Falling Behind While Running Ahead

http://pages.teamintraining.org/nca/pfchangs09/ayates

Eeek! I am falling behind in my blogging again! Sorry to all of my regular readers (if I have any), but I will try and catch you up on how things have been going in my little running universe.

Columbus Day Weekend: Running is For the Dogs

For Columbus Day Weekend - and my wonderful husband's birthday - a group of my college friends decided to rent a cabin in Cooperstown, NY and take in the baseball festivities. I had never been there before, but the town is quite adorable, and somewhat Gettysburgish in its quaintness. We passed time seeing the sites, taking a brewery tour, eating lots of food (of course), and playing cards in our campground's Adult Room, which was nothing more than a few couches and a projector screen TV.

Since I couldn't run with my team, I decided to get up on Sunday and run in Cooperstown. I had mapped out a route on mapmyrun.com, which I thought would get me around just fine. Perhaps I should have printed it instead of trying to commit it to memory. In any case, things started off well because Susan accompanied me for the first 2 1/2 miles or so. After she returned to the cabin, I attempted to remember the route, but wound up on a lonely - and very creepy - dirt road in the woods. The road eventually let out on a more open road, but by the time I hit a lake and a State Forest, I knew that I was completely lost. During that time, I was also chased by dogs on two separate occasions, so I was not exactly a happy camper. Fortunately I had my cell phone with me, and after placing a call back to the cabin, Tim was able to use the GPS to locate me. He said the same thing happened to him not too long ago, so fortunately nobody razzed me too much about getting horribly off-track. That's the last time I run alone in the wilderness!


Saturday, October 18, 2008: Has anybody seen the water stop, or the starting point for that matter?

On our way to this training, Erin and I got horribly lost and wound up taking a joyride throughout the district of Columbia. I definitely should have brought Samantha - the new GPS that I got Dave for his birthday. We eventually found our starting point at about 8:00, 15 minutes after we were supposed to be there, when we actually should have been early. It turns out that a bunch of other people got lost too (including Andrea, who didn't get there until I had almost finished my run), so nobody had started running yet. The coaches made the announcement that half marathoners were only supposed to do a recovery run of 6 miles, and that the water stop was the turn-around. This would not have been a big deal, had the water stop set-up person not gotten lost in the park! To make a long story short, I wound up running right past the place where the water stop should have been, and did somewhere between 7-8 miles instead of 6. I kept up a really good pace, though, and I also spent most of the time chatting in Spanish with another runner. My first bilingual run - yay! This was definitely one of my more achy post-run days.


Saturday, October 24th - Eight is Enough

This past Saturday's starting point was much easier to find, as it was in my hometown of Alexandria. It was drizzling as I did my eight miles, but I didn't mind. I guess if you run in a hurricane at the beginning of the training, it puts everything else into perspective for you! Andrea couldn't be there, so I did the first few miles more or less on my own, with the exception of a run-walker who I chatted with on occasion when her intervals placed her near me. She gave me really good advice: I need to figure out my pace, and during the race I need to look for the people who run holding pace numbers. Apparently there will be different people running with signs that say "8 minute mile", "10 minute mile", etc. I need to find my guy (probably 11 minutes), and stay within eyesight of him, so that I don't get so excited on race day that I run too fast and tire myself out. I've heard that it is pretty common to use up a lot of your energy in the first few miles because of all of the commotion around you, which actually makes your pace a lot slower once you've tired yourself out. Hopefully this won't happen to me.

On the way back, I ran with a really nice woman named Elizabeth, who ran at pretty much the same pace as me. It definitely made the time pass a lot quicker than during the first four. I can only imagine how quickly my weekday runs would fly by if I just had someone to run with!

This coming Saturday is a 10 miler. My first double-digit run...oh my goodness!!

Hills

I did my required four miles today. It's funny, but I'm more exhausted now than I was when I ran eight miles on Saturday. I think I couple of factors come into play here: 1. I'm running alone instead of with Andrea and the others, 2. I put in a full day of work and dealt with a 45 minute commute before starting my run, and 3. My neighborhood is way hillier than any of the trails we run on during training. My coaches say that hill training is really beneficial, and I know that it will build up my stamina and make me able to go faster on flat terrain, but it still isn't any fun. Hopefully Cooperstown isn't super hilly, because I'm looking forward to another not-to-difficult (albeit lonely) eight miler when we go out of town this weekend.

