My left foot

As endearing as the Academy Award wining film My Left Foot is... (just go with me on this one Daniel Day Lewis is amazing) it is also currently the biggest thing impeding my running.

Last Sunday Tyson and I went for a 9 mile run from Congress Park through Cherry Creek North around Washington Park and then back to Cheesman Park. The run as a whole was pretty good, I felt strong throughout the whole thing. That night I was wearing my cowboy boots when I noticed that my left foot was feeling sore on the outside, as if the tendons in my foot are super tight.

As is my way of handling these sorts of things, I ignored it because I AM GOING TO RUN THE MARATHON IF THIS KILLS ME!

So I ran on Monday around Cheesman Park and at first everything was great. This is how it always works in the movies, everything is totally fine, the adorable family is taking their vacation in a small town in the south and out of nowhere their guest home is terrorized by a flesh-eating ghost who in reality is only looking for a glass of milk but he is such a scary ghost that no one is willing to actually listen to what he is saying! So there I was, perfectly happy on my small town vacation of a run when the scary ghost came out of nowhere and was basically stabbing me through the bottom of my foot!

I told Tyson about it and he told me to take it easy so I did until approximately yesterday morning because I signed up for the Turkey Trot 4 mile race at Wash Park. Tyson ended up running it with me which was great because he pushed me to run faster and also because he could take a look at my foot when I was done to see what was going on.

After the race Tyson looked at my foot and is convinced that nothing is really wrong with it.

So this morning I got ready to go on my run, and plotted out a relatively short path of 6 miles since I knew my foot had been hurting. I made it a whopping 1.5 miles before I had to stop. It felt like I was running on sharp rocks with no shoes on.

Sub-optimal to say the least.

Holy cow, I ran 30 miles this week!

So the past few weeks, my life seems to be completely consumed by running. It's all I do. If I am not at work, sleeping, or eating (see previous post)I am running, or talking about running, or thinking about how far I'm going to be running and what trail I will take. It's really kind of sad.

But there is a silver lining, and that comes from the obsessive-compulsive, data-driven mind of Tyson, who has had me track where I'm running and how long it takes me to go over the past two months. So to start, this is what the spreadsheet looked like:



Notice how short each of my runs were.

Now fast forward to this week when I hit, wait for it, 200 miles!



And that is interesting at all, to me at least, but it doesn't have any flash to make you wonder what is going to happen next! I feel like I could use a Hollywood special effects team to make this running blog more interesting, because I fear I have built up this excitement in my mind and you're going to see the next picture and you're going to be "Really? I scrolled all the way down the page for this?! Do you know how many muscles I had to use to control my mouse in such a fashion so as to allow me to see what was coming next and all I got was this picture? Seriously?!?"

Well, here goes:



This chart shows how far I've run so far, and how much time I have left before the big race!

I know, I know, not that exciting, but it is a really good motivator for me to have something for me to look at that says, "you have to run far this week, because you don't want that line to point down!"

Thanks to Tyson for the obsessive-compulsive, data-driven spreadsheet!

Me want food!

I know what you're thinking. "Me want food" is what Jenna Maroney says in Season 2 Episode 3 of 30 Rock after she's gained 40 pounds over the summer because her role in the Broadway production of Mystic Pizza required her to eat 8 slices of pizza a night. And I have most certainly not gained 40 pounds with all this running, I haven't actually lost a lot of weight, but my weight has been redistributed somewhere because none of my clothes fit. And on top of that, I am hungry ALL THE TIME!
So I've been searching around on the interwebs to see what foods I should be eating, since my normal 5-year-old diet of peanut butter and honey sandwiches, string cheese, and carrot sticks was leaving me wilting by the end of the day. All of my searches led me to what I already know, black beans, veggies, and rice are DELICIOUS! What I didn't know was that I should be eating them for breakfast, not dinner.
I had today off of work, so had time to be doing some actual cooking this morning before my run! I started out with getting some white rice (everything I read said go with the brown rice, but let's be honest, white rice is a perfect base, and I already had it in my pantry). While that was cooking I sliced up and started to cook two bell peppers. Beans and rice make for a pretty bland colored meal so I went with red and yellow peppers.
Once the peppers had softened I added a can of black beans (drained), a hefty spoonful of crushed garlic, and so green chiles.

