Up to speed

I can't remember the last time I was in shape.

That's a lie, I can. It was the day after I ran the Chicago Marathon. I was sitting in the airport with my feet on my suitcase, occasionally pulling out the finishers' medal to assure myself that yes, I actually did that, and there were so many racing possibilities and I couldn't wait to tackle them all. And then, for all intents and purposes, I never ran again.

I mean, I did. I registered for a November marathon, I once again started training too late, and I ended up having to stop completely because I was taking a medication that made my joints ache and it hurt too much. I deferred that marathon entry to this November. I registered for a marathon and half-heartedly tried to train, but got shin splints, a side effect of what turned out to be a fairly serious vitamin D deficiency.

And then, my left foot started going numb for no reason and I began having weird twitches all over my body. I went to the doctor thinking it wouldn't be a big deal. Instead, I've spent the past five months mired in the terrifying and frustrating and maddeningly slow-moving process of being diagnosed with a nerve disorder.

I don't have a firm diagnosis yet, because it takes forever and there are a bunch of terrifying things that have to be ruled out first. Most likely I don't have multiple sclerosis. Almost certainly I do not have ALS. Probably what I have is peripheral neuropathy, but I don't know what that means or how I can treat it and I'm still a few steps away from getting to that point.

(You can Google this if you want, but it will just confuse you. Everything you'll find will talk about diabetes, and I don't have diabetes. Essentially what peripheral neuropathy means is that the pathways between my brain and my nerves are breaking down, and that's why I'm twitching. Does it get worse? Does it get better? That all depends on the outcome of tests I haven't taken yet, and Googling that shit is terrifying so I no longer do that. I try to be content with the waiting. I am sometimes successful.)

What I can tell you is what it has meant in terms of running, which is basically that I haven't been. At all. My main symptom is nerve twitching in my feet. Sometimes, it is strong enough to move my toes, and I can see the nerve fibers moving under the skin. None of it is painful and so it probably doesn't sound like a big deal to you, because it wouldn't to me, but trust me when I say that it's not the only symptom and it is very, very, very unnerving, and that it happens every single day, for long periods of time. For several hours after every run, the twitching would be worse, and stronger, and scarier, and it made me panic, and so I just stopped doing it.

What this means is that I have essentially been out of shape for a year and a half. I have not run consistently since before my marathon. I do not remember what it feels like to go run three miles and not be gasping for breath at the end. Stairs make me winded. This is the least physically active I've ever been, and it's a devastating feeling. It's a lot of, "How did it get to this point?" and, "Why can't I do this?" and it leads pretty quickly into a spiral of self-loathing, with not a small amount of fear over the ongoing neuro stuff.

What I've decided is that I need to just snap out of it. Both my research and my neurologist say that it's fine if I run as long as it doesn't make my symptoms worse, and according to the doctor, "sometimes it twitches more for a while after idk" is not a sign that it's getting worse. Exercise can actually help with neuropathy symptoms, and so can a healthy diet and so can calming the hell down about it.

So that's what I'm trying to do. I've really only been giving it a serious try for the past two days. Yesterday, I was out the door before 6 am to run 2 miles (twitch-free!). Today, I just ate a lot of pasta. Everything in my life is a process and a balance and it usually involves a lot of food because I like food, and that's okay. All I want to do is to treat myself really well, and to remember that I know how to run, and to believe that it will feel good again someday. I want to drink more tea and eat more strawberries and stretch more and write more and take more photos and read more books and do fun things with fun people. I want to take my whole life one day at a time. That's a cliche, and I know it, but I've never been able to do it. I jump 87 steps ahead. What I have learned in this health-scare process - one of the many things I've learned - is that leaping to conclusions is awful. Googling things is terrible. Looking eight years to the future doesn't help anyone, unless you're doing it to finagle a detailed plan for saving to buy an awesome house or a puppy. And so going forward, I'm going to do my best to stay right here, in the present, where I am.

Which is here: on the couch, having a little gchat with my cute boyfriend, not caring all that much about my stupid feet twitching, and looking forward to my run in the morning. It'll be 6 am and the city will be cool and quiet and it will be all mine, and that is good. That is all very good.

Epiphany

I decided yesterday to start following a training plan. I decided it might help me stick to a schedule. I know you are all falling out of your chairs due to the brilliance of this idea and also the fact that it took me three months of training to consider it. What can I say, I AM AWESOME.


Painfully true.
Source!

I arrived at this brilliant conclusion after an 11-mile run OUTSIDE yesterday. That's right, folks, the great heat wave of 2011 broke late last week, making it a comparatively cool 88 degrees with 85 percent humidity during my run. As is regular for me lately, I spent about the first five miles mentally defeating myself by thinking about how I can't run a marathon because I have slacked off the past month and how even this training run was going to suck. (I am a really awesome running partner, it turns out.) Then I got to mile six, found a water fountain, ate two Gu Chomps and found a running trail and just like that, I was back into it. I don't know what happened or why, it was just like everything flipped, instantly, and I was happy to be out on a long run and happy to be training for a marathon and looking forward to all of the rest of it. Endorphins, maybe? The intense magic of the Gu Chomps (I LOVE THEM AND THINK THEY WORK SO WELL THAT USING THEM IS BASICALLY CHEATING)? I do not know. All I know is that even when my legs started to tire out around mile 10, I just kept on trucking until I got home. I was a rockstar yesterday. And I want to be able to keep that feeling going, and I think the easiest way to do it is to have a specific plan for each week and each day so that instead of waking up and thinking, "Well I think running around eight miles today makes sense," and then at night thinking, "OH DARN I GOT STUCK AT WORK UNTIL 9 AGAIN OH WELL I CAN DO THIS RUN ANOTHER DAY," I can wake up and think, "I am going to do a one-mile warm-up and a five-mile tempo run and a one-mile cool-down and it is On The Schedule so I better Get Up Now At 5 AM to get it done." With the random capitals, and everything.

I also think sticking to a schedule will effectively eradicate all of the naysaying demons in my head. Yes, I am behind on training. But yes, I have built enough of a base and I have enough time left (10 weeks) to be fully prepared for the marathon if I get myself in line right now.

So! That is my plan! And here is my plan for the week:

Today: rest or cross-train
Tuesday: 10-minute warm-up, 5 x 3 minutes fast, 3 minutes easy, 20-minute cooldown
Wednesday: six-mile run
Thursday: high/low (7.85-mile run with lots of hills)
Friday: rest or cross-train
Saturday: four-mile run
Sunday: 12 miles

Obviously that's a LOT more running than I have been doing, so Saturday may turn into a cross-train or rest day as well, just because the last thing I need to be doing is aggravating my random injuries. (Note: I did twist my ankle again on my run yesterday, but it was very minor. Also, wtf with that? Am I really that clumsy of a human? [Answer: yes, it is ridiculous that I even feel the need to ask this question.]) I am, for the first time in a long time, optimistic about my training. Which is happy. And fueled by Gu Chomps. (Seriously, they're AMAZING. I love them more than I love cotton.)

