running and then blogging about it

Running and Then Quilting About It

2012-02-04T23:58:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, no matter how important a goal is, no matter how badly I want to improve my times, I just can't get myself to run. This was one of those weeks. And I'm not talking about a week where I didn't really feel like running and so I made up a bunch of excuses or was too lazy to even put on my running shoes. I mean one of those weeks where I felt like the world was out to get me and nobody wanted to be around me because I couldn't stop complaining about everything that was happening (or not happening). By the end of the week, having only done 4 miles, I knew I either had to get a couple of really long runs in, if I wanted to reach my goal of 30 miles per week, or scrap the entire week and start again next week. I kept telling myself that I would get the long runs, but when I realized that I was starting to struggle to even get out of bed, I re-evaluated the decision and chose the week-scrapping option.

I know that when you're starting to feel depressed, exercise is supposed to help. Something about endorphins? I haven't gotten to that part of medical school yet (I'm not really in med school). But what if you're feeling too sloth-like to exercise? The answer is, you should sew a quilt out of your old running shirts. Like this:

I count sewing a quilt of running shirts (and other random shirts) as a running-related activity. So basically it was like exercise. It turns out I don't actually know how to make an entire quilt, so I just made the front piece, minus the outer-border, because to do that you really only need to know how to cut things and how to sew in a straight line. And how to spend three hours seam-ripping the t-shirts out of a quilt I started four years ago that I thought was ugly. This one I like, as long as I don't stare at it too long because then I get dizzy. Now all I have to do is wait six months for my aunt to come visit and teach me how to make the quilty-part of the quilt!

What I'm really getting at here, is the reason why I hate that most races hand out tech-shirts now. How am I supposed to save those for ten years and then sew them into a quilt? I don't know how to sew with that material, and I think if I used iron-on backing (like I did for my cotton t-shirts in this quilt), everything would melt. Am I just supposed to wear these shirts and then never have them be a part of a quilt? That doesn't even make a little bit of sense.

Has anyone else had success making a t-shirt quilt (or part of one) with your old running shirts? Or found something more interesting/crafty to do with them? I especially need help here with the tech t-shirts, it's rare that I get a tech t-shirt from a race that actually fits well enough to wear, so I need an alternate use for them... fancy scrunchies? Compression sleeves? Let me know if you've come up with anything!

Miles run in 2012: 103
Average miles/week in 2012: 20.6

Vintage Kathy Griffin

2012-01-29T12:54:00.000-08:00

Great news! I once again accomplished a week of 30 miles! That makes two out of four weeks so far this year. Not too bad, but since my goal is to average 30 miles, I still have a lot of work to put in before I can consider myself on track.

What I learned this week, is that while I may be in shape to run 30 miles a week, I'm not really in shape to do 26 miles in three days. As of Thursday this week, I had only done 4 miles, so 26 miles is what I was facing through Saturday. I did a hard 7 on Thursday, and then 13 on Leif Erickson on Friday. I set off for this long run at around 2:30PM, and was extremely proud of myself for remembering to bring water and a GU pack for the run. So prepared! Except I wasn't, because I only ate a little cereal, a bite of mashed potatoes, and a few jelly beans, during that day, before my long run. My 100 calorie GU pack helped a little, but at mile 11 I felt completely depleted. Oops. At least I remembered to take Pascal with me also. Here's a picture of him at mile 5.

The most exciting part of this run was that I noticed that the 5 1/4 and the 5 1/2 mile posts had been repainted and now show the correct mileage. They used to be switched. They probably fixed this a while ago, but it's been a long time sine I ran more than ten miles on Leif.

When I got home, I opened up my new Runner's World magazine, and saw this ad:

I might be wrong, but I think this ad is stupid. What I understand, is that Lululemon is trying to show you that they sell running clothes. But they don't show any of their running gear in the picture. I also know for a fact that they sell yoga clothes, but here they're pretending they don't even know what yoga is. Why would I want to go to a store that doesn't even know what yoga is, when they primarily sell things to use while you do yoga? I know that's an overly literal way to look at the ad, but I still think it's dumb. I would hope that they would take one of their hundred dollar bills they get every single time they sell a single pair of pants, and use it to hire someone better at marketing.

By Saturday morning I had finally calmed down about how stupid that ad is, and tried to mentally prepare myself for the remaining 6 miles of my 30 mile week. I went to the Nike Campus with my running buddy, and as soon as I started running, I knew it was going to be difficult. And it was - I had to walk for a minute or two every mile, but I made it!

I found this silly creature near a pond on campus, and he helped me have a lot more fun when I ran. I tried to call it a beaver, but then was told that it's definitely not a beaver. I tried to look up what kind of animals are on the Nike campus, and just got a bunch of results for animal rights protests against Nike. Does anyone know what this is? Besides super cute?

When I got tired of running around the trails, I went over to run on the track. Their track is a good happy-medium between track and trail, since it has a bunch of trees in the middle. I didn't find any cute creatures here though, unless you count the guy power-washing the track.

Miles run in 2012: 99
Average miles/week in 2012: 24.75

Level Green!

2012-01-26T19:15:00.000-08:00

After going on a run today, I came home and checked my Nike+ account, and Paul Rodriguez popped up on the screen and told me that I had graduated from level orange to level green! This is great news - it means that I have officially run over 155 miles while carrying my iPhone. This is a pretty big deal, because I've never been a fan of carrying things while I run, but now I know that I can achieve the goal of running-while-holding-things if the thing is something that tracks my miles and turns running into statistics.

The run that pushed me from orange to green was down and back up Terwilliger, from A-Boy, and added 7 miles to my week. I'm not doing the best job of making it to 30 miles a week, but if I can somehow manage to get 19 more in the next two days, I'll be back on track!

The only other miles I've done this week are from a track meet, Tuesday Night at the Races. I blogged all about that on the Run Oregon blog, so if you want to know about that then you should read it there.

If you're only still reading my blog because you want to see more of my puppy, here's a video of him this morning when he was super-hungry for breakfast:

Miles run in 2012: 80
Average miles/week in 2012: 23

Winner of the 2012 Mile Time Prediction

2012-01-23T21:08:00.000-08:00

I'm embarrassed to admit to you, my readers, that lately I have had things in my life that have taken priority over blogging. Please accept my promise to you that this will never happen again, or more realistically, that if it does, I will be extremely humiliated. I know you've been really angry at me for telling you that I would run a mile and then give a prize to whoever came close to guessing my time, and then not saying another word on the subject. Your anger can end now.

I actually ran my timed mile almost two weeks ago, on Tuesday the 10th. Differences between last year's mile and this year's mile were:

Last year was at Cleveland High School, this year at Grant High School
Last year I had a photographer, this year I did not
Last year I ran alone, this year I had someone to pace me
Last year I got 14 people to guess at my mile time, this year I only got 5

I think that number 4 is the most important difference seen here, as it confirms my suspicion that very few people care how fast I can run a mile, and my failure to quickly produce a prize for last year's winner has made even less people care. I will be sure to get prizes out to both winners promptly (although not just yet), and maybe next year I can get a record-breaking number of people to guess (that would only take 15 people!).

Number 3 is the second most important, because having a pacer can really help in improving your mile time. I still went out too fast (81 seconds, which is 5:24 pace), but it really helped when at the end I got all lazy and had someone there to remind me how much faster I can actually run.

I can tell you're getting super curious about my time by now, and I assure you that I'm about to tell you. But first, here's what people guessed:

5:42 5:50 6:00 6:02 6:03

While I appreciate the 5:42 and the 5:50, the sad news is that I'm not that fast yet. I thought for sure that the 6:02 would have no chance, since the times right around it got guessed, but it turns out that I was exactly 6:02 fast at the mile, making my good friend Chris McDonald the Ultimate Grand Supreme Winner of this competition. Congratulations Chris McDonald! Your prize will come soon(ish).

Chris the Winner is the one without an X on his face. I don't know who the X people are but this is a nice picture of Chris so I stole it from facebook anyway. At least it was nice until I put red Xs on it. I'm sure photo credits should be given to some very fancy photographer, but I don't know who.

The best part about only five people guessing, is that it makes it really easy for me to create statistics about the readers who care about my running time. Blogger gives me some statistics about who reads my blog, but it's all very vague and impersonal. But now I can tell you things like this:

100% of my readers are male between the ages of 25 and 29
40% of my readers live outside the United States
20% of my readers are really good at making cat-shaped lamps
40% of my readers have a twin

If you're super sad about missing out on the chance to win a cool prize and being part of my readership statistics, don't worry, I might do this again next year. In the mean time, I'll be taking another couple of stabs at the mile in the next few weeks at University of Portland's Tuesday Night at the Races, which are indoor track meets. I won't be giving out prizes for correctly guessed times, but I will accept encouraging words of encouragement. I really want to beat 6 minutes!

On a final note, yes, I am still working on my goal of averaging 30 miles per week. I've only made it to 30 miles one out of the three weeks of 2012 so far, but that's the beauty of allowing averaging. I can still accomplish my resolution, I just have to run more than 30 miles during some weeks now - which isn't easy, but it is possible.

Puppy of the week: Blaze, my cousin's dog, who I visited in San Jose this weekend. 8 months old and almost 100 pounds! We went running up Bear Mountain while I was there.

Miles run in 2012: 69
Average miles/week in 2012: 23

Blogging In the New Year

2012-01-02T12:53:00.000-08:00

Happy 2012, boys and girls! I know you must be be on the edge of your seats in anticipation of learning my latest mile time, but I have bad news: I didn't do it. Almost immediately after declaring that I would soon be doing my mile test, I got a terrible winter cold and recovered from it just in time for the holidays, and to study for a big terrible test I have to take (not the running kind). And so sadly, the mile test is going to be put off for at least, but hopefully not much longer than, another week. But I promise it will get done, since I know it's so important to so many people.

On a happier note, I am pleased to announce that my personal blogosphere is growing! Earlier in December, I met with Kelly Barten, who runs the Run Oregon blog on OregonLive.com. She invited me to be one of their community bloggers, and I have since contributed one race preview entry, with a race recap to be published later today! Kelly started the Run Oregon blog about five years ago (if I'm remembering correctly), as a way to promote running in the community and create a a place for people to share information about events. It was great meeting someone who has the same goals as I do, and has found a much more effective and much less narcissistic way to accomplish them.

Speaking of goals, it's resolution time! In 2010, my resolution was to run 25 miles a week, every week. I was really successful at this until around May, and then after my first marathon in June I became injured, and ran almost not at all. Last year I resolved to run five times a week. I barely kept track of this, and certainly didn't do it. This was a bad resolution, because if I hadn't gone on a run by Wednesday, I had already failed. Aiming for a certain week mileage was better, because it forced me to go on my long runs at the end of the week if I hadn't taken care of my mileage earlier. My shortcoming here was that I never stretched or did any cross-training, and so injury was inevitable.

This year, my resolution is to average 30 miles a week, and to do it without getting hurt. This will be a very challenging goal to meet, but I'm going to give it my best shot. I tried out 30 miles a week for the two weeks in December before I got sick, and I felt really good, and achieved a PR (for the last 8 years) in the middle of these two weeks. I'm also 25 going on 26, so it's time to step up my game as I enter my prime long-distance running years.

I would like to give a year-end report on my mileage for 2011, but sadly my records were terrible, despite my intent to keep a detailed running log. I moved a bunch this year, and somehow lost my running log, so that was useless. I did give myself hints of how much I ran throughout the year however, the last three months being the most helpful, as I was using Nike+. So I'm going to estimate that I ran 500 miles in 2011. Slightly less than my 536 in 2010, a bunch more than I ran in 2009 with 307 miles, and way less than the 1500+ miles I'll have to run to accomplish my 30 miles a week resolution this year. Like I said, a lofty goal, but I'm going to try it.

Did anyone else come up with running-related resolutions? Or interesting resolutions of any kind?

Pascal resolved to be cute forever. So far, he's very good at it.

Miles run this week: 3.5
Miles run in 2012: 3.5
Average miles/week in 2012: 3.5

Things That Make You Fat, and Another Contest!

2011-12-09T22:10:00.001-08:00

I've had a lot of things to say about running lately, but somehow I haven't had the time to tell you about all of them. I'll try to remember them all for you, but no promises. I'll start with one that's really easy to remember, because I just thought to say it a moment ago. Even easier, it's not a thing I personally have to tell you, just an article from MSNBC.com to pass on. It's called, "Snooping On People is Making You Fat." You don't actually have to read it, I'll summarize it for you here: snooping is stressful, stressful things make you fat, therefore, snooping makes you fat. Then it talks some about how if you need to snoop you have trust issues, and you should get therapy. After reading this, my question is, who is writing this stuff? Once you're in with MSNBC.com, are you allowed to write entire articles inspired by idle observations? It's clear that everyone else thinks it's a stupid article too, because at the end the author invites people to give their own input about their snooping/getting fat habits on the facebook page, and only one person did it. Her name is Valerie Gunter, and she wrote:

Its crazy how people snoop. Im guilty. Ive done it but as to y ive done it idk. Im not one of the people thats obsessed about. I stop myself and think. Wht am i doing. Lol

I may not have such unique insight as Valerie here, but I will list a few more things that make you fat and then talk about vaguely relevant things:

Things That Make You Fat, or How to Not Get the Ultimate Hard Body

Sleep-Related Eating Disorders
Pregnancy
Chicken Pot Pie

This list is not all-inclusive, but it's close. I've been pretty good about avoiding numbers 1 and 2, but I have had a few chicken pot pies in my lifetime, which explains why I haven't achieved the ultimate hard body yet. I am still working on it though, in case you weren't sure, and I have gotten slightly closer.

My own personal method of gauging how ultimate-hard my body has gotten, is by how fast my race times are. Up until last week, my fastest 5k in eight years (or something), was around 21:30. On Sunday the 4th I did the Jingle Bell Run in downtown Portland, and ran a 21:02, which is less than 30 seconds away from my all-time PR! I'm convinced that if I had known how close I was to 21, I would have run it faster. It's okay though, I have a good feeling that I'll be getting down to PR time pretty soon, so I'm not going to worry about not breaking 21.

Speaking of breaking PRs... at the beginning of this year I mentioned I would be trying to get my mile time down. I did a beginning of the year mile, and ran in 6:11. This mile also involved a contest to see who could guess my time, which Vincent Rupp won, but he never gave me his address so he never got his prize. That's sad. But because I haven't even given out one prize this year, I'm going to open the contest back up and see who can come closest to predicting my mile again, now at the end of the year! I expect that the competition might be fiercer, now that I have a better idea of my abilities (you can too, if you read through all of my blog entries and make educated guesses based on my race times).

So don't be shy, guess my mile time! To be ran by the end of 2011 at some point... and not for at least another week. One more hint: I'm probably going to run with a pacer, which usually increases my chances of running faster. Good luck with your guesses, and remember not to snoop!

2011 Turkey Trot at the Zoo

2011-11-25T11:40:00.001-08:00

I know that the purpose of Thanksgiving is supposed to be taking time out to think about how thankful you are about everything/everyone you have, and that sort of thing, but I like to think of myself as a pretty grateful person every day of the year. So, traditionally, I have celebrated Thanksgiving a little differently: try to move as little as possible, and then eat as much as possible. Of course I can be thankful at the same time, but there's no hiding what my true intentions are. A few years ago my mom caught on to this and started demanding that I help make dinner, putting great strains on my efforts to sit motionless and wait idly for a huge meal to be fed to me. This year an even bigger obstacle was put in the way of this goal, and somehow I was convinced to go do one of those Turkey Trots happening all over the place.

My running buddy and I went to the one put on by the Oregon Road Runners Club that starts at the zoo. It would have been nice to take the MAX there so we wouldn't have to deal with traffic, but the zoo is the closest MAX station to my house, so we had to drive. We only got there 15 minutes early, which was a mistake because I had to poop and there were super long lines at the outhouses, so I never got my chance. Luckily the urge subsided and things went okay in that regard. Again, I have to reiterate that I don't bring up my poop to be obscene, it's just that the state of your bowels is extremely relevant to how well a race goes. Those of you who are also runners understand that needing to take a poop while you're running can negatively affect your race just as much as missing breakfast, not having the right pump-up music, or breaking your ankle.

A couple minutes before 8AM, we all lined up at the start. I usually head back a ways to avoid getting caught up with the super fast people, but I was already near the front and working my way through the crowd looked hard, so I positioned myself right behind the first row of runners. A girl next to me asked me if I run a lot. I hate these questions before a race. I'm often curious how fast other runners are, but I realize that asking can make me seem like I lack confidence in my abilities, and I'm about to find out anyway. I also don't know how to answer these questions. Some people gasp in awe when I say I try to run 20-30 miles a week. Then there's the guy I met at Pints to Pasta this summer, that scoffed at the fact that I don't run twice a day - "you should really be running about 80 miles a week." So when some complete stranger starts a conversation with "do you run a lot?" I really don't know what to say. I told her I try to, so this started her on the "how fast are you going to run this?" track. We established that she planned to run around 8 minute miles, and that I was hoping to go a bit faster than that, so she was "going to try to keep up with me." Great.

Instead of a starting gun, we had a man say, "On your mark... Get set... GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE!!" As we took off, the girl who wanted to keep up with me flew ahead of me, starting right behind the fastest men. That might have intimidated me, but she was wearing a crazy zig-zag tank-top over a t-shirt, that very much gave the vibe of a recreational runner, and not somebody who could actually keep up with the pace she started at. Her shirt didn't look stupid or anything, it just didn't look like what a fast runner would wear to any kind of race. I was right, and passed her in about 20 seconds.

I often have the problem of going out too fast, and that combined with the fact that I started right in front, I expected that after the first mile or so I might have a lot of people passing me. In this case, I was wrong. The first two miles were straight downhill, at which point we were to turn around and come right back up. Downhill and uphill running uses different muscles, so I decided to run as fast as I could for the first two miles and wear out my downhill muscles as much as I could, since I would be switching muscle groups on the way up. I passed the first mile mark in 6:03, making it my fastest mile of the year (though I can't really compare it to my other miles since it was all downhill). I kept waiting for a ton of people to start passing me, but it wasn't happening. At the bottom of the hill (right by the tennis courts at the Rose Garden), was the turnaround point, so you could see who was ahead of you as they came back up the same road in the opposite direction. Here I realized that only three girls were ahead of me. The bottom wasn't actually quite 2 miles (since the end had extra running through the zoo, past where we started), but I still felt that the 12:12 it took me to get there was pretty quick.

Things obviously slowed down coming back up, but I still felt pretty good - especially compared to running up Milolii Road in Hawaii. A bunch of guys passed me, but only about 4 girls, and I passed at least one of them back by the end. Sprinting through the zoo at the end was really run, but the end is pretty anticlimactic. There's no real finish line, just somebody standing there handing you a flyer for some other road race, and a clock with the running time that was about 45 seconds faster than what I had on my watch. So I either finished in 28:33 or 29:15. I was definitely in the top ten for women, and it was probably one of my best races all year, but there were no recorded results or anything like that, so I had to accept a small chocolate turkey as my only reward. And everybody got one of those.

I'm not complaining (that much) though, because I ran an awesome race, it didn't rain, and I got to see the elephants and the dancing polar bear. Then when I got home, I still had to cook some, but I also got to watch both versions of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Elf, so plenty of laziness still happened. And I was really thankful for that.

The Worst Run I Have Ever Done

2011-11-19T00:03:00.001-08:00

First things first: tonight I noticed that somebody came to my blog by googling "how can i poop faster." I immediately became distressed, realizing that I've only mentioned that I sometimes poop, and not any actual advice on how to do it, or specifically, how to do it faster. So for that person I advise, poop smarter, not harder. And take laxatives.

For those of you who already know how to poop fast, here's what I really want to tell you about tonight: the worst run I have ever done - that I can remember. The remembering part is an important part to note, because I did this run three times, and each time was convinced that I only repeated it because I forgot how terrible it was the last time (I've also heard that this is the only reason women have babies more than once - their brains force them to forget the pain of childbirth). By this logic, there could be many much worse runs that I have completely blacked out (and maybe even babies!). I cannot tell you about these hypothetical runs however, so I'll stick to this one.

The set up for this terrible, awful run, is flying to the big island of Hawaii, and enjoying a wonderful and leisurely vacation. While I was there, I stayed on a farm on a steep road, almost five miles up from the nearest beach, and about a half mile down from the main road that loops around the island. The first few runs I did in Hawaii involved running up to the main road, which started out with a half mile incline, but then was pretty nice. These runs were great. I should have stuck to running in that direction. Instead, I was convinced that getting a ride down to the bottom of the hill and running back up to the farm would be a great workout.

The first two times I did the hill, it actually went relatively okay. The first time I got dropped a mile into the run, which made it shorter, but the first mile is actually more rolling hills than straight up, so the warm-up might be worth the extra distance. The second time, it was fairly cloudy and cool. Both of these times ended in a lot of walking and gasping for breath, but the decreased distance or cooler weather made the run much more enjoyable than the last time.

The third run up the hill was done later in the day than any other hill attempt. About ten in the morning, on a particularly warm day. Feeling as though I had mastered the hill by this time, I again started as far away as possible, and set the lofty goal of running 3.5 miles before doing any walking (the first and shorter day I made it 2, and the next day I made it 3, so each of these days I made it to about the same point before walking). I also remembered to set my Nike+ app to give me half mile notifications, instead of at every whole mile. When it takes me more than 12 minutes to run a mile, I need more distance notifications to reassure myself that I am actually moving a little bit.

The first mile was okay, but pretty hot. The next half mile was pretty hard. The next half mile was terrible. This brings us to two miles, and the point that I knew there was no way I was making it to 3.5 without walking, so I brought that goal down to 3. The next half mile was even more terrible than the last, and I had no choice but to walk. There have been many times in my running adventures where I really want to walk, but if I do start to walk I get bored of how much longer it takes, and find myself running again after about ten seconds. As much as I wanted the run to be over as soon as possible, in this case the option of running was quickly diminishing. I kept telling myself that I would run for the next three minutes and then walk, but in less than half the time I would find myself walking again. Then I started shortening my goals - two more telephone poles, then I could walk. Then I gave up running entirely and submitted myself to walking the rest of the hill, even stopping entirely on occasion to rest in the rare spots of shade.

During all of this time I spent walking, my thoughts alternated between "this is the most terrible run I have ever done," and "this must be how that runner girl who died in the Grand Canyon felt." When I got back to Portland I read more about "that runner girl," who I knew almost nothing about, and learned that her name was Margaret Bradley, she was an excellent marathon runner, and died during a very long run/trek through the Grand Canyon in 2004. There are several glaring differences between my 5 miler up a hill and her 27 mile venture through the Grand Canyon (80 degrees versus 120 degrees, relatively available water sources versus 2 water-bottles for a GC journey, a populated area versus complete isolation...). Clearly my very terrible run is no comparison at all to Bradley's, but it was a good reminder that I should continue to take better care of myself on runs by preparing myself more and paying attention to my limits.

Every time I did this run, I started out with a more advanced running buddy who, upon finishing the run himself, would grab a water-bottle and come back to meet me mid-run, and quench my thirst. The first two times this worked out great, but the third time I felt completely dehydrated long before he arrived. Just a bit past mile three I came up to an estate sale, and was just about to go inside and ask for water, when Running Buddy came running down the hill to me and saved me from a potentially awkward experience. Of course I was ecstatic to see him, but I kind of wish I had gotten to see how people reacted when a complete stranger, dripping with sweat and about to fall over from exhaustion, stumbled into their house asking for water. In fact, every person I saw driving up the hill inspired me to wonder how they would react in response to a request for a ride, or how pathetic I would have to look before someone pulled over and offered me help. Because I felt pathetic enough to be deserving of a help-offer, yet nobody was concerned enough to give one. I suppose wearing running clothes and headphones made me look too much like I was climbing the hill willingly. I was not, it was just my only way to get away from the hill and end the terribleness (obviously I started the run in a willing state of mind, but this soon morphed into a very unwilling and unhappy disposition).

I couldn't even run to the top of the hill when I started a mile late, or when there was cooler weather, so I don't know why I thought I could run farther than ever when it was super hot and I started at the beginning. But when my running buddy says that he's going to do a run, I get the idea in my head that I have to do it too. This is a dangerous attitude, especially when it involves extremely difficult runs in weather I'm not accustomed to. I also try not to really think about difficult runs before I do them, because that gives me less of a chance to back out of them. I plan on waiting until I'm doing the run to worry about how hard it is, because then I can't back out, but I really should be planning ahead more if I'm going to do a run that hard.

These are important things for every runner to consider, but learning lessons can be boring, so I'll stop talking about them and finish with some pictures instead.

Here's one I took the day I got dropped off a mile into the run, so I had a chance to get into the hill a bit before my running buddy and take a picture of him. This picture really only shows the flat-ish part of the run.

Here's the Nike+ report of the third time I did this run. The second time I did it, my phone somehow deleted the run, and I'm still unreasonably angry about it. Note the elevation increase.

And finally, here are some puppies (from the same litter!) that came up to the house all the time to say hello and get tasty treats. They weren't as cute and cuddly as Pascal, but it was still nice having them around.

Are You Running the 2011 Portland Marathon?

2011-10-08T18:16:00.000-07:00

At this time last year, I was trying to figure out if I should be running a marathon the next day or not. Ultimately I decided that no, I shouldn't do it because of all my injuries, but that I was going to do it anyway. It went surprisingly well for 21 miles, after which it was pretty miserable, but that was more expected. And, "at least I finished!!!!", which is the consolation phrase we all like to say when people run really slow marathons. This year I once again waited until today, the day before the race, to decide how much, if any, of the Portland Marathon I will be running. Only this year my options are slightly limited, as I am not registered and so will not be allowed to cross the St. John's bridge. And I have not even kind of trained for a marathon in any way, shape, or form.

This year, I will be running to support/yell at one of my own, my sister, Erica! Here's a picture of us after we ran the Run Like Hell half marathon, two years ago. Hopefully after running a marathon she'll look at least twice as happy as she does in this picture.

I thought it would be good to run the last 5 or 6 miles with her, so I was thinking we should meet around mile 15. A look at the course map showed me that runners will cross the St. John's bridge at mile 17, so it would be better to meet Erica at mile 18. I called her to discuss this plan, and we decided that I would wait for her at mile 18 starting at 9:45. As soon as I hung up I realized that I had been doing math at the level of a 5 year-old, and that meeting at mile 18 would mean running 8 miles, not 5 or 6. Erica probably realized this and didn't say anything because she wants me to run with her for longer. I'm on to you, Erica. I could probably use a long-ish run though, so I'll stick with this plan. It doesn't matter how out of shape I am, an 8 mile run for me will still be easier than a 26 mile run with most of the people I'll be running near.

I should end this post before people realize how self-centered I can be about a race that I'm not even running. Is anyone else doing the marathon tomorrow? If you are, and if you run at a pace relatively close to my sister's, I will try to say hello and good job tomorrow if I see you, even if you're not doing a very good job. But I hope you are doing a good job, because it's very embarrassing to run a marathon and not even do a good job.

Just kidding.

Good luck 2011 Portland Marathon attempters! See you on the course!

Making Other People Run When You're Too Lazy to Do it Yourself

2011-10-07T00:13:00.000-07:00

There are some days when we just don't feel like running. Sometimes these days turn into weeks, months, or even years. If this is the case, you might be lucky enough to find your way on to the Biggest Loser. But for those of us whose lack of motivation isn't drastic enough to cause us to gain 200 extra pounds, but too severe to keep up our own fitness goals and stay in shape, we must find alternate strategies for dealing with the situation. Sometimes my answer is to blog about it, but usually that turns into complaining, and I'm working on complaining less (this is fairly easy to do on the internet, I'm having a bit of a harder time not complaining in real life, but like I said - I'm working on it). So what is there left to do when we can't get ourselves to run, complaining about it is no longer an acceptable outlet of frustration, but we need to do something to feel better about things? It turns out that the answer to this problem is very simple: make other people run instead of you.