About twenty minutes after I started, voila! Breakfast!

I just finished eating it, and it was DELICIOUS as I expected! Now I just have to wait a few hours to digest and then I will hit the trails and see if it works!
I will keep you posted!

I May be Bad but I'm Perfectly Good at It

Ok, ok- jeez Becca way to outshine me. I didn't realize you had kept up so well with this blog. Good job! Way to hold the team together! You not only have done a great job of keeping up with the blog, but have done an equally impressive job ruinning. Me on the other hand...well...errr.

But let today be a different day! I have a 10k on Sunday. I know, I know 10k pshhh. But I am determined to let the 10k be the start of my training- again. The thing is I have kept a pretty solid 6 mile fitness level. But I do find a million reasons not to go on a run- mainly it's still humid here. Which yes, means I don't run outside that often, and more importantly means my hair is still a puffy mess. Yuck!

The other issue I have is school- I feel like I would run a lot more if I didn't have school 4 days a week. It really cramps my stuyle and I just can't seem to creep out of my comfy bed in the am to go for a run. Maybe next week I will try. I have heard that the first week is brutal, but then after that it's just something you do. We'll see. I'll let you know how Sunday goes...

Go run, and while you're at it, go fast!

This week the plan is to continue with the same 20+ miles plan of the past two weeks, but it has been slightly more complicated due to the sudden and somewhat unexpected resurgence of my social life!

Monday night I had tickets to the Rockies game (thanks mom and dad!). The game started at 6:40 so that meant I had to leave work by 4pm so I could get home, get changed, go run, get home, stretch, get cleaned up and cheer on the team that at this point in the season is beginning to look more like the gang from The Sandlot than the World Series contenders they should be! Steps one and two above went surprisingly well (sometimes getting home and changing can be a daunting task, admit it!). I've been using a new app on my phone to track the pace and distance of my runs so even step three was going well. The app updates me every 5 minutes on my pace, distance, etc. I made it home in 45:34 which comes out to 10:02 miles, not bad after a day at work. So at this point there was plenty of time to catch my breath, stretch, clean up. I was cool calm and collected until my phone rang.

It was just Matt calling to see how my feet were doing. I had complained to him the week before on our hike that my arches felt like they were staging a revolution, similar to the one that over through Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, except in my case, my arches were looking to separate from the rest of my foot rather than seek democracy. Although the more I think about it, maybe they were going for democracy and they right to vote to not run ever again. Totally possible! Any way, Matt suggested I go get some insoles for my shoes, the same ones he has, and he was calling to see if they were working. The good news is they are working! The revolution in my feet has subsided due to the excellent negotiating tactics of the insoles. The bad news is that the game starts in 20 minutes, I'm still in a state of gross on the couch and I still have to pick up my friend Steve who is joining me at the game!

Long-story-short is that I was that girl, the one who was oddly sweating on a perfectly cool evening at the ball park because I didn't give myself enough time to cool down before I got in the shower. Yuck!

Tuesday was going to be my night off of running because I had a hair cut and a work event after work, but when my haircut was canceled I figured I might as well run, lest I wanted Tyson to say I had missed a day (that's right, I said lest)! So there I am on my normal trail, and I was hitting the normal spots where my phone tells me in a creepy robot voice "Current time: 4 minutes, 59 seconds..." but there was no voice! Either my phone was broken or I was running fast, and knowing me, I assumed that my phone was broke! But eventually that angry sounding woman's voice rang out on the clear blue afternoon letting me know that my pace was "9 minutes, 13 seconds per mile" almost a full minute faster than my pace the day before! I wasn't convinced that it was working correctly, after all, why would I run so fast if I didn't have to? But I got home to find out I had set a new best time for myself, two laps of Cheesman Park plus the mile home in 42:37, my final pace: 9:19 per mile!



