Category Archives: sgm

7 miles later…

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So, today was a shorter long run…before they start getting progressively longer. I have a million things to do, so no deep contemplation. Just a few things I learned.

  1. Apparently, there’s a reason that ALL training schedules have you do midweek runs. They make a difference. My week was a little crazy, and if you were paying attention to my mileage on the sidebar (which you probably weren’t because, well, I’m sure…why would you?), then you would know that I did NO running midweek. There are lots of reasons why not, but I’ll spare you my excuses. The bottom line? There is no way I can get away with that again.

  2. I think about the most random things ever when I run. Seriously. But, I have no time and next week’s SPT challenge will be a perfect opportunity for me to share those thoughts.

  3. I love the new fuel belt: first, it sits well and doesn’t move around. Second, it holds 40 oz of fluid and the “holsters” make getting the bottles in and out super easy. Third, there’s a zipper pouch in the front for my car key. And last, there’s a good sized fanny pack in the back with plenty of room for my energy chews (and maybe a small camera on race day…too bad I don’t own one).

  4. Speaking of energy chews…Pina Colada is not my favorite flavor. I mean, I got them down, but yuck!

  5. After speaking with a couple of SGM veteran’s, I was informed that not only should I be training downhill, but I need to make sure that I do some good, hard uphill training. My intention was to do that this week on my short runs and throw in a mile of uphill today. Well, as you know, the midweek runs didn’t happen…but I still threw in that mile today. Bad idea. Very bad idea.

  6. Another bad idea, staying up until 1:30 am and then attempting to get up four hours later. I ended up finally dragging my butt out of bed at 7:30…on the trail at 8:00.

  7. While it was still relatively cool up the canyon at 8 am, there were way more people on the trail than what I am accustomed to. I didn’t like it…at all. This does not bode well for race day, when there will be thousands of other people out there with me. Time to get over myself I guess.

  8. There’s no new playlist today. I used the one from last week. Which, incidentally, was another bad idea on a run that involved harder terrain than what I’ve been doing (read – I needed more walking breaks).

Okay…that’s all I have to say about that. Time to clean my cluttery little hole over the garage and take another practice GMAT. Good times.

*Sad that this post is my attempt at keeping it short. Oh well. There are worse things than being long-winded, I suppose.

10 miles (into my soul)

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Okay…so the title is a bit dramatic, but it fits. First the 10 miles, then we’ll get to my soul.

Saturday’s run was ideal. Only one blister, no chafing, perfect weather and fantastic music.

I started my run up South Fork Canyon (my favorite place to begin long runs) and it was an absolutely gorgeous morning and it was so early that not many people were out yet. The run started out great and only got better. I love that I am figuring out the things that work for me and the things that don’t. Runner’s World is one of my new favorite sources of tips. I have learned that starting my run at a nice warm up pace helps to ensure that my body will not go into “shock”. I have learned that walk breaks, contrary to what one might think, do not slow my pace at all. In fact, I credit walking for my increased pace this week. And I have learned how to best partake of my energy chews (less chews more frequently…oh, and the strawberry ones are fantastic). Of course, I have had to test all of these things out and what works for me may not work for you, but I thought I’d share just the same.

Other than the recommend changes above, I made a personal change. I noticed that two weeks ago, on my nine mile run, I had a hard time wanting to walk because the fifth songs (my walking songs) were songs that I wanted to run to. The whole point in creating a playlist specifically for that run was so that I would enjoy running to every song. So this week, I changed it up. First of all, I did the math and decided that I wanted to try walking to every sixth song, rather than the fifth one. The second thing I did was to plan out my playlist more carefully, adding in “slow” songs for the walk breaks. This effected two changes: the first was that I knew when I was supposed to walk without having to keep track of song numbers (on the nine miler I lost track a couple of times and didn’t walk as often as I wanted to) and second, there was no sadness as a result of having to walk to a great running song. In addition to that, I made sure that my post-“slow song” songs were my best power songs.