OH HEY

I am back! My cat is ... okay, mostly, I think. I will not bore you with the long and ambiguous details of her illness, but she was at the vet's for IV fluids and forcefeeding for a few days and she is home now and seems mostly back to normal. I'm waiting on test results that will hopefully tell me if she has an actual condition or if this was just an episode, but either way things are much better than they were a week ago.



I guess, Sophie. I GUESS.

I didn't run at all last week, as a result of both the unbelievable stress of the combination of making no money and having a really sick animal, and of my schedule last week. I flew to North Carolina on Thursday for a two-day job interview, got back late Friday night and spent Saturday running around town picking up my various pets from their boarding places and then sleeping to recover. I had taken Henry to a bunny boarding place downtown and had a minor freak-out when I left him there because the photos on the business's website were EXTREMELY misleading. I thought I was going to be leaving him in a big well-lit room where he'd be able to run around and play with other bunnies. Instead I left him in a dark hallway in a cage.



Normally when I'm on a short out-of-town trip I just leave him in his man cave in my apartment and have my pet sitter feed him along with the cats, but after Sophie was so sick I felt like spoiling all of them, which is why I decided to board him in what I thought was going to be bunny paradise. Instead it was like bunny Auschwitz. Of course he is fine. But NEVER AGAIN.

So I was all set to go do a fabulous long run yesterday to restart my training and general good-at-life-ness, but then this happened:



Ugh really. REALLY? I debated my options (while eating some garlic breadsticks) and eventually arrived at the conclusion that I just couldn't miss another run. I've gotten way off-track training for the past month and I needed that to stop. So I sucked it up and went to the gym. As soon as I walked out of my apartment I knew I was making the right decision, because it was literally like setting foot inside of a sauna. Just DISGUSTING. I got to the gym, found Mean Girls on TBS and ran 10 freaking miles on the treadmill. TEN. It sucked and was boring and I wanted to die. I took three 40-second breaks to drink water (my Nalgene does not lend itself well to drinking on the go, I can barely drink standing still without sloshing all over myself), but otherwise I just pounded that mother out. I'm proud of myself, for going at all when it would have been easier and nicer to stay inside in the air conditioning watching Grey's on my computer, and for running a full 10 miles on the treadmill when I was ready to stop at around five and gave myself permission to stop at around eight. Basically, I'm proud of myself for (finally) sucking it up.

I'm still feeling sad about missing the half, though I know it was what I had to do for my own sanity that day. I found out the next day that the race organizers ran out of water at mile 2 and that people were dropping from heatstroke the entire time, so it's probably not a bad thing that I missed it, but I'm still kind of bummed. I don't want to register for another one because I'm (knock on wood) not sure where I'll be in a month (the interview went well), so for now it's up to me and my training. But now that I've knocked a 10-mile run out - on the freaking TREADMILL, no less - I feel more confident about things. Now if the weather would just cooperate everything would be golden.

the weekend of my idiocy

Soooo the Rock n' Sole Half Marathon is Sunday. I feel wildly unprepared for this race. Work sucks and I am bad at running in the mornings, so the past few weeks have just been sucko for my training. At this point I am looking at the half as a big kick in the butt to re-jumpstart things. Because I am NOT going to be standing at the starting line in Chicago in October feeling the way I do now. Which is a lot like this:



That being said I really do think, in the very small part of my brain that is logical, that this race will be okay for me. I will finish it. I did two long runs last weekend, each about 7.5 miles, and they were both hot and gross and I wanted to die, but I didn't stop and I finished both of them, and I think I'm going to feel much better than that on Sunday.

I also twisted my ankle again, then fell down, skinned my knee and got lost. All in the same run. I'm pretty sure the ankle is now a bonafide sprain because it's still pretty swollen; if you look at my right leg from the outside I look semi-obese with a huge cankle. ASK ME IF I CARE ABOUT ANY OF THIS. I went running on it again two days later; I taped it first to make sure it was more stable and it was fine. MY POINT IS THIS: I am nervous and I have slacked off the past few weeks and I am beating myself up for that, but I'm also owning it and changing it. SO THERE HALF MARATHON.

I still want to beat my tumor time. Unfortunately because my one and only half marathon was run in Virginia, they of course don't keep past-year times online. (Why would they? That would make my life easy. At least you are consistent in your suckitude, Virginia.*) From what I remember my official time was around 2:13 and that included bathroom breaks. Just as a recap, I was ordered to stop training for that race by my doctor, so when I lined up on race day my longest training run was 4.5 miles. It hurt like hell but I finished that thing without walking once. That course was beautiful but it was also hilly as a mofo. My point is this, if I can do those hills on little training I SURE AS HELL KNOW that I can finish this one too.

I'm equal parts pep-talking and berating myself here, can you tell? The "I can do it" part is the most important and the bigger part of me, for sure, I just like to surround it with a nice candy shell of WTF KATE-ness.



Anyway. The race starts at 8 am, is almost two hours away and I have yet to pick up my race packet so I'm probably going to be hitting the road at like 4:30 Sunday morning. I know you all are jealous. My dad and stepmom live about a half hour closer to Milwaukee than I do so I'm staying there tomorrow night and my AWFULLY GENEROUS father has offered to drive me there in the morning. This is amazing for many reasons, including the obvious ones like it means I don't have to be super-awake at 4:30, but also because the likelihood of me getting lost and missing either the packet pick-up window or the start is about 110 percent if I have to deal with any of this alone. THANKS DAD! (He totally doesn't read this blog.)



Here's my running to-do list between then and now:
- Laundry. All of my wifebeaters are dirty. Obviously this will not do.
- Run an easy 4 miles in my new shoes to see if the horrible quad pain I'm having in every run is a result of them. If quads hurt during run, run in old shoes on Sunday then deal with taking new shoes back next week.
- Go to the running store for a spibelt. I want to eat some chomps during this race, and I also want the option to listen to my iPod. Y'all, I used to judge music-listening runners; now I just think they're all training for marathons and need the music for sanity, because long runs start to become awfully boring when you're doing them 4 days a week. I've never run outside with music and I have DEFINITELY never listened to it during a race, but I don't know what the crowd support is going to be like in Milwaukee and if I'm dying, you better believe my bad pop music is going to help. Ke$ha understands my pain, probably because she hasn't showered since 2008.
- Carbs carbs carbs!

