For the Duration...

The miles are more or less in, I do still have a 21 miler, a 14 -16 and another 10, but the heavy lifting and most of the physical work is done.

This week, I've started doing a few things to get myself mentally prepared. This things are somewhere between sensible preparation and ritual superstition, but I think on race day they are going to give me some comfort that I prepared every way possible for this race.So for the duration of marathon training here's what I'm doing:

• No high heels. Heels. Love 'em. The higher the better. I'm an extremist with shoes. When I'm not in running shoes, I'm either wearing non-supportive flats or 3" - 4" heels.  High heels cause tightening in your calf muscles and put undue stress on your knees, toes and ankles, among other things (but they're so pretty...), so I'm trying to limit wearing them to 2-3 times a week max. The last week before the marathon, I'll probably wear running shoes all day unless I absolutely MUST wear other shoes.
• The 9:30 to 5 grind. That's 9:30pm to 5am. I have struggled in this last training cycle to get up and out on time. I'm fine rushing everywhere and being late, it only takes a sec to through on running clothes.  But now that I have a better understanding of fueling and am familiar with how much better I perform when properly fueled, it's disappointing to realize I stood in my own way of having a good run or race. Richmond has an 8:30am start, so I want to get comfortable with rising at 5am so I have plenty of time to eat, drink, use my hotel room bathroom, and still get in a long warm up and some port-o-potty breaks at the start line. I'm also trying to condition myself to be ready for bed by 9:30pm too because it's no good going to bed early on race eve if I can't fall asleep because I usually go to be at 11pm.  This is coming along well. I'm getting up between 5:30 and 6:30 and I think by next week, I'll be in a better groove and up at 5am. BTW, it's dark at 5:30! Daylight savings isn't til November 6!
• Lose the Booze.  I have never, NEVER given up alcohol in prep for a race. Everyone has a different philosophy on this and mine has always been to do as I normally do. I know that I can't drink a whole bottle of wine the night before a run or race and expect good results, but I don't restrict for the sake of restricting. But this time I am. I'm cutting back to one drink a night max* just to keep my body on a fairly even keel.  I drink coffee before I run to though, and I know a lot of people don't do that. I think I'm just special. :)
• Hitting the gym again. Usually by mid way through training, I give up on the gym altogether. Not good, but not unheard of for runners. I'm back in the gym doing some light weight lifting, stretching and ab work. Trying to get in there 2-3 days a week for the remainder of my time before Richmond.

While some of these things are fact based and rooted in sound reason, I'll admit that I'm mostly doing them as extra mental insurance for confidence on race day. I figure it can't hurt, it can only help!


*I do have a girl's night, Halloween and a wedding between now and November 12, so there may be some slight exceptions happening those days. I can't act like I could actually go to someones wedding and only have one drink. I mean that would just be rude...

Trust the Numbers

We have a saying in my office that we pull out when the going gets rough: trust the numbers. My job requires some basic statistical analysis, and basic though it is, it's what we base a lot of our decisions on. And when things are looking shaky, we go back to our historical analysis and show ourselves again and again the the numbers works, we just have to trust them.

I've been thinking about this a lot as I transition into crazy, full-on, marathon mode.  With the headway I've made in speed over the last year and half, I feel I'm really struggling to figure out the right marathon pace for me. I do my speed work at one pace, my long runs at another, and somewhere in the middle is my marathon pace, I'm just not sure what it is exactly.

In races past, of all distances, I go out conservatively (blasting through the first mile has rarely been my problem) and then cross the finish feeling like I still have a good bit left in the tank. After running the National Half with my WMATA safety blanket, and frankly, shocking myself with my time, I've been trying to wrap my mind around a more ambitious and bold race strategy. I still believe going out conservatively is the best strategy for me, I believe you can't bank time, but I'm embracing the idea that maybe I'd rather throw up at the finish* because I put in such a hard effort than feel like I shorted myself playing it safe.

