Just not my day

Some days, things just don't work out the way you want them to. Today was one of those days, and that's okay. As you read the following race report, you should know that I am not in the least disappointed about what happened. So you shouldn't be either. It was what it was, and now it's over and I'm not going to lose any sleep about it. I know that there was nothing that I could have done under the circumstances to have a better race.

Despite being signed up, I had no intention of running the Hyannis Marathon until the Thursday before. That's why I all but quit running after Disney World, running only 12 times in the 6 intervening weeks, for a whopping 70 miles total over that time. But when the time came, something in me wouldn't let me quit without a fight. As luck would have it, though, the day I changed my mind about running the marathon, the weather channel changed their mind about the forecast for that day. Gone was the promise of 32º and partly cloudy. Now it was going to be 42º, rainy, and windy.

I did everything right (other than not training... or resting properly in the weeks before... or doing the right workouts to peak) in the days before the race. I got lots of sleep. I hardly used my legs all week (the 12 hours on the trainer last weekend was already behind me, and there wasn't much I could do about that now). I ate 60–70% of my calories from healthy carbohydrate sources like fruits and whole grains. I drank liters and liters of liquids, some with nuun tabs in it so that I could load up on electrolytes. I went out the day before in similar temperatures and did some drills and strides to make sure that I didn't overdress or underdress. I laid low.

Big Red and I showed up at the convention center early, which gave us one unobstructed bathroom break before the 3,998 other marathon, half marathon, and 10K runners descended on the tiny little Sheraton. I showed Red my good luck rock that I'd been given at the Green Lakes 50K, where I'd surprised myself with a great race. "So your race plan is to run with rocks?" Big Red said. She had a point. I took the rock out and put it in my bag.

By the time the race was about to start, it took almost 15 minutes to push your way through the crowd to the door. Then, 4,000 people crammed themselves into a chunk of road equal to roughly 1 city block and put up with the race organizers as they tried to impose order on the latecomers from the porta pottie lines that were trying to work their way behind the starting line from the front and sides. Someone sang the national anthem, missed a note, and 4,000 people started laughing. Then the gun went off, and eventually we were able to move.

Mile 1 8:06

With all kinds of runners front-loading into the starting area, I worried about being able to run fast enough in the first mile. I kept reminding myself that I would have plenty of time to make up for lost time in the next 25 miles, but I kept looking down to see that my pace was in the mid- to high 7-minute range. I planned to impose (on penalty of death) a narrow pace margin of 8:12 to 8:22-minute miles on myself for the first half, but I guess I might have overcompensated as I was darting through the crowd. Oh well, the first mile never goes the way you want it to.

Mile 2 7:55

This feels hard. Well no wonder! I'm back in the mid 7's. I kept trying to find a steady rhythm, but every time I looked down I was accelerating again. Then I would have to back off and overcompensate again. I thought I was doing a pretty good job of staying within range, but when the next mile marker came up, my watch told me that I'd overshot it a little bit. I was very, very, very, very aware of what could happen if I fucked up the pacing, and I had no intention of blowing to smithereens. I usually do 8- to 10-mile tempo runs at 8-minute pace, so I knew that I was still in familiar territory. I should be okay.

Mile 3 8:06

I was supposed to eat here, but it was still too crowded. And I felt the slightest hint of intestinal upset. I didn't want to give myself that poopy feeling so soon, so I held off on the food. To my surprise, I saw Big Red up ahead of me. She was supposed to be running hard. She was supposed to be long gone. I came up behind her and gave her a big smack on the ass as I pulled alongside her. "Hey, girlie. How you doin'?" I asked

"Not good. My back's bothering me," Big Red's got a chronic back condition that comes and goes. "Run like the wind, my friend!" she called after me. Well that was no fun! I wanted her to have a great race that I could simmer with jealousy over later. I wanted her to be far, far ahead of me so that I would HAVE to finish the marathon, if only to not give her the satisfaction of beating me. At the very least, I wanted her to keep up so that she could keep me company for part of this long day. God knows I would be lonely enough on the second loop. But she was gone, and I never saw her again. She would later tell me that she was disappointed that I passed her so quickly, "But then I looked down at my pace and saw why," she said.

