Different ways to work out after a marathon

There are so many different ways to work out after a marathon.  I've found several of them this week.

Run with friends - works best if you go at the crack of dawn way before the crack of dawn.  If you are going to run this early, wear your reflective gear because it's dark out. 

I wasn't kidding about the dark.  After the run it was still dark, even when I got home.  If you're going to go this early, it's really helpful if you like your friends and will look forward to seeing them.  I have a group that's about 15 minutes away and I never see them any other way.  Also, they have kids and I have no excuse so I have to haul myself over to them.

Water Running - Water running also involves waking up early but does not require reflective gear.  We had a sub this morning.  Our teacher finally wised up and trained someone else to be her sub so she could take time off to get married.  Today's workout was a butt kicker that really snuck up on me.  It was warm up, 1:00 hard, 1:00 easy for a total of 10 rounds and then 0:30 hard and 0:30 easy for 10 rounds.  Kicked my butt hard.   There are no pictures because of my history with water and electronics.

Hill Runs - I have a love/hate relationship with hill runs.  I hate running up and love running down.  Tonight we did the hill with Team:Work.  We had a bunch of no-shows but the crew who ran were all hard workers and got after it, especially back down the hill at the bottom.  Look how fast we went!

Home Circuit workout - I was supposed to do this twice before tomorrow night.  Between all the other stuff I'm doing I wasn't sure where I'd fit it in so I did both workouts tonight after running.  Instead of 16, rest 1 minute, 16 more, rest 1 minute 16 more of everything I did 48 reps of everything, rest 3 minutes, 48 more reps of everything.  It took me 30 minutes or so.  Done.

     

A Food Bucket List?!?

These people Made a food bucket list, to which I'm having a strong reaction.  (WTF?)  Also, apparently I've eaten too much food in my life.  Only 14 to go.

Here's where I am on the list, comments only next to the food I haven't eaten.
1. Huevos Rancheros - surprisingly no.  I get too distracted by Corn pancakes at Maria's to try anything new.
2. Eggs Benedict
3. Baba Ghanoush
4. Oysters
5. Escargot - I don't think so, but I wouldn't swear to it.  I'm sure I ate tons of slugs as a kid before I knew better, but that doesn't count.
6. Gumbo - also no.  I can see the tomatoes from here.
7. Chicken Tikka Masala
8. Balsamic Vinegar (WTF?  Who hasn't had that?)
9. Cheese Fondue
10. Papusas
11. Black Truffle
12. Fugu - so not on my bucket list
13. Goulash - I don't think so
14. Fried Green Tomatoes
15. Latkes
16. Sauerkraut - Just no.
17. Hot dog from a New York Street Cart - my bucket list is all "Cheese Coney from Skyline" and I'm all "hell yes I am"
18. Hangi - what?
19. Ethiopian Cuisine
20. Turtle Soup - haven't had this one, and exactly no one is surprised
21. Stuffed Grape Leaves - tried and hated
22. Peking Duck
23. New England Clam Chowder
24. Crab Cakes in Baltimore - oh stop being fussy about "in Baltimore" 
25. Authentic Vietnamese Pho Soup
26. Osso Bucco - veal?  Boo!
27. Cuban Sandwich - also not on my list
28. Pastrami from Katz in New York - again, go away with "it's only Pastrami if it's from this one place and you have to go on a Tuesday 'cause that's when the good butcher works"
29. Paella
30. Octopus
31. Prawns
32. Dim Sum
33. Beluga Caviar - when I hit the lottery
34. Tapas
35. Falafel
36. Ikura
37. Pierogi
38. Something I've grown
39. A fish I've caught myself - I don't fish.  Go away.
40. Baklava
41. Pistachio Ice Cream
42. S'mores - had them, hate them because I have a marshmallow issue
43. Red Velvet Cake
44. Marzipan
45. Beignet
46. Macaroons
47. Sprinkles Cupcakes - it's only a real cupcake if you go to LA, no other baker in the entire world could come close to this experience.  Oh?  You were serious?
48. Churros
49. Raw sugar cane
50. Indian (Asian Indian) desserts

As I made the list I realized a startling number of these items fell into three categories. 

• "Food I ate becuase my cousin is a chef and I'll eat anything he makes me, even tomatoes".  Paella, prawns, marzipan would be some.
• "Food I ate because I did a study abroad/peace corps/etc".  Chicken Tikka Massala, Octopus, Peking duck, Pho, Raw sugar cane - which is not that good - all fall into that category.
• "Food I ate because I work/live/am friends with people who from different countries and cultures" including churros, papusas, pierogies, latkes, Ethiopian and Indian cuisines to name a few.

