate that isn't good for the longer distances, so its all about learning to be calm and collected around the unwashed masses. Tap my feet all you want, I know my pace and where it is supposed to be and I just keep going. It becomes something that I learn to tune out. It doesn't rattle me, annoy me, nothing. It's practice. And it's kind of amusing how the kids can't quite understand that I am unphased by it. For that reason alone its sort of fun.

In the end I only got to swim 1500 yards. My goal was 2400 according to my plan, but the time limit didn't make that work out so well. I will say, however, that though my time was slower than the last time I swam, I really felt like I could have gone on for hours. My swimming may not have gotten a lot faster just yet, but I have a confidence in the distance and I have the ability to swim in a way that doesn't leave me feeling taxed and exhausted. That's really the number 1 goal in triathlon... swim the distance and minimize the impact that has on the other 2 sports to follow it. I am pretty excited with what feels like some dramatic progress in my swimming and I just hope that I can keep it up... if only I can find hotels with pools.

Work lately is crazy. I am currently getting welcomed like crazy to the new role while trying to finish up and hand off the old one... something I have done for nearly 9 years. I am awash right now in all these crazy emotions, not the very least of which is a lot of fear that I have gotten in way over my head. As I review all the CVs of all the people who are supposed to be mentoring me or helping me in my career from here on out, I am astounded at just how profound their levels of experience and knowledge really are. On the one hand it is so exciting in terms of its possibilities, but on the other it gets really overwhelming. Add to it the transition is complete one week from Monday and I have no idea what I will be doing as of that day. Life contains a lot of big question marks right now and all I can do is go with that flow.

This weekend I have a long ride on tap as well as some time on the elliptical-- my knee is still feeling a wee problematic and I am determined to fix this problem instead of making it worse (how's that for a plan??) So I am slowly getting back into the swing, but I seem to be saying that alot, don't I? Never a dull moment over here. Anyway, that's the update. Next week I am in town and hopefully training normally so blog entries should be fairly consistent. Fingers crossed. Anyhoo, have a good weekend, folks.

Damn It

2007-04-23T11:56:00.000-04:00

I had the swim of my life and now this?

I am out with what appears to be bronchitis. I've never had bronchitis before, so the doctor will have to confirm the prognosis this afternoon, but for now I feel like my lungs are made of rice krispies.

And I hurt.

So, nothing to report to you today. I am climbing back into bed and waiting for this to get better. Meh.

Now I Swam The Time of My Life....

2007-04-19T08:40:00.000-04:00

If you know me, you know I am singing that. I tend to make up my own lyrics to songs to fit my mood. And last night I came home singing about the swim of my life.

Yesterday was race pace swimming. I was supposed to do a warm-up 250 (which I made into a 300 since I am dealing with a 20 yrd pool), followed by a 2x400 main set with alternating RPEs of 3 and then 5, followed by a cool down of 200 yards. It was a short swim... only 1300 yards, but the key was to do it at race pace.

Honestly, I don't know if I have a race pace. I feel like I swim one basic speed and alternating that really doesn't work. When I try to go faster I kill my form and wind up moving about the same speed for a lot more effort. When I try to swim slow and keep my stroke clean I wind up moving well (or well for me) and that is that. One speed. Every time. It's weird. On average it takes me about 2:10-2:17 to swim 100 yards. (yes yes, swimmers, I am that slow.) It doesn't vary all that much. So when I made it to the pool last night and started just on my warm up set, imagine my surprise when my first 100 took me 1:58. I had never seen so low a time that I had to stop and count and make sure I didn't miss a length. I hadn't. Wow. The night just kept going like that. I only hit a 2:17 once... my last cool down lap. All but 3 of the 100s were under 2:10. I was beginning to slow, but I actually felt for the first time like I was going at a conceptual race pace. And that I was beginning to get better. And faster. And it made me hugely excited. Yea!