Mile 4 8:12

Well that's more like it! I was finally successful in reigning myself in... sort of. But now the hills were starting. Okay, they weren't hills. They were the slightest of rollers. There was hardly any elevation gain on the whole course. But I am a weak hill runner by nature, and since I've been doing 90% of my running indoors this winter (and it's easy to keep a treadmill at 0% incline), these hills might as well have been mountains. It was like the bungee had finally stretched to its limit, and now I was snapping back. Well that's alright, I thought (somewhat naïvely), I'm finally within my pace range. In fact, my watch was beeping more and more to tell me to speed up.

Also, I was getting pretty hot. I'd been warm and sweaty since the first mile, but now I was beginning to wonder if it would be a problem. I couldn't take my jacket off because it had my snacks in the pocket, and I had no other pockets. My jacket and I were committed to each other. I'd written what my splits should be at 4-mile intervals on my arm, but when I rolled my sleeve up to check, I'd already sweat mile 16 and beyond into oblivion.

Mile 5 8:08

I passed the Hoyts. This time, I didn't think I was going to throw up all over them, and I passed them sooner (I'm sure that the bigger "hills" in Hyannis compared to Disney make pushing a wheelchair harder and slowed their pace). Maybe it was because I was running slower. Maybe it was because they were running slower. Maybe it's because New Englanders are more stoic than the rest of the country (represented at the Disney Marathon). Maybe it's because everyone on The Pre-Boston Circuit has done half a dozen races with the Hoyts. Maybe I was just in a pocket of curmudgeons. But people around me weren't getting as worked up about the Hoyts either, which probably helped me to keep my excitement under control this time, and keep my breakfast down. I did speed up from my last mile, though, and we were still going "uphill."

Mile 6 8:23

I already knew I was in trouble. My legs just weren't waking up. Running was hard. The course turned "downhill," but the wind picked up and I slowed down. You can still do this, I thought. Just run steady, and you won't tire out. Just cool your heels for a bit and you'll come right. But I knew. Deep down inside me, I knew that I wasn't going to be running a marathon today. I had done everything right today, and my legs just weren't coming around. I'd managed to get some food in, but I'd never practiced eating at this pace (remember? I didn't actually train for this race). It was hard to eat and breathe at 8:15 min/miles. And I could feel that my legs didn't feel the way they've felt on good runs in the past. They weren't springy. I felt like I'd started with half a tank, but it didn't matter because the engine would break down before I ran out of gas. I felt like I feel on the bike when a brake is rubbing.

Mile 7 8:04

We were gaining elevation again, but I sped up this mile. Maybe this was the part where I got angry at myself for thinking defeat. Maybe I tried to rally. Maybe this was the section where they had traffic going in each direction and no sidewalk on a narrow back street, but I pulled myself back together and soldiered on. I still FELT okay, I just knew that it was over. Maybe just knowing that my mind was already made up made me speed up for a decent half marathon. Could I still save this half marathon? Stupid question, idiot! You promised yourself that you would run 8:20's whether you finished a half marathon or a full! Stick to the plan! You might come around yet.

Mile 8 8:22

Time to check the splits on my arm again. I was still on pace, less than a minute faster than what it said on my arm. Can you keep this pace up for 18 miles without slowing down, though? I asked myself. I knew that there was no way. Can you finish a marathon strong? Maybe? I still held out hope. We were climbing to the top of what would be the biggest "hill" on the course now, and I felt like I'd been running uphill forever – since mile 3!