Some other thoughts:

• Ceviche?  Shame on your for missing it.  It should be number 1.
• Osso bucco is the only Italian thing on here?  I cry foul.
• How about a bucket list for vegetarians?
• There's ostensibly no fruit on the list that I can find.  A good mango?  Passion Fruit?  (Passion Fruit!)  Strawberries and Cream (breakfast at Wimbledon), baked apple, give me something.  No wonder we're all so fat.
• There's not really any veggies other than Fried Green Tomatoes (and possibly sauerkraut?).  How about Greens and ham hocks (southern style)?  Kentucky string beans?  Raddichio?  An actual artichoke, not just the heart?  Anything.
• With the "traditional Vietnamese Pho" thing, I'm surprised a few other cultures weren't recognized with a signature dish like Pad Thai, Beef Wellington, Arroz con Pollo (which is not to be missed) or "Singapore Noodles" (actually called that in Singapore too).

Short Run Mondays

I'm so over Mondays. It's nice that I haven't actually worked one in like three weeks.  Today kicked my butt up and down.

Wake up - My alarm went off at 6am.  I tried to re-set the alarm but wound up resetting the clock.  I got out of bed at 815am for a modified workout.

Run - I thought a fun running goal for this whole workout challenge would be to run at least a mile every day of the challenge, not including marathon recovery which was already off limits.  I clocked how many laps around the block I'd need to do to make a mile (3 laps) and this morning was my first try.  After the run I did the 'workout' for the challenge too.  The run was faster than I expected, and I'm thinking it will get faster and faster over time.

Work - Let the butt kicking begin.  It was basically a nice day but super busy.  The fun didn't let up all day and there's more to be had tomorrow.  Please tell me I packed my computer.

Challenge - It was nutrition night and I was starving so I was in no mood to sit and listen to someone tell me about what food is healthy.  I'm a marathon runner.  I know this already.  Stop talking so I can go home and eat.  See - great mood.  At least I'm allowed to have starches again.

 
Mail - I'm on a little jihad against the millions of health insurers, assisted living facilities, senior communities, etc that market to my dad by mailing shit to my address.  I can't tell if the post office is on the side of good or evil in this battle because they deliver the crap.  I re-installed the "please no mail for this man, he doesn't live here" sign in my mailbox.  We'll see if that helps. 

Sunday Fun Run

So, as I mentioned in one of the posts Blogger thinks you've never seen I'm doing this fitness challenge thing.  Really.  That's all I know.  It's been a week since the marathon so I decided I should get down to business today.

Nutrition - this cleanse diet is for the birds.  Almost literally.  I miss food and I never want to see another vegetable as long as I live.  This is like day four or something.  I'm heading back to Lose It to keep an eye on everything I'm eating because "eat all the nuts and nut butters you want" doesn't sound quite right. 


Fitness - This was supposed to be the workout:

But I was all "whatever, I'm a marathon runner, I'll make it harder" so instead of a 3-5 minute warm-up, I went out and did a four mile run.  I've forgotten how to run.  No.  Seriously.  More appropriately, I've forgotten how to pace myself, as may be evident by the graph below.  The dip in the beginning and the big dip at the end were for stop lights.  But I was still all over the place.  I had some more issues with my knee not feeling right.  I've decided it's my IT band which hasn't been injured since I fell on it way back when....

After running, anything in a bent-over position like, planks, and anything jumping (frog hops) is harder because my heart rate is higher.  I did the 'circuit' workout but instead of 0:30 and repeating, I just did everything for 1:00 once.  Because that's how my attention span was working. 

Blogger, Flickr and iPhoto - Stop It!

Blogger - that moment when you log in and Blogger is all "congratulations, you have a total of 3 page views for your 1700 posts".  WTF?  Blogger does that to me sometimes.  I know it's just a bug in the system because when I log back in it's corrected.  Still feels like a low blow.

iPhoto and Flickr - There's some pictures missing from my blog.  That's because either iPhoto or Flickr is stupid.  I think it's both.  iPhoto has this fantastic feature which automatically publishes photos to my Flickr account (which is where the photos on this blog are hosted).  iPhoto has a stupid feature that automatically deletes photos from Flickr when I delete out of iPhoto.  WTF?  That defeats the whole point of saving pictures to the web. 
Ultimately, I did a lot of internet research and found out that everyone else thinks this is stupid too.  Neither Apple nor Flickr have bothered to fix it. There's no way to give iPhoto permission to publish photos without also allowing it to delete photos from my account.  Back to the old way.  ::Sigh::

If I didn't log a workout, did it really happen?

The eternal question for anal runners - if a workout wasn't logged, did it really happen?  I use a super serious log for marathon running.  It helps me keep on track with long runs and mileage for the week.  Then when I'm not marathon training, I'm all what have I been doing?