The results were amazing. I enjoyed my run. I felt great. I didn’t have to think about anything. I knew exactly when to walk. I was motivated to start running right after my walk songs. And, best of all, I dropped 30 seconds from my average mile time. I am ecstatic. Not that my goal is speed, but the faster I run, the faster I’m done with that marathon. As excited I am to run it, the prospect of being on the road any longer than necessary just isn’t very appealing. I may be crazy, but I do have some kind of reason.

So, here’s the playlist (and yes, some songs do repeat themselves…because I love them and the slow songs are the peachy ones):

1. Freedom 90 / George Michael 6:30 – warm up
2. Right here, Right now / Fatboy Slim 6:27 – warm up
3. Clothes Off / Gym Class Heroes 3:55 – great to pick it up
4. Under Pressure / Queen & David Bowie 4:03
5. Dance Dance / Fall Out Boy 5:02
6. Fields of Gold / Sting & Edin Karamazov 3:33
7. SexyBack / Justin Timberlake 4:02 – perfect post slow song
8. Problem Girl / Rob Thomas 3:55
9. the doorbell encore / White stripes vs. jay-z vs. queen 4:16
10. Here (In Your Arms) – remix / Hellogoodbye 3:54
11. No Apagues la Luz / Enrique Iglesias 3:49
12. Big girls don’t cry / Fergie 4:28
13. Workout Plan / Kayne West 2:52 – great!
14. Yummy / Gwen Stefani 4:57
15. Porcelain / Moby 3:58
16. Open Your Heart / Madonna 4:13
17. Hot ‘n’ Cold Pussycat / Basement Jaxx vs. The Pussycat Dolls 4:11
18. Remember To Breathe / Dashboard Confessional 3:40
19. Escape / Enrique Iglesias 3:30 – this could have had a little more “go” to it.
20. Makes Me Wonder / Maroon 5 3:31
21. Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth… / Primitive Radio Gods 5:39
22. Rush (New York City Club Version) / Big Audio Dynamite II 3:55
23. When You Were a Starlight / Team9 vs. The Killers vs. Muse 4:11
24. Slow Dancing In a Burning Room / John Mayer 3:52
25. SexyBack / Justin Timberlake 4:02
26. Simply Being Loved / BT 4:21
27. Clothes Off / Gym Class Heroes 3:55 – great at the end for a final sprint!

So, moving onto “my soul”…and this is the part that gets the disclaimer. This is more for me than it is for you. Feel free to read it, but when you get halfway through it and think, “Holy crap, this girl sure can yap” just remember that I warned you.

This whole “Journey to Saint George“, as I have decided to call it, is turning into much more than just training for a marathon. Or more than what I thought of when I thought about training for a marathon. I am learning more about myself through running than I ever thought possible, well unless we’re talking about years of extensive and painful therapy (and I could probably still use some of that, but I’m not quite ready to go there). I am amazed at how my “issues” play out in training and how I am forced to deal with them.

For instance, while my long Saturday runs have been hard, they have not caused me nearly the agony that my short (being a relative term) weekday runs have. There is absolutely no reason for this, so why is it so? In thinking about this (my long runs provide me with plenty of opportunity for reflection), I realize that my training approach and experiences thus far parallel my life. The little, daily trials tend to be a lot more difficult for me than the big, huge ones. The insight I had this week is that it probably has a lot to do with my preparation and attitude. With running, I have not taken much thought for my short runs. I don’t mentally or physically prepare for them like I do for my long runs. I’m not so concerned with how much sleep I get. In short, I just take them for granted and think, “I can run 10 miles, why worry about three?” I approach life in much the same way.

I don’t think that I have had the hardest life ever, but I have definitely had to deal with some pretty big trials, and some have been very, very challenging, but because I expect that they will be hard, I do everything I can to ease my burden and make them bearable. I become fastidious in my daily “preparation”, which for me is a spiritual and emotional preparation. It’s the everyday trials that end up throwing me over the edge, so to speak, because I lack the same diligence.