Mile 9 8:25

The course was now on Route 28, a highway as far as Cape Cod goes. It was 2 lanes in each direction with no sidewalk, and runners were crammed into a narrow three-foot strip on the side of the road. Some people were speeding up to negative split their races, while others were falling to pieces. There was a lot of passing going on, and not nearly enough space to do it. Also, the wind was picking up to about 15 mph and it was getting downright chilly.

Mile 10 8:30

The wheels fell off. We were headed back downhill now, but it didn't matter with the headwind we were running into. Turning off of Route 28, a man passed me. "Come on blue!!" he said. The marathon bibs were blue, half marathon were white.
"I'm not running a marathon today," I told him. Why wouldn't these people let me die in peace? Why is there always someone who tries to make you suffer more, when there is no way you could possibly run any faster?
"Aw come on, you're holding your pace! I've been trying to catch you for miles!"
"No, really. I gave up on this race a month and a half ago. I just want to get it over with now."
"You'd better not talk like that. Come on, you need a pacer?" he asked. "I'll slow up to get you through." It was exactly what I would have wanted on a perfect day, a symbiotic relationship with another runner: he would get company, I would get a pacer. But I knew I was dead meat.
"I will not take responsibility for you having a horrible race. Run on ahead, and I don't want to catch you back here again!" I said. "Believe me, I'm a gonner. Have a great race."

I was glad to see that he wasn't going to try to pull me along, because the air it took to have that conversation was enough to put me over the edge. I now wondered how I was even going to finish the next 2.5 miles, let alone a marathon. With all the passing and being passed that was going on, I couldn't find a comfortable rhythm and felt like I was running through pudding.

Mile 11 8:23

Out of nowhere I hear, "HEY!" over my left shoulder. It was Gadfly Thom. I had never been AHEAD of Gadfly Thom in a race before, and certainly not this late in the game. I couldn't believe it. But it was over now. There was no way I was going to be able to keep up with him. "How you doing?" he managed to get out before he passed.

"Awful. Really, really awful." I guess something in my tone of voice told him that I wasn't being my usual sarcastic self on this one, because he didn't push me. I could see him for quite some time, pulling away in front of me (he's easy to spot: probably one of 2 black guys who did the race), and it just made me feel like I was sinking. I thought of stopping and waiting for Big Red, but I thought she would kill me for waiting. And what if she was right behind me, and I didn't even get time to recover before she dropped my sorry ass? There was nothing to do but keep running.

Mile 12 8:45

It was now extremely windy and cold. I could barely get my mind around even getting to the end of the block, let alone getting back to the start/finish area. I knew that there was positively no way I could even finish a marathon today. All I could do was hang on. I had the distinct sensation that my blood pressure or my heartrate or something were too high. I got tunnel vision, felt woozy, and felt like my head was going to explode. I get this feeling a lot when I'm pushing hard at the end of races. I'll have to figure out exactly what it is, so that I can avoid it.

Mile 13.25 8:43 pace

When I crossed the 13-mile marker, I took off my race belt and crumpled my number up in my hand. I didn't want anyone giving me a hard time about packing it in. I just wanted to drop out in peace. I knew it was the only option I had today. I put in as much of a kick as I could muster, but my pace was nearly equal to the past mile. I finished without fanfare in 1:50:03, for an average of 8:19 minutes per mile in real miles, officially 8:23. I was exactly 3 seconds off the pace for running a 3:40 marathon, if I had turned around and run the same exact race over again. Lord knows that wasn't going to happen. I was a mess.

Afterward

Big Red came in 3 or 4 minutes behind me, and we stood around for awhile waiting for one of her friends to come through. By the time he came in, it was raining, and the icy wind was constant. Over the next hour, it started to pour down rain, and as we were driving away from the expo center, we saw the 3-hour marathoners around the 23-mile mark. Their clothes were plastered against them from the wind and they looked like they were in hell.

Big Red had several friends in the Hyannis area, so we had lunch with her mother and a family friend while the freezing rain pissed down outside. Also, I had the same problem that I'd had after Disney where my lower intestinal tract shut down. I felt like my insides were rotting out, like someone had put my small intestine through a blender. Yet another reason to be happy I hadn't tried to run the full marathon.

