Knitting, Botany, Mycology, Nature, Adventure, and Life... in no particular order.
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How to Fail at Going for a Run
How to fail at going for a run (in my case while training for a 1/2 marathon)
- Get up psyched to run
- Plot out the perfect running course including a new fun route, new scenery and a new distance you can’t wait to achieve
- Get your gear on and go!
- Run at an easy pace to not tire yourself out on the new route and longer distance, no need to be too tired with a mile to go
- Get to just past mile 2, the Mt. Auburn Cemetery, and realize the next 2 miles of your route, though the shade and hills of the cemetery roads, is not allowed. Curse to yourself but carry on because THIS is your route and the cemetery seems quiet.
- Go a little bit further and start to question whether you are still on the right route. Also, walk. Not because you are tired (because that is ok), not because you are sore (because that is ok), not to catch your breath (also ok) but because there are too many people around for you to feel comfortable breaking clearly posted rules.
- Go a bit further, realize you are totally on the wrong set of paths because the Mt. Auburn Cemetery is HUGE with more trails than you had on your original map and that there are too many people out for you to feel comfortable running.
- Walk back to the entrance as directly as you can, muttering and cursing yourself under your breath for ruining your long training run because you only have a bout 5 weeks to work up to 13 miles.
- Jog home the same way you came, continuing to mutter and curse.
On the plus side, I did still go for a jog and can do a longer run tomorrow. Also, it let me realize I didn’t have enough of a food and liquid base to really actually do a full long run.
So remember, No Jogging, No Picnicking, No Biking, No Rollerblading or any other thing that could be viewed as disrespectful in the Mt. Auburn Cemetery. Also, bring a map.
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10 week count-down: 10
In 10 weeks I run the BAA 1/2 marathon. 13.1 miles.
I think I’m crazy, but at least I’m not the only one. I have 3 other people I know running it as well.
Today I officially started my training with almost a 4.7 mile run. Considerably shorter than 13.1, but it means I have to add less than 10 miles total to my distance in 10 weeks. That’s less than a mile a week. How hard could it be?!
Stay tuned over the next 10 weeks to find out. For now I better drink more water, take ibuprophen and go to bed. Wooooo!
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I Am My Own Superhero
A while back I decided to signup to run an all women’s half marathon. At the time I figured that since I was already training to run a 5K and I was interested in training to run longer distances that it would be the perfect opportunity to push myself.
Training for the 5K went well, as did the race back in late September. From there I planned on having just over a month from being ready for a 3 mile race to a 13 mile race. I figured that 5 weeks would let me get up from running 4 to at 10 miles at a good clip and would be able to then do the whole thing if I paced myself. Especially since all I wanted to do was finish.
Isn’t it interesting how things hardly ever go quite as planned?
Between the end of September and yesterday I managed to get 2 different bugs. The first one left me just utterly exhausted for several days. The shortly after that got better I got a terrible cold that kept me home on the couch or coughing for some time. So while I ran several more times in the end of September (for ultimate), I ran not at all in October until our last ultimate tournament on Halloween.
If you’re trying to figure out the numbers here folks, it means I did 1 day of running in the month before my first half marathon and previously had only been running up to 4 miles. As you can imagine, yesterday was interesting.
So what happened yesterday? I completed my first ever half marathon. That’s right, 13.1 miles from start to end. Not only that, it is the longest distance I have ever run. (And for full disclosure, I did not run the whole race. There was walking, especially up some beastly hills and towards the end. However no full mile between mile markers was walked at any time.) The race was in lovely coastal York, ME on yesterday’s beautiful, warm, sunny, and slightly breezy day. I miraculously finished the whole thing in under 3 hours! I did it in 2 hours and 55 minutes (and 58 seconds). At times I felt very much like giving up and just laying in a stranger’s yard until my guy came and found me, but I did not. (Miles 10-13 were especially hard, and 11 & 12 were torture.) Nor did I cry. Nor did I get mad at myself. (Nor did I figure out how to drink a cup of water while running without getting all of it up my nose. Stopping for water was the way to go!) Heck, I even enjoyed myself for most of it! And while I maybe did not pace as well as I could have, and perhaps could have run a little more here and there, I crossed the finish line running (albeit very very slowly)!