I've been playing around with a lot of ideas for pacing Richmond and what my plan will be. The last two nights have been somewhat sleepless because I get in bed and run race strategy over and over in my head. I've got a map of the Richmond course with elevation chart taped just to the left of my computer at work, and I gotta tell you, it's DISTRACTING. I just thinking about my plan for the hills and down hills and the flats and the tough miles (16-18, 23-25 are usually pretty mentally tough for me) and suddenly 30 minutes later...Don't tell anyone, internets, shhh!, but yesterday, I put together an excel spreadsheet analyzing my paces over different portions of National Half and Oklahoma. Nerd Alert!

Right now I'm leaning toward an A Goal of 4:14:59 (it just seems more fun than saying 4:15!), but I'm still fine tuning the pace plan that will get me there. I'm 99% confident I have this race in me and even though my training hasn't been quite what I wanted it to be, I know I've put serious miles and effort in the bank and I'm engaging in some non-running prep work to reinforce what I have done and help me think less about what I (think) I didn't do. I'll write more about that later.

I'm also really enjoying MilePosts blogs about keeping the doubt out and choosing to believe instead. She's in my blogroll and worth checking out if you haven't before. She's my inspiration that even as a 4 hour + marathoner, I can one day run a sub 4 marathon too!

I have more to write about my marathon plans (I'm so excited!!)m but for now, I'm just going to keep repeating to myself this line from the PR Running email today:

Rest now is more important than miles.  You've done those.  The miles ARE in the bank.  Trust that and trust me when I say that less is more now until race day.

*I mean that in a general way to emphasize my point about effort...I promise I don't actually want to vom at the finish.

Beast Update

Here's a little update on the dog and dog show that lives at our house. 

 

Barksdale has grown by leaps and bounds since we adopted him in early July. He was about eighteen pounds when he came home with us and he's now weighing in somewhere in the mid-forties. The pictures above are from about 6 weeks ago. Here is now.  Look at that glossy black coat!

Barksdale is enrolled in Puppy Basic at Woofs! Dog Training Center. He is very food motivated and all the teachers think he is cute and smart (obvi!).  I highly recommend Woofs! if you're in the area and need training classes.

Griffin is still a fat beast, but she's a fat happy beast. She's a good dog and we love her. I tell her she's my favorite little brown dog.

I know nearly all these pictures are of both dogs sleeping and snuggling, but it's tough to get a picture of the big rolling ball of dog when it's up and active. Video would be a better medium for capturing that, you know, if I had a free hand to do so.

Check out Olive Our House, recently added to my blogroll.  She has a great story about their dog Basil and how they adopted him. It's a very sweet story.

Things I didn't do this weekend:

• Laundry
• Meal plan for the week
• A real grocery trip (I bought milk at target and a half case of wine at HT, not real shopping)
• Tackle the seemingly endless list of painting projects
• Dishes

Things I did do:

• Take pictures of the dogs
• Take the dogs to the dog-park (twice!)
• Stay home with the dogs so [Husband] could get a bike ride in
• Look at old pictures from college, re-read our wedding cards, sift through my scrapbook box
• Look through the family china from my Dad
• Donate to goodwill
• Spend time with lots of friends and family
• Snuggle on the couch and watch 30 Rock with [Husband]

We might have to have wine and cereal for dinner this week, but that's ok. It was a rare (relatively) quiet weekend, the weather was beautiful, and wine for dinner actually sounds pretty good right now.

A Major Mystery of the Universe: SOLVED

Oh, Jill. I can only hope for a life in which the greatest challenge I face is folding a fitted sheet. You're a nice lady though.

I Heard There Was a Pumpkin Shortage...

...so Tuesday at the grocery store, I bought 10 cans of pumpkin. Just wanted to stock up in case the rumors are true. We cannot POSSIBLY have Thanksgiving at our house without one of [Husband's] pumpkins pies (bottom right of the photo below).