I'm currently in the midst of some fitness challenge.  I got signed up for it much the same way I've gotten myself signed up for several marathons in the past. 

Me: Tell me about this thing?
Her: You should do it.  You have to sign up by midnight tonight, but we need a sixth person so you really should.
Me: Okay

Does it sound to you like I understood what I was signing up for? It involves both fitness and nutrition.  The nutrition part, in particular, feels like forced torture.   No yogurt. WTF?  What did my yogurt do to you?  I have been eating so many vegetables.  I never want to see anything green again.  Although perhaps the most torturous thing is that I have to miss Thursday night Circuit and Zumba for this stuff.  Why?

The fitness part is less stressful.  They give us workouts to do at home which are similar to workouts I do in circuit class and I can do them at the end of a run, once I start doing them.  (I took the first week off for 'marathon recovery'.)  I need a way to track both my workouts and my food, at least while I'm doing this.  I'm thinking I'll go back to Lose It for calorie counting.  I need to come up with a better spread sheet for workouts.

Here's what's happened so far:
Wednesday was a Team:Work workout which I had to do because I'm the leader.

Thursday was a Challenge workout.  I have panic attacks on treadmills.  I hate the treadmill with the heat of a thousand suns.  Seriously.  Panic attacks.  Next time I'll bring my iPod and it will be better.  Also I ran up 30 flights of stairs.  As punishment.  For someone else missing a meeting.

Friday I was more sore from that workout than I should've been.  That's marathon recovery for ya!  So instead of working out, I hit the hot tub at the gym.  This was after an hilarious exchange of texts with himself who forgot that I am not in the office on Fridays.  The texts got funnier and funnier as he discovered he's pretty much the only person on the planet who has to work on Friday.  Sorry.

Saturday Back to running.  There's also a Saturday morning Zumba class that I decided I'll have to try since I can't go on Thursdays.  Saturday mornings at the gym are a little insane.  It's like as busy as 5:30 on a weeknight plus there's kids everywhere.  So I got to the gym way early for class and hit the track.  I ran about 1.5 miles, which was about what I wanted.  Zumba was fun.  How I've missed you.  It's a lot more old white women than Thursday night, but still a good mix of everyone and a great way to start the day.
I finished the day at Marshall's with My Pooky Bear where I was successful at replacing the sweat pants I'd lost on marathon day.  (I knew I was going to take them off and leave them on the side of the road but still.)  I also found a new running shirt and some 'lay around the house' knit pants.  The thing Marshall's didn't have this time: Socks.  ::Sigh::

Post Marathon Run - My Knee!

I went on my first post-marathon run.  The thing about post-marathon runs is they always feel good.  It's not until a day or two later when you're all "what the crap is wrong with me?"  Today was the same.  I felt better the longer I was out there.  The first few minutes my IT band was quite tender from the massage yesterday and my knee kept giving out.  WTF is that about? 

Most marathon recovery plans say to take off the entire week after the marathon.  Most marathon recovery plans don't know I'm the captain of Team:Work and exceptions have to be made.  Tonight was week four of the Couch Potato plan, also known as "the week I can tell if you're doing your workouts or not".  I slightly modified the intervals to fit in with some stop lights that are long and unavoidable, but it was basically run 3:00, walk 1:30, run 5:00, walk 3:00 and people did well.  Kelly even let me race her in the last block.  (I totally won but the whole was I was thinking "Recovery!  I shouldn't be doing this.)

It was a nice night for a run, starting to get more chilly but not yet miserable to be outside.  We did our regular 'along the river' route which involves a pretty big hill.  That I made everyone run up.  I wonder what week we should do the Montreal hill....

Also next week I need to talk to everyone about dressing for running in the cold.  Like, a sweatshirt is nice  but you will get hot if you run in it.  You will get it sweaty.  Just be okay with that.

I threatened one runner that if she didn't run on her own before the next workout I'd know it and kick her ass next week.  That just means I'll make her run fast for a painfully long time.  Then another Team:Work colleague explained to her how to think about goals and set one, like "I'm going to workout at least 30 minutes at least twice before next Wednesday" instead of "I'll do a couple of runs sometime".  Nice.

Twin Cities Marathon - Pictures

They had pictures from the marathon done super fast this year, so I have some to share with you.  Not like I can forget that day but you all might.  As I've noted, this was the "Liz takes off her clothes for 26.2 miles" marathon.  There are none of me in my full gear with hat and gloves, but one at the half way point where I'm still in my long sleeve shirt. 

There's one of me close to the finish line (judging by the fence and my outfit) and two of me crossing the finish line. If you can see it, the clock is displaying gun time.  I took off about 10-15 minutes after the gun.  Yes, that's how far back in line I was.