I knew that not finishing the race was the right decision. There was no part of me that was upset that I'd quit halfway. I'd done the best I could under the circumstances, and I just didn't have a good race in me. Between the course and the weather, it just wasn't a PR day. There was absolutely no way I could have even finished that marathon, and I just would have made myself sick if I'd tried. There will be more chances in the future, and eventually my day will come. Today just wasn't it. The perfect day was probably last January in Disney World, but I decided to do something else with my fitness that weekend. My body will come around again and let me run strong some other time. But right now, it's several months past time to be moving on.

Goodbye, running. I'll see you again in the fall.

She's sung.

Update: I finally had the heart to check the results. Mercifully, I'm not listed in the marathon results with a DNF next to my name. I'm not in the half marathon results either, though. I would have finished in roughly 615th place out of 2044 overall (30%), and 88th out of 413 in my age group (21%). Last year I finished nearly 9 minutes slower to make only the top 54% over all, and 49% in my age group.

All Terrain

I love unseasonably warm days. They mean that I get to go and play outside, even though it's winter in this inhospitable climate. The forecast for today called for near-record highs in the low 60's, which was pretty ironic since there is still plenty of snow on the ground from last week's storms. After a poor night's sleep I saddled up and rode to the meeting point: the zoo parking lot. I know, weird, right?

Anyway, the roads were damp and grimy, but it was great to have my bike back out on a real road again, actually moving forward when I pedaled. So what if I was getting a giant stripe of grit and grime up my back? I was out on the road again! It wasn't even cold. My new 3/4 length cycling tights and a light jacket were warmth enough. Later I even whipped out my sunglasses, although admittedly it was to keep the mud from getting in my eyes. The temperature was nice, but there were tiny microclimates everywhere. One minute it was warm and humid, and the next it was cold and clammy depending on how much snow was around.

There were 5 of us, 3 men and two women. We weren't out to ride as hard as we could (a guy that we'll call 'Jorge' was on his commuter bike, and 'Pedro' was on a single speed), we were just here to ride so that we could be out.
"What are those growths on your handlebars?" 'Pedro' asked, pointing at my aero bars.
"They're not mine, I swear!" I said.
"Tri geek! Tri geek!" 'Jorge' screamed, pointing at me.
"No, no! Not me! I'm just holding them for a friend! Really!" I yelled for the world to hear.
"Are you a triathlete?" asked the other woman, who we'll call 'Alejandra'. I knew who 'Alejandra' was by word of mouth before I met her for the first time yesterday. She was the only other woman who could keep up with the Big Boys on Saturday morning shop rides. I wanted very badly to hate her, but she was so sweet and cute that I just couldn't do it. Instead, I just wanted very much for her to think I was cool.
"I do triathlons," I said carefully. I hate calling myself a triathlete, especially around roadies where triathlete means "stuck-up douchebag who doesn't know how to ride his/her bike." "But I'm starting to move away from it because I'm such a terrible runner," I went on. "I just have the bars on now because they're so much more comfortable on the trainer."
"Oh, okay," she said. I'd passed the test!

After about 20 minutes the rout passed my house. "Hi Claire's house!" everyone yelled. My house is clearly a family house. Yesterday 'Alejandra' had asked me if I was on the market for a boyfriend since her 26-year-old son was finally about to graduate college and she didn't want him to move back home. I had just told her I wasn't available. "So, Claire, are you married, or do you have a boyfriend?" 'Alejandra' wanted to know after seeing my parents' large house and the 3 cars in the driveway.
"No," I said. It was an either or question.
"How old are you?"
"25..."
"Twenty-five! My son's 26!" she began. "You should..."
And this is where it was my turn to say something. Could the situation get any more awkward? "Got any daughters?" I asked.
A loooooooong moment passed.
One by one understanding dawned on all their faces. "Aaaaaah!" said 'Jorge'.
"Aaaaahhh!" said 'Alejandra'.
A couple of beats passed. "Aaaaaaaaahhhhh!" said 'Pedro'.
"What?" said 'Pepe'.
It was probably the least uncomfortable outing I've ever suffered.

