Archive for April, 2010

When it comes to running form, bad race photos tell all.  I’m grudgingly grateful for the information they provide, despite the cringe fest.

As a lifelong sloucher, the pushups & chinups I’ve been doing this past year have helped quite a bit, but I still tend to fold at the middle when running.  It varies by degree and might not even occur when I’m fresh, but it’s there in most of my race photos.  I’ve read enough articles and books on running form to know that slouching isn’t just ugly, it inhibits your breathing and distributes weight where it shouldn’t be, which in turn affects your speed and endurance.  Major bad stuff.

To fight it, sometimes while running I make a point to pull my shoulders back and straighten my spine but that tends to tire me out since I lack the basic strength to hold it there. So when I mentioned in the last post how I wished my back was as straight as the Up With People guy (or anyone I’m ever photographed running next to, for that matter) Ewen made a smart comment that it’s not my back so much as a bent core.   Uh…wow, lightbulb moment.

I’ll be honest, I never do core work because my abs look good and I figured core work was all about doing sit-ups.  Instead, I’ve always blamed my bad form on my upper back and shoulders.  But the more I look at all the Boston race photos, I realize I had it wrong, it’s not the top of my body at fault, it’s a weak middle letting the upper body fall forward.

This is a very cool discovery because it’s fixable and the payoff in running improvement could potentially be big.  As for my plan of action, Jim led me to a great article with some simple core exercises for runners from Greg McMillan that takes only 15 minutes 3 times a week.  Totally my speed.

I figure by Fall, I should be in excellent fighting shape with yet another solid training cycle under my belt and a more upright form to go with it.  Sure, I will still despise bad race photos and am guaranteed to have many more in the future, but for now, the bad ones are worth their weight in gold.

OK, feeling much better, maybe a little embarrassed for that last post, but what the hell, we all go through crappy days so might as well be honest about it.

Moving on, a few things I wasn’t able to fit in my Boston report because it was so long already.  Apologies to Facebook friends, you’ve seen these photos, but for those non-socially connected, here are a few more tidbits from the race.

Athletes Village before the race with my arm warmers shoved on for some reason.  Nervous disordered dressing, I guess.  That’s Jim (blogging pal) in the yellow hat, plus a bit of Steve showing in the corner (he ran a 2:50, so when I say the sub 3:20 crew isn’t about 3:20, that’s what I mean).

Happy me.

This one cracks me up the most, as I mentioned on FB, it’s right at the finish but what I love is the Up With People guy on the left.  He looks like he’s in the chorus of Hello Dolly! whereas I look like dead meat.  But as was pointed out on FB, his bib# says he was sandbaggin’ (and that I moved up a hell of a lot, hee).  I am jealous of his straight back though, something I really need to work on…

Finis!

Dinner after the race.  In the middle is fellow blogger and constant commenter Jim (what a joy to finally meet him, he’s as funny and charming as I expected) and at the edge, my other fellow blogging sweetie pal who orchestrated the whole social she-bang, Stevi.  Thanks again for doing that, girl – you and Chris are adorable!!

There are over 50 more photos to be seen including some fun with a peanut butter jar intended for emergency peeing (that happily went unused).  So if you’re on Facebook, just go to my page, you don’t even have to be my “friend” to see them.  You know me…all public all of the time.

The Train
On the way back to Philly, I sat by a tiny, sweet girl who it turns out came in a minute before me, with a 3:27.  When the train started, we heard the conductor say, “if anyone came in at 3:11 or faster at the marathon, come up to the refreshment car”.  This totally had us curious about what those lucky people were getting.

So later, when the conductor came by, I asked him what they got but he was all evasive and gave me a look.   OK, be that way.

A couple hours later, he came by again and me and my new traveling buddy asked him one more time (we really needed to know!) and he said “water”.  My companion thought he was lying, but then a couple minutes later, he came by with 2 water bottles that had the word “Congratulations” written on an Amtrack stub and attached with a rubber band.  Aw, we were winners after all.