I also want you to know that I recently started seeing this guy who is pretty great, but unfortunately lives in Chicago, which is a good 2.5 hours from me. He told me this morning he is going to come spend tonight and tomorrow with me which is SO HAPPY. I will force him to give me many running pep talks, join me in my carb-fest and accompany me to the running store; he is a lucky one, for sure. He is an astrophysicist. For the purposes of this blog, I shall refer to him as Elroy. (Note: I sometimes refer to him as Elroy in real life too.) Oh my god, NEVER MIND. If I ever start another blog detailing the adventures of my dating life I will let you all know, but suffice to say that people are freaks and I am likely to remain the spinster of the running blog world until the end of time. (Seriously, have you all noticed that every running blogger is married, engaged or in a relationship? DON'T WORRY SINGLE PEOPLE, I'M STILL HERE, GOTTA GO GET MY CAT FROM THE VET NOW.)

THE END. PLEASE WISH ME LUCK AND LEAVE ME MANY ENCOURAGING COMMENTS, LIKE MAYBE ABOUT MY ANKLE OR ABOUT HOW I AM NOT GOING TO DIE OR ABOUT HOW I SHOULD STOP BEATING MYSELF UP BECAUSE OBVIOUSLY, WITH THE FALLING DOWN AND THE TWISTING OF LIMBS, I AM ALREADY DOING A GOOD ENOUGH JOB OF THAT.

* Dear Melissa, I know that you are from Virginia and I hope that you know that my constant berating of the Commonwealth is not personal and I hope also that it doesn't piss you off because I think about it sometimes and if you were always being all, "OMG WISCONSIN IS THE WORST STATE EVER, BLARGH" I would probably be cranky, basically you are great and I heart you. Plus I bet your Virginia hometown doesn't smell like kibble even some of the time. Harrisonburg = worst. LOVE KATE

Radio silence

Apologies for my sucktastic non-blogging lately. I am very busy getting sick, having meltdowns about running, mildly spraining my ankle WHILE running and freaking out about my upcoming half marathon. Too busy to blog obviously.

Let's just run through all of that in bullet-point form. Speedy like running.

- I AM SICK. Sorta. My throat started hurting about halfway through the work day yesterday and by the time I went to bed last night I was in full-on head-cold mode: sneezing, runny nose, fire-throat and all. It's slightly better this morning, sort of. Then I left my cough drops at home so to compensate I ate half of the intern's orange. Thursday = winning.

- I have been having many a running freakout lately. Things are changing in my office and I am basically in charge of everything now, which means my work day is about 10 hours long. Instead of just filing my own stories, I also have to wait for everyone else's to be edited, send emails to our media partners and do website maintenance. It sucks and did not come with a pay raise. Since I prefer to run in the evenings, this has mostly resulted in me completely slacking on my training for the past few weeks. Then I get stressed that I'm not running, and then I get stressed that I'm stressed, and that makes it even harder to run, etc. It's annoying and paralyzing and LAYERS DEEP, obviously. Here is a highly scientific diagram to help you understand.



I know. You don't want to get in my head. Anyway, so in my Tuesday-night panic I ate a metric ton of peanut butter then called my dad. He has been a runner for longer than I have been alive; he did Boston twice and the same 20-mile race for something like 25 years in a row, so I trust his judgment. He told me that I am entering a phase of training where I need to be mentally tough. Then he said, "And don't worry, it gets harder!" Then I melted into a puddle of stress and tears, and then we decided that I need to suck it up and run in the mornings so that I can just get my miles done and not have to stress about it at the end of the day. So I asked him to start calling me when he wakes up every day. The man is nutso and gets up at 5:15 with no alarm clock; whatever gene that is obviously skipped me. Anyway, he called me yesterday, I had coffee and ran 7.85 miles full of hills. My quads hate me, but it was lovely. Except for this:



I over-pronate like crazy when I run, so it's not unusual for me to roll my ankle when I'm training. I think it's the winning combination of a complete lack of coordination and the way I'm physically put together. I do it pretty often, and it's always the right ankle. I don't know why. Yesterday morning it happened just after I finished climbing a BEAST of a hill. I tripped on nothing, my foot bent in a way it's not supposed to and it hurt like hell. I stopped for a second to try to kind of peer at it, then realized that was dumb and so I just kept running. Three more miles, to be exact. I am smart. It hurts still and is quite swollen, but I can walk on it fine and will probably go running tonight, ANKLE AND SORE THROAT BE DAMNED. Because like I said. I am smart.

- Half marathon is in 10 days. I am pretty unprepared; the past two weeks really needed to be spent upping my mileage and doing speed/hill workouts instead of generally sucking at running. My longest run is still 9 miles. I know I'll run the whole thing and it'll be fine, it just probably won't be as good as I was hoping it would. I'm going to try to find another one to register for later in the summer, and in the meantime I am determined to go into this one focused on having fun, enjoying the experience and remembering that I am 110 percent capable of running 13.1 miles. Which of course I am!

The end. My bff Doug is coming to visit me this weekend, I have not seen him since I left Virginia almost a year ago. Doug does not run, so this is really not related to this blog at all, but I am excited and wanted to share anyway.



Doug is totally the only good thing about Virginia. If you ever move there (DON'T), you should look him up.

Whiny Friday

Whiny point 1: I went for an eight-mile run on Wednesday night, through the nature preserves in my hometown. It was lovely except for some, ahem DIGESTIVE issues that started to plague me about halfway through. I figured it was no big deal; I finished my run, found a bathroom and went home thinking I would be fine. Two hours later I was balled up in bed with horrible chills and ongoing painful issues. They continued into Thursday; I took a sick day to deal and to also not disgust everyone I work with. I feel fine today and am planning to run tonight, though I'm a little terrified, considering my last two runs resulted in illness, dehydration and a general sense of wanting to die.



Whiny point 2: I lost my first toenail to running a few weeks ago (yay! I'm totally official and hardcore!). The part that's growing back in is now apparently ingrown and I think it might be infected (sadface). It hurts. I have had ingrown toenails before, on the same toe in fact, and I have always fixed them at home with a lovely cocktail of epsom salt soaking, hydrogen peroxide and Neosporin. I hope to fix this one too. But it hurts. And I am sure running on it isn't helping. And I can't stop running, obviously, so, sadface.

Whiny point 3: My watch is still broken (sadface). I took it to the watch repair place in town and it turns out it is a super-easy repair, they just have to order a new part (yay!). The part will take 2.5 weeks to get here (sadface). So in the meantime I'm just rocking my busted watch. I found out on Wednesday that I can still wrap it around my wrist, it's just crooked and ridiculous and hard to start and stop. I just hope they get the part in before the half marathon (sadface).

Whiny point 4: I have been meaning to write about this for awhile. You need to brace yourself because you may not want to be my blog friend after you read this, but:

I cannot. Even deal. With running skirts.