We were riding a rout with undulating hills, which means that I have to work my butt off to stay near the front so that I don't fall too far back when everyone passes me on the hills, especially in this group where everyone kept up with the big boys on the Saturday shop rides. But the damnedest thing was happening, I was starting at the back of the pack and leaving everyone behind on the hills. Again, it's December and no one was riding hard, but still. I was kicking butt! Climbing next to 'Jorge' up a longer hill his breath started hissing and whistling.
"'Jorge', are you working hard?" I asked. I was busting his balls, but also, I wasn't really sure. Maybe he was just breathing hard as a joke. I wasn't working hard at all and I was having no trouble talking.
When we got to the top of the hill, 'Jorge' asked, "How did you get so fast, Claire?"
I knew we were all out of shape, and that "fast" had no practical meaning, but it was nice to hear. I wasn't as fast as I usually am, but everyone else was even slower. Maybe I wasn't losing as much fitness as I thought. "I've been lifting weights," I suggested.
"We'll have to weigh you down!" he said.
"Or it could be all the running that we tri-geeks do in the winter, Jorge." I winked.

After about an hour, 'Jorge' lead us into a jogging park where I had never been before. The roads were closed to traffic, and there were a lot of walkers and dog walkers about, and they all said the same thing to us: "Ice ahead!" I was beginning to get the hang of this biking over ice and snow thing; all you had to do was slow down a bit, hold on tight to your handlebars, and come at it in a straight line, and you would be to the other side in no time. But then we hit the ice everyone was talking about: a quarter mile of sloppy, slippery, watery ice covering the trail. We slipped and slid down the slope on our bikes. Then my back wheel slipped out from under me. "SHIT!!!" I screamed as I clipped out at the last second. "Excuse me," I said sheepishly as my bike went down under me. It's not ladylike to cuss.
"Nice save," said 'Pedro'. He was talking about me not breaking my hip.
After that, one by one we started walking our bikes. It was slow going: ice is hard enough to walk on when you're not wearing cycling shoes, and my bike kept slipping as I pushed it. I was behind because I was the first to fall off, and so I tried to mount a couple of times to catch up, but every time I pushed down on the pedals the back wheel spun and the bike stayed in place. When we finally reached the end of the ice, I tried to clip in. It was impossible, I must have gotten shit in my cleats. I tried stepping down with all my might on the pedals, but there was no way. I stopped and checked my cleats, and they were jammed full of ice. I stood there poking at it with a stick until the stick broke.
"Stomp," said 'Jorge'. So I stomped, then I tap danced. Finally we dug the ice out of my cleats with 'Pepe"s knife (who carries a knife on a bike ride?!) and we were able to ride back out of the park.

"Have you ever been mountain biking, Claire?" asked 'Pepe' when we were back on the road. I said I hadn't. "You should really give it a try. It'll help you with your bike handling skills on different surfaces."
"Are you suggesting, 'Pepe', that my bike handling skills on that ice were lacking?" I joked. "Does this have something to do with my aero bars?"
"I'm just saying that you should get into it now when you're young and broken bones heal quickly." Now why would I want to get into something just for the broken bones?

After our little ice capades I was getting tired of our adventure. I'd had enough of daring and excitement. I had dirt in my teeth, my feet were frozen, and I was beginning to wonder about the brand new digital camera that was sitting in my back pocket now that the back of my jersey was soaked. We rode for another 45 minutes through places that looked familiar from when I was a kid, but I hadn't seen in 15 years. I had absolutely no idea when we would be home, and so every minute dragged on. Finally we reached a place I recognized: I'd been here before, recently! Sure, I'd been lost at the time, but I'd been running, so we couldn't be far from home. In fact, I'd been lost on this road twice. Two weeks in a row I'd set out to do a new rout that I'd found on mapmyrun.com, with directions in my pocket. Each time on this very road (some 10 miles into my run), the directions had fallen out of my pocket somewhere along this road and I'd had to find my way home along hilly, windy streets I'd never seen before without the aid of directions. This road was bad luck. AND it went over a huge hill.

