Five miles and feedback.

I'm so into voting, I have a shirt for it! 

Happy election day! If you haven't voted yet, please go now. I'll wait...

Okay, back to running!

This past Saturday, I got to run one of my favorite races of the year: the Annapolis Striders Down's Park 5-miler. I love this race because it takes place in a gorgeous park, and because its usually my first post-marathon run. After months of marathon training, it is such a relief to run something short! I love that I don't have to worry about going out too fast, fueling properly, or any of that long-run stuff.

Last year, I ran this race the day before the NYC marathon. I was leaving straight from the race to get to the marathon expo, and I was terrified that I would not make it on time. So, the very kind race organizers allowed Andrew to volunteer as a parking attendant so I could do a "worker's run" an hour before the regular race. When you run a worker's run, you get credit for running the race (in the Striders' Champ Series), but your time is not officially recorded. So, naturally, I ran a PR of 48:35. I tried to repeat that time a month later in the Celtic Solstice 5-miler, but only managed 49:28. So, I went into this race with 49:28 as my official 5-mile PR. I doubted that I could beat that, but I still hoped to come in under 50 minutes.

When Andrew and I arrived at the race, we were greeted by my running coach Susan, who declared that she was running the race with me. As she noted, we've run many of this year's Champ Series races together, and she decided we should keep our streak going. I was happy with that plan!

Before we started, Susan said that her plan was to take it easy in the beginning and save something for mile 4 1/2. I said that I wanted to go out a little fast and try to hold onto that pace. In the end, we sort of did both. Based on my Nike+ data, we ran the first two miles at about a 9:43 pace, slowed up a bit in miles 3 and 4 (about 9:55) and then ran our fastest time in mile 5. By mile 3, I was definitely struggling to keep up the pace. Somewhere in that mile, we saw a marker for the 1-mile "fun run" happening elsewhere in the park. It said "Fun," with an arrow pointing away from us. I turned to Susan and said "So THAT's where the fun went! Its definitely not here."

Coming into the last mile, I wasn't sure I would be able to pull off a finishing sprint. Then, about 1/4 mile from the finish, Susan and I were met by Bob, another of our running coaches. Bob had finished his race a good 10 minutes before and came back to help us run it in. I couldn't let Bob down. I picked it up and sprinted across the finish line. I swear I saw a 48 on the clock when I crossed the line, but my official time is recorded as 49:02. A new official PR!

After I finished, I grabbed a bagel and returned to the finish line to wait for Andrew. I was expecting him to have a good race. In fact, I was pretty sure he could finish in under 1 hour, but I hadn't said anything to him about it because he seemed a little nervous. As I waited a couple friends came by and said "We saw Andrew and he looks good!" Then, I saw him- crossing the line at 55:33! He was thrilled, and so was I.

Later that day, I paid a visit to the local Lululemon Athletica store. I ran Marine Corps in a pair of their running crop pants. I love the fit of these pants, and they are the perfect length for Fall running. They have three gel pockets: a zippered one in the back and two open ones in the waistband. Prior to MCM, I had only used the back pocket, but its not big enough for the 5 gels I needed to carry to get through a marathon. So, on race day, I tried out the pockets in the waistband. They were really shallow- only deep enough to fit about 1/2 of a Clif Shot packet. The rest of the packet was resting against my stomach. It didn't bother me during the race, so I thought it was fine... until I got home and discovered this:

This doesn't happen in a 5K.

In case you can't tell, that is chafing straight from Hell. Its basically a 2-inch open cut on my stomach. As of today, MCM is 9 days ago and this thing is still healing and still hurts. A lot. It will definitely leave a scar.

I absolutely hate to complain and generally avoid confrontation, but I know that Lululemon really appreciates product feedback and I thought they should see this. So, on Saturday, I nervously went to the store and showed the salespeople. They could not have been nicer! They wrote down my feedback ("Deeper gel pockets, PLEASE!"), and even took down my info so they could invite me to some kind of promo in the future. You know a store has good customer service when their product scars you and you still intend to shop there in the future!

So, the moral of the story is always give your feedback- at the running store and at the polls!

Big numbers!