Once you've decided that you want to tell other people to go run, and have them actually listen to you, you have to find the right setting for this. Don't just to work one day and scream and everyone to start running, you will only lose friends. Start with something easier - go to a gym, or a local running group, and tell everyone there to run. There's a good chance that they will have been planning on doing it anyway, but now you feel like they're doing it because you told them to. This sense of power to motivate and/or manipulate others will offset your negative feelings about not being able to get yourself to run. My chosen group to achieve this feeling has been a middle school cross-country team.

It sounds as though this would be the easiest group to get to run. By signing up for cross-country, you would assume the kids are planning on running. Then there's the fact that these are kids, most of whom are very used to having to do what they're told, and for the most part believe that they don't have another choice (although some of them are painfully aware that they do have other choices, and realize that they can pretty much do whatever they want). Given these facts, it's true - usually it is easy to get these kids to run, but it's not always as straightforward as you would hope.

At cross-country practice, the place where I get to tell them to run, we always start with a couple of warm-up laps, do some dynamic stretching, and then lay out the workout for the day. All of this requires a little bit of instruction (the telling-them-to-run part), which is supposed to be the fun I'm-the-boss moment for a coach, but instead it mostly feels a lot like herding cows. Or sheep. I'm not really sure, I've never actually herded any animals at all, but the analogy feels appropriate: you can tell them what to do, and in no way does it look like anybody is paying attention at all, but when you say "GO!" it gradually starts to happen. The kids who actually love running take off, although sometimes they do it while they throw things at each other (I just let this happen... I'm a coach, not a baby-sitter), followed by the kids who think they might like running but aren't ever sure until it's happening, until finally the ones who are primarily motivated by peer pressure take off so they aren't left too far behind. Then there's this magical moment where every kid is running, and you know that it's because you told them to! This lasts about two minutes, until some of the peer-pressured kids feel like nobody's watching them anymore, and start walking. Then you get to yell at them to start running again!

While these kids are great when it comes to getting people to run, I do have to be careful. If I make them run too much, they might get tired of it and decide not to come back to cross-country, which is the only place I'm really entitled to tell them to run. The goal is to get them to enjoy running, so I can continue telling them to run for the rest of their lives. If it's not actually fun for them, this will never happen, and I might have to actually keep running on my own, in order to receive running-based satisfaction.

I suppose the ideal scenario would be for me to actually draw motivation from these hard-working kids running around all day while I stand there and watch them, I've just been really tired lately. My mom insists that I need to take more iron supplements, but what does she know? I guess I'll try it her way, but I'm curious how other people get themselves to run when you really don't feel like it. I know all my readers are hiding all kinds of tricks from me. In the meantime I plan on becoming one of those coaches who tells their athletes to do incredible things, while they stand on the sidelines and grow a beer belly. Which means I'll have to increase my beer intake as well.

PS. I know I've been bad about pictures lately, so here's a super adorable one of Pascal when he was a baby. You can even see a little bit of my knees.

Race for the Cure 2011

2011-09-18T15:53:00.000-07:00

Race for the Cure has always seemed like a big deal in Portland. Probably other cities too, but I wouldn't know about that. There are some big giant races that I always go to, like the Shamrock, but I always pass on Race for the Cure because there's no clam chowder or beer, and there are tons and tons of people. The only time I had anything to do with it was when I worked as a volunteer for community service in high school (whenever I had to do community service for school or something I would just volunteer at a race). It was both the craziest and the most boring thing I've ever done. There were thousands and thousands of people there, but my job assignment was to go stand at a random corner downtown where the streets had been closed and redirect any cars trying to come through that random street at 7:30AM on a Sunday morning. So mostly I just sat there doing nothing, while everyone else participated in lots of fun race festivities. The only good parts were that I was with a friend, and I got a t-shirt that I later wore during swim practice to create more drag.

Ever since then, I've never even considered participating in this race. Aside from the sheer numbers of people there are, I also don't appreciate how misleading it is. There is no cure at the end. At Bridge to Brews you run across some bridges and then drink brews. I did have issue with the naming of Pints to Pasta, but at least both pints and pasta are given to you at some point. At the Tillamook Bay Run, you run along the Tillamook Bay. These races all live up to their names. I had suspected as much, and after doing it, I can tell you, you don't get a cure for anything at the end of Race for the Cure. Considering how many years they've been doing this (almost 30 years), I feel like I should be handed a cure at the finish line by now.

I'm by no means saying their efforts are futile, I do support the cause and think that the race does good things. At least it sounds good, I haven't actually researched the foundation on my own or anything, but we all know that when people want to stop cancer from happening, that's supposed to be a good thing. Even though you don't get your cancer cured at the end of the race, they do have a bunch of other stuff, like yogurt and pink scarves. Then there was this whole section of the waterfront, that I didn't bother going to, but looked like it had all the educational stuff about preventing cancer and early diagnosis. I would have named this race "Race for Early Diagnosis and Maybe One Day a Cure but Don't Expect One Today." I hope somebody from the race reads this and takes my idea into consideration.

You might be wondering why, after all these years of turning my nose up at this good-cause race, I decided to do it this year. Well, this year I got a free entry. So even though I woke up this morning at 6AM feeling exhausted and worn out and with a pretty bad food-hangover, there was no chance of staying in bed. Free race entries are almost impossible to turn down (although I may have been grateful to receive a free entry to the race's "Sleep In for the Cure" option, where you still pay the $30, but instead of running you do nothing). Once I got downtown and started running, I didn't feel any better. I figured I was probably running about 8:30-9:00 minute miles, but there were no mile markers so I couldn't tell. It turned out I was running a pretty normal race pace, and finished in about 21:55, for a pace of 7:03. I'm hoping to break 21 minutes by the end of the year, so I need to step up my pace a little pretty soon. Every once in a while I remember that I wanted to break a 6 minute mile this year too (or more ambitiously, PR with a 5:50, but that sounds kind of hard at this point). Maybe I'll work on that soon.

The most exciting part of this race was that my race number was 1000, which was exciting because everybody loves round numbers. Maybe I'll take a picture for you later, if I didn't lose it.

Pints to Pasta 2011: Poorly Named, Excellently Executed

2011-09-12T18:47:00.000-07:00

Over the past couple of months, I'm pretty sure that my racing mileage has almost outweighed my training mileage, if not overtaken it completely. This probably means that I should be training more, but it also means that I've been doing a lot more races than usual. For me, races are the best part of running - presuming I'm in good enough shape to do them comfortably. If I could go to enough races to make them be sufficient training I would. This probably won't ever happen, since not too many people like to go to races on weekdays, and more importantly, races can get expensive.

While road races used to be casual events where you put down a few bucks, maybe a few more if you wanted a t-shirt to prove you were there, they have now become huge productions. Now you almost always have to buy the t-shirt, even if you don't want anybody to know you were there at all. Then they hand out tons of water and disgusting glucose drinks in an attempt to justify charging you that much to run a few miles around downtown. I'm obviously not that annoyed at this situation, because I still go to a lot of these races, but it is kind of irritating - especially since a lot of races that charge you a fair amount still have logistical problems pretty often. Every once in a while, however, you come across a race that's planned perfectly: starts on time, doesn't run out of water or snacks, is well marked, etc. Paula Harkin put on a race this year that did all of that - the Pints to Pasta 10k (and apparently she does it every year, since it claims to be voted the best 10k in the northwest eight years in a row).

I don't know a lot about Paula Harkin, but she has this group (company? following? cult?) called Run With Paula, and she puts on some road races throughout the year. The Pints to Pasta 10k was probably the best running event I've participated in all year. My only complaint has to do with the disgusting glucose drink they hand out on the course. At one of the water stations, both sides of the course had volunteers holding out cups for you to grab and drink the contents of. I assumed the contents were all water, but instead the volunteers on one side were holding cups full of nasty glucose drink that looked exactly like water. This was terrible, since I usually skip water stations altogether and only grabbed water there because I was extremely thirsty.

There was just one other shortcoming of this race, and that is the name of the race. "Pints to Pasta" implies that you get to drink pints, and then run to a place where you get to eat pasta. This is only half true. Instead of drinking beer at the beginning, you get absolutely nothing. This is a huge disappointment when you have skipped breakfast because you thought your race was going to be fueled by tasty beer at the start. Luckily I didn't do that, but I feel for all those who did. It turns out the beer comes at the same time as the pasta, so really the race should be called "Nothing to Pints and Pasta." It doesn't sound as nice, but then nobody would have the issue of skipping breakfast in hopes to get extra-drunk before the race.

Beer before the race might also have been a good idea in this case, in that it may have slowed some of us down during the first mile. It doesn't seem to matter how many races I ruin by going out too fast, I just can't stop. The excitement of the race pushes me forward and the thrill of passing all the slow people I started behind keeps me going... until I get really tired. I ran this race like a 5k, which is a big mistake when you're actually running a 10k. My first mile was 6:41, my 5k time was 22 flat, but my average mile time ended up being 7:31 (with a finishing time of 46:45). I'm becoming to realize that I'll probably always go out too fast, and my only hope is to become strong enough to finish at that faster speed as well.

Because I hadn't really been training and wasn't expecting a great time, I wasn't too concerned with what my finishing time was (although I just now realized that this was only my second 10k ever, so I actually PR'd). What I was concerned with was running back to the last hundred meters of the race to yell at all my friends who were doing the race with me. My usual partner-in-crime/running had finished long ago - I have yet to see him finish a race, I'll have to either get a lot faster or one out sometime. But this time I a whole bunch of other people to do the race with, which is part of what made the race so amazing. Since I finished a bit before them, and I'd had a really nice guy make me run way faster at the end than I had wanted to, I needed to go pay it forward.

A lot of people run to the finish line like they ran the whole race - just the same steady pace they've been doing the whole time. I generally consider this unacceptable, unless you're hurt or have completely depleted yourself, which isn't usually the case. The first guy I knew who finished didn't seem to need yelling at - he was running so fast I almost didn't see him (Jenny's boyfriend Cam, in case you're keeping track). Next I saw Brian and Aaron from my Hood to Coast team, who both got yelled at and sped up very nicely, passing a couple of people if I remember correctly. Murphy acknowledged my yelling but didn't run any faster, but I forgive him since he's hurt or something. Jenny, Laura, Kathayoon, and Anna all gave it one last push at the end, and promised me that they felt like throwing up at the finish line. This is always a good sign.

Once everyone was finished, we got to spend a couple hours hanging out in the parking lot of the Old Spaghetti Factory, drinking beer and eating pasta in perfectly sunny sunshine. We made new friends, kept the old, and found some American flags to wave around and sing "Proud to be an American" with (a bunch of people ran with flags for the 9/11 anniversary). As usual, I'm writing this minutes before I'm supposed to be somewhere so I'm going to stop abruptly, apologize for lack of pictures, and wish you happy runnings until the next time that I wish you happy runnings.

Edit: Here's a picture I stole from Kathayoon's facebook.

Guest Blogger #4: Alex Falcone (Running and Then Whining About It)

2011-08-31T13:15:00.000-07:00

It's been over a month since my last guest blogger, but I blame that on everybody except myself. And Ezra, Haylie, and Sam. Thankfully, last week Alex came to me with a proposed blog exchange! There was a catch though - normally I enjoy guest bloggers because I get to post a blog entry without actually using my brain or my typing fingers, but this time I was expected to reciprocate. This was very difficult, because I have almost entirely lost the ability to write about anything other than running, but somehow I managed to write an entire review of Stripparaoke for the Read It and Weep blog. Please read it. Anyway, back to Alex. Alex is a funny guy who likes to write funny things and sometimes say them out loud too. Please keep this photo of him saying funny things out loud in mind as you read the entry he wrote about working out, and it will be like he's saying them to you.

Running and Then Whining About It

I went to the gym a few weeks ago for the first time in several years. I was staying at a hotel and, being a comedian, I'll do anything for free. So after I finished pouring the little bottle of shampoo into my big bottle of shampoo, I trudged down to get my no-money's worth. I knew I was in trouble when I saw a sign for personal training services that said, "Do you get winded walking up a flight of stairs?" and my first thought was "Pffft no. I take the elevator."

I think I lost my discipline when I was in middle school. I was on the track and field team - well, I guess I was just on the field team. Like the other shot putters, I always hung towards the back on group runs and pumped my arms extra hard so the coach thought I was working. Once, we were doing a 5 mile run around the neighborhood and my teammate noticed that our proposed route had a flaw: it was there-and-back, thus passing the same buildings on the return journey. We ducked into a 7-Eleven and drank Slurpees for 20 minutes before slipping back into the group as they got back to the school. We were just as tired as the rest of the group, but for us it was because our bodies were trying to process a million calories worth of Mountain Dew flavored ice.

I've tried off and on to develop a serious running regimen in the intervening years, but three summers ago I sprained my ankle and decided to take the rest of my life off to maximize my recovery. If it weren't for a recent cake addiction, I probably would have kept up with that plan. Pushed by vanity, I put my ankle health in jeopardy and made my Ali-like return to the sporting world. I jogged a few times in the month leading up to my hotel workout, so I thought I wouldn't have much trouble, but I was wrong.

By far, the worst feature of treadmills is their bright persistent numerical displays. It turns out that I've been really bad at estimating distance in the past. For example, the high school by my apartment has a track that, I'm almost positive, is 10 miles around. Thus, if I finish a lap, I head home with my head held high. But the treadmill was having none of it. It stubbornly refused to give me credit for what felt like a ton of work. Eventually, I figured out that I could set it to count kilometers and I felt slightly better.

The treadmill also counted calories burned, which is just hurtful. In order to get myself to go to the track, I have to make deals with myself. So what the display should say is, "you need to run for 24 more minutes to make up for the cookie you're going to eat as a reward for working out." The longer I workout, the more weight I gain.

You see, jogging is just a head game. It's not like I can't run a mile. If I was running away from my college loan officer or towards the ice cream truck, I could do it no problem. But I don't want to. There isn't even a ball or a frisbee to chase. What's the point? So cardio for me is mostly about the negotiations. I'm on the treadmill, and I tell myself, "Okay, champ, just finish this kilometer and then you can go home." Then after that, I say, "See? That wasn't so hard. Do just one more."

That trick works precisely once. Anymore, I'm too suspicious of myself. So I have to up the stakes each time. "If you finish one more, you don't have to workout the rest of the week." And then, "If you do another one, you don't have to pay rent this month. You can spend all that money on laser tag." It's really a battle of stupid; do I see through the charade and stop running or finish and have to spend the next two weeks in Q-ZAR?

In the end, the gym actually worked out pretty well. In addition to the evil calorie counter, they also had a built in TV screen that got cable. I'm sorry, a FREE built in TV screen that got FREE cable. This, it turns out, is the true trick to exercise. If you put a screen in front of me that gets Cake Boss, I'll run all 4 kilometers without noticing because I'll be so concerned over whether or not they'll finish the aquarium cake in time. And 4 kilometers is enough to work off the calories from the Slurpee I keep with me when I run.

Hood to Coast 2011: The Maple Bar Gang

2011-08-30T15:29:00.000-07:00

This weekend I participated in the 30th Hood to Coast Relay, reaching from Timberline Lodge at Mt. Hood to Seaside on the Oregon Coast. I've already read one million different blog entries about how bad the traffic was and how stupid the race organizers are, so I won't get into that - except to ask, has Hood to Coast traffic ever been good? If you don't want to get stuck in traffic, don't sign up for an event that involves driving on a route that 1200 other vans are driving on. In general, nothing bad about the Hood to Coast are bad things that you can't predict. Traffic is bad, keeping 12 adults together is like herding cats, and the weather might be hot or cold. Moving on.

While technically I was on a new team this year, it was the same group of people. The Maple Bar Gang has been a HTC team for a good number of years, but last year they added a supplementary team, the Apple Fritter Avengers, which was the team I was on. This year we were back to just the Maple Bar Gang, but the spirit of running and eating donuts and telling other people to eat donuts and supplying the people who ought to be eating the donuts with donuts remained the same. The only difference was the kind of donut, which was an unfortunate one since I like maple barsway more than apple fritters, so I ate way more of them and felt way sicker.

A big difference for me personally was being in Van 1, instead of Van 2 like I have been every other year. This was essentially like running a new race, since I had never run any part of the Van 1 route. I also got to go up to Timberline Lodge for the race start. Upon arriving at the Lodge, our team decided to immediately lock the keys in the car to make a fun challenge for ourselves, ten minutes before the race started. The people of Timberline Lodge spoiled our fun challenge by having an extremely efficient service to remedy this obstacle, and we once again were with keys in hand within seven minutes. We made it to the starting line with time to spare, but I didn't have a chance to spend very long looking at the tents giving out free stuff that I wouldn't have really wanted (but it was free!).

My turn came to run at leg 4, around 3PM. At this pointI was half-regretting skipping all my hot-weather training, and half glad I hadn't put myself through any more of that than necessary, because running in the heat is terrible (as I explained earlier, here). I also hadn't run the length of my leg since my half marathon in May, so I was a little concerned. It turned out to be just as hot and miserable as I expected, but in a fun and exciting way. There was close to no shade at all the entire way, and any shade I did come across refreshed me enough to make me run quite a bit faster. I should have run slower in the shade so it would last longer, and faster in the sun to get through it quicker, but somehow that didn't happen. Luckily my team gave me some water around mile 2, then some old people sprayed me with a hose, at the halfway point a special friend's team cheered me on, and with 2 miles left the firemen asking for money in a boot gave me some water. With the help of all these people I was able to do the run in 7:59 miles.

If it hadn't been so hot, this would have been a very easy run.

I was extra excited to see Kamran waiting to feed me water.

I'm stealing all these pictures from Kamran's facebook right now. I'll add my own later, if I feel like it.

My second leg was around midnight, and I ran on Highway 30 into Scapoose. I ran 7:36 miles for this leg, and had 11 road kills, just like during leg 1. It was still a little warm, about 65 degrees, but pretty easy.

My last leg was hot again and slightly uphill and I was already extremely sore from my other legs, so I dropped down to 8:30ish miles, but I was happy with the time.

End of my last leg. You can see The Maple Bar Gang's Van 2 in the background with the giant inner-tube/donut on the front.

Anyway, that's the gist of my HTC experience this year. People keep asking me about it so I don't really feel like writing a whole ton about it. If you want to know more, you should hang out with me more. Or you should have been there. If you don't want to miss out on any exciting parts of my next big race, make sure you sign up for Pints to Pasta. I'm headed out now to register at the Portland Running Company to avoid the $3 online-registration fee.

Post-race sitting.

Hood to Coast Eve

2011-08-25T23:27:00.000-07:00

Like a kid before Christmas, it's hard to think about going to sleep the night before Hood to Coast. Especially when some people are already heading out to the mountain to start their first legs. The only difference between me and the Christmas kid is that they're not sleeping because the thought of all the presents they'll get is way too exciting, but I'm just having trouble making decisions about what to pack. And earlier my dog ate a giant piece of pumpkin pie wrapped in cling wrap so I'm waiting to see if he throws up anytime soon. I am actually excited for the relay though, particularly because this time last year I was in the midst of physical therapy and going into the event knowing I probably shouldn't be running with the injury I was dealing with. You probably already know that I'm feeling pretty great now, since it's been a long time since I put up a picture of an injury (I do have a small, recovering blister on my foot, but we all know what those look like).

Things are going to be a little bit different this year for me. While this is only my second Hood to Coast, I ran Portland to Coast a handful of times in high school, and this will be my first time ever running in Van 1. This means that I'll be starting at the mountain instead of in Sandy, I'll get to sleep during a more appropriate time, and I'll get to go get drunk in the beer garden before our team even finishes. I also requested and was granted the easiest leg possible, in hopes to continue my injury-free streak.

I'll be sure to let you know how everything went, but in the meantime my primary concern is how long it's been since you've seen what I look like while I'm running. I think it's been like two weeks. That should never happen.

I know I already posted a picture from the Bowerman 5k, but nobody got a chance to see what I look like when I'm running and out of focus.

Here's one from final stretch of the Catnip 5k. Ignore the copyright symbol.

I don't have any pictures from the Tillamook Bay Run because I didn't bring my camera crew, but on the left you can see the medal I got for being First Place Champion in my age division. The award on the right is my Third Place Champion ribbon for the Mouse Miler at the Catnip event.

I decided to show you my blister after all.

Good luck to everyone running the Hood to Coast tomorrow (especially the Maple Bar Gang)! Be sure to blog about it after.

Tillamook Bay Run 10k 2011

2011-08-22T14:28:00.001-07:00

Last year I put all of my running effort towards extremely long distances - marathons. I was regularly doing 15+ mile runs (before I got injured), and barely felt warmed up before running 3 or 4 miles. This year I've barely run over 6 or 7 miles at a time, with the exceptions of the Shamrock 15k in March and the Eugene Half Marathon in May. This thought didn't occur to me until right before I was lining up for the Tillamook Bay 10k. I was grateful that I did have a couple 6-7 mile runs to rely on from the past few weeks, but running 6 miles is one thing - racing 6 miles is another. As the race was about to begin I experienced part concern and part intrigue (and part sleepiness, as I often do at the start of morning races).

I had heard that the winner got a $500 cash prize, so I thought I would just throw caution to the wind and try to stay with the first place woman for as long as I could and see what happened. It turned out that I was the first place woman... for about three minutes. Then this lady with a white hat and little shorts with a sports bra passed me. I had been expecting this, as women who wear a sports bra with no shirt to races are usually fast. Probably because only women with great abs are willing to wear such an outfit, and usually if your abs are that great then your speed is too. I thought about staying with her, but she got pretty far ahead pretty quick, so I let her go.

Other than the $500 I could be missing out on, I wasn't too upset about not getting first place. Especially since I almost never get first place. I was actually surprised to stay in second place for about the next 4 miles. For a while I thought I must be running really fast, because I got to the mile 2 mark in 12:50, which is way faster than I usually run. Later I realized that whoever put out the mile markers must not have been very concerned with accuracy, because according to them it took me 14 minutes to run my fourth mile. I had slowed down a little, but not that much. At the end of this mile some high school girl passed me. I tried to chat with her about how crazy the mile markers were, but she was apparently busy with something else (like running maybe?) and all but ignored me.

Somehow I made it to the end without anyone else passing me, making me the 3rd place champion! Then I found out that there was actually only a $500 cash prize for the first place overall winner, not for men and women, so I extra didn't care that I didn't win first place. I was confused why I didn't get a gift basket though, as I was 3rd overall for women, and 1st in my age group, and there were two gift baskets full of Tillamook cheeses and things left over at the end that nobody got. I even had a dream last night that they called to apologize for not giving me a gift basket and came to deliver it to me. Luckily the guy I went to the race with won 1st place champion, so he got all the money and will hopefully buy me things with it soon.

I would tell you more about this race, like how they handed out entire water bottles at the water stations along the course that nobody could drink more than two sips of (because it's hard to drink a lot while you're running), but then had no water at the finish line, but I have to go to work.

Hood to Coast Is Not This Weekend

2011-08-16T08:26:00.000-07:00

Last week I was starting to get nervous about the upcoming Hood to Coast relay, because I realized that I only had time for one, maybe two, long runs before the event. I was also nervous because I hadn't heard anything from my team about our plans for the run, and was starting to assume that I had been secretly been kicked off the team. Then on Saturday I found out that Hood to Coast doesn't actually start until Friday the 26th, instead of this Friday like I thought, and so many more things in life made sense. I'm also now able to go to the many parties I was invited to and initially had to turn down (two parties). I'm especially excited because I really need the time to get some long runs in - even though I requested and was graciously given the easiest leg (leg 4, van 1), I've done so little distance running recently that I was feeling unsure about running seven whole miles all at once. Hopefully now that will be feasible.

While my long distance fitness may be suffering, I have been working on my 5k time. On Friday I did another race called the Catnip Friday 5k, which was shortly followed by the Mouse Miler. In this 5k I did my first mile in 6:58, a whole 15 seconds slower than in the Bowerman 5k, which helped me finish in 21:44, almost 50 seconds faster than in the Bowerman. I got 4th overall for women, and then I got 3rd place in the Mouse Miler with a 6:23 mile. I had no idea that a 6:23 time would put me in the top three, so I completely ignored the announcer when they were giving out awards. The website says they'll contact us yesterday or today if we didn't pick up our awards, in order to get them to us, but the award was a bag of cookies, and I don't really want cookies from five days ago. The guy I went to the race with won a bunch of cookies anyway, so I got my fill. I also got 2nd place for combined time, but they only gave away cookies for the 1st place winner of that (the Joe Dudman award).

Times and placing aside, the Catnip Friday 5k is actually a really nice run. Is starts at Sherwood High School, which is a terrible place for a 7pm Friday race to start because traffic getting there is the worst ever, but once you're there it's great. It's a little bit neighborhood-y and a little bit cement-path-through-a-forest-y. I ran my first mile in a big group of people, but right after passed my last person until about 500 meters to go. This person was a small girl who looked really strong but as soon as I passed her she started sounding like she was having an asthma attack. This stopped after a minute, leading me to believe she either a) fell far behind, b) stopped wheezing, or c) died (I hope it was b, and now have good reason to believe it wasn't c). I then spent the next fifteen minutes about 100 feet behind this guy who didn't even look like he was in very good shape. I was happy to finally pass him at the end.

The best part about this race was that my dad surprised me by showing up right before the race started, and running in it. He used to run in road races all the time, but it's been a while since his last time. I feel like a very lucky girl to have a dad that can still go run a 5k in a decent time at the drop of a hat. The worst part about the race was that right after the 5k they had a whole bunch of pizza you could eat if you wanted, but the mile race was still coming up in about 15 minutes. I don't remember the last time there was free pizza and I didn't eat it, but it didn't feel like a wise decision at the time. It reminded me of earlier in the night when I was stuck in traffic for 45 minutes in a car with a big bag of trail mix. I didn't eat that either, even though I really wanted to. I threw it farther in the back so it would be much more difficult to reach and keep me from eating it and getting sick before the race.

My next race will probably be a 10k, the Tillamook Bay Run happening this Saturday. When I initially heard about this run, I thought it was stupid that they were doing a beach race the same weekend as Hood to Coast. This is one of the things that now makes sense to me.

85 Degrees is Very Hot

2011-08-11T08:35:00.000-07:00

When people think Portland weather, images of rain and gray skies come to mind. People are very impressed that we're able to withstand day after day of rain, and wish that they could be as indifferent to the rain as we are, so they could come live in this really great city. The truth is that while it does rain quite a bit, I'm pretty sure it's way less than in other places like Seattle or the rainforest, and we actually have very mild weather relative to most of the country. The temperature doesn't ever really dip below freezing and we only wish we had air conditioning about two nights out of the year. Despite all this, a very important part of being a Portlander is complaining profusely every time the temperature strays outside of the 68 to 81 degree Fahrenheit range (give or take a couple degrees). This happens about 320 days out of the year, so we spend a lot of time complaining about the weather. I went on a run yesterday in 85 degree weather, so some complaining is in order.

A little over a year ago, 7 mile runs were my short runs. This has changed, and 7 miles has turned into a very long run, and yesterday was a terrible, hot day to do that run on. I believe I went during the hottest part of the day too, because I felt much hotter when I was running than I did during any other part of yesterday. This is the part of my complaining where I understand that everyone from anywhere else wishes they could tell me I'm an idiot and should know that it's one million degrees where they live and they run in the heat every day and it's much worse for them. My response to this is: I don't care. Unfortunately, merely knowing that other people have at some point in their lives been hotter than I was at that moment, or are perhaps even hotter right at that second, does not make me any cooler. Anyway, if you're used to heat like that you probably know to do things like bring water or something, and being unfamiliar with such heat, there's no way I could possibly prepare myself in that manner.