As we started to climb the hill, something felt funny in my bike, like maybe there was something stuck to my wheel. I looked down, but it's so hard to tell if you've got a flat while you're sitting on your bike. I don't flat very often, so I'm a little slow to catch on when I do have one. Everyone was half way up the hill before I screamed "FLAAAAAAAT!!" at the top of my lungs and they sent word up the line. I had known that I would get a flat today. The melting snow had washed all kinds of shit into the road, I just couldn't believe it was happening now, just a few miles from home. 'Jorge' and 'Pepe' helped me change the tube quickly. For the first time today I was getting a good look at my bike, and it was FILTHY. There was dirt, filth, and grime spattered on every surface and crevice of the whole bike. Great, now my bike would be ruined along with my brand new digital camera. 'Alejandra"s face was covered in grime, and I suspected mine was too. I had hardly hit my water bottle all morning and I was hungry and thirsty. 'Pepe' found the offending piece of glass in my tire and handed it to me. "I'm afraid to look for more because my hands and the bike are filthy. I'm afraid I'm going to put more in than I'm going to take out." We all held our breath as the cartridge filled up the tire. "I'm waiting for the tssssssss," 'Pepe' said.
"I'm waiting for the BOOM!" said 'Jorge'. "There's nothing more insulting than that!" Phew, I thought it was just me who managed to load my tubes wrong and wind up pinching them when I pumped them up.

We were back on the road in no time, but now I was nervous. Flats always take away my mojo, and this street was bad luck. I still climbed to the top faster than everyone but 'Pepe', but as we were riding down the back side I hit a bump and my pump came out of my saddle bag. I tried to turn around and get it, but I couldn't get my bike moving back uphill in the big gear I'd been riding downhill. Finally 'Pepe' was able to find it, but now I felt like a real dick holding everybody up. I hate it when I can't solve my own problems and other people have to help me. Stupid bad luck street.

Right: That's not a 5 o'clock shadow, that's all the road grime on my face. Please ignore the helmet hair.

I got home without event, though. My camera was fine, and I was able to use it to take pictures of how filthy I'd gotten.

In the end I rode a whopping 35.81 miles in 2 hours and 21 minutes, for a SCREAMING average of 15.2 miles per hour. To be fair, that included the quarter mile traversing of the glacier in Breakheart Park. But still, I can't wait to get back on the roads again for real! How long till spring?

Left: my filthy legs. I am not wearing anything around my ankles, that's just the sock line. My feet are red and blotchy because they're frozen.

This weekend, a washout

This weekend was supposed to be great. It was going to be a breakthrough weekend physically and mentally. I was going to see friends, do races I'd been looking forward to, set PRs, laugh, smile, and be merry.

Life is full of disappointments.

First off, it rained. A huge storm blew through on Friday morning, and it's been raining pretty constantly since then. Now, Monday morning, it still has not stopped. Despite Ray of Sunshine Damon's argument that training when the weather is bad just makes you stronger than the competition, I HATE the rain. Dreary days make me sad, grouchy, depressed, and most of all, wet.

Saturday morning was the Wicked Half Marathon in Salem (of witch-burning fame). It was going to be great. I had wanted to do it since I saw the t-shirts last year. The WICKED half marathon, get it? Wicked because it's in Salem, the witch city? Wicked because it's near Boston and we say wicked here? Wicked because wicked kind of means cool and badass at the same time? Get it??? And it was only a half hour away. Then when Michelle said she wanted to do it with me I was thrilled! I knew I could run a PR, but with Michelle to pace off of I bet it wouldn't even hurt!

