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.

when life (with help from politics) spoils my plans

I cover state politics for a living in Wisconsin. I don't know if you all have paid attention to the ridiculous shenanigans that have occurred in Wisconsin during the past six months, but to give you a photo primer most of it looked something like this:



All of those people have been in Madison since February, protesting the tactics and proposed legislation of this guy:



Gov. Scott Walker. The biggest deal to protesters is the collective bargaining legislation, which Walker says will help close the state's deficit. The legislation effectively eliminates collective bargaining rights for most public employees who belong to unions, including teachers, construction workers and nurses. The legislation was tied up in court for months but the state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that it could take effect. Additionally this week both legislative chambers passed the budget after hours of debate (13 for the Assembly and nine for the Senate), the bulk of which was Democrats and Republicans yelling at each other.

SO. I love politics. I am not paid to have an opinion on any of this and I am, truly, professionally neutral about all of it. I say that because I'm not writing about any of this here to make you feel one way or another about unions, collective bargaining, Democrats, Republicans or Scott Walker. You can feel however you want, I don't care. What I DO care about is the fact that it's Friday morning, I have already worked 45 hours, I am fried and exhausted and I have not run since my 10K on Sunday. This is me right now:



Except not at the royal wedding and not related to anyone with an engagement ring worth more than my apartment building. Just BLAAARGH! The company I work for has also been feeding me lots of free food, which I appreciate, but the end result is that I am full of pizza and sandwiches and chips and Diet Coke and I feel gross and sluggish. Hopefully, now that the budget is passed my life will become more manageable. I had a mini panic attack this morning when I realized that my July half marathon is a mere THREE WEEKS AWAY and my longest run so far is 9 miles. Now I know I can run a half marathon on the base I've built so far; I know it because I ran a half marathon once when my longest run was 4.5 miles. But I would like to be competitive and to actually race it, and to toe the starting line knowing I am prepared. And I don't feel that way right now.

HOWEVER. I am planning to go running tonight, and doing that will mean I have really only missed one run this week. That is not a big deal. I also know that sometimes life happens and training suffers and you have to GO TO BED so you can get up in the morning and spend another 14 hours listening to politicians argue with each other. I'm not really beating myself up at all about any of this, which is good; I am mostly just finding it annoying. Dear legislators, DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THAT I NEED TO GET MY TRAINING RUN IN? PLEASE WRAP IT UP.



RUDE.

I will now go crank out one more story and try to get out of here at a reasonable hour, like maybe 6 p.m. Dare to dream, kids.

sometimes, not always

I forgot to add one thing to my list of "you should know's" regarding my blog which is this: I am not a write-every-day type of blogger. And probably I never will be, unless someone decides to sponsor my blog and pay me lots of money to write ridiculous things from my bed while I wear pajamas. I just get all twitchy if I start thinking of it as something I Have To Do every day, and also I am not interesting seven days a week. Tuesdays are boring and sometimes I take naps on Thursdays. It's just a fact.

Since my last post I have run twice. The first was indoors at the gym - 4 miles in 35 minutes flat, 6.5 starting speed, 8.1 ending - and the second was today, OUTSIDE, in the BALMY 32 degrees weather. My ears were very excited to be muff-less in the great outdoors for the first time in a month; my quads were less jazzed about the hills we encountered. It went okay, and I felt happy to be out again. I did 3.23 miles in 27:49, which is an average pace of 8:21, thus proving my theory that treadmill training will make you fast but it will also make you a big fat hill wuss. Since it's supposed to drop back into arctic temperatures next week, I am contemplating some treadmill hill workouts. I'm not sure how effective they are but it is probably better than nothing, so we'll see.

Because I don't listen to music when I run outside, I always gear up for my runs with a dance party in my bedroom. I do this with the door closed lest anyone wander past and see me, because I dance like a freak. Like this:


Except instead of joining in my cats just look at me with sadness and pity. Today's warm-up song was "Raise Your Glass" by Pink which morphed into "Teenage Dream" by Katy Perry while I was running. I then spent a good chunk of my run contemplating how pop music all sounds the same to me now, which I believe officially makes me about 86 years old.

Kindred spirit.

I was chatting with my blogging bff Melissa the other day (we go way back, like to the days of livejournal), and she pointed out that I had never explained my reasons for choosing to run the Little Rock Half. They are simple and boil down to this girl:
That is my bff, who I affectionately refer to as the Baby Giraffe due to her gangly awkwardness. She is living in Little Rock for the year with her husband, Cute Comm Boy (so named because I mildly stalked him in my sophomore year communications class), and suggested that we run the race together as a bonding thing. The giraffe weighs 10 pounds and could cut you with her hipbones and as such has never run a half marathon, which frightens me a little because I fear she may break in half right in front of me en route, and I can't sew or do CPR so I will be of no use if/when this happens. She has had the flu and has spent the past week or so vomming, and before that I think was right around my awesome running benchmark of 4 miles, so it remains to be seen how this whole half-marathoning-in-the-name-of-friendship will go. Because in case you have forgotten, allow me to remind you that the race is

36 days

away. And yes that did fill my heart with fear and panic when I typed it.

Obviously I do not have any grand GOALS for this race, although I would like to beat the time from my last half, which was 2:13. My training for that one was very on point until I went to the doctor for what I thought might be a stress fracture and left being told it was a "shadowy mass," most likely a tumor. My tumor sucked. I named her Phyllis, she was a wench. She looked like this:


The fugly whore is technically still in my leg, hanging out, and since it never changed shape or grew the doctors didn't see a need to biopsy it, and declared it benign ("enchondroma" is Phyllis' full name, if you are into the Google). But while they were discussing all of this I was told to stop running, so by the time the half rolled around my long run consisted of a single 4.5-miler. I was running the race with my dad, who has been a runner longer than I've been alive and has done Boston twice, and he was very kind to me when I hit the wall at mile 9. But I didn't walk once and still managed some semblance of a sprint into the chute, and of course I didn't lose my sense of humor or powers of persuasion, as some time around mile 7 I managed to talk my dad into doing this for one of the course photographers:

Why yes, I am racing in a cotton T-shirt.

So really my goal here is to get in at least one long run of about 8 miles and finish faster than my tumor time of 2:13. I think it's doable, especially since the giraffe told me to feel free to ditch her after the first mile. I don't know how likely that is, on account of I like her, but I am glad to have the option. And since I won't be listening to music on the course, I already have my pump-up strategy all planned out. It basically involves playing this on a loop in my head:

FOOLPROOF!

Edited to add: I just reopened this post to let you know that I cannot watch that video without dissolving into laughter. I have yet to make it through one time. I am a dork.