Because the short runs are “short”, I have this mentality that they shouldn’t be hard, so when they are, I get very frustrated with myself. The same thing with life. When something that I think should be easy to bear ends up kicking my butt, I get upset because I think, “I should be able to handle this”. If I were to prepare for my short runs (and the small trials) in the same way I prepare for the long ones, I’m sure I would be much more capable of handling them.

The other insight I had this week is that I do not do well running with someone who I perceive to be a “better” runner than me. And, because this is about how my running parallels my life, I’m sure it won’t surprise you when I tell you that I don’t do well at anything when I feel inadequate or “less than”…not because I’m not capable of doing well, but because I just give up.

As a jack of all trades and master of none, I’m not exceptionally good at anything. So, it is not unusual for me to faced by someone who is better, faster, smarter, kinder, etc than I am. Interestingly, these people rarely try to make me feel inadequate. In fact, on the occasion that on of them does, it’s more likely that I will think they are stupid and insecure than that I will feel the emotion they are trying to arouse in me. It’s the people who are humble about their own abilities, that make my life difficult (okay, well, I’m the one that makes my life difficult, but whatever).

The discovery: I got an email from Kim last week. She found my blog from a comment I left on Cindy’s blog. She’s training for the Top of Utah Marathon and she was going to be in the area for about a week and was wondering if I’d like to run with her. My pace is a little slower than hers, but I decided, “what the hell?” It wouldn’t be a big deal on a short run and it would push me a little. Well, push me it did. Full force right into the face of this particular issue. We were just doing five miles. Kim knew that my pace was a bit slower than hers, and she was happy to run a little slower. The thing is, though, we were running at my pace and I was still being a big baby about it. I would rather quit than inconvenience someone or slow someone down or cause someone to adjust their plans or any number of other things.

This is totally my issue. It doesn’t matter how kind or helpful someone is (although, I’m not a huge fan of unsolicited advice…at least not when it’s presented like scripture), I still get stressed out when I don’t feel “good enough”. The thing with this new insight is that I didn’t receive any great revelation about how to resolve it. Maybe it’s just a matter of really getting to a place where I’m at peace with myself and my abilities? I’m not really sure. And if that is the answer, then how do I do that? (If you have advice, go ahead and offer it…I’m soliciting). Perhaps I’ll find an answer on my long run next weekend…when I, once again, will have lots of alone time with nothing to do but think and run.

*It would take too long to embed all of the links to the songs in this post, but if you are interested in any of the songs listed and can’t find them, email me and I will send them to you, provided the version I have is not a protected one. The email option is available from my profile.

new friends…

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I ran in the Freedom Run this morning. I finally did a 10k (funny that I’m running a marathon in October). I was just going to do it on my own, but then I was reading Cropstar’s blog and saw that she was planning on coming up from Vegas to run the same race. I have done races on my own before, but it’s so much more fun when there’s someone there with you at the end. Someone who understands how tired you are, who knows what you mean when you say, “Wow, that hill was a killer.” So, an idea was born…and those of you who know me know that once I decide to do something, that’s it. So, I emailed Cropstar to see if she would mind if I tagged along with her.

I’m so glad I did. She was running it with her friend, Stacy, so I met up with both of them this morning just before the run. For whatever reason I was really nervous about this 10k. It’s not that I can’t or haven’t ever run 6.2 miles, but it was new for me and I had this idea in my mind that most people who do 10k’s are serious runners. While I run, I would never put myself in that category. So, because of the nerves, it was especially nice to have some people there to talk to before the race and people to run with during the race and people to whine to after the race. I loved it!

The best part, other than finishing the darn thing just a bit shy of my goal…which really was the best part, is that I can move Cropstar’s blog from the “blogs I stalk” list to the “people I know” list and that is super fun. Yes…I’m a big dork and I’m totally fine with that.

the run of death

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The short version: Indian food + running = run of death.

The long version: So, some of you read my blog pretty regularly and know that I have really been enjoying my runs. Sure, the heat of the Arizona summer was a bit much, but other than that, I have not minded this whole marathon training process too much.