 

 Today, I heard about a recipe on Pinterest for homemade pumpkin spice syrup. A small amount of detective work (aka going to Pinterest and typing in "homemade pumpkin spice syrup") yielded 246,500 pins, presumably all linking back to recipes for homemade pumpkin spice syrup. I very scientifically determined that the prettiest picture must indicate the best recipe and sent myself the link so I can give it a try this weekend.

The recipe calls for 3 tablespoons of canned pumpkin and fortunately I have about 300 tablespoons of canned pumpkin in my pantry right now. 

Here's the recipe I picked in case you would like to try it too.

Pumpkin Spice Syrup from Cook Like a Champion via Pinterest
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups water
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 cinnamon sticks or 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon*
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
3 tablespoons pumpkin purée

Directions:
Combine water and sugar in a medium pot over medium heat. Cook until sugar has completely dissolved. Whisk in remaining ingredients. Cook for about 6 minutes, stirring frequently. Do not allow mixture to come to a boil. Strain syrup through cheesecloth into a large glass measuring cup. Transfer to bottle of your choice and store in the refrigerator.

*A note in this blogger's post said that the cinnamon sticks yield a smoother texture and thinner syrup. She has Annie's Eats in her blog roll, so I'm thinking she's pretty legit.

"You Show Me a 99 Percenter, and I’ll Show You a Kid Who Would Do Public Relations for Halliburton Faster Than You Can Say 'The Name is KBR.' ”

A small collection of interesting blogs on the OccupyDC/WallStreet/Philly/what have you movement. Obviously slanted toward my personal bias. Interesting nonetheless.

ATL:   "[I]f this collection of people could get their act together, they wouldn’t be occupying Wall Street. They’d be occupying K Street. They’d be occupying First Street...asking questions of the people who help “the banks” get around any regulation the overmatched SEC can come up with." (Title of my blog comes from this article on ATL).

Economix:  Touche, 53-percenters.  I'm like half-way there with you, but you know, not quite.

Ezra Klein/Wonk Blog:  "What’s more the “53 percent” Tumblr also implies that there’s a certain mantle of responsibility that paying taxes confers upon people...That’s an unusual message coming from conservatives who’ve pushed so mightily for an anti-tax agenda."

Rational Irrationality: Well, I got my buzzwords right.

You may recall that when I ran Oklahoma back in May I committed a MAJOR rookie mistake by not checking the weather closely leading up to the race and packing only the bare necessities for race day.  I mean, I squeaked by relying on my wits and foraging things from the streets of Oklahoma City, but I'd just as soon not repeat that experience (except for the PR part, please, let's repeat THAT).

In order to avoid such mistakes when I travel to Richmond on November 12, I did a practice round of traveling and running by spending the night at my sister and brother-in-law's place to run a 10-miler in their neighborhood.  It was a total failure.

 Let's start with the list of  things I forgot:

• My contact lenses (not the end of the world, but really inconvenient)
• The top to my hand-held water bottle (really?)
• Body Glide (ouch!)
• There was a fourth thing, but I am forgetting it right now (do you see the theme here?)

I also overslept, didn't really eat breakfast early enough, etc. etc. and the weather was gawdawful. I ran in some humidity this summer, but that Sunday really took the prize for hot and wet.

My original Richmond plan was to try and car-pool with some folks from my training group, but after that race I realized I might need to have my own car so I can make an emergency 8:57pm visit to a Sports Authority when I realize I have forgotten my shoes!

This morning I did a Google search for "Marathon Packing Checklist" (what ever did we do before Google??) because I need professional help!

 I especially enjoy the return at the bottom for the London Marathon packing list, "english version."  Do the English pack different things than Americans or do you suppose they just mean the English language version of the list?

As you can see there is a lot of professional assistance out there for me to choose from, I can't wait to start vetting the lists and select one or perhaps compile the best parts of several lists and type up my own complete with check-boxes and fancy fonts. I do love a good list.