Post Marathon Cleanse Diet

Marathon recovery is continuing in both diet and exercise forms.  Today was the first true day of my 'cleanse' diet.  I had a goal of obeying the diet like 85% of the time, and I hit that mark easily.   My diet was:
Breakfast - eaten over several hours in the morning, one thing at a time:

• Smoothie of peanut butter, banana, almond milk and chia seeds
• Diet pepsi - so not part of the cleanse
• Hard boiled egg
• Apple with almond butter.  Almond butter may be the best substance known to man.  Where have you been?

Lunch - eaten around 1pm.  I always eat lunch later so then I have less time to work in the afternoon when I'm done.  I was more full than I thought I'd be.

• Two lentil patties. Not quite as awesome as they were yesterday but close.  Next time I think I'll put some hummus on them.
• Roasted sweet potatoes
• Roasted carrots and zucchini
• Roasted broccoli and cauliflower

Dinner - after my Team:Work run

• Two hard boiled eggs with salt and pepper
• Roasted potatoes
• Collard greens with bacon.  Collards are okay, bacon is not really on the diet but it was more a seasoning in this dish than a feature meat.
• Sauteed mushrooms with sesame seeds.

Snacks

• Breakfast was eaten like several small snacks.  Smoothie at 7:30, diet pepsi at 9:30, egg at 10, apple and almond butter around 11.
• Couple of Chris' chocolates which are bite sized so not too many calories
• 3 cracker sized slices of cheese (not on the diet) and grapes (totally on the diet)

I was more full than I thought I'd be, but that was a lot of food.  Most of the food was veggies and it takes a boatload of veggies to get any measurable calories.  I had some very full plates today.

Productivity Tuesday - COOKING!

No running or working out becuase I'm still recovering from that really long run I took on Sunday.  But I did find time to get all kinds of stuff done.

Seen on my daily stretch walk.

 
Breakfast - A productive day always starts with a big breakfast.  Hello bacon!  I had bacon and eggs.  And then promptly fell asleep on the couch.  All is right with the world.

The view of south Minneapolis - not from my couch, but close.

All morning - This was not the productive part of the day.  I stayed on the couch all morning where I belong and had a big smoothie for lunch.  Our work crews drove me nuts all morning with those big leaf blowing machines that make ten times more noise than a truck.  Get a rake or something.  When I headed out for the afternoon I was greeted by an impressive pile of leaves.  No really, it's fine, who carEs about handicap parking anyways?

Massage - This afternoon I headed out to my first massage.  It was wonderful.  It was good when I was all "I just ran a marathon, fix me" and she knew what that meant.  Seriously.  I'm relaxing just thinking about it now.  This morning I was all "I'll never exercise again" but after that, I'm feeling like I could go for a little run tomorrow.  Good thing too because I have Team:Work

Shopping - I don't know if I mentioned I'm doing this challenge thing (I should really have a more complete understanding than I do) and it involves personal training and nutrition so this week I'm supposed to go on a modified cleanse.  Apparently it's modified to include solid foods.  I'm not totally on board with it yet, but am willing to at least give it a try.  I headed over to my trusty Co-op for fresh ingredients.  The rules are basically:

• Dairy: bad
• Meat: bad, but you can have chicken or fish for three meals, not on the same day
• White starches: bad.  No noodles, no rice, no bread.  I have no idea what I'm going to do.
• Slow starches including legumes, sweet potatoes and regular potatoes yes!: allowed, but not to be eaten within four hours of bed time.
• Sweeteners, alcohol, all of my favorite things: bad
• Nuts: Very good, especially raw or nut butters or nut milks like almond milk.
• Fruit and vegetables: Excellent

Seen on the way home from the store.

Cooking - I spent several hours on my feet cooking.  My tupperware drawer is now totally empty which means I don't have to cook again until I eat a bunch of this food.  I'm really excited about some of the stuff I made.  It's not 100% following the cleanse, but quite close.

• Lentil Burgers - I thought these would be foul and I'd just have to stomach them.  I had one and can't wait to make them again.  I used canned lentils instead of cooking my own and only made half a batch.  I found I had to cook them more like pancakes than to actually mold them into a patty.  They taste so good.  They're not strictly a cleanse food because they have bread crumbs (I used ground oats instead) but close enough.
• Hard boiled eggs - I hope I did it right.  I have a history of screwing them up.  No.  Seriously.
• Sauteed mushrooms - I used crimini, button and shitake and threw in some sesame seeds with them.  I'm sure the butter I used isn't on the cleanse diet but I'll deal.
• Collard greens - again, bacon is not on the menu but I used a very small amount for flavoring so again, I'll deal.
• Roasted potatoes - Om nom nom nom nom
• Roasted carrots and zucchini - this is a new one and we'll see how it turned out.  I forgot that roasted carrots are super sweet.
• Roasted cauliflower - this is the first time I've roasted the cauliflower without the broccoli.  Broccoli smells funny when it cooks so this may be a good idea for the future.
• Concord grapes -  I didn't do anything to them, but my Co op has them now and if yours does too, go out and buy buy buy.