Okay look. I know that there are people out there who are faster and better than me who run around in running skirts. I saw some of them on my run Wednesday; those girls would have left my shorts-wearing booty in the dust at the starting line of any race. But it doesn't matter how good you are, if I see you running in a skirt, I cannot take you seriously. I just can't. There is NO REASON to be wearing a skirt when you're running. THERE IS JUST NO REASON. I am all for looking cute, I love clothes (particularly skirts and dresses), but just NO. Running is hard and it's fierce and it's awesome and if you do it regularly, you're automatically hardcore. There's just no reason to throw a little skirt into that mix. I assume those skirts have shorts under them, so really, what are you getting out of wearing one except looking like you are a tennis player who got lost on the way to a doubles match? I JUST CAN'T. I AM SORRY. And I need you to know that this is coming from a girl who used to try on her mother's tennis skirts in high school and wish I had a reason to wear one. STILL NO.

I am happy to have gotten that off my chest. These are the things that keep me up at night, you know?

SO. In less whiny-pants news, my blogging bff Melissa gave me a blogging award! I don't really know what this means, but I like her, so I am happy!



So, 10 things about me:

1.I'm a vegetarian. I stopped eating meat when I was 13 and went to see the movie Babe with my grandma. We walked out of the theater and I said, dramatically, "I am never eating meat again." My grandma apparently didn't take me seriously because she ordered a sausage pizza for dinner, then got very angry when I wouldn't eat it. "It's COW, NOT PIG!" was her argument. I haven't eaten meat since then, though it took me some time to completely phase out seafood. Obviously the reason I don't eat meat now has little to do with Babe and more to do with animal welfare, but that is, in fact, why I stopped initially.

2. I can't dive. I am a pretty good swimmer, but I never advanced beyond the "intermediate" level of swimming lessons because I just can't dive. I can't do it. I don't know how you contort your body in that way, I don't know how you do it without getting water up your nose and I don't know how you don't freak out and belly-flop at the last second. I would like to learn how to do this at some point, though frankly holding my nose and jumping in works just as well.

3. I'm an only child. I'm always sort of shocked when people in my real life are surprised by this fact because I think I'm a pretty textbook only child. I don't think I'm particularly spoiled, though my parents are amazing and are very, very, very good to me, but I was mature from a young age because I hung out with a lot of adults; I am extremely comfortable meeting new people, I'm extroverted and I still, at 29, have to frequently remind myself that I won't always get things my way.

4. I don't really have any body hang-ups. This is a fairly recent development, I had a really unhealthy relationship with my body for a long time. I don't know if this comes from getting older or if it comes from realizing that nobody's perfect, but these days I'm happy with and thankful for my body. Of course there are parts of my body I would change (for me, it's pretty much just my stomach), but I don't care or stress about them like I used to. It is what it is. My body lets me do what I do, and for that reason alone, it's perfect.

5. I kind of miss my tongue ring. (SADFACE) I had my tongue pierced from the time I was 22 until last October. I took it out right after my trainwreck break-up because I decided, in one instant, that it was time to be a grownup. I loved my tongue ring, for no reason really other than that it was fun to play with, but I think that at a certain age you start to look a little ridiculous running around with piercings like that. I decided awhile ago that 28 was that age for me, but I never felt compelled to remove it until my world kind of fell apart. That sounds dramatical. But it's true!

6. I can't keep a plant alive to save my life. I thought I would have good luck with a cactus. But then my cat ate it.



7. I would like to own a house solely so that I can rescue more animals. Not a TON more, I'm not a crazy hoarder. But I would like to get my rabbit a companion, and I would like to have a dog. I will not do any of this in the near future. Apartment people already think I'm insane with my three pets, and that's before they meet said pets and realize how ridiculous all of them are. I just can't help it, I'm so passionate about animal rescue. I don't understand how people dump their pets at shelters and I also don't understand why anyone ever goes to a breeder when there are so many homeless pets out there.

8. Possibly I have a little bit of a bleeding heart.

9. Peonies are my favorite flower. I think because I feel like they are the flower embodiment of my life: big, messy, ridiculous, clumsy, falling all over themselves and above all, beautiful.

10.I have double-jointed arms. Here is a photo I just took that will hopefully illustrate this:



This usually grosses people out. My grandmother and my mom both have arms like this, and I never really understood why people think it's gross. Maybe YOUR arms are the gross ones! (Also, I realize that photo is going to make you super-jealous of the hot wood paneling in my office. I know. It's okay.)

The end. If you are:
Stopping For Daisies
Tami Taylor or
Words To Run By, you should participate. :) *

*there are other people I want to tag but then I would have to out myself as a blog stalker of people who don't read my blog so I am not going to. STEALTH.

The hills are alive...with bugs

In an effort to be super-good at life, I hauled my booty out of bed at 5:30 am yesterday to go run hill repeats. I KNOW. I was very proud of myself, especially since I didn't have coffee first.

I went to Elver Park to do repeats on this hill, which according to the internet is the highest point in Madison:



Ugh okay. I know. It looks tiny. This is due mostly to the fact that I took this photo after I was done with repeats and also done with my cool-down run and was disgusting and wanted to go home so I could not be bothered to walk ALLLLL THE WAY back over to the bottom of the hill for a photo session; I shot it from near the parking lot with a wide-angle lens. It is also due to the fact that I live in the Midwest and we are a simple people living in a flat land. But just trust me, that hill is a beast and it's long and it sucks. Actually, if you make the picture big you can see a runner going up it, which should give you some perspective on its BEASTLINESS.

We used to run this hill in cross country, and as I was driving over to the park I tried to remember what those workouts were like. Mostly, I tried to remember how many repeats we would do. I failed. So I set out to do five. I ended up doing eight, plus a 20-minute warm-up and cool-down. It was weird, I think I have written about this before, but certain parts of Madison just smell a certain way in a certain season, and the whole time I was in this park I was 17 all over again, waiting for the evil Coach Spolar to come crack the whip and make me do more speedwork. It's kind of helpful in a way as I was awesome at life when I was 17 and it makes me work a little harder when I'm running. Hopefully that makes sense.

One of the main reasons I wanted to do this workout in the morning is that Wisconsin has been DISGUSTING this week. It's been in the mid-90s with at least 80 percent humidity since Monday, and by the time late afternoon/evening rolls around I am too busy wishing I was dead to even contemplate running. When I walked out of my apartment building before 6 am yesterday it was still a little humid, but mostly cool and dewy and lovely. The park was the same way until I started running the hill and ran into my friends the mosquitoes. They were EVERYWHERE and they LOVED ME. I felt like Lady Gaga with a swarm of paparazzi, except not at all because instead of taking my photo and not telling me my lady bits were exposed, they just wanted to cluster around my head and bite my face off.