My long hot run was done in large part on the Springwater Corridor, where much of Hood to Coast is run. This felt appropriate, because I actually only made myself do this insanely long run because one of my legs of HTC is 7 miles, and I haven't run that far since the Eugene Half. This also felt boring, because that's always how the Springwater Corridor feels to me. It doesn't always feel hot though, as it did yesterday. That was a new thing.

The reason I haven't been running long distances lately (aside from laziness) is that I've been turning my attention toward shorter distances. A couple of weeks ago I ran my first 5k in almost seven years. 5ks are about 1/10 the distance of a marathon, so I have appropriately been training about 1/10 as much. At least this felt appropriate until I ran the 5k and remembered how hard they are. Half-marathons and marathons are hard because they last so long, but at no point are you going all-out and pushing yourself in the same way you do for shorter distances. A 5k pretty much felt like a sprint to me, which it wasn't, because I finished in a time of 22:36, which is not the time I would have had if I had actually been sprinting the entire way.

22:36 felt like a decent time for not having run a 5k in such a long time, but later I realized that this pace (7:16) was the same pace I ran for an 8k earlier this year. Which kind of means that I should be able to run faster than that, but I also hadn't been training much before that run. I also added in a new variable to this 5k, which may or may not be to blame for how things played out: the caffeine variable. In the form of a Rockstar energy drink. Not a whole one of course, but obviously this was inadvisable. I've always heard that caffeine is really helpful in races, and since I can't drink coffee/tea because they're so disgusting to me, energy drinks are my only option. And they are a bad option. I felt fantastic for the first mile, running it in 6:43, and then I was hit hard by sugar/caffeine water sloshing around in my insides. Or maybe I was just hit hard by the fact that I was running a 5k and am not at all used to it.

The last 5k was on July 30 (the Bowerman 5k), and as difficult as it was, it got me all jazzed on the idea of running a bunch of 5ks, so now I'm signed up to do the Catnip Friday 5k tomorrow. Now that I have one 5k under my belt for the year, I'm hoping to run at least two minutes faster and PR. This would be surprising, but you know what they say about shooting for the stars. They say you should do it.

At the end of the Bowerman 5k. I forgot to mention I got new racing shoes.

Real Portland Vs. Fake Portland

2011-07-15T15:08:00.000-07:00

Until I went to college in Walla Walla, Washington, I had lived in Portland my entire life. Not surprisingly, most of the people I knew had also lived in Portland their entire lives. In 2008 I came back from college, and over the next couple of years I made the gradual discovery that this was no longer a normalcy. The fact that I grew up here had become worthy of shocked and impressed expressions, and not the bored uninterested looks I would expect after telling somebody that I'd essentially lived in the same place my entire life. Thus I discovered how incredibly cool Portland is. When people hear that I made the bold move of never leaving, they know that not only do I understand how awesome it is to live here now, when I'm able to make responsible adult decisions about where I ought to live, but I was here before it was my choice, before anyone else had figured out to move here (besides my parents, I guess), and I must have somehow absorbed some of the greatness that is Portland into my being. I can't say this for sure, but I don't think that people would be impressed if we were in Salem and they just learned that I had always lived there. Of course maybe I'm looking at this all the wrong way - perhaps people aren't impressed with me for my inaction of not going anywhere, and instead are impressed with themselves, for finding one of the relatively few natives among the vast sea of immigrants.

As impressive as the accomplishment of living in Portland your whole life is, any admiration received for it will come crashing down around you if somebody finds out that you didn't actually grow up in the actual city of Portland, but in a suburb instead. Suburbs are not impressive at all to these people. I have always lived in real Portland, but sometimes find myself getting unreasonably defensive about this fact, due to my near proximity to fake Portland. The sad truth is that much of real Portland is very close to fake Portland, and so there is a good chance of being close to it, but that doesn't make it any less Portland. This is important to understand, because things change quickly once you're outside of real Portland. The way it changes varies, depending on what part of fake Portland you're in, sometimes it gets ridiculously fancy, sometimes it gets ridiculously not-fancy-enough, and other times it gets entirely filled with auto dealerships.

The fake Portland I live near is the auto dealership kind. Despite my closeness to the place, I have generally avoided going there much unless I have to. It's not a bad place, but it draws no real attraction to me, except every Thursday, because then if I don't go I'll get fired. Because I work there on Thursdays. Still, work there is just an out-and-back trip, I never explore. Until yesterday, when I found myself with a two hour lunch break, and decided to do a track workout.

The local high school* is just a mile from work, so I only got a glimpse of one mile of this fake Portland (okay, you've probably guessed by now I'm talking about Beaverton), but I'm going to go ahead and apply it to the entire city (city? town? suburb? what is Beaverton?).

Everything There Is to Know About Beaverton

The only businesses there are Mexican restaurants and auto dealerships
The children are uneducated in track etiquette
The high school has a giant parking lot in addition to excess street parking (for free!)
The traffic lights are long and boring to wait at

I'm pretty sure that covers it for Beaverton, but feel free to contact me if you're thinking of moving there and want some more details on what I've already mentioned. While I probably won't be looking to live there anytime soon, I can say that I was very impressed with how fast I ran in Beaverton during my track workout yesterday, in comparison to how fast I ran the same workout two weeks ago. So while Beaverton isn't anywhere close to as cool as Portland, at least it's conducive to a faster track workout. For me... at least once.

*The lead guitarist of Cherry Poppin' Daddies went to Beaverton High School

Guest Blogger #3: Haylie Swenson (Running for the First Time and Then Blogging About It)

2011-07-06T19:12:00.000-07:00

I consider myself to be truly blessed to have so many running friends that are also trained in the ways of the pen (/keyboard). Today Haylie Swenson, who is currently pursuing her masters in English at George Washington University, enlightens us with the experiences and questions that arise for first-time runners. When Haylie isn't guest-blogging for me, she can be found host-blogging on her own blog, or her shared creativity/pretty things blog, My Cherry Amour. Otherwise she is probably taking a nap.

*I stole this picture from facebook as usual, but with permission this time! I chose this one because it portrays how runners also love to nap, and that animals are cute.

Running for the First Time and Then Blogging About It

Here are my two most vivid running memories:

1. I'm in 8th grade. I'm not at all athletic (which will continue to be true for grades 9-15), and yet for some reason I'm doing surprising well at a P.E.-mandated mile-long run through town. Really well, actually. Maybe it's because I just want to get the whole thing over with, or maybe I'm actually experiencing a competitive streak, but for some completely inexplicable reason I pull into the mile's final stretch at the head of a pack of bored pretty girls with whom I am blessed to share the joys of physical education. For one brief, shining moment I understand what it might feel like to be athletically competent. Then, with only a few yards to go, one of the snotty girls pulls ahead of me and finishes first. Fact: I never have been, and never will be, fast. Her victory feels like class warfare.

2. I'm a senior in college and I'm on Pacific's club rowing team, which allows me to feel reasonably athletic. I love rowing, but it's January or February and the lake is closed due to its being effing cold outside. So instead of rowing, we're running. We start by running a few blocks around our postage stamp-sized campus. This should be fine, but there's one problem. Remember the part where it's effing cold out? Turns out, my ears are super sensitive to cold, so by the time we've run our blocks I have a splitting, horrible, world-ending head/earache. Also, because of the fact that I'm the slowest person in the world, I'm the last to make it back to the gym, where Coach Eric has prepared a new batch of torture. We partner up and started running around the gym. Each partner has to take turns lapping her other, still running, partner. I still have a piercing headache. Also (and I really hope this is clear), I am REALLY FREAKING SLOW. It takes everything I have (and a solid two or three laps of all-out sprinting) to pass my partner even after she's slowed to just about a walk. The practice feels like it lasts forever, and at the end I'm pretty sure I burst into tears.

Let's sum up: Running = humiliation, pain, tears, and class warfare. Also, I run like a stick figure (all elbows and knees). Good times. And yet, for some reason, two weeks ago I decided I wanted to be a runner. There are a couple of reasons for this: First, I know a lot of excellent people (Colleen, Kathayoon, Annette, etc.), who are runners. By this I mean that they run, on purpose, and to my knowledge don't come home in tears. That's inspiring stuff, right there.

Second, I'm a graduate student studying medieval and early modern literature. I'm a Grade-A Academic, a real library parasite, and I therefore spend a lot of time sitting on my butt in front of books. This worries me less because of my weight (I come from a long line of naturally skinny people), than because of my health (I come from a long line of naturally skinny people with bad hearts).

Third, I happen to live right next to a pretty great river trail where I can run with a minimal amount of people laughing at my stick-figure running form and - bonus! - see rabbits and birds and deer. I also have some time in my mornings these days, since none of the classes I teach start before 9am and I'm used to getting up at 6:30.

Fourth (and most importantly), I really wanted to be a guest blogger on Colleen's blog.

So, with the above reasons in mind, two weeks ago I began running. I've been using this training plan that I found via Runner's World magazine, and it's been doable so far (seasoned runners, I hear you scoffing, and I don't care. I care a little).

It starts easily enough that I've been able to be successful with each run, which is pretty much a first, and a pretty good feeling. I've gone for five runs now, and I like it. However, I have a few questions, which I will put to you, seasoned runners:

1. Where the hell do you put your keys? I've been clipping them to my sports bra, 'cause I'm classy like that, but I'm open to other suggestions.
2. Because I alternate running and walking, passing people is awkward. I dread passing someone just so they can pass me again when I'm in the walking phase. How should I deal with that? Mostly I just turn around abruptly and run the other direction.
3. What should my ultimate goal be? I'm not fast (did you catch that yet?) and never will be, so should I go for distance? Or a certain time?
4. Sum up the barefoot running debate for me in either fifteen words or less or haiku form. Thank you.

Guest Blogger #2: Ezra Fox (Running and Then Crying About It)

2011-06-26T11:47:00.000-07:00

This week we have a very special guest blogger, Ezra Fox. What makes him so special? Well, in normal life nothing, but in blog world the fact that he just received his MFA in creative writing makes him a hot commodity, as he received years of training in how to write about random things like running or life insurance computer games. Not only is he a skilled writer, but also a very good reader, which is clear by his participation in the famous podcast, Read it and Weep. Please enjoy Ezra's guest entry as he delves into yet another activity that makes him cry.

Ezra Fox, as depicted on facebook

Running and Then Crying About It

I've never been a good runner.

In high school I got into it because I had a friend on the track team, and then the coach was really nice and coerced me into doing cross country. But I was never good at any of it. I was okay at the 400, just because it's a terrible race and no one wanted to do it. I got roped into doing it in my second meet as a sophomore and had no idea what I was getting into. It's just a lap of pain.

The first time I ran the 400 there was this point going around the last turn that runners might euphemistically call "hitting a wall." It's clearly a euphemism because no one ever tells you that the wall is covered in spikes.

But I got through that race and another two seasons of track afterwards. Because track was just so unpopular, by the time I was a senior I was the only senior on the team, and by default became captain. Well, co-captain. There was a sophomore who was actually fast, and coupled with my seniority, we were a good team.

By which I mean, we were a terrible team. He and I worked well together, the team just sucked. But we had a plan. Fail at the things other teams don't bother failing at. This is how we scored points at triple jump and hurdles. If hammer-throw and steeple chase had been offered at the meets we would've tried to suck at those too. Man, there's just no end to the ridiculousness of track and field events, is there?

Miraculously, during the last regular-season meet of my senior year, my 4x400 team actually made it to regionals. It was in no part due to me and in large part due to the very fast runners that made up the rest of the relay. It also might've mattered that there was a disqualification for one of our competitors. It didn't matter. By hook or by dropped baton, I, Captain Fox (as my personalized sweatshirt said) was at regionals.

The funny thing was, I somehow had started caring about running. I wanted to do well. By design or dumb luck, making me a captain had made me somewhat captain-ly. I had pretended so well I wasn't even pretending anymore.

I actually wanted to do well in the race. I was running lead-off, probably in lane 9 where they stuck the scrubs, and when the starting gun went off I ran with the pack as fast as I could... which wasn't too long. Everyone passed me by the second turn. But I kept going. Not to win, clearly, but to stay close enough so that it wasn't embarrassing. I didn't hit the wall. Every part of me was wobbly... I felt like a drunk puppeteer awkwardly pulling loose strings, but I made it to the finish and handed off the baton without dropping it.

I stuck around for three more minutes until the race ended and cheered on my team. I don't think we came in last, but we might've. I learned my time from my coach, nodded feebly and wandered away from the stadium. 57.4 seconds. It was a personal record by over a second.

This was around the time I started crying. It was hard to tell, since my face was already red and impressively moist. No one was around anyway. Also, I want to stress that the crying was very stoic and manly and did not look anything like this:

I wasn't crying because we lost. Winning was never really a possibility so that was fine. If I had to guess, it was because I liked who I had become over three seasons of track, and now that was over. I liked Captain Fox, the runner. I respected him. I was never going to have that again. I was never going to be him again.

That was eight years ago. I never joined another track or cross country team. But maybe two years ago I started running again. Nothing fast, nothing impressive, but it's pretty regular, and I'm getting better.

Also, I want to stress that when I run it's very dignified and that I don't look at all like this:

Portland Drag Race 2011: Champion!

2011-06-20T18:19:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I learned that I would be competing in Terrapin Event's 2011 Drag Race, "Portland's ONLY competitive downtown mile!" This is a race that takes place right before the Gay Pride parade, and is one mile long, but it's not really the most competitive race around. That being said, it was still the first "competitive" anything I've done in a while, and I was also extremely sore from a really intense "Kick Butt Boot Camp" I did at 24 Hour Fitness the morning before.

Most downtown races start on Naito Parkway, right by the Waterfront, and I assumed that this race was no different. About an hour before the race I decided to check on the race start location, since I hadn't even gotten my race number yet. It turned out it started on 13th & West Burnside, which is right where I live (this information is not to be used for stalking purposes). This helped me better understand the view from my apartment window:

That white tent was there for the sole purpose of distributing race numbers. There was a very long line of three people when I got there, which was actually relatively long - about ten percent of the race participants. I was able to get my number with plenty of time to go take a rest in my room for a bit before heading down to Powell's Bookstore, which was where the race started. I felt disappointed in myself for not being dressed as a man, or at least wearing a mustache or something, as it was a drag race, but it was too late to worry about that. About one minute before the race started it occurred to me to ask somebody what the race course was. I then learned that my instinct to believe downtown races to involve Naito Parkway wasn't wrong, this race just happened to end there instead of starting there. This was somewhat of a disappointment however, because I was hoping for the race to end where it started, so I would be right back at my cozy home when it was done.

Then I ran the race. There's not too much more to say about the actual race, because a mile goes by very quickly. At least it does if you're a quick runner, which I am, sometimes. My legs hurt very badly, but six minutes or so isn't too long of a time to be in pain, so I didn't mind. During the first half of the race I could see a couple of girls out ahead of me, but I didn't really worry about them. Then one of them slowed down a little so I passed her. After another quarter mile the other girl slowed down, so I passed her too. Or maybe I sped up, it's hard to say.

When I came to the finish, I looked around and didn't see any other girls. This is when I realized that I was first place champion! My time was just 6:14, but in this tiny race of cross-dressing runners, that was all it took to take first place. I won the Be the Change Mile in February, which was exciting, but that victory was all glory and no prizes. This one came with all kinds of prizes I didn't expect at all! That six-pack of beer you see me holding in the picture wasn't my post-race thirst quencher I brought ahead of time, but part of my Champion Prize Package! I also got a free entry into another Terrapin Events race, a gift certificate to Foot Locker, and one to Pizzacato! This was the luckiest day ever.

They even gave me a special trophy, which is especially intriguing to my grandfather because he just can't figure out how they got that little winged shoe in there. I don't know how they did it either, but I think it has to do with science.

If you're interested in seeing full race results, click here.

Guest Blogger #1: Sam Boyce (Running in Iraq and Then Blogging About It)

2011-06-18T16:08:00.000-07:00

As much as I love writing about myself, keeping this blog has led me to the surprising discovery that there are actually a few other runners out there, and every once in a while some of them have something to say about running. Sometimes even people who almost never run have something to say about running. The problem is that they don't have quite enough to say about running to make it worthwhile to dedicate an entire blog to the subject, and so I have solved this problem by generously offering up my blog to those who wish to put in their two cents about running, thus creating what will be a weekly series of guest running bloggers. This will continue until people stop sending me entries to post. Harsh criticism of my guest bloggers is encouraged, I will not be offended. And so I give you my very first guest blogger, Sam Boyce.

*I stole this picture from Sam's facebook, without his permission. This might happen to you too if you send me a blog entry without including a picture of yourself. Or even if you do include a picture of yourself.

Running in Iraq and Blogging About It (But Only Once)

First, a little background. I'm in the army and currently deployed to Kirkuk, Iraq. I've been here 8 months and I can't wait to go home. That last part has almost no bearing on my story I'm just letting everyone know how much it sucks here (a lot).

My adventure begins with a pair of dilapidated running shoes. I'm well aware I shouldn't use them for more than 6 months or 500 miles or whatever. However, me being a consummate procrastinator I allowed that deadline to run over (pun intended) about 10 months. Eventually my knees started to hurt when I used them and I began to think it was time for a new pair.

Unfortunately the store here (yes there is only one) is not the most well stocked establishment in the entire world. Their selection of women's running shoes was ample but they were severely lacking in the men's department. Though I'm unsure why running shoes are gender-specific I did not want to risk the societal rejection or injury that may come along with wearing the wrong kind of sneakers. So to Amazon.com I went.

There I found a sleek-looking pair of running shoes from a heretofore unheard of (by me) company called "Merrell." Those of you "in the know" are probably smirking at my ignorance already. The shoes arrived in a few weeks and they were everything I wanted and more.

Of course by "and more" I mean they were, unknown to me, a product meant to be integrated into a new(ish) running movement known as barefoot running. I did some internet research and asked Colleen about it and the idea grew on me. Plus, I'd already bought the sneakers and I didn't feel like returning them.

I tried them out and although my calves were sore in places I was not aware existed and they scraped a good deal of skin off the back of my ankle I liked them. So I integrated them into my running life and now they are all I use to run. Unfortunately, the army doesn't like that.

You see, as my squad leader "reminded" me the other day, part of the PT (physical training) "uniform" requires that you wear socks that cover your ankles. But, wearing socks sort of defeats the whole "barefoot" aspect of barefoot running. And no, I can't just wear regular clothes; another fun army rule is that you can't be out of uniform while you're deployed. So what to do?

Well if you're me, and I am, you just cut the bottoms off of a pair of socks and wear the top parts on the outside of your shoes. Now I can run all I want around the base, apparently wearing a pair of rolled down socks, while still enjoying all the benefits of barefoot running.

Only in the army would you have to trick people into thinking you're wearing socks.

Not real socks!

Pulled up to reveal how truly fake they are

Back to 24 Hour Fitness and Diets Are Bad

2011-06-15T16:54:00.000-07:00

A few months ago I opted out of my 24 Hour Fitness membership because I wanted to save money in order to try out the fancy kettlebell gym in my neighborhood. After about three months I quit, for a couple of different reasons.

I have to preface my explanations of why I quit by saying that the Skogg gym, formerly known as Spinach gym is an awesome place, and I recommend it to anyone (although I think my favorite thing about not going there anymore is that I have to have far less conversations explaining their choice in name choice, which I still don't really understand myself). Everyone that works there seems really knowledgeable and is eager to help out newcomers or anyone that needs a hand. They have classes going on all day so it's easy to find a time that works and you always have instruction. Small classes became rarer the longer I went, as they started getting busier, but still there were some days when I would go and share an instructor with just one or two other people, getting near-private instruction.

Doing kettlebell itself was new, fun, and really effective in building up a lot of muscle groups that I had never really worked on before. I got a lot stronger, really quickly. I usually get really bored by weights, but I was able to keep going with kettlebell a lot more often and a lot longer than with most weight workouts. For most of my membership, I went at least four times a week, making the steep monthly charge of $150 more or less worth it. However, eventually I found myself going less than three or four times a week, at which point I quit immediately, because I can't afford $150 a month for something I'm not using.

Which brings me back to my reasons for quitting. One: While kettlebell was a lot less boring than most weight workouts, and the fact that it held my attention for over three months is admirable, I did eventually get bored. The workouts were varied, but not that varied. They were different day to day, but if I went every other day I sometimes found myself getting the same exact workout. If I missed the days where we did circuits, we did almost nothing but just swing the kettlebell. They also claimed that kettlebell was a good whole body workout, but I rarely felt anything in my calves or abs, and seldom in much of my legs at all.

Reason two: The 60 Day Challenge. This was an experiment I decided to try, and can't decide if I'm glad I did or not. Basically it's a program they offer where you pay $99 (on top of your membership) and go to weekly classes where you get instructed in nutrition, your weight and body fat is tracked, you're given a very strict diet to follow that bans all sugar, alcohol, and most carbs, and you agree to to to at least four kettlebell classes a week. The first day we were given the opportunity to tell them about what we'd like to accomplish with this challenge, and they also took down all our membership. The following week we were given meal plans. While I'm not quite down to elite-athlete level body fat at this time, my goals didn't really revolve around weight loss. Even so, I was assigned the diet designed primarily for women who wanted to lose a lot of weight. Within the first two weeks I lost six pounds, and got concerned that it was too extreme. I told them this, and they bumped me up to the next diet plan that included calories, and this was slightly better. But it was still a radically different diet than what I'm used to, and I was feeling lethargic and light-headed a lot, which made trying to train hard really difficult.

So then I went through what millions of others have, during attempts to be on a diet like this. I broke down and ate all kinds of things I wasn't supposed to, "for just one day," but couldn't stop there. In the next two weeks I gained eight pounds, and am just now getting to a point where I feel like I'm eating normally again and back at my original weight.

I've never tried a diet like this before, and I was completely blindsided by my body's cravings and responses to food after restricting it so badly. I've heard about diets always failing, but I never really grasped why. The good people of Skogg gym seemed very upbeat and encouraging about the idea that if you followed their diet then you would no longer want to eat these things after a couple of weeks, and that you'd probably want to adopt this lifestyle permanently. They did not tell me what would happen if I did decide to let myself eat anything for a day, or how hard it would be to re-regulate my eating patterns. I stuck to the diet strictly for over two weeks, and my cravings only intensified. Once I ate the forbidden things again, I couldn't monitor how much I had. I felt ill-prepared for the challenge, and definitely did not accomplish what I had hoped.

I didn't go every week either - a lot of people didn't. The program is set-up to be great for the few that are able to do everything they're supposed to, but if you start slipping, it's embarrassing to go back and get weighed. Sometimes I did go when I knew I'd had a bad week, but the instruction wasn't really that helpful or motivating, mostly just a brief explanation of how some vitamin supplements could be good for you.

I only stuck around the gym for a couple weeks after the challenge ended, bored of the workouts and discouraged by the 60 Day Challenge. The Challenge didn't end well for me, but it was a good personal lesson in why diets are terrible, and has taught me to never do one again. Eating normally/generally healthy shouldn't be that hard, and usually isn't for me.

That was a couple of months ago now. Recently I decided to move out of my apartment complex which has a gym, but this brought on the appalling realization that I was about to be a member at only one gym. And so I once again joined 24 Hour Fitness. The first thing I did was go try to get on the elliptical and immediately trip on it and scrape my leg.

End of the Soft Body

2011-06-13T18:38:00.000-07:00

As most of you probably know, yesterday was my birthday. I'm 25 years old now! Milestones like turning a new age are arbitrary yet excellent motivators to set new goals, turn over new leaves, mend ones' ways, walk the straight and narrow, etc. etc.

It's definitely time for a new age; running-wise, 24 wasn't that good to me. During my last week of 23 I ran my first marathon and felt great, but after one week of being 24 I ruined my right IT band. Two months later I healed it just to ruin the other side, and then followed many months of alternating pain in all kinds of places. Things were looking up until 9 months into my 24th year when I messed up my achilles tendon.

I tried other methods of working out, like kettlebells - but I got bored of that. Plus, I decided to try their stupid 60 day diet, which I'm still recovering from. It was a great lesson in how terrible diets are - as soon as you stop being on one you (me) eat uncontrollably and it takes forever to re-normalize your (my) eating habits. Soccer also came to an end when my team scattered and I had trouble fitting it into my schedule.

What I'm getting at, is that despite my ongoing quest for the Ultimate Hard Body, I ended my 24th year with a pretty Soft Body. This is okay, because I've never been that fond of even numbers like 24, so maybe that year wasn't so deserving of the UHB. I do love odd numbers though, 25 is an especially satisfying one, so I can't let it down with a soft body.

I'm aware of how ridiculous using favoritism of numbers to rationalize being out-of-shape or in-shape is, but sometimes when motivation is lacking, I really do use things like this to get me going. I ended my 24th year with lots of eating and drinking, and started my 25th with my first real run in quite some time. It was also my second run using miCoach, which immediately shut down my phone when I tried to use it at first, but the Android pulled through on my second try.

Here's what my run looked like, at least as far as pace goes. The random stops are probably stop-lights or Pascal going poop. Or me going poop.

Running and Then Logging About It

2011-05-30T17:56:00.001-07:00

This year I decided to start keeping a running log again. I did for a solid two years in high school, and it's been a lot of fun looking back and reading about my old runs and mileage ever since then. The reason I don't always keep a running log is that if I'm not running as much as I'd like to, I get really depressed when I look at all the blank pages in it. This is also the reason I haven't recorded anything in my current log recently - it's no fun writing down tiny numbers and being reminded of all the days I didn't workout. Today I decided to get over this and add everything up for the year so far. But only because I've run for the past three days, so things don't feel as hopeless as they had been seeming.

Including my run today, I've run 197 miles so far this year. Last year at this time I'd run 395 miles, almost 200 more than this year. This would feel discouraging, until I look at my overall total of 536 miles for all of the year 2010. This means that during the first 5 months I averaged about 80 miles, and during the next 7 months I averaged about 20 miles per month. This year I've averaged 40 miles per month, which is nowhere near where I want to be, but taking into consideration that I'm practicing caution over high mileage, I think this year will end with better numbers than last year, overall. But who knows, I might start making really stupid decisions again, as I am wont to do.

I've been wanting an iPhone for a long time now, so I can use the Nike app that tracks your running. Today I tried out Adidas' miCoach, and from what I can tell it was actually fairly comparable. The map doesn't show mileage like the Nike one does, and it's nowhere near as pretty, but it gets the job done. It also completely killed my Android's battery, but everything does that. So I'll still probably be getting the iPhone 5 when it comes out. If that ever happens. I don't really like running with a phone, but as I mentioned earlier, running is way more fun when you can track as many details of your run as possible. Which is also why I keep a blog devoted almost exclusively to running (the main exception being my puppy).

Meet Grand, Pascal's friend of the week.

Staying Healthy, Avoiding Regret, and a Snowball Hot-Dog

2011-05-17T22:19:00.000-07:00

Earlier today I had a conversation with a friend about regret. I claimed that I have no regrets, because when I make a mistake it's usual helpful in that I then know not to do that again. By this logic I also said that were I to repeatedly make the same mistake over, I would regret that, but I always try not to do that (at least not for the big stuff). Then tonight I talked with another friend, Kathayoon (she's the one pictured in that post with a big X on her), who asked me for advice in dealing with certain injuries while doing long distance training (she's working towards the Nike Women's Half Marathon in San Francisco later this year!). I immediately had to mentally amend my earlier statement that I have no regrets: I deeply regret not taking better care of myself last year in my long distance training.