That was a lot of cooking.  I watched Midnight in Paris which was stupid and a few old episodes of Warehouse 13 which were less stupid.  After all that cooking, I still have no idea what I'm going to take for lunch tomorrow.  I'm having a "too many options' moment.

Feeling slightly more human than yesterday.

Cleaning - Cauliflower is messy.  Of everything I did, the cauliflower made the biggest mess.  While the last of the veggies were in the over roasting, I thew the dishes in the dishwasher (best invention ever), swept the kitchen floor, and once the oven was off I took out the trash.  (Fire safety is important kids.) 

Twin Cities Marathon - How to recover from a marathon

I just ran a marathon and this seemed like an excellent time to talk about marathon recovery. 

Immediately after crossing the finish - calm down.  I always lay down and put my feet up on something.  Light post.  Tree.  Chair.  Anything will do.  The medics and EMTs usually come over to check on me but as long as I'm coherent they let me be.  Blood continues to rush back into places it hasn't been in five hours.  Awesome.

Just after the race: 
Eat - protein is good.  Also, the doctor says 'keep drinking until your pee is the color of lemonade' and it's totally cool to rehydrate with beer.  It'll put some calories back too.  I can never get that much food down after the race, but they had broth at the finish line and that was nice.
Feet - this may be my best marathon ever for my feet.  I have one blister that's so small and average it's almost disappointing.  I have all of my toenails.  Even more impressive - they're all the correct color.


The day of the race:
Stretch - No.  Seriously.  Do it again.  As soon as I can, I pay a visit to my local foam roller and spend some quality time with it.  Later on in the day I walk around the block (like 1/3 of a mile) and stop every so often to stretch my legs. 
Runner's cough - I totally get runner's cough (the kind caused by inhaling pollen and ten other kinds of crap) and cough up everything for a while after the race.  Usually if I'm sitting still I don't cough, and once my body is used to walking I don't cough.  As always, transitions are rough.  (I don't have exercise induced asthma and have no idea what the hell you do for that.  Sorry.)
Eat - More food!  Some people can down tons of food after the race.  I am not one of them.  My stomach is all ::Whoa:: What just happened? I had a plate of eggs and then my neighbor fed me some fish later. 
Fall asleep - by the time I had my regular parental phone call, I was pretty much done for the night, not sure if I was stringing words into sentences or not.


The next day - here's a good indicator of what to expect.  Personally, I fell down when I tried to get out of bed because everything was so stiff.
Stretch - No.  Seriously.  Do it again.  I walk around the block and stretch every so often.  It's like I can feel the crap flowing out of my legs.  Finally.
Eat - I'm actually not super hungry right after the race and require some amount of coaxing to get good proteins down.  The day after the race I think I can eat everything.  This was true of my training and long runs as well.  I didn't really get a whole lot in the next day either.  My stomach, and the rest of my body are still in shock.

The next week - I'm going to try taking a whole week off, other than Wednesday's Team:Work run which should be a light recovery run. 
Also, Tuesday I did not fall down when I got out of bed.  Nice way to start the day!

Twin Cities Marathon - Race Review

Long before the race - I started to raise money for Bolder Options - one of my favorite programs in town.  There's still time to donate, all the way to the end of 2012.  Bolder Options is a mentoring program that uses biking and running to help kids learn about healthy lifestyles, fitness, and setting realistic goals.  

Packet Pick up - smooth as always.  I got to watch part of the press conference for the elite athletes, poked around some of the stores, bought a new pair of tights and a new spi-belt and had a good time.  I saw my friends from Cincinnati there and almost wound up registered for yet another marathon.  Thank god I didn't.

Race day - thank you for having the starting line so close to a light rail stop.  It makes my life so much easier.  Although totally jealous of all the runners signed up for the 10-miler who will endure less than half of what I'm in for.  Now, let's go do this thing:

The race-staging area is at the Metrodome which is awesome because they have the building open for the runners before the race.  By a small miracle I ran into some running buddies inside and chilled with them for a while.  You may remember said running people from this cautionary tale. 