So I know what you are most interested in hearing, however. You want to know how my doctors appointment went. Yeah, back to the sports doc and she was able to hear the popping in my right knee most predominantly, but also in a little in my left. Her prognosis... its still my IT Band and having muscles too tight. Running is beginning to retighten them apparently. So the course of action is for me to return once again to physical therapy. This gets ever more complicated by the blur of when I will be in town, but once things stabilize I should be here for Fridays, so I might try and wedge in on Bree's Friday morning schedule. In the meantime, I am told I do not have to stop running, but I ought to consider changing my focus to my cross training sports and try to reduce the amount of running I am doing. OK. So its been about a week or so since I ran and I may be trying today just to feel how it goes. My plan will shift to one outdoor run a week and 2 indoor runs for now. And that is going to have to be really fluid as I figure this all out.

When I got home from the docs office and finished work, I had a bike session on the schedule, so I hopped up and did my 1 hour bike. And while I am riding I am very aware of how my right quad is really tight and my right knee is starting to hurt. Hmm. Could part of the problem be biking too?? I have known that clip in pedals can increase knee pain sometimes depending on the amount of "float" a cleat and pedal offer. Float is the degree that your foot can pivot within the pedal before you pop out of the pedal altogether. If you have knee problems, oftentimes more float helps because it doesn't rigidly hold your leg into a position that may be torquing it. But it also comes down to how the cleat is positioned on your shoe and how your body is positioned on the bike. Its why bike fittings are so key to triathlon. You are demanding a lot from your body and you need it to be as mindful of utilizing muscles in a way that will not tax you later for the run. It's part of why triathletes bikes tend to have that much shorter top tube so the bike doesn't have the same length. The shorter the tube and the more you are in that aero position the more of the force you are generating from the parts of your legs you don't engage in the run. You want to use those muscles so you can save your run muscles for later. So fit is key. I had my fit done when I first got the bike and I had the fit done as a road bike... not a tri bike. I had it done before the aerobars. I had it done before I was really comfortable in stretching out over it. And I had it done by a road cyclist fitter, not a tri fitter. And over that year my body has changed, my bike set up has changed, and those cleats have probably loosened. I needed to reconsider the fit.

I sent an email over to Jon who taught my cycling class and it turns out, as I had suspected, that he also does bike fittings for triathletes. I managed to get on his schedule for this weekend, so we will be spending a good 2 hours looking at every aspect of my fitting and making sure I am set up properly. I don't want to be out there exacerbating something, you know? So hopefully that will yield some results too.

So my last comment for the day. One of the things I have been mulling over in my thoughts about life on the road has been nutrition. I track my nutrition constantly. I am very aware of what goes into my body these days because I need it to do alot and fueling right really makes a difference. So the idea of eating on the road poses a lot of challenges. Its tough to eat healthy when you are in a hotel, for breakfast, lunch and dinner. When you live on the road, life becomes about convenience foods. And that's not always good for you. So in my quest to figure out how I can best manage my nutrition on the road, I came across the following article:

How to Cook A Gourmet Meal in your Hotel Room.

I hope you will find it as amusing as I did. :)

Anyway, happy Thursday, all.

Sheesh

2007-04-17T09:06:00.000-04:00

It's as though the minute I opened my mouth that my transfer was going through, all the world got crazy. I have barely had time to think, much less deal with all this looming change. Perhaps that is for the best, right? Right??

Ok, let's see. I've been biking and swimming since last we spoke. No running. At all. I decided it was in my best interest to just wait a few days for the doc to check me out. That's going down this afternoon. I've been working on some yoga and some core work and all the other stuff, but no running. I never got a chance to write in here what was going through my head before the work announcement came up. I had a mental readjustment day the day before. I had been starting to feel a little frustrated and defeated by the ever present knee problems. And the truth is, I don't know if this is a show stopper again or not, but the slightest little hiccup starts to feel like it, you know? And somewhere along the way, the day before all the work stuff came up, I was shuttling loads of laundry back and forth and it dawned on me that I needed to buck up.

Perhaps what defines an athlete isn't the performance of the sport so much as the attitude about it-- the passion behind it. My injury took that passion away instead of igniting it. When I look back to my months in PT I realized I allowed that injury to defeat me. I stopped even trying to run, much less do anything else. I stopped being an athlete. And here I was finally getting the physical ability, and even bigger, the motivation back. Until I hit a stumbling block. So as I was hauling my laundry and starting to slip into that defeat again, it dawned on me that I really am a runner. Even if I can't run. I ran a half marathon last year after only running for some many months out of 33 years. Somehow I found a way to slowly condition myself to that for the very first time. And at that I ran it on a broken toe. What's to say I can't run this now? I am in far better conditioning for it now, even a little bit injured. Heck, I ran 6.2 miles at the tail end of my last tri with a severe case of ITBS. That isn't to say running injured is a smart thing... its totally not, but somehow I can find some strength and some resilience to get it done. And I just need to find that this time. Just a whole lot smarter.