I generally feel proud of what I have achieved in the last year and a half running-wise, but looking back I always have a nagging sense that it could have been better. Of course I could have done certain things to improve my time, but that's not really what I mean. I'm saying that my overall running experience during that time could have been a happier, more positive experience. When running feels good, I love it, and want to do it as often as I can get my lazy ass out the door. When it stops feeling as good I'm like one of those people that get into thousands of dollars of debt and refuses to look at their bank account - I don't want it to be real, I don't want to know about it, and so I try to ignore it. This leads to a much bigger problem than it should be, one that takes far longer to turn around.

After my last half marathon, two weeks ago, I said that I was so excited that my IT bands finally stopped hurting that I didn't even care that my achilles was in terrible condition. This was true at the time of the race, but once it was over I promised myself to take a solid two weeks off from any running whatsoever, to finally let it heal. Yesterday morning I went on my first run since the half, and successfully ran one mile, pain free. I felt fantastic, like I could have easily run for another hour, but that's how I always get myself into these situations, so I held back, which is something I need to remind myself to do more often. While last year was the time during which I re-learned how to really push myself, this year I'm working on not only knowing when to pull back, but actually doing it as well.

I've realized that one of my biggest problems when it comes to resting for the sake of healing injuries is all of the incidental running I do. It's easy to stay inside and put my running shoes away for a couple of weeks, but this doesn't usually keep me from running. Without a car, I find myself walking most places I need to go, an activity I'm extremely impatient with. Most of the time I end up running at least half the time, generally only stopping if I feel like I'm looking a little too crazy (people give you really weird looks when you're running downtown in street clothes). Because these mini-running episodes aren't planned runs, I don't count them as going on a run. My body, however, seems to be incapable of differentiating between planned runs and incidental running. And so despite all the time off I think I'm taking, I'm actually sustaining the injury for even longer. It wasn't until two weeks ago, when I began my absolute hiatus from running, that I realized how often I run from place to place instead of walk. I also re-realized how much longer it takes when you walk instead of run, and have been having a hard time getting places on time.

You're probably wondering what I've been doing in the meantime to stay in shape, while I haven't been running. Mostly I've been eating a lot more than usual and reading a lot more books. It turns out that this is a relatively ineffective way to maintain fitness. I'm sad to report that on the Ultimate Hard Body spectrum, I'm sitting on the "less hard" end. Now that I've realized that this program isn't working that well, I'm working on putting more movement into it. I started this weekend by walking for miles and miles around the Las Vegas strip, and carrying weights around in my purse for increased difficulty (seriously, my shoulder got really tired). We probably walked at least 16 miles on/around the strip in the three days we spent there. Then yesterday since I only allowed myself a one mile run, I did at least an hour cool down by floating down a lazy river. And don't worry, the word "lazy" is misleading - remember it's the river that's lazy, not the person floating down it.

If you want to try the weighted-purse method for your own workout, feel free to borrow our idea of using cold beer as weights. Try starting out with five or so, and whenever it starts feeling too heavy, just throw one away.

Hopefully this training program will progress until it blossoms into a super hardcore regiment that gives me an Ultimate Hard(er) Body, but this time I'm really going to try hard not to look forward too much to that goal, and instead focus on more reasonable training that prevents injury. Because regretting things is silly, but I just might have to do it if I keep screwing this up.

I apologize if anyone is concerned that there haven't been enough puppy pictures lately. This is Pascal with his new friend, Fluffy - or as my friend Elspeth so aptly named her, "Snowball Hot-Dog."

PS. I got another Charley Horse last week, which means I've had four in the past year. That's four more than I've had in any other year of my life. This is an upsetting developing trend.

13.1 Mile Photo-Shoot

2011-05-04T23:21:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I talked about the Eugene Half-Marathon, but you still might have no idea what I looked like while I was running it. Today I got an e-mail notifying me that the pictures taken of me from the race are finally available online, so I can finally remedy yesterday's lack of photos with illegally copied race pictures. Because I still can't bring myself to pay $12.00 for one 5x7 print, but I know you need to see them.

First here's a picture of me running after I glued my legs together:

Here's a picture of me looking sad that that guy in front of me is about to beat me. I tried to sneak up on him at the end but he caught me doing it and sped up.

Here's a picture of me doing the same thing from a different angle:

And finally here's one more of me doing the same thing still but with my eyes shut. I was happy to at least beat the other guy in this picture. During the last two miles he probably passed me five times, only to have me pass him again a minute later while he was walking. He was probably injured, and it would have been embarrassing to lose to someone with an injury, so I made myself pass him at the very end. Then after we crossed the finish line he patted my back and said good job. Unfortunately I wasn't able to say the same to him (since I beat him).

I used to think that there were only two kinds of race photos: incredibly awesome ones and incredibly ugly ones. Now I know different - big races like the Eugene Marathon hire photographers with extra fancy cameras that take one million pictures a minute, and then they show all of them to you online a few days after the race, giving me dozens of extremely mediocre photos. The one where I look sad is probably the best one they got. I left out all the terrible ones, which was most of them, but feel free to look them up yourself if you feel so inclined. Lauren had a way better finishing line picture than me, so I'll share that one with you instead of my own:

I didn't ask permission from Lauren to put this picture up, but I also didn't buy the picture like I was supposed to. But it's a cool picture so I feel like it's okay to break the rules on both accounts.

These photos also document the last running steps I took before the start of a two week break from running. I've resolved to finally give myself the appropriate rest time to fully recover from my injuries. Not wanting to get out of shape, I'll be attempting to keep myself fit with other forms of activities, that don't use the achilles tendon. Today I went to a "Pilates Flow" class with about ten 70 year old women, where we spent an hour almost exercising. I truly regret that I don't have as many pictures from the pilates class to share with you as I do from the race.

2011 Eugene Half-Marathon

2011-05-03T13:18:00.000-07:00

On Sunday I ran the second half-marathon of my life, in Eugene. At the beginning of last year when I was trying to find a marathon to run sometime around late spring, everyone I talked to told me I had to do the Eugene Marathon. Nobody at all told me to do the Timberline Marathon, because nobody had heard of it, but I found it online and decided to do that one instead, mainly because I wanted the extra month to train (the Timberline was in June, and Eugene is at the beginning of May). I'm happy I did the Timberline, but ever since then I've been curious to see what all the fuss is about down in Eugene. Then just a few months ago my friend Lauren, who has historically been more of a rower than a runner, asked me to do the Eugene Half-Marathon with her. While it doesn't interest me to push people to run when they clearly don't want to, when my friends decide on their own to pursue running-related goals I usually get excited and want to support them. So with her invitation, and my general intrigue concerning the Eugene Marathon, I accepted her request despite my resolution to work on shorter distances this year.

I had the intention of training adequately for this half-marathon, but instead I alternated between achilles tendonitis and being sick (note: when you take a sick-day off from work, this is not a good time to go get a massage - your massage therapist will not appreciate this). I finally had my achilles feeling pretty good when I decided to go hashing, and whoever laid the trail decided to make it ten miles long. This pretty much used up all of the potential miles my achilles could handle, so I went into this half with some concern about how little I had trained and how much my achilles' had been injured in the last month.

Things didn't turn out too badly, relatively speaking. I PR'ed by about 6 minutes, and my achilles didn't hurt at all until mile 5. I felt really fatigued the entire time and the course was actually pretty boring, and not completely amazing like I'd been promised, but that was okay. I missed the first mile marker, or there wasn't one, so it was exciting to come to the 2nd mile marker and realize I had just run 2 miles when I didn't know that I had even completed 1 yet. However, this set me up for constant disappointment for the rest of the race, when I would think about how long it had been since the last mile marker, assume that I had just missed it and was about to reach the mile after that one, only to come across the mile marker I thought I had missed. After the first few miles the markers were bright blue and ten feet tall, so I really had no reason to ever think I had missed one except that I was tired of running and hoped that I had run more than I knew I actually had.

Immediately after crossing the finish line I was given chocolate milk and pancakes, which is probably the best way I've ever finished any race ever. There was some miscommunication with Lauren about how/when we would meet up, so I ended up standing around for a while, which meant I had plenty of time to eat more pancakes. Then once we found each other we ate even more pancakes. It turns out I missed her because she crossed the finish line right before the first male marathon finisher, so I was looking at him instead of for her. She also finished about a half hour faster than she thought she might, which was not great for knowing when to look for her, but excellent for her half-marathon success story.

The only sad part of the whole event was that I got a free Gatorade recovery drink after the race, and on the car ride home I drank half of it before realizing it has sucralose in it. This is sad because sucralose gives me diarrhea. I suppose it was also slightly sad that I had an extra number that a friend couldn't use, and Lauren's brother John said he would do the run and then got to sleepy and wouldn't get up for the race. This is only sad because he had bet me $20 that he could beat me with his natural athletic ability, and I felt like there was a good chance I might win that bet.

I would say that one sad part is what I did to my achilles tendon, but I was so happy that I had no IT band pain that I didn't care. I haven't run more than 4 miles without feeling any pain at all since before the Mt. Hood Scramble on June 20th of last year, so this was a big deal to me. My mom got very upset when she looked at how inflamed my achilles was yesterday, but I'm not worried. With no impending races except a 5k at the end of June, I can finally give myself time to recover completely.

As you can see, Pascal is also relatively unconcerned about my achilles tendon.

I remembered to go back to skirt counting for this race, and came up with a total of 9, although one of them was not a running skirt at all, just a tight mini skirt that kept getting bunched up and pulled down by the wearer, and looked like one of the stupidest things to wear of all time. With 6,175 finishers, that makes the running skirt percentage equal at 0.0015%. My prediction: running skirts are a crazy fad and will soon make their exit as quietly as they came onto the running scene.

Bridge to Brews 2011

2011-04-17T18:32:00.000-07:00

This morning I ran the Bridge to Brews run, like I did last year with my friend Chris. Chris is out of town studying about how to write really good stories about me, so I had to settle for a different Chris this year. A less Asian and scholarly Chris, but a Chris nonetheless.

I mentioned before the Shamrock run that I had some problems appropriately preparing for the race, but this time I knew well ahead of time that I would be running the BTB, so I could better ready myself. This races' preparation began two weeks earlier, when I strained my achilles' for a week and then was sick for a week, thereby forcing me to take a long break from my strenuous training and be well rested for this run. Then of course there's the night before the race, when it's especially important to take adequate steps in getting ready for the big run. First it's essential to watch your favorite sports team lose, while you eat lots of baby carrots and brown butter cookies. I thought it would help to abstain from drinking, but I observed the winner-to-be enjoying some whiskey cokes and Bud Light, so next time I'll add that to my routine. Next you should play some mini basketball, and finally let yourself be lulled to sleep by Offspring's greatest hits, played at a house-shaking volume. In the morning there's no need to eat anything because you're so full from all the cookies from the previous night.

Follow this advice with caution - I did end up PRing, but I felt like shit the whole time. Sometimes when I'm running at a good speed I feel great, and the race seems really easy and I get a great time. Other times, like today, it feels like I'm barely jogging, and even that is a struggle. If you're lucky it will at least turn out that really you felt so crappy because you were running at a faster-than-usual pace. I never run with a watch anymore, so I have no way of knowing my pace until the end. Today I was happily surprised when I came to the finish line and learned that I had run way faster than it had felt like.

My final time was 36:05, which is a 7:19 pace I think, and was good enough for a white 3rd place age division ribbon that I think is in a car somewhere so I can't show it yet. Last year I won my age division with a time 2 minutes slower, and didn't know there were ribbons to be had, so I have nothing to show for it.

After the race I came home and got ready for work and then a lymph node under my jaw grew into a giant bump and scared me. My mom/doctor says it has to do with the cold I've had, but it still feels troublesome. Hopefully it's not a side effect of running. It probably isn't.

PS. I saw only one running skirt today, which is a lot less than last year, and the race was much bigger. Prediction: running skirts were a short-lived trend.

PS Again. I almost forgot to mention how the stupidest thing of all races ever happened and made me so angry. When we were all lined up to run, some guy on a microphone that you could barely hear counted down from 10, buzzed the bullhorn, and we all started running. About 15 seconds later they made everyone stop, and spend five minutes pushing the entire crowd of runners back to restart the run. Apparently the motorcycle cops who lead the way and other race officials weren't ready. So stupid.

Something I Hate

2011-04-04T20:17:00.000-07:00

As much as I love running, there are a few things I don't like about it. I only plan on talking about one of these things, but I know some people love bullet points, so here's a few of them:

Cute running clothes are expensive.
Running too much often leads to injuries which prevent me from doing more running - things like watching too much TV never prevents me from watching more TV (which is why we all love TV).
When you're out running, there's no good way to advertise how long of a run you're on.

Right now I want to focus on the last bullet point. The fact that I can be on mile 49 of a 50 mile run and not a single person who sees me know this frustrates me to no end. Of course I've never gone on a 50 mile run, but surely if I had, at mile 49 I would have looked/felt like I was very close to death. The uninformed observer would see me struggling to maintain a heartbeat and finish my run at the same time, and probably make the incorrect assumption that I was terribly out of shape and had no business running, instead of rightly knowing that I was actually doing something really awesome that they could never even dream of doing.

I guess at this point I should mention that the only reason I run is to brag about it and impress people. I have a whole blog about running so this should be obvious, but I mention it anyway just to emphasize how frustrating this issue is for me.

This problem came to the forefront of my mind on Friday, when I went to run on Leif Erickson. Normally I love running on Leif, because the mile markers solve this problem for me. There's no way of knowing how far somebody's running around mile 1, but once you're out around mile 6 or 7 you're welcome to exchange knowing smiles with the other runners that you pass by, because it's clear by how far out you are that you're on a badass run and are a generally impressive person. The first time I ever ran 17 miles, I was doubly-rewarded: not only did people get to see what a great runner I was out near mile 6, but upon completing the run, a man started chatting with me and asked how far I went on Leif, and I got to proudly announce that it was 17 miles. But other runners rarely stop you after a run to ask you how long you went, so it's important they know some other way. Usually they don't though, and this upsets me.

So on Friday I set off to run on Leif Erickson. I wanted to do a 10 mile run there, but since I sold my car I couldn't drive there, and since I wanted to bring Pascal I couldn't bike there. I'd have to run 3 miles there and back, leaving just 4 miles to do on the trail - just 2 miles one way. This sounded like a fun plan, until I actually got to the trail and started running, and realized I looked like just some chump going out for a tiny jog. Worse, when I was running back down to the trail head, this woman I had passed earlier started considerably picking up the pace to give her run a strong finish. Normally I do the same, but at that point I still had 3 miles to go so I didn't want to burn myself out. Instead I had to keep running at my regular pace and look like some asshole who can't even run fast at the end. All I could do was hope that she would get in her car and see me continuing my run as she drove away.

The only thing I can really think of to fix this huge problem is for Nike to invent some kind of t-shirt that has a digital display that's linked to Nike+, showing everyone around you what distance you've run, and how much further you intend to go. If you have a better idea, please let me know. I'm desperate for a solution that lets people know how great I am for as much of the time as possible.

Shamrock Run 2011

2011-03-13T20:17:00.000-07:00

I kind of meant to getting around to registering for the Shamrock run this year, but I never actually did it. I was still worried about my IT band, and I never really felt like paying the money to do it, and then registration reached capacity and closed. I wasn't that torn up about it, except for the fact that missing this race would mean missing out on the 2011 Commemorative Bottle-Opener Style Medallion given to all 15k finishers. So I was actually very upset about not doing the Shamrock Run.

As you can imagine, because I'm writing a blog post titled "Shamrock Run 2011," I did get my hands on a number at the last minute. I was kindly donated the spare number of someone who had two, because everyone kept giving him free registrations. The number was for the 15k (about 9 and a half miles), but I briefly toyed with the idea of switching to the 5k or the 8k, because I hadn't run more than 6 miles since the Portland Marathon in October. I thought about this out-loud for a bit, and was quickly reminded that the 5k and 8k finishers don't receive a Commemorative Bottle-Opener Style Medallion, and my internal debate ended immediately.

Deciding to do a race the night before it happens means that most of your race preparation has been done with the mentality that you aren't about to run a race, and so steps taken may or may not have been appropriate. Here are some of the things I did:

Appropriate Preparations

Run occasionally
Resistance training
Skip kettlebell class the day before the race (which I did because I was lazy, and felt guilty for having done so until I learned I would be racing)

Inappropriate Preparations

Eating massive amounts of Indian food the day before the race
Eating lots of delicious cake the night before the race (which I purchased and consumed after I knew I would be doing the race, but it tempted me too hard)
Not buying a cute new racing outfit

Inappropriate Preparation #3 led me to staying up late into the night, trying on every pair of athletic shorts I own. I got upset when I realized that I wear the same outfit for almost every single race and finally decided to wear my same shirt as always, but got out some running shorts that I hadn't worn for ten years but it turns out I still look extra-good in them.

My balance of appropriate and inappropriate preparations turned out pretty well. Despite losing an hour to the time change and non-stop rain, I PR'ed by almost 4 minutes! My time went from 1:14:05 (last year), to 1:10:22, for a 7:33 minute/mile pace. Most of my increase in speed can probably be attributed to the fact that I started out running with a few guys who were running in silly leprachaun suits and hats to promote fancy dress/running shoes, so they were running pretty slow. Usually I start out really fast, and that rarely turns out well for me, but I still can't help myself most of the time. It's much more encouraging to spend the race passing the people you ran behind in the first mile than to have all the people you sped ahead of during the first mile pass you for the rest of the race. Lesson learned. Again.

But as I have made clear, the Shamrock Run is not about PRs or personal achievement. It's about the Commemorative Bottle-Opener Style Finisher's Medallion:

As you can see, it was well worth the effort. This year, not only is the medallion a bottle-opener, but it is in the shape of a pint glass, to remind you of what you are maybe about to drink when you're using the bottle-opener. For a reminder of last year's Commemorative Bottle-Opener Style Medallion, click here.

Almost as exciting as the Finisher's Medallion was when the winner of the 5k was nice enough to let me have my picture taken with him.

As usual, I convinced my parents to come out in the rain and watch me run, but they didn't make it out until the part of the race where I wasn't running anymore, so I have no running pictures for you. Luckily they did make it to the part of the race where they bought breakfast, so I didn't have to miss the part of the race where I ate giant pancakes covered in chocolate and peanut-butter and also normal butter. Secret running tip: this last part of the race is usually the most important, make sure you don't skip it.

The 60 Day Challenge, and Charley Horse Strikes Again

2011-03-01T20:14:00.000-08:00

Have you ever gone two months without eating sugar? Alcohol? Sugar and alcohol? Obviously not, it's impossible. Alcohol's not that bad, one time I went 18 years without drinking and I didn't even miss it. I don't think I've ever gone more than 12 hours without eating sugar in my life though. It's terrible.

I've come to learn just how terrible it is in the last two weeks, since I joined the Skogg Gym's 60 Day Challenge (formerly known as Spinach Gym). This is a challenge at the kettlebell gym I've been going to, where I have to do at least four kettlebell workouts a week, drink half my weight in ounces of water a day (so if I weighed 200 pounds I'd be drinking 100 ounces of water), and consume no sugar, alcohol, rice, most grains... and a bunch of other stuff. I'm allowed to eat sugar that's in fruit and things like that, but no added sugar.

Week one wasn't so bad, because the only rules were to drink a lot of water, and take in no sugar or alcohol. Knowing I would soon be far more restricted, I took this week as an opportunity to eat as much pizza and macaroni and cheese as possible. I missed sugar a little, but felt generally satisfied. Week two hasn't been so good to me. Specifically Sunday night when I went to Alex and Megan's for Megan's birthday and there were about 25 giant cupcakes from Cupcake Jones, that they got for free. Cupcakes and free stuff are two of my favorite things, and my least favorite thing in the world was not eating any of them. I still feel sad I didn't eat them. I suppose I would feel shameful and guilty if I had though.

I've pretty much stuck to the diet almost perfectly, give or take a few slip-ups, plus the fact that I went to Applebee's last night. I don't feel too guilty about that though, because it was to watch Alex's comedy show, and I felt like I'd racked up a huge calorie deficit and mozzarella sticks plus a steak were the best way to take care of it. During week 1 I lost no weight (unless you count the one pound I lost by not wearing jeans during the second weigh-in), but in week 2 I lost 3 pounds. That's pretty rapid speed loss for me, and I'm going for Ultimate Hard Body, not Ultimate Malnourished Body.

Aside from not getting to eat sugar, the worst part of this diet is explaining it to people. First, because people on diets are the worst. People like eating the same things at the same time, and if they're eating something unhealthy, they want you to be doing it too. When you don't, they get angry. They also maybe don't like watching the inevitable puddle of drool I make when I'm watching them eat. Second, because I'm not fat, everyone acts extra suspicious of why I would be doing this diet until I give them a lengthy explanation about how I want an Ultimate Hard Body. This is sometimes helpful, because I need constant reminders myself of why I'm doing this. Right now I want sugar so bad it's hard to focus on the why, because all I can think of is about how I'm not allowed to eat anything tasty for six more weeks.

For the most part, I've spent my whole life being active, and much of it trying to be in really good shape. While I consider myself to eat pretty healthy on my own, I've never focused on diet in particular, and all of my attempts to sculpt my body into perfection have been purely exercise-related. As much as I would like to have a UHB, right now I'm questioning whether or not it's worth depriving myself of all the delicious things I like to eat. But because I've never done it before, I'm willing to try. Perhaps the exhiliration of finally attaining the UHB will overcome any desire for gustatory pleasures and it will all have been worth the effort. I kind of doubt it, but we'll see.

One more thing I need to bring up before I sign off, is something that happened on Saturday night... once again, I woke up in the middle of the night experiencing the worst pain of my life - Charley Horse had returned. There are no words for me to explain how horrible this pain is, and how confusing it is to wake up with it. But to give you an idea, it was so bad that it actually tore my calf muscle a little, and I couldn't run for a couple of days. Has anyone else ever pulled a muscle in their sleep? I hope not, it's the stupidest thing that's ever happened to me (maybe). I recommend you never do it, not even once.

Miles run in 2011: 85ish?

Wednesday Night at the Races: Track Meets Still Exist

2011-02-11T11:12:00.000-08:00

The last time I ran in a track meet was the spring of 2004. I don't remember which race it was, and I certainly don't remember ever thinking that it would be the last track meet I ever ran in (although at that point I was just trying to survive the track season, so I probably didn't care either way). Since then, I've barely thought about track meets or the possibility that they might still be happening even though I'm not doing them. It turns out, track meets do still exist.

I officially learned this fact on Wednesday night, when my new friend Chris drove me up to University of Portland and I made my triumphant return to the Chiles center. When I was younger I went there every summer for basketball camp, but I rarely paid attention to the indoor track upstairs above the court, circling around the bleachers. Wednesday I headed up there and found about 50-ish people milling around, signing in and warming up for the races. Five dollars bought my way into all three races - the mile, the 150 meters, and the 800. I opted out of the 150 because honestly, that's a stupid race that nobody has ever heard of, and more importantly, I don't sprint.

The first race was the mile, which on the indoor track was close to seven laps. This was really confusing for me, because I had no idea what pace my splits signified, and it's hard to keep track of what lap you're on when there's so many laps. Sometimes I get confused about this when there's only 4 laps. I also had no idea how fast the girls I was running with would be, so I decided to just run in front of all of them the entire time. This ended up only working out for the first lap or so, and then a bunch of people decided to run in front of me instead. This meant that I didn't win. I ran about the exact same time as I did for the mile run on Sunday, and also like Sunday, I'm positive my time would have been much faster if I hadn't gone out so fast. Someday I'll learn.

The men ran the mile right after us, in two heats. In the first (slower) heat, one girl was bringing up the rear by a lot, and Kathy Parker, a running coach from Lincoln, explained to me that she had missed the girls race by just a few seconds so jumped in on the guys race. She ended up finishing at least half a minute behind the last guy, and the announcer decided to broadcast the fact that she had missed her race to everyone there. I'm sure she appreciated that.

The 800 is a race that I haven't run since my freshman year of high school... almost ten years. One girl asked me how fast I was, I told her I had no idea, and she told me that I "seemed pretty fast." She had huge giant muscles so I wanted to return the compliment and tell her that she "seemed pretty strong," but I wasn't sure that would be relevant to the conversation. Anyway, I guess I ran the race medium fast - I don't even remember what a good time for the 800 is. I also didn't remember how hard it is, considering it's the closest thing to a sprint that I ever do. Except the 400 I guess, but I never took that seriously. I'll get to try it next week though, if I feel like it - the races happening then are the 3k, the 400, and the 1000. I believe that the 1000 is also a make-believe race that I've never heard of, but maybe I'll run it anyway.

If you want to see my results, go here. I'm excited to go race again next week, but also nervous about the 3k. Especially on an indoor track, it's going to be about 200 laps (give or take). The best part of these races is that there's no prizes so I have no reason to be upset if I don't get 1st place. If I ever do get 1st place I might change my mind about this one. Chris, who I went with, did get first place in the 800, and he didn't even get angry or cry or anything about walking away prize-less.

Speaking of prizes, next on my list of things to do is to register for the Shamrock Run 15k so I can get another commemorative bottle-opener style medallion. I've been finding that one just isn't enough.

Miles run in 2011: 50ish??

Be the Change Mile 2011

2011-02-07T14:58:00.000-08:00

Last time I posted, I said that I was going to do a mile race this Saturday. Sometimes I make plans like that and don't do them, but this time I did! It really could have gone either way though, because to get there I had to wake up at 7:30AM (hard!), get a ride downtown from my mom, get my bike from work, and bike for a half hour over to Franklin high school. I almost didn't wake up, then I decided I might stay home and get a ride downtown later. I ended up going downtown, thinking that I might just take a nap at work. That didn't look too comfortable though, so I raced my bike over to Franklin and made it there by 8:55, just in time for the 9AM run.

It turned out that 9AM was the time for the community mile, and the competitive mile wouldn't be until 9:40AM. The guy at the sign-up table (who I later realized I had carpooled with to the Mt. Hood Scramble) told me I could run the community mile too, but instead I decided to stand motionless near the bleachers for a half hour. This was actually hard to do, because there were free donuts, but I was worried that they might make me feel sick so I remained stationary, marveling at Franklin's square track (it has four straight-aways). Ten minutes before the race I warmed up by jogging to the Porta-Potty and back.

Stepping up to the starting line, I was kind of nervous about what was about to happen. At the sign-up table I had been told that the competitive mile was for people who planned on running under 6 minutes for the mile. That was what I wanted to run, so I decided to go for it. I had no idea how fast the others would actually be running though, which is difficult when I've completely lost the ability to gauge how fast I'm going. This was an appropriate concern, as the race started and I found myself right behind the group of men, and finished the first lap in 80 seconds (I should really be doing the first lap in about 90).

Waiting to start.

After the first lap and a half-ish, the one guy I had been running ahead of passed me, and then my least favorite thing to happen during a race happened: I found myself running more or less alone. It's so much harder to push yourself when you have nobody close enough in front of you to pull you up, or anyone right behind you forcing you to stay ahead.

All alone.

Finally, around the third lap, a girl who was probably 14 or 15 passed me and sat right in front of me for a while (not sitting like on the ground, sitting like staying consistently in that position), and so I just tried to keep up with her until the last 300 meters when I passed her and kicked into the finish.

The ending was very unceremonious. The whole thing was very unceremonious. Which is kind of nice sometimes. Going into this event, I had no idea what to expect - I had just seen it in a Fit Right NW newsletter and decided it would be good to do, since I'm not sure many of my friends would want to go do a timed mile with me (correct me if I'm wrong). It was small, but a pretty cool event. They donated a bunch of running gear for kids of some sort, there were donuts, and some pretty good runners there.