It was good motivation to keep moving, because every time I stopped I looked like Pigpen.



Pigpen in a wifebeater with a ponytail, anyway.

I also looked like this when I was done:



And the bottom of my shoes were CAKED with mud. It was awesome.

The only downside to morning workouts is that I inevitably run out of time to do a proper stretch/ice/foam roll session. I halfheartedly stretched my hamstrings and quads before jumping in the shower to get to work on time. As a result my right IT band, from my butt to my knee, is SCREAMING today. So I'm going to push today's run to tomorrow and spend some quality time with my foam roller boyfriend tonight. HOT DATE FOR SURE. It's better anyway because it's in the 90s again today but tomorrow the high is 63 or something ridiculous like that. Thank you weather for endorsing my week's training plan, I appreciate it!

National Running Day!

National Running Day was yesterday!



I celebrated by going home after work, hemming and hawing for 30 minutes and then heading out for a run. I wore a wifebeater (yessss) and planned to do between five and six miles, but then I got lost and ended up doing 7.28. I love getting lost on runs, it's ridiculously fun and such a good distraction - you almost always end up going farther than planned but it never seems like it. All in all a great running day! :)

I should have posted this yesterday, but, you know, I didn't. I was very busy reuniting with my foam-roller boyfriend and eating cheese. It's a running questionnaire of sorts that I stole from sweaty Emily. I hope you will all reblog it so I can read all of your running stories!

1) What is your favorite distance to run?
As a former track and cross country runner, I have raced a lot of really random distances. In Wisconsin, female cross country runners race 4K instead of 5K (I don't know why. This was fun when I got to college though, because people would ask what my PR was and I would be all "16:55, no big deal" and they'd be SUPER IMPRESSED because everyone else in the world runs 5Ks). In track, I ran the 800, the mile and the two-mile, along with whatever other random distances my coach needed someone for (1,000 meters, and one disastrous attempt at the 400). In my grown-up life I’ve only run 5Ks and one half-marathon, so I’m not actually sure how to answer this question (I’ll have a better answer after this year for sure!). I guess right now I’d say 5K, just because it’s quick, it’s over fast and it’s very easy to pace and gauge how you’re doing. I’m running my first 10K in two weeks and my second half-marathon, with proper training and no tumor annoyances, in July, so stay tuned! :)


2) What’s the best race you’ve ever run?
Either the cross country state championships when I was 17, or the Charlottesville Half Marathon in 2009. The half marathon was with my dad, and even though it was physically horrible for me, the course was beautiful and amazing and racing with my dad was wonderful!

3) What is your favorite running attire?
If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time you know by now that I am a low-brow runner. When it’s hot, I adore tiny shorts and a wifebeater; when it’s cold I like running tights with long-sleeved T-shirts and earmuffs. COTTON, BABY. It's the fabric of my life.


I just found this on zazzle.com and obviously will have to buy it to run in immediately, BOOYAH

4) What is your favorite running gear?
My running watch (it’s an old-school Ironman, no GPS for me) and my RoadID bracelet. And my shoes, because you can't do anything without the shoes. (Well I guess those barefoot people can, but I can't.)

5) Biggest running accomplishment ever?
Making it to the cross county state championships my junior year of high school. I had wanted to be a runner and run cross country for years, but I was too intimidated and never actually joined the team until my junior year. My high school’s team was amazing. Before I joined, they had won state two years in a row, and the individual state champion was the captain of our team. I never thought I’d make varsity, which was fine with me because I loved cross country, instantly, and was thrilled to just be doing it at all. But I did make varsity, pretty early in the season. When we went to sectionals, which in Wisconsin is the race that decides who heads to state, we were HEAVY underdogs. During the race, I ended up passing one of my teammates right before the finish line, and after I passed her, I passed a few other runners from other teams. We ended up going to state by one point, and that one point was one of the other runners I had passed at the very end (I was the fifth runner on varsity that year, so my score was the last one to be counted). After the race, my coach pulled me aside and said, “We’re going to state because of you.” This remains one of the best days of my entire life.

6) Favorite thing to eat after a run?
I don’t get hungry for awhile after a run, but I LOVE refueling with chocolate milk. It’s cold and creamy and a little sweet and delicious, and I don’t ever feel like I have to force it down the way I do when I have to eat right after I finish a run. I highly recommend it!

If you fill this out please let me know so I can come stalk your answers! And happy day-after running day; totally better than the real thing anyway, whatever.

PDR + Oh Bye Oh

I've sort of kicked my running apathy in the butt...sort of. That is to say, I went a bunch of times. None were terrible and one, a 5.83-mile run last Thursday, was great. But I still feel like my head is not super in it.

For example, last night I ran 7.38 miles, by far my longest training run this time around. I was proud of myself for killing it mileage-wise, as I had only gone out intending to do around six miles. And it felt fine until about the last mile, which is to be expected, but I was kind of bored the whole time and sort of just wishing it was over. When I finished I just kept thinking that for the marathon I'm going to have to run SO. MUCH. FARTHER than that, and I felt, for the first time, pretty intimidated. Obviously the remedy there is to keep signing up for races (10K is in 13 days!) and to keep training, but I'm not used to being intimidated by races so it's kind of annoying.

I also (TMI alert) really had to pee the entire time on this run which reminded me, randomly, that running in hot weather has that effect on me. It was gross last night, like 87 degrees with 70 percent humidity. I would suck at living somewhere truly hot. However, I am sure you will all be happy to hear that I ran in my brand-new, first-ever sweat-wicking tank top. This bad boy, from Target:



But in black because I am Johnny Cash-like; also because my running shorts are all ridiculous colors so black was the shade most likely to match all of them. The tank top is VERY snug and in my never-used-a-wicking-top-ness I figured that would mean I would be sweltering the entire time, but I am happy to report that it does, in fact, do what it's supposed to do. It was disgusting outside but I was dry and happy the entire time. DAMN YOU, RUNNING BLOGGERS.



I imagine I will still wear them, though. But it was nice to be relatively comfortable while running through the sauna. FINE YOU GUYS WIN.

I will also say that while I wish I wasn't in Wisconsin, one of the benefits of being marooned here while I'm marathon training is that there is nothing the Dairy State can throw at me, weather-wise, that I'm not used to. I spent my entire childhood running here, in every conceivable kind of weather, from blizzards to thunderstorms to disgusting wet humidity. Even though I hadn't done it in years, the second I stepped outside last night I knew I would be fine even with the heat. It actually occurred to me as I was trotting along that I had run some of those exact same streets before in those exact same conditions. It's equal parts mortifying/pathetic and comforting. Whatever, as long as it got me through those 7.38 miles, I'm going to say it's fine.