So lets play worst case scenario. Let's say I go to the doctor this afternoon and she tells me no running for another several months. Fine. I train on an elliptical. I water run. I find a treadmill. I can do all of those things easy. And if it is not quite that bad I can still do alot of that to help recondition myself while still doing the occasional outdoor run to keep my legs and shins ready for the run. And I adjust my focus to the other 2 of the 3 sports... I bike my heart out. I swim my heart out. And I leave the run portion of my tri to something I just gut out or worst case walk. But I am doing this tri. People have overcome a lot worse. This time, however, I just have to play it smart.

So I gave myself the rallying cry. And it felt good. I felt like I was finally getting the joy of running back in the face of possibly being sidelined by it once again. This afternoon should tell where we go from here.

My head has also been awash with all the practicalities of how my training plan is going to work out with me being on the road Monday through Thursday. It's funny, but I don't think until I had to really break it down to this level did I realize just the challenges this could bring. My first pass at this was that I could run anywhere and even if this meant a treadmill or elliptical, most hotels have gyms with at least that and an exercise bike. Truth is though, so much of the bike training is getting used to body position and developing the muscles around that. Sitting on a recumbent exercise bike was going to be radically different than spending 4-5 hours in an aero setup. And who knows about the swimming. Finding a hotel with a pool may be easy, it may not. It might make swimming and potential water running even easier than it is now (I don't have a clue where I could water run)... its just one of those things that I will have to figure out as I go. If I wind up on a longer term project and get corporate housing I can ship one of my bikes with me, which is cool. If my projects are shorter, who knows. It's all a great big unknown. And even more entertaining is the idea that so much of training is nutrition. It's about fueling the training as much as it is about fueling the race... whether to try out how things work or just to give your body the strength and energy to keep going. And eating on the road is a universal challenge, isn't it? Even if you don't travel much, I am sure you can agree with me on that one. I will have to learn to deal with that too.

I have a feeling my blog is going to take an interesting transition with me over the next few months as I iron out triathlon training on the road. Tri training is hard enough as it is... its a scheduling art at the very least, and there doesn't seem to be a whole heck of a lot out there on how to do it well while living out of hotels. But I have somewhere around 2-3 weeks to iron it out in my head before I start to iron it out on the road. Thank god the motto for this year's triathlon endeavors is "remain flexible" in as many meanings as that phrase can invoke.

And oh yes, I will be doing yoga on the road. Maybe I will even get to attend a class in whatever crazy part of the world they drop me in next. Now how is that for broadening my practice?! :)

Ok, more tomorrow... including hopefully some info from the doctor. Happy Tuesday.

Now It Gets Interesting.

2007-04-12T08:57:00.000-04:00

Triathlon training, as I have learned over the past year, is a Type A personality sport. In order to keep up you have to be able to micromanage yourself, your schedule, your logs, your gear, all of it. It's a sport not only of endurance, but of planning as well. Perhaps that's why I like it.

Now it is about to be taken to a whole new level. I mentioned this to you all once before, but now it seems to be picking up some serious momentum, and lord knows what this is going to do to my training. I applied for an internal transfer within my company to a line of our business doing some really cool consulting work in the arena of network security. It has always been my dream to work in that line of business, but getting your foot in the door without an engineering degree can be tough. So without some of the key credentials, it was a bit of a long shot when I approached the guy who ran that organization and requested a meeting, but apparently I did pretty well pitching my case and yesterday afternoon I found out they were formally accepting my application for a transfer. What seemed like a stretch was going to finally come through. As exciting as that is, its a little terrifying.