Afterward I talked to the guy who organized the event, and he told me about indoor track races at University of Portland every Wednesday. The guy who won the Be the Change Mile (4:29!) goes to them, and said he'd give me a ride there this week. It's been seven years since I've raced in a track meet, so I'm really excited.

I'll break the suspense now - I know you're sitting on the edge of your seats, waiting to hear what my mile time was. I ended my fourth lap with a time of 6:06, five seconds faster than last month, and just 16 seconds away from my goal time! I even believe I could have run it faster, with just a few adjustments:

Not having to poop during the race.
Having more people there to push me to run faster.
Wearing racing flats instead of the Nike Free - I love those shoes for training, but they are not for racing.

I'll try to continue doing monthly trials of my mile to see how I progress. While trying to improve my mile time, I also need to be training for that half marathon I signed up for - today marks the beginning of 12 weeks until the race, which is the amount of time it takes to complete Hal Higdon's half marathon training plan. Next week I'll be starting a 60 day challenge at Spinach, the kettlebell gym I started going to, so I imagine that by May I'll be closer to having the Ultimate Hard Body than every before.

Miles Run in 2011: 33ish? I don't have my training log with me. I'll check later.

So Much Good News

2011-02-01T14:06:00.000-08:00

Good news: I finally accomplished my goal of running five times in one week! I'm guessing the last time I did that was freshman year of college when I was running cross-country. Of course, as I had promised myself that each run need be only a minimum of one mile, despite getting in five runs, it only amounted to 12.5 miles. Last year I ran 25 miles in the first week of January, in four runs. Last year I also got hurt a lot though, so we're not following that model again. I also updated my blog 14 times last January, as opposed to this January's 3. Oops. I know for a fact that this is making at least one person upset, so I'll work on this.

More good news: I now belong to 3 gyms! I hope you're feeling adequately jealous right now and not at all thinking that this is completely stupid/unnecessary/a waste of money. The most explanation I'm willing to offer is that I am now officially a member of Spinach gym, which I think will really expedite the Ultimate Hard Body process.

Even MORE good news: This should probably have been the first good news, because as a reader, you will probably appreciate this one the most. You know how you're constantly checking my blog for updates from different places and telling lots of other people about my blog, but it's stupidly hard to remember my url? The Read It and Weep boys have fixed this problem by generously donating a new domain name to me! You now have to only remember ultimatehardbody.net in order to get to my blog! This is pretty easy since you're probably thinking about Ultimate Hard Body(s) all the time anyway, now you just have to remember to go to net and not com. You're welcome.

Never-ending good news: I was trying to decide if I want to do another timed mile this month, or wait and do it every two months, but Fit Right NW decided for me! I got their February news letter today and it told me about a mile race happening this Sunday! It's called Be the Change Mile, but I don't really planning on changing things, just running. Feel free to predict my time, but there will be no prize that I take three months (estimated) to deliver this time.

Ridiculous amounts of good news: My friend Brent finally got reunited with his dog, Darwin, and he and Pascal got together for a day of Ultimate Cute Doggies.

Miles run in 2011: 29.5

Hard Body On

2011-01-25T16:01:00.000-08:00

Have you ever wondered what kind of things you should be eating while you're trying to get an Ultimate Hard Body? I assume the answer is yes, and I am blogging today to tell you that you're in luck: for some reason I am photo-documenting every single thing I eat for the next month. As my life is solely dedicated to the quest for the Ultimate Hard Body, everything I eat can be considered to be part of the UHB Diet. Please enjoy this slideshow of everything I eat, and feel free to model your own diet after mine:

For more information on why I'm taking these pictures, click here.

Taking pictures isn't the only thing I'm doing to get my UHB. This week I took three giant steps that will surely help me get it:

Signed up for the Eugene Half Marathon (with prompting from my friend Lauren)
Went to TWO yoga classes
Went to TWO CONSECUTIVE kettlebell classes at a new kettlebell gym called Spinach

Note that it's only Tuesday. Prepare to be amazed by what I do with the remainder of the week. Or unamazed - we'll see.

PS. For anyone that was worried about Pascal last week when he was sick, you can stop now. He is totally better!

Miles run in 2011: 22.5

2011 Resolution

2011-01-17T22:31:00.000-08:00

Last night I got an e-mail from one of the Read It and Weep boys, asking if I might be willing to participate in the next podcast (which is about terrible books and movies). This episode will be on The 4-Hour Body by Tim Ferriss. Of course I'm willing. I won't say too much about this, because I'm saving it for when I have to say it out loud, but I'm obviously super excited to read a book that wants to help give me an Ultimate Hard Body. Which I think is the point of this book, although they don't say it in so many words.

Maybe doing this will also help me get back into the routine of running regularly, which is important because doing so is my New Year Resolution. I know that the new year was 17 whole days ago, but I never got around to writing about it. First I should do the normal end-of-year wrap up, which I also neglected to do.

In January of 2010, I resolved to run 25 miles a week, every week. In 2009 I ran a piddling 307 miles, and so at 25 miles a week, I expected to run around 1300 miles, almost 900 miles more than the year before. Instead I ran 536 miles in 2010. You're probably wondering exactly how horrible it feels to be 764 miles short of my goal. Only kind of horrible. I was injured a lot of the time, but I still squeezed in two marathons, which is one whole marathon more than I was even trying to do. And the 25 mile weeks were meant to prepare myself for the marathon, and clearly I didn't need that.

But I did learn a lot. Like most of my running-related lessons, I primarily learned things that I already knew, but that I had to experience for myself to really take them to heart. The main things that come to mind are:

Drinking water during long runs is important in preventing awkward poo-ing/diarrhea on the side of the trail.
3 hours of running is too long to go without eating.
Omitting stretching entirely from a marathon training plan is counter-productive.
The whole "increase your mileage no more than 10% each week" is probably right.
Entire mileage for the week should not all be done in 1-3 runs.

With specifically the last two lessons in mind, I decided upon my 2011 New Year Resolution: run 5 times a week, with each run needing to be only at least one mile long. So far I have failed every week.

The first week I did 4 runs, and the next two I was sick (last week I did 2, this week I have done none). That brings us up to now, I think. The great thing about new year resolutions is that you have a whole year to get it right, so I'm going to keep trying. Again, my resolution is mainly a tool to achieve my real goal, which this year is a 5:50 mile. Last year I achieved my goal twice over - the question is, if I do the same this year, will I run a 2:55 mile? 2 miles in 11:40? Stay tuned to find out.

Winner of the 2011 Mile Time Prediction

2011-01-10T13:29:00.000-08:00

A couple of posts ago I asked everyone to guess my mile time. Even with the promise of a prize, I can't believe that I got 14 entire people to care enough to make a guess. The prize, by the way, is a really good one, but I've been sick/lazy so it's not ready yet. It's taken me almost an entire week after running the mile to even write about it, so that's the kind of pace I'm progressing at.

Last Wednesday, Laura and I headed down to the Cleveland track to do the mile. I had tried to get someone to come run it with me so I would go faster, but that didn't work out, so I was on my own.

Somehow I lucked out and got somebody to time me who is also an amazing photographer, as you can see. I hadn't worn my racing shoes (they're like flats but with rubber spikes - do those have a special name?) for over six years, but I felt confident that they would work their magic for me like they sometimes did and sometimes didn't back when I was wearing them while running for Whitman.

I stretched for about fifteen seconds, mostly so Laura could take a picture, and then started the mile. My plan was to shoot for a 6:20 mile, which means I should have done each lap in 1:35. I did the first one in 1:19. This worried me a little bit, I felt extremely confident I couldn't keep that pace up. In high school when I was running track, my coach could tell me to go run 90 or 100 second laps and I would know how to pace it and run exactly that speed. I have completely lost that skill and pretty much just went nearly all-out for the first lap.

The second lap I slowed down to 1:38. The mile started feeling really hard, like I didn't want to do it anymore. I had totally forgotten about this part of running anything less than an 8k. During almost every race I've ever done between the distances of 1500 meters and 5000 meters, at some point I start imagining all the ways I could get out of finishing it. The most common thought that would run through my mind was, "what would people think if I just stopped running right now?" I fantasized about just ending the race right then, and never running again. Sometimes I would think about trying to roll my ankle or something like that. I never got around to actually doing it, I always just finished the race.

Those thoughts only happen around the middle of races anyway. Once you're over halfway done it's always a lot mentally easier. The third lap I slowed a little more, to 1:41. There are no pictures of the actual running because we decided that getting accurate times was more important than photo-documenting it. Maybe next time though.

My final lap I tried to pick the pace up, and finished with a 1:31 split. I really think I could have broken 6 minutes if I had paced myself better and not started out with a 1:19 lap.

I didn't quite make it to 6 minutes, instead I finished in 6:11.

The time range I had predicted for myself was between 6:15 and 7:15, which is where most of your predictions landed. In fact, only two people dared to guess outside that window - one of them being Laura, who didn't bother to look at what my prediction was, and the other was our winner, Vincent Rupp, who actually made two guesses that fell outside the prediction on either end. Fortunately for him, I didn't allow people to change their guesses, so he was stuck with the winning prediction of 6 minutes flat. The runner up was Quinn, who guessed 6:24, but there are no prizes for runner ups in this game.

Congratulations Vincent!!!!!!

Winners should contact me with their mailing address so I can send them their prize, which will be revealed in the next post!

Miles run in 2011: 11

The Best Gift Ever

2010-12-29T20:09:00.000-08:00

I have plans to have great plans for the year 2011. The Ultimate Hard Body Lifestyle will be taking over and I will be undergoing a physical transformation you can't even imagine. Over the last two weeks I've been preparing myself to begin this transformation by barely working out and eating as much as possible. This will make the end result even more amazing, because the contrast between my original squishy self and my ending ultimate hard body will be that much greater.

Today two things happened that made me feel even more prepared for the new year, and my new goals. The first thing is that I went to Powell's and bought a new running log to record all my runs in. It's been about seven years since I actually kept one, but they help a lot so I think it's time to start again. It's not really that helpful for me to look back at my old workouts or anything like that, but I get really embarrassed by empty pages in a running log so sometimes I'll run for the sole purpose of writing a number in my running log.

The second thing that happened is way more important. After almost an entire year of intrigue, speculation, and wonder, I am now the possibly-proud owner of my very own RUNNING SKIRT. Laura was the one to finally realize how badly I needed to experience one for myself, and so she gave me one for Christmas. I am truly grateful. Full reports on first-hand running skirt adventures are to come.

Next week I'll be doing my first timed mile of the year, probably on Monday or Tuesday. Or Wednesday. If you haven't posted your guess for how fast you think I'll do it in, feel free to do so until then. I thought of a prize and it's really good and desirable. Times that have already been guessed are 6:00, 6:24, 6:25, 6:36, 6:38, 6:45, 6:48, and 6:54 (sorry Eric, I don't think I'll have timing equipment that records times as accurately as you guessed so I'm having to round).

At the new year I'll also reveal my exciting plans and resolutions for next year (other than getting the Ultimate Hard Body). First I have to decide what they are.

Until then, please enjoy these high quality pictures of me and my dog having such a fun time (props to Chris for this amazing photography).

Miles run this week: 0
Miles run in 2010: 536

Predict My Mile Time

2010-12-21T01:27:00.000-08:00

I've been waiting for a long time for my tendinitis to go away. Recently I realized that this might not happen (by itself). Almost every single time I try to run more than a few miles, it starts hurting. Something I've been considering trying out for a long time is stretching regularly and doing the proper exercises to heal it. I do this once in a while. But recently a much better idea struck me - I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it sooner. Here it is: don't ever run more than a few miles, and just run really fast instead. So that's what I've been doing.

I haven't actually been doing it much, which is part of why I haven't been blogging lately (I can't blog if I don't run... it's impossible). But there's another issue with this style of running that doesn't lend itself to blogging. On long runs (say, 5+ miles), I have a lot of time to think. Lots of time to look at how stupid other people look, lots of time to think about how I have to go to the bathroom, lots of time to listen to really long podcasts, etc. On shorter runs, most of which I've done on the treadmill, I just stare at the numbers on the machine the entire time and press the Increase Speed button until I'm about to fly off the treadmill and then I stop. If I keep this up I'm going to have to learn to think faster too, for your sake.

This style of running is better for my goal of running a super fast mile. When you run really long and slow all the time, you get really good at running long and slow. I've pretty much mastered that, so it's time to go back to this other thing I used to do (running short and fast). With the new year approaching, I'll soon be doing my first timed mile to see how much work this is going to be.

Here's a fun game: predict my first mile time. Whoever is the closest will get a prize of my choosing (I choose good prizes)!

Hint (maybe): My own guess would probably fall somewhere between 6:15 and 7:15 minutes. But this is purely speculative, I could totally surprise myself either way.

You have a couple weeks to think about this, I'll probably do my first mile during the first week of the new year. Even more awesome would be if people came out and ran it with me. Details to follow.

Miles run this week: 0
Miles run in 2010: 534.5

The Worst Photo-Documented Run

2010-11-25T23:16:00.000-08:00

The last time I ran was last Tuesday, the 16th. I almost blogged about it but then I got sleepy and didn't stop being sleepy or busy with eating or working or something until just right now. I finally have time to tell about it, but first I want to wish a happy Thanksgiving to everybody and share with you this note that somebody left in my parents' newspaper box:

This was the nicest Thanksgiving note I've ever received (even though it was technically left at my parents' house, N.N.S. must not have realized I'd moved out). It reminded me of my old friend, Kyle Sullivan-Jones. I haven't seen him for a very long time, but five years ago I took this picture of him that I like very much:

Back to my run. Last Tuesday I decided I would get crazy and try 3 miles, and see how my leg liked that (spoiler alert: it liked that very much). The problem was that I was out doing things that I can no longer remember, and I wouldn't be getting home until about 4:15. I had told myself that I needed to start my run by 4:30 though, because otherwise it would get too dark and nobody would be able to see Pascal and he would get hit and die, which I didn't want to happen for obvious reasons. I don't know if 15 minutes is enough time for some people to transition from being out and doing things to running, but when I get home I like to spend time in the following way:

5 minutes putting my stuff down and then staring at the inside of the fridge
1-2 minutes going to the bathroom
5 minutes lying on my bed
2 minutes getting dressed to go running
20 minutes watching the internet
5 minutes to stare at the inside of the fridge
20 minutes watching the internet
5 minutes drinking water/tying my key to my shoe/putting on Pascal's leash (on Pascal, not me) and leaving

This is a total of 63-64 minutes. When I have only 15 minutes I only have time for nos. 1, 2, 4, and 8. This is primarily stressful because when I do this it makes me realize how much more efficient I could be with my life than I normally am, and I don't like to be reminded of this. Last Tuesday however, it was necessary, so that's exactly what I did. Well not exactly what I did, it still took me about a half hour before I left, but it was faster than usual.

As I set out for my run I was feeling guilty for neglecting the blog for too long, so I decided to photo-document it with my extra high-quality camera phone. I thought this would be a great way for all my readers to get a feel for what it's like to be me, when I run.

Running out of the parking lot at full speed. (4:50PM)

Immediately stopping to smell things/consider taking a pee. (4:52PM)

More running. (4:55PM)

Then it got dark. (5:17PM)

It turns out that 4:45 was right when it first started getting dark, meaning by the time it was 5:15 you couldn't see my dog at all unless you wore night-vision goggles. I don't have many qualms about being careless when it comes to my own safety while running, but I don't think it's fair to put my dog at risk. I briefly considered buying everyone in Portland a pair of night-vision goggles and demanding that they wear them always, but I don't have that kind of money right now. Instead I went to a pet store early this week and asked if they had a reflective vest for my puppy. They did not, but the lady sold me a Bling Bling Blinker, and also suggested that I buy one of their dog jackets and then get some reflective tape to put on them. This only led to huge disappointment, because I found a bright red rain jacket that looked fantastic on Pascal, but even the XXL was too small for him. Hopefully the Bling Bling Blinker will do the trick (it's just a light with a stupid name that goes on the collar). Anyway, I can't really focus on what I'm writing anymore because all I can think about is how I want to post a picture I took last week of a dead squirrel and write, "here's a picture of a squirrel sleeping," but I'm afraid it would be in bad taste so I'm not doing it.

Miles run this week: 0
Miles run in 2010: 517.5

My Dog Is Fat

2010-11-09T15:11:00.000-08:00

Everybody hates when I don't run. I regard everything in terms of three different perspectives, and all three groups are unhappy when I'm not running:

Me. I love running, hate when I'm injured and can't run.
Every person that is not me. May or may not love running, but love when I write in my blog, which I do much less when I'm not running.
My dog. Who, because I have not been running, has gotten fat.

The one I feel the worst about is #3. I hate when people let their dogs get fat. Dogs don't want to be fat, but don't know a lot about calorie counting, so sometimes can't help themselves if they're given access to too much food and aren't exercised.

When I was training for my marathon, Pascal (my dog) ran a lot, and also ate a lot, just like me. Then I stopped running and so did he. But I'm really bad about taking him for walks when I'm not running. I mostly hate walking. So he got fat. I didn't even notice until one day he was outside on the patio and a bunch of people walked by and all called him things like "Rolly Poly" and "Chubby Puppy." They said it in a very endearing way, but it was still cause for alarm. It's hard to notice when your own dog is getting fat because you see him every day. But when he got called fat by five people in a row, I took a good look at him and realized that he was getting kind of hefty. This was about a month ago, and I immediately started feeding him less, and he got a little thinner. Then on Saturday I took him to the vet for his check-up and found out that he's 12 pounds heavier than he was a year ago, even after losing weight. You can see here how tight his shirt is getting - as well as how embarrassed he is by his recent weight gain.

This makes it extra good that I can finally run again, at least a little bit. Except today I waited until it was dark/cold/rainy so I only wanted to run at the gym where I can't take my puppy. Going to the gym also reminds me of how I almost never go to the gym anymore. 24 Hour Fitness has a new fingerprint-based method of checking in now, but I'm not signed up for it. So everyone else walks in and puts their finger on the thing and punches in a code and I still have to bring my membership card and ID. I've been two times in the last week after about two months of not going at all, but nobody has offered to sign me up for my fingerprint thing yet. I can't help but to hate them just a little bit for this.

Once I got over my anger I ran 2.5 miles on a treadmill, very fast. I think if I had been in a race I would have won.

Miles run this week: 2.5
Miles run in 2010: 514.5

PS. Just found Elaine Carroll's blog and it's almost as good as mine. The only thing that makes it better is that it has more videos, which I'll remedy by stealing one that she posted and put it in my blog. It has nothing to do with running.

Mustard sings Creep from Rex Kramer on Vimeo.

Looking Forward

2010-11-03T21:09:00.000-07:00

This blog started with a New Year's resolution of running 25 miles a week for the entire year, with the intent of preparing for a marathon that I had signed up for last October. This goal of running 25 miles a week lasted less than half a year, but I don't feel too bad about it because I ran two marathons. Mission accomplished (mostly).

Tonight I ran an entire mile on the treadmill, pain-free, so I'm going to keep testing it and see if I can at least half-ass my 25 mile/week resolution for the rest of the year, but I'm sure it won't actually amount to all that mileage. Which is why it's time to move on to my next goal. I was going to wait until New Year's to start, but I think this one might require more than a year to accomplish, so I could use the extra couple of months.

This year was all about running for a really long time. I discovered that though sometimes running for a really long time is painful, it's not that hard to push myself to do it. This coming year, I'm going to focus on running for very short amounts of time - that is, it's high time I break some PRs.

Over on the right I've listed all my PRs. In 2001, it will have been nine years since I PR'ed in the mile, and TEN since I've PR'ed in the 5k. There is nothing more depressing to me than the thought of peaking at the age of 14 or 15. I can't describe how terrible I feel about the idea of never running that fast again. The worst part is that I had no idea how amazing it was that I could run that fast. I knew it was pretty cool, but I also took it for granted. Here's a really great scanned image of my running log from the week I PR'ed in the mile:

When I PR'ed in the 5k, I did actually point out that it was a PR, but here I don't even do that. There is nothing special looking about the fact that I had just run the fastest mile of my life, up to at least the age of 24. So now I need a fastest-ever-mile-redo, when I'll actually appreciate it. I put my fastest 1500 into a pace calculator (5:20) and it's telling me that this is equivalent to a 5:43 mile, but I'm ignoring that because that sounds entirely impossible. So my goal for 2011 is to run a 5:50 mile.

I have no idea if this is possible, or how to go about doing it, but I would like it to happen. I'd also like to set a new PR for my 5k (20:33), but I figure if I can get the mile thing taken care of, the 5k part will be a little easier.

I'm half super excited about the idea of running that fast again, and half really bored of all these numbers I'm talking about. So here's a super cute picture of Pascal when he was just a baby:

PS. I just remembered sometimes I start talking about PRs and nobody knows what I'm talking about. This is weird to me, because everyone ought to know what a PR is. But just in case you don't, it stands for Personal Record. And now you know.

Miles run this week: 1
Miles run in 2010: 511

Portland Marathon Pictures and Talking About Marathons

2010-10-24T09:50:00.000-07:00

I got an e-mail this morning, notifying me that my marathon photos are available online. My mom strongly encouraged me to buy some of them, but one 5x7 photo costs. $16.99. If I'm going to be putting down that kind of money for one picture, I might as well get the Champion Plaque for $69.99!

My pictures aren't that great anyway. A couple of them are decent, but there are a bunch of me at the finish line where it looks like I'm very close to falling over. That's because I was. Next time I do a marathon I'll be sure to look less like I'm about to collapse when I finish so I can get some good pictures.

I'm not supposed to copy pictures from the picture-buying website, but I did just for you: my heroic finish-line picture!

I've not had a lot to talk about since doing the marathon, since I've done absolutely no running whatsoever since then. Sometimes I run Pascal on the way to his pooping spot because it helps him poop faster, but some people complain when I talk about Pascal and his poop. Here's a picture of Pascal running, to help you visualize:

The good news is that after about a week of significant pain from my tendinitis, I've had another week or so of pain-free walking. For a while my leg hurt really bad when I was doing absolutely nothing. This is what happens when you run a marathon with an injury and very little training.

Usually I hate being injured so much, but right now I'm tolerating it pretty well. I finally don't have to deal with the stress of having an upcoming race I don't know if I should/can do, so I can just let myself recover for a while. I'm going to lay low on the running front for at least a month so I can fully recover this time, and then I'll pick something new to train for. In the meantime I'm going to try to do the complete two month Insanity program. If I take before and after pictures and submit them to the Insanity people, I get a free t-shirt!

While I haven't been running much, people keep asking me about my marathon, so I've been talking about running a lot. I've discovered that people are far more interested in hearing about how you ran a marathon they know about than one they don't. When I ran Timberline, conversations would go like this:

Them: You ran a marathon? The Portland Marathon?
Me: No, I did the Timberline Marathon, up around Timothy Lake.
Them: I've never heard of that one. Goodbye.

This time around, things go more like this:

Them: You ran a marathon? The Portland Marathon?
Me: Yes.
Them: OMG blah blah blah my mom ran that one! Blah blah blah how'd you do blah blah that sounds so hard blah blah blah more talking.

I don't have a problem with this. We all like talking about things we know about more than things we don't know about. And I like talking/hearing about running, so I'm more than happy to listen to someone go on about their mom's marathon she did twenty years ago.

Anyway, here's one more picture of my dog:

Portland Marathon 2010: No Training Required

2010-10-10T21:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning I ran the Portland Marathon. Yesterday night I read the Portland Marathon Official Souvenir Program. I wish I had done those things in reverse; it would have cleared a lot of things up. Sidebar: since finishing middle school, I've forgotten the proper use of semi-colons. Now I just throw them in every once in a while when it feels right. Looking up how to do it for real sounds hard.

The thing about the marathon that I was most confused about, was the random medallion thrown in the goodie bag that says 39th Portland Marathon 2010 Finisher. You can't just go around giving these things to people who haven't actually run the marathon yet. After reading the Program, I now know that it's actually supposed to be a Challenge Coin, which has something to do with the military. Basically I get to carry it around and if we have drinks together and I put it on the table, you have to pay. Or I can put it in a wall display box or a coffee table made especially for the purpose of displaying my Challenge Coin.

I also got a little necklace with a rose pendant on it. This too was confusing, because it's kind of ugly and I don't want it. But then the Program taught me that I'm supposed to wear it regularly because it commemorates my marathon achievement (if I were a man, I would want to give it to someone special in my life). They also put it on an ugly cord on purpose, because they know that we'll want to hang it from our favorite neck chain anyway. I was glad to have figured these things out, because before I had no idea why they would give them to me.

The Marathon Program also had a fair amount of pre-race tips that might have been helpful. Not totally necessary, since I've run a marathon before so I know pretty much everything about them now, but some of the reminders would have been good. I really regret not reading the page entitled Strange but True! 10-10-10 Coincidences of the Portland Marathon as told by the participants themselves! Plus: Other stories THAT MUST BE TOLD... (that aren't really coincidental, but make for great reading!) Thinking of these touching stories and spooky coincidences surely would have helped me along the way. As the very long title implies, soon-to-be Portland Marathoners took time out of their day to write important e-mails to the Marathon organizers, such as the following:

The 10-10-10 Portland Marathon will be my 10th marathon - six of which have been Portland! This year, my bib will proclaim POWROF10!

I hate to waste your time, but I realized today that your race starts at 7:00 am on 10/10/10. Since I am male and will be 30 years old that day, my qualifying time for Boston will need to be 3:10, which would put me at the finish line at 10:10 on 10/10/10. That was just a lot of coincidence and I thought it was neat to point out. Looking forward to the race!

Clearly nobody thought that was a waste of their time, since they went ahead and put it in the program. I'm a bit more skeptical about how time-worthy that story is. A lot of the other stories are equally irrelevant to everyone in the world except the person who submit it, but they're too long to make it worth-while to post it just to make fun of it.

The worst part of reading the Program after the marathon, is that I missed the whole section on bandit runners (runners who did not register). I had no idea that it was custom to "chant and yell loudly at bandits to let them know they are not welcome." If I had I would have had been on the look-out for such runners the whole time so I could have somebody to yell at. I also learned that I'm supposed to be really angry at them because they might eat some of the pretzels along the course that I didn't even want, but that I paid for and were intended for me! The Program includes ridiculous excuses that people have used in the past, upon being caught. Some of them are stupid:

I am from California.
I just had a baby.

Others weren't ridiculous excuses at all, and I was upset that they were put in the ridiculous excuse section:

My sister registered, got sick and called me to run for her.
I was passing through town and thought no one would know.

These sound like very normal, honest excuses to me. I'm applying to be the editor for the 2011 Portland Marathon Official Souvenir Program so stupid shit like this doesn't happen again.

I suppose I should say something about the actual marathon, even though the Program is much more interesting. I guess the most surprising thing about it was that I actually did it, and pretty much ran the whole thing. Here's a quick breakdown.