The excitement of running fast had me stretching out with a smile on my face when I got back to the building, but by the time I'd gotten to my unit and saw the clock I had again secured my fate as the girl who is running around so fast to get cleaned up that she starts sweating again on her way to a fundraiser for work.

Let's just say it's a good thing I've got other things working for me because this running thing is putting a bit of a damper on my ability to show up to things without oddly rosy cheeks.

This is happening...

So it has been about 18 months since I came up with this cacamaimy (2 gold stars to who ever can determine the correct spelling on that one) idea to run 26.2 miles for my 26th birthday. Admittedly, there have been a lot of ups (read: two half marathons) and downs (read: face planting on the lovely sidewalks of Denver more times than I'd like to count), but now that we are six months away from actually running this ridiculous distance, it's time to get down to the nitty gritty.
Tyson has volunteered to be my running coach, which, while awkward, I am incredibly grateful for because Tyson is free, and real running coaches are EXPENSIVE! So we started out two weeks ago with an email from Tyson that said something to the effect of, I created this spreadsheet (Tyson can turn anything into an opportunity to utilize a spreadsheet)go run five days this week for at least 30 minutes each time and make sure one of those days is for a full hour. At first this didn't seem like that big of a deal until I remembered that since the Georgetown Half (I haven't told you about that yet, hang on, we'll get there) I had barely been pulling my happy ass off the couch to go to the grocery store, let alone go for a run.
So three days into my new, (in reality not so) grueling routine I was beat and did not want to run any more, EVER. Luckily for Tyson, I am a prime example of what happens to people who run. Runners almost become bi-polar in their emotions towards lacing up their shoes and hitting the trails, one day we will vow to never (and I mean NEVER) put on a sports bra again in protest against the sidewalk and the damage it has done to our muscles, joints, and more importantly ego; only to wake up the next morning and demand no less of ourselves than a solid 7 miles. So the first week was hard but, according to the spreadsheet, I made it more than 20 miles in my first week of official training.
Surprise, surprise, the exact same thing happened last week. Tyson told me to stick with my 5 day running schedule with the one long run and we'd build it up from there. It started off well, until I wrote Tyson on Tuesday...the following is our chat:
me: Hey just FYI I have a conference this weekend so I can't run on Friday or Saturday which is going to mess with my miles this week
Tyson: why not either day?
me: Because I have a conference
Friday right after work until 10 and all day on SAturday
Tyson: hmm. what time does the conference end on saturday?
me: 10
Tyson: hmm.
what time do you get to work on friday?
me: 7:15, I can run before work, but it's too dark now and I don't like running in the dark by myself
Tyson: right, understandable.
well...
you have to be at work AT 7:15?
me: I can go in later but the sun doesn't come up until like 6 so I wont get to work until like 8:30
Tyson: now i'm confused. what time do you need to be at work on friday?
me: Usually I go in at 7:15
if I run in the morning I wont get in until at least 8:30
Tyson: How about this: you leave your place at 5:45 or so, i leave my place at the same time, meet you on your way to cheesman, accompany you around the park, then it'll be light out for you to run back.
i don't need to be at school until 8:30 that day
me: ooph!
Ok
Tyson: ooph?
me: nothing, it's ok, I'm committed to running so I will be running starting at 5:45 on Friday
Tyson: cool. i think it's better especially because you already missed a day this week
me: I didn't miss a day, you said I have to run 5 days, so that means I get 2 days off
Tyson: true. i'm getting ahead of myself.
in a month or so, i'm going to try to bump you up to 6 days per week
if you're game
me: yeah, and I'm tired, so I'm going to take my 2 days when I've earned them
Tyson: definitely
you shouldn't wear yourself out this early
me: I can tell you that going from maybe 15 miles a week to 20 miles a week and now 22-24 miles a week, is a lot
Tyson: huh. i didn't know you had been at 15 miles the previous week
i still think you should be running 5 days this week, though
just take it real easy
me: yeah, if I was feeling really energetic I was doing 15 so I'm feel pushed right now
I am running 5 days a week
Tyson: then let's hold off on doing those 1-minute surges
we'll wait until next week or the week after to do that
me: I am and I don't want you to think that I am not working hard enough
Tyson: ha!
no, the best thing for you is to listen to your own body
i've always trained myself on the more conservative side
i'm gonig to bed now. have a good night
me: bye