What is terrifying about it is that it is a position that is 100% travel. I will be on a plane (which we all know is not my favorite place to be) every Monday through Thursday evening, working at client sites all around the US. I will be living out of hotels and airports. What this will mean to my training is so blurry right now. It will certainly make it a lot more challenging. It's easy to find a place to run... but to get in bike workouts that rely on developing comfort in an aero-position and the like... well, that's hard to do on a stationary bike in a hotel gym. And who knows about the swimming. Or the managing my nutrition. Or any of the rest of it. It's going to be a great big mystery, but one that I feel like I just have to jump into and work it all out. When I stop and think about spending the next several years of my life on planes each and every week... it gets just a wee bit overwhelming. So I am trying to suppress the Virgo side of me and just take it as it comes knowing I have been blessed with an opportunity that I have worked really hard for and was too good to pass up. Things unfold for a reason and this situation is a whole bunch of things unfolding in a way that makes it all possible.

So... here we go. Today begins the conversations about transition plans and the countdown until May 15th when life takes a very profound shift. The next several weeks will be spent with me trying to figure out how to take triathlon life on the road with me. Any suggestions from the athletic-minded travelers out there would be welcomed and encouraged.

And here we go.
*Gulp*

Uh Oh

2007-04-11T08:50:00.000-04:00

Training is humming along, I've found a groove, I'm doing well against my plan, it's all coming together. But perhaps not.

Last night after getting back from my run, my knee was a little sore. Nothing too bad. I iced and rolled and stretched and all that fun stuff I do now. But I noticed several hours later a slight clicking in my knee. I had Marisa check it out too and it was enough to make her look a little concerned. So this morning I am scheduling a visit with the sports doctor just to make sure its not something that will grind my training to a halt. I am hoping this is nothing more than a preemptive visit next Tuesday, but I don't know for certain. So keep your fingers crossed.

So let's catch you up with the other stuff. Monday, after I wrote my blog entry, I got really really nauseous. I don't know why, but a part of me thinks it was actually a profound amount of muscle sore from pilates. Either way it was the kind of feeling deep in my stomach that makes me think... hmm... a run today is probably not the best idea. So I decided to forego my Monday run and wait for the swim. Monday evening swim I missed because of work. Damn work. So Monday wound up being a wash, which really really sucks. I made up for it on Tuesday.

Tuesday I had jury duty again, so I got up and banged out a 60 minute ride on the trainer first thing. I felt half asleep and my time was a little slower to show for it, but that is ok because this was another small chain ring, low effort block on the schedule. It felt ok, but rides inside first thing in the morning are probably not my best effort. Maybe if I had been outside it would have been easier. Last evening after jury duty, I came back and did my 30 minute core circuit followed by a 30 minute run. Again, the run time was ok... RPE 3, knee a little wonky, and I was doing a 10:28 pace, which is still slower than it used to be, but I am also not used to running at a RPE 3, so right now I take what I can get. Overall I have been pleased that I have been able to run as much as I have been lately, so I really hope this knee popping sound is nothing.

As part of my core work, I have been trying to introduce a lot more stability and muscle response in my legs. I have been starting revisiting much of the work that Bree and I did together and incorporating her routine into my core program. I have retained a lot of the muscle balance she helped introduce, but I need to keep working on it to make sure I don't lose the work we did. So believe it or not, I am back to crab walks, bridges, lunges and all that fun stuff. Yea! I forgot just how hard Bree worked me.

Tonight I am up for a swim. Not as many yards this time, but I am beginning to introduce faster RPEs and focus more at developing some speed and race pace. The good thing is its not running. I do a long run of 60 minutes tomorrow, which hopefully will be fine and not any knee problems. It's my last run of the week, so I think I can handle it and then rest it alot.

So yeah, that's where we are right now. I am really hoping this isn't the start of another problem with my knee. I am really hoping this is something that is just a hiccup and something we can check out early. Lord knows I learned the hard way last time that I need to get things checked sooner rather than later. So stay tuned. And happy Wednesday.

I Am One TIRED Triathlete

2007-04-09T09:18:00.000-04:00

This ramp back up to full throttle training has me a little plum tuckered, to be honest. While I think this year I am training harder and smarter, its also leaving me a wee bit tired. *yawn*

Now mind you, I am doing pretty well with getting my 8-9 hours of sleep each night. And at that it is quality sleep, but I think my body is just tired from adjusting back into all of this volume again. Last year I didn't have base training and build training and all that, per se. I kinda winged it loosely following a plan, but not really. Now I have training periods to follow and peaks to aim for and all that good stuff so someone else is guiding the direction of the effort. Which is good, but lord help me its exhausting.