 
Weather and wardrobe or: In which I take off all my clothes.  In fairness, I know the race directors can't control the weather, but they should try to take credit this year.  When I got up to leave, there was frost on my car.  It was projected to be about 30* at the start line and warm up to around 50* for the finish.  Basically perfect running weather.  I was freezing for a large part of this race, overheated at the end and then rapidly returned to freezing after the finish line.  Here's what I wore:

• Starting outfit - tights, sweat pants, wool socks, lucky marathon tank (it has my name on it, I always wear it), removable sleeves, long sleeve technical tee, gloves, bandana, hat.
• Sweat pants - removed at the gun.  They will be collected and given to charity.
• Gloves - probably removed at the top of the hill around mile 2.5
• Sweat shirt - removed around mile 3.5 and man did I ever get cold after that.
• Hat - can't remember.  I think it was around mile 7.
• Long sleeve technical tee - somewhere around mile 16.
• Removable sleeves - at mile 19 and hoping that himself picked them up, although I can't be sure.
• Finishing outfit - wool socks (because those were the ones I always practiced long runs in), tights, tank shirt, bandana.

 
Route The route really is spectacular.  It shows off the best of both cities.  I ran with a group that had tons of out of town folks including the pacer and they all thought it was gorgeous, from running downtown to the lakes to the parkway with it's wild cheer zones to the river and then up Summit Ave to the Cathedral and the finish.  The fall colors were out in full blast and surprisingly in a few places made it difficult to see the mile marker plumes (which are also red/orange).

Pace Team  The ClifBar Pace Team paces this race.  We had Pacer Sharon who is every bit as great as she looks on the site.  She writes special songs for every event, including this one.  It's good for me to know that all marathon pacers who pace a 5:30:00 group will use run/walk intervals.  After Sharon and the other lady in 2010 I think I can generalize.  To Cliff I would say - write that on your website so those of us planning to use the pacers train with a run/walk interval the whole time.

Nutrition and hydration I had my lucky race breakfast, chia seeds included this year.  On the course I had two packets of Gu Chomps taken at miles 4, 8 and 12 (and I could still eat solids at mile 12!) and Gu gels taken at miles 16 and 19.  I took some salt sticks in the beginning of the race and then got a little lax until I cramped up at mile 20.  Oh, hello calves.  I took two salt tabs immediately, and about four more along the course before the end.  The biggest win of this year was having a small water bottle, starting around mile 15 that I could carry with me.  It's not that I get so thirsty, more just a dry mouth and it's nice to take little sips from it.  I put one bottle down around mile 21 and picked up my second bottle just after mile 23.

Fan support This year was much better for me in terms of people that I knew being out to cheer.  It really helps.  My Pooky Bear, Pooky's husband, and the Qat Lady were my first sighted cheerers around mile 11.  At mile 14 I met my neighbor who was the most excited for me that I've ever seen.  (Seriously, my heart is so big right now.)  And she was all "I love the vibe out here, I've really gotta try this".  Heck yes you do.  I saw the Pooky/Hubby/Qat Lady trio again around mile 16 where I was given my first bottle.  At mile 17 I saw some of my Bolder Options people handing out gels.  At mile 19 I saw himself who took lots of pictures and gave me a big sweaty hug.  At mile 23 I saw the trio one last time at Qat Lady's normal cheering post.  At the finish I had Richard and Lindsay waiting for me.  I thanked them profusely saying they were runners and so they probably did understand how much it meant to have someone at the finish to look forward to.  After the race I got a lot of texts from co-workers and himself, and got to talk to Dad, Grandma, and my clinical supervisor (how thoughtful) and also some Facebook friends.

Finish Line Thank god it's down hill to the finish.  The finishers area is super well done.  They called my name as I finished.  Just over the line are one million medics whom I did not need this year (although it was a close call).  Just past the medics are the medals.  I'm torn here because I think it's good the race has so many medics and a great focus on runner safety, but if I'd had my medal when all those medics were asking how I was, I probably would've asked to go in the tent and put my feet up for a while.  Just past the medals are the mylar blanket people.  I forgot about those since it was so hot at last year's finish.  Then there's the bottled water ladies and the fruit cup people, also the potato chip people and then the chicken broth and veggie broth people,  My personal favorite.  After food land there's official race finisher photos.  I opted to lay down and put my feet up for a while instead.  The bag pickup was super efficient, and even more impressive considering it was manned almost completely by some pretty young teens.  Then there were the shirt people who were super friendly.  Outside the official race finishers area were the things you can pay for including medal engraving and the alphabet signs, designed for family reunification, or in my case, Richard and Lindsay reunification.

Race shirt - This is one of the only marathons I know that gives out the race shirt in the finishers area after the race instead of with the packets.  I think it keeps the racers a little more honest, but it's good to know that you don't get to see the shirt until you're all done.  Last year was black.  This year was white.  I threw it on the moment I got it because I was freezing.

Twin Cities Marathon - Liz runs a marathon

Today was my fourth marathon, and my third time running Twin Cities Marathon.  For past race reports check out Amersterdam, 2009, or Twin Cities 1 - 2010, and Twin Cities 2 - 2011. 