But life is full of disappointments.

First, Michelle canceled on me. You can't really blame her, the race had an early start and she'd only gotten in from a week in San Jose the night before. So I was already pretty disappointed as I drove alone through the spooooooooooky fog in Salem at 6:15 in the morning. It was eeeeeeeeeerie driving around so early in the morning when no one was out. Come to think of it, where was everyone? Salem is a really confusing place to get around, and it took me awhile to find the right place. Finally I did, but it was deserted. Mysteeeeeeeeerious Actually, scaaaaaaaaary. I went up to the door. It was locked. Creeeeeeaaaapy. By this time I'd figured out that I was in the wrong place, but like an idiot I hadn't printed up a copy of the race directions to find out where I'd gone wrong. You know how sometimes the night before they have packet pick-up in a different place from the start? Yeah, I'd gone to the nighttime packet pick-up place, while the race was starting some 10 miles away. Fuuuuuuuuck.

But sometimes you fuck up. And life is full of disappointments.

So I did not run the Wicked Half Marathon. I went home and ran 6 laps around the pond a mile from my house, the same fucking pond that I run around all the time. I figured it was about time for a half marathon PR, and I didn't need any stinkin' organized race to do it. I figured 8:20 miles would be a pretty challenging pace to run, but I resolved to be tough and soldier through. Alright, it would be really tough, but since I figured I wanted to be able to run a marathon in 3:39:59, I might as well get used to running 8:20 min/miles. Sure, all evidence suggested I couldn't run 13 miles at that pace, and barely run 10K at that pace, but I was sure I could suffer through it.

You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you just might find... that life is full of disappointments.

The first 2-mile loop I felt great. I meant to be running 8:20 pace, but every time my eyes drifted off my wrist, I would drop down to 7:30 pace. I was a rockstar! Still, I somberly reminded myself, you don't want to tucker yourself out. Keep the pace.

The second 2-mile loop I managed to hold roughly the pace I wanted, like clockwork. I had finally mastered this pacing thing! I was feeling pretty proud of myself, but I was feeling pretty queasy too. When I run around my threshold it makes me feel like I'm going to poop my pants. I had assumed that this was just something that happened to everybody, but apparently it does not. It has nothing to do with an actual need to evacuate my bowels, as I found out early on (I can never actually go afterwards). It just feels like really bad menstrual cramps, or when you've eaten something that doesn't agree with you. Alright, it feels like diarrhea.

Anyway, by the time I set out on the 3rd loop I felt like I was going to shit my pants and decided to slow down a bit to see if I started to feel better. Then I planned to speed up.

But the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and shit happens. And life is full of disappointments.

I never sped up. In fact, I slowed down. I got this feeling that I never used to get, but I get now. My legs feel fine, my muscles aren't sore, and my turnover is fine. I just get tired. I can get enough air, but it's like there isn't enough oxygen in it. It feels like someone has turned down the volume or something, and I just want to curl up by the side of the road and take a nap. I THINK I am beginning to understand the need for proper pacing, and the implications of going out too fast.


Long story short, I completed 6 laps around that stupid lake (laps 4-6 tacked on another half-mile loop). I had hoped to run around 1:50 (8:24 pace), but I ran 1:56:57. Only about a minute and a half faster than my PR from February. Worst of all, I was only about 11 seconds faster than Anne's half marathon PR (under similar unofficial circumstances: loops around a different pond)! I knew I was better than that! I have been spending some quality time with the Jack Daniels VDOT tables, and he thinks I should be able to run 1:50:59!

I went home exhausted, deflated, and soaked to the bone. And I was disappointed. Life is full of disappointments.