Miles 1-2: I tried out the run-walk thing. Ran until the next mile mark, then walked for a minute or so.
Mile 3: Used the porta-pottie, because the line before the race was way too long. Near the end of the mile, I noticed that the four hour pacer was right behind me. I decided to skip the walking thing and try to run the marathon under four hours.
Mile 7: Realized that this was the longest I had run without stopping since the last marathon I did, four months ago. This thought made me slightly nervous for the 19 miles to come.
Miles 8-9: Ran down Naito Parkway and then doubled back on the same road, so you could see people on the opposite side running ahead of you, and then behind you. I looked for familiar faces and Kamran and Hannah claimed to have seen me, but only my friend Rachel from soccer made a point of smiling and waving close enough for me to notice.
Mile 10: Saw Hannah's boyfriend and her mom cheering on the side. This was exciting because I didn't think my own parents would make it to see me, because I was unable to give them any idea whatsoever of how fast I would be running, or if I would be walking, or passed out on the side at mile 4 or something.
Mile 13: Started feeling very tired. Still in front of the four hour pacer though.
Mile 16: Saw Cassandra from massage school and started crossing the St. John's Bridge with her until she pulled ahead.
Mile 17: Remembered that I ran about 17 miles during Hood to Coast. Not consecutive running, but close enough. And the last part of that was extremely painful. Again nervous about the last 9 miles, but excited that there are only 9 left.
Mile 19-20: No longer humanly possible for me to stay in front of the four hour pacer. This made me feel sad, but pain and fatigue outweighed the sadness.
Mile 20: Upset because I thought the hashers were going to be giving out beer here. They were not.
Mile 21: Reaching mile 21 was also upsetting, because earlier somebody had put up a big cardboard sign that said 21 on it. I had assumed that the real sign had been ruined or lost so they made a cardboard one. Instead it was just a big horrible trick.
Mile 22-23: Found a guy wearing spandex shorts that I had been running near in the beginning, who was kind of walk/jogging. Took out my headphones and chatted with him a while to try to distract myself from the pain. He had pulled his hamstring around mile 16 and was sad. I was sad because my legs hurt so bad, so we got along well.
Mile 24-26: People kept yelling, "Just two more miles!" like it was a good thing. It turns out that after running 24 miles, two more miles sounds like the worst thing that could ever happen. I was barely running at this point, and getting especially angry at people who were stopping to walk because it made me want to stop and walk even more.
Mile 26-26.2: No matter how bad things are going, I'm pretty much always able to give the last stretch a pretty good kick when I'm bringing it in. This was not the case yesterday, but I did speed things up to a slow run as opposed to the barely-jogging pace I had been finishing at.
Finish: Total time ended up being 4:18:59. Not great, but I did average a pace of around 9:20 until the last six miles when things significantly deteriorated. But pleased that I was able to run a marathon with almost no training only three minutes slower than the one that I did train for (although Timberline was a much harder course).

Then I went home and fell asleep in the bathtub and my mom made me chocolate chip pancakes and put big bandaids on my armpit chaffing.

The End!

PS. 14 running skirts, for a percentage of almost zero.

Miles run this week: 26.2
Miles run in 2010: 510.2

One Day to the Portland Marathon

2010-10-09T10:45:00.000-07:00

As of right now, the marathon is on (for me). And I'm going to (try to) run it. Here's why:

Earlier in the week I was telling my boss that I was going to try to walk a marathon. She said, "No you're not, you runners are all the same. You're just going to run it no matter what." I realized that this is true. I might have to end up walking, but I can't even kind of imagine myself starting out walking and doing the whole thing that way.
On Thursday after work I went to Elephant's Deli and got the best roast beef sandwich ever. At the same time, I ran into our friends the Oken-Bergs. I told Jake how I was going back and forth in my head about whether or not to do the run, and he suggested doing a minute or two of recovery walking between every 8-10 minutes of running. This gives injuries time to subside before they emerge - the trick is to be sure you do it from the start, before things start hurting. Stopping to walk for a minute every mile or so sounds hard too, but more feasible than walking the whole way.
Yesterday I rode my bike over to the downtown Hilton, where the race expo was. This is where you get your bib number and your pre-race t-shirt (for some reason they think you need two shirts for one race, which is wrong), and then a bunch of stores/companies come and display their running-related goods and a lot of them are on sale. On my way in, I ran into my friend Kamran, a fellow hasher and member of the Apple Fritter Avengers HTC team. This isn't really a reason for deciding to run the marathon, but it felt fortuitous to run into a friend. This feeling was amplified when I parted ways with Kamran and immediately saw my friend Dillon while I was unlocking my bike, and then minutes later saw my dad. I should hang out on Salmon & 6th more; apparently everyone I know passes through that area (I know three people).
At the expo some guy showed me all about a fancy strap that I can put around my IT band to pin it in place and keep it from rubbing around and getting agitated. Then he told me to go over to the other side of the expo and buy it from somebody else for cheaper. It saved me over $5! Who knows if it will work - the important thing is that I got a deal.

That's what the strap looks like. Remember how puffy my feet got last time I did a marathon? I'm excited to see if it will happen again. Check back tomorrow (or the next day) to see if it does happen. Or to see if I ran the marathon at all, or if I didn't end up going because I slept through my 5:45AM alarm (I'm legitimately worried about this).

Now Available: Private Running Lessons

2010-10-04T16:34:00.000-07:00

Sometimes things happen to me that have absolutely nothing to do with running, and people tell me I should write about it in my blog. Usually I refuse, because if I did that then I would have nothing left to write about in my diary. I've decided to make one exception though, mostly just to appease all these people who are so curious about my non-running related thoughts. So here's the main non-running thing that's been on my mind for the last 90 seconds or so: how has Brothers and Sisters managed to stay on the air for so many years? I watched the entire first season during my junior year of college, when I would accept pretty much any form of procrastination. It is a terrible show. I forget why it's so terrible, but I do remember that I was sure that it wouldn't get renewed, but now here we are in its fourth season, entirely uncanceled.

On to more pressing matters: I'm registered for a marathon that's happening in less than a week. I haven't thought a lot about this marathon, I certainly haven't trained for it, and I haven't even really decided whether or not I'm going to do it. I still have pretty bad tendinitis in my IT bands, so I'm sure that if I try to run it I won't last more than five or ten miles, but walking it sounds horrible. I hate walking. And besides not training for running a marathon, I definitely haven't been training for walking one either. But sometimes my dad goes on backpacking trips and hikes up to 25 miles a day, for more than one day in a row. And he's wearing a backpack! I'm fairly positive that if he can do that, then I can do it for just one day with no backpack (I think these skills are transferable because we're related).

To be honest, I don't think anybody will know if I'm actually doing the marathon or not until Sunday morning, myself included. I think there's a good chance that I will though - my car broke down last weekend so I've had to resort to riding my bike everywhere. A couple weeks of riding my bike around town feels more or less equivalent to the months of training runs I did in preparation for my last marathon - which was only in June by the way. I imagine most of the training I did then will carry over to four months later. Now that I've written this all out, I'm quite sure that I'm in great shape to run a marathon this Sunday.

All this great training insight I have reminds me of a conversation I had today. I was giving a client a hard time scheduling an appointment with me because I kept hearing different times about the middle school cross-country meet I'm going to this week. When I explained to her what was going on, she got excited and said, "Oh! You're a running coach? I need a running coach!" I immediately cautioned her that I'm currently undergoing my first coaching experience ever, as an assistant with middle-school kids, but told her I have a lifetime of running experience and so I could offer any advice I might have to her. Now I'm regretting it. I ought to have assured her that I'm an expert running coach and set up running lessons based on the training methods seen here in my blog. Next time I'll be ready.

Lesson one of my running coaching would obviously be on animal/lower leg photography. Here's my most recent picture, taken after Wednesday's hash, where I got all scratched up tromping through homeless camps on the side of a freeway entrance:

One last note unrelated to running, but for those of you who love reading blogs - a guy I knew in high school posted his mom's blog on facebook, and it's pretty great. It's all about a project she just started where she gives away $100 to a complete stranger every single day for a month. I can't afford to do that, but maybe I could do something like give a free piece of running advice to a stranger every day for a month. I'm sure that would make people just as happy.

Miles run this week: 0
Miles run in 2010: 484

Important Things

2010-09-25T01:32:00.000-07:00

Recently blogger.com started providing a place to view the stats for your own blog. Before I could see how many hits my page had from the monetizing option, but now I can see all kinds of details. This includes what country people are in when they look at my blog, what kind of browser they use to look at my blog, a bunch of other stupid crap, and most importantly, if they searched for my blog using Google or something, what keywords they used. The number one search keyword that has brought people to my blog so far is "kristen cavallari parents house." Other keywords that will evidently bring you to my blog:

tips for not having to poop while running a marathon
braces three times
charley horse dangerous

and my favorite:

when i eat at spaghetti factory i get diarrhea

On a less interesting note, I realized that at some point along the way I stopped posting mileage on here. For anyone coming in late in the game, my original goal was to run 25 miles a week, every week this year. Due to unexpected injuries I've fallen slightly behind, but who's to say I won't still make it? To catch up I would need to run a mere 60 miles a week for the rest of the year. I probably won't, but only because I still have a touch of tendinitis in my IT band. Otherwise I probably would (maybe).

Miles run this week: 4
Miles run in 2010: 479

On On

2010-09-23T23:53:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went to physical therapy and was given the go-ahead to stop going to physical therapy. This is great news, and I assume that it means I can do whatever I want now without getting hurt. I don't think this is so much of a stretch, considering all I want to do is run a marathon (okay, walk... or do whatever it takes to get the finisher's medal and t-shirt that I've already payed for) and hash.

Hashing has all these rules and I'm worried that one of them is no blogging about hashing (I know I can't bring technology on a hash, but can I bring hash on a technology?), so I'm not going to say too much. But I can't contain how exciting it is for me to discover that there's a pre-existing group that brings together all of my favorite things (running, PBR, and donuts), along with other things that aren't my favorite but I don't mind having around (tutus and public transit, to name a couple). And I suppose the people are pretty alright too.

Now I have to admit that I primarily posted what little I did about hashing because my dad loaned me his camera and I took a picture of my dog, and I know how angry people will get if I only post pictures of my dog when the title of the blog promises talk of running. I'll put up better ones when I learn how to use the camera better. Look how cute he is!

Snooki Wants to Date a Businessman

2010-09-19T15:12:00.000-07:00

My freshman year at Whitman, our first meet was at home. I thought this meant some of my friends would come watch, but it was an early Saturday morning meet, and I found out that watching xc meets aren't high on the list of things to do at that time, during the first week of college. I was still a little disappointed, but by the time the meet ended I was extremely relieved that none of my friends had come to watch. I got last place. The very last place. This means that I ran slower than everybody, and everybody ran faster than me.

I had my share of humbling moments throughout high school - especially starting out as the fastest freshman in long distance track and then suffering through a series of injuries and drops in motivation. But there was always somebody slower. Usually there were girls a lot slower than me - the ones that weren't really into running but joined the team for social reasons or something. I may have even been last in a couple of track invitationals, but getting last isn't quite so bad when there's only ten or fifteen people running. In my first race at Whitman, there were fifty girls.

The memory of this race gets even worse when I look back at the results, which will probably be on the internet forever. Not only did I get last place, but the second to last finisher was almost a whole minute ahead of me (don't be fooled by those "did not finish" results; they also did not start, and were not in the race at all).

I have no idea why I ran so slow that day. I wasn't sick or injured, I had been training with the rest of the team just fine. I guess sometimes these things can just happen. The next week I ran the same distance five minutes faster (this is an unusual PR for a 6k). The season kept getting better until halfway through when I mysteriously started running really poorly again. Mystery solved later that year when I found out I was really anemic. It made me feel a lot better to know I was running so slow for a reason, but it didn't change how embarrassing it was at the time.

When I have a bad race, or just a slow streak, it's embarrassing on two levels. First, everyone can see you out there looking slow and like you're bad at running. Secondly, people have this conception that I'm really fast. My first few years of competitive running, I was. But later I wasn't, and the fact that everyone still thought I was really fast made everything that much more painful when I wasn't. Now I'm okay at running, but a lot of people still have this notion that I'm really fast. People who have never seen me run or heard my times. It's probably because I talk about running so much.

To summarize, being the slowest is embarrassing, as is being slower than everyone thinks you are.

I don't normally dwell on these low points in my running career, because for the most part running is always fun, even if I'm not doing great. I bring it up because I was recently reminded of how hard it can be to deal with the embarrassment of being slow. And in what place would it be more appropriate to be reminded of embarrassment than at West Sylvan Middle School?

A couple weeks ago I started volunteering as an assistant coach at my old middle school. I ran xc there just during the fall of 8th grade, which was the first year our school had the program. Being back isn't that weird - what's weird is going to cross-country practice and telling people to run instead of doing it myself. I've never done any kind of coaching at all, so this is going to be a learning process.

As an assistant coach I don't plan practices or anything like that, I just help tell kids what to do, and so far I have mostly just tried to help out kids who have injuries... and the slow ones. There's one kid I especially like, who had never run a day in his life before the first practice. Running is obviously still a struggle for him at this point, not only evident by the fact that he makes it look physically difficult, but he's also extremely expressive in how he feels about everything. The first day he ran the first half of the timed mile, put on his angry face, and shouted, "NO" when I told him he still had another 800 meters to go. I tried my best to be reassuring (I reassured him that no matter what, running always sucks the first week and there's no way around it), and also another coach gave him a popsicle, so by the end he had a huge smile on his face.

The next practice he ran about three times as much as the first day, so I was already impressed. Then when we were sitting down and stretching, he started talking to me about how he wants to do the whole workout and he feels really bad when he can't - but it's "just so embarrassing when I'm the slowest one and other kids out there are lapping me." His emotions were logical, but I don't think I've ever really been able to admit my feelings in situations like that in such a down-to-earth way - especially not to a near stranger. I'm probably also overly impressed by this because in the last couple of years my interactions with kids have ever been fleeting and impersonal, or with 4 and 5 year olds, many of whom struggle greatly to tell me anything at all.

I don't really know what to tell an eleven year old kid who's embarrassed by being the slowest one on the team. Being the worst in a running situation is painful, because it's not like a huge embarrassing moment where you do something really stupid and then it's over. Instead it's a long, drawn out process where you feel humiliated the entire time, and when you finally get around to finishing all eyes are on you, because everybody else has been done for a while. A little bit of this can be good for you/humbling/build character, but if it happens too much it just gets depressing. I suppose we'll just have to whip this kid into shape so he doesn't have to be embarrassed anymore.

WHERE ARE YOU GOING

2010-09-08T23:50:00.000-07:00

It has become clear to me that although I love running, my refrain from doing any other kind of activity has caused a lot of problems. Going to spin classes was my big push to branch out of running, but other than that I've done nothing else besides one soccer game a week and shooting hoops for an hour about once every other month. I plan on going to yoga a lot, but I inevitably sleep through it or am late or find some other reason not to go. For example, as of right now I'm planning on going on Friday at noon. Despite having this plan, I can almost guarantee you it won't happen.

I have found one way to keep myself committed however: to pay for things. Once I've put down money I feel inclined to make the most of it. So I have done something relatively out of character for myself, and signed up for a ballet class. The impressive part is that I even went to the first one (and there has only been one so far).

I often do new things, go now places, meet new people, and feel really uncomfortable or anxious at first. Usually this goes away pretty soon and I get used to it. This was not the case with my ballet class. First of all, I'm taking it at the MAC, and I think it goes without saying how ridiculous their dress code is, and how hard they care about it. So I took it seriously when the website told me that I had to adhere to ballet class dress code, and wear a leotard/tights/ballet shoes. So on Tuesday before class, I went to a dance place and bought all these things. I felt extremely uncomfortable and embarrassed the whole time. I feel embarrassed right now writing about it, and I don't even know why. Of course when I got there, everyone else was just wearing yoga pants or leggings and t-shirts. Nobody batted an eye when they saw I was wearing actual ballet clothes, but I still felt stupid and left my shirt over my leotard.

Dance-wear aside, ballet is really hard. I'm not going to even talk about all the ways that it's hard for me, because it's hard for me in every way possible. The only thing I have going for me is that a lot of people tell me I look like I do ballet. Obviously they only think that because they have not seen me try to do ballet.

My dance history is relatively short. It started at age 4, at which point it lasted a month. I was in a ballet class, but I was the only kid who couldn't touch their toes, which I think is where I became instinctively embarrassed in dance situations. The dance school moved me into the younger class (which, when you're 4, means going to a class with 2 and 3 year olds), but that was also difficult for me because they were learning a whole routine and I was several weeks behind. I promptly quit.

In the 6th grade I loved P.E., so of course I wanted to keep doing it for the rest of middle school. But none of the other girls felt this way, so on the first day of 7th grade when I went to P.E., I found that I was in a class of 28 boys, myself, and an 8th grade girl with about 15 piercings in her face and looked very scary to me at the time. I quietly asked our teacher if any other girls were in the class and he pointed at the scary girl and said "YEAH THERE'S ANOTHER GIRL RIGHT THERE." This made everyone look over and stare at me, and my gym teacher was really creepy and everyone talked about how he sexually harassed young girls, so again I was extremely embarrassed and my mom somehow got me switched into the dance class. Middle school dance was pretty fun, we got to put on shows to 5ive and Michael Jackson, so no complaints there.

Then came a seven year gap in my dance career, which ended in Sri Lanka, where I chose to do Kandyan Dancing for my independent study. Almost everyone in the program took a dance class twice a week before then, and then we put on a show for the host families. It involved some pretty great costumes:

During my independent study I went with my friend Amberlee to live at our dance teacher's home. Our dance teacher, Peter Surasena, is the greatest Kandyan dancer in the world. This was pointed out to us a lot. While this is an amazing accomplishment and he was an excellent dancer, I'm pretty sure that nobody outside of Sri Lanka does Kandyan dancing, so the emphasis on best in the world often felt like overkill.

Surasena had us dancing several hours a day, and practicing the drums an hour a day. We were always exhausted and I got bursitis in my shoulder (Surasena proclaimed himself a genius doctor when he "cured" me with the Japanese equivalent of IcyHot). It was definitely the most physically intensive independent study we could have chosen. Yet this was probably the time in my life when it felt most natural to dance. Of course this may be because everything I did felt slightly strange because I was being stared at the whole time by everyone, and it especially felt more natural to dance in comparison to how it felt to run in public there.

When I was in Sri Lanka with this group of 20 other students, there was a total of 50 Americans in the entire country. We stood out. Running isn't exactly the country's favorite past-time, so when we would go jogging in groups around town and to the University, we stood out even more. Pretty much every male we passed would yell at us, "HELLO WHERE ARE YOU GOING!" This one never ceased to confuse me. I asked my host parents if this was a normal question, and did they actually want me to tell them where I was going? They told me to say "GO TO HELL" and then they started laughing hysterically. I was still confused. Sometimes we would get small kids riding along side us on their bikes. This also made me uncomfortable. In addition to the 5,000 calories I was being force-fed every day, the whole being yelled/stared at whenever I ran didn't make the situation easy, so I didn't work too hard in terms of training while I was there.

I'm so happy to be back living in a place where I look just like everybody else and nobody ever thinks anything I ever do is strange. Just kidding. But thinking about running in places like that does make me really appreciate the supportive running community we have in Portland. Hopefully I'll soon find an equally fantastic community within my three person ballet class.

Colleen-Smith Model of Grief Acceptance

2010-09-05T01:19:00.000-07:00

This past week kind of sucked for me. There were some good moments, but the over-arching theme of the week was huge amounts of suckiness. Amplifying the suckiness even further, is the fact that I can't really run right now. I mean I could run if I had to, but since Hood to Coast my IT band has been the worst ever and it kind of hurts when I just walk. I'm definitely not one of those people who can claim to deal with their problems or stress by running, but I guess when nothing is going well, it's at least one thing that I can do that doesn't suck. But what about when life is extremely stressful and I can't run? Obviously I have to first deal with the grief of being injured and unable to run before I can deal with any other problems in my life.

Today I finally got around to opening up last month's Runner's World magazine, and found that Mackenzie Lobby has specific guidelines on exactly how to handle this devastation. She breaks the mental process of being injured into some familiar steps:

Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance

Some quick internet-based research taught me that this is a typical Kubler-Ross model, also known as the "five stages of grief." Lobby elaborates on all of these of course, and gives advice like "listen to your body!", "a positive outlook... may be your greatest weapon!", and "fill your new-found downtime with other activities!" She doesn't actually use all those exclamation points, but I feel that they emphasize how obnoxious this article felt to me.

I was primarily annoyed by this article because I really could have used an article that actually tells me how to not care that I can't run. As well as one that better understood my stages of grief, which go something like this:

Anger
Frustration
Depression
Recovery

I don't really do the denial thing when I get injured. I'm well aware of whether or not I'm injured, but I do get super pissed off and try to run through it anyway. When this makes the issue worse, I get really frustrated, usually have to stop running, and then get really sad about it. I've certainly never had anything resembling acceptance when it comes to running injuries. I always just get better after a given amount of time, and it's no longer an issue.

Or maybe I do adhere to the Kubler-Ross model and just made up my own model because I want to feel special and different from everyone else who goes through injury-grief. My main point of contention with this article is that it gave no miracle cure for the situation. I was hoping to read something like, "drink a gallon of muscle milk every day for a week, and any injury you had will definitely be gone." Not only did I want to read something like that, but I wanted it to be true.

I'm envious of those troubled artists or musicians you always hear about - the ones that turn their pain into prodigal works of art. As a runner/blogger, I'm afraid that my problems only make me whiny and drastically narrow my range of subject matter. Good thing I have stupid articles from Runner's World to critique. Okay not stupid - but the article was extremely generic and obvious. I don't want to hate on Runner's World though, this month there was also a great article that answered all of my physiological running questions. Things like, "Why do I poop so much when I run?" and "Why do my toenails fall off?" and "What makes my nose run constantly while I'm running?" The answers to these questions aren't very interesting, but I enjoy knowing that they're issues for other people too. I don't want to be the only runner out there pooping and missing toenails and dripping snot all over the place.

And for those of you who only read my blog in hopes of seeing more pictures of my awesome dog:

Hood to Coast Running Skirts

2010-08-31T20:07:00.000-07:00

Someone very special recently pointed out that I totally forgot to post an HTC running skirt count. I want to assure you that this is not because I didn't keep track, I just had so many other things to tell you about that it slipped my mind. HTC is a little tricky, because obviously there is no chance whatsoever that I saw every runner, and in addition, a lot of people changed clothes throughout the race. As usual I'm going to ignore these factors, and just go with what I do know.

The HTC results page tells us that 1,023 teams finished. This excludes the walkers and high school kids, but I'm not really concerned with them. During the race I counted exactly 15 running skirts, a kilt, and the rare but just as silly running dress. I also don't know how many people made up the 1,023 teams, so I'm going to further assume that there was only one running skirt/kilt/dress per team. This comes out to 1.7 percent of Hood to Coast teams being somehow involved in a running skirt situation.

Some of my teammates revealed to me that they either own a running skirt or have running skirt envy. I'm still waiting for somebody to buy me one so I can try and see for myself.

Apple Fritter Avengers

2010-08-30T16:43:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time since I gave an update of what my legs look like, and I thought that right after Hood to Coast would be as good a time as any.

I circled the parts that hurt when I run. Next time I get injured I'm hoping it's something that's more obvious. Tendinitis doesn't look like anything. Another toenail fell off, but I'm worried I'll get complaints if I post a close-up of that.

If you look closely you can see that I have two hurting spots, despite only complaining of one in the weeks leading up to Hood to Coast. Previously I only had pain on the right side, but during the last leg the left side started hurting too.

The second leg I ran was the best one - my legs didn't hurt at all then, I think mostly because I ran a lot of it with this guy named Eric, who told me he would pray for my knee to get better.

I'm kind of bored of talking about Hood to Coast already, which is unfortunate for you, but people keep asking me about it. It was pretty great though - we won the relay, I didn't have too much diarrhea, and we handed out a lot of apple fritters. Because we are the Apple Fritter Avengers.

If you really need more than that, enjoy our tweets from the weekend.

One Day to HTC

2010-08-26T21:30:00.000-07:00

Before every big cross-country meet in high school, my team would go to the Old Spaghetti Factory and eat ridiculous amounts of food. It's true that carb loading (maybe) helps before endurance events. Like endurance events lasting at least two hours. It's not really necessary for events in the twenty minute range, but that never stopped us. We were a boisterous crowd though, so these dinners were more of an excuse to play the penis game in family establishments, and to dare each other to eat giant globs of butter.

Portland to Coast (the high school version of Hood to Coast) was probably the one athletic event we did in high school that even slightly validated pre-race carb loading. This is where being in Van 2 is great, because while Van 1 is starting the relay and/or sitting in the van, we got to go over to OSF, which was conveniently located right next to the PTC starting line, and eat food. Being in Van 1 has advantages later of course - like they get to have their long break approximately between 2 and 6 AM, which is a time that you might actually want to sleep during. Van 2 always got the first break around 9 PM, which I find is less conducive to fitting in any sleep. Blah blah blah.

What I'm really getting at here, is that the Hood to Coast is tomorrow, and I didn't have a huge pre-race spaghetti dinner, and now I'm hungry.

I also finally bought a printer for my new place, and it comes with a scanner so I can show you an actual picture of my high school Portland to Coast team that isn't a Christmas picture with Kathayoon crossed out. Team Really Really Ridiculously Good Looking:

Now that I've finally taken care of that, I can move on to what's really important: how much everyone loves my blog. I'm sure I mentioned a while back how I monetized my blog, meaning I have ads up and can make large amounts of money off of having them. In theory. It turns out that this has made me no money at all, but it has allowed me to see how many hits I get on my page. Last week it reached over 2,000!

I can't really tell you what time span this is from, I'm thinking sometime in March. Maybe. And a lot of those hits might be from the same people, but I prefer to imagine that 2,000 people have looked at my blog one time each. I guess maybe 1,000 people looking at it twice is better, because that means that people like it enough to come back for a second go. We'll go with that theory. My question is, who are these 1,000 people looking at my blog? Only about five people comment ever, which is weird because I write about such controversial and thought-provoking topics. This must mean that I have 995 readers that are so blown away by my innovative ideas that they lose the majority of their motor skills, and are no longer able to type in the word verification required to leave a comment. That's too bad, but at the same time it keeps the mystery alive - the mystery being who these 1,000 people are, of course.

Goodnight, 1,000 friends, I have to go rest up for my run (but mostly I'm late for the new Jersey Shore).

What's My Age Again?

2010-08-17T23:32:00.000-07:00

My second trip to the physical therapist happened today. The first thing that happened was that the extremely friendly PT assistant came in to do some massage on my IT band. She's super nice, and talks pretty much non stop and has some good stories. Apparently not that many good stories though, because today she told me all of the exact same stories as last week, verbatum. They were all about her dog. One of the stories was about how her dog likes to drink beer and one time their friend came over with Coors Light and the dog knocked it over and smelled it and then refused to drink it because it was such low quality. This was mostly funny, yet slightly insulting, because I felt like she was just assuming that I don't thoroughly enjoy Coors Light and similar beers (I do).

The PT was once again primarily helpful in advising me not to go run a million miles. Although today when I went running, I realized that this might not be a problem anymore. In fact, my problem may have reversed into issues of me being in horrible running shape. It's pretty much impossible to tell though, because I've always been bad at running in the heat, so there's no distinguishing between heat or out-of-shapeness as the potential causes for my slow running and general exhaustion after two miles. I would like to assume it's the heat, but this may be a problem anyway, since there's a good chance that during Hood to Coast I may be running in above average temperatures.

I realized I also feel weird running because I've been doing all these exercises that work out my weakest muscles, so those muscles are all sore and extra weak feeling now, so my running feels super clumsy and not at all graceful or gazelle like. At least four people in my life have compared my running and/or my legs to gazelles, which is strange to me, because gazelles are such obscure animals. How often do you think about gazelles in every day life? You don't have to tell me, I know the answer is never. Anyway, today I was thinking about my running in terms of how gazelle-like it was, and I felt that my stride had minimal gazelle qualities. I can now assure you that there is nothing more depressing than going for a run and realizing that you look nothing like a gazelle.

This didn't turn out quite like I wanted it to, but I spent so much time trying to make a realistic version of a gazelle with my head on it that I didn't want it to go to waste. I guess it didn't take that long, but more time than I'd like to admit.