The cool thing about the girl sitting next to me was
1. She’s done some freelance writing for Runners World, so small world, but also
2. She lives in Arizona and her (free) community running club is coached by 2 guys, one of them…Dr. Jack Daniels.   The Jack Daniels!  My eyes popped out of my head when she said that and jealousy streamed out of my pores.  Can you imagine?  So cool.

Back On The Road
I had a good week of recovery, took two days off and then went 4,6,7,7 giving me 50mi for the week.  My left quad is a little tight but other than that, I feel amazing and had to consciously slow myself down today from 8:10s (knowing the quad would not thank me if I kept it up).

It was a cool rainy run and I wore my Boston shirt, which got me a couple approving looks and one guy even said something nice to me about it as he passed.  I get the point now of why people buy the jacket, lol.

What’s Ahead?
I’m feeling super excited to get going again.  My goal race for the fall is in September, so I’ll start training specifically for that around June 1, but in the meantime, there’s a 5K at the end of May it’d be fun to target.  That’ll give me something to work on this next month so instead of just fartleking around, I’ll have some 400′s fun and short tempos.

I can’t wait for some speed to return – I know it’s there waiting for me but it might take a little while to pop, so be patient with me.  I’m not expecting anything major at the 5K but am hoping to end up in the vicinity of my PR.  I haven’t done one since June, so I’ve got some catching up to do.  In the meantime, I’m just so happy to be a runner.

Seriously, this morning as I ran through the park in a drizzle, sporting my Boston shirt with my commemorative chip still attached to my shoe, I laughed out loud.  Look at me, I am a runner.  Who’d of ever thought?

Edit: Crisis averted, it’s one day later, all is well, no more commiseration needed. :-) But thank you sweet friends!!  OK, on with the post…

I’m suffering from post-race blues, but in reality, it’s not the post-race that’s making me sad, it’s coming face-to-face with my life at the moment and realizing there are certain large things missing from the picture.

My financial marathon is sucking big ones, I was doing ok for the first few months but voiceovers have been quiet, just a few a month and the stuff I’m doing online will take months to gather steam (aka Google love), plus I just spent a wad of dough at Boston. Also, to be honest, I did a lot of work at once and then my old habit of relaxing while I shore up strength for the next round returned, so my plan to work hard without any breaks has floundered.

I’m so unmotivated right now, but looking at my bank statements, I can’t afford to be.  The other thing is that I haven’t had any neighbors upstairs since the assholes moved out, which is great, but with it, the need to change my living situation hasn’t felt as pressing – though it’s only a matter of time till someone moves in and I’ll be kicking myself in the shins for not having applied myself better.

And then there’s love, or the lack of it. I haven’t been wanting or needing any these past few months, the whole breakup thing left me happy to be on my own, and with the race to concentrate on, I was fine not thinking about that stuff.  Now I am and it sucks.  It’s not like I even want a full-time man around, I don’t.  So what do I want, a fuck buddy?  Hell, I don’t know what I want, the idea of opening myself up to someone new just seems too daunting.  And honestly, I feel like a flawed individual right now.

The weird thing is, when I feel shitty, I can usually have a good cry and move on, tears come pretty easily to me.  But right now, I’ve got a big ball of something in my chest and the tears won’t come.

I won’t go into great detail about the party events or this thing will need binding and a publisher, but I love my imaginary internet friends so much, my heart is full to the brim and then some.

Beautiful babes from the Women’s BQ thread

Disco hummer limo to Ron’s house
Ron’s brunch with a clever idea for us to “put our balls on the table”, a favorite phrase of Paul/Zab, who sadly could not be there that afternoon due to a family commitment.

After Ron’s party, I went to the pasta dinner where I got to spend some quality time with my California gal-pals Barb and Jackie. What an incredible weekend of friendship.

Race Day Morning

Audra and I got up at 5:00am, I had a peanut butter sandwich and coffee, then we took the T with our little group to Boston Commons, meeting up with some of the guys from the sub 3:20 thread, then boarded a bus for the Athletes Village.  Once we arrived, I had another peanut butter sandwich, then went around and said hi to a couple different forum factions so the time went very quickly.   Didn’t take long before we were checking our bags and walking to our respective corrals.