Lastly, Jim Tressel resigned from Ohio State yesterday. I went to the University of Michigan so this is filling me with ENDLESS AMOUNTS OF GLEE, mostly because the man was a sham of piety from the beginning. Rich Rodriguez sucked for sure, but at least he sucked out in the open. BOOYAH. On that note I leave you with this:


Source

Hail to the Victors!

Accessorizing

My browser (Firefox) saves descriptions of the recent pages I've used, so now every time I type in Blogger the "currently unavailable" shows up in the box and I'm all, "UGH AGAIN?!" And then I get here and it's fine. Thanks a lot, Firefox.

I finally had a good training run yesterday :) I did 5 miles in 43 minutes and felt fantastic, except for my hamstrings, which were still tight and sore from Saturday's race. I need to buy more ice packs so I can ice multiple areas of my person at one time rather than icing one, then throwing the pack back in the freezer so I can ice a different part later, only to forget about it because I am too busy watching Family Guy on Netflix.



I decided, though, that I really do need new shoes. I decided this after carefully examining the treads, or lack thereof, on the bottom of the soles, and also by the fact that my benign leg tumor is hurting all the time lately. I don't think new shoes will actually help the tumor pain - bitch just whines in protest whenever I start training for a long race, then stops hurting when I see a doctor about it - but maybe I am wrong. Who knows. Then to warm up for the trip to the running store I went online and bought a RoadID. This one:



But in yellow, because I prefer things in obnoxious colors if I have the option. I figured a RoadID was a good idea as I run alone 99 percent of the time and have a general tendency toward falling down and getting myself into ridiculous situations. It will also come in handy if I get lost on any other race courses and pass out from rage and hunger before authorities notice I am gone/find me. You will notice there is a space on the bottom to put an inspirational quote or saying. Here were the choices I considered:

"Don't move to Virginia" - helpful advice for the medical professionals who find me
"Little Kate is a star" - song lyric I love
"Vodka and cheese, stat" - easiest way for them to revive me

In the end I went with "Just one more mile!" Since I will be wearing this thing on every run and hopefully will not be dying/falling down on most of them, I thought it would make more sense to look at something optimistic and running-related rather than to, say, ponder my hatred of the Commonwealth or get a relatively slow song stuck in my head.

I was prompted to order my RoadID by an email from Active.com with a coupon in it. The discount code is pcLevi5 and will save you 10 percent on your purchase. It's good through June 5, and every $20 you spend on the site gets you an entry to win a trip to the Tour de France. So go shop and win a trip to Paris and feel free to invite me, I hear they like cheese and wine there. And if you get one, please tell me what you put in your "motivational saying" line. (And no, RoadID didn't pay me anything to plug them, I'm just liking the bracelets. Like running jewelry! Only not.)

p.s.

It is apparently 84 degrees outside. I can't even. I am not sure I know how to run in temperatures higher than 60. I shouldn't be surprised because how it works in Wisconsin is this: it starts snowing in October, you will have two or three nice days in April, it will continue to snow until May and then one day BOOM it's summer. There is no spring here; until I moved to Maryland for grad school I was not really sure that spring was a season that actually existed (maybe it existed in New York but there weren't so many trees in Manhattan so it was hard to tell for sure).

Anyway, just wanted to drop in and let y'all know so you could look forward to the next post which will inevitably be about sweat running into my eyes. I'm wearing the tiniest shorts known to man and my cats puked on my running shoes right before I got home.



Obviously it's go time.

the mother of all workouts

As it turns out (this is really complicated so try to follow along), running more + blogging infrequently = MANY RUNS to write about in each entry. Like I want to update you on my last two runs but one of them was last week, and I can not really even remember what happened to me at lunchtime, so this is impossible. I think I ran 3.6 miles on Saturday. I think it sucked?

AH yes. It's coming back to me. I have been having a lot of random joint pain in my hands and it was freaking me out, and I don't have insurance at the moment so I got up early on Saturday and hoofed it over to the east side to see a free doctor. It was fine and I am fine; it turns out when you go from not sitting in front of a computer all day for five months to sitting in front of a computer all day for two weeks, your body gets mad. Anyway, after the clinic my dad took me to breakfast where I ate an omelet the size of my face. Five hours later I went running and realized about a block into it that I had apparently digested zero of that omelet because I spent the rest of my run burping it up. That was an attractive and uplifting story; let's just move on to the main event: Mother's Day.


Me and my mama at dinner after my grad school graduation in 2008.

Then I made her do the Miley face with me:


I love Miley, did I ever write about that here? I do, for real. Anyway, Mother's Day. So, I am the product of two very active and twitchy parents who are not particularly good at sitting still, ever. My dad has a tendency to get up and wander around looking at things when he is bored, my mom is fond of packing her days full of activities so that she doesn't have any down time at all, ever, EVER. My mom and I are also both broke and whiny about money so instead of doing a normal Mother's Day thing like, I don't even know, shopping? Pedicures? (Seriously, I lack any knowledge of what a normal mother/daughter activity would be.), we decided to bike over to the nature conservancy, then I would run and she would bike, then we would bike some more.

So that is what we did. Biked the three miles there. I ran 5.2 miles while she biked, and then we biked 10 more miles. It was sunny and hot and I smelled super great, and the run felt kind of crappy, it turned out that was because I did the entire 5.2 miles at an 8:30 pace. That, by the way, is SUPER slow when you are on a bike and my mom still stayed with me basically the entire time, which was great. (I had told her beforehand that I would probably run at about a 9-minute mile pace and that she was totally free to leave me and circle back if she wanted; about halfway through she said "I think you go faster when I bike with you!")

After our exercise extravaganza we got some breakfast. I had forgotten to bring a change of clothes to her house so I had to borrow things. My mom and I are not the same size or the same height so in addition to my smelling super great, I also looked super hot. After breakfast, we took the dog for an hour-long walk. Then my mom was all, what should we do now? And I was all, do whatever you want, woman, I'm exhausted. And then I came home and ate some pita chips and collapsed.

I neglected totally to ice or foam roll when I got home (on account of the exhaustion) so my legs are still a little bit hurty today. I am planning to run about 4 miles tonight anyway, and then a super-easy and slow run Thursday in preparation for the fake Legend of Arlage 5K on Saturday (yes, I am still the only dailymile participant). I can't decide what I want my goal time to be, I was thinking under 25 minutes but I feel like that'll leave me in a world of hurt. My real goal is just to try to not run like an idiot. The last 5K I ran was last June and I basically sprinted the first mile and then wanted to die the rest of the time. It paid off, sort of; I was 10th out of 80 women with a time of 25:39 and essentially zero training, but I feel like if I had tried to pace myself a little more I may have done even better. So that will be my REAL goal. I am not by nature a patient person or particularly good at holding back at much of anything, so this should be interesting at best.