And finally I'd like to tell you about something that has nothing to do with running. Today I started a new job, and the first client I had asked me if I was even old enough to drink, and was then surprised when I said that I am in fact over 21. Somehow I felt slightly insulted. Later I had a client assume I was 28, and again was very surprised to learn my real age. This also slightly insulted me, but the sense of insultion was compounded by the fact that nobody thinks that I'm the age that I am. Even more insultion is happening from my computer telling me that insultion isn't a word. I guess that means it's time to wrap things up.

Miles run this week: 3
Miles run in 2010: 448

My Dog Is Out of Shape

2010-08-11T15:38:00.000-07:00

A while ago I told myself I would start officially training for Hood to Coast last week. I went on one two mile run in Palo Alto and got nervous about my knee and stopped for another week. So this Monday marked my first pain-free run that was longer than a mile since my marathon, the day my mom decided to get me a physical therapy appointment, and was less than three weeks away from Hood to Coast (where I'll be expected to run 17.13 miles - though not all at once). Sidebar: one of my favorite things in the world is when my mom makes appointments for me. I still remember the time near the end of high school when I had the horrible realization that she would not be making every doctor/dentist/haircut appointment for me for the rest of my life, and I was going to eventually have to start doing it on my own. I think this physical therapy appointment was the first one she's made for me in at least five years. It was glorious.

Even though my leg has stopped hurting, I'm super paranoid because of the nature of this injury - which is to feel one hundred percent fine, and then at any random time start hurting really bad. But making it three miles on Monday was a huge confidence boost, and I started thinking I was ready to really up my mileage in preparation for the HTC. Most of the stuff the PT showed me I already knew, but I think her real value was in the training schedule she gave me for the week. The plan I had been cooking up was to run 4-6 miles every day and then do a 10-12 miler this weekend. She told me to run 2 miles on Wednesday and 3.5 on Friday. Huge buzz kill, but necessary I'm sure.

The PT also said that this injury probably came not just from the marathon and the scramble I did, but just the general fact that I've been running so much in the past ten months after such a long period of not running. And the fact that I never stretched. I'm sure at some point I mentioned how I gave up stretching, and apparently that was a bad idea. But it was great while it lasted; I hate stretching, and I thoroughly enjoyed my break from it.

I know some people won't relate to this, but going on a two mile run feels ridiculous. On Monday during my three mile run, I was worried I was really out of shape because the first two miles were really hard. But then the third mile felt great, and I remembered that during marathon training it always took me at least 2-3 miles to start feeling good. It just feels so weird going out for less than 20 minutes and calling that my run for the day, like I'm cheating or something.

I think that the fact that I don't really consider two miles to be a real run has been detrimental to my recovery. While injured I never put on my running clothes and purposefully go for a run, but I will run any amount up to two or three miles by incident or convenience without acknowledging the fact that running is running, and doing it in my street clothes doesn't mean I won't worsen my injuries. This is especially true when I've been drinking - I seem to hit a critical point after which it seems ridiculous to not run, but other times too. Last week I ran a good mile, if not two, around downtown Portland in flip-flops, trying to beat the bus that Lauren and Sam were on. I run barefoot with Pascal around our apartment complex all the time because it makes him poop faster. Things like that.

Speaking of Pascal, he his in horrible shape. I always talk about how fit he is, but it turns out that he was super fit three months ago, but not so much now. I stopped running with him a few weeks before my marathon, and he hasn't really done much since then. Now he's dragging after just a couple miles. It's also a little warmer than it had been, but I think mostly he's turned into a fatass. I'll have to work on that with him.

This is how sleepy he is today after just two miles! At least he continues to be insanely cute even when he's out of shape.

Success!... Kind Of

2010-07-28T19:34:00.000-07:00

I know I said I was going to wait until next week to try running, but today circumstances were such that it seemed like a good time.

Today was my third day in a row of spin class, which is unusual for me. I rarely do exercise things three days in a row. On Monday and Tuesday I was feeling really good about myself because my wattage was up and I felt a lot stronger. Today I was exhausted though, and the instructor was slightly insane. She was a sub, but that doesn't really mean much to me because 24 Hour Fitness has a different spin teacher every day anyway.

The teacher was one of those people whose every muscle pops out, skin is bordering on leather but not quite there yet, and looks like she only leaves the gym to go buy brightly colored bandannas to wear while she teaches spin class. Most of this was extra apparent because she only wore a thin yellow sports bra on top, with no shirt. She looked ridiculously intense to begin with, but then demanded we start out at about 100 rpms, probably to prove what a hardcore/badass spin teacher she is. Usually we start at around 60. Then she made us stand up out of the seat the whole time, which I hate, because as I've mentioned before, I don't do that because I'm trying to not do weight-bearing exercise so I just sit there and look incompetent while everyone else follows instructions. After about twenty minutes she told us to start spinning between 140 and 160 rpms. If I hadn't seen her doing it, I definitely would have told you that this is impossible. She was also doing all of this while singing into the microphone along to all of the songs. The pain and annoyance of being there quickly overcame the embarrassment I get from leaving early, so I decided to leave and go try to run a little bit.

I was going to go run tomorrow so then I could come back and blog about two successful runs and be even more confident that my injury is done with, but tonight my mom/docter told me not to run tomorrow so I could make sure I don't spontaneously combust within the first 24 hours of having run. So now you only get to hear about one run for now, because I just get so excited to blog things that I can't wait two more days.

I don't actually have anything much to say about my run, except that it was one mile long and on a treadmill and my knee (or more specifically, the tendon of my right biceps femoris) didn't even hurt the tiniest bit! It was only one mile, but I still thought it was pretty fantastic. I decided to keep it short since I want to test it just a little at a time, and also because I didn't have my ipod with me, which makes treadmill running really boring.

And just because blogs are way extra boring without pictures, feel free to amuse yourself with this running-related picture from almost six years ago:

Miles run this week: 1
Miles run in 2010: 433.5

More Whining and a Girl Who Can't Carry a Yoga Mat

2010-07-26T10:09:00.000-07:00

As of right now, I officially have one more self-imposed week of not running. Yesterday a client was asking me about running, and I commented that it's getting pretty hard to not run, and she thought that was really weird. Obviously it's not physically hard to not run (unless I'm drunk), but I really miss it, and I'm getting nervous about getting ready for Hood to Coast. Especially since I don't even know if my knee will actually feel better next week when I try running again.

I miss that brief time when I was little, when being injured was a novel and intriguing experience. Not that I enjoyed getting hurt, but it was always something new and meant you got special attention from parents and sometimes your friends thought it was cool. If you had to go to the doctor, it might not be that great, but it was free, and that part was great. Of course I'm speaking as someone who grew up without many problems, I know there's lots of kids who grow up with tons of problems and I imagine health issues don't seem so fun then.

But that time was short-lived anyway. It didn't take long for getting injured to stop being fun ever, and start making me sad. Sophomore year I got a stress fracture during track, but I tried to be supportive and go to all the meets even though I couldn't run, and it was really depressing. These days my feelings about injury have evolved into anger. When my body doesn't work like I think it should, I get really pissed off, especially when it interferes with race plans and other personal goals.

While I never had major health issues growing up, getting hurt from sports is nothing new, therefore it's no longer exciting in the least. Of course I still love that extra attention my mom gives to my tendons from this ordeal, but nobody else wants to hear about it, and there's absolutely no way to make tendinitis sound like an exciting injury. It doesn't even sound like a bad enough problem to keep someone from running, just like a lame excuse to be lazy. The fact that it takes the expertise of a rheumatologist to even tell that anything is swollen doesn't help either - there is almost no visual evidence that anything is wrong. The prospect of going to another doctor (as in not my mom) or a physical therapist just makes me sad for my bank account.

Of course the one that really suffers when I'm injured is my dog. I'm not really into taking walks, I always get really bored, and it goes so slow. This means that Pascal doesn't get to have too much exercise, which I know is really bad for him, but he hasn't complained yet (at least not with English words, which is the only form of complaint I accept). So hopefully next week when I try running again things go well, for both of our sakes. Here's a picture of Pascal when he was a tiny baby (pay extra attention to how cute he is):

I don't plan on updating again until I have something to talk about besides being hurt, because really nobody wants to hear about that. I'm all about hearing about other peoples' injuries and things like that, but I can tell that a lot of people get bored/don't give a shit. Maybe I'm bad at telling about them. Or I should get more interesting problems than chronic/overuse injuries.

The only exciting running-related thing in my life this week was this girl running to the gym on Holgate a couple of days ago. At least I think she was running to the gym, or more specifically, to yoga class, because she had a yoga mat strapped to her back and it was not working out for her very well. It was flapping all over the place and then completely fell off and she had to stop and fix it. Ever since then I've been trying to think of better ways to carry a yoga mat while running. Here's what I've come up with:

Tie string to two of the corners and then wear it like a cape.
Don't carry it at all, and skip yoga, because it's difficult and boring and you're not good at it.

I actually lied when I implied that I put much thought into this. Mostly I just laughed at her because she looked silly and I was jealous of her for being able to run and how good at yoga she probably is. I should be so lucky.

PS. Murphy: I added a thing where you can check "like" if you like this entry. I know how much you hate commenting when all you want to do is like it.

Halfway There

2010-07-19T16:15:00.000-07:00

Quick update on my running life: I still don't have one. I have continued to go to spin classes though, and realized that an hour of spin class probably gets my heart rate up more than three hours of running (at least at the pace I go). On Friday I went to a spin class and my knee started hurting (the left one though, which hasn't been bothering me), so I had to submit myself to the ultimate embarrassment by leaving halfway through. Everyone stopped biking and pointed and laughed at me and it was horrible. I also am constantly humiliating myself by staying seated the whole time, instead of getting up out of the seat when the instructor tells us to, because I'm avoiding all weight-bearing activities right now. Nobody else knows this though, so I just look like a lazy asshole. This leads to a lot more pointing and laughing.

I've been especially avoiding weight-bearing exercise for most of the week to make sure I was okay to play my soccer game on Saturday. My mom/doctor advised me to not play soccer for now, and I partly followed her suggestion by only playing in one of the two games I had. During the game my knee didn't even hurt the tiniest bit, and when I came home my mom looked at my tendon and said the swelling had gone down fifty percent. This is fantastic news. My plan is two more weeks of non-running, and hopefully that will set me up for a successful four weeks of training up to the Hood to Coast. I know that none of this is terribly exciting though, so here's a fun picture of a guy who one time played the part of a retarded kid who liked running (Tom Hanks):

Perez Hilton says he peed his pants, but it looks to me like maybe he dribbled some water on them or something. Perez Hilton also drew the sad face, not me.

With all this not-running business I've had a lot of free time, so I made this photo collage of all my old leg pictures for you to enjoy (not sure how the hands snuck in there, please disregard those):

Still Not Running, For the Most Part

2010-07-10T10:22:00.000-07:00

After weeks of anticipation, my mom finally came home and told me what was wrong with my knee. It took a couple of days though - I initially demanded she examine it immediately after driving her home from the airport, and she said, "it looks fine." Apparently after thirty hours of travel or however long it was, knee-examining isn't your top priority. My knee was also not really hurting, because I hadn't been doing anything on it.

With my new diagnosis of "fine," the next morning I decided to jog to the gym. Within a half mile it started hurting. Once I was at the gym I was too angry to workout (when my body isn't working how I want it to, I respond with anger), so I just did the elliptical for five minutes and got even angrier, because the elliptical is such a stupid thing to do. I hate the elliptical. Then I had to walk home because my knee was hurting so much.

This event called for a re-examination of my knee, during which my mom said I have tendinitis (which I figured was the case), and then showed me some stretches/strengthening exercises to help fix it. So this means I have to just do them forever until it gets better, which might take a while (forever is a long time). This is good news though, because she was pretty confident this will help, so now I don't have to go see a different/expensive doctor.

So I'm continuing to not run, and am going to spin classes and things like that. I've been thinking about swimming some, but haven't yet been able to make myself do that. You have to change into a bathing suit and everything, it's so annoying. I did go on one run though, on accident. This happened last night when I got drunk and wandered off to some bar without my friends and then realized I needed to get home somehow. I don't really like taking cabs by myself, so I decided to walk home. This started taking a long time so after a while I ran, and my knee didn't really hurt too badly because I was drunk. It turns out that the Doug Fir is 3.3 miles from my house. Next time I'll hopefully have enough sense to take a cab.

My Mom Is a Doctor

2010-06-29T13:18:00.000-07:00

Any time I have any issue with my body whatsoever, I ask my mom. This includes injuries, skin discolorations, unusual bumps, ingrown hairs, and a bunch of other stuff I can't tell you about because they're my secrets (don't worry, no sex diseases or anything like that). She probably knows way more about my body than anyone would ever want to, but that's her own fault for being a doctor. I've always thought that this was fantastic. When I was little I never went to the doctor when I was sick, and my mom can prescribe me almost anything I need - except for the exciting stuff, like sleeping pills and hardcore pain killers, but I don't usually want those things. She carries on her at all times little unmarked bottles full of a large assortment of pills, which she can somehow tell apart. It wasn't until recently that I realized that not all adults do this. This realization mostly arose when I discovered that I myself am an adult (kind of), and don't carry around bottles like this. Most of the time, anyway. I should though, it's always so convenient when she's around and can instantly fix almost any problem I have.

For the most part, having a doctor for a mom is awesome. The downside lies in the high expectations I've developed of her, assuming she should be able to take care of every one of my medical needs, and the disappointment that follows when she cannot. Like when she refuses to diagnose issues I'm having because she claims "she's not an expert in that area of medicine." I always call shenanigans on that one - aren't doctors supposed to know everything? One time a few years ago I had this weird thing on my tongue and she told me to go to an ENT doctor. Like I have time for that. Then there are times when she knows the issue, but still wants somebody else to go take care of it. Like in the fall when I had this weird thing in my armpit, it was nice that she was able to undo my self-diagnosis of cancer, but then she told me to go to the dermatologist and have them take care of it, because there are certain things that she "would never want to do to her own daughter."

Finally, it's especially frustrating when I have a problem that I'm sure she could help me with, but she isn't even here. Instead she's running around Europe and Africa, and not tending to my medical needs. The knee pain I had at the Mt. Hood Scramble last week hasn't gotten better, and at my soccer game the other night it got so bad that I could barely walk right for a couple minutes. One of my least favorite things in the world is when my body isn't working right, and it's even worse when I can't figure out why or fix it immediately. I think it has something to do with the tendons, but it's hard to say, I'm no doctor. If I didn't have my mom I would probably find somebody else to look at it, and maybe even pay them money. But she's coming home next week so I guess I'll wait until then.

Small amount of good news though - I went to a spin class today, and even though it was really hard, there was no knee pain. So I can at least do non-weight bearing things on it for now. My knee was also unaffected last night when I played Wii Fit at my friend Lauren's house. But I think my fitness was also unaffected by playing Wii Fit, so I'm not sure that's a great alternative to running.

Charley Horse and the 2010 Mt. Hood Scramble

2010-06-21T23:20:00.000-07:00

I've tried to start writing about my latest running event several times, but I keep getting bored with what I say and abandon the effort. Sometimes this also happens to me when I'm talking. This especially occurs when I find myself at a party where I don't know anybody and can't think of anything good to say, so I start rambling on about the most boring shit, and all of a sudden I'll have a moment where I realize that what I'm saying is so painfully inane it's all I can do to try to find the fastest possible way to end the conversation without just stopping mid-sentence out of my own self-boredom.

I think the problem is that the run I most recently did wasn't a particularly great one for me, and I much prefer talking about things I've done that are great, rather than about the mediocrity that was the Mt. Hood Scramble for me. I'll talk about it in a second, but first I need to mention something else that has been on my mind lately: the Charley Horse.

Friday morning at about 5AM I had my first charley horse of all time. I used to think I'd had one before - I've woken up in the middle of the night with my muscles spasming and tweaking out - but I was so wrong. Pretty much everyone I've talked to about this since the event has had one before. I don't understand how it's such a common thing yet I've made it this long without one, but I'm glad I did. It came on without warning - or at least I missed any potential warning because I was sleeping - and woke me up mid-cramp, before squeezing my right calf muscles into the tightest contraction I've ever experienced. Apparently trying to stretch it out just makes it happen again, so all I could do was lie there for another half hour, in astonishment of how such a horrible thing could happen to me while I wasn't bothering anyone or doing anything dangerous. Horrible things should only happen when you're bothering someone or doing something dangerous.

My friend Murphy used to get charley horses after soccer, and at the time it was always super funny because he would writhe around and shout profanities at everyone nearby. Now I have a better understanding of what he was going through - sorry about that, Murphy. If anyone else has any experiences or thoughts on charley horses, I'd love to hear about them. I'm really intrigued by this apparently very common yet terrible phenomenon.

Okay, I know you all really want to hear about actual running now, like the title of this blog promises. I really haven't done much of it lately, but I think what I have done has even been too much. Or at least too soon after my marathon. I definitely shouldn't have been running this scramble two weeks after a marathon, which I learned when halfway through I could barely run at all anymore because of some stupid tendinitis happening all around my knees.

Pain aside, the run was pretty cool. I didn't want to go all the way to Mt. Hood by myself so I carpooled with some guys from the Red Lizard running club, which made it a lot better than if I had gone alone. I've never gone to a run by myself, and I don't intend on starting anytime soon. I prefer to go with my parents because they always tell me how great I am, but any friend or acquaintance or three dudes i just met works also. Two of the guys were around my age (I think), and the other one was probably my dad's age, and acted very dad-like. He offered me an extra jacket a lot, had a band-aid ready for me when I needed one (keep reading to hear more about the band-aid need!) and filled me in on all the Red Lizard stuff they were talking about.

The race start was in a big parking lot just a few miles past government camp, I think the same one that has the shuttle bus to take you to Timberline in the winter. There were tons of dogs hanging out, and when I found out that dogs were allowed to be in the race I felt sad I hadn't brought Pascal along. He would have been a lot better at this run than I was.

The first three minutes of the race was a shock to the system. I had done my standard routine of warming up as little as possible, and was not at all prepared for the immediate uphill climb in fifty degree weather at altitude. And by uphill climb, I mean that some of us were just barely standing upright for parts - it probably would have been more efficient to scale up on hands and knees. The first stream crossing was just minutes away from the start, and that's when I really woke up and started feeling good. At that point it became an awesome tromp through trees/brush, over snow, rocks, a bunch more streams... stuff you don't normally encounter during races.

About halfway through my knees started hurting really badly, and I tried applying my normal logic of running faster as the pain increased (so it will be over sooner, of course), but this method didn't work this time - the pain was too much. The good part of this race, at least for my situation, was that so much of it was almost impossible to run on that a lot of people were walk/jogging through the terrain anyway, so it's not like I was dragging behind everyone. It was just really frustrating to feel so amazing in almost every way, but then have those obnoxious points on my knees that hurt so badly. I think I could have done really well had it not been for that. Even more frustrating is that my knees still hurt, and I'm ready for them to feel good again so I can get on with my running. Amplify this frustration even more, because my doctor-for-free is in Prague, not here to fix all my bodily problems.

This is why I kept abandoning my blog updates before - I started out with all the complaining instead of fascinating topics like charley horses, and complaining is boring. I'm done now. After the race there was a barbecue put on by the Red Lizards, and I was lucky enough to get a hot dog out of it, along with other foods that I can't remember anymore. I also left with an exciting battle wound, that looked a lot more exciting at the time because it kept dripping all over my ankle and looking a lot worse than it actually was. Now it looks like this:

This happened when we had to cross a fifteen foot long log that was about ten feet above the stream below (after the race someone pointed out that you could have just climbed down and walked across the stream, but the log situation was near the end and by this point I was just copying what the people in front of me were doing). I made it all the way across, and just needed one more step before I could hop off the log, and I decided to make that last step go right into a spiky broken off branch coming out of the log, so I got wounded. I spent the rest of the race wondering how many people before me had done the same thing, and what kind of diseases they might have transferred to me through the spiky branch. Plus how cool it was that I suddenly had so many potential blood brothers.

Life After Marathon

2010-06-10T14:10:00.000-07:00

As much as running the marathon hurt for the last ten miles or so, Sunday had to be one of the most painful days of my life. The only events I can think of that compare include last year when I got rhabdomyolysis (probably) from a combination of too much physical activity and a medication I was on, and the first time I got a herpst (fun fact: I've had braces three times and a herpst twice, starting at age 8).

My plans for Sunday weren't that ambitious; I had vague ambitions of studying some statistics for my upcoming final... I think that's all, other than things like eating. When I woke up on Sunday however, it was clear that none of these things were going to happen (I did end up being able to eat some, but even that was a stretch).

Lesson learned: the night after running a marathon isn't the best time to go get drunk and wind up sleeping on a friend's couch. It was totally worth it, because I got to spend some quality time with Chris and Amanda, but it definitely delayed the recovery process slightly. Sunday morning I woke up and somehow made it back home so I could sleep for five more hours. Then I moved to the couch so I could watch tv for a little bit but then moved back to bed, and that was my day. Somewhere in there was a bath and some blogging.

The worst part by far was going to the bathroom. There's no good way to sit down on the toilet when you have no use of your quads, so when your quads are hurting just by lying there/existing, going to the bathroom is almost impossible. Yesterday I was finally able to do this without pain, so things are looking up.

Hal Higdon told me not to run at all until four days after the marathon. I got bored of that and cheated by doing a 1.5 mile run a day early. So far nothing bad has happened because of it. I'm also amazed that my shin has completely stopped hurting. I think the marathon cured it.

And now for something completely different.

Yesterday I came across this article called "50 No-Sweat Ways to Burn Calories." Before even reading it, I was upset that it was in the women's health section of this website. I guess it makes sense though, because all women desperately want to lose weight, but none of us can be bothered to actually workout so we need handy solutions like chewing gum all the time to keep us skinny.

A lot of their genius ways of burning calories are obvious, and don't need to be put in a stupid list. Things like getting enough sleep, eating breakfast, and drinking a lot of water. Others were unbelievably stupid, some even offensive. Like these ones:

26. Go on a date.
Women tend to order foods with fewer calories when dining with a man (who's not a long-term significant other), compared with when they eat with other women, according to a study conducted at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada.

This one might actually explain why I don't have a boyfriend, because apparently I didn't get the memo about not eating as much as I want when I'm on a date. But really, if you're going on dates for the sole purpose of trying not to eat so much, you might want to re-evaluate your life. Not that I think anyone's doing that, this article is just insanely dumb. I have also never heard of a guy being impressed with a girl for how little she eats, so I'm upset that msnbc is encouraging this.

29. Wear stilettos
"Every few days, I'll wear the highest heels I own," says Decker. "It helps tone my legs, because they work different muscles in my calves and thighs."

This one is just wrong. Maybe short-term you'll burn a few extra calories by wearing extremely uncomfortable shoes, but you know what doesn't help burn calories? Not being able to walk or run because you have horrible bunions and then have to stay off your feet for like a month to get surgery to correct them when you're sixty years old.

38. Pop a pill
People taking supplements with glutamine after meals burned an average of 20 more calories than those taking a placebo in a study at Iowa State University in Ames.

With a few exceptions, I am extremely anti-supplements. Most natural supplements have not been proven to do anything, some of them proven to do nothing, and more importantly, they're not FDA regulated. This means that they were made from wherever, and have often be found to have things like heavy metals in them (heavy metals are bad for you).

39. Keep your blow-dryer at the health club
"I have a client who swears that this motivates her to work out," says Slayton.

Your client sucks.

45. Swing your arms
"The more parts of your body that you use simultaneously, the more you burn," says Zukerman.

And guys will want to date you way more if you swing your arms. Especially if you do it while eating a low-calorie meal.

49. Sit up
When watching TV, "get in the habit of holding your body straight," says Slayton.

I swear, you can totally burn calories while you're sitting on your ass doing nothing!

I hate shit like this so much. First, it sends the message that all women want to/need to/ought to lose weight. The sad part is that in this country, it's actually kind of true. But it's frustrating when you're trying to feel good about yourself, and are in shape, yet you continue to be constantly bombarded by messages telling you otherwise. Secondly, articles like this make it seem like getting in shape can be done without actually exercising. This is untrue.

Here's an article I've written for women that I think is more appropriate (it can even be applied to men as well!):

Stop being so lazy and exercise a bunch. Also, don't eat too much.

Will anyone peer review this for me?

Miles run last week: 3.5
Miles run in 2010: 429.5

Timberline Marathon 2010

2010-06-06T13:05:00.000-07:00

Want to hear all about my first ever marathon?

I thought so.

There's not actually a lot to say, except that it was really fun and easy and I won first place. The best part is that all of those things are only kind of lies.

The whole race was really fun. Some parts were fun in different ways than others though. During the first half a lot of it was fun because I felt great and was doing really well and was really excited to be doing my first marathon. Later in the run I was still excited to be doing my first marathon, but things were getting a little painful.

The first half of the race was easy. It stopped being easy around mile 15, and from that point on was extremely difficult.As for winning - I did get first place in my division! This fact became even more significant moments ago, when I checked the race results and found that there were in fact other people in my division. Yesterday after the race, the results they printed out on the spot said I was the only one in the 20-24 female division. I was still excited to know that I got first place in my division because even finishing the run was hard, but it's even more exciting now that I know I beat other people. Overall I got 9th out of 37 women, which seems pretty good to me.

This being my first marathon, I was eager to hear other people's advice. Even from people who never run and know nothing about marathons. Because sometimes you have to be removed from a situation to really have perspective. This applies to running, right? Here's what a few good people suggested:

Buy new shoes at least 2 weeks before the race.
Don't cut off all your foot callouses before the race.
Listen to music.
Add a half hour to your goal time and don't be angry if you run that slowly.
Sleep 1 hour for every 2 miles you plan on running.
Run really fast.
Don't get black-out drunk the night before.
Take it easy.
At 13 miles, consider yourself one-third done with the race, and think of mile 20 as being half-way done. Because that's what it will feel like.

The first two bits of advice we're given just one week before my race, but luckily I'd bought new shoes a few weeks ahead of time. I didn't run in them though, I ran in my old beat-up shoes because I'm more used to them and they're lighter. I also restrained myself from cutting off all the callouses on my feet, as tempting as it was. I always listen to music, so that wasn't a problem.

Some of the advice was more problematic. Like the whole sleeping thing, recommended by Ezra. I took about five sleeping pills the night before and went to bed at 2PM, but I just couldn't stay asleep for 13 hours. Luckily I was focused enough on trying to achieve this feat that I didn't have time to get black-out drunk. I was also advised to both "run really fast" and "take it easy." I tried to solve this by easily running very fast. It worked for a while.

The tips on mental approaches were the most helpful. The last one about considering 13 miles to be 1/3 done instead of 1/2 done will probably sink in a lot more during my next marathon. I tried to tell myself that this time, but until you have a concept of what the last six miles feels like, it's hard to fully appreciate.

My goal for this marathon was under 4 hours. However, online reviews of the marathon warned me that the Timberline is a slow race, and I should expect slower than average times. This was hard to process because it was my first marathon, and I had no idea what my average time was. I imagined it was something like 2.5 hours, so 4 should be no problem. Even so, because of the warning I received to aim low, I considered 4.5 hours to be a reasonable time to finish in as well. I ended up finishing in 4:16:35. The first place woman finished in 3:37:13, so it was a pretty slow course, and I was happy with my time. Aside from the fact that Darris from the Biggest Loser finished his marathon in 4:02, and it's upsetting to be beat by a Biggest Loser contestant. But their marathon was flat and easy.