Generally, I think I'm going to take a page out of Sweaty Emily's packing guide and bring the full complement of running gear at my disposal, just in case.*

What do you not leave home without when you travel (to a race or otherwise)?

*seriously though, it's Richmond. It could snow or there could be a hurricane or it might be 90 degrees. This is Virginia in the fall. It's a crap shoot.

Griffin Butt

Poor little Mr. Barksdale has a tendency to get car sick. Like when we take him to the dog park. Which is about 300 yards from our house.  We have to drive them because crossing the major thoroughfare between us and the park is dicey with two ill-trained, overly curious dogs who like to stand about in the middle of the road. 

Griffin does NOT like it when Barksdale is car sick and will very often launch herself into the back seat from the trunk to get away from him.


Yesterday we driving back from the park and she had her little head and paws up on the back seat looking at us. We didn't realize until we opened the hatch to let them out of the car, that Barksdale had thrown up and Griffin had wedged herself up on the seat to get away from the vom.

This is what we saw when we opened the trunk.

We almost died laughing, but we were able to get a picture first. Lucky for you. 

On the Other Hand...

Have you all heard about this "Occupy Wall Street" thing that's going on? According to the movement's website, OccupyWallSt.org, it is

[a] leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. We are using the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the use of nonviolence to maximize the safety of all participants.

Yes, I had to look up Arab Spring as well. Here's the Wikipedia link.

Anyway, basically it seems that lots of people who are angry about the credit crisis and student loans and I guess anything else generally, are occupying the physical (yet symbolic!) space of those of those viewed as the oppressors, i.e. the "1%".

There is also an "Occupy DC" movement. They do not have a website, or rather they do, but it's is under maintenance -- how typical DC.  It's taking place about 3 blocks from my office and consists of a tent-city filled with people who are angry about the credit crisis and student loan debt*, etc. and trying to make a point about it to Congress and the White House I guess.

I knew Occupy DC was happening, but I didn't realize there was a whole tent city thing happening until I saw it on the news this morning. The Park Police just granted a four-month permit extension to this leaderless resistance movement, so there will be people camped out on Pennsylvania Avenue into the winter.  (I'm thinking the Park Police must have a lot of student loan debt too). The Channel 8 reporter interviewed a few folks who said they'd Occupy DC as long as it took. What is it exactly? Til they wipe your student debt? Give you a house for free or at least under market value?

My initial thought was "where are these people going to go to the bathroom and shower?" (The Regan Building?). My next thought was, maybe you should get a job instead of camping out in Freedom Plaza for four months. That might help you solve your problems (yes, I know the job market is still terrible).

These thoughts aside, I do sort of admire these people. They are actively doing something to change what they feel are problems in this country and that is admirable. It's the same kind of admiration I feel for people who quit their jobs to pursue something they love like blogging full-time, or running a start-up company -- paths I see as requiring huge leaps of faith to follow.  Paths that I am far to risk-averse and enamored of my health insurance coverage to traverse. 

But you know, on the other hand, though I find the drive to take political action honorable, I don't get the sense this group really knows what they want or what they want to accomplish.  I can't really get behind that, so I'm back to wondering why they don't get a job....I think [The Husband] is whispering Republican propaganda to me in my sleep.

*a lot of these people seem angry about debt from college tuition, so student loan debt is going to be my catchall for describing what the protesters are angry about.

Anthem Great Pumkin 5K: Smoked.

Last year I ran the Anthem Great Pumpkin 5k with a friend on the day before her wedding. It was so much fun, I decided to do it again this year.

With my brother-in-law, Mark, in tow, I smoked the race this year. I can't get over the difference in this years race versus last year's:

2011:

 52  12/126  28 Arlington VA     26:08 25:25  8:11 

2010:

 373  79/147 27 Arlington VA     31:12 30:25  9:48 

I was the 52nd woman overall and TWELFTH in my age group. Awesome.