5 Things on Friday

Because I don't think I can come up with 15 things, I am just not as interesting as this girl.

1. I ran 5.2 miles at an 8:46 pace on Wednesday and it didn't feel fast at all, just comfy. Perhaps my tempo run Monday just busted me through that plateau?

2. For the past week or so my left hamstring has been tightening up about two miles into every run. On Wednesday, it got super tight then started to hurt, a la an oncoming injury. I foam-rolled and stretched the hell out of it and it feels fine now, but I am concerned because it has felt fine after every other run too - it's just during that it tightens. I am basically refusing to be injured so I think I might have to start (UGH) warming up before I run. Do any of you do this? When I was doing physical therapy for my IT band my therapist gave me a set of warm-up exercises called dynamic flexibility. It involves a bunch of stretches you do while walking/moving around, most of the time you look super-cool like this:


O hai, just monopolizing the track with my bending over
Source

Dynamic flexibility helps a ton; I always feel looser and more comfortable in my running when I do it first but it's such a PAIN because it turns even a quick three-mile run into such a freaking PRODUCTION. Like I get changed and ready to go run and then I have to squat and flail all over my apartment for 15 minutes first, it's kind of exhausting. Factor in the icing/stretching/foam-rolling time after and even a short run takes an hour. Rage. But it's better than being injured and since I am just going to keep increasing my mileage from here, I guess I'll start doing it again. Somewhere in Virginia, Jeremy the physical therapist is cackling evilly right now from satisfaction, I just know it.



Do you like how he's all grainy because I made the photo bigger to fit my Charlie Sheen text? Me too. Take that Jeremy!

3. I had a job interview for the best. job. ever. yesterday. I have no idea if I will get it as I think it's a little above my experience level, but I feel like I kinda rocked the interview so I am feeling good regardless.

4. Then I found out I have to register my car in Wisconsin because Virginia (aka the Worst State Ever) is canceling my license because I am not living there anymore. I called the DMV and tried to explain that I am in a weird state of limbo but that I would prefer to just keep my Virginia residency until I know where I will be, but the DMV lady did not care. Obviously registering my car here is important SYMBOLICALLY as it means I am one step closer to dying here. F my life.



I do not miss Virginia (on account of it's the Worst State Ever), but I will miss my animal-friendly license plates. My pets will miss them too.


My popped collar indicates that I don't actually care at all about your license plates, I just want some sorority girls to party with.

5. I read an article in W Magazine about a "no poo" movement where people are eschewing the use of shampoo. Apparently your hair will clean itself if you leave it alone for 4-6 weeks. I am a big fan of not showering, but even I feel like this is excessive. And yet, I am still kinda tempted to try it, though I have to think the people who are doing this are not also training for a marathon; my head would start to reek after about three days. My sense is that that will not get me hired anywhere and it may also endanger the health of my freelance projects. Allegedly Prince Harry is a fan though.



So ostensibly his hair looks like that not from copious amounts of expensive hair product but because he doesn't wash it. Idk, but if he's smelly that baby doesn't seem to mind, though to be fair I am not sure I would either if I were in her position.

I hope you all have fabulous weekends! I am going to spend mine drinking with the boss, cursing Virginia while I pay extra to register my car here and cross-stitching. Just keeping alive my special blend of being simultaneously 80 and 12.

various exciting and life-changing notes

1. I didn't really feel like running last night so I was like, fine I will just do around 3 miles, and then I was like, WELL, MIGHT AS WELL MAKE IT A TEMPO RUN! My thought process makes no sense, even to me. Mostly I was just tired of seeing an above-9-minute pace on dailymile. Anyway, I ran 3.2 and my pace, which felt only a little uncomfortable, was 8:42. Happy! :)

2. I remain the only participant in the Legend of Arlage 5K. So either I'm going to win many things, or I am going to be running with super-elite runners who are flying under the radar and too busy being awesome to check into races on dailymile.


See you there, Lindsay!
Source

3. I figured out how to do Google Friend Connect or whatever, so I should be following you all publicly now. Still don't really know what that means; still using Google Reader to actually read everything. I am a master of technology.

4. This:


and also this:



are pleasing me this week.

5. Post White House Correspondents' Dinner, I have spent some time contemplating Donald Trump's hair. I don't get it. Can anyone explain it to me?


Source

I feel like it's a combover of some sort, but it seems to defy all laws of physics and gravity and hair products.

6. Sophie was just wondering if you had donated to my marathon yet.



She used to live in a box and now she doesn't, and would like you to consider donating money so that other homeless cats can know the joy of sitting in a box....inside a house!

The end. I am in a meeting and just got asked to email the notes I'm obviously typing to the boss when we're done. Hope he enjoys my Donald Trump musings and then makes a donation to PAWS.

my new boyfriend

I did not get arrested at Best Buy. I also did not get a registration packet. I got in the looooong line of people waiting to pick up their bibs and talked to my best friend on the phone about whether or not I was going to go to jail. She came up with the following brilliant suggestion:

Me: So I think the likelihood of them asking for money is kind of high here.
Bff: Just ask how much it is then say you have to go to the ATM and then don't come back.
Me: (stunned, awed silence)

But it didn't come to that. Instead the girl behind the counter searched for my name in the binder and didn't find it (I did however notice that my aunt and uncle were running the race, shoutout to Frank and Jenny, hope you enjoyed the free beer!), then pointed out a guy for me to ask for help. I thanked her, milled around until she wasn't looking and then left the store. BOOYAH.

So instead of running a five-mile race this morning I just went for a five-mile run. It sucked mostly. There were 26 mph winds and I just felt slow and bulky, and then about halfway through I got a side stitch that then migrated to just under my ribcage near my stomach. I didn't stop (I don't ever let myself stop and walk) but I did think about how I have newfound sympathy for people who get stabbed in the stomach as I am sure it is exactly the same pain.


ugh whatever Drew, dramatic much?

Later I went to run some errands with my dad. He needed new running shoes so we went to the amazing Movin Shoes where I peppered the salesmen with many questions, including if compression socks are worthwhile, if Mizuno has really changed everything about the Alchemy Wave which will anger me and what size technical T-shirt I should ask for on my marathon entry slip. My dad waited patiently while I did all of this (they know him so well there that someone was heading back to the stockroom to get his preferred shoes the minute we walked in), then asked if there was anything I needed.

WHY YES, YES THERE WAS. Which brings us to me and my new boyfriend:


Not at all representative of why I am single.