Today, I saw two big numbers:

The first, you can see as well. All you have to do is look at the ticker on the right- 1,001 miles run! That's all the miles that I have recorded on my Nike+ since I started using it in February 2007 (for my thoughts on Nike+, see my 9/16/10 post). Most of those miles, though, are from 2010. Here's the breakdown:

2007- 52 miles (I really thought I did better that year!)
2008- 65 miles (No surprise there- this includes half of the "dark days" of '08-'09.)
2009- 116 miles (Starting to come out of the dark days...)
2010- 634 miles (The dark days are over!)
2011- 110 miles (So far.)

At this point, I do not expect to beat 2010 this year, but that's because I'm adding in biking and swimming in preparation for the tri in August. Still, I'm very excited to see the 1,000.

The other big number I saw this morning came on the scale- down 2.5 pounds from last week! That is very, very unusual for me. Even when I first did WW and lost very quickly, I tended to go down .5 to 1 pound per week. This time out, the average has been 1-2 pounds per month. For me, 2.5 is a very big number. I can think of a few reasons why this happened, positive and negative:

On the positive side, I have been sticking to my Lenten resolution of no extraneous spending, which has meant no take-out or impulse Starbucks trips. This is saving me both money and calories. Also, the "Biggest Mover" contest at my gym is still on, meaning that I am still getting to at least 5 group exercise classes each week.

On the less positive side, I am headed into major crunch-time regarding school. Between now and Mother's Day, I will complete all of my work for the semester and take my licensing exam. Also, just to keep things interesting, I will run 3 races and travel to 2 weddings (one of which involves a relay triathlon, aka: race #4). Thus, life is a little crazy right now, and I have replaced some of my usual food and sleep with panic. The situation is vaguely reminiscent of my senior year in college, when I was overwhelmed by writing my thesis and inadvertently lost a good 10-15 pounds. Not my preferred weight loss strategy.

So, in the interest of preserving some of my sanity, I will now try to subdue my panic enough to get some sleep. Goodnight, everyone!

Be your own Santa.

I don't usually get much for Christmas, for good reason: my parents (who would be my primary source of presents) are pretty much paying for the degree I've been working on the past three years. Most of my family is solidly working-class anyway, so big-ticket gift items have never really been part of my Christmases. Going into this Christmas, I wasn't expecting much. I asked everybody that buys me presents for the same two things: passes to the indoor pool and gift cards to Bike Doctor, both for triathlon training purposes. I was hoping that a few people would go the Bike Doctor route, giving me enough money to finally buy some cycling shoes.

Things didn't really work out that way. My mom thinks I have no business taking up new sports which requre new equipment, so she wasn't about to contribute to that. She did tell an aunt to get me the pool passes, but that aunt refused, saying that the pool in question isn't clean enough (she actually bought me soap instead). Another relative never got to the pool, but did buy me towels, which are really nice. I got gift cards to Barnes and Noble, Trader Joe's, Giant, Dunkin' Donuts, and Noodles and Company, but nothing bike-related. Fortunately, I did get some cash, which allowed me to take matters into my own hands this afternoon.

Just as I don't get a whole lot for Christmas, I also don't do much shopping, for pretty much the same reason: if I don't have money to pay my tuition, I don't have money to buy things. Also, I dislike crowds and loathe the mall. Thus, my disposable income usually goes to food, running stuff, and downloading books on my Kindle. I can't remember the last time I actually spent several hours going to several stores, only buying things for myself. Its rare enough that it merits a blog post! Here's the rundown:

The shopping actually started a few days ago, on 12/23. That night, I was up in my attic struggling to make my niece's Christmas present on my garage-sale 1970's sewing machine: 

I have been teaching myself to sew on this machine for awhile now, with the idea that I would master the basics on it before I upgrade to something better. It worked fine for last year's homemade gifts. This year, though, something just wasn't right. The thread tension got out of whack and I simply could not fix it. After hours of work, I did not have one passable seam. So, at 8:30 the night of the 23rd, I did what I swore I would not do: went to the mall. Shockingly, I found parking right up front and the stores were not too crowded. I picked up a super-basic Singer machine for $80 and was home by 9:30. Problem solved. The new machine has no frills, and I'll probably want an upgrade eventually, but going from a 70's machine to one made this year is definitely a big and exciting improvement. I finished my niece's present easily and have been working on a couple extra projects just for fun.