Friday I had to wedge in both a bike and a swim. Which meant that I had to swim laps at 8pm on Friday evening. Talk about a way to spend your Friday night, swimming laps at the pool. I had managed to wedge in the bike workout around mid-day on Friday. I had 45 minutes on my perch. First 15 minutes were easy spin in the small chain ring, followed by 15 minutes in the big ring, followed by another 15 minutes in the small ring. Deal was to minimize freewheeling-- to keep the tension on the pedals right at the effort level so I was never a little ahead of the gear, while still keeping the spin easy. And most of all, quiet hips. I actually seem to do this naturally well, which is cool-- I noticed a lot of people struggling with this in my cycling class, so I was pleased to have already worked that out in my body. I did pretty well with this workout, though I am ready to be outside now (it actually flurried while I was riding on the trainer). I felt pretty good, even when I slipped into the big ring and really had to step it up a notch. I was pleased.

Friday night at the pool. What a sacrifice here in NY. It would have been much more fun to go out with my friends, but no, here I am swimming. And you know what... the pool was empty-- I only had to split the lane for 30 of my 45 minutes with a woman I already knew and kept the same pace as me anyway. But just being able to divide the lane in half and not worry about circle swim was nice. And after her 30 minutes were up, the lane was all mine. It wound up being an awesome time for a swim-- I may actually have to consider making this a permanent fixture. Which sucks, but what can you do? Threes always Saturday night, right? So my swim workout ran like this:

warm up: 400 continuous
main: 3x400 at RPE 3, RPE 4, RPE 5
cool down: 150 easy

I wound up having to make the cool down 160 because of the length of the pool but that's ok. So my 400 warmup felt ok. I was nice and loose and just feeling overall a whole lot more confident in the water than I ever have. The 3x400s while incrementing the RPE were tough. I gave myself a minute between sets to relax before starting the next 400. And the cool down... wow. Yeah, I had worked myself up, that's for sure. So in the end I swam 1760 yards, or one mile to be exact. It felt good, but I was tired.

Saturday was supposed to be my "off" day on the schedule, but it was also my first pilates class ever. Ever since physical therapy, I have been a little intrigued by pilates as it affected a lot of the movement I did in PT. When a little studio opened 2 blocks from me and Marisa went and scoped it out, we decided now was the time. So off we went for a class of 4 people to a pilates class. Ok, for starters, there is this tower-y thing that is scary as all get out. It looks a little like a torture device. The woman who was teaching the class was nice as could be so pairing the image you get of her and this wall of torture was difficult to reconcile. The class runs an hour and we lie down on this mat and do these very subtle little movements that target all these super deep muscles that you never quite get at, and next thing you know it hurts alot. The tower gets used for things like putting your head between the parallel bars and putting your feet through springs on straps and keeping your legs at 90 degrees and then pushing down to like 45 degrees and back, all the while minimizing the extra movement... no jostling the spring... the movement should be controlled and steady. Oy. We do similar things while standing with our arms pulling a spring-attached bar in towards our hips while maintaining straight elbows and all. It's hard to describe. And sometimes we just use the "Magic Ring" to hold whole squeezing from different muscle groups (example: lying on your back, arms at 90 degrees, ring between your two flat palms over your chest, and you squeeze the ring from your underneath your shoulders, not your arms). Oy. One hour of this definitely left me a little wobbly to walk but it hasn't been until today that I really feel some of those deep muscles reminding me of the tower of torture. But since I think it will help me in the long run, I have decided to go back again. F-ing pilates.