I realize I look spastic here but this literally is how excited I am to finally have a new foam roller. My current foam roller (aka now my ex-boyfriend) is in storage with my other belongings post-breakup, and it is also cheap and from my physical therapist's office so it's becoming depressed in the middle from all the rolling. Foam rolling sucks and hurts like a mother but it is also, in conjunction with icing, the only thing that keeps me pain and injury-free. So I have to stop blogging now because I have to go spend some QT with my new main man. My excitement about this will end in about five minutes when I am in excruciating amounts of IT band pain thanks to not having a foam roller for the past six months. It is an abusive relationship, to be sure.

THE RUNS (haaa)

I'm 12, for serious. I wanted to upload a picture I took at the grocery store yesterday to prove this, but it would require somehow getting a photo off my BlackBerry without creating an email account and I don't know how to do that. Instead I will recreate it for you!



Apparently this is some sort of English dessert, I don't know. Obviously this is why I never received my invite to the royal wedding. That and the fact that my name is Kate and my hometown is Middleton, so there would have been some tension and confusion about who was the correct bride (I think we all know the answer to that).

Anyway, onto the running! I went for a wonderful 4.2 miles on Tuesday at night and was reminded of a bunch of things, like how much I love running in the evening, how good Wisconsin smells when the weather pretends it is spring and it's right after a rainstorm, and how good running can be when it doesn't totally suck. I would rate that run about an 8.5 out of 10, it could only be better if it had been faster (I was at a 9:10 pace) and if I had not eaten a jillion Cheez-Its right before I went.

Today, I went running with my friend Allison. Allison and I have been friends since high school, she was one of the first girls I was ever good friends with because I learned at a young age that girls are DRAMA and being friends with boys is easier. (I then went to college and joined a sorority and now my number of girlfriends equals my number of guy friends; turns out I'm equal-opportunity.) Allison and I ran cross country and track together in high school and she hated me at first for awhile because once on the track bus I announced in front of our coach that my boyfriend had told me he had seen her at a - gasp! - DRINKING PARTY that weekend. I do not really blame her for hating me for this and also, I am a moron. But she did not get in trouble and then our coach made us run 18 200's one day and we have been friends ever since.


Sadly we do not look this nice when we run, especially because Allison spends a lot of our runs swearing at me under her breath for making her go.

Als is the only person I have ever really been able to run with, I think just because we spent so many years in sync that way that it's just easy to fall back into it. I emailed her a few weeks ago and asked if she wanted to run with me sometimes while I train and thankfully she said yes! So we went today. It is a very happy thing because it was cold and rainy and gross out and if left to my own devices I am not 100 percent sure what would have happened. We did my 3.6-mile loop at about a 10-minute pace which felt REALLY slow to me, but I went when it would have been easy not to so that is what I am focusing on.

Allison is running a 5-mile race this weekend and she asked me to do it with her and I was all meh, because it is $50 and I have only been running for two weeks so I'm trying not to push it super hard. I got through about half of the online race registration process last week and then decided to just register for that fake Legend of Arlage 5K instead. BUT then I got this email today:


OH REALLY?

I am confused by this but also excited because I enjoy a bargain, and what is a better bargain than getting to run a race for free? So I'm going to head over to Best Buy tomorrow and see what happens. I think the chances of there being a packet for me are pretty slim. I also think the chances of them having some record of my unintentional shadiness and then demanding payment are kind of high, and if they do, I am going to say no and leave which makes me look INTENTIONALLY shady, but whatever. As Allison said, "You are never going to see them again anyway." Of course she just wants someone to run this thing with so probably I shouldn't listen to her. I guess we will seeeeee! If my next blog is via BlackBerry from a holding cell in the back of Best Buy, YOU WILL KNOW. Of course that depends on my being able to blog from my BlackBerry; odds of that are slim at best.

All Alone On The Internet

I hate that in my tailbone-induced blogging absence everyone up and abandoned my blog. That's fine, I didn't like you guys anyway, even though I totally still subscribe to all of you and read you every day, including several people who don't know I exist because I am a certified Blog Lurker.

o hi there, just enjoying ur blog

THAT IS JUST FINE. It does make me think of important philosophical questions, though, like "if I blog and no one reads it, is it still a blog?" Really, the absence of readers is just expanding my mind.

After bravely announcing my marathon plans to the world, aka my friends and family, most of whom were then strong-armed into donating money to my cause, I proceeded to sit around for about a week and a half. Just sitting! Pondering and thinking seriously about running, but never actually doing it. I don't really know why.

Well, partly I do. I am very good at procrastinating and also occasionally good at not following through with projects, so you can imagine the one-two punch that Training For A Marathon induced in me. Normally when I am getting back into running shape I start by going 2-3 times per week, about 20-25 minutes each time, not worrying about distance or pace, just focusing on running for roughly the same amount of time each outing. This has always worked for me. It takes me about two weeks to get back in some semblance of shape this way, and then I go from there. But THIS time, because I was Training For A Marathon, the very idea of going for a 20-minute run was killing me. I don't know if it was intimidation or just feeling like a 20-minute run was an insult to the idea of marathon training or what, but I just Could. Not. Do. It.

I am a master of excuses, of course, so there were plenty of REASONS why I couldn't go, like I had to work or it was raining or my rabbit chewed the laces on one of my running shoes and now it was like really hard to tie. All of these things are true and actually happened, it's just that none of them are a good reason to skip running. Finally on Good Friday, after procrastinating for three hours, I got fed up with myself and went out to run.

It was supposed to be a 25-minute run; it of course ended up being 3.72 miles and 34 minutes because - surprise! - once I actually got OUT there, I was all, "oh right, I like doing this." And then I got up early on Easter Sunday and went again, this time for 3.62 miles. And now I feel sort of in the zone about it, which will of course change at some point; I will be crabby about having to run and I won't want to do it but thanks to publicly announcing my marathon goal to the world (and simultaneously no one, since no one is reading, dramatic pause for my weeping), and thanks, more, to the fact that I am running now to benefit homeless animals, I know I will go and get it done.

I am a lot slower than I like right now (I am running pretty consistently at around a 9:10 pace). I am also working hard on reminding myself that I have run three times after taking three months off and maybe I should just shut up and let that improve by itself, or at least shut up and let myself get to a point where I am in shape enough to do speed and hill work. Either way I am trying to shut up.

To keep motivated and make sure I keep training I also registered for a 5K on May 14. It's called the Legend of Arlage Spring Run 5K. I have zero idea what any of that means, though apparently it is a race to fight homelessness. I looked it up on DailyMile and it didn't exist there so I had to create a page for it. Currently I am the only participant. I mean I am sure in the non-internet world there may be other people registered, but at least on DailyMile, I am totally going to win my age group. Booyah!

I would have tried harder to make this post more entertaining, like with photos or by showcasing more clearly my wittiness, but I don't think anyone will read it anyway so whatever. Also this is the one and only time I will ever whine about not having readers, I'm so not that type of blogger. Consider yourself whined warned.