Now, on to this afternoon, or shopping day 2: My first stop was B&N, where I hoped to use my gift card to buy calenders. Unfortunately, all the good ones were already gone. I was about to leave and save the gift card for another day when I spotted something on a 50% off table: 

That's a gift set of Thomas Keller cookbooks: The French Laundry and Ad Hoc at Home. I've picked up these books many times before, but always put them back down due to cost and impracticality. The French Laundry is way beyond my skill level and would just be a "food porn" coffee table book. Ad Hoc at Home is more manageable, but still expensive: $50 at B&N, $31 on Amazon. This set has both books, and the discount plus my Mom's store membership brought it down to $45. Knock off another $25 with the gift card and I got both the food porn and the one I can actually use for $20. Score.

Next, I headed over to Bike Doctor, where I pooled all my cash and finally bought the cycle shoes. (I was so excited about them that I took an unplanned extra spin class this evening just to test them out). While I was there, I also took a quick look at bikes, and was pleased to see many more in my price range than I had expected. Come Spring, I hope to visit them again.

After Bike Doctor, I used the grocery store gift cards. This would probably not be exciting to most people, but I love to cook and I deliberately bought things I would not buy normally: steaks, fancy coffee, a couple whole chickens to freeze, things like that.

Finally, I headed over to the mall to continue my calendar search. It was a NIGHTMARE- way more crowded today than it had been the night of the 23rd! It was probably a good last stop because it reminded me why I don't usually like to shop and should keep me from going back anytime soon. I did find the calendars I wanted, though, and I got to pick up some dinner with the Noodles and Company card.

So, now I am at home, surrounded by new things, and (even better) not crippled with guilt for spending too much money. Thanks, do-it-yourself-Santa!

Step one: gather your materials.

Two of my favorite hobbies are cooking and sewing. In both of those activities, you start by gathering your materials. That's where I am in terms of training for my triathlon. The race is not until August, so I have a ton of time, but I also have a ton of materials to gather and not a ton of money to work with. I hope that I will be able to buy a decent bike at some point during my training, but that is not an option at the moment. So, today I ventured into the back of my shed to rescue the barely-used Huffy that my parents bought me at Kmart for my high school graduation in 1997.

Pictured above is my exact bicycle, nicely cleaned and polished by somebody trying to sell it on Craigslist. Mine does not look like this. I put it in my shed when I bought my house in 2003 and never touched it again until today. Just getting it out of the shed was a challenge because it was wedged into the dirt floor. When I got it out into the daylight, I was concerned that it might not be usuable, as it was caked with dirt and more than a little rust. I don't have a hose nor any suitable cleaning products, so I wound up working on it with some Fantastik and a couple of dish rags. Shockingly, it worked! After about a half-hour of scrubbing, the original green color was actually gleaming through and I could see that the rust was not nearly as bad as I had thought. Both tires are flat, so I didn't get a chance to test it out, but I know plenty of people with air pumps, so I should be in business soon.

If I wind up having to ride this thing in the actual race, I think I'm going to play up the juvenile theme by attaching a basket, a horn, and some streamers. If you have a dog, walk it proudly!

20398

That's the bib number I just downloaded from the MCM website. It will be my number on race day. I hope its a lucky one!

I'm in the middle of a pretty crazy week right now. I'm about to enter my busiest time of the year at work, school just started up again, and I'm gradually resuming the training schedule I was on before my surgery. My life is basically gym, work, school, eat, sleep, repeat. I do have a couple updates worth noting:

At this point, I feel pretty much healed. I don't have any pain in my incision sites any more. I am having some shortness of breath, but I think that's more about having missed 2 1/2 weeks than about the surgery. I'm back to my regular weights in Group Power and I even added a bit this week. I went back to boot camp this morning, which was super-hard, but again, I think that was more about the training break. My training group is doing 20 miles this Saturday, and I'm going to get as close to that as possible. Our schedule for the next four Saturdays is 20, 18, 20, 18. I may have to do 18, 20, 20, 18, but I think that's okay.