I had planned to run the Vermont 50K the following day, Sunday. Now before you go all crazy on me, there was an actual logic to this. My big A race for this winter is the Disney Marathon, and I want to have a good race there. The only problem is that I'm also signed up for the half marathon the day before. This was actually NOT my idea, but that's another story. So what I wanted to do was actually get some overdistance training in my legs before I started my main training block, and I wanted to make sure it came in the form of back-to-back long runs so that my legs would be prepared to recover quickly for the marathon the second day. But because road racing is so hard on the legs (or mine anyway), and because I find my main limiter in the late stages of a marathon is mainly pain from the pounding rather than actual muscle fatigue, I wanted the second run to be on trail. See, not only do trail runs have less pounding and impact, but also there would be less pressure to run the whole, entire thing, thus lightening the load on my joints while maintaining the time on my feet and distance covered.

See? There is a method to my madness. But shit happens, life is full of disappointments, and there are days when it rains on your parade. You don't always get what you want.

This is what the Vermont 50K would entail:
Driving 2.5 hours to Vermont on Saturday midday to sign up (there was no race-day registration and I wasn't signed up yet).
Sleeping in my car at a campground (since I do not have a tent, nor am I the tenting type, especially in the rain).
Figuring out dinner, breakfast, and coffee in an unfamiliar place.
Then running 31 miles through a ski resort (we're talking alpine skiing) in the rain on trails that had been rained on for 3 days straight now.

I knew I COULD do it, but I knew that with the mud and the rain and the "camping" I would be miserable. And the performance from my legs that morning mad me think that maybe this wasn't the week to push my running.

So I stayed home. Life... sucks.

Instead I went on a 13-mile run with Michelle in the morning. I had slept really badly the night before, had already sent a text message to Michelle saying "If I'm not at the end of your driveway at 7:30, I'm not coming". When my alarm went off I hit the snooze button and thought, I'm going to lie here until that thing goes off again, and if I hear rain then I'm going to turn it off and go back to sleep. But I didn't hear rain. Fuck.

Life is full of disappointments, and it never rains when you want it to.

By the time I got dressed, though, it was raining again. And it rained the whole, entire time we were running. My body did that thing again, that thing where I just wanted to lie down at the side of the road. "Do we have to run 8-minute miles??" I whined. Then it became, "Do we have to run 9-minute miles??" Then "Do we have to run 9:30's?" What I really wanted to do was stop running and walk home, or curl up and sleep in a mud puddle at the side of the road. Eventually I DID let Michelle run on without me and I shuffled home by myself, disappointed and tired. I fell just short of a marathon over the weekend, which I suppose I should be proud of, but I'm not. Hey, it was over 2 days, it doesn't count.

I had such high hopes for this weekend, but it just fizzled. I'd planned to run 18 miles more than I did. I'd hoped for a PR and a huge mental breakthrough in the same weekend. I ran 26.16 miles in 4:03:05, but that's like adding up all my best mile splits of all time and saying that I'm a 3:15 marathoner. I know, I know, I need to rest.

I want to be a good runner, but life isn't fair, shit happens, and sometimes it rains (and more often on the weekends) on your parade. You can't always get what you want, and life is full of disappointments.

I knew it!

I fucking knew it.  The weather really IS worse on the weekend.  And it's all your fault!!!  Anyone who lives west of me, park your damned car!  I'm sick of sunny Tuesdays and rainy Saturdays.

What next?!

This winter has been about overcoming adversity, and until now I think I've been doing a pretty good job. Daylight savings rolled around and I learned to run in the dark after work and modified my routs to where there were more street lights. I bought a headlamp, and when that one was defective I even went back into Harvard Square (where there is never any parking, ever) to replace it. It got cold and I put on layers and toughened up. Then it snowed, and I learned how to run on the snow. When the snow turned to ice I began running in the road and risked life and limb running on patches of black ice.

Then it was above freezing for one day, just long enough for the snow to melt and get in one run on real, honest-to-god sidewalk. And now THIS BULLSHIT:
... some eight horrible inches of awful snow! And it's supposed to snow twice more before the weekend's out. What ever happened to global warming?!