The weather was perfect: 40s at the start, low 50s at the finish (the winds were crosswinds and even some tailwind in spots).  I had my small bottle which I filled up twice during the race and I carried 5 gels, though only ate 3.

Here I am with Steve (aka Gladiator) at the Athlete’s Village after I discover my throw-away pants are wet, thanks to a water bottle opening in my bag.  Oh well.

The Boston Marathon Begins

It took 12 minutes for my corral (Corral 13) to cross the mat and I got quite teary as we approached, thinking about the fact that it would be my last marathon and that I couldn’t have chosen a more awe-inspiring way to finish, but also, fear for what the day would bring.

If you’re new to this blog, I’ve been lucky to qualify for Boston with both marathons I’ve done, but both ended on an ugly note: one with a seized-up back so hunched over I couldn’t stand up and huge blood blisters on both feet, and the second one spent run/walking for nearly 8 miles.  So as I approached the start loaded with a ton of emotions, I said aloud, “Here we go, Flo” and hoped it would be a good day.

Pacing

A couple posts earlier, I showed you my paceband, which didn’t have a single pace on it, just where the hills were and how long each one was.  I ended up writing my 10 mile and 13.1 projection on the back of my hand with a sharpie, so at least I’d have a clue by the halfway point if my goal was on or not.  This worked out perfectly – a traditional pace band would have been useless to me, I didn’t even pay attention to the Garmin in the second half.

I was aiming for 7:45 average and expected some faster miles in the first half, but settled back a bit so by the time the Half came, I knew my goal of 3:24ish was gone – I was already 2 minutes over and still had the hills to contend with.  But I was so relaxed about the goal, really wanting to make this a “by feel” race, that anything under 8:00s on the non-hills was fine by me.   All I really cared about was trying to make this the first marathon where I didn’t walk and could finish in one piece.

The Hills

I was very worried about the hills since my usual running route doesn’t have any, but for this cycle I did all my Sunday long runs on a trail that has some elevation to work with.  It paid off.  I couldn’t believe how non-scary the hills were.  The first one came and it was so uneventful, I passed a bunch of people and it didn’t last very long so then I thought the next one must be way harder, but no, I took them as they came all the way through Heartbreak Hill.

I was so surprised that by 21-22 I got some extra energy and ran it a bit harder, but I realized that was pretty stupid since anything could happen before 26.2, so I made myself chill out.  Sure enough, the last few miles felt much tougher.

Body-wise, the downhills didn’t do too much to me, I had some IT band twinges in the second half, but fleeting.  My ankle was troublesome for a good while and but my feet weren’t too horrible (no blisters or bruises this time!), though I did tie my shoes tight to keep my feet from sliding on the downhills, and the right one was too tight, so I spent a few miles wondering if I should retie it, but eventually forgot about it.

Splits

7:58
7:48
7:38
7:44
7:52
7:46
7:50
7:59
7:56
8:00
8:03
7:45
7:55
8:02
8:05
7:41
8:11
8:10
7:58
8:19
8:25
7:42
7:54
7:58
8:06
7:48
1:47

No walking, no wheelchair.  Yay me!!

In the end, the course was not as difficult as I’d anticipated.  Might also be helped by having screaming people surrounding you from the start to the finish, which I found pretty entertaining as a whole but I didn’t high-five or interact with anyone.   I thought the Wellesley tunnel would be louder, wasn’t so astounding as I’d imagined, though it was pretty funny.

I was only ok on tangents because there was always a thick stream of people and with all the water stops, it seemed like going down the center of the road was often the best bet.

Final Statistics
3:28:29
66th in AG out of 1583, 1136 out of 9772 women, 6641 out of 23126 OA.

The People of Boston

I cannot believe how amazing the hundreds upon hundreds of volunteers were.  You would be shocked at how kind and happy and helpful they were, from the Expo to the pasta dinner to the race, over and over you’d hear stuff like “have a great race” and “great job”.