My time probably would have been better if I hadn't gone out too fast, but I was having too much fun in the beginning to care how hard it would be later. Here's a breakdown of my general thoughts along the way:

Mile 1: Super excited to finally be running my marathon, even more excited that my left shin that's been bothering me isn't hurting at all right now.
Miles 2-7: Still feel great. I can probably beat everyone and get one of those awesome plaques they were talking about. Extremely confident I can finish this marathon, which I was previously kind of worried about.
Miles 8-13: Great feelings continue. There's a girl in a red shirt with really solid looking leg muscles that I keep alternating positions with. I'm excited I'm able to run with her, but somehow she looks like she's done this before and might be able to hold this pace for a long time, while I'm not so sure I can(from the results posted tonight, I now know that she finished third for women and finished 22 minutes ahead of me). Also still excited that my shin doesn't hurt in any way, which was entirely unexpected.
Miles 14-16: No longer feeling great. At mile 14 I joined up with all of the half-marathoners who had just started, and am happy to have more people to race with, but the long lines of people going slower than me on a really narrow trail makes me kind of annoyed. I stop considering trying to place well, and just focus on going faster than a jog.
Miles 18-21: I've been gauging my progress by the aid stations along the course. There are no mile markers, just the information that the stations are at miles 6, 9, and 11 (the marathon is two loops around the lake, so then you pass by the stations again around miles 18, 21, and 23). Getting from the first aid station to the second on this second time around the lake feels like the longest 3 miles of my life; I'm pretty sure they lied and it was more like 4 miles between them. All my energy is going towards keeping any kind of run going.
Miles 22-End: After a while I realize that while any running is excruciatingly difficult, running twice as fast isn't any more painful, so I try to pick it up a little. Even though it doesn't hurt anymore, I find myself regressing back into an extremely slow jog, often. At the last aid station some guy tells me there's only 2 miles left. I get excited, I thought it was going to be at least 3 more. He definitely lied. As the course breaks away from the lake, it goes straight uphill, for the second cruelest marathon finish ever. The first cruelest marathon finish ever is what actually happens, which is when you think that the second cruelest marathon finish ever is happening, but in reality there's actually 1.5 miles of gradual incline to go after you finish that part. Then I finish and I'm so happy.

Here's me right before I cross the finish line.

I was also happy at the end of the race because I hadn't seen a single running skirt the whole time, and I felt like I was running with a very sensible crowd. But then two ladies decided to go and ruin it by showing up in their silly skirts and flaunting them about (2 skirts/255 participants = 0.008% running skirts).

After the race I ate a bunch of jelly beans and thought about getting a massage, but the wait was too long. My parents had come along, and Pascal too. He was extra excited because it was his birthday. There were also a couple of little boys that came up to me after I sat down to rest, and demanded that I tell them if some creature on a log was a moth or a butterfly. It was a moth. Then I asked them why they hadn't done the marathon, and one kid said, "because I'm only 7." I asked when would he be old enough, and he said "when I'm 9." It was a little bit funny.

Right after the race. I like the person getting a massage in the background.

My favorite part of the day was when we went to the brew pub in government camp afterward for lunch. The only bathroom is down a big flight of stairs. I found out that using stairs is incredibly challenging when you've just run a marathon (sitting on a toilet is no easier, by the way). Within about 15 minutes of getting there, the place had filled up with a bunch of other post-marathoners, some identifiable by their Timberline Marathon t-shirts, and all by the stiff waddle/limp that comes with 26 miles of running. I especially liked watching whenever one of them also had to go down to the bathroom - each one would stand at the top of the stairs for a moment, eying the situation warily, before sighing and slowly waddling down. It's always nice to know you're not the only one.

Besides extreme soreness (I can still barely sit down or stand up), another side effect of marathon running is getting really swollen feet. After consulting a couple of different sources, I've figured out that nobody besides my mom cares about my swollen feet at all or wants to hear about them, but just in case at least one other person finds this interesting, here are pictures:

The top picture is from last night, after the marathon, and the bottom is this afternoon, when most of the swelling had gone down. Try not to be too fascinated.

It's really hard for me to adequately describe my whole marathon experience, but that's the general idea of how it went. I hope you get a chance to run a marathon one day, it's pretty great.

Miles run last week: 35.2
Miles run in 2010: 426.2

Timberline Tomorrow

2010-06-04T10:18:00.000-07:00

Twenty-four hours from now, I'll be running a marathon (at least that's the plan). Other than the fact that I'm not feeling entirely confident, I don't have a lot more to say about it, but I wanted to give you a last chance to give me marathon advice so you can take partial credit in my success/failure if you want. One thing I've learned about training for a marathon is that people love to give you advice about running marathons. Which is good, because I love hearing it.

I'll report back soon, and might even do some tweeting up on the mountain tomorrow.

Miles run this week: 7
Miles run in 2010: 398

Six Days to Go

2010-05-30T19:05:00.000-07:00

Having less than a week until my marathon, I've been growing increasingly nervous. I've run so little and been so worried about my shin lately that I'm feeling skeptical of my ability to even finish. I'm pretty sure I could finish, but if my shin starts hurting very badly it could be a horrible idea. I guess we'll all find out soon.

On Wednesday I took my first stab at running in a while, and did two miles on the treadmill. It was okay, hurt a little. Tonight I was going to do eight on the treadmill, but at about 4 miles my shin started hurting significantly more, so I stopped there. I did the spin bike for about 2 minutes after that but then got angry and left.

The treadmill actually got pretty exciting tonight. In an attempt to make things more interesting, I decided to count the number of cars that passed in front of the window, going northbound on McLoughlin. I had set my treadmill to a pace of 9:05 minute miles, and it just so happened that this pace coordinated almost perfectly with the number of cars that had passed. At 0.92 miles, exactly 92 cars had passed. At 1.32 miles, 132 cars had passed. After a couple of miles I wanted to speed up, but I wanted to see if this trend would continue. I ended up stopping at 4.22 miles, at which point a total of 427 cars had gone by.

Another exciting thing happened when I was half looking at the tv and half paying attention to counting cars. A kit-kat commercial came on, and then a deodorant commercial. I didn't notice when it switched over though, so for a long time I thought that the guy in the commercial was rubbing kit-kats in his armpit. It was a pretty wild night at 24.

While I have this marathon looming right in front of me, I've also been looking ahead to my exciting running event of late summer - the Hood to Coast. I've never done the full Hood to Coast, just 3 Portland to Coasts (which is the high school version of the relay, which is two legs instead of three). If you're entirely unfamiliar with it, it's the largest relay in the world, and one of the longest in the country. It has 36 legs, usually run by 12 runners (but less, if you're super hardcore), so most people run 3 times. It starts out at Mt. Hood and ends at Seaside (with the PTC starting right by the Old Spaghetti Factory off of Macadam).

Last week I got my leg assignment e-mailed to me. Our captain asked us which leg we wanted and I said "I don't care," so he gave me the hardest one. At least the website ranks it as the hardest one, I don't really know. It's the 9th leg, or the 3rd leg of the 2nd van, depending on how you look at it. When I heard I was doing this leg, it sounded kind of familiar, so I pulled out my old running logs and figured out that I actually did this leg before, during PTC '01 (except for the first leg, of course). I remember really liking it, so I'm happy to do it again.

For those of you who care, here's what legs 9, 21, and 33 look like.

In my leg assignment e-mail, I've also learned that my team is an new offshoot of a fairly well established team called The Maple Bar Gang. So I've also gotten about twenty e-mails from team members discussing what donut related team name our team will have. I'm happy to run with any team that cares that much about donuts, but I am going to miss running with Team Really Really Ridiculously Good Looking.

I just spent a really long time looking for a picture of my old team and then realized that they're all hard copies. Weird. Instead, enjoy the next closest thing I could find, which isn't very close at all, but a recent picture of a few of us from the team, from this Christmas. Except Kathayoon wasn't on the team (but we still love her, as you can tell from all the hearts).

Miles run this week: 4
Miles run in 2010: 395

SPOILER ALERT

2010-05-25T22:38:00.000-07:00

First things first, a huge congratulations to Michael Ventrella for being the winner of the Biggest Loser tonight. Hopefully he'll take some the money he won to go shopping for a new outfit that doesn't involve gold chains and sparkly skull-shaped belt buckles.
Right before the weigh-in he had a white rose, and I was so sure he was going to give it to Ashley, but instead he gave it to his mom and it was really lame. I would put money on the fact that him and Ashley were hooking up all season. People get together all the time on that show. It makes sense - they're finally starting to look decent, and they're all hopped up on endorphins and have nothing else to do besides workout. Unfortunately NBC hasn't caught on to the fact that everyone wants the Real World/Jersey Shore set-up with the night-vision cameras in the bedrooms and bathrooms.

Earlier this year, Laura and I did Biggest Loser work-outs to the first two episodes of the season. This means that we went and did cardio for two hours straight while we watched the TVs at 24 Hour Fitness. We wanted to do that again tonight, to come full-circle, but then I disappointed Laura really bad when I pointed out that I'm not running right now, the bikes are upstairs without TVs, and there's no way in hell I'm doing the elliptical for two hours. I hate the elliptical.

Instead we went to a spin class at lunch time. I actually went to a spin class last night too, and that was my first spin class ever. I've been doing the stationary bike for about a week now, and thought I was getting a decent workout in, but that's absolutely nothing compared to spin class. I could tell because I got really sweaty at the spin class. Classes are great because when you get tired and want to stop you can't, because everyone will think you suck. This I know because today a girl left after forty minutes and I thought about how much she sucked. Just kidding. Kind of. Laura pointed out that it's even worse when the instructor knows half the people in the class, like she did today, so if you give up and leave early you look even more inferior to all the other people who both stay the whole time and come regularly.

Today was way harder than yesterday. I recommend at least a full day of rest between spin classes. Yesterday was also better because I was on a bike next to this guy the whole time, and afterward I went to do a thousand push-ups in the stretching area, and he walked by and said "hey, good job." I was wearing my headphones though, and sometimes when that happens I have a hard time knowing how loud I'm talking and things come out way too loud or not loud enough. This time it was not loud enough, because I was taken by surprise that he talked to me and didn't know what to respond with. So I said some barely audible combination of "hi" and "see you later." Then today I checked craigslist for a missed connections from him and there wasn't one. I have yet to find any of the missed connections left for me - I'm assuming there's been at least several, but sometimes I forget to check. There's so many missed connections for/from people at 24 Hour though, I'm bound to get one if I just keep going to the gym enough.

Tomorrow I'm going to try running a little bit again. It should be super exciting, so stand by for updates.

Stop Rubbing Our Noses In What a Yokel You Are

2010-05-23T23:13:00.001-07:00

I know everybody's upset with me since it's been so long since I updated, but it's because I haven't been running. In case you haven't noticed, the blogging is just supposed to happen after I've run. However, I'm sure you all miss me anyway and want to hear about my life, even if it hasn't involved running. I also decided to write for a minute just now because I have tons of crap in my car to unload into my apartment, and I was going to do that, but this creepy looking car has just been idling in the parking lot right by my car for about ten minutes and when I walked by it somebody was spying on me out their window with a flashlight. I decided to not unload my car right then, because it would involve lots of walking by this spooky car. That totally ruined my scheduled activity for 11:15PM to 11:25PM, so I needed something else to do.

You should remember from last time that I'm not running because I'm trying to heal my shin splints before my marathon. If you don't remember that, press pause and go read the last entry. Since I haven't been running, I've had to find other ways to work out. So far this has included the stationary bike, lifting weights (only a little bit), yoga, and soccer. This doesn't sound that impressive, but it at least doubles the number of different kinds of athletic activities I've done this year.

I'm most impressed with myself for doing yoga. As a massage therapist I'm always recommending that people practice yoga, and I'm always hearing that it's good for running, but I almost never do it. I kind of hate it. My senior year of college I took a yoga class that happened twice a week at 8AM and the teacher specifically told us, "if you don't feel like coming, I don't want you to come - I won't be taking attendance." It turned out that I only felt like coming about five times that semester. 8AM is early when you're in college, and most of the time even when you're (I'm) not. Yoga is also really hard for me, because like most runners, I'm extremely inflexible (except in my shoulders, which is surprisingly unhelpful in almost all areas of life). I don't really think of myself as a competitive person, but when I'm doing anything athletic I realize that secretly I am. So when everyone else is getting their pretzel on and I can't even touch my toes, I get angry. I hate how there are levels, so they're always saying things like, "now get into the graceful lemur pose. If you're level one, stay there. But if you're level 3 like me, turn your legs inside out and twist them around your sacrum." I used to always try to do the hardest poses even though they're pretty much impossible for me, and then I would feel like an asshole for coming to one yoga class a year and then assuming I could do all the hard shit that the people who go every week can do. So now I just sit there in stupid level 1 and am jealous of everyone else.

It never helps that the yoga instructor is always reminding you to focus on yourself, this isn't a competition, go at your own pace, blah blah blah. That makes me angry too, because then I feel so predictable. These are all issues I'm trying to overcome, because I think that yoga can be very helpful, and maybe if I went more than once a year I would actually be able to keep up with everyone else. Our instructor also showed us this cool floating thing that was kind of like this:

Not quite that awesome, but close. I mostly like this video because the guy is wearing a baseball hat. Who wears a baseball hat while they do yoga?

We'll see if I can handle any more yoga. Yoga + me is a pretty unpredictable combination, so I really can't tell you.

One earlier point needs to be clarified: I said I haven't been running, but that's not one hundred percent true. I have run several times in the last week, in the following situations:

A couple times from the gym to my car after I workout. Because I'm wearing workout clothes after I work out, and somehow they're not suited for mid-May weather. Because mid-May weather apparently involves non-stop rain/hail/thunder.
Friday night I ran from Joe's Cellar to Gypsy. If you run between bars you decrease the time spent without drink in hand. Also it was raining again.
Saturday at my soccer game I ran a lot. I figured indoor soccer field turf wouldn't be too hard on my shins. It wasn't, and we won.
Today I couldn't park in the parking garage where I work for some boring reasons, so I had to run from the building to my car with my massage table, which is much harder than running without a massage table. Again, it was raining unreasonably hard.

It's interesting (to me) how when I'm injured most of my running is inspired by the rain, but when I'm not injured, the rain is what keeps me from running. I guess it's not that interesting, there's a very simple and logical explanation for it... but I still just want to give a big "fuck you" to rain right now, for making me run when I don't want to and not run when I do want to.

Fuck you, rain.

I'm going to go check on the status of that creepy car with the flashlight now.

PS. Sorry I didn't stay to play more bridge. I had to get home and update my blog.

Shin Splints Are Dumb

2010-05-16T21:53:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned at least once or twice how on occasion I don't feel like running. If I haven't, I'll let you know now: most days I don't feel like running. Once I'm doing it I love it, but it's a lot of work to get myself going most of the time. I've (re)discovered the best way to turn this problem around though - get injured. As soon as I can't run, I really want to run all the time and am super upset that I can't go.

Having shin splints is especially frustrating because things start feeling a lot better once you've been running a while. It's just the first mile or two that it really hurts, and then it's almost unnoticeable. This doesn't mean it's getting better. It just means that it takes a lot of restraint to keep myself from running. If the injury would stop here then I wouldn't even care, but as we all know this will ultimately turn into a stress fracture if I ignore it, as it has in the past. My hopes are that by taking a couple weeks off from running completely, it'll be good enough to do the marathon I'm signed up for in less than three weeks.

This brings me to something else I'm pretty sure I've mentioned in the past: how much I hate cross training. I play soccer once a week, and that's about it. I had been enjoying the Insanity workout, but that involves a lot of jumping up and down, which isn't optimal when you have shin splints. The only thing I can really think of doing is biking. Biking outside is scary, and using a stationary bike is boring as fuck. But that's what I've been doing, for two whole days now. Today I tried to go to a spin class, because I thought that way it would be easier to do a whole workout without getting bored. I got up at 8, but then by 8:15 I was tired again and went back to bed, so I had to go later to bike by myself.

Doing a marathon has been one of the most consistent goals I've had in my life, and I know if I can't do this one it doesn't mean I won't ever do one, but the idea of missing out on my first serious attempt at one in entirety is really depressing to me. I also have a lot of other running things lined up after this marathon though, so I don't want to just do it even if my leg's hurting and ruin everything else. Gross.

I'm sorry I don't have many funny/interesting things to say about being injured. It's kind of bringing me down and I'm having a hard time being not sad about it. If you have any hilarious jokes about shin splints, feel free to contribute. Or if you know super fun cross training activities I would like, or ways to make the stationary bike fun.

PS. This is what shin splints looks like from the outside. Kind of. It mostly just looks like my normal leg so I edited the picture to make it look scarier.

PS Again. Let me know if you have any photo editing needs. I'm really good at it.

Secret Treadmills

2010-05-12T20:51:00.000-07:00

Today I had a psych test that I had to study for all day. It was dumb. And I couldn't go running because I was too busy studying, which was even more dumb. I finished my test pretty quick though (it's a night class), so I thought I would just go running on the treadmill at 24, which I should probably be doing more of anyway since my left shin keeps hurting more and more. Yesterday I ran outside on sidewalks only and it probably wasn't the best idea.

I went to my new 24, but every single treadmill was either being used, broken, or was a freaky weird incline/instability treadmill that I didn't want. I hadn't ever even gone to the upstairs part before, so I thought maybe there would be a secret treadmill hiding upstairs. It turns out there wasn't, but I always feel like a dumbass when I walk into some part of the gym, stand there for a second, and then leave, so I had to find something to do upstairs. There were a few stationary bikes so I did that for like 20 minutes, but I rarely do that kind of thing so it was hard and I got angry and left after that. I was actually kind of angry the whole time. The gym wasn't even that crowded, they just don't have enough normal treadmills and too many broken things. I'm also angry about my shin situation. Right now my preventative measures involve very little, aside from hoping it will go away. Apparently that doesn't do much.

I have a lot more general life complaints about my day, but I'll wrap things up here, because none of them are interesting.

Miles run this week: 15.5
Miles run in 2010: 389

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Class of '99

2010-05-10T18:23:00.000-07:00

Even though the training program I'm supposedly following includes lots of 8, 10, and 12 mile runs, I haven't been on a single run between the distances of 6 and 19 miles since March. For some reason it's really hard for me to go on middle distance runs. Short runs are easy, and long runs I actually try to mentally prepare myself for. Anything around 10 sounds easy because it's so much shorter than my long runs, but when it comes to actually doing it I always realize that it is kind of a long run and then I get lazy and don't do it. Except today I did, since I'm trying to actually follow my training plan for the month leading up to my marathon.

I've done the run from the zoo to Pittock Mansion a lot, and to make that run 5 miles one way you just have to keep running past the Pittock until you get to Cornell. That didn't seem too bad - the route stays on the Wildwood the entire time, and is kind of hilly, but reasonable. Apparently it gets unreasonable right after the Pittock Mansion though, which I learned today. Pittock to Cornell is a straight drop downhill, and the bottom of each slope was covered in mud so I kept having to sprint through them and hope I didn't fall and die (walking or going slowly wasn't an option because Pascal was way too excited for that). It was okay though - the last run I did was the 20 on Saturday, and 10 is way easier than 20, even if there are a bunch of hills.

For a while I was running with other people a lot of the time, but I've kind of reverted back to always running alone, or just with my dog. I don't really mind it, but it would probably be more fun to go with my friends more often. Unfortunately, marathon training has the negative side effect of intimidating people away from running with me. A common misconception is that because I can run longer and faster than you, I won't run shorter and slower with you. This is entirely wrong. At least for me it is, I can't speak for all runners. Usually I'm super excited if a friend wants to run with me - and if I specifically tell someone I want to run with them, I'm serious about it. Even with copious reassurance, somehow when I say "we should go running," some people hear, "let's go running together but if you're slower than me I'm going to be super annoyed and run off without you." For those of you who feel like that's the case, let me break down for you the possible outcomes of a person accepting my invitation to go on a run:

You are insanely slow and out of shape. You can't even run at all and it's super embarrassing. We have to walk the whole way. This results in two friends hanging out for a while while walking. If I'm training for something super serious and this walk is ruining my training plan, then I'll go run later. But I'm never training for super serious things, so that's not going to happen.
You're kind of out of shape and have a hard time keeping up with me. Usually this makes you try harder than you would have otherwise, and if you get too tired you can tell me to go slower and we will.
You can run just as fast as far as me. Surprise, I'm not that amazing of a runner, and don't train at warp speed.
You're actually in better shape than me, and I tell you to slow down. This happens a lot.

I'm not trying to make any statements here about my actual abilities, just how other people perceive them. I have a friend who works at the zoo with me, and we started talking about running one day (sidebar: I'm actually going to be on her Hood to Coast team this summer, which I'm super excited about). By the end of the conversation, which included nothing about past race times or training schedules, she had started talking about what a fast runner I am. There was no way of knowing how fast I was, she just assumed this. This kind of thing happens a lot. Maybe I subconsciously brag a lot and don't realize it. Or maybe it's more due to the fact that I never talk about being slow and in general try not to say negative things about myself. I feel like that just draws attention to the bad things, and I don't want to do that. Sometimes people preface any discussion of running with how slow or out of shape they are, and maybe just not doing that makes you sound fast. Blah blah blah.

In conclusion, don't tell people you're out of shape, go running with them when they invite you, and wear sunscreen even when it's only a little bit sunny. Skin cancer is real, as is gross old leathery skin.

Super erotic sunscreen how-to video:

Miles run this week: 10
Miles run in 2010: 383.5

Tour de 24 Hour Fitness

2010-05-08T12:50:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday I promised you all that I was going to get up Wednesday and do 20 miles. I totally didn't. Luckily writing about it did make at least one of you hold me accountable for it, and so I felt super guilty for not doing it (thanks Eric). I decided that the thought of going back to Leif and doing 20 there was what was bringing me down; I couldn't stand the thought of doing that this week. It's nice enough out there, but it can get really fucking boring.

So instead I decided to do a way more awesome run this morning. Just yesterday I became a member of the McGloughlin 24-hour supersport club (it's exactly the same as the other 24 hour clubs, except it costs $26/month more, unless you get hooked up with the $10/month extra deal, which I did. This meant I had access to four 24 hour fitness clubs, all relatively close together. Wanting to take full advantage of this, I planned a route starting at my place, and went to all four clubs.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.mapmyrun.com/run/united-states/or/portland/954127334906228301"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;24 Hour Fitness Loop&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br/&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.mapmyrun.com/find-run/united-states/or/portland"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Find more Runs in Portland, Oregon&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

The route looked like this. Except when I mapped it originally I did it on livestrong, and it said it was 13.80 miles, not 13.73 (crucial difference, I know). This meant I had to run 6.2 miles total on treadmills at the gyms, which I did.

Highlights:

The McGloughlin 24 I just joined has treadmills right in front, you don't have to mess around wandering every which way to get to them. Going into the gyms and getting to the treadmills made this run take a lot longer, which can be annoying on a 20 mile run, so I appreciated this.
The nice weather meant that the panhandlers were out in full force. I love running because it's the only time they don't bother me for money, and I can just enjoy their presence without being hassled.
I haven't gone to the downtown 24 for a long time, but I used to, and there's this lady there that loves towels. She's always doing the elliptical like her life depends on it, and has towels lining the handle bars, a towel over her shoulder, a towel tucked in her waistband, several towels on the ground around her, and an entire duffel bag of towels waiting to be used. I may have mentioned her before, I can't remember, but she always makes me curious. Excessive sweat disorder? OCD? Towel fetish?
Also at the downtown 24, I found myself treadmilling behind the stairmasters, and these two dudes were stairmastering together. One of them had a mohawk and skinny legs, but the other guy had no mohawk and the most sculpted calves I've ever seen. They were cut, like from marble (anyone?). I felt bad for the mohawk/skinny legs because the other guy probably gets all the girlfriends.
At the pearl 24, I went into the locker room to use the bathroom. Usually there's the random naked lady, but this one woman would not put her clothes on, and kept walking around doing all these things totally naked, and having a long conversation with a completely clothed lady. Mostly this was a notable thing because she had the grossest tan ever, which was extremely evident due to her nudity.
Right across the Broadway Bridge there was this huge group of people walking down the sidewalk, all wearing matching shirts. They looked like part of some organized walk, but clearly not a real one because the streets weren't closed and it was Saturday late morning, which is no time for that sort of thing. I think it had to do with breast cancer. Anyway, I was glad when I realized it wasn't an organized thing because I always laugh at people who are accidentally running on my route when I'm in an organized race and they're caught in the middle of it. I didn't want to be that person being laughed at.
And the biggest highlight of all: I didn't have to poop the entire time. Not even a little bit. This leads me to believe that it's been happening before because I get dehydrated, which can cause diarrhea. Also I talked to this guy I know who does marathons a lot and apparently "runner's gut" is a thing. I forget the details, but basically it has to do with the fact that your body doesn't focus on digestion when you're doing things like running, so when you go on really long runs, you aren't engaging in any digestion-like activities for several hours, and that can kind of screw things up. I think that's partly my problem, but probably mostly that I never bring water on my long runs, and today I was able to have water breaks at all of the gyms.

More exciting things happened, but I have to wrap things up in a minute here. I tried to get both Chris and Laura to do my gym running with me at different locations to make the run even more exciting, but it didn't work out. I'll give more notice next time, and you can all meet me at the 24s during my run. Although next time if it's this nice of weather, I might do a loop that involves going to different tracks around Portland. It kept being a downer every time I had to go into the gym when it was so good outside.

If you were extra lucky today, you caught me on twitter, which I usually don't promote because the intelligence-level of my tweets is relatively low most of the time, but you can see the play-by-play of my run today.

One last highlight I forgot to mention - I finally accomplished my goal of five runs in one week. I feel awesome on so many levels today.

Miles run this week: 37.5
Miles run in 2010: 373.5

Kristin Cavallari Admits To Snorting Coke!

2010-05-04T23:37:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I'm planning on getting up super early to go on my 20 mile run. I plan on things like this a lot, but the difference is that tonight I'm writing it in my blog so I feel like I'm held accountable. Not that I feel like anyone who reads this is reliable enough to hold me accountable things. Most of you won't even acknowledge anything I write because there's no "like" button to click and commenting is way too hard. Also I monetized this blog like two weeks ago and not a single person has clicked on an ad. How am I supposed to feel validated and make tons of money if nobody is commenting or clicking on my ads?

My run today was awesome because it involved finally getting my car fixed. About a year ago I got my rear brakes replaced and the car guy told me I needed to get my front brakes replaced in a couple of months. He actually tried to replace them right then, but I don't like handing over all my money at once. But recently/for the past six months, my car has also been making sounds like something in the front passenger side area is about to fall off the car. And whatever it is that makes my air conditioning cold is all run out! It actually ran out last July... never mind, I'm going to have to make a car-related blog to discuss these things, I won't bore you with them here. The point is that I drove my car to the V-Shop (the V doesn't stand for anything funny, but you can pretend it does), and then ran to my parent's house to steal my mom's car. The best part of this was that I thought it was a 3 mile run, but when I got home and google mapped it, I learned that it was a 4 mile run. Running more than I thought I ran is one of my favorite things.

Last thing: a while ago I mentioned some fundraiser mile happening at Lincoln, put on by the track team. You probably figured out that I didn't go to that, since you all follow my every move so closely. Well I'm happy to report that I have a second chance - the MAC is putting on the MAC Mile on May 20th, and inviting all members to come and see how fast they can do a mile. This mile is free, which makes it instantly better than the other one. Assuming you care about free things more than you care about helping people. I'm going to try extra hard to make it to this one because I'm really curious to see how fast I can run a mile. I'm hopeful that I can do under 6:30. Actually, if I can't do under 6:30 I'll probably be really pissed, even though I've been doing no speedwork whatsoever and the last time I timed a mile was almost two years ago and around 6:44. I'm shooting for 6:15 anyway.

Miles run this week: 9.5
Miles run in 2010: 345.5