Sorry it's been a while since I've blogged, but my training is going well. We may have that run if I have enough energy left to coordinate! This is hard work! P.S. I am not in the hospital, and my ankle is recovering well, although there is still a lingering pain it's not a show stopper. ;) Also please don't forget donations for my fund raising for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society are still accepted here! I'm still short of my fund raising goal of $3900 ($2282 to date), so any bit you can help is much appreciated! Thank you for your generosity and much much support!!!
If you help my sister and I reach it, I promise to donate 10 inches of my hair to Locks of Love. FYI, I've never had short hair before except for when I was "Little Elaine", so this is a huge sacrifice and actually makes me a little more nervous than running the marathon itself! :S I've been told I am an excellent candidate and have actually been offered mucho dinero (several thousand dollars) by wig salons for my hair. Apparently you can donate hair as long as it's in the form of a ponytail, and it's not bleached, been on the floor, synthetic or in dreadlocks. Da rules here. Where does my hair go? To little kids with cancer who have lost their hair due to cancer treatment. Here are some of them and they look happier. On a side note, did you know it takes 6 human hair pony tails to make one wig? Amazing.
So how am I doing? Insanely OK since the Half/13.1M on August 5th. And despite forgetting my race chip I did ok! I think I did it in 2:30. Since then it's been 3-4M for my short runs during the week. Thanks to those of you that come do the short runs with me! Makes it less boring! :)
My long runs:
8/05 - 13.1M (NYC Half)
8/11 - 9M
8/18 - 12M
8/25 - 12M
9/02 - 6M
9/08 - 15.4M (2 big loops/12M plus 2 lower loops/3.4M!)
The 15.4M was crazy. I wanted to quit after 12M. I had one of those disgusting GU gels (Strawberry Banana Flavor) about 15 minutes before the run. I got to the Park and started around 9:30am and finished at 12:40pm. Thank God iPhone has a timer and logs laps. I did:
1st big loop/6M - 1:08:55.4 (Wawa and Jelley Belleys)
2nd big loop/6M - 1:12:38.3 (Wawa and Gu #2)
3rd lower loop/1.7M - 29:18.8 (Wawa and Gatorade)
4th lower loop/1.7M - 20:16.6 (Inspiration)
So the total time was about 3:10 with an average 12:20 minute/mile.
I was wasted. Things I learned about this run:
* The hill at the top of the park REALLY DOES suqk especially when you do it twice AND counter-clockwise!!!
* 15 jelly belley beans in running short pocket can turn into ONE jelly bean quickly, I think around mile 4. And if you're not careful, could possibly get lost in your shorts...riiiight.
* I need to sew some more food/fuel pockets into my running shorts!
* Around mile 8 it was so freakin hot, I took my tank off. I was one of those jerks in the park running semi-naked, but who cares? It was hot! So as I was running I tried to tuck the shirt that felt like a pound from the sweat collection into the back of my running shorts. I pulled my right shoulder muscle in the process and had to roll out the pain WHILE I CONTINUED TO RUN. Stupid. Not trying that again ever! Who would have thought running expends all your energy you can't risk pulling a muscle in doing simple tasks like tucking a shirt into the side of your running shorts?!?
* Around mile 13 I literally was dying. I stopped and bought an orange Gatorade on the East Drive and chilled out for about 10 minutes. Yea..1.7M in just under 30 minutes is lame, but who cares? I needed some energy and stretched for a bit - made sure I could still see my ankle. But this is the ridiculous thing. I pulled my right chest muscle OPENING up the Gatorade bottle. My God it hurt. I had to massage out the knot before finishing the run. I'm definitely not opening any bottles between now and the race. :P
* Lastly when I finally finished all 15.4 miles I was in the little area in Columbus Circle chugging ANOTHER Gatorade, this time Red. Gotta change it up. And mental note to self, I'm looking forward to NOT drinking Gatorade for a while after this insanity is finally over! This guy who was bike riding and took a stop looked over at me and said, "You look wasted." Awesome. I told him how far I run, and he said he had to bike another 50M. I don't know what that means but sounds like a lot. The point is I was in the middle of stretching my quad when he bothered me, and ended up almost pulling my hamstring when he made that comment. Had to stretch that out quickly before it tightened up and got worse.
* Post-run I am Ibuprofen 400mg _minimum_ junkie.
Other than that it wasn't bad. I stretched and did some tummy exercises a good hour after that. I bumped into my fan club at the gym. My trainer says I look awesome! ;) Sunday I felt good and could still walk around without help. I also ate a bunch of crap on Sunday including chocolate mouse cheesecake, fried seafood, crab meat cheese dip, beer, gummy bears, gummy coke bears, sour gummies, runts (remember those?), chocolate cheesecake brownie ice cream on a wafer cone (my favorite!), black coffee (which I never drink!), glazed dunkin' donut, pad thai, lychee fried rice, pasta marinara... AND the amazing thing is that I woke up the next day and was still hungry... :)
What's in store for the next long runs?
9/15 - 15-18M
9/22 - 15-18M or Queens Half Marathon/13.1M
9/29 - 20M
10/6 - 13M
10/13 - 6M
10/21 - The Freakin Marathon/26.2M
It's highly personal at this point. You go out there and see how you feel. I think I'm a lot more in tune with my body in that I can figure out when I need to go to the hospital versus it's sore muscles and comes with the territory... Thank you all for your continued support and positive attitude! I'm really amazed at how far I've come along! :)