Start - I was in Corral 3, also described as "that one around the corner in the alley".  So true.

Miles 1 and 2 - In downtown Minneapolis, before the first mile we look over and see medics working on some guy and the pacer is all "ooh, that looks like a heart attack".  I checked the news carefully when I got home and didn't see any deaths reported.

Miles 3, 4, and 5 Involved a big up and down hill, then onto Lake of the Isles and Lake Calhoun.  I started eating Gu Chomps which were kind of frozen still.  Awesome.

Lake Calhoun In training I always run the opposite direction (clockwise vs counterclockwise) around this lake just so I don't get bored on Marathon day.  It felt like I had an all new view.

Lake Harriet I think there's now a Dreidel Dash hat around there somewhere.  It was cold and I started the day in a lot of clothes and took them off slowly all around the course.

Minnehaha Parkway - Part 1 I remember having panic attacks in this part of the course last year.  How nice to have the same experience this year.  Also because the pacer wasn't super familiar with the course and really stuck to the "run 5:15, walk 1:00" we walked a lot of downs and ran a lot of ups.  I had my first cheering team sighting.

Lake Nokomis - What is normally my happy place was less happy today.  Although I was basically having a panic attack all morning and this is where I finally began to calm down.  It is sort of annoying (read: frustrating) to be running along towards St Paul and then have to go 2.5 miles out of my way around some dumb lake before getting back on the way to St Paul again.  (Really, I know a shorter way, I live around here.)

Minnehaha Parkway - Part 2 Finally feeling a little calmer.  My neighbor Mia met me at mile 14 (after she was convinced she missed me) and she is the most excited cheerer I've ever had.  She hugged me several times and made me feel great.

River Parkway - northbound I was still with the pacer, all the way along the river Parkway which is a great improvement over last year when I was passed around mile 16 by that pace group.  I saw my cheer team again as well as some Bolder Options people.

Franklin Ave - I met himself at mile 19, which is also where I was unhitched from the pace group.  By this time I was so tired and crazy I almost said "I love you" but correctly said "thank you for coming out" instead.  And then he was all "now I'm going to have breakfast at Seward".  I don't think I flipped the bird, but I can't say for sure.  I did run the 'down' side of the bridge and to the next water stop.  I just started to lose my mind around here.  (Meaning I lost my ability to focus and keep running through the pain, not that I went crazy.  That happened later.)

River Parkway - Southbound  Welcome to hell.  I actually still had the 5:30:00 pace group in my sights at mile 20 which was a big improvement over last year and at this point I knew I was going to finish.  This is also where the hills start.  And I got a cramp.  WTF?  Hello calves.  I had multiple salt tabs between there and the finish.  I remembered my pacing on the Cincinnati long run, running from one telephone pole to the next and then walking so I employed a similar strategy around lamp posts here.  I popped up the Cretin Ave hill just fine and so many people were excited to see me!

Summit Ave - straight to the finish  The first part of Summit is hard because it's a deceptive climb.  It goes both longer and higher than you think it will.  I was still running in between lamp posts of half a block at a time here.  Even though I lost my mind, my legs are the strongest they've ever been for a marathon.  I saw my cheer team one more time at mile 23.5.  I had Qat Lady take my heart rate, "I can't tell, it's really fast" but not so fast she made me sit down, so I kept going.  Miles 24 and 25 and 26 honestly involved a lot of walking.  My heart rate got higher and higher.  My vision was getting not right and I was getting kind of dizzy.  I needed to go slow and be able to walk in a straight line, especially in the last mile where I was most in danger of not being able to pull that off.  If I'd gotten to mile 25.5 and got pulled from the course I would've been pissed. 

 

Finish  I ran most of the way down the hill to the finish but there's a long flat after the downhill and I walked some, just so I'd be aline at the end.  I did not end up in the medical tent so this a great improvement over last year.  Here's the results and the report from my Nike+ kit.  As you can see, I really slowed down in the last couple miles.  Once I knew I was going to finish.

Extra!  Nike+ had a special bonus for me.  I've gone from the Purple to Black level meaning I've run over 3,000 miles (5,000 KM) with the thing.

 


    

Crazy Day and a Good Luck Run

Today was wild.  We are in the midst of the high holidays in the Jewish calendar, otherwise known as "the month where I have a ton of days off".  This week, I had Monday and Tuesday off.  Add in that I'm not in the office on Fridays.  When I walked in today I hadn't been in the office for five days, and no one doing coverage four of them.  Nice.