In related news, one of my coworkers is doing the Nike Women's Marathon a week from Saturday. She has to go out to San Francisco for it, and she's really looking forward to it. I'm excited for her, and I can't wait to see that Tiffany's necklace that she'll get in lieu of a finisher's medal. To me, the hills of San Francisco are worth it for the bling that you get to flaunt afterward!

And the winner is...

My Fundraising Webpage

...Karen!  Karen, a cyclist who knows someone on my running team, won my raffle for the long weekend at the lakeside cottage in Upstate NY.  Congratulations Karen,  and thank you to everyone who entered!  Check out the video below to see my friend pull the winning ticket:

I haven't been updating my blog since I started the raffle, since I wanted the information and cottage photos to be the first thing that potential entrants saw.  Now I feel like I can finally catch everyone up on the past three Saturdays!

Honored Teammate Picnic

The honored teammate picnic was on Saturday, September 20th.  After an easy four mile run we gathered by the canal at Fletcher's Boathouse for bagels and cake.  While we were eating, people on my team got up and shared their personal stories.  Monique shared the story of her sister, who died 20 years ago of complications from Leukemia, and she explained that thanks to all of the hard work of fundraisers like us, patients are far more likely to survive now from the same disease.  Marc stood up with his two year old daughter and explained that she had been fighting Leukemia since January, which is why he decided to do a Team in Training event.  In addition, Sarah, who is currently undergoing treatment but is still training for a half marathon, attempted to share her story but got too choked up to do so.  Her husband stepped in and explained the details of her treatment, in addition to thanking us for all of the fundraising work we were doing.  There were many others who also talked about friends and family members who were battling a blood cancer, or who unfortunately lost their battle.  It was an emotional morning, and it reminded us why we are out there doing what we're doing.

Running with Cows and Horses

On Saturday the 27th Dave and I had to attend a wedding in Upstate NY (congratulations Eric and Diana!), which meant that I would have to miss Saturday Training for the first time.  Since I knew I would be a little too busy to run on Saturday, I chose to get my six miles in on the Friday.  I used www.mapmyrun.com to plan a route in the secluded area surrounding my mother-in-law's house, and proceeded to exhaust myself running up steep hills through the lakeside farmland.  At one point, I was worried that I missed the cross street (literally named "Cross Street") to get back to a road that I was familiar with.  There were plenty of little dirt roads that cut into cow pastures, but they looked like they turned into driveways as they got closer to the farmer's barns.  I was really starting to get nervous, but eventually I did come upon a hilly, narrow, gravelly little road called Cross Street.  There was a sign that said the road is closed between November and April, and I thanked my lucky stars that it was only September (I think I would have cried if I had had to turn back the way I came).  I soon discovered the reason for the sign, as the road was really more of a treacherous little path that is probably impassible in the cold NY winters.  As I attempted to run down it, I decided to try the Energy Gu that I had picked up at the Bethesda training.  It was caramel flavored, but it had caffeine in it and it basically tasted so disgusting that I barely had any of it.  I'm definitely going to stick with sports jelly beans!  In any case, I made the lonely 6 mile trek and I was very proud of myself.  It's really starting to get easier!

8 Miles!!

Yesterday we were back at Fletcher's Boathouse, but this time for an 8 mile run.  I was happy to be surrounded by my running buddies, and Andrea and I chatted easily along the path.  We ran from Georgetown to Bethesda and back, which was no small feat.  Still, it really wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.  The shorts and sports beans that I purchased at the Army 10-miler Expo the day before helped.   I still can't believe I ran 8 miles!

Following the run, Erin and I borrowed a table from Tina and proceeded to run a bakesale in front of Giant for the next four hours.  It was pretty successful, and we each walked away with $98 for our fundraising webpages.  People were so generous, and some came up to us and thanked us because they had lost loved ones to a blood cancer, and they were just genuinely happy to see us out there raising money for the cause.  I was exhausted from the run and nervous about the fundraiser, but it was so rewarding and inspiring to hear people's stories.  Now I know more than ever that I need to meet my fundraising goal.  Thanks so much to all of you who have already donated!