Sunday was back to being a triathlete, starting with 11am yoga. I really think yoga and pilates are going to help me a lot this season with both strengthening and loosening my muscles. So Sunday yoga had a substitute teacher. I don't think she teaches basics classes a whole heck of a lot because the level of this class was anything but basic. The woman put us into positions like Plow Pose, Marichi III,
Boat Pose,
Warrior III, and lastly Eagle Pose. We spent so much time in sequences on one leg it was unreal-- even the best at balancing eventually fell out of some of the one-legged sequences. It was horrible. And what is worse is that I have gotten really good and knowing my limits, respecting my limits, and using props to support myself when I need it. But that has been Marisa's guidance more than anything. And most people don't have the luxury of that. So people pushed. Way.too.hard. It was horrible. I saw some things in that class that really makes me think that people will be sore today. Me thinks I will avoid that substitute in the future. Oy.

I finished up my weekend with a 90 minute ride on the trainer (more flurries outside, sadly). Again, the pacing was to be easy... the goal of the ride was just to begin to acclimate to the mental struggle of being on the bike for a long period of time. 90 minutes on the saddle can feel like an eternity sometimes... and I think even more when you are inside. I did well, again, but I am really ready to be outside to get my workouts feeling a little less mentally draining.

Today I have a 40 minute run to do and a 2500 yard swim to do (again, the 1.4 miles). I am exhausted just thinking about it again. So given my hip flexors are a little sore, I have to do some real stretching before I head out on the run. Meh. Ok, more tomorrow. Happy Monday.

Ok, Let's Catch Up

2007-04-06T11:59:00.000-04:00

Gosh its getting challenging with all the things with work to keep up the blog. It really is taking everything I have to stick to the plan. I am hoping it will get easier in time as my work is likely to shift pretty dramatically soon. Let's hope so, huh?

Ok, So last I posted was Tuesday bringing you up to the end of my first day of the new Tri plan. The run/swim day where the swim had gone pretty well. Tuesday was another run day and also a ride day on the trainer. Again the deal was to keep Rate of Perceived Exertion lowlowlow... so like a 2-3 on the scale of 1-10. I was very nervous about back-to-back run days given I am always feeling like I am working my way back from my injury and don't want to push too much too soon. I am never sure if I am holding myself back for a good reason or not. I won't know what I can do until I do it, but injury really does have a profound psychological affect on you. Or at least it does on me. I am also concerned about violating that 10% rule by adding more mileage too quickly. It's not really new mileage, in some ways... I have run more in a week before, and I am really keeping the RPE thing low, but it just rattles around in my head as something to keep an eye on. If nothing else, I am a lot more mindful about things now.

So my run on Tuesday was a 30 minute run at another RPE 2-3, so I decided to stick to the streets and explore the crap out of my neighborhood. I went down all sorts of streets that I have been on parts of before, but never the whole thing. So that wound up being a lot of fun. It was good. I enjoyed it. My time wound up being a 10:01/mile pace which is actually the fastest I have run post injury, but it definitely felt a comfortable RPE 3, so who knows. Tuesday evening I had to bang out 60 miles on the bike, again RPE 3, nice and chill, small chain ring. It went by fairly well, but lord help me I am ready to be off the trainer.

Wednesday, because of the conference, went to crap. Not good. I was supposed to do a swim workout, but I couldn't get there in time, so I have to make that up this weekend.

Thursday was a 60 minute run... the longest I have run since coming back from injury. Again, I get really cautious about this now. I stretch and roll every night now and before every run, but this first week really is a bump up for me and I know it will continue to bump up over time. So 60 minute run I did a combo as the park and some streets. RPE was start at 2, finish at 3. Again, I did well with it, my time was slower, but I ran 5.1 miles in 55 minutes which was good. My feet were really hurting yesterday though because of 2 days in dress shoes that really need some inserts. So my feet were stiff and sore, which didn't help. But overall, I would say it was a decent run. I am pleased.

So today I need to wedge in a 45 minute bike ride and a swim speed session. Tomorrow is supposed to be off, but I need to make up the day I missed, so I may do my Sunday bike ride on Saturday and wedge in the swim on Sunday. I also have my first pilates class on Saturday and yoga on Sunday. So its shaping up to be very busy this weekend on the training front.

I think thats all I have right now. I am feeling a little tired and like I could fall asleep at a moments notice. This week has definitely been a little sleep-deprived. Next week should be equally cracked out with jury duty... we will see how that pans out. So yeah... stay tuned for more updates as I get a few minutes to post em. Happy Friday and Happy Weekend, all.