I was able to get away long enough to see Rep McCollum and Senator Franken speak at a forum at Sholom campus down the street.  They mostly talked about Medicare (you know our state privatized that a long time ago right?) and social security.  They did find time to acknowledge the Voter ID Restriction amendment and the importance of Medicaid as well.  I love listening to Sen Franken speak becuase its like you can see his brain working and he's formulating his responses to these questions.

The rest of the day was me chained to my desk putting out fires.  Not literally.  Mercifully.  I think I've mentioned that from time to time I can't find people.  (Could be in a hospital?  Which one?  Oh, no, they discharged to a nursing home.  Okay.  Which one?  Where'd they go now?  Seriously?)  It was sort of like this:

Around 5pm it was time to hit the bricks with Team:Work.  Like half the team bailed.  Boo!  However, the people who showed up had a great run including my boss who nailed it.  It was a pretty day.  When I got home, Nike had a special treat for me on my iPod.  I ran over 100 miles this month!?!

  

Now I am avoiding watching the presidential debates becuase I get nervous.   It's funny really that I get nervous about President Obama (who's pretty solid and unlikely to really step in it) but I have no trouble watching the Vice Presidential Debates with VP Biden (best entertainment in the democratic party I think).
 

New Bike Lanes - Panic

Today was a rest day for me, meaning I did not work out and I did not go to work because it's a holiday.  I did leave my house to meet my new trainers and spent some time on the re-paved and re-striped Park Ave.

Park Ave and Portland Ave are parallel one way streets in Minneapolis.  Both have just been re-paved and re-striped taking them from three car lanes and a bike line on the LEFT side of each street, changing it to two car lanes a buffer lane and a bike lane on the RIGHT side of the street.  They also lowered the speed limit, but I expect people will continue zipping along at 45mph.  Here's a picture from Councilman Robert Lilligren's facebook page:

One of the comments on his page says the road is going to be more dangerous because drivers have basically no clue how to take a right turn around the bike lane.  I already saw one driver just basically get in the bike lane with his/her car, way earlier than was needed to take a right.  I think it's the buffer lane that confuses people.  We have eight billion other streets with a bike lane and parking on the right and drivers can figure those out just fine. 

For now, I'm happy the work was done.  Those are both really big roads for bikes and it sucks to be cycling and have cars passing too close going too fast (and for drivers who want to get over but don't have the time or space to do so).  We'll see if the drivers and cyclists can figure out how to co-exist and make right turns in this new situation.

Long Run Sunday - Easy 10

I use the "easy" quite loosely here.  For every marathon I've ever run, I've used my favorite 10-miler route as the final run.  See the reports from 2009 when I learned rats can swim through pipes into your toilet, 2010 when I learned about pharmaceutical interventions for runners poo, and 2011, I still remember how good I felt that morning.  Fantastic.  Also, last night was a full moon.

 
Food: This morning I decided to try using a Cliff Bar as nutrition instead of gels as I think that will be part of the marathon strategy.  Gels, as you may know, are an amazing substance.  They are the most disgusting substance ever, until you've been running for an hour, then they are glorious and tasty.  Science is still trying to explain it.  Cliff Protein Bars, on the other hand, are always disgusting.  Positives are they have more calories than gels and they do not upset my stomach.  For the marathon I will try to get at least one down before I switch to Gu Gels or Chomps. 

Route: My favorite.  Fall colors are all over the place.  I'm kind of sad that the maples probably won't be as incredible next week as they are right now, but I'm hoping the oaks and some of the other trees come alive.  The most beautiful urban marathon in the country got that way by usually running when fall colors are at peak.  Also, the 'road detoured' signs are out and ready for next week!

 
Pace: All over the place, as usual.  I have a history of taking this last 10-miler kind of fast, especially in the beginning.  It's only 10 miles...  In honor of running Beth, I tried to run up the big hill as fast as possible.  In some ways she's right and it makes that thing less horrible.  That huge dip in the middle - that's where I was doing my best to get myself up that stupid hill.  I'm glad I kept after it.

Other thoughts: I'm a little nervous about my shoes. I'm currently doing long runs in the Brooks Green Silence.  I have two concerns - one is these are sort of minimalist shoes and offer very little support (on purpose), second is my feet seem to slide around in them sometimes, in my socks, so it's really my socks doing the rubbing.  I haven't had too many blister issues but I haven't worn them for 26 miles either. 
I'm trying to make a music plan, but for now deciding I shouldn't.  At first I was all "I'll stick with the pacer this long and stick my music in here, before this god awful hill" and then I was all "maybe I should listen to music here..." and now I'm like, "just carry the headphones and see how it goes".  I actually listened to music for about half the run today, the beginning and the end when the scenery was not the river.

For those of you wondering, it's not too late, you can still make a donation to support Bolder Options.  To those of you who've already donated, thank you so much!