So yesterday in the car on the way home I said to my handsome fella that I felt simultaneously like a superhero and the lamest person alive. I felt like a superhero because I did it and lame because I always feels bad when I finish so far behind everyone else that there is no pack, or sign of a pack, or hardly anyone at all. Today, after I figured out my average pace was a 13.18 mile I was convinced of my own superhero status. Who cares if I came in towards the very end of the pack. Heck, who cares if I had come in last, I did it! (and boy oh boy do I have the aching body to prove it!)
Next time, however, I will definitely train. (Note how I already know there will be a next time. Nicole was right.)
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Race Results
On Saturday (26th of September) was the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure 5K in Boston. I was on a team that called themselves the blue-footed boobies. It was my first 5k and my first big fundraiser and I feel great about both!
My fundraising amount: $925 (because my friends and family are awesome)
My 5k time: 29.15!! (I’m allowed to be excited for that time, it’s my first race since high school!)
Now I just have to keep up with all this running in amongst all the ultimate and knitting! (New found love of audio books is making the latter really even more awesome!)
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Wait a Minute!
So tomorrow is September 1… how did that happen?! Where did the summer go?! We got 3 weeks of summer weather in August and that’s it!
August was a pretty packed month: I went to “Nerd Camp” for a week to learn about hypogeous fungi (and even collected some species that need to be described), the cutie and I went to Philly and he sucessfully defended his dissertation and we got to spend time with great people, my friend from high school got married and it was beautiful and fun, I got sick and knocked on my tuchis for a week… well that was pretty much August. Some work and helping friends from work move and a trip to the South End and even a movie got snuck in there too. Whew, maybe I’m ready for a new month.
September always feels like a new beginning… which we can probably attribute to school years. Having attended 17 years of school (kindergarden-college) it’s pretty much hardwired, and then throw in working at a university and taking the occasional class, my brain is positive September marks the beginning of things. So I think this September I am really going to embrace it!
This September will be the beginning of getting myself back in order! This hopefully will include:
- Cooking more! (Healthy things!)
- More time on the porch and listening to music
- Leaving less clutter and mess everywhere at home!
- Running more (with 2 nights of frisbee a week and signing up for 3 races I better)
- Scheduling things I want to get done and doing them (like grocery shopping and working on my collections)
- Making time to relax, be me, and do my own thing (knitting, reading, drinking tea, dancing in the livingroom, bike rides, hikes, looking for fungi, and even some yoga!)
- Have people over more!
So here’s to September and new beginnings! Let’s hope it has some good beach days in it so we can still have some summer left!
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Planning
Some of you who know me may realize that while I am up for spontaneous fun and adventure, I like planning. I think it’s the act or organization, making lists, making piles, plotting courses, etc. If I didn’t like those things I would probably be less good at my job and I probably would not have done as many cool things on vacation in Seattle and San Francisco in the past.
So what am I planning now? Well there is the upcoming and forementioned trip to Maine, which requires good amounts of gathering of various nerdy equipment (and also material to explain and exemplify herbarium practices); a wedding present to make and give to my friends (well after their wedding next month it seems) that has me plotting with cables and with lace; what to make for a ravelry swap partner that lives way off in Canada (yarn to be purchased soon); and a running training schedule!
So the knitting things all seem reasonable and logical and unsurprising. (I spent a good portion of yesterday with graph paper and reference books!) The trip to Maine also seems like a good thing to plan. Showing up at a field station without your favorite reference books or flashlight or collecting gear (or Pooh Bear) would make for a difficult week! And well, of course I want to be organized and prepared to help figure out how the collections there could be handeled and grown, that takes a lot of thinking and energy! But running… that doesn’t seem so plannable, or does it.
A group of friends at work and I are going to participate in the Susan G. Komen 5K run in Massachusetts on September 26th. People will be running, joging, walking, pushing strollers, etc all to raise money and awareness for breast cancer research in Massachusetts. In addition to feeling like it was a good time to step up and raise some money, I felt like it was good time to step up my running game, so I joined a team. While there is no real onus by the team to run, and our training is fun, I have decided to go for it. 5K is a mere 3.1 miles, and I hope to really give it my all. Hence the planning. I have a decent schedule for the 8 weeks before the race and I hope to get my time in at 27 minutes at the highest. Right now I can do it in about 31-33 minutes so that seems reasonable. BUT this is planning that now leads into longer term planning…
I am giong to sign up and run my first ever 1/2 marathon in November! The Harvard Pilgrim Maine Coast Half Marathon in York ME! Whew! I’m excited/terrified, but now I have plenty of time to plan. Anyone want to join me?