If you know me, you probably know that all of the chatting on my side was said in a snarky tone of voice, in my head that is (What? Do you think all of this running has me talking to myself?). While if you know Tyson, I'm sure he was talking in a normal coaching tone of voice, again in his head (I don't think he's crazy)...but I was having none of it that night! NONE OF IT!
Low and behold, I woke up, pre-crack of dawn (in a perfectly spunky bi-polar about running kind of way) to go for my run around the park with Tyson making sure I wasn't attacked in the dark.
So now I've made it two weeks in a row, 20+ miles each and since Molly and I actually signed up for our marathon, I think it is safe to say that this is actually happening!
Yikes!

Bolder Boulder

I realized I never told you about the Bolder Boulder this year!
The Bolder Boulder is the 10k race that leads up to one of the largest Memorial Day celebrations in the country at Folsom Field at the University of Colorado and I'm convinced it is the most fun you can have while running!
This year I ran the race with like 50,000 of my closest friends (read: by myself). The reason the Bolder Boulder is so fun is because it's in the city of Boulder which is an amazing place all on it's own. But the people that live in it are so incredibly interesting that some people do the race just for the people watching! Some people get teams together and dress in costumes, some people are wearing their regular clothes but you would assume that it is a costume, and some people are just interesting all on their own.

This year was my second Bolder Boulder and I decided I had to take part in the crazy! So I woke up early, pulled on my tu-tu, laced up my sneakers and was ready to pound the pavement! Last year, I finished the race in 1:07:05, so my goal this year was to finish in exactly one hour. By the time I got to my wave's starting line, I'd already had a conversation with Thing 1 from Dr. Suess (Thing 2 was in the bathroom) and met Superman (complete with cape)! After the Call to the Post was played Call to the Post" we were off!

I finished my first mile in 9:32 moving to the beat of Lady Gaga and Florence and the Machine on my iPod. This would be the point where you'd think my brain would hone in on the beat of the playlist I created for the run, so I could zone in on the goal, finish in one hour! But you'd be wrong, there is far to many things to look at along the way. Somewhere between the first and fifth mile-markers, as you wind your way through the neighborhoods of Boulder, you come across hundred of locals, set up for a brunch picnic in their front yards for optimal people watching. Some people are there to enjoy the show as they work their way through a round of certified organic mimosas and a delicious tofu "omelet". Which is all well and good. But the real fun can be had with the people watchers that are determined to be a part of the show! These are families that wake up early to fry 50 pounds of bacon so they will have something to throw at the runners as they pass their homestead. Others have made Costco runs so they can provide the best mid-run snacks! The options include: Nacho Cheese Doritos, giant marshmallows, and beer. But there is always one house that takes their involvement in the Bolder Boulder to another level. Each year this house, rented out to college boys I'm sure, transform their front yard into a water park, complete with slip and slide for the runners to partake in!

Not everyone is totally crazy about their involvement in the race, there was one guy there standing with a piece of art he'd completed and a sign that said "virtual rest stop, enjoy the art!"

The last part of the race is the hardest, because it's uphill, but also, in someways the most fun, because this is where you can find the die-hard race fans standing along the track holding up signs to encourage the runners. This year's winner for best signs of encouragement, was actually a tie! The first one read, "Keep going! Keep going! (That's what she said)" It made me laugh so hard I thought about stopping to take a picture! But I still had the one hour goal in mind, so there was no time for photo ops! The second sign I didn't actually see until I was walking away from the finish line at the end of the race. It was being held by what looked like an 8-year-old boy and read, "Your feet are hurting because you're kicking SO much ass!" Excellent words of encouragement to help all runners make there way past the finish line!

In the end, I finished in 1:01:17, I didn't make my goal, but I was pretty close and I had a great time trying!