Tonight, all of that changed. Seeing as how I am both training for a marathon and doing Weight Watchers, I plan my days out pretty carefully. If I want to go out to eat with friends, I need to know where we are going in advance and what time so I can make sure that a) I know what my food options are and what to eat during the day, pre-going out to eat and b) I know when I am going to fit in my run or cross-training.

Like yesterday, for instance, I knew that some guys from my church (aka home teachers) were coming over at 8 pm, so running needed to happen right after work so that I could eat before they came over, which meant running happened on a treadmill at club 24 (aka 24 hour fitness) because at 4:45 pm on Tuesday it was a gajillion degrees outside and there was no way in hell (and that’s what it would have felt like), after the Arizona Experience (remember the one involving me and the Circle K), that I was going to run in 95 degree weather.

Well, today the plan was the opposite of yesterday. Sarah and I had talked about going to Bombay House this week (we’re both big fans of Indian food) and so we decided on Wednesday (today). I planned my day accordingly. Eat a light breakfast and light lunch, head over to Bombay at 6, done by 7, then home to hang out for a bit and watch SYTYCD (the only t.v. show I watch these days…speaking of, I have to admit that I was in love with Pasha tonight) and at 9, go running. This would give my food two hours to settle, and I figured I would be fine to run four miles. I mean, I did nine on Saturday with no problems. And since I didn’t end up leaving my house until almost 10, I was even more sure that I wouldn’t have any problems. Oh, I have been wrong about a few things in my life, but rarely more so than I was about this run this night.

For the first time ever, I puked after running. It was miserable. I had a cramp in my side from take off to touch down. My chest felt like fire was raging inside of it. My knees were were screamin. Every part of me, including the food in my stomach, was begging me to stop. Did I stop? Of course not. I am on a schedule and no one (including my digestive tract) is going to mess with that schedule, dammit. The worst part was I knew, somewhere deep down, that I was going to throw up , and even that didn’t stop me.

The coconut kurma, peshawari and endless Diet Coke all tasted so good going in, along with the few bites of Richard (he ended up joining us) and Sarah’s entrées. If only I had known how awful they would make me feel later on. And, while I am aware that DC is bad for me on multiple levels, especially when training for a marathon, you try starting Weight Watchers and training for a marathon in the same week and see if you can give it up (or whatever your particular vice may be). Anyway, you anti-soda people will all be happy to know that I regretted every last sip of that damned Diet Coke. Never again will I be so stupid.

Oh, I’d like to ask you to please excuse the swearing. I mean, I swear frequently enough in real life (another vice – but I generally keep it to the “biblical terms”), but rarely in writing, especially on the blog. But, as long as we’re on the subject, do you know what the difference is between driving up a hill and running up it (besides the fact that one involves a car)? About 25 minutes and an endless stream of profanities spewing forth from deep within my soul.

And on that note, let me leave you with a quote that I came across today:

“Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief
denied even to prayer.”

Mark Twain


P.S. I thought about posting some choice pictures for wordless wednesday and leaving it at that, but somehow I didn’t think anyone would really appreciate them…plus, I didn’t actually take said choice pictures. Think about it.

suggestions please

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I was so excited about all of the comments on my running post from Saturday that I thought I’d continue by asking for some advice. I’ve finally learned that getting advice from others is often better (or at least easier) than learning on my own. So, I’d love your thoughts on:

  • Flavors of GU/energy chews.
  • Favorite “power” song. You know, the one (or five) that makes you love running.
  • Flavors of Gatorade.
  • Favorite sports bras (and why)…I’m discovering that I don’t love any of mine.
  • What watch you use, if any, and what you like about it.
  • Pre-run and post-run meals.
  • If you’ve run St. George, any things you wished you had done differently in your training, or things that you felt worked really well.
  • Fuel belts (brands and types).

Please feel free to share as much or as little as you would like. And if you’re not a runner, but have heard anything from your friends who are, please pass those along, too. I’m determined to make this marathon training as enjoyable an experience as possible!