On Tuesday, I finally got around to uploading the Nike+ data from my race on Sunday, and I was a little surprised. As you may recall, I forgot my watch, so I had no way to gauge how fast I was going throughout the race. I felt like I went slow for miles 1-6, much faster for 7-10, and then slowest for 11-13. According to the Nike+, I ran a pretty consistent pace throughout. Miles 7-10 were about 10 seconds/mile faster than 1-6 and 11-13, which were all about the same. I suppose that this says good things about my ability to stick to a pace, even if my ability to gauge that pace myself is a little weak.  

This may be a good time to say how I feel about the Nike+ system, which I've been using since 2007. Nike+ involves a sensor that you put in your Nike+ shoe (or on the laces of your non-Nike shoe, using an unlicensed adapter). The sensor connects wirelessly to a receiver which is pre-installed in IPod Touch or IPhone. If you don't have an IPod Touch or IPhone (I don't), you can buy a receiver for an IPod Nano or one that comes in a wristwatch. I have both of the latter options. However you set it up, the functions of the Nike+ system are very basic: it tracks time, distance, pace, and calories. If you use it with an IPod, you can choose to have a voice update your progress throughout your run and you can download special workouts and playlists from ITunes. When you upload it, all of your data gets sent to a website, where you can look at graphs and stats from your runs and do some social networking. If you want, you can connect to sites like Facebook, Twitter, and DailyMile (that's how I get the ticker updating my mileage on this blog).

For me, the biggest selling point of Nike+ is the price tag. If you go with the wristband option, it will only cost you $59 plus the cost of the shoes. Even if you have to buy an Ipod and shoes, you'll spend less than you would for some of the mid-priced Garmin models. This is important for people like me who have a tendency to break small electronic gadgets (I'm on Nano #4 and wristband #2). The biggest drawbacks are the limited functions and the accuracy. Nike and IPod claim that the system will be perfectly calibrated for 95% of runners straight out of the box. I do not find that to be true at all. I have calibrated and re-calibrated numerous times and its still not always accurate. If you're just looking for basic data and don't mind a margin of error, Nike+ is probably a good fit for you.   

Okay, back to work and then off to class!

FREEDOM! (and other news)

My spring class ended on April 28th. My internship at the Wendt Center ended on May 5th. Yesterday was the last day of my 5-week summer class. So, for the next 2 1/2 months, my only regular obligations are my 35 hour/week job and my 4 hour/week volunteer gig at the Wendt Center. Add it up- that's the schedule of a normal working adult. I haven't had anything close to that since the summer of '08. Woo-hoo!

I would say that I don't know what I'm going to do with myself, but I think we all know what I'm going to do: run a marathon. In some ways, I feel like I already have. To give just one example of the craziness that was my life this past year, here is what I did on every Wednesday from September-May: 6am class at the gym, followed by drive to my office in DC, followed by Metro trip to the Wendt Center in NW for morning of meetings, followed by Metro trip back to my office, followed by afternoon of work, follwed by drive to Columbia for class, followed by class, followed by drive home (normal arrival time: 10pm). Then, I would go to sleep and rest up for an 8:30am-9pm day on Thursday. That's only one day of each week and the other 6 weren't much better. I strongly suspect that running 26.2 miles will not be as exhausting as that schedule. I am so grateful that I made it and that I have some time off now!

In other news, I went shoe shopping last night and bought the sneakers pictured above and a pair of extra-comfortable sandals. I also went to Road Runner Sports in Columbia (http://www.roadrunnersports.com/), an excellent store devoted entirely to running, and picked up some more running shorts and socks. This shopping trip is proof of one of the many ways running has changed my life: I've always had a weakness for clothes, but I never thought that "moisture wicking" would become an essential quality in the garments I buy. I've also never been a believer in adults wearing sneakers outside the gym. My feet, however, have decided that I punish them enough at the gym and they are no longer okay with being further punished by fancy shoes. So, welcome home Pumas!

Also, I woke up this morning at 5:30am and just could not drag myself to the gym. I went back to sleep, missing my boot camp class, and then woke up at 7am filled with regret. I will try to remember this when the alarm goes off at 5:30 tomorrow- as hard as it is to get up that early, I always feel worse when I don't.

Finally, the weather report is predicting that I will run another miserably hot and humid 10K this weekend (Annapolis Striders' Father's Day 10K). Joy. I'm trying to remember that its all important practice for the long, hot training runs starting soon. Wish me luck!