Doing a Marathon (OR: GET A LIFE PLAN)

You expect preparing for a marathon to gift you with many life skills-- perseverance, health, bragging rights... but what you don't always realize is the way it forces you to PLAN.

Let's get one thing straight: I am not a planner.
Never have been, not proud of it. I am the Queen of Procrastination.

When I was "planning" out my calendar for 2013, I knew I wanted to include a marathon. Or should I say, New Years rolled around and I thought, "Hey! I should do a marathon sometime!"

But where to start? This is where I ingeniously came up with my 10k-1/2-Full idea. I have clear goals along the way so I don't burn out and I can track my progress toward the Ultimate Finale (Dun Dun Dunnnn).

However, each of these goals will take time to prepare for. I added up the weeks it would take for each training plan (8+10+16) and decided a 26.2 mile race in October sounded pretty reasonable, especially in terms of weather. (I even included weather in my plans! Go Me!)

Finally, I started to distinguish between immediate planning points and more general ones that could be specified closer to the race dates. These include such things as a training journal, travel and lodging, food and other expenses, etc.

Do you see where this is going? In short, I have a PLAN for the next 28 WEEKS of 2013. That's more than HALF a YEAR.

Somewhere along the long, this post-in-blog transcended a mere athletic record to an account of me growing as a person. I can't say this is a bad thing.

Moral of the story:

In failing to plan, we plan to fail. (This is a yearbook quote some kid chose when I was high school. Seems fitting.)

1. Have an Ultimate Goal and a Timeline for Completion.
2. Set Smaller Goals along the way to Stay Focused and Gauge Progress.
3. Plan out all aspects that lead to Achievement-- don't let the details slip you up!
4. Don't be afraid to take charge and hold yourself accountable. Adjustment of plans is acceptable. Failure is not.
5. You can do ANYTHING you want in life. ANYTHING. Realize what a huge concept that is and make the most of it.

Peace and Blessings, y'all. Peace and Blessings.

She's Baa-aaackk!

Heyo Folks, long time no speak!

After quite a hiatus, I am back on the marathon track again. Let's get some updates outta the way:

I am trying a different track for marathon prep this year. My plan is to start out with smaller races, working my way up to the full monty.

With that in mind, I competed in the FastCat 10k in Plainfield, Illinois, last Saturday.

I just signed up for the Sturgis Falls Half-Marathon on June 30!

And my marathon bout will come on October 20, at the annual Des Moines Marathon!

Stay tuned for further updates!

It's GARBAGE DAY in CRAPIDS.

I went for my first long run today in a couple weeks! The little issue with my legs cleared up and I emerged victorious from a bout of bronchitis, so I was ready to GOOOOO.

I didn't have a route in mind-- it was bee-you-tiful outside so I just let my legs carry me.
And carry me they did...

Through residential Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
City of Five Smells.
One of which, I discovered, is the sweet stench of garbage bins on the curbside, waiting patiently for the glorious dawn that will bring even stench-ier trucks to carry the refuse away to Mount Trashmore.

Now you know-- Thursday is garbage day around Mount Mercy and on down to the trail. And especially if it's warm, the stink rises up to your nostrils and sneaks down your throat and no matter how much you try to choke it away or cough it out, it will stay in your lungs until you are well away from any area of residence.

Also, the houses on O Ave are built into a hill, so the slope of the front yard is not conducive to upright garbage cans. Thus, the homeowners put them in the street, meaning I did a lot of weaving in and out of the street. Just a little PSA for those of you who prefer running in straight lines!

MapMyRun.com tells me that it was a 6-mile run! Sweet.

I think that means Thursday is the day for the Death Mountain run!

Saturday

I'll cut to the chase: I thought Saturday would be better than Friday. I was wrong.

Public Service Announcement: When the nice lady with the Nutri-Grain bar at BioLife tells you to wait to exercise for three hours after giving plasma, it's probably a good idea to wait at least an hour.

And probably not a good idea to drive straight to your grandmother's house to take the dog on a run.

Important detail: The dog's name is Bodey.

As in Bodacious Bodey.

And, historically speaking, I don't run the dog; the dog runs me.

So when I got out of the car and Bodey bounded over with the leash in his mouth, I knew I was in trouble. To make a long story short, my Saturday run was the longest three miles of my life.

To my Advanced Writing Workshop class: You would have loved any video footage I could have posted on this run.

That is all you need to know.