Then the non-volunteering Bostonians were just as supportive; you’d be walking after the race and one after another would say “congratulations!” or talk to you on the train about it.  It was like a cocoon of good feelings wherever you went.  I can’t describe it adequately.

Did I Buy A Jacket?

Sorry to disappoint, but no I didn’t.  I just didn’t care enough about it.  The color combo is too vibrant for my tastes and the fabric too thin to be very useful.  I will say though, that the race shirt is great and the only one I’ve ever gotten in a goody bag that I’ll actually wear (it fits properly, which is so rare for us small gals)

Did I Change My Mind About Quitting Marathons?

Hell no!  Around mile 7 I reconfirmed that it’s the absolute correct choice for me.  That was when my ankle had already started hurting, my feet were already feeling the pavement and I was thinking, “19 more miles of this shit?”  Not interested.

But what a way to go!

I am so so sorry for not checking in sooner, I had some internet these past couple days but spent it doing Facebook updating since it’s short, sweet and requires no thinking.  So here’s a little hello to you sweeties, I’m just about to get on the train back for Philly, but just to say it was a really great race, an amazing weekend, just wildly wonderful in every way.  I did a 3:28 which I’m thrilled with, I ran it well and yes, I am sooooo glad that my marathon career is really over, which I’ll discuss in a proper post.   Sorry for the short and sweet, more to come…

I’m leaving tomorrow via an early train for what promises to be a 3-day rolling party.  Well, there is that race on Monday morning, but the social schedule is what has me most excited.  The only cloud on the horizon is my big toe returning to its under-the-nail shenanigans, but I’m hoping with tomorrow’s day off and tiny runs today and Sunday it’ll chill out for real.

Saturday
First stop is the hotel where I’ll hookup with Audra (my roomie for a couple nights), then on to the Expo.  Later that evening a huge-ass Runners World party.

Sunday
A 3-mile shakeout run with Audra, then brunch with the beautiful BQ babes.  Incredible to believe that we are embodying what that thread was started for in the first place – to get to Boston.  While a few gals won’t be attending this weekend, the majority will be representin’.

Immediately after, thanks to Stevi being an incredible event planner, I’ll meet up with a handful of my Sub 3:20 imaginary friends for a fun limo ride to Ron/ESG’s house for an afternoon of lunch, laughs and love.  I’m already grinning ear-to-ear in anticipation of this, it’s been one big belly-laugh with those guys, so I’m dying to finally hug and speak with them for real.

Then back to town to follow Jackie/HikerGirl to the race Pasta Party.

Monday
At 6:15, meet with the Sub 3:20 crew to board a bus for Hopkinton, wait around until 10am and then…begin The Boston Marathon.

Funny, I’ve been so blase about the race from an historical perspective, but now that it’s here, I’ve got this weird sensation of, well, pride!  Not for having qualified, but that I’m doing something my non-running friends recognize and understand as something.  It’s kind of fun.  Hell, I might even buy a jacket.  Maybe.

Monday night is another large dinner with the Sub 3:20 crew and their families, then Tuesday morning, train back to Philly.  Like I said, one big 3-day party.

Tracking and Corny Sentimentality
If anyone wants to track my ass, my bib# is 13897 and you can do it live online by going to the B.A.A. site or sign up for alerts.  Looking for 3:24ish (if the weather is uneventful), but anything around that vicinity will work.

I’ll probably take my laptop so hopefully will check in afterward with a mini update but if not, expect something on Tuesday night.

I want to wish all my fellow racers Good Luck this weekend!! I hope to meet many of you somehow within that mess of humanity but if I don’t, have a strong, beautiful and wonderful race.  No regrets, no pain (well, as little as humanly possible) and memories you want to replay for a long, long time.  Or if you prefer, have a fabulous drunken weekend!!!

As for you guys and gals who read this blog and have been witness to all the trials, tribulations and whining I’ve managed to produce these last few months on the way to this particular event, I will never be able to thank you enough.  You support me, keep me honest, give me something to strive for and something to be afraid of if I fuck up. :-)  Love you guys.  You’ll be with me on the course.

Peace.