Friday

I biked north on the trail-- nothing too fancy-pants becuse I wanted to stop at the Coe baseball game on the way home. The most interesting part was biking out of Daniel's park through the grass instead of following the normal paved route.

First, the grass was long and Daniels Park is hilly. I was panting with the effort it took to simply pedal to the curb at the 16th st side of the park.

Second, 16th st is pretty busy at 5:22 pm on a Friday evening.

Third, because the park is so hilly, the curb separating the park from the road isn't so much a curb as a sheer mountain cliff dropping off into a bottomless abyss, which, if it does have a bottom, is definitely made of concrete.

These are the facts.

Have I mentioned the reason I swim?

No grace. No coordination. Also facts.

You know where this is going.

By the point I realized I was heading for disaster, I only had time to check for oncoming traffic. Clear. Maybe I wouldn't die. And with no witnesses, maybe I could preserve a shred of dignity.

Then I was airborne. It was glorious. If I had to guess at my hangtime, I'd say it was the sum of the time it takes to think "Well this isn't so bad," and "Oh no. That ground is getting awful close."

My world shook and a few of my brain cells screamed in agony as they bid me farewell. I actually have a bruise on my tushy from how hard I landed.

But I was alive and so was Shirley the Schwinn. I didn't even pop any tires with my little stunt. I was home free.

That's when I saw the hoodrats. For a second I thought maybe my bike moves were better than I hoped because they were cat-calling me like nobody's business. I flashed my shiniest smile and began pedalling Shirley off into the sunset.

That's when the whistles turned into snickers. That's when one of them had the decency to ask if I was okay. That's when I did the graceful thing and stuck my tongue out in response. That's when i realized I had not even a strand of dignity left.

Story of my life.

Easter Weekend Sum-Up

Saturday was nothing special in terms of food, but Sunday brought most of my favorites, in the form of carbs!

Actually, when people ask me my favorite food, I usually reply with carbs. That doesn't always go over too well, so I sometimes qualify my answer-- narrowing it down to pizza. You know-- to throw veggies and protein in there.

That isn't very well-received either, come to think of it, but I digress.

Easter dinner. We had asiago cheese rolls and potato casserole and there was a pasta dish and I made babovka and... oh. What's that you say? This isn't a food blog? Well shoot-- it seems this entire post has been a digression.

Why didn't you stop me 150 words ago? Oopsy.

Let's begin again. With a trio of workouts: Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Three beautiful days. Three beautiful, albeit strugglesome, workouts. Three beautiful anecdotes. Enjoy.

In Which I Execute A Solution to the Cramping Issue, or STRETCHING 101

I was beginning to get a little nervous that my shins were splinting in defiance of my refusal to consider shin splints the answer to my leg cramps. After Googling all kinds of things, I stumbled across this thread: Is shin tightness when running shin splints?

The answer? Not necessarily. The part that interested me was a response that indicated calf tightness could be the culprit in shin tightness. Sounds about right. Charlie Horse and I are best friends. There were some great stretches explained through the thread that I'll get to in a minute.

First, though, I had one more question. Why was I suddenly experiencing so much pain when I wasn't doing anything differently than when I ran during swim season?

DING DING! That's the problem. Of course. I should have known. Swimming is always the problem. It made perfect sense, and a few more clicks through Google yielded a thread that confirmed my suspicions.

'shin pain from breaststroke kick'

Essentially, as a breaststroker, I did experience the same kind of shin pain as the person who posted the question. However, the other aspects of swimming kept my muscles stretched and loose enough to run. When I stopped the swimming (a zero-impact sport) and focused solely on running (high-impact), I was no longer loosening up although I was exposing my muscles to more trauma.

So. I need to ice more and really stretch.

I was still a little iffy about running on a hard surface today, so I stuck to the elliptical and stretched forrrreverrrr.

Pre-workout I traced the ABCs with each foot, over and over. It's a little more challenging than you'd expect! I also did calf/toe raises.

Post-workout I did calf/toe raises and tried the rolling pin suggested in the thread- just with a soft medicine ball instead of a rolling pin! I also did the ABCs again and general stretching, making sure to get my quads too!

I don't want to count my chickens, but my legs felt great all day. They're a little tight now, but that's because I've been cooped up doing homework for too long! Tomorrow's definitely the day for an outdoor run!

Here are a couple more articles I discovered!

I was especially interested in the part about muscle tension and its effect on circulation--

Check it out!

Understanding Your Muscle Tension and How it Spreads

Muscle Tone Restoration